Produced by David Widger





"MY NOVEL."

By Edward Bulwer-Lytton




BOOK FIRST.




INITIAL CHAPTER

--SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN.


Scene, the hall in UNCLE ROLAND'S tower; time, night; season, winter.


MR. CAXTON is seated before a great geographical globe, which he is
turning round leisurely, and "for his own recreation," as, according to
Sir Thomas Browne, a philosopher should turn round the orb of which that
globe professes to be the representation and effigies. My mother having
just adorned a very small frock with a very smart braid, is holding
it out at arm's length, the more to admire the effect. Blanche, though
leaning both hands on my mother's shoulder, is not regarding the frock,
but glances towards PISISTRATUS, who, seated near the fire, leaning back
in the chair, and his head bent over his breast, seems in a very bad
humour. Uncle Roland, who has become a great novel-reader, is deep in
the mysteries of some fascinating Third Volume. Mr. Squills has brought
the "Times" in his pocket for his own special profit and delectation,
and is now bending his brows over "the state of the money market," in
great doubt whether railway shares can possibly fall lower,--for Mr.
Squills, happy man! has large savings, and does not know what to do with
his money, or, to use his own phrase, "how to buy in at the cheapest in
order to sell out at the dearest."

MR. CAXTON (musingly).--"It must have been a monstrous long journey. It
would be somewhere hereabouts, I take it, that they would split off."

MY MOTHER (mechanically, and in order to show Austin that she paid him
the compliment of attending to his remarks).--"Who split off, my dear?"

"Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration, "you ask
just the question which it is most difficult to answer. An ingenious
speculator on races contends that the Danes, whose descendants make the
chief part of our northern population (and indeed, if his hypothesis
could be correct, we must suppose all the ancient worshippers of Odin),
are of the same origin as the Etrurians. And why, Kitty,--I just ask
you, why?"

My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the frock to the other
side of the light.

"Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding,--"because the Etrurians
called their gods the 'AEsar,' and the Scandinavians called theirs the
'AEsir,' or 'Aser'! And where do you think this adventurous scholar puts
their cradle?"

"Cradle!" said my mother, dreamily, "it must be in the nursery."

MR. CAXTON.--"Exactly,--in the nursery of the human race, just here,"
and my father pointed to the globe; "bounded, you see, by the river
Halys, and in that region which, taking its name from Ees, or As (a
word designating light or fire), has been immemorially called Asia. Now,
Kitty, from Ees, or As, our ethnological speculator would derive not
only Asia, the land, but AEsar, or Aser, its primitive inhabitants.
Hence he supposes the origin of the Etrurians and the Scandinavians. But
if we give him so much, we must give him more, and deduce from the same
origin the Es of the Celt and the Ized of the Persian, and--what will
be of more use to him, I dare say, poor man, than all the rest put
together--the AEs of the Romans,--that is, the God of Copper-money--a
very powerful household god he is to this day!"

My mother looked musingly at her frock, as if she were taking my
father's proposition into serious consideration.

"So perhaps," resumed my father, "and not unconformably with sacred
records, from one great parent horde came all those various tribes,
carrying with them the name of their beloved Asia; and whether they
wandered north, south, or west, exalting their own emphatic designation
of 'Children of the Land of Light' into the title of gods. And to think"
(added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon that speck on the globe on
which his forefinger rested),--"to think how little they changed for
the better when they got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the
icebergs of the Baltic,--so comfortably off as they were here, if they
could but have stayed quiet."

"And why the deuce could not they?" asked Mr. Squills. "Pressure of
population, and not enough to live upon, I suppose," said my father.

PISISTRATUS (sulkily).--"More probably they did away with the Corn Laws,
sir."

"Papae!" quoth my father, "that throws a new light on the subject."

PISISTRATUS (full of his grievances, and not caring three straws about
the origin of the Scandinavians).--"I know that if we are to lose L500
every year on a farm which we hold rent-free, and which the best judges
allow to be a perfect model for the whole country, we had better make
haste and turn AEsir, or Aser, or whatever you call them, and fix a
settlement on the property of other nations, otherwise, I suspect, our
probable settlement will be on the parish."

MR. SQUILLS (who, it must be remembered, is an enthusiastic
Free-trader). "You have only got to put more capital on the land."

PISISTRATUS.--"Well, Mr. Squills, as you think so well of that
investment, put your capital on it. I promise that you shall have every
shilling of profit."

MR. SQUILLS (hastily retreating behind the "Times")--"I don't think
the Great Western can fall any lower, though it is hazardous; I can but
venture a few hundreds--"

PISISTRATUS.--"On our land, Squills?--Thank you."

MR. SQUILLS.--"No, no,--anything but that; on the Great Western."

Pisistratus relaxes into gloom. Blanche steals up coaxingly, and gets
snubbed for her pains.

A pause.

MR. CAXTON.--"There are two golden rules of life; one relates to the
mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is, If our thoughts get
into a low, nervous, aguish condition, we should make them change the
air; the second is comprised in the proverb, 'It is good to have two
strings to one's bow.' Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what you must
do,--Write a book!"

PISISTRATUS.--"Write a book! Against the abolition of the Corn Laws?
Faith, sir, the mischief's done! It takes a much better pen than mine to
write down an act of parliament."

MR. CAXTON.--"I only said, 'Write a book.' All the rest is the addition
of your own headlong imagination."

PISISTRATUS (with the recollection of The Great Book rising before
him).--"Indeed, sir, I should think that that would just finish us!"

MR. CAXTON (not seeming to heed the interruption).--"A book that will
sell; a book that will prop up the fall of prices; a book that will
distract your mind from its dismal apprehensions, and restore your
affection to your species and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of
sound principles--by the sight of a favourable balance at the end of
the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little
circumstance makes in our views of things in general. I remember
when the bank in which Squills had incautiously left L1000 broke, one
remarkably healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said that
the country was on the verge of ruin; whereas you see now, when, thanks
to a long succession of sickly seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk
in the Great Western, he is firmly persuaded that England was never in
so prosperous a condition."

MR. SQUILLS (rather sullenly).--"Pooh, pooh."

MR. CAXTON.--"Write a book, my son,--write a book. Need I tell you that
Money or Moneta, according to Hyginus, was the mother of the Muses?
Write a book."

BLANCHE and my MOTHER (in full chorus).--"O yes, Sisty, a book! a book!
you must write a book."

"I am sure," quoth my Uncle Roland, slamming down the volume he had just
concluded, "he could write a devilish deal better book than this; and
how I come to read such trash night after night is more than I could
possibly explain to the satisfaction of any intelligent jury, if I were
put into a witness-box, and examined in the mildest manner by my own
counsel."

MR. CAXTON.--"You see that Roland tells us exactly what sort of a book
it shall be."

PISISTRATUS.--"Trash, sir?"

MR. CAXTON.--"No,--that is, not necessarily trash; but a book of that
class which, whether trash or not, people can't help reading. Novels
have become a necessity of the age. You must write a novel."

PISISTRATUS (flattered, but dubious).-"A novel! But every subject on
which novels can be written is preoccupied. There are novels of low
life, novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels
philosophical, novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive
of India, the Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From
what bird, wild eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I

     "'Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing?'"

MR. CAXTON (after a little thought).--"You remember the story which
Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night?
That gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot, puts
you chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you
with characters which have been very sparingly dealt with since the time
of Fielding. You can give us the country Squire, as you remember him
in your youth; it is a specimen of a race worth preserving, the old
idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring
Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London. You
can give us the old-fashioned Parson, as in all essentials he may yet be
found--but before you had to drag him out of the great Tractarian bog;
and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many popular
writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a little
in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the
kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something
useful might be done by a few good-humoured sketches of those innocent
criminals a little better off than their neighbours, whom, however we
dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one
shape or another, as long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the
whole, as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the
dice-box of society how we will."

PISISTRATUS.--"Very well said, sir; but this rural country gentleman
life is not so new as you think. There's Washington Irving--"

MR. CAXTON.--"Charming; but rather the manners of the last century than
this. You may as well cite Addison and Sir Roger de Coverley."

PISISTRATUS.--"'Tremaine' and 'De Vere.'"

MR. CAXTON.--"Nothing can be more graceful, nor more unlike what I mean.
The Pales and Terminus I wish you to put up in the fields are familiar
images, that you may cut out of an oak tree,--not beautiful marble
statues, on porphyry pedestals, twenty feet high."

PISISTRATUS.--"Miss Austen; Mrs. Gore, in her masterpiece of 'Mrs.
Armytage;' Mrs. Marsh, too; and then (for Scottish manners) Miss
Ferrier!"

MR. CAXTON (growing cross).--"Oh, if you cannot treat on bucolics but
what you must hear some Virgil or other cry 'Stop thief,' you deserve
to be tossed by one of your own 'short-horns.'" (Still more
contemptuously)--"I am sure I don't know why we spend so much money
on sending our sons to school to learn Latin, when that Anachronism
of yours, Mrs. Caxton, can't even construe a line and a half of
Phaedrus,--Phaedrus, Mrs. Caxton, a book which is in Latin what Goody
Two-Shoes is in the vernacular!"

MRS. CAXTON (alarmed and indignant).--"Fie! Austin I I am sure you can
construe Phaedrus, dear!"

Pisistratus prudently preserves silence.

MR. CAXTON.--"I'll try him--

       "'Sua cuique quum sit animi cogitatio
        Colurque proprius.'

"What does that mean?"

PISISTRATITS (smiling)--"That every man has some colouring matter within
him, to give his own tinge to--"

"His own novel," interrupted my father. "Contentus peragis!"

During the latter part of this dialogue, Blanche had sewn together three
quires of the best Bath paper, and she now placed them on a little table
before me, with her own inkstand and steel pen.

My mother put her finger to her lip, and said, "Hush!" my father
returned to the cradle of the AEsas; Captain Roland leaned his cheek on
his hand, and gazed abstractedly on the fire; Mr. Squills fell into a
placid doze; and, after three sighs that would have melted a heart of
stone, I rushed into--MY NOVEL.




CHAPTER II.

"There has never been occasion to use them since I've been in the
parish," said Parson Dale.

"What does that prove?" quoth the squire, sharply, and looking the
parson full in the face.

"Prove!" repeated Mr. Dale, with a smile of benign, yet too conscious
superiority, "what does experience prove?"

"That your forefathers were great blockheads, and that their descendant
is not a whit the wiser."

"Squire," replied the parson, "although that is a melancholy conclusion,
yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the
Dales in particular; it is not one which my candour as a reasoner, and
my humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge."

"I defy you," said Mr. Hazeldean, triumphantly. "But to stick to the
subject (which it is monstrous hard to do when one talks with a parson),
I only just ask you to look yonder, and tell me on your conscience--I
don't even say as a parson, but as a parishioner--whether you ever saw a
more disreputable spectacle?"

While he spoke, the squire, leaning heavily on the parson's left
shoulder, extended his cane in a line parallel with the right eye of
that disputatious ecclesiastic, so that he might guide the organ of
sight to the object he had thus unflatteringly described.

"I confess," said the parson, "that, regarded by the eye of the senses,
it is a thing that in its best day had small pretensions to beauty, and
is not elevated into the picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my
friend, regarded by the eye of the inner man,--of the rural philosopher
and parochial legislator,--I say it is by neglect and decay that it
is rendered a very pleasing feature in what I may call 'the moral
topography of a parish.'"

The squire looked at the parson as if he could have beaten him; and,
indeed, regarding the object in dispute not only with the eye of the
outer man, but the eye of law and order, the eye of a country gentleman
and a justice of the peace, the spectacle was scandalously disreputable.
It was moss-grown; it was worm-eaten; it was broken right in the middle;
through its four socketless eyes, neighboured by the nettle, peered
the thistle,--the thistle! a forest of thistles!--and, to complete the
degradation of the whole, those thistles had attracted the donkey of
an itinerant tinker; and the irreverent animal was in the very act of
taking his luncheon out of the eyes and jaws of--THE PARISH STOCKS.

The squire looked as if he could have beaten the parson; but as he was
not without some slight command of temper, and a substitute was luckily
at hand, he gulped down his resentment, and made a rush--at the donkey!

Now the donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore-feet, to the which was
attached a billet of wood, called technically "a clog," so that it had
no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had
justly provoked. But the ass turning round with unusual nimbleness at
the first stroke of the cane, the squire caught his foot in the rope,
and went head over heels among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent
down, and thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having
convinced itself that it had nothing further to apprehend for the
present, and very willing to make the best of the reprieve, according
to the poetical admonition, "Gather your rosebuds while you may," it
cropped a thistle in full bloom, close to the ear of the squire,--so
close, indeed, that the parson thought the ear was gone; and with the
more probability, inasmuch as the squire, feeling the warm breath of the
creature, bellowed out with all the force of lungs accustomed to give a
View-hallo!

"Bless me, is it gone?" said the parson, thrusting his person between
the ass and the squire.

"Zounds and the devil!" cried the squire, rubbing himself, as he rose to
his feet.

"Hush!" said the parson, gently. "What a horrible oath!"

"Horrible oath! If you had my nankeens on," said the squire, still
rubbing himself, "and had fallen into a thicket of thistles, with a
donkey's teeth within an inch of your ear--"

"It is not gone, then?" interrupted the parson.

"No,--that is, I think not," said the squire, dubiously; and he clapped
his hand to the organ in question. "No! it is not gone!"

"Thank Heaven!" said the good clergyman, kindly. "Hum," growled the
squire, who was now once more engaged in rubbing himself. "Thank Heaven
indeed, when I am as full of thorns as a porcupine! I should just like
to know what use thistles are in the world."

"For donkeys to eat, if you will let them, Squire," answered the parson.

"Ugh, you beast!" cried Mr. Hazeldean, all his wrath reawakened, whether
by the reference to the donkey species, or his inability to reply to
the parson, or perhaps by some sudden prick too sharp for
humanity--especially humanity in nankeens--to endure without kicking.
"Ugh, you beast!" he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, which,
at the interposition of the parson, had respectfully recoiled a few
paces, and now stood switching its thin tail, and trying vainly to lift
one of its fore-legs--for the flies teased it.

"Poor thing!" said the parson, pityingly. "See, it has a raw place on
the shoulder, and the flies have found out the sore."

"I am devilish glad to hear it," said the squire, vindictively.

"Fie, fie!"

"It is very well to say 'Fie, fie.' It was not you who fell among the
thistles. What 's the man about now, I wonder?"

The parson had walked towards a chestnut-tree that stood on the village
green; he broke off a bough, returned to the donkey, whisked away the
flies, and then tenderly placed the broad leaves over the sore, as a
protection from the swarms. The donkey turned round its head, and looked
at him with mild wonder.

"I would bet a shilling," said the parson, softly, "that this is the
first act of kindness thou hast met with this many a day. And slight
enough it is, Heaven knows."

With that the parson put his hand into his pocket, and drew out an
apple. It was a fine large rose-cheeked apple, one of the last winter's
store from the celebrated tree in the parsonage garden, and he was
taking it as a present to a little boy in the village who had notably
distinguished himself in the Sunday-school. "Nay, in common justice,
Lenny Fairfield should have the preference," muttered the parson. The
ass pricked up one of its ears, and advanced its head timidly. "But
Lenny Fairfield would be as much pleased with twopence; and what could
twopence do to thee?" The ass's nose now touched the apple. "Take it,
in the name of Charity," quoth the parson; "Justice is accustomed to be
served last;" and the ass took the apple. "How had you the heart!" said
the parson, pointing to the squire's cane.

The ass stopped munching, and looked askant at the squire. "Pooh! eat
on; he'll not beat thee now."

"No," said the squire, apologetically. "But after all, he is not an
ass of the parish; he is a vagrant, and he ought to be pounded. But the
pound is in as bad a state as the stocks, thanks to your new-fashioned
doctrines."

"New-fashioned!" cried the parson, almost indignantly, for he had a
great disdain of new fashions. "They are as old as Christianity; nay,
as old as Paradise, which you will observe is derived from a Greek,
or rather a Persian word, and means something more than 'garden,'
corresponding" (pursued the parson, rather pedantically) "with the
Latin--vivarium,--namely, grove or park full of innocent dumb creatures.
Depend on it, donkeys were allowed to eat thistles there."

"Very possibly," said the squire, dryly. "But Hazeldeau, though a
very pretty village, is not Paradise. The stocks shall be mended
to-morrow,--ay, and the pound too, and the next donkey found trespassing
shall go into it, as sure as my name's Hazeldean."

"Then," said the parson, gravely, "I can only hope that the next parish
may not follow your example; or that you and I may never be caught
straying."




CHAPTER III.

Parson Dale and Squire Hazeldean parted company; the latter to inspect
his sheep, the former to visit some of his parishioners, including Lenny
Fairfield, whom the donkey had defrauded of his apple.

Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way, for his mother rented a
few acres of grass-land from the squire, and it was now hay-time. And
Leonard, commonly called Lenny, was an only son, and his mother a widow.
The cottage stood apart, and somewhat remote, in one of the many nooks
of the long, green village lane. And a thoroughly English cottage it
was, three centuries old at least; with walls of rubble let into oak
frames, and duly whitewashed every summer, a thatched roof, small panes
of glass, an old doorway raised from the ground by two steps. There was
about this little dwelling all the homely rustic elegance which
peasant life admits of; a honeysuckle was trained over the door; a few
flower-pots were placed on the window-sills; the small plot of ground
in front of the house was kept with great neatness, and even taste; some
large rough stones on either side the little path having been formed
into a sort of rockwork, with creepers that were now in flower; and the
potato-ground was screened from the eye by sweet peas and lupine. Simple
elegance, all this, it is true; but how well it speaks for peasant and
landlord, when you see that the peasant is fond of his home, and has
some spare time and heart to bestow upon mere embellishment! Such
a peasant is sure to be a bad customer to the alehouse, and a safe
neighbour to the squire's preserves. All honour and praise to him,
except a small tax upon both, which is due to the landlord!

Such sights were as pleasant to the parson as the most beautiful
landscapes of Italy can be to the dilettante. He paused a moment at the
wicket to look around him, and distended his nostrils voluptuously to
inhale the smell of the sweet peas, mixed with that of the new-mown hay
in the fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He then
moved on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and well-polished as they
were,--for Mr. Dale was rather a beau in his own clerical way,--on the
scraper without the door, and lifted the latch.

Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph
painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the
grape from her classic urn. And the parson felt as harmless, if not as
elegant a pleasure, in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a
glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty
haymakers.

Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision
of movement which seems to come from an active, orderly mind; and as she
now turned her head briskly at the sound of the parson's footstep, she
showed a countenance prepossessing though not handsome,--a countenance
from which a pleasant, hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment,
effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke "of sorrows, but of sorrows
past;" and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of
the fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have
favoured the guess that the earlier part of her life had been spent in
the languid air and "within-doors" occupations of a town.

"Never mind me," said the parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick
courtesy, and smoothed her apron; "if you are going into the hayfield, I
will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny,--an excellent boy."

WIDOW.--"Well, sir, and you are kind to say it,--but so he is."

PARSON.--"He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best
lad in the whole school at his Catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I
assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I
fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!"

WIDOW (wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron).--"'Deed, sir, when
my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done.
But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there
in dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used
to say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my good man smiled
on me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown
up, and did not want me any more."

PARSON (looking away, and after a pause).--"You never hear anything of
the old folks at Lansmere?"

"'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me nor the boy;
but," added the widow, with all a peasant's pride, "it isn't that I
wants their money; only it's hard to feel strange like to one's own
father and mother!"

PARSON.--"You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite
the same man after that sad event which--but you are weeping, my friend,
pardon me; your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in
another way."

WIDOW.--"I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit o' pride in me!
and that's the reason they always looked down on me."

PARSON.--"Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a
year or two on behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him
when he grew up, as they ought."

WIDOW (with flashing eyes).--"I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such
thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given
him a kind word sin' he was born!"

The parson smiled gravely, and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield's
hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride;
but he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making
in the most irritable of all rancours,--namely, that nourished against
one's nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and said,
"Well, time enough to think of Lenny's future prospects; meanwhile we
are forgetting the haymakers. Come."

The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard
into the fields.

PARSON.--"You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend Lenny
should be in no want of apples. I had brought him one, but I have given
it away on the road."

WIDOW.--"Oh, sir, it is not the deed,--it is the will; as I felt
when the squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year
he--that is, Mark--died."

PARSON.--"If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, it will not be
long before the squire may put the two pounds on again."

"Yes, sir," said the widow, simply; "I hope he will."

"Silly woman!" muttered the parson. "That's not exactly what the
schoolmistress would have said. You don't read nor write, Mrs.
Fairfield; yet you express yourself with great propriety."

"You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor sister; and
though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, I tried to take after
him when we came together."




CHAPTER IV.

They were now in the hayfield, and a boy of about sixteen, but, like
most country lads, to appearance much younger than he was, looked up
from his rake, with lively blue eyes beaming forth under a profusion of
brown curly hair.

Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy,--not so stout nor so
ruddy as one would choose for the ideal of rustic beauty, nor yet so
delicate in limb and keen in expression as are those children of cities,
in whom the mind is cultivated at the expense of the body; but still
he had the health of the country in his cheeks, and was not without the
grace of the city in his compact figure and easy movements. There was
in his physiognomy something interesting from its peculiar character of
innocence and simplicity. You could see that he had been brought up by
a woman, and much apart from familiar contact with other children; and
such intelligence as was yet developed in him was not ripened by the
jokes and cuffs of his coevals, but fostered by decorous lecturings from
his elders, and good-little-boy maxims in good-little-boy books.

PARSON.--"Come hither, Lenny. You know the benefit of school, I see: it
can teach you nothing better than to be a support to your mother."

LENNY (looking down sheepishly, and with a heightened glow over his
face).--"Please, sir, that may come one of these days."

PARSON.--"That's right, Lenny. Let me see! why, you must be nearly a
man. How old are you?"

Lenny looks up inquiringly at his mother.

PARSON.--"You ought to know, Lenny: speak for yourself. Hold your
tongue, Mrs. Fairfield."

LENNY (twirling his hat, and in great perplexity).--"Well, and there is
Flop, neighbour Dutton's old sheep-dog. He be very old now."

PARSON.--"I am not asking Flop's age, but your own."

LENNY.--"'Deed, sir, I have heard say as how Flop and I were pups
together. That is, I--I--"

For the parson is laughing, and so is Mrs. Fairfield; and the haymakers,
who have stood still to listen, are laughing too. And poor Lenny has
quite lost his head, and looks as if he would like to cry.

PARSON (patting the curly locks, encouragingly).--"Never mind; it is not
so badly answered, after all. And how old is Flop?"

LENNY.--"Why, he must be fifteen year and more.."

PARSON.--"How old, then, are you?"

LENNY (looking up, with a beam of intelligence).--"Fifteen year and
more."

Widow sighs and nods her head.

"That's what we call putting two and two together," said the parson.
"Or, in other words," and here he raised his eyes majestically towards
the haymakers--"in other words, thanks to his love for his book,
simple as he stands here, Lenny Fairfield has shown himself capable of
INDUCTIVE RATIOCINATION."

At those words, delivered ore rotundo, the haymakers ceased laughing;
for even in lay matters they held the parson to be an oracle, and words
so long must have a great deal in them. Lenny drew up his head proudly.

"You are very fond of Flop, I suppose?"

"'Deed he is," said the widow, "and of all poor dumb creatures."

"Very good. Suppose, my lad, that you had a fine apple, and that you met
a friend who wanted it more than you, what would you do with it?"

"Please you, sir, I would give him half of it."

The parson's face fell. "Not the whole, Lenny?"

Lenny considered. "If he was a friend, sir, he would not like me to give
him all."

"Upon my word, Master Leonard, you speak so well that I must e'en
tell the truth. I brought you an apple, as a prize for good conduct in
school. But I met by the way a poor donkey, and some one beat him for
eating a thistle, so I thought I would make it up by giving him the
apple. Ought I only to have given him the half?"

Lenny's innocent face became all smile; his interest was aroused. "And
did the donkey like the apple?"

"Very much," said the parson, fumbling in his pocket; but thinking of
Leonard Fairfield's years and understanding, and moreover observing, in
the pride of his heart, that there were many spectators to his deed,
he thought the meditated twopence not sufficient, and he generously
produced a silver sixpence.

"There, my man, that will pay for the half apple which you would have
kept for yourself." The parson again patted the curly locks, and after
a hearty word or two with the other haymakers, and a friendly "Good-day"
to Mrs. Fairfield, struck into a path that led towards his own glebe.

He had just crossed the stile, when he heard hasty but timorous feet
behind him. He turned, and saw his friend Lenny.

LENNY (half-crying, and holding out the sixpence).--"Indeed, sir, I
would rather not. I would have given all to the Neddy."

PARSON.--"Why, then, my man, you have a still greater right to the
sixpence."

LENNY.--"No, sir; 'cause you only gave it to make up for the half apple.
And if I had given the whole, as I ought to have done, why, I should
have had no right to the sixpence. Please, sir, don't be offended; do
take it back, will you?"

The parson hesitated. And the boy thrust the sixpence into his hand, as
the ass had poked its nose there before in quest of the apple.

"I see," said Parson Dale, soliloquizing, "that if one don't give
Justice the first place at the table, all the other Virtues eat up her
share."

Indeed, the case was perplexing. Charity, like a forward, impudent
baggage as she is, always thrusting herself in the way, and taking other
people's apples to make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his
due; and now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward
Virtue in her teens--but who, nevertheless, is always engaged in
picking the pockets of her sisters--tried to filch from him his lawful
recompense. The case was perplexing; for the parson held Susceptibility
in great honour, despite her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to
give her a slap in the face, which might frighten her away forever. So
Mr. Dale stood irresolute, glancing from the sixpence to Lenny, and from
Lenny to the sixpence.

"Buon giorno, Good-day to you," said a voice behind, in an accent
slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a strange-looking figure
presented itself at the stile.

Imagine a tall and exceedingly meagre man, dressed in a rusty suit of
black,--the pantaloons tight at the calf and ankle, and there forming a
loose gaiter over thick shoes, buckled high at the instep; an old cloak,
lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry;
a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was
thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless: a profusion of raven
hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the
sides of a straw hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and
swarthy, and features which, though not without considerable beauty
to the eye of the artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed,
neat-faced Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like
what we are disposed to regard as awful and Satanic,--to wit, a long
hooked nose, sunken cheeks, black eyes, whose piercing brilliancy took
something wizard-like and mystical from the large spectacles through
which they shone; a mouth round which played an ironical smile, and in
which a physiognomist would have remarked singular shrewdness, and
some closeness, complete the picture. Imagine this figure, grotesque,
peregrinate, and to the eye of a peasant certainly diabolical; then
perch it on the stile in the midst of those green English fields, and
in sight of that primitive English village; there let it sit straddling,
its long legs dangling down, a short German pipe emitting clouds from
one corner of those sardonic lips, its dark eyes glaring through the
spectacles full upon the parson, yet askant upon Lenny Fairfield. Lenny
Fairfield looked exceedingly frightened.

"Upon my word, Dr. Riccabocca," said Mr. Dale, smiling, "you come in
good time to solve a very nice question in casuistry;" and herewith the
parson explained the case, and put the question, "Ought Lenny Fairfield
to have the sixpence, or ought he not?"

"Cospetto!" said the doctor, "if the hen would but hold her tongue,
nobody would know that she had laid an egg."




CHAPTER V.

"Granted," said the parson; "but what follows? The saying is good, but I
don't see the application."

"A thousand pardons!" replied Dr. Riccabocca, with all the urbanity of
an Italian; "but it seems to me that if you had given the sixpence to
the fanciullo, that is, to this good little boy, without telling him the
story about the donkey, you would never have put him and yourself into
this awkward dilemma."

"But, my dear sir," whispered the parson, mildly, as he inclined his
lips to the doctor's ear, "I should then have lost the opportunity of
inculcating a moral lesson--you understand?"

Dr. Riccabocca shrugged his shoulders, restored his pipe to his mouth,
and took a long whiff. It was a whiff eloquent, though cynical,--a whiff
peculiar to your philosophical smoker, a whiff that implied the most
absolute but the most placid incredulity as to the effect of the
parson's moral lesson.

"Still you have not given us your decision," said the parson, after a
pause.

The doctor withdrew the pipe. "Cospetto!" said he,--"he who scrubs the
head of an ass wastes his soap."

"If you scrubbed mine fifty times over with those enigmatical proverbs
of yours," said the parson, testily, "you would not make it any the
wiser."

"My good sir," said the doctor, bowing low from his perch on the stile,
"I never presumed to say that there were more asses than one in the
story; but I thought that I could not better explain my meaning, which
is simply this,--you scrubbed the ass's head, and therefore you must
lose the soap. Let the fanciullo have the sixpence; and a great sum it
is, too, for a little boy, who may spend it all as pocketmoney!"

"There, Lenny, you hear?" said the parson, stretching out the sixpence.
But Lenny retreated, and cast on the umpire a look of great aversion and
disgust.

"Please, Master Dale," said he, obstinately, "I'd rather not.

"It is a matter of feeling, you see," said the parson, turning to the
umpire; "and I believe the boy is right."

"If it be a matter of feeling," replied Dr. Riccabocca, "there is no
more to be said on it. When Feeling comes in at the door, Reason has
nothing to do but to jump out of the window."

"Go, my good boy," said the parson, pocketing the coin; "but, stop! give
me your hand first. There--I understand you;--good-by!"

Lenny's eyes glistened as the parson shook him by the hand, and, not
trusting himself to speak, he walked off sturdily. The parson wiped his
forehead, and sat himself down on the stile beside the Italian. The view
before them was lovely, and both enjoyed it (though not equally) enough
to be silent for some moments. On the other side the lane, seen between
gaps in the old oaks and chestnuts that hung over the mossgrown pales of
Hazeldean Park, rose gentle, verdant slopes, dotted with sheep and herds
of deer. A stately avenue stretched far away to the left, and ended at
the right hand within a few yards of a ha-ha that divided the park from
a level sward of tableland, gay with shrubs and flower-pots, relieved by
the shade of two mighty cedars. And on this platform, only seen in part,
stood the squire's old-fashioned house, red-brick, with stone mullions,
gable-ends, and quaint chimney-pots. On this side the road, immediately
facing the two gentlemen, cottage after cottage whitely emerged from
the curves in the lane, while, beyond, the ground declining gave an
extensive prospect of woods and cornfields, spires and farms. Behind,
from a belt of lilacs and evergreens, you caught a peep of the
parsonage-house, backed by woodlands, and a little noisy rill running in
front. The birds were still in the hedgerows,--only (as if from the very
heart of the most distant woods), there came now and then the mellow
note of the cuckoo.

"Verily," said Mr. Dale, softly, "my lot has fallen on a goodly
heritage."

The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed almost inaudibly.
Perhaps he thought of his own Summer Land, and felt that, amidst all
that fresh verdure of the North, there was no heritage for the stranger.

However, before the parson could notice the sigh or conjecture the
cause, Dr. Riccabocca's thin lips took an expression almost malignant.

"Per Bacco!" said he; "in every country I observe that the rooks settle
where the trees are the finest. I am sure that, when Noah first landed
on Ararat, he must have found some gentleman in black already settled in
the pleasantest part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth of the
cattle as they came out of the Ark."

The parson fixed his meek eyes on the philosopher, and there was in them
something so deprecating rather than reproachful that Dr. Riccabocca
turned away his face, and refilled his pipe. Dr. Riccabocca abhorred
priests; but though Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at
that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest
that the Italian's heart smote him for his irreverent jest on the
cloth. Luckily at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward
commencement of conversation in the appearance of no less a personage
than the donkey himself--I mean the donkey who ate the apple.




CHAPTER VI.

The tinker was a stout, swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for
he was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of
each refrain down came the staff on the quarters of the donkey. The
tinker went behind and sang, the donkey went before and was thwacked.

"Yours is a droll country," quoth Dr. Riccabocca; "in mine, it is not
the ass that walks first in the procession that gets the blows."

The parson jumped from the stile, and looking over the hedge that
divided the field from the road--"Gently, gently," said he; "the sound
of the stick spoils the singing! Oh, Mr. Sprott, Mr. Sprott! a good man
is merciful to his beast."

The donkey seemed to recognize the voice of its friend, for it stopped
short, pricked one ear wistfully, and looked up. The tinker touched his
hat, and looked up too. "Lord bless your reverence! he does not mind
it,--he likes it. I vould not hurt thee; would I, Neddy?"

The donkey shook his head and shivered; perhaps a fly had settled on the
sore, which the chestnut leaves no longer protected.

"I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott," said the parson,
more politely I fear than honestly,--for he had seen enough of that
cross-grained thing called the human heart, even in the little world of
a country parish, to know that it requires management and coaxing
and flattering, to interfere successfully between a man and his own
donkey,--"I am sure you did not mean to hurt him; but he has already got
a sore on his shoulder as big as my hand, poor thing!"

"Lord love 'un! yes; that was done a playing with the manger the day I
gave 'un oats!" said the tinker.

Dr. Riccabocca adjusted his spectacles, and surveyed the ass. The ass
pricked up his other ear, and surveyed Dr. Riccabocca. In that mutual
survey of physical qualifications, each being regarded according to the
average symmetry of its species, it may be doubted whether the advantage
was on the side of the philosopher.

The parson had a great notion of the wisdom of his friend in all matters
not purely ecclesiastical.

"Say a good word for the donkey!" whispered he.

"Sir," said the doctor, addressing Mr. Sprott, with a respectful
salutation, "there's a great kettle at my house--the Casino--which wants
soldering: can you recommend me a tinker?"

"Why, that's all in my line," said Sprott; "and there ben't a tinker in
the county that I vould recommend like myself, tho'f I say it."

"You jest, good sir," said the doctor, smiling pleasantly. "A man who
can't mend a hole in his own donkey can never demean himself by patching
up my great kettle."

"Lord, sir!" said the tinker, archly, "if I had known that poor Neddy
had had two sitch friends in court, I'd have seen he vas a gintleman,
and treated him as sitch."

"Corpo di Bacco!" quoth the doctor, "though that jest's not new, I think
the tinker comes very well out of it."

"True; but the donkey!" said the parson; "I've a great mind to buy it."

"Permit me to tell you an anecdote in point," said Dr. Riccabocca.

"Well?" said the parson, interrogatively.

"Once on a time," pursued Riccabocca, "the Emperor Adrian, going to the
public baths, saw an old soldier, who had served under him, rubbing his
back against the marble wall. The emperor, who was a wise, and therefore
a curious, inquisitive man, sent for the soldier, and asked him why he
resorted to that sort of friction. 'Because,' answered the veteran, 'I
am too poor to have slaves to rub me down.' The emperor was touched, and
gave him slaves and money. The next day, when Adrian went to the baths,
all the old men in the city were to be seen rubbing themselves against
the marble as hard as they could. The emperor sent for them, and asked
them the same question which he had put to the soldier; the cunning old
rogues, of course, made the same answer. 'Friends,' said Adrian, 'since
there are so many of you, you will just rub one another!' Mr. Dale, if
you don't want to have all the donkeys in the county with holes in their
shoulders, you had better not buy the tinker's!"

"It is the hardest thing in the world to do the least bit of good,"
groaned the parson, as he broke a twig off the hedge nervously, snapped
it in two, and flung away the fragments: one of them hit the donkey on
the nose. If the ass could have spoken Latin he would have said, "Et tu,
Brute!" As it was, he hung down his ears, and walked on.

"Gee hup," said the tinker, and he followed the ass. Then stopping, he
looked over his shoulder, and seeing that the parson's eyes were gazing
mournfully on his protege, "Never fear, your reverence," cried the
tinker, kindly, "I'll not spite 'un."




CHAPTER VII.

"Four, o'clock," cried the parson, looking at his watch; "half an hour
after dinner-time, and Mrs. Dale particularly begged me to be punctual,
because of the fine trout the squire sent us. Will you venture on what
our homely language calls 'pot-luck,' Doctor?"

Now Riccabocca was a professed philosopher, and valued himself on his
penetration into the motives of human conduct. And when the parson thus
invited him to pot-luck, he smiled with a kind of lofty complacency; for
Mrs. Dale enjoyed the reputation of having what her friends styled
"her little tempers." And, as well-bred ladies rarely indulge "little
tempers" in the presence of a third person not of the family, so Dr.
Riccabocca instantly concluded that he was invited to stand between the
pot and the luck! Nevertheless--as he was fond of trout, and a much
more good-natured man than he ought to have been according to his
principles--he accepted the hospitality; but he did so with a sly look
from over his spectacles, which brought a blush into the guilty cheeks
of the parson. Certainly Riccabocca had for once guessed right in his
estimate of human motives.

The two walked on, crossed a little bridge that spanned the rill, and
entered the parsonage lawn. Two dogs, that seemed to have sat on watch
for their master, sprang towards him, barking; and the sound drew the
notice of Mrs. Dale, who, with parasol in hand, sallied out from the
sash window which opened on the lawn. Now, O reader! I know that, in
thy secret heart, thou art chuckling over the want of knowledge in the
sacred arcana of the domestic hearth betrayed by the author; thou art
saying to thyself, "A pretty way to conciliate 'little tempers' indeed,
to add to the offence of spoiling the fish the crime of bringing an
unexpected friend to eat it. Pot-luck, quotha, when the pot 's boiled
over this half hour!"

But, to thy utter shame and confusion, O reader! learn that both the
author and Parson Dale knew very well what they were about.

Dr. Riccabocca was the special favourite of Mrs. Dale, and the only
person in the whole county who never put her out, by dropping in. In
fact, strange though it may seem at first glance, Dr. Riccabocca had
that mysterious something about him, which we of his own sex can so
little comprehend, but which always propitiates the other. He owed this,
in part, to his own profound but hypocritical policy; for he looked upon
woman as the natural enemy to man, against whom it was necessary to be
always on the guard; whom it was prudent to disarm by every species of
fawning servility and abject complaisance. He owed it also, in part, to
the compassionate and heavenly nature of the angels whom his thoughts
thus villanously traduced--for women like one whom they can pity without
despising; and there was something in Signor Riccabocca's poverty,
in his loneliness, in his exile, whether voluntary or compelled, that
excited pity; while, despite his threadbare coat, the red umbrella, and
the wild hair, he had, especially when addressing ladies, that air
of gentleman and cavalier, which is or was more innate in an educated
Italian, of whatever rank, than perhaps in the highest aristocracy of
any other country in Europe. For, though I grant that nothing is more
exquisite than the politeness of your French marquis of the old regime,
nothing more frankly gracious than the cordial address of a high-bred
English gentleman, nothing more kindly prepossessing than the genial
good-nature of some patriarchal German, who will condescend to forget
his sixteen quarterings in the pleasure of doing you a favour,--yet
these specimens of the suavity of their several nations are rare;
whereas blandness and polish are common attributes with your Italian.
They seem to have been immemorially handed down to him, from ancestors
emulating the urbanity of Caesar, and refined by the grace of Horace.

"Dr. Riccabocca consents to dine with us," cried the parson, hastily.

"If Madame permit?" said the Italian, bowing over the hand extended to
him, which, however, he forbore to take, seeing it was already full of
the watch.

"I am only sorry that the trout must be quite spoiled," began Mrs. Dale,
plaintively.

"It is not the trout one thinks of when one dines with Mrs. Dale," said
the infamous dissimulator.

"But I see James coming to say that dinner is ready," observed the
parson.

"He said that three-quarters of an hour ago, Charles dear," retorted
Mrs. Dale, taking the arm of Dr. Riccabocca.




CHAPTER VIII.

While the parson and his wife are entertaining their guest, I propose to
regale the reader with a small treatise a propos of that "Charles dear,"
murmured by Mrs. Dale,--a treatise expressly written for the benefit of
The Domestic Circle.

It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language that conveys
so little endearment as the word "dear." But though the saying itself,
like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no little novelty remains
to the search of the inquirer into the varieties of inimical import
comprehended in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to
the experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is in much
proportioned to its collocation in the sentence. When, gliding
indirectly through the rest of the period, it takes its stand at the
close, as in that "Charles dear" of Mrs. Dale, it has spilled so much of
its natural bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile, "amara
lento temperet risu." Sometimes the smile is plaintive, sometimes arch.
For example:--

(Plaintive.) "I know very well that whatever I do is wrong, Charles
dear."

"Nay, I am very glad you amused yourself so much without me, Charles
dear."

"Not quite so loud! If you had but my poor head, Charles dear," etc.

(Arch.) "If you could spill the ink anywhere but on the best tablecloth,
Charles dear!"

"But though you must always have your own way, you are not quite
faultless, own, Charles dear," etc.

When the enemy stops in the middle of the sentence, its venom is
naturally less exhausted. For example:--

"Really, I must say, Charles dear, that you are the most fidgety
person," etc.

"And if the house bills were so high last week, Charles dear, I should
just like to know whose fault it was--that's all."

"But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more for me and the
children than--" etc.

But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive freshness, at the head
of the sentence, bow your head to the storm. It then assumes the majesty
of "my" before it; it is generally more than simple objurgation,--it
prefaces a sermon. My candour obliges me to confess that this is the
mode in which the hateful monosyllable is more usually employed by the
marital part of the one flesh; and has something about it of the
odious assumption of the Petruchian paterfamilias--the head of the
family--boding, not perhaps "peace and love, and quiet life," but
certainly "awful rule and right supremacy." For example:--

"My dear Jane, I wish you would just put by that everlasting crochet,
and listen to me for a few moments," etc. "My dear Jane, I wish you
would understand me for once; don't think I am angry,--no, but I am
hurt! You must consider," etc.

"My dear Jane, I don't know if it is your intention to ruin me; but I
only wish you would do as all other women do who care three straws for
their husband's property," etc.

"My dear Jane, I wish you to understand that I am the last person in
the world to be jealous; but I'll be d---d if that puppy, Captain
Prettyman," etc.

Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, as to feel much
surprise at the occasional sting of a homely nettle or two; but who
ever expected, before entering that garden, to find himself pricked and
lacerated by an insidious exotical "dear," which he had been taught to
believe only lived in a hothouse, along with myrtles and other tender
and sensitive shrubs which poets appropriate to Venus? Nevertheless
Parson Dale, being a patient man, and a pattern to all husbands, would
have found no fault with his garden, though there had not been a single
specimen of "dear,"--whether the dear humilis or the dear superba; the
dear pallida, rubra, or nigra; the dear suavis or the dear horrida,--no,
not a single "dear" in the whole horticulture of matrimony, which Mrs.
Dale had not brought to perfection. But this was far from being the
case; Mrs. Dale, living much in retirement, was unaware of the modern
improvements, in variety of colour and sharpness of prickle, which have
rewarded the persevering skill of our female florists.




CHAPTER IX.

In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields.
Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half-way, and as they now turned
back to the parsonage, they looked behind to catch a glimpse of the
tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the
waves of the green corn.

"Poor man!" said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; "and the button was off his
wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very
domestic. Don't you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we
could get him a good wife?"

"Um," said the parson; "I doubt if he values the married state as he
ought."

"What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in
my life."

"Yes, but--"

"But what? You are always so mysterious, Charles dear."

"Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the doctor says of
the ladies sometimes."

"Ay, when you men get together, my dear. I know what that means--pretty
things you say of us! But you are all alike; you know you are, love!"

"I am sure," said the parson, simply, "that I have good cause to speak
well of the sex--when I think of you and my poor mother."

Mrs. Dale, who, with all her "tempers," was an excellent woman, and
loved her husband with the whole of her quick little heart, was touched.
She pressed his hand, and did not call him dear all the way home.

Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon the high road
about two miles from Hazeldean. On one side stood an old-fashioned
solitary inn, such as English inns used to be before they became
railway hotels,--square, solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable
and comfortable, with their great signs swinging from some elm-tree in
front, and the long row of stables standing a little back, with a chaise
or two in the yard, and the jolly landlord talking of the crops to some
stout farmer, whose rough pony halts of itself at the well-known door.
Opposite this inn, on the other side of the road, stood the habitation
of Dr. Riecabocca.

A few years before the date of these annals, the stage-coach on its way
to London from a seaport town stopped at the inn, as was its wont, for a
good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen--not
gulp down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees,
with that cursed railway-whistle shrieking like a fiend in their ears!
It was the best dining-place on the whole road, for the trout in the
neighbouring rill were famous, and so was the mutton which came from
Hazeldean Park.

From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers, who, alone
insensible to the attractions of mutton and trout, refused to dine,--two
melancholy-looking foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca,
much the same as we see him now, only that the black suit was less
threadbare, the tall form less meagre, and he did not then wear
spectacles; and the other was his servant. "They would walk about
while the coach stopped." Now the Italian's eye had been caught by
a mouldering, dismantled house on the other side the road, which
nevertheless was well situated; half-way up a green hill, with its
aspect due south, a little cascade falling down artificial rockwork, a
terrace with a balustrade, and a few broken urns and statues before
its Ionic portico, while on the roadside stood a board, with
characters already half effaced, implying that the house was "To be let
unfurnished, with or without land."

The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so evidently hung long
on hand, was the property of Squire Hazeldean. It had been built by his
grandfather on the female side,--a country gentleman who had actually
been in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and
who, on his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of an
Italian villa. He left an only daughter and sole heiress, who married
Squire Hazeldean's father; and since that time, the house, abandoned
by its proprietors for the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had
been uninhabited and neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered
themselves; but your true country squire is slow in admitting upon his
own property a rival neighbour. Some wanted shooting. "That," said the
Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen and strict preservers, "was quite
out of the question." Others were fine folks from London. "London
servants," said the Hazeldeans, who were moral and prudent people,
"would corrupt their own, and bring London prices." Others, again,
were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned up their
agricultural noses. In short, some were too grand, and others too
vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: "Friends were
best at a distance," said the Hazeldeans; others because they were not
known at all: "No good comes of strangers," said the Hazeldeans. And
finally, as the house fell more and more into decay, no one would
take it unless it was put into thorough repair: "As if one was made of
money!" said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied
and ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians,
surveying it with a smile at each other, as for the first time since
they set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and
broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery,
something that reminded them of the land they had left behind.

On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion to learn from
the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the squire) such particulars
as he could collect; and a few days afterwards Mr. Hazeldean received
a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very
respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump
Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did not
shoot, lived in great seclusion, and, having no family, did not
care about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made
weather-proof,--if the omission of more expensive reparations could
render the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited.
The offer came at a fortunate moment, when the steward had just been
representing to the squire the necessity of doing something to keep the
Casino from falling into positive ruin, and the squire was cursing the
fates which had put the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull
it down for the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore caught at
the proposal even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the
kingdom, catches, at last, at some battered old captain on half-pay,
and replied that, as for rent, if the solicitor's client was a quiet,
respectable man, he did not care for that, but that the gentleman might
have it for the first year rent-free, on condition of paying the taxes,
and putting the place a little in order. If they suited each other, they
could then come to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply,
Signor Riccabocca and his servant arrived; and, before the year's end,
the squire was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a running
lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent merely nominal,
on condition that Signor Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in
repair, barring the roof and fences, which the squire generously renewed
at his own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a
pretty place the Italian had made of it, and, what is more astonishing,
how little it had cost him. He had, indeed, painted the walls of the
hall, staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own
hands. His servant had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two
between them had got the garden into order.

The Italians seemed to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck
it as they would have done some favourite chapel to their Madonna.

It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways
of the foreign settlers. The first thing that offended them was the
exceeding smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven,
indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in
the garden, and the fishes in the neighbouring rill; when no trout
could be caught they fried the minnows (and certainly, even in the best
streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trout). The next thing
which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of
the neighbourhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures
gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At
first, indeed, they had no woman-servant at all. But this created
such horror that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which
Riccabocca took in very good part; and an old woman was forthwith
engaged after some bargaining--at three shillings a week--to wash and
scrub as much as she liked during the daytime. She always returned
to her own cottage to sleep. The man-servant, who was styled in the
neighbourhood "Jackeymo," did all else for his master,--smoothed his
room, dusted his papers, prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed
his clothes, and cleaned his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large
collection. But however close a man's character, it generally creeps out
in driblets; and on many little occasions the Italian had shown acts of
kindness, and, on some more rare occasions, even of generosity,
which had served to silence his calumniators, and by degrees he had
established a very fair reputation,--suspected, it is true, of being a
little inclined to the Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve
Jackeymo and himself, in other respects harmless enough.

Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the
Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the squire was inclined
to be very friendly to all his neighbours, he was, like most country
gentlemen, rather easily huffed. Riccabocca had, with great politeness,
still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier invitations
to dinner; and when the squire found that the Italian rarely declined
to dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak
points,--namely, his pride in the hospitality of Hazeldean Hall,--and he
ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected. Nevertheless, as
it was impossible for the squire, however huffed, to bear malice, he now
and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by presents of game, and
would have called on him more often than he did, but that Riccabocca
received him with such excessive politeness that the blunt country
gentleman felt shy and put out, and used to say that "to call on
Rickeybockey was as bad as going to Court."

But we have left Dr. Riccabocca on the high road. By this time he has
ascended a narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has
passed a trellis-work covered with vines, from which Jackeymo has
positively succeeded in making what he calls wine,--a liquid, indeed,
that if the cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have
soured the mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean,
though a robust man who daily carried off his bottle of port with
impunity, having once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till
he had had a bill from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing
this trellis, Dr. Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone
pavement as smoothed and trimmed as hands could make it. Here, on neat
stands, all his favourite flowers were arranged; here four orange trees
were in full blossom; here a kind of summer-house, or belvidere, built
by Jackeymo and himself, made his chosen morning room from May till
October; and from this belvidere there was as beautiful an expanse of
prospect as if our English Nature had hospitably spread on her green
board all that she had to offer as a banquet to the exile.

A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was
employed in watering the flowers,--a man with movements so mechanical,
with a face so rigidly grave in its tawny hues, that he seemed like an
automaton made out of mahogany.

"Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.

The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.

"Put by the watering-pot, and come hither," continued Riccabocca, in
Italian; and, moving towards the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr.
Mitford, the historian, calls Jean Jacques "John James." Following that
illustrious example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo. Jackeymo
came to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master.
"Friend," said Riccabocca, "enterprises have not always succeeded with
us. Don't you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent
those fields from the landlord?" Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some
strange movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring
on his finger.

"If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?" said
Jackeymo, doubtfully.

"Piu vale un presente che dui futuri,"--["A bird in the hand is worth
two in the bush."]--said Riccabocca.

"Chi non fa quando pub, non pub, fare quando vuole,"--["He who will not
when he may, when he wills it shall have nay."]--answered Jackeymo, as
sententiously as his master. "And the Padrone should think in time that
he must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina."

Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.

"She must be that high now!" said Jackeymo, putting his hand on some
imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca's eyes, raised
over the spectacles, followed the hand.

"If the Padrone could but see her here--"

"I thought I did," muttered the Italian.

"He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband's,"
continued Jackeymo.

"But this climate,--she could never stand it," said Riccabocca, drawing
his cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear.

"The orange trees blossom even here with care," said Jackeymo, turning
back to draw down an awning where the orange trees faced the north.
"See!" he added, as he returned with a sprig in full bud.

Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom.

"The other one should be there too," said Jackeymo.

"To die--as this does already!" answered Riccabocca. "Say no more."

Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing at his master, drew
his hand over his eyes.

There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it. "But, whether
here or there, beauty without money is the orange tree without shelter.
If a lad could be got cheap, I would hire the land, and trust for the
crop to the Madonna."

"I think I know of such a lad," said Riccabocca, recovering himself,
and with his sardonic smile once more lurking about the corners of his
mouth,--"a lad made for us."

"Diavolo!"

"No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen a boy who--refused
sixpence!"

"Cosa stupenda!" exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his eyes, and letting fall
the watering-pot.

"It is true, my friend."

"Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields will grow gold."

"I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such a
boy," said Riccabocca. "Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlour, and
bring from my bedroom that great folio of Machiavelli."




CHAPTER X.

In my next chapter I shall present Squire Hazeldean in patriarchal
state,--not exactly under the fig-tree he has planted, but before the
stocks he has reconstructed,--Squire Hazeldean and his family on the
village green! The canvas is all ready for the colours.

But in this chapter I must so far afford a glimpse into antecedents as
to let the reader know that there is one member of the family whom he
is not likely to meet at present, if ever, on the village green at
Hazeldean.

Our squire lost his father two years after his birth; his mother
was very handsome--and so was her jointure; she married again at the
expiration of her year of mourning; the object of her second choice was
Colonel Egerton.

In every generation of Englishmen (at least since the lively reign of
Charles II.) there are a few whom some elegant Genius skims off from
the milk of human nature, and reserves for the cream of society. Colonel
Egerton was one of these terque quaterque beati, and dwelt apart on
a top shelf in that delicate porcelain dish--not bestowed upon vulgar
buttermilk--which persons of fashion call The Great World. Mighty was
the marvel of Pall Mall, and profound was the pity of Park Lane,
when this supereminent personage condescended to lower himself into a
husband. But Colonel Egerton was not a mere gaudy butterfly; he had the
provident instincts ascribed to the bee. Youth had passed from him, and
carried off much solid property in its flight; he saw that a time was
fast coming when a home, with a partner who could help to maintain it,
would be conducive to his comforts, and an occasional hum-drum evening
by the fireside beneficial to his health. In the midst of one season at
Brighton, to which gay place he had accompanied the Prince of Wales,
he saw a widow, who, though in the weeds of mourning, did not appear
inconsolable. Her person pleased his taste; the accounts of her jointure
satisfied his understanding; he contrived an introduction, and brought
a brief wooing to a happy close. The late Mr. Hazeldean had so far
anticipated the chance of the young widow's second espousals, that, in
case of that event, he transferred, by his testamentary dispositions,
the guardianship of his infant heir from the mother to two squires whom
he had named his executors. This circumstance combined with her new ties
somewhat to alienate Mrs. Hazeldean from the pledge of her former loves;
and when she had borne a son to Colonel Egerton, it was upon that child
that her maternal affections gradually concentrated.

William Hazeldean was sent by his guardians to a large provincial
academy, at which his forefathers had received their education time out
of mind. At first he spent his holidays with Mrs. Egerton; but as she
now resided either in London, or followed her lord to Brighton, to
partake of the gayeties at the Pavilion, so as he grew older, William,
who had a hearty affection for country life, and of whose bluff manners
and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton (having grown exceedingly refined) was
openly ashamed, asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations
either with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went late to a small
college at Cambridge, endowed in the fifteenth century by some ancestral
Hazeldean; and left it, on coming of age, without taking a degree. A
few years afterwards he married a young lady, country born and bred like
himself.

Meanwhile his half-brother, Audley Egerton, may be said to have begun
his initiation into the beau monde before he had well cast aside his
coral and bells; he had been fondled in the lap of duchesses, and
had galloped across the room astride on the canes of ambassadors and
princes. For Colonel Egerton was not only very highly connected, not
only one of the Dii majores of fashion, but he had the still rarer good
fortune to be an exceedingly popular man with all who knew him,--so
popular, that even the fine ladies whom he had adored and abandoned
forgave him for marrying out of "the set," and continued to be as
friendly as if he had not married at all. People who were commonly
called heartless were never weary of doing kind things to the Egertons.
When the time came for Audley to leave the preparatory school at which
his infancy budded forth amongst the stateliest of the little lilies
of the field, and go to Eton, half the fifth and sixth forms had been
canvassed to be exceedingly civil to young Egerton. The boy soon showed
that he inherited his father's talent for acquiring popularity, and
that to this talent he added those which put popularity to use. Without
achieving any scholastic distinction, he yet contrived to establish at
Eton the most desirable reputation which a boy can obtain,--namely, that
among his own contemporaries, the reputation of a boy who was sure to
do something when he grew to be a man. As a gentleman-commoner at Christ
Church, Oxford, he continued to sustain this high expectation, though he
won no prizes, and took but an ordinary degree; and at Oxford the future
"something" became more defined,--it was "something in public life" that
this young man was to do.

While he was yet at the University, both his parents died, within a few
months of each other. And when Audley Egerton came of age, he succeeded
to a paternal property which was supposed to be large, and indeed had
once been so; but Colonel Egerton had been too lavish a man to enrich
his heir, and about L1500 a year was all that sales and mortgages left
of an estate that had formerly approached a rental of L10,000.

Still, Audley was considered to be opulent; and he did not dispel that
favourable notion by any imprudent exhibition of parsimony. On entering
the world of London, the Clubs flew open to receive him, and he woke
one morning to find himself, not indeed famous--but the fashion. To this
fashion he at once gave a certain gravity and value, he associated as
much as possible with public men and political ladies, he succeeded in
confirming the notion that he was "born to ruin or to rule the State."

The dearest and most intimate friend of Audley Egerton was Lord
L'Estrange, from whom he had been inseparable at Eton, and who now, if
Audley Egerton was the fashion, was absolutely the rage in London.

Harley, Lord L'Estrange, was the only son of the Earl of Lansmere, a
nobleman of considerable wealth, and allied, by intermarriages, to
the loftiest and most powerful families in England. Lord Lansmere,
nevertheless, was but little known in the circles of London. He lived
chiefly on his estates, occupying himself with the various duties of a
great proprietor, and when he came to the metropolis, it was rather to
save than to spend; so that he could afford to give his son a very ample
allowance, when Harley, at the age of sixteen (having already attained
to the sixth form at Eton), left school for one of the regiments of the
Guards.

Few knew what to make of Harley L'Estrange,--and that was, perhaps,
the reason why he was so much thought of. He had been by far the
most brilliant boy of his time at Eton,--not only the boast of the
cricket-ground, but the marvel of the schoolroom; yet so full of whims
and oddities, and seeming to achieve his triumphs with so little aid
from steadfast application, that he had not left behind him the same
expectations of solid eminence which his friend and senior, Audley
Egerton, had excited. His eccentricities, his quaint sayings, and
out-of-the-way actions, became as notable in the great world as they had
been in the small one of a public school. That he was very clever there
was no doubt, and that the cleverness was of a high order might be
surmised, not only from the originality but the independence of his
character. He dazzled the world, without seeming to care for its praise
or its censure,--dazzled it, as it were, because he could not help
shining. He had some strange notions, whether political or social, which
rather frightened his father. According to Southey, "A man should be
no more ashamed of having been a republican than of having been young."
Youth and extravagant opinions naturally go together. I don't know
whether Harley L'Estrange was a republican at the age of eighteen; but
there was no young man in London who seemed to care less for being heir
to an illustrious name and some forty or fifty thousand pounds a year.
It was a vulgar fashion in that day to play the exclusive, and cut
persons who wore bad neckcloths, and called themselves Smith or Johnson.
Lord L'Estrange never cut any one, and it was quite enough to slight
some worthy man because of his neckcloth or his birth to insure to
the offender the pointed civilities of this eccentric successor to the
Belforts and the Wildairs.

It was the wish of his father that Harley, as soon as he came of age,
should represent the borough of Lansmere (which said borough was the
single plague of the earl's life). But this wish was never realized.
Suddenly, when the young idol of London still wanted some two or three
years of his majority, a new whim appeared to seize him. He
withdrew entirely from society; he left unanswered the most pressing
three-cornered notes of inquiry and invitation that ever strewed the
table of a young Guardsman; he was rarely seen anywhere in his former
haunts,--when seen, was either alone or with Egerton; and his gay
spirits seemed wholly to have left him. A profound melancholy was
written in his countenance, and breathed in the listless tones of
his voice. About this time a vacancy happening to occur for the
representation of Lansmere, Harley made it his special request to his
father that the family interest might be given to Audley Egerton,--a
request which was backed by all the influence of his lady mother,
who shared in the esteem which her son felt for his friend. The earl
yielded; and Egerton, accompanied by Harley, went down to Lansmere Park,
which adjoined the borough, in order to be introduced to the electors.
This visit made a notable epoch in the history of many personages who
figure in my narrative; but at present I content myself with saying
that circumstances arose which, just as the canvass for the new election
commenced, caused both L'Estrange and Audley to absent themselves from
the scene of action, and that the last even wrote to Lord Lansmere
expressing his intention of declining to contest the borough.

Fortunately for the parliamentary career of Audley Egerton, the election
had become to Lord Lansmere not only a matter of public importance, but
of personal feeling. He resolved that the battle should be fought out,
even in the absence of the candidate, and at his own expense. Hitherto
the contest for this distinguished borough had been, to use the language
of Lord Lansmere, "conducted in the spirit of gentlemen,"--that is to
say, the only opponents to the Lansmere interest had been found in one
or the other of the two rival families in the same county; and as the
earl was a hospitable, courteous man, much respected and liked by the
neighbouring gentry, so the hostile candidate had always interlarded his
speeches with profuse compliments to his Lordship's high character,
and civil expressions as to his Lordship's candidate. But, thanks to
successive elections, one of these two families had come to an end,
and its actual representative was now residing within the Rules of the
Bench; the head of the other family was the sitting member, and, by an
amicable agreement with the Lansinere interest, he remained as neutral
as it is in the power of any sitting member to be amidst the passions
of an intractable committee. Accordingly it had been hoped that Egerton
would come in without opposition, when, the very day on which he had
abruptly left the place, a handbill, signed "Haverill Dashmore, Captain
R. N., Baker Street, Portman Square," announced, in very spirited
language, the intention of that gentleman "to emancipate the borough
from the unconstitutional domination of an oligarchical faction, not
with a view to his own political aggrandizement,--indeed at great
personal inconvenience,--but actuated solely by abhorrence to tyranny,
and patriotic passion for the purity of election."

This announcement was followed, within two hours, by the arrival of
Captain Dashmore himself, in a carriage and four, covered with yellow
favours, and filled, inside and out, with harumscarum-looking friends,
who had come down with him to share the canvass and partake the fun.

Captain Dashmore was a thorough sailor, who had, however, conceived a
disgust to the profession from the date in which a minister's nephew had
been appointed to the command of a ship to which the captain considered
himself unquestionably entitled. It is just to the minister to add that
Captain Dashmore had shown as little regard for orders from a distance
as had immortalized Nelson himself; but then the disobedience had not
achieved the same redeeming success as that of Nelson, and Captain
Dashmore ought to have thought himself fortunate in escaping a severer
treatment than the loss of promotion. But no man knows when he is
well off; and retiring on half pay, just as he came into unexpected
possession of some forty or fifty thousand pounds, bequeathed by a
distant relation, Captain Dashmore was seized with a vindictive
desire to enter parliament, and inflict oratorical chastisement on the
Administration.

A very few hours sufficed to show the sea-captain to be a most capital
electioneerer for a popular but not enlightened constituency. It is true
that he talked the saddest nonsense ever heard from an open window; but
then his jokes were so broad, his manner so hearty, his voice so big,
that in those dark days, before the schoolmaster was abroad, he would
have beaten your philosophical Radical and moralizing Democrat hollow.
Moreover, he kissed all the women, old and young, with the zest of a
sailor who has known what it is to be three years at sea without
sight of a beardless lip; he threw open all the public-houses, asked a
numerous committee every day to dinner, and, chucking his purse up in
the air, declared "he would stick to his guns while there was a shot in
the locker." Till then, there had been but little political difference
between the candidate supported by Lord Lansmere's interest and the
opposing parties; for country gentlemen, in those days, were pretty
much of the same way of thinking, and the question had been really
local,--namely, whether the Lansmere interest should or should not
prevail over that of the two squire-archical families who had alone,
hitherto, ventured to oppose it. But though Captain Dashmore was really
a very loyal man, and much too old a sailor to think that the State
(which, according to established metaphor, is a vessel par excellence)
should admit Jack upon quarterdeck, yet, what with talking against lords
and aristocracy, jobs and abuses, and searching through no very refined
vocabulary for the strongest epithets to apply to those irritating
nouns-substantive, his bile had got the better of his understanding,
and he became fuddled, as it were, by his own eloquence. Thus, though
as innocent of Jacobinical designs as he was incapable of setting the
Thames on fire, you would have guessed him, by his speeches, to be one
of the most determined incendiaries that ever applied a match to the
combustible materials of a contested election; while, being by no means
accustomed to respect his adversaries, he could not have treated
the Earl of Lansmere with less ceremony if his Lordship had been a
Frenchman. He usually designated that respectable nobleman, who was
still in the prime of life, by the title of "Old Pompous;" and the
mayor, who was never seen abroad but in top-boots, and the solicitor,
who was of a large build, received from his irreverent wit the joint
sobriquet of "Tops and Bottoms"! Hence the election had now become, as I
said before, a personal matter with my Lord, and, indeed, with the great
heads of the Lansmere interest. The earl seemed to consider his very
coronet at stake in the question. "The Man from Baker Street," with his
preternatural audacity, appeared to him a being ominous and awful--not
so much to be regarded with resentment as with superstitious terror. He
felt as felt the dignified Montezuma, when that ruffianly Cortez, with
his handful of Spanish rapscallions, bearded him in his own capital,
and in the midst of his Mexican splendour. The gods were menaced if
man could be so insolent! wherefore, said my Lord tremulously,
"The Constitution is gone if the Man from Baker Street comes in for
Lansmere!"

But in the absence of Audley Egerton, the election looked extremely
ugly, and Captain Dashmore gained ground hourly, when the Lansmere
solicitor happily bethought him of a notable proxy for the missing
candidate. The Squire of Hazeldean, with his young wife, had been
invited by the earl in honour of Audley; and in the squire the solicitor
beheld the only mortal who could cope with the sea-captain,--a man with
a voice as burly and a face as bold; a man who, if permitted for the
nonce by Mrs. Hazeldean, would kiss all the women no less heartily than
the captain kissed them; and who was, moreover, a taller and a handsomer
and a younger man,--all three great recommendations in the kissing
department of a contested election. Yes, to canvass the borough, and
to speak from the window, Squire Hazeldean would be even more popularly
presentable than the London-bred and accomplished Audley Egerton
himself.

The squire, applied to and urged on all sides, at first said bluntly
that he would do anything in reason to serve his brother, but that he
did not like, for his own part, appearing, even in proxy, as a lord's
nominee; and moreover, if he was to be sponsor for his brother, why,
he must promise and vow, in his name, to be stanch and true to the land
they lived by! And how could he tell that Audley, when once he got into
the House, would not forget the land, and then he, William Hazeldean,
would be made a liar, and look like a turncoat!

But these scruples being overruled by the arguments of the gentlemen
and the entreaties of the ladies, who took in the election that intense
interest which those gentle creatures usually do take in all matters of
strife and contest, the squire at length consented to confront the Man
from Baker Street, and went accordingly into the thing with that good
heart and old English spirit with which he went into everything whereon
he had once made up his mind.

The expectations formed of the squire's capacities for popular
electioneering were fully realized. He talked quite as much nonsense as
Captain Dashmore on every subject except the landed interest; there he
was great, for he knew the subject well,--knew it by the instinct that
comes with practice, and compared to which all your showy theories are
mere cobwebs and moonshine.

The agricultural outvoters--many of whom, not living under Lord
Lansmere, but being small yeomen, had hitherto prided themselves on
their independence, and gone against my Lord--could not in their hearts
go against one who was every inch the farmer's friend. They began to
share in the earl's personal interest against the Man from Baker Street;
and big fellows, with legs bigger round than Captain Dashmore's tight
little body, and huge whips in their hands, were soon seen entering
the shops, "intimidating the electors," as Captain Dashmore indignantly
declared.

These new recruits made a great difference in the musterroll of the
Lansmere books; and when the day for polling arrived, the result was a
fair question for even betting. At the last hour, after a neck-and-neck
contest, Mr. Audley Egerton beat the captain by two votes; and the names
of these voters were John Avenel, resident freeman, and his son-in-law,
Mark Fairfield, an outvoter, who, though a Lansmere freeman, had settled
in Hazeldean, where he had obtained the situation of head carpenter on
the squire's estate.

These votes were unexpected; for though Mark Fairfield had come to
Lansmere on purpose to support the squire's brother, and though the
Avenels had been always stanch supporters of the Lansmere Blue interest,
yet a severe affliction (as to the nature of which, not desiring to
sadden the opening of my story, I am considerately silent) had befallen
both these persons, and they had left the town on the very day after
Lord L'Estrange and Mr. Egerton had quitted Lansmere Park.

Whatever might have been the gratification of the squire, as a canvasser
and a brother, at Mr. Egerton's triumph, it was much damped when, on
leaving the dinner given in honour of the victory at the Lansmere Arms,
and about, with no steady step, to enter a carriage which was to convey
him to his Lordship's house, a letter was put into his hands by one of
the gentlemen who had accompanied the captain to the scene of action;
and the perusal of that letter, and a few whispered words from the
bearer thereof, sent the squire back to Mrs. Hazeldean a much soberer
man than she had ventured to hope for. The fact was, that on the day of
nomination, the captain having honoured Mr. Hazeldean with many poetical
and figurative appellations,--such as "Prize Ox," "Tony Lumpkin,"
"Blood-sucking Vampire," and "Brotherly Warming-Pan,"--the squire had
retorted by a joke about "Saltwater Jack;" and the captain, who like all
satirists was extremely susceptible and thin-skinned, could not consent
to be called "Salt-water Jack" by a "Prize Ox" and a "Bloodsucking
Vampire."

The letter, therefore, now conveyed to Mr. Hazeldean by a gentleman,
who, being from the Sister Country, was deemed the most fitting
accomplice in the honourable destruction of a brother mortal, contained
nothing more nor less than an invitation to single combat; and the
bearer thereof, with the suave politeness enjoined by etiquette on such
well-bred homicidal occasions, suggested the expediency of appointing
the place of meeting in the neighbourhood of London, in order to prevent
interference from the suspicious authorities of Lansmere.

The natives of some countries--the warlike French in particular--think
little of that formal operation which goes by the name of DUELLING.
Indeed, they seem rather to like it than otherwise. But there is nothing
your thorough-paced Englishman--a Hazeldean of Hazeldean--considers with
more repugnance and aversion than that same cold-blooded ceremonial. It
is not within the range of an Englishman's ordinary habits of thinking.
He prefers going to law,--a much more destructive proceeding of the two.
Nevertheless, if an Englishman must fight, why, he will fight. He says
"It is very foolish;" he is sure "it is most unchristianlike;" he agrees
with all that Philosophy, Preacher, and Press have laid down on the
subject; but he makes his will, says his prayers, and goes out--like a
heathen.

It never, therefore, occurred to the squire to show the white feather
upon this unpleasant occasion. The next day, feigning excuse to attend
the sale of a hunting stud at Tattersall's, he ruefully went up to
London, after taking a peculiarly affectionate leave of his wife.
Indeed, the squire felt convinced that he should never return home
except in a coffin. "It stands to reason," said he to himself, "that
a man who has been actually paid by the King's Government for shooting
people ever since he was a little boy in a midshipman's jacket, must
be a dead hand at the job. I should not mind if it was with
double-barrelled Mantons and small shot; but ball and pistol, they are
n't human nor sportsmanlike!" However, the squire, after settling his
worldly affairs, and hunting up an old college friend who undertook to
be his second, proceeded to a sequestered corner of Wimbledon Common,
and planted himself, not sideways, as one ought to do in such encounters
(the which posture the squire swore was an unmanly way of shirking),
but full front to the mouth of his adversary's pistol, with such sturdy
composure that Captain Dashmore, who, though an excellent shot, was at
bottom as good-natured a fellow as ever lived, testified his admiration
by letting off his gallant opponent with a ball in the fleshy part of
the shoulder, after which he declared himself perfectly satisfied.
The parties then shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and
the squire, much to his astonishment to find himself still alive,
was conveyed to Limmer's Hotel, where, after a considerable amount of
anguish, the ball was extracted and the wound healed. Now it was all
over, the squire felt very much raised in his own conceit; and when he
was in a humour more than ordinarily fierce, that perilous event became
a favourite allusion with him.

He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred at his hand the
most lasting obligations; and that, having procured Audley's return to
parliament, and defended his interests at risk of his own life, he had
an absolute right to dictate to that gentleman how to vote,--upon all
matters, at least, connected with the landed interest. And when, not
very long after Audley took his seat in parliament (which he did not
do for some months), he thought proper both to vote and to speak in a
manner wholly belying the promises the squire had made on his behalf,
Mr. Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer that it could not but produce
an unconciliatory reply. Shortly afterwards the squire's exasperation
reached the culminating point; for, having to pass through Lansmere on
a market-day, he was hooted by the very farmers whom he had induced to
vote for his brother; and, justly imputing the disgrace to Audley, he
never heard the name of that traitor to the land mentioned without a
heightened colour and an indignant expletive. M. de Ruqueville--who was
the greatest wit of his day--had, like the squire, a half-brother, with
whom he was not on the best of terms, and of whom he always spoke as
his "frere de loin!" Audley Egerton was thus Squire Hazeldean's
"distant-brother"!

Enough of these explanatory antecedents,--let us return to the stocks.




CHAPTER XI.

The squire's carpenters were taken from the park pales and set to
work at the parish stocks. Then came the painter and coloured them
a beautiful dark blue, with white border--and a white rim round the
holes--with an ornamental flourish in the middle. It was the gayest
public edifice in the whole village, though the village possessed
no less than three other monuments of the Vitruvian genius of the
Hazeldeans,--to wit, the almshouse, the school, and the parish pump.

A more elegant, enticing, coquettish pair of stocks never gladdened the
eye of a justice of the peace.

And Squire Hazeldean's eye was gladdened. In the pride of his heart he
brought all the family down to look at the stocks. The squire's family
(omitting the frere de loin) consisted of Mrs. Hazeldean, his wife;
next, of Miss Jemima Hazeldean, his first cousin; thirdly, of Mr.
Francis Hazeldean, his only son; and fourthly, of Captain Barnabas
Higginbotham, a distant relation,--who, indeed, strictly speaking,
was not of the family, but only a visitor ten months in the year. Mrs.
Hazeldean was every inch the lady,--the lady of the parish. In her
comely, florid, and somewhat sunburned countenance, there was an equal
expression of majesty and benevolence; she had a blue eye that invited
liking, and an aquiline nose that commanded respect. Mrs. Hazeldean had
no affectation of fine airs, no wish to be greater and handsomer and
cleverer than she was. She knew herself, and her station, and thanked
Heaven for it. There was about her speech and manner something of the
shortness and bluntness which often characterizes royalty; and if the
lady of a parish is not a queen in her own circle, it is never the fault
of a parish. Mrs. Hazeldean dressed her part to perfection. She wore
silks that seemed heirlooms,--so thick were they, so substantial and
imposing; and over these, when she was in her own domain, the whitest
of aprons; while at her waist was seen no fiddle-faddle chatelaine, with
breloques and trumpery, but a good honest gold watch to mark the
time, and a long pair of scissors to cut off the dead leaves from her
flowers,--for she was a great horticulturalist. When occasion needed,
Mrs. Hazeldean could, however, lay by her more sumptuous and imperial
raiment for a stout riding-habit, of blue Saxony, and canter by her
husband's side to see the hounds throw off. Nay, on the days on which
Mr. Hazeldean drove his famous fast-trotting cob to the market town, it
was rarely that you did not see his wife on the left side of the gig.
She cared as little as her lord did for wind and weather, and in the
midst of some pelting shower her pleasant face peeped over the collar
and capes of a stout dreadnought, expanding into smiles and bloom as
some frank rose, that opens from its petals, and rejoices in the dews.
It was easy to see that the worthy couple had married for love; they
were as little apart as they could help it. And still, on the first
of September, if the house was not full of company which demanded her
cares, Mrs. Hazeldean "stepped out" over the stubbles by her husband's
side, with as light a tread and as blithe an eye as when, in the first
bridal year, she had enchanted the squire by her genial sympathy with
his sports.

So there now stands Harriet Hazeldean, one hand leaning on the squire's
broad shoulder, the other thrust into her apron, and trying her best to
share her husband's enthusiasm for his own public-spirited patriotism,
in the renovation of the parish stocks. A little behind, with two
fingers resting on the thin arm of Captain Barnabas, stood Miss Jemima,
the orphan daughter of the squire's uncle, by a runaway imprudent
marriage with a young lady who belonged to a family which had been at
war with the Hazeldeans since the reign of Charles the First respecting
a right of way to a small wood (or rather spring) of about an acre,
through a piece of furze land, which was let to a brickmaker at twelve
shillings a year. The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze land
to the Sticktorights (an old Saxon family, if ever there was one). Every
twelfth year, when the fagots and timber were felled, this feud broke
out afresh; for the Sticktorights refused to the Hazeldeans the right to
cart off the said fagots and timber through the only way by which a cart
could possibly pass. It is just to the Hazeldeans to say that they had
offered to buy the land at ten times its value. But the Sticktorights,
with equal magnanimity, had declared that they would not "alienate the
family property for the convenience of the best squire that ever stood
upon shoe leather." Therefore, every twelfth year, there was always
a great breach of the peace on the part of both Hazeldeans and
Sticktorights, magistrates and deputy-lieutenants though they were.
The question was fairly fought out by their respective dependants,
and followed by various actions for assault and trespass. As the legal
question of right was extremely obscure, it never had been properly
decided; and, indeed, neither party wished it to be decided, each at
heart having some doubt of the propriety of its own claim. A marriage
between a younger son of the Hazeldeans and a younger daughter of the
Sticktorights was viewed with equal indignation by both families;
and the consequence had been that the runaway couple, unblessed and
unforgiven, had scrambled through life as they could, upon the scanty
pay of the husband, who was in a marching regiment, and the interest
of L1000, which was the wife's fortune independent of her parents. They
died and left an only daughter (upon whom the maternal L1000 had been
settled), about the time that the squire came of age and into possession
of his estates. And though he inherited all the ancestral hostility
towards the Sticktorights, it was not in his nature to be unkind to a
poor orphan, who was, after all, the child of a Hazeldean. Therefore he
had educated and fostered Jemima with as much tenderness as if she had
been his sister; put out her L1000 at nurse, and devoted, from the ready
money which had accrued from the rents during his minority, as much as
made her fortune (with her own accumulated at compound interest) no less
than L4000, the ordinary marriage portion of the daughters of Hazeldean.
On her coming of age, he transferred this sum to her absolute disposal,
in order that she might feel herself independent, see a little more of
the world than she could at Hazeldean, have candidates to choose from
if she deigned to marry; or enough to live upon, if she chose to remain
single. Miss Jemima had somewhat availed herself of this liberty, by
occasional visits to Cheltenham and other watering-places. But her
grateful affection to the squire was such that she could never bear to
be long away from the Hall. And this was the more praise to her heart,
inasmuch as she was far from taking kindly to the prospect of being
an old maid; and there were so few bachelors in the neighbourhood of
Hazeldean, that she could not but have that prospect before her eyes
whenever she looked out of the Hall windows. Miss Jemima was indeed
one of the most kindly and affectionate of beings feminine; and if she
disliked the thought of single blessedness, it really was from those
innocent and womanly instincts towards the tender charities of hearth
and home, without which a lady, however otherwise estimable, is little
better than a Minerva in bronze. But, whether or not, despite her
fortune and her face, which last, though not strictly handsome, was
pleasing, and would have been positively pretty if she had laughed more
often (for when she laughed, there appeared three charming dimples,
invisible when she was grave),--whether or not, I say, it was the fault
of our insensibility or her own fastidiousness, Miss Jemima approached
her thirtieth year, and was still Miss Jemima. Now, therefore, that
beautifying laugh of hers was very rarely heard, and she had of late
become confirmed in two opinions, not at all conducive to laughter. One
was a conviction of the general and progressive wickedness of the male
sex, and the other was a decided and lugubrious belief that the world
was coming to an end. Miss Jemima was now accompanied by a small canine
favourite, true Blenheim, with a snub nose. It was advanced in life,
and somewhat obese. It sat on its haunches, with its tongue out of its
mouth, except when it snapped at the flies. There was a strong platonic
friendship between Miss Jemima and Captain Barnabas Higginbotham; for
he, too, was unmarried, and he had the same ill opinion of your sex, my
dear madam, that Miss Jemima had of, ours. The captain was a man of
a slim and elegant figure; the less said about the face the better, a
truth of which the captain himself was sensible, for it was a favourite
maxim of his, "that in a man, everything is a slight, gentlemanlike
figure." Captain Barnabas did not absolutely deny that the world was
coming to an end, only he thought it would last his time.

Quite apart from all the rest, with the nonchalant survey of virgin
dandyism, Francis Hazeldean looked over one of the high starched
neckcloths which were then the fashion,--a handsome lad, fresh from Eton
for the summer holidays, but at that ambiguous age when one disdains the
sports of the boy, and has not yet arrived at the resources of the man.

"I should be glad, Frank," said the squire, suddenly turning round to
his son, "to see you take a little more interest in duties which, one
day or other, you may be called upon to discharge. I can't bear to think
that the property should fall into the hands of a fine gentleman, who
will let things go to rack and ruin, instead of keeping them up as I
do."

And the squire pointed to the stocks.

Master Frank's eye followed the direction of the cane, as well as his
cravat would permit; and he said dryly,--

"Yes, sir; but how came the stocks to be so long out of repair?"

"Because one can't see to everything at once," retorted the squire,
tartly. "When a man has got eight thousand acres to look after, he must
do a bit at a time."

"Yes," said Captain Barnabas. "I know that by experience."

"The deuce you do!" cried the squire, bluntly. "Experience in eight
thousand acres!"

"No; in my apartments in the Albany,--No. 3 A. I have had them ten
years, and it was only last Christmas that I bought my Japan cat."

"Dear me," said Miss Jemima; "a Japan cat! that must be very curious.
What sort of a creature is it?"

"Don't you know? Bless me, a thing with three legs, and holds toast! I
never thought of it, I assure you, till my friend Cosey said to me one
morning when he was breakfasting at my rooms, 'Higginbotham, how is it
that you, who like to have things comfortable about you, don't have
a cat?' 'Upon my life,' said I, 'one can't think of everything at a
time,'--just like you, Squire."

"Pshaw," said Mr. Hazeldean, gruffly, "not at all like me. And I'll
thank you another time, Cousin Higginbotham, not to put me out when I'm
speaking on matters of importance; poking your cat into my stocks! They
look something like now, my stocks, don't they, Harry? I declare that
the whole village seems more respectable. It is astonishing how much a
little improvement adds to the--to the--"

"Charm of the landscape," put in Miss Jemina, sentimentally.

The squire neither accepted nor rejected the suggested termination; but
leaving his sentence uncompleted, broke suddenly off with--

"And if I had listened to Parson Dale--"

"You would have done a very wise thing," said a voice behind, as the
parson presented himself in the rear.

"Wise thing? Why, surely, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Hazeldean, with spirit,
for she always resented the least contradiction to her lord and
master--perhaps as an interference with her own special right and
prerogative!--"why, surely if it is necessary to have stocks, it is
necessary to repair them."

"That's right! go it, Harry!" cried the squire, chuckling, and
rubbing his hands as if he had been setting his terrier at the parson:
"St--St--at him! Well, Master Dale, what do you say to that?"

"My dear ma'am," said the parson, replying in preference to the lady,
"there are many institutions in the country which are very old, look
very decayed, and don't seem of much use; but I would not pull them down
for all that."

"You would reform them, then," said Mrs. Hazeldean, doubtfully, and
with a look at her husband, as much as to say, "He is on politics
now,--that's your business."

"No, I would not, ma'am," said the parson, stoutly. "What on earth would
you do, then?" quoth the squire. "Just let 'em alone," said the parson.
"Master Frank, there's a Latin maxim which was often put in the mouth of
Sir Robert Walpole, and which they ought to put into the Eton grammar,
'Quieta non movere.' If things are quiet, let them be quiet! I would not
destroy the stocks, because that might seem to the ill-disposed like a
license to offend; and I would not repair the stocks, because that puts
it into people's heads to get into them."

The squire was a stanch politician of the old school, and he did
not like to think that, in repairing the stocks, he had perhaps been
conniving at revolutionary principles.

"This constant desire of innovation," said Miss Jemima, suddenly
mounting the more funereal of her two favourite hobbies, "is one of the
great symptoms of the approaching crash. We are altering and mending and
reforming, when in twenty years at the utmost the world itself may
be destroyed!" The fair speaker paused, and Captain Barnabas said
thoughtfully, "Twenty years!--the insurance officers rarely compute the
best life at more than fourteen." He struck his hand on the stocks as he
spoke, and added, with his usual consolatory conclusion, "The odds are
that it will last our time, Squire."

But whether Captain Barnabas meant the stocks or the world he did not
clearly explain, and no one took the trouble to inquire.

"Sir," said Master Frank to his father, with that furtive spirit of
quizzing, which he had acquired amongst other polite accomplishments at
Eton,--"sir, it is no use now considering whether the stocks should or
should not have been repaired. The only question is, whom you will get
to put into them."

"True," said the squire, with much gravity.

"Yes, there it is!" said the parson, mournfully. "If you would but learn
'non quieta movere'!"

"Don't spout your Latin at me, Parson," cried the squire, angrily; "I
can give you as good as you bring, any day.

    "'Propria quae maribus tribuuntur mascula dicas.--
     As in praesenti, perfectum format in avi.'

"There," added the squire, turning triumphantly towards his Harry, who
looked with great admiration at this unprecedented burst of learning on
the part of Mr. Hazeldean,--"there, two can play at that game! And now
that we have all seen the stocks, we may as well go home and drink tea.
Will you come up and play a rubber, Dale? No! hang it, man, I've not
offended you?--you know my ways."

"That I do, and they are among the things I would not have altered,"
cried the parson, holding out his hand cheerfully. The squire gave it a
hearty shake, and Mrs. Hazeldean hastened to do the same.

"Do come; I am afraid we've been very rude: we are sad blunt folks. Do
come; that's a dear good man; and of course poor Mrs. Dale too." Mrs.
Hazeldean's favourite epithet for Mrs. Dale was poor, and that for
reasons to be explained hereafter.

"I fear my wife has got one of her bad headaches, but I will give her
your kind message, and at all events you may depend upon me."

"That's right," said the squire; "in half an hour, eh? How d' ye do, my
little man?" as Lenny Fairfield, on his way home from some errand in the
village, drew aside and pulled off his hat with both hands. "Stop; you
see those stocks, eh? Tell all the bad boys in the parish to take
care how they get into them--a sad disgrace--you'll never be in such a
quandary?"

"That at least I will answer for," said the parson.

"And I too," added Mrs. Hazeldean, patting the boy's curly head.
"Tell your mother I shall come and have a good chat with her to-morrow
evening."

And so the party passed on, and Lenny stood still on the road, staring
hard at the stocks, which stared back at him from its four great eyes.

Put Lenny did not remain long alone. As soon as the great folks had
fairly disappeared, a large number of small folks emerged timorously
from the neighbouring cottages, and approached the site of the stocks
with much marvel, fear, and curiosity.

In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster a propos de bottes,
as one may say--had already excited considerable sensation among the
population of Hazeldean. And even as when an unexpected owl makes his
appearance in broad daylight all the little birds rise from tree and
hedgerow, and cluster round their ominous enemy, so now gathered all the
much-excited villagers round the intrusive and portentous phenomenon.

"D' ye know what the diggins the squire did it for, Gaffer Solomons?"
asked one many-childed matron, with a baby in arms, an urchin of three
years old clinging fast to her petticoat, and her hand maternally
holding back a more adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to
thrust his head into one of the grisly apertures. All eyes turned to a
sage old man, the oracle of the village, who, leaning both hands on his
crutch, shook his head bodingly.

"Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some of the boys ha' been robbing the
orchards."

"Orchards!" cried a big lad, who seemed to think himself personally
appealed to; "why, the bud's scarce off the trees yet!"

"No more it ain't," said the dame with many children, and she breathed
more freely.

"Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some o' ye has been sitting snares."

"What for?" said a stout, sullen-looking young fellow, whom conscience
possibly pricked to reply,--"what for, when it bean't the season? And if
a poor man did find a hear in his pocket i' the haytime, I should like
to know if ever a squire in the world would let 'un off with the stocks,
eh?"

This last question seemed a settler, and the wisdom of Gaffer Solomons
went down fifty per cent in the public opinion of Hazeldean.

"Maw be," said the gaffer--this time with a thrilling effect, which
restored his reputation,--"maw be some o' ye ha' been getting drunk, and
making beestises o' yoursel's!"

There was a dead pause, for this suggestion applied too generally to
be met with a solitary response. At last one of the women said, with a
meaning glance at her husband,

"God bless the squire; he'll make some on us happy women if that's all!"

There then arose an almost unanimous murmur of approbation among the
female part of the audience; and the men looked at each other, and then
at the phenomenon, with a very hang-dog expression of countenance.

"Or, maw be," resumed Gaffer Solomons, encouraged to a fourth suggestion
by the success of its predecessor,--"maw be some o' the misseses ha'
been making a rumpus, and scolding their good men. I heard say in
my granfeyther's time, arter old Mother Bang nigh died o' the
ducking-stool, them 'ere stocks were first made for the women, out o'
compassion like! And every one knows the squire is a koind-hearted man,
God bless 'un!"

"God bless 'un!" cried the men, heartily; and they gathered lovingly
round the phenomenon, like heathens of old round a tutelary temple. But
then there rose one shrill clamour among the females as they retreated
with involuntary steps towards the verge of the green, whence they
glared at Solomons and the phenomenon with eyes so sparkling, and
pointed at both with gestures so menacing, that Heaven only knows if a
morsel of either would have remained much longer to offend the eyes of
the justly-enraged matronage of Hazeldean, if fortunately Master Stirn,
the squire's right-hand man, had not come up in the nick of time.

Master Stirn was a formidable personage,--more formidable than the
squire himself,--as, indeed, a squire's right hand is generally more
formidable than the head can pretend to be. He inspired the greater awe,
because, like the stocks of which he was deputed guardian, his powers
were undefined and obscure, and he had no particular place in the
out-of-door establishment. He was not the steward, yet he did much of
what ought to be the steward's work; he was not the farm-bailiff,
for the squire called himself his own farm-bailiff; nevertheless, Mr.
Hazeldean sowed and ploughed, cropped and stocked, bought and sold, very
much as Mr. Stirn condescended to advise. He was not the park-keeper,
for he neither shot the deer nor superintended the preserves; but it was
he who always found out who had broken a park pale or snared a rabbit.
In short, what may be called all the harsher duties of a large landed
proprietor devolved, by custom and choice, upon Mr. Stirn. If a labourer
was to be discharged or a rent enforced, and the squire knew that he
should be talked over, and that the steward would be as soft as himself,
Mr. Stirn was sure to be the avenging messenger, to pronounce the words
of fate; so that he appeared to the inhabitants of Hazeldean like the
poet's Saeva Necessitas, a vague incarnation of remorseless power, armed
with whips, nails, and wedges. The very brute creation stood in awe of
Mr. Stirn. The calves knew that it was he who singled out which should
be sold to the butcher, and huddled up into a corner with beating
hearts at his grim footstep; the sow grunted, the duck quacked, the hen
bristled her feathers and called to her chicks when Mr. Stirn drew near.
Nature had set her stamp upon him. Indeed, it may be questioned whether
the great M. de Chambray himself, surnamed the brave, had an aspect so
awe-inspiring as that of Mr. Stirn; albeit the face of that hero was so
terrible, that a man who had been his lackey, seeing his portrait after
he had been dead twenty years, fell a trembling all over like a leaf!

"And what the plague are you doing here?" said Mr. Stirn, as he waved
and smacked a great cart-whip which he held in his hand, "making such
a hullabaloo, you women, you! that I suspect the squire will be sending
out to know if the village is on fire. Go home, will ye? High time
indeed to have the stocks ready, when you get squalling and conspiring
under the very nose of a justice of the peace, just as the French
revolutioners did afore they cut off their king's head! My hair stands
on end to look at ye." But already, before half this address was
delivered, the crowd had dispersed in all directions,--the women still
keeping together, and the men sneaking off towards the ale-house. Such
was the beneficent effect of the fatal stocks on the first day of their
resuscitation. However, in the break up of every crowd there must always
be one who gets off the last; and it so happened that our friend Lenny
Fairfield, who had mechanically approached close to the stocks, the
better to hear the oracular opinions of Gaffer Solomons, had no less
mechanically, on the abrupt appearance of Mr. Stirn, crept, as he hoped,
out of sight behind the trunk of the elm-tree which partially shaded the
stocks; and there now, as if fascinated, he still cowered, not daring
to emerge in full view of Mr. Stirn, and in immediate reach of the
cartwhip, when the quick eye of the right-hand man detected his retreat.

"Hallo, sir--what the deuce, laying a mine to blow up the stocks! just
like Guy Fox and the Gunpowder Plot, I declares! What ha' you got in
your willanous little fist there?"

"Nothing, sir," said Lenny, opening his palm. "Nothing--um!" said Mr.
Stirn, much dissatisfied; and then, as he gazed more deliberately,
recognizing the pattern boy of the village, a cloud yet darker gathered
over his brow; for Mr. Stirn, who valued himself much on his learning,
and who, indeed, by dint of more knowledge as well as more wit than
his neighbours, had attained his present eminent station of life, was
extremely anxious that his only son should also be a scholar. That
wish--

        "The gods dispersed in empty air."

Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the parson's school, while Lenny
Fairfield was the pride and boast of it; therefore Mr. Stirn was
naturally, and almost justifiably, ill-disposed towards Lenny Fairfield,
who had appropriated to himself the praises which Mr. Stirn had designed
for his son.

"Um!" said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny malignantly, "you
are the pattern boy of the village, are you? Very well, sir! then I put
these here stocks under your care, and you'll keep off the other boys
from sitting on 'em, and picking off the paint, and playing three-holes
and chuck-farthing, as I declare they've been a doing, just in front of
the elewation. Now, you knows your 'sponsibilities, little boy,--and a
great honour they are too, for the like o' you.

"If any damage be done, it is to you I shall look; d' ye
understand?--and that's what the squire says to me. So you sees what it
is to be a pattern boy, Master Lenny!" With that Mr. Stirn gave a loud
crack of the cart-whip, by way of military honours, over the head of
the vicegerent he had thus created, and strode off to pay a visit to two
young unsuspecting pups, whose ears and tails he had graciously promised
their proprietors to crop that evening. Nor, albeit few charges could
be more obnoxious than that of deputy-governor or charge-d'affaires
extraordinaires to the parish stocks, nor one more likely to render
Lenny Fairfield odious to his contemporaries, ought he to have been
insensible to the signal advantage of his condition over that of the two
sufferers, against whose ears and tails Mr. Stirn had no special motives
of resentment. To every bad there is a worse; and fortunately for
little boys, and even for grown men, whom the Stirns of the world regard
malignly, the majesty and law protect their ears, and the merciful
forethought of nature deprived their remote ancestors of the privilege
of entailing tails upon them. Had it been otherwise--considering what
handles tails would have given to the oppressor, how many traps envy
would have laid for them, how often they must have been scratched and
mutilated by the briars of life, how many good excuses would have been
found for lopping, docking, and trimming them--I fear that only the
lap-dogs of Fortune would have gone to the grave tail-whole.




CHAPTER XII.

The card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Hazeldean Hall; though
the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large
bay window, which (in itself of dimensions that would have swallowed up
a moderate-sized London parlour) held the great round tea-table, with
all appliances and means to boot,--for the beautiful summer moon shed on
the sward so silvery a lustre, and the trees cast so quiet a shadow,
and the flowers and new-mown hay sent up so grateful a perfume, that
to close the windows, draw the curtains, and call for other lights than
those of heaven would have been an abuse of the prose of life which even
Captain Barnabas, who regarded whist as the business of town and the
holiday of the country, shrank from suggesting. Without, the scene,
beheld by the clear moonlight, had the beauty peculiar to the
garden-ground round those old-fashioned country residences which, though
a little modernized, still preserve their original character,--the
velvet lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and scented,
here to the left by lilacs, laburnums, and rich syringas; there, to the
right, giving glimpses, over low clipped yews, of a green bowling-alley,
with the white columns of a summer-house built after the Dutch taste,
in the reign of William III.; and in front stealing away under covert
of those still cedars, into the wilder landscape of the well-wooded
undulating park. Within, viewed by the placid glimmer of the moon, the
scene was no less characteristic of the abodes of that race which has no
parallel in other lands, and which, alas! is somewhat losing its native
idiosyncrasies in this,--the stout country gentleman, not the fine
gentleman of the country; the country gentleman somewhat softened and
civilized from the mere sportsman or farmer, but still plain and homely;
relinquishing the old hall for the drawing-room, and with books not
three months old on his table, instead of Fox's "Martyrs" and Baker's
"Chronicle," yet still retaining many a sacred old prejudice, that, like
the knots in his native oak, rather adds to the ornament of the grain
than takes from the strength of the tree. Opposite to the window, the
high chimneypiece rose to the heavy cornice of the ceiling, with dark
panels glistening against the moonlight. The broad and rather clumsy
chintz sofas and settees of the reign of George III. contrasted at
intervals with the tall-backed chairs of a far more distant generation,
when ladies in fardingales and gentlemen in trunk-hose seem never to
have indulged in horizontal positions. The walls, of shining wainscot,
were thickly covered, chiefly with family pictures; though now and then
some Dutch fair or battle-piece showed that a former proprietor had been
less exclusive in his taste for the arts. The pianoforte stood open
near the fireplace; a long dwarf bookcase at the far end added its sober
smile to the room. That bookcase contained what was called "The Lady's
Library,"--a collection commenced by the squire's grandmother, of pious
memory, and completed by his mother, who had more taste for the lighter
letters, with but little addition from the bibliomaniac tendencies
of the present Mrs. Hazeldean, who, being no great reader, contented
herself with subscribing to the Book Club. In this feminine Bodleian,
the sermons collected by Mrs. Hazeldean, the grandmother, stood
cheek-by-jowl beside the novels purchased by Mrs. Hazeldean, the
mother,--

        "Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho!"

But, to be sure, the novels, in spite of very inflammatory titles, such
as "Fatal Sensibility," "Errors of the Heart," etc., were so harmless
that I doubt if the sermons could have had much to say against their
next-door neighbours,--and that is all that can be expected by the best
of us.

A parrot dozing on his perch; some goldfish fast asleep in their glass
bowl; two or three dogs on the rug, and Flimsey, Miss Jemima's spaniel,
curled into a ball on the softest sofa; Mrs. Hazeldean's work-table
rather in disorder, as if it had been lately used; the "St. James's
Chronicle" dangling down from a little tripod near the squire's
armchair; a high screen of gilt and stamped leather fencing off the
card-table,--all these, dispersed about a room large enough to hold them
all and not seem crowded, offered many a pleasant resting-place for the
eye, when it turned from the world of nature to the home of man.

But see, Captain Barnabas, fortified by his fourth cup of tea, has at
length summoned courage to whisper to Mrs. Hazeldean, "Don't you think
the parson will be impatient for his rubber?" Mrs. Hazeldean glanced at
the parson and smiled; but she gave the signal to the captain, and the
bell was rung, lights were brought in, the curtains let down; in a few
moments more, the group had collected round the cardtable. The best of
us are but human--that is not a new truth, I confess, but yet people
forget it every day of their lives--and I dare say there are many who
are charitably thinking at this very moment that my parson ought not to
be playing at whist. All I can say to those rigid disciplinarians is,
"Every man has his favourite sin: whist was Parson Dale's!--ladies and
gentlemen, what is yours?" In truth, I must not set up my poor parson,
nowadays, as a pattern parson,--it is enough to have one pattern in a
village no bigger than Hazeldean, and we all know that Lenny Fairfield
has bespoken that place, and got the patronage of the stocks for his
emoluments! Parson Dale was ordained, not indeed so very long ago, but
still at a time when Churchmen took it a great deal more easily than
they do now. The elderly parson of that day played his rubber as a
matter of course, the middle-aged parson was sometimes seen riding to
cover (I knew a schoolmaster, a doctor of divinity, and an excellent
man, whose pupils were chiefly taken from the highest families in
England, who hunted regularly three times a week during the season),
and the young parson would often sing a capital song--not composed by
David--and join in those rotatory dances, which certainly David never
danced before the ark.

Does it need so long an exordium to excuse thee, poor Parson Dale, for
turning up that ace of spades with so triumphant a smile at thy partner?
I must own that nothing which could well add to the parson's offence was
wanting. In the first place, he did not play charitably, and merely to
oblige other people. He delighted in the game, he rejoiced in the game,
his whole heart was in the game,--neither was he indifferent to the
mammon of the thing, as a Christian pastor ought to have been. He looked
very sad when he took his shillings out of his purse, and exceedingly
pleased when he put the shillings that had just before belonged to
other people into it. Finally, by one of those arrangements common with
married people who play at the same table, 'Mr. and--Mrs. Hazeldean were
invariably partners, and no two people could play worse; while Captain
Barnabas, who had played at Graham's with honour and profit, necessarily
became partner to Parson Dale, who himself played a good steady parsonic
game. So that, in strict truth, it was hardly fair play; it was almost
swindling,--the combination of these two great dons against that
innocent married couple! Mr. Dale, it is true, was aware of this
disproportion of force, and had often proposed either to change partners
or to give odds,--propositions always scornfully scouted by the squire
and his lady, so that the parson was obliged to pocket his conscience,
together with the ten points which made his average winnings.

The strangest thing in the world is the different way in which whist
affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend,--not at
all! The best-tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and
I have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life
bear their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably
manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall
and the Rectory. The squire, who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as
most in the county, was the best-humoured fellow you could imagine when
you set him down to whist opposite the sunny face of his wife. You never
heard one of those incorrigible blunderers scold each other; on the
contrary, they only laughed when they threw away the game, with four
by honours in their hands. The utmost that was ever said was a "Well,
Harry, that was the oddest trump of yours. Ho, ho, ho!" or a "Bless me,
Hazeldean--why, they made three tricks in clubs, and you had the ace in
your hand all the time! Ha, ha, ha!"

Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great goodhumour, always
echoed both the squire's Ho, ho, ho! and Mrs. Hazeldean's Ha, ha, ha!

Not so the parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the
game, that even his adversaries' mistakes ruffled him. And you would
hear him, with elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down
the law, quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of memory and
common-sense against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched,--a
waste of eloquence that always heightened the hilarity of Mr. and Mrs.
Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, Mrs. Dale, who had come
with her husband despite her headache, sat on the sofa beside Miss
Jemima, or rather beside Miss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already
secured the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being
disturbed. And Master Frank--at a table by himself--was employed
sometimes in looking at his pumps and sometimes at Gilray's Caricatures,
which his mother had provided for his intellectual requirements. Mrs.
Dale, in her heart, liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean, of
whom she was rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls
together, and occasionally still called each other Harry and Carry. But
those tender diminutives belonged to the "Dear" genus, and were rarely
employed by the ladies, except at times when, had they been little girls
still, and the governess out of the way, they would have slapped and
pinched each other. Mrs. Dale was still a very pretty woman, as
Mrs. Hazeldean was still a very fine woman. Mrs. Dale painted in
water-colours, and sang, and made card-racks and penholders, and was
called an "elegant, accomplished woman;" Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the
squire's accounts, wrote the best part of his letters, kept a large
establishment in excellent order, and was called "a clever, sensible
woman." Mrs. Dale had headaches and nerves; Mrs. Hazeldean had neither
nerves nor headaches. Mrs. Dale said, "Harry had no real harm in her,
but was certainly very masculine;" Mrs. Hazeldean said, "Carry would
be a good creature but for her airs and graces." Mrs. Dale said Mrs.
Hazeldean was "just made to be a country squire's lady;" Mrs. Hazeldean
said, "Mrs. Dale was the last person in the world who ought to have
been a parson's wife." Carry, when she spoke of Harry to a third person,
said, "Dear Mrs. Hazeldean;" Harry, when she referred incidentally
to Carry, said, "Poor Mrs. Dale." And now the reader knows why Mrs.
Hazeldean called Mrs. Dale "poor,"--at least as well as I do. For, after
all, the word belonged to that class in the female vocabulary which may
be called "obscure significants," resembling the Konx Ompax, which hath
so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian Mysteries: the application
is rather to be illustrated than the meaning to be exactly explained.

"That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said Mrs. Dale,
who was embroidering the word CAROLINE on the border of a cambric pocket
handkerchief; but edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not
bite, will he?"

"Dear me, no!" said Miss Jemima; "but" (she added in a confidential
whisper) "don't say he,--'t is a lady dog!"

"Oh," said Mrs. Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of
the creature's sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions,--"oh, then,
you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs,--that is
being consistent indeed, Jemima!"

MISS JEMIMA.--"I had a gentleman dog once,--a pug!--pugs are getting
very scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me--he snapped at every one
else; the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe--I had been
staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William
is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick
might do. So, on coming here I left Bluff--that was his name--with Miss
Smilecox." (A pause.)

MRS. DALE (looking up languidly).--"Well, my love?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to
Cheltenham, only three months afterwards, Miss Smilecox had seduced his
affections from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me
again? A pug, too--yet people say pugs are faithful! I am sure they
ought to be, nasty things! I have never had a gentleman dog since,--they
are all alike, believe me, heartless, selfish creatures."

MRS. DALE.--"Pugs? I dare say they are!"

MISS JEMIMA (with spirit).-"MEN!--I told you it was a gentleman dog!"

MRS. DALE (apologetically).--"True, my love, but the whole thing was so
mixed up!"

MISS JEMIMA.--"You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of
Marriage in the papers,--an old wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes
them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is
approaching, and that--"

MRS. DALE (quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's other hobby to
that black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the
universe).--"Yes, my love, we'll avoid that subject, if you please. Mr.
Dale has his own opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's
wife" (said smilingly: Mrs. Dale has as pretty a dimple as any of Miss
Jemima's, and makes more of that one than Miss Jemima of three), "to
agree with him,--that is, in theology."

MISS JEMIMA (earnestly).--"But the thing is so clear, if you will but
look into--"

MRS. DALE (putting her hand on Miss Jemima's lips playfully).--"Not a
word more. Pray, what do you think of the squire's tenant at the Casino,
Signor Riccabocca? An interesting creature, is he not?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Interesting! not to me. Interesting? Why is he
interesting?"

Mrs. Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her pretty little
white hands, appearing to contemplate the R in Caroline.

MISS JEMIMA (half pettishly, half coaxingly).--"Why is he interesting?
I scarcely ever looked at him; they say he smokes, and never eats. Ugly,
too!"

MRS. DALE.--"Ugly,--no. A fine bead,--very like Dante's; but what is
beauty?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Very true: what is it indeed? Yes, as you say, I think
there is something interesting about him; he looks melancholy, but that
may be because he is poor."

MRS. DALE.--"It is astonishing how little one feels poverty when one
loves. Charles and I were very poor once,--before the squire--" Mrs.
Dale paused, looked towards the squire, and murmured a blessing, the
warmth of which brought tears into her eyes. "Yes," she added, after a
pause, "we were very poor, but we were happy even then,--more thanks
to Charles than to me;" and tears from a new source again dimmed those
quick, lively eyes, as the little woman gazed fondly on her husband,
whose brows were knit into a black frown over a bad hand.

MISS JEMIMA.--"It is only those horrid men who think of money as a
source of happiness. I should be the last person to esteem a gentleman
less because he was poor."

MRS. DALE.--"I wonder the squire does not ask Signor Riccabocca here
more often. Such an acquisition we find him!"

The squire's voice from the card-table.--"Whom ought I to ask more
often, Mrs. Dale?"

Parson's voice, impatiently.--"Come, come, come, squire: play to my
queen of diamonds,--do!"

SQUIRE.--"There, I trump it! pick up the trick, Mrs. H."

PARSON.--"Stop! Stop! trump my diamond?"

THE CAPTAIN (solemnly).--"'Trick turned; play on, Squire."

SQUIRE.--"The king of diamonds."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Lord! Hazeldean, why, that's the most barefaced
revoke,--ha, ha, ha! trump the queen of diamonds and play out the king!
well, I never! ha, ha, ha!"

CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in tenor).--"Ha, ha, ha!"

SQUIRE.--"Ho, ho, ho! bless my soul! ho, ho, ho!"

CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in bass).--"Ho, ho, ho!"

Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of his adversaries
and the firm, clear tone of Captain Barnabas.--"Three to our
score!--game!"

SQUIRE (wiping his eyes).--"No help for it; Harry, deal for me. Whom
ought I to ask, Mrs. Dale?" (Waxing angry.) "First time I ever heard the
hospitality of Hazeldean called in question!"

MRS. DALE.--"My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, but listeners--you
know the proverb."

SQUIRE (growling like a bear).--"I hear nothing but proverbs ever since
we had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, ma'am."

Mrs. DALE (sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly
accosted).--"It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr.
Hazeldean."

SQUIRE.--"What! Rickeybockey?"

MRS. DALE (attempting the pure Italian accentuation).--"Signor
Riccabocca."

PARSON (slapping his cards on the table in despair).--"Are we playing at
whist, or are we not?"

The squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to Captain
Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearts. Now the captain has left
queen, knave, and two other hearts, four trumps to the queen, and
nothing to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is
therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall
of that king of hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a matter of
reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The captain hesitates,
and not liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their
being trumped by the squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the
other suits, in which he has not a card that can assist his partner,
resolves, as becomes a military man in such dilemma, to make a bold push
and lead out trumps in the chance of finding his partner strong and so
bringing in his long suit.

SQUIRE (taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by
the captain).--"Mrs. Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked
Rickeybockey,--time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for
those foreign chaps. He'll not come,--that's all I know."

PARSON (aghast at seeing the captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr.
Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades, of
which he has only one, the cards all falling in suits, while he has not
a single other chance of a trick in his hand).--"Really, Squire, we had
better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary
way,--jabber, jabber, jabber!"

SQUIRE.--"Well, we must be good children, Harry. What!--trumps, Barney?
Thank ye for that!" And the squire might well be grateful, for the
unfortunate adversary has led up to ace king knave, with two other
trumps. Squire takes the parson's ten with his knave, and plays out ace
king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the captain's queen
and his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of
spades of which the parson has only one,--and the captain, indeed, but
two,--forces out the captain's queen, and wins the game in a canter.

PARSON (with a look at the captain which might have become the awful
brows of Jove, when about to thunder).--"That, I suppose, is the
new-fashioned London play! In my time the rule was, 'First save the
game, then try to win it.'"

CAPTAIN.--"Could not save it, sir."

PARSON (exploding)--"Not save it!--two ruffs in my own hand,--two tricks
certain till you took them out! Monstrous! The rashest trump."--Seizes
the cards, spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling,
tries to show how five tricks could have been gained,--N.B. It is short
whist which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall,--can't make out
more than four; Captain smiles triumphantly; Parson in a passion, and
not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again, and falling
back in his chair, groans, with tears in his voice.--"The cruellest
trump! the most wanton cruelty!"

The Hazeldeans in chorus.--"Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!" The captain, who
does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the
cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and
prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The
squire gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his
hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife, "Write to
Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend
two or three days here. There, Mrs. Dale, you hear me?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke
at the loudness of the squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm
a sad nervous creature."

"Beg pardon," muttered Mr. Hazeldean, turning to his son, who having
got tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio
County History, which was the only book in the library that the squire
much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study,
together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but which he had
reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige
Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams--an old Saxon family, as the
name evidently denotes--had once possessed lands in that very county;
and the captain, during his visits to Hazeldean Hall, was regularly in
the habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of
refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity, with
the following paragraph therein:

   To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a
   hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of
   Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the
   county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled
   itself Higges, till the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually
   assumed the appellation of Higges-in-Botham, and in process of time,
   yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham."

"What, Frank! my County History!" cried the squire. "Mrs. H., he has got
my County History!"

"Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something about the county."

"Ay, and history too," said Mrs. Dale, malevolently, for the little
temper was by no means blown over.

FRANK.--"I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm very much
interested just at present."

THE CAPTAIN (putting down the cards to cut).--"You've got hold of that
passage about Botham Hall, page 706, eh?"

FRANK.--"No; I was trying to make out how far it is to Mr. Leslie's
place, Rood Hall. Do you know, Mother?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"I can't say I do. The Leslies don't mix with the
county; and Rood lies very much out of the way."

FRANK.--"Why don't they mix with the county?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"I believe they are poor, and therefore I suppose they
are proud; they are an old family."

PARSON (thrumming on the table with great impatience).--"Old
fiddle-dee!--talking of old families when the cards have been shuffled
this half-hour!"

CAPTAIN BARNABAS.--"Will you cut for your partner, ma'am?"

SQUIRE (who has been listening to Frank's inquiries with a musing
air).--"Why do you want to know the distance to Rood Hall?"

FRANK (rather hesitatingly).--"Because Randal Leslie is there for the
holidays, sir."

PARSON.--"Your wife has cut for you, Mr. Hazeldean. I don't think it
was quite fair; and my partner has turned up a deuce,--deuce of hearts.
Please to come and play, if you mean to play."

The squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is
decided by a dexterous finesse of the captain against the Hazeldeans.
The clock strikes ten; the servants enter with a tray; the squire counts
up his own and his wife's losings; and the captain and parson divide
sixteen shillings between them.

SQUIRE.--"There, Parson, I hope you'll be in a better humour. You win
enough out of us to set up a coach-and-four."

"Tut!" muttered the parson; "at the end of the year, I'm not a penny the
richer for it all."

And, indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was perfectly true,
for the parson portioned out his gains into three divisions. One-third
he gave to Mrs. Dale, for her own special pocket-money; what became of
the second third he never owned even to his better half,--but certain
it was, that every time the parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown,
which nobody could account for, found its way to the poor-box; while the
remaining third, the parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained;
but I have no manner of doubt that, at the year's end, it got to the
poor quite as safely as if it had been put into the box.

The party had now gathered round the tray, and were helping themselves
to wine and water, or wine without water,--except Frank, who still
remained poring over the map in the County History, with his head
leaning on his hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair.

"Frank," said Mrs. Hazeldean, "I never saw you so studious before."

Frank started up and coloured, as if ashamed of being accused of too
much study in anything.

SQUIRE (with a little embarrassment in his voice).--"Pray, Frank, what
do you know of Randal Leslie?"

"Why, sir, he is at Eton."

"What sort of a boy is he?" asked Mrs. Hazeldean.

Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered, "They say he is
the cleverest boy in the school. But then he saps."

"In other words," said Mr. Dale, with proper parsonic gravity, "he
understands that he was sent to school to learn his lessons, and he
learns them. You call that sapping? call it doing his duty. But pray,
who and what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed,
Squire?"

"Who and what is he?" repeated the squire, in a low growl. "Why, you
know Mr. Audley Egerton married Miss Leslie, the great heiress; and this
boy is a relation of hers. I may say," added the squire, "that he is a
near relation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean; but all I
know about the Leslies is, that Mr. Egerton, as I am told, having no
children of his own, took up young Randal (when his wife died, poor
woman), pays for his schooling, and has, I suppose, adopted the boy
as his heir. Quite welcome. Frank and I want nothing from Mr. Audley
Egerton, thank Heaven!"

"I can well believe in your brother's generosity to his wife's kindred,"
said the parson, sturdily, "for I am sure Mr. Egerton is a man of strong
feeling."

"What the deuce do you know about Mr. Egerton? I don't suppose you could
ever have even spoken to him."

"Yes," said the parson, colouring up, and looking confused. "I had some
conversation with him once;" and observing the squire's surprise, he
added--"when I was curate at Lansmere, and about a painful business
connected with the family of one of my parishioners."

"Oh, one of your parishioners at Lansmere,--one of the constituents Mr.
Audley Egerton threw over, after all the pains I had taken to get him
his seat. Rather odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr.
Dale!"

"My dear sir," said the parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of
conciliatory expostulation, "you are so irritable whenever Mr. Egerton's
name is mentioned at all."

"Irritable!" exclaimed the squire, whose wrath had been long simmering,
and now fairly boiled over,--"irritable, sir! I should think so: a man
for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr. Dale! a man for whose
sake I was called a 'prize ox,' Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in
a market-place, Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood,
by an officer in His Majesty's service, who lodged a ball in my right
shoulder, Mr. Dale! a man who had the ingratitude, after all this,
to turn his back on the landed interest,--to deny that there was any
agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best farmers I
ever had, Mr. Dale!--a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency which
was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew! Good heavens! a pretty parson you
are, to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew! Nice ideas you must
have of Christianity! Irritable, sir!" now fairly roared the squire,
adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud of a brow, which evinced
a menacing ferocity that might have done honour to Bussy d'Amboise or
Fighting Fitzgerald. "Sir, if that man had not been my own half-brother,
I'd have called him out. I have stood my ground before now. I have had a
ball in my right shoulder. Sir, I'd have called him out."

"Mr. Hazeldean! Mr. Hazeldean! I'm shocked at you," cried the parson;
and, putting his lips close to the squire's ear, he went on in a
whisper, "What an example to your son! You'll have him fighting duels
one of these days, and nobody to blame but yourself."

This warning cooled Mr. Hazeldean; and muttering, "Why the deuce did you
set me off?" he fell back into his chair, and began to fan himself with
his pocket-handkerchief.

The parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the advantage he had
gained. "And now that you may have it in your power to show civility and
kindness to a boy whom Mr. Egerton has taken up, out of respect to
his wife's memory,--a kinsman, you say, of your own, and who has never
offended you,--a boy whose diligence in his studies proves him to be
an excellent companion to your son-Frank" (here the parson raised his
voice), "I suppose you would like to call on young Leslie, as you were
studying the county map so attentively."

"Yes, yes," answered Frank, rather timidly, "if my father does not
object to it. Leslie has been very kind tome, though he is in the sixth
form, and, indeed, almost the head of the school."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Hazeldean, "one studious boy has a fellow feeling for
another; and though you enjoy your holidays, Frank, I am sure you read
hard at school."

Mrs. Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in astonishment.

Mrs. Hazeldean retorted that look, with great animation. "Yes, Carry,"
said she, tossing her head, "though you may not think Frank clever,
his masters find him so. He got a prize last half. That beautiful book,
Frank--hold up your head, my love--what did you get it for?"

FRANK (reluctantly).--"Verses, ma'am."

MRS. HAZELDEAN (with triumph).--"Verses!--there, Carry, verses!"

FRANK (in a hurried tone).--"Yes, but Leslie wrote them for me."

MRS. HAZELDEAN (recoiling).--"O Frank! a prize for what another did for
you--that was mean."

FRANK (ingenuously).--"You can't be more ashamed, Mother, than I was
when they gave me the prize."

MRS. DALE (though previously provoked at being snubbed by Harry, now
showing the triumph of generosity over temper).--"I beg your pardon,
Frank. Your mother must be as proud of that shame as she was of the
prize."

Mrs. Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank's neck, smiles beamingly on Mrs.
Dale, and converses with her son in a low tone about Randal Leslie.
Miss Jemima now approached Carry, and said in an "aside," "But we are
forgetting poor Mr. Riccabocca. Mrs. Hazeldean, though the dearest
creature in the world, has such a blunt way of inviting people--don't
you think if you were to say a word to him, Carry?"

MRS. DALE (kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her).--"Suppose you
write the note yourself? Meanwhile I shall see him, no doubt."

PARSON (putting his hand on the squire's shoulder).--"You forgive my
impertinence, my kind friend. We parsons, you know, are apt to take
strange liberties, when we honour and love folks as I do."

"Fish," said the squire; but his hearty smile came to his lips in spite
of himself. "You always get your own way, and I suppose Frank must ride
over and see this pet of my--"

"Brother's," quoth the parson, concluding the sentence in a tone which
gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound that the squire would not
correct the parson, as he had been about to correct himself.

Mr. Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, the benignant
character of his countenance changed sadly. "The cruellest trump,
Captain Higginbotham!" said he sternly, and stalked by-majestic.

The night was so fine that the parson and his wife, as they walked home,
made a little detour through the shrubbery.

MRS. DALE.--"I think I have done a good piece of work to-night."

PARSON (rousing himself from a revery).--"Have you, Carry?--it will be a
very pretty handkerchief."

MRS. DALE.--"Handkerchief?--nonsense, dear. Don't you think it would
be a very happy thing for both if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be
brought together?"

PARSON.--"Brought together!"

MRS. DALE.--"You do snap up one so, my dear; I mean if I could make a
match of it."

PARSON.--"I think Riccabocca is a match already, not only for Jemima,
but yourself into the bargain."

MRS. DALE (smiling loftily).--"Well, we shall see. Was not Jemima's
fortune about L4000?"

PARSON (dreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his interrupted
revery).--"Ay--ay--I dare say."

MRS. DALE.--"And she must have saved! I dare say it is nearly L6000 by
this time; eh! Charles dear, you really are so--good gracious, what's
that!"

As Mrs. Dale made this exclamation, they had just emerged from the
shrubbery into the village green.

PARSON.--"What's what?"

MRS. DALE (pinching her husband's arm very nippingly). "That
thing--there--there."

PARSON.--"Only the new stocks, Carry; I don't wonder they frighten you,
for you are a very sensible woman. I only wish they would frighten the
squire."




CHAPTER XIII.

   [Supposed to be a letter from Mrs. Hazeldean to A. Riccabocca, Esq.,
   The Casino; but, edited, and indeed composed, by Miss Jemima
   Hazeldean.]
HAZELDEAN HALL.

DEAR SIR,--To a feeling heart it must always be painful to give pain
to another, and (though I am sure unconsciously) you have given the
greatest pain to poor Mr. Hazeldean and myself, indeed to all our little
circle, in so cruelly refusing our attempts to become better acquainted
with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do, pray, dear sir, make us the
amende honorable, and give us the pleasure of your company for a few
days at the Hall. May we expect you Saturday next?--our dinner hour is
six o'clock.

With the best compliments of Mr. and Miss Jemima Hazeldean, believe me,
my dear sir,

Yours truly, H. H.

Miss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which Mrs. Hazeldean
had very willingly deputed her to write, took it herself into the
stable-yard, in order to give the groom proper instructions to wait for
an answer. But while she was speaking to the man, Frank, equipped for
riding, with more than his usual dandyism, came into the yard, calling
for his pony in a loud voice; and singling out the very groom whom Miss
Jemima was addressing--for, indeed, he was the smartest of all in the
squire's stables--told him to saddle the gray pad and accompany the
pony.

"No, Frank," said Miss Jemima, "you can't have George; your father wants
him to go on a message,--you can take Mat."

"Mat, indeed!" said Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a
surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always
contrived to have a great patch on his boots,--besides, he called Frank
"Master," and obstinately refused to trot down hill,--"Mat, indeed! let
Mat take the message, and George go with me."

But Miss Jemima had also her reasons for rejecting Mat. Mat's foible
was not servility, and he always showed true English independence in all
houses where he was not invited to take his ale in the servants'
hall. Mat might offend Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated
altercation ensued, in the midst of which the squire and his wife
entered the yard, with the intention of driving in the conjugal gig to
the market town. The matter was referred to the natural umpire by both
the contending parties.

The squire looked with great contempt on his son. "And what do you want
a groom at all for? Are you afraid of tumbling off the pony?"

FRANK.--"No, Sir; but I like to go as a gentleman, when I pay a visit to
a gentleman!"

SQUIRE (in high wrath).--"You precious puppy! I think I'm as good a
gentleman as you any day, and I should like to know when you ever saw
me ride to call on a neighbour with a fellow jingling at my heels, like
that upstart Ned Spankie, whose father kept a cotton mill. First time I
ever heard of a Hazeldean thinking a livery coat was necessary to prove
his gentility!"

MRS. HAZELDEAN (observing Frank colouring, and about to reply).--"Hush,
Frank, never answer your father,--and you are going to call on Mr.
Leslie?"

"Yes, ma'am, and I am very much obliged to my father for letting me,"
said Frank, taking the squire's hand.

"Well, but, Frank," continued Mrs. Hazeldean, "I think you heard that
the Leslies were very poor."

FRANK.--"Eh, Mother?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"And would you run the chance of wounding the pride
of a gentleman as well born as yourself by affecting any show of being
richer than he is?"

SQUIRE (with great admiration).--"Harry, I'd give L10 to have said
that!"

FRANK (leaving the squire's hand to take his mother's).--"You're quite
right, Mother; nothing could be more snobbish!"

SQUIRE. "Give us your fist, too, sir; you'll be a chip of the old block,
after all."

Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony.

MRS. HAZELDEAN (to Miss Jemima).--"Is that the note you were to write
for me?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Yes; I supposed you did not care about seeing it, so I
have sealed it, and given it to George."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"But Frank will pass close by the Casino on his way to
the Leslies'. It may be more civil if he leaves the note himself."

MISS JEMIMA (hesitatingly).--"Do you think so?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Yes, certainly. Frank, Frank, as you pass by the
Casino, call on Mr. Riccabocca, give this note, and say we shall be
heartily glad if he will come." Frank nods.

"Stop a bit," cried the squire. "If Rickeybockey is at home, 't is ten
to one if he don't ask you to take a glass of wine! If he does, mind,
't is worse than asking you to take a turn on the rack. Faugh! you
remember, Harry?--I thought it was all up with me."

"Yes," cried Mrs. Hazeldean; "for Heaven's sake not a drop. Wine,
indeed!"

"Don't talk of it," cried the squire, making a wry face.

"I'll take care, Sir!" said Frank, laughing as he disappeared within the
stable, followed by Miss Jemima, who now coaxingly makes it up with him,
and does not leave off her admonitions to be extremely polite to the
poor foreign gentleman till Frank gets his foot into the stirrup, and
the pony, who knows whom he has got to deal with, gives a preparatory
plunge or two, and then darts out of the yard.




BOOK SECOND.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

INFORMING THE READER HOW THIS WORK CAME TO HAVE INITIAL CHAPTERS.

"There can't be a doubt," said my father, "that to each of the main
divisions of your work--whether you call them Books or Parts--you should
prefix an Initial or Introductory Chapter."

PISISTRATUS.--"Can't be a doubt, sir? Why so?"

MR. CAXTON.--"Fielding lays it down as an indispensable rule, which he
supports by his example; and Fielding was an artistical writer, and knew
what he was about."

PISISTRATUS.--"Do you remember any of his reasons, sir?"

MR. CAXTON.--"Why, indeed, Fielding says, very justly, that he is not
bound to assign any reason; but he does assign a good many, here and
there,--to find which I refer you to 'Tom Jones.' I will only observe,
that one of his reasons, which is unanswerable, runs to the effect that
thus, in every Part or Book, the reader has the advantage of beginning
at the fourth or fifth page instead of the first,--'a matter by no means
of trivial consequence,' saith Fielding, 'to persons who read books with
no other view than to say they have read them,--a more general motive to
reading than is commonly imagined; and from which not only law books and
good books, but the pages of Homer and Virgil, Swift and Cervantes, have
been often turned Over.' There," cried my father, triumphantly, "I will
lay a shilling to twopence that I have quoted the very words."

MRS. CANTON.--"Dear me, that only means skipping; I don't see any great
advantage in writing a chapter, merely for people to skip it."

PISISTRATUS.--"Neither do I!"

MR. CANTON (dogmatically).--"It is the repose in the picture,--Fielding
calls it 'contrast.'--(Still more dogmatically.)--I say there can't be a
doubt about it. Besides" added my father after a pause,--"besides, this
usage gives you opportunities to explain what has gone before, or to
prepare for what's coming; or, since Fielding contends, with great
truth, that some learning is necessary for this kind of historical
composition, it allows you, naturally and easily, the introduction
of light and pleasant ornaments of that nature. At each flight in the
terrace you may give the eye the relief of an urn or a statue. Moreover,
when so inclined, you create proper pausing-places for reflection; and
complete by a separate, yet harmonious ethical department, the design of
a work, which is but a mere Mother Goose's tale if it does not embrace a
general view of the thoughts and actions of mankind."

PISISTRATUS.--"But then, in these initial chapters, the author thrusts
himself forward; and just when you want to get on with the dramatis
personae, you find yourself face to face with the poet himself."

MR. CANTON.--"Pooh! you can contrive to prevent that! Imitate the chorus
of the Greek stage, who fill up the intervals between the action by
saying what the author would otherwise say in his own person."

PISISTRATUS (slyly).--"That's a good idea, sir,--and I have a chorus,
and a choregus too, already in my eye."

MR. CANTON (unsuspectingly).--"Aha! you are not so dull a fellow as you
would make yourself out to be; and, even if an author did thrust himself
forward, what objection is there to that? It is a mere affectation to
suppose that a book can come into the world without an author. Every
child has a father,--one father at least,--as the great Conde says very
well in his poem."

PISISTRATUS.--"The great Conde a poet! I never heard that before."

MR. CANTON.--"I don't say he was a poet, but he sent a poem to Madame de
Montansier. Envious critics think that he must have paid somebody else
to write it; but there is no reason why a great captain should not write
a poem,--I don't say a good poem, but a poem. I wonder, Roland, if the
duke ever tried his hand at 'Stanzas to Mary,' or 'Lines to a Sleeping
Babe.'"

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Austin, I'm ashamed of you. Of course the duke could
write poetry if he pleased,--something, I dare say, in the way of the
great Conde; that is, something warlike and heroic, I'll be bound. Let's
hear!"

MR. CAXTON (reciting).--

          "Telle est du Ciel la loi severe
          Qu'il faut qu'un enfant ait un pere;
          On dit meme quelquefois
          Tel enfant en a jusqu'a trois."

          ["That each child has a father
          Is Nature's decree;
          But, to judge by a rumour,
          Some children have three."]

CAPTAIN ROLAND (greatly disgusted).--"Conde write such stuff!--I don't
believe it."

PISISTRATUS.--"I do, and accept the quotations; you and Roland shall be
joint fathers to my child as well as myself.

          "'Tel enfant en a jusqu'a trois.'"

MR. CAXTON (solemnly).--"I refuse the proffered paternity; but so far
as administering a little wholesome castigation now and then, I have no
objection to join in the discharge of a father's duty."

PISISTRATUS.--"Agreed. Have you anything to say against the infant
hitherto?"

MR. CAXTON.--"He is in long clothes at present; let us wait till he can
walk."

BLANCHE.--"But pray whom do you mean for a hero? And is Miss Jemima your
heroine?"

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"There is some mystery about the--"

PISISTRATUS (hastily).-"Hush, Uncle: no letting the cat out of the
bag yet. Listen, all of you! I left Frank Hazeldean on his way to the
Casino."




CHAPTER II.

"It is a sweet pretty place," thought Frank, as he opened the gate which
led across the fields to the Casino, that smiled down upon him with
its plaster pilasters. "I wonder, though, that my father, who is so
particular in general, suffers the carriage-road to be so full of holes
and weeds. Mounseer does not receive many visits, I take it."

But when Frank got into the ground immediately before the house, he saw
no cause of complaint as to want of order and repair. Nothing could be
kept more neatly. Frank was ashamed of the dint made by the pony's hoofs
on the smooth gravel: he dismounted, tied the animal to the wicket, and
went on foot towards the glass door in front.

He rang the bell once, twice, but nobody came, for the old
woman-servant, who was hard of hearing, was far away in the yard,
searching for any eggs which the hen might have scandalously hidden for
culinary purposes; and Jackeymo was fishing for the sticklebacks and
minnows which were, when caught, to assist the eggs, when found, in
keeping together the bodies and souls of himself and his master. The old
woman had been lately put upon board wages. Lucky old woman! Frank rang
a third time, and with the impetuosity of his age. A face peeped from
the belvidere on the terrace. "Diavolo!" said Dr. Riccabocca to himself.
"Young cocks crow hard on their own dunghill; it must be a cock of a
high race to crow so loud at another's."

Therewith he shambled out of the summer-house, and appeared suddenly
before Frank, in a very wizard-like dressing-robe of black serge, a red
cap on his head, and a cloud of smoke coming rapidly from his lips, as a
final consolatory whiff, before he removed the pipe from them. Frank had
indeed seen the doctor before, but never in so scholastic a costume, and
he was a little startled by the apparition at his elbow, as he turned
round.

"Signorino," said the Italian, taking off his cap with his usual
urbanity, "pardon the negligence of my people; I am too happy to receive
your commands in person."

"Dr. Rickeybockey?" stammered Frank, much confused by this polite
address, and the low, yet stately, bow with which it was accompanied.
"I--I have a note from the Hall. Mamma--that is, my mother--and aunt
Jemima beg their best compliments, and hope you will come, sir."

The doctor took the note with another bow, and, opening the glass door,
invited Frank to enter.

The young gentleman, with a schoolboy's usual bluntness, was about to
say that he was in a hurry, and had rather not; but Dr. Riccabocca's
grand manner awed him, while a glimpse of the hall excited his
curiosity, so he silently obeyed the invitation.

The hall, which was of an octagon shape, had been originally panelled
off into compartments, and in these the Italian had painted landscapes,
rich with the warm sunny light of his native climate. Frank was no
judge of the art displayed; but he was greatly struck with the scenes
depicted: they were all views of some lake, real or imaginary; in all,
dark-blue shining waters reflected dark-blue placid skies. In one, a
flight of steps ascended to the lake, and a gay group was seen feasting
on the margin; in another, sunset threw its rose-hues over a vast villa
or palace, backed by Alpine hills, and flanked by long arcades of vines,
while pleasure-boats skimmed over the waves below. In short, throughout
all the eight compartments, the scene, though it differed in details,
preserved the same general character, as if illustrating some favourite
locality. The Italian did not, however, evince any desire to do the
honours of his own art, but, preceding Frank across the hall, opened the
door of his usual sitting-room, and requested him to enter. Frank did so
rather reluctantly, and seated himself with unwonted bashfulness on the
edge of a chair. But here new specimens of the doctor's handicraft soon
riveted attention. The room had been originally papered, but Riccabocca
had stretched canvas over the walls, and painted thereon sundry
satirical devices, each separated from the other by scroll-works of
fantastic arabesques. Here a Cupid was trundling a wheelbarrow full of
hearts, which he appeared to be selling to an ugly old fellow, with a
money-bag in his hand--probably Plutus. There Diogenes might be seen
walking through a market-place, with his lantern in his hand, in search
of an honest man, whilst the children jeered at him, and the curs
snapped at his heels. In another place a lion was seen half dressed in a
fox's hide, while a wolf in a sheep's mask was conversing very amicably
with a young lamb. Here again might be seen the geese stretching out
their necks from the Roman Capitol in full cackle, while the stout
invaders were beheld in the distance, running off as hard as they
could. In short, in all these quaint entablatures some pithy sarcasm was
symbolically conveyed; only over the mantel piece was the design graver
and more touching. It was the figure of a man in a pilgrim's garb,
chained to the earth by small but innumerable ligaments, while a phantom
likeness of himself, his shadow, was seen hastening down what seemed an
interminable vista; and underneath were written the pathetic words of
Horace--

             "Patriae quis exul
             Se quoque fugit?"

     ["What exile from his country can also fly from himself?"]

The furniture of the room was extremely simple, and somewhat scanty;
yet it was arranged so as to impart an air of taste and elegance to the
room. Even a few plaster busts and statues, though bought but of some
humble itinerant, had their classical effect, glistening from out
stands of flowers that were grouped around them, or backed by
graceful screen-works formed from twisted osiers, which, by the simple
contrivance of trays at the bottom filled with earth, served for living
parasitical plants, with gay flowers contrasting thick ivy leaves,
and gave to the whole room the aspect of a bower. "May I ask your
permission?" said the Italian, with his finger on the seal of the
letter.

"Oh, yes," said Frank, with naivete.

Riccabocca broke the seal, and a slight smile stole over his
countenance. Then he turned a little aside from Frank, shaded his face
with his hand, and seemed to muse. "Mrs. Hazeldean," said he, at last,
"does me very great honour. I hardly recognize her handwriting, or I
should have been more impatient to open the letter." The dark eyes were
lifted over the spectacles and went right into Frank's unprotected
and undiplomatic heart. The doctor raised the note, and pointed to the
characters with his forefinger.

"Cousin Jemima's hand," said Frank, as directly as if the question had
been put to him.

The Italian smiled. "Mr. Hazeldean has company staying with him?"

"No; that is, only Barney,--the captain. There's seldom much company
before the shooting season," added Frank, with a slight sigh; "and then,
you know, the holidays are over. For my part, I think we ought to break
up a month later."

The doctor seemed reassured by the first sentence in Frank's reply,
and, seating himself at the table, wrote his answer,--not hastily, as we
English write, but with care and precision, like one accustomed to
weigh the nature of words,--in that stiff Italian hand, which allows
the writer so much time to think while he forms his letters. He did not,
therefore, reply at once to Frank's remark about the holidays, but was
silent till he had concluded his note, read it three times over, sealed
it by the taper he slowly lighted, and then, giving it to Frank, he
said,

"For your sake, young gentleman, I regret that your holidays are so
early; for mine, I must rejoice, since I accept the kind invitation you
have rendered doubly gratifying by bringing it yourself."

"Deuce take the fellow and his fine speeches! One don't know which way
to look," thought English Frank.

The Italian smiled again, as if this time he had read the boy's heart,
without need of those piercing black eyes, and said, less ceremoniously
than before, "You don't care much for compliments, young gentleman?"

"No, I don't indeed," said Frank, heartily.

"So much the better for you, since your way in the world is made: it
would be so much the worse if you had to make it!"

Frank looked puzzled: the thought was too deep for him, so he turned to
the pictures.

"Those are very funny," said he; "they seem capitally done. Who did
'em?"

"Signoriuo Hazeldean, you are giving me what you refused yourself."

"Eh?" said Frank, inquiringly.

"Compliments!"

"Oh--I--no; but they are well done: are n't they, sir?"--

"Not particularly: you speak to the artist."

"What! you painted them?"

"Yes."

"And the pictures in the hall?"

"Those too."

"Taken from nature, eh?"

"Nature," said the Italian, sententiously, perhaps evasively, "lets
nothing be taken from her."

"Oh!" said Frank, puzzled again. "Well, I must wish you good morning,
sir; I am very glad you are coming."

"Without compliment?"

"Without compliment."

"A rivedersi--good-by for the present, my young signorino. This way,"
observing Frank make a bolt towards the wrong door. "Can I offer you a
glass of wine?--it is pure, of our own making."

"No, thank you, indeed, sir," cried Frank, suddenly recollecting his
father's admonition. "Good-by, don't trouble yourself, sir; I know any
way now."

But the bland Italian followed his guest to the wicket, where Frank
had left the pony. The young gentleman, afraid lest so courteous a host
should hold the stirrup for him, twitched off the bridle, and mounted in
haste, not even staying to ask if the Italian could put him in the way
to Rood Hall, of which way he was profoundly ignorant. The Italian's eye
followed the boy as he rode up the ascent in the lane, and the doctor
sighed heavily. "The wiser we grow," said he to himself, "the more we
regret the age of our follies: it is better to gallop with a light heart
up the stony hill than sit in the summer-house and cry 'How true!' to
the stony truths of Machiavelli!"

With that he turned back into the belvidere; but he could not resume
his studies. He remained some minutes gazing on the prospect, till
the prospect reminded him of the fields which Jackeymo was bent on his
hiring, and the fields reminded him of Lenny Fairfield. He returned to
the house, and in a few moments re-emerged in his out-of-door trim, with
cloak and umbrella, re-lighted his pipe, and strolled towards Hazeldean
village.

Meanwhile Frank, after cantering on for some distance, stopped at a
cottage, and there learned that there was a short cut across the fields
to Rood Hall, by which he could save nearly three miles. Frank,
however, missed the short cut, and came out into the high road; a
turnpike-keeper, after first taking his toll, put him back again into
the short cut; and finally, he got into some green lanes, where a
dilapidated finger-post directed him to Rood. Late at noon, having
ridden fifteen miles in the desire to reduce ten to seven, he came
suddenly upon a wild and primitive piece of ground, that seemed half
chase, half common, with crazy tumbledown cottages of villanous aspect
scattered about in odd nooks and corners. Idle, dirty children were
making mud-pies on the road; slovenly-looking women were plaiting straw
at the threshold; a large but forlorn and decayed church, that seemed
to say that the generation which saw it built was more pious than the
generation which now resorted to it, stood boldly and nakedly out by the
roadside.

"Is this the village of Rood?" asked Frank of a stout young man breaking
stones on the road--sad sign that no better labour could be found for
him!

The man sullenly nodded, and continued his work. "And where's the
Hall--Mr. Leslie's?"

The man looked up in stolid surprise, and this time touched his hat.

"Be you going there?"

"Yes, if I can find out where it is."

"I'll show your honour," said the boor, alertly.

Frank reined in the pony, and the man walked by his side. Frank was
much of his father's son, despite the difference of age, and that more
fastidious change of manner which characterizes each succeeding race
in the progress of civilization. Despite all his Eton finery, he was
familiar with peasants, and had the quick eye of one country-born as to
country matters.

"You don't seem very well off in this village, my man?" said he,
knowingly.

"Noa; there be a deal of distress here in the winter time, and summer
too, for that matter; and the parish ben't much help to a single man."

"But surely the farmers want work here as well as elsewhere?"

"'Deed, and there ben't much farming work here,--most o' the parish be
all wild ground loike."

"The poor have a right of common, I suppose," said Frank, surveying a
large assortment of vagabond birds and quadrupeds.

"Yes; neighbour Timmins keeps his geese on the common, and some has
a cow, and them be neighbour Jowlas's pigs. I don't know if there's a
right, loike; but the folks at the Hall does all they can to help us,
and that ben't much: they ben't as rich as some folks; but," added the
peasant, proudly, "they be as good blood as any in the shire."

"I 'm glad to see you like them, at all events."

"Oh, yes, I likes them well eno'; mayhap you are at school with the
young gentleman?"

"Yes," said Frank.

"Ah, I heard the clergyman say as how Master Randal was a mighty clever
lad, and would get rich some day. I 'se sure I wish he would, for a poor
squire makes a poor parish. There's the Hall, sir."




CHAPTER III.

Frank looked right ahead, and saw a square house that, in spite of
modern sash windows, was evidently of remote antiquity. A high conical
roof; a stack of tall quaint chimney-pots of red-baked clay (like
those at Sutton Place in Surrey) dominating over isolated vulgar
smoke-conductors, of the ignoble fashion of present times; a dilapidated
groin-work, encasing within a Tudor arch a door of the comfortable date
of George III., and the peculiarly dingy and weather-stained appearance
of the small finely-finished bricks, of which the habitation was
built,--all showed the abode of former generations adapted with
tasteless irreverence to the habits of descendants unenlightened by
Pugin, or indifferent to the poetry of the past. The house had emerged
suddenly upon Frank out of the gloomy waste land, for it was placed in
a hollow, and sheltered from sight by a disorderly group of ragged,
dismal, valetudinarian fir-trees, until an abrupt turn of the
road cleared that screen, and left the desolate abode bare to the
discontented eye. Frank dismounted; the man held his pony; and after
smoothing his cravat, the smart Etonian sauntered up to the door, and
startled the solitude of the place with a loud peal from the modern
brass knocker,--a knock which instantly brought forth an astonished
starling who had built under the eaves of the gable roof, and called up
a cloud of sparrows, tomtits, and yellow-hammers, who had been regaling
themselves amongst the litter of a slovenly farmyard that lay in full
sight to the right of the house, fenced off by a primitive paintless
wooden rail. In process of time a sow, accompanied by a thriving and
inquisitive family, strolled up to the gate of the fence, and, leaning
her nose on the lower bar of the gate, contemplated the visitor with
much curiosity and some suspicion.

While Frank is still without, impatiently swingeing his white trousers
with his whip, we will steal a hurried glance towards the respective
members of the family within. Mr. Leslie, the paterfamilias, is in a
little room called his "study," to which he regularly retires every
morning after breakfast, rarely reappearing till one o'clock, which is
his unfashionable hour for dinner. In what mysterious occupations
Mr. Leslie passes those hours no one ever formed a conjecture. At the
present moment he is seated before a little rickety bureau, one leg of
which being shorter than the other is propped up by sundry old letters
and scraps of newspapers; and the bureau is open, and reveals a great
number of pigeonholes and divisions, filled with various odds and ends,
the collection of many years. In some of these compartments are bundles
of letters, very yellow, and tied in packets with faded tape; in
another, all by itself, is a fragment of plum-pudding stone, which Mr.
Leslie has picked up in his walks, and considered a rare mineral. It
is neatly labelled, "Found in Hollow Lane, May 21st, 1804, by Maunder
Slugge Leslie, Esq." The next division holds several bits of iron in
the shape of nails, fragments of horse-shoes, etc., which Mr. Leslie
has also met with in his rambles, and, according to a harmless popular
superstition, deemed it highly unlucky not to pick up, and, once picked
up, no less unlucky to throw away. Item, in the adjoining pigeon-hole, a
goodly collection of pebbles with holes in them, preserved for the same
reason, in company with a crooked sixpence; item, neatly arranged in
fanciful mosaics, several periwinkles, Blackamoor's teeth (I mean the
shell so called), and other specimens of the conchiferous ingenuity of
Nature, partly inherited from some ancestral spinster, partly amassed
by Mr. Leslie himself in a youthful excursion to the seaside. There were
the farm-bailiff's accounts, several files of bills, an old stirrup,
three sets of knee and shoe buckles which had belonged to Mr. Leslie's
father, a few seals tied together by a shoe-string, a shagreen toothpick
case, a tortoise shell magnifying-glass to read with, his eldest son's
first copybooks, his second son's ditto, his daughter's ditto, and a
lock of his wife's hair arranged in a true lover's knot, framed and
glazed. There were also a small mousetrap; a patent corkscrew too good
to be used in common; fragments of a silver teaspoon, that had, by
natural decay, arrived at a dissolution of its parts; a small brown
holland bag, containing halfpence of various dates, as far back as Queen
Anne, accompanied by two French sous and a German silber gros,--the
which miscellany Mr. Leslie magniloquently called "his coins," and had
left in his will as a family heirloom. There were many other curiosities
of congenial nature and equal value--quae nunc describere longum est.
Mr. Leslie was engaged at this time in what is termed "putting things
to rights,"--an occupation he performed with exemplary care once a week.
This was his day; and he had just counted his coins, and was slowly
tying them up again in the brown holland bag, when Frank's knock reached
his ears.

Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie paused, shook his head as if incredulously,
and was about to resume his occupation, when he was seized with a fit of
yawning which prevented the bag being tied for full two minutes.

While such the employment of the study, let us turn to the recreations
in the drawing-room, or rather parlour. A drawing-room there was on the
first floor, with a charming look-out, not on the dreary fir-trees, but
on the romantic undulating forest-land; but the drawing-room had not
been used since the death of the last Mrs. Leslie. It was deemed
too good to sit in, except when there was company: there never being
company, it was never sat in. Indeed, now the paper was falling off
the walls with the damp, and the rats, mice, and moths--those "edaces
rerum"--had eaten, between them, most of the chair-bottoms and a
considerable part of the floor. Therefore, the parlour was the sole
general sitting-room; and being breakfasted in, dined, and supped in,
and, after supper, smoked in by Mr. Leslie to the accompaniment of
rum-and-water, it is impossible to deny that it had what is called "a
smell,"--a comfortable, wholesome family smell, speaking of numbers,
meals, and miscellaneous social habitation. There were two windows: one
looked full on the fir-trees; the other on the farmyard, with the pigsty
closing the view. Near the fir-tree window sat Mrs. Leslie; before her,
on a high stool, was a basket of the children's clothes that wanted
mending. A work-table of rosewood inlaid with brass, which had been a
wedding-present, and was a costly thing originally, but in that peculiar
taste which is vulgarly called "Brummagem," stood at hand: the brass
had started in several places, and occasionally made great havoc in
the children's fingers and in Mrs. Leslie's gown; in fact it was the
liveliest piece of furniture in the house, thanks to the petulant
brasswork, and could not have been more mischievous if it had been a
monkey. Upon the work-table lay a housewife and thimble, and scissors,
and skeins of worsted and thread, and little scraps of linen and
cloth for patches. But Mrs. Leslie was not actually working,--she was
preparing to work; she had been preparing to work for the last hour and
a half. Upon her lap she supported a novel, by a lady who wrote much for
a former generation, under the name of "Mrs. Bridget Blue Mantle." She
had a small needle in her left hand, and a very thick piece of thread
in her right; occasionally she applied the end of the said thread to her
lips, and then--her eyes fixed on the novel--made a blind, vacillating
attack at the eye of the needle. But a camel would have gone through it
with quite as much ease. Nor did the novel alone engage Mrs. Leslie's
attention, for ever and anon she interrupted herself to scold the
children, to inquire "what o'clock it was;" to observe that "Sarah
would never suit;" and to wonder "why Mr. Leslie would not see that the
work-table was mended." Mrs. Leslie has been rather a pretty woman. In
spite of a dress at once slatternly and economical, she has still the
air of a lady,--rather too much so, the hard duties of her situation
considered. She is proud of the antiquity of her family on both sides;
her mother was of the venerable stock of the Daudlers of Daudle Place, a
race that existed before the Conquest. Indeed, one has only to read
our earliest chronicles, and to glance over some of those long-winded
moralizing poems which delighted the thanes and ealdermen of old, in
order to see that the Daudles must have been a very influential family
before William the First turned the country topsy-turvy. While the
mother's race was thus indubitably Saxon, the father's had not only
the name but the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the Normans, and went far to
establish that crotchet of the brilliant author of "Sybil; or, The Two
Nations," as to the continued distinction between the conquering
and conquered populations. Mrs. Leslie's father boasted the name of
Montfichet,--doubtless of the same kith and kin as those great barons of
Alontfichet, who once owned such broad lands and such turbulent castles.
A high-nosed, thin, nervous, excitable progeny, those same Montfydgets,
as the most troublesome Norman could pretend to be. This fusion of race
was notable to the most ordinary physiognomist in the physique and
in the morale of Mrs. Leslie. She had the speculative blue eye of the
Saxon, and the passionate high nose of the Norman; she had the musing
do-nothingness of the Daudlers, and the reckless have-at-every-thingness
of the Montfydgets. At Mrs. Leslie's feet, a little girl with her hair
about her ears (and beautiful hair it was too) was amusing herself with
a broken-nosed doll. At the far end of the room, before a high desk,
sat Frank's Eton schoolfellow, the eldest son. A minute or two before
Frank's alarum had disturbed the tranquillity of the household, he had
raised his eyes from the books on the desk to glance at a very tattered
copy of the Greek Testament, in which his brother Oliver had found a
difficulty that he came to Randal to solve. As the young Etonian's face
was turned to the light, your first impression on seeing it would have
been melancholy, but respectful, interest,--for the face had already
lost the joyous character of youth; there was a wrinkle between the
brows; and the lines that speak of fatigue were already visible under
the eyes and about the mouth; the complexion was sallow, the lips were
pale. Years of study had already sown in the delicate organization the
seeds of many an infirmity and many a pain; but if your look had rested
longer on that countenance, gradually your compassion might have given
place to some feeling uneasy and sinister,--a feeling akin to fear.
There was in the whole expression so much of cold calm force, that it
belied the debility of the frame. You saw there the evidence of a mind
that was cultivated, and you felt that in that cultivation there
was something formidable. A notable contrast to this countenance,
prematurely worn and eminently intelligent, was the round healthy face
of Oliver, with slow blue eyes fixed hard on the penetrating orbs of his
brother, as if trying with might and main to catch from them a gleam of
that knowledge with which they shone clear and frigid as a star.

At Frank's knock, Oliver's slow blue eyes sparkled into animation, and
he sprang from his brother's side. The little girl flung back the hair
from her face, and stared at her mother with a look which spoke wonder
and fright.

The young student knit his brows, and then turned wearily back to the
books on his desk.

"Dear me," cried Mrs. Leslie, "who can that possibly be? Oliver, come
from the window, sir, this instant: you will be seen! Juliet, run, ring
the bell; no, go to the head of the kitchen stairs, and call out to
Jenny 'Not at home.' Not at home, on any account," repeated Mrs. Leslie,
nervously, for the Montfydget blood was now in full flow.

In another minute or so, Frank's loud boyish voice was distinctly heard
at the outer door.

Randal slightly started.

"Frank Hazeldean's voice," said he; "I should like to see him, Mother."

"See him," repeated Mrs. Leslie, in amaze; "see him! and the room in
this state!"

Randal might have replied that the room was in no worse state than
usual; but he said nothing. A slight flush came and went over his pale
face; and then he leaned his check on his hand, and compressed his lips
firmly.

The outer door closed with a sullen, inhospitable jar, and a slip-shod
female servant entered with a card between her finger and thumb.

"Who is that for?--give it to me. Jenny," cried Mrs. Leslie.

But Jenny shook her head, laid the card on the desk beside Randal, and
vanished without saying a word.

"Oh, look, Randal, look up," cried Oliver, who had again rushed to the
window; "such a pretty gray pony!"

Randal did look up; nay, he went deliberately to the window, and gazed a
moment on the high-mettled pony and the well-dressed, spirited rider. In
that moment changes passed over Randal's countenance more rapidly than
clouds over the sky in a gusty day. Now envy and discontent, with the
curled lip and the gloomy scowl; now hope and proud self-esteem, with
the clearing brow and the lofty smile; and then again all became
cold, firm, and close, as he walked back to his books, seated himself
resolutely, and said, half aloud,--"Well, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!"




CHAPTER IV.

Mrs. Leslie came up in fidget and in fuss; she leaned over Randal's
shoulder and read the card. Written in pen and ink, with an attempt at
imitation of printed Roman character, there appeared first "MR. FRANK
HAZELDEAN;" but just over these letters, and scribbled hastily and less
legibly in pencil, was,--

"DEAR LESLIE,--Sorry you were out; come and see us,--do!"

"You will go, Randal?" said Mrs. Leslie, after a pause.

"I am not sure."

"Yes, you can go; you have clothes like a gentleman; you can go
anywhere, not like those children;" and Mrs. Leslie glanced almost
spitefully at poor Oliver's coarse threadbare jacket, and little
Juliet's torn frock.

"What I have I owe at present to Mr. Egerton, and I should consult his
wishes; he is not on good terms with these Hazeldeans." Then turning
towards his brother, who looked mortified, he added, with a strange sort
of haughty kindness, "What I may have hereafter, Oliver, I shall owe to
myself; and then if I rise, I will raise my family."

"Dear Randal," said Mrs. Leslie, fondly kissing him on the forehead,
"what a good heart you have!"

"No, Mother; my books don't tell me that it is a good heart that gets
on in the world: it is a hard head," replied Randal, with a rude and
scornful candour. "But I can read no more just now: come out, Oliver."

So saying, he slid from his mother's hand and left the room. When Oliver
joined him, Randal was already on the common; and, without seeming to
notice his brother, he continued to walk quickly, and with long strides,
in profound silence. At length he paused under the shade of an old oak,
that, too old to be of value save for firewood, had escaped the axe.
The tree stood on a knoll, and the spot commanded a view of the decayed
house, the dilapidated church, the dreary village.

"Oliver," said Randal, between his teeth, so that his voice had the
sound of a hiss, "it was under this tree that I first resolved to--"

He paused.

"What, Randal?"

"Read hard: knowledge is power!"

"But you are so fond of reading."

"I!" cried Randal. "Do you think, when Wolsey and Thomas-a-Becket became
priests, they were fond of telling their beads and pattering Aves? I
fond of reading!"

Oliver stared; the historical allusions were beyond his comprehension.

"You know," continued Randal, "that we Leslies were not always the
beggarly poor gentlemen we are now. You know that there is a man who
lives in Grosvenor Square, and is very rich,--very. His riches come to
him from a Leslie; that man is my patron, Oliver, and he--is very good
to me."

Randal's smile was withering as he spoke. "Come on," he said, after
a pause,--"come on." Again the walk was quick, and the brothers were
silent.

They came at length to a little shallow brook, across which some large
stones had been placed at short intervals, so that the boys walked over
the ford dryshod. "Will you pull down that bough, Oliver?" said Randal,
abruptly, pointing to a tree. Oliver obeyed mechanically; and Randal,
stripping the leaves and snapping off the twigs, left a fork at the end;
with this he began to remove the stepping-stones.

"What are you about, Randal?" asked Oliver, wonderingly.

"We are on the other side of the brook now, and we shall not come back
this way. We don't want the stepping-stones any more!--away with them!"




CHAPTER V.

The morning after this visit of Frank Hazeldean's to Rood Hall, the
Right Honourable Audley Egerton, member of parliament, privy councillor,
and minister of a high department in the State,--just below the rank of
the cabinet,--was seated in his library, awaiting the delivery of the
post, before he walked down to his office. In the mean while he
sipped his tea, and glanced over the newspapers with that quick and
half-disdainful eye with which your practical man in public life is wont
to regard the abuse or the eulogium of the Fourth Estate.

There is very little likeness between Mr. Egerton and his half-brother;
none, indeed, except that they are both of tall stature, and strong,
sinewy, English build. But even in this last they do not resemble each
other; for the squire's athletic shape is already beginning to expand
into that portly embonpoint which seems the natural development of
contented men as they approach middle life. Audley, on the contrary, is
inclined to be spare; and his figure, though the muscles are as firm
as iron, has enough of the slender to satisfy metropolitan ideas of
elegance. His dress, his look, his tout ensemble, are those of the
London man. In the first, there is more attention to fashion than is
usual amongst the busy members of the House of Commons; but then Audley
Egerton has always been something more than a mere busy member of
the House of Commons. He has always been a person of mark in the
best society; and one secret of his success in life has been his high
reputation as "a gentleman."

As he now bends over the journals, there is an air of distinction in the
turn of the well-shaped head, with the dark brown hair,--dark in spite
of a reddish tinge,--cut close behind, and worn away a little towards
the crown, so as to give an additional height to a commanding forehead.
His profile is very handsome, and of that kind of beauty which imposes
on men if it pleases women; and is, therefore, unlike that of your mere
pretty fellows, a positive advantage in public life. It is a profile
with large features clearly cut, masculine, and somewhat severe. The
expression of his face is not open, like the squire's, nor has it the
cold closeness which accompanies the intellectual character of
young Leslie's; but it is reserved and dignified, and significant of
self-control, as should be the physiognomy of a man accustomed to think
before he speaks. When you look at him, you are not surprised to learn
that he is not a florid orator nor a smart debater,--he is a "weighty
speaker." He is fairly read, but without any great range either of
ornamental scholarship or constitutional lore. He has not much humour;
but he has that kind of wit which is essential to grave and serious
irony. He has not much imagination, nor remarkable subtlety in
reasoning; but if he does not dazzle he does not bore,--he is too much
of the man of the world for that. He is considered to have sound sense
and accurate judgment. Withal, as he now lays aside the journals, and
his face relaxes its austerer lines, you will not be astonished to hear
that he is a man who is said to have been greatly beloved by women,
and still to exercise much influence in drawing-rooms and boudoirs. At
least, no one was surprised when the great heiress, Clementina Leslie,
kinswoman and ward to Lord Lansmere,--a young lady who had refused three
earls and the heir apparent to a dukedom,--was declared by her dearest
friends to be dying of love for Audley Egerton. It had been the natural
wish of the Lansmeres that this lady should marry their son, Lord
L'Estrange. But that young gentleman, whose opinions on matrimony
partook of the eccentricity of his general character, could never be
induced to propose, and had, according to the on-dits of town, been the
principal party to make up the match between Clementina and his friend
Audley; for the match required making-up, despite the predilections of
the young heiress. Mr. Egerton had had scruples of delicacy. He avowed,
for the first time, that his fortune was much less than had been
generally supposed, and he did not like the idea of owing all to a wife,
however highly be might esteem and admire her. Now, Lord L'Estrange (not
long after the election at Lansmere, which had given to Audley his first
seat in parliament) had suddenly exchanged from the battalion of the
Guards to which he belonged, and which was detained at home, into a
cavalry regiment on active service in the Peninsula. Nevertheless, even
abroad, and amidst the distractions of war, his interest in all that
could forward Egerton's career was unabated; and by letters to his
father and to his cousin Clementina, he assisted in the negotiations for
the marriage between Miss Leslie and his friend; and before the year in
which Audley was returned for Lansmere had expired, the young senator
received the hand of the great heiress. The settlement of her fortune,
which was chiefly in the Funds, had been unusually advantageous to the
husband; for though the capital was tied up so long as both survived,
for the benefit of any children they might have, yet in the event of
one of the parties dying without issue by the marriage, the whole
passed without limitation to the survivor. Miss Leslie, in spite of all
remonstrance from her own legal adviser, had settled this clause with
Egerton's confidential solicitor, one Mr. Levy, of whom we shall see
more hereafter; and Egerton was to be kept in ignorance of it till after
the marriage. If in this Miss Leslie showed a generous trust in Mr.
Egerton, she still inflicted no positive wrong on her relations, for
she had none sufficiently near to her to warrant their claim to the
succession. Her nearest kinsman, and therefore her natural heir, was
Harley L'Estrange; and if he was contented, no one had a right to
complain. The tie of blood between herself and the Leslies of Rood Hall
was, as we shall see presently, extremely distant.

It was not till after his marriage that Mr. Egerton took an active
part in the business of the House of Commons. He was then at the most
advantageous starting-point for the career of ambition. His words on the
state of the country took importance from his stake in it. His talents
found accessories in the opulence of Grosvenor Square, the dignity of
a princely establishment, the respectability of one firmly settled in
life, the reputation of a fortune in reality very large, and which
was magnified by popular report into the revenues of a Croesus. Audley
Egerton succeeded in parliament beyond the early expectations formed
of him. He took, from the first, that station in the House which it
requires tact to establish, and great knowledge of the world to free
from the charge of impracticability and crotchet, but which, once
established, is peculiarly imposing from the rarity of its independence;
that is to say, the station of the moderate man who belongs sufficiently
to a party to obtain its support, but is yet sufficiently disengaged
from a party to make his vote and word, on certain questions, matter of
anxiety and speculation.

Professing Toryism (the word Conservative, which would have suited
him better, was not then known), he separated himself from the country
party, and always avowed great respect for the opinions of the
large towns. The epithet given to the views of Audley Egerton was
"enlightened." Never too much in advance of the passion of the day, yet
never behind its movement, he had that shrewd calculation of odds
which a consummate mastery of the world sometimes bestows upon
politicians,--perceived the chances for and against a certain question
being carried within a certain time, and nicked the question between
wind and water. He was so good a barometer of that changeful weather
called Public Opinion, that he might have had a hand in the "Times"
newspaper. He soon quarrelled, and purposely, with his Lansmere
constituents; nor had he ever revisited that borough,--perhaps because
it was associated with unpleasant reminiscences in the shape of the
squire's epistolary trimmer, and in that of his own effigies which
his agricultural constituents had burned in the corn-market. But the
speeches that produced such indignation at Lansmere had delighted one of
the greatest of our commercial towns, which at the next general election
honoured him with its representation. In those days, before the Reform
Bill, great commercial towns chose men of high mark for their member;
and a proud station it was for him who was delegated to speak the voice
of the princely merchants of England.

Mrs. Egerton survived her marriage but a few years. She left no
children; two had been born, but died in their first infancy. The
property of the wife, therefore, passed without control or limit to the
husband.

Whatever might have been the grief of the widower, he disdained to
betray it to the world. Indeed, Audley Egerton was a man who had early
taught himself to conceal emotion. He buried himself in the country,
none knew where, for some months. When he returned, there was a deep
wrinkle on his brow,--but no change in his habits and avocations, except
that, shortly afterwards, he accepted office, and thus became more busy
than ever.

Mr. Egerton had always been lavish and magnificent in money spatters.
A rich man in public life has many claims on his fortune, and no one
yielded to those claims with in air so regal as Audley Egerton. But
amongst his many liberal actions, there was none which seemed more
worthy of panegyric than the generous favour he extended to the son of
his wife's poor and distant kinsfolk, the Leslies of Rood Hall.

Some four generations back, there had lived a certain Squire Leslie, a
man of large acres and active mind. He had cause to be displeased with
his elder son, and though he did not disinherit him, he left half his
property to a younger.

The younger had capacity and spirit, which justified the parental
provision. He increased his fortune; lifted himself into notice and
consideration by public services and a noble alliance. His descendants
followed his example, and took rank among the first commoners
in England, till the last male, dying, left his sole heiress and
representative in one daughter, Clementina, afterwards married to Mr.
Egerton.

Meanwhile the elder son of the fore-mentioned squire had muddled and
sotted away much of his share in the Leslie property; and, by low habits
and mean society, lowered in repute his representation of the name.

His successors imitated him, till nothing was left to Randal's father,
Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie, but the decayed house, which was what the
Germans call the stamm schloss, or "stem hall," of the race, and the
wretched lands immediately around it.

Still, though all intercourse between the two branches of the family had
ceased, the younger had always felt a respect for the elder, as the head
of the House. And it was supposed that, on her death-bed, Mrs. Egerton
had recommended her impoverished namesakes and kindred to the care of
her husband; for when he returned to town, after Mrs. Egerton's death,
Audley had sent to Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie the sum of L5000, which
he said his wife, leaving no written will, had orally bequeathed as a
legacy to that gentleman; and he requested permission to charge himself
with the education of the eldest son.

Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie might have done great things for his little
property with those L5000, or even kept in the three-per-cents the
interest would have afforded a material addition to his comforts. But
a neighbouring solicitor, having caught scent of the legacy, hunted
it down into his own hands, on pretence of having found a capital
investment in a canal; and when the solicitor had got possession of the
L5000, he went off with them to America.

Meanwhile Randal, placed by Mr. Egerton at an excellent preparatory
school, at first gave no signs of industry or talent; but just before
he left it, there came to the school, as classical tutor, an ambitious
young Oxford man; and his zeal--for he was a capital teacher--produced
a great effect generally on the pupils, and especially on Randal Leslie.
He talked to them much in private on the advantages of learning, and
shortly afterwards he exhibited those advantages in his own person; for,
having edited a Greek play with much subtle scholarship, his college,
which some slight irregularities of his had displeased, recalled him to
its venerable bosom by the presentation of a fellowship. After this he
took orders, became a college tutor, distinguished himself yet more by
a treatise on the Greek accent, got a capital living, and was considered
on the high road to a bishopric. This young man, then, communicated to
Randal the thirst for knowledge; and when the boy went afterwards to
Eton, he applied with such earnestness and resolve that his fame soon
reached the ears of Audley; and that person, who had the sympathy for
talent, and yet more for purpose, which often characterizes ambitious
men, went to Eton to see him. From that time Audley evinced great and
almost fatherly interest in the brilliant Etonian; and Randal always
spent with him some days in each vacation.

I have said that Egerton's conduct with respect to this boy was more
praiseworthy than most of those generous actions for which he was
renowned, since to this the world gave no applause. What a man does
within the range of his family connections does not carry with it that
eclat which invests a munificence exhibited on public occasions. Either
people care nothing about it, or tacitly suppose it to be but his duty.
It was true, too, as the squire had observed, that Randal Leslie was
even less distantly related to the Hazeldeans than to Mrs. Egerton,
since Randal's grandfather had actually married a Miss Hazeldean (the
highest worldly connection that branch of the family had formed since
the great split I have commemorated). But Audley Egerton never appeared
aware of that fact. As he was not himself descended from the Hazeldeans,
he did not trouble himself about their genealogy; and he took care to
impress it upon the Leslies that his generosity on their behalf was
solely to be ascribed to his respect for his wife's memory and kindred.
Still the squire had felt as if his "distant brother" implied a rebuke
on his own neglect of these poor Leslies, by the liberality Audley
evinced towards them; and this had made him doubly sore when the name of
Randal Leslie was mentioned. But the fact really was, that the Leslies
of Rood had so shrunk out of all notice that the squire had actually
forgotten their existence, until Randal became thus indebted to his
brother; and then he felt a pang of remorse that any one save himself,
the head of the Hazeldeans, should lend a helping hand to the grandson
of a Hazeldean.

But having thus, somewhat too tediously, explained the position of
Audley Egerton, whether in the world or in relation to his young
protege, I may now permit him to receive and to read his letters.




CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Egerton glanced over the pile of letters placed beside him,
and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and threw them into the
waste-basket. Public men have such odd, out-of-the-way letters, that
their waste-baskets are never empty,--letters from amateur financiers
proposing new ways to pay off the National Debt; letters from America
(never free!) asking for autographs; letters from fond mothers in
country villages, recommending some miracle of a son for a place in
the king's service; letters from free-thinkers in reproof of bigotry;
letters from bigots in reproof of free-thinking; letters signed Brutus
Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the writer has a
dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are not forthwith adjusted;
letters signed Matilda or Caroline, stating that Caroline or Matilda
has seen the public man's portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart
sensible to its attractions may be found at No. -- Piccadilly; letters
from beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers,--all food
for the waste-basket.

From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr. Egerton first selected those
on business, which he put methodically together in one division of
his pocket-book; and secondly, those of a private nature, which he as
carefully put into another. Of these last there were but three,--one
from his steward, one from Harley L'Estrange, one from Randal Leslie.
It was his custom to answer his correspondence at his office; and to
his office, a few minutes afterwards, he slowly took his way. Many a
passenger turned back to look again at the firm figure, which, despite
the hot summer day, was buttoned up to the throat; and the black
frock-coat thus worn well became the erect air and the deep, full chest
of the handsome senator. When he entered Parliament Street, Audley
Egerton was joined by one of his colleagues, also on his way to the
cares of office.

After a few observations on the last debate this gentleman said,--

"By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to meet Lansmere? He
comes up to town to vote for us on Monday."

"I had asked some people to dine with me," answered Egerton, "but I will
put them off. I see Lord Lansmere too seldom to miss any occasion to
meet a man whom I respect so much."

"So seldom! True, he is very little in town; but why don't you go and
see him in the country? Good shooting,--pleasant, old-fashioned house."

"My dear Westbourne, his house is 'nimium vicina Cremonae,' close to a
borough in which I have been burned in effigy."

"Ha! ha! yes, I remember you first came into parliament for that snug
little place; but Lansmere himself never found fault with your votes,
did he?"

"He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not presumed to consider me
his mouthpiece; and then, too, I am so intimate with L'Estrange."

"Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England?"

"He comes, generally, every year, for a few days, just to see his father
and mother, and then returns to the Continent."

"I never meet him."

"He comes in September or October, when you, of course, are not in town,
and it is in town that the Lansmeres meet him."

"Why does he not go to them?"

"A man in England but once a year, and for a few days, has so much to do
in London, I suppose."

"Is he as amusing as ever?" Egerton nodded.

"So distinguished as he might be!" remarked Lord Westbourne.

"So distinguished as he is!" said Egerton, formally; "an officer
selected for praise, even in such fields as Quatre Bras and Waterloo;
a scholar, too, of the finest taste; and as an accomplished gentleman
matchless!"

"I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in these ill-natured
days," answered Lord Westbourne. "But still, though L'Estrange is
doubtless all you say, don't you think he rather wastes his life living
abroad?"

"And trying to be happy, Westbourne? Are you sure it is not we who waste
our lives? But I can't stay to hear your answer. Here we are at the door
of my prison."

"On Saturday, then?"

"On Saturday. Good day."

For the next hour or more, Mr. Egerton was engaged on the affairs of the
State. He then snatched an interval of leisure (while awaiting a report,
which he had instructed a clerk to make him), in order to reply to his
letters. Those on public business were soon despatched; and throwing
his replies aside to be sealed by a subordinate hand, he drew out the
letters which he had put apart as private.

He attended first to that of his steward: the steward's letter was long,
the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt himself was scarcely more
negligent of his private interests and concerns than Audley Egerton;
yet, withal, Audley Egerton was said by his enemies to be an egotist.

The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that, though longer, was far
from prolix: it ran thus:--

   DEAR MR. LESLIE,--I appreciate your delicacy in consulting me
   whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean's invitation to call at
   the Hall. Since you are asked, I can see no objection to it. I
   should be sorry if you appeared to force yourself there; and for the
   rest, as a general rule, I think a young man who has his own way to
   make in life had better avoid all intimacy with those of his own age
   who have no kindred objects nor congenial pursuits.

   As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to London. The
   report I receive of your progress at Eton renders it unnecessary, in
   my judgment, that you should return there. If your father has no
   objection, I propose that you should go to Oxford at the ensuing
   term. Meanwhile, I have engaged a gentleman, who is a fellow of
   Balliol, to read with you. He is of opinion, judging only by your
   high repute at Eton, that you may at once obtain a scholarship in
   that college. If you do so, I shall look upon your career in life
   as assured.

   Your affectionate friend, and sincere well-wisher, A. E.

The reader will remark that in this letter there is a certain tone of
formality. Mr. Egerton does not call his protege "Dear Randal," as would
seem natural, but coldly and stiffly, "Dear Mr. Leslie." He hints, also,
that the boy has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to guard
against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which his generosity may
have excited? The letter to Lord L'Estrange was of a very different kind
from the others. It was long, and full of such little scraps of news and
gossip as may interest friends in a foreign land; it was written gayly,
and as with a wish to cheer his friend; you could see that it was a
reply to a melancholy letter; and in the whole tone and spirit there was
an affection, even to tenderness, of which those who most liked Audley
Egerton would have scarcely supposed him capable. Yet, notwithstanding,
there was a kind of constraint in the letter, which perhaps only the
fine tact of a woman would detect. It had not that abandon, that hearty
self-outpouring, which you might expect would characterize the letters
of two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and which
did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sentences of his
correspondent. But where was the evidence of the constraint? Egerton is
off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate
to others; it is simply that he says nothing about himself,--that he
avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and feeling! But
perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling! How can you
expect that a steady personage in practical life, whose mornings are
spent in Downing Street, and whose nights are consumed in watching
Government bills through a committee, can write in the same style as an
idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna, or on the banks of Como?

Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, when the
attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a deputation from
a provincial trading town, the members of which deputation he had
appointed to meet at two o'clock. There was no office in London at which
deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which Mr. Egerton
presided.

The deputation entered,--some score or so of middle-aged,
comfortable-looking persons, who, nevertheless, had their grievance, and
considered their own interest, and those of the country, menaced by a
certain clause in a bill brought in by Mr. Egerton.

The mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and he spoke well,--but
in a style to which the dignified official was not accustomed. It was a
slap-dash style,--unceremonious, free and easy,--an American style. And,
indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance and bearing of
the mayor which savoured of residence in the Great Republic. He was a
very handsome man, but with a look sharp and domineering,--the look of
a man who did not care a straw for president or monarch, and who enjoyed
the liberty to speak his mind and "wallop his own nigger!"

His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great respect; and Mr.
Egerton had penetration enough to perceive that Mr. Mayor must be a rich
man, as well as an eloquent one, to have overcome those impressions
of soreness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to create in the
self-love of his equals.

Mr. Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by mere manner;
and though he stared somewhat haughtily when he found his observations
actually pooh-poohed, he was not above being convinced. There was much
sense and much justice in Mr. Mayor's arguments, and the statesman
civilly promised to take them into full consideration.

He then bowed out the deputation; but scarcely had the door closed
before it opened again, and Mr. Mayor presented himself alone, saying
aloud to his companions in the passage, "I forgot something I had to say
to Mr. Egerton; wait below for me."

"Well, Mr. Mayor," said Audley, pointing to a seat, "what else would you
suggest?"

The mayor looked round to see that the door was closed; and then,
drawing his chair close to Mr. Egerton's, laid his forefinger on that
gentleman's arm, and said, "I think I speak to a man of the world, sir?"

Mr. Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but he gently removed his
arm from the touch of the forefinger.

MR. MAYOR.--"You observe, sir, that I did not ask the members whom we
return to parliament to accompany us. Do better without 'em. You know
they are both in Opposition,--out-and-outers."

MR. EGERTON.--"It is a misfortune which the Government cannot remember
when the question is whether the trade of the town itself is to be
served or injured."

MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to
have two members to support ministers after the next election."

MR. EGERTON (smiling).--"Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor."

MR. MAYOR.--"And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have the town in
my pocket; so I ought,--I spend a great deal of money in it. Now,
you see, Mr. Egerton, I have passed a part of my life in a land of
liberty--the United States--and I come to the point when I speak to a
man of the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir. And so, if the
Government will do something for me, why, I'll do something for the
Government. Two votes for a free and independent town like ours,--that's
something, isn't it?"

MR. EGERTON (taken by surprise).--"Really, I--"

MR. MAYOR (advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the
official).--"No nonsense, you see, on one side or the other. The fact
is, that I've taken it into my head that I should like to be knighted.
You may well look surprised, Mr. Egerton,--trumpery thing enough, I
dare say; still, every man has his weakness, and I should like to be
Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you may just name
your two members for the next election,--that is, if they belong to
your own set, enlightened men, up to the times. That's speaking fair and
manful, is n't it?"

MR. EGERTON (drawing himself up).--"I am at a loss to guess why you
should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition."

MR. MAYOR (nodding good-humouredly).--"Why, you see, I don't go along
with the Government; you're the best of the bunch. And may be you'd
like to strengthen your own party. This is quite between you and me, you
understand; honour's a jewel!"

MR. EGERTON (with great gravity).--"Sir, I am obliged by your good
opinion; but I agree with my colleagues in all the great questions that
affect the government of the country, and--"

MR. MAYOR (interrupting him).--"Ah, of course, you must say so; very
right. But I guess things would go differently if you were Prime
Minister. However, I have another reason for speaking to you about my
little job. You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you
only came in by a majority of two, eh?"

MR. EGERTON.--"I know nothing of the particulars of that election; I was
not present."

MR. MAYOR.--"No; but luckily for you, two relations of mine were, and
they voted for you. Two votes, and you came in by two. Since then, you
have got into very snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on
you--"

MR. EGERTON.--"Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I was and am a stranger
to Lansmere; and if the electors did me the honour to return me to
parliament, it was in compliment rather to--"

MR. MAYOR (again interrupting the official).--"Rather to Lord Lansmere,
you were going to say; unconstitutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of
the realm. But never mind, I know the world; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere
to do my affair for me, only he is a pompous sort of man; might be
qualmish: antiquated notions. Not up to snuff like you and me."

MR. EGERTON (in great disgust, and settling his papers before
him).--"Sir, it is not in my department to recommend to his Majesty
candidates for the honour of knighthood, and it is still less in my
department to make bargains for seats in parliament."

MR. MAYOR.--"Oh, if that's the case, you'll excuse me; I don't know much
of the etiquette in these matters. But I thought that if I put two
seats in your hands for your own friends, you might contrive to take
the affair into your department, whatever it was. But since you say you
agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. Now, you
must not suppose I want to sell the town, and that I can change and chop
my politics for my own purpose. No such thing! I don't like the sitting
members; I'm all for progressing, but they go too much ahead for me;
and since the Government is disposed to move a little, why, I'd as
lief support them as not. But, in common gratitude, you see," added the
mayor, coaxingly, "I ought to be knighted! I can keep up the dignity,
and do credit to his Majesty."

MR. EGERTON (without looking up from his papers).--"I can only refer
you, sir, to the proper quarter."

MR. MAYOR (impatiently).--"Proper quarter! Well, since there is so much
humbug in this old country of ours, that one must go through all the
forms and get at the job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to."

MR. EGERTON (beginning to be amused as well as indignant).--"If you want
a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you must ask the Prime Minister; if you want
to give the Government information relative to seats in parliament, you
must introduce yourself to Mr. ------, the Secretary of the Treasury."

MR. MAYOR.--"And if I go to the last chap, what do you think he'll say?"

MR. EGERTON (the amusement preponderating over the indignation).--"He
will say, I suppose, that you must not put the thing in the light in
which you have put it to me; that the Government will be very proud to
have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a
gentleman like you, in the proud position of mayor, may well hope to be
knighted on some fitting occasion; but that you must not talk about the
knighthood just at present, and must confine yourself to converting the
unfortunate political opinions of the town."

MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess that chap there would want to do me! Not
quite so green, Mr. Egerton. Perhaps I'd better go at once to the
fountain-head. How d' ye think the Premier would take it?"

MR. EGERTON (the indignation preponderating over the
amusement).--"Probably just as I am about to do."

Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared. "Show Mr. Mayor the
way out," said the minister.

The mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked
straight to the door; but suffering the attendant to precede him along
the corridor, he came back with a rapid stride, and clenching his hands,
and with a voice thick with passion, cried, "Some day or other I will
make you smart for this, as sure as my name's Dick Avenel!"

"Avenel!" repeated Egerton, recoiling,--"Avenel!" But the mayor was
gone.

Audley fell into a deep and musing revery, which seemed gloomy, and
lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door.

He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley
L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it towards him, and wrote, "A man
has just left me, who calls himself Aven--" In the middle of the name
his pen stopped. "No, no," muttered the writer, "what folly to reopen
the old wounds there!" and he carefully erased the words.

Audley Egerton did not ride in the Park that day, as was his wont, but
dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse's head towards Westminster
Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly,
as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He
was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and
fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well.




CHAPTER VII.

In spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled
in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though
he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to
her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would
learn to be fit for more than a day-labourer; he would learn gardening,
in all its branches,--rise some day to be a head gardener. "And,"
said Riccabocca, "I will take care of his book-learning, and teach him
whatever he has a head for."

"He has a head for everything," said the widow.

"Then," said the wise man, "everything shall go into it." The widow was
certainly dazzled; for, as we have seen, she highly prized scholarly
distinction, and she knew that the parson looked upon Riccabocca as a
wondrous learned man. But still Riccabocca was said to be a Papist,
and suspected to be a conjuror. Her scruples on both these points, the
Italian, who was an adept in the art of talking over the fair sex, would
no doubt have dissipated, if there had been any use in it; but Lenny
put a dead stop to all negotiations. He had taken a mortal dislike to
Riccabocca: he was very much frightened by him,--and the spectacles,
the pipe, the cloak, the long hair, and the red umbrella; and said so
sturdily, in reply to every overture, "Please, sir, I'd rather not; I'd
rather stay along with Mother," that Riccabocca was forced to suspend
all further experiments in his Machiavellian diplomacy. He was not at
all cast down, however, by his first failure; on the contrary, he was
one of those men whom opposition stimulates; and what before had been
but a suggestion of prudence, became an object of desire. Plenty
of other lads might no doubt be had on as reasonable terms as Lenny
Fairfield; but the moment Lenny presumed to baffle the Italian's
designs upon him, the special acquisition, of Lenny became of paramount
importance in the eyes of Signor Riccabocca.

Jackeymo, however, lost all his interest in the traps, snares, and gins
which his master proposed to lay for Leonard Fairfield, in the more
immediate surprise that awaited him on learning that Dr. Riccabocca had
accepted an invitation to pass a few days at the Hall.

"There will be no one there but the family," said Riccabocca. "Poor
Giacomo, a little chat in the servants' hall will do you good; and the
squire's beef is more nourishing, after all, than the sticklebacks and
minnows. It will lengthen your life."

"The padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily; "as if any one could
starve in his service."

"Um," said Riccabocca. "At least, faithful friend, you have tried that
experiment as far as human nature will permit;" and he extended his hand
to his fellow-exile with that familiarity which exists between servant
and master in the usages of the Continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a tear
fell upon the hand he kissed.

"Cospetto!" said Dr. Riccabocca, "a thousand mock pearls do not make up
the cost of a single true one! The tears of women--we know their worth;
but the tears of an honest man--Fie, Giacomo!--at least I can never
repay you this! Go and see to our wardrobe."

So far as his master's wardrobe was concerned, that order was pleasing
to Jackeymo; for the doctor had in his drawers suits which Jackeymo
pronounced to be as good as new, though many a long year had passed
since they left the tailor's hands. But when Jackeymo came to examine
the state of his own clothing department, his face grew considerably
longer. It was not that he was without other clothes than those on his
back,--quantity was there, but the quality! Mournfully he gazed on two
suits, complete in three separate members of which man's raiments are
composed: the one suit extended at length upon his bed, like a veteran
stretched by pious hands after death; the other brought piecemeal to the
invidious light,--the torso placed upon a chair, the limbs dangling down
from Jackeymo's melancholy arm. No bodies long exposed at the Morgue
could evince less sign of resuscitation than those respectable defuncts!
For, indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his apparel, more
profusus sui, than his master. In the earliest days of their exile, he
preserved the decorous habit of dressing for dinner,--it was a respect
due to the padrone,--and that habit had lasted till the two habits on
which it necessarily depended had evinced the first symptoms of decay;
then the evening clothes had been taken into morning wear, in which hard
service they had breathed their last.

The doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical abstraction from
such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to
Jackeymo than with an eye to that respectability which the costume
of the servant reflects on the dignity of the master, "Giacomo, thou
wantest clothes; fit thyself out of mine!"

And Jackeymo had bowed his gratitude, as if the donation had been
accepted; but the fact was that that same fitting out was easier said
than done. For though-thanks to an existence mainly upon sticklebacks
and minnows--both Jackeymo and Riccabocca had arrived at that state
which the longevity of misers proves to be most healthful to the human
frame,--namely, skin and bone,--yet the bones contained in the skin of
Riccabocca all took longitudinal directions; while those in the skin of
Jackeymo spread out latitudinally. And you might as well have made
the bark of a Lombardy poplar serve for the trunk of some dwarfed and
pollarded oak--in whose hollow the Babes of the Wood could have slept
at their ease--as have fitted out Jackeymo from the garb of Riccabocca.
Moreover, if the skill of the tailor could have accomplished that
undertaking, the faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart
to avail himself of the generosity of his master. He had a sort of
religious sentiment, too, about those vestments of the padrone. The
ancients, we know, when escaping from shipwreck, suspended in the
votive temple the garments in which they had struggled through the wave.
Jackeymo looked on those relics of the past with a kindred superstition.
"This coat the padrone wore on such an occasion. I remember the
very evening the padrone last put on those pantaloons!" And coat and
pantaloons were tenderly dusted, and carefully restored to their sacred
rest.

But now, after all, what was to be done? Jackeymo was much too proud
to exhibit his person to the eyes of the squire's butler in habiliments
discreditable to himself and the padrone. In the midst of his perplexity
the bell rang, and he went down into the parlour.

Riccabocca was standing on the hearth under his symbolical
representation of the "Patriae Exul."

"Giacomo," quoth he, "I have been thinking that thou hast never done
what I told thee, and fitted thyself out from my superfluities. But we
are going now into the great world: visiting once begun, Heaven knows
where it may stop. Go to the nearest town and get thyself clothes.
Things are dear in England. Will this suffice?" And Riccabocca extended
a five-pound note.

Jackeymo, we have seen, was more familiar with his master than we formal
English permit our domestics to be with us; but in his familiarity he
was usually respectful. This time, however, respect deserted him.

"The padrone is mad!" he exclaimed; "he would fling away his whole
fortune if I would let him. Five pounds English, or a hundred and
twenty-six pounds Milanese! Santa Maria! unnatural father! And what is
to become of the poor signorina? Is this the way you are to marry her in
the foreign land?"

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the storm, "the
signorina to-morrow; to-day the honour of the House. Thy small-clothes,
Giacomo,--miserable man, thy small-clothes!"

"It is just," said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with humility; "and
the padrone does right to blame me, but not in so cruel a way. It is
just,--the padrone lodges and boards me, and gives me handsome wages,
and he has a right to expect that I should not go in this figure."

"For the board and the lodgment, good," said Riccabocca. "For the
handsome wages, they are the visions of thy fancy!"

"They are no such thing," said Jackeymo, "they are only in arrear. As if
the padrone could not pay them some day or other; as if I was demeaning
myself by serving a master who did not intend to pay his servants! And
can't I wait? Have I not my savings too? But be cheered, be cheered;
you shall be contented with me. I have two beautiful suits still. I was
arranging them when you rang for me. You shall see, you shall see."

And Jackeymo hurried from the room, hurried back into his own chamber,
unlocked a little trunk which he kept at his bed-head, tossed out
a variety of small articles, and from the deepest depth extracted a
leathern purse. He emptied the contents on the bed. They were chiefly
Italian coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver medallion inclosing
a little image of his patron saint,--San Giacomo,--one solid English
guinea, and somewhat more than a pound's worth in English silver.
Jackeymo put back the foreign coins, saying prudently, "One will lose on
them here;" he seized the English coins, and counted them out. "But are
you enough, you rascals?" quoth he, angrily, giving them a good shake.
His eye caught sight of the medallion,--he paused; and after eying the
tiny representation of the saint with great deliberation, he added, in
a sentence which he must have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of
his master,--

"What's the difference between the enemy who does not hurt me, and the
friend who does not serve me? Monsignore San Giacomo, my patron saint,
you are of very little use to me in the leathern bag; but if you help me
to get into a new pair of small-clothes on this important occasion,
you will be a friend indeed. Alla bisogna, Monsignore." Then, gravely
kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins into
the other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and muttering
to himself, "Beast, miser, that I am, to disgrace the padrone with all
these savings in his service!" ran downstairs into his pantry, caught
up his hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off to
the neighbouring town of L--------.

Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back that evening in
time to prepare the thin gruel which made his master's supper, with a
suit of black,--a little threadbare, but still highly respectable,--two
shirt fronts, and two white cravats. But out of all this finery,
Jackeymo held the small-clothes in especial veneration; for as they had
cost exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him that
San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to which he had more
exclusively directed the saint's direction. The other habiliments came
to him in the merely human process of sale and barter; the small-clothes
were the personal gratuity of San Giacomo!




CHAPTER VIII.

Life has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons; and if we do
not understand it any better, it is not for want of what is called
"reasoning by illustration." Amongst other resemblances, there are
moments when, to a quiet contemplator, it suggests the image of one of
those rotatory entertainments commonly seen in fairs, and known by the
name of "whirligigs," or "roundabouts," in which each participator of
the pastime, seated on his hobby, is always apparently in the act of
pursuing some one before him, while he is pursued by some one behind.
Man, and woman too, are naturally animals of chase; the greatest still
find something to follow, and there is no one too humble not to be an
object of prey to another. Thus, confining our view to the village of
Hazeldean, we behold in this whirligig Dr. Riccabocca spurring his hobby
after Lenny Fairfield; and Miss Jemima, on her decorous side-saddle,
whipping after Dr. Riccabocca. Why, with so long and intimate a
conviction of the villany of our sex, Miss Jemima should resolve upon
giving the male animal one more chance of redeeming itself in her eyes,
I leave to the explanation of those gentlemen who profess to find
"their only books in woman's looks." Perhaps it might be from the
over-tenderness and clemency of Miss Jemima's nature; perhaps it might
be that as yet she had only experienced the villany of man born and
reared in these cold northern climates, and in the land of Petrarch and
Romeo, of the citron and myrtle, there was reason to expect that
the native monster would be more amenable to gentle influences, less
obstinately hardened in his iniquities. Without entering further into
these hypotheses, it is sufficient to say that, on Signor Riccabocca's
appearance in the drawing-room at Hazeldean, Miss Jemima felt more than
ever rejoiced that she had relaxed in his favour her general hostility
to men. In truth, though Frank saw something quizzical in the
old-fashioned and outlandish cut of the Italian's sober dress; in his
long hair, and the chapeau bras, over which he bowed so gracefully, and
then pressed it, as if to his heart, before tucking it under his arm,
after the fashion in which the gizzard reposes under the wing of a
roasted pullet,--yet it was impossible that even Frank could deny
to Riccabocca that praise which is due to the air and manner of an
unmistakable gentleman. And certainly as, after dinner, conversation
grew more familiar, and the parson and Mrs. Dale, who had been invited
to meet their friend, did their best to draw him out, his talk, though
sometimes a little too wise for his listeners, became eminently animated
and agreeable. It was the conversation of a man who, besides the
knowledge which is acquired from books and life, had studied the art
which becomes a gentleman,--that of pleasing in polite society.

The result was that all were charmed with him; and that even Captain
Barnabas postponed the whist-table for a full hour after the usual time.
The doctor did not play; he thus became the property of the two ladies,
Miss Jemima and Mrs. Dale.

Seated between the two, in the place rightfully appertaining to Flimsey,
who this time was fairly dislodged, to her great wonder and discontent,
the doctor was the emblem of true Domestic Felicity, placed between
Friendship and Love.

Friendship, as became her, worked quietly at the embroidered
pocket-handkerchief and left Love to more animated operations.

"You must be very lonely at the Casino," said Love, in a sympathizing
tone.

"Madam," replied Riccabocca, gallantly, "I shall think so when I leave
you."

Friendship cast a sly glance at Love; Love blushed, or looked down
on the carpet,--which comes to the same thing. "Yet," began Love
again,--"yet solitude to a feeling heart--"

Riccabocca thought of the note of invitation, and involuntarily buttoned
his coat, as if to protect the individual organ thus alarmingly referred
to.

"Solitude to a feeling heart has its charms. It is so hard even for us
poor ignorant women to find a congenial companion--but for YOU!" Love
stopped short, as if it had said too much, and smelt confusedly at its
bouquet.

Dr. Riccabocca cautiously lowered his spectacles, and darted one glance
which, with the rapidity and comprehensiveness of lightning, seemed to
envelop and take in, as it were, the whole inventory of Miss Jemima's
personal attractions. Now Miss Jemima, as I have before observed, had
a mild and pensive expression of countenance; and she would have been
positively pretty had the mildness looked a little more alert, and the
pensiveness somewhat less lackadaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was
constitutionally mild, she was not de natura pensive; she had too much
of the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid humour
called melancholy, and therefore this assumption of pensiveness really
spoiled her character of features, which only wanted to be lighted up
by a cheerful smile to be extremely prepossessing. The same remark might
apply to the figure, which--thanks to the same pensiveness--lost all
the undulating grace which movement and animation bestow on the fluent
curves of the feminine form. The figure was a good figure, examined in
detail,--a little thin, perhaps, but by no means emaciated, with just
and elegant proportions, and naturally light and flexible. But the same
unfortunate pensiveness gave to the whole a character of inertness and
languor; and when Miss Jemima reclined on the sofa, so complete seemed
the relaxation of nerve and muscle that you would have thought she had
lost the use of her limbs. Over her face and form, thus defrauded of
the charms Providence had bestowed on them, Dr. Riccabocca's eye glanced
rapidly; and then moving nearer to Mrs. Dale--"Defend me" (he stopped
a moment, and added) "from the charge of not being able to appreciate
congenial companionship."

"Oh, I did not say that!" cried Miss Jemima.

"Pardon me," said the Italian, "if I am so dull as to misunderstand
you. One may well lose one's head, at least, in such a neighbourhood as
this." He rose as he spoke, and bent over Frank's shoulder to examine
some views of Italy, which Miss Jemima (with what, if wholly unselfish,
would have been an attention truly delicate) had extracted from the
library in order to gratify the guest.

"Most interesting creature, indeed," sighed Miss Jemima, "but too--too
flattering."

"Tell me," said Mrs. Dale, gravely, "do you think, love, that you could
put off the end of the world a little longer, or must we make haste in
order to be in time?"

"How wicked you are!" said Miss Jemima, turning aside. Some few minutes
afterwards, Mrs. Dale contrived it so that Dr. Riccabocca and herself
were in a farther corner of the room, looking at a picture said to be by
Wouvermans.

MRS. DALE.--"She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not?"

RICCABOCCA.--"Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece!"

MRS. DALE.--"So kind-hearted."

RICCABOCCA.--"All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his
desperate cut at the runaway!"

MRS. DALE.--"She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has
something very winning."

RICCABOCCA (with a smile).--"So winning, that it is strange she is not
won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!"

MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more
effective grape-charge).--"Not won yet; and it is strange! she will have
a very pretty fortune."

RICCABOCCA.--"Ah!"

MRS. DALE. "Six thousand pounds, I dare say,--certainly four."

RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address).--"If Mrs.
Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her
portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is
not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still--Miss Jemima!"

The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the
whist-players.

Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. "It would be
such a good thing for both," muttered she, almost inaudibly.

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that night in the
large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great
English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks
out of single blessedness, "Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer
of probably L6000, certainly of four thousand."

"Cosa meravigliosa!"--["Miraculous thing."]--exclaimed Jackeymo, and he
crossed himself with great fervour. "Six thousand pounds English!
why, that must be a hundred thousand--blockhead that I am!--more than
L150,000 Milanese!" And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the
squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the
midst of which he stopped and cried, "But not for nothing?"

"Nothing! no!"

"These mercenary English! the Government wants to bribe you?"

"That's not it."

"The priests want you to turn heretic?"

"Worse than that!" said the philosopher.

"Worse than that! O Padrone! for shame!"

"Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons--they want me never to wear
THESE again!"

"Never to wear what?" exclaimed Jackeymo, staring outright at his
master's long legs in their linen drawers,--"never to wear--"

"The breeches," said Riccabocca, laconically.

"The barbarians!" faltered Jackeymo.

"My nightcap! and never to have any comfort in this," said Riccabocca,
drawing on the cotton head-gear; "and never to have any sound sleep
in that," pointing to the four-posted bed; "and to be a bondsman and
a slave," continued Riccabocca, waxing wroth; "and to be wheedled and
purred at, and pawed and clawed, and scolded and fondled, and blinded
and deafened, and bridled and saddled--bedevilled and--married!"

"Married!" said Jackeymo, more dispassionately--"that's very bad,
certainly; but more than a hundred and fifty thousand lire, and perhaps
a pretty young lady, and--"

"Pretty young lady!" growled Riccabocca, jumping into bed and drawing
the clothes fiercely over him. "Put out the candle, and get along with
you,--do, you villanous old incendiary!"




CHAPTER IX.

It was not many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks,
and it was evident already, to an ordinary observer, that something
wrong had got into the village. The peasants wore a sullen expression of
countenance; when the squire passed, they took off their hats with more
than ordinary formality, but they did not return the same broad smile to
his quick, hearty "Good-day, my man." The women peered at him from the
threshold or the casement, but did not, as was their wont (as least the
wont of the prettiest), take occasion to come out to catch his passing
compliment on their own good looks, or their tidy cottages. And the
children, who used to play after work on the site of the old stocks, now
shunned the place, and, indeed, seemed to cease play altogether.

On the other hand, no man likes to build, or rebuild, a great public
work for nothing. Now that the squire had resuscitated the stocks, and
made them so exceedingly handsome, it was natural that he should wish
to put somebody into them. Moreover, his pride and self-esteem had been
wounded by the parson's opposition; and it would be a justification to
his own forethought, and a triumph over the parson's understanding,
if he could satisfactorily and practically establish a proof that the
stocks had not been repaired before they were wanted.

Therefore, unconsciously to himself, there was something about the
squire more burly and authoritative and menacing than heretofore. Old
Gaffer Solomons observed, "that they had better moind well what they
were about, for that the squire had a wicked look in the tail of his
eye,--just as the dun bull had afore it tossed neighbour Barnes's little
boy."

For two or three days these mute signs of something brewing in the
atmosphere had been rather noticeable than noticed, without any positive
overt act of tyranny on the one hand or rebellion on the other. But on
the very Saturday night in which Dr. Riccabocca was installed in
the four-posted bed in the chintz chamber, the threatened revolution
commenced. In the dead of that night personal outrage was committed on
the stocks. And on the Sunday morning, Mr. Stirn, who was the earliest
riser in the parish, perceived, in going to the farmyard, that the knob
of the column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken off;
that the four holes were bunged up with mud; and that some jacobinical
villain had carved, on the very centre of the flourish or scroll-work,
"Dam the stocks!" Mr. Stirn was much too vigilant a right-hand man, much
too zealous a friend of law and order, not to regard such proceedings
with horror and alarm. And when the squire came into his dressing-room
at half-past seven, his butler (who fulfilled also the duties of valet)
informed him, with a mysterious air, that Mr. Stirn had something "very
partikler to communicate about a most howdacious midnight 'spiracy and
'sault."

The squire stared, and bade Mr. Stirn be admitted.

"Well?" cried the squire, suspending the operation of stropping his
razor.

Mr. Stirn groaned.

"Well, man, what now?"

"I never knowed such a thing in this here parish afore," began Mr.
Stirn; "and I can only 'count for it by s'posing that them foreign
Papishers have been semminating--"

"Been what?"

"Semminating--"

"Disseminating, you blockhead,--disseminating what?"

"Damn the stocks," began Mr. Stirn, plunging right in medias res, and by
a fine use of one of the noblest figures in rhetoric.

"Mr. Stirn!" cried the squire, reddening, "did you say, 'Damn the
stocks'?--damn my new handsome pair of stocks!"

"Lord forbid, sir; that's what they say: that's what they have digged on
it with knives and daggers, and they have stuffed mud in its four holes,
and broken the capital of the elewation."

The squire took the napkin off his shoulder, laid down strop and razor;
he seated himself in his armchair majestically, crossed his legs, and,
in a voice that affected tranquillity, said,--

"Compose yourself, Stirn; you have a deposition to make, touching
an assault upon--can I trust my senses?--upon my new stocks. Compose
yourself; be calm. Now! What the devil is come to the parish?"

"Ah, sir, what indeed?" replied Mr. Stirn: and then laying the
forefinger of the right hand on the palm of the left he narrated the
case.

"And whom do you suspect? Be calm now; don't speak in a passion. You are
a witness, sir,--a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and
fury! this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical--but whom do you
suspect, I say?" Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked
his thumb over his shoulder, and whispered, "I hear as how the two
Papishers slept at your honour's last night."

"What, dolt! do you suppose Dr. Rickeybockey got out of his warm bed to
bung up the holes in my new stocks?"

"Noa; he's too cunning to do it himself, but he may have been
semminating. He's mighty thick with Parson Dale, and your honour knows
as how the parson set his face agin the stocks. Wait a bit, sir,--don't
fly at me yet. There be a boy in this here parish--"

"A boy! ah, fool, now you are nearer the mark. The parson write 'Damn
the stocks,' indeed! What boy do you mean?"

"And that boy be cockered up much by Mr. Dale; and the Papisher went and
sat with him and his mother a whole hour t' other day; and that boy is
as deep as a well; and I seed him lurking about the place, and hiding
hisself under the tree the day the stocks was put up,--and that 'ere boy
is Lenny Fairfield."

"Whew," said the squire, whistling, "you have not your usual senses
about you to-day, man. Lenny Fairfield,--pattern boy of the village.
Hold your tongue. I dare say it is not done by any one in the parish,
after all: some good-for-nothing vagrant--that cursed tinker, who
goes about with a very vicious donkey,--a donkey that I caught picking
thistles out of the very eyes of the old stocks! Shows how the tinker
brings up his donkeys! Well, keep a sharp look-out. To-day is Sunday;
worst day of the week, I'm sorry and ashamed to say, for rows and
depredations. Between the services, and after evening church, there are
always idle fellows from all the neighbouring country about, as you know
too well. Depend on it, the real culprits will be found gathering round
the stocks, and will betray themselves; have your eyes, ears, and wits
about you, and I've no doubt we shall come to the rights of the matter
before the day's out. And if we do," added the squire, "we'll make an
example of the ruffian!"

"In course," said Stirn: "and if we don't find him we must make an
example all the same. That's what it is, sir. That's why the stocks
ben't respected; they has not had an example yet,--we wants an example."

"On my word I believe that's very true; and we'll clap in the first idle
fellow you catch in anything wrong, and keep him there for two hours at
least."

"With the biggest pleasure, your honour,--that's what it is."

And Mr. Stirn having now got what he considered a complete and
unconditional authority over all the legs and wrists of Hazeldean
parish, quoad the stocks, took his departure.




CHAPTER X.

"Randal," said Mrs. Leslie on this memorable Sunday,--"Randal, do you
think of going to Mr. Hazeldean's?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered Randal. "Mr. Egerton does not object to it; and
as I do not return to Eton, I may have no other opportunity of seeing
Frank for some time. I ought not to fail in respect to Mr. Egerton's
natural heir."

"Gracious me!" cried Mrs. Leslie, who, like many women of her cast and
kind, had a sort of worldliness in her notions, which she never evinced
in her conduct,--"gracious me! natural heir to the old Leslie property!"

"He is Mr. Egerton's nephew, and," added Randal, ingenuously letting out
his thoughts, "I am no relation to Mr. Egerton at all."

"But," said poor Mrs. Leslie, with tears in her eyes, "it would be a
shame in the man, after paying your schooling and sending you to Oxford,
and having you to stay with him in the holidays, if he did not mean
anything by it."

"Anything, Mother, yes,--but not the thing you suppose. No matter. It
is enough that he has armed me for life, and I shall use the weapons as
seems to me best."

Here the dialogue was suspended by the entrance of the other members of
the family, dressed for church.

"It can't be time for church! No, it can't," exclaimed Mrs. Leslie. She
was never in time for anything,

"Last bell ringing," said Mr. Leslie, who, though a slow man, was
methodical and punctual. Mrs. Leslie made a frantic rush at the door,
the Montfydget blood being now in a blaze, dashed up the stairs, burst
into her room, tore her best bonnet from the peg, snatched her newest
shawl from the drawers, crushed the bonnet on her head, flung the shawl
on her shoulders, thrust a desperate pin into its folds, in order to
conceal a buttonless yawn in the body of her gown, and then flew back
like a whirlwind. Meanwhile the family were already out of doors, in
waiting; and just as the bell ceased, the procession moved from the
shabby house to the dilapidated church.

The church was a large one, but the congregation was small, and so was
the income of the parson. It was a lay rectory, and the great tithes
had belonged to the Leslies, but they had been long since sold. The
vicarage, still in their gift, might be worth a little more than L100 a
year. The present incumbent had nothing else to live upon. He was a good
man, and not originally a stupid one; but penury and the anxious
cares for wife and family, combined with what may be called solitary
confinement for the cultivated mind, when, amidst the two-legged
creatures round, it sees no other cultivated mind with which it can
exchange one extra-parochial thought, had lulled him into a lazy
mournfulness, which at times was very like imbecility. His income
allowed him to do no good to the parish, whether in work, trade, or
charity; and thus he had no moral weight with the parishioners beyond
the example of his sinless life, and such negative effect as might be
produced by his slumberous exhortations. Therefore his parishioners
troubled him very little; and but for the influence which, in hours
of Montfydget activity, Mrs. Leslie exercised over the most
tractable,--that is, the children and the aged,--not half-a-dozen
persons would have known or cared whether he shut up his church or not.

But our family were seated in state in their old seignorial pew, and Mr.
Dumdrum, with a nasal twang, went lugubriously through the prayers; and
the old people who could sin no more, and the children who had not yet
learned to sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the
choral frogs in Aristophanes; and there was a long sermon a propos to
nothing which could possibly interest the congregation,--being, in fact,
some controversial homily which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached
years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud
universal grunt, as if of relief and thanksgiving, and a great clatter
of shoes, and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled, to the church
door.

Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined; and as soon as dinner
was over, Randal set out on his foot journey to Hazeldean Hall.

Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the energy and
quickness of movement which belongs to nervous temperaments; and he
tasked the slow stride of a peasant, whom he took to serve him as
a guide for the first two or three miles. Though Randal had not the
gracious open manner with the poor which Frank inherited from his
father, he was still (despite many a secret hypocritical vice at war
with the character of a gentleman) gentleman enough to have no churlish
pride to his inferiors. He talked little, but he suffered his guide to
talk; and the boor, who was the same whom Frank had accosted, indulged
in eulogistic comments on that young gentleman's pony, from which he
diverged into some compliments on the young gentleman himself. Randal
drew his hat over his brows. There is a wonderful tact and fine breeding
in your agricultural peasant; and though Tom Stowell was but a brutish
specimen of the class, he suddenly perceived that he was giving pain.
He paused, scratched his head, and, glancing affectionately towards his
companion, exclaimed,--

"But I shall live to see you on a handsomer beastis than that little
pony, Master Randal; and sure I ought, for you be as good a gentleman as
any in the land."

"Thank you," said Randal. "But I like walking better than riding,--I am
more used to it."

"Well, and you walk bra'ly,--there ben't a better walker in the county.
And very pleasant it is walking; and 't is a pretty country afore you,
all the way to the Hall."

Randal strode on, as if impatient of these attempts to flatter or to
soothe; and coming at length into a broader lane, said, "I think I can
find my way now. Many thanks to you, Tom;" and he forced a shilling into
Tom's horny palm. The man took it reluctantly, and a tear started to
his eye. He felt more grateful for that shilling than he had for Frank's
liberal half-crown; and he thought of the poor fallen family, and forgot
his own dire wrestle with the wolf at his door.

He stayed lingering in the lane till the figure of Randal was out of
sight, and then returned slowly. Young Leslie continued to walk on at
a quick pace. With all his intellectual culture and his restless
aspirations, his breast afforded him no thought so generous, no
sentiment so poetic, as those with which the unlettered clown crept
slouchingly homeward.

As Randal gained a point where several lanes met on a broad piece of
waste land, he began to feel tired, and his step slackened. Just then
a gig emerged from one of these byroads, and took the same direction as
the pedestrian. The road was rough and hilly, and the driver proceeded
at a foot's pace; so that the gig and the pedestrian went pretty well
abreast.

"You seem tired, sir," said the driver, a stout young farmer of the
higher class of tenants, and he looked down compassionately on the boy's
pale countenance and weary stride. "Perhaps we are going the same way,
and I can give you a lift?"

It was Randal's habitual policy to make use of every advantage proffered
to him, and he accepted the proposal frankly enough to please the honest
farmer.

"A nice day, sir," said the latter, as Randal sat by his side. "Have you
come far?"

"From Rood Hall."

"Oh, you be young Squire Leslie," said the farmer, more respectfully,
and lifting his hat.

"Yes, my name is Leslie. You know Rood, then?"

"I was brought up on your father's land, sir. You may have heard of
Farmer Bruce?"

RANDAL.--"I remember, when I was a little boy, a Mr. Bruce who rented, I
believe, the best part of our land, and who used to bring us cakes when
he called to see my father. He is a relation of yours?"

FARMER BRUCE.--"He was my uncle. He is dead now, poor man."

RANDAL.-"Dead! I am grieved to hear it. He was very kind to us children.
But it is long since he left my father's farm."

FARMER BRUCE (apologetically).--"I am sure he was very sorry to go. But,
you see, he had an unexpected legacy--"

RANDAL.--"And retired from business?"

FARMER BRUCE.--"No. But, having capital, he could afford to pay a good
rent for a real good farm."

RANDAL (bitterly).--"All capital seems to fly from the lands of Rood.
And whose farm did he take?"

FARMER BRUCE.--"He took Hawleigh, under Squire Hazeldean. I rent it now.
We've laid out a power o' money on it. But I don't complain. It pays
well."

RANDAL.--"Would the money have paid as well sunk on my father's land?"

FARMER BRUCE.--"Perhaps it might, in the long run. But then, sir, we
wanted new premises,--barns and cattlesheds, and a deal more,--which
the landlord should do; but it is not every landlord as can afford that.
Squire Hazeldean's a rich man."

RANDAL.--"Ay!"

The road now became pretty good, and the farmer put his horse into a
brisk trot.

"But which way be you going, sir? I don't care for a few miles more or
less, if I can be of service."

"I am going to Hazeldean," said Randal, rousing himself from a revery.
"Don't let me take you out of your way."

"O, Hawleigh Farm is on the other side of the village, so it be quite my
way, sir."

The farmer, then, who was really a smart young fellow,--one of that race
which the application of capital to land has produced, and which,
in point of education and refinement, are at least on a par with the
squires of a former generation,--began to talk about his handsome horse,
about horses in general, about hunting and coursing: he handled all
these subjects with spirit, yet with modesty. Randal pulled his hat
still lower down over his brows, and did not interrupt him till they
passed the Casino, when, struck by the classic air of the place, and
catching a scent from the orange-trees, the boy asked abruptly, "Whose
house is that?"

"Oh, it belongs to Squire Hazeldean, but it is let or lent to a foreign
mounseer. They say he is quite the gentleman, but uncommonly poor."

"Poor," said Randal, turning back to gaze on the trim garden, the neat
terrace, the pretty belvidere, and (the door of the house being open)
catching a glimpse of the painted hall within,--"poor? The place seems
well kept. What do you call poor, Mr. Bruce?"

The farmer laughed. "Well, that's a home question, sir. But I believe
the mounseer is as poor as a man can be who makes no debts and does not
actually starve."

"As poor as my father?" asked Randal, openly and abruptly.

"Lord, sir! your father be a very rich man compared to him." Randal
continued to gaze, and his mind's eye conjured up the contrast of his
slovenly shabby home, with all its neglected appurtenances. No trim
garden at Rood Hall, no scent from odorous orange blossoms. Here poverty
at least was elegant,--there, how squalid! He did not comprehend at
how cheap a rate the luxury of the Beautiful can be effected. They now
approached the extremity of the squire's park pales; and Randal, seeing
a little gate, bade the farmer stop his gig, and descended. The boy
plunged amidst the thick oak groves; the farmer went his way blithely,
and his mellow merry whistle came to Randal's moody ear as he glided
quick under the shadow of the trees.

He arrived at the Hall to find that all the family were at church; and,
according to the patriarchal custom, the churchgoing family embraced
nearly all the servants. It was therefore an old invalid housemaid who
opened the door to him. She was rather deaf, and seemed so stupid
that Randal did not ask leave to enter and wait for Frank's return. He
therefore said briefly that he would just stroll on the lawn, and call
again when church was over.

The old woman stared, and strove to hear him; meanwhile Randal turned
round abruptly, and sauntered towards the garden side of the handsome
old house.

There was enough to attract any eye in the smooth greensward of the
spacious lawn, in the numerous parterres of variegated flowers, in the
venerable grandeur of the two mighty cedars, which threw their still
shadows over the grass, and in the picturesque building, with its
projecting mullions and heavy gables; yet I fear that it was with no
poet's nor painter's eye that this young old man gazed on the scene
before him.

He beheld the evidence of wealth--and the envy of wealth jaundiced his
soul.

Folding his arms on his breast, he stood a while, looking all around
him, with closed lips and lowering brow; then he walked slowly on, his
eyes fixed on the ground, and muttered to himself,--

"The heir to this property is little better than a dunce; and they tell
me I have talents and learning, and I have taken to my heart the maxim,
'Knowledge is power.' And yet, with all my struggles, will knowledge
ever place me on the same level as that on which this dunce is born? I
don't wonder that the poor should hate the rich. But of all the poor,
who should hate the rich like the pauper gentleman? I suppose Audley
Egerton means me to come into parliament, and be a Tory like himself?
What! keep things as they are! No; for me not even Democracy, unless
there first come Revolution. I understand the cry of a Marat,--'More
blood!' Marat had lived as a poor man, and cultivated science--in the
sight of a prince's palace."

He turned sharply round, and glared vindictively on the poor old Hall,
which, though a very comfortable habitation, was certainly no palace;
and, with his arms still folded on his breast, he walked backward, as if
not to lose the view, nor the chain of ideas it conjured up.

"But," he continued to soliloquize,--"but of revolution there is no
chance. Yet the same wit and will that would thrive in revolutions
should thrive in this commonplace life. Knowledge is power. Well, then,
shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him--what from? His
father's halls? Well, but if he were dead, who would be the heir of
Hazeldean? Have I not heard my mother say that I am as near in blood to
this squire as any one, if he had no children? Oh, but the boy's life is
worth ten of mine! Oust him from what? At least from the thoughts of his
Uncle Egerton,--an uncle who has never even seen him! That, at least,
is more feasible. 'Make my way in life,' sayest thou, Audley Egerton?
Ay,--and to the fortune thou hast robbed from my ancestors. Simulation!
simulation! Lord Bacon allows simulation. Lord Bacon practised it,
and--"

Here the soliloquy came to a sudden end; for as, rapt in his thoughts,
the boy had continued to walk backwards, he had come to the verge where
the lawn slided off into the ditch of the ha-ha; and just as he was
fortifying himself by the precept and practice of my Lord Bacon, the
ground went from under him, and--slap into the ditch went Randal Leslie!

It so happened that the squire, whose active genius was always at some
repair or improvement, had been but a few days before widening and
sloping off the ditch just in that part, so that the earth was fresh
and damp, and not yet either turfed or flattened down. Thus when Randal,
recovering his first surprise and shock, rose to his feet, he found his
clothes covered with mud; while the rudeness of the fall was evinced by
the fantastic and extraordinary appearance of his hat, which, hollowed
here, bulging there, and crushed out of all recognition generally,
was as little like the hat of a decorous, hard-reading young
gentleman--protege of the dignified Mr. Audley Egerton--as any hat
picked out of a kennel after some drunken brawl possibly could be.

Randal was dizzy and stunned and bruised, and it was some moments before
he took heed of his raiment. When he did so his spleen was greatly
aggravated. He was still boy enough not to like the idea of presenting
himself to the unknown squire and the dandy Frank in such a trim: he
resolved incontinently to regain the lane and return home, without
accomplishing the object of his journey; and seeing the footpath right
before him, which led to a gate that he conceived would admit him into
the highway sooner than the path by which he had come, he took it at
once.

It is surprising how little we human creatures heed the warnings of our
good genius. I have no doubt that some benignant power had precipitated
Randal Leslie into the ditch, as a significant hint of the fate of all
who choose what is, nowadays; by no means an uncommon step in the march
of intellect,--namely, the walking backwards, in order to gratify a
vindictive view of one's neighbour's property! I suspect that, before
this century is out, many a fine fellow will thus have found his ha-ha,
and scrambled out of the ditch with a much shabbier coat than he had
on when he fell into it. But Randal did not thank his good genius for
giving him a premonitory tumble,--and I never yet knew a man who did!




CHAPTER, XI.

The squire was greatly ruffled at breakfast that morning. He was too
much of an Englishman to bear insult patiently, and he considered that
he had been personally insulted in the outrage offered to his recent
donation to the parish. His feelings, too, were hurt as well as his
pride. There was something so ungrateful in the whole thing, just
after he had taken so much pains, not only in the resuscitation but the
embellishment of the stocks. It was not, however, so rare an occurrence
for the squire to be ruffled as to create any remark. Riccabocca,
indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact
to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the
one was too discreet, and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore,
whatever it might be, and shortly after breakfast the squire retired
into his study, and absented himself from morning service. In his
delightful "Life of Oliver Goldsmith," Mr. Forster takes care to
touch our hearts by introducing his hero's excuse for not entering
the priesthood. "He did not feel himself good enough." Thy Vicar of
Wakefield, poor Goldsmith, was an excellent substitute for thee; and
Dr. Primrose, at least, will be good enough for the world until Miss
Jemima's fears are realized. Now, Squire Hazeldean had a tenderness
of conscience much less reasonable than Goldsmith's. There were
occasionally days in which he did not feel good enough--I don't say for
a priest, but even for one of the congregation,--"days in which," said
the squire in his own blunt way, "as I have never in my life met a worse
devil than a devil of a temper, I'll not carry mine into the family
pew. He sha'n't be growling out hypocritical responses from my poor
grandmother's prayer-book." So the squire and his demon stayed at home.
But the demon was generally cast out before the day was over: and on
this occasion, when the bell rang for afternoon service, it may be
presumed that the squire had reasoned or fretted himself into a proper
state of mind; for he was then seen sallying forth from the porch of his
hall, arm-in-arm with his wife, and at the head of his household. The
second service was (as is commonly the case in rural districts) more
numerously attended than the first one; and it was our parson's wont to
devote to this service his most effective discourse.

Parson Dale, though a very fair scholar, had neither the deep theology
nor the archaeological learning that distinguish the rising generation
of the clergy. I much doubt if he could have passed what would now be
called a creditable examination in the Fathers; and as for all the nice
formalities in the rubric, he would never have been the man to divide a
congregation or puzzle a bishop. Neither was Parson Dale very erudite
in ecclesiastical architecture. He did not much care whether all the
details in the church were purely Gothic or not; crockets and finials,
round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, on which he had never
troubled his head.

But one secret Parson Dale did possess, which is perhaps of equal
importance with those subtler mysteries,--he knew how to fill his
church! Even at morning service no pews were empty, and at evening
service the church overflowed.

Parson Dale, too, may be considered nowadays to hold but a mean idea
of the spiritual authority of the Church. He had never been known
to dispute on its exact bearing with the State,--whether it was
incorporated with the State or above the State, whether it was
antecedent to the Papacy or formed from the Papacy, etc. According to
his favourite maxim, "Quieta non movere,"--["Not to disturb things that
are quiet."]--I have no doubt that he would have thought that the less
discussion is provoked upon such matters the better for both Church and
laity. Nor had he ever been known to regret the disuse of the ancient
custom of excommunication, nor any other diminution of the powers of the
priesthood, whether minatory or militant; yet for all this, Parson
Dale had a great notion of the sacred privilege of a minister of the
gospel,--to advise, to deter, to persuade, to reprove. And it was for
the evening service that he prepared those sermons which may be called
"sermons that preach at you." He preferred the evening for that salutary
discipline, not only because the congregation was more numerous, but
also because, being a shrewd man in his own innocent way, he knew that
people bear better to be preached at after dinner than before; that you
arrive more insinuatingly at the heart when the stomach is at peace.
There was a genial kindness in Parson Dale's way of preaching at you.
It was done in so imperceptible, fatherly, a manner that you never felt
offended. He did it, too, with so much art that nobody but your own
guilty self knew that you were the sinner he was exhorting. Yet he did
not spare rich nor poor: he preached at the squire, and that great
fat farmer, Mr. Bullock, the churchwarden, as boldly as at Hodge the
ploughman and Scrub the hedger. As for Mr. Stirn, he had preached at him
more often than at any one in the parish; but Stirn, though he had the
sense to know it, never had the grace to reform. There was, too, in
Parson Dale's sermons something of that boldness of illustration which
would have been scholarly if he had not made it familiar, and which
is found in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not
scruple now and then to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow
an allusion from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the
attention of his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the
good man had an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly
subordinate to, the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend to
knowledge,--but to knowledge accompanied by religion; and sometimes
his references to sources not within the ordinary reading of his
congregation would spirit up some farmer's son, with an evening's
leisure on his hands, to ask the parson for further explanation, and so
to be lured on to a little solid or graceful instruction, under a safe
guide.

Now, on the present occasion, the parson, who had always his eye and
heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realization of
his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent
was already at work amongst the peasants, and that magisterial and
inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the
squire,--seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the
precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor,
meditated nothing less than a great Political Sermon,--a sermon that
should extract from the roots of social truths a healing virtue for
the wound that lay sore, but latent, in the breast of his parish of
Hazeldean.

And thus ran--

THE POLITICAL SERMON OF PARSON DALE.




CHAPTER XII.

   For every man shall bear his own burden.--Gal. vi. 5.

"BRETHREN! every man has his burden. If God designed our lives to end at
the grave, may we not believe that He would have freed an existence so
brief from the cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the
world, mankind has been subjected? Suppose that I am a kind father, and
have a child whom I dearly love, but I know by a divine revelation
that he will die at the age of eight years, surely I should not vex his
infancy by needless preparations for the duties of life? If I am a rich
man, I should not send him from the caresses of his mother to the stern
discipline of school. If I am a poor man, I should not take him with me
to hedge and dig, to scorch in the sun, to freeze in the winter's cold:
why inflict hardships on his childhood for the purpose of fitting him
for manhood, when I know that he is doomed not to grow into man? But
if, on the other hand, I believe my child is reserved for a more durable
existence, then should I not, out of the very love I bear to him,
prepare his childhood for the struggle of life, according to that
station in which he is born, giving many a toil, many a pain, to the
infant, in order to rear and strengthen him for his duties as man? So it
is with our Father that is in heaven. Viewing this life as our infancy
and the next as our spiritual maturity, where 'in the ages to come He
may show the exceeding riches of His grace,' it is in His tenderness,
as in His wisdom; to permit the toil and the pain which, in tasking
the powers and developing the virtue of the soul, prepare it for 'the
earnest of our inheritance.' Hence it is that every man has his burden.
Brethren, if you believe that God is good, yea, but as tender as a human
father, you will know that your troubles in life are a proof that you
are reared for an eternity. But each man thinks his own burden the
hardest to bear: the poor-man groans under his poverty, the rich man
under the cares that multiply with wealth. For so far from wealth
freeing us from trouble, all the wise men who have written in all ages
have repeated, with one voice, the words of the wisest, 'When goods
increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to
the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?' And
this is literally true, my brethren: for, let a man be as rich as was
the great King Solomon himself, unless he lock up all his gold in a
chest, it must go abroad to be divided amongst others; yea, though,
like Solomon, he make him great works,--though he build houses and plant
vineyards, and make him gardens and orchards,--still the gold that he
spends feeds but the mouths he employs; and Solomon himself could not
eat with a better relish than the poorest mason who builded the house,
or the humblest labourer who planted the vineyard. Therefore 'when goods
increase, they are increased that eat them.' And this, my brethren, may
teach us toleration and compassion for the rich. We share their riches,
whether they will or not; we do not share their cares. The profane
history of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be
the greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied the milk-maid
singing; and a profane poet, whose wisdom was only less than that of the
inspired writers, represents the man who, by force--and wit, had risen
to be a king sighing for the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his
subjects,--all bearing out the words of the son of David, 'The sleep
of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the
abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.'

"Amongst my brethren now present there is, doubtless, some one who has
been poor, and by honest industry has made himself comparatively rich.
Let his heart answer me while I speak: are not the chief cares that now
disturb him to be found in the goods he hath acquired? Has he not both
vexations to his spirit and trials to his virtue, which he knew not when
he went forth to his labour, and took no heed of the morrow? But it is
right, my brethren, that to every station there should be its care,
to every man his burden; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel
poverty to be a burden as to desire to better their condition, and
(to use the language of the world) 'seek to rise in life,' their most
valuable energies would never be aroused; and we should not witness
that spectacle, which is so common in the land we live in,--namely, the
successful struggle of manly labour against adverse fortune,--a struggle
in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands. It is said that
necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are
now as common to us as air and sunshine have come from that law of our
nature which makes us aspire towards indefinite improvement, enriches
each successive generation by the labours of the last, and in free
countries often lifts the child of the labourer to a place amongst
the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity is the mother of invention,
poverty is the creator of the arts. If there had been no poverty, and no
sense of poverty, where would have been that which we call the wealth of
a country? Subtract from civilization all that has been produced by
the poor, and what remains?--the state of the savage. Where you now see
labourer and prince, you would see equality indeed,--the equality of
wild men. No; not even equality there! for there brute force becomes
lordship, and woe to the weak! Where you now see some in frieze, some in
purple, you would see nakedness in all. Where stands the palace and
the cot, you would behold but mud huts and caves. As far as the peasant
excels the king among savages, so far does the society exalted and
enriched by the struggles of labour excel the state in which Poverty
feels no disparity, and Toil sighs for no ease. On the other hand, if
the rich were perfectly contented with their wealth, their hearts
would become hardened in the sensual enjoyments it procures. It is that
feeling, by Divine Wisdom implanted in the soul, that there is vanity
and vexation of spirit in the things of Mammon, which still leaves the
rich man sensitive to the instincts of Heaven, and teaches him to seek
for happiness in those beneficent virtues which distribute his wealth to
the profit of others. If you could exclude the air from the rays of the
fire, the fire itself would soon languish and die in the midst of its
fuel; and so a man's joy in his wealth is kept alive by the air which it
warms; and if pent within itself, is extinguished.

"And this, my brethren, leads me to another view of the vast subject
opened to us by the words of the apostle, 'Every man shall bear his
own burden.' The worldly conditions of life are unequal. Why are they
unequal? O my brethren, do you not perceive? Think you that, if it had
been better for our spiritual probation that there should be neither
great nor lowly, rich nor poor, Providence would not so have ordered
the dispensations of the world, and so, by its mysterious but merciful
agencies, have influenced the framework and foundations of society? But
if from the remotest period of human annals, and in all the numberless
experiments of government which the wit of man has devised, still this
inequality is ever found to exist, may we not suspect that there is
something in the very principles of our nature to which that inequality
is necessary and essential? Ask why this inequality? Why?--as well ask
why life is the sphere of duty and the nursery of virtues! For if all
men were equal, if there were no suffering and no ease, no poverty and
no wealth, would you not sweep with one blow the half, at least, of
human virtues from the world? If there were no penury and no pain, what
would become of fortitude; what of patience; what of resignation? If
there were no greatness and no wealth, what would become of benevolence,
of charity, of the blessed human pity, of temperance in the midst of
luxury, of justice in the exercise of power? Carry the question further;
grant all conditions the same,--no reverse, no rise, and no fall,
nothing to hope for, nothing to fear,--what a moral death you would at
once inflict upon all the energies of the soul, and what a link between
the Heart of Man and the Providence of God would be snapped asunder!
If we could annihilate evil, we should annihilate hope; and hope, my
brethren, is the avenue to faith. If there be 'a time to weep and a time
to laugh,' it is that he who mourns may turn to eternity for comfort,
and he who rejoices may bless God for the happy hour. Ah, my brethren,
were it possible to annihilate the inequalities of human life, it would
be the banishment of our worthiest virtues, the torpor of our spiritual
nature, the palsy of our mental faculties. The moral world, like the
world without us, derives its health and its beauty from diversity and
contrast.

"'Every man shall bear his own burden.' True; but now turn to an earlier
verse in the same chapter,--'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so
fulfil the law of Christ.' Yes, while Heaven ordains to each his
peculiar suffering, it connects the family of man into one household, by
that feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguishes us from
the brute creation,--I mean the feeling to which we give the name of
sympathy,--the feeling for each other! The herd of deer shun the stag
that is marked by the gunner; the flock heedeth not the sheep that
creeps into the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself
alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who feels only
for himself abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one who
has no tenderness for mankind that he is inhuman; and do we not call him
who sorrows with the sorrowful humane?

"Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our
Lord is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from
the brute. He seizes, not upon some faculty of genii given but to few,
but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us all; and in
saying, 'Love one another,' 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' he elevates
the most delightful of our emotions into the most sacred of His laws.
The lawyer asks our Lord, 'Who is my neighbour?' Our Lord replies by the
parable of the good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite saw the wounded
man that fell among the thieves and passed by on the other side. That
priest might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite might have
been learned in the law; but neither to the learning of the Levite nor
to the doctrine of the priest does our Saviour even deign to allude. He
cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer, 'Which
now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell
among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said
Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.'

"O shallowness of human judgments! It was enough to be born a Samaritan
in order to be rejected by the priest, and despised by the Levite. Yet
now, what to us the priest and the Levite, of God's chosen race though
they were? They passed from the hearts of men when they passed the
sufferer by the wayside; while this loathed Samaritan, half thrust from
the pale of the Hebrew, becomes of our family, of our kindred; a brother
amongst the brotherhood of Love, so long as Mercy and Affliction shall
meet in the common thoroughfare of Life!

"'Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Think
not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving, to that relief
of distress which is commonly called charity, to the obvious duty of
devoting from our superfluities something that we scarcely miss to the
wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the poorest amongst ye,
if the worst burdens are those of the body,--if the kind word and the
tender thought have not often lightened your hearts more than bread
bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown.
Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of us all,--yea, of the
pauper as of the king; and sympathy is Christ's wealth. Sympathy is
brotherhood. The rich are told to have charity for the poor, and the
poor are enjoined to respect their superiors. Good: I say not to the
contrary. But I say also to the poor, 'In your turn have charity for the
rich;' and I say to the rich, 'In your turn respect the poor.'

"'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.'
Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy brother his larger portion
of worldly goods. Believe that he hath his sorrows and crosses like
thyself, and perhaps, as more delicately nurtured, he feels them more;
nay, hath he not temptations so great that our Lord hath exclaimed, 'How
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven'?
And what are temptations but trials; what are trials but perils and
sorrows? Think not that you can bestow no charity on the rich man, even
while you take your sustenance from his hands. A heathen writer,
often cited by the earliest preachers of the gospel, hath truly said,
'Wherever there is room for a man there is place for a benefit.'

"And I ask any rich brother amongst you, when he hath gone forth
to survey his barns and his granaries, his gardens and orchards, if
suddenly in the vain pride of his heart, he sees the scowl on the brow
of the labourer,--if he deems himself hated in the midst of his wealth,
if he feels that his least faults are treasured up against him with
the hardness of malice, and his plainest benefits received with the
ingratitude of envy,--I ask, I say, any rich man, whether straightway
all pleasure in his worldly possessions does not fade from his heart,
and whether he does not feel what a wealth of gladness it is in the
power of the poor man to bestow! For all these things of Mammon pass
away; but there is in the smile of him whom we have served a something
that we may take with us into heaven. If, then, ye bear one another's
burdens, they who are poor will have mercy on the errors and compassion
for the griefs of the rich. To all men it was said--yes, to Lazarus as
to Dives--'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' But think not, O rich man,
that we preach only to the poor. If it be their duty not to grudge thee
thy substance, it is thine to do all that may sweeten their labour.
Remember that when our Lord said, 'How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of heaven,' He replied also to them who
asked, 'Who then can be saved?' 'The things which are impossible with
men are possible with God,' that is, man left to his own temptations
would fail; but, strengthened by God, he shall be saved. If thy riches
are the tests of thy trial, so may they also be the instruments of thy
virtues. Prove by thy riches that thou art compassionate and tender,
temperate and benign, and thy riches themselves may become the evidence
at once of thy faith and of thy works.

"We have constantly on our lips the simple precept, 'Do unto others as
you would be done by.' Why do we fail so often in the practice? Because
we neglect to cultivate that SYMPATHY which nature implants as an
instinct, and the Saviour exalts as a command. If thou wouldst do unto
thy neighbour as thou wouldst be done by, ponder well how thy neighbour
will regard the action thou art about to do to him. Put thyself into his
place. If thou art strong and he is weak, descend from thy strength and
enter into his weakness; lay aside thy burden for the while, and buckle
on his own; let thy sight see as through his eyes, thy heart beat as
in his bosom. Do this, and thou wilt often confess that what had seemed
just to thy power will seem harsh to his weakness. For 'as a zealous man
hath not done his duty when he calls his brother drunkard and beast,'
even so an administrator of the law mistakes his object if he writes
on the grand column of society only warnings that irritate the bold and
terrify the timid; and a man will be no more in love with law than with
virtue, 'if he be forced to it with rudeness and incivilities.' If,
then, ye would bear the burden of the lowly, O ye great, feel not only
for them, but with! Watch that your pride does not chafe them, your
power does not wantonly gall. Your worldly inferior is of the class
from which the Apostles were chosen, amidst which the Lord of Creation
descended from a throne above the seraphs."

The parson here paused a moment, and his eye glanced towards the pew
near the pulpit, where sat the magnate of Hazeldean. The squire was
leaning his chin thoughtfully on his hand, his brow inclined downwards,
and the natural glow of his complexion much heightened.

"But," resumed the parson, softly, without turning to his book, and
rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment--"but he who has
cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them,
hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man that he
obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his
conscience. In this sympathy, behold the bond between rich and poor! By
this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become what they
were meant to be,--exercises for the virtues more peculiar to each; and
thus, if in the body each man bear his own burden, yet in the fellowship
of the soul all have common relief in bearing the burdens of each other.
This is the law of Christ,--fulfil it, O my flock!"

Here the parson closed his sermon, and the congregation bowed their
heads.




BOOK THIRD.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE CALLED "MY NOVEL."

"I am not displeased with your novel, so far as it has gone," said my
father, graciously; "though as for the Sermon--" Here I trembled; but
the ladies, Heaven bless them! had taken Parson Dale under their special
protection; and observing that my father was puckering up his brows
critically, they rushed forward boldly in defence of The Sermon, and Mr.
Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. However, like a skilful general, he
renewed the assault upon outposts less gallantly guarded. But as it is
not my business to betray my weak points, I leave it to the ingenuity
of cavillers to discover the places at which the Author of "Human Error"
directed his great guns.

"But," said the captain, "you are a lad of too much spirit, Pisistratus,
to keep us always in the obscure country quarters of Hazeldean,--you
will march us out into open service before you have done with us?"

PISISTRATUS (magisterially, for he has been somewhat nettled by Mr.
Caxton's remarks, and he puts on an air of dignity in order to awe away
minor assailants).--"Yes, Captain Roland; not yet a while, but all in
good time. I have not stinted myself in canvas, and behind my foreground
of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose hereafter to open some
lengthened perspective of the varieties of English life--"

MR. CAXTON.--"Hum!"

BLANCHE (putting her hand on my father's lip).--"We shall know better
the design, perhaps, when we know the title. Pray, Mr. Author, what is
the title?"

MY MOTHER (with more animation than usual).--"Ay, Sisty, the title!"

PISISTRATUS (startled).--"The title! By the soul of Cervantes! I have
never yet thought of a title!"

CAPTAIN ROLAND (solemnly).--"There is a great deal in a good title. As a
novel reader, I know that by experience."

MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly; there is not a catchpenny in the world but
what goes down, if the title be apt and seductive. Witness 'Old
Parr's Life Pills.' Sell by the thousand, Sir, when my 'Pills for Weak
Stomachs,' which I believe to be just the same compound, never paid for
the advertising."

MR. CAXTON.--"Parr's Life Pills! a fine stroke of genius. It is not
every one who has a weak stomach, or time to attend to it if he have.
But who would not swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?"

PISISTRATUS (stirring the fire in great excitement).--"My title! my
title!--what shall be my title?"

MR. CAXTON (thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and in his most
didactic of tones).--"From a remote period, the choice of a title has
perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their
invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced.
To begin with the Hebrews. 'The Lips of the Sleeping' (Labia
Dormientium)--what book did you suppose that title to designate?--A
Catalogue of Rabbinical Writers! Again, imagine some young lady of
old captivated by the sentimental title of 'The Pomegranate with its
Flower,' and opening on a Treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials! Let us
turn to the Romans. Aulus Gellius commences his pleasant gossipping
'Noctes' with a list of the titles in fashion in his day. For instance,
'The Muses' and 'The Veil,' 'The Cornucopia,' 'The Beehive,' and 'The
Meadow.' Some titles, indeed, were more truculent, and promised food to
those who love to sup upon horrors,--such as 'The Torch,' 'The Poniard,'
'The Stiletto'--"

PISISTRATUS (impatiently).--"Yes, sir, but to come to My Novel."

MR. CAXTON (unheeding the interruption).--"You see you have a fine
choice here, and of a nature pleasing, and not unfamiliar, to a
classical reader; or you may borrow a hint from the early dramatic
writers."

PISISTRATUS (more hopefully).--"Ay, there is something in the Drama akin
to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I may catch an idea."

MR. CAXTON.--"For instance, the author of the 'Curiosities of
Literature' (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarizing much of the
information I bestow upon you) tells us of a Spanish gentleman who
wrote a Comedy, by which he intended to serve what he took for Moral
Philosophy."

PISISTRATUS (eagerly).--"Well, sir?"

MR. CAXTON.--"And called it 'The Pain of the Sleep of the World.'"

PISISTRATUS.--"Very comic, indeed, sir."

MR. CAXTON.--"Grave things were then called Comedies, as old things are
now called Novels. Then there are all the titles of early Romance itself
at your disposal,--'Theagenes and Chariclea' or 'The Ass' of Longus, or
'The Golden Ass' of Apuleius, or the titles of Gothic Romance, such as
'The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful History of
Perceforest, King of Great Britain.'" And therewith my father ran over a
list of names as long as the Directory, and about as amusing.

"Well, to my taste," said my mother, "the novels I used to read when a
girl (for I have not read many since, I am ashamed to say)--"

MR. CAXTON.--"No, you need not be at all ashamed of it, Kitty."

MY MOTHER (proceeding).--"Were much more inviting than any you mention,
Austin."

THE CAPTAIN.--"True."

MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly. Nothing like them nowadays!"

MY MOTHER.--"'Says she to her Neighbour, What?'"

THE CAPTAIN.--"'The Unknown, or the Northern Gallery'--"

MR. SQUILLS.--"'There is a Secret; Find it out!'"

PISISTRATUS (pushed to the verge of human endurance, and upsetting
tongs, poker, and fire-shovel).--"What nonsense you are talking, all of
you! For Heaven's sake consider what an important matter we are called
upon to decide. It is not now the titles of those very respectable works
which issued from the Minerva Press that I ask you to remember,--it is
to invent a title for mine,--My Novel!"

MR. CAXTON (clapping his hands gently).--"Excellent! capital! Nothing
can be better; simple, natural, pertinent, concise--"

PISISTRATUS.--"What is it, sir, what is it? Have you really thought of a
title to My Novel?"

MR. CAXTON.--"You have hit it yourself,--'My Novel.' It is your Novel;
people will know it is your Novel. Turn and twist the English language
as you will, be as allegorical as Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Fabulist, or
Puritan, still, after all, it is your Novel, and nothing more nor less
than your Novel."

PISISTRATUS (thoughtfully, and sounding the words various ways).--"'My
Novel!'--um-um! 'My Novel!' rather bold--and curt, eh?"

MR. CAXTON.--"Add what you say you intend it to depict,--Varieties in
English Life."

MY MOTHER.--"'My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life'--I don't think
it sounds amiss. What say you, Roland? Would it attract you in a
catalogue?"

My uncle hesitates, when Mr. Caxton exclaims imperiously.--"The thing is
settled! Don't disturb Camarina."

SQUILLS.--"If it be not too great a liberty, pray who or what is
Camarina?"

MR. CAXTON.--"Camarina, Mr. Squills, was a lake, apt to be low, and then
liable to be muddy; and 'Don't disturb Camarina' was a Greek proverb
derived from an oracle of Apollo; and from that Greek proverb, no doubt,
comes the origin of the injunction, 'Quieta non movere,' which became
the favourite maxim of Sir Robert Walpole and Parson Dale. The Greek
line, Mr. Squills" (here my father's memory began to warm), is preserved
by Stephanus Byzantinus, 'De Urbibus,'

   [Greek proverb]

Zenobius explains it in his proverbs; Suidas repeats Zenobius; Lucian
alludes to it; so does Virgil in the Third Book of the AEneid; and
Silius Italicus imitates Virgil,--

        "'Et cui non licitum fatis Camarina moveri.'

"Parson Dale, as a clergyman and a scholar, had, no doubt, these
authorities at his fingers' end. And I wonder he did not quote them,"
quoth my father; "but to be sure he is represented as a mild man, and
so might not wish to humble the squire over-much in the presence of his
family. Meanwhile, My Novel is My Novel; and now that, that matter is
settled, perhaps the tongs, poker, and shovel may be picked up, the
children may go to bed, Blanche and Kitty may speculate apart upon the
future dignities of the Neogilos,--taking care, nevertheless, to finish
the new pinbefores he requires for the present; Roland may cast up his
account book, Mr. Squills have his brandy and water, and all the world
be comfortable, each in his own way. Blanche, come away from the
screen, get me my slippers, and leave Pisistratus to himself. [Greek
line]--don't disturb Camarina. You see, my dear," added my father
kindly, as, after settling himself into his slippers, he detained
Blanche's hand in his own,--"you see, my dear, every house has its
Camarina. Alan, who is a lazy animal, is quite content to let it alone;
but woman, being the more active, bustling, curious creature, is always
for giving it a sly stir."

BLANCHE (with female dignity).--"I assure you, that if Pisistratus had
not called me, I should not have--"

MR. CAXTON (interrupting her, without lifting his eyes from the book he
had already taken).--"Certainly you would not. I am now in the midst of
the great Oxford Controversy. [The same Greek proverb]--don't disturb
Camarina."

A dead silence for half-an-hour, at the end of which--

PISISTRATUS (from behind the screen).--"Blanche, my dear, I want to
consult you."

Blanche does not stir.

PISISTRATUS.--"Blanche, I say." Blanche glances in triumph towards Mr.
Caxton.

MR. CAXTON (laying down his theological tract, and rubbing his
spectacles mournfully).--"I hear him, child; I hear him. I retract my
vindication of man. Oracles warn in vain: so long as there is a woman on
the other side of the screen, it is all up with Camarina."




CHAPTER II.

It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Stirn was not present at the
parson's Discourse; but that valuable functionary was far otherwise
engaged,--indeed, during the summer months he was rarely seen at the
afternoon service. Not that he cared for being preached at,--not he; Mr.
Stirn would have snapped his fingers at the thunders of the Vatican.
But the fact was, that Mr. Stirn chose to do a great deal of gratuitous
business upon the day of rest. The squire allowed all persons who chose
to walk about the park on a Sunday; and many came from a distance to
stroll by the lake, or recline under the elms. These visitors were
objects of great suspicion, nay, of positive annoyance, to Mr.
Stirn--and, indeed, not altogether without reason, for we English have
a natural love of liberty, which we are even more apt to display in
the grounds of other people than in those which we cultivate ourselves.
Sometimes, to his inexpressible and fierce satisfaction, Mr. Stirn
fell upon a knot of boys pelting the swans; sometimes he missed a
young sapling, and found it in felonious hands, converted into a
walking-stick; sometimes he caught a hulking fellow scrambling up the
ha-ha to gather a nosegay for his sweetheart from one of poor Mrs.
Hazeldean's pet parterres; not infrequently, indeed, when all the family
were fairly at church, some curious impertinents forced or sneaked their
way into the gardens, in order to peep in at the windows. For these,
and various other offences of like magnitude, Mr. Stirn had long,
but vainly, sought to induce the squire to withdraw a permission so
villanously abused. But though there were times when Mr. Hazeldean
grunted and growled, and swore "that he would shut up the park, and
fill it [illegally] with mantraps and spring-guns," his anger always
evaporated in words. The park was still open to all the world on a
Sunday; and that blessed day was therefore converted into a day of
travail and wrath to Mr. Stirn. But it was from the last chime of the
afternoon-service bell until dusk that the spirit of this vigilant
functionary was most perturbed; for, amidst the flocks that gathered
from the little hamlets round to the voice of the pastor, there were
always some stray sheep, or rather climbing, desultory, vagabond goats,
who struck off in all perverse directions, as if for the special purpose
of distracting the energetic watchfulness of Mr. Stirn. As soon as
church was over, if the day were fine, the whole park became a scene
animated with red cloaks or lively shawls, Sunday waistcoats and hats
stuck full of wildflowers--which last Mr. Stirn often stoutly
maintained to be Mrs. Hazeldean's newest geraniums. Now, on this Sunday,
especially, there was an imperative call upon an extra exertion of
vigilance on the part of the superintendent,--he had not only to detect
ordinary depredators and trespassers; but, first, to discover the
authors of the conspiracy against the stocks; and, secondly, to "make an
example."

He had begun his rounds, therefore, from the early morning; and just
as the afternoon bell was sounding its final peal, he emerged upon the
village green from a hedgerow, behind which he had been at watch to
observe who had the most suspiciously gathered round the stocks. At that
moment the place was deserted. At a distance, the superintendent saw
the fast disappearing forms of some belated groups hastening towards the
church; in front, the stocks stood staring at him mournfully from its
four great eyes, which had been cleansed from the mud, but still looked
bleared and stained with the inarks of the recent outrage. Here Mr.
Stirn paused, took off his hat, and wiped his brows.

"If I had sum 'un to watch here," thought he, "while I takes a turn by
the water-side, p'r'aps summat might come out; p'r'aps them as did it
ben't gone to church, but will come sneaking round to look on their
willany! as they says murderers are always led back to the place where
they ha' left the body. But in this here willage there ben't a man,
woman, or child as has any consarn for squire or parish, barring
myself." It was just as he arrived at that misanthropical conclusion
that Mr. Stirn beheld Leonard Fairfield walking very fast from his own
home. The superintendent clapped on his hat, and stuck his right arm
akimbo. "Hollo, you, sir," said he, as Lenny now came in hearing, "where
be you going at that rate?"

"Please, sir, I be going to church."

"Stop, sir,--stop, Master Lenny. Going to church!--why, the bell's
done; and you knows the parson is very angry at them as comes in late,
disturbing the congregation. You can't go to church now!"

"Please, sir--"

"I says you can't go to church now. You must learn to think a little
of others, lad. You sees how I sweats to serve the squire! and you must
serve him too. Why, your mother's got the house and premishes almost
rent-free; you ought to have a grateful heart, Leonard Fairfield, and
feel for his honour! Poor man! his heart is well-nigh bruk, I am sure,
with the goings on."

Leonard opened his innocent blue eyes, while Mr. Stirn dolorously wiped
his own.

"Look at that 'ere dumb cretur," said Stirn, suddenly, pointing to the
stocks,--"look at it. If it could speak, what would it say, Leonard
Fairfield? Answer me that! 'Damn the stocks,' indeed!"

"It was very bad in them to write such naughty words," said Lenny,
gravely. "Mother was quite shocked when she heard of it this morning."

MR. STIRN.--"I dare say she was, considering what she pays for the
premishes;" (insinuatingly) "you does not know who did it,--eh, Lenny?"

LENNY.--"No, sir; indeed I does not!"

MR. STIRN.--"Well, you see, you can't go to church,--prayers half
over by this time. You recollex that I put them stocks under your
'sponsibility,' and see the way you's done your duty by 'em! I've half a
mind to--"

Mr. Stirn cast his eyes on the eyes of the stocks. "Please, sir," began
Lenny again, rather frightened.

"No, I won't please; it ben't pleasing at all. But I forgives you this
time, only keep a sharp lookout, lad, in future. Now you must stay
here--no, there--under the hedge, and you watches if any persons comes
to loiter about, or looks at the stocks, or laughs to hisself, while I
go my rounds. I shall be back either afore church is over or just arter;
so you stay till I comes, and give me your report. Be sharp, boy, or it
will be worse for you and your mother; I can let the premishes for L4 a
year more to-morrow."

Concluding with that somewhat menacing and very significant remark, and
not staying for an answer, Mr. Stirn waved his hand and walked off.

Poor Lenny remained by the stocks, very much dejected, and greatly
disliking the neighbourhood to which the was consigned. At length he
slowly crept off to the hedge, and sat himself down in the place of
espionage pointed out to him. Now, philosophers tell us that what is
called the point of honour is a barbarous feudal prejudice. Amongst
the higher classes, wherein those feudal prejudices may be supposed to
prevail, Lenny Fairfield's occupation would not have been considered
peculiarly honourable; neither would it have seemed so to the more
turbulent spirits among the humbler orders, who have a point of honour
of their own, which consists in the adherence to each other in defiance
of all lawful authority. But to Lenny Fairfield, brought up much apart
from other boys, and with a profound and grateful reverence for the
squire instilled into all his habits of thought, notions of honour
bounded themselves to simple honesty and straightforward truth; and as
he cherished an unquestioning awe of order and constitutional authority,
so it did not appear to him that there was anything derogatory and
debasing in being thus set to watch for an offender. On the contrary, as
he began to reconcile himself to the loss of the church service, and
to enjoy the cool of the summer shade and the occasional chirp of the
birds, he got to look on the bright side of the commission to which he
was deputed. In youth, at least, everything has its bright side,--even
the appointment of Protector to the Parish Stocks. For the stocks itself
Leonard had no affection, it is true; but he had no sympathy with its
aggressors, and he could well conceive that the squire would be very
much hurt at the revolutionary event of the night. "So," thought poor
Leonard in his simple heart,--"so, if I can serve his honour, by keeping
off mischievous boys, or letting him know who did the thing, I'm sure
it would be a proud day for Mother." Then he began to consider that,
however ungraciously Mr. Stirn had bestowed on him the appointment,
still it was a compliment to him,--showed trust and confidence in him,
picked him out from his contemporaries as the sober, moral, pattern boy;
and Lenny had a great deal of pride in him, especially in matters of
repute and character.

All these things considered, I say, Leonard Fairfield reclined on his
lurking-place, if not with positive delight and intoxicating rapture, at
least with tolerable content and some complacency.

Mr. Stirn might have been gone a quarter of an hour, when a boy came
through a little gate in the park, just opposite to Lenny's retreat in
the hedge, and, as if fatigued with walking, or oppressed by the heat of
the day, paused on the green for a moment or so, and then advanced under
the shade of the great tree which overhung the stocks.

Lenny pricked up his ears, and peeped out jealously.

He had never seen the boy before: it was a strange face to him.

Leonard Fairfield was not fond of strangers; moreover, he had a vague
belief that strangers were at the bottom of that desecration of the
stocks. The boy, then, was a stranger; but what was his rank? Was he
of that grade in society in which the natural offences are or are not
consonant to, or harmonious with, outrages upon stocks? On that Lenny
Fairfield did not feel quite assured. According to all the experience of
the villager, the boy was not dressed like a young gentleman. Leonard's
notions of such aristocratic costume were naturally fashioned upon the
model of Frank Hazeldean. They represented to him a dazzling vision of
snow-white trousers and beautiful blue coats and incomparable cravats.
Now the dress of this stranger, though not that of a peasant or of a
farmer, did not in any way correspond with Lenny's notion of the costume
of a young gentleman. It looked to him highly disreputable: the coat
was covered with mud, and the hat was all manner of shapes, with a gap
between the side and crown.

Lenny was puzzled, till it suddenly occurred to him that the gate
through which the boy had passed was in the direct path across the park
from a small town, the inhabitants of which were in very bad odour at
the Hall,--they had immemorially furnished the most daring poachers to
the preserves, the most troublesome trespassers on the park, the most
unprincipled orchard robbers, and the most disputatious asserters of
various problematical rights of way, which, according to the Town, were
public, and, according to the Hall, had been private since the Conquest.
It was true that the same path led also directly from the squire's
house, but it was not probable that the wearer of attire so equivocal
had been visiting there. All things considered, Lenny had no doubt in
his mind but that the stranger was a shop-boy or 'prentice from the town
of Thorndyke; and the notorious repute of that town, coupled with this
presumption, made it probable that Lenny now saw before him one of the
midnight desecrators of the stocks. As if to confirm the
suspicion, which passed through Lenny's mind with a rapidity wholly
disproportionate to the number of lines it costs me to convey it, the
boy, now standing right before the stocks, bent down and read that pithy
anathema with which it was defaced. And having read it, he repeated it
aloud, and Lenny actually saw him smile,--such a smile! so disagreeable
and sinister! Lenny had never before seen the smile sardonic.

But what were Lenny's pious horror and dismay when this ominous stranger
fairly seated himself on the stocks, rested his heels profanely on
the lids of two of the four round eyes, and taking out a pencil and a
pocket-book, began to write.

Was this audacious Unknown taking an inventory of the church and the
Hall for the purposes of conflagration? He looked at one and at the
other, with a strange fixed stare as he wrote,--not keeping his eyes
on the paper, as Lenny had been taught to do when he sat down to his
copy-book. The fact is, that Randal Leslie was tired and faint, and he
felt the shock of his fall the more, after the few paces he had walked,
so that he was glad to rest himself a few moments; and he took that
opportunity to write a line to Frank, to excuse himself for not
calling again, intending to tear the leaf on which he wrote out of
his pocket-book and leave it at the first cottage he passed, with
instructions to take it to the Hall.

While Randal was thus innocently engaged, Lenny came up to him, with the
firm and measured pace of one who has resolved, cost what it may, to do
his duty. And as Lenny, though brave, was not ferocious, so the anger he
felt and the suspicions he entertained only exhibited themselves in the
following solemn appeal to the offender's sense of propriety,--"Ben't
you ashamed of yourself? Sitting on the squire's new stocks! Do get up,
and go along with you!"

Randal turned round sharply; and though, at any other moment, he would
have had sense enough to extricate himself very easily from his false
position, yet Nemo mortalium, etc. No one is always wise. And Randal was
in an exceedingly bad humour. The affability towards his inferiors,
for which I lately praised him, was entirely lost in the contempt for
impertinent snobs natural to an insulted Etonian.

Therefore, eying Lenny with great disdain, Randal answered briefly,--

"You are an insolent young blackguard."

So curt a rejoinder made Lenny's blood fly to his face. Persuaded before
that the intruder was some lawless apprentice or shop-lad, he was now
more confirmed in that judgment, not only by language so uncivil, but by
the truculent glance which accompanied it, and which certainly did
not derive any imposing dignity from the mutilated, rakish, hang-dog,
ruinous hat, under which it shot its sullen and menacing fire.

Of all the various articles of which our male attire is composed, there
is perhaps not one which has so much character and expression as the top
covering. A neat, well-brushed, short-napped, gentlemanlike hat, put on
with a certain air, gives a distinction and respectability to the whole
exterior; whereas, a broken, squashed, higgledy-piggledy sort of a hat,
such as Randal Leslie had on, would go far towards transforming the
stateliest gentleman who ever walked down St. James's Street into the
ideal of a ruffianly scamp.

Now, it is well known that there is nothing more antipathetic to your
peasant-boy than a shop-boy. Even on grand political occasions, the
rural working-class can rarely be coaxed into sympathy with the trading
town class. Your true English peasant is always an aristocrat. Moreover,
and irrespectively of this immemorial grudge of class, there is
something peculiarly hostile in the relationship between boy and boy
when their backs are once up, and they are alone on a quiet bit of
green,--something of the game-cock feeling; something that tends to
keep alive, in the population of this island (otherwise so lamblike and
peaceful), the martial propensity to double the thumb tightly over the
four fingers, and make what is called "a fist of it." Dangerous symptoms
of these mingled and aggressive sentiments were visible in Lenny
Fairfield at the words and the look of the unprepossessing stranger. And
the stranger seemed aware of them; for his pale face grew more pale, and
his sullen eye more fixed and more vigilant.

"You get off them stocks," said Lenny, disdaining to reply to the coarse
expressions bestowed on him; and, suiting the action to the word, he
gave the intruder what he meant for a shove, but what Randal took for
a blow. The Etonian sprang up, and the quickness of his movement, aided
but by a slight touch of his hand, made Lenny lose his balance, and sent
him neck-and-crop over the stocks. Burning with rage, the young villager
rose alertly, and, flying at Randal, struck out right and left.




CHAPTER III.

Aid me, O ye Nine! whom the incomparable Persius satirized his
contemporaries for invoking, and then, all of a sudden, invoked on his
own behalf,--aid me to describe that famous battle by the stocks, and
in defence of the stocks, which was waged by the two representatives
of Saxon and Norman England. Here, sober support of law and duty
and delegated trust,--pro aris et focis; there, haughty invasion and
bellicose spirit of knighthood and that respect for name and person
which we call "honour." Here, too, hardy physical force,--there, skilful
discipline. Here--The Nine are as deaf as a post, and as cold as a
stone! Plague take the jades! I can do better without them.

Randal was a year or two older than Lenny, but he was not so tall nor so
strong, nor even so active; and after the first blind rush, when the two
boys paused, and drew back to breathe, Lenny, eying the slight form and
hueless cheek of his opponent, and seeing blood trickling from Randal's
lip, was seized with an instantaneous and generous remorse. "It was
not fair," he thought, "to fight one whom he could beat so easily." So,
retreating still farther, and letting his arms fall to his side, he said
mildly, "There, let's have no more of it; but go home and be good."

Randal Leslie had no remarkable degree of that constitutional quality
called physical courage; but he had some of those moral qualities
which supply its place. He was proud, he was vindictive, he had high
self-esteem, he had the destructive organ more than the combative,--what
had once provoked his wrath it became his instinct to sweep away.
Therefore, though all his nerves were quivering, and hot tears were in
his eyes, he approached Lenny with the sternness of a gladiator, and
said between his teeth, which he set hard, choking back the sob of rage
and pain,--

"You have struck me--and you shall not stir from this ground till I have
made you repent it. Put up your hands,--defend yourself."

Lenny mechanically obeyed; and he had good need of the admonition; for
if before he had had the advantage, now that Randal had recovered the
surprise to his nerves, the battle was not to the strong.

Though Leslie had not been a fighting boy at Eton, still his temper had
involved him in some conflicts when he was in the lower forms, and
he had learned something of the art as well as the practice in
pugilism,--an excellent thing too, I am barbarous enough to believe, and
which I hope will never quite die out of our public schools. Ah, many a
young duke has been a better fellow for life from a fair set-to with a
trader's son; and many a trader's son has learned to look a lord more
manfully in the face on the hustings, from the recollection of the sound
thrashing he once gave to some little Lord Leopold Dawdle.

So Randal now brought his experience and art to bear; put aside
those heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his own, quick and sharp,
supplying to the natural feebleness of his arm the due momentum of
pugilistic mechanics. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble; for
strange is the strength that comes from passion and pluck!

Poor Lenny, who had never fought before, was bewildered; his sensations
grew so entangled that he could never recall them distinctly; he had a
dim reminiscence of some breathless impotent rush, of a sudden blindness
followed by quick flashes of intolerable light, of a deadly faintness,
from which he was roused by sharp pangs--here--there--everywhere; and
then all he could remember was, that he was lying on the ground,
huddled up and panting hard, while his adversary bent over him with a
countenance as dark and livid as Lara himself might have bent over the
fallen Otho. For Randal Leslie was not one who, by impulse and nature,
subscribed to the noble English maxim, "Never hit a foe when he is
down;" and it cost him a strong, if brief, self-struggle not to set
his heel on that prostrate form. It was the mind, not the heart,
that subdued the savage within him, as muttering something
inwardly--certainly not Christian forgiveness--the victor turned
gloomily away.




CHAPTER IV.

Just at that precise moment, who should appear but Mr. Stirn! For, in
fact, being extremely anxious to get Lenny into disgrace, he had hoped
that he should have found the young villager had shirked the commission
intrusted to him; and the right-hand man had slily come back to see if
that amiable expectation were realized. He now beheld Lenny rising with
some difficulty, still panting hard, and with hysterical sounds akin
to what is vulgarly called blubbering, his fine new waistcoat sprinkled
with his own blood, which flowed from his nose,--nose that seemed
to Lenny Fairfield's feelings to be a nose no more, but a swollen,
gigantic, mountainous Slawkenbergian excrescence; in fact, he felt all
nose! Turning aghast from this spectacle, Mr. Stirn surveyed, with no
more respect than Lenny had manifested, the stranger boy, who had again
seated himself on the stocks (whether to recover his breath, or whether
to show that his victory was consummated, and that he was in his rights
of possession). "Hollo," said Mr. Stirn, "what is all this? What's the
matter, Lenny, you blockhead?"

"He will sit there," answered Lenny, in broken gasps, "and he has beat
me because I would not let him; but I doesn't mind that," added the
villager, trying hard to suppress his tears, "and I am ready again for
him--that I am."

"And what do you do lollopoping there on them blessed stocks?"

"Looking at the landscape; out of my light, man!"

This tone instantly inspired Mr. Stirn with misgivings: it was a tone
so disrespectful to him that he was seized with involuntary respect; who
but a gentleman could speak so to Mr. Stirn?

"And may I ask who you be?" said Stirn, falteringly, and half inclined
to touch his hat. "What Is your name, pray? What's your bizness?"

"My name is Randal Leslie, and my business was to visit your master's
family,--that is, if you are, as I guess from your manner, Mr.
Hazeldean's ploughman!"

So saying, Randal rose; and moving on a few paces, turned, and throwing
half-a-crown on the road, said to Lenny, "Let that pay you for your
bruises, and remember another time how you speak to a gentleman. As for
you, fellow,"--and he pointed his scornful hand towards Mr. Stirn, who,
with his mouth open, and his hat now fairly off, stood bowing to the
earth,--"as for you, give my compliments to Mr. Hazeldean, and say that
when he does us the honour to visit us at Rood Hall, I trust that the
manners of our villagers will make him ashamed of Hazeldean."

Oh, my poor Squire! Rood Hall ashamed of Hazeldean! If that message had
been delivered to you, you would never have looked up again!

With those bitter words, Randal swung himself over the stile that led
into the parson's glebe, and left Lenny Fairfield still feeling his
nose, and Mr. Stirn still bowing to the earth.




CHAPTER V.

Randal Leslie had a very long walk home; he was bruised and sore from
head to foot, and his mind was still more sore and more bruised than his
body. But if Randal Leslie had rested himself in the squire's gardens,
without walking backwards and indulging in speculations suggested by
Marat, and warranted by my Lord Bacon, he would have passed a most
agreeable evening, and really availed himself of the squire's wealth
by going home in the squire's carriage. But because he chose to take
so intellectual a view of property, he tumbled into a ditch; because
he tumbled into a ditch, he spoiled his clothes; because he spoiled his
clothes, he gave up his visit; because he gave up his visit, he got into
the village green, and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the
air of a fugitive from the treadmill; because he sat on the stocks--with
that hat, and a cross face under it--he had been forced into the most
discreditable squabble with a clodhopper, and was now limping home,
at war with gods and men; ergo (this is a moral that will bear
repetition),--ergo, when you walk in a rich man's grounds, be contented
to enjoy what is yours, namely, the prospect,--I dare say you will enjoy
it more than he does!




CHAPTER VI.

If, in the simplicity of his heart and the crudity of his experience,
Lenny Fairfield had conceived it probable that Mr. Stirn would address
to him some words in approbation of his gallantry and in sympathy for
his bruises, he soon found himself wofully mistaken. That truly
great man, worthy prime minister of Hazeldean, might perhaps pardon a
dereliction from his orders, if such dereliction proved advantageous to
the interests of the service, or redounded to the credit of the
chief; but he was inexorable to that worst of diplomatic offences,--an
ill-timed, stupid, over-zealous obedience to orders, which, if it
established the devotion of the employee, got the employer into what
is popularly called a scrape! And though, by those unversed in the
intricacies of the human heart, and unacquainted with the especial
hearts of prime ministers and right-hand men, it might have seemed
natural that Mr. Stirn, as he stood still, hat in hand, in the middle
of the road, stung, humbled, and exasperated by the mortification he had
received from the lips of Randal Leslie, would have felt that that young
gentleman was the proper object of his resentment, yet such a breach of
all the etiquette of diplomatic life as resentment towards a superior
power was the last idea that would have suggested itself to the profound
intellect of the premier of Hazeldean. Still, as rage, like steam, must
escape somewhere, Mr. Stirn, on feeling--as he afterwards expressed it
to his wife--that his "buzzom was a burstin'," turned with the natural
instinct of self-preservation to the safety-valve provided for the
explosion; and the vapours within him rushed into vent upon Lenny
Fairfield. He clapped his hat on his head fiercely, and thus relieved
his "buzzom."

"You young willain! you howdaeious wiper! and so all this blessed
Sabbath afternoon, when you ought to have been in church on your
marrow-bones, a praying for your betters, you has been a fitting with a
young gentleman, and a wisiter to your master, on the wery place of the
parridge hinstitution that you was to guard and pertect; and a bloodying
it all over, I declares, with your blaggard little nose!" Thus saying,
and as if to mend the matter, Mr. Stirn aimed an additional stroke at
the offending member; but Lenny mechanically putting up both arms to
defend his face, Mr. Stirn struck his knuckles against the large brass
buttons that adorned the cuff of the boy's coat-sleeve,--an incident
which considerably aggravated his indignation. And Lenny, whose spirit
was fairly roused at what the narrowness of his education conceived to
be a signal injustice, placing the trunk of the tree between Mr. Stirn
and himself, began that task of self-justification which it was equally
impolitic to conceive and imprudent to execute, since, in such a case,
to justify was to recriminate.

"I wonder at you, Master Stirn,--if Mother could hear you! You know it
was you who would not let me go to church; it was you who told me to--"

"Fit a young gentleman, and break the Sabbath," said Mr. Stirn,
interrupting him with a withering sneer. "Oh, yes! I told you to
disgrace his honour the squire, and me, and the parridge, and bring
us all into trouble. But the squire told me to make an example, and I
will!" With those words, quick as lightning flashed upon Mr. Stirn's
mind the luminous idea of setting Lenny in the very stocks which he had
too faithfully guarded. Eureka! the "example" was before him! Here he
could gratify his long grudge against the pattern boy; here, by such
a selection of the very best lad in the parish, he could strike terror
into the worst; here he could appease the offended dignity of Randal
Leslie; here was a practical apology to the squire for the affront put
upon his young visitor; here, too, there was prompt obedience to the
squire's own wish that the stocks should be provided as soon as possible
with a tenant. Suiting the action to the thought, Mr. Stirn made a rapid
plunge at his victim, caught him by the skirt of his jacket; and in a
few seconds more, the jaws of the stocks had opened, and Lenny Fairfield
was thrust therein,--a sad spectacle of the reverses of fortune.
This done, and while the boy was too astounded, too stupefied, by the
suddenness of the calamity, for the resistance he might otherwise have
made,--nay, for more than a few inaudible words,--Mr. Stirn hurried from
the spot, but not without first picking up and pocketing the half-crown
designed for Lenny, and which, so great had been his first emotions,
he had hitherto even almost forgotten. He then made his way towards the
church, with the intention to place himself close by the door, catch
the squire as he came out, whisper to him what had passed, and lead him,
with the whole congregation at his heels, to gaze upon the sacrifice
offered up to the joint powers of Nemesis and Themis.




CHAPTER VII.

Unaffectedly I say it--upon the honour of a gentleman, and the
reputation of an author,--unaffectedly I say it, no words of mine can
do justice to the sensations experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat
alone in that place of penance. He felt no more the physical pain of
his bruises; the anguish of his mind stifled and overbore all corporeal
suffering,--an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of
holding.

For first and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense
of injustice. He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all
honesty, earnestness, and zeal, executed the commission entrusted to
him; he had stood forth manfully in discharge of his duty; he had
fought for it, suffered for it, bled for it. This was his reward! Now
in Lenny's mind there was pre-eminently that quality which distinguishes
the Anglo Saxon race,--the sense of justice. It was perhaps the
strongest principle in his moral constitution; and the principle had
never lost its virgin bloom and freshness by any of the minor acts of
oppression and iniquity which boys of higher birth often suffer from
harsh parents, or in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the
first time that that iron entered into his soul, and with it came its
attendant feeling,--the wrathful, galling sense of impotence. He had
been wronged, and he had no means to right himself. Then came another
sensation, if not so deep, yet more smarting and envenomed for the
time,--shame! He, the good boy of all good boys; he, the pattern of the
school, and the pride of the parson; he, whom the squire, in sight of
all his contemporaries, had often singled out to slap on the back, and
the grand squire's lady to pat on the head, with a smiling gratulation
on his young and fair repute; he, who had already learned so dearly to
prize the sweets of an honourable name,--he to be made, as it were, in
the twinkling of an eye, a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer,
and a byword! The streams of his life were poisoned at the fountain. And
then came a tenderer thought of his mother! of the shock this would be
to her,--she who had already begun to look up to him as her stay and
support; he bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled down.

Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench his limbs from
that hateful bondage,--for he heard steps approaching. And he began to
picture to himself the arrival of all the villagers from church, the
sad gaze of the parson, the bent brow of the squire, the idle,
ill-suppressed titter of all the boys, jealous of his unspotted
character,--character of which the original whiteness could never, never
be restored!

He would always be the boy who had sat in the stocks! And the words
uttered by the squire came back on his soul, like the voice of
conscience in the ears of some doomed Macbeth: "A sad disgrace,
Lenny,--you'll never be in such a quandary." "Quandary"--the word was
unfamiliar to him; it must mean something awfully discreditable. The
poor boy could have prayed for the earth to swallow him.




CHAPTER VIII.

"Kettles and frying-pans! what has us here?" cried the tinker.

This time Mr. Sprott was without his donkey; for it being Sunday, it
is presumed that the donkey was enjoying his Sabbath on the common.
The tinker was in his Sunday's best, clean and smart, about to take his
lounge in the park.

Lenny Fairfield made no answer to the appeal.

"You in the wood, my baby! Well, that's the last sight I should
ha' thought to see. But we all lives to larn," added the tinker,
sententiously. "Who gave you them leggins? Can't you speak, lad?"

"Nick Stirn."

"Nick Stirn! Ay, I'd ha' ta'en my davy on that: and cos vy?"

"'Cause I did as he told me, and fought a boy as was trespassing on
these very stocks; and he beat me--but I don't care for that; and that
boy was a young gentleman, and going to visit the squire; and so Nick
Stirn--" Lenny stopped short, choked by rage and humiliation.

"Augh," said the tinker, starting, "you fit with a young gentleman, did
you? Sorry to hear you confess that, my lad! Sit there and be thankful
you ha' got off so cheap. 'T is salt and battery to fit with your
betters, and a Lunnon justice o' peace would have given you two months
o' the treadmill.

"But vy should you fit cos he trespassed on the stocks? It ben't your
natural side for fitting, I takes it."

Lenny murmured something not very distinguishable about serving the
squire, and doing as he was bid.

"Oh, I sees, Lenny," interrupted the tinker, in a tone of great
contempt, "you be one of those who would rayther 'unt with the 'ounds
than run with the 'are! You be's the good pattern boy, and would peach
agin your own border to curry favour with the grand folks. Fie, lad! you
be sarved right; stick by your border, then you'll be 'spected when you
gets into trouble, and not be 'varsally 'spised,--as you'll be arter
church-time! Vell, I can't be seen 'sorting with you, now you are in
this d'rogotary fix; it might hurt my c'r'acter, both with them as built
the stocks and them as wants to pull 'em down. Old kettles to mend! Vy,
you makes me forgit the Sabbath! Sarvent, my lad, and wish you well
out of it; 'specks to your mother, and say we can deal for the pan and
shovel all the same for your misfortin."

The tinker went his way. Lenny's eye followed him with the sullenness
of despair. The tinker, like all the tribe of human comforters, had only
watered the brambles to invigorate the prick of the horns. Yes, if Lenny
had been caught breaking the stocks, some at least would have pitied
him; but to be incarcerated for defending them! You might as well have
expected that the widows and orphans of the Reign of Terror would have
pitied Dr. Guillotin when he slid through the grooves of his own deadly
machine. And even the tinker, itinerant, ragamuffin vagabond as he was,
felt ashamed to be found with the pattern boy! Lenny's head sank again
on his breast heavily, as if it had been of lead. Some few minutes
thus passed, when the unhappy prisoner became aware of the presence of
another spectator to his shame; he heard no step, but he saw a shadow
thrown over the sward. He held his breath, and would not look up, with
some vague idea that if he refused to see he might escape being seen.




CHAPTER IX.

"Per Bacco!" said Dr. Riccabocca, putting his hand on Lenny's shoulder,
and bending down to look into his face,--"per Bacco! my young friend, do
you sit here from choice or necessity?"

Lenny slightly shuddered, and winced under the touch of one whom he had
hitherto regarded with a sort of superstitious abhorrence.

"I fear," resumed Riccabocca, after waiting in vain for an answer to his
question, "that though the situation is charming, you did not select it
yourself. What is this?"--and the irony of the tone vanished--"what is
this, my poor boy? You have been bleeding, and I see that those tears
which you try to check come from a deep well. Tell me, povero fanciullo
mio" (the sweet Italian vowels, though Lenny did not understand them,
sounded softly and soothingly),--"tell me, my child, how all this
happened. Perhaps I can help you; we have all erred,--we should all help
each other."

Lenny's heart, that just before had seemed bound in brass, found itself
a way as the Italian spoke thus kindly, and the tears rushed down; but
he again stopped them, and gulped out sturdily,--

"I have not done no wrong; it ben't my fault,--and 't is that which
kills me!" concluded Lenny, with a burst of energy.

"You have not done wrong? Then," said the philosopher, drawing out
his pocket-handkerchief with great composure, and spreading it on the
ground,--"then I may sit beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over
sin, but I can lie down on equal terms with misfortune."

Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words, but enough of their
general meaning was apparent to make him cast a grateful glance on the
Italian. Riccabocca resumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief, "I
have a right to your confidence, my child, for I have been afflicted
in my day; yet I too say with thee, 'I have not done wrong.' Cospetto!"
(and here the doctor seated himself deliberately, resting one arm on
the side column of the stocks, in familiar contact with the
captive's shoulder, while his eye wandered over the lovely scene
around)--"Cospetto! my prison, if they had caught me, would not have had
so fair a look-out as this. But, to be sure, it is all one; there are no
ugly loves, and no handsome prisons."

With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered in his native
Italian, Riccabocca turned round and renewed his soothing invitations to
confidence. A friend in need is a friend indeed, even if he come in
the guise of a Papist and wizard. All Lenny's ancient dislike to the
foreigner had gone, and he told him his little tale.

Dr. Riccabocca was much too shrewd a man not to see exactly the motives
which had induced Mr. Stirn to incarcerate his agent (barring only that
of personal grudge, to which Lenny's account gave him no clew). That a
man high in office should make a scapegoat of his own watch-dog for an
unlucky snap, or even an indiscreet bark, was nothing strange to the
wisdom of the student of Machiavelli. However, he set himself to the
task of consolation with equal philosophy and tenderness. He began by
reminding, or rather informing, Leonard Fairfield of all the instances
of illustrious men afflicted by the injustice of others that occurred to
his own excellent memory. He told him how the great Epictetus, when in
slavery, had a master whose favourite amusement was pinching his leg,
which, as the amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than the
stocks. He also told him the anecdote of Lenny's own gallant countryman,
Admiral Byng, whose execution gave rise to Voltaire's celebrated
witticism, "En Angleterre on tue un admiral pour encourager les autres."

   ["In England they execute one admiral in order to encourage the
   others."]

Many other illustrations, still more pertinent to the case in point, his
erudition supplied from the stores of history. But on seeing that
Lenny did not seem in the slightest degree consoled by these memorable
examples, he shifted his ground, and reducing his logic to the strict
argumentum ad rem, began to prove, first, that there was no disgrace
at all in Lenny's present position, that every equitable person
would recognize the tyranny of Stirn and the innocence of its victim;
secondly, that if even here he were mistaken, for public opinion was
not always righteous, what was public opinion after all?--"A breath, a
puff," cried Dr. Riccabocca, "a thing without matter,--without length,
breadth, or substance,--a shadow, a goblin of our own creating. A man's
own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that
phantom 'opinion' than he should fear meeting a ghost if he crossed the
churchyard at dark."

Now, as Lenny did very much fear meeting a ghost if he crossed the
churchyard at dark, the simile spoiled the argument, and he shook his
head very mournfully. Dr. Riccabocca, was about to enter into a third
course of reasoning, which, had it come to an end, would doubtless have
settled the matter, and reconciled Lenny to sitting in the stocks till
doomsday, when the captive, with the quick ear and eye of terror and
calamity, became conscious that church was over, that the congregation
in a few seconds more would be flocking thitherwards. He saw visionary
hats and bonnets through the trees, which Riccabocca saw not, despite
all the excellence of his spectacles; heard phantasmal rustlings and
murmurings which Riccabocca heard not, despite all that theoretical
experience in plots, stratagems, and treasons, which should have made
the Italian's ear as fine as a conspirator's or a mole's. And with
another violent but vain effort at escape, the prisoner exclaimed,--

"Oh, if I could but get out before they come! Let me out, let me out!
Oh, kind sir, have pity,--let me out!"

"Diavolo!" said the philosopher, startled, "I wonder that I never
thought of that before. After all, I believe he has hit the right nail
on the head," and, looking close, he perceived that though the partition
of wood had hitched firmly into a sort of spring-clasp, which defied
Lenny's unaided struggles, still it was not locked (for, indeed, the
padlock and key were snug in the justice-room of the squire, who never
dreamed that his orders would be executed so literally and summarily
as to dispense with all formal appeal to himself). As soon as Dr.
Riccabocca made that discovery, it occurred to him that all the wisdom
of all the schools that ever existed can't reconcile man or boy to a bad
position--the moment there is a fair opportunity of letting him out of
it. Accordingly, without more ado, he lifted up the creaking board, and
Lenny Fairfield darted forth like a bird from a cage, halted a moment as
if for breath, or in joy; and then, taking at once to his heels, fled,
as a hare to its form, fast to his mother's home.

Dr. Riccabocca dropped the yawning wood into its place, picked up
his handkerchief and restored it to his pocket; and then, with some
curiosity, began to examine the nature of that place of duress which
had caused so much painful emotion to its rescued victim. "Man is a
very irrational animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquizing, "and is
frightened by strange buggaboos! 'T is but a piece of wood! how little
it really injures! And, after all, the holes are but rests to the legs,
and keep the feet out of the dirt. And this green bank to sit upon,
under the shade of the elm-tree-verily the position must be more
pleasant than otherwise! I've a great mind--" Here the doctor looked
around, and seeing the coast still clear, the oddest notion imaginable
took possession of him; yet, not indeed a notion so odd, considered
philosophically,--for all philosophy is based on practical
experiment,--and Dr. Riccabocca felt an irresistible desire practically
to experience what manner of thing that punishment of the stocks really
was. "I can but try! only for a moment," said he apologetically to his
own expostulating sense of dignity. "I have time to do it, before any
one comes." He lifted up the partition again: but stocks are built
on the true principle of English law, and don't easily allow a man to
criminate himself,--it was hard to get into them without the help of
a friend. However, as we before noticed, obstacles only whetted Dr.
Riccabocca's invention. He looked round, and saw a withered bit of stick
under the tree; this he inserted in the division of the stocks, somewhat
in the manner in which boys place a stick under a sieve for the purpose
of ensnaring sparrows; the fatal wood thus propped, Dr. Riceabocca sat
gravely down on the bank, and thrust his feet through the apertures.

"Nothing in it!" cried he, triumphantly, after a moment's deliberation.
"The evil is only in idea. Such is the boasted reason of mortals!" With
that reflection, nevertheless, he was about to withdraw his feet from
their voluntary dilemma, when the crazy stick suddenly gave way and
the partition fell back into its clasp. Dr. Riceabocca was fairly
caught,--"Facilis descensus--sed revocare gradum!" True, his hands were
at liberty, but his legs were so long that, being thus fixed, they kept
the hands from the rescue; and as Dr. Riccabocca's form was by no means
supple, and the twin parts of the wood stuck together with that firmness
of adhesion which things newly painted possess, so, after some vain
twists and contortions, in which he succeeded at length (not without a
stretch of the sinews that made them crack again) in finding the clasp
and breaking his nails thereon, the victim of his own rash experiment
resigned himself to his fate. Dr. Riceabocca was one of those men who
never do things by halves. When I say he resigned himself, I mean not
only Christian but philosophical resignation. The position was not quite
so pleasant as, theoretically, he had deemed it; but he resolved to
make himself as comfortable as he could. At first, as is natural in all
troubles to men who have grown familiar with that odoriferous comforter
which Sir Walter Raleigh is said first to have bestowed upon the
Caucasian races, the doctor made use of his hands to extract from his
pocket his pipe, match-box, and tobacco-pouch. After a few whiffs he
would have been quite reconciled to his situation, but for the discovery
that the sun had shifted its place in the heavens, and was no longer
shaded from his face by the elm-tree. The doctor again looked round, and
perceived that his red silk umbrella, which he had laid aside when he
had seated himself by Lenny, was within arm's reach. Possessing himself
of this treasure, he soon expanded its friendly folds. And thus, doubly
fortified within and without, under shade of the umbrella, and his
pipe composedly between his lips, Dr. Riceabocca gazed on his own
incarcerated legs, even with complacency.

"'He who can despise all things,'" said he, in one of his native
proverbs, "'possesses all things!'--if one despises freedom, one is
free! This seat is as soft as a sofa! I am not sure," he resumed,
soliloquizing, after a pause,--"I am not sure that there is not
something more witty than manly and philosophical in that national
proverb of mine which I quoted to the fanciullo, 'that there are
no handsome prisons'! Did not the son of that celebrated Frenchman,
surnamed Bras de Fer, write a book not only to prove that adversities
are more necessary than prosperities, but that among all adversities a
prison is the most pleasant and profitable? But is not this condition of
mine, voluntarily and experimentally incurred, a type of my life? Is
it the first time that I have thrust myself into a hobble? And if in a
hobble of mine own choosing, why should I blame the gods?"

Upon this, Dr. Riceabocca fell into a train of musing so remote from
time and place, that in a few minutes he no more remembered that he was
in the parish stocks than a lover remembers that flesh is grass, a miser
that mammon is perishable, a philosopher that wisdom is vanity. Dr.
Riccabocca was in the clouds.




CHAPTER X.

The dullest dog that ever wrote a novel (and, entre nous, reader)--but
let it go no further,--we have a good many dogs among the fraternity
that are not Munitos might have seen with half an eye that the parson's
discourse had produced a very genial and humanizing effect upon his
audience.

   [Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Porson of a
   dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such dogs nowadays.]

When all was over, and the congregation stood up to let Mr. Hazeldean
and his family walk first down the aisle (for that was the custom at
Hazeldean), moistened eyes glanced at the squire's sun-burned manly
face, with a kindness that bespoke revived memory of many a generous
benefit and ready service. The head might be wrong now and then,--the
heart was in the right place after all. And the lady leaning on his arm
came in for a large share of that gracious good feeling. True, she now
and then gave a little offence when the cottages were not so clean as
she fancied they ought to be,--and poor folks don't like a liberty taken
with their houses any more than the rich do; true that she was not quite
so popular with the women as the squire was, for, if the husband went
too often to the ale-house, she always laid the fault on the wife,
and said, "No man would go out of doors for his comforts, if he had
a smiling face and a clean hearth at his home;" whereas the squire
maintained the more gallant opinion that "If Gill was a shrew, it was
because Jack did not, as in duty bound, stop her mouth with a kiss!"
Still, notwithstanding these more obnoxious notions on her part, and a
certain awe inspired by the stiff silk gown and the handsome aquiline
nose, it was impossible, especially in the softened tempers of
that Sunday afternoon, not to associate the honest, comely, beaming
countenance of Mrs. Hazeldean with comfortable recollections of soups,
jellies, and wine in sickness, loaves and blankets in winter, cheering
words and ready visits in every little distress, and pretexts afforded
by improvement in the grounds and gardens (improvements which, as the
squire, who preferred productive labour, justly complained, "would never
finish") for little timely jobs of work to some veteran grandsire, who
still liked to earn a penny, or some ruddy urchin in a family that "came
too fast." Nor was Frank, as he walked a little behind, in the whitest
of trousers and the stiffest of neckcloths,--with a look of suppressed
roguery in his bright hazel eye, that contrasted his assumed stateliness
of mien,--without his portion of the silent blessing. Not that he had
done anything yet to deserve it; but we all give youth so large a credit
in the future. As for Miss Jemima, her trifling foibles only rose from
too soft and feminine a susceptibility, too ivy-like a yearning for some
masculine oak whereon to entwine her tendrils; and so little confined to
self was the natural lovingness of her disposition, that she had helped
many a village lass to find a husband, by the bribe of a marriage gift
from her own privy purse; notwithstanding the assurances with which she
accompanied the marriage gift,--namely, that "the bridegroom would turn
out like the rest of his ungrateful sex; but that it was a comfort to
think that it would be all one in the approaching crash!" So that she
had her warm partisans, especially amongst the young; while the
slim captain, on whose arm she rested her forefinger, was at least
a civil-spoken gentleman, who had never done any harm, and who would
doubtless do a deal of good if he belonged to the parish. Nay, even
the fat footman who came last, with the family Prayer-book, had his due
share in the general association of neighbourly kindness between hall
and hamlet. Few were there present to whom he had not extended the
right-hand of fellowship with a full horn of October in the clasp of
it; and he was a Hazeldean man, too, born and bred, as two-thirds of
the squire's household (now letting themselves out from their large pew
under the gallery) were.

On his part, too, you could see that the squire "was moved withal," and
a little humbled moreover. Instead of walking erect, and taking bow
and courtesy as a matter of course, and of no meaning, he hung his head
somewhat, and there was a slight blush on his cheek; and as he glanced
upward and round him--shyly, as it were--and his eye met those friendly
looks, it returned them with an earnestness that had in it something
touching as well as cordial,--an eye that said, as well as eye could
say, "I don't quite deserve it, I fear, neighbours; but I thank you for
your good-will with my whole heart." And so readily was that glance of
the eye understood, that I think, if that scene had taken place out of
doors instead of in the church, there would have been a hurrah as the
squire passed out of sight.

Scarcely had Mr. Hazeldean got clear of the churchyard, ere Mr. Stirn
was whispering in his ear. As Stirn whispered, the squire's face grew
long, and his colour rose. The congregation, now flocking out of the
church, exchanged looks with each other; that ominous conjunction
between squire and man chilled back all the effects of the parson's
sermon. The squire struck his cane violently into the ground. "I
would rather you had told me Black Bess had got the glanders. A young
gentleman, coming to visit my son, struck and insulted in Hazeldean;
a young gentleman,--'s death, sir, a relation--his grandmother was a
Hazeldean. I do believe Jemima's right, and the world's coming to an
end! But Leonard Fairfield in the stocks! What will the parson say? and
after such a sermon! 'Rich man, respect the poor!' And the good widow
too; and poor Mark, who almost died in my arms! Stirn, you have a heart
of stone! You confounded, lawless, merciless miscreant, who the deuce
gave you the right to imprison man or boy in my parish of Hazeldean
without trial, sentence, or warrant? Run and let the boy out before any
one sees him: run, or I shall--"

The squire elevated the cane, and his eyes shot fire. Mr. Stirn did not
run, but he walked off very fast. The squire drew back a few paces, and
again took his wife's arm. "Just wait a bit for the parson, while I talk
to the congregation. I want to stop 'em all, if I can, from going into
the village; but how?"

Frank heard, and replied readily,--"Give 'em some beer, sir."

"Beer! on a Sunday! For shame, Frank!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean.

"Hold your tongue, Harry. Thank you, Frank," said the squire, and his
brow grew as clear as the blue sky above him. I doubt if Riccabocca
could have got him out of his dilemma with the same ease as Frank had
done.

"Halt there, my men,--lads and lasses too,--there, halt a bit. Mrs.
Fairfield, do you hear?--halt. I think his reverence has given us a
capital sermon. Go up to the Great House all of you, and drink a glass
to his health. Frank, go with them, and tell Spruce to tap one of the
casks kept for the haymakers. Harry" (this in a whisper), "catch the
parson, and tell him to come to me instantly."

"My dear Hazeldean, what has happened? You are mad."

"Don't bother; do what I tell you."

"But where is the parson to find you?"

"Where? gadzooks, Mrs. H.,--at the stocks, to be sure!"




CHAPTER XI.

Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his revery by the sound of footsteps,
was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he
enjoyed exceedingly, and with all the malice of his natural humour,
the astonishment and stupor manifested by Stirn, when that functionary
beheld the extraordinary substitute which fate and philosophy had found
for Lenny Fairfield. Instead of the weeping, crushed, broken-hearted
captive whom he had reluctantly come to deliver, he stared speechless
and aghast upon the grotesque but tranquil figure of the doctor enjoying
his pipe, and cooling himself under his umbrella, with a sangfroid
that was truly appalling and diabolical. Indeed, considering that Stirn
always suspected the Papisher of having had a hand in the whole of that
black and midnight business, in which the stocks had been broken, bunged
up, and consigned to perdition, and that the Papisher had the evil
reputation of dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which
the Lenny he had incarcerated was transformed into the doctor he found,
conjoined with the peculiarly strange eldrich and Mephistophelean
physiognomy and person of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of
superstitious dismay into the breast of the parochial tyrant; while
to his first confused and stammered exclamations and interrogatories,
Riccabocca replied with so tragic an air, such ominous shakes of the
head, such mysterious equivocating, long-worded sentences, that Stirn
every moment felt more and more convinced that the boy had sold himself
to the Powers of Darkness, and that he himself, prematurely and in the
flesh, stood face to face with the Arch-Enemy.

Mr. Stirn had not yet recovered his wonted intelligence, which, to do
him justice, was usually prompt enough, when the squire, followed hard
by the parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean's report of
the squire's urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled
invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale's
ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the squire, sharing
Stirn's amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from
the stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Dr. Riccabocca under
the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only
being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale,
catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he
had never before been known to display,--except at the whist-table,--

"Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized,--I am shocked at you.
I can bear a great deal from you, sir, as I ought to do; but to ask my
whole congregation, the moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle
ale at the Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman's sermon had
been a speech at a cattle-fair! I am ashamed of you, and of the parish!
What on earth has come to you all?"

"That's the very question I wish to Heaven I could answer," groaned the
squire, quite mildly and pathetically,--"What on earth has come to us
all? Ask Stirn:" (then bursting out) "Stirn, you infernal rascal, don't
you hear? What on earth has come to us all?"

"The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir," said Stirn, provoked out of
all temper. "I does my duty, but I is but a mortal man, arter all."

"A mortal fiddlestick! Where's Leonard Fairfield, I say?"

"Him knows best," answered Stirn, retreating mechanically for safety's
sake behind the parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though
both the squire and parson had indeed recognized the Italian, they had
merely supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered into
their heads that so respectable and dignified a man could by any
possibility be an inmate, compelled or voluntary, of the parish stocks.
No, not even though, as I before said, the squire had seen, just under
his nose, a very long pair of soles inserted in the apertures, that
sight had only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied, as it ought
to have been, with the trunk and face of Lenny Fairfield. Those soles
seemed to him optical delusions, phantoms of the overheated brain; but
now, catching hold of Stirn, while the parson in equal astonishment
caught hold of him, the squire faltered out, "Well, this beats
cock-fighting! The man's as mad as a March hare, and has taken Dr.
Rickeybockey for Little Lenny!"

"Perhaps," said the doctor, breaking silence with a bland smile, and
attempting an inclination of the head as courteous as his position would
permit,--"perhaps, if it be quite the same to you, before you proceed to
explanations, you will just help me out of the stocks."

The parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not repress a smile,
as he approached his learned friend, and bent down for the purpose of
extricating him.

"Lord love your reverence, you'd better not!" cried Mr. Stirn. "Don't be
tempted,--he only wants to get you into is claws. I would not go a near
him for all the--"

The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, who now, thanks to
the parson, had risen into his full height, and half a head taller than
all present--even than the tall squire--approached Mr. Stirn, with
a gracious wave of the hand. Mr. Stirn retreated rapidly towards the
hedge, amidst the brambles of which he plunged himself incontinently.

"I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn," said the Italian, lifting his
hat with his characteristic politeness. "It is certainly a great honour;
but you will know better one of these days, when the gentleman in
question admits you to a personal interview in another--and a hotter
world."




CHAPTER XII.

"But how on earth did you get into my new stocks?" asked the squire,
scratching his head.

"My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna."

"Did he, and what for?"

"To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Riccabocca. The squire
burst out a laughing.

"And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like. Well, I can't
wonder,--it is a very handsome pair of stocks," continued the squire,
with a loving look at the object of his praise. "Nobody need be ashamed
of being seen in those stocks,--I'should not mind it myself."

"We had better move on," said the parson, dryly, "or we shall have the
whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the
same predicament as that from which we have just extricated the doctor.
Now, pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield? I can't understand a
word of what has passed. You don't mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield
(who was absent from church, by the by) can have done anything to get
into disgrace?"

"Yes, he has though," cried the squire. "Stirn, I say, Stirn!" But Stirn
had forced his way through the hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own
powers of narrative at secondhand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he had to
communicate,--the assault upon Randal Leslie, and the prompt punishment
inflicted by Stirn; his own indignation at the affront to his young
kinsman, and his good-natured merciful desire to save the culprit from
public humiliation.

The parson, mollified towards the rude and hasty invention of the
beer-drinking, took the squire by the hand. "Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive
me," he said repentantly; "I ought to have known at once that it was
only some ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of
decorum. But this is a sad story about Lenny brawling and fighting on
the Sabbath-day. So unlike him, too. I don't know what to make of it."

"Like or unlike," said the squire, "it has been a gross insult to young
Leslie, and looks all the worse because I and Audley are not just the
best friends in the world. I can't think what it is," continued Mr.
Hazeldean, musingly; "but it seems that there must be always some
association of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine.
There was I, son of his own mother,--who might have been shot through
the lungs, only the ball lodged in the shoulder! and now his wife's
kinsman--my kinsman, too--grandmother a Hazeldean,--a hard-reading,
sober lad, as I am given to understand, can't set his foot into the
quietest parish in the three kingdoms, but what the mildest boy that
ever was seen makes a rush at him like a mad bull. It is FATALITY!"
cried the squire, solemnly.

"Ancient legend records similar instances of fatality in certain
houses," observed Riccabocca. "There was the House of Pelops, and
Polynices and Eteocles, the sons of OEdipus."

"Pshaw!" said the parson; "but what's to be done?"

"Done?" said the squire; "why, reparation must be made to young
Leslie. And though I wished to spare Lenny, the young ruffian, a public
disgrace--for your sake, Parson Dale, and Mrs. Fairfield's--yet a good
caning in private--"

"Stop, sir!" said Riccabocca, mildly, "and hear me." The Italian then,
with much feeling and considerable tact, pleaded the cause of his poor
protege, and explained how Lenny's error arose only from mistaken zeal
for the squire's service, and in the execution of the orders received
from Mr. Stirn.

"That alters the matter," said the squire, softened; "and all that is
necessary now will be for him to make a proper apology to my kinsman."

"Yes, that is just," rejoined the parson; "but I still don't learn how
he got out of the stocks."

Riccabocca then resumed his tale; and, after confessing his own
principal share in Lenny's escape, drew a moving picture of the boy's
shame and honest mortification. "Let us march against Philip!" cried the
Athenians when they heard Demosthenes--

"Let us go at once and comfort the child!" cried the parson, before
Riccabocca could finish.

With that benevolent intention all three quickened their pace, and soon
arrived at the widow's cottage. But Lenny had caught sight of their
approach through the window; and not doubting that, in spite of
Riccabocca's intercession, the parson was come to upbraid and the squire
to re-imprison, he darted out by the back way, got amongst the woods,
and lay there perdu all the evening. Nay, it was not till after dark
that his mother--who sat wringing her hands in the little kitchen, and
trying in vain to listen to the parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending
in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the mother--heard
a timid knock at the door and a nervous fumble at the latch. She started
up, opened the door, and Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried his
face, sobbing aloud.

"No harm, my boy," said the parson, tenderly; "you have nothing to
fear,--all is explained and forgiven."

Lenny looked up, and the veins on his forehead were much swollen. "Sir,"
said he, sturdily, "I don't want to be forgiven,--I ain't done no wrong.
And--I've been disgraced--and I won't go to school, never no more."

"Hush, Carry!" said the parson to his wife, who with the usual
liveliness of her little temper, was about to expostulate. "Good-night,
Mrs. Fairfield. I shall come and talk to you to-morrow, Lenny; by that
time you will think better of it."

The parson then conducted his wife home, and went up to the Hall to
report Lenny's safe return; for the squire was very uneasy about him,
and had even in person shared the search. As soon as he heard Lenny
was safe--"Well," said the squire, "let him go the first thing in the
morning to Rood Hall, to ask Master Leslie's pardon, and all will be
right and smooth again."

"A young villain!" cried Frank, with his cheeks the colour of scarlet;
"to strike a gentleman and an Etonian, who had just been to call on me!
But I wonder Randal let him off so well,--any other boy in the sixth
form would have killed him!"

"Frank," said the parson, sternly, "if we all had our deserts, what
should be done to him who not only lets the sun go down on his own
wrath, but strives with uncharitable breath to fan the dying embers of
another's?"

The clergyman here turned away from Frank, who bit his lip, and seemed
abashed, while even his mother said not a word in his exculpation; for
when the parson did reprove in that stern tone, the majesty of the
Hall stood awed before the rebuke of the Church. Catching Riccabocca's
inquisitive eye, Mr. Dale drew aside the philosopher, and whispered to
him his fears that it would be a very hard matter to induce Lenny to beg
Randal Leslie's pardon, and that the proud stomach of the pattern-boy
would not digest the stocks with as much ease as a long regimen of
philosophy had enabled the sage to do. This conference Miss Jemima soon
interrupted by a direct appeal to the doctor respecting the number of
years (even without any previous and more violent incident) that the
world could possibly withstand its own wear and tear.

"Ma'am," said the doctor, reluctantly summoned away to look at a passage
in some prophetic periodical upon that interesting subject,--"ma'am,
it is very hard that you should make one remember the end of the world,
since, in conversing with you, one's natural temptation is to forget its
existence."

Miss Jemima's cheeks were suffused with a deeper scarlet than Frank's
had been a few minutes before. Certainly that deceitful, heartless
compliment justified all her contempt for the male sex; and yet--such is
human blindness--it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous and
too confiding soul.

"He is about to propose," sighed Miss Jemima.

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he drew on his nightcap, and stepped
majestically into the four-posted bed, "I think we shall get that boy
for the garden now!"

Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round the Hazeldean
whirligig.




CHAPTER XIII.

Whatever, may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean's designs
upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian
had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily
and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the parson's,
charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask
pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was
bid, he owed an agonizing defeat and a shameful incarceration; and,
to Mrs. Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply
offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the
stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was
it without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his
lessons at school,--nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his
mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though
sullenly; and the parson thought it better to temporize as to the more
unpalatable demand. Unluckily, Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that
awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized. Though
Stirn at first kept his own counsel the tinker blabbed the whole affair.
And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all
attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So then
Stirn told his story, as the tinker had told his own; both tales were
very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern-boy had broken the
Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain;
the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in spying out
the misdemeanours of his equals therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both
capacities of degraded pattern-boy and baffled spy, could expect no
mercy,--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other.

It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster and under the eye
of Mr. Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the
moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began.

Some pointed and mowed at him, some cursed him for a sneak, and all
shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed
through the village at dusk, "Who was put into the stocks?--baa!" "Who
got a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn?--baa!" To resist this
species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head
and a colder temper than our poor pattern-boy's. He took his resolution
at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after
Dr. Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself
on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. "Please, sir," said he
to the doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with his
red silk umbrella over his head,--"please, sir, if you'll be good enough
to take me now, and give me any hole to sleep in, I'll work for
your honour night and day; and as for wages, Mother says, 'just suit
yourself, sir.'"

"My child," said the doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, and looking at
him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, "I knew you would come! and
Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we'll talk of them by
and by."

Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some evenings on the
vacant chair, where he had so long sat in the place of her beloved
Mark; and the chair seemed so comfortless and desolate, thus left all to
itself, that she could bear it no longer.

Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to her as to Lenny,--perhaps
more so; and one morning she hailed the steward as he was trotting his
hog-maued cob beside the door, and bade him tell the squire that "she
would take it very kind if he would let her off the six months' notice
for the land and premises she held; there were plenty to step into the
place at a much better rent."

"You're a fool," said the good-natured steward; "and I'm very glad you
did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of to me. You've been doing
extremely well here, and have the place, I may say, for nothing."

"Nothin' as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feelin'," said the
widow. "And now Lenny has gone to work with the foreign gentleman, I
should like to go and live near him."

"Ah, yes, I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the Casino, more fool
he; but, bless your heart, 't is no distance,--two miles or so. Can't he
come home every night after work?"

"No, sir," exclaimed the widow, almost fiercely; "he sha'n't come home
here, to be called bad names and jeered at!--he whom my dead good man
was so fond and proud of. No, sir; we poor folks have our feelings, as
I said to Mrs. Dale, and as I will say to the squire hisself. Not that
I don't thank him for all favours,--he be a good gentleman if let alone;
but he says he won't come near us till Lenny goes and axes pardin.
Pardin for what, I should like to know? Poor lamb! I wish you could ha'
seen his nose, sir,--as big as your two fists. Ax pardin! if the squire
had had such a nose as that, I don't think it's pardin he'd been ha'
axing. But I let the passion get the better of me,--I humbly beg you'll
excuse it, sir. I'm no schollard, as poor Mark was, and Lenny would have
been, if the Lord had not visited us otherways. Therefore just get the
squire to let me go as soon as may be; and as for the bit o' hay and
what's on the grounds and orchard, the new comer will no doubt settle
that."

The steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow
to relinquish her resolution, took her message to the squire. Mr.
Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended at the boy's obstinate refusal
to make the amende honorable to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed a
hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son.
It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more gentle,
since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow, he sent
his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and brusque
enough on her own account, and in such business as might especially be
transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never appeared as
the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a herald of peace and
mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that she undertook
this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son were great
favourites of hers. She entered the cottage with the friendliest beam
in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest tone of her
frank cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she was no more
successful than the steward had been. The truth is, that I don't believe
the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so proud as your
plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and deal
with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my own
literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so sensitively
alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr. Riccabocca, as that
same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is
true, from his superiors (though, thank Heaven! that he rarely meets
with unjustly); but to be looked down upon and mocked and pointed at by
his own equals--his own little world--cuts him to the soul. And if you
can succeed in breaking this pride and destroying this sensitiveness,
then he is a lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and
you have chucked him half-way--a stolid, inert, sullen victim--to the
perdition of the prison or the convict-ship.

Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the
honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not
have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended.
But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff,
plain-spoken one; and after all she had some little feeling for the son
of a gentleman, and a decayed, fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's
account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor
could she, with her strong common-sense, attach all the importance which
Mrs. Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs,
which she said truly, "would soon die away if no notice was taken of
it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs. Hazeldean departed,--with
much chagrin and some displeasure.

Mrs. Fairfield, however, tacitly understood that the request she had
made was granted, and early one morning her door was found locked, the
key left at a neighbour's to be given to the steward; and, on further
inquiry, it was ascertained that her furniture and effects had been
removed by the errand cart in the dead of the night. Lenny had succeeded
in finding a cottage on the road-side, not far from the Casino; and
there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome his mother to breakfast,
and show how he had spent the night in arranging her furniture.

"Parson!" cried the squire, when all this news came upon him, as he was
walking arm in arm with Mr. Dale to inspect some proposed improvement in
the Almshouse, "this is all your fault. Why did you not go and talk to
that brute of a boy and that dolt of a woman? You've got 'soft sawder
enough,' as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang."

"As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both!" said the parson, in a
tone of reproachful surprise at the accusation. "But it was in vain!
O Squire, if you had taken my advice about the stocks,--'quieta non
movere'!"

"Bother!" said the squire. "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant,
a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having
things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed! Your friend Rickeybockey said he
was never more comfortable in his life,--quite enjoyed sitting there.
And what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentlemanlike
man he is, when he pleases) ought to be no such great matter to Master
Leonard Fairfield. But 't is no use talking! What's to be done now? The
woman must not starve; and I'm sure she can't live out of Rickeybockey's
wages to Lenny,--by the way, I hope he don't board the boy upon his
and Jackeymo's leavings: I hear they dine upon newts and sticklebacks,
faugh! I'll tell you what, Parson, now I think of it, at the back of the
cottage which she has taken there are some fields of capital land just
vacant. Rickeybockey wants to have 'em, and sounded me as to the rent
when he was at the Hall. I only half promised him the refusal. And he
must give up four or five acres of the best land round the cottage to
the widow--just enough for her to manage--and she can keep a dairy.
If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your name,--only don't tell
Stirn; and as for the rent--we'll talk of that when we see how she gets
on, thankless, obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the squire,
as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an
object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a
faithful servant, and so--I wish you would not stand there staring me
out of countenance, but go down to the woman at once, or Stirn will
have let the land to Rickeybockey, as sure as a gun. And hark ye, Dale,
perhaps you can contrive, if the woman is so cursedly stiffbacked, not
to say the land is mine, or that it is any favour I want to do her--or,
in short, manage it as you can for the best." Still even this charitable
message failed. The widow knew that the land was the squire's, and worth
a good L3 an acre. "She thanked him humbly for that and all favours; but
she could not afford to buy cows, and she did not wish to be beholden
to any one for her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr. Rickeybockey's,
and coming on wonderfully in the garden way, and she did not doubt she
could get some washing; at all events, her haystack would bring in a
good bit of money, and she should do nicely, thank their honours."

Nothing further could be done in the direct way, but the remark about
the washing suggested some mode of indirectly benefiting the widow;
and a little time afterwards, the sole laundress in that immediate
neighbourhood happening to die, a hint from the squire obtained from
the landlady of the inn opposite the Casino such custom as she had to
bestow, which at times was not inconsiderable. And what with Lenny's
wages (whatever that mysterious item might be), the mother and son
contrived to live without exhibiting any of those physical signs of fast
and abstinence which Riccabocca and his valet gratuitously afforded to
the student in animal anatomy.




CHAPTER XIV.

Of all the wares and commodities in exchange and barter, wherein so
mainly consists the civilization of our modern world, there is not one
which is so carefully weighed, so accurately measured, so plumbed and
gauged, so doled and scraped, so poured out in minima and balanced with
scruples,--as that necessary of social commerce called "an apology"! If
the chemists were half so careful in vending their poisons, there would
be a notable diminution in the yearly average of victims to arsenic and
oxalic acid. But, alas! in the matter of apology, it is not from the
excess of the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which
it is dispensed, that poor Humanity is hurried off to the Styx! How many
times does a life depend on the exact proportions of an apology! Is it
a hairbreadth too short to cover the scratch for which you want it? Make
your will,--you are a dead man! A life do I say?--a hecatomb of lives!
How many wars would have been prevented, how many thrones would be
standing, dynasties flourishing, commonwealths brawling round a bema,
or fitting out galleys for corn and cotton, if an inch or two more
of apology had been added to the proffered ell! But then that plaguy,
jealous, suspicious, old vinegar-faced Honour, and her partner Pride--as
penny-wise and pound-foolish a she-skinflint as herself--have the
monopoly of the article. And what with the time they lose in adjusting
their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality
demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum,--considering
whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoirdupois, or English
measure or Flemish,--and, finally, the hullabuloo they make if the
customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous little he gets
for his money, I don't wonder, for my part, how one loses temper
and patience, and sends Pride, Honour, and Apology all to the devil.
Aristophanes, in his comedy of "Peace," insinuates a beautiful allegory
by only suffering that goddess, though in fact she is his heroine, to
appear as a mute. She takes care never to open her lips. The shrewd
Greek knew very well that she would cease to be Peace, if she once began
to chatter. Wherefore, O reader, if ever you find your pump under the
iron heel of another man's boot, Heaven grant that you may hold your
tongue, and not make things past all endurance and forgiveness by
bawling out for an apology!




CHAPTER XV.

But the squire and his son, Frank, were large-hearted generous creatures
in the article of apology, as in all things less skimpingly dealt out.
And seeing that Leonard Fairfield would offer no plaster to Randal
Leslie, they made amends for his stinginess by their own prodigality.
The squire accompanied his son to Rood Hall, and none of the family
choosing to be at home, the squire in his own hand, and from his own
head, indited and composed an epistle which might have satisfied all the
wounds which the dignity of the Leslies had ever received.

This letter of apology ended with a hearty request that Randal would
come and spend a few days with his son. Frank's epistle was to the same
purport, only more Etonian and less legible.

It was some days before Randal's replies to these epistles were
received. The replies bore the address of a village near London; and
stated that the writer was now reading with a tutor preparatory to
entrance to Oxford, and could not, therefore, accept the invitation
extended to him.

For the rest, Randal expressed himself with good sense, though not with
much generosity. He excused his participation in the vulgarity of such a
conflict by a bitter, but short allusion to the obstinacy and ignorance
of the village boor; and did not do what you, my kind reader, certainly
would have done under similar circumstances,--namely, intercede in
behalf of a brave and unfortunate antagonist. Most of us like a foe
better after we have fought him,--that is, if we are the conquering
party; this was not the case with Randal Leslie. There, so far as the
Etonian was concerned, the matter rested. And the squire, irritated that
he could not repair whatever wrong that young gentleman had sustained,
no longer felt a pang of regret as he passed by Mrs. Fairfield's
deserted cottage.




CHAPTER XVI.

Lenny Fairfield continued to give great satisfaction to his new
employers, and to profit in many respects by the familiar kindness with
which he was treated. Riccabocca, who valued himself on penetrating into
character, had from the first seen that much stuff of no common quality
and texture was to be found in the disposition and mind of the English
village boy. On further acquaintance, he perceived that, under a child's
innocent simplicity, there were the workings of an acuteness that
required but development and direction. He ascertained that the
pattern-boy's progress at the village school proceeded from something
more than mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension. Lenny had
a keen thirst for knowledge, and through all the disadvantages of birth
and circumstance, there were the indications of that natural genius
which converts disadvantages themselves into stimulants. Still, with
the germs of good qualities lay the embryos of those which, difficult to
separate, and hard to destroy, often mar the produce of the soil. With
a remarkable and generous pride in self-repute, there was some
stubbornness; with great sensibility to kindness, there was also strong
reluctance to forgive affront.

This mixed nature in an uncultivated peasant's breast interested
Riccabocca, who, though long secluded from the commerce of mankind,
still looked upon man as the most various and entertaining volume which
philosophical research can explore. He soon accustomed the boy to the
tone of a conversation generally subtle and suggestive; and Lenny's
language and ideas became insensibly less rustic and more refined.
Then Riccabocca selected from his library, small as it was, books that,
though elementary, were of a higher cast than Lenny could have found
within his reach at Hazeldean. Riccabocca knew the English language
well,--better in grammar, construction, and genius than many a not
ill-educated Englishman; for he had studied it with the minuteness with
which a scholar studies a dead language, and amidst his collection he
had many of the books which had formerly served him for that purpose.
These were the first works he lent to Lenny. Meanwhile Jackeymo imparted
to the boy many secrets in practical gardening and minute husbandry,
for at that day farming in England (some favoured counties and
estates excepted) was far below the nicety to which the art has been
immemorially carried in the north of Italy,--where, indeed, you may
travel for miles and miles as through a series of market-gardens; so
that, all these things considered, Leonard Fairfield might be said to
have made a change for the better. Yet, in truth, and looking below the
surface, that might be fair matter of doubt. For the same reason which
had induced the boy to fly his native village, he no longer repaired to
the church of Hazeldean. The old intimate intercourse between him and
the parson became necessarily suspended, or bounded to an occasional
kindly visit from the latter,--visits which grew more rare and less
familiar, as he found his former pupil in no want of his services, and
wholly deaf to his mild entreaties to forget and forgive the past, and
come at least to his old seat in the parish church. Lenny still went to
church,--a church a long way off in another parish,--but the sermons did
not do him the same good as Parson Dale's had done; and the clergyman,
who had his own flock to attend to, did not condescend, as Parson Dale
would have done, to explain what seemed obscure, and enforce what was
profitable, in private talk, with that stray lamb from another's fold.

Now I question much if all Dr. Riccabocca's maxims, though they were
often very moral and generally very wise, served to expand the peasant
boy's native good qualities, and correct his bad, half so well as the
few simple words, not at all indebted to Machiavelli, which Leonard had
once reverently listened to when he stood by Mark's elbow-chair, yielded
up for the moment to the good parson, worthy to sit in it; for Mr. Dale
had a heart in which all the fatherless of the parish found their place.
Nor was this loss of tender, intimate, spiritual lore so counterbalanced
by the greater facilities for purely intellectual instruction as modern
enlightenment might presume. For, without disputing the advantage of
knowledge in a general way, knowledge, in itself, is not friendly
to content. Its tendency, of course, is to increase the desires, to
dissatisfy us with what is, in order to urge progress to what may be;
and in that progress, what unnoticed martyrs among the many must fall
baffled and crushed by the way! To how large a number will be given
desires they will never realize, dissatisfaction of the lot from which
they will never rise! Allons! one is viewing the dark side of the
question. It is all the fault of that confounded Riccabocca, who has
already caused Lenny Fairfield to lean gloomily on his spade, and, after
looking round and seeing no one near him, groan out querulously,--"And
am I born to dig a potato ground?"

Pardieu, my friend Lenny, if you live to be seventy, and ride in your
carriage, and by the help of a dinner-pill digest a spoonful of curry,
you may sigh to think what a relish there was in potatoes, roasted in
ashes after you had digged them out of that ground with your own stout
young hands. Dig on, Lenny Fairfield, dig on! Dr. Riccabocca will
tell you that there was once an illustrious personage--[The Emperor
Diocletian]--who made experience of two very different occupations,--one
was ruling men, the other was planting cabbages; he thought planting
cabbages much the pleasanter of the two!




CHAPTER XVIL

Dr. Riccabocca had secured Lenny Fairfield, and might therefore
be considered to have ridden his hobby in the great whirligig with
adroitness and success. But Miss Jemima was still driving round in her
car, handling the reins, and flourishing the whip, without apparently
having got an inch nearer to the flying form of Dr. Riccabocca.

Indeed, that excellent and only too susceptible spinster, with all her
experience of the villany of man, had never conceived the wretch to be
so thoroughly beyond the reach of redemption as when Dr. Riccabocca took
his leave, and once more interred himself amidst the solitudes of the
Casino, and without having made any formal renunciation of his criminal
celibacy. For some days she shut herself up in her own chamber, and
brooded with more than her usual gloomy satisfaction on the certainty
of the approaching crash. Indeed, many signs of that universal calamity,
which, while the visit of Riccabocca lasted, she had permitted herself
to consider ambiguous, now became luminously apparent. Even the
newspaper, which during that credulous and happy period had given half a
column to Births and Marriages, now bore an ominously long catalogue of
Deaths; so that it seemed as if the whole population had lost heart, and
had no chance of repairing its daily losses. The leading article spoke,
with the obscurity of a Pythian, of an impending CRISIS. Monstrous
turnips sprouted out from the paragraphs devoted to General News. Cows
bore calves with two heads, whales were stranded in the Humber, showers
of frogs descended in the High Street of Cheltenham.

All these symptoms of the world's decrepitude and consummation, which by
the side of the fascinating Riccabocca might admit of some doubt as to
their origin and cause, now, conjoined with the worst of all, namely,
the frightfully progressive wickedness of man,--left to Miss Jemima
no ray of hope save that afforded by the reflection that she could
contemplate the wreck of matter without a single sentiment of regret.

Mrs. Dale, however, by no means shared the despondency of her fair
friend, and having gained access to Miss Jemima's chamber, succeeded,
though not without difficulty, in her kindly attempts to cheer the
drooping spirits of that female misanthropist. Nor, in her benevolent
desire to speed the car of Miss Jemima to its hymeneal goal, was Mrs.
Dale so cruel towards her male friend, Dr. Riccabocca, as she seemed to
her husband. For Mrs. Dale was a woman of shrewdness and penetration, as
most quick-tempered women are; and she knew that Miss Jemima was one
of those excellent young ladies who are likely to value a husband in
proportion to the difficulty of obtaining him. In fact, my readers of
both sexes must often have met, in the course of their experience, with
that peculiar sort of feminine disposition, which requires the warmth of
the conjugal hearth to develop all its native good qualities; nor is
it to be blamed overmuch if, innocently aware of this tendency in
its nature, it turns towards what is best fitted for its growth and
improvement, by laws akin to those which make the sunflower turn to
the sun, or the willow to the stream. Ladies of this disposition,
permanently thwarted in their affectionate bias, gradually languish
away into intellectual inanition, or sprout out into those abnormal
eccentricities which are classed under the general name of "oddity" or
"character." But once admitted to their proper soil, it is astonishing
what healthful improvement takes place,--how the poor heart, before
starved and stinted of nourishment, throws out its suckers, and bursts
into bloom and fruit. And thus many a belle from whom the beaux have
stood aloof, only because the puppies think she could be had for the
asking, they see afterwards settled down into true wife and fond mother,
with amaze at their former disparagement, and a sigh at their blind
hardness of heart.

In all probability Mrs. Dale took this view of the subject; and
certainly, in addition to all the hitherto dormant virtues which would
be awakened in Miss Jemima when fairly Mrs. Riccabocca, she counted
somewhat upon the mere worldly advantage which such a match would bestow
upon the exile. So respectable a connection with one of the oldest,
wealthiest, and most popular families in the shire would in itself give
him a position not to be despised by a poor stranger in the land; and
though the interest of Miss Jemima's dowry might not be much, regarded
in the light of English pounds (not Milanese lire), still it would
suffice to prevent that gradual process of dematerialization which the
lengthened diet upon minnows and sticklebacks had already made apparent
in the fine and slow-evanishing form of the philosopher.

Like all persons convinced of the expediency of a thing, Mrs. Dale saw
nothing wanting but opportunities to insure its success. And that these
might be forthcoming she not only renewed with greater frequency, and
more urgent instance than ever, her friendly invitations to Riccabocca
to drink tea and spend the evening, but she so artfully chafed the
squire on his sore point of hospitality, that the doctor received weekly
a pressing solicitation to dine and sleep at the Hall.

At first the Italian pished and grunted, and said Cospetto, and
Per Bacco, and Diavolo, and tried to creep out of so much proffered
courtesy. But like all single gentlemen, he was a little under the
tyrannical influence of his faithful servant; and Jackeymo, though he
could bear starving as well as his master when necessary, still, when
he had the option, preferred roast beef and plum-pudding. Moreover, that
vain and incautious confidence of Riccabocca touching the vast sum at
his command, and with no heavier drawback than that of so amiable a
lady as Miss Jemima--who had already shown him (Jackeymo) many little
delicate attentions--had greatly whetted the cupidity which was in
the servant's Italian nature,--a cupidity the more keen because, long
debarred its legitimate exercise on his own mercenary interests, he
carried it all to the account of his master's!

Thus tempted by his enemy and betrayed by his servant, the unfortunate
Riccabocca fell, though with eyes not unblinded, into the hospitable
snares extended for the destruction of his--celibacy! He went often
to the Parsonage, often to the Hall, and by degrees the sweets of
the social domestic life, long denied him, began to exercise their
enervating charm upon the stoicism of our poor exile. Frank had now
returned to Eton. An unexpected invitation had carried off Captain
Higginbotham to pass a few weeks at Bath with a distant relation, who
had lately returned from India, and who, as rich as Creesus, felt
so estranged and solitary in his native isle that, when the captain
"claimed kindred there," to his own amaze "he had his claims allowed;"
while a very protracted sitting of parliament still delayed in London
the squire's habitual visitors during the later summer; so that--a
chasm thus made in his society--Mr. Hazeldean welcomed with no hollow
cordiality the diversion or distraction he found in the foreigner's
companionship. Thus, with pleasure to all parties, and strong hopes to
the two female conspirators, the intimacy between the Casino and Hall
rapidly thickened; but still not a word resembling a distinct proposal
did Dr. Riccabocca breathe. And still, if such an idea obtruded itself
on his mind, it was chased therefrom with so determined a Diavolo that
perhaps, if not the end of the world, at least the end of Miss Jemima's
tenure in it, might have approached and seen her still Miss Jemima, but
for a certain letter with a foreign postmark that reached the doctor one
Tuesday morning.




CHAPTER XVIII.

The servant saw that something had gone wrong, and, under pretence of
syringing the orange-trees, he lingered near his master, and peered
through the sunny leaves upon Riccabocca's melancholy brows.

The doctor sighed heavily. Nor did he, as was his wont after some such
sigh, mechanically take up that dear comforter the pipe. But though
the tobacco-pouch lay by his side on the balustrade, and the pipe stood
against the wall between his knees, childlike lifting up its lips to the
customary caress, he heeded neither the one nor the other, but laid the
letter silently on his lap, and fixed his eyes upon the ground.

"It must be bad news indeed!" thought Jackeymo, and desisted from his
work. Approaching his master, he took up the pipe and the tobacco-pouch,
and filled the bowl slowly, glancing all the while towards that dark
musing face on which, when abandoned by the expression of intellectual
vivacity or the exquisite smile of Italian courtesy, the deep downward
lines revealed the characters of sorrow. Jackeymo did not venture to
speak; but the continued silence of his master disturbed him much. He
laid that peculiar tinder which your smokers use upon the steel, and
struck the spark,--still not a word, nor did Riccabocca stretch forth
his hand.

"I never knew him in this taking before," thought Jackeymo; and
delicately he insinuated the neck of the pipe into the nerveless fingers
of the band that lay supine on those quiet knees. The pipe fell to the
ground.

Jackeymo crossed himself, and began praying to his sainted namesake with
great fervour.

The doctor rose slowly, and as if with effort; he walked once or twice
to and fro the terrace; and then he halted abruptly and said,--

"Friend!"

"Blessed Monsignore San Giacomo, I knew thou wouldst hear me!" cried
the servant; and he raised his master's hand to his lips, then abruptly
turned away and wiped his eyes.

"Friend," repeated Riccabocca, and this time with a tremulous emphasis,
and in the softest tone of a voice never wholly without the music of the
sweet South, "I would talk to thee of my child."




CHAPTER XIX.

"The letter, then, relates to the signorina. She is well?"

"Yes, she is well now. She is in our native Italy." Jackeymo raised
his eyes involuntarily towards the orange-trees, and the morning breeze
swept by and bore to him the odour of their blossoms.

"Those are sweet even here, with care," said he, pointing to the trees.
"I think I have said that before to the padrone."

But Riccabocca was now looking again at the letter, and did not notice
either the gesture or the remark of his servant. "My aunt is no more!"
said he, after a pause.

"We will pray for her soul!" answered Jackeymo, solemnly. "But she was
very old, and had been a long time ailing. Let it not grieve the padrone
too keenly: at that age, and with those infirmities, death comes as a
friend."

"Peace be to her dust!" returned the Italian. "If she had her faults,
be they now forgotten forever; and in the hour of my danger and distress
she sheltered my infant! That shelter is destroyed. This letter is from
the priest, her confessor. And the home of which my child is bereaved
falls to the inheritance of my enemy."

"Traitor!" muttered Jackeymo; and his right hand seemed to feel for
the weapon which the Italians of lower rank often openly wear in their
girdles.

"The priest," resumed Riccabocca, calmly, "has rightly judged in
removing my child as a guest from the house in which that traitor enters
as lord."

"And where is the signorina?"

"With the poor priest. See, Giacomo, here, here--this is her handwriting
at the end of the letter,--the first lines she ever yet traced to me."

Jackeymo took off his hat, and looked reverently on the large characters
of a child's writing. But large as they were, they seemed indistinct,
for the paper was blistered with the child's tears; and on the place
where they had not fallen, there was a round fresh moist stain of the
tear that had dropped from the lids of the father. Riccabocca renewed,
"The priest recommends a convent."

"To the devil with the priest!" cried the servant; then crossing
himself rapidly, he added, "I did not mean that, Monsignore San
Giacomo,--forgive me! But your Excellency does not think of making a nun
of his only child!"

   [The title of Excellency does not, in Italian, necessarily express
   any exalted rank, but is often given by servants to their masters.]

"And yet why not?" said Riccabocca, mournfully; "what can I give her in
the world? Is the land of the stranger a better refuge than the home of
peace in her native clime?"

"In the land of the stranger beats her father's heart!"

"And if that beat were stilled, what then? Ill fares the life that a
single death can bereave of all. In a convent at least (and the priest's
influence can obtain her that asylum amongst her equals and amidst her
sex) she is safe from trial and from penury--to her grave!"

"Penury! Just see how rich we shall be when we take those fields at
Michaelmas."

"Pazzie!"--[Follies]--said Riccabocca, listlessly. "Are these suns more
serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy, saith
the proverb, 'He who sows land reaps more care than corn.' It were
different," continued the father, after a pause, and in a more resolute
tone, "if I had some independence, however small, to count on,--nay,
if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were but one female who
would accompany Violante to the exile's hearth,--Ishmael had his Hagar.
But how can we two rough-bearded men provide for all the nameless
wants and cares of a frail female child? And she has been so delicately
reared,--the woman-child needs the fostering hand and tender eye of a
woman."

"And with a word," said Jackeymo, resolutely, "the padrone might secure
to his child all that he needs to save her from the sepulchre of a
convent; and ere the autumn leaves fall, she might be sitting on his
knee. Padrone, do not think that you can conceal from me the truth, that
you love your child better than all things in the world,--now the Patria
is as dead to you as the dust of your fathers,--and your heart-strings
would crack with the effort to tear her from them, and consign her to a
convent. Padrone, never again to hear her voice, never again to see her
face! Those little arms that twined round your neck that dark night,
when we fled fast for life and freedom, and you said, as you felt their
clasp, 'Friend, all is not yet lost.'"

"Giacomo!" exclaimed the father, reproachfully, and his voice seemed to
choke him. Riccabocca turned away, and walked restlessly to and fro
the terrace; then, lifting his arms with a wild gesture, as he still
continued his long irregular strides, he muttered, "Yes, Heaven is my
witness that I could have borne reverse and banishment without a murmur,
had I permitted myself that young partner in exile and privation. Heaven
is my witness that, if I hesitate now, it is because I would not listen
to my own selfish heart. Yet never, never to see her again,--my child!
And it was but as the infant that I beheld her! O friend, friend!" (and,
stopping short with a burst of uncontrollable emotion, he bowed his
head upon his servant's shoulder), "thou knowest what I have endured
and suffered at my hearth, as in my country; the wrong, the perfidy,
the--the--" His voice again failed him; he clung to his servant's
breast, and his whole frame shook.

"But your child, the innocent one--think now only of her!" faltered
Giacomo, struggling with his own sobs. "True, only of her," replied
the exile, raising his face, "only of her. Put aside thy thoughts for
thyself, friend,--counsel me. If I were to send for Violante, and if,
transplanted to these keen airs, she drooped and died--Look, look,
the priest says that she needs such tender care; or if I myself were
summoned from the world, to leave her in it alone, friendless, homeless,
breadless perhaps, at the age of woman's sharpest trial against
temptation, would she not live to mourn the cruel egotism that closed on
her infant innocence the gates of the House of God?"

Jackeymo was appalled by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had
never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours of
philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood and
superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion
reclaimed her empire; and the sceptical world-wise man, thinking only of
his child, spoke and felt with a child's simple faith.




CHAPTER XX.

"But again I say," murmured Jackeymo, scarce audibly, and after a long
silence, "if the padrone would make up his mind--to marry!"

He expected that his master would start up in his customary indignation
at such a suggestion,--nay, he might not have been sorry so to have
changed the current of feeling; but the poor Italian only winced
slightly, and mildly withdrawing himself from his servant's supporting
arm, again paced the terrace, but this time quietly and in silence. A
quarter of an hour thus passed. "Give me the pipe," said Dr. Riccabocca,
passing into the belvidere.

Jackeymo again struck the spark, and, wonderfully relieved at the
padrone's return to the habitual adviser, mentally besought his sainted
namesake to bestow a double portion of soothing wisdom on the benignant
influences of the weed.




CHAPTER XXI.

Dr. Riccabocca had been some little time in the solitude of the
belvidere, when Lenny Fairfield, not knowing that his employer was
therein, entered to lay down a book which the doctor had lent him, with
injunctions to leave it on a certain table when done with. Riccabocca
looked up at the sound of the young peasant's step.

"I beg your honour's pardon, I did not know--"

"Never mind: lay the book there. I wish to speak with you. You look
well, my child: this air agrees with you as well as that of Hazeldean?"

"Oh, yes, Sir!"

"Yet it is higher ground,--more exposed?"

"That can hardly be, sir," said Lenny; "there are many plants grow here
which don't flourish at the squire's. The hill yonder keeps off the east
wind, and the place lays to the south."

"Lies, not lays, Lenny. What are the principal complaints in these
parts?"

"Eh, sir?"

"I mean what maladies, what diseases?"

"I never heard tell of any, sir, except the rheumatism."

"No low fevers, no consumption?"

"Never heard of them, sir."

Riccabocca drew a long breath, as if relieved. "That seems a very kind
family at the Hall."

"I have nothing to say against it," answered Lenny, bluntly. "I have not
been treated justly. But as that book says, sir, 'It is not every one
who comes into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth.'"

Little thought the doctor that those wise maxims may leave sore thoughts
behind them! He was too occupied with the subject most at his own heart
to think then of what was in Lenny Fairfield's.

"Yes; a kind, English domestic family. Did you see much of Miss
Hazeldean?"

"Not so much as of the Lady."

"Is she liked in the village, think you?"

"Miss Jemima? Yes. She never did harm. Her little dog bit me once,--she
did not ask me to beg its pardon, she asked mine! She's a very nice
young lady; the girls say she is very affable; and," added Lenny, with a
smile, "there are always more weddings going on when she is down at the
Hall."

"Oh!" said Riccabocca. Then, after a long whiff, "Did you ever see her
play with the little children? Is she fond of children, do you think?"

"Lord, sir, you guess everything! She's never so pleased as when she's
playing with the babies."

"Humph!" grunted Riccabocca. "Babies! well, that's woman-like. I don't
mean exactly babies, but when they're older,--little girls?"

"Indeed, Sir, I dare say; but," said Lenny, primly, "I never as yet kept
company with the little girls."

"Quite right, Lenny; be equally discreet all your life. Mrs. Dale is
very intimate with Miss Hazeldean,--more than with the squire's lady.
Why is that, think you?"

"Well, sir," said Leonard, shrewdly, "Mrs. Dale has her little tempers,
though she's a very good lady; and Madame Hazeldean is rather high, and
has a spirit. But Miss Jemima is so soft: any one could live with Miss
Jemima, as Joe and the servants say at the Hall."

"Indeed! get my hat out of the parlour, and--just bring a clothes-brush,
Lenny. A fine sunny day for a walk."

After this most mean and dishonourable inquisition into the character
and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean, Signor Riccabocca seemed as much
cheered up and elated as if he had committed some very noble action;
and he walked forth in the direction of the Hall with a far lighter and
livelier step than that with which he had paced the terrace.

"Monsignore San Giacomo, by thy help and the pipe's, the padrone shall
have his child!" muttered the servant, looking up from the garden.




CHAPTER XXII.

Yet Dr. Riccabocca was not rash. The man who wants his wedding-garment
to fit him must allow plenty of time for the measure. But from that day,
the Italian notably changed his manner towards Miss Hazeldean. He ceased
that profusion of compliment in which he had hitherto carried off
in safety all serious meaning. For indeed the doctor considered that
compliments to a single gentleman were what the inky liquid it dispenses
is to the cuttle-fish, that by obscuring the water sails away from its
enemy. Neither did he, as before, avoid prolonged conversations with
the young lady, and contrive to escape from all solitary rambles by
her side. On the contrary, he now sought every occasion to be in her
society; and entirely dropping the language of gallantry, he assumed
something of the earnest tone of friendship. He bent down his intellect
to examine and plumb her own. To use a very homely simile, he blew away
that froth which there is on the surface of mere acquaintanceships,
especially with the opposite sex; and which, while it lasts, scarce
allows you to distinguish between small beer and double X. Apparently
Dr. Riccabocca was satisfied with his scrutiny,--at all events under
that froth there was no taste of bitter. The Italian might not find
any great strength of intellect in Miss Jemima, but he found that,
disentangled from many little whims and foibles,--which he had himself
the sense to perceive were harmless enough if they lasted, and not so
absolutely constitutional but what they might be removed by a tender
hand,--Miss Hazeldean had quite enough sense to comprehend the plain
duties of married life; and if the sense could fail, it found a
substitute in good old homely English principles, and the instincts of
amiable, kindly feelings.

I know not how it is, but your very clever man never seems to care so
much as your less gifted mortals for cleverness in his helpmate. Your
scholars and poets and ministers of state are more often than not found
assorted with exceedingly humdrum, good sort of women, and apparently
like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just see how happily
Racine lived with his wife, and what an angel he thought her, and yet
she had never read his plays. Certainly Goethe never troubled the lady
who called him "Mr. Privy Councillor" with whims about "monads," and
speculations on colour, nor those stiff metaphysical problems on which
one breaks one's shins in the Second Past of the "Faust." Probably
it may be that such great geniuses--knowing that, as compared with
themselves, there is little difference between your clever woman and
your humdrum woman--merge at once all minor distinctions, relinquish
all attempts at sympathy in hard intellectual pursuits, and are quite
satisfied to establish that tie which, after all, best resists wear
and tear,--namely, the tough household bond between one human heart and
another.

At all events, this, I suspect, was the reasoning of Dr. Riccabocca,
when one morning, after a long walk with Miss Hazeldean, he muttered to
himself,--

               "Duro con duro
          Non fete mai buon muro,"--

which may bear the paraphrase, "Bricks without mortar would make a very
bad wall." There was quite enough in Miss Jemima's disposition to make
excellent mortar: the doctor took the bricks to himself.

When his examination was concluded, our philosopher symbolically evinced
the result he had arrived at by a very simple proceeding on his
part, which would have puzzled you greatly if you had not paused, and
meditated thereon, till you saw all that it implied. Dr. Riccabocca,
took of his spectacles! He wiped them carefully, put them into their
shagreen case, and locked them in his bureau,--that is to say, he left
off wearing his spectacles.

You will observe that there was a wonderful depth of meaning in that
critical symptom, whether it be regarded as a sign outward, positive,
and explicit, or a sign metaphysical, mystical, and esoteric. For, as
to the last, it denoted that the task of the spectacles was over;
that, when a philosopher has made up his mind to marry, it is better
henceforth to be shortsighted--nay, even somewhat purblind--than to
be always scrutinizing the domestic felicity, to which he is about to
resign himself, through a pair of cold, unillusory barnacles. As for the
things beyond the hearth, if he cannot see without spectacles, is he
not about to ally to his own defective vision a good sharp pair of eyes,
never at fault where his interests are concerned? On the other hand,
regarded positively, categorically, and explicitly, Dr. Roccabocca, by
laying aside those spectacles, signified that he was about to commence
that happy initiation of courtship when every man, be he ever so much a
philosopher, wishes to look as young and as handsome as time and nature
will allow. Vain task to speed the soft language of the eyes through the
medium of those glassy interpreters! I remember, for my own part, that
once, on a visit to the town of Adelaide, I--Pisistratus Caxton--was in
great danger of falling in love,--with a young lady, too, who would have
brought me a very good fortune,--when she suddenly produced from her
reticule a very neat pair of No. 4, set in tortoiseshell, and fixing
upon me their Gorgon gaze, froze the astonished Cupid into stone! And
I hold it a great proof of the wisdom of Riccabocca, and of his vast
experience in mankind, that he was not above the consideration of what
your pseudo-sages would have regarded as foppish and ridiculous trifles.
It argued all the better for that happiness which is our being's end
and aim that in condescending to play the lover, he put those unbecoming
petrifiers under lock and key.

And certainly, now the spectacles were abandoned, it was impossible to
deny that the Italian had remarkably handsome eyes. Even through the
spectacles, or lifted a little above them, they were always bright and
expressive; but without those adjuncts, the blaze was softer and more
tempered: they had that look which the French call veloute, or velvety;
and he appeared altogether ten years younger. If our Ulysses, thus
rejuvenated by his Minerva, has not fully made up his mind to make
a Penelope of Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than
Polyphemus, who was only an Anthropophagos,--

He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynopophagite!




CHAPTER XXIII.

"And you commission me, then, to speak to our dear Jemima?" said Mrs.
Dale, joyfully, and without any bitterness whatever in that "dear."

DR. RICCABOCCA.--"Nay, before speaking to Miss Hazeldean, it would
surely be proper to know how far my addresses would be acceptable to the
family."

MRS. DALE.--"Ah!"

DR. RICCAROCCA.--"The squire is of course the head of the family."

MRS. DALE (absent and distraite).--"The squire--yes, very true--quite
proper." (Then, looking up, and with naivete) "Can you believe me? I
never thought of the squire. And he is such an odd man, and has so many
English prejudices, that really--dear me, how vexatious that it should
never once have occurred to me that Mr. Hazeldean had a voice in the
matter! Indeed, the relationship is so distant, it is not like being her
father; and Jemima is of age, and can do as she pleases; and--but, as
you say, it is quite proper that he should be consulted as the head of
the family."

DR. RICCASOCCA.--"And you think that the Squire of Hazeldean might
reject my alliance! Pshaw! that's a grand word indeed,--I mean, that he
might object very reasonably to his cousin's marriage with a foreigner,
of whom he can know nothing, except that which in all countries is
disreputable, and is said in this to be criminal,--poverty."

MRS. DALE (kindly)--"You misjudge us poor English people, and you wrong
the squire, Heaven bless him! for we were poor enough when he singled
out my husband from a hundred for the minister of his parish, for his
neighbour and his friend. I will speak to him fearlessly--"

DR. RICCABOCCA.--"And frankly. And now I have used that word, let me
go on with the confession which your kindly readiness, my fair friend,
somewhat interrupted. I said that if I might presume to think my
addresses would be acceptable to Miss Hazeldean and her family, I was
too sensible of her amiable qualities not to--not to--"

MRS. DALE (with demure archness).--"Not to be the happiest of
men,--that's the customary English phrase, Doctor."

RICCABOCCA (gallantly).--"There cannot be a better. But," continued he,
seriously, "I wish it first to be understood that I have--been married
before!"

MRS. DALE (astonished).--"Married before!"

RICCABOCCA.--"And that I have an only child, dear to me,--inexpressibly
dear. That child, a daughter, has hitherto lived abroad; circumstances
now render it desirable that she should make her home with me; and I own
fairly that nothing has so attached me to Miss Hazeldean, nor so induced
my desire for our matrimonial connection, as my belief that she has the
heart and the temper to become a kind mother to my little one."

MRS. DALE (with feeling and warmth).--"You judge her rightly there."

RICCABOCCA.--"Now, in pecuniary matters, as you may conjecture from my
mode of life, I have nothing to offer to Miss Hazeldean correspondent
with her own fortune, whatever that may be!"

MRS. DALE.--"That difficulty is obviated by settling Miss Hazeldean's
fortune on herself, which is customary in such cases."

Dr. Riccabocca's face lengthened. "And my child, then?" said he,
feelingly. There was something in that appeal so alien from all sordid
and merely personal mercenary motives, that Mrs. Dale could not have had
the heart to make the very rational suggestion, "But that child is not
Jemima's, and you may have children by her."

She was touched, and replied hesitatingly, "But from what you and Jemima
may jointly possess you can save something annually,--you can insure
your life for your child. We did so when our poor child whom we lost was
born" (the tears rushed into Mrs. Dale's eyes); "and I fear that Charles
still insures his life for my sake, though Heaven knows that--that--"

The tears burst out. That little heart, quick and petulant though
it was, had not a fibre of the elastic muscular tissues which are
mercifully bestowed on the hearts of predestined widows. Dr. Riccabocca
could not pursue the subject of life insurances further. But the
idea--which had never occurred to the foreigner before, though
so familiar with us English people when only possessed of a life
income--pleased him greatly. I will do him the justice to say that he
preferred it to the thought of actually appropriating to himself and to
his child a portion of Miss Hazeldean's dower.

Shortly afterwards he took his leave, and Mrs. Dale hastened to seek
her husband in his study, inform him of the success of her matrimonial
scheme, and consult him as to the chance of the squire's acquiescence
therein. "You see," said she, hesitatingly, "though the squire might be
glad to see Jemima married to some Englishman, yet if he asks who and
what is this Dr. Riccabocca, how am I to answer him?"

"You should have thought of that before," said Mr. Dale, with unwonted
asperity; "and, indeed, if I had ever believed anything serious could
come out of what seemed to me so absurd, I should long since have
requested you not to interfere in such matters. Good heavens!" continued
the parson, changing colour, "if we should have assisted, underhand as
it were, to introduce into the family of a man to whom we owe so much
a connection that he would dislike, how base we should be, how
ungrateful!"

Poor Mrs. Dale was frightened by this speech, and still more by her
husband's consternation and displeasure. To do Mrs. Dale justice,
whenever her mild partner was really either grieved or offended, her
little temper vanished,--she became as meek as a lamb. As soon as she
recovered the first shock she experienced, she hastened to dissipate the
parson's apprehensions. She assured him that she was convinced that, if
the squire disapproved of Riccabocca's pretensions, the Italian would
withdraw them at once, and Miss Hazeldean would never know of his
proposals. Therefore, in that case, no harm would be done.

This assurance, coinciding with Mr. Dale's convictions as to
Riccabocca's scruples on the point of honour, tended much to compose
the good man; and if he did not, as my reader of the gentler sex would
expect from him, feel alarm lest Miss Jemima's affections should have
been irretrievably engaged, and her happiness thus put in jeopardy by
the squire's refusal, it was not that the parson wanted tenderness of
heart, but experience in womankind; and he believed, very erroneously,
that Miss Jemima Hazeldean was not one upon whom a disappointment of
that kind would produce a lasting impression. Therefore Mr. Dale, after
a pause of consideration, said kindly,--

"Well, don't vex yourself,--and I was to blame quite as much as you.
But, indeed, I should have thought it easier for the squire to have
transplanted one of his tall cedars into his kitchen-garden than for you
to inveigle Dr. Riccabocca into matrimonial intentions. But a man who
could voluntarily put himself into the parish stocks for the sake of
experiment must be capable of anything! However, I think it better that
I, rather than yourself, should speak to the squire, and I will go at
once."




CHAPTER XXIV.

The parson put on the shovel-hat, which--conjoined with other details in
his dress peculiarly clerical, and already, even then, beginning to be
out of fashion with Churchmen--had served to fix upon him emphatically
the dignified but antiquated style and cognomen of "Parson;" and took
his way towards the Home Farm, at which he expected to find the squire.
But he had scarcely entered upon the village green when he beheld Mr.
Hazeldean, leaning both hands on his stick, and gazing intently upon
the parish stocks. Now, sorry am I to say that, ever since the Hegira
of Lenny and his mother, the Anti-Stockian and Revolutionary spirit in
Hazeldean, which the memorable homily of our parson had a while averted
or suspended, had broken forth afresh. For though while Lenny was
present to be mowed and jeered at, there had been no pity for him,
yet no sooner was he removed from the scene of trial than a universal
compassion for the barbarous usage he had received produced what is
called "the reaction of public opinion." Not that those who had mowed
and jeered repented them of their mockery, or considered themselves in
the slightest degree the cause of his expatriation. No; they, with the
rest of the villagers, laid all the blame upon the stocks. It was not to
be expected that a lad of such exemplary character could be thrust into
that place of ignominy, and not be sensible to the affront. And who, in
the whole village, was safe, if such goings-on and puttings-in were
to be tolerated in silence, and at the expense of the very best and
quietest lad the village had ever known? Thus, a few days after
the widow's departure, the stocks was again the object of midnight
desecration: it was bedaubed and bescratched, it was hacked and hewed,
it was scrawled over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and laconic
execrations on tyrants. Night after night new inscriptions appeared,
testifying the sarcastic wit and the vindictive sentiment of the parish.
And perhaps the stocks was only spared from axe and bonfire by the
convenience it afforded to the malice of the disaffected: it became the
Pasquin of Hazeldean.

As disaffection naturally produces a correspondent vigour in authority,
so affairs had been lately administered with greater severity than had
been hitherto wont in the easy rule of the squire and his predecessors.
Suspected persons were naturally marked out by Mr. Stirn, and reported
to his employer, who, too proud or too pained to charge them openly with
ingratitude, at first only passed them by in his walks with a silent and
stiff inclination of his head; and afterwards, gradually yielding to the
baleful influence of Stirn, the squire grumbled forth "that he did
not see why he should be always putting himself out of his way to show
kindness to those who made such a return. There ought to be a difference
between the good and the bad." Encouraged by this admission, Stirn had
conducted himself towards the suspected parties, and their whole kith
and kin, with the iron-handed justice that belonged to his character.
For some, habitual donations of milk from the dairy and vegetables from
the gardens were surlily suspended; others were informed that their pigs
were always trespassing on the woods in search of acorns, or that they
were violating the Game Laws in keeping lurchers. A beer-house,
popular in the neighbourhood, but of late resorted to over-much by the
grievance-mongers (and no wonder, since they had become the popular
party), was threatened with an application to the magistrates for
the withdrawal of its license. Sundry old women, whose grandsons were
notoriously ill-disposed towards the stocks, were interdicted from
gathering dead sticks under the avenues, on pretence that they broke
down the live boughs; and, what was more obnoxious to the younger
members of the parish than most other retaliatory measures, three
chestnut-trees, one walnut, and two cherry-trees, standing at the bottom
of the Park, and which had, from time immemorial, been given up to the
youth of Hazeldean, were now solemnly placed under the general defence
of "private property." And the crier had announced that, henceforth, all
depredators on the fruit trees in Copse Hollow would be punished with
the utmost rigour of the law. Stirn, indeed, recommended much more
stringent proceedings than all these indications of a change of policy,
which, he averred, would soon bring the parish to its senses,--such as
discontinuing many little jobs of unprofitable work that employed the
surplus labour of the village. But there the squire, falling into the
department and under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet not
properly hardened. When it came to a question that affected the absolute
quantity of loaves to be consumed by the graceless mouths that fed
upon him, the milk of human kindness--with which Providence has so
bountifully supplied that class of the mammalia called the "Bucolic,"
and of which our squire had an extra "yield"--burst forth, and washed
away all the indignation of the harsher Adam.

Still your policy of half-measures, which irritates without crushing
its victims, which flaps an exasperated wasp-nest with a silk
pocket-handkerchief, instead of blowing it up with a match and train,
is rarely successful; and after three or four other and much guiltier
victims than Lenny had been incarcerated in the stocks, the parish
of Hazeldean was ripe for any enormity. Pestilent Jacobinical tracts,
conceived and composed in the sinks of manufacturing towns, found their
way into the popular beer-house,--Heaven knows how, though the tinker
was suspected of being the disseminator by all but Stirn, who still, in
a whisper, accused the Papishers. And, finally, there appeared amongst
the other graphic embellishments which the poor stocks had received,
the rude gravure of a gentleman in a broad-brimmed hat and top-boots,
suspended from a gibbet, with the inscription beneath, "A warnin to hall
tirans--mind your hi!--sighnde Captin sTraw."

It was upon this significant and emblematic portraiture that the
squire was gazing when the parson joined him. "Well, Parson," said Mr.
Hazeldean, with a smile which he meant to be pleasant and easy,
but which was exceedingly bitter and grim, "I wish you joy of your
flock,--you see they have just hanged me in effigy!"

The parson stared, and though greatly shocked, smothered his emotion;
and attempted, with the wisdom of the serpent and the mildness of the
dove, to find another original for the effigy.

"It is very bad," quoth he, "but not so bad as all that, Squire; that's
not the shape of your bat. It is evidently meant for Mr. Stirn."

"Do you think so?" said the squire, softened. "Yet the top-boots--Stirn
never wears top-boots."

"No more do you, except in the hunting-field. If you look again, those
are not tops, they are leggings,--Stirn wears leggings. Besides, that
flourish, which is meant for a nose, is a kind of hook, like Stirn's;
whereas your nose--though by no means a snub--rather turns up than not,
as the Apollo's does, according to the plaster cast in Riccabocca's
parlour."

"Poor Stirn!" said the squire, in a tone that evinced complacency, not
unmingled with compassion, "that's what a man gets in this world by
being a faithful servant, and doing his duty with zeal for his employer.
But you see things have come to a strange pass, and the question now
is, what course to pursue. The miscreants hitherto have defied all
vigilance, and Stirn recommends the employment of a regular nightwatch,
with a lanthorn and bludgeon."

"That may protect the stocks certainly; but will it keep those
detestable tracts out of the beer-house?"

"We shall shut the beer-house up the next sessions."

"The tracts will break out elsewhere,--the humour's in the blood!"

"I've half a mind to run off to Brighton or Leamingtongood hunting at
Leamington--for a year, just to let the rogues see how they can get on
without me!"

The squire's lip trembled.

"My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said the parson, taking his friend's hand,
"I don't want to parade my superior wisdom; but, if you had taken my
advice, 'quieta non movere!' Was there ever a parish so peaceable
as this, or a country gentleman so beloved as you were, before you
undertook the task which has dethroned kings and ruined States,--that
of wantonly meddling with antiquity, whether for the purpose of
uncalled-for repairs, or the revival of obsolete uses."

At this rebuke, the squire did not manifest his constitutional
tendencies to choler; but he replied almost meekly, "If it were to do
again, faith, I would leave the parish to the enjoyment of the shabbiest
pair of stocks that ever disgraced a village. Certainly I meant it for
the best,--an ornament to the green; however, now the stocks is rebuilt,
the stocks must be supported. Will Hazeldean is not the man to give way
to a set of thankless rapscallions."

"I think," said the parson, "that you will allow that the House
of Tudor, whatever its faults, was a determined, resolute dynasty
enough,--high-hearted and strong-headed. A Tudor would never have fallen
into the same calamities as the poor Stuart did!"

"What the plague has the House of Tudor got to do with my stocks?"

"A great deal. Henry VIII. found a subsidy so unpopular that he gave it
up; and the people, in return, allowed him to cut off as many heads as
he pleased, besides those in his own family. Good Queen Bess, who, I
know, is your idol in history--"

"To be sure!--she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury Fort."

"Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain monopoly; she saw
it would not do, and she surrendered it with that frank heartiness which
becomes a sovereign, and makes surrender a grace."

"Ha! and you would have me give up the stocks?"

"I would much rather the stocks had remained as it was before
you touched it; but, as it is, if you could find a good plausible
pretext--and there is an excellent one at hand,--the sternest kings open
prisons, and grant favours, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the
royal family is of course a joyful occasion! and so it should be in
that of the King of Hazeldean." Admire that artful turn in the parson's
eloquence!--it was worthy of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr. Dale had
profited much by his companionship with that Machiavellian intellect.

"A marriage,--yes; but Frank has only just got into coattails!"

"I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Jemima!"




CHAPTER XXV.

The squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and,
for want of a better seat, sat down on the stocks. All the female heads
in the neighbouring cottages peered, themselves unseen, through the
casements. What could the squire be about? What new mischief did he
meditate? Did he mean to fortify the stocks? Old Gaffer Solomons, who
had an indefinite idea of the lawful power of squires, and who had been
for the last ten minutes at watch on his threshold, shook his head and
said, "Them as a cut out the mon a hanging, as a put it in the squire's
head!"

"Put what?" asked his grand-daughter.

"The gallus!" answered Solomons,--"he be a going to have it hung from
the great elfin-tree. And the parson, good mon, is a quoting Scripter
agin it; you see he's a taking off his gloves, and a putting his two
han's together, as he do when he pray for the sick, Jeany."

That description of the parson's mien and manner, which with his usual
niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey
to you some idea of the earnestness with which the parson pleaded the
cause he had undertaken to advocate. He dwelt much upon the sense of
propriety which the foreigner had evinced in requesting that the squire
might be consulted before any formal communication to his cousin; and
he repeated Mrs. Dale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high
standard of honour and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that,
if the squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the parson
was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now,
considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of
discretion, and the squire had long since placed her property entirely
at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the
parson's corollary remark, "That this was a delicacy which could not be
expected from every English pretender to the lady's hand." Seeing that
he had so far cleared the ground, the parson went on to intimate, though
with great tact, that since Miss Jemima would probably marry sooner or
later (and, indeed, that the squire could not wish to prevent her), it
might be better for all parties concerned that it should be with some
one who, though a foreigner, was settled in the neighbourhood, and of
whose character what was known was certainly favourable, rather than
run the hazard of her being married for her money by some adventurer, or
Irish fortune-hunter, at the watering-places she yearly visited. Then he
touched lightly on Riccabocca's agreeable and companionable qualities;
and concluded with a skilful peroration upon the excellent occasion the
wedding would afford to reconcile Hall and parish, by making a voluntary
holocaust of the stocks.

As he concluded, the squire's brow, before thoughtful, though not
sullen, cleared up benignly. To say truth, the squire was dying to get
rid of the stocks, if he could but do so handsomely and with dignity;
and had all the stars in the astrological horoscope conjoined together
to give Miss Jemima "assurance of a husband," they could not so have
served her with the squire as that conjunction between the altar and the
stocks which the parson had effected!

Accordingly, when Mr. Dale had come to an end, the squire replied, with
great placidity and good sense, "That Mr. Rickeybockey had behaved very
much like a gentleman, and that he was very much obliged to him; that he
[the squire] had no right to interfere in the matter, further than with
his advice; that Jemima was old enough to choose for herself, and that,
as the parson had implied, after all she might go farther and fare
worse,--indeed, the farther she went (that is, the longer she waited)
the worse she was likely to fare. I own, for my part," continued the
squire, "that though I like Rickeybockey very much, I never suspected
that Jemima was caught with his long face; but there's no accounting for
tastes. My Harry, indeed, was more shrewd, and gave me many a hint, for
which I only laughed at her. Still I ought to have thought it looked
queer when Mounseer took to disguising himself by leaving off his
glasses, ha, ha! I wonder what Harry will say; let's go and talk to
her."

The parson, rejoiced at this easy way of taking the matter, hooked his
arm into the squire's, and they walked amicably towards the Hall. But
on coming first into the gardens they found Mrs. Hazeldean herself,
clipping dead leaves or fading flowers from her rose-trees. The squire
stole slyly behind her, and startled her in her turn by putting his arm
round her waist, and saluting her smooth cheek with one of his hearty
kisses; which, by the way, from some association of ideas, was a
conjugal freedom that he usually indulged whenever a wedding was going
on in the village.

"Fie, William!" said Mrs. Hazeldean, coyly, and blushing as she saw the
parson. "Well, who's going to be married now?"

"Lord! was there ever such a woman?--she's guessed it!" cried the
squire, in great admiration. "Tell her all about it, Parson."

The parson obeyed.

Mrs. Hazeldean, as the reader may suppose, showed much less surprise
than her husband had done; but she took the news graciously, and made
much the same answer as that which had occurred to the squire, only with
somewhat more qualification and reserve. "Signor Riccabocca had behaved
very handsomely; and though a daughter of the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean
might expect a much better marriage in a worldly point of view, yet
as the lady in question had deferred finding one so long, it would be
equally idle and impertinent now to quarrel with her choice,--if indeed
she should decide on accepting Signor Riccabocca. As for fortune, that
was a consideration for the two contracting parties. Still, it ought,
to be pointed out to Miss Jemima that the interest of her fortune would
afford but a very small income. That Dr. Riccabocca was a widower was
another matter for deliberation; and it seemed rather suspicious that he
should have been hitherto so close upon all matters connected with his
former life. Certainly his manners were in his favour, and as long as he
was merely an acquaintance, and at most a tenant, no one had a right to
institute inquiries of a strictly private nature; but that, when he was
about to marry a Hazeldean of Hazeldean, it became the squire at least
to know a little more about him,--who and what he was. Why did he leave
his own country? English people went abroad to save: no foreigner would
choose England as a country in which to save money! She supposed that
a foreign doctor was no very great things; probably he had been a
professor in some Italian university. At all events, if the squire
interfered at all, it was on such points that he should request
information."

"My clear madam," said the parson, "what you say is extremely just. As
to the causes which have induced our friend to expatriate himself, I
think we need not look far for them. He is evidently one of the many
Italian refugees whom political disturbances have driven to a land of
which it is the boast to receive all exiles of whatever party. For his
respectability of birth and family he certainly ought to obtain some
vouchers. And if that be the only objection, I trust we may soon
congratulate Miss Hazeldean on a marriage with a man who, though
certainly very poor, has borne privations without a murmur; has
preferred all hardship to debt; has scorned to attempt betraying the
young lady into any clandestine connection; who, in short, has shown
himself so upright and honest, that I hope my dear Mr. Hazeldean will
forgive him if he is only a doctor--probably of Laws--and not, as most
foreigners pretend to be, a marquis or a baron at least."

"As to that," cried the squire, "It is the best thing I know about
Rickeybockey that he don't attempt to humbug us by any such foreign
trumpery. Thank Heaven, the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never
tuft-hunters and title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English
lord, I should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brother-in-law
whom I was forced to call markee or count! I should feel sure he was
a courier, or runaway valley-de-sham. Turn up your nose at a doctor,
indeed, Harry!--pshaw, good English style that! Doctor! my aunt married
a Doctor of Divinity--excellent man--wore a wig and was made a dean! So
long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don't care a button.
If he's that, indeed, it would be suspicious; because, you see, those
foreign doctors of physic are quacks, and tell fortunes, and go about on
a stage with a Merry-Andrew."

"Lord! Hazeldean, where on earth did you pick up that idea?" said Harry,
laughing.

"Pick it up!--why, I saw a fellow myself at the cattle fair last
year--when I was buying short-horns--with a red waistcoat and a
cocked hat, a little like the parson's shovel. He called himself
Dr. Phoscophornio, and sold pills. The Merry-Andrew was the funniest
creature, in salmon-coloured tights, turned head over heels, and said he
came from Timbuctoo. No, no: if Rickeybockey's a physic Doctor, we
shall have Jemima in a pink tinsel dress tramping about the country in a
caravan!"

At this notion both the squire and his wife laughed so heartily that the
parson felt the thing was settled, and slipped away, with the intention
of making his report to Riccabocca.




CHAPTER XXVI.

It was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave and well-bred
equanimity that the Italian received the information that he need
apprehend no obstacle to his suit from the insular prejudices or the
worldly views of the lady's family. Not that he was mean and cowardly
enough to recoil from the near and unclouded prospect of that felicity
which he had left off his glasses to behold with unblinking, naked
eyes,--no, there his mind was made up; but he had met in life with much
that inclines a man towards misanthropy, and he was touched not only by
the interest in his welfare testified by a heretical priest, but by
the generosity with which he was admitted into a well-born and wealthy
family, despite his notorious poverty and his foreign descent. He
conceded the propriety of the only stipulation, which was conveyed
to him by the parson with all the delicacy that became one long
professionally habituated to deal with the subtler susceptibilities of
mankind,--namely, that, amongst Riccabocca's friends or kindred, some
person should be found whose report would confirm the persuasion of his
respectability entertained by his neighbours,--he assented, I say,
to the propriety of this condition; but it was not with alacrity and
eagerness. His brow became clouded. The parson hastened to assure him
that the squire was not a man qui stupet in titulis,--["Who was besotted
with titles."]--that he neither expected nor desired to find an
origin and rank for his brother-in-law above that decent mediocrity
of condition to which it was evident from Riccabocca's breeding and
accomplishments he could easily establish his claim. "And though," said
he, smiling, "the squire is a warm politician in his own country, and
would never see his sister again, I fear, if she married some convicted
enemy of our happy constitution, yet for foreign politics he does not
care a straw; so that if, as I suspect, your exile arises from some
quarrel with your government,--which, being foreign, he takes for
granted must be insupportable,--he would but consider you as he would
a Saxon who fled from the iron hand of William the Conqueror, or a
Lancastrian expelled by the Yorkists in our Wars of the Roses."

The Italian smiled. "Mr. Hazeldean shall be satisfied," said he, simply.
"I see, by the squire's newspaper, that an English gentleman who knew me
in my own country has just arrived in London. I will write to him for
a testimonial, at least to my probity and character. Probably he may
be known to you by name,--nay, he must be, for he was a distinguished
officer in the late war. I allude to Lord L'Estrange."

The parson started.

"You know Lord L'Estrange?--profligate, bad man, I fear."

"Profligate! bad!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "Well, calumnious as the world
is, I should never have thought that such expressions would be applied
to one who, though I knew him but little,--knew him chiefly by the
service he once rendered to me,--first taught me to love and revere the
English name!"

"He may be changed since--" the parson paused.

"Since when?" asked Riccabocca, with evident curiosity. Mr. Dale seemed
embarrassed. "Excuse me," said he, "it is many years ago; and in short
the opinion I then formed of the nobleman you named was based upon
circumstances which I cannot communicate."

The punctilious Italian bowed in silence, but he still looked as if he
should have liked to prosecute inquiry.

After a pause he said, "Whatever your impression respecting Lord
L'Estrange, there is nothing, I suppose, which would lead you to doubt
his honour, or reject his testimonial in my favour?"

"According to fashionable morality," said Mr. Dale, rather precisely,
"I know of nothing that could induce me to suppose that Lord L'Estrange
would not, in this instance, speak the truth. And he has unquestionably
a high reputation as a soldier, and a considerable position in the
world." Therewith the parson took his leave. A few days afterwards, Dr.
Riccabocca inclosed to the squire, in a blank envelope, a letter he
had received from Harley L'Estrange. It was evidently intended for
the squire's eye, and to serve as a voucher for the Italian's
respectability; but this object was fulfilled, not in the coarse form of
a direct testimonial, but with a tact and delicacy which seemed to show
more than the fine breeding to be expected from one in Lord L'Estrange's
station. It evinced that most exquisite of all politeness which comes
from the heart; a certain tone of affectionate respect (which even the
homely sense of the squire felt, intuitively, proved far more in favour
of Riccabocca than the most elaborate certificate of his qualities and
antecedents) pervaded the whole, and would have sufficed in itself to
remove all scruples from a mind much more suspicious and exacting than
that of the Squire of Hazeldean. But, to and behold! an obstacle
now occurred to the parson, of which he ought to have thought long
before,--namely, the Papistical religion of the Italian. Dr. Riccabocca
was professedly a Roman Catholic. He so little obtruded that fact--and,
indeed, had assented so readily to any animadversions upon the
superstition and priestcraft which, according to Protestants, are the
essential characteristics of Papistical communities--that it was not
till the hymeneal torch, which brings all faults to light, was fairly
illumined for the altar, that the remembrance of a faith so cast into
the shade burst upon the conscience of the parson. The first idea that
then occurred to him was the proper and professional one,--namely, the
conversion of Dr. Riccabocca. He hastened to his study, took down from
his shelves long neglected volumes of controversial divinity, armed
himself with an arsenal of authorities, arguments, and texts; then,
seizing the shovel-hat, posted off to the Casino.




CHAPTER XXVII.

The parson burst upon the philosopher like an avalanche! He was so full
of his subject that he could not let it out in prudent driblets. No, he
went souse upon the astounded Riccabocca--

                  "Tremendo
          Jupiter ipse rueus tumultu."

The sage--shrinking deeper into his armchair, and drawing his
dressing-robe more closely round him--suffered the parson to talk for
three quarters of an hour, till indeed he had thoroughly proved his
case; and, like Brutus, "paused for a reply."

Then said Riccabocca mildly: "In much of what you have urged so ably,
and so suddenly, I am inclined to agree. But base is the man who
formally forswears the creed he has inherited from his fathers, and
professed since the cradle up to years of maturity, when the change
presents itself in the guise of a bribe; when, for such is human nature,
he can hardly distinguish or disentangle the appeal to his reason
from the lure to his interests,--here a text, and there a dowry!--here
Protestantism, there Jemima! Own, my friend, that the soberest casuist
would see double under the inebriating effects produced by so mixing
his polemical liquors. Appeal, my good Mr. Dale, from Philip drunken to
Philip sober!--from Riccabocca intoxicated with the assurance of
your excellent lady, that he is about to be 'the happiest of men,' to
Riccabocca accustomed to his happiness, and carrying it off with the
seasoned equability of one grown familiar with stimulants,--in a word,
appeal from Riccabocca the wooer to Riccabocca the spouse. I may be
convertible, but conversion is a slow progress; courtship should be a
quick one,--ask Miss Jemima. Finalmente, marry me first, and convert me
afterwards!"

"You take this too jestingly," began the parson; "and I don't see why,
with your excellent understanding, truths so plain and obvious should
not strike you at once."

"Truths," interrupted Riccabocca, profoundly, "are the slowest growing
things in the world! It took fifteen hundred years from the date of the
Christian era to produce your own Luther, and then he flung his Bible at
Satan (I have seen the mark made by the book on the wall of his prison
in Germany), besides running off with a nun, which no Protestant
clergyman would think it proper and right to do nowadays." Then he
added, with seriousness, "Look you, my dear sir, I should lose my
own esteem if I were even to listen to you now with becoming
attention,--now, I say, when you hint that the creed I have professed
may be in the way of my advantage. If so, I must keep the creed and
resign the advantage. But if, as I trust not only as a Christian but a
man of honour, you will defer this discussion, I will promise to listen
to you hereafter; and though, to say truth, I believe that you will not
convert me, I will promise you faithfully never to interfere with my
wife's religion."

"And any children you may have?"

"Children!" said Dr. Riccabocca, recoiling; "you are not contented with
firing your pocket-pistol right in my face! you must also pepper me all
over with small shot. Children! well, if they are girls, let them follow
the faith of their mother; and if boys, while in childhood, let them be
contented with learning to be Christians; and when they grow into men,
let them choose for themselves which is the best form for the practice
of the great principles which all sects have in common."

"But," began Mr. Dale again, pulling a large book from his pocket.

Dr. Riccabocca flung open the window, and jumped out of it.

It was the rapidest and most dastardly flight you could possibly
conceive; but it was a great compliment to the argumentative powers of
the parson, and he felt it as such. Nevertheless, Mr. Dale thought it
right to have a long conversation, both with the squire and Miss
Jemima herself, upon the subject which his intended convert had so
ignominiously escaped.

The squire, though a great foe to Popery, politically considered, had
also quite as great a hatred to renegades and apostates. And in his
heart he would have despised Riccabocca if he could have thrown off
his religion as easily as he had done his spectacles. Therefore he said
simply, "Well, it is certainly a great pity that Rickeybockey is not of
the Church of England; though, I take it, that would be unreasonable to
expect in a man born and bred under the nose of the Inquisition" (the
squire firmly believed that the Inquisition was in full force in all
the Italian States, with whips, racks, and thumbscrews; and, indeed, his
chief information of Italy was gathered from a perusal he had given
in early youth to "The One-Handed Monk"); "but I think he speaks very
fairly, on the whole, as to his wife and children. And the thing's
gone too far now to retract. It's all your fault for not thinking of
it before; and I've now just made up my mind as to the course to pursue
respecting the d---d stocks!"

As for Miss Jemima, the parson left her with a pious thanksgiving that
Riccabocca at least was a Christian, and not a Pagan, Mahometan, or Jew!




CHAPTER XXVIII.

There is that in a wedding which appeals to a universal sympathy. No
other event in the lives of their superiors in rank creates an equal
sensation amongst the humbler classes.

From the moment the news that Miss Jemima was to be married had spread
throughout the village, all the old affection for the squire and his
House burst forth the stronger for its temporary suspension. Who could
think of the stocks in such a season? The stocks were swept out of
fashion,--hunted from remembrance as completely as the question of
Repeal or the thought of Rebellion from the warm Irish heart, when the
fair young face of the Royal Wife beamed on the sister isle.

Again cordial courtesies were dropped at the thresholds by which the
squire passed to his own farm; again the sunburned brows uncovered--no
more with sullen ceremony--were smoothed into cheerful gladness at
his nod. Nay, the little ones began again to assemble at their ancient
rendezvous by the stocks, as if either familiarized with the phenomenon,
or convinced that, in the general sentiment of good-will, its powers of
evil were annulled.

The squire tasted once more the sweets of the only popularity which is
much worth having, and the loss of which a wise man would reasonably
deplore,--namely, the popularity which arises from a persuasion of our
goodness, and a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings, the
more sensibly felt from previous interruption, the squire enjoyed this
restored popularity with an exhilarated sense of existence; his stout
heart beat more vigorously; his stalwart step trod more lightly; his
comely English face looked comelier and more English than ever,--you
would have been a merrier man for a week to have come within hearing of
his jovial laugh.

He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the special agents of
Providence in this general integratio amoris. To have looked at him,
you would suppose that it was the squire who was going to be married a
second time to his Harry!

One may well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious moment
for Parson Dale's theological scruples to have stopped that marriage,
chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village, seen himself
surrounded again by long sulky visages,--I verily believe, though a
better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings, that,
rather than court such a revulsion, the squire would have found
jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered to
be the Pope in disguise! As for the stocks, its fate was now irrevocably
sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded,--first privately,
according to the bridegrooms creed, by a Roman Catholic clergyman, who
lived in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the village church
of Hazeldean.

It was the heartiest rural wedding! Village girls strewed flowers on the
way; a booth was placed amidst the prettiest scenery of the Park on the
margin of the lake--for there was to be a dance later in the day. Even
Mr. Stirn--no, Mr. Stirn was not present; so much happiness would have
been the death of him! And the Papisher too, who had conjured Lenny
out of the stocks nay, who had himself sat in the stocks for the very
purpose of bringing them into contempt,--the Papisher! he had a lief
Miss Jemima had married the devil! Indeed he was persuaded that, in
point of fact, it was all one and the same. Therefore Mr. Stirn had
asked leave to go and attend his uncle the pawnbroker, about to undergo
a torturing operation for the stone! Frank was there, summoned from Eton
for the occasion--having grown two inches taller since he left--for the
one inch of which nature was to be thanked, for the other a new pair of
resplendent Wellingtons. But the boy's joy was less apparent than that
of others. For Jemima, was a special favourite with him, as she would
have been with all boys,--for she was always kind and gentle, and made
him many pretty presents whenever she came from the watering-places;
and Frank knew that he should miss her sadly, and thought she had made a
very queer choice.

Captain Higginbotham had been invited; but to the astonishment of
Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a letter to herself, marked
"private and confidential."

"She must have long known," said the letter, "of his devoted attachment
to her! motives of delicacy, arising from the narrowness of his income
and the magnanimity of his sentiments, had alone prevented his formal
proposals; but now that he was informed (he could scarcely believe his
senses or command his passions) that her relations wished to force
her into a BARBAROUS marriage with a foreigner of MOST FORBIDDING
APPEARANCE, and most abject circumstances, he lost not a moment in
laying at her feet his own hand and fortune. And he did this the more
confidently, inasmuch as he could not but be aware of Miss Jemima's
SECRET feelings towards him, while he was proud and happy to say, that
his dear and distinguished cousin, Mr. Sharpe Currie, had honoured
him with a warmth of regard which justified the most brilliant
EXPECTATIONS,--likely to be soon realized, as his eminent relative had
contracted a very bad liver complaint in the service of his country, and
could not last long!"

In all the years they had known each other, Miss Jemima, strange as it
may appear, had never once suspected the captain of any other feelings
to her than those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified by
learning her mistake would be to say that she was more than woman.
Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that
she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca by
a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched the
rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But the captain
evidently considered himself ill used; he did not reply to the letter,
and did not come to the wedding.

To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss Jemima, Captain
Higginbotham was much less influenced by Cupid than by Plutus in the
offer he had made. The captain was one of that class of gentlemen who
read their accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o'-the-wisps, called
expectations. Ever since the squire's grandfather had left him--then in
short clothes--a legacy of L500, the captain had peopled the future with
expectations! He talked of his expectations as a man talks of shares in
a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little,--be now up and now down,--but
it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but that he should be a
millionnaire one of these days. Now, though Miss Jemima was a good
fifteen years younger than himself, yet she always stood for a good
round sum in the ghostly books of the captain. She was an expectation to
the full amount of her L4000, seeing that Frank was an only child, and
it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to leave him anything.

Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly sponged out of his
visionary ledger, rather than so much money should vanish clean out
of the family, Captain Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if
a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his
property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why,
he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to himself
an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow
was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous,
though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving poor
Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may
among "the expectations" which gathered round the form of Mr. Sharpe
Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed
at his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick
with the captain's constitutional functions, I return to the wedding
at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom--who looked singularly
well on the occasion--hand the bride (who, between sunshiny tears and
affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty
bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the squire had presented to
them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the blessings
of the assembled crowd.

It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural
spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a
Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner;
but besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the
neighbourhood, and was proverbially "a civil-spoken gentleman," it is
generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolizes
interest, curiosity, and admiration that the bridegroom himself goes for
little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the affair,--the
unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. It was not Riccabocca
himself that they approved and blessed,--it was the gentleman in the
white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima Madam Rickeybockey!

Leaning on his wife's arm (for it was a habit of the squire to lean on
his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased;
and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy
frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the
frail arm of woman),--leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the squire,
about the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake.

All the parish-young and old, man, woman, and child, were assembled
there, and their faces seemed to bear one family likeness, in the common
emotion which animated all, as they turned to his frank, fatherly smile.
Squire Hazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he filled a horn
with ale from the brimming tankard beside him. Then he looked round,
and lifted his hand to request silence; and ascending the chair, rose
in full view of all. Every one felt that the squire was about to make
a speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the
rarity of the event; for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory
of the hustings) only thrice before had the squire made what could
fairly be called "a speech" to the villagers of Hazeldean,--once on a
kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to them his bride;
once in a contested election for the shire, in which he took more than
ordinary interest, and was not quite so sober as he ought to have
been; once in a time of great agricultural distress, when in spite of
reduction of rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a large
number of their customary labourers, and when the squire had said, "I
have given up keeping the hounds because I want to make a fine piece of
water (that was the origin of the lake), and to drain all the low lands
round the Park. Let every man who wants work come to me!" And that sad
year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a penny the heavier.

Now, for the fourth time, the squire rose, and thus he spoke,--at his
right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank; at the bottom of the table, as
vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely
seen. She cried readily, and her handkerchief was already before her
eyes.




CHAPTER XXIX.

THE SQUIRE'S SPEECH.

"Friends and neighbours, I thank you kindly for coming round me this
day, and for showing so much interest in me and mine. My cousin was not
born amongst you as I was, but you have known her from a child. It is a
familiar face, and one that never frowned, which you will miss at your
cottage doors, as I and mine will miss it long in the old Hall--"

Here there was a sob from some of the women, and nothing was seen of
Mrs. Dale but the white handkerchief. The squire himself paused, and
brushed away a tear with the back of his hand. Then he resumed, with a
sudden change of voice that was electrical,--

"For we none of us prize a blessing till we have lost it! Now, friends
and neighbours, a little time ago, it seemed as if some ill-will had
crept into the village,--ill-will between you and me, neighbours!--why,
that is not like Hazeldean!"

The audience hung their heads! You never saw people look so thoroughly
ashamed of themselves. The squire proceeded,--

"I don't say it was all your fault; perhaps it was mine."

"Noa, noa, noa," burst forth in a general chorus.

"Nay, friends," continued the squire, humbly, and in one of those
illustrative aphorisms which, if less subtle than Riccabocca's, were
more within reach of the popular comprehension,--"nay, we are all human,
and every man has his hobby; sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and
sometimes the hobby, if it is very hard in the mouth, breaks in him.
One man's hobby has an ill habit of always stopping at the public house!
[Laughter.] Another man's hobby refuses to stir a peg beyond the door
where some buxom lass patted its neck the week before,--a hobby I rode
pretty often when I went courting my good wife here! [Much laughter and
applause.] Others have a lazy hobby that there's no getting on; others,
a runaway hobby that there's no stopping: but to cut the matter short,
my favourite hobby, as you well know, is always trotted out to any place
on my property which seems to want the eye and hand of the master. I
hate," cried the squire, warming, "to see things neglected and decayed,
and going to the dogs! This land we live in is a good mother to us, and
we can't do too much for her. It is very true, neighbours, that I owe
her a good many acres, and ought to speak well of her; but what then? I
live amongst you, and what I take from the rent with one hand, I divide
amongst you with the other. [Low but assenting murmurs.] Now the more I
improve my property, the more mouths it feeds. My great-grandfather kept
a Field-book in which were entered not only the names of all the farmers
and the quantity of land they held, but the average number of the
labourers each employed. My grandfather and father followed his example:
I have done the same. I find, neighbours, that our rents have doubled
since my great-grandfather began to make the book. Ay,--but there are
more than four times the number of labourers employed on the estate, and
at much better wages too! Well, my men, that says a great deal in favour
of improving property, and not letting it go to the dogs. [Applause.]
And therefore, neighbours, you will kindly excuse my bobby: it carries
grist to your mill. [Reiterated applause.] Well, but you will say,
'What's the squire driving at?' Why this, my friends: There was only one
worn-out, dilapidated, tumble-down thing in the parish of Hazeldean, and
it became an eyesore to me; so I saddled my hobby, and rode at it. Oh,
ho! you know what I mean now! Yes, but, neighbours, you need not have
taken it so to heart. That was a scurvy trick of some of you to hang me
in effigy, as they call it."

"It warn't you," cried a voice in the crowd, "it war Nick Stirn."

The squire recognized the voice of the tinker; but though he now guessed
at the ringleader, on that day of general amnesty he had the prudence
and magnanimity not to say, "Stand forth, Sprott: thou art the man."
Yet his gallant English spirit would not suffer him to come off at the
expense of his servant.

"If it was Nick Stirn you meant," said he, gravely, "more shame for you.
It showed some pluck to hang the master; but to hang the poor servant,
who only thought to do his duty, careless of what ill-will it brought
upon him, was a shabby trick,--so little like the lads of Hazeldean,
that I suspect the man who taught it to them was never born in the
parish. But let bygones be bygones. One thing is clear,--you don't take
kindly to my new pair of stocks! The stocks has been a stumbling-block
and a grievance, and there's no denying that we went on very pleasantly
without it. I may also say that, in spite of it, we have been coming
together again lately. And I can't tell you what good it did me to see
your children playing again on the green, and your honest faces, in
spite of the stocks, and those diabolical tracts you've been reading
lately, lighted up at the thought that something pleasant was going on
at the Hall. Do you know, neighbours, you put me in mind of an old story
which, besides applying to the parish, all who are married, and all who
intend to marry, will do well to recollect. A worthy couple, named John
and Joan, had lived happily together many a long year, till one unlucky
day they bought a new bolster. Joan said the bolster was too hard, and
John that it was too soft. So, of course, they quarrelled. After sulking
all day, they agreed to put the bolster between them at night." (Roars
of laughter amongst the men; the women did not know which way to look,
except, indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean, who, though she was more than usually
rosy, maintained her innocent genial smile, as much as to say, "There
is no harm in the squire's jests.") The orator resumed, "After they had
thus lain apart for a little time, very silent and sullen, John sneezed.
'God bless you!' says Joan, over the bolster. 'Did you say God bless
me?' cries John, 'then here goes the bolster!'"

Prolonged laughter and tumultuous applause.

"Friends and neighbours," said the squire, when silence was restored,
and lifting the horn of ale, "I have the pleasure to inform you that I
have ordered the stocks to be taken down, and made into a bench for
the chimney-nook of our old friend Gaffer Solomons yonder. But mind me,
lads, if ever you make the parish regret the loss of the stocks, and
the overseers come to me with long faces, and say, 'The stocks must
be rebuilded,' why--" Here from all the youth of the village rose so
deprecating a clamour, that the squire would have been the most burgling
orator in the world, if he said a word further on the subject. He
elevated the horn over his head--"Why, that's my old Hazeldean again!
Health and long life to you all!"

The tinker had sneaked out of the assembly, and did not show his face in
the village for the next six months. And as to those poisonous tracts,
in spite of their salubrious labels, "The Poor Man's Friend," or "The
Rights of Labour," you could no more have found one of them lurking in
the drawers of the kitchen dressers in Hazeldean than you would have
found the deadly nightshade on the flower-stands in the drawing-room of
the Hall. As for the revolutionary beerhouse, there was no need to apply
to the magistrates to shut it up,--it shut itself up before the week was
out.

O young head of the great House of Hapsburg, what a Hazeldean you might
have made of Hungary! What a "Moriamur pro rege nostro!" would have rung
in your infant reign,--if you had made such a speech as the squire's!




BOOK FOURTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

COMPRISING MR. CAXTON'S OPINIONS ON THE MATRIMONIAL STATE, SUPPORTED BY
LEARNED AUTHORITIES.

"It was no bad idea of yours, Pisistratus," said my father, graciously,
"to depict the heightened affections and the serious intention of Signor
Riccabocca by a single stroke,--He left of his spectacles! Good."

"Yet," quoth my uncle, "I think Shakspeare represents a lover as falling
into slovenly habits, neglecting his person, and suffering his hose to
be ungartered, rather than paying that attention to his outer man which
induces Signor Riccabocca to leave off his spectacles, and look as
handsome as nature will permit him."

"There are different degrees and many phases of the passion," replied
my father. "Shakspeare is speaking of an ill-treated, pining, woe-begone
lover, much aggrieved by the cruelty of his mistress,--a lover who has
found it of no avail to smarten himself up, and has fallen despondently
into the opposite extreme. Whereas Signor Riccabocca has nothing to
complain of in the barbarity of Miss Jemima."

"Indeed he has not!" cried Blanche, tossing her head,--"forward
creature!"

"Yes, my dear," said my mother, trying her best to look stately, "I am
decidedly of opinion that, in that respect, Pisistratus has lowered the
dignity of the sex. Not intentionally," added my mother, mildly, and
afraid she had said something too bitter; "but it is very hard for a man
to describe us women."

The captain nodded approvingly; Mr. Squills smiled; my father quietly
resumed the thread of his discourse.

"To continue," quoth he. "Riccabocca has no reason to despair of success
in his suit, nor any object in moving his mistress to compassion. He
may, therefore, very properly tie up his garters and leave off his
spectacles. What do you say, Mr. Squills?--for, after all, since
love-making cannot fail to be a great constitutional derangement, the
experience of a medical man must be the best to consult."

"Mr. Caxton," replied Squills, obviously flattered, "you are quite
right: when a man makes love, the organs of self-esteem and desire
of applause are greatly stimulated, and therefore, of course, he sets
himself off to the best advantage. It is only, as you observe, when,
like Shakspeare's lover, he has given up making love as a bad job, and
has received that severe hit on the ganglions which the cruelty of a
mistress inflicts, that he neglects his personal appearance: he neglects
it, not because he is in love, but because his nervous system is
depressed. That was the cause, if you remember, with poor Major Prim.
He wore his wig all awry when Susan Smart jilted him; but I set it right
for him."

"By shaming Miss Smart into repentance, or getting him a new
sweetheart?" asked my uncle.

"Pooh!" answered Squills, "by quinine and cold bathing."

"We may therefore grant," renewed my father, "that, as a general rule,
the process of courtship tends to the spruceness, and even foppery, of
the individual engaged in the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily
proved somewhere. Nay, the Mexicans, indeed, were of opinion that the
lady at least ought to continue those cares of her person even after
marriage. There is extant, in Sahagun's 'History of New Spain,' the
advice of an Aztec or Mexican mother to her daughter, in which she says,
'That your husband may not take you in dislike, adorn yourself, wash
yourself, and let your garments be clean.' It is true that the good lady
adds, 'Do it in moderation; since if every day you are washing yourself
and your clothes, the world will say that you are over-delicate; and
particular people will call you--TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH!' What those words
precisely mean," added my father, modestly, "I cannot say, since I
never had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language,--but
something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt."

"I dare say a philosopher like Signor Riccabocca," said my uncle, "was
not himself very tapetzon tine--what d' ye call it?--and a good healthy
English wife, that poor affectionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him."

"Roland," said my father, "you don't like foreigners; a respectable
prejudice, and quite natural in a man who has been trying his best to
hew them in pieces and blow them up into splinters. But you don't like
philosophers either,--and for that dislike you have no equally good
reason."

"I only implied that they are not much addicted to soap and water," said
my uncle.

"A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have been very great beaux.
Aristotle was a notorious fop. Buffon put on his best laced ruffles
when he sat down to write, which implies that he washed his hands first.
Pythagoras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions; and
Horace--who, in his own way, was as good a philosopher as any the Romans
produced--takes care to let us know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper
little gentleman he was. But I don't think you ever read the 'Apology'
of Apuleius?"

"Not I; what is it about?" asked the captain.

"About a great many things. It is that Sage's vindication from several
malignant charges,--amongst others, and principally indeed, that of
being much too refined and effeminate for a philosopher. Nothing
can exceed the rhetorical skill with which he excuses himself for
using--tooth-powder. 'Ought a philosopher,' he exclaims, 'to allow
anything unclean about him, especially in the mouth,--the mouth, which
is the vestibule of the soul, the gate of discourse, the portico of
thought! Ah, but AEmilianus [the accuser of Apuleius] never opens
his mouth but for slander and calumny,--tooth-powder would indeed be
unbecoming to him! Or, if he use any, it will not be my good Arabian
tooth powder, but charcoal and cinders. Ay, his teeth should be as foul
as his language! And yet even the crocodile likes to have his teeth
cleaned; insects get into them, and, horrible reptile though he be,
he opens his jaws inoffensively to a faithful dentistical bird, who
volunteers his beak for a toothpick.'"

My father was now warm in the subject he had started, and soared
miles away from Riccabocca and "My Novel." "And observe," he
exclaimed,--"observe with what gravity this eminent Platonist pleads
guilty to the charge of having a mirror. 'Why, what,' he exclaims, 'more
worthy of the regards of a human creature than his own image' nihil
respectabilius homini quam formam suam! Is not that one of our children
the most dear to us who is called 'the picture of his father'? But take
what pains you will with a picture, it can never be so like you as
the face in your mirror! Think it discreditable to look with proper
attention on one's self in the glass! Did not Socrates recommend such
attention to his disciples,--did he not make a great moral agent of
the speculum? The handsome, in admiring their beauty therein, were
admonished that handsome is who handsome does; and the more the ugly
stared at themselves, the more they became naturally anxious to hide the
disgrace of their features in the loveliness of their merits. Was not
Demosthenes always at his speculum? Did he not rehearse his causes
before it as before a master in the art? He learned his eloquence from
Plato, his dialectics from Eubulides; but as for his delivery--there, he
came to the mirror!

"Therefore," concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unexpectedly to the
subject,--"therefore, it is no reason to suppose that Dr. Riccabocca
is averse to cleanliness and decent care of the person because he is a
philosopher; and, all things considered, he never showed himself more a
philosopher than when he left off his spectacles and looked his best."

"Well," said my mother, kindly, "I only hope it may turn out happily.
But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had not made Dr.
Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer."

"Very true," said the captain; "the Italian does not shine as a lover.
Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus,--something gallant and
chivalrous."

"Fire! gallantry! chivalry!" cried my father, who had taken Riccabocca
under his special protection; "why, don't you see that the man
is described as a philosopher?--and I should like to know when a
philosopher ever plunged into matrimony without considerable misgivings
and cold shivers! Indeed, it seems that--perhaps before he was a
philosopher--Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it
was. Why, even that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus
Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, but only a Roman censor,
thus expressed himself in an exhortation to the people to perpetrate
matrimony: 'If, O Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all
dispense with that subject of care _ea molestia careremus;_ but since
nature has so managed it that we cannot live with women comfortably, nor
without them at all, let us rather provide for the human race than our
own temporary felicity.'"

Here the ladies set up such a cry of indignation, that both Roland and
myself endeavoured to appease their wrath by hasty assurances that we
utterly repudiated the damnable doctrine of Metellus Numidicus.

My father, wholly unmoved, as soon as a sullen silence was established,
recommenced. "Do not think, ladies," said he, "that you were without
advocates at that day: there were many Romans gallant enough to blame
the censor for a mode of expressing himself which they held to be
equally impolite and injudicious. 'Surely,' said they, with some
plausibility, if Numidicus wished men to marry, he need not have
referred so peremptorily to the disquietudes of the connection, and thus
have made them more inclined to turn away from matrimony than give them
a relish for it.' But against these critics one honest man (whose name
of Titus Castricius should not be forgotten by posterity) maintained
that Metellus Numidicus could not have spoken more properly; 'For
remark,' said he, 'that Metellus was a censor, not a rhetorician. It
becomes rhetoricians to adorn and disguise and make the best of things;
but Metellus, sanctus vir,--a holy and blameless man, grave and sincere
to wit, and addressing the Roman people in the solemn capacity of
Censor,--was bound to speak the plain truth, especially as he was
treating of a subject on which the observation of every day, and the
experience of every life, could not leave the least doubt upon the mind
of his audience.' Still, Riccabocca, having decided to marry, has no
doubt prepared himself to bear all the concomitant evils--as becomes a
professed sage; and I own I admire the art with which Pisistratus has
drawn the kind of woman most likely to suit a philosopher--"

Pisistratus bows, and looks round complacently; but recoils from two
very peevish and discontented faces feminine.

MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence).--"Not only as regards mildness
of temper and other household qualifications, but as regards the
very person of the object of his choice. For you evidently remember,
Pisistratus, the reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage:
[Long sentence in Greek]"

Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias by heart, and
nods acquiescingly.

MR. CAXTON.--"That is, my dears, 'The woman you would marry is either
handsome or ugly: if handsome, she is koine,--namely, you don't have
her to yourself; if ugly, she is poine,--that is, a fury.' But, as it
is observed in Aulus Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a
wide interval between handsome and ugly. And thus Ennius, in his tragedy
of 'Menalippus,' uses an admirable expression to designate women of the
proper degree of matrimonial comeliness, such as a philosopher would
select. He calls this degree stata forma,--a rational, mediocre sort of
beauty, which is not liable to be either koine or poine. And Favorinus,
who was a remarkably sensible man, and came from Provence--the male
inhabitants of which district have always valued themselves on their
knowledge of love and ladies--calls this said stata forma the beauty of
wives,--the uxorial beauty. Ennius says that women of a stata forma are
almost always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is described as
possessing this stata forma; and it is the nicety of your observation in
this respect, which I like the most in the whole of your description of
a philosopher's matrimonial courtship, Pisistratus (excepting only the
stroke of the spectacles), for it shows that you had properly considered
the opinion of Bias, and mastered all the counter logic suggested in
Book v., chapter xi., of Aulus Gellius."

"For all that," said Blanche, half archly, half demurely, with a smile
in the eye and a pout of the lip, "I don't remember that Pisistratus, in
the days when he wished to be most complimentary, ever assured me that I
had a stata forma,--a rational, mediocre sort of beauty."

"And I think," observed my uncle, "that when he comes to his real
heroine, whoever she may be, he will not trouble his head much about
either Bias or Aulus Gellius."




CHAPTER II.

Matrimony is certainly a great change in life. One is astonished not to
find a notable alteration in one's friend, even if he or she have been
only wedded a week. In the instance of Dr. and Mrs. Riccabocca the
change was peculiarly visible. To speak first of the lady, as in
chivalry bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced that melancholy
which had characterized Miss Jemima; she became even sprightly and gay,
and looked all the better and prettier for the alteration. She did not
scruple to confess honestly to Mrs. Dale that she was now of opinion
that the world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the
meanwhile, she did not neglect the duty which the belief she had
abandoned serves to inculcate,--"She set her house in order." The cold
and penurious elegance that had characterized the Casino disappeared
like enchantment,--that is, the elegance remained, but the cold and
penury fled before the smile of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after
the nuptials of his master, Jackeymo only now caught minnows and
sticklebacks for his own amusement. Jackeymo looked much plumper, and
so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair Jemima became an excellent wife.
Riccabocca secretly thought her extravagant, but, like a wise man,
declined to look at the house bills, and ate his joint in unreproachful
silence.

Indeed there was so much unaffected kindness in the nature of Mrs.
Riccabocca--beneath the quiet of her manner there beat so genially
the heart of the Hazeldeans--that she fairly justified the favourable
anticipations of Mrs. Dale. And though the doctor did not noisily
boast of his felicity, nor, as some new married folks do, thrust it
insultingly under the nimis unctis naribus,--the turned-up noses of
your surly old married folks,--nor force it gaudily and glaringly on
the envious eyes of the single, you might still see that he was a more
cheerful and light-hearted man than before. His smile was less
ironical, his politeness less distant. He did not study Machiavelli so
intensely,--and he did not return to the spectacles; which last was an
excellent sign. Moreover, the humanizing influence of the tidy English
wife might be seen in the improvement of his outward or artificial man.
His clothes seemed to fit him better; indeed, the clothes were new. Mrs.
Dale no longer remarked that the buttons were off the wristbands, which
was a great satisfaction to her. But the sage still remained faithful to
the pipe, the cloak, and the red silk umbrella. Mrs. Riccabocca had (to
her credit be it spoken) used all becoming and wife-like arts against
these three remnants of the old bachelor, Adam, but in vain. "Anima
mia," [Soul of mine]--said the doctor, tenderly, "I hold the cloak, the
umbrella, and the pipe as the sole relics that remain to me of my native
country. Respect and spare them."

Mrs. Riccabocca was touched, and had the good sense to perceive that
man, let him be ever so much married, retains certain signs of his
ancient independence,--certain tokens of his old identity, which a wife,
the most despotic, will do well to concede. She conceded the cloak,
she submitted to the umbrella, she overcame her abhorrence of the pipe.
After all, considering the natural villany of our sex, she confessed to
herself that she might have been worse off. But through all the calm
and cheerfulness of Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently
perceptible; it commenced after the second week of marriage; it went on
increasing, till one bright sunny afternoon, as he was standing on his
terrace, gazing down upon the road, at which Jackeymo was placed, lo, a
stage-coach stopped! The doctor made a bound, and put both hands to his
heart as if he had been shot; he then leaped over the balustrade, and
his wife from her window beheld him flying down the hill, with his long
hair streaming in the wind, till the trees hid him from her sight.

"Ah," thought she, with a natural pang of conjugal jealousy, "henceforth
I am only second in his home. He has gone to welcome his child!" And at
that reflection Mrs. Riccabocca shed tears.

But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to curb her emotion,
and efface as well as she could the trace of a stepmother's grief. When
this was done, and a silent, self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the
good woman descended the stairs with alacrity, and summoning up her best
smiles, emerged on the terrace.

She was repaid; for scarcely had she come into the open air, when two
little arms were thrown around her, and the sweetest voice that ever
came from a child's lips sighed out in broken English, "Good mamma, love
me a little."

"Love you? with my whole heart!" cried the stepmother, with all a
mother's honest passion. And she clasped the child to her breast.

"God bless you, my wife!" said Riccabocca, in a husky tone.

"Please take this too," added Jackeymo, in Italian, as well as his sobs
would let him, and he broke off a great bough full of blossoms from his
favourite orange-tree, and thrust it into his mistress's hand. She had
not the slightest notion what he meant by it!




CHAPTER III.

Violante was indeed a bewitching child,--a child to whom I defy Mrs.
Caudle herself (immortal Mrs. Caudle!) to have been a harsh stepmother.

Look at her now, as released from those kindly arms, she stands, still
clinging with one hand to her new mamma, and holding out the other to
Riccabocca, with those large dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a
lovely smile! what an ingenuous, candid brow! She looks delicate, she
evidently requires care, she wants the mother. And rare is the woman
who would not love her the better for that! Still, what an innocent,
infantine bloom in those clear, smooth cheeks! and in that slight frame,
what exquisite natural grace!

"And this, I suppose, is your nurse, darling?" said Mrs. Riccabocca,
observing a dark, foreign-looking woman, dressed very strangely,
without cap or bonnet, but a great silver arrow stuck in her hair, and a
filigree chain or necklace resting upon her kerchief.

"Ah, good Annetta," said Violante, in Italian. "Papa, she says she is to
go back; but she is not to go back, is she?"

Riccabocca, who had scarcely before noticed the woman, started at that
question, exchanged a rapid glance with Jackeymo, and then, muttering
some inaudible excuse, approached the nurse, and, beckoning her to
follow him, went away into the grounds. He did not return for more than
an hour, nor did the woman then accompany him home. He said briefly to
his wife that the nurse was obliged to return at once to Italy, and that
she would stay in the village to catch the mail; that indeed she would
be of no use in their establishment, as she could not speak a word
of English; that he was sadly afraid Violante would pine for her. And
Violante did pine at first. But still, to a child it is so great a thing
to find a parent, to be at home, that, tender and grateful as Violante
was, she could not be inconsolable while her father was there to
comfort.

For the first few days, Riccabocca scarcely permitted any one to be with
his daughter but himself. He would not even leave her alone with
his Jemima. They walked out together,--sat together for hours in the
belvidere. Then by degrees he began to resign her more and more to
Jemima's care and tuition, especially in English, of which language at
present she spoke only a few sentences (previously, perhaps, learned by
heart) so as to be clearly intelligible.




CHAPTER IV.

There was one person in the establishment of Dr. Riccabocca who was
satisfied neither with the marriage of his master nor the arrival of
Violante,--and that was our friend Lenny Fairfield. Previous to the
all-absorbing duties of courtship, the young peasant had secured a very
large share of Riccabocca's attention. The sage had felt interest in the
growth of this rude intelligence struggling up to light. But what with
the wooing and what with the wedding, Lenny Fairfield had sunk very
much out of his artificial position as pupil into his natural station
of under-gardener. And on the arrival of Violante, he saw, with natural
bitterness, that he was clean forgotten, not only by Riccabocca, but
almost by Jackeymo. It was true that the master still lent him books,
and the servant still gave him lectures on horticulture. But Riccabocca
had no time nor inclination now to amuse himself with enlightening that
tumult of conjecture which the books created. And if Jackeymo had been
covetous of those mines of gold buried beneath the acres now fairly
taken from the squire (and good-naturedly added rent-free, as an aid to
Jemima's dower), before the advent of the young lady whose future dowry
the produce was to swell, now that she was actually under the eyes of
the faithful servant, such a stimulus was given to his industry that he
could think of nothing else but the land, and the revolution he designed
to effect in its natural English crops. The garden, save only the
orangetrees, was abandoned entirely to Lenny, and additional labourers
were called in for the field work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part
of the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow camomile. He
had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax;
but against the growth of flax the squire set his face obstinately.
That most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops when soil and skill suit, was
formerly attempted in England much more commonly than it is now, since
you will find few old leases do not contain a clause prohibitory of
flax as an impoverishment of the land. And though Jackeymo learnedly
endeavoured to prove to the squire that the flax itself contained
particles which, if returned to the soil, repaid all that the crop took
away, Mr. Hazeldean had his old-fashioned prejudices on the matter,
which were insuperable. "My forefathers," quoth he, "did not put that
clause in their leases without good cause; and as the Casino lands are
entailed on Frank, I have no right to gratify your foreign whims at his
expense."

To make up for the loss of the flax, Jackeymo resolved to convert a very
nice bit of pasture into orchard ground, which he calculated would bring
in L10 net per acre by the time Miss Violante was marriageable. At this
the squire pished a little; but as it was quite clear that the land
would be all the more valuable hereafter for the fruit-trees, he
consented to permit the "grass-land" to be thus partially broken up.

All these changes left poor Lenny Fairfield very much to himself,--at
a time when the new and strange devices which the initiation into
book knowledge creates made it most desirable that he should have the
constant guidance of a superior mind.

One evening after his work, as Lenny was returning to his mother's
cottage, very sullen and very moody, he suddenly came in contact with
Sprott the tinker.




CHAPTER V.

The tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away at an old kettle,
with a little fire burning in front of him, and the donkey hard by,
indulging in a placid doze. Mr. Sprott looked up as Lenny passed, nodded
kindly, and said,--

"Good evenin', Lenny: glad to hear you be so 'spectably sitivated with
Mounseer."

"Ay," answered Lenny, with a leaven of rancour in his recollections,
"you're not ashamed to speak to me now that I am not in disgrace. But
it was in disgrace, when it wasn't my fault, that the real gentleman was
most kind to me."

"Ar-r, Lenny," said the tinker, with a prolonged rattle in that said
Ar-r, which was not without great significance. "But you sees the real
gentleman, who han't got his bread to get, can hafford to 'spise his
c'racter in the world. A poor tinker must be timbersome and nice in his
'sociations. But sit down here a bit, Lenny; I've summat to say to ye!"

"To me?"

"To ye. Give the neddy a shove out i' the vay, and sit down, I say."

Lenny rather reluctantly, and somewhat superciliously, accepted this
invitation.

"I hears," said the tinker, in a voice made rather indistinct by a
couple of nails, which he had inserted between his teeth,--"I hears as
how you be unkimmon fond of reading. I ha' sum nice cheap books in my
bag yonder,--sum as low as a penny."

"I should like to see them," said Lenny, his eyes sparkling.

The tinker rose, opened one of the panniers on the ass's back, took out
a bag, which he placed before Lenny, and told him to suit himself. The
young peasant desired no better. He spread all the contents of the
bag on the sward, and a motley collection of food for the mind was
there,--food and poison, serpentes avibus good and evil. Here Milton's
Paradise Lost, there "The Age of Reason;" here Methodist Tracts, there
"True Principles of Socialism,"--Treatises on Useful Knowledge by sound
learning actuated by pure benevolence, Appeals to Operatives by the
shallowest reasoners, instigated by the same ambition that had moved
Eratosthenes to the conflagration of a temple; works of fiction
admirable as "Robinson Crusoe," or innocent as "The Old English Baron,"
beside coarse translations of such garbage as had rotted away the youth
of France under Louis Quinze. This miscellany was an epitome, in short,
of the mixed World of Books, of that vast city of the Press, with its
palaces and hovels, its aqueducts and sewers, which opens all alike
to the naked eye and the curious mind of him to whom you say, in the
tinker's careless phrase, "Suit yourself."

But it is not the first impulse of a nature healthful and still pure
to settle in the hovel and lose itself amidst the sewers; and Lenny
Fairfield turned innocently over the bad books, and selecting two or
three of the best, brought them to the tinker, and asked the price.

"Why," said Mr. Sprott, putting on his spectacles, "you has taken the
werry dearest: them 'ere be much cheaper, and more hinterestin'."

"But I don't fancy them," answered Lenny; "I don't understand what they
are about, and this seems to tell one how the steam-engine is made, and
has nice plates; and this is 'Robinson Crusoe,' which Parson Dale once
said he would give me--I'd rather buy it out of my own money."

"Well, please yourself," quoth the tinker; "you shall have the books for
four bob, and you can pay me next month."

"Four bobs, four shillings? it is a great sum," said Lenny; "but I will
lay by, as you are kind enough to trust me: good-evening, Mr. Sprott."

"Stay a bit," said the tinker; "I'll just throw you these two little
tracts into the bargain; they be only a shilling a dozen, so 't is
but tuppence,--and ven you has read those, vy, you'll be a regular
customer."

The tinker tossed to Lenny Nos. 1 and 2 of "Appeals to Operatives," and
the peasant took them up gratefully.

The young knowledge-seeker went his way across the green fields, and
under the still autumn foliage of the hedgerows. He looked first at one
book, then at another; he did not know on which to settle.

The tinker rose, and made a fire with leaves and furze and sticks, some
dry and some green.

Lenny has now opened No. 1 of the tracts: they are the shortest to read,
and don't require so much effort of the mind as the explanation of the
steam-engine.

The tinker has set on his grimy glue-pot, and the glue simmers.




CHAPTER VI.

As Violante became more familiar with her new home, and those around
her became more familiar with Violante, she was remarked for a certain
stateliness of manner and bearing, which, had it been less evidently
natural and inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of
a forlorn exile, and would have been rare at so early an age among
children of the loftiest pretensions. It was with the air of a little
princess that she presented her tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or
submitted her calm clear cheek to a presuming kiss. Yet withal she was
so graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and captivating,
that she was not the less loved for all her grand airs. And, indeed, she
deserved to be loved; for though she was certainly prouder than Mr. Dale
could approve of, her pride was devoid of egotism,--and that is a pride
by no means common. She had an intuitive forethought for others: you
could see that she was capable of that grand woman-heroism, abnegation
of self; and though she was an original child, and often grave and
musing, with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her character,
still she was not above the happy genial merriment of childhood,--only
her silver laugh was more attuned, and her gestures more composed, than
those of children habituated to many play-fellows usually are. Mrs.
Hazeldean liked her best when she was grave, and said "she would become
a very sensible woman." Mrs. Dale liked her best when she was gay, and
said "she was born to make many a heart ache;" for which Mrs. Dale was
properly reproved by the parson. Mrs. Hazeldean gave her a little set of
garden tools; Mrs. Dale a picture-book and a beautiful doll. For a long
time the book and the doll had the preference. But Mrs. Hazeldean having
observed to Riccabocca that the poor child looked pale, and ought to be
a good deal in the open air, the wise father ingeniously pretended
to Violante that Mrs. Riccabocca had taken a great fancy to the
picture-book, and that he should be very glad to have the doll, upon
which Violante hastened to give them both away, and was never so
happy as when Mamma (as she called Mrs. Riccabocca) was admiring the
picture-book, and Riccabocca with austere gravity dandled the doll.
Then Riccabocca assured her that she could be of great use to him in
the garden; and Violante instantly put into movement her spade, hoe, and
wheelbarrow.

This last occupation brought her into immediate contact with Mr. Leonard
Fairfield; and that personage one morning, to his great horror, found
Miss Violante had nearly exterminated a whole celery-bed, which she had
ignorantly conceived to be a crop of weeds.

Lenny was extremely angry. He snatched away the hoe, and said angrily,
"You must not do that, Miss. I'll tell your papa if you--"

Violante drew herself up, and never having been so spoken to before,
at least since her arrival in England, there was something comic in the
surprise of her large eyes, as well as something tragic in the dignity
of her offended mien. "It is very naughty of you, Miss," continued
Leonard, in a milder tone, for he was both softened by the eyes and awed
by the mien, "and I trust you will not do it again."

"Non capisco," murmured Violante, and the dark eyes filled with tears.
At that moment up came Jackeymo: and Violante, pointing to Leonard,
said, with an effort not to betray her emotion, "Il fanciullo e molto
grossolano."--["He is a very rude boy."]

Jackeymo turned to Leonard with the look of an enraged tiger. "How you
dare, scum of de earth that you are," cried he, "how you dare make cry
the signorina?" And his English not supplying familiar vituperatives
sufficiently, he poured out upon Lenny such a profusion of Italian
abuse, that the boy turned red and white, in a breath, with rage and
perplexity.

Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she had made, and with
true feminine caprice now began to scold Jackeymo for his anger, and,
finally approaching Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said with a
kindness at once childlike and queenly, and in the prettiest imaginable
mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian, to which I cannot pretend
to do justice, and shall therefore translate: "Don't mind him. I dare
say it was all my fault, only I did not understand you: are not these
things weeds?"

"No, my darling signorina," said Jackeymo in Italian, looking ruefully
at the celery-bed, "they are not weeds, and they sell very well at this
time of the year. But still, if it amuses you to pluck them up, I should
like to see who's to prevent it."

Lenny walked away. He had been called "the scum of the earth,"--by a
foreigner too! He had again been ill-treated for doing what he conceived
his duty. He was again feeling the distinction between rich and poor,
and he now fancied that that distinction involved deadly warfare, for
he had read from beginning to end those two damnable tracts which
the tinker had presented to him. But in the midst of all the angry
disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft touch of the infant's hand,
the soothing influence of her conciliating words, and he was half
ashamed that he had spoken so roughly to a child.

Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away, and sat down at a
distance: "I don't see," thought he, "why there should be rich and poor,
master and servant." Lenny, be it remembered, had not heard the Parson's
Political Sermon.

An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny returned to his work.
Jackeymo was no longer in the garden: he had gone to the fields; but
Riccabocca was standing by the celerybed, and holding the red silk
umbrella over Violante as she sat on the ground, looking up at her
father with those eyes already so full of intelligence and love and
soul.

"Lenny," said Riccabocca, "my young lady has been telling me that she
has been very naughty, and Giacomo very unjust to you. Forgive them
both."

Lenny's sullenness melted in an instant: the reminiscences of tracts
Nos. 1 and 2,--

          "Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
          Left not a wreck behind."

He raised eyes swimming with all his native goodness towards the wise
man, and dropped them gratefully on the infant peace-maker. Then he
turned away his head and fairly wept. The parson was right: "O ye poor,
have charity for the rich; O ye rich, respect the poor."




CHAPTER VII.

Now from that day the humble Lenny and the regal Violante became great
friends. With what pride he taught her to distinguish between celery and
weeds,--and how proud too was she when she learned that she was useful!
There is not a greater pleasure you can give children, especially female
children, than to make them feel they are already of value in the world,
and serviceable as well as protected. Weeks and months rolled away, and
Lenny still read, not only the books lent him by the doctor, but those
he bought of Mr. Sprott. As for the bombs and shells against religion
which the tinker carried in his bag, Lenny was not induced to blow
himself up with them. He had been reared from his cradle in simple love
and reverence for the Divine Father, and the tender Saviour, whose life
beyond all records of human goodness, whose death beyond all epics of
mortal heroism, no being whose infancy has been taught to supplicate
the Merciful and adore the Holy, yea, even though his later life may be
entangled amidst the thorns of some desolate pyrrhonism, can ever hear
reviled and scoffed without a shock to the conscience and a revolt of
the heart. As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very
look of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though you never saw
a scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald profanity on
which the tinker put his black finger made Lenny's blood run cold. Safe,
too, was the peasant boy from any temptation in works of a gross and
licentious nature, not only because of the happy ignorance of his rural
life, but because of a more enduring safeguard,--genius! Genius,
that, manly, robust, healthful as it be, is long before it lose its
instinctive Dorian modesty; shamefaced, because so susceptible to
glory,--genius, that loves indeed to dream, but on the violet bank, not
the dunghill. Wherefore, even in the error of the senses, it seeks to
escape from the sensual into worlds of fancy, subtle and refined. But
apart from the passions, true genius is the most practical of all human
gifts. Like the Apollo, whom the Greek worshipped as its type, even
Arcady is its exile, not its home. Soon weary of the dalliance of Tempe,
it ascends to its mission,--the Archer of the silver bow, the guide of
the car of light. Speaking more plainly, genius is the enthusiasm for
self-improvement; it ceases or sleeps the moment it desists from seeking
some object which it believes of value, and by that object it insensibly
connects its self-improvement with the positive advance of the world.
At present Lenny's genius had no bias that was not to the Positive
and Useful. It took the direction natural to its sphere, and the wants
therein,--namely, to the arts which we call mechanical. He wanted to
know about steam-engines and Artesian wells; and to know about them it
was necessary to know something of mechanics and hydrostatics; so he
bought popular elementary works on those mystic sciences, and set all
the powers of his mind at work on experiments.

Noble and generous spirits are ye, who, with small care for fame, and
little reward from pelf, have opened to the intellects of the poor the
portals of wisdom! I honour and revere ye; only do not think ye have
done all that is needful. Consider, I pray ye, whether so good a choice
from the tinker's bag would have been made by a boy whom religion
had not scared from the Pestilent, and genius had not led to the
self-improving. And Lenny did not wholly escape from the mephitic
portions of the motley elements from which his awakening mind drew its
nurture. Think not it was all pure oxygen that the panting lip drew in.
No; there were still those inflammatory tracts. Political I do not like
to call them, for politics means the art of government, and the tracts I
speak of assailed all government which mankind has hitherto recognized.
Sad rubbish, perhaps, were such tracts to you, O sound thinker, in your
easy-chair! or to you, practised statesman, at your post on the Treasury
Bench; to you, calm dignitary of a learned Church; or to you, my lord
judge, who may often have sent from your bar to the dire Orcus
of Norfolk's Isle the ghosts of men whom that rubbish, falling
simultaneously on the bumps of acquisitiveness and combativeness, hath
untimely slain! Sad rubbish to you! But seems it such rubbish to the
poor man, to whom it promises a paradise on the easy terms of upsetting
a world? For, ye see, those "Appeals to Operatives" represent that
same world-upsetting as the simplest thing imaginable,--a sort of
two-and-two-make-four proposition. The poor have only got to set
their strong hands to the axle, and heave-a-boy! and hurrah for
the topsy-turvy! Then just to put a little wholesome rage into the
heave-a-hoy! it is so facile to accompany the eloquence of "Appeals"
with a kind of stir-the-bile-up statistics,--"Abuses of the
aristocracy," "Jobs of the Priesthood," "Expenses of the Army kept up
for Peers' younger sons," "Wars contracted for the villanous purpose of
raising the rents of the landowners,"--all arithmetically dished up,
and seasoned with tales of every gentleman who has committed a misdeed,
every clergyman who has dishonoured his cloth; as if such instances were
fair specimens of average gentlemen and ministers of religion! All this,
passionately advanced (and, observe, never answered, for that literature
admits no controversialists, and the writer has it all his own way),
may be rubbish; but it is out of such rubbish that operatives build
barricades for attack, and legislators prisons for defence.

Our poor friend Lenny drew plenty of this stuff from the tinker's
bag. He thought it very clever and very eloquent; and he supposed the
statistics were as true as mathematical demonstrations.

A famous knowledge-diffuser is looking over my shoulder, and tells me,
"Increase education, and cheapen good books, and all this rubbish will
disappear!" Sir, I don't believe a word of it. If you printed Ricardo
and Adam Smith at a farthing a volume, I still believe that they would
be as little read by the operatives as they are nowadays by a very large
proportion of highly-cultivated men. I still believe that, while the
press works, attacks on the rich and propositions for heave-a-hoys will
always form a popular portion of the Literature of Labour. There's Lenny
Fairfield reading a treatise on hydraulics, and constructing a model for
a fountain into the bargain; but that does not prevent his acquiescence
in any proposition for getting rid of a National Debt, which he
certainly never agreed to pay, and which he is told makes sugar and tea
so shamefully dear. No. I tell you what does a little counteract those
eloquent incentives to break his own head against the strong walls of
the Social System,--it is, that he has two eyes in that head which
are not always employed in reading. And having been told in print that
masters are tyrants, parsons hypocrites or drones in the hive, and
landowners vampires and bloodsuckers, he looks out into the little world
around him, and, first, he is compelled to acknowledge that his master
is not a tyrant (perhaps because he is a foreigner and a philosopher,
and, for what I and Lenny know, a republican). But then Parson Dale,
though High Church to the marrow, is neither hypocrite nor drone. He
has a very good living, it is true,--much better than he ought to have,
according to the "political" opinions of those tracts! but Lenny is
obliged to confess that if Parson Dale were a penny the poorer, he would
do a pennyworth's less good; and comparing one parish with another, such
as Rood Hall and Hazeldean, he is dimly aware that there is no greater
CIVILIZER than a parson tolerably well off. Then, too, Squire Hazeldean,
though as arrant a Tory as ever stood upon shoe-leather, is certainly
not a vampire nor blood sucker. He does not feed on the public; a
great many of the public feed upon him: and, therefore, his practical
experience a little staggers and perplexes Lenny Fairfield as to
the gospel accuracy of his theoretical dogmas. Masters, parsons, and
landowners! having, at the risk of all popularity, just given a coup de
patte to certain sages extremely the fashion at present, I am not going
to let you off without an admonitory flea in the ear. Don't suppose that
any mere scribbling and typework will suffice to answer the scribbling
and typework set at work to demolish you,--write down that rubbish you
can't; live it down you may. If you are rich, like Squire Hazeldean, do
good with your money; if you are poor, like Signor Riccabocca, do good
with your kindness.

See! there is Lenny now receiving his week's wages; and though Lenny
knows that he can get higher wages in the very next parish, his blue
eyes are sparkling with gratitude, not at the chink of the money, but at
the poor exile's friendly talk on things apart from all service; while
Violante is descending the steps from the terrace, charged by her
mother-in-law with a little basket of sago, and such-like delicacies,
for Mrs. Fairfield, who has been ailing the last few days.

Lenny will see the tinker as he goes home, and he will buy a most
Demosthenean "Appeal,"--a tract of tracts, upon the propriety of Strikes
and the Avarice of Masters. But, somehow or other, I think a few words
from Signor Riccabocca, that did not cost the signor a farthing, and the
sight of his mother's smile at the contents of the basket, which cost
very little, will serve to neutralize the effects of that "Appeal" much
more efficaciously than the best article a Brougham or a Mill could
write on the subject.




CHAPTER VIII.

Spring had come again; and one beautiful May day, Leonard Fairfield sat
beside the little fountain which he had now actually constructed in the
garden. The butterflies were hovering over the belt of flowers which
he had placed around his fountain, and the birds were singing overhead.
Leonard Fairfield was resting from his day's work, to enjoy his
abstemious dinner, beside the cool play of the sparkling waters, and,
with the yet keener appetite of knowledge, he devoured his book as he
munched his crusts.

A penny tract is the shoeing-horn of literature! it draws on a great
many books, and some too tight to be very useful in walking. The penny
tract quotes a celebrated writer--you long to read him; it props a
startling assertion by a grave authority--you long to refer to it.
During the nights of the past winter, Leonard's intelligence had
made vast progress; he had taught himself more than the elements of
mechanics, and put to practice the principles he had acquired not only
in the hydraulical achievement of the fountain, nor in the still
more notable application of science, commenced on the stream in which
Jackeymo had fished for minnows, and which Lenny had diverted to the
purpose of irrigating two fields, but in various ingenious contrivances
for the facilitation or abridgment of labour, which had excited great
wonder and praise in the neighbourhood. On the other hand, those rabid
little tracts, which dealt so summarily with the destinies of the
human race, even when his growing reason and the perusal of works
more classical or more logical had led him to perceive that they were
illiterate, and to suspect that they jumped from premises to conclusions
with a celerity very different from the careful ratiocination of
mechanical science, had still, in the citations and references wherewith
they abounded, lured him on to philosophers more specious and more
perilous. Out of the tinker's bag he had drawn a translation of
Condorcet's "Progress of Man" and another of Rousseau's "Social
Contract." Works so eloquent had induced him to select from the tracts
in the tinker's miscellany those which abounded most in professions of
philanthropy, and predictions of some coming Golden Age, to which old
Saturn's was a joke,--tracts so mild and mother-like in their language,
that it required a much more practical experience than Lenny's to
perceive that you would have to pass a river of blood before you had
the slightest chance of setting foot on the flowery banks on which they
invited you to repose; tracts which rouged poor Christianity on the
cheeks, clapped a crown of innocent daffodillies on her head, and
set her to dancing a pas de zephyr in the pastoral ballet in which
Saint-Simon pipes to the flock he shears; or having first laid it down
as a preliminary axiom that--

     "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
     The solemn temples, the great globe itself,--
     Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,"

substituted in place thereof M. Fourier's symmetrical phalanstere, or
Mr. Owen's architectural parallelogram. It was with some such tract
that Lenny was seasoning his crusts and his radishes, when Riccabocca,
bending his long dark face over the student's shoulder, said abruptly,--

"Diavolo, my friend! what on earth have you got there? Just let me look
at it, will you?"

Leonard rose respectfully, and coloured deeply as he surrendered the
tract to Riccabocca.

The wise man read the first page attentively, the second more cursorily,
and only ran his eye over the rest. He had gone through too vast a
range of problems political, not to have passed over that venerable
Pons Asinorum of Socialism, on which Fouriers and Saint-Simons sit
straddling, and cry aloud that they have arrived at the last boundary of
knowledge!

"All this is as old as the hills," quoth Riccabocca, irreverently; "but
the hills stand still, and this--there it goes!" and the sage pointed to
a cloud emitted from his pipe. "Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on
Optical Delusions? No! Well, I'll lend it to you. You will find therein
a story of a lady who always saw a black cat on her hearth-rug. The
black cat existed only in her fancy, but the hallucination was natural
and reasonable,--eh, what do you think?"

"Why, sir," said Leonard, not catching the Italian's meaning, "I don't
exactly see that it was natural and reasonable."

"Foolish boy, yes! because black cats are things possible and known.
But who ever saw upon earth a community of men such as sit on the
hearth-rugs of Messrs. Owen and Fourier? If the lady's hallucination was
not reasonable, what is his who believes in such visions as these?"

Leonard bit his lip.

"My dear boy," cried Riccabocca, kindly, "the only thing sure and
tangible to which these writers would lead you lies at the first step,
and that is what is commonly called a Revolution. Now, I know what that
is. I have gone, not indeed through a revolution, but an attempt at
one."

Leonard raised his eyes towards his master with a look of profound
respect and great curiosity.

"Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the boy gazed exchanged
its usual grotesque and sardonic expression for one animated, noble, and
heroic. "Yes, not a revolution for chimeras, but for that cause which
the coldest allow to be good, and which, when successful, all time
approves as divine,--the redemption of our native soil from the rule
of the foreigner! I have shared in such an attempt. And," continued the
Italian, mournfully, "recalling now all the evil passions it arouses,
all the ties it dissolves, all the blood that it commands to flow, all
the healthful industry it arrests, all the madmen that it arms, all the
victims that it dupes, I question whether one man really honest, pure,
and humane, who has once gone through such an ordeal, would ever hazard
it again, unless he was assured that the victory was certain,--ay, and
the object for which he fights not to be wrested from his hands amidst
the uproar of the elements that the battle has released."

The Italian paused, shaded his brow with his hand, and remained long
silent. Then, gradually resuming his ordinary tone, he continued,--

"Revolutions that have no definite objects made clear by the positive
experience of history; revolutions, in a word, that aim less at
substituting one law or one dynasty for another, than at changing the
whole scheme of society, have been little attempted by real statesmen.
Even Lycurgus is proved to be a myth who never existed. Such organic
changes are but in the day-dreams of philosophers who lived apart from
the actual world, and whose opinions (though generally they were very
benevolent, good sort of men, and wrote in an elegant poetical style)
one would no more take on a plain matter of life, than one would look
upon Virgil's Eclogues as a faithful picture of the ordinary pains and
pleasures of the peasants who tend our sheep. Read them as you would
read poets, and they are delightful. But attempt to shape the world
according to the poetry, and fit yourself for a madhouse. The farther
off the age is from the realization of such projects, the more these
poor philosophers have indulged them. Thus, it was amidst the saddest
corruption of court manners that it became the fashion in Paris to sit
for one's picture with a crook in one's hand, as Alexis or Daphne. Just
as liberty was fast dying out of Greece, and the successors of Alexander
were founding their monarchies, and Rome was growing up to crush in its
iron grasp all States save its own, Plato withdraws his eyes from the
world, to open them in his dreamy "Atlantis." Just in the grimmest
period of English history, with the axe hanging over his head, Sir
Thomas More gives you his "Utopia." Just when the world is to be the
theatre of a new Sesostris, the sages of France tell you that the age is
too enlightened for war, that man is henceforth to be governed by pure
reason, and live in a paradise. Very pretty reading all this to a man
like me, Lenny, who can admire and smile at it. But to you, to the man
who has to work for his living, to the man who thinks it would be so
much more pleasant to live at his ease in a phalanstere than to work
eight or ten hours a day; to the man of talent and action and industry,
whose future is invested in that tranquillity and order of a State
in which talent and action and industry are a certain capital,--why,
Messrs. Coutts, the great bankers, had better encourage a theory to
upset the system of banking! Whatever disturbs society, yea, even by a
causeless panic, much more by an actual struggle, falls first upon the
market of labour, and thence affects prejudicially every department
of intelligence. In such times the arts are arrested; literature is
neglected; people are too busy to read anything save appeals to their
passions. And capital, shaken in its sense of security, no longer
ventures boldly through the land, calling forth all the energies of toil
and enterprise, and extending to every workman his reward. Now, Lenny,
take this piece of advice. You are young, clever, and aspiring: men
rarely succeed in changing the world; but a man seldom fails of success
if he lets the world alone, and resolves to make the best of it. You
are in the midst of the great crisis of your life; it is the struggle
between the new desires knowledge excites, and that sense of poverty
which those desires convert either into hope and emulation, or into envy
and despair. I grant that it is an up-hill work that lies before you;
but don't you think it is always easier to climb a mountain than it is
to level it? These books call on you to level the mountain; and that
mountain is the property of other people, subdivided amongst a great
many proprietors, and protected by law. At the first stroke of the
pickaxe, it is ten to one but what you are taken up for a trespass. But
the path up the mountain is a right of way uncontested. You may be safe
at the summit, before (even if the owners are fools enough to let you)
you could have levelled a yard. Cospetto!" quoth the doctor, "it is more
than two thousand years ago since poor Plato began to level it, and the
mountain is as high as ever!"

Thus saying, Riccabocca came to the end of his pipe, and stalking
thoughtfully away, he left Leonard Fairfield trying to extract light
from the smoke.




CHAPTER IX.

Shortly after this discourse of Riccabocca's, an incident occurred to
Leonard that served to carry his mind into new directions. One evening,
when his mother was out, he was at work on a new mechanical contrivance,
and had the misfortune to break one of the instruments which he
employed. Now it will be remembered that his father had been the
squire's head carpenter: the widow had carefully hoarded the tools
of his craft, which had belonged to her poor Mark; and though she
occasionally lent them to Leonard, she would not give them up to his
service. Amongst these Leonard knew that he should find the one that he
wanted; and being much interested in his contrivance, he could not wait
till his mother's return. The tools, with other little relies of the
lost, were kept in a large trunk in Mrs. Fairfield's sleepingroom;
the trunk was not locked, and Leonard went to it with out ceremony or
scruple. In rummaging for the instrument his eye fell upon a bundle of
manuscripts; and he suddenly recollected that when he was a mere child,
and before he much knew the difference between verse and prose, his
mother had pointed to these manuscripts, and said, "One day or other,
when you can read nicely, I'll let you look at these, Lenny. My poor
Mark wrote such verses--ah, he was a schollard!" Leonard, reasonably
enough, thought that the time had now arrived when he was worthy the
privilege of reading the paternal effusions, and he took forth the
manuscripts with a keen but melancholy interest. He recognized his
father's handwriting, which he had often seen before in account-books
and memoranda, and read eagerly some trifling poems, which did not show
much genius, nor much mastery of language and rhythm,--such poems, in
short, as a self-educated man, with poetic taste and feeling rather than
poetic inspiration or artistic culture, might compose with credit, but
not for fame. But suddenly, as he turned over these "Occasional
Pieces," Leonard came to others in a different handwriting,--a woman's
handwriting, small and fine and exquisitely formed. He had scarcely read
six lines of these last, before his attention was irresistibly chained.
They were of a different order of merit from poor Mark's; they bore the
unmistakable stamp of genius. Like the poetry of women in general, they
were devoted to personal feeling,--they were not the mirror of a world,
but reflections of a solitary heart. Yet this is the kind of poetry most
pleasing to the young. And the verses in question had another attraction
for Leonard: they seemed to express some struggle akin to his own,--some
complaint against the actual condition of the writer's life, some sweet
melodious murmurs at fortune. For the rest, they were characterized by a
vein of sentiment so elevated, that, if written by a man, it would have
run into exaggeration; written by a woman, the romance was carried off
by so many genuine revelations of sincere, deep, pathetic feeling, that
it was always natural, though true to a nature for which you would not
augur happiness.

Leonard was still absorbed in the perusal of these poems when Mrs.
Fairfield entered the room.

"What have you been about, Lenny,--searching in my box?"

"I came to look for my father's bag of tools, Mother, and I found these
papers, which you said I might read some day."

"I does n't wonder you did not hear me when I came in," said the widow,
sighing. "I used to sit still for the hour together, when my poor Mark
read his poems to me. There was such a pretty one about the 'Peasant's
Fireside,' Lenny,--have you got hold of that?"

"Yes, dear mother; and I remarked the allusion to you: it brought tears
to my eyes. But these verses are not my father's; whose are they? They
seem in a woman's handwriting."

Mrs. Fairfield looked, changed colour, grew faint and seated herself.

"Poor, poor Nora!" said she, falteringly. "I did not know as they were
there; Mark kep' 'em; they got among his--"

LEONARD.--"Who was Nora?"

MRS. FAIRFIELD.--"Who?--child--who? Nora was--was my own--own sister."

LEONARD (in great amaze, contrasting his ideal of the writer of these
musical lines, in that graceful hand, with his homely uneducated mother,
who could neither read nor write).--"Your sister! is it possible! My
aunt, then. How comes it you never spoke of her before? Oh, you should
be so proud of her, Mother!"

MRS. FAIRFIELD (clasping her hands).--"We were proud of her, all of
us,--father, mother, all! She was so beautiful and so good, and not
proud she! though she looked like the first lady in the land. Oh, Nora,
Nora!"

LEONARD (after a pause).--"But she must have been highly educated?"

MRS. FAIRFIELD.--"'Deed she was!"

LEONARD.--"How was that?"

MRS. FAIRFIELD (rocking herself to and fro in her chair).--"Oh, my Lady
was her godmother,--Lady Lansmere I mean,--and took a fancy to her when
she was that high, and had her to stay at the Park, and wait on her
Ladyship; and then she put her to school, and Nora was so clever that
nothing would do but she must go to London as a governess. But don't
talk of it, boy! don't talk of it!"

LEONARD.--"Why not, Mother? What has become of her; where is she?"

MRS. FAIRFIELD (bursting into a paroxysm of tears).--"In her grave,--in
her cold grave! Dead, dead!"

Leonard was inexpressibly grieved and shocked. It is the attribute of
the poet to seem always living, always a friend. Leonard felt as if some
one very dear had been suddenly torn from his heart. He tried to console
his mother; but her emotion was contagious, and he wept with her.

"And how long has she been dead?" he asked at last, in mournful accents.

"Many's the long year, many; but," added Mrs. Fairfield, rising, and
putting her tremulous hand on Leonard's shoulder, "you'll just never
talk to me about her; I can't bear it, it breaks my heart. I can bear
better to talk of Mark; come downstairs,--come."

"May I not keep these verses, Mother? Do let me."

"Well, well, those bits o' paper be all she left behind her,--yes, keep
them, but put back Mark's. Are they all here,--sure?" And the widow,
though she could not read her husband's verses, looked jealously at the
manuscripts written in his irregular, large scrawl, and, smoothing them
carefully, replaced them in the trunk, and resettled over them some
sprigs of lavender, which Leonard had unwittingly disturbed.

"But," said Leonard, as his eye again rested on the beautiful
handwriting of his lost aunt,--"but you called her Nora--I see she signs
herself L."

"Leonora was her name. I said she was my Lady's god-child. We call her
Nora for short--"

"Leonora--and I am Leonard--is that how I came by the name?"

"Yes, yes; do hold your tongue, boy," sobbed poor Mrs. Fairfield;
and she could not be soothed nor coaxed into continuing or renewing a
subject which was evidently associated with insupportable pain.




CHAPTER X.

It is difficult to exaggerate the effect that this discovery produced
on Leonard's train of thought. Some one belonging to his own humble race
had, then, preceded him in his struggling flight towards the loftier
regions of Intelligence and Desire. It was like the mariner amidst
unknown seas, who finds carved upon some desert isle a familiar
household name.

And this creature of genius and of sorrow-whose existence he had only
learned by her song, and whose death created, in the simple heart of
her sister, so passionate a grief, after the lapse of so many
years--supplied to the romance awaking in his young heart the ideal
which it unconsciously sought. He was pleased to hear that she had been
beautiful and good. He paused from his books to muse on her, and picture
her image to his fancy. That there was some mystery in her fate was
evident to him; and while that conviction deepened his interest, the
mystery itself by degrees took a charm which he was not anxious to
dispel. He resigned himself to Mrs. Fairfield's obstinate silence. He
was contented to rank the dead amongst those holy and ineffable images
which we do not seek to unveil. Youth and Fancy have many secret hoards
of idea which they do not desire to impart, even to those most in their
confidence. I doubt the depth of feeling in any man who has not certain
recesses in his soul into which none may enter.

Hitherto, as I have said, the talents of Leonard Fairfield had been
more turned to things positive than to the ideal,--to science and
investigation of fact than to poetry, and that airier truth in which
poetry has its element. He had read our greater poets, indeed, but
without thought of imitating; and rather from the general curiosity
to inspect all celebrated monuments of the human mind than from that
especial predilection for verse which is too common in childhood and
youth to be any sure sign of a poet. But now these melodies, unknown to
all the world beside, rang in his ear, mingled with his thoughts,--set,
as it were, his whole life to music. He read poetry with a different
sentiment,--it seemed to him that he had discovered its secret. And so
reading, the passion seized him, and "the numbers came."

To many minds, at the commencement of our grave and earnest pilgrimage,
I am Vandal enough to think that the indulgence of poetic taste and
revery does great and lasting harm; that it serves to enervate the
character, give false ideas of life, impart the semblance of drudgery
to the noble toils and duties of the active man. All poetry would not do
this,--not, for instance, the Classical, in its diviner masters; not the
poetry of Homer, of Virgil, of Sophocles; not, perhaps, even that of
the indolent Horace. But the poetry which youth usually loves and
appreciates the best--the poetry of mere sentiment--does so in minds
already over-predisposed to the sentimental, and which require bracing
to grow into healthful manhood.

On the other hand, even this latter kind of poetry, which is peculiarly
modern, does suit many minds of another mould,--minds which our modern
life, with its hard positive forms, tends to produce. And as in certain
climates plants and herbs, peculiarly adapted as antidotes to those
diseases most prevalent in the atmosphere, are profusely sown, as it
were, by the benignant providence of Nature, so it may be that the
softer and more romantic species of poetry, which comes forth in
harsh, money-making, unromantic times, is intended as curatives and
counter-poisons. The world is so much with us, nowadays, that we need
have something that prates to us, albeit even in too fine a euphuism, of
the moon and stars.

Certes, to Leonard Fairfield, at that period of his intellectual life,
the softness of our Helicon descended as healing dews. In his turbulent
and unsettled ambition, in his vague grapple with the giant forms of
political truths, in his bias towards the application of science to
immediate practical purposes, this lovely vision of the Muse came in the
white robe of the Peacemaker; and with upraised hand pointing to serene
skies, she opened to him fair glimpses of the Beautiful, which is given
to Peasant as to Prince,--showed to him that on the surface of earth
there is something nobler than fortune, that he who can view the world
as a poet is always at soul a king; while to practical purpose itself,
that larger and more profound invention, which poetry stimulates,
supplied the grand design and the subtle view,--leading him beyond the
mere ingenuity of the mechanic, and habituating him to regard the inert
force of the matter at his command with the ambition of the Discoverer.
But, above all, the discontent that was within him finding a vent, not
in deliberate war upon this actual world, but through the purifying
channels of song, in the vent itself it evaporated, it was lost. By
accustoming ourselves to survey all things with the spirit that retains
and reproduces them only in their lovelier or grander aspects, a vast
philosophy of toleration for what we before gazed on with scorn or
hate insensibly grows upon us. Leonard looked into his heart after the
Enchantress had breathed upon it; and through the mists of the fleeting
and tender melancholy which betrayed where she had been, he beheld a new
sun of delight and joy dawning over the landscape of human life.

Thus, though she was dead and gone from his actual knowledge, this
mysterious kinswoman--"a voice, and nothing more"--had spoken to him,
soothed, elevated, cheered, attuned each discord into harmony; and if
now permitted from some serener sphere to behold the life that her soul
thus strangely influenced, verily with yet holier joy the saving and
lovely spirit might have glided onward in the Eternal Progress.

We call the large majority of human lives obscure. Presumptuous that we
are! How know we what lives a single thought retained from the dust of
nameless graves may have lighted to renown?




CHAPTER XI.

It was about a year after Leonard's discovery of the family manuscripts
that Parson Dale borrowed the quietest pad-mare in the squire's stables,
and set out on an equestrian excursion. He said that he was bound on
business connected with his old parishioners of Lansmere; for, as it has
been incidentally implied in a previous chapter, he had been connected
with that borough town (and, I may here add, in the capacity of curate)
before he had been inducted into the living of Hazeldean.

It was so rarely that the parson stirred from home, that this journey
to a town more than twenty miles off was regarded as a most daring
adventure, both at the Hall and at the Parsonage. Mrs. Dale could not
sleep the whole previous night with thinking of it; and though she had
naturally one of her worst nervous headaches on the eventful morn,
she yet suffered no hands less thoughtful than her own to pack up the
saddle-bags which the parson had borrowed along with the pad. Nay, so
distrustful was she of the possibility of the good man's exerting the
slightest common-sense in her absence, that she kept him close at
her side while she was engaged in that same operation of
packing-up,--showing him the exact spot in which the clean shirt was
put; and how nicely the old slippers were packed up in one of his
own sermons. She implored him not to mistake the sandwiches for his
shaving-soap, and made him observe how carefully she had provided
against such confusion, by placing them as far apart from each other as
the nature of saddle-bags will admit. The poor parson--who was really
by no means an absent man, but as little likely to shave himself with
sandwiches and lunch upon soap as the most commonplace mortal may
be--listened with conjugal patience, and thought that man never had such
a wife before; nor was it without tears in his own eyes that he tore
himself from the farewell embrace of his weeping Carry.

I confess, however, that it was with some apprehension that he set
his foot in the stirrup, and trusted his person to the mercies of
an unfamiliar animal. For, whatever might be Mr. Dale's minor
accomplishments as man and parson, horsemanship was not his forte.
Indeed, I doubt if he had taken the reins in his hand more than twice
since he had been married.

The squire's surly old groom, Mat, was in attendance with the pad; and,
to the parson's gentle inquiry whether Mat was quite sure that the pad
was quite safe, replied laconically, "Oi, oi; give her her head."

"Give her her head!" repeated Mr. Dale, rather amazed, for he had not
the slightest intention of taking away that part of the beast's frame,
so essential to its vital economy,--"give her her head!"

"Oi, oi; and don't jerk her up like that, or she'll fall a doincing on
her hind-legs."

The parson instantly slackened the reins; and Mrs. Dale--who had tarried
behind to control her tears--now running to the door for "more last
words," he waved his hand with courageous amenity, and ambled forth into
the lane.

Our equestrian was absorbed at first in studying the idiosyncrasies of
the pad-mare, and trying thereby to arrive at some notion of her general
character: guessing, for instance, why she raised one ear and laid down
the other; why she kept bearing so close to the left that she brushed
his leg against the hedge; and why, when she arrived at a little
side-gate in the fields, which led towards the home-farm, she came to a
full stop, and fell to rubbing her nose against the rail,--an occupation
from which the parson, finding all civil remonstrances in vain, at
length diverted her by a timorous application of the whip.

This crisis on the road fairly passed, the pad seemed to comprehend that
she had a journey before her, and giving a petulant whisk of her tail,
quickened her amble into a short trot, which soon brought the parson
into the high road, and nearly opposite the Casino.

Here, sitting on the gate which led to his abode, and shaded by his
umbrella, he beheld Dr. Riccabocca.

The Italian lifted his eyes from the book he was reading, and stared
hard at the parson; and he--not venturing to withdraw his whole
attention from the pad (who, indeed, set up both her ears at the
apparition of Riccabocca, and evinced symptoms of that surprise and
superstitious repugnance at unknown objects which goes by the name of
"shying")--looked askance at Riccabocca.

"Don't stir, please," said the parson, "or I fear you'll alarm the
creature; it seems a nervous, timid thing;--soho, gently, gently."

And he fell to patting the mare with great unction.

The pad, thus encouraged, overcame her first natural astonishment at the
sight of Riccabocca and the red umbrella; and having before been at the
Casino on sundry occasions, and sagaciously preferring places within the
range of her experience to bourns neither cognate nor conjecturable, she
moved gravely up towards the gate on which the Italian sat; and,
after eying him a moment,--as much as to say, "I wish you would get
off,"--came to a deadlock.

"Well," said Riccabocca, "since your horse seems more disposed to be
polite to me than yourself, Mr. Dale, I take the opportunity of your
present involuntary pause to congratulate you on your elevation in life,
and to breathe a friendly prayer that pride may not have a fall!"

"Tut," said the parson, affecting an easy air, though still
contemplating the pad, who appeared to have fallen into a quiet doze,
"it is true that I have not ridden much of late years, and the squire's
horses are very high-fed and spirited; but there is no more harm in them
than their master when one once knows their ways."

            "'Chi va piano va sano,
             E chi va sano va lontano,'"

said Riccabocca, pointing to the saddle-bags. "You go slowly, therefore
safely; and he who goes safely may go far. You seem prepared for a
journey?"

"I am," said the parson; "and on a matter that concerns you a little."

"Me!" exclaimed Riccabocca,--"concerns me!"

"Yes, so far as the chance of depriving you of a servant whom you like
and esteem affects you."

"Oh," said Riccabocca, "I understand: you have hinted to me very often
that I or Knowledge, or both together, have unfitted Leonard Fairfield
for service."

"I did not say that exactly; I said that you have fitted him for
something higher than service. But do not repeat this to him. And I
cannot yet say more to you, for I am very doubtful as to the success
of my mission; and it will not do to unsettle poor Leonard until we are
sure that we can improve his condition."

"Of that you can never be sure," quoth the wise man, shaking his head;
"and I can't say that I am unselfish enough not to bear you a grudge for
seeking to decoy away from me an invaluable servant,--faithful, steady,
intelligent, and" (added Riccabocca, warming as he approached the
climacteric adjective) "exceedingly cheap! Nevertheless go, and Heaven
speed you. I am not an Alexander, to stand between man and the sun."

"You are a noble, great-hearted creature, Signor Riccabocca, in spite of
your cold-blooded proverbs and villanous books." The parson, as he said
this, brought down the whiphand with so indiscreet an enthusiasm on the
pad's shoulder, that the poor beast, startled out of her innocent doze,
made a bolt forward, which nearly precipitated Riccabocca from his seat
on the stile, and then turning round--as the parson tugged desperately
at the rein--caught the bit between her teeth, and set off at a canter.
The parson lost both his stirrups; and when he regained them (as the
pad slackened her pace), and had time to breathe and look about him,
Riccabocca and the Casino were both out of sight.

"Certainly," quoth Parson Dale, as he resettled himself with great
complacency, and a conscious triumph that he was still on the pad's
back,--"certainly it is true 'that the noblest conquest ever made by
man was that of the horse:' a fine creature it is,--a very fine
creature,--and uncommonly difficult to sit on, especially without
stirrups." Firmly in his stirrups the parson planted his feet; and the
heart within him was very proud.




CHAPTER XII.

The borough town of Lansmere was situated in the county adjoining
that which contained the village of Hazeldean. Late at noon the parson
crossed the little stream which divided the two shires, and came to an
inn, which was placed at an angle, where the great main road branched
off into two directions, the one leading towards Lansmere, the other
going more direct to London. At this inn the pad stopped, and put down
both ears with the air of a pad who has made up her mind to bait. And
the parson himself, feeling very warm and somewhat sore, said to the
pad, benignly, "It is just,--thou shalt have corn and water!"

Dismounting, therefore, and finding himself very stiff as soon as he
reached terra firma, the parson consigned the pad to the hostler, and
walked into the sanded parlour of the inn, to repose himself on a very
hard Windsor chair.

He had been alone rather more than half-an-hour, reading a county
newspaper which smelled much of tobacco, and trying to keep off the
flies that gathered round him in swarms, as if they had never before
seen a parson, and were anxious to ascertain how the flesh of him
tasted,--when a stagecoach stopped at the inn. A traveller got out with
his carpetbag in his hand, and was shown into the sanded parlour.

The parson rose politely, and made a bow.

The traveller touched his hat, without taking it off, looked at Mr.
Dale from top to toe, then walked to the window, and whistled a lively,
impatient tune, then strode towards the fireplace and rang the bell;
then stared again at the parson; and that gentleman having courteously
laid down the newspaper, the traveller seized it, threw himself into a
chair, flung one of his legs over the table, tossed the other up on the
mantelpiece, and began reading the paper, while he tilted the chair on
its hind-legs with so daring a disregard to the ordinary position of
chairs and their occupants, that the shuddering parson expected every
moment to see him come down on the back of his skull.

Moved, therefore, to compassion, Mr. Dale said mildly,--"Those chairs
are very treacherous, sir. I'm afraid you'll be down."

"Eh," said the traveller, looking up much astonished. "Eh, down?--oh,
you're satirical, sir."

"Satirical, sir? upon my word, no!" exclaimed the parson, earnestly.

"I think every freeborn man has a right to sit as he pleases in his
own house," resumed the traveller, with warmth; "and an inn is his own
house, I guess, so long as he pays his score. Betty, my dear."

For the chambermaid had now replied to the bell. "I han't Betty, sir; do
you want she?"

"No, Sally; cold brandy and water--and a biscuit."

"I han't Sally, either," muttered the chambermaid; but the traveller,
turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that
she smiled, coloured, and went her way.

The traveller now rose, and flung down the paper. He took out a
penknife, and began paring his nails. Suddenly desisting from this
elegant occupation, his eye caught sight of the parson's shovel-hat,
which lay on a chair in the corner.

"You're a clergyman, I reckon, sir," said the traveller, with a slight
sneer.

Again Mr. Dale bowed,--bowed in part deprecatingly, in part with
dignity. It was a bow that said, "No offence, sir, but I am a clergyman,
and I'm not ashamed of it."

"Going far?" asked the traveller.

PARSON.--"Not very."

TRAVELLER.--"In a chaise or fly? If so, and we are going the same way,
halves."

PARSON.--"Halves?"

TRAVELLER.--"Yes, I'll pay half the damage, pikes inclusive."

PARSON.--"You are very good, sir. But" (spoken with pride) "I am on
horseback."

TRAVELLER.--"On horseback! Well, I should not have guessed that! You
don't look like it. Where did you say you were going?"

"I did not say where I was going, sir," said the parson, dryly, for he
was much offended at that vague and ungrammatical remark applicable to
his horsemanship, that "he did not look like it."

"Close!" said the traveller, laughing; "an old traveller, I reckon."

The parson made no reply, but he took up his shovel-hat, and, with a bow
more majestic than the previous one, walked out to see if his pad had
finished her corn.

The animal had indeed finished all the corn afforded to her, which was
not much, and in a few minutes more Mr. Dale resumed his journey. He had
performed about three miles, when the sound of wheels behind him made
him turn his head; and he perceived a chaise driven very fast, while out
of the windows thereof dangled strangely a pair of human legs. The pad
began to curvet as the post-horses rattled behind, and the parson had
only an indistinct vision of a human face supplanting those human legs.
The traveller peered out at him as he whirled by,--saw Mr. Dale tossed
up and down on the saddle, and cried out, "How's the leather?"

"Leather!" soliloquized the parson, as the pad recomposed herself, "what
does he mean by that? Leather! a very vulgar man. But I got rid of him
cleverly."

Mr. Dale arrived without further adventure at Lansmere. He put up at
the principal inn, refreshed himself by a general ablution, and sat down
with good appetite to his beefsteak and pint of port.

The parson was a better judge of the physiognomy of man than that of the
horse; and after a satisfactory glance at the civil smirking landlord,
who removed the cover and set on the wine, he ventured on an attempt at
conversation. "Is my Lord at the Park?"

LANDLORD (still more civilly than before).--"No, sir, his Lordship and
my Lady have gone to town to meet Lord L'Estrange!"

"Lord L'Estrange! He is in England, then?"

"Why, so I heard," replied the landlord, "but we never see him here now.
I remember him a very pretty young man. Every one was fond of him and
proud of him. But what pranks be did play when he was a lad! We hoped
he would come in for our boro' some of these days, but he has taken to
foren parts,--more 's the pity. I am a reg'lar Blue, sir, as I ought to
be. The Blue candidate always does me the honour to come to the Lansmere
Arms. 'T is only the low party puts up with the Boar," added the
landlord, with a look of ineffable disgust. "I hope you like the wine,
sir?"

"Very good, and seems old."

"Bottled these eighteen years, sir. I had in the cask for the great
election of Dashmore and Egerton. I have little left of it, and I never
give it but to old friends like,--for, I think, Sir, though you be grown
stout, and look more grand, I may say that I've had the pleasure of
seeing you before."

"That's true, I dare say, though I fear I was never a very good
customer."

"Ah, it is Mr. Dale, then! I thought so when you came into the hall. I
hope your lady is quite well, and the squire too; fine pleasant-spoken
gentleman; no fault of his if Mr. Egerton went wrong. Well, we have
never seen him--I mean Mr. Egerton--since that time. I don't wonder he
stays away; but my Lord's son, who was brought up here, it an't nat'ral
like that he should turn his back on us!"

Mr. Dale made no reply, and the landlord was about to retire, when the
parson, pouring out another glass of the port, said, "There must be
great changes in the parish. Is Mr. Morgan, the medical man, still
here?"

"No, indeed! he took out his 'ploma after you left, and became a real
doctor; and a pretty practice he had too, when he took, all of a
sudden, to some new-fangled way of physicking,--I think they calls it
homy-something."

"Homoeopathy?"

"That's it; something against all reason: and so he lost his practice
here and went up to Lunnun. I've not heard of him since."

"Do the Avenels still reside in their old house?"

"Oh, yes!--and are pretty well off, I hear say. John is always poorly,
though he still goes now and then to the Odd Fellows, and takes his
glass; but his wife comes and fetches him away before he can do himself
any harm."

"Mrs. Avenel is the same as ever?"

"She holds her head higher, I think," said the landlord, smiling. "She
was always--not exactly proud like, but what I calls Bumptious."

"I never heard that word before," said the parson, laying down his
knife and fork. "Bumptious indeed, though I believe it is not in the
dictionary, has crept into familiar parlance, especially amongst young
folks at school and college."

"Bumptious is bumptious, and gumptious is Bumptious," said the landlord,
delighted to puzzle a parson. "Now the town beadle is bumptious, and
Mrs. Avenel is Bumptious."

"She is a very respectable woman," said Mr. Dale, somewhat rebukingly.

"In course, sir, all gumptious folks are; they value themselves on their
respectability, and looks down on their neighbours."

PARSON (still philologically occupied).--"Gumptious--gumptious. I think
I remember the substantive at school,--not that my master taught it to
me. 'Gumption'--it means cleverness."

LANDLORD (doggedly).--"There's gumption and Bumptious! Gumption is
knowing; but when I say that sum 'un is gumptious, I mean--though that's
more vulgar like--sum 'un who does not think small beer of hisself. You
take me, sir?"

"I think I do," said the parson, half smiling. "I believe the Avenels
have only two of their children alive still,--their daughter who married
Mark Fairfield, and a son who went off to America?"

"Ah, but he made his fortune there and has come back."

"Indeed! I'm very glad to hear it. He has settled at Lansmere?"

"No, Sir. I hear as he's bought a property a long way off. But he comes
to see his parents pretty often--so John tells me--but I can't say
that I ever see him. I fancy Dick does n't like to be seen by folks who
remember him playing in the kennel."

"Not unnatural," said the parson, indulgently; "but he visits his
parents; he is a good son at all events, then?"

"I've nothing to say against him. Dick was a wild chap before he took
himself off. I never thought he would make his fortune; but the Avenels
are a clever set. Do you remember poor Nora--the Rose of Lansmere, as
they called her? Ah, no, I think she went up to Lunnun afore your time,
sir."

"Humph!" said the parson, dryly. "Well, I think you may take away now.
It will be dark soon, and I'll just stroll out and look about me."

"There's a nice tart coming, sir."

"Thank you, I've dined."

The parson put on his hat and sallied forth into the streets. He eyed
the houses on either hand with that melancholy and wistful interest
with which, in middle life, men revisit scenes familiar to them in
youth,--surprised to find either so little change or so much, and
recalling, by fits and snatches, old associations and past emotions.
The long High Street which he threaded now began to change its bustling
character, and slide, as it were gradually, into the high road of a
suburb. On the left, the houses gave way to the moss-grown pales of
Lansmere Park; to the right, though houses still remained, they were
separated from each other by gardens, and took the pleasing appearance
of villas,--such villas as retired tradesmen or their widows, old maids,
and half-pay officers select for the evening of their days.

Mr. Dale looked at these villas with the deliberate attention of a man
awakening his power of memory, and at last stopped before one, almost
the last on the road, and which faced the broad patch of sward that lay
before the lodge of Lansmere Park. An old pollard-oak stood near it, and
from the oak there came a low discordant sound; it was the hungry cry of
young ravens, awaiting the belated return of the parent bird! Mr. Dale
put his hand to his brow, paused a moment, and then, with a hurried
step, passed through the little garden, and knocked at the door. A light
was burning in the parlour, and Mr. Dale's eye caught through the window
a vague outline of three forms. There was an evident bustle within at
the sound of the knock. One of the forms rose and disappeared. A very
prim, neat, middle-aged maid-servant now appeared at the threshold, and
austerely inquired the visitor's business.

"I want to see Mr. or Mrs. Avenel. Say that I have come many miles to
see them; and take in this card."

The maid-servant took the card, and half closed the door. At least three
minutes elapsed before she reappeared.

"Missis says it's late, sir; but walk in."

The parson accepted the not very gracious invitation, stepped across the
little hall, and entered the parlour.

Old John Avenel, a mild-looking man, who seemed slightly paralytic,
rose slowly from his armchair. Mrs. Avenel, in an awfully stiff,
clean, Calvinistical cap, and a gray dress, every fold of which bespoke
respectability and staid repute, stood erect on the floor, and fixing on
the parson a cold and cautious eye, said,--

"You do the like of us great honour, Mr. Dale; take a chair. You call
upon business?"

"Of which I apprised Mr. Avenel by letter."

"My husband is very poorly."

"A poor creature!" said John, feebly, and as if in compassion of
himself. "I can't get about as I used to do. But it ben't near election
time, be it, sir?"

"No, John," said Mrs. Avenel, placing her husband's arm within her own.
"You must lie down a bit, while I talk to the gentleman."

"I'm a real good Blue," said poor John; "but I ain't quite the man I
was;" and leaning heavily on his wife, he left the room, turning round
at the threshold, and saying, with great urbanity, "Anything to oblige,
sir!"

Mr. Dale was much touched. He had remembered John Avenel the comeliest,
the most active, and the most cheerful man in Lansmere; great at glee
club and cricket (though then somewhat stricken in years), greater in
vestries; reputed greatest in elections.

"Last scene of all," murmured the parson; "and oh, well, turning from
the poet, may we cry with the disbelieving philosopher, 'Poor, poor
humanity!'"

In a few minutes Mrs. Avenel returned. She took a chair at some distance
from the parson's, and resting one hand on the elbow of the chair, while
with the other she stiffly smoothed the stiff gown, she said,--

"Now, sir."

That "Now, sir," had in its sound something sinister and warlike. This
the shrewd parson recognized with his usual tact. He edged his chair
nearer to Mrs. Avenel, and placing his hand on hers,--

"Yes, now then, and as friend to friend."




CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Dale had been more than a quarter of an hour conversing with Mrs.
Avenel, and had seemingly made little progress in the object of his
diplomatic mission, for now, slowly drawing on his gloves, he said,--

"I grieve to think, Mrs. Avenel, that you should have so hardened
your heart--yes, you must pardon me,--it is my vocation to speak stern
truths. You cannot say that I have not kept faith with you, but I must
now invite you to remember that I specially reserved to myself the
right of exercising a discretion to act as I judged best for the child's
interest on any future occasion; and it was upon this understanding that
you gave me the promise, which you would now evade, of providing for him
when he came to manhood."

"I say I will provide for him. I say that you may 'prentice him in any
distant town, and by and by we will stock a shop for him. What would
you have more, sir, from folks like us, who have kept shop ourselves? It
ain't reasonable what you ask, sir."

"My dear friend," said the parson, "what I ask of you at present is but
to see him, to receive him kindly, to listen to his conversation,
to judge for yourselves. We can have but a common object,--that your
grandson should succeed in life, and do you credit. Now, I doubt very
much whether we can effect this by making him a small shopkeeper."

"And has Jane Fairfield, who married a common carpenter, brought him up
to despise small shopkeepers?" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, angrily.

"Heaven forbid! Some of the first men in England have been the sons of
small shopkeepers. But is it a crime in them, or in their parents,
if their talents have lifted them into such rank or renown as the
haughtiest duke might envy? England were not England if a man must rest
where his father began."

"Good!" said, or rather grunted, an approving voice, but neither Mrs.
Avenel nor the parson heard it.

"All very fine," said Mrs. Avenel, bluntly. "But to send a boy like that
to the University--where's the money to come from?"

"My dear Mrs. Avenel," said the parson, coaxingly, "the cost need not
be great at a small college at Cambridge; and if you will pay half the
expense, I will pay the other half. I have no children of my own, and
can afford it."

"That's very handsome in you, sir," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat touched,
yet still not graciously. "But the money is not the only point."

"Once at Cambridge," continued Mr. Dale, speaking rapidly, "at
Cambridge, where the studies are mathematical,--that is, of a nature for
which he has shown so great an aptitude,--and I have no doubt he will
distinguish himself; if he does, he will obtain, on leaving, what is
called a fellowship,--that is, a collegiate dignity accompanied by an
income on which he could maintain himself until he made his way in life.
Come, Mrs. Avenel, you are well off; you have no relations nearer to you
in want of your aid. Your son, I hear, has been very fortunate."

"Sir," said--Mrs. Avenel, interrupting the parson, "it is not because
my son Richard is an honour to us, and is a good son, and has made his
fortin, that we are to rob him of what we have to leave, and give it
to a boy whom we know nothing about, and who, in spite of what you say,
can't bring upon us any credit at all."

"Why? I don't see that."

"Why!" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, fiercely,--"why! you, know why. No, I
don't want him to rise in life: I don't want folks to be speiring and
asking about him. I think it is a very wicked thing to have put fine
notions in his head, and I am sure my daughter Fairfield could not have
done it herself. And now, to ask me to rob Richard, and bring out a
great boy--who's been a gardener or ploughman, or suchlike--to disgrace
a gentleman who keeps his carriage, as my son Richard does--I would have
you to know, sir. No! I won't do it, and there's an end of the matter."

During the last two or three minutes, and just before that approving
"good" had responded to the parson's popular sentiment, a door
communicating with an inner room had been gently opened, and stood ajar;
but this incident neither party had even noticed. But now the door was
thrown boldly open, and the traveller whom the parson had met at the inn
walked up to Mr. Dale, and said, "No! that's not the end of the matter.
You say the boy's a 'cute, clever lad?"

"Richard, have you been listening?" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel.

"Well, I guess, yes,--the last few minutes."

"And what have you heard?"

"Why, that this reverend gentleman thinks so highly of my sister
Fairfield's boy that he offers to pay half of his keep at college. Sir,
I'm very much obliged to you, and there's my hand if you'll take it."

The parson jumped up, overjoyed, and, with a triumphant glance towards
Mrs. Avenel, shook hands heartily with Mr. Richard.

"Now," said the latter, "just put on your hat, sir, and take a
stroll with me, and we'll discuss the thing businesslike. Women don't
understand business: never talk to women on business."

With these words, Mr. Richard drew out a cigar-case, selected a cigar,
which he applied to the candle, and walked into the hall.

Mrs. Avenel caught hold of the parson. "Sir, you'll be on your guard
with Richard. Remember your promise."

"He does not know all, then?"

"He? No! And you see he did not overhear more than what he says. I'm
sure you're a gentleman, and won't go against your word."

"My word was conditional; but I will promise you never to break the
silence without more reason than I think there is here for it. Indeed,
Mr. Richard Avenel seems to save all necessity for that."

"Are you coming, sir?" cried Richard, as he opened the street-door.




CHAPTER XIV.

The parson joined Mr. Richard Avenel on the road. It was a fine night,
and the moon clear and shining.

"So, then," said Mr. Richard, thoughtfully, "poor Jane, who was always
the drudge of the family, has contrived to bring up her son well; and
the boy is really what you say, eh,--could make a figure at college?"

"I am sure of it," said the parson, hooking himself on to the arm which
Mr. Avenel proffered.

"I should like to see him," said Richard. "Has he any manner? Is he
genteel, or a mere country lout?"

"Indeed, he speaks with so much propriety, and has so much modest
dignity about him, that there's many a rich gentleman who would be proud
of such a son."

"It is odd," observed Richard, "what a difference there is in families.
There's Jane, now, who can't read nor write, and was just fit to be a
workman's wife, had not a thought above her station; and when I think of
my poor sister Nora--you would not believe it, sir, but she was the
most elegant creature in the world,--yes, even as a child (she was but
a child when I went off to America). And often, as I was getting on in
life, often I used to say to myself, 'My little Nora shall be a lady
after all.' Poor thing--but she died young." Richard's voice grew husky.

The parson kindly pressed the arm on which he leaned, and said, after a
pause,--

"Nothing refines us like education, sir. I believe your sister Nora had
received much instruction, and had the talents to profit by it: it is
the same with your nephew."

"I'll see him," said Richard, stamping his foot firmly on the ground,
"and if I like him, I'll be as good as a father to him. Look you,
Mr.--what's your name, sir?"

"Dale."

"Mr. Dale, look you, I'm a single man. Perhaps I may marry some day;
perhaps I sha' n't. I'm not going to throw myself away. If I can get
a lady of quality, why--but that's neither here nor there; meanwhile I
should be glad of a nephew whom I need not be ashamed of. You see, sir,
I am a new man, the builder of my own fortunes; and though I have picked
up a little education--I don't well know how,--as I scramble on still,
now I come back to the old country, I'm well aware that I 'm not
exactly a match for those d---d aristocrats; don't show so well in a
drawing-room as I could wish. I could be a parliament man if I liked,
but I might make a goose of myself; so, all things considered, if I can
get a sort of junior partner to do the polite work, and show off
the goods, I think the house of Avenel & Co. might become a pretty
considerable honour to the Britishers. You understand me, sir?"

"Oh, very well," answered Mr. Dale, smiling, though rather gravely.

"Now," continued the New Man, "I'm not ashamed to have risen in life by
my own merits; and I don't disguise what I've been. And, when I'm in my
own grand house, I'm fond of saying, 'I landed at New York with L10 in
my purse, and here I am!' But it would not do to have the old folks with
me. People take you with all your faults if you're rich; but they won't
swallow your family into the bargain. So if I don't have at my house
my own father and mother, whom I love dearly, and should like to see
sitting at table, with my servants behind their chairs, I could still
less have sister Jane. I recollect her very well, but she can't have got
genteeler as she's grown older. Therefore I beg you'll not set her on
coming after me! it would not do by any manner of means. Don't say a
word about me to her. But send the boy down here to his grandfather, and
I'll see him quietly, you understand."

"Yes, but it will be hard to separate her from the boy."

"Stuff! all boys are separated from their parents when they go into the
world. So that's settled. Now, just tell me. I know the old folks always
snubbed Jane,--that is, Mother did. My poor dear father never snubbed
any of us. Perhaps Mother has not behaved altogether well to Jane. But
we must not blame her for that; you see this is how it happened. There
were a good many of us, while Father and Mother kept shop in the High
Street, so we were all to be provided for anyhow; and Jane, being very
useful and handy at work, got a place when she was a little girl, and
had no time for learning. Afterwards my father made a lucky hit, in
getting my Lord Lansmere's custom after an election, in which he did
a great deal for the Blues (for he was a famous electioneerer, my poor
father). My Lady stood godmother to Nora; and then all my brothers, and
two of my sisters, died off, and Father retired from business; and when
he took Jane from service, she was so common-like that Mother could not
help contrasting her with Nora. You see Jane was their child when they
were poor little shop-people, with their heads scarce above water;
and Nora was their child when they were well off, and had retired from
trade, and lived genteel: so that makes a great difference. And Mother
did not quite look on her as on her own child. But it was Jane's own
fault: for Mother would have made it up with her if she had married the
son of our neighbour the great linen-draper, as she might have done;
but she would take Mark Fairfield, a common carpenter. Parents like best
those of their children who succeed best in life. Natural. Why, they did
not care for me till I came back the man I am. But to return to Jane:
I'm afraid they've neglected her. How is she off?"

"She earns her livelihood, and is poor, but contented."

"Ah, just be good enough to give her this" (and Richard took a bank-note
of L50 from his pocket-book).

"You can say the old folks sent it to her; or that it is a present from
Dick, without telling her he has come back from America."

"My dear sir," said the parson, "I am more and more thankful to have
made your acquaintance. This is a very liberal gift of yours; but your
best plan will be to send it through your mother. For, though I don't
want to betray any confidence you place in me, I should not know what to
answer if Mrs. Fairfield began to question me about her brother. I never
had but one secret to keep, and I hope I shall never have another. A
secret is very like a lie!"

"You had a secret then?" said Richard, as he took back the bank-note. He
had learned, perhaps in America, to be a very inquisitive man. He added
point-blank, "Pray, what was it?"

"Why, what it would not be if I told you," said the parson, with a
forced laugh,--"a secret!"

"Well, I guess we're in a land of liberty. Do as you like. Now, I dare
say you think me a very odd fellow to come out of my shell to you in
this off-hand way; but I liked the look of you, even when we were at the
inn together. And just now I was uncommonly pleased to find that,
though you are a parson, you don't want to keep a man's nose down to
a shopboard, if he has anything in him. You're not one of the
aristocrats--"

"Indeed," said the parson, with imprudent warmth, "it is not the
character of the aristocracy of this country to keep people down. They
make way amongst themselves for any man, whatever his birth, who has the
talent and energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial boast of
the British constitution, sir!"

"Oh, you think so, do you?" said Mr. Richard, looking sourly at the
parson. "I dare say those are the opinions in which you have brought
up the lad. Just keep him yourself and let the aristocracy provide for
him!"

The parson's generous and patriotic warmth evaporated at once, at this
sudden inlet of cold air into the conversation. He perceived that he had
made a terrible blunder; and as it was not his business at that moment
to vindicate the British constitution, but to serve Leonard Fairfield,
he abandoned the cause of the aristocracy with the most poltroon
and scandalous abruptness. Catching at the arm which Mr. Avenel had
withdrawn from him, he exclaimed,--

"Indeed, sir, you are mistaken; I have never attempted to influence your
nephew's political opinions. On the contrary, if, at his age, he can be
said to have formed any opinions, I am greatly afraid--that is, I think
his opinions are by no means sound--that is, constitutional. I mean,
I mean--" And the poor parson, anxious to select a word that would not
offend his listener, stopped short in lamentable confusion of idea.

Mr. Avenel enjoyed his distress for a moment, with a saturnine smile,
and then said,--

"Well, I calculate he's a Radical. Natural enough, if he has not got a
sixpence to lose--all come right by and by. I'm not a Radical,--at least
not a Destructive--much too clever a man for that, I hope. But I wish
to see things very different from what they are. Don't fancy that I want
the common people, who've got nothing, to pretend to dictate to their
betters, because I hate to see a parcel of fellows who are called lords
and squires trying to rule the roast. I think, sir, that it is men like
me who ought to be at the top of the tree! and that's the long and the
short of it. What do you say?"

"I've not the least objection," said the crestfallen parson, basely.
But, to do him justice, I must add that he did not the least know what
he was saying!




CHAPTER XV.

Unconscious of the change in his fate which the diplomacy of the parson
sought to effect, Leonard Fairfield was enjoying the first virgin
sweetness of fame; for the principal town in his neighbourhood had
followed the then growing fashion of the age, and set up a Mechanics'
Institute, and some worthy persons interested in the formation of that
provincial Athenaeum had offered a prize for the best Essay on the
Diffusion of Knowledge,--a very trite subject, on which persons seem to
think they can never say too much, and on which there is, nevertheless,
a great deal yet to be said. This prize Leonard Fairfield had recently
won. His Essay had been publicly complimented by a full meeting of the
Institute; it had been printed at the expense of the Society, and had
been rewarded by a silver medal,--delineative of Apollo crowning Merit
(poor Merit had not a rag to his back; but Merit, left only to the care
of Apollo, never is too good a customer to the tailor!) And the County
Gazette had declared that Britain had produced another prodigy in the
person of Dr. Riccabocca's self-educated gardener.

Attention was now directed to Leonard's mechanical contrivances. The
squire, ever eagerly bent on improvements, had brought an engineer
to inspect the lad's system of irrigation, and the engineer had
been greatly struck by the simple means by which a very considerable
technical difficulty had been overcome. The neighbouring farmers now
called Leonard "Mr. Fairfield," and invited him on equal terms to their
houses. Mr. Stirn had met him on the high road, touched his hat, and
hoped that "he bore no malice." All this, I say, was the first sweetness
of fame; and if Leonard Fairfield comes to be a great man, he will
never find such sweets in the after fruit. It was this success which had
determined the parson on the step which he had just taken, and which he
had long before anxiously meditated. For, during the last year or so,
he had renewed his old intimacy with the widow and the boy; and he
had noticed, with great hope and great fear, the rapid growth of
an intellect, which now stood out from the lowly circumstances that
surrounded it in bold and unharmonizing relief.

It was the evening after his return home that the parson strolled up to
the Casino. He put Leonard Fairfield's Prize Essay in his pocket; for he
felt that he could not let the young man go forth into the world without
a preparatory lecture, and he intended to scourge poor Merit with the
very laurel wreath which it had received from Apollo. But in this he
wanted Riccabocca's assistance; or rather he feared that, if he did not
get the philosopher on his side, the philosopher might undo all the work
of the parson.




CHAPTER XVI.

A sweet sound came through the orange boughs, and floated to the ears
of the parson, as he wound slowly up the gentle ascent,--so sweet,
so silvery, he paused in delight--unaware, wretched man! that he was
thereby conniving at Papistical errors. Soft it came and sweet; softer
and sweeter,--"Ave Maria!" Violante was chanting the evening hymn to the
Virgin Mother. The parson at last distinguished the sense of the words,
and shook his head with the pious shake of an orthodox Protestant.
He broke from the spell resolutely, and walked on with a sturdy
step. Gaining the terrace, he found the little family seated under an
awning,--Mrs. Riccabocca knitting; the signor with his arms folded on
his breast: the book he had been reading a few moments before had fallen
on the ground, and his dark eyes were soft and dreamy. Violante had
finished her hymn, and seated herself on the ground between the two,
pillowing her head on her stepmother's lap, but with her hand resting on
her father's knee, and her gaze fixed fondly on his face.

"Good-evening," said Mr. Dale. Violante stole up to him, and, pulling
him so as to bring his ear nearer to her lip, whispered, "Talk to Papa,
do,--and cheerfully; he is sad."

She escaped from him as she said this, and appeared to busy herself with
watering the flowers arranged on stands round the awning. But she kept
her swimming lustrous eyes wistfully on her father.

"How fares it with you, my dear friend?" said the parson, kindly, as he
rested his hand on the Italian's shoulder. "You must not let him get out
of spirits, Mrs. Riccabocca."

"I am very ungrateful to her if I ever am so," said the poor Italian,
with all his natural gallantry. Many a good wife, who thinks it is a
reproach to her if her husband is ever "out of spirits," might have
turned peevishly from that speech, more elegant than sincere, and so
have made bad worse; but Mrs. Riccabocca took her husband's proffered
hand affectionately, and said with great naivete,--

"You see I am so stupid, Mr. Dale; I never knew I was so stupid till I
married. But I am very glad you are come. You can get on some learned
subject together, and then he will not miss so much his--"

"His what?" asked Riccabocca, inquisitively.

"His country. Do you think that I cannot sometimes read your thoughts?"

"Very often. But you did not read them just then. The tongue touches
where the tooth aches, but the best dentist cannot guess at the tooth
unless one open one's mouth.--Basta! Can we offer you some wine of our
own making, Mr. Dale?--it is pure."

"I 'd rather have some tea," quoth the parson, hastily. Mrs. Riccabocca,
too pleased to be in her natural element of domestic use, hurried into
the house to prepare our national beverage. And the parson, sliding into
her chair, said,--

"But you are dejected then? Fie! If there's a virtue in the world at
which we should always aim, it is cheerfulness."

"I don't dispute it," said Riccabocca, with a heavy sigh. "But though it
is said by some Greek, who, I think, is quoted by your favourite Seneca,
that a wise man carries his country with him at the soles of his feet,
he can't carry also the sunshine over his head."

"I tell you what it is," said the parson, bluntly; "you would have
a much keener sense of happiness if you had much less esteem for
philosophy."

"Cospetto!" said the doctor, rousing himself. "Just explain, will you?"

"Does not the search after wisdom induce desires not satisfied in this
small circle to which your life is confined? It is not so much your
country for which you yearn, as it is for space to your intellect,
employment for your thoughts, career for your aspirations."

"You have guessed at the tooth which aches," said Riccabocca, with
admiration.

"Easy to do that," answered the parson. "Our wisdom teeth come last and
give us the most pain; and if you would just starve the mind a little,
and nourish the heart more, you would be less of a philosopher and more
of a--" The parson had the word "Christian" at the tip of his tongue;
he suppressed a word that, so spoken, would have been exceedingly
irritating, and substituted, with elegant antithesis, "and more of a
happy man!"

"I do all I can with my heart," quoth the doctor.

"Not you! For a man with such a heart as yours should never feel the
want of the sunshine. My friend, we live in an age of over mental
cultivation. We neglect too much the simple healthful outer life, in
which there is so much positive joy. In turning to the world within us,
we grow blind to this beautiful world without; in studying ourselves
as men, we almost forget to look up to heaven, and warm to the smile of
God."

The philosopher mechanically shrugged his shoulders, as he always did
when another man moralized,--especially if the moralizer were a priest;
but there was no irony in his smile, as he answered thoughtfully,--

"There is some truth in what you say. I own that we live too much as if
we were all brain. Knowledge has its penalties and pains, as well as its
prizes."

"That is just what I want you to say to Leonard."

"How have you settled the object of your journey?"

"I will tell you as we walk down to him after tea. At present, I am
rather too much occupied with you."

"Me? The tree is formed--try only to bend the young twig!"

"Trees are trees, and twigs twigs," said the parson, dogmatically; "but
man is always growing till he falls into the grave. I think I have heard
you say that you once had a narrow escape of a prison?"

"Very narrow."

"Just suppose that you were now in that prison, and that a fairy
conjured up the prospect of this quiet home in a safe land; that you
saw the orange-trees in flower, felt the evening breeze on your cheek;
beheld your child gay or sad, as you smiled or knit your brow; that
within this phantom home was a woman, not, indeed, all your young
romance might have dreamed of, but faithful and true, every beat of her
heart all your own,--would you not cry from the depth of your dungeon,
'O fairy! such a change were a paradise!' Ungrateful man! you want
interchange for your mind, and your heart should suffice for all!"

Riccabocca was touched and silent.

"Come hither, my child," said Mr. Dale, turning round to Violante, who
stood still among the flowers, out of hearing, but with watchful eyes.
"Come hither," he said, opening his arms.

Violante bounded forward, and nestled to the good man's heart.

"Tell me, Violante, when you are alone in the fields or the garden, and
have left your father looking pleased and serene, so that you have
no care for him at your heart,--tell me, Violante, though you are all
alone, with the flowers below, and the birds singing overhead, do you
feel that life itself is happiness or sorrow?"

"Happiness!" answered Violante, half shutting her eyes, and in a
measured voice.

"Can you explain what kind of happiness it is?"

"Oh, no, impossible! and it is never the same. Sometimes it is so
still--so still, and sometimes so joyous, that I long for wings to fly
up to God, and thank Him!"

"O friend," said the parson, "this is the true sympathy between life and
nature, and thus we should feel ever, did we take more care to preserve
the health and innocence of a child. We are told that we must become as
children to enter into the kingdom of Heaven; methinks we should also
become as children to know what delight there is in our heritage of
earth!"




CHAPTER XVII.

The maid-servant (for Jackeymo was in the fields) brought the table
under the awning, and with the English luxury of tea, there were other
drinks as cheap and as grateful on summer evenings,--drinks
which Jackeymo had retained and taught from the customs of the
South,--unebriate liquors, pressed from cooling fruits, sweetened with
honey, and deliciously iced: ice should cost nothing in a country in
which one is frozen up half the year! And Jackeymo, too, had added to
our good, solid, heavy English bread preparations of wheat much lighter,
and more propitious to digestion,--with those crisp grissins, which seem
to enjoy being eaten, they make so pleasant a noise between one's teeth.

The parson esteemed it a little treat to drink tea with the Riccaboccas.
There was something of elegance and grace in that homely meal at the
poor exile's table, which pleased the eye as well as taste. And the very
utensils, plain Wedgwood though they were, had a classical simplicity,
which made Mrs. Hazeldean's old India delf, and Mrs. Dale's best
Worcester china, look tawdry and barbarous in comparison. For it was
Flaxman who gave designs to Wedgwood, and the most truly refined of all
our manufactures in porcelain (if we do not look to the mere material)
is in the reach of the most thrifty.

The little banquet was at first rather a silent one; but Riccabocca
threw off his gloom, and became gay and animated. Then poor Mrs.
Riccabocca smiled, and pressed the grissins; and Violante, forgetting
all her stateliness, laughed and played tricks on the parson, stealing
away his cup of warm tea when his head was turned, and substituting
iced cherry-juice. Then the parson got up and ran after Violante, making
angry faces, and Violante dodged beautifully, till the parson,
fairly tired out, was too glad to cry "Peace," and come back to the
cherry-juice. Thus time rolled on, till they heard afar the stroke of
the distant church-clock, and Mr. Dale started up and cried, "But we
shall be too late for Leonard. Come, naughty little girl, get your
father his hat."

"And umbrella!" said Riccabocca, looking up at the cloudless, moonlit
sky.

"Umbrella against the stars?" asked the parson, laughing. "The stars
are no friends of mine," said Riccabocca, "and one never knows what may
happen!"

The philosopher and the parson walked on amicably.

"You have done me good," said Riccabocca, "but I hope I am not always
so unreasonably melancholic as you seem to suspect. The evenings will
sometimes appear long, and dull too, to a man whose thoughts on the past
are almost his sole companions."

"Sole companions?--your child?"

"She is so young."

"Your wife?"

"She is so--" the bland Italian appeared to check some disparaging
adjective, and mildly added, "so good, I allow; but you must own that
she and I cannot have much in common."

"I own nothing of the sort. You have your house and your interests, your
happiness and your lives, in common. We men are so exacting, we expect
to find ideal nymphs and goddesses when we condescend to marry a mortal;
and if we did, our chickens would be boiled to rags, and our mutton come
up as cold as a stone."

"Per Bacco, you are an oracle," said Riccabocca, laughing. "But I am
not so sceptical as you are. I honour the fair sex too much. There are
a great many women who realize the ideal of men, to be found in--the
poets!"

"There's my dear Mrs. Dale," resumed the parson, not heeding the
sarcastic compliment to the sex, but sinking his voice into a whisper,
and looking round cautiously,--"there's my dear Mrs. Dale, the best
woman in the world,--an angel I would say, if the word were not profane;
BUT--"

"What's the BUT?" asked the doctor, demurely.

"BUT I too might say that 'she and I have not much in common,' if I were
only to compare mind to mind, and when my poor Carry says something less
profound than Madame de Stael might have said, smile on her in contempt
from the elevation of logic and Latin. Yet when I remember all the
little sorrows and joys that we have shared together, and feel how
solitary I should have been without her--oh, then, I am instantly aware
that there is between us in common something infinitely closer and
better than if the same course of study had given us the same equality
of ideas; and I was forced to brace myself for a combat of intellect, as
I am when I fall in with a tiresome sage like yourself. I don't pretend
to say that Mrs. Riccabocca is a Mrs. Dale," added the parson, with
lofty candour,--"there is but one Mrs. Dale in the world; but still, you
have drawn a prize in the wheel matrimonial! Think of Socrates, and yet
he was content even with his--Xantippe!"

Dr. Riccabocca called to mind Mrs. Dale's "little tempers," and inly
rejoiced that no second Mrs. Dale had existed to fall to his own lot.
His placid Jemima gained by the contrast. Nevertheless he had the ill
grace to reply, "Socrates was a man beyond all imitation!--Yet I believe
that even he spent very few of his evenings at home. But revenons a nos
moutons, we are nearly at Mrs. Fairfield's cottage, and you have not yet
told me what you have settled as to Leonard."

The parson halted, took Riccabocca by the button, and informed him, in
very few words, that Leonard was to go to Lansmere to see some relations
there, who had the fortune, if they had the will, to give full career to
his abilities.

"The great thing, in the mean while," said the parson, "would be to
enlighten him a little as to what he calls--enlightenment."

"Ah!" said Riccabocca, diverted, and rubbing his hands, "I shall listen
with interest to what you say on that subject."

"And must aid me: for the first step in this modern march of
enlightenment is to leave the poor parson behind; and if one calls out
'Hold! and look at the sign-post,' the traveller hurries on the faster,
saying to himself, 'Pooh, pooh!--that is only the cry of the parson!'
But my gentleman, when he doubts me, will listen to you,--you're a
philosopher!"

"We philosophers are of some use now and then, even to parsons!"

"If you were not so conceited a set of deluded poor creatures already,
I would say 'Yes,'" replied the parson, generously; and, taking hold of
Riccabocca's umbrella, he applied the brass handle thereof, by way of a
knocker, to the cottage door.




CHAPTER XVIII.

Certainly it is a glorious fever,--that desire To Know! And there are
few sights in the moral world more sublime than that which many a garret
might afford, if Asmodeus would bare the roofs to our survey,--namely, a
brave, patient, earnest human being toiling his own arduous way, athwart
the iron walls of penury, into the magnificent Infinite, which is
luminous with starry souls.

So there sits Leonard the Self-taught in the little cottage alone: for,
though scarcely past the hour in which great folks dine, it is the hour
in which small folks go to bed, and Mrs. Fairfield has retired to rest,
while Leonard has settled to his books.

He had placed his table under the lattice, and from time to time he
looked up and enjoyed the stillness of the moon. Well for him that, in
reparation for those hours stolen from night, the hardy physical labour
commenced with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they are,
if they worked as many hours in the open air as my scholar-peasant. But
even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the
frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body.
Ill, believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within it were
hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce with the ganglionic
apparatus.

Leonard started as he heard the knock at the door; the parson's
well-known voice reassured him. In some surprise he admitted his
visitors.

"We are come to talk to you, Leonard," said Mr. Dale; "but I fear we
shall disturb Mrs. Fairfield."

"Oh, no, sir! the door to the staircase is shut, and she sleeps
soundly."

"Why, this is a French book! Do you read French, Leonard?" asked
Riccabocca.

"I have not found French difficult, sir. Once over the grammar, and the
language is so clear; it seems the very language for reasoning."

"True. Voltaire said justly, 'Whatever is obscure is not French,'"
observed Riccabocca.

"I wish I could say the same of English," muttered the parson.

"But what is this,--Latin too?--Virgil?"

"Yes, sir. But I find I make little way there without a master. I fear I
must give it up" (and Leonard sighed).

The two gentlemen exchanged looks, and seated themselves. The young
peasant remained standing modestly, and in his air and mien there was
something that touched the heart while it pleased the eye. He was no
longer the timid boy who had shrunk from the frown of Mr. Stirn,
nor that rude personation of simple physical strength, roused to
undisciplined bravery, which had received its downfall on the village
green of Hazeldean. The power of thought was on his brow,--somewhat
unquiet still, but mild and earnest. The features had attained that
refinement which is often attributed to race, but comes, in truth, from
elegance of idea, whether caught from our parents or learned from books.
In his rich brown hair, thrown carelessly from his temples, and curling
almost to the shoulders; in his large blue eye, which was deepened to
the hue of the violet by the long dark lash; in that firmness of lip,
which comes from the grapple with difficulties, there was considerable
beauty, but no longer the beauty of the mere peasant. And yet there was
still about the whole countenance that expression of goodness and purity
which a painter would give to his ideal of the peasant lover,--such as
Tasso would have placed in the "Aminta," or Fletcher have admitted to
the side of the Faithful Shepherdess.

"You must draw a chair here, and sit down between us, Leonard," said the
parson.

"If any one," said Riccabocca, "has a right to sit, it is the one who is
to hear the sermon; and if any one ought to stand, it is the one who is
about to preach it."

"Don't be frightened, Leonard," said the parson, graciously; "it is only
a criticism, not a sermon;" and he pulled out Leonard's Prize Essay.




CHAPTER XIX.

PARSON.--"You take for your motto this aphorism, 'Knowledge is
Power.'--BACON."

RICCABOCCA.--"Bacon make such an aphorism! The last man in the world to
have said anything so pert and so shallow!"

LEONARD (astonished).--"Do you mean to say, sir, that that aphorism is
not in Lord Bacon? Why, I have seen it quoted as his in almost every
newspaper, and in almost every speech in favour of popular education."

RICCABOCCA.--"Then that should be a warning to you never again to fall
into the error of the would-be scholar,--

   [This aphorism has been probably assigned to Lord Bacon upon the
   mere authority of the index to his works. It is the aphorism of the
   index-maker, certainly not of the great master of inductive
   philosophy. Bacon has, it is true, repeatedly dwelt on the power of
   knowledge, but with so many explanations and distinctions that
   nothing could be more unjust to his general meaning than the attempt
   to cramp into a sentence what it costs him a volume to define.
   Thus, if on one page he appears to confound knowledge with power, in
   another he sets them in the strongest antithesis to each other; as
   follows "Adeo signanter Deus opera potentix et sapientive
   discriminavit." But it would be as unfair to Bacon to convert into
   an aphorism the sentence that discriminates between knowledge and
   power as it is to convert into an aphorism any sentence that
   confounds them.]

namely, quote second-hand. Lord Bacon wrote a great book to show in what
knowledge is power, how that power should be defined, in what it might
be mistaken. And, pray, do you think so sensible a man ever would have
taken the trouble to write a great book upon the subject, if he could
have packed up all he had to say into the portable dogma, 'Knowledge is
power'? Pooh! no such aphorism is to be found in Bacon from the first
page of his writings to the last."

PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I supposed it was Lord Bacon's, and I am very
glad to hear that the aphorism has not the sanction of his authority."

LEONARD (recovering his surprise).--"But why so?"

PARSON.--"Because it either says a great deal too much, or just--nothing
at all."

LEONARD.--"At least, sir, it seems to me undeniable."

PARSON.--"Well, grant that it is undeniable. Does it prove much in
favour of knowledge? Pray, is not ignorance power too?"

RICCABOCCA.--"And a power that has had much the best end of the
quarter-staff."

PARSON.--"All evil is power, and does its power make it anything the
better?"

RICCABOCCA.--"Fanaticism is power,--and a power that has often swept
away knowledge like a whirlwind. The Mussulman burns the library of a
world, and forces the Koran and the sword from the schools of Byzantium
to the colleges of Hindostan."

PARSON (bearing on with a new column of illustration).--"Hunger is
power. The barbarians, starved out of their forests by their own
swarming population, swept into Italy and annihilated letters. The
Romans, however degraded, had more knowledge at least than the Gaul and
the Visigoth."

RICCABOCCA (bringing up the reserve).--"And even in Greece, when Greek
met Greek, the Athenians--our masters in all knowledge--were beat by the
Spartans, who held learning in contempt."

PARSON.--"Wherefore you see, Leonard, that though knowledge be power, it
is only one of the powers of the world; that there are others as strong,
and often much stronger; and the assertion either means but a barren
truism, not worth so frequent a repetition, or it means something that
you would find it very difficult to prove."

LEONARD.--"One nation may be beaten by another that has more physical
strength and more military discipline; which last, permit me to say,
sir, is a species of knowledge--"

RICCABOCCA.--"Yes; but your knowledge-mongers at present call upon us to
discard military discipline, and the qualities that produce it, from
the list of the useful arts. And in your own Essay, you insist upon
knowledge as the great disbander of armies, and the foe of all military
discipline!"

PARSON.--"Let the young man proceed. Nations, you say, may be beaten by
other nations less learned and civilized?"

LEONARD.--"But knowledge elevates a class. I invite the members of my
own humble order to knowledge, because knowledge will lift them into
power."

RICCABOCCA.--"What do you say to that, Mr. Dale?"

PARSON.--"In the first place, is it true that the class which has the
most knowledge gets the most power? I suppose philosophers, like my
friend Dr. Riccabocca, think they have the most knowledge. And pray,
in what age have philosophers governed the world? Are they not always
grumbling that nobody attends to them?"

RICCABOCCA.--"Per Bacco, if people had attended to us, it would have
been a droll sort of world by this time!"

PARSON.--"Very likely. But, as a general rule, those have the most
knowledge who give themselves up to it the most. Let us put out of the
question philosophers (who are often but ingenious lunatics), and
speak only of erudite scholars, men of letters and practical science,
professors, tutors, and fellows of colleges. I fancy any member of
parliament would tell us that there is no class of men which has less
actual influence on public affairs. These scholars have more knowledge
than manufacturers and shipowners, squires and farmers; but do you find
that they have more power over the Government and the votes of the House
of Parliament?"

"They ought to have," said Leonard.

"Ought they?" said the parson; "we'll consider that later. Meanwhile,
you must not escape from your own proposition, which is, that knowledge
is power,--not that it ought to be. Now, even granting your corollary,
that the power of a class is therefore proportioned to its knowledge,
pray, do you suppose that while your order, the operatives, are
instructing themselves, all the rest of the community are to be at
a standstill? Diffuse knowledge as you may, you will never produce
equality of knowledge. Those who have most leisure, application, and
aptitude for learning will still know the most. Nay, by a very natural
law, the more general the appetite for knowledge, the more the increased
competition will favour those most adapted to excel by circumstance and
nature. At this day, there is a vast increase of knowledge spread over
all society, compared with that in the Middle Ages; but is there not a
still greater distinction between the highly educated gentleman and the
intelligent mechanic, than there was then between the baron who could
not sign his name and the churl at the plough; between the accomplished
statesman, versed in all historical lore, and the voter whose politics
are formed by his newspaper, than there was between the legislator who
passed laws against witches and the burgher who defended his guild from
some feudal aggression; between the enlightened scholar and the dunce of
to-day, than there was between the monkish alchemist and the blockhead
of yesterday? Peasant, voter, and dunce of this century are no doubt
wiser than the churl, burgher, and blockhead of the twelfth. But the
gentleman, statesman, and scholar of the present age are at least quite
as favourable a contrast to the alchemist, witch-burner, and baron of
old. As the progress of enlightenment has done hitherto, so will it ever
do.

"Knowledge is like capital: the more there is in a country, the greater
the disparities in wealth between one man and another. Therefore, if the
working class increase in knowledge, so do the other classes; and if the
working class rise peaceably and legitimately into power, it is not
in proportion to their own knowledge alone, but rather according as it
seems to the knowledge of the other orders of the community, that such
augmentation of proportional power is just and safe and wise."

Placed between the parson and the philosopher, Leonard felt that his
position was not favourable to the display of his forces. Insensibly he
edged his chair somewhat away, and said mournfully,--

"Then, according to you, the reign of knowledge would be no great
advance in the aggregate freedom and welfare of man?"

PARSON.--"Let us define. By knowledge, do you mean intellectual
cultivation; by the reign of knowledge, the ascendency of the most
cultivated minds?"

LEONARD (after a pause).--"Yes."

RICCABOCCA.--"Oh, indiscreet young man! that is an unfortunate
concession of yours; for the ascendency of the most cultivated minds
would be a terrible oligarchy!"

PARSON.--"Perfectly true; and we now reply to your assertion that men
who, by profession, have most learning, ought to have more influence
than squires and merchants, farmers and mechanics. Observe, all the
knowledge that we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive and
perfect, but knowledge comparative, and subject to the errors and
passions of humanity. And suppose that you could establish, as the sole
regulators of affairs, those who had the most mental cultivation, do you
think they would not like that power well enough to take all means which
their superior intelligence could devise to keep it to themselves? The
experiment was tried of old by the priests of Egypt; and in the empire
of China, at this day, the aristocracy are elected from those who have
most distinguished themselves in learned colleges. If I may call myself
a member of that body, 'the people,' I would rather be an Englishman,
however much displeased with dull ministers and blundering parliaments,
than I would be a Chinese under the rule of the picked sages of the
Celestial Empire. Happily, therefore, my dear Leonard, nations are
governed by many things besides what is commonly called knowledge; and
the greatest practical ministers, who, like Themistocles, have made
small States great, and the most dominant races, who, like the Romans,
have stretched their rule from a village half over the universe, have
been distinguished by various qualities which a philosopher would sneer
at, and a knowledge-monger would call 'sad prejudices' and 'lamentable
errors of reason.'"

LEONARD (bitterly).--"Sir, you make use of knowledge itself to argue
against knowledge."

PARSON.--"I make use of the little I know to prove the foolishness
of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against
knowledge-worship. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not
contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine
omnipotence,--you must also confound her with virtue. According to you,
it is but to diffuse the intelligence of the few among the many, and all
at which we preachers aim is accomplished. Nay, more; for, whereas we
humble preachers have never presumed to say, with the heathen Stoic,
that even virtue is sure of happiness below (though it be the best road
to it), you tell us plainly that this knowledge of yours gives not only
the virtue of a saint, but bestows the bliss of a god. Before the steps
of your idol, the evils of life disappear. To hear you, one has but 'to
know,' in order to be exempt from the sins and sorrows of the ignorant.
Has it ever been so? Grant that you diffuse amongst the many all the
knowledge ever attained by the few. Have the wise few been so unerring
and so happy? You supposed that your motto was accurately cited from
Bacon. What was Bacon himself? The poet tells you

     "'The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!'

"Can you hope to bestow upon the vast mass of your order the luminous
intelligence of this 'Lord Chancellor of Nature'? Grant that you do so,
and what guarantee have you for the virtue and the happiness which you
assume as the concomitants of the gift? See Bacon himself: what black
ingratitude! what miserable self-seeking! what truckling servility! what
abject and pitiful spirit! So far from intellectual knowledge, in its
highest form and type, insuring virtue and bliss, it is by no means
uncommon to find great mental cultivation combined with great moral
corruption." (Aside to Riccabocca.--"Push on, will you?")

RICCASOCCA.--"A combination remarkable in eras as in individuals.
Petronius shows us a state of morals at which a commonplace devil would
blush, in the midst of a society more intellectually cultivated than
certainly was that which produced Regulus or the Horatii. And the most
learned eras in modern Italy were precisely those which brought the
vices into the most ghastly refinement."

LEONARD (rising in great agitation, and clasping his hands).--"I cannot
contend with you, who produce against information so slender and crude
as mine the stores which have been locked from my reach; but I feel that
there must be another side to this shield,--a shield that you will not
even allow to be silver. And, oh, if you thus speak of knowledge, why
have you encouraged me to know?"




CHAPTER XX.

"Ah, my son!" said the parson, "if I wished to prove the value of
religion, would you think I served it much if I took as my motto,
'Religion is power'? Would not that be a base and sordid view of its
advantages? And would you not say, He who regards religion as a power
intends to abuse it as a priestcraft?"

"Well put!" said Riccabocca.

"Wait a moment--let me think! Ah, I see, Sir!" said Leonard.

PARSON.--"If the cause be holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the
market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the
weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it
as the triumph of class against class."

LEONARD (ingenuously).--"You correct me nobly, sir. Knowledge is power,
but not in the sense in which I have interpreted the saying."

PARSON.--"Knowledge is one of the powers in the moral world, but
one that, in its immediate result, is not always of the most worldly
advantage to the possessor. It is one of the slowest, because one of the
most durable, of agencies. It may take a thousand years for a thought
to come into power; and the thinker who originated it might have died in
rags or in chains."

RICCABOCCA.--"Our Italian proverb saith that 'the teacher is like the
candle, which lights others in consuming itself.'"

PARSON.--"Therefore he who has the true ambition of knowledge should
entertain it for the power of his idea, not for the power it may
bestow on himself: it should be lodged in the conscience, and, like the
conscience, look for no certain reward on this side the grave. And since
knowledge is compatible with good and with evil, would not it be better
to say, 'Knowledge is a trust'?"

"You are right, sir," said Leonard, cheerfully; "pray proceed."

PARSON.--"You ask me why we encourage you to KNOW. First, because (as
you say yourself in your Essay) knowledge, irrespective of gain, is in
itself a delight, and ought to be something far more. Like liberty, like
religion, it may be abused; but I have no more right to say that the
poor shall be ignorant than I have to say that the rich only shall be
free, and that the clergy alone shall learn the truths of redemption.
You truly observe in your treatise that knowledge opens to us other
excitements than those of the senses, and another life than that of the
moment. The difference between us is this,--that you forget that the
same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains;
the horny hand of the peasant feels not the nettles which sting the fine
skin of the scholar. You forget also, that whatever widens the sphere
of the desires opens to them also new temptations. Vanity, the desire of
applause, pride, the sense of superiority, gnawing discontent where that
superiority is not recognized, morbid susceptibility, which comes with
all new feelings, the underrating of simple pleasures apart from the
intellectual, the chase of the imagination, often unduly stimulated,
for things unattainable below,--all these are surely amongst the first
temptations that beset the entrance into knowledge." Leonard shaded his
face with his hand.

"Hence," continued the parson, benignantly,--"hence, so far from
considering that we do all that is needful to accomplish ourselves as
men, when we cultivate only the intellect, we should remember that we
thereby continually increase the range of our desires, and therefore of
our temptations; and we should endeavour, simultaneously, to cultivate
both those affections of the heart which prove the ignorant to be God's
children no less than the wise, and those moral qualities which have
made men great and good when reading and writing were scarcely known:
to wit,--patience and fortitude under poverty and distress; humility and
beneficence amidst grandeur and wealth, and, in counteraction to that
egotism which all superiority, mental or worldly, is apt to inspire,
Justice, the father of all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity,
which is their loving mother. Thus accompanied, knowledge indeed becomes
the magnificent crown of humanity,--not the imperious despot, but the
checked and tempered sovereign of the soul."

The parson paused, and Leonard, coming near him, timidly took his hand,
with a child's affectionate and grateful impulse.

RICCAROCCA.--"And if, Leonard, you are not satisfied with our parson's
excellent definitions, you have only to read what Lord Bacon himself has
said upon the true ends of knowledge to comprehend at once how angry the
poor great man, whom Mr. Dale treats so harshly, would have been with
those who have stinted his elaborate distinctions and provident cautions
into that coxcombical little aphorism, and then misconstrued all
he designed to prove in favour of the commandment, and authority of
learning. For," added the sage, looking up as a man does when he is
tasking his memory, "I think it is thus that after saying the greatest
error of all is the mistaking or misplacing the end of knowledge, and
denouncing the various objects for which it is vulgarly sought,--I think
it is thus that Lord Bacon proceeds: 'Knowledge is not a shop for profit
or sale, but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the
relief of men's estate.'"

   ["But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or
   misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have
   entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a
   natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain
   their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and
   reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and
   contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession"--[that is,
   for most of those objects which are meant by the ordinary titers of
   the saying, "Knowledge is power"]--"and seldom sincerely to give a
   true account of these gifts of reason to the benefit and use of men,
   as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a
   searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and
   variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower
   of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or
   commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or
   sale,--and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and
   the relief of men's estate."--Advancement of Learning, Book I.]

PARSON (remorsefully).--"Are those Lord Bacon's words? I am very sorry
I spoke so uncharitably of his life. I must examine it again. I may find
excuses for it now that I could not when I first formed my judgment.
I was then a raw lad at Oxford. But I see, Leonard, there is still
something on your mind."

LEONARD.--"It is true, sir: I would but ask whether it is not by
knowledge that we arrive at the qualities and virtues you so well
describe, but which you seem to consider as coming to us through
channels apart from knowledge?"

PARSON.--"If you mean by the word 'knowledge' something very different
from what you express in your Essay--and which those contending for
mental instruction, irrespective of religion and ethics, appear also to
convey by the word--you are right; but, remember, we have already agreed
that by the word' knowledge' we mean culture purely intellectual."

LEONARD.--"That is true,--we so understood it."

PARSON.--"Thus, when this great Lord Bacon erred, you may say that
he erred from want of knowledge,--the knowledge which moralists and
preachers would convey. But Lord Bacon had read all that moralists and
preachers could say on such matters; and he certainly did not err from
want of intellectual cultivation. Let me here, my child, invite you
to observe, that He who knew most of our human hearts and our immortal
destinies did not insist on this intellectual culture as essential to
the virtues that form our well-being here, and conduce to our salvation
hereafter. Had it been essential, the All-wise One would not have
selected humble fishermen for the teachers of His doctrine, instead of
culling His disciples from Roman portico or Athenian academe. And this,
which distinguishes so remarkably the Gospel from the ethics of heathen
philosophy, wherein knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue,
is a proof how slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of
mankind, when compared with the Saviour's; for hard indeed would it be
to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or
contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption;
since, in this state of ordeal requiring active duties, very few in
any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be
devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent Heaven as a
college for the learned. Therefore the rules of the Celestial Legislator
are rendered clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest."

RICCABOCCA.--"And that which Plato and Zeno, Pythagoras and Socrates
could not do, was done by men whose ignorance would have been a by-word
in the schools of the Greek. The gods of the vulgar were dethroned; the
face of the world was changed! This thought may make us allow, indeed,
that there are agencies more powerful than mere knowledge, and ask,
after all, what is the mission which knowledge should achieve?"

PARSON.--"The Sacred Book tells us even that; for after establishing the
truth that, for the multitude, knowledge is not essential to happiness
and good, it accords still to knowledge its sublime part in the
revelation prepared and announced. When an instrument of more than
ordinary intelligence was required for a purpose divine; when the
Gospel, recorded by the simple, was to be explained by the acute,
enforced by the energetic, carried home to the doubts of the Gentile,
the Supreme Will joined to the zeal of the earlier apostles the learning
and genius of Saint Paul,--not holier than the others, calling himself
the least, yet labouring more abundantly than they all, making himself
all things unto all men, so that some might be saved. The ignorant may
be saved no less surely than the wise; but here comes the wise man who
helps to save. And how the fulness and animation of this grand Presence,
of this indomitable Energy, seem to vivify the toil, and to speed the
work! 'In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers,
in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in
the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
amongst false brethren.' Behold, my son! does not Heaven here seem to
reveal the true type of Knowledge,--a sleepless activity, a pervading
agency, a dauntless heroism, an all-supporting faith?--a power, a power
indeed; a power apart from the aggrandizement of self; a power that
brings to him who owns and transmits it but 'weariness and painfulness;
in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness,'--but a power distinct from the mere circumstance of the
man, rushing from him as rays from the sun; borne through the air, and
clothing it with light, piercing under earth, and calling forth the
harvest. Worship not knowledge, worship not the sun, O my child! Let
the sun but proclaim the Creator; let the knowledge but illumine the
worship!"

The good man, overcome by his own earnestness, paused; his head drooped
on the young student's breast, and all three were long silent.




CHAPTER XXI.

Whatever ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale's dissertations by the wit
of the enlightened, they had a considerable, and I think a beneficial,
effect upon Leonard Fairfield,--an effect which may perhaps create less
surprise, when the reader remembers that Leonard was unaccustomed to
argument, and still retained many of the prejudices natural to his
rustic breeding. Nay, he actually thought it possible that, as both
Riccabocca and Mr. Dale were more than double his age, and had had
opportunities not only of reading twice as many books, but of gathering
up experience in wider ranges of life,--he actually, I say, thought it
possible that they might be better acquainted with the properties and
distinctions of knowledge than himself. At all events, the parson's
words were so far well-timed, that they produced in Leonard very much
of that state of mind which Mr. Dale desired to effect, before
communicating to him the startling intelligence that he was to visit
relations whom he had never seen, of whom he had heard but little, and
that it was at least possible that the result of that visit might be to
open to him greater facilities for instruction, and a higher degree in
life.

Without some such preparation, I fear that Leonard would have gone forth
into the world with an exaggerated notion of his own acquirements, and
with a notion yet more exaggerated as to the kind of power that such
knowledge as he possessed would obtain for itself. As it was, when
Mr. Dale broke to him the news of the experimental journey before
him, cautioning him against being over sanguine, Leonard received the
intelligence with a serious meekness, and thoughts that were nobly
solemn.

When the door closed on his visitors, he remained for some moments
motionless, and in deep meditation; then he unclosed the door and stole
forth. The night was already far advanced, the heavens were luminous
with all the host of stars. "I think," said the student, referring, in
later life, to that crisis in his destiny,--"I think it was then, as I
stood alone, yet surrounded by worlds so numberless, that I first felt
the distinction between mind and soul."

"Tell me," said Riccabocca, as he parted company with Mr. Dale, "whether
you would have given to Frank Hazeldean, on entering life, the same
lecture on the limits and ends of knowledge which you have bestowed on
Leonard Fairfield?"

"My friend," quoth the parson, with a touch of human conceit, "I have
ridden on horseback, and I know that some horses should be guided by the
bridle, and some should be urged by the spur."

"Cospetto!" said Riccabocca, "you contrive to put every experience of
yours to some use,--even your journey on Mr. Hazeldean's pad. And I
now see why, in this little world of a village, you have picked up so
general an acquaintance with life."

"Did you ever read White's' Natural History of Selborne'?"

"No."

"Do so, and you will find that you need not go far to learn the habits
of birds, and know the difference between a swallow and a swift. Learn
the difference in a village, and you know the difference wherever
swallows and swifts skim the air."

"Swallows and swifts!--true; but men--"

"Are with us all the year round,--which is more than we can say of
swallows and swifts."

"Mr. Dale," said Riccabocca, taking off his hat with great formality,
"if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, I will come to you instead of
to Machiavelli."

"Ah!" cried the parson, "if I could but have a calm hour's talk with you
on the errors of the Papal relig--"

Riccabocca was off like a shot.




CHAPTER XXII.

The next day Mr. Dale had a long conversation with Mrs. Fairfield. At
first he found some difficulty in getting over her pride, and inducing
her to accept overtures from parents who had so long slighted both
Leonard and herself. And it would have been in vain to have put before
the good woman the worldly advantages which such overtures implied. But
when Mr. Dale said, almost sternly, "Your parents are old, your father
infirm; their least wish should be as binding to you as their command,"
the widow bowed her head, and said,--

"God bless them, sir, I was very sinful 'Honour your father and mother.'
I'm no schollard, but I know the Commandments. Let Lenny go. But he'll
soon forget me, and mayhap he'll learn to be ashamed of me."

"There I will trust him," said the parson; and he contrived easily to
reassure and soothe her.

It was not till all this was settled that Mr. Dale drew forth an
unsealed letter, which Mr. Richard Avenel, taking his hint, had given to
him, as from Leonard's grandparents, and said, "This is for you, and it
contains an inclosure of some value."

"Will you read it, sir? As I said before, I'm no schollard."

"But Leonard is, and he will read it to you."

When Leonard returned home that evening, Mrs. Fairfield showed him the
letter. It ran thus:--

   DEAR JANE,--Mr. Dale will tell you that we wish Leonard to come to
   us. We are glad to hear you are well. We forward, by Mr. Dale, a
   bank-note for L50, which comes from Richard, your brother. So no
   more at present from your affectionate parents,

   JOHN AND MARGARET AVENEL.

The letter was in a stiff female scrawl, and Leonard observed that two
or three mistakes in spelling had been corrected, either in another pen
or in a different hand.

"Dear brother Dick, how good in him!" cried the widow. "When I saw
there was money, I thought it must be him. How I should like to see Dick
again! But I s'pose he's still in Amerikay. Well, well, this will buy
clothes for you."

"No; you must keep it all, Mother, and put it in the Savings Bank."

"I 'm not quite so silly as that," cried Mrs. Fairfield, with contempt;
and she put the L50 into a cracked teapot.

"It must not stay there when I 'm gone. You may be robbed, Mother."

"Dear me, dear me, that's true. What shall I do with it? What do I want
with it, too? Dear me! I wish they hadn't sent it. I sha' n't sleep in
peace. You must e'en put it in your own pouch, and button it up tight,
boy."

Lenny smiled, and took the note; but he took it to Mr. Dale, and begged
him to put it into the Savings Bank for his mother.

The day following he went to take leave of his master, of Jackeymo, of
the fountain, the garden. But after he had gone through the first of
these adieus with Jackeymo--who, poor man, indulged in all the lively
gesticulations of grief which make half the eloquence of his countrymen,
and then, absolutely blubbering, hurried away--Leonard himself was
so affected that he could not proceed at once to the house, but stood
beside the fountain, trying hard to keep back his tears.

"You, Leonard--and you are going!" said a soft voice; and the tears fell
faster than ever, for he recognized the voice of Violante.

"Do not cry," continued the child, with a kind of tender gravity. "You
are going, but Papa says it would be selfish in us to grieve, for it is
for your good; and we should be glad. But I am selfish, Leonard, and I
do grieve. I shall miss you sadly."

"You, young lady,--you miss me?"

"Yes; but I do not cry, Leonard, for I envy you, and I wish I were a
boy: I wish I could do as you."

The girl clasped her hands, and reared her slight form, with a kind of
passionate dignity.

"Do as me, and part from all those you love!"

"But to serve those you love. One day you will come back to your
mother's cottage, and say, 'I have conquered fortune.' Oh that I could
go forth and return, as you will! But my father has no country, and his
only child is a useless girl."

As Violante spoke, Leonard had dried his tears: her emotion distracted
him from his own.

"Oh," continued Violante, again raising her head loftily, "what it is to
be a man! A woman sighs, 'I wish,' but a man should say, 'I will.'"

Occasionally before Leonard had noted fitful flashes of a nature grand
and heroic in the Italian child, especially of late,--flashes the more
remarkable from the contrast to a form most exquisitely feminine, and
to a sweetness of temper which made even her pride gentle. But now it
seemed as if the child spoke with the command of a queen,--almost with
the inspiration of a Muse. A strange and new sense of courage entered
within him.

"May I remember these words!" he murmured, half audibly.

The girl turned and surveyed him with eyes brighter for their moisture.
She then extended her hand to him, with a quick movement, and as he bent
over it, with a grace taught to him by genuine emotion, she said, "And
if you do, then, girl and child as I am, I shall think I have aided a
brave heart in the great strife for honour!"

She lingered a moment, smiled as if to herself, and then, gliding away,
was lost amongst the trees.

After a long pause, in which Leonard recovered slowly from the surprise
and agitation into which Violante had thrown his spirits--previously
excited as they were--he went, murmuring to himself, towards the
house. But Riccabocca was from home. Leonard turned mechanically to
the terrace, and busied himself with the flowers; but the dark eyes of
Violante shone on his thoughts, and her voice rang in his ear.

At length Riccabocca appeared on the road, attended by a labourer, who
carried something indistinct under his arm. The Italian beckoned to
Leonard to follow him into the parlour, and after conversing with him
kindly, and at some length, and packing up, as it were, a considerable
provision of wisdom in the portable shape of aphorisms and proverbs, the
sage left him alone for a few moments. Riccabocca then returned with his
wife, and bearing a small knapsack:--

"It is not much we can do for you, Leonard, and money is the worst
gift in the world for a keepsake; but my wife and I have put our heads
together to furnish you with a little outfit. Giacomo, who was in our
secret, assures us that the clothes will fit; and stole, I fancy, a coat
of yours, to have the right measure. Put them on when you go to your
relations: it is astonishing what a difference it makes in the ideas
people form of us, according as our coats are cut one way or another. I
should not be presentable in London thus; and nothing is more true than
that a tailor is often the making of a man."

"The shirts, too, are very good holland," said Mrs. Riccabocca, about to
open the knapsack.

"Never mind details, my dear," cried the wise man; "shirts are
comprehended in the general principle of clothes. And, Leonard, as a
remembrance somewhat more personal, accept this, which I have worn many
a year when time was a thing of importance to me, and nobler fates than
mine hung on a moment. We missed the moment, or abused it; and here I am
a waif on a foreign shore. Methinks I have done with Time."

The exile, as he thus spoke, placed in Leonard's reluctant hands a watch
that would have delighted an antiquary, and shocked a dandy. It was
exceedingly thick, having an outer case of enamel and an inner one of
gold. The hands and the figures of the hours had originally been formed
of brilliants; but the brilliants had long since vanished. Still, even
thus bereft, the watch was much more in character with the giver than
the receiver, and was as little suited to Leonard as would have been the
red silk umbrella.

"It is old-fashioned," said Mrs. Riccabocca; "but it goes better than
any clock in the county. I really think it will last to the end of the
world."

"Carissima mia!" cried the doctor, "I thought I had convinced you that
the world is by no means come to its last legs."

"Oh, I did not mean anything, Alphonso," said Mrs. Riccabocca,
colouring.

"And that is all we do mean when we talk about that of which we can know
nothing," said the doctor, less gallantly than usual, for he resented
that epithet of "old-fashioned," as applied to the watch.

Leonard, we see, had been silent all this time; he could not
speak,--literally and truly, he could not speak. How he got out of his
embarrassment and how he got out of the room, he never explained to my
satisfaction. But a few minutes afterwards, he was seen hurrying down
the road very briskly.

Riccabocca and his wife stood at the window gazing after him.

"There is a depth in that boy's heart," said the sage, "which might
float an argosy."

"Poor dear boy! I think we have put everything into the knapsack that he
can possibly want," said good Mrs. Riccabocca, musingly.

THE DOCTOR (continuing his soliloquy).--"They are strong, but they are
not immediately apparent."

MRS. RICCABOCCA (resuming hers).--"They are at the bottom of the
knapsack."

THE DOCTOR.--"They will stand long wear and tear."

MRS. RICCABOCCA.--"A year, at least, with proper care at the wash."

THE DOCTOR (startled).--"Care at the wash! What on earth are you talking
of, ma'am?"

MRS. RICCABOCCA (mildly).--"The shirts, to be sure, my love! And you?"

THE DOCTOR (with a heavy sigh).--"The feelings, ma'am!" Then, after a
pause, taking his wife's hand affectionately, "But you did quite right
to think of the shirts: Mr. Dale said very truly--"

MRS. RICCABOCCA.--"What?"

THE DOCTOR.--"That there was a great deal in common between us--even
when I think of feelings, and you but of--shirts!"




CHAPTER XXIII.

Mr. and Mrs. Avenel sat within the parlour, Mr. Richard stood on the
hearthrug, whistling "Yankee Doodle." "The parson writes word that
the lad will come to-day," said Richard, suddenly; "let me see the
letter,--ay, to-day. If he took the coach as far as -------, he might
walk the rest of the way in two or three hours. He should be pretty
nearly here. I have a great mind to go and meet him: it will save his
asking questions, and hearing about me. I can clear the town by the back
way, and get out at the high road."

"You'll not know him from any one else," said Mrs. Avenel.

"Well, that is a good one! Not know an Avenel! We've all the same cut of
the jib,--have we not, Father?"

Poor John laughed heartily, till the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"We were always a well-favoured fam'ly," said John, recomposing himself.
"There was Luke, but he's gone; and Harry, but he's dead too; and Dick,
but he's in Amerikay--no, he's here; and my darling Nora, but--"

"Hush!" interrupted Mrs. Avenel; "hush, John!"

The old man stared at her, and then put his tremulous hand to his brow.
"And Nora's gone too!" said he, in a voice of profound woe. Both hands
then fell on his knees, and his head drooped on his breast.

Mrs. Avenel rose, kissed her husband on the forehead, and walked away to
the window. Richard took up his hat and brushed the nap carefully with
his handkerchief; but his lips quivered.

"I 'm going," said he, abruptly. "Now mind, Mother, not a word about
uncle Richard yet; we must first see how we like each other, and--[in a
whisper] you'll try and get that into my poor father's head?"

"Ay, Richard," said Mrs. Avenel, quietly. Richard put on his hat and
went out by the back way. He stole along the fields that skirted the
town, and had only once to cross the street before he got into the high
road.

He walked on till he came to the first milestone. There he seated
himself, lighted his cigar, and awaited his nephew. It was now nearly
the hour of sunset, and the road before him lay westward. Richard, from
time to time, looked along the road, shading his eyes with his hand; and
at length, just as the disk of the sun had half sunk down the horizon,
a solitary figure came up the way. It emerged suddenly from the turn
in the road; the reddening beams coloured all the atmosphere around it.
Solitary and silent it came as from a Land of Light.




CHAPTER XXIV.

"You have been walking far, young man?" said Richard Avenel.

"No, sir, not very. That is Lansmere before me, is it not?"

"Yes, it is Lansmere; you stop there, I guess?"

Leonard made a sign in the affirmative, and walked on a few paces; then,
seeing the stranger who had accosted him still by his side, he said,--

"If you know the town, sir, perhaps you will have the goodness to tell
me whereabouts Mr. Avenel lives?"

"I can put you into a straight cut across the fields, that will bring
you just behind the house."

"You are very kind, but it will take you out of your way."

"No, it is in my way. So you are going to Mr. Avenel's?--a good old
gentleman."

"I've always heard so; and Mrs. Avenel--"

"A particular superior woman," said Richard. "Any one else to ask
after?--I know the family well."

"No, thank you, sir."

"They have a son, I believe; but he's in America, is he not?"

"I believe he is, sir."

"I see the parson has kept faith with me muttered Richard."

"If you can tell me anything about HIM," said Leonard, "I should be very
glad."

"Why so, young man? Perhaps he is hanged by this time."

"Hanged!"

"He was a sad dog, I am told."

"Then you have been told very falsely," said Leonard, colouring.

"A sad wild dog; his parents were so glad when he cut and run,--went
off to the States. They say he made money; but, if so, he neglected his
relations shamefully."

"Sir," said Leonard, "you are wholly misinformed. He has been most
generous to a relation who had little claim on him: and I never heard
his name mentioned but with love and praise."

Richard instantly fell to whistling "Yankee Doodle," and walked on
several paces without saying a word. He then made a slight apology for
his impertinence, hoped no offence, and, with his usual bold but astute
style of talk, contrived to bring out something of his companion's mind.
He was evidently struck with the clearness and propriety with which
Leonard expressed himself, raised his eyebrows in surprise more than
once, and looked him full in the face with an attentive and pleased
survey. Leonard had put on the new clothes with which Riccabocca and his
wife had provided him. They were those appropriate to a young country
tradesman in good circumstances; but as Leonard did not think about the
clothes, so he had unconsciously something of the ease of the gentleman.

They now came into the fields. Leonard paused before a slip of ground
sown with rye.

"I should have thought grass-land would have answered better so near a
town," said he.

"No doubt it would," answered Richard; "but they are sadly behind-hand
in these parts. You see the great park yonder, on the other side of the
road? That would answer better for rye than grass; but then, what would
become of my Lord's deer? The aristocracy eat us up, young man."

"But the aristocracy did not sow this piece with rye, I suppose?" said
Leonard, smiling.

"And what do you conclude from that?"

"Let every man look to his own ground," said Leonard, with a cleverness
of repartee caught from Dr. Riccabocca.

"'Cute lad you are," said Richard; "and we'll talk more of these matters
another time."

They now came within sight of Mr. Avenel's house.

"You can get through the gap in the hedge, by the old pollard-oak,"
said Richard; "and come round by the front of the house. Why, you're not
afraid, are you?"

"I am a stranger."

"Shall I introduce you? I told you that I knew the old couple."

"Oh, no, sir! I would rather meet them alone."

"Go; and--wait a bit-hark ye, young man, Mrs. Avenel is a cold-mannered
woman; but don't be abashed by that." Leonard thanked the good-natured
stranger, crossed the field, passed the gap, and paused a moment
under the stinted shade of the old hollow-hearted oak. The ravens were
returning to their nests. At the sight of a human form under the tree
they wheeled round and watched him afar. From the thick of the boughs,
the young ravens sent their hoarse low cry.




CHAPTER XXV.

The young man entered the neat, prim, formal parlour. "You are welcome!"
said Mrs. Avenel, in a firm voice. "The gentleman is heartily welcome,"
cried poor John.

"It is your grandson, Leonard Fairfield," said Mrs. Avenel. But John,
who had risen with knocking knees, gazed hard at Leonard, and then fell
on his breast, sobbing aloud, "Nora's eyes!--he has a blink in his eye
like Nora's."

Mrs. Avenel approached with a steady step, and drew away the old man
tenderly.

"He is a poor creature," she whispered to Leonard; "you excite him. Come
away, I will show you your room." Leonard followed her up the stairs,
and came into a room neatly and even prettily furnished. The carpet and
curtains were faded by the sun, and of old-fashioned pattern; there was
a look about the room as if it had been long disused. Mrs. Avenel sank
down on the first chair on entering. Leonard drew his arm round her
waist affectionately: "I fear that I have put you out sadly, my
dear grandmother." Mrs. Avenel glided hastily from his arm, and her
countenance worked much, every nerve in it twitching, as it were; then,
placing her hand on his locks, she said with passion, "God bless you, my
grandson," and left the room.

Leonard dropped his knapsack on the floor, and looked around him
wistfully. The room seemed as if it had once been occupied by a female.
There was a work-box on the chest of drawers, and over it hanging
shelves for books, suspended by ribbons that had once been blue, with
silk and fringe appended to each shelf, and knots and tassels here and
there,--the taste of a woman, or rather of a girl, who seeks to give a
grace to the commonest things around her. With the mechanical habit of
a student, Leonard took down one or two of the volumes still left on the
shelves. He found Spenser's "Faerie Queene," Racine in French, Tasso
in Italian; and on the fly-leaf of each volume, in the exquisite
handwriting familiar to his memory, the name "Leonora." He kissed the
books, and replaced them with a feeling akin both to tenderness and awe.

He had not been alone in his room more than a quarter of an hour before
the maid-servant knocked at his door and summoned him to tea.

Poor John had recovered his spirits, and his wife sat by his side,
holding his hand in hers. Poor John was even gay. He asked many
questions about his daughter Jane, and did not wait for the answers.
Then he spoke about the squire, whom he confounded with Audley Egerton,
and talked of elections and the Blue party, and hoped Leonard would
always be a good Blue; and then he fell to his tea and toast, and said
no more.

Mrs. Avenel spoke little, but she eyed Leonard askant, as it were, from
time to time; and, after each glance, the nerves of the poor severe face
twitched again.

A little after nine o'clock, Mrs. Avenel lighted a candle, and placing
it in Leonard's hand, said, "You must be tired,--you know your own room
now. Good-night."

Leonard took the light, and, as was his wont with his mother, kissed
Mrs. Avenel on the cheek. Then he took John's hand and kissed him too.
The old man was half asleep, and murmured dreamily, "That's Nora."

Leonard had retired to his room about half an hour, when Richard Avenel
entered the house softly, and joined his parents.

"Well, Mother?" said he.

"Well, Richard, you have seen him?"

"And like him. Do you know he has a great look of poor Nora?--more like
her than Jane."

"Yes; he is handsomer than Jane ever was, but more like your father than
any one. John was so comely. You take to the boy, then?"

"Ay, that I do. Just tell him in the morning that he is to go with a
gentleman who will be his friend, and don't say more. The chaise shall
be at the door after breakfast. Let him get into it: I shall wait for
him out of the town. What's the room you gave him?"

"The room you would not take."

"The room in which Nora slept? Oh, no! I could not have slept a wink
there. What a charm there was in that girl! how we all loved her! But
she was too beautiful and good for us,--too good to live!"

"None of us are too good," said Mrs. Avenel, with great austerity, "and
I beg you will not talk in that way. Goodnight,--I must get your poor
father to bed."

When Leonard opened his eyes the next morning, they rested on the face
of Mrs. Avenel, which was bending over his pillow. But it was long
before he could recognize that countenance, so changed was its
expression,--so tender, so mother-like. Nay, the face of his own mother
had never seemed to him so soft with a mother's passion.

"Ah!" he murmured, half rising, and flinging his young arms round her
neck. Mrs. Avenel, this time taken by surprise, warmly returned the
embrace; she clasped him to her breast, she kissed him again and again.
At length, with a quick start, she escaped, and walked up and down the
room, pressing her hands tightly together. When she halted, her face had
recovered its usual severity and cold precision.

"It is time for you to rise, Leonard," said she. "You will leave us
to-day. A gentleman has promised to take charge of you, and do for you
more than we can. A chaise will be at the door soon,--make haste."

John was absent from the breakfast-table. His wife said that he never
rose till late, and must not be disturbed.

The meal was scarcely over before a chaise and pair came to the door.

"You must not keep the chaise waiting,--the gentleman is very punctual."

"But he is not come."

"No; he has walked on before, and will get in after you are out of the
town."

"What is his name, and why should he care for me, Grandmother?"

"He will tell you himself. Be quick."

"But you will bless me again, Grandmother? I love you already."

"I do bless you," said Mrs. Avenel, firmly. "Be honest and good, and
beware of the first false step." She pressed his hand with a convulsive
grasp, and led him to the outer door.

The postboy clanked his whip, the chaise rattled off. Leonard put his
head out of the window to catch a last glimpse of the old woman; but the
boughs of the pollard-oak, and its gnarled decaying trunk, hid her from
his eye, and look as he would, till the road turned, he saw but the
melancholy tree.




BOOK FIFTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

CONTAINING MR. CAXTON's UNAVAILING CAUTION NOT TO BE DULL.

"I hope, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not intend to be
dull?"

"Heaven forbid, sir! What could make you ask such a question? Intend!
No! if I am dull it is from innocence."

"A very long discourse upon knowledge!" said my father; "very long! I
should cut it out."

I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have looked on a
Vandal. "Cut it out!"

"Stops the action, sir!" said my father, dogmatically.

"Action! But a novel is not a drama."

"No; it is a great deal longer,--twenty times as long, I dare say,"
replied Mr. Caxton, with a sigh.

"Well, sir, well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to do
with the subject, is vitally essential to the subject; does not stop the
action,--only explains and elucidates the action. And I am astonished,
sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge--"

"There, there!" cried my father, deprecatingly. "I yield, I yield! What
better could I expect when I set up for a critic? What author ever lived
that did not fly into a passion, even with his own father, if his father
presumed to say, 'Cut out'!"

MRS. CAXTON.--"My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus did not mean to
offend you, and I have no doubt he will take your--"

PISISTRATUS (hastily).--"Advice for the future, certainly. I will
quicken the action, and--"

"Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal
account-book. "We have lost L200 by our barley!"

Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the "Fair
Shadowland."




CHAPTER II.

"HALT, cried a voice; and not a little surprised was Leonard when the
stranger who had accosted him the preceding evening got into the chaise.

"Well," said Richard, "I am not the sort of man you expected, eh? Take
time to recover yourself." And with these words Richard drew forth a
book from his pocket, threw himself back, and began to read. Leonard
stole many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of his companion,
and gradually recognized a family likeness to poor John, in whom,
despite age and infirmity, the traces of no common share of physical
beauty were still evident. And, with that quick link in ideas which
mathematical aptitude bestows, the young student at once conjectured
that he saw before him his uncle Richard. He had the discretion,
however, to leave that gentleman free to choose his own time for
introducing himself, and silently revolved the new thoughts produced
by the novelty of his situation. Mr. Richard read with notable
quickness,--sometimes cutting the leaves of the book with his penknife,
sometimes tearing them open with his forefinger, sometimes skipping
whole pages altogether. Thus he galloped to the end of the volume, flung
it aside, lighted his cigar, and began to talk. He put many questions to
Leonard relative to his rearing, and especially to the mode by which he
had acquired his education; and Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he
was replying to a kinsman, answered frankly.

Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so
much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself
had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead
brethren who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with
the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their
glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different
from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new;
to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world.
He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas,--a common
mistake,--and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day.

Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through to
Leonard, and taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with
calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into an
absorbed train of thought, part pecuniary, part ambitious.

Leonard found the book interesting: it was one of the numerous works,
half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the
working classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought to
bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern
society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last.

"Dull stuff! theory! claptrap!" said Richard, rousing himself from his
revery at last; "it can't interest you."

"All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially;
for it relates to the working class, and I am one of them."

"You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard,
good-humouredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad, that
it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What the book
says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the
man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the
number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory,--only ten
hours a day--pooh! and so lose two hours to the nation! Labour is
wealth; and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a day,
we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilization is to
proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie
a bed doing nothing, all night, sir." Then, with a complacent tone, "We
shall get to the twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we
sha'n't flog the Europeans as we do now."

On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made acquaintance with
Mr. Dale, the coach by which he had intended to perform the rest of the
journey was found to be full. Richard continued to perform the journey
in postchaises, not without some grumbling at the expense, and incessant
orders to the post-boys to make the best of the way. "Slow country this
in spite of all its brag," said he,--"very slow. Time is money--they
know that in the States; for why? they are all men of business there.
Always slow in a country where a parcel of lazy, idle lords and dukes
and baronets seem to think 'time is pleasure.'"

Towards evening the chaise approached the confines of a very large town,
and Richard began to grow fidgety. His easy, cavalier air was abandoned.
He withdrew his legs from the window, out of which they had been
luxuriously dangling, pulled down his waistcoat, buckled more tightly
his stock; it was clear that he was resuming the decorous dignity that
belongs to state. He was like a monarch who, after travelling happy and
incognito, returns to his capital. Leonard divined at once that they
were nearing their journey's end.

Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and touched their hats.
Richard returned the salutation with a nod,--a nod less gracious than
condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped before
a small lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric columns
in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!" cried the
post-boy, and cracked his whip.

Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were
hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little
building.

"Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As I live,
the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy!" During this soliloquy, a
good-looking young woman had rushed from the door, slapped the children
as, catching sight of the chaise, they ran towards the house, opened the
gates, and dropping a courtesy to the ground, seemed to wish that she
could drop into it altogether; so frightened and so trembling seemed
she to shrink from the wrathful face which the master now put out of the
window.

"Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, "that I would not have those
horrid, disreputable cubs of yours playing just before my lodge gates?"

"Please, sir--"

"Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that the next time I
saw you making a drying-ground of my lilacs, you should go out, neck and
crop--"

"Oh, please, sir--"

"You leave my lodge next Saturday! drive on, boy. The ingratitude and
insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature,"
muttered Richard, with an accent of the bitterest misanthropy.

The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of gravel roads, and
through fields of the finest land, in the highest state of cultivation.
Rapid as was Leonard's survey, his rural eye detected the signs of a
master in the art agronomial. Hitherto he had considered the squire's
model farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he had seen; for
Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on the minute scale of
market-gardening than what can fairly be called husbandry. But
the squire's farm was degraded by many old-fashioned notions, and
concessions to the whim of the eye, which would not be found in model
farms nowadays,--large tangled hedgerows, which, though they constitute
one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, make sad deductions
from produce; great trees, overshadowing the corn and harbouring the
birds; little patches of rough sward left to waste; and angles of
woodland running into fields, exposing them to rabbits and blocking out
the sun. These and such like blots on a gentleman-farmer's agriculture,
common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to the acute comprehension of
Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in Richard Avenel's domain. The
fields lay in broad divisions, the hedges were clipped and narrowed
into their proper destination of mere boundaries. Not a blade of wheat
withered under the cold shade of a tree; not a yard of land lay waste;
not a weed was to be seen, not a thistle to waft its baleful seed
through the air: some young plantations were placed, not where the
artist would put them, but just where the farmer wanted a fence from
the wind. Was there no beauty in this? Yes, there was beauty of its
kind,--beauty at once recognizable to the initiated, beauty of use
and profit, beauty that could bear a monstrous high rent. And Leonard
uttered a cry of admiration which thrilled through the heart of Richard
Avenel.

"This IS farming!" said the villager.

"Well, I guess it is," answered Richard, all his ill-humour vanishing.
"You should have seen the land when I bought it. But we new men, as they
call us (damn their impertinence!) are the new blood of this country."

Richard Avenel never said anything more true. Long may the new blood
circulate through the veins of the mighty giantess; but let the grand
heart be the same as it has beat for proud ages.

The chaise now passed through a pretty shrubbery, and the house came
into gradual view,--a house with a portico, all the offices carefully
thrust out of sight.

The postboy dismounted and rang the bell.

"I almost think they are going to keep me waiting," said Mr. Richard,
well-nigh in the very words of Louis XIV. But the fear was not
realized,--the door opened; a well-fed servant out of livery presented
himself. There was no hearty welcoming smile on his face, but he opened
the chaise-door with demure and taciturn respect.

"Where's George? Why does he not come to the door?" asked Richard;
descending from the chaise slowly, and leaning on the servant's
outstretched arm with as much precaution as if he had had the gout.

Fortunately, George here came into sight, settling himself hastily into
his livery coat.

"See to the things, both of you," said Richard, as he paid the postboy.

Leonard stood on the gravel sweep, gazing at the square white house.

"Handsome elevation--classical, I take it, eh?" said Richard, joining
him. "But you should see the offices." He then, with familiar kindness,
took Leonard by the arm, and drew him within. He showed him the hall,
with a carved mahogany stand for hats; he showed him the drawing-room,
and pointed out all its beauties; though it was summer, the drawing-room
looked cold, as will look rooms newly furnished, with walls newly
papered, in houses newly built. The furniture was handsome, and suited
to the rank of a rich trader. There was no pretence about it, and
therefore no vulgarity, which is more than can be said for the houses
of many an Honourable Mrs. Somebody in Mayfair, with rooms twelve feet
square, ebokeful of buhl, that would have had its proper place in
the Tuileries. Then Richard showed him the library, with mahogany
book-cases, and plate glass, and the fashionable authors handsomely
bound. Your new men are much better friends to living authors than
your old families who live in the country, and at most subscribe to
a book-club. Then Richard took him up-stairs, and led him through
the bedrooms,--all very clean and comfortable, and with every modern
convenience; and pausing in a very pretty single gentleman's chamber,
said, "This is your den. And now, can you guess who I am?"

"No one but my uncle Richard could be so kind," answered Leonard.

But the compliment did not flatter Richard. He was extremely
disconcerted and disappointed. He had hoped that he should be taken for
a lord at least, forgetful of all that he had said in disparagement of
lords.

"Fish!" said he at last, biting his lip, "so you don't think that I look
like a gentleman? Come, now, speak honestly."

Leonard, wonderingly, saw he had given pain, and with the good breeding
which comes instinctively from good nature, replied, "I judge you by
your heart, sir, and your likeness to my grandfather,--otherwise I
should never have presumed to fancy we could be relations."

"Hum!" answered Richard. "You can just wash your hands, and then come
down to dinner; you will hear the gong in ten ininutes. There's the
bell,--ring for what you want." With that, he turned on his heel; and
descending the stairs, gave a look into the dining-room, and admired the
plated salver on the sideboard, and the king's pattern spoons and silver
on the table. Then he walked to the looking-glass over the mantelpiece;
and, wishing to survey the whole effect of his form, mounted a chair.
He was just getting into an attitude which he thought imposing, when
the butler entered, and, being London bred, had the discretion to try to
escape unseen; but Richard caught sight of him in the looking-glass, and
coloured up to the temples.

"Jarvis," said he, mildly, "Jarvis, put me in mind to have these
inexpressibles altered."




CHAPTER III.

A propos of the inexpressibles, Mr. Richard did not forget to provide
his nephew with a much larger wardrobe than could have been thrust into
Dr. Riccabocca's knapsack. There was a very good tailor in the town, and
the clothes were very well made. And, but for an air more ingenuous,
and a cheek that, despite study and night vigils, retained much of the
sunburned bloom of the rustic, Leonard Fairfield might now have almost
passed, without disparaging comment, by the bow-window at White's.
Richard burst into an immoderate fit of laughter when he first saw the
watch which the poor Italian had bestowed upon Leonard; but to atone
for the laughter, he made him a present of a very pretty substitute, and
bade him "lock up his turnip." Leonard was more hurt by the jeer at his
old patron's gift than pleased by his uncle's. But Richard Avenel had
no conception of sentiment. It was not for many days that Leonard could
reconcile himself to his uncle's manner. Not that the peasant could
pretend to judge of its mere conventional defects; but there is an ill
breeding to which, whatever our rank and nurture, we are almost equally
sensitive,--the ill breeding that comes from want of consideration for
others. Now, the squire was as homely in his way as Richard Avenel, but
the squire's bluntness rarely hurt the feelings; and when it did so, the
squire perceived and hastened to repair his blunder. But Mr. Richard,
whether kind or cross, was always wounding you in some little delicate
fibre,--not from malice, but from the absence of any little delicate
fibres of his own. He was really, in many respects, a most excellent
man, and certainly a very valuable citizen--; but his merits wanted the
fine tints and fluent curves that constitute beauty of character. He was
honest, but sharp in his practice, and with a keen eye to his interests.
He was just, but as a matter of business. He made no allowances, and did
not leave to his justice the large margin of tenderness and mercy. He
was generous, but rather from an idea of what was due to himself
than with much thought of the pleasure he gave to others; and he even
regarded generosity as a capital put out to interest. He expected
a great deal of gratitude in return, and, when he obliged a man,
considered that he had bought a slave. Every needy voter knew where to
come, if he wanted relief or a loan; but woe to him if he had ventured
to express hesitation when Mr. Avenel told him how he must vote.

In this town Richard had settled after his return from America, in which
country he had enriched himself,--first, by spirit and industry,
lastly, by bold speculation and good luck. He invested his fortune in
business,--became a partner in a large brewery, soon bought out his
associates, and then took a principal share in a flourishing corn-mill.
He prospered rapidly,--bought a property of some two or three hundred
acres, built a house, and resolved to enjoy himself, and make a figure.
He had now become the leading man of the town, and the boast to Audley
Egerton that he could return one of the members, perhaps both, was by
no means an exaggerated estimate of his power. Nor was his proposition,
according to his own views, so unprincipled as it appeared to the
statesman. He had taken a great dislike to both the sitting members,--a
dislike natural to a sensible man of moderate politics, who had
something to lose. For Mr. Slappe, the active member, who was
head-over-ears in debt, was one of the furious democrats--rare before
the Reform Bill,--and whose opinions were held dangerous even by the
mass of a Liberal constituency; while Mr. Sleekie, the gentleman member
who laid by L5000 every year from his dividends in the Funds, was one of
those men whom Richard justly pronounced to be "humbugs,"--men who curry
favour with the extreme party by voting for measures sure not to
be carried; while if there was the least probability of coming to a
decision that would lower the money market. Mr. Sleekie was seized with
a well-timed influenza. Those politicians are common enough now. Propose
to march to the Millennium, and they are your men. Ask them to march a
quarter of a mile, and they fall to feeling their pockets, and trembling
for fear of the footpads. They are never so joyful as when there is no
chance of a victory. Did they beat the minister, they would be carried
out of the House in a fit.

Richard Avenel--despising both these gentlemen, and not taking kindly
to the Whigs since the great Whig leaders were lords--had looked with
a friendly eye to the government as it then existed, and especially
to Audley Egerton, the enlightened representative of commerce. But in
giving Audley and his colleagues the benefit of his influence, through
conscience, he thought it all fair and right to have a quid pro quo,
and, as he had so frankly confessed, it was his whim to rise up "Sir
Richard." For this worthy citizen abused the aristocracy much on the
same principle as the fair Olivia depreciated Squire Thornhill,--he had
a sneaking affection for what he abused. The society of Screwstown was,
like most provincial capitals, composed of two classes,--the commercial
and the exclusive. These last dwelt chiefly apart, around the ruins of
an old abbey; they affected its antiquity in their pedigrees, and
had much of its ruin in their finances. Widows of rural thanes in the
neighbourhood, genteel spinsters, officers retired on half-pay, younger
sons of rich squires, who had now become old bachelors,--in short,
a very respectable, proud, aristocratic set, who thought more of
themselves than do all the Gowers and Howards, Courtenays and Seymours,
put together. It had early been the ambition of Richard Avenel to
be admitted into this sublime coterie; and, strange to say, he had
partially succeeded. He was never more happy than when he was asked to
their card-parties, and never more unhappy than when he was actually
there. Various circumstances combined to raise Mr. Avenel into this
elevated society. First, he was unmarried, still very handsome, and in
that society there was a large proportion of unwedded females. Secondly,
he was the only rich trader in Screwstown who kept a good cook, and
professed to give dinners, and the half-pay captains and colonels
swallowed the host for the sake of the venison. Thirdly, and
principally, all these exclusives abhorred the two sitting members, and
"idem nolle idem velle de republica, ea firma amicitia est;" that is,
congeniality in politics pieces porcelain and crockery together better
than the best diamond cement. The sturdy Richard Avenel, who valued
himself on American independence, held these ladies and gentlemen in
an awe that was truly Brahminical. Whether it was that, in England,
all notions, even of liberty, are mixed up historically, traditionally,
socially, with that fine and subtle element of aristocracy which, like
the press, is the air we breathe; or whether Richard imagined that
he really became magnetically imbued with the virtues of these silver
pennies and gold seven-shilling pieces, distinct from the vulgar coinage
in popular use, it is hard to say. But the truth must be told,--Richard
Avenel was a notable tuft-hunter. He had a great longing to marry out of
this society; but he had not yet seen any one sufficiently high-born and
high-bred to satisfy his aspirations. In the meanwhile, he had convinced
himself that his way would be smooth could he offer to make his ultimate
choice "My Lady;" and he felt that it would be a proud hour in his life
when he could walk before stiff Colonel Pompley to the sound of "Sir
Richard." Still, however disappointed at the ill-success of his
bluff diplomacy with Mr. Egerton, and however yet cherishing the most
vindictive resentment against that individual, he did not, as many would
have done, throw up his political convictions out of personal spite.
He reserved his private grudge for some special occasion, and continued
still to support the Administration, and to hate one of the ministers.

But, duly to appreciate the value of Richard Avenel, and in just
counterpoise to all his foibles, one ought to have seen what he had
effected for the town. Well might he boast of "new blood;" he had done
as much for the town as he had for his fields. His energy, his quick
comprehension of public utility, backed by his wealth and bold,
bullying, imperious character, had sped the work of civilization as if
with the celerity and force of a steam-engine.

If the town were so well paved and so well lighted, if half-a-dozen
squalid lanes had been transformed into a stately street, if half the
town no longer depended on tanks for their water, if the poor-rates were
reduced one-third, praise to the brisk new blood which Richard Avenel
had infused into vestry and corporation. And his example itself was so
contagious!

"There was not a plate-glass window in the town when I came into it,"
said Richard Avenel; "and now look down the High Street!" He took the
credit to himself, and justly; for though his own business did not
require windows of plate-glass, he had awakened the spirit of enterprise
which adorns a whole city.

Mr. Avenel did not present Leonard to his friends for more than a
fortnight. He allowed him to wear off his rust. He then gave a grand
dinner, at which his nephew was formally introduced, and, to his great
wrath and disappointment, never opened his lips. How could he, poor
youth, when Miss Clarina Mowbray only talked upon high life, till
proud Colonel Pompley went in state through the history of the Siege of
Seringapatam?




CHAPTER IV.

While Leonard accustoms himself gradually to the splendours that
surround him, and often turns with a sigh to the remembrance of his
mother's cottage and the sparkling fount in the Italian's flowery
garden, we will make with thee, O reader, a rapid flight to the
metropolis, and drop ourselves amidst the gay groups that loiter along
the dusty ground or loll over the roadside palings of Hyde Park. The
season is still at its height; but the short day of fashionable London
life, which commences two hours after noon, is in its decline.

The crowd in Rotten Row begins to thin. Near the statue of Achilles, and
apart from all other loungers, a gentleman, with one hand thrust into
his waistcoat, and the other resting on his cane, gazed listlessly on
the horsemen and carriages in the brilliant ring. He was still in the
prime of life, at the age when man is usually the most social,--when the
acquaintances of youth have ripened into friendships, and a personage of
some rank and fortune has become a well-known feature in the mobile
face of society. But though, when his contemporaries were boys scarce
at college, this gentleman had blazed foremost amongst the princes of
fashion, and though he had all the qualities of nature and circumstance
which either retain fashion to the last, or exchange its false celebrity
for a graver repute, he stood as a stranger in that throng of his
countrymen. Beauties whirled by to the toilet, statesmen passed on to
the senate, dandies took flight to the clubs; and neither nods, nor
becks, nor wreathed smiles said to the solitary spectator, "Follow
us,--thou art one of our set." Now and then some middle-aged beau,
nearing the post of the loiterer, turned round to look again; but the
second glance seemed to dissipate the recognition of the first, and the
beau silently continued his way.

"By the tomb of my fathers!" said the solitary to himself, "I know now
what a dead man might feel if he came to life again, and took a peep at
the living."

Time passed on,--the evening shades descended fast. Our stranger in
London had well-nigh the Park to himself. He seemed to breathe more
freely as he saw that the space was so clear.

"There's oxygen in the atmosphere now," said he, half aloud; "and I can
walk without breathing in the gaseous fumes of the multitude. Oh, those
chemists--what dolts they are! They tell us that crowds taint the air,
but they never guess why! Pah, it is not the lungs that poison the
element,--it is the reek of bad hearts. When a periwigpated fellow
breathes on me, I swallow a mouthful of care. Allons! my friend Nero;
now for a stroll." He touched with his cane a large Newfoundland dog,
who lay stretched near his feet, and dog and man went slow through the
growing twilight, and over the brown dry turf. At length our solitary
paused, and threw himself on a bench under a tree. "Half-past eight!"
said he, looking at his watch, "one may smoke one's cigar without
shocking the world."

He took out his cigar-case, struck a light, and in another moment
reclined at length on the bench, seemed absorbed in regarding the smoke,
that scarce coloured ere it vanished into air.

"It is the most barefaced lie in the world, my Nero," said he,
addressing his dog, "this boasted liberty of man! Now, here am I, a
free-born Englishman, a citizen of the world, caring--I often say to
myself--caring not a jot for Kaiser or Mob; and yet I no more dare smoke
this cigar in the Park at half-past six, when all the world is abroad,
than I dare pick my Lord Chancellor's pocket, or hit the Archbishop
of Canterbury a thump on the nose. Yet no law in England forbids me my
cigar, Nero! What is law at half-past eight was not crime at six and
a half! Britannia says, 'Man, thou art free, and she lies like a
commonplace woman. O Nero, Nero! you enviable dog! you serve but from
liking. No thought of the world costs you one wag of the tail. Your big
heart and true instinct suffice you for reason and law. You would want
nothing to your felicity, if in these moments of ennui you would but
smoke a cigar. Try it, Nero!--try it!" And, rising from his incumbent
posture, he sought to force the end of the weed between the teeth of the
dog.

While thus gravely engaged, two figures had approached the place.
The one was a man who seemed weak and sickly. His threadbare coat was
buttoned to the chin, but hung large on his shrunken breast. The other
was a girl, who might be from twelve to fourteen, on whose arm he leaned
heavily. Her cheek was wan, and there was a patient, sad look on her
face, which seemed so settled that you would think she could never have
known the mirthfulness of childhood.

"Pray rest here, Papa," said the child, softly; and she pointed to
the bench, without taking heed of its pre-occupant, who now, indeed,
confined to one corner of the seat, was almost hidden by the shadow of
the tree.

The man sat down, with a feeble sigh, and then, observing the stranger,
raised his hat, and said, in that tone of voice which betrays the usages
of polished society, "Forgive me if I intrude on you, sir."

The stranger looked up from his dog, and seeing that the girl was
standing, rose at once, as if to make room for her on the bench.

But still the girl did not heed him. She hung over her father, and wiped
his brow tenderly with a little kerchief which she took from her own
neck for the purpose.

Nero, delighted to escape the cigar, had taken to some unwieldy curvets
and gambols, to vent the excitement into which he had been thrown; and
now returning, approached the bench with a low growl of surprise, and
sniffed at the intruders of his master's privacy.

"Come here, sir," said the master. "You need not fear him," he added,
addressing himself to the girl.

But the girl, without turning round to him, cried in a voice rather of
anguish than alarm, "He has fainted! Father! Father!"

The stranger kicked aside his dog, which was in the way, and loosened
the poor man's stiff military stock. While thus charitably engaged, the
moon broke out, and the light fell full on the pale, careworn face of
the unconscious sufferer.

"This face seems not unfamiliar to me, though sadly changed," said the
stranger to himself; and bending towards the girl, who had sunk on her
knees, and was chafing her father's hand, he asked, "My child, what is
your father's name?"

The child continued her task, too absorbed to answer.

The stranger put his hand on her shoulder, and repeated the question.

"Digby," answered the child, almost unconsciously; and as she spoke the
man's senses began to return. In a few minutes more he had sufficiently
recovered to falter forth his thanks to the stranger. But the last took
his hand, and said, in a voice at once tremulous and soothing, "Is it
possible that I see once more an old brother in arms? Algernon Digby, I
do not forget you; but it seems England has forgotten."

A hectic flush spread over the soldier's face, and he looked away from
the speaker as he answered,--

"My name is Digby, it is true, sir; but I do not think we have met
before. Come, Helen, I am well now,--we will go home."

"Try and play with that great dog, my child," said the stranger,--"I
want to talk with your father."

The child bowed her submissive head, and moved away; but she did not
play with the dog.

"I must reintroduce myself formally, I see," quoth the stranger. "You
were in the same regiment with myself, and my name is L'Estrange."

"My Lord," said the soldier, rising, "forgive me that--"

"I don't think that it was the fashion to call me 'my lord' at the
mess-table. Come, what has happened to you?--on half-pay?"

Mr. Digby shook his head mournfully.

"Digby, old fellow, can you lend me L100?" said Lord L'Estrange,
clapping his ci-devant brother-officer on the shoulder, and in a tone of
voice that seemed like a boy's, so impudent was it, and devil-me-Garish.
"No! Well, that's lucky, for I can lend it to you." Mr. Digby burst into
tears.

Lord L'Estrange did not seem to observe the emotion, but went on
carelessly,--

"Perhaps you don't know that, besides being heir to a father who is not
only very rich, but very liberal, I inherited, on coming of age, from a
maternal relation, a fortune so large that it would bore me to death
if I were obliged to live up to it. But in the days of our old
acquaintance, I fear we were both sad extravagant fellows, and I dare
say I borrowed of you pretty freely."

"Me! Oh, Lord L'Estrange!"

"You have married since then, and reformed, I suppose. Tell me, old
friend, all about it."

Mr. Digby, who by this time had succeeded in restoring some calm to his
shattered nerves, now rose, and said in brief sentences, but clear, firm
tones,--

"My Lord, it is idle to talk of me,--useless to help me. I am fast
dying. But my child there, my only child" (he paused for an instant, and
went on rapidly). "I have relations in a distant county, if I could but
get to them; I think they would, at least, provide for her. This has
been for weeks my hope, my dream, my prayer. I cannot afford the journey
except by your help. I have begged without shame for myself; shall I be
ashamed, then, to beg for her?"

"Digby," said L'Estrange, with some grave alteration of manner, "talk
neither of dying nor begging. You were nearer death when the balls
whistled round you at Waterloo. If soldier meets soldier and says
'Friend, thy purse,' it is not begging, but brotherhood. Ashamed! By the
soul of Belisarius! if I needed money, I would stand at a crossing with
my Waterloo medal over my breast, and say to each sleek citizen I had
helped to save from the sword of the Frenchman, 'It is your shame if I
starve.' Now, lean upon me; I see you should be at home: which way?"

The poor soldier pointed his hand towards Oxford Street, and reluctantly
accepted the proffered arm.

"And when you return from your relations, you will call on me?
What--hesitate? Come, promise."

"I will."

"On your honour."

"If I live, on my honour."

"I am staying at present at Knightsbridge, with my father; but you will
always hear of my address at No.--, Grosvenor Square, Mr. Egerton's. So
you have a long journey before you?"

"Very long."

"Do not fatigue yourself,--travel slowly. Ho, you foolish child! I see
you are jealous of me. Your father has another arm to spare you."

Thus talking, and getting but short answers, Lord L'Estrange continued
to exhibit those whimsical peculiarities of character, which had
obtained for him the repute of heartlessness in the world. Perhaps the
reader may think the world was not in the right; but if ever the world
does judge rightly of the character of a man who does not live for
the world nor talk of the world nor feel with the world, it will be
centuries after the soul of Harley L'Estrange has done with this planet.




CHAPTER V.

Lord L'Estrange parted company with Mr. Digby at the entrance of Oxford
Street. The father and child there took a cabriolet. Mr. Digby directed
the driver to go down the Edgware Road. He refused to tell L'Estrange
his address, and this with such evident pain, from the sores of pride,
that L'Estrange could not press the point. Reminding the soldier of his
promise to call, Harley thrust a pocket-book into his hand, and walked
off hastily towards Grosvenor Square.

He reached Audley Egerton's door just as that gentleman was getting out
of his carriage; and the two friends entered the house together.

"Does the nation take a nap to-night?" asked L'Estrange. "Poor old
lady! She hears so much of her affairs, that she may well boast of her
constitution: it must be of iron."

"The House is still sitting," answered Audley, seriously, and with small
heed of his friend's witticism. "But it is not a Government motion, and
the division will be late, so I came home; and if I had not found you
here, I should have gone into the Park to look for you."

"Yes; one always knows where to find me at this hour, nine o'clock
P.M., cigar, Hyde Park. There is not a man in England so regular in his
habits."

Here the friends reached a drawing-room in which the member of
parliament seldom sat, for his private apartments were all on the
ground-floor.

"But it is the strangest whim of yours, Harley," said he.

"What?"

"To affect detestation of ground-floors."

"Affect! O sophisticated man, of the earth, earthy! Affect!--nothing
less natural to the human soul than a ground-floor. We are quite far
enough from Heaven, mount as many stairs as we will, without grovelling
by preference."

"According to that symbolical view of the case," said Audley, "you
should lodge in an attic."

"So I would, but that I abhor new slippers. As for hairbrushes, I am
indifferent."

"What have slippers and hair-brushes to do with attics?"

"Try! Make your bed in an attic, and the next morning you will have
neither slippers nor hair-brushes!"

"What shall I have done with them?"

"Shied them at the cats!"

"What odd things you say, Harley!"

"Odd! By Apollo and his nine spinsters! there is no human being who has
so little imagination as a distinguished member of parliament. Answer me
this, thou solemn Right Honourable,--Hast thou climbed to the heights of
august contemplation? Hast thou gazed on the stars with the rapt eye
of song? Hast thou dreamed of a love known to the angels, or sought to
seize in the Infinite the mystery of life?"

"Not I indeed, my poor Harley."

"Then no wonder, poor Audley, that you cannot conjecture why he who
makes his bed in an attic, disturbed by base catterwauls, shies his
slippers at cats. Bring a chair into the balcony. Nero spoiled my cigar
to-night. I am going to smoke now. You never smoke. You can look on the
shrubs in the square."

Audley slightly shrugged his shoulders, but he followed his friend's
counsel and example, and brought his chair into the balcony. Nero came
too, but at sight and smell of the cigar prudently retreated, and took
refuge under the table.

"Audley Egerton, I want something from Government."

"I am delighted to hear it."

"There was a cornet in my regiment, who would have done better not to
have come into it. We were, for the most part of us, puppies and fops."

"You all fought well, however."

"Puppies and fops do fight well. Vanity and valour generally go
together. CAesar, who scratched his head with due care of his scanty
curls, and even in dying thought of the folds in his toga; Walter
Raleigh, who could not walk twenty yards because of the gems in his
shoes; Alcibiades, who lounged into the Agora with doves in his bosom,
and an apple in his hand; Murat, bedizened in gold lace and furs; and
Demetrius, the City-Taker, who made himself up like a French marquise,
were all pretty good fellows at fighting. A slovenly hero like Cromwell
is a paradox in nature, and a marvel in history. But to return to my
cornet. We were rich; he was poor. When the pot of clay swims down the
stream with the brass-pots, it is sure of a smash. Men said Digby was
stingy; I saw he was extravagant. But every one, I fear, would be rather
thought stingy than poor. Bref--I left the army, and saw him no more
till to-night. There was never shabby poor gentleman on the stage more
awfully shabby, more pathetically gentleman. But, look ye, this man has
fought for England. It was no child's play at Waterloo, let me tell you,
Mr. Egerton; and, but for such men, you would be at best a sous prefet,
and your parliament a Provincial Assembly. You must do something for
Digby. What shall it be?"

"Why, really, my dear Harley, this man was no great friend of yours,
eh?"

"If he were, he would not want the Government to help him,--he would not
be ashamed of taking money from me."

"That is all very fine, Harley; but there are so many poor officers,
and so little to give. It is the most difficult thing in the world
that which you ask me. Indeed, I know nothing can be done: he has his
half-pay?"

"I think not; or, if he has it, no doubt it all goes on his debts.
That's nothing to us: the man and his child are starving."

"But if it is his own fault,--if he has been imprudent?"

"Ah, well, well; where the devil is Nero?"

"I am so sorry I can't oblige you. If it were anything else--"

"There is something else. My valet--I can't turn him adrift-excellent
fellow, but gets drunk now and then. Will you find him a place in the
Stamp Office?"

"With pleasure."

"No, now I think of it, the man knows my ways: I must keep him. But my
old wine-merchant--civil man, never dunned--is a bankrupt. I am under
great obligations to him, and he has a very pretty daughter. Do you
think you could thrust him into some small place in the Colonies, or
make him a King's Messenger, or something of the sort?"

"If you very much wish it, no doubt I can."

"My dear Audley, I am but feeling my way: the fact is, I want something
for myself."

"Ah, that indeed gives me pleasure!" cried Egerton, with animation.

"The mission to Florence will soon be vacant,--I know it privately. The
place would quite suit me. Pleasant city; the best figs in Italy; very
little to do. You could sound Lord on the subject."

"I will answer beforehand. Lord--would be enchanted to secure to the
public service a man so accomplished as yourself, and the son of a peer
like Lord Lansmere."

Harley L'Estrange sprang to his feet, and flung his cigar in the face of
a stately policeman who was looking up at the balcony.

"Infamous and bloodless official!" cried Harley L'Estrange; "so you
could provide for a pimple-nosed lackey, for a wine-merchant who has
been poisoning the king's subjects with white lead,--or sloe-juice,--for
an idle sybarite, who would complain of a crumpled rose-leaf; and
nothing, in all the vast patronage of England, for a broken-down
soldier, whose dauntless breast was her rampart?"

"Harley," said the member of parliament, with his calm, sensible smile,
"this would be a very good claptrap at a small theatre; but there is
nothing in which parliament demands such rigid economy as the military
branch of the public service; and no man for whom it is so hard to
effect what we must plainly call a job as a subaltern officer who has
done nothing more than his duty,--and all military men do that. Still,
as you take it so earnestly, I will use what interest I can at the War
Office, and get him, perhaps, the mastership of a barrack."

"You had better; for, if you do not, I swear I will turn Radical, and
come down to your own city to oppose you, with Hunt and Cobbett to
canvass for me."

"I should be very glad to see you come into parliament, even as a
Radical, and at my expense," said Audley, with great kindness; "but the
air is growing cold, and you are not accustomed to our climate. Nay, if
you are too poetic for catarrhs and rheums, I'm not,--come in."




CHAPTER VI.

Lord L'Estrange threw himself on a sofa, and leaned his cheek on his
hand thoughtfully. Audley Egerton sat near him, with his arms folded,
and gazed on his friend's face with a soft expression of aspect, which
was very unusual to the firm outline of his handsome features. The two
men were as dissimilar in person as the reader will have divined that
they were in character. All about Egerton was so rigid, all about
L'Estrange so easy. In every posture of Harley's there was the
unconscious grace of a child. The very fashion of his garments showed
his abhorrence of restraint. His clothes were wide and loose; his
neckcloth, tied carelessly, left his throat half bare. You could see
that he had lived much in warm and southern lands, and contracted a
contempt for conventionalities; there was as little in his dress as
in his talk of the formal precision of the North. He was three or four
years younger than Audley, but he looked at least twelve years younger.
In fact, he was one of those men to whom old age seems impossible;
voice, look, figure, had all the charm of youth: and perhaps it was from
this gracious youthfulness--at all events, it was characteristic of the
kind of love he inspired--that neither his parents, nor the few
friends admitted into his intimacy, ever called him, in their habitual
intercourse, by the name of his title. He was not L'Estrange with them,
he was Harley; and by that familiar baptismal I will usually designate
him. He was not one of those men whom author or reader wish to view at a
distance, and remember as "my Lord"--it was so rarely that he remembered
it himself. For the rest, it had been said of him by a shrewd wit, "He
is so natural that every one calls him affected." Harley L'Estrange was
not so critically handsome as Audley Egerton; to a commonplace observer,
he was only rather good-looking than otherwise. But women said that
he had "a beautiful countenance," and they were not wrong. He wore
his hair, which was of a fair chestnut, long, and in loose curls;
and instead of the Englishman's whiskers, indulged in the foreigner's
mustache. His complexion was delicate, though not effeminate: it was
rather the delicacy of a student than of a woman. But in his clear
gray eye there was a wonderful vigour of life. A skilful physiologist,
looking only into that eye, would have recognized rare stamina of
constitution,--a nature so rich that, while easily disturbed, it would
require all the effects of time, or all the fell combinations of passion
and grief, to exhaust it. Even now, though so thoughtful, and even so
sad, the rays of that eye were as concentrated and steadfast as the
light of the diamond.

"You were only, then, in jest," said Audley, after a long silence,
"when you spoke of this mission to Florence. You have still no idea of
entering into public life?"

"None."

"I had hoped better things when I got your promise to pass one season in
London; but, indeed, you have kept your promise to the ear to break it
to the spirit. I could not presuppose that you would shun all society,
and be as much of a hermit here as under the vines of Como."

"I have sat in the Strangers' Gallery, and heard your great speakers;
I have been in the pit of the opera, and seen your fine ladies; I have
walked your streets; I have lounged in your parks, and I say that
I can't fall in love with a faded dowager, because she fills up her
wrinkles with rouge."

"Of what dowager do you speak?" asked the matter-of-fact Audley.

"She has a great many titles. Some people call her Fashion, you busy
men, Politics: it is all one,--tricked out and artificial. I mean London
Life. No, I can't fall in love with her, fawning old harridan!"

"I wish you could fall in love with something."

"I wish I could, with all my heart."

"But you are so blaze."

"On the contrary, I am so fresh. Look out of the window--what do you
see?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing?"

"Nothing but houses and dusty lilacs, my coachman dozing on his box, and
two women in pattens crossing the kennel."

"I see not those where I lie on the sofa. I see but the stars. And I
feel for them as I did when I was a schoolboy at Eton. It is you who
are blaze, not I. Enough of this. You do not forget my commission with
respect to the exile who has married into your brother's family?"

"No; but here you set me a task more difficult than that of saddling
your cornet on the War Office."

"I know it is difficult, for the counter influence is vigilant and
strong; but, on the other hand, the enemy is so damnable a traitor that
one must have the Fates and the household gods on one's side."

"Nevertheless," said the practical Audley, bending over a book on the
table; "I think that the best plan would be to attempt a compromise with
the traitor."

"To judge of others by myself," answered Harley, with spirit, "it
were less bitter to put up with wrong than to palter with it for
compensation. And such wrong! Compromise with the open foe--that maybe
done with honour; but with the perjured friend--that were to forgive the
perjury!"

"You are too vindictive," said Egerton; "there may be excuses for the
friend, which palliate even--"

"Hush! Audley, hush! or I shall think the world has indeed corrupted
you. Excuse for the friend who deceives, who betrays! No, such is the
true outlaw of Humanity; and the Furies surround him even while he
sleeps in the temple."

The man of the world lifted his eyes slowly on the animated face of one
still natural enough for the passions. He then once more returned to his
book, and said, after a pause, "It is time you should marry, Harley."

"No," answered L'Estrange, with a smile at this sudden turn in the
conversation, "not time yet; for my chief objection to that change in
life is, that the women nowadays are too old for me, or I am too young
for them. A few, indeed, are so infantine that one is ashamed to be
their toy; but most are so knowing that one is afraid to be their dupe.
The first, if they condescend to love you, love you as the biggest doll
they have yet dandled, and for a doll's good qualities,--your pretty
blue eyes and your exquisite millinery. The last, if they prudently
accept you, do so on algebraical principles; you are but the X or the
Y that represents a certain aggregate of goods matrimonial,--pedigree,
title, rent-roll, diamonds, pin-money, opera-box. They cast you up with
the help of mamma, and you wake some morning to find that plus wife
minus affection equals--the Devil!"

"Nonsense," said Audley, with his quiet, grave laugh. "I grant that it
is often the misfortune of a man in your station to be married rather
for what he has than for what he is; but you are tolerably penetrating,
and not likely to be deceived in the character of the woman you court."

"Of the woman I court?--No! But of the woman I marry, very likely
indeed! Woman is a changeable thing, as our Virgil informed us at
school; but her change par excellence is from the fairy you woo to the
brownie you wed. It is not that she has been a hypocrite,--it is that
she is a transmigration. You marry a girl for her accomplishments.
She paints charmingly, or plays like Saint Cecilia. Clap a ring on her
finger, and she never draws again,--except perhaps your caricature on
the back of a letter,--and never opens a piano after the honeymoon.
You marry her for her sweet temper; and next year, her nerves are so
shattered that you can't contradict her but you are whirled into a storm
of hysterics. You marry her because she declares she hates balls
and likes quiet; and ten to one but what she becomes a patroness at
Almack's, or a lady-in-waiting."

"Yet most men marry, and most men survive the operation."

"If it were only necessary to live, that would be a consolatory and
encouraging reflection. But to live with peace, to live with dignity, to
live with freedom, to live in harmony with your thoughts, your habits,
your aspirations--and this in the perpetual companionship of a person
to whom you have given the power to wound your peace, to assail your
dignity, to cripple your freedom, to jar on each thought and each habit,
and bring you down to the meanest details of earth, when you invite her,
poor soul, to soar to the spheres--that makes the To Be or Not To Be,
which is the question."

"If I were you, Harley, I would do as I have heard the author of
'Sandford and Merton' did,--choose out a child and educate her yourself,
after your own heart."

"You have hit it," answered Harley, seriously. "That has long been my
idea,--a very vague one, I confess. But I fear I shall be an old man
before I find even the child."

"Ah!" he continued, yet more earnestly, while the whole character of his
varying countenance changed again,--"ah, if indeed I could discover what
I seek,--one who, with the heart of a child, has the mind of a woman;
one who beholds in nature the variety, the charm, the never feverish,
ever healthful excitement that others vainly seek in the bastard
sentimentalities of a life false with artificial forms; one who can
comprehend, as by intuition, the rich poetry with which creation is
clothed,--poetry so clear to the child when enraptured with the flower,
or when wondering at the star! If on me such exquisite companionship
were bestowed--why, then--" He paused, sighed deeply, and, covering his
face with his hand, resumed, in faltering accents,--

"But once--but once only, did such vision of the Beautiful made Human
rise before me,--rise amidst 'golden exhalations of the dawn.' It
beggared my life in vanishing. You know only--you only--how--how--"

He bowed his head, and the tears forced themselves through his clenched
fingers.

"So long ago!" said Audley, sharing his friend's emotion. "Years so long
and so weary, yet still thus tenacious of a mere boyish memory!"

"Away with it, then!" cried Harley, springing to his feet, and with
a laugh of strange merriment. "Your carriage still waits: set me home
before you go to the House."

Then laying his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder, he said, "Is it
for you, Audley Egerton, to speak sneeringly of boyish memories? What
else is it that binds us together? What else warms my heart when I meet
you? What else draws your thoughts from blue-books and beer-bills to
waste them on a vagrant like me? Shake hands. Oh, friend of my boyhood!
recollect the oars that we plied and the bats that we wielded in the old
time, or the murmured talk on the moss-grown bank, as we sat together,
building in the summer air castles mightier than Windsor. Ah, they are
strong ties, those boyish memories believe me! I remember, as if it
were yesterday, my translation of that lovely passage in Persius,
beginning--let me see--ah!

     "'Quum primum pavido custos mihi purpura cernet,'--

that passage on friendship which gushes out so livingly from the stern
heart of the satirist. And when old--complimented me on my verses, my
eye sought yours. Verily, I now say as then,--

     "'Nescio quod, certe est quod me tibi temperet astrum.'"

     ["What was the star I know not, but certainly some star
     it was that attuned me unto thee."]

Audley turned away his head as he returned the grasp of his friend's
hand; and while Harley, with his light elastic footstep, descended the
stairs, Egerton lingered behind, and there was no trace of the worldly
man upon his countenance when he took his place in the carriage by his
companion's side.

Two hours afterwards, weary cries of "Question, question!" "Divide,
divide!" sank into reluctant silence as Audley Egerton rose to conclude
the debate,--the man of men to speak late at night, and to impatient
benches: a man who would be heard; whom a Bedlam broke loose would not
have roared down; with a voice clear and sound as a bell, and a form as
firmly set on the ground as a church-tower. And while, on the dullest
of dull questions, Audley Egerton thus, not too lively himself, enforced
attention, where was Harley L'Estrange? Standing alone by the river
at Richmond, and murmuring low fantastic thoughts as he gazed on the
moonlit tide.

When Audley left him at home he had joined his parents, made them gay
with his careless gayety, seen the old-fashioned folks retire to
rest, and then--while they, perhaps, deemed him once more the hero of
ball-rooms and the cynosure of clubs--he drove slowly through the soft
summer night, amidst the perfumes of many a garden and many a gleaming
chestnut grove, with no other aim before him than to reach the loveliest
margin of England's loveliest river, at the hour when the moon was
fullest and the song of the nightingale most sweet. And so eccentric a
humourist was this man, that I believe, as he there loitered,--no one
near to cry "How affected!" or "How romantic!"--he enjoyed himself
more than if he had been exchanging the politest "how-d'ye-dos" in the
hottest of London drawing-rooms, or betting his hundreds on the odd
trick, with Lord de R------ for his partner.




CHAPTER VII.

Leonard had been about six weeks with his uncle, and those weeks
were well spent. Mr. Richard had taken him to his counting-house, and
initiated him into business and the mysteries of double entry; and in
return for the young man's readiness and zeal in matters which the
acute trader instinctively felt were not exactly to his tastes, Richard
engaged the best master the town afforded to read with his nephew in the
evening. This gentleman was the head usher of a large school, who had
his hours to himself after eight o'clock, and was pleased to vary the
dull routine of enforced lessons by instructions to a pupil who took
delightedly even to the Latin grammar. Leonard made rapid strides, and
learned more in those six weeks than many a cleverish boy does in twice
as many months. These hours which Leonard devoted to study Richard
usually spent from home,--sometimes at the houses of his grand
acquaintances in the Abbey Gardens, sometimes in the Reading-Room
appropriated to those aristocrats. If he stayed at home, it was in
company with his head clerk, and for the purpose of checking his
account-books, or looking over the names of doubtful electors.

Leonard had naturally wished to communicate his altered prospects to his
old friends, that they, in turn, might rejoice his mother with such good
tidings. But he had not been two days in the house before Richard had
strictly forbidden all such correspondence.

"Look you," said he, "at present we are on an experiment,--we must
see if we like each other. Suppose we don't, you will only have raised
expectations in your mother which must end in bitter disappointment; and
suppose we do, it will be time enough to write when something definite
is settled."

"But my mother will be so anxious--"

"Make your mind easy on that score. I will write regularly to Mr. Dale,
and he can tell her that you are well and thriving. No more words, my
man,--when I say a thing, I say it." Then, observing that Leonard looked
blank and dissatisfied, Richard added, with a good-humoured smile, "I
have my reasons for all this--you shall know them later. And I tell you
what: if you do as I bid you, it is my intention to settle something
handsome on your mother; but if you don't, devil a penny she'll get from
me."

With that Richard turned on his heel, and in a few moments his voice was
heard loud in objurgation with some of his people.

About the fourth week of Leonard's residence at Mr. Avenel's, his host
began to evince a certain change of manner. He was no longer quite so
cordial with Leonard, nor did he take the same interest in his progress.
About the same period he was frequently caught by the London butler
before the looking-glass. He had always been a smart man in his dress,
but he was now more particular. He would spoil three white cravats when
he went out of an evening, before he could satisfy himself as to the
tie. He also bought a 'Peerage,' and it became his favourite study at
odd quarters of an hour. All these symptoms proceeded from a cause, and
that cause was--woman.




CHAPTER VIII.

The first people at Screwstown were indisputably the Pompleys. Colonel
Pompley was grand, but Mrs. Pompley was grander. The colonel was stately
in right of his military rank and his services in India; Mrs. Pompley
was majestic in right of her connections. Indeed, Colonel Pompley
himself would have been crushed under the weight of the dignities
which his lady heaped upon him, if he had not been enabled to prop his
position with a "connection" of his own. He would never have held
his own, nor been permitted to have an independent opinion on matters
aristocratic, but for the well-sounding name of his relations, "the
Digbies." Perhaps on the principle that obscurity increases the natural
size of objects and is an element of the sublime, the colonel did not
too accurately define his relations "the Digbies:" he let it be casually
understood that they were the Digbies to be found in Debrett. But if
some indiscreet Vulgarian (a favourite word with both the Pompleys)
asked point-blank if he meant "my Lord Digby," the colonel, with a lofty
air, answered, "The elder branch, sir." No one at Screwstown had ever
seen these Digbies: they lay amidst the Far, the Recondite,--even to the
wife of Colonel Pompley's bosom. Now and then, when the colonel referred
to the lapse of years, and the uncertainty of human affections, he would
say, "When young Digby and I were boys together," and then add with a
sigh, "but we shall never meet again in this world. His family interests
secured him a valuable appointment in a distant part of the British
dominions." Mrs. Pompley was always rather cowed by the Digbies. She
could not be sceptical as to this connection, for the colonel's mother
was certainly a Digby, and the colonel impaled the Digby arms. En
revanche, as the French say, for these marital connections, Mrs. Pompley
had her own favourite affinity, which she specially selected from all
others when she most desired to produce effect; nay, even upon ordinary
occasions the name rose spontaneously to her lips,--the name of the
Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Was the fashion of a gown or cap admired,
her cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had just sent to her the pattern from
Paris. Was it a question whether the Ministry would stand, Mrs.
M'Catchley was in the secret, but Mrs. Pompley had been requested not to
say. Did it freeze, "My cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had written word that
the icebergs at the Pole were supposed to be coming this way." Did the
sun glow with more than usual fervour, Mrs. M'Catchley had informed her
"that it was Sir Henry Halford's decided opinion that it was on account
of the cholera." The good people knew all that was doing at London, at
court, in this world--nay, almost in the other--through the medium of
the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Mrs. M'Catchley was, moreover, the most
elegant of women, the wittiest creature, the dearest. King George the
Fourth had presumed to admire Mrs. M'Catehley; but Mrs. M'Catchley,
though no prude, let him see that she was proof against the corruptions
of a throne. So long had the ears of Mrs. Pompley's friends been filled
with the renown of Mrs. M'Catchley, that at last Mrs. M'Catchley was
secretly supposed to be a myth, a creature of the elements, a poetic
fiction of Mrs. Pompley's. Richard Avenel, however, though by no means
a credulous man, was an implicit believer in Mrs. M'Catchley. He had
learned that she was a widow, and honourable by birth, and honourable by
marriage, living on her handsome jointure, and refusing offers every day
that she so lived. Somehow or other, whenever Richard Avenel thought
of a wife, he thought of the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Perhaps that
romantic attachment to the fair invisible preserved him heart-whole
amongst the temptations of Screwstown. Suddenly, to the astonishment of
the Abbey Gardens, Mrs. M'Catchley proved her identity, and arrived at
Colonel Pompley's in a handsome travelling-carriage, attended by her
maid and footman. She had come to stay some weeks; a tea-party was given
in her honour. Mr. Avenel and his nephew were invited. Colonel Pompley,
who kept his head clear in the midst of the greatest excitement, had
a desire to get from the Corporation a lease of a piece of ground
adjoining his garden, and he no sooner saw Richard Avenel enter than he
caught him by the button, and drew him into a quiet corner, in order
to secure his interest. Leonard, meanwhile, was borne on by the stream,
till his progress was arrested by a sofa-table at which sat Mrs.
M'Catchley herself, with Mrs. Pompley by her side. For on this great
occasion the hostess had abandoned her proper post at the entrance,
and, whether to show her respect to Mrs. M'Catchley, or to show Mrs.
M'Catchley her well-bred contempt for the people of Screwstown, remained
in state by her friend, honouring only the elite of the town with
introductions to the illustrious visitor.

Mrs. M'Catchley was a very fine woman,--a woman who justified Mrs.
Pompley's pride in her. Her cheek-bones were rather high, it is true but
that proved the purity of her Caledonian descent; for the rest, she had
a brilliant complexion, heightened by a soupcon of rouge, good eyes and
teeth, a showy figure, and all the ladies of Screwstown pronounced her
dress to be perfect. She might have arrived at that age at which one
intends to stop for the next ten years, but even a Frenchman would not
have called her passee,--that is, for a widow. For a spinster it would
have been different.

Looking round her with a glass, which Mrs. Pompley was in the habit of
declaring that "Mrs. M'Catchley used like an angel," this lady suddenly
perceived Leonard Fairfield; and his quiet, simple, thoughtful air and
look so contrasted with the stiff beaux to whom she had been presented,
that, experienced in fashion as so fine a personage must be supposed to
be, she was nevertheless deceived into whispering to Mrs. Pompley,

"That young man has really an air distingue; who is he?"

"Oh," said Mrs. Pompley, in unaffected surprise, "that is the nephew of
the rich Vulgarian I was telling you of this morning."

"Ah! and you say that he is Mr. Arundel's heir?"

"Avenel--not Arundel--my sweet friend."

"Avenel is not a bad name," said Mrs. M'Catchley. "But is the uncle
really so rich?"

"The colonel was trying this very day to guess what he is worth; but he
says it is impossible to guess it."

"And the young man is his heir?"

"It is thought so; and reading for College, I hear. They say he is
clever."

"Present him, my love; I like clever people," said Mrs. M'Catchley,
falling back languidly.

About ten minutes afterwards, Richard Avenel having effected his escape
from the colonel, and his gaze being attracted towards the sofa-table
by the buzz of the admiring crowd, beheld his nephew in animated
conversation with the long cherished idol of his dreams. A fierce pang
of jealousy shot through his breast. His nephew had never looked so
handsome and so intelligent; in fact, poor Leonard had never before been
drawn out by a woman of the world, who had learned how to make the most
of what little she knew. And as jealousy operates like a pair of bellows
on incipient flames, so, at first sight of the smile which the fair
widow bestowed upon Leonard, the heart of Mr. Avenel felt in a blaze.

He approached with a step less assured than usual, and, overhearing
Leonard's talk, marvelled much at the boy's audacity. Mrs. M'Catchley
had been speaking of Scotland and the Waverley Novels, about which
Leonard knew nothing. But he knew Burns, and on Burns he grew artlessly
eloquent. Burns the poet and peasant--Leonard might well be eloquent
on him. Mrs. M'Catchley was amused and pleased with his freshness and
naivete, so unlike anything she had ever heard or seen, and she drew
him on and on till Leonard fell to quoting. And Richard heard, with less
respect for the sentiment than might be supposed, that

          "Rank is but the guinea's stamp,
          The man's the gowd for a' that."

"Well!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel. "Pretty piece of politeness to tell that
to a lady like the Honourable Mrs. M'Catch ley! You'll excuse him,
ma'am."

"Sir!" said Mrs. M'Catchley, startled, and lifting her glass. Leonard,
rather confused, rose and offered his chair to Richard, who dropped into
it. The lady, without waiting for formal introduction, guessed that she
saw the rich uncle. "Such a sweet poet-Burns!" said she, dropping her
glass. "And it is so refreshing to find so much youthful enthusiasm,"
she added, pointing her fan towards Leonard, who was receding fast among
the crowd.

"Well, he is youthful, my nephew,--rather green!"

"Don't say green!" said Mrs. M'Catchley. Richard blushed scarlet. He was
afraid he had committed himself to some expression low and shocking. The
lady resumed, "Say unsophisticated."

"A tarnation long word," thought Richard; but he prudently bowed and
held his tongue.

"Young men nowadays," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, resettling herself on
the sofa, "affect to be so old. They don't dance, and they don't read,
and they don't talk much! and a great many of them wear toupets before
they are two-and-twenty!"

Richard mechanically passed his hand through his thick curls. But he
was still mute; he was still ruefully chewing the cud of the epithet
"green." What occult horrid meaning did the word convey to ears polite?
Why should he not say "green"?

"A very fine young man your nephew, sir," resumed Mrs. M' Catchley.

Richard grunted.

"And seems full of talent. Not yet at the University? Will he go to
Oxford or Cambridge?"

"I have not made up my mind yet if I shall send him to the University at
all."

"A young man of his expectations!" exclaimed Mrs. M'Catchley, artfully.

"Expectations!" repeated Richard, firing up. "Has he been talking to you
of his expectations?"

"No, indeed, sir. But the nephew of the rich Mr. Avenel! Ah, one hears
a great deal, you know, of rich people; it is the penalty of wealth, Mr.
Avenel!"

Richard was very much flattered. His crest rose.

"And they say," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, dropping out her words very
slowly, as she adjusted her blonde scarf, "that Mr. Avenel has resolved
not to marry."

"The devil they do, ma'am!" bolted out Richard, gruffly; and then,
ashamed of his lapsus linguae, screwed up his lips firmly, and glared on
the company with an eye of indignant fire.

Mrs. M'Catchley observed him over her fan. Richard turned abruptly, and
she withdrew her eyes modestly, and raised the fan.

"She's a real beauty," said Richard, between his teeth. The fan
fluttered.

Five minutes afterwards, the widow and the bachelor seemed so much at
their ease that Mrs. Pompley, who had been forced to leave her friend,
in order to receive the dean's lady, could scarcely believe her eyes
when she returned to the sofa.

Now, it was from that evening that Mr. Richard Avenel exhibited
the change of mood which I have described; and from that evening he
abstained from taking Leonard with him to any of the parties in the
Abbey Gardens.




CHAPTER IX.

Some days after this memorable soiree, Colonel Pompley sat alone in his
study (which opened pleasantly on an old-fashioned garden), absorbed in
the house bills. For Colonel Pompley did not leave that domestic care
to his lady,--perhaps she was too grand for it. Colonel Pompley with
his own sonorous voice ordered the joints, and with his own heroic hands
dispensed the stores. In justice to the colonel, I must add--at
whatever risk of offence to the fair sex--that there was not a house at
Screwstown so well managed as the Pompleys'; none which so successfully
achieved the difficult art of uniting economy with show. I should
despair of conveying to you an idea of the extent to which Colonel
Pompley made his income go. It was but seven hundred a year; and many
a family contrived to do less upon three thousand. To be sure, the
Pompleys had no children to sponge upon them. What they had they spent
all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income,
did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at
Christmas,--just met, and no more.

Colonel Pompley sat at his desk. He was in his well-brushed blue coat,
buttoned across his breast, his gray trousers fitted tight to his limbs,
and fastened under his boots with a link chain. He saved a great deal
of money in straps. No one ever saw Colonel Pompley in dressing-gown and
slippers. He and his house were alike in order--always fit to be seen

        "From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve."

The colonel was a short compact man, inclined to be stout,--with a very
red face, that seemed not only shaved, but rasped. He wore his
hair cropped close, except just in front, where it formed what the
hairdresser called a feather, but it seemed a feather of iron, so stiff
and so strong was it. Firmness and precision were emphatically marked on
the colonel's countenance. There was a resolute strain on his features,
as if he was always employed in making the two ends meet!

So he sat before his house-book, with his steel-pen in his hand, and
making crosses here and notes of interrogation there.

"Mrs. M'Catchley's maid," said the colonel to himself, "must be put upon
rations. The tea that she drinks! Good heavens!--tea again!"

There was a modest ring at the outer door. "Too early for a visitor!"
thought the colonel. "Perhaps it is the water-rates."

The neat man-servant--never seen beyond the offices, save in grande
tenue, plushed and powdered-entered and bowed. "A gentleman, sir, wishes
to see you."

"A gentleman," repeated the colonel, glancing towards the clock. "Are
you sure it is a gentleman?"

The man hesitated. "Why, sir, I ben't exactly sure; but he speaks like a
gentleman. He do say he comes from London to see you, sir."

A long and interesting correspondence was then being held between the
colonel and one of his wife's trustees touching the investment of
Mrs. Pompley's fortune. It might be the trustee,--nay, it must be. The
trustee had talked of running down to see him.

"Let him come in," said the colonel, "and when I ring--sandwiches and
sherry."

"Beef, sir?"

"Ham."

The colonel put aside his house-book, and wiped his pen. In another
minute the door opened and the servant announced--

             "MR. DIGBY."

The colonel's face fell, and he staggered back.

The door closed, and Mr. Digby stood in the middle of the room, leaning
on the great writing-table for support. The poor soldier looked sicklier
and shabbier, and nearer the end of all things in life and fortune,
than when Lord L'Estrange had thrust the pocket-book into his hands.
But still the servant showed knowledge of the world in calling him
gentleman; there was no other word to apply to him.

"Sir," began Colonel Pompley, recovering himself, and with great
solemnity, "I did not expect this pleasure."

The poor visitor stared round him dizzily, and sank into a chair,
breathing hard. The colonel looked as a man only looks upon a poor
relation, and buttoned up first one trouser pocket and then the other.

"I thought you were in Canada," said the colonel, at last. Mr. Digby
had now got breath to speak, and he said meekly, "The climate would have
killed my child, and it is two years since I returned."

"You ought to have found a very good place in England to make it worth
your while to leave Canada."

"She could not have lived through another winter in Canada,--the doctor
said so."

"Pooh," quoth the colonel.

Mr. Digby drew a long breath. "I would not come to you, Colonel Pompley,
while you could think that I came as a beggar for myself."

The colonel's brow relaxed. "A very honourable sentiment, Mr. Digby."

"No: I have gone through a great deal; but you see, Colonel," added the
poor relation, with a faint smile, "the campaign is well-nigh over, and
peace is at hand."

The colonel seemed touched.

"Don't talk so, Digby,--I don't like it. You are younger than I
am--nothing more disagreeable than these gloomy views of things. You
have got enough to live upon, you say,--at least so I understand you.
I am very glad to hear it; and, indeed, I could not assist you--so many
claims on me. So it is all very well, Digby."

"Oh, Colonel Pompley," cried the soldier, clasping his hands, and with
feverish energy, "I am a suppliant, not for myself, but my child! I have
but one,--only one, a girl. She has been so good to me! She will cost
you little. Take her when I die; promise her a shelter, a home. I ask no
more. You are my nearest relative. I have no other to look to. You have
no children of your own. She will be a blessing to you, as she has been
all upon earth to me!"

If Colonel Pompley's face was red in ordinary hours, no epithet
sufficiently rubicund or sanguineous can express its colour at this
appeal. "The man's mad," he said, at last, with a tone of astonishment
that almost concealed his wrath,--"stark mad! I take his child!--lodge
and board a great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a
time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''T is a mercy we have no children. We
could never live in this style if we had children,--never make both
ends meet.' Child--the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the
world--a child."

"She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, plaintively. "Oh,
Colonel, let me see your wife. Her heart I can touch,--she is a woman."

Unlucky father! A more untoward, unseasonable request the Fates could
not have put into his lips.

Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies! Mrs. Pompley learn the condition of the
colonel's grand connections! The colonel would never have been his own
man again. At the bare idea, he felt as if he could have sunk into the
earth with shame. In his alarm he made a stride to the door, with the
intention of locking it. Good heavens, if Mrs. Pompley should come in!
And the man, too, had been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might
have learned already that a Digby was with her husband,--she might be
actually dressing to receive him worthily; there was not a moment to
lose.

The colonel exploded. "Sir, I wonder at your impudence. See Mrs.
Pompley! Hush, sir, hush!--hold your tongue. I have disowned your
connection. I will not have my wife--a woman, sir, of the first
family--disgraced by it. Yes; you need not fire up. John Pompley is not
a man to be bullied in his own house. I say disgraced. Did not you run
into debt, and spend your fortune? Did not you marry a low creature,--a
vulgarian, a tradesman's daughter?--and your poor father such a
respectable man,--a benefited clergyman! Did not you sell your
commission? Heaven knows what became of the money! Did not you turn (I
shudder to say it) a common stage-player, sir? And then, when you were
on your last legs, did I not give you L200 out of my own purse to go
to Canada? And now here you are again,--and ask me, with a coolness
that--that takes away my breath--takes away-my breath, sir--to
provide for the child you have thought proper to have,--a child
whose connections on the mother's side are of the most abject and
discreditable condition. Leave my house, leave it! good heavens, sir,
not that way!--this." And the colonel opened the glass-door that led
into the garden. "I will let you out this way. If Mrs. Pompley should
see you!" And with that thought the colonel absolutely hooked his arm
into his poor relation's, and hurried him into the garden.

Mr. Digby said not a word, but he struggled ineffectually to escape from
the colonel's arm; and his colour went and came, came and went, with a
quickness that showed that in those shrunken veins there were still some
drops of a soldier's blood.

But the colonel had now reached a little postern-door in the
garden-wall. He opened the latch, and thrust out his poor cousin. Then
looking down the lane, which was long, straight, and narrow, and seeing
it was quite solitary, his eye fell upon the forlorn man, and remorse
shot through his heart. For a moment the hardest of all kinds of
avarice, that of the genteel, relaxed its gripe. For a moment the
most intolerant of all forms of pride, that which is based upon false
pretences, hushed its voice, and the colonel hastily drew out his purse.
"There," said he, "that is all I can do for you. Do leave the town as
quick as you can, and don't mention your name to any one. Your father
was such a respectable man,--beneficed clergyman!"

"And paid for your commission, Mr. Pompley. My name! I am not ashamed of
it. But do not fear I shall claim your relationship. No; I am ashamed of
you!"

The poor cousin put aside the purse, still stretched towards him, with
a scornful hand, and walked firmly down the lane. Colonel Pompley stood
irresolute. At that moment a window in his house was thrown open. He
heard the noise, turned round, and saw his wife looking out.

Colonel Pompley sneaked back through the shrubbery, hiding himself
amongst the trees.




CHAPTER X.

"Ill-luck is a betise," said the great Cardinal Richelieu; and in the
long run, I fear, his Eminence was right. If you could drop Dick Avenel
and Mr. Digby in the middle of Oxford Street,--Dick in a fustian jacket,
Digby in a suit of superfine; Dick with five shillings in his pocket,
Digby with L1000,--and if, at the end of ten years, you looked up your
two men, Dick would be on his road to a fortune, Digby--what we have
seen him! Yet Digby had no vice; he did not drink nor gamble. What was
he, then? Helpless. He had been an only son,--a spoiled child, brought
up as "a gentleman;" that is, as a man who was not expected to be
able to turn his hand to anything. He entered, as we have seen, a very
expensive regiment, wherein he found himself, at his father's death,
with L4000 and the incapacity to say "No." Not naturally extravagant,
but without an idea of the value of money,--the easiest, gentlest,
best-tempered man whom example ever led astray. This part of his career
comprised a very common history,--the poor man living on equal terms
with the rich. Debt; recourse to usurers; bills signed sometimes for
others, renewed at twenty per cent; the L4000 melted like snow; pathetic
appeal to relations; relations have children of their own; small help
given grudgingly, eked out by much advice, and coupled with
conditions. Amongst the conditions there was a very proper and prudent
one,--exchange into a less expensive regiment. Exchange effected; peace;
obscure country quarters; ennui, flute-playing, and idleness. Mr. Digby
had no resources on a rainy day--except flute-playing; pretty girl of
inferior rank; all the officers after her; Digby smitten; pretty girl
very virtuous; Digby forms honourable intentions; excellent sentiments;
imprudent marriage. Digby falls in life; colonel's lady will not
associate with Mrs. Digby; Digby cut by his whole kith and kin; many
disagreeable circumstances in regimental life; Digby sells out; love
in a cottage; execution in ditto. Digby had been much applauded as an
amateur actor; thinks of the stage; genteel comedy,--a gentlemanlike
profession. Tries in a provincial town, under another name; unhappily
succeeds; life of an actor; hand-to-mouth life; illness; chest affected;
Digby's voice becomes hoarse and feeble; not aware of it; attributes
failing success to ignorant provincial public; appears in London; is
hissed; returns to the provinces; sinks into very small parts; prison;
despair; wife dies; appeal again to relations; a subscription made
to get rid of him; send him out of the country; place in
Canada,--superintendent to an estate, L150 a year; pursued by ill-luck;
never before fit for business, not fit now; honest as the day, but keeps
slovenly accounts; child cannot bear the winter of Canada; Digby wrapped
up in the child; return home; mysterious life for two years; child
patient, thoughtful, loving; has learned to work; manages for father;
often supports him; constitution rapidly breaking; thought of what will
become of his child,--worst disease of all. Poor Digby! never did a
base, cruel, unkind thing in his life; and here he is, walking down
the lane from Colonel Pompley's house! Now, if Digby had but learned a
little of the world's cunning, I think he would have succeeded even with
Colonel Pompley. Had he spent the L100 received from Lord L'Estrange
with a view to effect; had he bestowed a fitting wardrobe on himself and
his pretty Helen; had he stopped at the last stage, taken thence a smart
chaise and pair, and presented himself at Colonel Pompley's in a way
that would not have discredited the colonel's connection, and then,
instead of praying for home and shelter, asked the colonel to become
guardian to his child in case of his death, I have a strong notion that
the colonel, in spite of his avarice, would have stretched both ends so
as to take in Helen Digby. But our poor friend had no such arts. Indeed,
of the L100 he had already very little left, for before leaving town
he had committed what Sheridan considered the extreme of
extravagance,--frittered away his money in paying his debts; and as for
dressing up Helen and himself--if that thought had ever occurred to him,
he would have rejected it as foolish. He would have thought that the
more he showed his poverty, the more he would be pitied,--the worst
mistake a poor cousin can commit. According to Theophrastus, the
partridge of Paphlagonia has two hearts: so have most men; it is the
common mistake of the unlucky to knock at the wrong one.




CHAPTER XI.

Mr. Digby entered the room of the inn in which he had left Helen.
She was seated by the window, and looking out wistfully on the narrow
street, perhaps at the children at play. There had never been a playtime
for Helen Digby.

She sprang forward as her father came in. His coming was her holiday.

"We must go back to London," said Mr. Digby, sinking helplessly on the
chair. Then with his sort of sickly smile,--for he was bland even to his
child,--"Will you kindly inquire when the first coach leaves?"

All the active cares of their careful life devolved upon that quiet
child. She kissed her father, placed before him a cough mixture which
he had brought from London, and went out silently to make the necessary
inquiries, and prepare for the journey back.

At eight o'clock the father and child were seated in the night-coach,
with one other passenger,--a man muffled up to the chin. After the first
mile the man let down one of the windows. Though it was summer the air
was chill and raw. Digby shivered and coughed.

Helen placed her hand on the window, and, leaning towards the passenger,
whispered softly.

"Eh!" said the passenger, "draw up the window? You have got your own
window; this is mine. Oxygen, young lady," he added solemnly, "oxygen is
the breath of life. Cott, child!" he continued with suppressed choler,
and a Welsh pronunciation, "Cott! let us breathe and live."

Helen was frightened, and recoiled.

Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded, this colloquy,
retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his coat, and coughed
again.

"It is cold, my dear," said he, languidly, to Helen.

The passenger caught the word, and replied indignantly, but as if
soliloquizing,--

"Cold-ugh! I do believe the English are the stuffiest people! Look at
their four-post beds--all the curtains drawn, shutters closed, board
before the chimney--not a house with a ventilator! Cold-ugh!"

The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame. "There is a
sad draught," said the invalid.

Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the chinks of the window
with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window.
The look, which was very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveller's
spleen.

"Pleasant!" said he. "Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside
next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I
don't interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with
mine."

"Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby, meekly.

"But Miss here did."

"Ah, sir!" said Helen, plaintively, "if you knew how Papa suffers!" And
her hand again moved towards the obnoxious window.

"No, my dear; the gentleman is in his right," said Mr. Digby; and,
bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, "Excuse her, sir. She thinks a
great deal too much of me."

The passenger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to her father, and
strove to screen him from the air.

The passenger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with a sort of snort,
"air is air, and right is right: but here goes--" and he hastily drew up
the window.

Helen turned her face full towards the passenger with a grateful
expression, visible even in the dim light.

"You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby; "I am ashamed to--"
his cough choked the rest of the sentence. The passenger, who was a
plethoric, sanguineous man, felt as if he were stifling. But he took off
his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a hero.

Presently he drew nearer to the sufferer, and laid hand on his wrist.

"You are feverish, I fear. I am a medical man. St!--one--two. Cott! you
should not travel; you are not fit for it!"

Mr. Digby shook his head; he was too feeble to reply.

The passenger thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and drew out what
seemed a cigar-case, but what, in fact, was a leathern repertory,
containing a variety of minute phials.

From one of these phials he extracted two tiny globules. "There," said
he, "open your mouth, put those on the tip of your tongue. They will
lower the pulse, check the fever. Be better presently, but should not
travel, want rest; you should be in bed. Aconite! Henbane! hum! Your
papa is of fair complexion,--a timid character, I should say;--a horror
of work, perhaps. Eh, child?"

"Sir!" faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed. Was the man a conjuror?

"A case for phosphor!" cried the passenger: "that fool Browne would have
said arsenic. Don't be persuaded to take arsenic!"

"Arsenic, sir!" echoed the mild Digby. "No: however unfortunate a man
may be, I think, sir, that suicide is--tempting, perhaps, but highly
criminal."

"Suicide," said the passenger, tranquilly,--"suicide is my hobby! You
have no symptom of that kind, you say?"

"Good heavens! No, sir."

"If ever you feel violently impelled to drown yourself, take pulsatilla;
but if you feel a preference towards blowing out your brains,
accompanied with weight in the limbs, loss of appetite, dry cough, and
bad corns, sulphuret of antimony. Don't forget."

Though poor Mr. Digby confusedly thought that the gentleman was out of
his mind, yet he tried politely to say "that he was much obliged, and
would be sure to remember;" but his tongue failed him, and his own ideas
grew perplexed. His head fell back heavily, and he sank into a silence
which seemed that of sleep.

The traveller looked hard at Helen, as she gently drew her father's head
on her shoulder, and there pillowed it with a tenderness which was more
that of a mother than child.

"Moral affections, soft, compassionate!--a good child and would go well
with--pulsatilla."

Helen held up her finger, and glanced from her father to the traveller,
and then to her father again.

"Certainly,--pulsatilla!" muttered the homoeopathist, and ensconcing
himself in his own corner, he also sought to sleep. But after vain
efforts, accompanied by restless gestures and movements, he suddenly
started up, and again extracted his phial-book.

"What the deuce are they to me?" he muttered. "Morbid sensibility of
character--coffee? No!--accompanied by vivacity and violence--nux!" He
brought his book to the window, contrived to read the label on a pigmy
bottle. "Nux! that's it," he said,--and he swallowed a globule!

"Now," quoth he, after a pause, "I don't care a straw for the
misfortunes of other people; nay, I have half a mind to let down the
window."

Helen looked up.

"But I'll not," he added resolutely; and this time he fell fairly
asleep.




CHAPTER XII.

The coach stopped at eleven o'clock to allow the passengers to sup. The
homoeopathist woke up, got out, gave himself a shake, and inhaled the
fresh air into his vigorous lungs with an evident sensation of delight.
He then turned and looked into the coach.

"Let your father get out, my dear," said he, with a tone more gentle
than usual. "I should like to see him indoors,--perhaps I can do him
good."

But what was Helen's terror when she found that her father did not stir!
He was in a deep swoon, and still quite insensible when they lifted him
from the carriage. When he recovered his senses his cough returned, and
the effort brought up blood.

It was impossible for him to proceed farther. The homoeopathist assisted
to undress and put him into bed. And having administered another of his
mysterious globules, he inquired of the landlady how far it was to the
nearest doctor,--for the inn stood by itself in a small hamlet. There
was the parish apothecary three miles off. But on hearing that the
gentlefolks employed Dr. Dosewell, and it was a good seven miles to his
house, the homoeopathist fetched a deep breath. The coach only stopped a
quarter of an hour.

"Cott!" said he, angrily, to himself, "the nux was a failure. My
sensibility is chronic. I must go through a long course to get rid of
it. Hollo, guard! get out my carpet-bag. I sha'n't go on to-night."

And the good man after a very slight supper went upstairs again to the
sufferer.

"Shall I send for Dr. Dosewell, sir?" asked the landlady, stopping him
at the door.

"Hum! At what hour to-morrow does the next coach to London pass?"

"Not before eight, sir."

"Well, send for the doctor to be here at seven. That leaves us at least
some hours free from allopathy and murder," grunted the disciple of
Hahnemann, as he entered the room.

Whether it was the globule that the homoeopathist had administered,
or the effect of nature, aided by repose, that checked the effusion of
blood, and restored some temporary strength to the poor sufferer, is
more than it becomes one not of the Faculty to opine. But certainly Mr.
Digby seemed better, and he gradually fell into a profound sleep, but
not till the doctor had put his ear to his chest, tapped it with his
hand, and asked several questions; after which the homoeopathist retired
into a corner of the room, and leaning his face on his hand seemed to
meditate. From his thoughts he was disturbed by a gentle touch. Helen
was kneeling at his feet. "Is he very ill, very?" said she; and her fond
wistful eyes were fixed on the physician's with all the earnestness of
despair.

"Your father is very ill," replied the doctor, after a short pause. "He
cannot move hence for some days at least. I am going to London; shall I
call on your relations, and tell some of them to join you?"

"No, thank you, sir," answered Helen, colouring. "But do not fear; I
can nurse Papa. I think he has been worse before,--that is, he has
complained more."

The homeopathist rose, and took two strides across the room; then he
paused by the bed, and listened to the breathing of the sleeping man.

He stole back to the child, who was still kneeling, took her in his arms
and kissed her. "Tamn it," said he, angrily, and putting her down, "go
to bed now,--you are not wanted any more."

"Please, sir," said Helen, "I cannot leave him so. If he wakes he would
miss me."

The doctor's hand trembled; he had recourse to his globules.

"Anxiety--grief suppressed," muttered he. "Don't you want to cry, my
dear? Cry,--do!"

"I can't," murmured Helen.

"Pulsatilla!" said the doctor, almost with triumph. "I said so from the
first. Open your mouth--here! Goodnight. My room is opposite,--No. 6;
call me if he wakes."




CHAPTER XIII.

At seven o'clock Dr. Dosewell arrived, and was shown into the room of
the homoeopathist, who, already up and dressed, had visited his patient.

"My name is Morgan," said the homoeopathist; "I am a physician. I leave
in your hands a patient whom, I fear, neither I nor you can restore.
Come and look at him."

The two doctors went into the sick-room. Mr. Digby was very feeble, but
he had recovered his consciousness, and inclined his head courteously.

"I am sorry to cause so much trouble," said he. The homoeopathist drew
away Helen; the allopathist seated himself by the bedside and put his
questions, felt the pulse, sounded the lungs, and looked at the tongue
of the patient. Helen's eye was fixed on the strange doctor, and her
colour rose, and her eye sparkled when he got up cheerfully, and said in
a pleasant voice, "You may have a little tea."

"Tea!" growled the homeopathist,--"barbarian!"

"He is better, then, sir?" said Helen, creeping to the allopathist.

"Oh, yes, my dear,--certainly; and we shall do very well, I hope."

The two doctors then withdrew.

"Last about a week!" said Dr. Dosewell, smiling pleasantly, and showing
a very white set of teeth.

"I should have said a month; but our systems are different," replied Dr.
Morgan, dryly.

DR. DOSEWELL (courteously).--"We country doctors bow to our metropolitan
superiors; what would you advise? You would venture, perhaps, the
experiment of bleeding."

DR. MORGAN (spluttering and growling Welsh, which he never did but in
excitement).--"Pleed! Cott in heaven! do you think I am a putcher,--an
executioner? Pleed! Never."

DR. DOSEWELL.--"I don't find it answer, myself, when both lungs are
gone! But perhaps you are for inhaling?"

DR. MORGAN.--"Fiddledee!"

DR. DOSEWELL (with some displeasure).--"What would you advise, then, in
order to prolong our patient's life for a month?"

DR. MORGAN.--"Give him Rhus!"

DR. DOSEWELL.--"Rhus, sir! Rhus! I don't know that medicine. Rhus!"

Dr. MORGAN.--"Rhus Toxicodendron."

The length of the last word excited Dr. Dosewell's respect. A word of
five syllables,--that was something like! He bowed deferentially, but
still looked puzzled. At last he said, smiling frankly, "You great
London practitioners have so many new medicines: may I ask what Rhus
toxico--toxico--"

"Dendron."

"Is?"

"The juice of the upas,--vulgarly called the poison-tree." Dr. Dosewell
started.

"Upas--poison-tree--little birds that come under the shade fall down
dead! You give upas juice in these desperate cases: what's the dose?"

Dr. Morgan grinned maliciously, and produced a globule the size of a
small pin's head.

Dr. Dosewell recoiled in disgust.

"Oh!" said he, very coldly, and assuming at once an air of superb
superiority, "I see, a homoeopathist, sir!"

"A homoeopathist."

"Um!"

"Um!"

"A strange system, Dr. Morgan," said Dr. Dosewell, recovering his
cheerful smile, but with a curl of contempt in it, "and would soon do
for the druggists."

"Serve 'em right. The druggists soon do for the patients."

"Sir!"

"Sir!"

DR. DOSEWELL (with dignity).--"You don't know, perhaps, Dr. Morgan,
that I am an apothecary as well as a surgeon. In fact," he added, with
a certain grand humility, "I have not yet taken a diploma, and am but
doctor by courtesy."

DR. MORGAN.--"All one, sir! Doctor signs the death-warrant, 'pothecary
does the deed!"

DR. DOSEWELL (with a withering sneer).--"Certainly we don't profess to
keep a dying man alive upon the juice of the deadly upas-tree."

DR. MORGAN (complacently).--"Of course you don't. There are no poisons
with us. That's just the difference between you and me, Dr. Dosewell."

DR. DOSEWELL (pointing to the homeopathist's travelling pharmacopoeia,
and with affected candour).--"Indeed, I have always said that if you can
do no good, you can do no harm, with your infinitesimals."

DR. MORGAN, who had been obtuse to the insinuation of poisoning, fires
up violently at the charge of doing no harm. "You know nothing about
it! I could kill quite as many people as you, if I chose it; but I don't
choose."

DR. DOSEWELL (shrugging his shoulders).--"Sir Sir! It is no use arguing;
the thing's against common-sense. In short, it is my firm belief that it
is--is a complete--"

DR. MORGAN.--"A complete what?"

DR. DOSEWELL (provoked to the utmost).--"Humbug!"

DR. MORGAN.--"Humbug! Cott in heaven! You old--"

DR. DOSEWELL.--"Old what, sir?"

DR. MORGAN (at home in a series of alliteral vowels, which none but
a Cymbrian could have uttered without gasping).--"Old allopathical
anthropophagite!"

DR. DOSEWELL (starting up, seizing by the back the chair on which he had
sat, and bringing it down violently on its four legs).--"Sir!"

DR. MORGAN (imitating the action with his own chair).--"Sir!"

DR. DOSEWELL.--"You're abusive."

DR. MORGAN.--"You're impertinent."

DR. DOSEWELL.--"Sir!"

DR. MORGAN.--"Sir!"

The two rivals confronted each other.

They were both athletic men, and fiery men. Dr. Dosewell was the taller,
but Dr. Morgan was the stouter. Dr. Dosewell on the mother's side was
Irish; but Dr. Morgan on both sides was Welsh. All things considered, I
would have backed Dr. Morgan if it had come to blows. But, luckily for
the honour of science, here the chambermaid knocked at the door, and
said, "The coach is coming, sir."

Dr. Morgan recovered his temper and his manners at that announcement.
"Dr. Dosewell," said he, "I have been too hot,--I apologize."

"Dr. Morgan," answered the allopathist, "I forgot myself. Your hand,
sir."

DR. MORGAN.--"We are both devoted to humanity, though with different
opinions. We should respect each other."

DR. DOSEWELL.--"Where look for liberality, if men of science are
illiberal to their brethren?"

DR. MORGAN (aside).--"The old hypocrite! He would pound me in a mortar
if the law would let him."

DR. DOSEWELL (aside).--"The wretched charlatan! I should like to pound
him in a mortar."

DR. MORGAN.--"Good-by, my esteemed and worthy brother."

DR. DOSEWELL.--"My excellent friend, good-by."

DR. MORGAN (returning in haste).--"I forgot. I don't think our poor
patient is very rich. I confide him to your disinterested benevolence."
(Hurries away.)

DR. DOSEWELL (in a rage).--"Seven miles at six o'clock in the morning,
and perhaps done out of my fee! Quack! Villain!"

Meanwhile, Dr. Morgan had returned to the sick-room.

"I must wish you farewell," said he to poor Mr. Digby, who was languidly
sipping his tea. "But you are in the hands of a--of a--gentleman in the
profession."

"You have been too kind,--I am shocked," said Mr. Digby. "Helen, where's
my purse?"

Dr. Morgan paused.

He paused, first, because it must be owned that his practice was
restricted, and a fee gratified the vanity natural to unappreciated
talent, and had the charm of novelty, which is sweet to human nature
itself. Secondly, he was a man--

     "Who knew his rights; and, knowing, dared maintain."

He had resigned a coach fare, stayed a night, and thought he had
relieved his patient. He had a right to his fee.

On the other hand, he paused, because, though he had small practice,
he was tolerably well off, and did not care for money in itself, and he
suspected his patient to be no Croesus.

Meanwhile the purse was in Helen's hand. He took it from her, and saw
but a few sovereigns within the well-worn network. He drew the child a
little aside.

"Answer me, my dear, frankly,--is your papa rich?--" And he glanced at
the shabby clothes strewed on the chair and Helen's faded frock.

"Alas, no!" said Helen, hanging her head. "Is that all you have?"

"All."

"I am ashamed to offer you two guineas," said Mr. Digby's hollow voice
from the bed.

"And I should be still more ashamed to take them. Good by, sir. Come
here, my child. Keep your money, and don't waste it on the other doctor
more than you can help. His medicines can do your father no good. But I
suppose you must have some. He's no physician, therefore there's no fee.
He'll send a bill,--it can't be much. You understand. And now, God bless
you."

Dr. Morgan was off. But, as he paid the landlady his bill, he said
considerately, "The poor people upstairs can pay you, but not that
doctor,--and he's of no use. Be kind to the little girl, and get
the doctor to tell his patient (quietly of course) to write to his
friends--soon--you understand. Somebody must take charge of the poor
child. And stop--hold your hand; take care--these globules for the
little girl when her father dies,"--here the doctor muttered to himself,
"grief,--aconite, and if she cries too much afterwards, these--(don't
mistake). Tears,--caustic!"

"Come, sir," cried the coachman.

"Coming; tears,--caustic," repeated the homoeopathist, pulling out his
handkerchief and his phial-book together as he got into the coach; and
he hastily swallowed his antilachrymal.




CHAPTER XIV.

Richard Avenel was in a state of great nervous excitement. He proposed
to give an entertainment of a kind wholly new to the experience of
Screwstown. Mrs. M'Catchley had described with much eloquence the
Dejeunes dansants of her fashionable friends residing in the elegant
suburbs of Wimbledon and Fulham. She declared that nothing was so
agreeable. She had even said point-blank to Mr. Avenel, "Why don't you
give a Dejeune dansant?" And, therewith, a Dejeune dansant Mr. Avenel
resolved to give.

The day was fixed, and Mr. Avenel entered into all the requisite
preparations, with the energy of a man and the providence of a woman.

One morning as he stood musing on the lawn, irresolute as to the best
site for the tents, Leonard came up to him with an open letter in his
hand.

"My dear uncle," said he, softly.

"Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel, with a start. "Ha-well, what now?"

"I have just received a letter from Mr. Dale. He tells me that my poor
mother is very restless and uneasy, because he cannot assure her that
he has heard from me; and his letter requires an answer. Indeed I shall
seem very ungrateful to him--to all--if I do not write."

Richard Avenel's brows met. He uttered an impatient "Pish!" and turned
away. Then coming back, he fixed his clear hawk-like eye on Leonard's
ingenuous countenance, linked his arm into his nephew's, and drew him
into the shrubbery.

"Well, Leonard," said he, after a pause, "it is time that I should give
you some idea of my plans with regard to you. You have seen my manner of
living--some difference from what you ever saw before, I calculate! Now
I have given you, what no one gave me, a lift in the world; and where I
place you, there you must help yourself."

"Such is my duty and my desire," said Leonard, heartily. "Good. You
are a clever lad, and a genteel lad, and will do me credit. I have had
doubts of what is best for you. At one time I thought of sending you to
college. That, I know; is Mr. Dale's wish; perhaps it is your own. But
I have given up that idea; I have something better for you. You have
a clear head for business, and are a capital arithmetician. I think of
bringing you up to superintend my business; by and by I will admit you
into partnership; and before you are thirty you will be a rich man.
Come, does that suit you?"

"My dear uncle," said Leonard, frankly, but much touched by this
generosity, "it is not for me to have a choice. I should have preferred
going to college, because there I might gain independence for myself and
cease to be a burden on you. Moreover, my heart moves me to studies
more congenial with the college than the counting-house. But all this is
nothing compared with my wish to be of use to you, and to prove in any
way, however feebly, my gratitude for all your kindness."

"You're a good, grateful, sensible lad," exclaimed Richard, heartily;
"and believe me, though I'm a rough diamond, I have your true interest
at heart. You can be of use to me, and in being so you will best
serve yourself. To tell you the truth, I have some idea of changing
my condition. There's a lady of fashion and quality who, I think, may
condescend to become Mrs. Avenel; and if so, I shall probably reside a
great part of the year in London. I don't want to give up my business.
No other investment will yield the same interest. But you can soon learn
to superintend it for me, as some day or other I may retire, and then
you can step in. Once a member of our great commercial class, and with
your talents you may be anything,--member of parliament, and after that,
minister of State, for what I know. And my wife--hem! that is to be--has
great connections, and you shall marry well; and--oh, the Avenels will
hold their heads with the highest, after all! Damn the aristocracy! we
clever fellows will be the aristocrats, eh?" Richard rubbed his hands.

Certainly, as we have seen, Leonard, especially in his earlier steps
to knowledge, had repined at his position in the many degrees of life;
certainly he was still ambitious; certainly he could not now have
returned contentedly to the humble occupation he had left; and woe to
the young man who does not hear with a quickened pulse and brightening
eye words that promise independence, and flatter with the hope of
distinction. Still, it was with all the reaction of chill and mournful
disappointment that Leonard, a few hours after this dialogue with
his uncle, found himself alone in the fields, and pondering over
the prospects before him. He had set his heart upon completing his
intellectual education, upon developing those powers within him which
yearned for an arena of literature, and revolted from the routine of
trade.

But to his credit be it said, that he vigorously resisted this natural
disappointment, and by degrees schooled himself to look cheerfully on
the path imposed on his duty, and sanctioned by the manly sense that was
at the core of his character.

I believe that this self-conquest showed that the boy had true genius.
The false genius would have written sonnets and despaired.

But still, Richard Avenel left his nephew sadly perplexed as to
the knotty question from which their talk on the future had
diverged,--namely, should he write to the parson, and assure the fears
of his mother? How do so without Richard's consent, when Richard had on
a former occasion so imperiously declared that, if he did, it would
lose his mother all that Richard intended to settle on her? While he was
debating this matter with his conscience, leaning against a stile that
interrupted a path to the town, Leonard Fairfield was startled by an
exclamation. He looked up, and beheld Mr. Sprott the tinker.




CHAPTER XV.

The tinker, blacker and grimmer than ever, stared hard at the altered
person of his old acquaintance, and extended his sable fingers, as if
inclined to convince himself by the sense of touch that it was Leonard
in the flesh that he beheld, under vestments so marvellously elegant and
preternaturally spruce.

Leonard shrank mechanically from the contact, while in great surprise he
faltered,--

"You here, Mr. Sprott! What could bring you so far from home?"

"'Ome!" echoed the tinker, "I 'as no 'ome! or rather, d' ye see, Muster
Fairfilt, I makes myself at 'ome verever I goes! Lor' love ye! I ben't
settled on no parridge. I wanders here and I vanders there, and that's
my 'ome verever I can mend my kettles and sell my tracks!"

So saying, the tinker slid his panniers on the ground, gave a grunt of
release and satisfaction, and seated himself with great composure on the
stile from which Leonard had retreated.

"But, dash my wig," resumed Mr. Sprott, as he once more surveyed
Leonard, "vy, you bees a rale gentleman, now, surely! Vot's the dodge,
eh?"

"Dodge!" repeated Leonard, mechanically, "I don't understand you." Then,
thinking that it was neither necessary nor expedient to keep up his
acquaintance with Mr. Sprott, nor prudent to expose himself to the
battery of questions which he foresaw that further parley would bring
upon him, he extended a crown-piece to the tinker; and saying, with a
half-smile, "You must excuse me for leaving you--I have business in the
town; and do me the favour to accept this trifle," he walked briskly
off.

The tinker looked long at the crown-piece, and then sliding it into his
pocket, said to himself,--

"Ho, 'ush-money! No go, my swell cove."

After venting that brief soliloquy he sat silent a little while, till
Leonard was nearly out of sight; then rose, resumed his fardel, and
creeping quick along the hedgerows, followed Leonard towards the town.
Just in the last field, as he looked over the hedge, he saw Leonard
accosted by a gentleman of comely mien and important swagger. That
gentleman soon left the young man, and came, whistling loud, up the
path, and straight towards the tinker. Mr. Sprott looked round, but the
hedge was too neat to allow of a good hiding-place, so he put a bold
front on it, and stepped forth like a man. But, alas for him! before he
got into the public path, the proprietor of the land, Mr. Richard
Avenel (for the gentleman was no less a personage), had spied out the
trespasser, and called to him with a "Hillo, fellow," that bespoke all
the dignity of a man who owns acres, and all the wrath of a man who
beholds those acres impudently invaded.

The tinker stopped, and Mr. Avenel stalked up to him. "What the devil
are you doing on my property, lurking by my hedge? I suspect you are an
incendiary!"

"I be a tinker," quoth Mr. Sprott, not louting low, for a sturdy
republican was Mr. Sprott, but, like a lord of human kind,--

        "Pride in his port, defiance in his eye."

Mr. Avenel's fingers itched to knock the tinker's villanous hat off his
jacobinical head, but he repressed the undignified impulse by thrusting
both hands deep into his trousers' pockets.

"A tinker!" he cried,--"that's a vagrant; and I'm a magistrate, and I've
a great mind to send you to the treadmill,--that I have. What do you do
here, I say? You have not answered my question."

"What does I do 'ere?" said Mr. Sprott. "Vy, you had better ax my
crakter of the young gent I saw you talking with just now; he knows me."

"What! my nephew knows you?"

"W-hew," whistled the tinker, "your nephew is it, sir? I have a great
respek for your family. I 've knowed Mrs. Fairfilt the vashervoman this
many a year. I 'umbly ax your pardon." And he took off his hat this
time.

Mr. Avenel turned red and white in a breath. He growled out something
inaudible, turned on his heel, and strode off. The tinker watched him as
he had watched Leonard, and then dogged the uncle as he had dogged the
nephew. I don't presume to say that there was cause and effect in what
happened that night, but it was what is called "a curious coincidence"
that that night one of Richard Avenel's ricks was set on fire, and that
that day he had called Mr. Sprott an incendiary. Mr. Sprott was a man of
a very high spirit, and did not forgive an insult easily. His nature was
inflammatory, and so was that of the lucifers which he always carried
about him, with his tracts and glue-pots.

The next morning there was an inquiry made for the tinker, but he had
disappeared from the neighbourhood.




CHAPTER XVI.

It was a fortunate thing that the dejeune dansant so absorbed Mr.
Richard Avenel's thoughts that even the conflagration of his rick
could not scare away the graceful and poetic images connected with that
pastoral festivity. He was even loose and careless in the questions he
put to Leonard about the tinker; nor did he send justice in pursuit
of that itinerant trader; for, to say truth, Richard Avenel was a man
accustomed to make enemies amongst the lower orders; and though he
suspected Mr. Sprott of destroying his rick, yet, when he once set about
suspecting, he found he had quite as good cause to suspect fifty other
persons. How on earth could a man puzzle himself about ricks and tinkers
when all his cares and energies were devoted to a dejeune dansant? It
was a maxim of Richard Avenel's, as it ought to be of every clever
man, "to do one thing at a time;" and therefore he postponed all other
considerations till the dejeune dansant was fairly done with. Amongst
these considerations was the letter which Leonard wished to write to
the parson. "Wait a bit, and we will both write!" said Richard,
good-humouredly, "the moment the dijeune dansant is over!"

It must be owned that this fete was no ordinary provincial ceremonial.
Richard Avenel was a man to do a thing well when he set about it,--

     "He soused the cabbage with a bounteous heart."

By little and little his first notions had expanded, till what had
been meant to be only neat and elegant now embraced the costly and
magnificent. Artificers accustomed to dejeunes dansants came all the
way from London to assist, to direct, to create. Hungarian singers and
Tyrolese singers and Swiss peasant-women, who were to chant the Ranz des
Vaches, and milk cows or make syllabubs, were engaged. The great marquee
was decorated as a Gothic banquet-hall; the breakfast itself was to
consist of "all the delicacies of the season." In short, as Richard
Avenel said to himself, "It is a thing once in a way; a thing on which I
don't object to spend money, provided that the thing is--the thing!"

It had been a matter of grave meditation how to make the society
worthy of the revel; for Richard Avenel was not contented with the mere
aristocracy of the town,--his ambition had grown with his expenses.
"Since it will cost so much," said he, "I may as well come it strong,
and get in the county."

True, that he was personally acquainted with very few of what are called
county families. But still, when a man makes himself a mark in a
large town, and can return one of the members whom that town sends to
parliament; and when, moreover, that man proposes to give some superb
and original entertainment, in which the old can eat and the young can
dance, there is no county in the island that has not families enow
who will be delighted by an invitation from THAT MAN. And so Richard,
finding that, as the thing got talked of, the dean's lady, and Mrs.
Pompley, and various other great personages, took the liberty to suggest
that Squire this, and Sir somebody that, would be so pleased if they
were asked, fairly took the bull by the horns, and sent out his cards to
Park, Hall, and Rectory, within a circumference of twelve miles. He met
with but few refusals, and he now counted upon five hundred guests.

"In for a penny in for a pound," said Mr. Richard Avenel. "I wonder
what Mrs. M'Catchley will say?" Indeed, if the whole truth must be
known,--Mr. Richard Avenel not only gave that dejeune dansant in honour
of Mrs. M'Catchley, but he had fixed in his heart of hearts upon that
occasion (when surrounded by all his splendour, and assisted by the
seductive arts of Terpsichore and Bacchus) to whisper to Mrs. M'Catchley
those soft words which--but why not here let Mr. Richard Avenel use his
own idiomatic and unsophisticated expression? "Please the pigs, then,"
said Mr. Avenel to himself, "I shall pop the question!"




CHAPTER XVII.

The Great Day arrived at last; and Mr. Richard Avenel, from his
dressing-room window, looked on the scene below as Hannibal or Napoleon
looked from the Alps on Italy. It was a scene to gratify the thought
of conquest, and reward the labours of ambition. Placed on a little
eminence stood the singers from the mountains of the Tyrol, their
high-crowned hats and filigree buttons and gay sashes gleaming in the
sun. Just seen from his place of watch, though concealed from the casual
eye, the Hungarian musicians lay in ambush amidst a little belt of
laurels and American shrubs. Far to the right lay what had once been
called horresco referens the duckpond, where--"Dulce sonant tenui
gutture carmen aves." But the ruthless ingenuity of the head-artificer
had converted the duck-pond into a Swiss lake, despite grievous wrong
and sorrow to the assuetum innocuumque genus,--the familiar and harmless
inhabitants, who had been all expatriated and banished from their native
waves. Large poles twisted with fir branches, stuck thickly around the
lake, gave to the waters the becoming Helvetian gloom. And here, beside
three cows all bedecked with ribbons, stood the Swiss maidens destined
to startle the shades with the Ranz des Vaches. To the left, full upon
the sward, which it almost entirely covered, stretched the great Gothic
marquee, divided into two grand sections,--one for the dancing, one for
the dejeune.

The day was propitious,--not a cloud in the sky. The musicians
were already tuning their instruments; figures of waiters hired
of Gunter--trim and decorous, in black trousers and white
waistcoats--passed to and fro the space between the house and marquee.
Richard looked and looked; and as he looked he drew mechanically his
razor across the strop; and when he had looked his fill, he turned
reluctantly to the glass and shaved! All that blessed morning he had
been too busy, till then, to think of shaving.

There is a vast deal of character in the way that a man performs that
operation of shaving! You should have seen Richard Avenel shave! You
could have judged at once how he would shave his neighbours, when you
saw the celerity, the completeness with which he shaved himself,--a
forestroke and a backstroke, and tondenti barba cadebat. Cheek and
chin were as smooth as glass. You would have buttoned up your pockets
instinctively if you had seen him.

But the rest of Mr. Avenel's toilet was not completed with correspondent
despatch. On his bed, and on his chairs, and on his sofa, and on his
drawers, lay trousers and vests and cravats enough to distract the
choice of a Stoic. And first one pair of trousers was tried on, and
then another--and one waistcoat, and then a second, and then a third.
Gradually that chef-d'oeuvre of civilization--a man dressed--grew into
development and form; and, finally, Mr. Richard Avenel emerged into the
light of day. He had been lucky in his costume,--he felt it. It might
not suit every one in colour or cut, but it suited him.

And this was his garb. On such occasion, what epic poet would not
describe the robe and tunic of a hero?

His surtout--in modern phrase his frockcoat--was blue, a rich blue, a
blue that the royal brothers of George the Fourth were wont to favour.
And the surtout, single-breasted, was thrown open gallantly; and in the
second button-hole thereof was a moss-rose. The vest was white, and the
trousers a pearl gray, with what tailors style "a handsome fall over the
boot." A blue and white silk cravat, tied loose and debonair; an ample
field of shirt front, with plain gold studs; a pair of lemon-coloured
kid gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side,
complete the description, and "give the world assurance of the man."
And, with his light, firm, well-shaped figure, his clear complexion, his
keen, bright eye, and features that bespoke the courage, precision, and
alertness of his character,--that is to say, features bold, not large,
well-defined, and regular,--you might walk long through town or country
before you would see a handsomer specimen of humanity than our friend
Richard Avenel.

Handsome, and feeling that he was handsome; rich, and feeling that he
was rich; lord of the fete, and feeling that he was lord of the fete,
Richard Avenel stepped out upon his lawn.

And now the dust began to rise along the road, and carriages and gigs
and chaises and flies might be seen at near intervals and in quick
procession. People came pretty much about the same time-as they do in
the country--Heaven reward them for it!

Richard Avenel was not quite at his ease at first in receiving his
guests, especially those whom he did not know by sight. But when the
dancing began, and he had secured the fair hand of Mrs. M'Catchley for
the initiary quadrille, his courage and presence of mind returned to
him; and, seeing that many people whom he had not received at all seemed
to enjoy themselves very much, he gave up the attempt to receive those
who came after,--and that was a great relief to all parties.

Meanwhile Leonard looked on the animated scene with a silent melancholy,
which he in vain endeavoured to shake off,--a melancholy more common
amongst very young men in such scenes than we are apt to suppose.
Somehow or other, the pleasure was not congenial to him; he had no Mrs.
M'Catchley to endear it; he knew very few people, he was shy, he felt
his position with his uncle was equivocal, he had not the habit of
society, he heard, incidentally, many an ill-natured remark upon his
uncle and the entertainment, he felt indignant and mortified. He had
been a great deal happier eating his radishes and reading his book by
the little fountain in Riccabocca's garden. He retired to a quiet part
of the grounds, seated himself under a tree, leaned his cheek on his
hand, and mused. He was soon far away;--happy age, when, whatever the
present, the future seems so fair and so infinite!

But now the dejeune had succeeded the earlier dances; and, as champagne
flowed royally, it is astonishing how the entertainment brightened.

The sun was beginning to slope towards the west, when, during a
temporary cessation of the dance, all the guests had assembled in
such space as the tent left on the lawn, or thickly filled the walks
immediately adjoining it. The gay dresses of the ladies, the joyous
laughter heard everywhere, and the brilliant sunlight over all, conveyed
even to Leonard the notion, not of mere hypocritical pleasure, but
actual healthful happiness. He was attracted from his revery, and
timidly mingled with the groups. But Richard Avenel, with the fair Mrs.
M'Catchley--her complexion more vivid, and her eyes more dazzling, and
her step more elastic than usual--had turned from the gayety just as
Leonard had turned towards it, and was now on the very spot (remote,
obscure, shaded by the few trees above five years old that Mr. Avenel's
property boasted) which the young dreamer had deserted.

And then! Ah, then! moment so meet for the sweet question of questions,
place so appropriate for the delicate, bashful, murmured popping
thereof!--suddenly from the sward before, from the groups beyond, there
floated to the ears of Richard Avenel an indescribable, mingled, ominous
sound,--a sound as of a general titter, a horrid, malignant, but
low cachinnation. And Mrs. M'Catchley, stretching forth her parasol,
exclaimed, "Dear me, Mr. Avenel, what can they be all crowding there
for?"

There are certain sounds and certain sights--the one indistinct,
the other vaguely conjecturable--which, nevertheless, we know, by an
instinct, bode some diabolical agency at work in our affairs. And if any
man gives an entertainment, and hears afar a general, ill-suppressed,
derisive titter, and sees all his guests hurrying towards one spot, I
defy him to remain unmoved and uninquisitive. I defy him still more to
take that precise occasion (however much he may have before designed
it) to drop gracefully on his right knee before the handsomest Mrs.
M'Catchley in the universe, and--pop the question! Richard Avenel
blurted out something very like an oath; and, half guessing that
something must have happened that it would not be pleasing to bring
immediately under the notice of Mrs. M'Catchley, he said hastily,
"Excuse me. I'll just go and see what is the matter; pray, stay till I
come back." With that he sprang forward; in a minute he was in the midst
of the group, that parted aside with the most obliging complacency to
make way for him.

"But what's the matter?" he asked impatiently, yet fearfully. Not a
voice answered. He strode on, and beheld his nephew in the arms of a
woman!

"God bless my soul!" said Richard Avenel.




CHAPTER XVIII.

And such a woman!

She had on a cotton gown,--very neat, I dare say, for an
under-housemaid; and such thick shoes! She had on a little black straw
bonnet; and a kerchief, that might have cost tenpence, pinned across
her waist instead of a shawl; and she looked altogether-respectable, no
doubt, but exceedingly dusty! And she was hanging upon Leonard's neck,
and scolding, and caressing, and crying very loud. "God bless my soul!"
said Mr. Richard Avenel.

And as he uttered that innocent self-benediction, the woman hastily
turned round, and darting from Leonard, threw herself right upon Richard
Avenel--burying under her embrace blue-coat, moss rose, white waistcoat
and all--with a vehement sob and a loud exclamation!

"Oh! brother Dick!--dear, dear brother Dick! And I lives to see thee
agin!" And then came two such kisses--you might have heard them a mile
off! The situation of brother Dick was appalling; and the crowd, that
had before only tittered politely, could not now resist the effect of
this sudden embrace. There was a general explosion! It was a roar! That
roar would have killed a weak man; but it sounded to the strong heart
of Richard Avenel like the defiance of a foe, and it plucked forth in an
instant from all conventional let and barrier the native spirit of the
Anglo-Saxon.

He lifted abruptly his handsome masculine head, and looked round
the ring of his ill-bred visitors with a haughty stare of rebuke and
surprise.

"Ladies and gentlemen," then said he, very coolly, "I don't see what
there is to laugh at! A brother and sister meet after many years'
separation, and the sister cries, poor thing. For my part I think it
very natural that she should cry; but not that you should laugh!"

In an instant the whole shame was removed from Richard Avenel, and
rested in full weight upon the bystanders. It is impossible to say how
foolish and sheepish they all looked, nor how slinkingly each tried to
creep off.

Richard Avenel seized his advantage with the promptitude of a man who
had got on in America, and was, therefore, accustomed to make the best
of things. He drew Mrs. Fairfield's arm in his, and led her into the
house; but when he had got her safe into his parlour--Leonard following
all the time--and the door was closed upon those three, then Richard
Avenel's ire burst forth.

"You impudent, ungrateful, audacious--drab!"

Yes, drab was the word. I am shocked to say it, but the duties of a
historian are stern: and the word was drab.

"Drab!" faltered poor Jane Fairfield; and she clutched hold of Leonard
to save herself from falling.

"Sir!" cried Leonard, fiercely.

You might as well have cried "sir" to a mountain torrent. Richard
hurried on, for he was furious.

"You nasty, dirty, dusty dowdy! How dare you come here to disgrace me
in my own house and premises, after my sending you L50! To take the very
time, too, when--when Richard gasped for breath; and the laugh of his
guests rang in his ears, and got into his chest, and choked him. Jane
Fairfield drew herself up, and her tears were dried.

"I did not come to disgrace you! I came to see my boy, and--"

"Ha!" interrupted Richard, "to see him."

He turned to Leonard: "You have written to this woman, then?"

"No, sir, I have not."

"I believe you lie."

"He does not lie; and he is as good as yourself, and better, Richard
Avenel," exclaimed Mrs. Fairfield; "and I won't stand here and hear
him insulted,--that's what I won't. And as for your L50, there are
forty-five of it; and I'll work my fingers to the bone till I pay back
the other five. And don't be afeard I shall disgrace you, for I'll never
look on your face agin; and you're a wicked, bad man,--that's what you
are!"

The poor woman's voice was so raised and so shrill, that any other and
more remorseful feeling which Richard might have conceived was drowned
in his apprehensions that she would be overheard by his servants or his
guests,--a masculine apprehension, with which females rarely sympathize;
which, on the contrary, they are inclined to consider a mean and
cowardly terror on the part of their male oppressors.

"Hush! hold your infernal squall,--do'." said Mr. Avenel, in a tone that
he meant to be soothing. "There--sit down--and don't stir till I come
back again, and can talk to you calmly. Leonard, follow me, and help to
explain things to our guests."

Leonard stood still, but shook his head slightly.

"What do you mean, sir?" said Richard Avenel, in a very portentous
growl. "Shaking your head at me? Do you intend to disobey me? You had
better take care!"

Leonard's front rose; he drew one arm round his mother, and thus he
spoke,

"Sir, you have been kind to me, and generous, and that thought alone
silenced my indignation when I heard you address such language to my
mother; for I felt that, if I spoke, I should say too much. Now I speak,
and it is to say, shortly, that--"

"Hush, boy," said poor Mrs. Fairfield, frightened; "don't mind me. I did
not come to make mischief, and ruin your prospex. I'll go!"

"Will you ask her pardon, Mr. Avenel?" said Leonard, firmly; and he
advanced towards his uncle.

Richard, naturally hot and intolerant of contradiction, was then
excited, not only by the angry emotions, which, it must be owned, a man
so mortified, and in the very flush of triumph, might well experience,
but by much more wine than he was in the habit of drinking; and when
Leonard approached him, he misinterpreted the movement into one of
menace and aggression. He lifted his arm: "Come a step nearer," said
he, between his teeth, "and I'll knock you down." Leonard advanced the
forbidden step; but as Richard caught his eye, there was something in
that eye--not defying, not threatening, but bold and dauntless--which
Richard recognized and respected, for that something spoke the Freeman.
The uncle's arm mechanically fell to his side. "You cannot strike me,
Mr. Avenel," said Leonard, "for you are aware that I could not strike
again my mother's brother. As her son, I once more say to you,--ask her
pardon."

"Ten thousand devils! Are you mad?--or do you want to drive me mad? You
insolent beggar, fed and clothed by my charity! Ask her pardon!--what
for? That she has made me the object of jeer and ridicule with that
d---d cotton gown and those double-d---d thick shoes--I vow and protest
they've got nails in them! Hark ye, sir, I've been insulted by her, but
I'm not to be bullied by you. Come with me instantly, or I discard
you; not a shilling of mine shall you have as long as I live. Take your
choice: be a peasant, a labourer, or--"

"A base renegade to natural affection, a degraded beggar indeed!" cried
Leonard, his breast heaving, and his cheeks in a glow. "Mother, Mother,
come away. Never fear,--I have strength and youth, and we will work
together as before."

But poor Mrs. Fairfield, overcome by her excitement, had sunk down into
Richard's own handsome morocco leather easy-chair, and could neither
speak nor stir.

"Confound you both!" muttered Richard. "You can't be seen creeping out
of my house now. Keep her here, you young viper, you; keep her till I
come back; and then, if you choose to go, go and be--"

Not finishing his sentence, Mr. Avenel hurried out of the room, and
locked the door, putting the key into his pocket. He paused for a moment
in the hall, in order to collect his thoughts, drew three or four deep
breaths, gave himself a great shake, and, resolved to be faithful to
his principle of doing one thing at a time, shook off in that shake all
disturbing recollection of his mutinous captives. Stern as Achilles when
he appeared to the Trojans, Richard Avenel stalked back to his lawn.




CHAPTER XIX.

Brief as had been his absence, the host could see that, in the interval,
a great and notable change had come over the spirit of his company. Some
of those who lived in the town were evidently preparing to return home
on foot; those who lived at a distance, and whose carriages (having been
sent away, and ordered to return at a fixed hour) had not yet arrived,
were gathered together in small knots and groups; all looked sullen and
displeased, and all instinctively turned from their host as he passed
them by. They felt they had been lectured, and they were more put out
than Richard himself. They did not know if they might not be lectured
again. This vulgar man, of what might he not be capable? Richard's
shrewd sense comprehended in an instant all the difficulties of his
position; but he walked on deliberately and directly towards Mrs.
M'Catchley, who was standing near the grand marquee with the Pompleys
and the dean's lady. As those personages saw him make thus boldly
towards them, there was a flutter. "Hang the fellow!" said the
colonel, intrenching himself in his stock, "he is coming here. Low and
shocking--what shall we do? Let us stroll on." But Richard threw himself
in the way of the retreat. "Mrs. M'Catchley," said he, very gravely, and
offering her his arm, "allow me three words with you."

The poor widow looked very much discomposed. Mrs. Pompley pulled her
by the sleeve. Richard still stood gazing into her face, with his arm
extended. She hesitated a minute, and then took the arm.

"Monstrous impudent!" cried the colonel.

"Let Mrs. M'Catchley alone, my dear," responded Mrs. Pompley; "she will
know how to give him a lesson."

"Madam," said Richard, as soon as he and his companion were out of
hearing, "I rely on you to do me a favour."

"On me?"

"On you, and you alone. You have influence with all those people, and
a word from you will effect what I desire. Mrs. M'Catchley," added
Richard, with a solemnity that was actually imposing, "I flatter myself
that you have some friendship for me, which is more than I can say of
any other soul in these grounds; will you do me this favour, ay or no?"

"What is it, Mr. Avenel?" asked Mrs. M'Catchley, much disturbed, and
somewhat softened,--for she was by no means a woman without feeling;
indeed, she considered herself nervous.

"Get all your friends--all the company, in short-to come back into the
tent for refreshments, for anything. I want to say a few words to them."

"Bless me! Mr. Avenel--a few words!" cried the widow, "but that's just
what they're all afraid of. You must pardon me, but you really can't ask
people to a dejeune dansant, and then--scold 'em!"

"I'm not going to scold them," said Air. Avenel, very seriously,--"upon
my honour, I'm not. I'm going to make all right, and I even hope
afterwards that the dancing may go on--and that you will honour me again
with your hand. I leave you to your task; and believe me, I'm not an
ungrateful man." He spoke, and bowed--not without some dignity--and
vanished within the breakfast division of the marquee. There he busied
himself in re-collecting the waiters, and directing them to re-arrange
the mangled remains of the table as they best could. Mrs. M'Catchley,
whose curiosity and interest were aroused, executed her commission with
all the ability and tact of a woman of the world, and in less than a
quarter of an hour the marquee was filled, the corks flew, the champagne
bounced and sparkled, people drank in silence, munched fruits and cakes,
kept up their courage with the conscious sense of numbers, and felt a
great desire to know what was coming. Mr. Avenel, at the head of the
table, suddenly rose.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," said he, "I have taken the liberty to invite you
once more into this tent, in order to ask you to sympathize with me upon
an occasion which took us all a little by surprise to-day.

"Of course, you all know I am a new man,--the maker of my own fortunes."

A great many heads bowed involuntarily. The words were said manfully,
and there was a general feeling of respect. "Probably, too," resumed Mr.
Avenel, "you may know that I am the son of very honest tradespeople. I
say honest, and they are not ashamed of me; I say tradespeople, and I'm
not ashamed of them. My sister married and settled at a distance. I took
her son to educate and bring up. But I did not tell her where he was,
nor even that I had returned from America; I wished to choose my own
time for that, when I could give her the surprise, not only of a rich
brother, but of a son whom I intended to make a gentleman, so far as
manners and education can make one. Well, the poor dear woman has found
me out sooner than I expected, and turned the tables on me by giving me
a surprise of her own invention. Pray, forgive the confusion this little
family-scene has created; and though I own it was very laughable at the
moment, and I was wrong to say otherwise, yet I am sure I don't judge
ill of your good hearts, when I ask you to think what brother and sister
must feel who parted from each other when they were boy and girl. To
me" (and Richard gave a great gulp, for he felt that a great gulp alone
could swallow the abominable lie he was about to utter)--"to me this has
been a very happy occasion! I'm a plain man: no one can take ill what
I've said. And wishing that you may be all as happy in your family as I
am in mine--humble though it be--I beg to drink your very good healths!"

There was a universal applause when Richard sat down; and so well in
his plain way had he looked the thing, and done the thing, that at least
half of those present--who till then had certainly disliked and half
despised him--suddenly felt that they were proud of his acquaintance.
For however aristocratic this country of ours may be, and however
especially aristocratic be the genteeler classes in provincial towns and
coteries, there is nothing which English folks, from the highest to the
lowest, in their hearts so respect as a man who has risen from nothing,
and owns it frankly. Sir Compton Delaval, an old baronet, with a
pedigree as long as a Welshman's, who had been reluctantly decoyed to
the feast by his three unmarried daughters--not one of whom, however,
had hitherto condescended even to bow to the host--now rose. It was his
right,--he was the first person there in rank and station.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," quoth Sir Compton Delaval, "I am sure that I
express the feelings of all present when I say that we have heard with
great delight and admiration the words addressed to us by our excellent
host. [Applause.] And if any of us, in what--Mr. Avenel describes justly
as the surprise of the moment, were betrayed into an unseemly merriment
at--at--[the dean's lady whispered 'some of the']--some of the--some of
the--" repeated Sir Compton, puzzled, and coming to a deadlock ["holiest
sentiments," whispered the dean's lady]--"ay, some of the holiest
sentiments in our nature, I beg him to accept our sincerest apologies.
I can only say, for my part, that I am proud to rank Mr. Avenel amongst
the gentlemen of the county" (here Sir Compton gave a sounding thump
on the table), "and to thank him for one of the most brilliant
entertainments it has ever been my lot to witness. If he won his fortune
honestly, he knows how to spend it nobly."

Whiz went a fresh bottle of champagne.

"I am not accustomed to public speaking, but I could not repress my
sentiments. And I've now only to propose to you the health of our host.
Richard Avenel, Esquire; and to couple with that the health of his--very
interesting sister, and long life to them both."

The sentence was half drowned in enthusiastic plaudits, and in three
cheers for Richard Avenel, Esquire, and his very interesting sister.

"I'm a cursed humbug," thought Richard Avenel, as he wiped his
forehead; "but the world is such a humbug!" Then he glanced towards Mrs.
M'Catehley and, to his great satisfaction, saw Mrs. M'Catchley with her
handkerchief before her eyes.

Truth must be told; although the fair widow might certainly have
contemplated the probability of accepting Mr. Avenel as a husband, she
had never before felt the least bit in love with him; and now she did.
There is something in courage and candour--in a word, in manliness--that
all women, the most worldly, do admire in men; and Richard Avenel,
humbug though his conscience said he was, seemed to Mrs. M'Catchley like
a hero.

The host saw his triumph. "Now for another dance!" said he, gayly; and
he was about to offer his hand to Mrs. M'Catchley, when Sir Compton
Delaval seizing it, and giving it a hearty shake, cried, "You have not
yet danced with my eldest daughter; so if you'll not ask her, why, I
must offer her to you as your partner. Here, Sarah."

Miss Sarah Delaval, who was five feet eight, and as stately as she was
tall, bowed her head graciously; and Mr. Avenel, before he knew where
he was, found her leaning on his arm. But as he passed into the next
division of the tent, he had to run the gauntlet of all the gentlemen,
who thronged round to shake hands with him. Their warm English hearts
could not be satisfied till they had so repaired the sin of their
previous haughtiness and mockery. Richard Avenel might then have safely
introduced his sister--gown, kerchief, thick shoes, and all--to the
crowd; but he had no such thought. He thanked Heaven devoutly that she
was safely under lock and key.

It was not till the third dance that he could secure Mrs. M'Catchley's
hand, and then it was twilight. The carriages were at the door, but no
one yet thought of going. People were really enjoying themselves.
Mr. Avenel had had time, in the interim, to mature all his plans for
completing and consummating that triumph which his tact and pluck had
drawn from his momentary disgrace. Excited as he was with wine, and
suppressed passion, he had yet the sense to feel that, when all the
halo that now surrounded him had evaporated, and Mrs. M'Catchley was
redelivered up to the Pompleys, whom he felt to be the last persons his
interest could desire for her advisers, the thought of his low relations
would return with calm reflection. Now was the time. The iron was hot,
now was the time to strike it, and forge the enduring chain. As he
led Mrs. M'Catchley after the dance, into the lawn, he therefore said
tenderly,--

"How shall I thank you for the favour you have done me?"

"Oh!" said Mrs. M'Catchley, warmly, "It was no favour, and I am so
glad--" She stopped.

"You're not ashamed of me, then, in spite of what has happened?"

"Ashamed of you! Why, I should be so proud of you, if I were--"

"Finish the sentence and say--'your wife!'--there, it is out. My dear
madam, I am rich, as you know; I love you very heartily. With your
help, I think I can make a figure in a larger world than this: and that,
whatever my father, my grandson at least will be--but it is time enough
to speak of him. What say you?--you--turn away. I'll not tease you,--it
is not my way. I said before, ay or no; and your kindness so emboldens
me that I say it again, ay or no?"

"But you take me so unawares--so--so--Lord! my dear Mr. Avenel; you
are so hasty--I--I--" And the widow actually blushed, and was genuinely
bashful.

"Those horrid Pompleys!" thought Richard, as he saw the colonel bustling
up with Mrs. M'Catchley's cloak on his arm. "I press for your answer,"
continued the suitor, speaking very fast. "I shall leave this place
to-morrow, if you will not give it."

"Leave this place--leave me?"

"Then you will be mine?"

"Ah, Mr. Avenel!" said the widow, languidly, and leaving her hand in
his, "who can resist you?"

Up came Colonel Pompley; Richard took the shawl: "No hurry for that now,
Colonel,--Mrs. M'Catchley feels already at home here."

Ten minutes afterwards, Richard Avenel so contrived that it was known
by the whole company that their host was accepted by the Honourable Mrs.
M'Catchley. And every one said, "He is a very clever man and a very good
fellow," except the Pompleys--and the Pompleys were frantic. Mr. Richard
Avenel had forced his way into the aristocracy of the country; the
husband of an Honourable, connected with peers!

"He will stand for our city--Vulgarian!" cried the colonel. "And his
wife will walk out before me," cried the colonel's lady,--"nasty woman!"
And she burst into tears.

The guests were gone; and Richard had now leisure to consider what
course to pursue with regard to his sister and her son.

His victory over his guests had in much softened his heart towards his
relations; but he still felt bitterly aggrieved at Mrs. Fairfield's
unseasonable intrusion, and his pride was greatly chafed by the boldness
of Leonard. He had no idea of any man whom he had served, or meant to
serve, having a will of his own, having a single thought in opposition
to his pleasure. He began, too, to feel that words had passed between
him and Leonard which could not be well forgotten by either, and would
render their close connection less pleasant than heretofore. He, the
great Richard Avenel, beg pardon of Mrs. Fairfield, the washerwoman!
No; she and Leonard must beg his. "That must be the first step," said
Richard Avenel; "and I suppose they have come to their senses." With
that expectation, he unlocked the door of his parlour, and found himself
in complete solitude. The moon, lately risen, shone full into the room,
and lit up every corner. He stared round bewildered,--the birds had
flown. "Did they go through the keyhole?" said Air. Avenel. "Ha! I see!
the window is open!" The window reached to the ground. Mr. Avenel, in
his excitement, had forgotten that easy mode of egress. "Well," said he,
throwing himself into his easy-chair, "I suppose I shall soon hear from
them: they'll be wanting my money fast enough, I fancy." His eye caught
sight of a letter, unsealed, lying on the table. He opened it, and saw
bank-notes to the amount of L50,--the widow's forty-five country notes,
and a new note, Bank of England, that he had lately given to Leonard.
With the money were these lines, written in Leonard's bold, clear
writing, though a word or two here and there showed that the hand had
trembled,--

   I thank you for all you have done to one whom you regarded as the
   object of charity. My mother and I forgive what has passed. I
   depart with her. You bade me make my choice, and I have made it.

   LEONARD FAIRFIELD.

The paper dropped from Richard's hand, and he remained mute and
remorseful for a moment. He soon felt, however, that he had no help for
it but working himself up into a rage. "Of all people in the world,"
cried Richard, stamping his foot on the floor, "there are none so
disagreeable, insolent, and ungrateful as poor relations. I wash my
hands of them!"




BOOK SIXTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

WHEREIN MR. CAXTON IS PROFOUNDLY METAPHYSICAL.

"Life," said my father, in his most dogmatical tone, "is a certain
quantity in time, which may be regarded in two ways,--First, as life
integral; Second, as life fractional. Life integral is that complete
whole expressive of a certain value, large or small, which each man
possesses in himself. Life fractional is that same whole seized upon
and invaded by other people, and subdivided amongst them. They who get a
large slice of it say, 'A very valuable life this!' Those who get but a
small handful say, 'So, so; nothing very great!' Those who get none of
it in the scramble exclaim, 'Good for nothing!'"

"I don't understand a word you are saying," growled Captain Roland.

My father surveyed his brother with compassion: "I will make it all
clear, even to your understanding. When I sit down by myself in my
study, having carefully locked the door on all of you, alone with my
books and thoughts, I am in full possession of my integral life. I am
totus, teres, atque rotundus,--a whole human being, equivalent in value,
we will say, for the sake of illustration, to a fixed round sum, L100
for example. But when I go forth into the common apartment, each of
those to whom I am of any worth whatsoever puts his finger into the bag
that contains me, and takes out of me what he wants. Kitty requires me
to pay a bill; Pisistratus to save him the time and trouble of looking
into a score or two of books; the children to tell them stories, or
play at hide-and-seek; and so on throughout the circle to which I have
incautiously given myself up for plunder and subdivision. The L100 which
I represented in my study is now parcelled out; I am worth L40 or L50
to Kitty, L20 to Pisistratus, and perhaps 30s. to the children. This is
life fractional. And I cease to be an integral till once more returning
to my study, and again closing the door on all existence but my own.
Meanwhile, it is perfectly clear that to those who, whether I am in the
study or whether I am in the common sitting-room, get nothing at all
out of me, I am not worth a farthing. It must be wholly indifferent to a
native of Kamschatka whether Austin Caxton be or be not razed out of the
great account-book of human beings.

"Hence," continued my father,--"hence it follows that the more
fractional a life be--that is, the greater the number of persons among
whom it can be subdivided--why, the more there are to say, 'A very
valuable life that!' Thus the leader of a political party, a conqueror,
a king, an author, who is amusing hundreds or thousands or millions, has
a greater number of persons whom his worth interests and affects than a
Saint Simeon Stylites could have when he perched himself at the top of
a column; although, regarded each in himself, Saint Simeon, in his grand
mortification of flesh, in the idea that he thereby pleased his Divine
Benefactor, might represent a larger sum of moral value per se than
Bonaparte or Voltaire."

PISISTRATUS.--"Perfectly clear, sir; but I don't see what it has to do
with 'My Novel.'"

MR. CAXTON.--"Everything. Your novel, if it is to be a full and
comprehensive survey of the 'Quicquid agunt homines' (which it ought to
be, considering the length and breadth to which I foresee, from the slow
development of your story, you meditate extending and expanding
it), will embrace the two views of existence,--the integral and the
fractional. You have shown us the former in Leonard, when he is sitting
in his mother's cottage, or resting from his work by the little fount in
Riccabocca's garden. And in harmony with that view of his life, you have
surrounded him with comparative integrals, only subdivided by the tender
hands of their immediate families and neighbours,--your squires and
parsons, your Italian exile and his Jemima. With all these, life is,
more or less, the life natural, and this is always, more or less, the
life integral. Then comes the life artificial, which is always, more or
less, the life fractional. In the life natural, wherein we are swayed
but by our own native impulses and desires, subservient only to the
great silent law of Virtue (which has pervaded the universe since
it swung out of chaos), a man is of worth from what he is in
himself,--Newton was as worthy before the apple fell from the tree as
when all Europe applauded the discoverer of the Principle of Gravity.
But in the life artificial we are only of worth inasmuch as we affect
others; and, relative to that life, Newton rose in value more than a
million per cent when down fell the apple from which ultimately sprang
up his discovery. In order to keep civilization going and spread over
the world the light of human intellect, we have certain desires within
us, ever swelling beyond the ease and independence which belongs to us
as integrals. Cold man as Newton might be (he once took a lady's hand in
his own, Kitty, and used her forefinger for his tobacco-stopper,--great
philosopher!), cold as he might be, he was yet moved into giving his
discoveries to the world, and that from motives very little differing
in their quality from the motives that make Dr. Squills communicate
articles to the 'Phrenological Journal' upon the skulls of Bushmen and
wombats. For it is the property of light to travel. When a man has
light in him, forth it must go. But the first passage of genius from its
integral state (in which it has been reposing on its own wealth) into
the fractional is usually through a hard and vulgar pathway. It leaves
behind it the reveries of solitude,--that self-contemplating rest which
may be called the Visionary,--and enters suddenly into the state that
may be called the Positive and Actual. There it sees the operations
of money on the outer life; sees all the ruder and commoner springs
of action; sees ambition without nobleness, love without romance; is
bustled about and ordered and trampled and cowed,--in short, it passes
an apprenticeship with some Richard Avenel, and does not detect what
good and what grandeur, what addition even to the true poetry of the
social universe, fractional existences like Richard Avenel's bestow;
for the pillars that support society are like those of the Court of the
Hebrew Tabernacle,--they are of brass, it is true, but they are filleted
with silver. From such intermediate state Genius is expelled and driven
on its way, and would have been so in this case had Mrs. Fairfield (who
is but the representative of the homely natural affections, strongest
ever in true genius,--for light is warm) never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss
rose on her sisterly bosom. Now, forth from this passage and defile of
transition into the larger world, must Genius go on, working out its
natural destiny amidst things and forms the most artificial. Passions
that move and influence the world are at work around it. Often lost
sight of itself, its very absence is a silent contrast to the agencies
present. Merged and vanished for a while amidst the Practical World, yet
we ourselves feel all the while that it is there; is at work amidst the
workings around it. This practical world that effaces it rose out of
some genius that has gone before; and so each man of genius, though we
never come across him, as his operations proceed in places remote from
our thoroughfares, is yet influencing the practical world that ignores
him, for ever and ever. That is GENIUS! We can't describe it in books;
we can only hint and suggest it by the accessories which we artfully
heap about it. The entrance of a true Probationer into the terrible
ordeal of Practical Life is like that into the miraculous cavern, by
which, legend informs us, Saint Patrick converted Ireland."

BLANCHE.--"What is that legend? I never heard of it."

MR. CAXTON.--"My dear, you will find it in a thin folio at the right on
entering my study, written by Thomas Messingham, and called 'Florilegium
Insulae Sanctorum,' etc. The account therein is confirmed by the
relation of an honest soldier, one Louis Ennius, who had actually
entered the cavern. In short, the truth of the legend is undeniable,
unless you mean to say, which I can't for a moment suppose, that Louis
Ennius was a liar. Thus it runs: Saint Patrick, finding that the Irish
pagans were incredulous as to his pathetic assurances of the pains and
torments destined to those who did not expiate their sins in this world,
prayed for a miracle to convince them. His prayer was heard; and a
certain cavern, so small that a man could not stand up therein at his
ease, was suddenly converted into a Purgatory, comprehending tortures
sufficient to convince the most incredulous. One unacquainted with
human nature might conjecture that few would be disposed to venture
voluntarily into such a place; on the contrary, pilgrims came in crowds.
Now, all who entered from vain curiosity or with souls unprepared
perished miserably; but those who entered with deep and earnest faith,
conscious of their faults, and if bold, yet humble, not only came out
safe and sound, but purified, as if from the waters of a second baptism.
See Savage and Johnson at night in Fleet Street,--and who shall doubt
the truth of Saint Patrick's Purgatory!" Therewith my father sighed;
closed his Lucian, which had lain open on the table, and would read none
but "good books" for the rest of the evening.




CHAPTER II.

On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned them,
Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house that lay
at a little distance from the town, and on the outskirts of the high
road. With his arm round his mother's waist, Leonard supported her
steps, and soothed her excitement. In fact, the poor woman's nerves
were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy remorse at the injury her
intrusion had inflicted on the young man's worldly prospects. As the
shrewd reader has guessed already, that infamous tinker was the prime
agent of evil in this critical turn in the affairs of his quondam
customer; for, on his return to his haunts around Hazeldean and the
Casino, the tinker had hastened to apprise Mrs. Fairfield of his
interview with Leonard, and, on finding that she was not aware that the
boy was under the roof of his uncle, the pestilent vagabond (perhaps
from spite against Mr. Avenel, or perhaps from that pure love of
mischief by which metaphysical critics explain the character of Iago,
and which certainly formed a main element in the idiosyncrasy of Mr.
Sprott) had so impressed on the widow's mind the haughty demeanour of
the uncle, and the refined costume of the nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield
had been seized with a bitter and insupportable jealousy. There was an
intention to rob her of her boy!--he was to be made too fine for her.
His silence was now accounted for. This sort of jealousy, always more or
less a feminine quality, is often very strong amongst the poor; and it
was the more strong in Mrs. Fairfield, because, lone woman that she was,
the boy was all in all to her. And though she was reconciled to the loss
of his presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought that his
affections should be weaned from her. Moreover, there were in her mind
certain impressions, of the justice of which the reader may better
judge hereafter, as to the gratitude--more than ordinarily filial--which
Leonard owed to her. In short, she did not like, as she phrased it, "to
be shaken off;" and after a sleepless night she resolved to judge for
herself, much moved thereto by the malicious suggestions to that effect
made by Mr. Sprott, who mightily enjoyed the idea of mortifying the
gentlemen by whom he had been so disrespectfully threatened with
the treadmill. The widow felt angry with Parson Dale and with the
Riccaboccas: she thought they were in the plot against her; she
communicated therefore, her intentions to none, and off she set,
performing the journey partly on the top of the coach, partly on foot.
No wonder that she was dusty, poor woman!

"And, oh, boy!" said she, half sobbing, "when I got through the
lodge-gates, came on the lawn, and saw all that power o' fine folk, I
said to myself, says I--for I felt fritted--I'll just have a look at him
and go back. But ah, Lenny, when I saw thee, looking so handsome, and
when thee turned and cried 'Mother,' my heart was just ready to leap out
o' my mouth, and so I could not help hugging thee, if I had died for
it. And thou wert so kind, that I forgot all Mr. Sprott had said about
Dick's pride, or thought he had just told a fib about that, as he had
wanted me to believe a fib about thee. Then Dick came up--and I had not
seen him for so many years--and we come o' the same father and mother;
and so--and so--" The widow's sobs here fairly choked her. "Ah," she
said, after giving vent to her passion, and throwing her arms round
Leonard's neck, as they sat in the little sanded parlour of the
public-house,--"ah, and I've brought thee to this. Go back; go back,
boy, and never mind me."

With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fairfield, and got her
to retire to bed; for she was, indeed, thoroughly exhausted. He then
stepped forth into the road; musingly. All the stars were out; and
Youth, in its troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars. Folding his
arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured.

From this trance, for so it might be called, he was awakened by a
voice in a decidedly London accent; and, turning hastily round, saw Mr.
Avenel's very gentlemanlike butler.

Leonard's first idea was that his uncle had repented, and sent in search
of him. But the butler seemed as much surprised at the rencontre as
himself: that personage, indeed, the fatigues of the day being over, was
accompanying one of Mr. Gunter's waiters to the public-house (at which
the latter had secured his lodging), having discovered an old friend
in the waiter, and proposing to regale himself with a cheerful glass,
and--THAT of course--abuse of his present situation.

"Mr. Fairfield!" exclaimed the butler, while the waiter walked
discreetly on.

Leonard looked, and said nothing. The butler began to think that some
apology was due for leaving his plate and his pantry, and that he might
as well secure Leonard's propitiatory influence with his master.

"Please, sir," said he, touching his hat, "I was just a showing Mr.
Giles the way to the Blue Bells, where he puts up for the night. I hope
my master will not be offended. If you are a going back, sir, would you
kindly mention it?"

"I am not going back, Jarvis," answered Leonard, after a pause; "I am
leaving Mr. Avenel's house, to accompany my mother,--rather suddenly.
I should be very much obliged to you if you would bring some things of
mine to me at the Blue Bells. I will give you the list, if you will step
with me to the inn."

Without waiting for a reply, Leonard then turned towards the inn, and
made his humble inventory: item, the clothes he had brought with him
from the Casino; item, the knapsack that had contained them; item, a few
books, ditto; item, Dr. Riccabocca's watch; item, sundry manuscripts,
on which the young student now built all his hopes of fame and fortune.
This list he put into Mr. Jarvis's hand.

"Sir," said the butler, twirling the paper between his finger and thumb,
"you're not a going for long, I hope?" and he looked on the face of
the young man, who had always been "civil spoken to him," with as
much curiosity and as much compassion as so apathetic and princely
a personage could experience in matters affecting a family less
aristocratic than he had hitherto condescended to serve.

"Yes," said Leonard, simply and briefly; "and your master will no doubt
excuse you for rendering me this service." Mr. Jarvis postponed for the
present his glass and chat with the waiter, and went back at once to Mr.
Avenel. That gentleman, still seated in his library, had not been aware
of the butler's absence; and when Mr. Jarvis entered and told him that
he had met Mr. Fairfield, and communicating the commission with which
he was intrusted, asked leave to execute it, Mr. Avenel felt the man's
inquisitive eye was on him, and conceived new wrath against Leonard for
a new humiliation to his pride. It was awkward to give no explanation
of his nephew's departure, still more awkward to explain. After a short
pause, Mr. Avenel said sullenly, "My nephew is going away on business
for some time,--do what he tells you;" and then turned his back, and
lighted his cigar.

"That beast of a boy," said he, soliloquizing, "either means this as an
affront, or an overture: if an affront, he is, indeed, well got rid
of; if an overture, he will soon make a more respectful and proper
one. After all, I can't have too little of relations till I have fairly
secured Mrs. M'Catchley. An Honourable! I wonder if that makes me an
Honourable too? This cursed Debrett contains no practical information on
those points."

The next morning the clothes and the watch with which Mr. Avenel
presented Leonard were returned, with a note meant to express gratitude,
but certainly written with very little knowledge of the world; and so
full of that somewhat over-resentful pride which had in earlier life
made Leonard fly from Hazeldean, and refuse all apology to Randal, that
it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Avenel's last remorseful
feelings evaporated in ire. "I hope he will starve!" said the uncle,
vindictively.




CHAPTER III.

"Listen to me, my dear mother," said Leonard the next morning, as, with
knapsack on his shoulder and Mrs. Fairfield on his arm, he walked along
the high road; "I do assure you from my heart that I do not regret the
loss of favours which I see plainly would have crushed out of me the
very sense of independence. But do not fear for me; I have education
and energy,--I shall do well for myself, trust me.--No, I cannot, it is
true, go back to our cottage; I cannot be a gardener again. Don't ask
me,--I should be discontented, miserable. But I will go up to London!
That's the place to make a fortune and a name: I will make both. Oh,
yes, trust me, I will. You shall soon be proud of your Leonard; and then
we will always live together,--always! Don't cry."

"But what can you do in Lunnon,--such a big place, Lenny?"

"What! Every year does not some lad leave our village, and go and seek
his fortune, taking with him but health and strong hands? I have these,
and I have more: I have brains and thoughts and hopes, that--again I
say, No, no; never fear for me!"

The boy threw back his head proudly; there was something sublime in his
young trust in the future.

"Well. But you will write to Mr. Dale or to me? I will get Mr. Dale
or the good mounseer (now I know they were not agin me) to read your
letters."

"I will, indeed!"

"And, boy, you have nothing in your pockets. We have paid Dick; these,
at least, are my own, after paying the coach fare." And she would thrust
a sovereign and some shillings into Leonard's waistcoat pocket.

After some resistance, he was forced to consent.

"And there's a sixpence with a hole in it. Don't part with that, Lenny;
it will bring thee good luck."

Thus talking, they gained the inn where the three roads met, and from
which a coach went direct to the Casino. And here, without entering the
inn, they sat on the greensward by the hedgerow, waiting the arrival
of the coach--Mrs. Fairfield was much subdued in spirits, and there
was evidently on her mind something uneasy,--some struggle with her
conscience. She not only upbraided herself for her rash visit, but she
kept talking of her dead Mark. And what would he say of her, if he could
see her in heaven?

"It was so selfish in me, Lenny."

"Pooh, pooh! Has not a mother a right to her child?"

"Ay, ay, ay!" cried Mrs. Fairfield. "I do love you as a child,--my own
child. But if I was not your mother, after all, Lenny, and cost you all
this--oh, what would you say of me then?"

"Not my own mother!" said Leonard, laughing as he kissed her. "Well, I
don't know what I should say then differently from what I say now,--that
you, who brought me up and nursed and cherished me, had a right to my
home and my heart, wherever I was."

"Bless thee!" cried Mrs. Fairfield, as she pressed him to her heart.
"But it weighs here,--it weighs," she said, starting up.

At that instant the coach appeared, and Leonard ran forward to inquire
if there was an outside place. Then there was a short bustle while the
horses were being changed; and Mrs. Fairfield was lifted up to the roof
of the vehicle, so all further private conversation between her and
Leonard ceased. But as the coach whirled away, and she waved her hand
to the boy, who stood on the road-side gazing after her, she still
murmured, "It weighs here,--it weighs!"




CHAPTER IV.

Leonard walked sturdily on in the high road to the Great City. The day
was calm and sunlit, but with a gentle breeze from gray hills at the
distance; and with each mile that he passed, his step seemed to grow
more firm, and his front more elate. Oh, it is such joy in youth to be
alone with one's daydreams! And youth feels so glorious a vigour in the
sense of its own strength, though the world be before and--against it!
Removed from that chilling counting-house, from the imperious will of
a patron and master, all friendless, but all independent, the young
adventurer felt a new being, felt his grand nature as Man. And on the
Man rushed the genius long interdicted and thrust aside,--rushing back,
with the first breath of adversity, to console--no! the Man needed not
consolation,--to kindle, to animate, to rejoice! If there is a being in
the world worthy of our envy, after we have grown wise philosophers
of the fireside, it is not the palled voluptuary, nor the careworn
statesman, nor even the great prince of arts and letters, already
crowned with the laurel, whose leaves are as fit for poison as for
garlands; it is the young child of adventure and hope. Ay, and the
emptier his purse, ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider
the domains which his fancy enjoys as he goes on with kingly step to the
Future.

Not till towards the evening did our adventurer slacken his pace and
think of rest and refreshment. There, then, lay before him on either
side the road those wide patches of uninclosed land which in England
often denote the entrance to a village. Presently one or two neat
cottages came in sight; then a small farmhouse, with its yard and barns.
And some way farther yet, he saw the sign swinging before an inn of some
pretensions,--the sort of inn often found on a long stage between two
great towns commonly called "The Halfway House." But the inn stood back
from the road, having its own separate sward in front, whereon was a
great beech-tree (from which the sign extended) and a rustic arbour; so
that to gain the inn, the coaches that stopped there took a sweep from
the main thoroughfare. Between our pedestrian and the inn there stood,
naked and alone, on the common land, a church; our ancestors never would
have chosen that site for it; therefore it was a modern church,--modern
Gothic; handsome to an eye not versed in the attributes of
ecclesiastical architecture, very barbarous to an eye that was. Somehow
or other the church looked cold and raw and uninviting. It looked a
church for show,--much too big for the scattered hamlet, and void of
all the venerable associations which give their peculiar and unspeakable
atmosphere of piety to the churches in which succeeding generations have
knelt and worshipped. Leonard paused and surveyed the edifice with
an unlearned but poetical gaze; it dissatisfied him. And he was yet
pondering why, when a young girl passed slowly before him, her
eyes fixed on the ground, opened the little gate that led into the
churchyard, and vanished. He did not see the child's face; but there was
something in her movements so utterly listless, forlorn, and sad that
his heart was touched. What did she there? He approached the low wall
with a noiseless step, and looked over it wistfully.

There by a grave, evidently quite recent, with no wooden tomb nor
tombstone like the rest, the little girl had thrown herself, and she was
sobbing loud and passionately. Leonard opened the gate, and approached
her with a soft step. Mingled with her sobs, he heard broken sentences,
wild and vain, as all human sorrowings over graves must be.

"Father! oh, Father, do you not really hear me? I am so lone, so lone!
Take me to you,--take me!" And she buried her face in the deep grass.

"Poor child!" said Leonard, in a half whisper,--"he is not there. Look
above!"

The girl did not heed him; he put his arm round her waist gently; she
made a gesture of impatience and anger, but she would not turn her face,
and she clung to the grave with her hands.

After clear, sunny days the dews fall more heavily; and now, as the sun
set, the herbage was bathed in a vaporous haze,--a dim mist rose around.
The young man seated himself beside her, and tried to draw the child to
his breast. Then she turned eagerly, indignantly, and pushed him aside
with jealous arms. He profaned the grave! He understood her with his
deep poet-heart, and rose. There was a pause. Leonard was the first to
break it.

"Come to your home with me, my child, and we will talk of him by the
way."

"Him! Who are you? You did not know him!" said the girl, still with
anger. "Go away! Why do you disturb me? I do no one harm. Go! go!"

"You do yourself harm, and that will grieve him if he sees you yonder!
Come!"

The child looked at him through her blinding tears, and his face
softened and soothed her.

"Go!" she said, very plaintively, and in subdued accents. "I will but
stay a minute more. I--I have so much to say yet."

Leonard left the churchyard, and waited without; and in a short time
the child came forth, waived him aside as he approached her, and hurried
away. He followed her at a distance, and saw her disappear within the
inn.




CHAPTER V.

"Hip-Hip-Hurrah!" Such was the sound that greeted our young traveller
as he reached the inn door,--a sound joyous in itself, but sadly out of
harmony with the feelings which the child sobbing on the tombless grave
had left at his heart. The sound came from within, and was followed by
thumps and stamps, and the jingle of glasses. A strong odour of
tobacco was wafted to his olfactory sense. He hesitated a moment at the
threshold.

Before him, on benches under the beech-tree and within the arbour, were
grouped sundry athletic forms with "pipes in the liberal air."

The landlady, as she passed across the passage to the taproom, caught
sight of his form at the doorway, and came forward. Leonard still stood
irresolute. He would have gone on his way, but for the child: she had
interested him strongly.

"You seem full, ma'am," said he. "Can I have accommodation for the
night?"

"Why, indeed, sir," said the landlady, civilly, "I can give you a
bedroom, but I don't know where to put you meanwhile. The two parlours
and the tap-room and the kitchen are all choke-full. There has been a
great cattle-fair in the neighbourhood, and I suppose we have as many as
fifty farmers and drovers stopping here."

"As to that, ma'am, I can sit in the bedroom you are kind enough to give
me; and if it does not cause you much trouble to let me have some
tea there, I should be glad; but I can wait your leisure. Do not put
yourself out of the way for me."

The landlady was touched by a consideration she was not much habituated
to receive from her bluff customers. "You speak very handsome, sir, and
we will do our best to serve you, if you will excuse all faults. This
way, sir." Leonard lowered his knapsack, stepped into the passage,
with some difficulty forced his way through a knot of sturdy giants
in top-boots or leathern gaiters, who were swarining in and out the
tap-room, and followed his hostess upstairs to a little bedroom at the
top of the house.

"It is small, sir, and high," said the hostess, apologetically. "But
there be four gentlemen farmers that have come a great distance, and all
the first floor is engaged; you will be more out of the noise here."

"Nothing can suit me better. But, stay,--pardon me;" and Leonard,
glancing at the garb of the hostess, observed she was not in mourning.
"A little girl whom I saw in the churchyard yonder, weeping very
bitterly--is she a relation of yours? Poor child! she seems to have
deeper feelings than are common at her age."

"Ah, sir," said the landlady, putting the corner of her apron to her
eyes, "it is a very sad story. I don't know what to do. Her father was
taken ill on his way to Lunnon, and stopped here, and has been buried
four days. And the poor little girl seems to have no relations--and
where is she to go? Laryer Jones says we must pass her to Marybone
parish, where her father lived last; and what's to become of her then?
My heart bleeds to think on it."

Here there rose such an uproar from below, that it was evident some
quarrel had broken out; and the hostess, recalled to her duties,
hastened to carry thither her propitiatory influences.

Leonard seated himself pensively by the little lattice. Here was some
one more alone in the world than he; and she, poor orphan, had no stout
man's heart to grapple with fate, and no golden manuscripts that were
to be as the "Open-Sesame" to the treasures of Aladdin. By and by,
the hostess brought him up a tray with tea and other refreshments, and
Leonard resumed his inquiries. "No relatives?" said he; "surely the
child must have some kinsfolk in London? Did her father leave no
directions, or was he in possession of his faculties?"

"Yes, sir; he was quite reasonable like to the last. And I asked him
if he had not anything on his mind, and he said, 'I have.' And I said,
'Your little girl, sir?' And he answered me, 'Yes, ma'am;' and laying
his head on his pillow, he wept very quietly. I could not say more
myself, for it set me off to see him cry so meekly; but my husband is
harder nor I, and he said, 'Cheer up, Mr. Digby; had not you better
write to your friends?'

"'Friends!' said the gentleman, in such a voice! 'Friends I have but
one, and I am going to Him! I cannot take her there!' Then he seemed
suddenly to recollect himself, and called for his clothes, and rummaged
in the pockets as if looking for some address, and could not find it.
He seemed a forgetful kind of gentleman, and his hands were what I call
helpless hands, sir! And then he gasped out, 'Stop, stop! I never had
the address. Write to Lord Les--', something like Lord Lester, but we
could not make out the name. Indeed he did not finish it, for there
was a rush of blood to his lips; and though he seemed sensible when
he recovered (and knew us and his little girl too, till he went off
smiling), he never spoke word more."

"Poor man," said Leonard, wiping his eyes. "But his little girl surely
remembers the name that he did not finish?"

"No. She says he must have meant a gentleman whom they had met in
the Park not long ago, who was very kind to her father, and was Lord
something; but she don't remember the name, for she never saw him before
or since, and her father talked very little about any one lately, but
thought he should find some kind friends at Screwstown, and travelled
down there with her from Lunnon. But she supposes he was disappointed,
for he went out, came back, and merely told her to put up the things, as
they must go back to Lunnon. And on his way there he--died. Hush, what's
that? I hope she did not overhear us. No, we were talking low. She has
the next room to your'n, sir. I thought I heard her sobbing. Hush!"

"In the next room? I hear nothing. Well, with your leave, I will speak
to her before I quit you. And had her father no money with him?"

"Yes, a few sovereigns, sir; they paid for his funeral, and there is
a little left still,--enough to take her to town; for my husband said,
says he, 'Hannah, the widow gave her mite, and we must not take the
orphan's;' and my husband is a hard man, too, sir--bless him!"

"Let me take your hand, ma'am. God reward you both."

"La, sir! why, even Dr. Dosewell said, rather grumpily though, 'Never
mind my bill; but don't call me up at six o'clock in the morning again,
without knowing a little more about people.' And I never afore knew Dr.
Dosewell go without his bill being paid. He said it was a trick o' the
other doctor to spite him."

"What other doctor?"

"Oh, a very good gentleman, who got out with Mr. Digby when he was taken
ill, and stayed till the next morning; and our doctor says his name is
Morgan, and he lives in Lunnou, and is a homy--something."

"Homicide," suggested Leonard, ignorantly.

"Ah, homicide; something like that, only a deal longer and worse. But
he left some of the tiniest little balls you ever see, sir, to give the
child; but, bless you, they did her no good,--how should they?"

"Tiny balls, oh--homoeopathist--I understand. And the doctor was kind to
her; perhaps he may help her. Have you written to him?"

"But we don't know his address, and Lunnon is a vast place, sir."

"I am going to London and will find it out."

"Ah, sir, you seem very kind; and sin' she must go to Lunnon (for what
can we do with her here?--she's too genteel for service), I wish she was
going with you."

"With me!" said Leonard, startled,--"with me! Well, why not?"

"I am sure she comes of good blood, sir. You would have known her father
was quite the gentleman, only to see him die, sir. He went off so kind
and civil like, as if he was ashamed to give so much trouble,--quite a
gentleman, if ever there was one. And so are you, sir, I'm sure," said
the land lady, courtesying; "I know what gentlefolk be. I've been a
housekeeper in the first of families in this very shire, sir, though I
can't say I've served in Lunnon; and so, as gentlefolks know each other,
I 've no doubt you could find out her relations. Dear, dear! Coming,
coming!"

Here there were loud cries for the hostess, and she hurried away. The
farmers and drovers were beginning to depart, and their bills were to be
made out and paid. Leonard saw his hostess no more that night. The last
Hip-hip-hurrah was heard,--some toast, perhaps to the health of the
county members,--and the chamber of woe beside Leonard's rattled with
the shout. By and by, silence gradually succeeded the various dissonant
sounds below. The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of hoofs on
the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of locking-up, and
low, humming voices below, and footsteps mounting the stairs to bed,
with now and then a drunken hiccough or maudlin laugh, as some conquered
votary of Bacchus was fairly carried up to his domicile.

All, then, at last was silent, just as the clock from the church sounded
the stroke of eleven.

Leonard, meanwhile, had been looking over his manuscripts. There was
first a project for an improvement on the steam-engine,--a project that
had long lain in his mind, begun with the first knowledge of mechanics
that he had gleaned from his purchases of the tinker. He put that
aside now,--it required too great an effort of the reasoning faculty to
re-examine.

He glanced less hastily over a collection of essays on various
subjects,--some that he thought indifferent, some that he thought good.
He then lingered over a collection of verses written in his best hand
with loving care,--verses first inspired by his perusal of Nora's
melancholy memorials. These verses were as a diary of his heart and his
fancy,--those deep, unwitnessed struggles which the boyhood of all more
thoughtful natures has passed in its bright yet murky storm of the cloud
and the lightning-flash, though but few boys pause to record the crisis
from which slowly emerges Man. And these first desultory grapplings with
the fugitive airy images that flit through the dim chambers of the
brain had become with each effort more sustained and vigorous, till the
phantoms were spelled, the flying ones arrested, the Immaterial seized,
and clothed with Form. Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that
there at length spoke forth the poet. It was a work which though as yet
but half completed, came from a strong hand; not that shadow trembling
on unsteady waters, which is but the pale reflex and imitation of
some bright mind, sphered out of reach and afar, but an original
substance,--a life, a thing of the Creative Faculty,--breathing
back already the breath it had received. This work had paused during
Leonard's residence with Mr. Avenel, or had only now and then, in
stealth, and at night, received a rare touch. Now, as with a fresh eye
he reperused it, and with that strange, innocent admiration, not of
self--for a man's work is not, alas! himself,--it is the beautified
and idealized essence, extracted he knows not how from his own human
elements of clay; admiration known but to poets,--their purest delight,
often their sole reward. And then with a warmer and more earthly beat of
his full heart, he rushed in fancy to the Great City, where all rivers
of fame meet, but not to be merged and lost, sallying forth again,
individualized and separate, to flow through that one vast Thought of
God which we call THE WORLD.

He put up his papers; and opened his window, as was his ordinary custom,
before he retired to rest,--for he had many odd habits; and he loved to
look out into the night when he prayed. His soul seemed to escape from
the body--to mount on the air, to gain more rapid access to the far
Throne in the Infinite--when his breath went forth among the winds, and
his eyes rested fixed on the stars of heaven.

So the boy prayed silently; and after his prayer he was about,
lingeringly, to close the lattice, when he heard distinctly sobs close
at hand. He paused, and held his breath, then looked gently out; the
casement next his own was also open. Someone was also at watch by that
casement,--perhaps also praying. He listened yet more intently, and
caught, soft and low, the words, "Father, Father, do you hear me now?"




CHAPTER VI.

Leonard opened his door and stole towards that of the room adjoining;
for his first natural impulse had been to enter and console. But when
his touch was on the handle, he drew back. Child though the mourner was,
her sorrows were rendered yet more sacred from intrusion by her sex.
Something, he knew not what, in his young ignorance, withheld him
from the threshold. To have crossed it then would have seemed to him
profanation. So he returned, and for hours yet he occasionally heard the
sobs, till they died away, and childhood wept itself to sleep.

But the next morning, when he heard his neighbour astir, he knocked
gently at her door: there was no answer. He entered softly, and saw
her seated very listlessly in the centre of the room,--as if it had no
familiar nook or corner as the rooms of home have, her hands drooping on
her lap, and her eyes gazing desolately on the floor. Then he approached
and spoke to her.

Helen was very subdued, and very silent. Her tears seemed dried up;
and it was long before she gave sign or token that she heeded him. At
length, however, he gradually succeeded in rousing her interest; and
the first symptom of his success was in the quiver of her lip, and the
overflow of her downcast eyes.

By little and little he wormed himself into her confidence; and she told
him in broken whispers her simple story. But what moved him the most
was, that beyond her sense of loneliness she did not seem to feel her
own unprotected state. She mourned the object she had nursed and
heeded and cherished, for she had been rather the protectress than the
protected to the helpless dead. He could not gain from her any more
satisfactory information than the landlady had already imparted, as to
her friends and prospects; but she permitted him passively to look among
the effects her father had left, save only that, if his hand touched
something that seemed to her associations especially holy, she waved him
back, or drew it quickly away. There were many bills receipted in the
name of Captain Digby, old yellow faded music-scores for the flute,
extracts of Parts from Prompt Books, gay parts of lively comedies,
in which heroes have so noble a contempt for money,--fit heroes for
a Sheridan and a Farquhar; close by these were several pawnbroker's
tickets; and, not arrayed smoothly, but crumpled up, as if with an
indignant nervous clutch of the helpless hands, some two or three
letters. He asked Helen's permission to glance at these, for they might
afford a clew to friends. Helen gave the permission by a silent bend of
the head. The letters, however, were but short and freezing answers from
what appeared to be distant connections or former friends, or persons
to whom the deceased had applied for some situation. They were all very
disheartening in their tone. Leonard next endeavoured to refresh
Helen's memory as to the name of the nobleman which had been last on her
father's lips; but there he failed wholly. For it may be remembered that
Lord L'Estrange, when he pressed his loan on Mr. Digby, and subsequently
told that gentleman to address him at Mr. Egerton's, had, from a natural
delicacy, sent the child on, that she might not witness the charity
bestowed on the father; and Helen said truly that Mr. Digby had sunk
latterly into an habitual silence on all his affairs. She might have
heard her father mention the name, but she had not treasured it up; all
she could say was, that she should know the stranger again if she met
him, and his dog too. Seeing that the child had grown calm, Leonard was
then going to leave the room, in order to confer with the hostess, when
she rose suddenly, though noiselessly, and put her little hand in his,
as if to detain him. She did not say a word; the action said all,--said,
"Do not desert me." And Leonard's heart rushed to his lips, and he
answered to the action, as he bent down, and kissed her cheek, "Orphan,
will you go with me? We have one Father yet to both of us, and He will
guide us on earth. I am fatherless like you." She raised her eyes to
his, looked at him long, and then leaned her head confidingly on his
strong young shoulder.




CHAPTER VII.

At noon that same day the young man and the child were on their road to
London. The host had at first a little demurred at trusting Helen to so
young a companion; but Leonard, in his happy ignorance, had talked so
sanguinely of finding out this lord, or some adequate protectors for the
child; and in so grand a strain, though with all sincerity, had spoken
of his own great prospects in the metropolis (he did not say what they
were!) that had he been the craftiest impostor he could not more have
taken in the rustic host. And while the landlady still cherished the
illusive fancy that all gentlefolks must know each other in London, as
they did in a county, the landlord believed, at least, that a young man
so respectably dressed, although but a foot-traveller, who talked in
so confident a tone, and who was so willing to undertake what might
be rather a burdensome charge, unless he saw how to rid himself of it,
would be sure to have friends older and wiser than himself, who would
judge what could best be done for the orphan.

And what was the host to do with her? Better this volunteered escort,
at least, than vaguely passing her on from parish to parish, and leaving
her friendless at last in the streets of London. Helen, too, smiled
for the first time on being asked her wishes, and again put her hand in
Leonard's. In short, so it was settled.

The little girl made up a bundle of the things she most prized or
needed. Leonard did not feel the additional load, as he slung it to his
knapsack; the rest of the luggage was to be sent to London as soon as
Leonard wrote (which he promised to do soon) and gave an address.

Helen paid her last visit to the churchyard; and she joined her
companion as he stood on the road, without the solemn precincts. And now
they had gone on some hours; and when he asked her if she were tired,
she still answered "No." But Leonard was merciful, and made their day's
journey short; and it took them some days to reach London. By the long
lonely way they grew so intimate, at the end of the second day, they
called each other brother and sister; and Leonard, to his delight, found
that as her grief, with the bodily movement and the change of scene,
subsided from its first intenseness and its insensibility to other
impressions, she developed a quickness of comprehension far beyond her
years. Poor child! that had been forced upon her by Necessity. And
she understood him in his spiritual consolations, half poetical, half
religious; and she listened to his own tale, and the story of his
self-education and solitary struggles,--those, too, she understood.
But when he burst out with his enthusiasm, his glorious hopes, his
confidence in the fate before them, then she would shake her head very
quietly and very sadly. Did she comprehend them! Alas! perhaps too well.
She knew more as to real life than he did. Leonard was at first their
joint treasurer; but before the second day was over, Helen seemed to
discover that he was too lavish; and she told him so, with a prudent
grave look, putting her hand on his arm as he was about to enter an
inn to dine; and the gravity would have been comic, but that the eyes
through their moisture were so meek and grateful. She felt he was about
to incur that ruinous extravagance on her account. Somehow or other, the
purse found its way into her keeping, and then she looked proud and in
her natural element.

Ah! what happy meals under her care were provided; so much more
enjoyable than in dull, sanded inn-parlours, swarming with flies, and
reeking with stale tobacco. She would leave him at the entrance of a
village, bound forward, and cater, and return with a little basket and a
pretty blue jug--which she had bought on the road,--the last filled with
new milk; the first with new bread, and some special dainty in radishes
or water-tresses. And she had such a talent for finding out the
prettiest spot whereon to halt and dine: sometimes in the heart of a
wood,--so still, it was like a forest in fairy tales, the hare stealing
through the alleys, or the squirrel peeping at them from the boughs;
sometimes by a little brawling stream, with the fishes seen under the
clear wave, and shooting round the crumbs thrown to them. They made an
Arcadia of the dull road up to their dread Thermopylae, the war against
the million that waited them on the other side of their pass through
Tempo.

"Shall we be as happy when we are great?" said Leonard, in his grand
simplicity.

Helen sighed, and the wise little head was shaken.




CHAPTER VIII.

At last they came within easy reach of London; but Leonard had resolved
not to enter the metropolis fatigued and exhausted, as a wanderer
needing refuge, but fresh and elate, as a conqueror coming in triumph
to take possession of the capital. Therefore they halted early in the
evening of the day preceding this imperial entry, about six miles from
the metropolis, in the neighbourhood of Ealing (for by that route lay
their way). They were not tired on arriving at their inn. The weather
was singularly lovely, with that combination of softness and brilliancy
which is only known to the rare true summer days of England; all below
so green, above so blue,--days of which we have about six in the year,
and recall vaguely when we read of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, of Damsel
and Knight in Spenser's golden Summer Song, or of Jacques, dropped under
the oak-tree, watching the deer amidst the dells of Ardennes. So, after
a little pause at their inn, they strolled forth, not for travel but
pleasure, towards the cool of sunset, passing by the grounds that once
belonged to the Duke of Kent, and catching a glimpse of the shrubs
and lawns of that beautiful domain through the lodge-gates; then they
crossed into some fields, and came to a little rivulet called the
Brent. Helen had been more sad that day than on any during their
journey,--perhaps because, on approaching London, the memory of her
father became more vivid; perhaps from her precocious knowledge of life,
and her foreboding of what was to befall them, children that they both
were. But Leonard was selfish that day; he could not be influenced by
his companion's sorrow; he was so full of his own sense of being, and
he already caught from the atmosphere the fever that belongs to anxious
capitals.

"Sit here, sister," said he, imperiously, throwing himself under the
shade of a pollard-tree that overhung the winding brook, "sit here and
talk."

He flung off his hat, tossed back his rich curls, and sprinkled his brow
from the stream that eddied round the roots of the tree that bulged out,
bald and gnarled, from the bank and delved into the waves below. Helen
quietly obeyed him, and nestled close to his side.

"And so this London is really very vast,--VERY?" he repeated
inquisitively.

"Very," answered Helen, as, abstractedly, she plucked the cowslips near
her, and let them fall into the running waters. "See how the flowers
are carried down the stream! They are lost now. London is to us what the
river is to the flowers, very vast, very strong;" and she added, after a
pause, "very cruel!"

"Cruel! Ah, it has been so to you; but now--now I will take care of
you!" he smiled triumphantly; and his smile was beautiful both in its
pride and its kindness. It is astonishing how Leonard had altered since
he had left his uncle's. He was both younger and older; for the sense of
genius, when it snaps its shackles, makes us both older and wiser as to
the world it soars to, younger and blinder as to the world it springs
from.

"And it is not a very handsome city, either, you say?"

"Very ugly indeed," said Helen, with some fervour; "at least all I have
seen of it."

"But there must be parts that are prettier than others? You say there
are parks: why should not we lodge near them and look upon the green
trees?"

"That would be nice," said Helen, almost joyously; "but--" and here
the head was shaken--"there are no lodgings for us except in courts and
alleys."

"Why?"

"Why?" echoed Helen, with a smile, and she held up the purse.

"Pooh! always that horrid purse; as if, too, we were not going to fill
it! Did not I tell you the story of Fortunio? Well, at all events, we
will go first to the neighbourhood where you last lived, and learn there
all we can; and then the day after to-morrow I will see this Dr. Morgan,
and find out the lord."

The tears started to Helen's soft eyes. "You want to get rid of me soon,
brother."

"I! Ah, I feel so happy to have you with me it seems to me as if I had
pined for you all my life, and you had come at last; for I never had
brother nor sister nor any one to love, that was not older than myself,
except--"

"Except the young lady you told me of," said Helen, turning away her
face; for children are very jealous.

"Yes, I loved her, love her still. But that was different," said
Leonard. "I could never have talked to her as to you: to you I open my
whole heart; you are my little Muse, Helen: I confess to you my wild
whims and fancies as frankly as if I were writing poetry." As he said
this, a step was heard, and a shadow fell over the stream. A belated
angler appeared on the margin, drawing his line impatiently across the
water, as if to worry some dozing fish into a bite before it finally
settled itself for the night. Absorbed in his occupation, the angler did
not observe the young persons on the sward under the tree, and he halted
there, close upon them.

"Curse that perch!" said he, aloud.

"Take care, sir," cried Leonard; for the man, in stepping back, nearly
trod upon Helen.

The angler turned. "What 's the matter? Hist! you have frightened my
perch. Keep still, can't you?"

Helen drew herself out of the way, and Leonard remained motionless. He
remembered Jackeymo, and felt a sympathy for the angler.

"It is the most extraordinary perch, that!" muttered the stranger,
soliloquizing. "It has the devil's own luck. It must have been born
with a silver spoon in its mouth, that damned perch! I shall never
catch it,--never! Ha! no, only a weed. I give it up." With this, he
indignantly jerked his rod from the water and began to disjoint it.
While leisurely engaged in this occupation, he turned to Leonard.

"Humph! are you intimately acquainted with this stream, sir?"

"No," answered Leonard. "I never saw it before."

ANGLER, (solemnly).--"Then, young man, take my advice, and do not give
way to its fascinations. Sir, I am a martyr to this stream; it has been
the Delilah of my existence."

LEONARD (interested, the last sentence seemed to him poetical).--"The
Delilah! sir, the Delilah!"

ANGLER.--"The Delilah. Young man, listen, and be warned by example. When
I was about your age, I first came to this stream to fish. Sir, on that
fatal day, about three p.m., I hooked up a fish,--such a big one, it
must have weighed a pound and a half. Sir, it was that length;" and the
angler put finger to wrist. "And just when I had got it nearly ashore,
by the very place where you are sitting, on that shelving bank, young
man, the line broke, and the perch twisted himself among those roots,
and--cacodaemon that he was--ran off, hook and all. Well, that fish
haunted me; never before had I seen such a fish. Minnows I had caught in
the Thames and elsewhere, also gudgeons, and occasionally a dace. But
a fish like that--a PERCH, all his fins up, like the sails of a
man-of-war--a monster perch,--a whale of a perch! No, never till then
had I known what leviathans lie hid within the deeps. I could not sleep
till I had returned; and again, sir,--I caught that perch. And this time
I pulled him fairly out of the water. He escaped; and how did he escape?
Sir, he left his eye behind him on the hook. Years, long years, have
passed since then; but never shall I forget the agony of that moment."

LEONARD.--"To the perch, sir?"

ANGLER.--"Perch! agony to him! He enjoyed it. Agony to me! I gazed on
that eye, and the eye looked as sly and as wicked as if it were laughing
in my face. Well, sir, I had heard that there is no better bait for a
perch than a perch's eye. I adjusted that eye on the hook, and dropped
in the line gently. The water was unusually clear; in two minutes I
saw that perch return. He approached the hook; he recognized his eye,
frisked his tail, made a plunge, and, as I live, carried off the
eye, safe and sound; and I saw him digesting it by the side of that
water-lily. The mocking fiend! Seven times since that day, in the course
of a varied and eventful life, have I caught that perch, and seven times
has that perch escaped."

LEONARD (astonished).--"It can't be the same perch; perches are very
tender fish. A hook inside of it, and an eye hooked out of it--no perch
could withstand such havoc in its constitution."

ANGLER (with an appearance of awe).--"It does seem supernatural. But it
is that perch; for hark ye, sir, there is ONLY ONE perch in the whole
brook! All the years I have fished here, I have never caught another
perch; and this solitary inmate of the watery element I know by sight
better than I knew my own lost father. For each time that I have raised
it out of the water, its profile has been turned to me, and I have seen
with a shudder that it has had only--One Eye! It is a most mysterious
and a most diabolical phenomenon, that perch! It has been the ruin of my
prospects in life. I was offered a situation in Jamaica: I could not
go with that perch left here in triumph. I might afterwards have had an
appointinent in India, but I could not put the ocean between myself
and that perch: thus have I frittered away my existence in the fatal
metropolis of my native land. And once a week from February to December
I come hither. Good heavens! if I should catch the perch at last, the
occupation of my existence will be gone."

Leonard gazed curiously at the angler, as the last thus mournfully
concluded. The ornate turn of his periods did not suit with his costume.
He looked wofully threadbare and shabby,--a genteel sort of shabbiness
too,--shabbiness in black. There was humour in the corners of his
lip; and his hands, though they did not seem very clean--indeed his
occupation was not friendly to such niceties--were those of a man who
had not known manual labour. His face was pale and puffed, but the tip
of the nose was red. He did not seem as if the watery element was as
familiar to himself as to his Delilah, the perch.

"Such is Life!" recommenced the angler, in a moralizing tone, as he slid
his rod into its canvas case. "If a man knew what it was to fish all
one's life in a stream that has only one perch, to catch that one perch
nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water,
plump,--if a man knew what it was, why, then "--here the angler looked
over his shoulder full at Leonard--"why then, young sir, he would know
what human life is to vain ambition. Good-evening."

Away he went treading over the daisies and kingcups. Helen's eyes
followed him wistfully.

"What a strange person!" said Leonard, laughing.

"I think he is a very wise one," murmured Helen; and she came close up
to Leonard, and took his hand in both hers, as if she felt already that
he was in need of the Comforter,--the line broken, and the perch lost!




CHAPTER IX.

At noon the next day, London stole upon them through a gloomy, thick,
oppressive atmosphere; for where is it that we can say London bursts on
the sight? It stole on them through one of its fairest and most gracious
avenues of approach,--by the stately gardens of Kensington, along the
side of Hyde Park, and so on towards Cumberland Gate.

Leonard was not the least struck. And yet with a very little money, and
a very little taste, it would be easy to render this entrance to London
as grand and as imposing as that to Paris from the Champs Elysees. As
they came near the Edgware Road, Helen took her new brother by the
hand and guided him; for she knew all that neighbourhood, and she was
acquainted with a lodging near that occupied by her father (to that
lodging itself she could not have gone for the world), where they might
be housed cheaply.

But just then the sky, so dull and overcast since morning, seemed one
mass of black cloud. There suddenly came on a violent storm of rain. The
boy and girl took refuge in a covered mews, in a street running out
of the Edgware Road. This shelter soon became crowded; the two young
pilgrims crept close to the wall, apart from the rest, Leonard's arm
round Helen's waist, sheltering her from the rain that the strong
wind contending with it beat in through the passage. Presently a young
gentleman of better mien and dress than the other refugees entered, not
hastily, but rather with a slow and proud step, as if, though he deigned
to take shelter, he scorned to run to it. He glanced somewhat haughtily
at the assembled group, passed on through the midst of it, came near
Leonard, took off his hat, and shook the rain from its brim. His head
thus uncovered, left all his features exposed; and the village youth
recognized, at the first glance, his old victorious assailant on the
green at Hazeldean.




CHAPTER IX.

Yet Randal Leslie was altered. His dark cheek was as thin as in boyhood,
and even yet more wasted by intense study and night vigils; but the
expression of his face was at once more refined and manly, and there was
a steady concentrated light in his eye, like that of one who has been
in the habit of bringing all his thoughts to one point. He looked older
than he was. He was dressed simply in black, a colour which became
him; and altogether his aspect and figure were, not showy indeed, but
distinguished. He looked to the common eye a gentleman; and to the more
observant a scholar.

Helter-skelter! pell-mell! the group in the passage now pressed each
on each, now scattered on all sides, making way, rushing down the mews,
against the walls, as a fiery horse darted under shelter. The rider, a
young man with a very handsome face, and dressed with that peculiar care
which we commonly call dandyism, cried out, good-humouredly, "Don't be
afraid; the horse sha'n't hurt any of you. A thousand pardons--so ho! so
ho!" He patted the horse, and it stood as still as a statue, filling up
the centre of the passage. The groups resettled; Randal approached the
rider.

"Frank Hazeldean!"

"Ah, is it indeed Randal Leslie?"

Frank was off his horse in a moment, and the bridle was consigned to the
care of a slim 'prentice-boy holding a bundle.

"My dear fellow, how glad I am to see you. How lucky it was that I
should turn in here. Not like me either, for I don't much care for a
ducking. Staying in town, Randal?"

"Yes; at your uncle's, Mr. Egerton. I have left Oxford."

"For good?"

"For good."

"But you have not taken your degree, I think? We Etonians all considered
you booked for a double-first. Oh, we have been so proud of your
fame,--you carried off all the prizes."

"Not all; but some, certainly. Mr. Egerton offered me my choice,--to
stay for my degree, or to enter at once into the Foreign Office. I
preferred the end to the means. For, after all, what good are academical
honours but as the entrance to life? To enter now is to save a step in a
long way, Frank."

"Ah, you were always ambitious, and you will make a great figure, I am
sure."

"Perhaps so--if I work for it. Knowledge is power." Leonard started.

"And you!" resumed Randal, looking with some curious attention at his
old schoolfellow. "You never came to Oxford. I did hear you were going
into the army."

"I am in the Guards," said Frank, trying hard not to look too conceited
as he made that acknowledgment. "The governor pished a little, and would
rather I had come to live with him in the old Hall, and take to farming.
Time enough for that, eh? By Jove, Randal, how pleasant a thing is life
in London! Do you go to Almack's to-night?"

"No; Wednesday is a holiday in the House. There is a great parliamentary
dinner at Mr. Egerton's. He is in the Cabinet now, you know; but you
don't see much of your uncle, I think."

"Our sets are different," said the young gentleman, in a tone of voice
worthy of Brummel. "All those parliamentary fellows are devilish dull.
The rain's over. I don't know whether the governor would like me to call
at Grosvenor Square; but pray come and see me. Here's my card to remind
you; you must dine at our mess. Such capital fellows! What day will you
fix?"

"I will call and let you know. Don't you find it rather expensive in the
Guards? I remember that you thought the governor, as you call him, used
to chafe a little when you wrote for more pocket-money; and the only
time I ever saw you with tears in your eyes was when Mr. Hazeldean, in
sending you L5, reminded you that his estates were not entailed,--were
at his own disposal, and they should never go to an extravagant
spendthrift. It was not a pleasant threat that, Frank."

"Oh!" cried the young man, colouring deeply. "It was not the threat that
pained me; it was that my father could think so meanly of me as to
fancy that--Well, well, but those were schoolboy days. And my father was
always more generous than I deserved. We must see a great deal of each
other, Randal. How good-natured you were at Eton, making my longs and
shorts for me; I shall never forget it. Do call soon."

Frank swung himself into his saddle, and rewarded the slim youth with
half-a-crown,--a largess four times more ample than his father would
have deemed sufficient. A jerk of the reins and a touch of the heel, off
bounded the fiery horse and the gay young rider. Randal mused, and as
the rain had now ceased, the passengers under shelter dispersed and went
their way. Only Randal, Leonard, and Helen remained behind. Then, as
Randal, still musing, lifted his eyes, they fell full upon Leonard's
face. He started, passed his hand quickly over his brow, looked again,
hard and piercingly; and the change in his pale cheek to a shade still
paler, a quick compression and nervous gnawing of his lip, showed that
he too recognized an old foe. Then his glance ran over Leonard's dress,
which was somewhat dust-stained, but far above the class amongst which
the peasant was born. Randal raised his brows in surprise, and with a
smile slightly supercilious--the smile stung Leonard--and with a slow
step, Randal left the passage, and took his way towards Grosvenor
Square. The Entrance of Ambition was clear to him.

Then the little girl once more took Leonard by the hand, and led him
through rows of humble, obscure, dreary streets. It seemed almost like
an allegory personified, as the sad, silent child led on the penniless
and low-born adventurer of genius by the squalid shops and through
the winding lanes, which grew meaner and meaner, till both their forms
vanished from the view.




CHAPTER X.

"But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will have
just time, Harley. You will meet the most eminent men of our party;
surely they are worth your study, philosopher that you affect to be."

Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L'Estrange, with whom he had been
riding (after the toils of his office). The two gentlemen were in
Audley's library,--Mr. Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his
chair, in the erect posture of a man who scorns "inglorious ease;"
Harley, as usual, thrown at length on the sofa., his long hair in
careless curls, his neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing simplex
mundit is, indeed, his grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never
slovenly; at ease everywhere and with every one, even with Mr. Audley
Egerton, who chilled or awed the ease out of most people.

"Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent men are all men of
one idea, and that not a diverting one, politics! politics! politics!
The storm in the saucer."

"But what is your life, Harley?--the saucer without the storm?"

"Do you know, that's very well said, Audley? I did not think you had
so much liveliness of repartee. Life! life! it is insipid, it is
shallow,--no launching Argosies in the saucer. Audley, I have the oddest
fancy--"

"That of course," said Audley, dryly; "you never had any other. What is
the new one?"

HARLEY (with great gravity).--"Do you believe in Mesmerism?"

AUDLEY.--"Certainly not."

HARLEY.--"If it were in the power of an animal magnetizer to get me out
of my own skin into somebody's else! That's my fancy! I am so tired of
myself,--so tired! I have run through all my ideas,--know every one of
them by heart. When some pretentious impostor of an idea perks itself up
and says, 'Look at me,--I 'm a new acquaintance,' I just give it a nod,
and say 'Not at all, you have only got a new coat on; you are the same
old wretch that has bored me these last twenty years; get away.' But
if one could be in a new skin, if I could be for half-an-hour your tall
porter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I should then really
travel into a new world.' Every man's brain must be a world in
itself, eh? If I could but make a parochial settlement even in yours,
Audley,--run over all your thoughts and sensations. Upon my life, I 'll
go and talk to that French mesmerizer about it."

   [If, at the date in which Lord L'Estrange held this conversation
   with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we
   should suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them
   the whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it,
   the author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a
   writer whose humour is sufficiently opulent to justify the loan.]

AUDLEY (who does not seem to like the notion of having his thoughts
and sensations rummaged, even by his friend, and even in fancy)--"Pooh,
pooh, pooh! Do talk like a man of sense."

HARLEY.--"Man of sense! Where shall I find a model? I don't know a man
of sense!--never met such a creature. Don't believe it ever existed. At
one time I thought Socrates must have been a man of sense: a delusion;
he would stand gazing into the air, and talking to his Genius from
sunrise to sunset. Is that like a man of sense? Poor Audley! how puzzled
he looks! Well, I'll try and talk sense to oblige you. And first" (here
Harley raised himself on his elbow),--"first, is it true, as I have
heard vaguely, that you are paying court to the sister of that infamous
Italian traitor?"

"Madame di Negra? No: I am not paying court to her," answered Audley,
with a cold smile. "But she is very handsome; she is very clever; she is
useful to me,--I need not say how or why; that belongs to my metier as a
politician. But I think, if you will take my advice, or get your friend
to take it, I could obtain from her brother, through my influence with
her, some liberal concessions to your exile. She is very anxious to know
where he is."

"You have not told her?"

"No; I promised you I would keep that secret."

"Be sure you do; it is only for some mischief, some snare, that she
could desire such information. Concessions! pooh! This is no question of
concessions, but of rights."

"I think you should leave your friend to judge of that."

"Well, I will write to him. Meanwhile, beware of this woman. I have
heard much of her abroad, and she has the character of her brother for
duplicity and--"

"Beauty," interrupted Audley, turning the conversation with practised
adroitness. "I am told that the count is one of the handsomest men in
Europe, much handsomer than his sister still, though nearly twice her
age. Tut, tut, Harley; fear not for me. I am proof against all feminine
attractions. This heart is dead."

"Nay, nay; it is not for you to speak thus,--leave that to me. But even
I will not say it. The heart never dies. And you; what have you lost?--a
wife; true: an excellent, noble-hearted woman. But was it love that you
felt for her? Enviable man, have you ever loved?"

"Perhaps not, Harley," said Audley, with a sombre aspect and in dejected
accents; "very few men ever have loved, at least as you mean by the
word. But there are other passions than love that kill the heart, and
reduce us to mechanism."

While Egerton spoke, Harley turned aside, and his breast heaved. There
was a short silence; Audley was the first to break it.

"Speaking of my lost wife, I am sorry that you do not approve what I
have done for her young kinsman, Randal Leslie."

HARLEY (recovering himself with an effort).--"Is it true kindness to
bid him exchange manly independence for the protection of an official
patron?"

AUDLEV.--"I did not bid him. I gave him his choice. At his age, I should
have chosen as he has done."

HARLEY.--"I trust not; I think better of you. But answer me one question
frankly, and then I will ask another. Do you mean to make this young man
your heir?"

AUDLEY (with a slight embarrassment).--"Heir, pooh! I am young still. I
may live as long as he--time enough to think of that."

HARLEY.--"Then now to my second question. Have you told this youth
plainly that he may look to you for influence, but not for wealth?"

AUDLEY (firmly).--"I think I have; but I shall repeat it more
emphatically."

HARLEY.--"Then I am satisfied as to your conduct, but not as to his.
For he has too acute an intellect not to know what it is to forfeit
independence; and, depend on it, he has made his calculations, and would
throw you into the bargain in any balance that he could strike in his
favour. You go by your experience in judging men; I by my instincts.
Nature warns us as it does the inferior animals,--only we are too
conceited, we bipeds, to heed her. My instincts of soldier and gentleman
recoil from that old young man. He has the soul of the Jesuit. I see
it in his eye, I hear it in the tread of his foot; volto sciolto he has
not; _i pensieri stretti_ he has. Hist! I hear now his step in the hall.
I should know it from a thousand. That's his very touch on the handle of
the door."

Randal Leslie entered. Harley--who, despite his disregard for forms, and
his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred not to be polite to his junior
in age or inferior in rank-rose and bowed. But his bright piercing eyes
did not soften as they caught and bore down the deeper and more latent
fire in Randal's. Harley did not resume his seat, but moved to the
mantelpiece, and leaned against it.

RANDAL.--"I have fulfilled your commissions, Mr. Egerton. I went first
to Maida Hill, and saw Mr. Burley. I gave him the check, but he said it
was too much, and he should return half to the banker; he will write the
article as you suggested. I then--"

AUDLEY.--"Enough, Randal! we will not fatigue Lord L'Estrange with these
little details of a life that displeases him,--the life political."

HARLEY.--"But these details do not displease me; they reconcile me to my
own life. Go on, pray, Mr. Leslie."

Randal had too much tact to need the cautioning glance of Mr. Egerton.
He did not continue, but said with a soft voice, "Do you think, Lord
L'Estrange, that the contemplation of the mode of life pursued by others
can reconcile a man to his own, if he had before thought it needed a
reconciler?" Harley looked pleased, for the question was ironical; and
if there was a thing in the world be abhorred, it was flattery.

"Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, the Suave mare, etc., 'pleasant
from the cliff to see the mariners tossed on the ocean.' Faith, I think
that sight reconciles one to the cliff, though, before, one might have
been teased by the splash from the spray, and deafened by the scream
of the sea-gulls. But I leave you, Audley. Strange that I have heard no
more of my soldier! Remember I have your promise when I come to claim
it. Good-by, Mr. Leslie, I hope that Burley's article will be worth the
check."

Lord L'Estrange mounted his horse, which was still at the door, and rode
through the Park. But he was no longer now unknown by sight. Bows and
nods saluted him on every side.

"Alas, I am found out, then," said he to himself. "That terrible Duchess
of Knaresborough, too--I must fly my country." He pushed his horse into
a canter, and was soon out of the Park. As he dismounted at his
father's sequestered house, you would have hardly supposed him the same
whimsical, fantastic, but deep and subtle humourist that delighted in
perplexing the material Audley, for his expressive face was unutterably
serious. But the moment he came into the presence of his parents, the
countenance was again lighted and cheerful. It brightened the whole room
like sunshine.




CHAPTER XI.

"Mr. Leslie," said Egerton, when Harley had left the library, "you did
not act with your usual discretion in touching upon matters connected
with politics in the presence of a third party."

"I feel that already, sir; my excuse is, that I held Lord L'Estrange to
be your most intimate friend."

"A public man, Mr. Leslie, would ill serve his country if he were not
especially reserved towards his private friends--when they do not belong
to his party."

"But pardon me my ignorance. Lord Lansmere is so well known to be one of
your supporters, that I fancied his son must share his sentiments, and
be in your confidence."

Egerton's brows slightly contracted, and gave a stern expression to a
countenance always firm and decided. He however answered in a mild tone,

"At the entrance into political life, Mr. Leslie, there is nothing
in which a young man of your talents should be more on his guard than
thinking for himself; he will nearly always think wrong. And I believe
that is one reason why young men of talent disappoint their friends, and
remain so long out of office."

A haughty flush passed over Randal's brow, and faded away quickly; he
bowed in silence.

Egerton resumed, as if in explanation, and even in kindly apology,

"Look at Lord L'Estrange himself. What young man could come into life
with brighter auspices? Rank, wealth, high animal spirits (a great
advantage those same spirits, Mr. Leslie), courage, self-possession,
scholarship as brilliant perhaps as your own; and now see how his life
is wasted! Why? He always thought fit to think for himself. He could
never be broken into harness, and never will be. The state coach, Mr.
Leslie, requires that all the horses should pull together."

"With submission, sir," answered Randal, "I should think that there were
other reasons why Lord L'Estrange, whatever be his talents--and of these
you must be indeed an adequate judge--would never do anything in public
life."

"Ay, and what?" said Egerton, quickly.

"First," said Randal, shrewdly, "private life has done too much for him.
What could public life give to one who needs nothing? Born at the top
of the social ladder, why should he put himself voluntarily at the last
step, for the sake of climbing up again? And secondly, Lord L'Estrange
seems to me a man in whose organization sentiment usurps too large a
share for practical existence."

"You have a keen eye," said Audley, with some admiration,--"keen for one
so young. Poor Harley!"

Mr. Egerton's last words were said to himself. He resumed quickly,

"There is something on my mind, my young friend. Let us be frank with
each other. I placed before you fairly the advantages and disadvantages
of the choice I gave you. To take your degree with such honours as no
doubt you would have won, to obtain your fellowship, to go to the Bar,
with those credentials in favour of your talents,--this was one career.
To come at once into public life, to profit by my experience, avail
yourself of my interest, to take the chances of rise or fall with a
party,--this was another. You chose the last. But in so doing, there
was a consideration which might weigh with you, and on which, in stating
your reasons for your option, you were silent."

"What is that, sir?"

"You might have counted on my fortune, should the chances of party fail
you: speak, and without shame if so; it would be natural in a young man,
who comes from the elder branch of the House whose heiress was my wife."

"You wound me, Mr. Egerton," said Randal, turning away.

Mr. Egerton's cold glance followed Randal's movements; the face was hid
from the glance, and the statesman's eye rested on the figure, which is
often as self-betraying as the countenance itself. Randal baffled Mr.
Egerton's penetration,--the young man's emotion might be honest pride
and pained and generous feeling, or it might be something else. Egerton
continued slowly,

"Once for all, then, distinctly and emphatically, I say, never count
upon that; count upon all else that I can do for you, and forgive me
when I advise harshly or censure coldly; ascribe this to my interest in
your career. Moreover, before decision becomes irrevocable, I wish you
to know practically all that is disagreeable or even humiliating in the
first subordinate steps of him who, without wealth or station, would
rise in public life. I will not consider your choice settled till the
end of a year at least,--your name will be kept on the college books
till then; if on experience you should prefer to return to Oxford, and
pursue the slower but surer path to independence and distinction, you
can. And now give me your hand, Mr. Leslie, in sign that you forgive my
bluntness: it is time to dress."

Randal, with his face still averted, extended his hand. Mr. Egerton held
it a moment, then dropping it, left the room. Randal turned as the door
closed; and there was in his dark face a power of sinister passion, that
justified all Harley's warnings. His lips moved, but not audibly; then
as if struck by a sudden thought, he followed Egerton into the hall.

"Sir," said he, "I forgot to say, that on returning from Maida Hill,
I took shelter from the rain under a covered passage, and there I met
unexpectedly with your nephew, Frank Hazeldean."

"Ah!" said Egerton, indifferently, "a fine young man; in the Guards.
It is a pity that my brother has such antiquated political notions; he
should put his son into parliament, and under my guidance; I could push
him. Well, and what said Frank?"

"He invited me to call on him. I remember that you once rather cautioned
me against too intimate an acquaintance with those who have not got
their fortunes to make."

"Because they are idle, and idleness is contagious. Right,--better not
to be too intimate with a young Guardsman."

"Then you would not have me call on him, sir? We were rather friends
at Eton; and if I wholly reject his overtures, might he not think that
you--"

"I!" interrupted Egerton. "Ah, true; my brother might think I bore him
a grudge; absurd. Call then, and ask the young man here. Yet still, I do
not advise intimacy." Egerton turned into his dressing-room. "Sir,"
said his valet, who was in waiting, "Mr. Levy is here,--he says by
appointment; and Mr. Grinders is also just come from the country."

"Tell Mr. Grinders to come in first," said Egerton, seating himself.
"You need not wait; I can dress without you. Tell Mr. Levy I will see
him in five minutes."

Mr. Grinders was steward to Audley Egerton.

Mr. Levy was a handsome man, who wore a camellia in his button-hole;
drove, in his cabriolet, a high-stepping horse that had cost L200; was
well known to young men of fashion, and considered by their fathers a
very dangerous acquaintance.




CHAPTER XII.

As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. Egerton introduced
Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in a way that greatly contrasted
the distant and admonitory manner which he had exhibited to him in
private. The presentation was made with that cordiality and that
gracious respect, by which those who are in station command notice for
those who have their station yet to win.

"My dear lord, let me introduce to you a kinsman of my late wife's" (in
a whisper),--"the heir to the elder branch of her family. Stanmore, this
is Mr. Leslie, of whom I spoke to you. You, who were so distinguished
at Oxford, will not like him the worse for the prizes he gained there.
Duke, let me present to you Mr. Leslie. The duchess is angry with me for
deserting her balls; I shall hope to make my peace, by providing myself
with a younger and livelier substitute. Ah, Mr. Howard, here is a young
gentleman just fresh from Oxford, who will tell us all about the new
sect springing up there. He has not wasted his time on billiards and
horses."

Leslie was received with all that charming courtesy which is the To
Kalon of an aristocracy.

After dinner, conversation settled on politics. Randal listened with
attention, and in silence, till Egerton drew him gently out; just
enough, and no more,--just enough to make his intelligence evident, and
without subjecting him to the charge of laying down the law. Egerton
knew how to draw out young men,--a difficult art. It was one reason why
he was so peculiarly popular with the more rising members of his party.

The party broke up early.

"We are in time for Almack's," said Egerton, glancing at the clock, "and
I have a voucher for you; come."

Randal followed his patron into the carriage. By the way Egerton thus
addressed him,

"I shall introduce you to the principal leaders of society; know them
and study them: I do not advise you to attempt to do more,--that is, to
attempt to become the fashion. It is a very expensive ambition: some men
it helps, most men it ruins. On the whole, you have better cards in your
hands. Dance or not as it pleases you; don't flirt. If you flirt people
will inquire into your fortune,--an inquiry that will do you little
good; and flirting entangles a young man into marrying. That would never
do. Here we are."

In two minutes more they were in the great ballroom, and Randal's eyes
were dazzled with the lights, the diamonds, the blaze of beauty.
Audley presented him in quick succession to some dozen ladies, and then
disappeared amidst the crowd. Randal was not at a loss: he was without
shyness; or if he had that disabling infirmity, he concealed it. He
answered the languid questions put to him with a certain spirit
that kept up talk, and left a favourable impression of his agreeable
qualities. But the lady with whom he got on the best was one who had no
daughters out, a handsome and witty woman of the world,--Lady Frederick
Coniers.

"It is your first ball at Almack's then, Mr. Leslie?"

"My first."

"And you have not secured a partner? Shall I find you one? What do you
think of that pretty girl in pink?"

"I see her--but I cannot think of her."

"You are rather, perhaps, like a diplomatist in a new court, and your
first object is to know who is who."

"I confess that on beginning to study the history of my own day I should
like to distinguish the portraits that illustrate the memoir."

"Give me your arm, then, and we will come into the next room. We shall
see the different notabilites enter one by one, and observe without
being observed. This is the least I can do for a friend of Mr.
Egerton's."

"Mr. Egerton, then," said Randal,--as they threaded their way through
the space without the rope that protected the dancers,--"Mr. Egerton has
had the good fortune to win your esteem even for his friends, however
obscure?"

"Why, to say truth, I think no one whom Mr. Egerton calls his friend
need long remain obscure, if he has the ambition to be otherwise; for
Mr. Egerton holds it a maxim never to forget a friend nor a service."

"Ah, indeed!" said Randal, surprised.

"And therefore," continued Lady Frederick, "as he passes through life,
friends gather round him. He will rise even higher yet. Gratitude, Mr.
Leslie, is a very good policy."

"Hem," muttered Mr. Leslie.

They had now gained the room where tea and bread and butter were the
homely refreshments to the habitues of what at that day was the most
exclusive assembly in London. They ensconced themselves in a corner by
a window, and Lady Frederick performed her task of cicerone with
lively ease, accompanying each notice of the various persons who
passed panoramically before them with sketch and anecdote, sometimes
good-natured, generally satirical, always graphic and amusing.

By and by Frank Hazeldean, having on his arm a young lady of haughty air
and with high though delicate features, came to the tea-table.

"The last new Guardsman," said Lady Frederick; "very handsome, and not
yet quite spoiled. But he has got into a dangerous set."

RANDAL.--"The young lady with him is handsome enough to be dangerous."

LADY FREDERICK (laughing).--"No danger for him there,--as yet at least.
Lady Mary (the Duke of Knaresborough's daughter) is only in her second
year. The first year, nothing under an earl; the second, nothing under
a baron. It will be full four years before she comes down to a commoner.
Mr. Hazeldean's danger is of another kind. He lives much with men who
are not exactly mauvais ton, but certainly not of the best taste. Yet
he is very young; he may extricate himself,--leaving half his fortune
behind him. What, he nods to you! You know him?"

"Very well; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton."

"Indeed! I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new name in London. I heard
his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but not that
he was related to Mr. Egerton."

"Half-brother."

"Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts? He has no sons
himself."

RANDAL.--"Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, from my
family,--from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean." Lady Frederick turned
sharply, looked at Randal's countenance with more attention than she had
yet vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of the Leslies. Randal was very
short there.

An hour afterwards, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the
refreshment-room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him. He was
talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there
entered a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed
through the room as she appeared.

She might be three or four and twenty. She was dressed in black velvet,
which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat and the
clear paleness of her complexion, while it set off the diamonds with
which she was profusely covered. Her hair was of the deepest jet,
and worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and brilliant, her
features regular and striking; but their expression, when in repose, was
not prepossessing to such as love modesty and softness in the looks
of woman. But when she spoke and smiled, there was so much spirit and
vivacity in the countenance, so much fascination in the smile, that all
which might before have marred the effect of her beauty strangely and
suddenly disappeared.

"Who is that very handsome woman?" asked Randal. "An Italian,--a
Marchesa something," said one of the Etonians.

"Di Negra," suggested another, who had been abroad: "she is a widow; her
husband was of the great Genoese family of Negra,--a younger branch of
it."

Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Italian. A few ladies
of the highest rank spoke to her, but with a more distant courtesy than
ladies of high rank usually show to foreigners of such quality as Madame
di Negra. Ladies of rank less elevated seemed rather shy of her,--that
might be from jealousy. As Randal gazed at the marchesa with more
admiration than any woman, perhaps, had before excited in him, he heard
a voice near him say,

"Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle amongst us, and marry an
Englishman."

"If she can find one sufficiently courageous," returned a female voice.

"Well, she's trying hard for Egerton, and he has courage enough for
anything."

The female voice replied, with a laugh, "Mr Egerton knows the world too
well, and has resisted too many temptations to be--"

"Hush! there he is."

Egerton came into the room with his usual firm step and erect mien.
Randal observed that a quick glance was exchanged between him and the
marchesa; but the minister passed her by with a bow.

Still Randal watched, and, ten minutes afterwards, Egerton and the
marchesa were seated apart in the very same convenient nook that Randal
and Lady Frederick had occupied an hour or so before.

"Is this the reason why Mr. Egerton so insultingly warns me against
counting on his fortune?" muttered Randal. "Does he mean to marry
again?"

Unjust suspicion!--for, at that moment, these were the words that Audley
Egerton was dropping forth from his lips of bronze,

"Nay, dear madam, do not ascribe to my frank admiration more gallantry
than it merits. Your conversation charms me, your beauty delights me;
your society is as a holiday that I look forward to in the fatigues of
my life. But I have done with love, and I shall never marry again."

"You almost pique me into trying to win, in order to reject you," said
the Italian, with a flash from her bright eyes.

"I defy even you," answered Audley, with his cold hard smile. "But to
return to the point. You have more influence, at least, over this subtle
ambassador; and the secret we speak of I rely on you to obtain me.
Ah, Madam, let us rest friends. You see I have conquered the unjust
prejudices against you; you are received and feted everywhere, as
becomes your birth and your attractions. Rely on me ever, as I on you.
But I shall excite too much envy if I stay here longer, and am vain
enough to think that I may injure you if I provoke the gossip of the
ill-natured. As the avowed friend, I can serve you; as the supposed
lover, No--" Audley rose as he said this, and, standing by the chair,
added carelessly, "--propos, the sum you do me the honour to borrow will
be paid to your bankers to-morrow."

"A thousand thanks! my brother will hasten to repay you."

Audley bowed. "Your brother, I hope, will repay me in person, not
before. When does he come?"

"Oh, he has again postponed his visit to London; he is so much needed in
Vienna. But while we are talking of him, allow me to ask if your friend,
Lord L'Estrange, is indeed still so bitter against that poor brother of
mine?"

"Still the same."

"It is shameful!" cried the Italian, with warmth; "what has my brother
ever done to him that he should actually intrigue against the count in
his own court?"

"Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange; he but represented what he
believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile."

"And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter still
lives?"

"My dear marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore I will not aid
L'Estrange to injure you or yours. But I call L'Estrange a friend also;
and I cannot violate the trust that--" Audley stopped short, and bit
his lip. "You understand me," he resumed, with a more genial smile than
usual; and he took his leave.

The Italian's brows met as her eye followed him; then, as she too rose,
that eye encountered Randal's.

"That young man has the eye of an Italian," said the marchesa to
herself, as she passed by him into the ballroom.




CHAPTER XIII.

Leonard and Helen settled themselves in two little chambers in a small
lane. The neighbourhood was dull enough, the accommodation humble; but
their landlady had a smile. That was the reason, perhaps, why Helen
chose the lodgings: a smile is not always found on the face of a
landlady when the lodger is poor. And out of their windows they
caught sight of a green tree, an elm, that grew up fair and tall in a
carpenter's yard at the rear. That tree was like another smile to the
place. They saw the birds come and go to its shelter; and they even
heard, when a breeze arose, the pleasant murmur of its boughs.

Leonard went the same evening to Captain Digby's old lodgings, but he
could learn there no intelligence of friends or protectors for Helen.
The people were rude and surly, and said that the captain still owed
them L1 17s. The claim, however, seemed very disputable, and was stoutly
denied by Helen. The next morning Leonard set out in search of Dr.
Morgan. He thought his best plan was to inquire the address of the
doctor at the nearest chemist's, and the chemist civilly looked into
the "Court Guide," and referred him to a house in Bulstrode Street,
Manchester Square. To this street Leonard contrived to find his way,
much marvelling at the meanness of London: Screwstown seemed to him the
handsomer town of the two.

A shabby man-servant opened the door, and Leonard remarked that the
narrow passage was choked with boxes, trunks, and various articles of
furniture. He was shown into a small room containing a very large round
table, whereon were sundry works on homoeopathy, Parry's "Cymbrian
Plutarch," Davies's "Celtic Researches," and a Sunday news paper. An
engraved portrait of the illustrious Hahnemann occupied the place of
honour over the chimneypiece. In a few minutes the door to an inner room
opened, and Dr. Morgan appeared, and said politely, "Come in, sir."

The doctor seated himself at a desk, looked hastily at Leonard, and then
at a great chronometer lying on the table. "My time's short, sir,--going
abroad: and now that I am going, patients flock to me. Too late. London
will repent its apathy. Let it!"

The doctor paused majestically, and not remarking on Leonard's face the
consternation he had anticipated, he repeated peevishly, "I am going
abroad, sir, but I will make a synopsis of your case, and leave it to my
successor. Hum!

"Hair chestnut; eyes--what colour? Look this way,--blue, dark blue. Hem!
Constitution nervous. What are the symptoms?"

"Sir," began Leonard, "a little girl--"

DR. MORGAN (impatiently).--"Little girl; never mind the history of your
sufferings; stick to the symptoms,--stick to the symptoms."

LEONARD.--"YOU mistake me, Doctor, I have nothing the matter with me. A
little girl--"

DR. MORGAN.--"Girl again! I understand! it is she who is ill. Shall I
go to her? She must describe her own symptoms,--I can't judge from your
talk. You'll be telling me she has consumption, or dyspepsia, or some
such disease that don't exist: mere allopathic inventions,--symptoms,
sir, symptoms."

LEONARD (forcing his way).--"You attended her poor father, Captain
Digby, when he was taken ill in the coach with you. He is dead, and his
child is an orphan."

DR. MORGAN (fumbling in his medical pocket-book).--"Orphan! nothing for
orphans, especially if inconsolable, like aconite and chamomilla."

   [It may be necessary to observe that homoeopathy professes to deal
   with our moral affections as well as with our physical maladies, and
   has a globule for every sorrow.]

With some difficulty Leonard succeeded in bringing Helen to the
recollection of the homoeopathist, stating how he came in charge of her,
and why he sought Dr. Morgan.

The doctor was much moved.

"But, really," said he, after a pause, "I don't see how I can help the
poor child. I know nothing of her relations. This Lord Les--whatever his
name is--I know of no lords in London. I knew lords, and physicked
them too, when I was a blundering allopathist. There was the Earl of
Lansmere,--has had many a blue pill from me, sinner that I was. His
son was wiser; never would take physic. Very clever boy was Lord
L'Estrange--"

"Lord L'Estrange! that name begins with Les--"

"Stuff! He's always abroad,--shows his sense. I'm going abroad too. No
development for science in this horrid city,--full of prejudices,
sir, and given up to the most barbarous allopathical and phlebotomical
propensities. I am going to the land of Hahnemann, sir,--sold my
good-will, lease, and furniture, and have bought in on the Rhine.
Natural life there, sir,--homeeopathy needs nature: dine at one o'clock,
get up at four, tea little known, and science appreciated. But I forget.
Cott! what can I do for the orphan?"

"Well, sir," said Leonard, rising, "Heaven will give me strength to
support her."

The doctor looked at the young man attentively. "And yet," said he, in a
gentler voice, "you, young man, are, by your account, a perfect stranger
to her, or were so when you undertook to bring her to London. You have a
good heart, always keep it. Very healthy thing, sir, a good heart,--that
is, when not carried to excess. But you have friends of your own in
town?"

LEONARD.--"Not yet, sir; I hope to make them."

DOCTOR.--"Pless me, you do? How?--I can't make any."

Leonard coloured and hung his head. He longed to say, "Authors find
friends in their readers,--I am going to be an author." But he felt that
the reply would savour of presumption, and held his tongue.

The doctor continued to examine him, and with friendly interest. "You
say you walked up to London: was that from choice or economy?"

LEONARD.--"Both, sir."

DOCTOR.--"Sit down again, and let us talk. I can give you a quarter of
an hour, and I'll see if I can help either of you, provided you tell me
all the symptoms,--I mean all the particulars."

Then, with that peculiar adroitness which belongs to experience in the
medical profession, Dr. Morgan, who was really an acute and able man,
proceeded to put his questions, and soon extracted from Leonard the
boy's history and hopes. But when the doctor, in admiration at a
simplicity which contrasted so evident an intelligence, finally asked
him his name and connections, and Leonard told them, the homoeopathist
actually started. "Leonard Fairfield, grandson of my old friend, John
Avenel of Lansmere! I must shake you by the hand. Brought up by Mrs.
Fairfield!--

"Ah, now I look, strong family likeness,--very strong"

The tears stood in the doctor's eyes. "Poor Nora!" said he.

"Nora! Did you know my aunt?"

"Your aunt! Ah! ah! yes, yes! Poor Nora! she died almost in these
arms,--so young, so beautiful. I remember it as if yesterday."

The doctor brushed his hand across his eyes, and swallowed a globule;
and before the boy knew what he was about, had, in his benevolence,
thrust another between Leonard's quivering lips.

A knock was heard at the door.

"Ha! that 's my great patient," cried the doctor, recovering
his self-possession,--"must see him. A chronic case, excellent
patient,--tic, sir, tic. Puzzling and interesting. If I could take
that tic with me, I should ask nothing more from Heaven. Call again on
Monday; I may have something to tell you then as to yourself. The little
girl can't stay with you,--wrong and nonsensical! I will see after her.
Leave me your address,--write it here. I think I know a lady who will
take charge of her. Good-by. Monday next, ten o'clock." With this, the
doctor thrust out Leonard, and ushered in his grand patient, whom he was
very anxious to take with him to the banks of the Rhine.

Leonard had now only to discover the nobleman whose name had been so
vaguely uttered by poor Captain Digby. He had again recourse to the
"Court Guide;" and finding the address of two or three lords the first
syllable of whose titles seemed similar to that repeated to him, and
all living pretty near to each other, in the regions of Mayfair, he
ascertained his way to that quarter, and, exercising his mother-wit,
inquired at the neighbouring shops as to the personal appearance of
these noblemen. Out of consideration for his rusticity, he got very
civil and clear answers; but none of the lords in question corresponded
with the description given by Helen. One was old, another was
exceedingly corpulent, a third was bedridden,--none of them was known to
keep a great dog. It is needless to say that the name of L'Estrange
(no habitant of London) was not in the "Court Guide." And Dr. Morgan's
assertion that that person was always abroad unluckily dismissed from
Leonard's mind the name the homoeopathist had so casually mentioned. But
Helen was not disappointed when her young protector returned late in the
day, and told her of his ill-success. Poor child! she was so pleased
in her heart not to be separated from her new brother; and Leonard was
touched to see how she had contrived, in his absence, to give a certain
comfort and cheerful grace to the bare room devoted to himself. She had
arranged his few books and papers so neatly, near the window, in sight
of the one green elm. She had coaxed the smiling landlady out of one or
two extra articles of furniture, especially a walnut-tree bureau, and
some odds and ends of ribbon, with which last she had looped up the
curtains. Even the old rush-bottom chairs had a strange air of elegance,
from the mode in which they were placed. The fairies had given sweet
Helen the art that adorns a home, and brings out a smile from the
dingiest corner of hut and attic.

Leonard wondered and praised. He kissed his blushing ministrant
gratefully, and they sat down in joy to their abstemious meal;
when suddenly his face was overclouded,--there shot through him the
remembrance of Dr. Morgan's words, "The little girl can't stay with
you,--wrong and nonsensical. I think I know a lady who will take charge
of her."

"Ah," cried Leonard, sorrowfully, "how could I forget?" And he told
Helen what grieved him. Helen at first exclaimed that she would not go.
Leonard, rejoiced, then began to talk as usual of his great prospects;
and, hastily finishing his meal, as if there were no time to lose, sat
down at once to his papers. Then Helen contemplated him sadly, as he
bent over his delightful work. And when, lifting his radiant eyes from
his manuscripts, he exclaimed, "No, no, you shall not go. This must
succeed,--and we shall live together in some pretty cottage, where we
can see more than one tree,"--then Helen sighed, and did not answer this
time, "No, I will not go."

Shortly after she stole from the room, and into her own; and there,
kneeling down, she prayed, and her prayer was somewhat this, "Guard me
against my own selfish heart; may I never be a burden to him who has
shielded me."

Perhaps as the Creator looks down on this world, whose wondrous beauty
beams on us more and more, in proportion as our science would take it
from poetry into law,--perhaps He beholds nothing so beautiful as the
pure heart of a simple loving child.




CHAPTER XIV.

Leonard went out the next day with his precious manuscripts. He had
read sufficient of modern literature to know the names of the principal
London publishers; and to these he took his way with a bold step, though
a beating heart.

That day he was out longer than the last; and when he returned, and came
into the little room, Helen uttered a cry, for she scarcely recognized
him,--there was on his face so deep, so silent, and so concentrated a
despondency. He sat down listlessly, and did not kiss her this time, as
she stole towards him. He felt so humbled. He was a king deposed.

He take charge of another life! He!

She coaxed him at last into communicating his day's chronicle. The
reader beforehand knows too well what it must be to need detailed
repetition. Most of the publishers had absolutely refused to look at
his manuscripts; one or two had good-naturedly glanced over and returned
them at once with a civil word or two of flat rejection. One publisher
alone--himself a man of letters, and who in youth had gone through
the same bitter process of disillusion that now awaited the village
genius--volunteered some kindly though stern explanation and counsel to
the unhappy boy. This gentleman read a portion of Leonard's principal
poem with attention, and even with frank admiration. He could appreciate
the rare promise that it manifested. He sympathized with the boy's
history, and even with his hopes; and then he said, in bidding him
farewell,

"If I publish this poem for you, speaking as a trader, I shall be a
considerable loser. Did I publish all I admire, out of sympathy with
the author, I should be a ruined man. But suppose that, impressed as
I really am with the evidence of no common poetic gifts in this
manuscript, I publish it, not as a trader, but a lover of literature,
I shall in reality, I fear, render you a great disservice, and perhaps
unfit your whole life for the exertions on which you must rely for
independence."

"How, sir?" cried Leonard. "Not that I would ask you to injure yourself
for me," he added, with proud tears in his eyes.

"How, my young friend? I will explain. There is enough talent in
these verses to induce very flattering reviews in some of the literary
journals. You will read these, find yourself proclaimed a poet, will cry
'I am on the road to fame.' You will come to me, 'And my poem, how does
it sell?' I shall point to some groaning shelf, and say, 'Not twenty
copies! The journals may praise, but the public will not buy it.'
'But you will have got a name,' you say. Yes, a name as a poet just
sufficiently known to make every man in practical business disinclined
to give fair trial to your talents in a single department of positive
life; none like to employ poets;--a name that will not put a penny in
your purse,--worse still, that will operate as a barrier against every
escape into the ways whereby men get to fortune. But having once tasted
praise, you will continue to sigh for it: you will perhaps never again
get a publisher to bring forth a poem, but you will hanker round the
purlieus of the Muses, scribble for periodicals, fall at last into a
bookseller's drudge. Profits will be so precarious and uncertain, that
to avoid debt may be impossible; then, you who now seem so ingenuous and
so proud, will sink deeper still into the literary mendicant, begging,
borrowing--"

"Never! never! never!" cried Leonard, veiling his face with his hands.

"Such would have been my career," continued the publisher; "but I
luckily had a rich relative, a trader, whose calling I despised as a
boy, who kindly forgave my folly, bound me as an apprentice, and here I
am; and now I can afford to write books as well as sell them.

"Young man, you must have respectable relations,--go by their advice and
counsel; cling fast to some positive calling. Be anything in this city
rather than poet by profession."

"And how, sir, have there ever been poets? Had they other callings?"

"Read their biography, and then--envy them!"

Leonard was silent a moment; but lifting his head, answered loud
and quickly, "I have read their biography. True, their lot was
poverty,--perhaps hunger. Sir, I--envy them!"

"Poverty and hunger are small evils," answered the bookseller, with
a grave, kind smile. "There are worse,--debt and degradation,
and--despair."

"No, sir, no, you exaggerate; these last are not the lot of all poets."

"Right, for most of our greatest poets had some private means of their
own. And for others--why, all who have put into a lottery have not
drawn blanks. But who could advise another man to set his whole hope
of fortune on the chance of a prize in a lottery? And such a lottery!"
groaned the publisher, glancing towards sheets and reams of dead
authors, lying, like lead, upon his shelves.

Leonard clutched his manuscripts to his heart, and hurried away.

"Yes," he muttered, as Helen clung to him, and tried to console,--"yes,
you were right: London is very vast, very strong, and very cruel;" and
his head sank lower and lower yet upon his bosom.

The door was flung widely open, and in, unannounced, walked Dr. Morgan.

The child turned to him, and at the sight of his face she remembered
her father; and the tears that for Leonard's sake she had been trying to
suppress found way.

The good doctor soon gained all the confidence of these two young
hearts; and after listening to Leonard's story of his paradise lost in a
day, he patted him on the shoulder and said, "Well, you will call on
me on Monday, and we will see. Meanwhile, borrow these of me!"--and
he tried to slip three sovereigns into the boy's hand. Leonard was
indignant. The bookseller's warning flashed on him. Mendicancy! Oh,
no, he had not yet come to that! He was almost rude and savage in his
rejection; and the doctor did not like him the less for it.

"You are an obstinate mule," said the homoeopathist, reluctantly putting
up his sovereigns. "Will you work at something practical and prosy, and
let the poetry rest a while?"

"Yes," said Leonard, doggedly. "I will work."

"Very well, then. I know an honest bookseller, and he shall give you
some employment; and meanwhile, at all events, you will be among books,
and that will be some comfort."

Leonard's eyes brightened. "A great comfort, sir." He pressed the hand
he had before put aside to his grateful heart.

"But," resumed the doctor, seriously, "you really feel a strong
predisposition to make verses?"

"I did, sir."

"Very bad symptom indeed, and must be stopped before a relapse! Here, I
have cured three prophets and ten poets with this novel specific."

While thus speaking he had got out his book and a globule. "Agaricus
muscarius dissolved in a tumbler of distilled water,--teaspoonful
whenever the fit comes on. Sir, it would have cured Milton himself."

"And now for you, my child," turning to Helen, "I have found a lady who
will be very kind to you. Not a menial situation. She wants some one to
read to her and tend on her; she is old and has no children. She wants
a companion, and prefers a girl of your age to one older. Will this suit
you?"

Leonard walked away.

Helen got close to the doctor's ear, and whispered, "No, I cannot leave
him now,--he is so sad."

"Cott!" grunted the doctor, "you two must have been reading 'Paul and
Virginia.' If I could but stay in England, I would try what ignatia
would do in this case,--interesting experiment! Listen to me, little
girl, and go out of the room, you, sir."

Leonard, averting his face, obeyed. Helen made an involuntary step after
him; the doctor detained and drew her on his knee.

"What's your Christian name?--I forget."

"Helen."

"Helen, listen. In a year or two you will be a young woman, and it would
be very wrong then to live alone with that young man. Meanwhile you have
no right to cripple all his energies. He must not have you leaning on
his right arm,--you would weigh it down. I am going away, and when I am
gone there will be no one to help you, if you reject the friend I offer
you. Do as I tell you, for a little girl so peculiarly susceptible (a
thorough pulsatilla constitution) cannot be obstinate and egotistical."

"Let me see him cared for and happy, sir," said she, firmly, "and I will
go where you wish."

"He shall be so; and to-morrow, while he is out, I will come and fetch
you. Nothing so painful as leave-taking, shakes the nervous system, and
is a mere waste of the animal economy."

Helen sobbed aloud; then, writhing from the doctor, she exclaimed, "But
he may know where I am? We may see each other sometimes? Ah, sir, it was
at my father's grave that we first met, and I think Heaven sent him to
me. Do not part us forever."

"I should have a heart of stone if I did," cried the doctor, vehemently;
"and Miss Starke shall let him come and visit you once a week. I'll give
her something to make her. She is naturally indifferent to others. I
will alter her whole constitution, and melt her into sympathy--with
rhododendron and arsenic!"




CHAPTER XV.

Before he went the doctor wrote a line to "Mr. Prickett, Bookseller,
Holborn," and told Leonard to take it the next morning, as addressed. "I
will call on Prickett myself tonight and prepare him for your visit. But
I hope and trust you will only have to stay there a few days."

He then turned the conversation, to communicate his plans for Helen.
Miss Starke lived at Highgate,--a worthy woman, stiff and prim, as old
maids sometimes are; but just the place for a little girl like Helen,
and Leonard should certainly be allowed to call and see her.

Leonard listened and made no opposition,--now that his day-dream was
dispelled, he had no right to pretend to be Helen's protector. He could
have prayed her to share his wealth and his fame; his penury and his
drudgery--no.

It was a very sorrowful evening,--that between the adventurer and
the child. They sat up late, till their candle had burned down to the
socket; neither did they talk much; but his hand clasped hers all the
time, and her head pillowed it self on his shoulder. I fear when they
parted it was not for sleep.

And when Leonard went forth the next morning, Helen stood at the street
door watching him depart--slowly, slowly. No doubt, in that humble lane
there were many sad hearts; but no heart so heavy as that of the still,
quiet child, when the form she had watched was to be seen no more, and,
still standing on the desolate threshold, she gazed into space, and all
was vacant.




CHAPTER XVI.

Mr. Prickett was a believer in homeeopathy, and declared, to the
indignation of all the apothecaries round Holborn, that he had been
cured of a chronic rheumatism by Dr. Morgan. The good doctor had, as
he promised, seen Mr. Prickett when he left Leonard, and asked him as a
favour to find some light occupation for the boy, that would serve as an
excuse for a modest weekly salary. "It will not be for long," said the
doctor: "his relations are respectable and well off. I will write to his
grandparents, and in a few days I hope to relieve you of the charge. Of
course, if you don't want him, I will repay what he costs meanwhile."

Mr. Prickett, thus prepared for Leonard, received him very graciously;
and, after a few questions, said Leonard was just the person he wanted
to assist him in cataloguing his books, and offered him most handsomely
L1 a week for the task.

Plunged at once into a world of books vaster than he had ever before won
admission to, that old divine dream of knowledge, out of which poetry
had sprung, returned to the village student at the very sight of the
venerable volumes. The collection of Mr. Prickett was, however, in
reality by no means large; but it comprised not only the ordinary
standard works, but several curious and rare ones. And Leonard paused
in making the catalogue, and took many a hasty snatch of the contents
of each tome, as it passed through his hands. The bookseller, who was
an enthusiast for old books, was pleased to see a kindred feeling (which
his shop-boy had never exhibited) in his new assistant; and he talked
about rare editions and scarce copies, and initiated Leonard into many
of the mysteries of the bibliographist.

Nothing could be more dark and dingy than the shop. There was a booth
outside, containing cheap books and odd volumes, round which there was
always an attentive group; within, a gas-lamp burned night and day.

But time passed quickly to Leonard. He missed not the green fields, he
forgot his disappointments, he ceased to remember even Helen. O strange
passion of knowledge! nothing like thee for strength and devotion!

Mr. Prickett was a bachelor, and asked Leonard to dine with him on a
cold shoulder of mutton. During dinner the shop-boy kept the shop,
and Mr. Prickett was really pleasant, as well as loquacious. He took
a liking to Leonard, and Leonard told him his adventures with the
publishers, at which Mr. Prickett rubbed his hands and laughed, as at a
capital joke. "Oh, give up poetry, and stick to a shop," cried he; "and
to cure you forever of the mad whim to be author, I'll just lend you the
'Life and Works of Chatterton.' You may take it home with you and read
before you go to bed. You'll come back quite a new man to-morrow."

Not till night, when the shop was closed, did Leonard return to his
lodging. And when he entered the room, he was struck to the soul by the
silence, by the void. Helen was gone!

There was a rose-tree in its pot on the table at which he wrote, and by
it a scrap of paper, on which was written,

   DEAR, dear brother Leonard, God bless you. I will let you know when
   we can meet again. Take care of this rose, Brother, and don't
   forget poor

   HELEN.

Over the word "forget" there was a big round blistered spot that nearly
effaced the word.

Leonard leaned his face on his hands, and for the first time in his life
he felt what solitude really is. He could not stay long in the room.
He walked out again, and wandered objectless to and fro the streets. He
passed that stiller and humbler neighbourhood, he mixed with the throng
that swarmed in the more populous thoroughfares. Hundreds and thousands
passed him by, and still--still such solitude.

He came back, lighted his candle, and resolutely drew forth the
"Chatterton" which the bookseller had lent him. It was an old edition,
in one thick volume. It had evidently belonged to some contemporary
of the poet's,--apparently an inhabitant of Bristol,--some one who
had gathered up many anecdotes respecting Chatterton's habits, and who
appeared even to have seen him, nay, been in his company; for the book
was interleaved, and the leaves covered with notes and remarks, in
a stiff clear hand,--all evincing personal knowledge of the mournful
immortal dead. At first, Leonard read with an effort; then the strange
and fierce spell of that dread life seized upon him,--seized with pain
and gloom and terror,--this boy dying by his own hand, about the age
Leonard had attained himself. This wondrous boy, of a genius beyond all
comparison the greatest that ever yet was developed and extinguished
at the age of eighteen,--self-taught, self-struggling, self-immolated.
Nothing in literature like that life and that death!

With intense interest Leonard perused the tale of the brilliant
imposture, which had been so harshly and so absurdly construed into the
crime of a forgery, and which was (if not wholly innocent) so akin to
the literary devices always in other cases viewed with indulgence,
and exhibiting, in this, intellectual qualities in themselves so
amazing,--such patience, such forethought, such labour, such courage,
such ingenuity,--the qualities that, well directed, make men great,
not only in books, but action. And, turning from the history of the
imposture to the poems themselves, the young reader bent before their
beauty, literally awed and breathless. How this strange Bristol boy
tamed and mastered his rude and motley materials into a music that
comprehended every tune and key, from the simplest to the sublimest!
He turned back to the biography; he read on; he saw the proud, daring,
mournful spirit alone in the Great City, like himself. He followed its
dismal career, he saw it falling with bruised and soiled wings into
the mire. He turned again to the later works, wrung forth as tasks for
bread,--the satires without moral grandeur, the politics without honest
faith. He shuddered and sickened as he read. True, even here his poet
mind appreciated (what perhaps only poets can) the divine fire that
burned fitfully through that meaner and more sordid fuel,--he still
traced in those crude, hasty, bitter offerings to dire Necessity the
hand of the young giant who had built up the stately verse of Rowley.
But alas! how different from that "mighty line." How all serenity
and joy had fled from these later exercises of art degraded into
journey-work! Then rapidly came on the catastrophe,--the closed doors,
the poison, the suicide, the manuscripts torn by the hands of despairing
wrath, and strewed round the corpse upon the funereal floors. It was
terrible! The spectre of the Titan boy (as described in the notes
written on the margin), with his haughty brow, his cynic smile, his
lustrous eyes, haunted all the night the baffled and solitary child of
song.




CHAPTER XVII.

It will often happen that what ought to turn the human mind from some
peculiar tendency produces the opposite effect. One would think that the
perusal in the newspaper of some crime and capital punishment would
warn away all who had ever meditated the crime, or dreaded the chance
of detection. Yet it is well known to us that many a criminal is made
by pondering over the fate of some predecessor in guilt. There is a
fascination in the Dark and Forbidden, which, strange to say, is only
lost in fiction. No man is more inclined to murder his nephews, or
stifle his wife, after reading "Richard the Third" or "Othello." It is
the reality that is necessary to constitute the danger of contagion.
Now, it was this reality in the fate and life and crowning suicide of
Chatterton that forced itself upon Leonard's thoughts, and sat there
like a visible evil thing, gathering evil like cloud around it. There
was much in the dead poet's character, his trials, and his doom, that
stood out to Leonard like a bold and colossal shadow of himself and his
fate. Alas! the book seller, in one respect, had said truly. Leonard
came back to him the next day a new man; and it seemed even to himself
as if he had lost a good angel in losing Helen. "Oh, that she had been
by my side!" thought he. "Oh, that I could have felt the touch of her
confiding hand; that, looking up from the scathed and dreary ruin of
this life, that had sublimely lifted itself from the plain, and
sought to tower aloft from a deluge, her mild look had spoken to me
of innocent, humble, unaspiring childhood! Ah! If indeed I were still
necessary to her,--still the sole guardian and protector,--then could I
say to myself; 'Thou must not despair and die! Thou hast her to live
and to strive for.' But no, no! Only this vast and terrible London,--the
solitude of the dreary garret, and those lustrous eyes, glaring alike
through the throng and through the solitude."




CHAPTER XVIII.

On the following Monday Dr. Morgan's shabby man-servant opened the door
to a young man in whom he did not at first remember a former visitor.
A few days before, embrowned with healthful travel, serene light in his
eye, simple trust on his careless lip, Leonard Fairfield had stood at
that threshold. Now again he stood there, pale and haggard, with a cheek
already hollowed into those deep anxious lines that speak of working
thoughts and sleepless nights; and a settled sullen gloom resting
heavily on his whole aspect.

"I call by appointment," said the boy, testily, as the servant stood
irresolute. The man gave way. "Master is just gone out to a patient:
please to wait, sir;" and he showed him into the little parlour. In a
few moments, two other patients were admitted. These were women,
and they began talking very loud. They disturbed Leonard's unsocial
thoughts. He saw that the door into the doctor's receiving-room was half
open, and, ignorant of the etiquette which holds such penetralia as
sacred, he walked in to escape from the gossips. He threw himself into
the doctor's own wellworn chair, and muttered to himself, "Why did
he tell me to come? What new can he think of for me? And if a favour,
should I take it? He has given me the means of bread by work: that is
all I have a right to ask from him, from any man,--all I should accept."

While thus soliloquizing, his eye fell on a letter lying open on the
table. He started. He recognized the handwriting,--the same as that of
the letter which had inclosed. L50 to his mother,--the letter of his
grandparents. He saw his own name: he saw something more,--words that
made his heart stand still, and his blood seem like ice in his veins. As
he thus stood aghast, a hand was laid on the letter, and a voice, in an
angry growl, muttered, "How dare you come into my room, and pe reading
my letters? Er-r-r!"

Leonard placed his own hand on the doctor's firmly, and said, in a
fierce tone, "This letter relates to me, belongs to me, crushes me. I
have seen enough to know that. I demand to read all,--learn all."

The doctor looked round, and seeing the door into the waiting-room still
open, kicked it to with his foot, and then said, under his breath, "What
have you read? Tell me the truth."

"Two lines only, and I am called--I am called--" Leonard's frame shook
from head to foot, and the veins on his forehead swelled like cords. He
could not complete the sentence. It seemed as if an ocean was rolling up
through his brain, and roaring in his ears. The doctor saw at a glance
that there was physical danger in his state, and hastily and soothingly
answered, "Sit down, sit down; calm yourself; you shall know all,--read
all; drink this water;" and he poured into a tumbler of the pure liquid
a drop or two from a tiny phial.

Leonard obeyed mechanically, for he was no longer able to stand. He
closed his eyes, and for a minute or two life seemed to pass from him;
then he recovered, and saw the good doctor's gaze fixed on him with
great compassion. He silently stretched forth his hand towards the
letter. "Wait a few moments," said the physician, judiciously, "and hear
me meanwhile. It is very unfortunate you should have seen a letter never
meant for your eye, and containing allusions to a secret you were never
to have known. But if I tell you more, will you promise me, on your word
of honour, that you will hold the confidence sacred from Mrs. Fairfield,
the Avenels,--from all? I myself am pledged to conceal a secret, which I
can only share with you on the same condition."

"There is nothing," announced Leonard, indistinctly, and with a bitter
smile on his lip,--"nothing, it seems, that I should be proud to boast
of. Yes, I promise; the letter, the letter!"

The doctor placed it in Leonard's right hand, and quietly slipped to the
wrist of the left his forefinger and thumb, as physicians are said to do
when a victim is stretched on the rack. "Pulse decreasing," he muttered;
"wonderful thing, aconite!" Meanwhile Leonard read as follows, faults in
spelling and all:--

   DR. MORGAN

   SIR,--I received your favur duly, and am glad to hear that the pore
   boy is safe and Well. But he has been behaving ill, and ungrateful
   to my good son Richard, who is a credit to the whole Famuly and has
   made himself a Gentleman and Was very kind and good to the boy, not
   knowing who and What he is--God forbid! I don't want never to see
   him again--the boy. Pore John was ill and Restless for days
   afterwards. John is a pore cretur now, and has had paralyticks.
   And he Talked of nothing but Nora--the boy's eyes were so like his
   Mother's. I cannot, cannot see the Child of Shame. He can't cum
   here--for our Lord's sake, sir, don't ask it--he can't, so
   Respectable as we've always been!--and such disgrace! Base
   born! base born! Keep him where he is, bind him prentis, I'll pay
   anything for That. You says, sir, he's clever, and quick at
   learning; so did Parson Dale, and wanted him to go to Collidge and
   make a Figur,--then all would cum out. It would be my death, sir; I
   could not sleep in my grave, sir. Nora, that we were all so proud
   of. Sinful creturs that we are! Nora's good name that we've saved,
   now gone, gone. And Richard, who is so grand, and who was so fond
   of pore, pore Nora! He would not hold up his Head again. Don't let
   him make a Figur in the world; let him be a tradesman, as we were
   afore him,--any trade he takes to,--and not cross us no more while
   he lives. Then I shall pray for him, and wish him happy. And have
   not we had enuff of bringing up children to be above their birth?
   Nora, that I used to say was like the first lady o' the land-oh, but
   we were rightly punished! So now, sir, I leave all to you, and will
   Pay all you want for the boy. And be sure that the secret's kept.
   For we have never heard from the father, and, at leest, no one knows
   that Nora has a living son but I and my daughter Jane, and Parson
   Dale and you--and you Two are good Gentlemen--and Jane will keep her
   word, and I am old, and shall be in my grave Soon, but I hope it
   won't be while pore John needs me. What could he do without me?
   And if that got wind, it would kill me straght, sir. Pore John is a
   helpless cretur, God bless him. So no more from your servant in all
   dooty,

               M. AVENEL.

Leonard laid down this letter very calmly, and, except by a slight
heaving at his breast, and a deathlike whiteness of his lips, the
emotions he felt were undetected. And it is a proof how much exquisite
goodness there was in his heart that the first words he spoke were,
"Thank Heaven!"

The doctor did not expect that thanksgiving, and he was so startled that
he exclaimed, "For what?"

"I have nothing to pity or excuse in the woman I knew and honoured as a
mother. I am not her son--her-" He stopped short.

"No: but don't be hard on your true mother,--poor Nora!"

Leonard staggered, and then burst into a sudden paroxysm of tears.

"Oh, my own mother! my dead mother! Thou for whom I felt so mysterious a
love,--thou from whom I took this poet soul! pardon me, pardon me! Hard
on thee! Would that thou wert living yet, that I might comfort thee!
What thou must have suffered!"

These words were sobbed forth in broken gasps from the depth of his
heart. Then he caught up the letter again, and his thoughts were changed
as his eyes fell upon the writer's shame and fear, as it were, of his
very existence. All his native haughtiness returned to him. His crest
rose, his tears dried. "Tell her," he said, with astern, unfaltering
voice, "tell Mrs. Avenel that she is obeyed; that I will never seek her
roof, never cross her path, never disgrace her wealthy son. But tell
her, also, that I will choose my own way in life,--that I will not take
from her a bribe for concealment. Tell her that I am nameless, and will
yet make a name."

A name! Was this but an idle boast, or was it one of those flashes of
conviction which are never belied, lighting up our future for one lurid
instant, and then fading into darkness?

"I do not doubt it, my prave poy," said Dr. Morgan, growing exceedingly
Welsh in his excitement; "and perhaps you may find a father, who--"

"Father! who is he, what is he? He lives, then! But he has deserted
me,--he must have betrayed her! I need him not. The law gives me no
father."

The last words were said with a return of bitter anguish: then, in a
calmer tone, he resumed, "But I should know who he is--as another one
whose path I may not cross."

Dr. Morgan looked embarrassed, and paused in deliberation. "Nay," said
he, at length, "as you know so much, it is surely best that you should
know all."

The doctor then proceeded to detail, with some circumlocution, what we
will here repeat from his account more succinctly.

Nora Avenel, while yet very young, left her native village, or rather
the house of Lady Lansinere, by whom she had been educated and brought
up, in order to accept the place of companion to a lady in London. One
evening she suddenly presented herself at her father's house, and at
the first sight of her mother's face she fell down insensible. She was
carried to bed. Dr. Morgan (then the chief medical practitioner of the
town) was sent for. That night Leonard came into the world, and his
mother died. She never recovered her senses, never spoke intelligibly
from the time she entered the house. "And never, therefore, named your
father," said Dr. Morgan. "We knew not who he was."

"And how," cried Leonard, fiercely,--"how have they dared to slander
this dead mother? How knew they that I--was--was--was not the child of
wedlock?"

"There was no wedding-ring on Nora's finger, never any rumour of her
marriage; her strange and sudden appearance at her father's house; her
emotions on entrance, so unlike those natural to a wife returning to a
parent's home,--these are all the evidence against her. But Mrs. Avenel
deemed them strong, and so did I. You have a right to think we judged
too harshly,--perhaps we did."

"And no inquiries were ever made?" said Leonard, mournfully, and after
a long silence,--"no inquiries to learn who was the father of the
motherless child?"

"Inquiries! Mrs. Avenel would have died first. Your grandmother's nature
is very rigid. Had she come from princes, from Cadwallader himself,"
said the Welshman, "she could not more have shrunk from the thought of
dishonour. Even over her dead child, the child she had loved the best,
she thought but how to save that child's name and memory from suspicion.
There was luckily no servant in the house, only Mark Fairfield and his
wife (Nora's sister): they had arrived the same day on a visit.

"Mrs. Fairfield was nursing her own infant two or three months old; she
took charge of you; Nora was buried and the secret kept. None out of the
family knew of it but myself and the curate of the town,--Mr. Dale. The
day after your birth, Mrs. Fairfield, to prevent discovery, moved to a
village at some distance. There her child died; and when she returned to
Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, you passed as the son she had
lost. Mark, I know, was as a father to you, for he had loved Nora: they
had been children together."

"And she came to London,--London is strong and cruel," muttered Leonard.
"She was friendless and deceived. I see all,--I desire to know no more.
This father--he must in deed have been like those whom I have read of in
books. To love, to wrong her,--that I can conceive; but then to leave,
to abandon; no visit to her grave, no remorse, no search for his own
child. Well, well; Mrs. Avenel was right. Let us think of him no more."

The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in his head. "Sir, the
ladies are getting very impatient, and say they'll go."

"Sir," said Leonard, with a strange calm return to the things about him,
"I ask your pardon for taking up your time so long. I go now. I will
never mention to my moth--I mean to Mrs. Fairfield--what I have learned,
nor to any one. I will work my way somehow. If Mr. Prickett will keep
me, I will stay with him at present; but I repeat, I cannot take Mrs.
Avenel's money and be bound apprentice. Sir, you have been good and
patient with me,--Heaven reward you."

The doctor was too moved to answer. He wrung Leonard's hand, and in
another minute the door closed upon the nameless boy. He stood alone
in the streets of London; and the sun flashed on him, red and menacing,
like the eye of a foe!




CHAPTER XIX.

Leonard did not appear at the shop of Mr. Prickett that day. Needless it
is to say where he wandered, what he suffered, what thought, what felt.
All within was storm. Late at night he returned to his solitary lodging.
On his table, neglected since the morning, was Helen's rose-tree. It
looked parched and fading. His heart smote him: he watered the poor
plant,--perhaps with his tears.

Meanwhile Dr. Morgan, after some debate with himself whether or not
to apprise Mrs. Avenel of Leonard's discovery and message, resolved to
spare her an uneasiness and alarm that might be dangerous to her health,
and unnecessary in itself. He replied shortly, that she need not fear
Leonard's coming to her house; that he was disinclined to bind himself
an apprentice, but that he was provided for at present; and in a few
weeks, when Dr. Morgan heard more of him through the tradesman by whom
he was employed, the doctor would write to her from Germany. He then
went to Mr. Prickett's, told the willing bookseller to keep the young
man for the present,--to be kind to him, watch over his habits and
conduct, and report to the doctor in his new home, on the Rhine, what
avocation he thought Leonard would be best suited for, and most inclined
to adopt. The charitable Welshman divided with the bookseller the salary
given to Leonard, and left a quarter of his moiety in advance. It is
true that he knew he should be repaid on applying to Mrs. Avenel;
but being a man of independent spirit himself, he so sympathized with
Leonard's present feelings, that he felt as if he should degrade the boy
did he maintain him, even secretly, out of Mrs. Avenel's money,--money
intended not to raise, but keep him down in life. At the worst, it was a
sum the doctor could afford, and he had brought the boy into the world.
Having thus, as he thought, safely provided for his two young charges,
Helen and Leonard, the doctor then gave himself up to his final
preparations for departure. He left a short note for Leonard with Mr.
Prickett, containing some brief advice, some kind cheering; a
postscript to the effect that he had not communicated to Mrs. Avenel the
information Leonard had acquired, and that it were best to leave her in
that ignorance; and six small powders to be dissolved in water, and
a teaspoonful every fourth hour,--"Sovereign against rage and sombre
thoughts," wrote the doctor.

By the evening of the next day Dr. Morgan, accompanied by his pet
patient with the chronic tic, whom he had talked into exile, was on the
steamboat on his way to Ostend.

Leonard resumed his life at Mr. Prickett's; but the change in him did
not escape the bookseller. All his ingenuous simplicity had deserted
him. He was very distant and very taciturn; he seemed to have grown much
older. I shall not attempt to analyze metaphysically this change. By
the help of such words as Leonard may himself occasionally let fall, the
reader will dive into the boy's heart, and see how there the change had
worked, and is working still. The happy, dreamy peasant-genius gazing on
Glory with inebriate, undazzled eyes is no more. It is a man, suddenly
cut off from the old household holy ties,--conscious of great powers,
and confronted on all sides by barriers of iron, alone with hard Reality
and scornful London; and if he catches a glimpse of the lost Helicon, he
sees, where he saw the Muse, a pale melancholy spirit veiling its face
in shame,--the ghost of the mournful mother, whose child has no name,
not even the humblest, among the family of men.

On the second evening after Dr. Morgan's departure, as Leonard was just
about to leave the shop, a customer stepped in with a book in his hand,
which he had snatched from the shop-boy, who was removing the volumes
for the night from the booth without.

"Mr. Prickett, Mr. Prickett!" said the customer, "I am ashamed of you.
You presume to put upon this work, in two volumes, the sum of eight
shillings."

Mr. Prickett stepped forth from the Cimmerian gloom of some recess, and
cried, "What! Mr. Burley, is that you? But for your voice, I should not
have known you."

"Man is like a book, Mr. Prickett; the commonalty only look to his
binding. I am better bound, it is very true." Leonard glanced towards
the speaker, who now stood under the gas-lamp, and thought he recognized
his face. He looked again. Yes; it was the perch-fisher whom he had met
on the banks of the Brent, and who had warned him of the lost fish and
the broken line.

MR. BURLEY (continuing).--"But the 'Art of Thinking'!--you charge eight
shillings for the 'Art of Thinking.'"

MR. PRICKETT.--"Cheap enough, Mr. Burley. A very clean copy."

MR. BURLEY.--"Usurer! I sold it to you for three shillings. It is more
than one hundred and fifty per cent you propose to gain from my 'Art of
Thinking.'"

MR. PRICKETT (stuttering and taken aback).--"You sold it to me! Ah,
now I remember. But it was more than three shillings I gave. You
forget,--two glasses of brandy-and-water."

MR. BURLEY.--"Hospitality, sir, is not to be priced. If you sell your
hospitality, you are not worthy to possess my 'Art of Thinking.' I
resume it. There are three shillings, and a shilling more for interest.
No; on second thoughts, instead of that shilling, I will return your
hospitality: and the first time you come my way you shall have two
glasses of brandy-and-water."

Mr. Prickett did not look pleased, but he made no objection; and Mr.
Burley put the book into his pocket, and turned to examine the
shelves. He bought an old jest-book, a stray volume of the Comedies
of Destouches, paid for them, put them also into his pocket, and was
sauntering out, when he perceived Leonard, who was now standing at the
doorway.

"Hem! who is that?" he asked, whispering Mr. Prickett. "A young
assistant of mine, and very clever."

Mr. Burley scanned Leonard from top to toe.

"We have met before, sir. But you look as if you had returned to the
Brent, and been fishing for my perch."

"Possibly, sir," answered Leonard. "But my line is tough, and is not yet
broken, though the fish drags it amongst the weeds, and buries itself in
the mud."

He lifted his hat, bowed slightly, and walked on.

"He is clever," said Mr. Burley to the bookseller: "he understands
allegory."

MR. PRICKETT.--"Poor youth! He came to town with the idea of turning
author: you know what that is, Mr. Burley."

MR. BURLEY (with an air of superb dignity).--"Bibliopole, yes! An author
is a being between gods and men, who ought to be lodged in a palace, and
entertained at the public charge upon ortolans and Tokay. He should be
kept lapped in down, and curtained with silken awnings from the cares
of life, have nothing to do but to write books upon tables of cedar, and
fish for perch from a gilded galley. And that 's what will come to
pass when the ages lose their barbarism and know their benefactors.
Meanwhile, sir, I invite you to my rooms, and will regale you upon
brandy-and-water as long as I can pay for it; and when I cannot--you
shall regale me."

Mr. Prickett muttered, "A very bad bargain indeed," as Mr. Burley, with
his chin in the air, stepped into the street.




CHAPTER XX.

At first Leonard had always returned home through the crowded
thoroughfares,--the contact of numbers had animated his spirits. But the
last two days, since the discovery of his birth, he had taken his way
down the comparatively unpeopled path of the New Road.

He had just gained that part of this outskirt in which the statuaries
and tomb-makers exhibit their gloomy wares, furniture alike for gardens
and for graves,--and, pausing, contemplated a column, on which was
placed an urn, half covered with a funeral mantle, when his shoulder was
lightly tapped, and, turning quickly, he saw Mr. Burley standing behind
him.

"Excuse me, sir, but you understand perch-fishing; and since we find
ourselves on the same road, I should like to be better acquainted with
you. I hear you once wished to be an author. I am one."

Leonard had never before, to his knowledge, seen an author, and a
mournful smile passed his lips as he surveyed the perch-fisher.

Mr. Burley was indeed very differently attired since the first interview
by the brooklet. He looked much less like an author,--but more perhaps
like a perch-fisher. He had a new white hat, stuck on one side of his
head, a new green overcoat, new gray trousers, and new boots. In his
hand was a whalebone stick, with a silver handle. Nothing could be more
vagrant, devil-me-Garish, and, to use a slang word, tigerish, than
his whole air. Yet, vulgar as was his costume, he did not himself seem
vulgar, but rather eccentric, lawless,--something out of the pale of
convention. His face looked more pale and more puffed than before,
the tip of his nose redder; but the spark in his eye was of a livelier
light, and there was self-enjoyment in the corners of his sensual,
humorous lip.

"You are an author, sir," repeated Leonard. "Well; and what is your
report of the calling? Yonder column props an urn. The column is tall,
and the urn is graceful. But it looks out of place by the roadside: what
say you?"

MR. BURLEY.--"It would look better in the churchyard."

LEONARD.--"So I was thinking. And you are an author!"

MR. BURLEY.--"Ah, I said you had a quick sense of allegory. And so you
think an author looks better in a churchyard, when you see him but as a
muffled urn under the moonshine, than standing beneath the gas-lamp in a
white hat, and with a red tip to his nose. Abstractedly, you are right.
But, with your leave, the author would rather be where he is. Let us
walk on." The two men felt an interest in each other, and they walked
some yards in silence.

"To return to the urn," said Mr. Burley,--"you think of fame and
churchyards. Natural enough, before illusion dies; but I think of the
moment, of existence,--and I laugh at fame. Fame, sir--not worth a
glass of cold-without! And as for a glass of warm, with sugar--and five
shillings in one's pocket to spend as one pleases--what is there in
Westminster Abbey to compare with it?"

"Talk on, sir,--I should like to hear you talk. Let me listen and hold
my tongue." Leonard pulled his hat over his brows, and gave up his
moody, questioning, turbulent mind to his new acquaintance.

And John Burley talked on. A dangerous and fascinating talk it was,--the
talk of a great intellect fallen; a serpent trailing its length on the
ground, and showing bright, shifting, glorious hues, as it grovelled,--a
serpent, yet without the serpent's guile. If John Burley deceived and
tempted, he meant it not,--he crawled and glittered alike honestly. No
dove could be more simple.

Laughing at fame, he yet dwelt with an eloquent enthusiasm on the joy
of composition. "What do I care what men without are to say and think
of the words that gush forth on my page?" cried he. "If you think of the
public, of urns, and laurels, while you write, you are no genius; you
are not fit to be an author. I write because it rejoices me, because it
is my nature. Written, I care no more what becomes of it than the lark
for the effect that the song has on the peasant it wakes to the plough.
The poet, like the lark, sings 'from his watch-tower in the skies.' Is
this true?"

"Yes, very true!"

"What can rob us of this joy? The bookseller will not buy; the
public will not read. Let them sleep at the foot of the ladder of the
angels,--we climb it all the same. And then one settles down into such
good-tempered Lucianic contempt for men. One wants so little from them,
when one knows what one's self is worth, and what they are. They are
just worth the coin one can extract from them, in order to live.

"Our life--that is worth so much to us. And then their joys, so vulgar
to them, we can make them golden and kingly. Do you suppose Burns
drinking at the alehouse, with his boors around him, was drinking, like
them, only beer and whiskey? No, he was drinking nectar; he was imbibing
his own ambrosial thoughts,--shaking with the laughter of the gods.
The coarse human liquid was just needed to unlock his spirit from the
clay,--take it from jerkin and corduroys, and wrap it in the 'singing
robes' that floated wide in the skies: the beer or the whiskey needed
but for that, and then it changed at once into the drink of Hebe. But
come, you have not known this life,--you have not seen it. Come, give
me this night. I have moneys about me,--I will fling them abroad as
liberally as Alexander himself, when he left to his share but hope.
Come!"

"Whither?"

"To my throne. On that throne last sat Edmund Kean, mighty mime! I am
his successor. We will see whether in truth these wild sons of genius,
who are cited but 'to point a moral and adorn a tale,' were objects of
compassion. Sober-suited tits to lament over a Savage or a Morland, a
Porson and a Burns!"

"Or a Chatterton," said Leonard, gloomily.

"Chatterton was an impostor in all things; he feigned excesses that he
never knew. He a bacchanalian, a royster! HE! No. We will talk of him.
Come!"

Leonard went.




CHAPTER XXI.

The Room! And the smoke-reek, and the gas glare of it! The whitewash of
the walls, and the prints thereon of the actors in their mime-robes, and
stage postures,--actors as far back as their own lost Augustan era, when
the stage was a real living influence on the manners and the age! There
was Betterton, in wig and gown,--as Cato, moralizing on the soul's
eternity, and halting between Plato and the dagger. There was Woodward
as "The Fine Gentleman," with the inimitable rake-hell in which the
heroes of Wycherly and Congreve and Farquhar live again. There was
jovial Quin as Falstaff, with round buckler and "fair round belly."
There was Colley Cibber in brocade, taking snuff as with "his Lord,"
the thumb and forefinger raised in air, and looking at you for applause.
There was Macklin as Shylock, with knife in hand: and Kemble in the
solemn weeds of the Dane; and Kean in the place of honour over the
chimneypiece.

When we are suddenly taken from practical life, with its real workday
men, and presented to the portraits of those sole heroes of a world
Fantastic and Phantasmal, in the garments wherein they did "strut and
fret their hour upon the stage," verily there is something in the sight
that moves an inner sense within ourselves,--for all of us have an inner
sense of some existence, apart from the one that wears away our days:
an existence that, afar from St. James's and St. Giles's, the Law Courts
and Exchange, goes its way in terror or mirth, in smiles or in tears,
through a vague magic-land of the poets. There, see those actors--they
are the men who lived it--to whom our world was the false one, to whom
the Imaginary was the Actual! And did Shakspeare himself, in his life,
ever hearken to such applause as thundered round the personators of his
airy images? Vague children of the most transient of the arts, fleet
shadows on running waters, though thrown down from the steadfast stars,
were ye not happier than we who live in the Real? How strange you
must feel in the great circuit that ye now take through eternity! No
prompt-books, no lamps, no acting Congreve and Shakspeare there! For
what parts in the skies have your studies on the earth fitted you? Your
ultimate destinies are very puzzling. Hail to your effigies, and pass we
on!

There, too, on the whitewashed walls, were admitted the portraits of
ruder rivals in the arena of fame,--yet they, too, had known an
applause warmer than his age gave to Shakspeare; the Champions of the
Ring,--Cribb and Molyneux and Dutch Sam. Interspersed with these was an
old print of Newmarket in the early part of the last century, and sundry
engravings from Hogarth. But poets, oh, they were there too! poets who
might be supposed to have been sufficiently good fellows to be at home
with such companions,--Shakspeare, of course, with his placid forehead;
Ben Jonson, with his heavy scowl; Burns and Byron cheek by jowl. But
the strangest of all these heterogeneous specimens of graphic art was
a full-length print of William Pitt!--William Pitt, the austere and
imperious. What the deuce did he do there amongst prize-fighters and
actors and poets? It seemed an insult to his grand memory. Nevertheless
there he was, very erect, and with a look of ineffable disgust in his
upturned nostrils. The portraits on the sordid walls were very like the
crambo in the minds of ordinary men,--very like the motley pictures
of the FAMOUS hung up in your parlour, O my Public! Actors and
prize-fighters, poets and statesmen, all without congruity and fitness,
all whom you have been to see or to hear for a moment, and whose names
have stared out in your newspapers, O my public!

And the company? Indescribable! Comedians, from small theatres, out of
employ; pale, haggard-looking boys, probably the sons of worthy traders,
trying their best to break their fathers' hearts; here and there the
marked features of a Jew. Now and then you might see the curious puzzled
face of some greenhorn about town, or perhaps a Cantab; and men of grave
age, and grayhaired, were there, and amongst them a wondrous proportion
of carbuncled faces and bottle-noses. And when John Burley entered,
there was a shout that made William Pitt shake in his frame. Such
stamping and hallooing, and such hurrahs for "Burley John." And the
gentleman who had filled the great high leathern chair in his absence
gave it up to John Burley; and Leonard, with his grave, observant eye,
and lip half sad and half scornful, placed himself by the side of his
introducer. There was a nameless, expectant stir through the assembly,
as there is in the pit of the opera when some great singer advances to
the lamps, and begins, "Di tanti palpiti." Time flies. Look at the Dutch
clock over the door. Half-an-hour. John Burley begins to warm. A yet
quicker light begins to break from his Eye; his voice has a mellow
luscious roll in it.

"He will be grand to-night," whispered a thin man, who looked like a
tailor, seated on the other side of Leonard. Time flies,--an hour. Look
again at the Dutch clock. John Burley is grand, he is in his zenith, at
his culminating point. What magnificent drollery! what luxuriant humour!
How the Rabelais shakes in his easy-chair! Under the rush and the roar
of this fun (what word else shall describe it?) the man's intellect is
as clear as gold sand under a river. Such wit and such truth, and, at
times, such a flood of quick eloquence! All now are listeners,--silent,
save in applause.

And Leonard listened too. Not, as he would some nights ago, in innocent
unquestioning delight. No; his mind has passed through great sorrow,
great passion, and it comes out unsettled, inquiring, eager, brooding
over joy itself as over a problem. And the drink circulates, and faces
change; and there are gabbling and babbling; and Burley's head sinks
in his bosom, and he is silent. And up starts a wild, dissolute,
bacchanalian glee for seven voices. And the smoke-reek grows denser
and thicker, and the gaslight looks dizzy through the haze. And John
Burley's eyes reel.

Look again at the Dutch clock. Two hours have gone. John Burley has
broken out again from his silence, his voice thick and husky, and his
laugh cracked; and he talks, O ye gods! such rubbish and ribaldry; and
the listeners roar aloud, and think it finer than before. And Leonard,
who had hitherto been measuring himself in his mind against the giant,
and saying inly, "He soars out of my reach," finds the giant shrink
smaller and smaller, and saith to himself, "He is but of man's common
standard after all!"

Look again at the Dutch clock. Three hours have passed. Is John Burley
now of man's common standard? Man himself seems to have vanished from
the scene,--his soul stolen from him, his form gone away with the fumes
of the smoke, and the nauseous steam from that fiery bowl. And Leonard
looked round, and saw but the swine of Circe,--some on the floor, some
staggering against the walls, some hugging each other on the tables,
some fighting, some bawling, some weeping. The divine spark had fled
from the human face; the Beast is everywhere growing more and more out
of the thing that had been Man. And John Burley, still unconquered, but
clean lost to his senses, fancies himself a preacher, and drawls forth
the most lugubrious sermon upon the brevity of life that mortal ever
beard, accompanied with unctuous sobs; and now and then in the midst of
balderdash gleams out a gorgeous sentence, that Jeremy Taylor might have
envied, drivelling away again into a cadence below the rhetoric of
a Muggletonian. And the waiters choked up the doorway, listening and
laughing, and prepared to call cabs and coaches; and suddenly some one
turned off the gaslight, and all was dark as pitch,--howls and laughter,
as of the damned, ringing through the Pandemonium. Out from the black
atmosphere stepped the boy-poet; and the still stars rushed on his
sight, as they looked over the grimy roof-tops.




CHAPTER XXII.

Well, Leonard, this is the first time thou hast shown that thou hast in
thee the iron out of which true manhood is forged and shaped. Thou hast
the power to resist. Forth, unebriate, unpolluted, he came from the
orgy, as yon star above him came from the cloud.

He had a latch-key to his lodgings. He let himself in and walked
noiselessly up the creaking wooden stair. It was dawn. He passed on to
his window and threw it open. The green elm-tree from the carpenter's
yard looked as fresh and fair as if rooted in solitude, leagues away
from the smoke of Babylon.

"Nature, Nature!" murmured Leonard, "I hear thy voice now. This stills,
this strengthens. But the struggle is very dread. Here, despair of
life,--there, faith in life. Nature thinks of neither, and lives
serenely on."

By and by a bird slid softly from the heart of the tree, and dropped on
the ground below out of sight. But Leonard heard its carol. It awoke its
companions; wings began to glance in the air, and the clouds grew red
towards the east.

Leonard sighed and left the window. On the table, near Helen's
rose-tree, which he bent over wistfully, lay a letter. He had not
observed it before. It was in Helen's hand. He took it to the light, and
read it by the pure, healthful gleams of morn:--

   IVY LODGE.

   Oh, my dear brother Leonard, will this find you well, and (more
   happy I dare not say, but) less sad than when we parted? I write
   kneeling, so that it seems to me as if I wrote and prayed at the
   same time. You may come and see me to-morrow evening, Leonard. Do
   come, do,--we shall walk together in this pretty garden; and there
   is an arbour all covered with jessamine and honeysuckle, from which
   we can look down on London. I have looked from it so many times,--
   so many--trying if I can guess the roofs in our poor little street,
   and fancying that I do see the dear elm-tree.

   Miss Starke is very kind to me; and I think after I have seen you,
   that I shall be happy here,--that is, if you are happy.

   Your own grateful sister,

   HELEN.

   P. S.--Any one will direct you to our house; it lies to the left
   near the top of the hill, a little way down a lane that is overhung
   on one side with chestnut-trees and lilacs. I shall be watching for
   you at the gate.

Leonard's brow softened, he looked again like his former self. Up from
the dark sea at his heart smiled the meek face of a child, and the waves
lay still as at the charm of a spirit.




CHAPTER XXIII.

"And what is Mr. Burley, and what has he written?" asked Leonard of Mr.
Prickett, when he returned to the shop.

Let us reply to that question in our own words, for we know more about
Mr. Burley than Mr. Prickett does.

John Burley was the only son of a poor clergyman, in a village near
Ealing, who had scraped and saved and pinched, to send his son to an
excellent provincial school in a northern county, and thence to college.
At the latter, during his first year, young Burley was remarked by the
undergraduates for his thick shoes and coarse linen, and remarkable to
the authorities for his assiduity and learning. The highest hopes were
entertained of him by the tutors and examiners. At the beginning of the
second year his high animal spirits, before kept down by study, broke
out. Reading had become easy to him. He knocked off his tasks with a
facile stroke, as it were. He gave up his leisure hours to Symposia by
no means Socratical. He fell into an idle, hard-drinking set. He got
into all kinds of scrapes. The authorities were at first kind and
forbearing in their admonitions, for they respected his abilities, and
still hoped he might become an honour to the University. But at last
he went drunk into a formal examination, and sent in papers, after
the manner of Aristophanes, containing capital jokes upon the Dons and
Big-wigs themselves. The offence was the greater and seemed the more
premeditated for being clothed in Greek. John Burley was expelled. He
went home to his father's a miserable man, for, with all his follies,
he had a good heart. Removed from ill example, his life for a year was
blameless. He got admitted as usher into the school in which he had
received instruction as a pupil. This school was in a large town. John
Burley became member of a club formed among the tradesmen, and
spent three evenings a week there. His astonishing convivial and
conversational powers began to declare themselves. He grew the oracle
of the club; and, from being the most sober, peaceful assembly in which
grave fathers of a family ever smoked a pipe or sipped a glass, it
grew under Mr. Burley's auspices the parent of revels as frolicking and
frantic as those out of which the old Greek Goat Song ever tipsily rose.
This would not do. There was a great riot in the streets one night, and
the next morning the usher was dismissed. Fortunately for John Burley's
conscience, his father had died before this happened,--died believing
in the reform of his son. During his ushership Mr. Burley had scraped
acquaintance with the editor of the county newspaper, and given him
some capital political articles; for Burley was, like Parr and Porson,
a notable politician. The editor furnished him with letters to the
journalists in London, and John came to the metropolis and got employed
on a very respectable newspaper. At college he had known Audley Egerton,
though but slightly: that gentleman was then just rising into repute in
parliament. Burley sympathized with some question on which Audley
had distinguished himself, and wrote a very good article thereon,--an
article so good that Egerton inquired into the authorship, found out
Burley, and resolved in his own mind to provide for him whenever he
himself came into office. But Burley was a man whom it was impossible to
provide for. He soon lost his connection with the news paper. First, he
was so irregular that he could never be depended upon. Secondly, he had
strange, honest, eccentric twists of thinking, that could coalesce
with the thoughts of no party in the long run. An article of his,
inadvertently admitted, had horrified all the proprietors, staff, and
readers of the paper. It was diametrically opposite to the principles
the paper advocated, and compared its pet politician to Catiline. Then
John Burley shut himself up and wrote books. He wrote two or three
books, very clever, but not at all to the popular taste,--abstract and
learned, full of whims that were caviare to the multitude, and larded
with Greek. Nevertheless they obtained for him a little money, and among
literary men some reputation. Now Audley Egerton came into power, and
got him, though with great difficulty,--for there were many prejudices
against this scampish, harum-scarum son of the Muses,--a place in a
public office. He kept it about a month, and then voluntarily resigned
it. "My crust of bread and liberty!" quoth John Burley, and he vanished
into a garret. From that time to the present he lived--Heaven knows how!
Literature is a business, like everything else; John Burley grew more
and more incapable of business. "He could not do task-work," he said; he
wrote when the whim seized him, or when the last penny was in his pouch,
or when he was actually in the spunging-house or the Fleet,--migrations
which occurred to him, on an average, twice a year. He could generally
sell what he had actually written, but no one would engage him
beforehand. Editors of magazines and other periodicals were very glad
to have his articles, on the condition that they were anonymous; and
his style was not necessarily detected, for he could vary it with
the facility of a practised pen. Audley Egerton continued his best
supporter, for there were certain questions on which no one wrote with
such force as John Burley,--questions connected with the metaphysics of
politics, such as law reform and economical science. And Audley Egerton
was the only man John Burley put himself out of the way to serve, and
for whom he would give up a drinking bout and do task-work; for John
Burley was grateful by nature, and he felt that Egerton had really tried
to befriend him. Indeed, it was true, as he had stated to Leonard by the
Brent, that even after he had resigned his desk in the London office,
he had had the offer of an appointment in Jamaica, and a place in India,
from the minister. But probably there were other charms then than those
exercised by the one-eyed perch that kept him to the neighbourhood of
London. With all his grave faults of character and conduct, John Burley
was not without the fine qualities of a large nature. He was most
resolutely his own enemy, it is true, but he could hardly be said to be
any one else's. Even when he criticised some more fortunate writer, he
was good-humoured in his very satire: he had no bile, no envy. And as
for freedom from malignant personalities, he might have been a model to
all critics. I must except politics, however, for in these he could
be rabid and savage. He had a passion for independence, which, though
pushed to excess, was not without grandeur. No lick-platter, no
parasite, no toad-eater, no literary beggar, no hunter after patronage
and subscriptions; even in his dealings with Audley Egerton, he insisted
on naming the price for his labours. He took a price, because, as the
papers required by Audley demanded much reading and detail, which
was not at all to his taste, he considered himself entitled fairly
to something more than the editor of the journal wherein the papers
appeared was in the habit of giving. But he assessed this extra price
himself, and as he would have done to a bookseller. And when in debt and
in prison, though he knew a line to Egerton would have extricated him,
he never wrote that line. He would depend alone on his pen,--dipped it
hastily in the ink, and scrawled himself free. The most debased point
about him was certainly the incorrigible vice of drinking, and with it
the usual concomitant of that vice,--the love of low company. To be King
of the Bohemians, to dazzle by his wild humour, and sometimes to exalt
by his fanciful eloquence, the rude, gross natures that gathered round
him,--this was a royalty that repaid him for all sacrifice of solid
dignity; a foolscap crown that he would not have changed for an
emperor's diadem. Indeed, to appreciate rightly the talents of John
Burley, it was necessary to hear him talk on such occasions. As a
writer, after all, he was now only capable of unequal desultory efforts;
but as a talker, in his own wild way, he was original and matchless. And
the gift of talk is one of the most dangerous gifts a man can possess
for his own sake,--the applause is so immediate, and gained with so
little labour. Lower and lower and lower had sunk John Burley, not only
in the opinion of all who knew his name, but in the habitual exercise of
his talents. And this seemed wilfully--from choice. He would write for
some unstamped journal of the populace, out of the pale of the law, for
pence, when he could have got pounds from journals of high repute. He
was very fond of scribbling off penny ballads, and then standing in the
street to hear them sung. He actually once made himself the poet of an
advertising tailor, and enjoyed it excessively. But that did not last
long, for John Burley was a Pittite,--not a Tory, he used to say, but
a Pittite. And if you had heard him talk of Pitt, you would never have
known what to make of that great statesman. He treated him as the German
commentators do Shakspeare, and invested him with all imaginary meanings
and objects, that would have turned the grand practical man into a
sibyl. Well, he was a Pittite; the tailor a fanatic for Thelwall and
Cobbett. Mr. Burley wrote a poem wherein Britannia appeared to the
tailor, complimented him highly on the art he exhibited in adorning the
persons of her sons; and bestowing upon him a gigantic mantle, said that
he, and he alone, might be enabled to fit it to the shoulders of living
men. The rest of the poem was occupied in Mr. Snip's unavailing attempts
to adjust this mantle to the eminent politicians of the day, when,
just as he had sunk down in despair, Britannia reappeared to him, and
consoled him with the information that he had done all mortal man could
do, and that she had only desired to convince pigmies that no human art
could adjust to THEIR proportions the mantle of William Pitt. Sic itur
ad astra,--she went back to the stars, mantle and all! Mr. Snip was
exceedingly indignant at this allegorical effusion, and with wrathful
shears cut the tie between himself and his poet.

Thus, then, the reader has, we trust, a pretty good idea of John
Burley,--a specimen of his genus not very common in any age, and now
happily almost extinct, since authors of all degrees share in the
general improvement in order, economy, and sober decorum, which has
obtained in the national manners. Mr. Prickett, though entering
into less historical detail than we have done, conveyed to Leonard a
tolerably accurate notion of the man, representing him as a person of
great powers and learning, who had thoroughly thrown himself away.

Leonard did not, however, see how much Mr. Burley himself was to be
blamed for his waste of life; he could not conceive a man of genius
voluntarily seating himself at the lowest step in the social ladder. He
rather supposed he had been thrust down there by Necessity.

And when Mr. Prickett, concluding, said, "Well, I should think Burley
would cure you of the desire to be an author even more than Chatterton,"
the young man answered gloomily, "Perhaps," and turned to the
book-shelves.

With Mr. Prickett's consent, Leonard was released earlier than usual
from his task, and a little before sunset he took his way to Highgate.
He was fortunately directed to take the new road by the Regent's Park,
and so on through a very green and smiling country. The walk, the
freshness of the air, the songs of the birds, and, above all, when he
had got half-way, the solitude of the road, served to rouse him from his
stern and sombre meditations. And when he came into the lane overhung
with chestnut-trees, and suddenly caught sight of Helen's watchful and
then brightening face, as she stood by the wicket, and under the shadow
of cool, murmurous boughs, the blood rushed gayly through his veins, and
his heart beat loud and gratefully.




CHAPTER XXIV.

She drew him into the garden with such true childlike joy. Now behold
them seated in the arbour,--a perfect bower of sweets and blossoms;
the wilderness of roof-tops and spires stretching below, broad and far;
London seen dim and silent, as in a dream.

She took his hat from his brows gently, and looked him in the face with
tearful penetrating eyes.

She did not say, "You are changed." She said, "Why, why did I leave
you?" and then turned away.

"Never mind me, Helen. I am man, and rudely born; speak of yourself.
This lady is kind to you, then?"

"Does she not let me see you? Oh, very kind,--and look here."

Helen pointed to fruits and cakes set out on the table. "A feast,
brother."

And she began to press her hospitality with pretty winning ways, more
playful than was usual to her, and talking very fast, and with forced,
but silvery, laughter.

By degrees she stole him from his gloom and reserve; and though he could
not reveal to her the cause of his bitterest sorrow, he owned that he
had suffered much. He would not have owned that to another living being.
And then, quickly turning from this brief confession, with assurances
that the worst was over, he sought to amuse her by speaking of his new
acquaintance with the perch-fisher. But when he spoke of this man with
a kind of reluctant admiration, mixed with compassionate yet gloomy
interest, and drew a grotesque, though subdued, sketch of the wild scene
in which he had been spectator, Helen grew alarmed and grave.

"Oh, brother, do not go there again,--do not see more of this bad man."

"Bad!--no! Hopeless and unhappy, he has stooped to stimulants and
oblivion--but you cannot understand these things, my pretty preacher."

"Yes, I do, Leonard. What is the difference between being good and bad?
The good do not yield to temptations, and the bad do."

The definition was so simple and so wise that Leonard was more struck
with it than he might have been by the most elaborate sermon by Parson
Dale.

"I have often murmured to myself since I lost you, 'Helen was my good
angel; '--say on. For my heart is dark to myself, and while you speak
light seems to dawn on it."

This praise so confused Helen that she was long before she could obey
the command annexed to it. But, by little and little, words came to
both more frankly. And then he told her the sad tale of Chatterton, and
waited, anxious to hear her comments.

"Well," he said, seeing that she remained silent, "how can I hope, when
this mighty genius laboured and despaired? What did he want, save birth
and fortune and friends and human justice?"

"Did he pray to God?" asked Helen, drying her tears. Again Leonard was
startled. In reading the life of Chatterton he had not much noted
the scepticism, assumed or real, of the ill-fated aspirer to earthly
immortality. At Helen's question, that scepticism struck him forcibly.
"Why do you ask that, Helen?"

"Because, when we pray often, we grow so very, very patient," answered
the child. "Perhaps, had he been patient a few months more, all would
have been won by him, as it will be by you, brother, for you pray, and
you will be patient."

Leonard bowed his head in deep thought, and this time the thought was
not gloomy. Then out from that awful life there glowed another passage,
which before he had not heeded duly, but regarded rather as one of the
darkest mysteries in the fate of Chatterton.

At the very time the despairing poet had locked himself up in his
garret, to dismiss his soul from its earthly ordeal, his genius had just
found its way into the light of renown. Good and learned and powerful
men were preparing to serve and save him. Another year--nay, perchance
another month--and he might have stood acknowledged sublime in the
foremost ranks of his age.

"Oh, Helen!" cried Leonard, raising his brows, from which the cloud had
passed, "why, indeed, did you leave me?"

Helen started in her turn as he repeated this regret, and in her turn
grew thoughtful. At length she asked him if he had written for the box
which had belonged to her father and been left at the inn.

And Leonard, though a little chafed at what he thought a childish
interruption to themes of graver interest, owned, with self-reproach,
that he had forgotten to do so. Should he not write now to order the box
to be sent to her at Miss Starke's?

"No; let it be sent to you. Take care of it. I should like to know that
something of mine is with you; and perhaps I may not stay here long."

"Not stay here? That you must, my dear Helen,--at least as long as
Miss Starke will keep you, and is kind. By and by" (added Leonard, with
something of his former sanguine tone) "I may yet make my way, and we
shall have our cottage to ourselves. But--oh, Helen!--I forgot--you
wounded me; you left your money with me. I only found it in my drawers
the other day. Fie! I have brought it back."

"It was not mine,--it is yours. We were to share together,--you paid
all; and how can I want it here, too?" But Leonard was obstinate; and
as Helen mournfully received back all that of fortune her father had
bequeathed to her, a tall female figure stood at the entrance of the
arbour, and said, in a voice that scattered all sentiment to the winds,
"Young man, it is time to go."




CHAPTER XXV.

"Already?" said Helen, with faltering accents, as she crept to Miss
Starke's side while Leonard rose and bowed. "I am very grateful to you,
madam," said he, with the grace that comes from all refinement of idea,
"for allowing me to see Miss Helen. Do not let me abuse your kindness."

Miss Starke seemed struck with his look and manner, and made a stiff
half courtesy.

A form more rigid than Miss Starke's it was hard to conceive. She was
like the Grim White Woman in the nursery ballads. Yet, apparently, there
was a good-nature in allowing the stranger to enter her trim garden,
and providing for him and her little charge those fruits and cakes which
belied her aspect. "May I go with him to the gate?" whispered Helen, as
Leonard had already passed up the path.

"You may, child; but do not loiter. And then come back, and lock up the
cakes and cherries, or Patty will get at them."

Helen ran after Leonard.

"Write to me, brother,--write to me; and do not, do not be friends with
this man, who took you to that wicked, wicked place."

"Oh, Helen, I go from you strong enough to brave worse dangers than
that," said Leonard, almost gayly.

They kissed each other at the little wicket gate, and parted.

Leonard walked home under the summer moonlight, and on entering his
chamber looked first at his rose-tree. The leaves of yesterday's flowers
lay strewn around it; but the tree had put forth new buds.

"Nature ever restores," said the young man. He paused a moment, and
added, "Is it that Nature is very patient?" His sleep that night was not
broken by the fearful dreams he had lately known. He rose refreshed,
and went his way to his day's work,--not stealing along the less
crowded paths, but with a firm step, through the throng of men. Be bold,
adventurer,--thou hast more to suffer! Wilt thou sink? I look into thy
heart, and I cannot answer.




BOOK SEVENTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

MR. CAXTON UPON COURAGE AND PATIENCE.

"What is courage?" said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a revery
into which he had fallen, after the Sixth Book in this history had been
read to our family circle.

"What is courage?" he repeated more earnestly. "Is it insensibility to
fear? That may be the mere accident of constitution; and if so, there is
no more merit in being courageous than in being this table."

"I am very glad to hear you speak thus," observed Mr. Caxton, "for I
should not like to consider myself a coward; yet I am very sensible to
fear in all dangers, bodily and moral."

"La, Austin, how can you say so?" cried my mother, firing up; "was it
not only last week that you faced the great bull that was rushing after
Blanche and the children?"

Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and, hanging
over his shoulder, kissed his forehead.

MR. CAXTON (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries).--"I don't deny that
I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened."

ROLAND.--"The sense of honour which conquers fear is the true courage
of chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking on,--no
gentleman could."

MR. CAXTON.--"Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood,
Captain. I should have run fast enough, if it had done any good. I stood
upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I could, the
only chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself."

BLANCHE.--"Ah, you did not think of that; your only thought was to save
me and the children."

MR. CAXTON.--"Possibly, my dear, very possibly, I might have been afraid
for you too; but I was very much afraid for myself. However, luckily I
had the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's
stupid eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could
think of in the First Chorus of the 'Seven against Thebes.' I began with
ELEDEMNAS PEDIOPLOKTUPOS; and when I came to the grand howl of [A line
in Greek], the beast stood appalled as at the roar of a lion. I shall
never forget his amazed snort at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind
legs, and went bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with
AEschylus and the umbrella, I remained master of the field; but"
(continued Mr. Caxton ingenuously) "I should not like to go through that
half-minute again."

"No man would," said the captain, kindly. "I should be very sorry to
face a bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even
though I had AEschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends."

MR. CAXTON.--"You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman with
a sword in his hand?"

CAPTAIN.--"Of course not. Rather liked it than otherwise," he added
grimly.

MR. CAXTON.--"Yet many a Spanish matador, who does n't care a button
for a bull, would take to his heels at the first lunge en carte from a
Frenchman. Therefore, in fact, if courage be a matter of constitution,
it is also a matter of custom. We face calmly the dangers we are
habituated to, and recoil from those of which we have no familiar
experience. I doubt if Marshal Turenue himself would have been quite
at his ease on the tight-rope; and a rope-dancer, who seems disposed to
scale the heavens with Titanic temerity, might possibly object to charge
on a cannon."

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Still, either this is not the courage I mean, or it is
another kind of it. I mean by courage that which is the especial force
and dignity of the human character, without which there is no reliance
on principle, no constancy in virtue,--a something," continued my uncle,
gallantly, and with a half bow towards my mother, "which your sex shares
with our own. When the lover, for instance, clasps the hand of his
betrothed, and says, 'Wilt thou be true to me, in spite of absence and
time, in spite of hazard and fortune, though my foes malign me, though
thy friends may dissuade thee, and our lot in life may be rough and
rude?' and when the betrothed answers, 'I will be true,' does not the
lover trust to her courage as well as her love?"

"Admirably put, Roland," said my father. "But a propos of what do you
puzzle us with these queries on courage?"

CAPTAIN ROLAND (with a slight blush).--"I was led to the inquiry (though
perhaps it may be frivolous to take so much thought of what, no doubt,
costs Pisistratus so little) by the last chapters in my nephew's story.
I see this poor boy Leonard, alone with his fallen hopes (though very
irrational they were) and his sense of shame. And I read his heart, I
dare say, better than Pisistratus does, for I could feel like that
boy if I had been in the same position; and conjecturing what he and
thousands like him must go through, I asked myself, 'What can save him
and them?' I answered, as a soldier would answer, 'Courage.' Very well.
But pray; Austin, what is courage?"

MR. CAXTON (prudently backing out of a reply).--"Papae!' Brother, since
you have just complimented the ladies on that quality, you had better
address your question to them."

Blanche here leaned both hands on my father's chair, and said, looking
down at first bashfully, but afterwards warming with the subject, "Do
you not think, sir, that little Helen has already suggested, if not
what is courage, what at least is the real essence of all courage that
endures and conquers, that ennobles and hallows and redeems? Is it not
PATIENCE, Father? And that is why we women have a courage of our own.
Patience does not affect to be superior to fear, but at least it never
admits despair."

PISISTRATUS.--"Kiss me, my Blanche, for you have come near to the truth
which perplexed the soldier and puzzled the sage."

MR. CAXTON (tartly).--"If you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled at
all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience,--it is a virtue
very much required--in your readers. Nevertheless," added my father,
softening with the enjoyment of his joke,--"nevertheless Blanche and
Helen are quite right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is
the virtue, par excellence, of Man against Destiny,--of the One against
the World, and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore this is the courage
of the Gospel; and its importance in a social view--its importance to
races and institutions--cannot be too earnestly inculcated. What is it
that distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from all other branches of the human
family,--peoples deserts with his children and consigns to them the
heritage of rising worlds? What but his faculty to brave, to suffer, to
endure,--the patience that resists firmly and innovates slowly? Compare
him with the Frenchman. The Frenchman has plenty of valour,--that there
is no denying; but as for fortitude, he has not enough to cover the
point of a pin. He is ready to rush out of the world if he is bitten by
a flea."

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"There was a case in the papers the other day, Austin,
of a Frenchman who actually did destroy himself because he was so teased
by the little creatures you speak of. He left a paper on his table,
saying that 'life was not worth having at the price of such torments.'"

MR. CAXTON (solemnly).--"Sir, their whole political history, since the
great meeting of the Tiers Etat, has been the history of men who would
rather go to the devil than be bitten by a flea. It is the record of
human impatience that seeks to force time, and expects to grow forests
from the spawn of a mushroom. Wherefore, running through all extremes of
constitutional experiment, when they are nearest to democracy they
are next door to a despot; and all they have really done is to destroy
whatever constitutes the foundation of every tolerable government.
A constitutional monarchy cannot exist without aristocracy, nor a
healthful republic endure with corruption of manners. The cry of
equality is incompatible with civilization, which, of necessity,
contrasts poverty with wealth; and, in short, whether it be an emperor
or a mob I that is to rule, Force is the sole hope of order, and the
government is but an army."

   [Published more than a year before the date of the French empire
   under Louis Napoleon.]

"Impress, O Pisistratus! impress the value of patience as regards man
and men. You touch there on the kernel of the social system,--the secret
that fortifies the individual and disciplines the million. I care not,
for my part, if you are tedious so long as you are earnest. Be minute
and detailed. Let the real Human Life, in its war with Circumstance,
stand out. Never mind if one can read you but slowly,--better chance
of being less quickly forgotten. Patience, patience! By the soul of
Epictetus, your readers shall set you an example."




CHAPTER II.

Leonard had written twice to Mrs. Fairfield, twice to Riccabocca, and
once to Mr. Dale; and the poor proud boy could not bear to betray
his humiliation. He wrote as with cheerful spirits,--as if perfectly
satisfied with his prospects. He said that he was well employed, in the
midst of books, and that he had found kind friends. Then he turned from
himself to write about those whom he addressed, and the affairs and
interests of the quiet world wherein they lived. He did not give his
own address, nor that of Mr. Prickett. He dated his letters from a small
coffee-house near the bookseller's, to which he occasionally went for
his simple meals. He had a motive in this. He did not desire to be
found out. Mr. Dale replied for himself and for Mrs. Fairfield, to the
epistles addressed to these two. Riccabocca wrote also.

Nothing could be more kind than the replies of both. They came to
Leonard in a very dark period in his life, and they strengthened him in
the noiseless battle with despair.

If there be a good in the world that we do without knowing it, without
conjecturing the effect it may have upon a human soul; it is when we
show kindness to the young in the first barren footpath up the mountain
of life.

Leonard's face resumed its serenity in his intercourse with his
employer; but he did not recover his boyish ingenuous frankness. The
under-currents flowed again pure from the turbid soil and the splintered
fragments uptorn from the deep; but they were still too strong and too
rapid to allow transparency to the surface. And now he stood in the
sublime world of books, still and earnest as a seer who invokes the
dead; and thus, face to face with knowledge, hourly he discovered how
little he knew. Mr. Prickett lent him such works as he selected and
asked to take home with him. He spent whole nights in reading, and no
longer desultorily. He read no more poetry, no more Lives of Poets. He
read what poets must read if they desire to be great--Sapere principium
et fons,--strict reasonings on the human mind; the relations between
motive and conduct, thought and action; the grave and solemn truths of
the past world; antiquities, history, philosophy. He was taken out of
himself; he was carried along the ocean of the universe. In that ocean,
O seeker, study the law of the tides; and seeing Chance nowhere,
Thought presiding over all, Fate, that dread phantom, shall vanish from
creation, and Providence alone be visible in heaven and on earth!




CHAPTER III.

There was to be a considerable book-sale at a country house one day's
journey from London. Mr. Prickett meant to have attended it on his own
behalf, and that of several gentlemen who had given him commissions for
purchase; but on the morning fixed for his departure, he was seized with
a severe return of his old foe the rheumatism. He requested Leonard to
attend instead of himself. Leonard went, and was absent for the three
days during which the sale lasted. He returned late in the evening, and
went at once to Mr. Prickett's house. The shop was closed; he knocked
at the private entrance; a strange person opened the door to him, and in
reply to his question if Mr. Prickett was at home, said, with a long and
funereal face, "Young man, Mr. Prickett senior is gone to his long home,
but Mr. Richard Prickett will see you."

At this moment a very grave-looking man, with lank hair, looked forth
from the side-door communicating between the shop and the passage, and
then stepped forward. "Come in, sir; you are my late uncle's assistant,
Mr. Fairfield, I suppose?"

"Your late uncle! Heavens, sir, do I understand aright, can Mr. Prickett
be dead since I left London?"

"Died, sir, suddenly, last night. It was an affection of the heart. The
doctor thinks the rheumatism attacked that organ. He had small time to
provide for his departure, and his account-books seem in sad disorder: I
am his nephew and executor."

Leonard had now--followed the nephew into the shop. There still burned
the gas-lamp. The place seemed more dingy and cavernous than before.
Death always makes its presence felt in the house it visits.

Leonard was greatly affected,--and yet more, perhaps, by the utter want
of feeling which the nephew exhibited. In fact the deceased had not
been on friendly terms with this person, his nearest relative and
heir-at-law, who was also a bookseller.

"You were engaged but by the week, I find, young man, on reference to
my late uncle's papers. He gave you L1 a week,--a monstrous sum! I shall
not require your services any further. I shall move these books to my
own house. You will be good enough to send me a list of those you bought
at the sale, and your account of travelling expenses, etc. What may be
due to you shall be sent to your address. Good-evening."

Leonard went home, shocked and saddened at the sudden death of his kind
employer. He did not think much of himself that night; but when he rose
the next day, he suddenly felt that the world of London lay before him,
without a friend, without a calling, without an occupation for bread.

This time it was no fancied sorrow, no poetic dream disappointed.
Before him, gaunt and palpable, stood Famine. Escape!--yes. Back to the
village: his mother's cottage; the exile's garden; the radishes and the
fount. Why could he not escape? Ask why civilization cannot escape its
ills, and fly back to the wild and the wigwam.

Leonard could not have returned to the cottage, even if the Famine that
faced had already seized him with her skeleton hand. London releases not
so readily her fated step-sons.




CHAPTER IV.

One day three persons were standing before an old bookstall in a
passage leading from Oxford Street into Tottenham Court Road. Two were
gentlemen; the third, of the class and appearance of those who more
habitually halt at old bookstalls.

"Look," said one of the gentlemen to the other, "I have discovered here
what I have searched for in vain the last ten years,--the Horace of
1580, the Horace of the Forty Commentators, a perfect treasury of
learning, and marked only fourteen shillings!"

"Hush, Norreys," said the other, "and observe what is yet more worth
your study;" and he pointed to the third bystander, whose face, sharp
and attenuated, was bent with an absorbed, and, as it were, with a
hungering attention over an old worm-eaten volume.

"What is the book, my lord?" whispered Mr. Norreys. His companion
smiled, and replied by another question, "What is the man who reads the
book?"

Mr. Norreys moved a few paces, and looked over the student's shoulder.
"Preston's translation of Boethius's 'The Consolations of Philosophy,'"
he said, coming back to his friend.

"He looks as if he wanted all the consolations Philosophy can give him,
poor boy."

At this moment a fourth passenger paused at the bookstall, and,
recognizing the pale student, placed his hand on his shoulder, and said,
"Aha, young sir, we meet again. So poor Prickett is dead. But you are
still haunted by associations. Books, books,--magnets to which all iron
minds move insensibly. What is this? Boethius! Ah, a book written in
prison, but a little time before the advent of the only philosopher who
solves to the simplest understanding every mystery of life--"

"And that philosopher?"

"Is death!" said Mr. Burley. "How can you be dull enough to ask? Poor
Boethius, rich, nobly born, a consul, his sons consuls, the world one
smile to the Last Philosopher of Rome. Then suddenly, against this type
of the old world's departing WISDOM stands frowning the new world's
grim genius, FORCE,--Theodoric the Ostrogoth condemning Boethius the
schoolman; and Boethius in his Pavian dungeon holding a dialogue with
the shade of Athenian Philosophy. It is the finest picture upon which
lingers the glimmering of the Western golden day, before night rushes
over time."

"And," said Mr. Norreys, abruptly, "Boethius comes back to us with the
faint gleam of returning light, translated by Alfred the Great; and,
again, as the sun of knowledge bursts forth in all its splendour by
Queen Elizabeth. Boethius influences us as we stand in this passage;
and that is the best of all the Consolations of Philosophy,--eh, Mr.
Burley?"

Mr. Burley turned and bowed.

The two men looked at each other; you could not see a greater
contrast,--Mr. Burley, his gay green dress already shabby and soiled,
with a rent in the skirts and his face speaking of habitual night-cups;
Mr. Norreys, neat and somewhat precise in dress, with firm, lean figure,
and quiet, collected, vigorous energy in his eye and aspect.

"If," replied Mr. Burley, "a poor devil like me may argue with a
gentleman who may command his own price with the booksellers, I should
say it is no consolation at all, Mr. Norreys. And I should like to see
any man of sense accept the condition of Boethius in his prison, with
some strangler or headsman waiting behind the door, upon the promised
proviso that he should be translated, centuries afterwards, by kings
and queens, and help indirectly to influence the minds of Northern
barbarians, babbling about him in an alley, jostled by passers-by
who never heard the name of Boethius, and who don't care a fig for
philosophy. Your servant, sir, young man, come and talk."

Burley hooked his arm within Leonard's, and led the boy passively away.

"That is a clever man," said Harley L'Estrange. "But I am sorry to see
yon young student, with his bright earnest eyes, and his lip that has
the quiver of passion and enthusiasm, leaning on the arm of a guide
who seems disenchanted of all that gives purpose to learning, and links
philosophy with use to the world. Who and what is this clever man whom
you call Burley?"

"A man who might have been famous, if he had condescended to be
respectable! The boy listening to us both so attentively interested
me too,--I should like to have the making of him. But I must buy this
Horace."

The shopman, lurking within his hole like a spider for flies, was now
called out. And when Mr. Norreys had bought the Horace, and given an
address where to send it, Harley asked the shopman if he knew the young
man who had been reading Boethius.

"Only by sight. He has come here every day the last week, and spends
hours at the stall. When once he fastens on a book, he reads it
through."

"And never buys?" said Mr. Norreys.

"Sir," said the shopman, with a good-natured smile, "they who buy seldom
read. The poor boy pays me twopence a day to read as long as he pleases.
I would not take it, but he is proud."

"I have known men amass great learning in that way," said Mr. Norreys.
"Yes, I should like to have that boy in my hands. And now, my lord, I am
at your service, and we will go to the studio of your artist."

The two gentlemen walked on towards one of the streets out of Fitzroy
Square.

In a few minutes more Harley L'Estrange was in his element, seated
carelessly on a deal table smoking his cigar, and discussing art with
the gusto of a man who honestly loved, and the taste of a man who
thoroughly understood it. The young artist, in his dressing robe, adding
slow touch upon touch, paused often to listen the better. And Henry
Norrey s, enjoying the brief respite from a life of great labour, was
gladly reminded of idle hours under rosy skies; for these three men
had formed their friendship in Italy, where the bands of friendship are
woven by the hands of the Graces.




CHAPTER V.

Leonard and Mr. Burley walked on into the suburbs round the north road
from London, and Mr. Burley offered to find literary employment for
Leonard,--an offer eagerly accepted.

Then they went into a public-house by the wayside. Burley demanded
a private room, called for pen, ink, and paper; and placing these
implements before Leonard, said, "Write what you please, in prose, five
sheets of letter-paper, twenty-two lines to a page,--neither more nor
less."

"I cannot write so."

"Tut, 't is for bread."

The boy's face crimsoned.

"I must forget that," said he.

"There is an arbour in the garden, under a weeping-ash," returned
Burley. "Go there, and fancy yourself in Arcadia."

Leonard was too pleased to obey. He found out the little arbour at one
end of a deserted bowling-green. All was still,--the hedgerow shut
out the sight of the inn. The sun lay warm on the grass, and glinted
pleasantly through the leaves of the ash. And Leonard there wrote the
first essay from his hand as Author by profession. What was it that he
wrote? His dreamy impressions of London, an anathema on its streets and
its hearts of stone, murmurs against poverty, dark elegies on fate?

Oh, no! little knowest thou true genius, if thou askest such questions,
or thinkest that there under the weeping-ash the task-work for bread was
remembered; or that the sunbeam glinted but over the practical world,
which, vulgar and sordid, lay around. Leonard wrote a fairy tale,--one
of the loveliest you can conceive, with a delicate touch of playful
humour, in a style all flowered over with happy fancies. He smiled as
he wrote the last word,--he was happy. In rather more than an hour Mr.
Burley came to him, and found him with that smile on his lips.

Mr. Burley had a glass of brandy-and-water in his hand; it was his
third. He too smiled, he too looked happy. He read the paper aloud,
and well. He was very complimentary. "You will do!" said he, clapping
Leonard on the back. "Perhaps some day you will catch my one-eyed
perch." Then he folded up the manuscript, scribbled off a note, put the
whole in one envelope, and they returned to London.

Mr. Burley disappeared within a dingy office near Fleet Street, on which
was inscribed, "Office of the 'Beehive,'" and soon came forth with a
golden sovereign in his hand, Leonard's first-fruits. Leonard thought
Peru lay before him. He accompanied Mr. Burley to that gentleman's
lodging in Maida Hill. The walk had been very long; Leonard was not
fatigued. He listened with a livelier attention than before to Burley's
talk. And when they reached the apartments of the latter, and Mr. Burley
sent to the cookshop, and their joint supper was taken out of the golden
sovereign, Leonard felt proud, and for the first time for weeks he
laughed the heart's laugh. The two writers grew more and more intimate
and cordial. And there was a vast deal in Burley by which any young man
might be made the wiser. There was no apparent evidence of poverty in
the apartments,--clean, new, well-furnished; but all things in the most
horrible litter,--all speaking of the huge literary sloven.

For several days Leonard almost lived in those rooms. He wrote
continuously, save when Burley's conversation fascinated him into
idleness. Nay, it was not idleness,--his knowledge grew larger as he
listened; but the cynicism of the talker began slowly to work its way.
That cynicism in which there was no faith, no hope, no vivifying breath
from Glory, from Religion,--the cynicism of the Epicurean, more degraded
in his sty than ever was Diogenes in his tub; and yet presented with
such ease and such eloquence, with such art and such mirth, so adorned
with illustration and anecdote, so unconscious of debasement!

Strange and dread philosophy, that made it a maxim to squander the gifts
of mind on the mere care for matter, and fit the soul to live but as
from day to day, with its scornful cry, "A fig for immortality and
laurels!" An author for bread! Oh, miserable calling! was there
something grand and holy, after all, even in Chatterton's despair?




CHAPTER VI.

The villanous "Beehive"! Bread was worked out of it, certainly; but
fame, but hope for the future,--certainly not. Milton's Paradise Lost
would have perished without a sound had it appeared in the "Beehive."

Fine things were there in a fragmentary crude state, composed by Burley
himself. At the end of a week they were dead and forgotten,--never
read by one man of education and taste; taken simultaneously and
indifferently with shallow politics and wretched essays, yet selling,
perhaps, twenty or thirty thousand copies,--an immense sale; and nothing
got out of them but bread and brandy!

"What more would you have?" cried John Burley. "Did not stern old Sam
Johnson say he could never write but from want?"

"He might say it," answered Leonard; "but he never meant posterity to
believe him. And he would have died of want, I suspect, rather than have
written 'Rasselas' for the 'Beehive'! Want is a grand thing," continued
the boy, thoughtfully,--"a parent of grand things. Necessity is strong,
and should give us its own strength; but Want should shatter asunder,
with its very writhings, the walls of our prison-house, and not sit
contented with the allowance the jail gives us in exchange for our
work."

"There is no prison-house to a man who calls upon Bacchus; stay, I will
translate to you Schiller's Dithyramb. 'Then see I Bacchus; then up come
Cupid and Phoebus, and all the Celestials are filling my dwelling.'"

Breaking into impromptu careless rhymes, Burley threw off a rude but
spirited translation of that divine lyric. "O materialist!" cried the
boy, with his bright eyes suffused. "Schiller calls on the gods to
take him to their heaven with them; and you would debase the gods to a
ginpalace."

"Ho, ho!" cried Burley, with his giant laugh. "Drink, and you will
understand the Dithyramb."




CHAPTER VII.

Suddenly one morning, as Leonard sat with Burley, a fashionable
cabriolet, with a very handsome horse, stopped at the door. A loud
knock, a quick step on the stairs, and Randal Leslie entered. Leonard
recognized him, and started. Randal glanced at him in surprise, and
then, with a tact that showed he had already learned to profit by London
life, after shaking hands with Burley, approached, and said, with some
successful attempt at ease, "Unless I am not mistaken, sir, we have met
before. If you remember me, I hope all boyish quarrels are forgotten?"

Leonard bowed, and his heart was still good enough to be softened.

"Where could you two ever have met?" asked Burley. "In a village green,
and in single combat," answered Randal, smiling; and he told the story
of the Battle of the Stocks, with a well-bred jest on himself. Burley
laughed at the story. "But," said he, when this laugh was over, "my
young friend had better have remained guardian of the village stocks
than come to London in search of such fortune as lies at the bottom of
an inkhorn."

"Ah," said Randal, with the secret contempt which men elaborately
cultivated are apt to feel for those who seek to educate
themselves,--"ah, you make literature your calling, sir? At what school
did you conceive a taste for letters? Not very common at our great
public schools."

"I am at school now for the first time," answered Leonard, dryly.

"Experience is the best schoolmistress," said Burley; "and that was the
maxim of Goethe, who had book-learning enough, in all conscience."

Randal slightly shrugged his shoulders, and without wasting another
thought on Leonard, peasant-born and self-taught, took his seat, and
began to talk to Burley upon a political question, which made then the
war-cry between the two great parliamentary parties. It was a subject
in which Burley showed much general knowledge; and Randal, seeming to
differ from him, drew forth alike his information and his argumentative
powers. The conversation lasted more than an hour.

"I can't quite agree with you," said Randal, taking his leave; "but you
must allow me to call again,--will the same hour tomorrow suit you?"

"Yes," said Burley.

Away went the young man in his cabriolet. Leonard watched him from the
window.

For five days, consecutively, did Randal call and discuss the question
in all its bearings; and Burley, after the second day, got interested
in the matter, looked up his authorities, refreshed his memory, and even
spent an hour or two in the Library of the British Museum.

By the fifth day, Burley had really exhausted all that could well be
said on his side of the question.

Leonard, during these colloquies, had sat apart seemingly absorbed in
reading, and secretly stung by Randal's disregard of his presence. For
indeed that young man, in his superb self-esteem, and in the absorption
of his ambitious projects, scarce felt even curiosity as to Leonard's
rise above his earlier station, and looked on him as a mere journeyman
of Burley's.

But the self-taught are keen and quick observers; and Leonard had
remarked that Randal seemed more as one playing a part for some private
purpose, than arguing in earnest; and that, when he rose, and said, "Mr.
Burley, you have convinced me," it was not with the modesty of a sincere
reasoner, but the triumph of one who has gained his end. But so struck,
meanwhile, was our unheeded and silent listener with Burley's power of
generalization and the wide surface over which his information
extended, that when Randal left the room the boy looked at the slovenly,
purposeless man, and said aloud, "True; knowledge is not power."

"Certainly not," said Burley, dryly,--"the weakest thing in the world."

"Knowledge is power," muttered Randal Leslie, as, with a smile on his
lip, he drove from the door.

Not many days after this last interview there appeared a short pamphlet;
anonymous, but one which made a great impression on the town. It was on
the subject discussed between Randal and Burley. It was quoted at great
length in the newspapers. And Burley started to his feet one morning,
and exclaimed, "My own thoughts! my very words! Who the devil is this
pamphleteer?"

Leonard took the newspaper from Burley's hand. The most flattering
encomiums preceded the extracts, and the extracts were as stereotypes of
Burley's talk.

"Can you doubt the author?" cried Leonard, in deep disgust and ingenuous
scorn. "The young man who came to steal your brains, and turn your
knowledge--"

"Into power," interrupted Burley, with a laugh,--but it was a laugh of
pain. "Well, this was very mean; I shall tell him so when he comes."

"He will come no more," said Leonard. Nor did Randal come again. But he
sent Mr. Burley a copy of the pamphlet with a polite note, saying, with
candid but careless acknowledgment, that he "had profited much by Mr.
Burley's hints and remarks."

And now it was in all the papers that the pamphlet which had made so
great a noise was by a very young man, Mr. Audley Egerton's relation.
And high hopes were expressed of the future career of Mr. Randal Leslie.

Burley still attempted to laugh, and still his pain was visible. Leonard
most cordially despised and hated Randal Leslie, and his heart moved to
Burley with noble but perilous compassion. In his desire to soothe
and comfort the man whom he deemed cheated out of fame, he forgot the
caution he had hitherto imposed on himself, and yielded more and more
to the charm of that wasted intellect. He accompanied Burley now to
the haunts to which his friend went to spend his evenings; and more and
more--though gradually, and with many a recoil and self-rebuke--there
crept over him the cynic's contempt for glory, and miserable philosophy
of debased content.

Randal had risen into grave repute upon the strength of Burley's
knowledge. But, had Burley written the pamphlet, would the same
repute have attended him? Certainly not. Randal Leslie brought to that
knowledge qualities all his own,--a style simple, strong, and logical;
a certain tone of good society, and allusions to men and to parties that
showed his connection with a Cabinet minister, and proved that he had
profited no less by Egerton's talk than Burley's.

Had Burley written the pamphlet, it would have showed more genius, it
would have had humour and wit, but have been so full of whims and quips,
sins against taste, and defects in earnestness, that it would have
failed to create any serious sensation. Here, then, there was something
else be sides knowledge, by which knowledge became power. Knowledge must
not smell of the brandy-bottle.

Randal Leslie might be mean in his plagiarism, but he turned the useless
into use. And so far he was original. But one's admiration, after all,
rests where Leonard's rested,--with the poor, riotous, lawless, big,
fallen man. Burley took himself off to the Brent, and fished again for
the one-eyed perch. Leonard accompanied him. His feelings were indeed
different from what they had been when he had reclined under the old
tree, and talked with Helen of the future. But it was almost pathetic to
see how Burley's nature seemed to alter, as he strayed along the banks
of the rivulet, and discoursed of his own boyhood. The man then seemed
restored to something of the innocence of the child. He cared, in truth,
little for the perch, which continued intractable, but he enjoyed the
air and the sky, the rustling grass and the murmuring waters. These
excursions to the haunts of youth seemed to rebaptize him, and then his
eloquence took a pastoral character, and Izaak Walton himself would have
loved to hear him. But as he got back into the smoke of the metropolis,
and the gas-lamps made him forget the ruddy sunset and the soft evening
star, the gross habits reassumed their sway; and on he went with his
swaggering, reckless step to the orgies in which his abused intellect
flamed forth, and then sank into the socket quenched and rayless.




CHAPTER VIII.

Helen was seized with profound and anxious sadness. Leonard had been
three or four times to see her, and each time she saw a change in him
that excited all her fears. He seemed, it is true, more shrewd, more
worldly-wise, more fitted, it might be, for coarse daily life; but, on
the other hand, the freshness and glory of his youth were waning slowly.
His aspirings drooped earthward. He had not mastered the Practical, and
moulded its uses with the strong hand of the Spiritual Architect, of
the Ideal Builder; the Practical was overpowering himself. She grew pale
when he talked of Burley, and shuddered, poor little Helen? when she
found he was daily, and almost nightly, in a companionship which, with
her native honest prudence, she saw so unsuited to strengthen him in
his struggles, and aid him against temptation. She almost groaned when,
pressing him as to his pecuniary means, she found his old terror of debt
seemed fading away, and the solid healthful principles he had taken from
his village were loosening fast. Under all, it is true, there was what
a wiser and older person than Helen would have hailed as the redeeming
promise. But that something was grief,--a sublime grief in his own sense
of falling, in his own impotence against the Fate he had provoked and
coveted. The Sublimity of that grief Helen could not detect; she saw
only that it was grief, and she grieved with it, letting it excuse every
fault,--making her more anxious to comfort, in order that she might
save. Even from the first, when Leonard had exclaimed, "Ah, Helen, why
did you ever leave me?" she had revolved the idea of return to him;
and when in the boy's last visit he told her that Burley, persecuted
by duns, was about to fly from his present lodgings, and take his abode
with Leonard, in the room she had left vacant, all doubt was over. She
resolved to sacrifice the safety and shelter of the home assured her.
She resolved to come back and share Leonard's penury and struggles, and
save the old room, wherein she had prayed for him, from the tempter's
dangerous presence. Should she burden him? No; she had assisted her
father by many little female arts in needle and fancy work. She had
improved herself in these during her sojourn with Miss Starke. She
could bring her share to the common stock. Possessed with this idea, she
determined to realize it before the day on which Leonard had told her
Burley was to move his quarters. Accordingly she rose very early one
morning; she wrote a pretty and grateful note to Miss Starke, who was
fast asleep, left it on the table, and before any one was astir, stole
from the house, her little bundle on her arm.

She lingered an instant at the garden-gate, with a remorseful
sentiment,--a feeling that she had ill-repaid the cold and prim
protection that Miss Starke had shown her. But sisterly love carried all
before it. She closed the gate with a sigh, and went on.

She arrived at the lodging-house before Leonard was up, took possession
of her old chamber, and presenting herself to Leonard, as he was about
to go forth, said (story-teller that she was), "I am sent away, brother,
and I have come to you to take care of me. Do not let us part again.
But you must be very cheerful and very happy, or I shall think that I am
sadly in your way."

Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy; but then he thought
of Burley, and then of his own means of supporting Helen, and was
embarrassed, and began questioning her as to the possibility
of reconciliation with Miss Starke. And Helen said gravely,
"Impossible,--do not ask it, and do not go near her."

Then Leonard thought she had been humbled and insulted, and remembered
that she was a gentleman's child, and felt for her wounded pride, he was
so proud himself. Yet still he was embarrassed.

"Shall I keep the purse again, Leonard?" said Helen, coaxingly.

"Alas!" replied Leonard, "the purse is empty."

"That is very naughty in the purse," said Helen, "since you put so much
into it."

"Did not you say that you made, at least, a guinea a week?"

"Yes; but Burley takes the money; and then, poor fellow! as I owe all to
him, I have not the heart to prevent him spending it as he likes."

"Please, I wish you could settle the month's rent," said the landlady,
suddenly showing herself. She said it civilly, but with firmness.

Leonard coloured. "It shall be paid to-day."

Then he pressed his hat on his head, and putting Helen gently aside,
went forth.

"Speak to me in future, kind Mrs. Smedley," said Helen, with the air of
a housewife. "He is always in study, and must not be disturbed."

The landlady--a good woman, though she liked her rent--smiled benignly.
She was fond of Helen, whom she had known of old.

"I am so glad you are come back; and perhaps now the young man will not
keep such late hours. I meant to give him warning, but--"

"But he will be a great man one of these days, and you must bear with
him now." And Helen kissed Mrs. Smedley, and sent her away half inclined
to cry.

Then Helen busied herself in the rooms. She found her father's box,
which had been duly forwarded. She re-examined its contents, and wept as
she touched each humble and pious relic. But her father's memory itself
thus seemed to give this home a sanction which the former had not; and
she rose quietly and began mechanically to put things in order, sighing
as she saw all so neglected, till she came to the rosetree, and that
alone showed heed and care. "Dear Leonard!" she murmured, and the smile
resettled on her lips.




CHAPTER IX.

Nothing, perhaps, could have severed Leonard from Burley but Helen's
return to his care. It was impossible for him, even had there been
another room in the house vacant (which there was not), to install
this noisy, riotous son of the Muse by Bacchus, talking at random and
smelling of spirits, in the same dwelling with an innocent, delicate,
timid, female child. And Leonard could not leave her alone all the
twenty-four hours. She restored a home to him and imposed its duties.
He therefore told Mr. Burley that in future he should write and study
in his own room, and hinted, with many a blush, and as delicately as
he could, that it seemed to him that whatever he obtained from his
pen ought to be halved with Burley, to whose interest he owed the
employment, and from whose books or whose knowledge he took what helped
to maintain it; but that the other half, if his, he could no longer
afford to spend upon feasts or libations. He had another life to provide
for.

Burley pooh-poohed the notion of taking half his coadjutor's earning
with much grandeur, but spoke very fretfully of Leonard's sober
appropriation of the other half; and though a good-natured, warm-hearted
man, felt extremely indignant at the sudden interposition of poor Helen.
However, Leonard was firm; and then Burley grew sullen, and so they
parted. But the rent was still to be paid. How? Leonard for the
first time thought of the pawnbroker. He had clothes to spare, and
Riccabocca's watch. No; that last he shrank from applying to such base
uses.

He went home at noon, and met Helen at the street-door. She too had
been out, and her soft cheek was rosy red with unwonted exercise and the
sense of joy. She had still preserved the few gold pieces which Leonard
had taken back to her on his first visit to Miss Starke's. She had now
gone out and bought wool and implements for work; and meanwhile she had
paid the rent.

Leonard did not object to the work, but he blushed deeply when he knew
about the rent, and was very angry. He paid back to her that night what
she had advanced; and Helen wept silently at his pride, and wept more
when she saw the next day a woful hiatus in his wardrobe.

But Leonard now worked at home, and worked resolutely; and Helen sat
by his side, working too; so that next day, and the next, slipped
peacefully away, and in the evening of the second he asked her to walk
out in the fields. She sprang up joyously at the invitation, when bang
went the door, and in reeled John Burley,--drunk,--and so drunk!




CHAPTER X.

And with Burley there reeled in another man,--a friend of his, a man who
had been a wealthy trader and once well to do, but who, unluckily, had
literary tastes, and was fond of hearing Burley talk. So, since he
had known the wit, his business had fallen from him, and he had passed
through the Bankrupt Court. A very shabby-looking dog he was, indeed,
and his nose was redder than Burley's.

John made a drunken dash at poor Helen. "So you are the Pentheus in
petticoats who defies Bacchus," cried he; and therewith he roared out a
verse from Euripides. Helen ran away, and Leonard interposed.

"For shame, Burley!"

"He's drunk," said Mr. Douce, the bankrupt trader, "very drunk; don't
mind him. I say, sir, I hope we don't intrude. Sit still, Burley,
sit still, and talk, do,--that's a good man. You should hear
him--ta--ta--talk, sir." Leonard meanwhile had got Helen out of the
room into her own, and begged her not to be alarmed, and keep the door
locked. He then returned to Burley, who had seated himself on the
bed, trying wondrous hard to keep himself upright; while Mr. Douce
was striving to light a short pipe that he carried in his
button-hole--without having filled it--and, naturally failing in that
attempt, was now beginning to weep.

Leonard was deeply shocked and revolted for Helen's sake; but it was
hopeless to make Burley listen to reason. And how could the boy turn out
of his room the man to whom he was under obligations?

Meanwhile there smote upon Helen's shrinking ears loud jarring talk and
maudlin laughter, and cracked attempts at jovial songs. Then she heard
Mrs. Smedley in Leonard's room, remonstrating; and Burley's laugh was
louder than before, and Mrs. Smedley, who was a meek woman, evidently
got frightened, and was heard in precipitate retreat. Long and loud talk
recommenced, Burley's great voice predominant, Mr. Douce chiming in with
hiccoughy broken treble. Hour after hour this lasted, for want of
the drink that would have brought it to a premature close. And Burley
gradually began to talk himself somewhat sober. Then Mr. Douce was heard
descending the stairs, and silence followed. At dawn, Leonard knocked at
Helen's door. She opened it at once, for she had not gone to bed.

"Helen," said he, very sadly, "you cannot continue here. I must find
out some proper home for you. This man has served me when all London was
friendless, and he tells me that he has nowhere else to go,--that the
bailiffs are after him. He has now fallen asleep. I will go and find you
some lodging close at hand, for I cannot expel him who has protected me;
and yet you cannot be under the same roof with him. My own good angel, I
must lose you."

He did not wait for her answer, but hurried down stairs. The morning
looked through the shutterless panes in Leonard's garret, and the birds
began to chirp from the elmtree, when Burley rose and shook himself, and
stared round. He could not quite make out where he was. He got hold
of the water-jug, which he emptied at three draughts, and felt greatly
refreshed. He then began to reconnoitre the chamber,--looked at
Leonard's manuscripts, peeped into the drawers, wondered where the devil
Leonard himself had gone to, and finally amused himself by throwing down
the fireirons, ringing the bell, and making all the noise he could,
in the hopes of attracting the attention of somebody or other, and
procuring himself his morning dram.

In the midst of this charivari the door opened softly, but as if with
a resolute hand, and the small quiet form of Helen stood before the
threshold. Burley turned round, and the two looked at each other for
some moments with silent scrutiny.

BURLEY (composing his features into their most friendly
expression).--"Come hither, my dear. So you are the little girl whom I
saw with Leonard on the banks of the Brent, and you have come back to
live with him,--and I have come to live with him too. You shall be our
little housekeeper, and I will tell you the story of Prince Pettyman,
and a great many others not to be found in 'Mother Goose.' Meanwhile, my
dear little girl, here's sixpence,--just run out and change this for its
worth in rum."

HELEN (coming slowly up to Mr. Burley, and still gazing earnestly into
his face).--"Ah, sir, Leonard says you have a kind heart, and that you
have served him; he cannot ask you to leave the house; and so I, who
have never served him, am to go hence and live alone."

BURLEY (moved).--"You go, my little lady; and why? Can we not all live
together?"

HELEN.--"No, sir. I left everything to come to Leonard, for we had met
first at my father's grave; but you rob me of him, and I have no other
friend on earth."

BURLEY (discomposed).--"Explain yourself. Why must you leave him because
I come?"

Helen looked at Mr. Burley again, long and wistfully, but made no
answer.

BURLEY (with a gulp).--"Is it because he thinks I am not fit company for
you?"

Helen bowed her head.

Burley winced, and after a moment's pause said, "He is right."

HELEN (obeying the impulse of her heart, springs forward and takes
Burley's hand).--"Ah, sir," she cried, "before he knew you he was
so different; then he was cheerful, then, even when his first
disappointment came, I grieved and wept but I felt he would conquer
still, for his heart was so good and pure. Oh, sir, don't think I
reproach you; but what is to become of him if--if--No, it is not for
myself I speak. I know that if I was here, that if he had me to care
for, he would come home early, and work patiently, and--and--that I
might save him. But now when I am gone, and you live with him,--you to
whom he is grateful, you whom he would follow against his own conscience
(you must see that, sir), what is to become of him?"

Helen's voice died in sobs.

Burley took three or four long strides through the room; he was greatly
agitated. "I am a demon," he murmured. "I never saw it before; but it is
true, I should be this boy's ruin." Tears stood in his eyes, he paused
abruptly, made a clutch at his hat, and turned to the door.

Helen stopped the way, and taking him gently by the arm, said, "Oh,
sir, forgive me,--I have pained you;" and looked up at him with a
compassionate expression, that indeed made the child's sweet face as
that of an angel.

Burley bent down as if to kiss her, and then drew back, perhaps with a
sentiment that his lips were not worthy to touch that innocent brow.

"If I had had a sister,--a child like you, little one," he muttered,
"perhaps I too might have been saved in time. Now--"

"Ah, now you may stay, sir; I don't fear you any more."

"No, no; you would fear me again ere night-time, and I might not be
always in the right mood to listen to a voice like yours, child. Your
Leonard has a noble heart and rare gifts. He should rise yet, and he
shall. I will not drag him into the mire. Good-by,--you will see me no
more." He broke from Helen, cleared the stairs with a bound, and was out
of the house.

When Leonard returned he was surprised to hear his unwelcome guest was
gone,--but Helen did not venture to tell him of her interposition. She
knew instinctively how such officiousness would mortify and offend the
pride of man; but she never again spoke harshly of poor Burley. Leonard
supposed that he should either see or hear of the humourist in the
course of the day. Finding he did not, he went in search of him at his
old haunts; but no trace. He inquired at the "Beehive" if they knew
there of his new address, but no tidings of Burley could be obtained.

As he came home disappointed and anxious, for he felt uneasy as to the
disappearance of his wild friend, Mrs. Smedley met him at the door.

"Please, sir, suit yourself with another lodging," said she. "I can have
no such singings and shoutings going on at night in my house. And that
poor little girl, too! you should be ashamed of yourself."

Leonard frowned, and passed by.




CHAPTER XI.

Meanwhile, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on; and, as if by some better
instinct, for he was unconscious of his own steps, he took his way
towards the still green haunts of his youth. When he paused at length,
he was already before the door of a rural cottage, standing alone in the
midst of fields, with a little farmyard at the back; and far through the
trees in front was caught a glimpse of the winding Brent.

With this cottage Burley was familiar; it was inhabited by a good old
couple who had known him from a boy. There he habitually left his rods
and fishing-tackle; there, for intervals in his turbid, riotous life,
he had sojourned for two or three days together, fancying the first day
that the country was a heaven, and convinced before the third that it
was a purgatory.

An old woman, of neat and tidy exterior, came forth to greet him.

"Ah, Master John," said she, clasping his nerveless hand, "well, the
fields be pleasant now; I hope you are come to stay a bit? Do; it will
freshen you; you lose all the fine colour you had once, in Lunnon town."

"I will stay with you, my kind friend," said Burley, with unusual
meekness; "I can have the old room, then?"

"Oh, yes, come and look at it. I never let it now to any one but
you,--never have let it since the dear beautiful lady with the angel's
face went away. Poor thing, what could have become of her?"

Thus speaking, while Burley listened not, the old woman drew him within
the cottage, and led him up the stairs into a room that might have
well become a better house, for it was furnished with taste, and even
elegance. A small cabinet pianoforte stood opposite the fireplace, and
the window looked upon pleasant meads and tangled hedgerows, and the
narrow windings of the blue rivulet. Burley sank down exhausted, and
gazed wistfully from the casement.

"You have not breakfasted?" said the hostess, anxiously.

"No."

"Well, the eggs are fresh laid, and you would like a rasher of bacon,
Master John? And if you will have brandy in your tea, I have some that
you left long ago in your own bottle."

Burley shook his head. "No brandy, Mrs. Goodyer; only fresh milk. I will
see whether I can yet coax Nature."

Mrs. Goodyer did not know what was meant by coaxing Nature, but she
said, "Pray do, Master John," and vanished. That day Burley went out
with his rod, and he fished hard for the one-eyed perch; but in vain.
Then he roved along the stream with his hands in his pockets, whistling.
He returned to the cottage at sunset, partook of the fare provided for
him, abstained from the brandy, and felt dreadfully low.

He called for pen, ink, and paper, and sought to write, but could not
achieve two lines. He summoned Mrs. Goodyer. "Tell your husband to come
and sit and talk."

Up came old Jacob Goodyer, and the great wit bade him tell him all the
news of the village. Jacob obeyed willingly, and Burley at last fell
asleep. The next day it was much the same, only at dinner he had up the
brandy-bottle, and finished it; and he did not have up Jacob, but he
contrived to write.

The third day it rained incessantly. "Have you no books, Mrs. Goodyer?"
asked poor John Burley.

"Oh, yes, some that the dear lady left behind her; and perhaps you would
like to look at some papers in her own writing?"

"No, not the papers,--all women scribble, and all scribble the same
things. Get me the books."

The books were brought up,--poetry and essays--John knew them by heart.
He looked out on the rain, and at evening the rain had ceased. He rushed
to his hat and fled.

"Nature, Nature!" he exclaimed, when he was out in the air and hurrying
by the dripping hedgerows, "you are not to be coaxed by me! I have
jilted you shamefully, I own it; you are a female, and unforgiving. I
don't complain. You may be very pretty, but you are the stupidest and
most tire some companion that ever I met with. Thank Heaven, I am not
married to you!"

Thus John Burley made his way into town, and paused at the first
public-house. Out of that house he came with a jovial air, and on he
strode towards the heart of London. Now he is in Leicester Square, and
he gazes on the foreigners who stalk that region, and hums a tune; and
now from yonder alley two forms emerge, and dog his careless footsteps;
now through the maze of passages towards St. Martin's he threads his
path, and, anticipating an orgy as he nears his favourite haunts,
jingles the silver in his pockets; and now the two forms are at his
heels.

"Hail to thee, O Freedom!" muttered John Burley, "thy dwelling is in
cities, and thy palace is the tavern."

"In the king's name," quoth a gruff voice; and John Burley feels the
horrid and familiar tap on the shoulder.

The two bailiffs who dogged have seized their prey. "At whose suit?"
asked John Burley, falteringly. "Mr. Cox, the wine-merchant."

"Cox! A man to whom I gave a check on my bankers not three months ago!"

"But it war n't cashed."

"What does that signify?--the intention was the same. A good heart takes
the will for the deed. Cox is a monster of ingratitude, and I withdraw
my custom."

"Sarve him right. Would your honour like a jarvey?"

"I would rather spend the money on something else," said John Burley.
"Give me your arm, I am not proud. After all, thank Heaven, I shall not
sleep in the country."

And John Burley made a night of it in the Fleet.




CHAPTER XII.

Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the direst
of all civil strife,--war with their servants. She looked upon the
members of that class as the unrelenting and sleepless enemies of the
unfortunate householders condemned to employ them. She thought they ate
and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors;
that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the
tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was
a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough
for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and
her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby
reducing various nephews, nieces, or cousins to the strict bounds of a
natural affection,--that did not exist; and as she felt the want of some
friendly face amidst this world of distrust and hate,--so she had tried
the resource of venal companions. But the venal companions had never
stayed long, either they disliked Miss Starke, or Miss Starke disliked
them. Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon bringing up some
little girl, whose heart, as she said to herself, would be fresh and
uncorrupted, and from whom she might expect gratitude. She had been
contented, on the whole, with Helen, and had meant to keep that child in
her house as long as she (Miss Starke) remained upon the earth,--perhaps
some thirty years longer; and then, having carefully secluded her from
marriage and other friendship, to leave her nothing but the regret of
having lost so kind a benefactress. Conformably with this notion, and in
order to secure the affections of the child, Miss Starke had relaxed
the frigid austerity natural to her manner and mode of thought, and been
kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither slapped nor pinched her,
neither had she starved. She had allowed her to see Leonard, according
to the agreement made with Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence
on cakes, besides contributing fruit from her garden for the first
interview,--a hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on
subsequent occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had
purchased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing could
exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and found the child had
gone. As it never had occurred to her to ask Leonard's address, though
she suspected Helen had gone to him, she was at a loss what to do, and
remained for twenty-four hours in a state of inane depression. But then
she began to miss the child so much that her energies woke, and she
persuaded herself that she was actuated by the purest benevolence in
trying to reclaim this poor creature from the world into which Helen had
thus rashly plunged.

Accordingly she put an advertisement into the "Times," to the following
effect, liberally imitated from one by which in former years she had
recovered a favourite Blenheim:--

              TWO GUINEAS' REWARD.

   STRAYED, from Ivy Cottage, Highgate, a Little Girl,--answers to the
   name of Helen; with blue eyes and brown hair; white muslin frock,
   and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the same to Ivy
   Cottage, shall receive the above Reward.

   N. B.--Nothing more will be offered.

Now it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an advertisement in the
"Times" on her own account, relative to a niece of hers who was coming
from the country, and for whom she desired to find a situation. So,
contrary to her usual habit, she sent for the newspaper, and close by
her own advertisement, she saw Miss Starke's.

It was impossible that she could mistake the description of Helen; and
as this advertisement caught her eye the very day after the whole house
had been disturbed and scandalized by Burley's noisy visit, and on which
she had resolved to get rid of a lodger who received such visitors, the
good-hearted woman was delighted to think that she could restore Helen
to some safe home. While thus thinking, Helen herself entered the
kitchen where Mrs. Smedley sat, and the landlady had the imprudence to
point out the advertisement, and talk, as she called it, "seriously," to
the little girl.

Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no step in reply to
the advertisement. Mrs. Smedley felt that it was an affair of duty,
and was obdurate, and shortly afterwards put on her bonnet and left the
house. Helen conjectured that she was on her way to Miss Starke's, and
her whole soul was bent on flight. Leonard had gone to the office of
the "Beehive" with his manuscripts; but she packed up all their joint
effects, and just as she had done so, he returned. She communicated
the news of the advertisement, and said she should be so miserable if
compelled to go back to Miss Starke's, and implored him so pathetically
to save her from such sorrow, that he at once assented to her proposal
of flight. Luckily, little was owing to the landlady,--that little was
left with the maid-servant; and, profiting by Mrs. Smedley's absence,
they escaped without scene or conflict. Their effects were taken by
Leonard to a stand of hackney vehicles, and then left at a coach-office
while they went in search of lodgings. It was wise to choose an entirely
new and remote district; and before night they were settled in an attic
in Lambeth.




CHAPTER XIII.

As the reader will expect, no trace of Burley could Leonard find: the
humourist had ceased to communicate with the "Beehive." But Leonard
grieved for Burley's sake; and, indeed, he missed the intercourse of the
large, wrong mind. But he settled down by degrees to the simple, loving
society of his child companion, and in that presence grew more tranquil.
The hours in the daytime that he did not pass at work, he spent as
before, picking up knowledge at book-stalls; and at dusk he and Helen
would stroll out,--sometimes striving to escape from the long suburb
into fresh rural air; more often wandering to and fro the bridge that
led to glorious Westminster--London's classic land--and watching the
vague lamps reflected on the river. This haunt suited the musing,
melancholy boy. He would stand long and with wistful silence by the
balustrade, seating Helen thereon, that she too might look along the
dark mournful waters, which, dark though they be, still have their charm
of mysterious repose.

As the river flowed between the world of roofs, and the roar of human
passions on either side, so in those two hearts flowed Thought--and all
they knew of London was its shadow.




CHAPTER XIV.

There appeared in the "Beehive" certain very truculent political
papers,--papers very like the tracts in the tinker's bag. Leonard did
not heed them much, but they made far more sensation in the public that
read the "Beehive" than Leonard's papers, full of rare promise though
the last were. They greatly increased the sale of the periodical in the
manufacturing towns, and began to awake the drowsy vigilance of the
Home Office. Suddenly a descent was made upon the "Beehive" and all
its papers and plant. The editor saw himself threatened with a criminal
prosecution, and the certainty of two years' imprisonment: he did
not like the prospect, and disappeared. One evening, when Leonard,
unconscious of these mischances, arrived at the door of the office, he
found it closed. An agitated mob was before it, and a voice that was
not new to his ear was haranguing the bystanders, with many imprecations
against "tyrants." He looked, and, to his amaze, recognized in the
orator Mr. Sprott the Tinker.

The police came in numbers to disperse the crowd, and Mr. Sprott
prudently vanished. Leonard learned, then, what had befallen, and again
saw himself without employment and the means of bread.

Slowly he walked back. "O knowledge, knowledge!--powerless, indeed!" he
murmured.

As he thus spoke, a handbill in large capitals met his eyes on a dead
wall, "Wanted, a few smart young men for India."

A crimp accosted him. "You would make a fine soldier, my man. You have
stout limbs of your own." Leonard moved on.

"It has come back then to this,--brute physical force after all! O
Mind, despair! O Peasant, be a machine again!" He entered his attic
noiselessly, and gazed upon Helen as she sat at work, straining her eyes
by the open window--with tender and deep compassion. She had not heard
him enter, nor was she aware of his presence. Patient and still she sat,
and the small fingers plied busily. He gazed, and saw that her cheek
was pale and hollow, and the hands looked so thin! His heart was deeply
touched, and at that moment he had not one memory of the baffled Poet,
one thought that proclaimed the Egotist.

He approached her gently, laid his hand on her shoulder, "Helen, put on
your shawl and bonnet, and walk out,--I have much to say."

In a few moments she was ready, and they took their way to their
favourite haunt upon the bridge. Pausing in one of the recesses, or
nooks, Leonard then began, "Helen, we must part!"

"Part?--Oh, brother!"

"Listen. All work that depends on mind is over for me, nothing remains
but the labour of thews and sinews. I cannot go back to my village and
say to all, 'My hopes were self-conceit, and my intellect a delusion!' I
cannot. Neither in this sordid city can I turn menial or porter. I might
be born to that drudgery, but my mind has, it may be unhappily, raised
me above my birth. What, then, shall I do? I know not yet,--serve as
a soldier, or push my way to some wilderness afar, as an emigrant,
perhaps. But whatever my choice, I must henceforth be alone; I have a
home no more. But there is a home for you, Helen, a very humble one
(for you too, so well born), but very safe,--the roof of--of--my peasant
mother. She will love you for my sake, and--and--"

Helen clung to him trembling, and sobbed out, "Anything, anything you
will. But I can work; I can make money, Leonard. I do, indeed, make
money,--you do not know how much, but enough for us both till better
times come to you. Do not let us part."

"And I--a man, and born to labour--to be maintained by the work of an
infant! No, Helen, do not so degrade me."

She drew back as she looked on his flushed brow, bowed her head
submissively, and murmured, "Pardon."

"Ah," said Helen, after a pause, "if now we could but find my poor
father's friend! I never so much cared for it before."

"Yes, he would surely provide for you."

"For me!" repeated Helen, in a tone of soft, deep reproach, and she
turned away her head to conceal her tears.

"You are sure you would remember him, if we met him by chance?"

"Oh, yes. He was so different from all we see in this terrible city, and
his eyes were like yonder stars, so clear and so bright; yet the light
seemed to come from afar off, as the light does in yours, when your
thoughts are away from all things round you. And then, too, his dog,
whom he called Nero--I could not forget that."

"But his dog may not be always with him."

"But the bright clear eyes are! Ah, now you look up to heaven, and yours
seem to dream like his."

Leonard did not answer, for his thoughts were indeed less on earth than
struggling to pierce into that remote and mysterious heaven.

Both were silent long; the crowd passed them by unheedingly. Night
deepened over the river, but the reflection of the lamp-lights on its
waves was more visible than that of the stars. The beams showed the
darkness of the strong current; and the craft that lay eastward on
the tide, with sail-less spectral masts and black dismal hulks, looked
death-like in their stillness.

Leonard looked down, and the thought of Chatterton's grim suicide came
back to his soul; and a pale, scornful face, with luminous haunting
eyes, seemed to look up from the stream, and murmur from livid lips,
"Struggle no more against the tides on the surface,--all is calm and
rest within the deep."

Starting in terror from the gloom of his revery, the boy began to talk
fast to Helen, and tried to soothe her with descriptions of the lowly
home which he had offered.

He spoke of the light cares which she would participate with his
mother (for by that name he still called the widow), and dwelt, with an
eloquence that the contrast round him made sincere and strong, on the
happy rural life, the shadowy woodlands, the rippling cornfields, the
solemn, lone churchspire soaring from the tranquil landscape.

Flatteringly he painted the flowery terraces of the Italian exile, and
the playful fountain that, even as he spoke, was flinging up its spray
to the stars, through serene air untroubled by the smoke of cities,
and untainted by the sinful sighs of men. He promised her the love and
protection of natures akin to the happy scene: the simple, affectionate
mother, the gentle pastor, the exile wise and kind, Violante, with
dark eyes full of the mystic thoughts that solitude calls from
childhood,--Violante should be her companion.

"And, oh!" cried Helen, "if life be thus happy there, return with me,
return! return!"

"Alas!" murmured the boy, "if the hammer once strike the spark from the
anvil, the spark must fly upward; it cannot fall back to earth until
light has left it. Upward still, Helen,--let me go upward still!"




CHAPTER XV.

The next morning Helen was very ill,--so ill that, shortly after rising,
she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered, her eyes were
heavy, her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might
have caught cold on the bridge, perhaps her emotions had proved too
much for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called in the nearest
apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger. And
danger soon declared itself,--Helen became delirious. For several days
she lay in this state, be tween life and death. Leonard then felt that
all the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of losing
what we love. How valueless the envied laurel seemed beside the dying
rose!

Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to medical skill, she
recovered sense at last. Immediate peril was over; but she was very weak
and reduced, her ultimate recovery doubtful, convalescence, at best,
likely to be very slow.

But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, she looked
anxiously at Leonard's face as he bent over her, and faltered forth,
"Give me my work; I am strong enough for that now,--it would amuse me."

Leonard burst into tears.

Alas! he had no work himself; all their joint money had melted away. The
apothecary was not like good Dr. Morgan; the medicines were to be paid
for, and the rent. Two days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's
watch; and when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he
support Helen? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and assured her that
he had employment; and that so earnestly that she believed him, and sank
into soft sleep. He listened to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and
left the room. He turned into his own neighbouring garret, and leaning
his face on his hands, collected all his thoughts.

He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale for money,--Mr.
Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. He would rather have begged
of a stranger; it seemed to add a new dishonour to his mother's memory
for the child to beg of one who was acquainted with her shame. Had he
himself been the only one to want and to starve, he would have sunk inch
by inch into the grave of famine, before he would have so subdued his
pride. But Helen, there on that bed,--Helen needing, for weeks perhaps,
all support, and illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries!
Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud,
bitter soul he conquered, you would have said, "This, which he thinks
is degradation,--this is heroism." Oh, strange human heart! no epic ever
written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread
by human eye, in thy secret leaves.

Of whom else should he beg? His mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor,
and the stately Violante, who had exclaimed, "Would that I were a man!
"--he could not endure the thought that she should pity him and despise.
The Avenels! No,--thrice No. He drew towards him hastily ink and paper,
and wrote rapid lines that were wrung from him as from the bleeding
strings of life.

But the hour for the post had passed, the letter must wait till the next
day; and three days at least would elapse before he could receive an
answer. He left the letter on the table, and, stifling as for air, went
forth. He crossed the bridge, he passed on mechanically, and was borne
along by a crowd pressing towards the doors of parliament. A debate that
excited popular interest was fixed for that evening, and many bystanders
collected in the street to see the members pass to and fro, or hear what
speakers had yet risen to take part in the debate, or try to get orders
for the gallery.

He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, in common
with them, but looking over their heads abstractedly towards the tall
Funeral Abbey,--imperial Golgotha of Poets and Chiefs and Kings.

Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a
name, displeasingly known to him. "How are you, Randal Leslie? coming to
hear the debate?" said a member, who was passing through the street.

"Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gallery. He is to speak
himself to-night, and I have never heard him. As you are going into the
House, will you remind him of his promise to me?"

"I can't now, for he is speaking already,--and well too. I hurried from
the Athenaeum, where I was dining, on purpose to be in time, as I heard
that his speech was making a great effect."

"This is very unlucky," said Randal. "I had no idea he would speak so
early."

"C----- brought him up by a direct personal attack. But follow me;
perhaps I can get you into the House; and a man like you, Leslie, from
whom we expect great things some day, I can tell you, should not
miss any such opportunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a
field-night. Come on!"

The member hurried towards the door; and as Randal followed him,
a bystander cried, "That is the young man who wrote the famous
pamphlet,--Egerton's relation."

"Oh, indeed!" said another. "Clever man, Egerton,--I am waiting for
him."

"So am I."

"Why, you are not a constituent, as I am."

"No; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I must thank him. You
are a constituent--he is an honour to your town."

"So he is: enlightened man!"

"And so generous!"

"Brings forward really good measures," quoth the politician.

"And clever young men," said the uncle.

Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Audley Egerton, and
many anecdotes of his liberality were told. Leonard listened at first
listlessly, at last with thoughtful attention. He had heard Burley,
too, speak highly of this generous statesman, who, without pretending to
genius himself, appreciated it in others. He suddenly remembered, too,
that Egerton was half-brother to the squire. Vague notions of some
appeal to this eminent person, not for charity, but employment to his
mind, gleamed across him,--inexperienced boy that he yet was! And
while thus meditating, the door of the House opened and out came Audley
Egerton himself. A partial cheering, followed by a general murmur,
apprised Leonard of the presence of the popular statesman. Egerton was
caught hold of by some five or six persons in succession; a shake of
the hand, a nod, a brief whispered word or two, sufficed the practised
member for graceful escape; and soon, free from the crowd, his tall,
erect figure passed on, and turned towards the bridge. He paused at the
angle and took out his watch, looking at it by the lamp-light.

"Harley will be here soon," he muttered,--"he is always punctual; and
now that I have spoken, I can give him an hour or so. That is well."

As he replaced his watch in his pocket and re-buttoned his coat over
his firm, broad chest, he lifted his eyes, and saw a young man standing
before him.

"Do you want me?" asked the statesman, with the direct brevity of his
practical character.

"Mr. Egerton," said the young man, with a voice that slightly trembled
and yet was manly amidst emotion, "you have a great name, and great
power; I stand here in these streets of London without a friend, and
without employment. I believe that I have it in me to do some nobler
work than that of bodily labour, had I but one friend,--one opening for
my thoughts. And now I have said this, I scarcely know how, or why, but
from despair, and the sudden impulse which that despair took from the
praise that follows your success, I have nothing more to add."

Audley Egerton was silent for a moment, struck by the tone and
address of the stranger; but the consummate and wary man of the world,
accustomed to all manner of strange applications and all varieties of
imposture, quickly recovered from a passing and slight effect.

"Are you a native of?" (naming the town which the statesman
represented).

"No, sir."

"Well, young man, I am very sorry for you; but the good sense you
must possess (for I judge of that by the education you have evidently
received) must tell you that a public man, whatever be his patronage,
has it too fully absorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to
be able to listen to strangers."

He paused a moment, and as Leonard stood silent, added with more
kindness than most public men so accosted would have shown,

"You say you are friendless,--poor fellow! In early life that happens
to many of us, who find friends enough before the close. Be honest, and
well-conducted: lean on yourself, not on strangers; work with the body
if you can't with the mind; and, believe me, that advice is all I can
give you, unless this trifle"--and the minister held out a crown-piece.

Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. Egerton looked
after him with a slight pang.

"Pooh!" said he to himself, "there must be thousands in the same
state in these streets of London. I cannot redress the necessities of
civilization. Well educated! It is not from ignorance henceforth that
society will suffer,--it is from over-educating the hungry thousands
who, thus unfitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will
some day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and puzzle wiser
ministers than I am."

As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a bugle-horn rang
merrily from the box of a gay four-in-hand. A drag-coach with superb
blood-horses rattled over the causeway, and in the driver Egerton
recognized his nephew, Frank Hazeldean.

The young Guardsman was returning with a lively party of men from dining
at Greenwich, and the careless laughter of these children of pleasure
floated far over the still river; it vexed the ear of the careworn
statesman,--sad, perhaps, with all his greatness, lonely amidst all his
crowd of friends. It reminded him, perhaps, of his own youth, when such
parties and companionships were familiar to him, though through them all
he had borne an ambitious, aspiring soul. "Le jeu vaut-il la chandelle?"
said he, shrugging his shoulders.

The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood leaning against the
corner of the bridge, and the mire of the kennel splashed over him
from the hoofs of the fiery horses. The laughter smote on his ear more
discordantly than on the minister's, but it begot no envy.

"Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast.

And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he had stood several
nights before with Helen, and, dizzy with want of food, and worn out for
want of sleep, he sank down into the dark corner; while the river that
rolled under the arch of stone muttered dirge-like in his ear,--as under
the social key-stone wails and rolls on forever the mystery of Human
Discontent. Take comfort, O Thinker by the stream! 'T is the river that
founded and gave pomp to the city; and, without the discontent, where
were progress, what were Man? Take comfort, O THINKER! wherever the
stream over which thou bendest, or beside which thou sinkest, weary
and desolate, frets the arch that supports thee, never dream that, by
destroying the bridge, thou canst silence the moan of the wave!




CHAPTER XVI.

Before a table, in the apartments appropriated to him in his father's
house at Knightsbridge, sat Lord L'Estrange, sorting or destroying
letters and papers,--an ordinary symptom of change of residence. There
are certain trifles by which a shrewd observer may judge of a man's
disposition. Thus, ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with
soldier-like precision, were sundry little relics of former days,
hallowed by some sentiment of memory, or perhaps endeared solely by
custom; which, whether he was in Egypt, Italy, or England, always made
part of the furniture of Harley's room. Even the small, old-fashioned,
and somewhat inconvenient inkstand into which he dipped the pen as he
labelled the letters he put aside, belonged to the writing-desk which
had been his pride as a schoolboy. Even the books that lay scattered
round were not new works, not those to which we turn to satisfy the
curiosity of an hour, or to distract our graver thoughts; they were
chiefly either Latin or Italian poets, with many a pencil-mark on the
margin; or books which, making severe demand on thought, require slow
and frequent perusal, and become companions. Somehow or other, in
remarking that even in dumb, inanimate things the man was averse to
change, and had the habit of attaching himself to whatever was connected
with old associations, you might guess that he clung with pertinacity to
affections more important, and you could better comprehend the freshness
of his friendship for one so dissimilar in pursuits and character as
Audley Egerton. An affection once admitted into the heart of Harley
L'Estrange seemed never to be questioned or reasoned with; it became
tacitly fixed, as it were, into his own nature, and little less than a
revolution of his whole system could dislodge or disturb it.

Lord L'Estrange's hand rested now upon a letter in a stiff, legible
Italian character, and instead of disposing of it at once as he had done
with the rest, he spread it before him, and re-read the contents. It was
a letter from Riccabocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus:--

      LETTER FROM SIGNOR RICCABOCCA TO LORD L'ESTRANGE.

I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with faith in my honour,
and respect for my reverses.

No, and thrice no, to all concessions, all overtures, all treaty with
Giulio Franzini. I write the name, and my emotions choke me. I must
pause, and cool back into disdain. It is over. Pass from that subject.
But you have alarmed me. This sister! I have not seen her since her
childhood; but she was brought up under his influence,

--she can but work as his agent. She wish to learn my residence! It can
be but for some hostile and malignant purpose. I may trust in you,--I
know that. You say I may trust equally in the discretion of your friend.
Pardon me,--my confidence is not so elastic. A word may give the clew
to my retreat. But, if discovered, what harm can ensue? An English roof
protects me from Austrian despotism: true; but not the brazen tower
of Danae could protect me from Italian craft. And, were there nothing
worse, it would be intolerable to me to live under the eyes of a
relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, 'He sleeps ill for whom the
enemy wakes.' Look you, my friend, I have done with my old life,--I wish
to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have denied myself all that
exiles deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages from
sympathizing friendship, no news from a lost and bereaved country follow
me to my hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these I have
voluntarily cut thyself off. I am as dead to the life I once lived as
if the Styx rolled between it and me. With that sternness which
is admissible only to the afflicted, I have denied myself even the
consolation of your visits. I have told you fairly and simply that
your presence would unsettle all my enforced and infirm philosophy, and
remind me only of the past, which I seek to blot from remembrance. You
have complied on the one condition, that whenever I really want your aid
I will ask it; and, meanwhile, you have generously sought to obtain me
justice from the cabinets of ministers and in the courts of kings. I did
not refuse your heart this luxury; for I have a child--Ah! I have taught
that child already to revere your name, and in her prayers it is
not forgotten. But now that you are convinced that even your zeal is
unavailing, I ask you to discontinue attempts which may but bring the
spy upon my track, and involve me in new misfortunes. Believe me, O
brilliant Englishman, that I am satisfied and contented with my lot.
I am sure it would not be for my happiness to change it, 'Chi non ha
provato il male non conosce il bone.'

   ["One does not know when one is well off till one has known
   misfortune."]

You ask me how I live,--I answer, alla giornata,--[To the day]--not
for the morrow, as I did once. I have accustomed myself to the calm
existence of a village. I take interest in its details. There is my
wife, good creature, sitting opposite to me, never asking what I write,
or to whom, but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment the
pen is out of my hand. Talk--and what about? Heaven knows! But I would
rather hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble
again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths
and constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence
the happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavelli and Thucydides? Then,
by and by, the parson will drop in, and we argue. He never knows when he
is beaten, so the argument is everlasting. On fine days I ramble out by
a winding rill with my Violante, or stroll to my friend the squire's,
and see how healthful a thing is true pleasure; and on wet days I shut
myself up, and mope, perhaps till, hark! a gentle tap at the door,
and in comes Violante, with her dark eyes, that shine out through
reproachful tears,--reproachful that I should mourn alone, while she is
under my roof; so she puts her arms round me, and in five minutes all is
sunshine within. What care we for your English gray clouds without?

Leave me, my dear Lord,--leave me to this quiet happy passage towards
old age, serener than the youth that I wasted so wildly; and guard well
the secret on which my happiness depends.

Now to yourself, before I close. Of that same yourself you speak
too little, as of me too much. But I so well comprehend the profound
melancholy that lies underneath the wild and fanciful humour with which
you but suggest, as in sport, what you feel so in earnest. The laborious
solitude of cities weighs on you. You are flying back to the dolce
far niente,--to friends few, but intimate; to life monotonous, but
unrestrained; and even there the sense of loneliness will again
seize upon you; and you do not seek, as I do, the annihilation of
memory,--your dead passions are turned to ghosts that haunt you, and
unfit you for the living world. I see it all,--I see it still, in your
hurried fantastic lines, as I saw it when we two sat amidst the pines
and beheld the blue lake stretched below, I troubled by the shadow of
the Future, you disturbed by that of the Past.

Well, but you say, half seriously, half in jest, "I will escape from
this prison-house of memory; I will form new ties, like other men, and
before it be too late; I will marry. Ay, but I must love,--there is the
difficulty." Difficulty,--yes, and Heaven be thanked for it! Recall all
the unhappy marriages that have come to your knowledge: pray, have not
eighteen out of twenty been marriages for Love? It always has been so,
and it always will; because, whenever we love deeply, we exact so much
and forgive so little. Be content to find some one with whom your hearth
and your honour are safe. You will grow to love what never wounds your
heart, you will soon grow out of love with what must always disappoint
your imagination. Cospetto! I wish my Jemima had a younger sister for
you. Yet it was with a deep groan that I settled myself to a--Jemima.

Now, I have written you a long letter, to prove how little I need
of your compassion or your zeal. Once more let there be long silence
between us. It is not easy for me to correspond with a man of your rank,
and not incur the curious gossip of my still little pool of a world
which the splash of a pebble can break into circles. I must take this
over to a post-town some ten miles off, and drop it into the box by
stealth. Adieu, dear and noble friend, gentlest heart and subtlest fancy
that I have met in my walk through life. Adieu. Write me word when you
have abandoned a day-dream and found a Jemima.

                    ALPHONSO.

P. S.--For Heaven's sake, caution and recaution your friend the minister
not to drop a word to this woman that may betray my hiding-place.

"Is he really happy?" murmured Harley, as he closed the letter; and he
sank for a few moments into a revery.

"This life in a village, this wife in a lady who puts down her work to
talk about villagers--what a contrast to Audley's full existence! And I
cannot envy nor comprehend either! yet my own existence--what is it?"

He rose, and moved towards the window, from which a rustic stair
descended to a green lawn, studded with larger trees than are often
found in the grounds of a suburban residence. There were calm and
coolness in the sight, and one could scarcely have supposed that London
lay so near.

The door opened softly, and a lady past middle age entered, and
approaching Harley, as he still stood musing by the window, laid her
hand on his shoulder. What character there is in a hand! Hers was a hand
that Titian would have painted with elaborate care! Thin, white, and
delicate, with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet there was
something more than mere patrician elegance in the form and texture.
A true physiologist would have said at once, "There are intellect and
pride in that hand, which seems to fix a hold where it rests; and lying
so lightly, yet will not be as lightly shaken off."

"Harley," said the lady--and Harley turned--"you do not deceive me by
that smile," she continued sadly; "you were not smiling when I entered."

"It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother; and I have
done nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to smile at myself."

"My son," said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but with great
earnestness, "you come from a line of illustrious ancestors; and
methinks they ask from their tombs why the last of their race has no aim
and no object, no interest, no home, in the land which they served, and
which rewarded them with its honours."

"Mother," said the soldier, simply, "when the land was in danger I
served it as my forefathers served,--and my answer would be the scars on
my breast."

"Is it only in danger that a country is served, only in war that duty
is fulfilled? Do you think that your father, in his plain, manly life
of country gentleman, does not fulfil, though perhaps too obscurely, the
objects for which aristocracy is created, and wealth is bestowed?"

"Doubtless he does, ma'am,--and better than his vagrant son ever can."

"Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature, his youth was
so rich in promise, his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory!"

"Ay," said Harley, very softly, "it is possible,--and all to be buried
in a single grave!"

The countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley's shoulder.

Lady Lansmere's countenance was not one that much varied in expression.
She had in this, as in her cast of feature, little resemblance to her
son.

Her features were slightly aquiline,--the eyebrows of that arch which
gives a certain majesty to the aspect; the lines round the mouth were
habitually rigid and compressed. Her face was that of one who had gone
through great emotion and subdued it. There was something formal,
and even ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still
considerable, in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested
to you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chatelaine,
half-abbess; you would see at a glance that she did not live in the
light world around her, and disdained its fashion and its mode of
thought; yet with all this rigidity it was still the face of the woman
who has known human ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed
long on Harley's quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of a mother.

"A single grave," she said, after a long pause. "And you were then but
a boy, Harley! Can such a memory influence you even to this day? It is
scarcely possible: it does not seem to me within the realities of man's
life,--though it might be of woman's."

"I believe," said Harley, half soliloquizing, "that I have a great deal
of the woman in me. Perhaps men who live much alone, and care not for
men's objects, do grow tenacious of impressions, as your sex does. But
oh," he cried, aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, "oh, the
hardest and the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he known HER,
had he loved HER. She was like no other woman I have ever met. Bright
and glorious creature of another sphere! She descended on this earth and
darkened it when she passed away. It is no use striving. Mother, I have
as much courage as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I have dared in
battle and in deserts, against man and the wild beast, against the storm
and the ocean, against the rude powers of Nature,--dangers as dread as
ever pilgrim or Crusader rejoiced to brave. But courage against that one
memory! no, I have none!"

"Harley, Harley, you break my heart!" cried the countess, clasping her
hands.

"It is astonishing," continued her son, so rapt in his own thoughts that
he did not, perhaps, hear her outcry. "Yea, verily, it is astonishing,
that considering the thousands of women I have seen and spoken with, I
never see a face like hers,--never hear a voice so sweet. And all this
universe of life cannot afford me one look and one tone that can restore
me to man's privilege,--love. Well, well, well, life has other things
yet; Poetry and Art live still; still smiles the heaven and still wave
the trees. Leave me to happiness in my own way."

The countess was about to reply, when the door was thrown hastily open,
and Lord Lansmere walked in.

The earl was some years older than the countess, but his placid face
showed less wear and tear,--a benevolent, kindly face, without any
evidence of commanding intellect, but with no lack of sense in its
pleasant lines; his form not tall, but upright and with an air of
consequence,--a little pompous, but good-humouredly so,--the pomposity
of the Grand Seigneur who has lived much in provinces, whose will
has been rarely disputed, and whose importance has been so felt and
acknowledged as to react insensibly on himself;--an excellent man; but
when you glanced towards the high brow and dark eye of the countess,
you marvelled a little how the two had come together, and, according to
common report, lived so happily in the union.

"Ho, ho! my dear Harley," cried Lord Lansmere, rubbing his hands with an
appearance of much satisfaction, "I have just been paying a visit to the
duchess."

"What duchess, my dear father?"

"Why, your mother's first cousin, to be sure,--the Duchess of
Knaresborough, whom, to oblige me, you condescended to call upon; and
delighted I am to hear that you admire Lady Mary--"

"She is very high bred, and rather--high-nosed," answered Harley. Then,
observing that his mother looked pained, and his father disconcerted, he
added seriously, "But handsome certainly."

"Well, Harley," said the earl, recovering himself, "the duchess, taking
advantage of our connection to speak freely, has intimated to me that
Lady Mary has been no less struck with yourself; and to come to the
point, since you allow that it is time you should think of marrying, I
do not know a more desirable alliance. What do you say, Katherine?"

"The duke is of a family that ranks in history before the Wars of the
Roses," said Lady Lansmere, with an air of deference to her husband;
"and there has never been one scandal in its annals, nor one blot on its
scutcheon. But I am sure my dear Lord must think that the duchess should
not have made the first overture,--even to a friend and a kinsman?"

"Why, we are old-fashioned people," said the earl, rather embarrassed,
"and the duchess is a woman of the world."

"Let us hope," said the countess, mildly, "that her daughter is not."

"I would not marry Lady Mary, if all the rest of the female sex were
turned into apes," said Lord L'Estrange, with deliberate fervour.

"Good heavens!" cried the earl, "what extraordinary language is this?
And pray why, sir?"

HARLEY.--"I can't say; there is no why in these cases. But, my dear
father, you are not keeping faith with me."

LORD LANSMERE.--"HOW?"

HARLEY.--"You and my Lady, here, entreat me to marry; I promise to do
my best to obey you, but on one condition, that I choose for myself,
and take my time about it. Agreed on both sides. Whereon, off goes
your Lordship--actually before noon, at an hour when no lady, without
a shudder, could think of cold blonde and damp orange flowers--off goes
your Lordship, I say, and commits poor Lady Mary and your unworthy son
to a mutual admiration,--which neither of us ever felt. Pardon me, my
father, but this is grave. Again let me claim your promise,--full choice
for myself, and no reference to the Wars of the Roses. What War of the
Roses like that between Modesty and Love upon the cheek of the virgin!"

LADY LANSMERE.--"Full choice for yourself, Harley: so be it. But we,
too, named a condition,--did we not, Lansmere?"

THE EARL (puzzled).--"Eh, did we? Certainly we did."

HARLEY.--"What was it?"

LADY LANSMERE.--"The son of Lord Lansmere can only marry the daughter of
a gentleman."

THE EARL.--"Of course, of course."

The blood rushed over Harley's fair face, and then as suddenly left it
pale.

He walked away to the window; his mother followed him, and again laid
her hand on his shoulder.

"You were cruel," said he, gently, and in a whisper, as he winced under
the touch of the hand. Then turning to the earl, who was gazing at him
in blank surprise,--it never occurred to Lord Lansmere that there could
be a doubt of his son's marrying beneath the rank modestly stated by
the countess,--Harley stretched forth his hand, and said, in his
soft winning tone, "You have ever been most gracious to me, and most
forbearing; it is but just that I should sacrifice the habits of an
egotist, to gratify a wish which you so warmly entertain. I agree with
you, too, that our race should not close in me,--Noblesse oblige. But
you know I was ever romantic; and I must love where I marry; or, if not
love, I must feel that my wife is worthy of all the love I could once
have bestowed. Now, as to the vague word 'gentleman' that my mother
employs--word that means so differently on different lips--I confess
that I have a prejudice against young ladies brought up in the
'excellent foppery of the world,' as the daughters of gentlemen of our
rank mostly are. I crave, therefore, the most liberal interpretation of
this word 'gentleman.' And so long as there be nothing mean or sordid
in the birth, habits, and education of the father of this bride to be,
I trust you will both agree to demand nothing more,--neither titles nor
pedigree."

"Titles, no, assuredly," said Lady Lansmere; "they do not make
gentlemen."

"Certainly not," said the earl; "many of our best families are
untitled."

"Titles--no," repeated Lady Lansmere; "but ancestors yes."

"Ah, my mother," said Harley, with his most sad and quiet smile, "it is
fated that we shall never agree. The first of our race is ever the one
we are most proud of; and pray, what ancestors had he? Beauty, virtue,
modesty, intellect,--if these are not nobility enough for a man, he is a
slave to the dead."

With these words Harley took up his hat and made towards the door.

"You said yourself, 'Noblesse oblige,'" said the countess, following him
to the threshold; "we have nothing more to add."

Harley slightly shrugged his shoulders, kissed his mother's hand;
whistled to Nero, who started up from a doze by the window, and went his
way.

"Does he really go abroad next week?" said the earl. "So he says."

"I am afraid there is no chance for Lady Mary," resumed Lord Lansmere,
with a slight but melancholy smile.

"She has not intellect enough to charm him. She is not worthy of
Harley," said the proud mother.

"Between you and me," rejoined the earl, rather timidly, "I don't see
what good his intellect does him. He could not be more unsettled and
useless if he were the merest dunce in the three kingdoms. And so
ambitious as he was when a boy! Katherine, I sometimes fancy that you
know what changed him."

"I! Nay, my dear Lord, it is a common change enough with the young, when
of such fortunes, who find, when they enter life, that there is really
little left for them to strive for. Had Harley been a poor man's son, it
might have been different."

"I was born to the same fortunes as Harley," said the earl, shrewdly,
"and yet I flatter myself I am of some use to old England."

The countess seized upon the occasion, complimented her Lord, and turned
the subject.




CHAPTER XVII.

Harley spent his day in his usual desultory, lounging manner,--dined
in his quiet corner at his favourite club. Nero, not admitted into the
club, patiently waited for him outside the door. The dinner over,
dog and man, equally indifferent to the crowd, sauntered down that
thoroughfare which, to the few who can comprehend the Poetry of London,
has associations of glory and of woe sublime as any that the ruins of
the dead elder world can furnish,--thoroughfare that traverses what
was once the courtyard of Whitehall, having to its left the site of
the palace that lodged the royalty of Scotland; gains, through a narrow
strait, that old isle of Thorney, in which Edward the Confessor received
the ominous visit of the Conqueror; and, widening once more by the Abbey
and the Hall of Westminster, then loses itself, like all memories of
earthly grandeur, amidst humble passages and mean defiles.

Thus thought Harley L'Estrange--ever less amidst the actual world around
him than the images invoked by his own solitary soul-as he gained the
bridge, and saw the dull, lifeless craft sleeping on the "Silent Way,"
once loud and glittering with the gilded barks of the antique Seignorie
of England.

It was on that bridge that Audley Egerton had appointed to meet
L'Estrange, at an hour when he calculated he could best steal a respite
from debate. For Harley, with his fastidious dislike to all the resorts
of his equals, had declined to seek his friend in the crowded regions of
Bellamy's.

Harley's eye, as he passed along the bridge, was attracted by a still
form, seated on the stones in one of the nooks, with its face covered
by its hands. "If I were a sculptor," said he to himself, "I
should remember that image whenever I wished to convey the idea of
Despondency!" He lifted his looks and saw, a little before him in the
midst of the causeway, the firm, erect figure of Audley Egerton. The
moonlight was full on the bronzed countenance of the strong public man,
with its lines of thought and care, and its vigorous but cold expression
of intense self-control.

"And looking yonder," continued Harley's soliloquy, "I should remember
that form, when I wished to hew out from the granite the idea of
Endurance."

"So you are come, and punctually," said Egerton, linking his arm in
Harley's.

HARLEY--"Punctually, of course, for I respect your time, and I will not
detain you long. I presume you will speak to-night?"

EGERTON.--"I have spoken."

HARLEY (with interest).--"And well, I hope?"

EGERTON.--"With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly cheered, which
does not always happen to me."

HARLEY.--"And that gave you pleasure?"

EGERTON (after a moment's thought).--"No, not the least."

HARLEY.--"What, then, attaches you so much to this life,--constant
drudgery, constant warfare, the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all
the harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of
those to be applause) do not please you?"

EGERTON.--"What? Custom."

HARLEY.--"Martyr."

EGERTON.--"You say it: but turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to
leave England next week?"

HARLEY (moodily).--"Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so
active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here
amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am
resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the
Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to
marry."

EGERTON.--"Whom?"

HARLEY (seriously).--"Upon my life, my dear fellow, you are a great
philosopher. You have hit the exact question. You see I cannot marry a
dream; and where, out of dreams, shall I find this 'whom'?"

EGERTON.--"You do not search for her."

HARLEY. "Do we ever search for love? Does it not flash upon us when we
least expect it? Is it not like the inspiration to the muse? What poet
sits down and says, 'I will write a poem'? What man looks out and says,
'I will fall in love'? No! Happiness, as the great German tells us,
'falls suddenly from the bosom of the gods;' so does love."

EGERTON.--"You remember the old line in Horace: 'The tide flows away
while the boor sits on the margin and waits for the ford.'"

HARLEV.--"An idea which incidentally dropped from you some weeks ago,
and which I have before half-meditated, has since haunted me. If I could
but find some child with sweet dispositions and fair intellect not yet
formed, and train her up according to my ideal. I am still young enough
to wait a few years. And meanwhile I shall have gained what I so sadly
want,--an object in life."

EGERTON.--"You are ever the child of romance. But what--"

Here the minister was interrupted by a messenger from the House of
Commons, whom Audley had instructed to seek him on the bridge should his
presence be required. "Sir, the Opposition are taking advantage of the
thinness of the House to call for a division. Mr. ----- is put up to
speak for time, but they won't hear him."

Egerton turned hastily to Lord L'Estrange. "You see, you must excuse me
now. To-morrow I must go to Windsor for two days: but we shall meet on
my return."

"It does not matter," answered Harley; "I stand out of the pale of
your advice, O practical man of sense. And if," added Harley, with
affectionate and mournful sweetness,--"if I weary you with complaints
which you cannot understand, it is only because of old schoolboy habits.
I can have no trouble that I do not confide to you."

Egerton's hand trembled as it pressed his friend's, and without a word,
he hurried away abruptly. Harley remained motionless for some seconds,
in deep and quiet revery; then he called to his dog, and turned back
towards Westminster.

He passed the nook in which had sat the still figure of Despondency; but
the figure had now risen, and was leaning against the balustrade. The
dog, who preceded his master, passed by the solitary form and sniffed it
suspiciously.

"Nero, sir, come here," said Harley.

"Nero,"--that was the name by which Helen had said that her father's
friend had called his dog; and the sound startled Leonard as he
leaned, sick at heart, against the stone. He lifted his head and looked
wistfully, eagerly into Harley's face. Those eyes, bright, clear, yet so
strangely deep and absent, which Helen had described, met his own, and
chained them. For L'Estrange halted also; the boy's countenance was not
unfamiliar to him. He returned the inquiring look fixed on his own, and
recognized the student by the bookstall.

"The dog is quite harmless, sir," said L'Estrange, with a smile.

"And you call him 'Nero'?" said Leonard, still gazing on the stranger.

Harley mistook the drift of the question.

"Nero, sir; but he is free from the sanguinary propensities of his Roman
namesake." Harley was about to pass on, when Leonard said falteringly,

"Pardon me, but can it be possible that you are one whom I have sought
in vain on behalf of the child of Captain Digby?"

Harley stopped short. "Digby!" he exclaimed, "where is he? He should
have found me easily. I gave him an address."

"Ah, Heaven be thanked!" cried Leonard. "Helen is saved--she will not
die," and he burst into tears.

A very few moments and a very few words sufficed to explain to Harley
the state of his old fellow-soldier's orphan. And Harley himself soon
stood in the young sufferer's room, supporting her burning temples on
his breast, and whispering into ears that heard him as in a happy dream,
"Comfort, comfort; your father yet lives in me."

And then Helen, raising her eyes, said, "But Leonard is my brother--more
than brother-and he needs a father's care more than I do."

"Hush, hush, Helen. I need no one, nothing now!" cried Leonard, and his
tears gushed over the little hand that clasped his own.




CHAPTER XVIII.

Harley L'Estrange was a man whom all things that belong to the romantic
and poetic side of our human life deeply impressed. When he came to
learn the ties between these two Children of Nature, standing side by
side, alone amidst the storms of fate, his heart was more deeply moved
than it had been for many years. In those dreary attics, overshadowed
by the smoke and reek of the humble suburb, the workday world in its
harshest and tritest forms below and around them, he recognized that
divine poem which comes out from all union between the mind and the
heart. Here, on the rough deal table (the ink scarcely dry), lay the
writings of the young wrestler for fame and bread; there, on the
other side of the partition, on that mean pallet, lay the boy's sole
comforter, the all that warmed his heart with living mortal affection.
On one side the wall, the world of imagination; on the other, this world
of grief and of love. And in both, a spirit equally sublime,--unselfish
devotion,--"the something afar from the sphere of our sorrow."

He looked round the room into which he had followed Leonard, on quitting
Helen's bedside. He noted the manuscripts on the table, and pointing to
them, said gently, "And these are the labours by which you supported the
soldier's orphan?--soldier yourself in a hard battle!"

"The battle was lost,--I could not support her," replied Leonard,
mournfully.

"But you did not desert her. When Pandora's box was opened, they say
Hope lingered last--"

"False, false," said Leonard; "a heathen's notion. There are deities
that linger behind Hope,--Gratitude, Love, and Duty."

"Yours is no common nature," exclaimed Harley, admiringly, "but I must
sound it more deeply hereafter: at present I hasten for the physician; I
shall return with him. We must move that poor child from this low close
air as soon as possible. Meanwhile, let me qualify your rejection of the
old fable. Wherever Gratitude, Love, and Duty remain to man, believe me
that Hope is there too, though she may be often invisible, hidden behind
the sheltering wings of the nobler deities."

Harley said this with that wondrous smile of his, which cast a
brightness over the whole room, and went away. Leonard stole softly
towards the grimy window; and looking up towards the stars that shone
pale over the roof-tops, he murmured, "O Thou, the All-seeing and
All-merciful! how it comforts me now to think that, though my dreams of
knowledge may have sometimes obscured the heavens, I never doubted that
Thou wert there! as luminous and everlasting, though behind the cloud!"
So, for a few minutes, he prayed silently, then passed into Helen's
room, and sat beside her motionless, for she slept. She woke just as
Harley returned with a physician; and then Leonard, returning to his own
room, saw amongst his papers the letter he had written to Mr. Dale, and
muttering, "I need not disgrace my calling,--I need not be the mendicant
now"--held the letter to the flame of the candle. And while he said
this, and as the burning tinder dropped on the floor, the sharp hunger,
unfelt during his late anxious emotions, gnawed at his entrails. Still,
even hunger could not reach that noble pride which had yielded to
a sentiment nobler than itself, and he smiled as he repeated, "No
mendicant!--the life that I was sworn to guard is saved. I can raise
against Fate the front of Man once more."




CHAPTER XIX.

A few days afterwards, and Helen, removed to a pure air, and under the
advice of the first physicians, was out of all danger.

It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows looking over the wild
heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode daily to watch the convalescence
of his young charge: an object in life was already found. As she grew
better and stronger, he coaxed her easily into talking, and listened
to her with pleased surprise. The heart so infantine and the sense so
womanly struck him much by its rare contrast and combination. Leonard,
whom he had insisted on placing also in the cottage, had stayed there
willingly till Helen's recovery was beyond question. Then he came to
Lord L'Estrange, as the latter was about one day to leave the cottage,
and said quietly, "Now, my Lord, that Helen is safe, and now that she
will need me no more, I can no longer be a pensioner on your bounty. I
return to London."

"You are my visitor, not my pensioner, foolish boy," said Harley, who
had already noticed the pride which spoke in that farewell; "come into
the garden and let us talk."

Harley seated himself on a bench on the little lawn; Nero crouched at
his feet; Leonard stood beside him.

"So," said Lord L'Estrange, "you would return to London? What to do?"

"Fulfil my fate."

"And that?"

"I cannot guess. Fate is the Isis whose veil no mortal can ever raise."

"You should be born for great things," said Harley, abruptly. "I am sure
that you write well. I have seen that you study with passion. Better
than writing and better than study, you have a noble heart, and the
proud desire of independence. Let me see your manuscripts, or any copies
of what you have already printed. Do not hesitate,--I ask but to be a
reader. I don't pretend to be a patron: it is a word I hate."

Leonard's eyes sparkled through their sudden moisture. He brought out
his portfolio, placed it on the bench beside Harley, and then went
softly to the farther part of the garden. Nero looked after him, and
then rose and followed him slowly. The boy seated himself on the turf,
and Nero rested his dull head on the loud heart of the poet.

Harley took up the various papers before him, and read them through
leisurely. Certainly he was no critic. He was not accustomed to analyze
what pleased or displeased him; but his perceptions were quick, and
his taste exquisite. As he read, his countenance, always so genuinely
expressive, exhibited now doubt and now admiration. He was soon struck
by the contrast, in the boy's writings, between the pieces that sported
with fancy and those that grappled with thought. In the first, the young
poet seemed so unconscious of his own individuality. His imagination,
afar and aloft from the scenes of his suffering, ran riot amidst a
paradise of happy golden creations. But in the last, the THINKER stood
out alone and mournful, questioning, in troubled sorrow, the hard world
on which he gazed. All in the thought was unsettled, tumultuous; all
in the fancy serene and peaceful. The genius seemed divided into twain
shapes,--the one bathing its wings amidst the starry dews of heaven;
the other wandering, "melancholy, slow," amidst desolate and boundless
sands. Harley gently laid down the paper and mused a little while. Then
he rose and walked to Leonard, gazing on his countenance as he neared
the boy, with a new and a deeper interest.

"I have read your papers," he said, "and recognize in them two men,
belonging to two worlds, essentially distinct." Leonard started, and
murmured, "True, true!"

"I apprehend," resumed Harley, "that one of these men must either
destroy the other, or that the two must become fused and harmonized into
a single existence. Get your hat, mount my groom's horse, and come with
me to London; we will converse by the way. Look you, I believe you and
I agree in this,--that the first object of every noble spirit is
independence. It is towards this independence that I alone presume to
assist you, and this is a service which the proudest man can receive
without a blush."

Leonard lifted his eyes towards Harley's, and those eyes swam with
grateful tears; but his heart was too full to answer. "I am not one of
those," said Harley, when they were on the road, "who think that because
a young man writes poetry he is fit for nothing else, and that he must
be a poet or a pauper. I have said that in you there seems to me to be
two men,--the man of the Actual world, the man of the Ideal. To each of
these men I can offer a separate career. The first is perhaps the more
tempting. It is the interest of the State to draw into its service all
the talent and industry it can obtain; and under his native State every
citizen of a free country should be proud to take service. I have a
friend who is a minister, and who is known to encourage talent,--Audley
Egerton. I have but to say to him, 'There is a young man who will repay
the government whatever the government bestows on him;' and you will
rise to-morrow independent in means, and with fair occasions to attain
to fortune and distinction. This is one offer,--what say you to it?"

Leonard thought bitterly of his interview with Audley Egerton, and the
minister's proffered crown-piece. He shook his head, and replied,

"Oh, my Lord, how have I deserved such kindness? Do with me what you
will; but if I have the option, I would rather follow my own calling.
This is not the ambition that inflames me."

"Hear, then, the other offer. I have a friend with whom I am less
intimate than Egerton, and who has nothing in his gift to bestow. I
speak of a man of letters,--Henry Norreys,--of whom you have doubtless
heard, who, I should say, conceived an interest in you when he observed
you reading at the bookstall. I have often heard him say that literature
as a profession is misunderstood, and that rightly followed, with the
same pains and the same prudence which are brought to bear on other
professions, a competence at least can be always ultimately obtained.
But the way may be long and tedious, and it leads to no power but over
thought; it rarely attains to wealth; and though reputation may be
certain, fame, such as poets dream of, is the lot of few. What say you
to this course?"

"My Lord, I decide," said Leonard, firmly; and then, his young face
lighting up with enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Yes, if, as you say,
there be two men within me, I feel that were I condemned wholly to the
mechanical and practical world, one would indeed destroy the other. And
the conqueror would be the ruder and the coarser. Let me pursue those
ideas that, though they have but flitted across me, vague and formless,
have ever soared towards the sunlight. No matter whether or not
they lead to fortune or to fame,--at least they will lead me upward!
Knowledge for itself I desire; what care I if it be not power!"

"Enough," said Harley, with a pleased smile at his young companion's
outburst. "As you decide so shall it be settled. And now permit me,
if not impertinent, to ask you a few questions. Your name is Leonard
Fairfield?"

The boy blushed deeply, and bowed his head as if in assent.

"Helen says you are self-taught; for the rest she refers me to
you,--thinking, perhaps, that I should esteem you less--rather than yet
more highly--if she said you were, as I presume to conjecture, of humble
birth."

"My birth," said Leonard, slowly, "is very--very--humble."

"The name of Fairfield is not unknown to me. There was one of that name
who married into a family in Lansmere, married an Avenel," continued
Harley, and his voice quivered. "You change countenance. Oh, could your
mother's name have been Avenel?"

"Yes," said Leonard, between his set teeth. Harley laid his hand on the
boy's shoulder. "Then, indeed, I have a claim on you; then, indeed, we
are friends. I have a right to serve any of that family."

Leonard looked at him in surprise--"For," continued Harley, recovering
himself, "they always served my family; and my recollections of
Lansmere, though boyish, are indelible." He spurred on his horse as
the words closed, and again there was a long pause; but from that time
Harley always spoke to Leonard in a soft voice, and often gazed on him
with earnest and kindly eyes.

They reached a house in a central, though not fashionable street. A
man-servant of a singularly grave and awful aspect opened the door,--a
man who had lived all his life with authors. Poor fellow, he was indeed
prematurely old! The care on his lip and the pomp on his brow--no
mortal's pen can describe!

"Is Mr. Norreys at home?" asked Harley.

"He is at home--to his friends, my Lord," answered the man,
majestically; and he stalked across the hall with the step of a Dangeau
ushering some Montmorenci into the presence of Louis le Grand.

"Stay; show this gentleman into another room. I will go first into the
library; wait for me, Leonard." The man nodded, and conducted Leonard
into the dining-room. Then pausing before the door of the library, and
listening an instant, as if fearful to disturb some mood of inspiration,
opened it very softly. To his ineffable disgust, Harley pushed before,
and entered abruptly. It was a large room, lined with books from the
floor to the ceiling. Books were on all the tables, books were on all
the chairs. Harley seated himself on a folio of Raleigh's "History of
the World," and cried, "I have brought you a treasure!"

"What is it?" said Norreys, good-humouredly, looking up from his desk.

"A mind!"

"A mind!" echoed Norreys, vaguely.

"Your own?"

"Pooh! I have none,--I have only a heart and a fancy. Listen. You
remember the boy we saw reading at the book stall. I have caught him for
you, and you shall train him into a man. I have the warmest interest in
his future, for I know some of his family, and one of that family was
very dear to me. As for money, he has not a shilling, and not a shilling
would he accept gratis from you or me either. But he comes with bold
heart to work,--and work you must find him." Harley then rapidly told
his friend of the two offers he had made to Leonard, and Leonard's
choice.

"This promises very well; for letters a man must have a strong vocation,
as he should have for law. I will do all that you wish."

Harley rose with alertness, shook Norreys cordially by the hand, hurried
out of the room, and returned with Leonard.

Mr. Norreys eyed the young man with attention. He was naturally rather
severe than cordial in his manner to strangers,--contrasting in this, as
in most things, the poor vagabond Burley; but he was a good judge of the
human countenance, and he liked Leonard's. After a pause he held out his
hand.

"Sir," said he, "Lord L'Estrange tells me that you wish to enter
literature as a calling, and no doubt to study it as an art. I may help
you in this, and you meanwhile can help me. I want an amanuensis,--I
offer you that place. The salary will be proportioned to the services
you will render me. I have a room in my house at your disposal. When
I first came up to London, I made the same choice that I hear you have
done. I have no cause, even in a worldly point of view, to repent my
choice. It gave me an income larger than my wants. I trace my success
to these maxims, which are applicable to all professions: 1st, Never
to trust to genius for what can be obtained by labour; 2dly, Never to
profess to teach what we have not studied to understand; 3dly, Never to
engage our word to what we do not our best to execute.

"With these rules, literature--provided a man does not mistake his
vocation for it, and will, under good advice, go through the preliminary
discipline of natural powers, which all vocations require--is as good a
calling as any other. Without them, a shoeblack's is infinitely better."

"Possibly enough," muttered Harley; "but there have been great writers
who observed none of your maxims."

"Great writers, probably, but very unenviable men. My Lord, my Lord,
don't corrupt the pupil you bring to me." Harley smiled, and took his
departure, and left Genius at school with Common-Sense and Experience.




CHAPTER XX.

While Leonard Fairfield had been obscurely wrestling against poverty,
neglect, hunger, and dread temptation, bright had been the opening day
and smooth the upward path of Randal Leslie. Certainly no young
man, able and ambitious, could enter life under fairer auspices; the
connection and avowed favourite of a popular and energetic statesman,
the brilliant writer of a political work that had lifted him at once
into a station of his own, received and courted in those highest
circles, to which neither rank nor fortune alone suffices for a familiar
passport,--the circles above fashion itself the circles of POWER,--with
every facility of augmenting information, and learning the world betimes
through the talk of its acknowledged masters,--Randal had but to move
straight onward, and success was sure. But his tortuous spirit delighted
in scheme and intrigue for their own sake. In scheme and intrigue he saw
shorter paths to fortune, if not to fame.

His besetting sin was also his besetting weakness. He did not
aspire,--he coveted. Though in a far higher social position than Frank
Hazeldean, despite the worldly prospects of his old schoolfellow, he
coveted the very things that kept Frank Hazeldean below him,--coveted
his idle gayeties, his careless pleasures, his very waste of youth.
Thus, also, Randal less aspired to Audley Egerton's repute than he
coveted Audley Egerton's wealth and pomp, his princely expenditure, and
his Castle Rackrent in Grosvenor Square. It was the misfortune of his
birth to be so near to both these fortunes,--near to that of Leslie, as
the future head of that fallen House; near even to that of Hazeldean,
since, as we have seen before, if the squire had had no son, Randal's
descent from the Hazeldeans suggested himself as the one on whom these
broad lands should devolve. Most young men brought into intimate contact
with Audley Egerton would have felt for that personage a certain loyal
and admiring, if not very affectionate, respect. For there was something
grand in Egerton,--something that commands and fascinates the young.
His determined courage, his energetic will, his almost regal liberality,
contrasting a simplicity in personal tastes and habits that was almost
austere, his rare and seemingly unconscious power of charming even the
women most wearied of homage, and persuading even the men most obdurate
to counsel,--all served to invest the practical man with those spells
which are usually confined to the ideal one. But, indeed, Audley
Egerton was an Ideal,--the ideal of the Practical. Not the mere vulgar,
plodding, red-tape machine of petty business, but the man of strong
sense, inspired by inflexible energy and guided to definite earthly
objects. In a dissolute and corrupt form of government, under a decrepit
monarchy or a vitiated republic, Audley Egerton might have been a most
dangerous citizen: for his ambition was so resolute, and his sight to
its ends was so clear. But there is something in public life in England
which compels the really ambitious man to honour, unless his eyes are
jaundiced and oblique, like Randal Leslie's. It is so necessary in
England to be a gentleman. And thus Egerton was emphatically considered
a gentleman. Without the least pride in other matters, with little
apparent sensitiveness, touch him on the point of gentleman, and no one
so sensitive and so proud. As Randal saw more of him, and watched his
moods with the lynx-eyes of the household spy, he could perceive that
this hard mechanical man was subject to fits of melancholy, even of
gloom; and though they did not last long, there was even in his habitual
coldness an evidence of something compressed, latent, painful, lying
deep within his memory. This would have interested the kindly feelings
of a grateful heart; but Randal detected and watched it only as a clew
to some secret it might profit him to gain. For Randal Leslie hated
Egerton; and hated him the more because, with all his book-knowledge and
his conceit in his own talents, he could not despise his patron;
because he had not yet succeeded in making his patron the mere tool or
stepping-stone; because he thought that Egerton's keen eye saw through
his wily heart, even while, as if in profound disdain, the minister
helped the protege. But this last suspicion was unsound. Egerton had not
detected Leslie's corrupt and treacherous nature. He might have other
reasons for keeping him at a certain distance, but he inquired
too little into Randal's feelings towards himself to question the
attachment, or doubt the sincerity, of one who owed to him so much. But
that which more than all embittered Randal's feelings towards Egerton
was the careful and deliberate frankness with which the latter had, more
than once, repeated and enforced the odious announcement, that Randal
had nothing to expect from the minister's WILL, nothing to expect from
that wealth which glared in the hungry eyes of the pauper heir to
the Leslies of Rood. To whom, then, could Egerton mean to devise his
fortune? To whom but Frank Hazeldean? Yet Audley took so little notice
of his nephew, seemed so indifferent to him, that that supposition,
however natural, was exposed to doubt. The astuteness of Randal was
perplexed. Meanwhile, however, the less he himself could rely upon
Egerton for fortune, the more he revolved the possible chances of
ousting Frank from the inheritance of Hazeldean,--in part, at least, if
not wholly. To one less scheming, crafty, and remorseless than Randal
Leslie, such a project would have seemed the wildest delusion. But there
was something fearful in the manner in which this young man sought to
turn knowledge into power, and make the study of all weakness in others
subservient to his own ends. He wormed himself thoroughly into Frank's
confidence. He learned, through Frank, all the squire's peculiarities of
thought and temper, and pondered over each word in the father's letters,
which the son gradually got into the habit of showing to the perfidious
eyes of his friend. Randal saw that the squire had two characteristics,
which are very common amongst proprietors, and which might be invoked as
antagonists to his warm fatherly love. First, the squire was as fond of
his estate as if it were a living thing, and part of his own flesh and
blood; and in his lectures to Frank upon the sin of extravagance, the
squire always let out this foible,--"What was to become of the estate
if it fell into the hands of a spendthrift? No man should make ducks
and drakes of Hazeldean; let Frank beware of that," etc. Secondly, the
squire was not only fond of his lands, but he was jealous of them,--that
jealousy which even the tenderest fathers sometimes entertain towards
their natural heirs. He could not bear the notion that Frank should
count on his death; and he seldom closed an admonitory letter without
repeating the information that Hazeldean was not entailed; that it was
his to do with as he pleased through life and in death. Indirect menace
of this nature rather wounded and galled than intimidated Frank; for the
young man was extremely generous and high-spirited by nature, and was
always more disposed to some indiscretion after such warnings to his
self-interest, as if to show that those were the last kinds of appeal
likely to influence him. By the help of such insights into the character
of father and son, Randal thought he saw gleams of daylight illumining
his own chance to the lands of Hazeldean. Meanwhile, it appeared to him
obvious that, come what might of it, his own interests could not lose,
and might most probably gain, by whatever could alienate the squire
from his natural heir. Accordingly, though with consummate tact, he
instigated Frank towards the very excesses most calculated to irritate
the squire, all the while appearing rather to give the counter advice,
and never sharing in any of the follies to which he conducted
his thoughtless friend. In this he worked chiefly through others,
introducing Frank to every acquaintance most dangerous to youth, either
from the wit that laughs at prudence, or the spurious magnificence
that subsists so handsomely upon bills endorsed by friends of "great
expectations."

The minister and his protege were seated at breakfast, the first reading
the newspaper, the last glancing over his letters; for Randal had
arrived to the dignity of receiving many letters,--ay, and notes,
too, three-cornered and fantastically embossed. Egerton uttered an
exclamation, and laid down the newspaper. Randal looked up from his
correspondence. The minister had sunk into one of his absent reveries.

After a long silence, observing that Egerton did not return to the
newspaper, Randal said, "Ahem, sir, I have a note from Frank Hazeldean,
who wants much to see me; his father has arrived in town unexpectedly."

"What brings him here?" asked Egerton, still abstractedly. "Why, it
seems that he has heard some vague reports of poor Frank's extravagance,
and Frank is rather afraid or ashamed to meet him."

"Ay, a very great fault, extravagance in the young!--destroys
independence; ruins or enslaves the future. Great fault,--very! And what
does youth want that it should be extravagant? Has it not everything in
itself, merely because it is? Youth is youth--what needs it more?"

Egerton rose as he said this, and retired to his writing-table, and in
his turn opened his correspondence. Randal took up the newspaper, and
endeavoured, but in vain, to conjecture what had excited the minister's
exclamations and the revery that succeeded it.

Egerton suddenly and sharply turned round in his chair--"If you have
done with the 'Times,' have the goodness to place it here."

Randal had just obeyed, when a knock at the street-door was heard, and
presently Lord L'Estrange came into the room, with somewhat a quicker
step and somewhat a gayer mien than usual.

Audley's hand, as if mechanically, fell upon the newspaper,--fell upon
that part of the columns devoted to births, deaths, and marriages.
Randal stood by, and noted; then, bowing to L'Estrange, left the room.

"Audley," said L'Estrange, "I have had an adventure since I saw you,--an
adventure that reopened the Past, and may influence my future."

"How?"

"In the first place, I have met with a relation of--of--the Avenels."

"Indeed! Whom,--Richard Avenel?"

"Richard--Richard--who is he? Oh, I remember, the wild lad who went off
to America; but that was when I was a mere child."

"That Richard Avenel is now a rich, thriving trader, and his marriage is
in this newspaper,--married to an Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Well, in
this country who should plume himself on birth?"

"You did not say so always, Egerton," replied Harley, with a tone of
mournful reproach.

"And I say so now pertinently to a Mrs. M'Catchley, not to the heir of
the L'Estranges. But no more of these--these Avenels."

"Yes, more of them. I tell you I have met a relation of theirs--a nephew
of--of--"

"Of Richard Avenel's?" interrupted Egerton; and then added in the slow,
deliberate, argumentative tone in which he was wont to speak in public,
"Richard Avenel the trader! I saw him once,--a presuming and intolerable
man!"

"The nephew has not those sins. He is full of promise, of modesty, yet
of pride. And his countenance--oh, Egerton, he has her eyes."

Egerton made no answer, and Harley resumed,

"I had thought of placing him under your care. I knew you would provide
for him."

"I will. Bring him hither," cried Egerton, eagerly. "All that I can do
to prove my--regard for a wish of yours." Harley pressed his friend's
hand warmly.

"I thank you from my heart; the Audley of my boyhood speaks now. But the
young man has decided otherwise; and I do not blame him. Nay, I rejoice
that he chooses a career in which, if he find hardship, he may escape
dependence."

"And that career is--"

"Letters."

"Letters! Literature!" exclaimed the statesman. "Beggary! No, no,
Harley, this is your absurd romance."

"It will not be beggary, and it is not my romance: it is the boy's.
Leave him alone, he is my care and my charge henceforth. He is of her
blood, and I said that he had HER eyes."

"But you are going abroad; let me know where he is; I will watch over
him."

"And unsettle a right ambition for a wrong one? No, you shall know
nothing of him till he can proclaim himself. I think that day will
come."

Audley mused a moment, and then said, "Well, perhaps you are right.
After all, as you say, independence is a great blessing, and my ambition
has not rendered myself the better or the happier."

"Yet, my poor Audley, you ask me to be ambitious."

"I only wish you to be consoled," cried Egerton, with passion.

"I will try to be so; and by the help of a milder remedy than yours.
I said that my adventure might influence my future; it brought me
acquainted not only with the young man I speak of, but the most winning,
affectionate child,--a girl."

"Is this child an Avenel too?"

"No, she is of gentle blood,--a soldier's daughter; the daughter of that
Captain Digby on whose behalf I was a petitioner to your patronage. He
is dead, and in dying, my name was on his lips. He meant me, doubtless,
to be the guardian to his orphan. I shall be so. I have at last an
object in life."

"But can you seriously mean to take this child with you abroad?"

"Seriously, I do."

"And lodge her in your own house?"

"For a year or so, while she is yet a child. Then, as she approaches
youth, I shall place her elsewhere."

"You may grow to love her. Is it clear that she will love you,--not
mistake gratitude for love? It is a very hazardous experiment."

"So was William the Norman's,--still he was William the Conqueror. Thou
biddest me move on from the Past, and be consoled, yet thou wouldst make
me as inapt to progress as the mule in Slawkenbergius's tale, with thy
cursed interlocutions, 'Stumbling, by Saint Nicholas, every step.
Why, at this rate, we shall be all night in getting into'--HAPPINESS!
Listen," continued Harley, setting off, full pelt, into one of his wild
whimsical humours. "One of the sons of the prophets in Israel felling
wood near the river Jordan, his hatchet forsook the helve, and fell to
the bottom of the river; so he prayed to have it again (it was but a
small request, mark you); and having a strong faith, he did not throw
the hatchet after the helve, but the helve after the hatchet. Presently
two great miracles were seen. Up springs the hatchet from the bottom of
the water, and fixes itself to its old acquaintance, the helve. Now, had
he wished to coach it up to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elias, be as
rich as Job, strong as Samson, and beautiful as Absalom, would he have
obtained the wish, do you think? In truth, my friend, I question it very
much."

"I can't comprehend what you mean. Sad stuff you are talking."

"I cannot help that; 'Rabelais is to be blamed for it. I am quoting him,
and it is to be found in his Prologue to the Chapters on the 'Moderation
of Wishes.' And a propos of 'moderate wishes in point of hatchet,' I
want you to understand that I ask but little from Heaven. I fling but
the helve after the hatchet that has sunk into the silent stream. I want
the other half of the weapon that is buried fathom deep, and for want
of which the thick woods darken round me by the Sacred River, and I can
catch not a glimpse of the stars."

"In plain English," said Audley Egerton, "you want--" he stopped short,
puzzled.

"I want my purpose and my will, and my old character, and the nature
God gave me. I want the half of my soul which has fallen from me. I want
such love as may replace to me the vanished affections. Reason not,--I
throw the helve after the hatchet."




CHAPTER XXI.

Randal Leslie, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank's lodgings, and
after being closeted with the young Guardsman an hour or so, took his
way to Limmer's hotel, and asked for Mr. Hazeldean. He was shown into
the coffee-room, while the waiter went up-stairs with his card, to see
if the squire was within, and disengaged. The "Times" newspaper lay
sprawling on one of the tables, and Randal, leaning over it, looked with
attention into the column containing births, deaths, and marriages. But
in that long and miscellaneous list he could not conjecture the name
which had so excited Mr. Egerton's interest.

"Vexatious!" he muttered; "there is no knowledge which has power more
useful than that of the secrets of men."

He turned as the waiter entered and said that Mr. Hazeldean would be
glad to see him.

As Randal entered the drawing-room, the squire, shaking hands with him,
looked towards the door as if expecting some one else; and his honest
face assumed a blank expression of disappointment, when the door closed,
and he found that Randal was unaccompanied.

"Well," said he, bluntly, "I thought your old schoolfellow, Frank, might
have been with you."

"Have you not seen him yet, sir?"

"No, I came to town this morning; travelled outside the mail; sent
to his barracks, but the young gentleman does not sleep there, has an
apartment of his own; he never told me that. We are a plain family, the
Hazeldeans, young sir; and I hate being kept in the dark,--by my own
son, too."

Randal made no answer, but looked sorrowful. The squire, who had never
before seen his kinsman, had a vague idea that it was not polite to
entertain a stranger, though a connection to himself, with his family
troubles, and so resumed good-naturedly, "I am very glad to make your
acquaintance at last, Mr. Leslie. You know, I hope, that you have good
Hazeldean blood in your veins?"

RANDAL (smiling).--"I am not likely to forget that; it is the boast of
our pedigree."

SQUIRE (heartily).--"Shake hands again on it, my boy. You don't want a
friend, since my grandee of a half-brother has taken you up; but if ever
you should, Hazeldean is not very far from Rood. Can't get on with your
father at all, my lad,--more 's the pity, for I think I could have given
him a hint or two as to the improvement of his property. If he would
plant those ugly commons--larch and fir soon come into profit, sir; and
there are some low lands about Rood that would take mighty kindly to
draining."

RANDAL.--"My poor father lives a life so retired--and you cannot wonder
at it. Fallen trees lie still, and so do fallen families."

SQUIRE.--"Fallen families can get up again, which fallen trees can't."

RANDAL.--"Ah, sir, it often takes the energy of generations to repair
the thriftlessness and extravagance of a single owner."

SQUIRE (his brow lowering).--"That's very true. Frank is d---d
extravagant; treats me very coolly, too--not coming; near three o'clock.
By the by, I suppose he told you where I was, otherwise how did you find
me out?"

RANDAL (reluctantly).--"Sir, he did; and to speak frankly, I am not
surprised that he has not yet appeared."

SQUIRE.--"Eh!"

RANDAL.--"We have grown very intimate."

SQUIRE.--"So he writes me word,--and I am glad of it. Our member, Sir
John, tells me you are a very clever fellow, and a very steady one. And
Frank says that he wishes he had your prudence, if he can't have your
talent. He has a good heart, Frank," added the father, relentingly. "But
zounds, sir, you say you are not surprised he has not come to welcome
his own father!"

"My dear sir," said Randal, "you wrote word to Frank that you had
heard from Sir John and others of his goings-on, and that you were not
satisfied with his replies to your letters."

"Well."

"And then you suddenly come up to town."

"Well."

"Well. And Frank is ashamed to meet you. For, as you say, he has been
extravagant, and he has exceeded his allowance; and knowing my respect
for you and my great affection for himself, he has asked me to prepare
you to receive his confession and forgive him. I know I am taking a
great liberty. I have no right to interfere between father and son; but
pray--pray think I mean for the best."

"Humph!" said the squire, recovering himself very slowly, and showing
evident pain, "I knew already that Frank had spent more than he ought;
but I think he should not have employed a third person to prepare me to
forgive him. (Excuse me,--no offence.) And if he wanted a third person,
was not there his own mother? What the devil! [firing up] am I a tyrant,
a bashaw, that my own son is afraid to speak to me? 'Gad, I'll give it
him!"

"Pardon me, sir," said Randal, assuming at once that air of authority
which superior intellect so well carries off and excuses, "but I
strongly advise you not to express any anger at Frank's confidence in
me. At present I have influence over him. Whatever you may think of his
extravagance, I have saved him from many an indiscretion, and many
a debt,--a young man will listen to one of his own age so much more
readily than even to the kindest friend of graver years. Indeed, sir, I
speak for your sake as well as for Frank's. Let me keep this influence
over him; and don't reproach him for the confidence placed in me. Nay,
let him rather think that I have softened any displeasure you might
otherwise have felt."

There seemed so much good sense in what Randal said, and the kindness
of it seemed so disinterested, that the squire's native shrewdness was
deceived.

"You are a fine young fellow," said he, "and I am very much obliged to
you. Well, I suppose there is no putting old heads upon young shoulders;
and I promise you I'll not say an angry word to Frank. I dare say, poor
boy, he is very much afflicted, and I long to shake hands with him. So,
set his mind at ease."

"Ah, sir," said Randal, with much apparent emotion, "your son may well
love you: and it seems to be a hard matter for so kind a heart as yours
to preserve the proper firmness with him."

"Oh, I can be firm enough," quoth the squire,--"especially when I don't
see him,--handsome dog that he is: very like his mother--don't you think
so?

"I never saw his mother, sir."

"'Gad! Not seen my Harry? No more you have; you must come and pay us a
visit. I suppose my half-brother will let you come?"

"To be sure, sir. Will you not call on him while you are in town?"

"Not I. He would think I expected to get something from the Government.
Tell him the ministers must go on a little better, if they want my vote
for their member. But go, I see you are impatient to tell Frank that all
's forgot and forgiven. Come and dine with him here at six, and let him
bring his bills in his pocket. Oh, I sha'n't scold him."

"Why, as to that," said Randal, smiling, "I think (forgive me still)
that you should not take it too easily; just as I think that you had
better not blame him for his very natural and praiseworthy shame in
approaching you, so I think, also, that you should do nothing that would
tend to diminish that shame,--it is such a check on him. And therefore,
if you can contrive to affect to be angry with him for his extravagance,
it will do good."

"You speak like a book, and I'll try my best."

"If you threaten, for instance, to take him out of the army, and settle
him in the country, it would have a very good effect."

"What! would he think it so great a punishment to come home and live
with his parents?"

"I don't say that; but he is naturally so fond of London. At his age,
and with his large inheritance, that is natural."

"Inheritance!" said the squire, moodily,--"inheritance! he is not
thinking of that, I trust? Zounds, sir, I have as good a life as his
own. Inheritance!--to be sure the Casino property is entailed on him;
but as for the rest, sir, I am no tenant for life. I could leave the
Hazeldean lands to my ploughman, if I chose it. Inheritance; indeed!"

"My dear sir, I did not mean to imply that Frank would entertain the
unnatural and monstrous idea of calculating on your death; and all
we have to do is to get him to sow his wild oats as soon as
possible,--marry and settle down into the country. For it would be a
thousand pities if his town habits and tastes grew permanent,--a bad
thing for the Hazeldean property, that! And," added Randal, laughing,
"I feel an interest in the old place, since my grandmother comes of the
stock. So, just force yourself to seem angry, and grumble a little when
you pay the bills."

"Ah, ah, trust me," said the squire, doggedly, and with a very altered
air. "I am much obliged to you for these hints, my young kinsman." And
his stout hand trembled a little as he extended it to Randal.

Leaving Limmer's, Randal hastened to Frank's rooms in St. James's
Street. "My dear fellow," said he, when he entered, "it is very
fortunate that I persuaded you to let me break matters to your father.
You might well say he was rather passionate; but I have contrived to
soothe him. You need not fear that he will not pay your debts."

"I never feared that," said Frank, changing colour; "I only feared his
anger. But, indeed, I fear his kindness still more. What a reckless
hound I have been! However, it shall be a lesson to me. And my debts
once paid, I will turn as economical as yourself."

"Quite right, Frank. And, indeed, I am a little afraid that, when your
father knows the total, he may execute a threat that would be very
unpleasant to you."

"What's that?"

"Make you sell out, and give up London."

"The devil!" exclaimed Frank, with fervent emphasis; "that would be
treating me like a child."

"Why, it would make you seem rather ridiculous to your set, which is not
a very rural one. And you, who like London so much, and are so much the
fashion!"

"Don't talk of it," cried Frank, walking to and fro the room in great
disorder.

"Perhaps, on the whole, it might be well not to say all you owe, at
once. If you named half the sum, your father would let you off with a
lecture; and really I tremble at the effect of the total."

"But how shall I pay the other half?"

"Oh, you must save from your allowance; it is a very liberal one; and
the tradesmen are not pressing."

"No; but the cursed bill-brokers--"

"Always renew to a young man of your expectations. And if I get into an
office, I can always help you, my dear Frank."

"Ah, Randal, I am not so bad as to take advantage of your friendship,"
said Frank, warmly. "But it seems to me mean after all, and a sort of a
lie, indeed, disguising the real state of my affairs. I should not have
listened to the idea from any one else; but you are such a sensible,
kind, honourable fellow."

"After epithets so flattering, I shrink from the responsibility of
advice. But apart from your own interests, I should be glad to save your
father the pain he would feel at knowing the whole extent of the scrape
you have got into. And if it entailed on you the necessity to lay
by--and give up hazard, and not be security for other men--why, it would
be the best thing that could happen. Really, too, it seems hard upon Mr.
Hazeldean that he should be the only sufferer, and quite just that you
should bear half your own burdens."

"So it is, Randal; that did not strike me before. I will take your
counsel; and now I will go at once to Limmer's. My dear father! I hope
he is looking well?"

"Oh, very. Such a contrast to the sallow Londoners! But I think you had
better not go till dinner. He has asked me to meet you at six. I will
call for you a little before, and we can go together. This will prevent
a good deal of gene and constraint. Good-by till then. Ha! by the way,
I think if I were you, I would not take the matter too seriously and
penitentially. You see the best of fathers like to keep their sons under
their thumb, as the saying is. And if you want at your age to preserve
your independence, and not be hurried off and buried in the country,
like a schoolboy in disgrace, a little manliness of bearing would not be
amiss. You can think over it."

The dinner at Limmer's went off very differently from what it ought
to have done. Randal's words had sunk deep, and rankled sorely in the
squire's mind; and that impression imparted a certain coldness to his
manner which belied the hearty, forgiving, generous impulse with which
he had come up to London, and which even Randal had not yet altogether
whispered away. On the other hand, Frank, embarrassed both by the sense
of disingenuousness, and a desire "not to take the thing too seriously,"
seemed to the squire ungracious and thankless.

After dinner the squire began to hum and haw, and Frank to colour up and
shrink. Both felt discomposed by the presence of a third person; till,
with an art and address worthy of a better cause, Randal himself broke
the ice, and so contrived to remove the restraint he had before imposed,
that at length each was heartily glad to have matters made clear and
brief by his dexterity and tact.

Frank's debts were not in reality large; and when he named the half of
them, looking down in shame, the squire, agreeably surprised, was about
to express himself with a liberal heartiness that would have opened his
son's excellent heart at once to him.

But a warning look from Randal checked the impulse; and the squire
thought it right, as he had promised, to affect an anger he did not
feel, and let fall the unlucky threat, "that it was all very well once
in a way to exceed his allowance; but if Frank did not, in future, show
more sense than to be led away by a set of London sharks and coxcombs,
he must cut the army, come home, and take to farming."

Frank imprudently exclaimed, "Oh, sir, I have no taste for farming. And
after London, at my age, the country would be so horribly dull."

"Aha!" said the squire, very grimly--and he thrust back into his
pocket-book some extra bank-notes which his fingers had itched to add to
those he had already counted out. "The country is terribly dull, is it?
Money goes there not upon follies and vices, but upon employing honest
labourers, and increasing the wealth of the nation. It does not please
you to spend money in that way: it is a pity you should ever be plagued
with such duties."

"My dear father--"

"Hold your tongue, you puppy. Oh, I dare say, if you were in my shoes,
you would cut down the oaks, and mortgage the property; sell it, for
what I know,--all go on a cast of the dice! Aha, sir--very well, very
well--the country is horribly dull, is it? Pray stay in town."

"My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, blandly, and as if with the wish
to turn off into a joke what threatened to be serious, "you must not
interpret a hasty expression so literally. Why, you would make Frank
as bad as Lord A-----, who wrote word to his steward to cut down more
timber; and when the steward replied, 'There are only three sign-posts
left on the whole estate,' wrote back, 'They've done growing at all
events,--down with them!' You ought to know Lord A-----, sir; so witty;
and--Frank's particular friend."

"Your particular friend, Master Frank? Pretty friends!" and the squire
buttoned up the pocket to which he had transferred his note-book, with a
determined air.

"But I'm his friend, too," said Randal, kindly; "and I preach to him
properly, I can tell you." Then, as if delicately anxious to change the
subject, he began to ask questions upon crops and the experiment of bone
manure. He spoke earnestly, and with gusto, yet with the deference
of one listening to a great practical authority. Randal had spent
the afternoon in cramming the subject from agricultural journals and
parliamentary reports; and like all practised readers, had really
learned in a few hours more than many a man, unaccustomed to study,
could gain from books in a year. The squire was surprised and pleased at
the young scholar's information and taste for such subjects.

"But, to be sure," quoth he, with an angry look at poor Frank, "you have
good Hazeldean blood in you, and know a bean from a turnip."

"Why, sir," said Randal, ingenuously, "I am training myself for public
life; and what is a public man worth if he do not study the agriculture
of his country?"

"Right--what is he worth? Put that question, with my compliments, to my
half-brother. What stuff he did talk, the other night, on the malt-tax,
to be sure!"

"Mr. Egerton has had so many other things to think of, that we must
excuse his want of information upon one topic, however important. With
his strong sense he must acquire that information, sooner or later; for
he is fond of power; and, sir, knowledge is power!"

"Very true,--very fine saying," quoth the poor squire, unsuspiciously,
as Randal's eye rested on Mr. Hazeldean's open face, and then glanced
towards Frank, who looked sad and bored.

"Yes," repeated Randal, "knowledge is power;" and he shook his head
wisely, as he passed the bottle to his host.

Still, when the squire, who meant to return to the Hall next morning,
took leave of Frank, his heart warmed to his son; and still more for
Frank's dejected looks. It was not Randal's policy to push estrangement
too far at first, and in his own presence.

"Speak to poor Frank,--kindly now, sir--do;" whispered be, observing the
squire's watery eyes, as he moved to the window.

The squire, rejoiced to obey, thrust out his hand to his son.

"My dear boy," said he, "there, don't fret--pshaw!--it was but a trifle
after all. Think no more of it."

Frank took the hand, and suddenly threw his arm round his father's broad
shoulder.

"Oh, sir, you are too good,--too good." His voice trembled so that
Randal took alarm, passed by him, and touched him meaningly.

The squire pressed his son to his heart,--heart so large, that it seemed
to fill the whole width under his broadcloth. "My dear Frank," said he,
half blubbering, "it is not the money; but, you see, it so vexes your
poor mother; you must be careful in future; and, zounds, boy, it will be
all yours one day; only don't calculate on it; I could not bear that, I
could not, indeed."

"Calculate!" cried Frank. "Oh, sir, can you think it?"

"I am so delighted that I had some slight hand in your complete
reconciliation with Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, as the young men walked
from the hotel. "I saw that you were disheartened, and I told him to
speak to you kindly."

"Did you? Ah--I am sorry he needed telling."

"I know his character so well already," said Randal, "that I flatter
myself I can always keep things between you as they ought to be. What an
excellent man!"

"The best man in the world," cried Frank, heartily; and then, as his
accents drooped, "yet I have deceived him. I have a great mind to go
back--"

"And tell him to give you twice as much money as you had asked for? He
would think you had only seemed so affectionate in order to take him in.
No, no, Frank! save, lay by, economize; and then tell him that you have
paid half your own debts. Something high-minded in that."

"So there is. Your heart is as good as your head. Goodnight."

"Are you going home so early? Have you no engagements!"

"None that I shall keep."

"Good-night, then."

They parted, and Randal walked into one of the fashionable clubs. He
neared a table where three or four young men (younger sons, who lived in
the most splendid style, Heaven knew how) were still over their wine.

Leslie had little in common with these gentlemen, but he forced his
nature to be agreeable to them, in consequence of a very excellent piece
of worldly advice given to him by Audley Egerton. "Never let the dandies
call you a prig," said the statesman. "Many a clever fellow fails
through life, because the silly fellows, whom half a word well spoken
could make his claqueurs, turn him into ridicule. Whatever you are,
avoid the fault of most reading men: in a word, don't be a prig!"

"I have just left Hazeldean," said Randal. "What a good fellow he is!"

"Capital!" said the Honourable George Borrowell. "Where is he?"

"Why, he is gone to his rooms. He has had a little scene with his
father, a thorough, rough country squire. It would be an act of charity
if you would go and keep him company, or take him with you to some place
a little more lively than his own lodgings."

"What! the old gentleman has been teasing him!--a horrid shame! Why,
Frank is not extravagant, and he will be very rich, eh?"

"An immense property," said Randal, "and not a mortgage on it: an only
son," he added, turning away.

Among these young gentlemen there was a kindly and most benevolent
whisper, and presently they all rose, and walked away towards Frank's
lodgings.

"The wedge is in the tree," said Randal to himself, "and there is a gap
already between the bark and the wood."




CHAPTER XXII

Harley L'Estrange is seated beside Helen at the lattice-window in the
cottage at Norwood. The bloom of reviving health is on the child's face,
and she is listening with a smile, for Harley is speaking of Leonard
with praise, and of Leonard's future with hope. "And thus," he
continued, "secure from his former trials, happy in his occupation, and
pursuing the career he has chosen, we must be content, my dear child, to
leave him."

"Leave him!" exclaimed Helen, and the rose on her cheek faded.

Harley was not displeased to see her emotion. He would have been
disappointed in her heart if it had been less susceptible to affection.

"It is hard on you, Helen," said he, "to be separated from one who has
been to you as a brother. Do not hate me for doing so. But I consider
myself your guardian, and your home as yet must be mine. We are going
from this land of cloud and mist, going as into the world of summer.
Well, that does not content you. You weep, my child; you mourn your
own friend, but do not forget your father's. I am alone, and often sad,
Helen; will you not comfort me? You press my hand, but you must learn to
smile on me also. You are born to be the comforter. Comforters are not
egotists; they are always cheerful when they console."

The voice of Harley was so sweet and his words went so home to the
child's heart, that she looked up and smiled in his face as he kissed
her ingenuous brow. But then she thought of Leonard, and felt so
solitary, so bereft, that tears burst forth again. Before these were
dried, Leonard himself entered, and, obeying an irresistible impulse,
she sprang to his arms, and leaning her head on his shoulder, sobbed
out,

"I am going from you, brother; do not grieve, do not miss me."

Harley was much moved: he folded his arms, and contemplated them both
silently,--and his own eyes were moist. "This heart," thought he, "will
be worth the winning!"

He drew aside Leonard, and whispered, "Soothe, but encourage and support
her. I leave you together; come to me in the garden later."

It was nearly an hour before Leonard joined Harley.

"She was not weeping when you left her?" asked L'Estrange.

"No; she has more fortitude than we might suppose. Heaven knows how that
fortitude has supported mine. I have promised to write to her often."

Harley took two strides across the lawn, and then, coming back to
Leonard, said, "Keep your promise, and write often for the first year. I
would then ask you to let the correspondence drop gradually."

"Drop! Ah, my Lord!"

"Look you, my young friend, I wish to lead this fair mind wholly from
the sorrows of the past. I wish Helen to enter, not abruptly, but
step by step, into a new life. You love each other now, as do two
children,--as brother and sister. But later, if encouraged, would the
love be the same? And is it not better for both of you that youth
should open upon the world with youth's natural affections free and
unforestalled?"

"True! And she is so above me," said Leonard, mournfully.

"No one is above him who succeeds in your ambition, Leonard. It is not
that, believe me."

Leonard shook his head.

"Perhaps," said Harley, with a smile, "I rather feel that you are above
me. For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become
jealous of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to
be henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet how can she like me as she
ought, if her heart is to be full of you?"

The boy bowed his head; and Harley hastened to change the subject, and
speak of letters and of glory. His words were eloquent and his voice
kindling; for he had been an enthusiast for fame in his boyhood, and
in Leonard's his own seemed to him to revive. But the poet's heart gave
back no echo,--suddenly it seemed void and desolate. Yet when Leonard
walked back by the moonlight, he muttered to himself, "Strange, strange,
so mere a child! this cannot be love! Still, what else to love is there
left to me?"

And so he paused upon the bridge where he had so often stood with Helen,
and on which he had found the protector that had given to her a home,
to himself a career. And life seemed very long, and fame but a dreary
phantom. Courage still, Leonard! These are the sorrows of the heart that
teach thee more than all the precepts of sage and critic.

Another day, and Helen had left the shores of England, with her fanciful
and dreaming guardian. Years will pass before our tale re-opens. Life
in all the forms we have seen it travels on. And the squire farms and
hunts; and the parson preaches and chides and soothes; and Riccabocca
reads his Machiavelli, and sighs and smiles as he moralizes on Men and
States; and Violante's dark eyes grow deeper and more spiritual in
their lustre, and her beauty takes thought from solitary dreams. And Mr.
Richard Avenel has his house in London, and the Honourable Mrs. Avenel
her opera-box; and hard and dire is their struggle into fashion,
and hotly does the new man, scorning the aristocracy, pant to become
aristocrat. And Audley Egerton goes from the office to the parliament,
and drudges, and debates, and helps to govern the empire in which the
sun never sets. Poor sun, how tired he must be--but not more tired than
the Government! And Randal Leslie has an excellent place in the bureau
of a minister, and is looking to the time when he shall resign it to
come into parliament, and on that large arena turn knowledge into power.
And meanwhile he is much where he was with Audley Egerton; but he has
established intimacy with the squire, and visited Hazeldean twice, and
examined the house and the map of the property, and very nearly fallen
a second time into the ha-ha, and the squire believes that Randal Leslie
alone can keep Frank out of mischief, and has spoken rough words to his
Harry about Frank's continued extravagance. And Frank does continue to
pursue pleasure, and is very miserable, and horribly in debt. And
Madame di Negra has gone from London to Paris, and taken a tour into
Switzerland, and come back to London again, and has grown very intimate
with Randal Leslie; and Randal has introduced Frank to her; and Frank
thinks her the loveliest woman in the world, and grossly slandered by
certain evil tongues. And the brother of Madame di Negra is expected
in England at last; and what with his repute for beauty and for wealth,
people anticipate a sensation. And Leonard, and Harley, and Helen?
Patience,--they will all re-appear.




BOOK EIGHTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT.

There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so
prodigious a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw up
our hats, and cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of
that very spirit of contradiction natural to all rational animals,
one is tempted to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently; LIGHT is
noiseless: how comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile,
if it be not impertinent, pray, where is Enlightenment marching to?" Ask
that question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and
I'll wager tenpence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory
answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment,
insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably free way of
expressing his opinions, will reply, "Enlightenment is marching towards
the seven points of the Charter." Another, with his hair a la jeune
France, who has taken a fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather
embarrassed with his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding
towards the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the
annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the air of a man
well-to-do in the middle class, more modest in his hopes, because he
neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his
wife carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take
Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade
on the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample
him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged
in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out
of the cave of Trophonius, and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks
Enlightenment is in full career towards the good old days of alchemists
and necromancers. A fifth, whom one might take for a Quaker, asserts
that the march of Enlightenment is a crusade for universal philanthropy,
vegetable diet, and the perpetuation of peace by means of speeches,
which certainly do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of
Demosthenes! The sixth--good fellow without a rag on his back--does not
care a straw where the march goes. He can't be worse off than he is; and
it is quite immaterial to him whether he goes to the dog-star above,
or the bottomless pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march,
while we take it altogether. Whatever happens, one is in good company;
and though I am somewhat indolent by nature, and would rather stay at
home with Locke and Burke (dull dogs though they were) than have my
thoughts set off helter-skelter with those cursed trumpets and drums,
blown and dub-a-dubbed by fellows whom I vow to heaven I would not trust
with a five-pound note,--still, if I must march, I must; and so deuce
take the hindmost! But when it comes to individual marchers upon their
own account,--privateers and condottieri of Enlightenment,--who have
filled their pockets with Lucifer matches, and have a sublime contempt
for their neighbour's barns and hay-ricks, I don't see why I should
throw myself into the seventh heaven of admiration and ecstasy.

If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial blessings that
are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowledge, and so forth, would
just take their eyes out of their pockets, and look about them, I
would respectfully inquire if they have never met any very knowing and
enlightened gentleman, whose acquaintance is by no means desirable.
If not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge by his own
experience; and the worst rogues I have ever encountered were amazingly
well-informed clever fellows. From dunderheads and dunces we can protect
ourselves, but from your sharpwitted gentleman, all enlightenment and no
prejudice, we have but to cry, "Heaven defend us!" It is true, that
the rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) usually comes to no good
himself,--though not before he has done harm enough to his neighbours.
But that only shows that the world wants something else in those it
rewards besides intelligence per se and in the abstract; and is much too
old a world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its plums for his own
personal gratification. Hence a man of very moderate intelligence, who
believes in God, suffers his heart to beat with human sympathies, and
keeps his eyes off your strongbox, will perhaps gain a vast deal more
power than knowledge ever gives to a rogue.

Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on the part of the
blockheads, who, strange to say, are the most credulous idolators of
Enlightenment, and if knowledge were power, would rot on a dunghill,
yet, nevertheless, I think all really enlightened men will agree with
me, that when one falls in with detached sharpshooters from the general
March of Enlightenment, it is no reason that we should make ourselves
a target, because Enlightenment has furnished them with a gun. It has,
doubtless, been already remarked by the judicious reader that of the
numerous characters introduced into this work, the larger portion belong
to that species which we call the INTELLECTUAL,--that through them are
analyzed and developed human intellect, in various forms and directions.
So that this History, rightly considered, is a kind of humble familiar
Epic, or, if you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the Varieties of
English Life in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences
most prevalent. And where more ordinary and less refined types of the
species round and complete the survey of our passing generation,
they will often suggest, by contrast, the deficiencies which mere
intellectual culture leaves in the human being. Certainly, I have no
spite against intellect and enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should be
such a Goth! I am only the advocate for common-sense and fair play. I
don't think an able man necessarily an angel; but I think if his heart
match his head, and both proceed in the Great March under the divine
Oriflamine, he goes as near to the angel as humanity will permit: if
not, if he has but a penn'orth of heart to a pound of brains, I
say, "Bon jour, mon ange! I see not the starry upward wings, but the
grovelling cloven-hoof." I 'd rather be obfuscated by the Squire of
Hazeldean than en lightened by Randal Leslie. Every man to his taste.
But intellect itself (not in the philosophical but the ordinary sense of
the term) is rarely, if ever, one completed harmonious agency; it is not
one faculty, but a compound of many, some of which are often at war with
each other, and mar the concord of the whole. Few of us but have
some predominant faculty, in itself a strength; but which, usurping
unseasonably dominion over the rest, shares the lot of all tyranny,
however brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against disaffection
within, and invasion from without. Hence, intellect may be perverted
in a man of evil disposition, and sometimes merely wasted in a man of
excellent impulses, for want of the necessary discipline, or of a strong
ruling motive. I doubt if there be one person in the world who has
obtained a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody much
cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never obtained any
reputation at all! Men like Audley Egerton are constantly seen in the
great positions of life; while men like Harley L'Estrange, who could
have beaten them hollow in anything equally striven for by both, float
away down the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse their
dreamy energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If Hamlet and
Polonius were living now, Polonius would have a much better chance of
being a Cabinet Minister, though Hamlet would unquestionably be a much
more intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet? Heaven knows!
Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a school, that the difference
between one man and another was not mere ability,--it was energy. There
is a great deal of truth in that saying.

Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration of the sagacious,
I enter on the fresh division of this work, and see already Randal
Leslie gnawing his lips on the background. The German poet observes that
the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but
the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O
tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! O prostitution
of the grandest desires to the basest uses! Gaze on the goddess, Randal
Leslie, and get ready thy churn and thy scales. Let us see what the
butter will fetch in the market.




CHAPTER II.

A new Reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the
unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings.
Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast majorities, has barely escaped
defeat--thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his election are
said to have been prodigious. "But who can stand against such wealth
as Egerton's,--no doubt backed, too, by the Treasury purse?" said
the defeated candidate. It is towards the close of October; London is
already full; parliament will meet in less than a fortnight.

In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which foreigners
may discover what is meant by English comfort, and the price which
foreigners must pay for it, there sat two persons side by side, engaged
in close conversation. The one was a female, in whose pale clear
complexion and raven hair, in whose eyes, vivid with a power of
expression rarely bestowed on the beauties of the North, we recognize
Beatrice, Marchesa di Negra. Undeniably handsome as was the Italian
lady, her companion, though a man, and far advanced into middle age, was
yet more remarkable for personal advantages. There was a strong family
likeness between the two; but there was also a striking contrast in air,
manner, and all that stamps on the physiognomy the idiosyncrasies of
character. There was something of gravity, of earnestness and passion,
in Beatrice's countenance when carefully examined; her smile at times
might be false, but it was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures,
though graceful, were unrestrained and frequent. You could see she was a
daughter of the South. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the
fair, smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle,
something that might have passed, at first glance, for the levity and
thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though
exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his
manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman.
His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce
such marvellous effects of colour; and if here and there a silver thread
gleamed through the locks, it was lost at once amidst their luxuriance.
His eyes were light, and his complexion, though without much colour,
was singularly transparent. His beauty, indeed, would have been rather
womanly than masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a
frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than concealed by an
admirable elegance of proportion. You would never have guessed this man
to be an Italian; more likely you would have supposed him a Parisian.
He conversed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his mode of
thought seemed French. Not that he was like the Frenchman of the present
day,--an animal, either rude or reserved; but your ideal of the marquis
of the old regime, the roue of the Regency.

Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in Italian history.
But, as if ashamed of his country and his birth, he affected to be
a citizen of the world. Heaven help the world if it hold only such
citizens!

"But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, "even
granting that you discover this girl, can you suppose that her father
will ever consent to your alliance? Surely you know too well the nature
of your kinsman?"

"Tu to trompes, ma soeur," replied Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera,
in French as usual,--"tu to trompes; I knew it before he had gone
through exile and penury. How can I know it now? But comfort yourself,
my too anxious Beatrice, I shall not care for his consent, till I 've
made sure of his daughter's."

"But how win that in despite of the father?"

"Eh, mordieu!" interrupted the count, with true French gayety; "what
would become of all the comedies ever written, if marriages were not
made in despite of the father? Look you," he resumed, with a very
slight compression of his lip, and a still slighter movement in his
chair,--"look you, this is no question of ifs and buts! it is a question
of must and shall,--a question of existence to you and to me. When
Danton was condemned to the guillotine, he said, flinging a pellet of
bread at the nose of his respectable judge, 'Mon individu sera bientot
dans le neant.' My patrimony is there already! I am loaded with debts.
I see before me, on the one side, ruin or suicide; on the other side,
wedlock and wealth."

"But from those vast possessions which you have been permitted to enjoy
so long, have you really saved nothing against the time when they might
be reclaimed at your hands?"

"My sister," replied the count, "do I look like a man who saved?
Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwilling to raze from his Lombard
domains a name and a House so illustrious as our kinsman's, and
desirous, while punishing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward my
adherence, forbore the peremptory confiscation of those vast possessions
at which my mouth waters while we speak, but, annexing them to the crown
during pleasure, allowed me, as the next of male kin, to retain the
revenues of one half for the same very indefinite period,--had I not
every reason to suppose that before long I could so influence his
Imperial Majesty, or his minister, as to obtain a decree that might
transfer the whole, unconditionally and absolutely, to myself? And
methinks I should have done so, but for this accursed, intermeddling
English Milord, who has never ceased to besiege the court or the
minister with alleged extenuations of our cousin's rebellion, and
proofless assertions that I shared it in order to entangle my kinsman,
and betrayed it in order to profit by his spoils. So that, at last, in
return for all my services, and in answer to all my claims, I received
from the minister himself this cold reply, Count of Peschiera, your aid
was important, and your reward has been large. That reward it would
not be for your honour to extend, and justify the ill opinion of your
Italian countrymen by formally appropriating to yourself all that was
forfeited by the treason you denounced. A name so noble as yours should
be dearer to you than fortune itself.'"

"Ah Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, changed in its whole
character, "those were words that might make the demon that tempts to
avarice fly from your breast in shame."

The count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the
room, and said quietly,

"Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice; talk commonsense. Heroics
sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the
tone of a family conversation."

Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change
in the expression of her countenance which had seemed to betray
susceptibility to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away.

"But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one half of those ample
revenues: why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?"

"I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the
pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his
possessions?"

"There is a probability, then, of that pardon? When you first employed
me in your researches you only thought there was a possibility."

"There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I learned
some little time since that the question of such recall had been
suggested by the emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger to
the State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged
abilities,--abilities! bah! and his popular name, deferred any decision
on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must
have embarrassed the minister. But it is a mere question of time. He
cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty already extended to
the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in
power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice on which
I acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your
kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the
person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable
age; that if she were to wed, with the emperor's consent, some one whose
attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a
guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of
so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued
my friend) 'apply to the emperor for his consent to that alliance for
yourself,--you, on whom he can depend; you who, if the daughter should
die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke."

"You saw the emperor?"

"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated that
so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against
me, when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would
willingly give me the hand of his child."

"You did!" cried the marchesa, amazed.

"And," continued the count, imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless
hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front,--"and that I should thus have
the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty,
the agent for the restoration of his honours, while, in the eyes of the
envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from all suspicion
that I had wronged him."

"And the emperor consented?"

"Pardieu, my dear sister, what else could his Majesty do? My proposition
smoothed every obstacle, and reconciled policy with mercy. It
remains, therefore, only to find out what has hitherto baffled all
our researches, the retreat of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself
a welcome lover to the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I
own; but--unless your sex and my glass flatter me overmuch--I am still a
match for many a gallant of five-and-twenty."

The count said this with so charming a smile, and looked so
pre-eminently handsome, that he carried off the coxcombry of the words
as gracefully as if they had been spoken by some dazzling hero of the
grand old comedy of Parisian life.

Then interlacing his fingers and lightly leaning his hands, thus
clasped, upon his sister's shoulder, he looked into her face, and said
slowly, "And now, my sister, for some gentle but deserved reproach.
Have you not sadly failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for my
interests? Is it not some years since you first came to England on the
mission of discovering these worthy relations of ours? Did I not entreat
you to seduce into your toils the man whom I new to be my enemy, and who
was indubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat,--a secret he has
hitherto locked within his bosom? Did you not tell me, that though he
was then in England, you could find no occasion even to meet him, but
that you had obtained the friendship of the statesman to whom I directed
your attention, as his most intimate associate? And yet you, whose
charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from the statesman, as
you see nothing of Milord. Nay, baffled and misled, you actually suppose
that the quarry has taken refuge in France. You go thither, you pretend
to search the capital, the provinces, Switzerland, que sais je? All
in vain,--though--foi de gentilhomme--your police cost me dearly. You
return to England; the same chase, and the same result. Palsambleu, ma
soeur, I do too much credit to your talents not to question your zeal.
In a word, have you been in earnest,--or have you not had some womanly
pleasure in amusing yourself and abusing my trust?"

"Giulio," answered Beatrice, sadly, "you know the influence you have
exercised over my character and my fate. Your reproaches are not just. I
made such inquiries as were in my power, and I have now cause to believe
that I know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide us to
it."

"Ah, you do!" exclaimed the count. Beatrice did not heed the
exclamation, and hurried on.

"But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you imposed on me, would
it not have been natural? When I first came to England, you informed
me that your object in discovering the exiles was one which I could
honestly aid. You naturally wished first to know if the daughter lived;
if not, you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you desired to
effect, through my mediation, some liberal compromise with Alphonso, by
which you would have sought to obtain his restoration, provided he would
leave you for life in possession of the grant you hold from the crown.
While these were your objects, I did my best, ineffectual as it was, to
obtain the information required."

"And what made me lose so important, though so ineffectual an ally?"
asked the count, still smiling; but a gleam that belied the smile shot
from his eye.

"What! when you bade me receive and co-operate with the miserable
spies--the false Italians--whom you sent over, and seek to entangle this
poor exile, when found, in some rash correspondence to be revealed
to the court; when you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count of
Peschiera, the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, into
the informer, the corrupter, and the traitress,--no, Giulio, then I
recoiled; and then, fearful of your own sway over me, I retreated into
France. I have answered you frankly."

The count removed his hands from the shoulder on which they had reclined
so cordially.

"And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your gratitude! You,
whose fortunes are bound up in mine; you, who subsist on my bounty; you,
who--"

"Hold," cried the marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as
if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of
years,--"hold! Gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother! what, indeed, do I
owe to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you
condemned me to marry against my will, against my heart, against my
prayers,--and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was
pure then, Giulio,--pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin crown.
And now--now--"

Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before her face.

"Now you upbraid me," said the count, unruffled by her sudden passion,
"because I gave you in marriage to a man young and noble?"

"Old in vices, and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had the
right, according to the customs of our country, to dispose of my hand.
But I forgave you not the consolations that you whispered in the ear of
a wretched and insulted wife."

"Pardon me the remark," replied the count, with a courtly bend of his
head, "but those consolations were also conformable to the customs of
our country, and I was not aware till now that you had wholly disdained
them. And," continued the count, "you were not so long a wife that the
gall of the chain should smart still. You were soon left a widow,--free,
childless, young, beautiful."

"And penniless."

"True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky; no fault of mine. I
could neither keep the cards from his hands, nor advise him how to play
them."

"And my own portion? O Giulio, I knew but at his death why you had
condemned me to that renegade Genoese. He owed you money, and, against
honour, and I believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in
discharge of the debt."

"He had no other way to discharge it; a debt of honour must be
paid,--old stories these. What matters? Since then my purse has been
open to you."

"Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument, your spy! Yes, your purse
has been open--with a niggard hand."

"Un peu de conscience, ma chere,--you are so extravagant. But come, be
plain. What would you?"

"I would be free from you."

"That is, you would form some second marriage with one of these rich
island lords. Ma foi, I respect your ambition."

"It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery,--to be placed
beyond dishonourable temptation. I desire," cried Beatrice, with
increased emotion,--"I desire to re-enter the life of woman."

"Eno'!" said the count, with a visible impatience; "is there anything
in the attainment of your object that should render you indifferent to
mine? You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry as
becomes you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry.
Be it so. I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift
clutch of the Genoese,--the moment that it is mine to bestow, the moment
that I am husband to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice, you imply
that my former notions revolted your conscience; my present plan should
content it, for by this marriage shall our kinsman regain his country,
and repossess, at least, half his lands. And if I am not an excellent
husband to the demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I have sown my wild
oats. Je suis bon prince, when I have things a little my own way. It
is my hope and my intention, and certainly it will be my interest,
to become digne epoux et irreprochable pere de famille. I speak
lightly,--'t is my way. I mean seriously. The little girl will be very
happy with me, and I shall succeed in soothing all resentment her father
may retain. Will you aid me then, yes or no? Aid me, and you shall
indeed be free. The magician will release the fair spirit he has bound
to his will. Aid me not, ma chere, and mark, I do not threaten--I do but
warn--aid me not; grant that I become a beggar, and ask yourself what
is to become of you,--still young, still beautiful, and still penniless?
Nay, worse than penniless; you have done me the honour," and here the
count, looking on the table, drew a letter from a portfolio emblazoned
with his arms and coronet,--"you have done me the honour to consult me
as to your debts."

"You will restore my fortune?" said the marchesa, irresolutely,--and
averting her head from an odious schedule of figures.

"When my own, with your aid, is secured."

"But do you not overrate the value of my aid?"

"Possibly," said the count, with a caressing suavity--and he kissed his
sister's forehead. "Possibly; but, by my honour, I wish to repair to you
any wrong, real or supposed, I may have done you in past times. I wish
to find again my own dear sister. I may over-value your aid, but not the
affection from which it comes. Let us be friends, cara Beatrice mia,"
added the count, for the first time employing Italian words.

The marchesa laid her head on his shoulder, and her tears flowed
softly. Evidently this man had great influence over her,--and evidently,
whatever her cause for complaint, her affection for him was still
sisterly and strong. A nature with fine flashes of generosity, spirit,
honour, and passion was hers; but uncultured, unguided, spoilt by the
worst social examples, easily led into wrong, not always aware where the
wrong was, letting affections good or bad whisper away her conscience or
blind her reason. Such women are often far more dangerous when induced
to wrong than those who are thoroughly abandoned,--such women are the
accomplices men like the Count of Peschiera most desire to obtain.

"Ah, Giulio," said Beatrice, after a pause, and looking up at him
through her tears, "when you speak to me thus, you know you can do with
me what you will. Fatherless and motherless, whom had my childhood to
love and obey but you?"

"Dear Beatrice," murmured the count, tenderly, and he again kissed her
forehead. "So," he continued, more carelessly,--"so the reconciliation
is effected, and our interests and our hearts re-allied. Now, alas! to
descend to business. You say that you know some one whom you believe
to be acquainted with the lurking-place of my father-in-law--that is to
be!"

"I think so. You remind me that I have an appointment with him this day:
it is near the hour,--I must leave you."

"To learn the secret?--Quick, quick. I have no fear of your success, if
it is by his heart that you lead him!"

"You mistake; on his heart I have no hold. But he has a friend who loves
me, and honourably, and whose cause he pleads. I think here that I have
some means to control or persuade him. If not--ah, he is of a character
that perplexes me in all but his worldly ambition; and how can we
foreigners influence him through THAT?"

"Is he poor, or is he extravagant?"

"Not extravagant, and not positively poor, but dependent."

"Then we have him," said the count, composedly. "If his assistance be
worth buying, we can bid high for it. Sur mon ame, I never yet knew
money fail with any man who was both worldly and dependent. I put him
and myself in your hands."

Thus saying, the count opened the door, and conducted his sister with
formal politeness to her carriage. He then returned, reseated himself,
and mused in silence. As he did so, the muscles of his countenance
relaxed. The levity of the Frenchman fled from his visage, and in his
eye, as it gazed abstractedly into space, there was that steady depth
so remarkable in the old portraits of Florentine diplomatist or Venetian
Oligarch. Thus seen, there was in that face, despite all its
beauty, something that would have awed back even the fond gaze of
love,--something hard, collected, inscrutable, remorseless. But this
change of countenance did not last long. Evidently thought, though
intense for the moment, was not habitual to the man; evidently he had
lived the life which takes all things lightly,--so he rose with a look
of fatigue, shook and stretched himself, as if to cast off, or grow
out of, an unwelcome and irksome mood. An hour afterwards, the Count of
Peschiera was charming all eyes, and pleasing all ears, in the saloon of
a high-born beauty, whose acquaintance he had made at Vienna, and whose
charms, according to that old and never-truth-speaking oracle, Polite
Scandal, were now said to have attracted to London the brilliant
foreigner.




CHAPTER III.

The marehesa regained her house, which was in Curzon Street, and
withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her
countenance all trace of the tears she had shed.

Half an hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed and
calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was capable
of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in
that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished elegance which comes
alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose of rank,
you could see but the woman of the world and the great lady.

A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a
visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance,--a young
man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's,
was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed
that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius, "ought
to wear his whole mind on his forehead." The young visitor would never
have committed so frank an imprudence. His cheek was pale, and in his
step and his movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued nerves
or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the tone of the voice
were those of a mental temperament controlling the bodily,--vigorous and
energetic. For the rest, his general appearance was distinguished by
a refinement alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not
easily forget him; and the reader, no doubt, already recognizes
Randal Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, was that of intimate
familiarity; yet it was given and replied to with that unreserved
openness which denotes the absence of a more tender sentiment.

Seating himself by the marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse
on the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable
that while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal of the
great world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return.
Randal Leslie had already learned the art not to commit himself, nor to
have quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the eminent. Nothing
more injures the man who would rise beyond the fame of the salons
than to be considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it is always useful,"
thought Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles, the small social and
private springs, by which the great are moved. Critical occasions
may arise in which such a knowledge may be power." And hence, perhaps
(besides a more private motive, soon to be perceived), Randal did
not consider his time thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's
friendship. For, despite much that was whispered against her, she had
succeeded in dispelling the coldness with which she had at first been
received in the London circles. Her beauty, her grace, and her high
birth had raised her into fashion, and the homage of men of the first
station, while it perhaps injured her reputation as woman, added to her
celebrity as fine lady. So much do we cold English, prudes though we be,
forgive to the foreigner what we avenge on the native.

Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and
elegant personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, which Lord
this and the Duke of that had passed on the marchesa's charms, Randal
laid his hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and
said,

"But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for
me, and with a generosity of which no coquette could have been capable)
you, in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else
have ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return,
you told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of love
who does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes
that I fear are terribly extravagant,'--since thus you allowed me to
divine your natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy
has been founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you
excite amongst these grands seigneurs I have named only serves to defeat
your own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in
earnest. Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they
who are not belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage,
seek more than beauty and wit,--namely, connections to strengthen their
political station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title."

"My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the marchesa,--and a certain sadness might
be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye,--"I have
lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the
falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I
see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know
that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he
talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which
she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to
youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's,--"ah, I
am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a
companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low
round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures,--of a heart so new, that
it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen
in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has
filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know
the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home,
I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition."

"This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not
harmonize with your former answer to me."

"To you," repeated Beatrice, smiling, and regaining her lighter manner;
"to you,--true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection
for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that
you, with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home.
And then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave
pride in her air,--"and then, I could not have consented to share my
fate with one whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my
heart, if it had beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could
then have brought but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with
poverty and debt. Now, it may be different. Now I may have the dowry
that befits my birth. And now I may be free to choose according to my
heart as woman, not according to my necessities, as one poor, harassed,
and despairing."

"Ah," said Randal, interested, and drawing still closer towards his fair
companion,--"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to
think that you shall be--rich?"

The marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal
relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and
rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich,
she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had
best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While
thus reflecting, Beatrice answered,

"Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be
half a million--"

"Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained
himself from falling at her feet in adoration. "Of francs!" continued
the marchesa.

"Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from
his sudden enthusiasm, "about L20,000? eight hundred a year at four per
cent. A very handsome portion, certainly (Genteel poverty!" he murmured
to himself. "What an escape I have had! but I see--I see. This will
smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project. I
see),--a very handsome portion," he repeated aloud,--"not for a grand
seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations
worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while
you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of
a heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that
my thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so
realizes your ideal. Proverbially, with us, happy marriages and happy
homes are found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the
hearths of our rural nobility, our untitled country gentlemen. And who,
amongst all your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the
one whom, I see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?"

"Did I blush?" said the marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think
that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I
have been touched by his honest ingenuous love,--so evident, yet rather
looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honours me with the
suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that
your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not
what--"

"You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish
your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his
shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do
not allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is
true, have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen.
He has not at present--few men have. But what Cimon would not be refined
by so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows belong but
to youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who could see his
sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean."

The marchesa leaned her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage
was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate
widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her
unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul;
so had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex
character been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed
position, the equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various
debasements to which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her--not
without design on the part of the count, who though grasping, was not
miserly, and who by precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one
time, and refusals of all aid at another, had involved her in debt in
order to retain his hold on her; so utterly painful and humiliating to
a woman of her pride and her birth was the station that she held in the
world,--that in marriage she saw liberty, life, honour, self-redemption;
and these thoughts, while they compelled her to co-operate with the
schemes by which the count, on securing to himself a bride, was to
bestow on herself a dower, also disposed her now to receive with favour
Randal Leslie's pleadings on behalf of his friend.

The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous
skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study
bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such
representations as were likely to be most effective. With what admirable
tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere individual, and drew him
rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position
might desire, in the safety, peace, and Honour of a home, in the trust
and constancy and honest confiding love of its partner! He did not paint
an elysium,--he described a haven; he did not glowingly delineate a hero
of romance,--he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Respectable
and the Real which a woman turns to when romance begins to seem to her
but delusion. Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of
the person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried
admiringly, "Knowledge is power; and this man, if as able on a larger
field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time."

Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her as
he spoke,--slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said,

"Well, well, grant all you say! at least before I can listen to so
honourable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pleasure
that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who wooes me, 'Will you pay
the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of Di Negra?'"

"Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry."

"But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon her
companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra extended her
hand to Randal, and said in the most winning accents, "You are, then,
truly and sincerely my friend?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance."

"Mine? How?"

"Listen; my brother has arrived in London--"

"I see that arrival announced in the papers."

"And he comes, empowered by the consent of the emperor, to ask the hand
of a relation and countrywoman of his,--an alliance that will heal long
family dissensions, and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My
brother, like myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law
he still owes me it would distress him to pay till this marriage be
assured."

"I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?"

"By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought
refuge and concealment in England."

"The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and
was proscribed?"

"Exactly; and so well has he concealed himself, that he has baffled
all our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his
pardon in cementing this alliance--"

"Proceed."

"Ah, Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know
that I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's
retreat,--sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly
knows it--"

"But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost
bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me
as to you."

"Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any
secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you
know already that secret which I ask you to share with me."

"What on earth makes you think so?"

"When, some weeks ago, you asked me to describe the personal appearance
and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections of
my childhood, partly from the description given to me by others, I could
not but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in spite," said
the marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she spoke,--"in spite
of your habitual self-command. And when I pressed you to own that you
had actually seen some one who tallied with that description, your
denial did not deceive me. Still more, when returning recently, of
your own accord, to the subject, you questioned me so shrewdly as to my
motives in seeking the clew to our refugees, and I did not then answer
you satisfactorily, I could detect--"

"Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which
occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to
shun a merriment so natural as to be illbred,--"ha, ha, you have the
fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that I
may have seen some Italian exiles (which is likely enough), what could
be more natural than my seeking to compare your description with their
appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst them to
be the man you search for, what more natural also than that I should
desire to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering his
'whereabout'? For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery,--"ill
would it become me to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one who
would hide from persecution; and even if I did so--for honour itself is
a weak safeguard against your fascinations--such indiscretion might be
fatal to my future career."

"How?"

"Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not communicate;
and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an imprudence that
committed himself? My dear friend, I will tell you more. When Audley
Egerton first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he said, with his
usual dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you to discontinue
acquaintance with Madame di Negra, for an acquaintance with women like
her forms the manners, and refines the intellect; but charming women are
dangerous, and Madame di Negra is--a charming woman.'"

The marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed: "'Your fair acquaintance'
(I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to dis cover the home of a
countryman of hers. She suspects that I know it. She may try to learn
it through you. Accident may possibly give you the information she
requires. Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should judge
of your general character. He from whom a woman can extract a secret
will never be fit for public life.' Therefore, my dear marchesa, even
supposing I possess this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to
ask me to reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For as yet," added
Randal, with a gloomy shade on his brow,--"as yet, I do not stand alone
and erect,--I lean, I am dependent."

"There may be a way," replied Madame di Negra, persisting, "to
communicate this intelligence without the possibility of Mr. Egerton's
tracing our discovery to yourself; and, though I will not press you
further, I add this,--You urge me to accept your friend's hand; you seem
interested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with a warmth
that shows how much you regard what you suppose is his happiness; I
will never accept his hand till I can do so without blush for my
penury,--till my dowry is secured; and that can only be by my brother's
union with the exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore,
think well how you can aid me in the first step to that alliance. The
young lady once discovered, and my brother has no fear for the success
of his suit."

"And you would marry Frank if the dower was secured?"

"Your arguments in his favour seem irresistible," replied Beatrice,
looking down.

A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few moments.

Then slowly rising, and drawing on his gloves, he said, "Well, at least
you so far reconcile my honour towards aiding your research, that you
now inform me you mean no ill to the exile."

"Ill!--the restoration to fortune, honours, his native land!"

"And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you inspire me with
the hope to contribute to the happiness of two friends whom I dearly
love. I will, therefore, diligently try to ascertain if, among the
refugees I have met with, lurk those whom you seek; and if so, I will
thoughtfully consider how to give you the clew. Meanwhile, not one
incautious word to Egerton."

"Trust me,--I am a woman of the world."

Randal now had gained the door. He paused, and renewed carelessly,--

"This young lady must be heiress to great wealth, to induce a man of
your brother's rank to take so much pains to discover her."

"Her wealth will be vast," replied the marchesa; "and if anything from
wealth or influence in a foreign State could be permitted to prove my
brother's gratitude--"

"Ah, fie!" interrupted Randal; and, approaching Madame di Negra, he
lifted her hand to his lips, and said gallantly, "This is reward enough
to your preux chevalier."

With those words he took his leave.




CHAPTER IV.

With his hands behind him, and his head drooping on his breast, slow,
stealthy, noiseless, Randal Leslie glided along the streets on leaving
the Italian's house. Across the scheme he had before revolved, there
glanced another yet more glittering, for its gain might be more sure and
immediate. If the exile's daughter were heiress to such wealth, might he
himself hope--He stopped short even in his own soliloquy, and his breath
came quick. Now, in his last visit to Hazeldean, he had come in contact
with Riccabocca, and been struck by the beauty of Violante. A vague
suspicion had crossed him that these might be the persons of whom
the marchesa was in search, and the suspicion had been confirmed by
Beatrice's description of the refugee she desired to discover. But as
he had not then learned the reason for her inquiries, nor conceived the
possibility that he could have any personal interest in ascertaining
the truth, he had only classed the secret in question among those
the further research into which might be left to time and occasion.
Certainly the reader will not do the unscrupulous intellect of Randal
Leslie the injustice to suppose that he was deterred from confiding
to his fair friend all that he knew of Riccabocca by the refinement of
honour to which he had so chivalrously alluded. He had correctly stated
Audley Egerton's warning against any indiscreet confidence, though he
had forborne to mention a more recent and direct renewal of the same
caution. His first visit to Hazeldean had been paid without consulting
Egerton. He had been passing some days at his father's house, and had
gone over thence to the squire's. On his return to London, he had,
however, mentioned this visit to Audley, who had seemed annoyed and even
displeased at it, though Randal knew sufficient of Egerton's character
to guess that such feelings could scarce be occasioned merely by his
estrangement from his half-brother. This dissatisfaction had, therefore,
puzzled the young man. But as it was necessary to his views to establish
intimacy with the squire, he did not yield the point with his customary
deference to his patron's whims. Accordingly he observed that he should
be very sorry to do anything displeasing to his benefactor, but that his
father had been naturally anxious that he should not appear positively
to slight the friendly overtures of Mr. Hazeldean.

"Why naturally?" asked Egerton.

"Because you know that Mr. Hazeldean is a relation of mine,--that my
grandmother was a Hazeldean."

"Ah!" said Egerton, who, as it has been before said, knew little and
cared less about the Hazeldean pedigree, "I was either not aware of
that circumstance, or had forgotten it. And your father thinks that the
squire may leave you a legacy?"

"Oh, sir, my father is not so mercenary,--such an idea never entered his
head. But the squire himself has indeed said, 'Why, if anything happened
to Frank, you would be next heir to my lands, and therefore we ought to
know each other.' But--"

"Enough," interrupted Egerton. "I am the last man to pretend to the
right of standing between you and a single chance of fortune, or of aid
to it. And whom did you meet at Hazeldean?"

"There was no one there, sir; not even Frank."

"Hum. Is the squire not on good terms with his parson? Any quarrel about
tithes?"

"Oh, no quarrel. I forgot Mr. Dale; I saw him pretty often. He admires
and praises you very much, sir."

"Me--and why? What did he say of me?"

"That your heart was as sound as your head; that he had once seen you
about some old parishioners of his, and that he had been much impressed
with the depth of feeling he could not have anticipated in a man of the
world, and a statesman."

"Oh, that was all; some affair when I was member for Lansmere?"

"I suppose so."

Here the conversation had broken off; but the next time Randal was led
to visit the squire he had formally asked Egerton's consent, who, after
a moment's hesitation, had as formally replied, "I have no objection."

On returning from this visit, Randal mentioned that he had seen
Riccabocca: and Egerton, a little startled at first, said composedly,
"Doubtless one of the political refugees; take care not to set Madame
di Negra on his track. Remember, she is suspected of being a spy of the
Austrian government."

"Rely on me, sir," said Randal; "but I should think this poor doctor can
scarcely be the person she seeks to discover."

"That is no affair of ours," answered Egerton: "we are English
gentlemen, and make not a step towards the secrets of another."

Now, when Randal revolved this rather ambiguous answer, and recalled the
uneasiness with which Egerton had first heard of his visit to Hazeldean,
he thought that he was indeed near the secret which Egerton desired to
conceal from him and from all,--namely, the incognito of the Italian
whom Lord L'Estrange had taken under his protection.

"My cards," said Randal to himself, as with a deep-drawn sigh he resumed
his soliloquy, "are become difficult to play. On the one hand, to
entangle Frank into marriage with this foreigner, the squire could never
forgive him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him without the
dowry--and that depends on her brother's wedding this countrywoman--and
that countrywoman be, as I surmise, Violante, and Violante be this
heiress, and to be won by me! Tush, tush. Such delicate scruples in a
woman so placed and so constituted as Beatrice di Negra must be easily
talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this alliance to her brother, the
loss of her own dowry, the very pressure of poverty and debt, would
compel her into the sole escape left to her option. I will then follow
up the old plan; I will go down to Hazeldean, and see if there be any
substance in the new one; and then to reconcile both. Aha--the House of
Leslie shall rise yet from its ruin--and--"

Here he was startled from his revery by a friendly slap on the shoulder,
and an exclamation, "Why, Randal, you are more absent than when you used
to steal away from the cricket-ground, muttering Greek verses, at Eton."

"My dear Frank," said Randal, "you--you are so brusque, and I was just
thinking of you."

"Were you? And kindly, then, I am sure," said Frank Hazeldean, his
honest handsome face lighted up with the unsuspecting genial trust of
friendship; "and Heaven knows," he added, with a sadder voice, and a
graver expression on his eye and lip,--"Heaven knows I want all the
kindness you can give me!"

"I thought," said Randal, "that your father's last supply, of which
I was fortunate enough to be the bearer, would clear off your more
pressing debts. I don't pretend to preach, but really, I must say once
more, you should not be so extravagant."

FRANK (seriously).--"I have done my best to reform. I have sold off my
horses, and I have not touched dice nor card these six months; I would
not even put into the raffle for the last Derby." This last was said
with the air of a man who doubted the possibility of obtaining belief to
some assertion of preternatural abstinence and virtue.

RANDAL.--"Is it possible? But with such self-conquest, how is it
that you cannot contrive to live within the bounds of a very liberal
allowance?"

FRANK (despondingly).--"Why, when a man once gets his head under water,
it is so hard to float back again on the surface. You see, I attribute
all my embarrassments to that first concealment of my debts from my
father, when they could have been so easily met, and when he came up to
town so kindly."

"I am sorry, then, that I gave you that advice."

"Oh, you meant it so kindly, I don't reproach you; it was all my own
fault."

"Why, indeed, I did urge you to pay off that moiety of your debts left
unpaid, with your allowance. Had you done so, all had been well."

"Yes; but poor Borrowell got into such a scrape at Goodwood, I could
not resist him; a debt of honour,--that must be paid; so when I signed
another bill for him, he could not pay it, poor fellow! Really he would
have shot himself, if I had not renewed it. And now it is swelled to
such an amount with that cursed interest, that he never can pay it;
and one bill, of course, begets another,--and to be renewed every three
months; 't is the devil and all! So little as I ever got for all I have
borrowed," added Frank, with a kind of rueful amaze. "Not L1,500 ready
money; and the interest would cost me almost as much yearly,--if I had
it." "Only L1,500!"

"Well; besides seven large chests of the worst cigars you ever smoked,
three pipes of wine that no one would drink, and a great bear that had
been imported from Greenland for the sake of its grease."

"That should, at least, have saved you a bill with your hairdresser."

"I paid his bill with it," said Frank, "and very good-natured he was to
take the monster off my hands,--it had already hugged two soldiers and
one groom into the shape of a flounder. I tell you what," resumed Frank,
after a short pause, "I have a great mind even now to tell my father
honestly all my embarrassments."

RANDAL (solemnly).--"Hum!"

FRANK.--"What? don't you think it would be the best way? I never
can save enough,--never can pay off what I owe; and it rolls like a
snowball."

RANDAL.--"Judging by the squire's talk, I think that with the first
sight of your affairs you would forfeit his favour forever; and your
mother would be so shocked, especially after supposing that the sum I
brought you so lately sufficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had
not assured her of that it might be different; but she, who so hates an
untruth, and who said to the squire, 'Frank says this will clear him;
and with all his faults, Frank never yet told a lie!'"

"Oh, my dear mother!--I fancy I hear her!" cried Frank, with deep
emotion. "But I did not tell a lie, Randal; I did not say that that sum
would clear me."

"You empowered and begged me to say so," replied Randal, with grave
coldness; "and don't blame me if I believed you."

"No, no! I only said it would clear me for the moment."

"I misunderstood you, then, sadly; and such mistakes involve my own
honour. Pardon me, Frank; don't ask my aid in future. You see, with the
best intentions, I only compromise myself."

"If you forsake me, I may as well go and throw myself into the river,"
said Frank, in a tone of despair; "and sooner or later, my father must
know my necessities. The Jews threaten to go to him already; and the
longer the delay, the more terrible the explanation."

"I don't see why your father should ever learn the state of your
affairs; and it seems to me that you could pay off these usurers, and
get rid of these bills, by raising money on comparatively easy terms--"

"How?" cried Frank, eagerly.

"Why, the Casino property is entailed on you, and you might obtain a sum
upon that, not to be paid till the property becomes yours."

"At my poor father's death? Oh, no, no! I cannot bear the idea of this
cold-blooded calculation on a father's death. I know it is not uncommon;
I know other fellows who have done it, but they never had parents
so kind as mine; and even in them it shocked and revolted me. The
contemplating a father's death, and profiting by the contemplation it
seems a kind of parricide: it is not natural, Randal. Besides, don't
you remember what the Governor said,--he actually wept while he said
it,--'Never calculate on my death; I could not bear that.' Oh, Randal,
don't speak of it!"

"I respect your sentiments; but still, all the post-orbits you could
raise could not shorten Mr. Hazeldean's life by a day. However, dismiss
that idea; we must think of some other device. Ha, Frank! you are a
handsome fellow, and your expectations are great--why don't you marry
some woman with money?"

"Pooh!" exclaimed Frank, colouring. "You know, Randal, that there is but
one woman in the world I can ever think of; and I love her so devotedly,
that, though I was as gay as most men before, I really feel as if the
rest of her sex had lost every charm. I was passing through the street
now--merely to look up at her windows."

"You speak of Madame di Negra? I have just left her. Certainly, she
is two or three years older than you; but if you can get over that
misfortune, why not marry her?"

"Marry her!" cried Frank, in amaze, and all his colour fled from his
cheeks. "Marry her! Are you serious?"

"Why not?"

"But even if she, who is so accomplished, so admired, even if she would
accept me, she is, you know, poorer than myself. She has told me so
frankly. That woman has such a noble heart,--and--and--my father would
never consent, nor my mother either. I know they would not."

"Because she is a foreigner?"

"Yes--partly."

"Yet the squire suffered his cousin to marry a foreigner."

"That was different. He had no control over Jemima; and a
daughter-in-law is so different; and my father is so English in his
notions; and Madame di Negra, you see, is altogether so foreign. Her
very graces would be against her in his eyes."

"I think you do both your parents injustice. A foreigner of low
birth--an actress or singer, for instance--of course would be highly
objectionable; but a woman like Madame di Negra, of such high birth and
connections--"

Frank shook his head. "I don't think the Governor would care a straw
about her connections, if she were a king's daughter. He considers all
foreigners pretty much alike. And then, you know" (Frank's voice sank
into a whisper),--"you know that one of the very reasons why she is so
dear to me would be an insuperable objection to the old-fashioned folks
at home."

"I don't understand you, Frank."

"I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising his front with
a noble pride, that seemed to speak of his descent from a race of
cavaliers and gentlemen,--"I love her the more because the world has
slandered her name,--because I believe her to be pure and wronged. But
would they at the Hall,--they who do not see with a lover's eyes,
they who have all the stubborn English notions about the indecorum and
license of Continental manners, and will so readily credit the worst?
Oh, no! I love, I cannot help it--but I have no hope."

"It is very possible that you may be right," exclaimed Randal, as if
struck and half convinced by his companion's argument,--"very possible;
and certainly I think that the homely folks at the Hall would fret and
fume at first, if they heard you were married to Madame di Negra. Yet
still, when your father learned that you had done so, not from passion
alone, but to save him from all pecuniary sacrifice,--to clear yourself
of debt, to--"

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Frank, impatiently.

"I have reason to know that Madame di Negra will have as large a portion
as your father could reasonably expect you to receive with any English
wife. And when this is properly stated to the squire, and the high
position and rank of your wife fully established and brought home to
him,--for I must think that these would tell, despite your exaggerated
notions of his prejudices,--and then, when he really sees Madame di
Negra, and can judge of her beauty and rare gifts, upon my word, I
think, Frank, that there would be no cause for fear. After all, too, you
are his only son. He will have no option but to forgive you; and I know
how anxiously both your parents wish to see you settled in life."

Frank's whole countenance became illuminated. "There is no one who
understands the squire like you, certainly," said he, with lively joy.
"He has the highest opinion of your judgment. And you really believe you
could smooth matters?"

"I believe so; but I should be sorry to induce you to run any risk; and
if, on cool consideration, you think that risk is incurred, I strongly
advise you to avoid all occasion of seeing the poor marchesa. Ah, you
wince; but I say it for her sake as well as your own. First, you must
be aware, that, unless you have serious thoughts of marriage, your
attentions can but add to the very rumours that, equally groundless, you
so feelingly resent; and, secondly, because I don't think any man has a
right to win the affections of a woman--especially a woman who seems to
me likely to love with her whole heart and soul--merely to gratify his
own vanity."

"Vanity! Good heavens! can you think so poorly of me? But as to the
marchesa's affections," continued Frank, with a faltering voice, "do you
really and honestly believe that they are to be won by me?"

"I fear lest they may be half won already," said Randal, with a smile
and a shake of the head; "but she is too proud to let you see any effect
you may produce on her, especially when, as I take it for granted, you
have never hinted at the hope of obtaining her hand."

"I never till now conceived such a hope. My dear Randal, all my cares
have vanished! I tread upon air! I have a great mind to call on her at
once."

"Stay, stay," said Randal. "Let me give you a caution. I have just
informed you that Madame di Negra will have, what you suspected not
before, a fortune suitable to her birth. Any abrupt change in your
manner at present might induce her to believe that you were influenced
by that intelligence."

"Ah!" exclaimed Frank, stopping short, as if wounded to the quick. "And
I feel guilty,--feel as if I was influenced by that intelligence. So
I am, too, when I reflect," he continued, with a naivete that was half
pathetic; "but I hope she will not be very rich; if so, I'll not call."

"Make your mind easy, it is but a portion of some twenty or thirty
thousand pounds, that would just suffice to discharge all your debts,
clear away all obstacle to your union, and in return for which you
could secure a more than adequate jointure and settlement on the Casino
property. Now I am on that head, I will be yet more communicative.
Madame di Negra has a noble heart, as you say, and told me herself,
that, until her brother on his arrival had assured her of this dowry,
she would never have consented to marry you, never crippled with her own
embarrassments the man she loves. Ah! with what delight she will hail
the thought of assisting you to win back your father's heart! But be
guarded meanwhile. And now, Frank, what say you--would it not be well if
I ran down to Hazeldean to sound your parents? It is rather inconvenient
to me, to be sure, to leave town just at present; but I would do more
than that to render you a smaller service. Yes, I'll go to Rood Hall
to-morrow, and thence to Hazeldean. I am sure your father will press me
to stay, and I shall have ample opportunities to judge of the manner
in which he would be likely to regard your marriage with Madame di
Negra,--supposing always it were properly put to him. We can then act
accordingly."

"My dear, dear Randal, how can I thank you? If ever a poor fellow like
me can serve you in return--but that's impossible."

"Why, certainly, I will never ask you to be security to a bill of mine,"
said Randal, laughing. "I practise the economy I preach."

"Ah!" said Frank, with a groan, "that is because your mind is
cultivated,--you have so many resources; and all my faults have come
from idleness. If I had had anything to do on a rainy day, I should
never have got into these scrapes."

"Oh, you will have enough to do some day managing your property. We who
have no property must find one in knowledge. Adieu, my dear Frank, I
must go home now. By the way, you have never, by chance, spoken of the
Riccaboccas to Madame di Negra."

"The Riccaboccas? No. That's well thought of. It may interest her to
know that a relation of mine has married her countryman. Very odd that
I never did mention it; but, to say truth, I really do talk so little to
her: she is so superior, and I feel positively shy with her."

"Do me the favour, Frank," said Randal, waiting patiently till this
reply ended,--for he was devising all the time what reason to give for
his request,--"never to allude to the Riccaboccas either to her or to
her brother, to whom you are sure to be presented."

"Why not allude to them?"

Randal hesitated a moment. His invention was still at fault, and, for a
wonder, he thought it the best policy to go pretty near the truth.

"Why, I will tell you. The marchesa conceals nothing from her brother,
and he is one of the few Italians who are in high favour with the
Austrian court."

"Well!"

"And I suspect that poor Dr. Riccabocca fled his country from some mad
experiment at revolution, and is still hiding from the Austrian police."

"But they can't hurt him here," said Frank, with an Englishman's dogged
inborn conviction of the sanctity of his native island. "I should like
to see an Austrian pretend to dictate to us whom to receive and whom to
reject."

"Hum--that's true and constitutional, no doubt; but Riccabocca may have
excellent reasons--and, to speak plainly, I know he has (perhaps as
affecting the safety of friends in Italy)--for preserving his incognito,
and we are bound to respect those reasons without inquiring further."

"Still I cannot think so meanly of Madame di Negra," persisted Frank
(shrewd here, though credulous elsewhere, and both from his sense of
honour), "as to suppose that she would descend to be a spy, and injure
a poor countryman of her own, who trusts to the same hospitality she
receives herself at our English hands. Oh, if I thought that, I could
not love her!" added Frank, with energy.

"Certainly you are right. But see in what a false position you would
place both her brother and herself. If they knew Riccabocca's secret,
and proclaimed it to the Austrian Government, as you say, it would be
cruel and mean; but if they knew it and concealed it, it might involve
them both in the most serious consequences. You know the Austrian policy
is proverbially so jealous and tyrannical?"

"Well, the newspapers say so, certainly."

"And, in short, your discretion can do no harm, and your indiscretion
may. Therefore, give me your word, Frank. I can't stay to argue now."

"I'll not allude to the Riccaboccas, upon my honour," answered Frank;
"still, I am sure that they would be as safe with the marchesa as
with--"

"I rely on your honour," interrupted Randal, hastily, and hurried off.




CHAPTER V.

Towards the evening of the following day, Randal Leslie walked slowly
from a village in the main road (about two miles from Rood Hall),
at which he had got out of the coach. He passed through meads and
cornfields, and by the skirts of woods which had formerly belonged to
his ancestors, but had been long since alienated. He was alone amidst
the haunts of his boyhood, the scenes in which he had first invoked the
grand Spirit of Knowledge, to bid the Celestial Still One minister to
the commands of an earthly and turbulent ambition. He paused often in
his path, especially when the undulations of the ground gave a glimpse
of the gray church tower, or the gloomy firs that rose above the
desolate wastes of Rood.

"Here," thought Randal, with a softening eye,--"here, how often,
comparing the fertility of the lands passed away from the inheritance
of my fathers, with the forlorn wilds that are left to their mouldering
Hall,--here how often have I said to myself, 'I will rebuild the
fortunes of my House.' And straightway Toil lost its aspect of drudge,
and grew kingly, and books became as living armies to serve my thought.
Again--again O thou haughty Past, brace and strengthen me in the battle
with the Future." His pale lips writhed as he soliloquized, for his
conscience spoke to him while he thus addressed his will, and its voice
was heard more audibly in the quiet of the rural landscape, than amidst
the turmoil and din of that armed and sleepless camp which we call a
city.

Doubtless, though Ambition have objects more vast and beneficent than
the restoration of a name, that in itself is high and chivalrous, and
appeals to a strong interest in the human heart. But all emotions and
all ends of a nobler character had seemed to filter themselves free
from every golden grain in passing through the mechanism of Randal's
intellect, and came forth at last into egotism clear and unalloyed.
Nevertheless, it is a strange truth that, to a man of cultivated mind,
however perverted and vicious, there are vouchsafed gleams of brighter
sentiments, irregular perceptions of moral beauty, denied to the brutal
unreasoning wickedness of uneducated villany,--which perhaps ultimately
serve as his punishment, according to the old thought of the satirist,
that there is no greater curse than to perceive virtue yet adopt
vice. And as the solitary schemer walked slowly on, and his
childhood--innocent at least indeed--came distinct before him through
the halo of bygone dreams,--dreams far purer than those from which he
now rose each morning to the active world of Man,--a profound melancholy
crept over him, and suddenly he exclaimed aloud, "Then I aspired to be
renowned and great; now, how is it that, so advanced in my career, all
that seemed lofty in the end has vanished from me, and the only means
that I contemplate are those which my childhood would have called poor
and vile? Ah, is it that I then read but books, and now my knowledge has
passed onward, and men contaminate more than books? But," he continued,
in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, "if power is only so to be
won,--and of what use is knowledge if it be not power--does not success
in life justify all things? And who prizes the wise man if he fails?" He
continued his way, but still the soft tranquillity around rebuked him,
and still his reason was dissatisfied, as well as his conscience. There
are times when Nature, like a bath of youth, seems to restore to the
jaded soul its freshness,--times from which some men have emerged, as if
reborn. The crises of life are very silent. Suddenly the scene opened on
Randal Leslie's eyes,--the bare desert common, the dilapidated church,
the old house, partially seen in the dank dreary hollow, into which it
seemed to Randal to have sunken deeper and lowlier than when he saw
it last. And on the common were some young men playing at hockey. That
old-fashioned game, now very uncommon in England, except at schools, was
still preserved in the primitive vicinity of Rood by the young yeomen
and farmers. Randal stood by the stile and looked on, for among the
players he recognized his brother Oliver. Presently the ball was struck
towards Oliver, and the group instantly gathered round that young
gentleman, and snatched him from Randal's eye; but the elder brother
heard a displeasing din, a derisive laughter. Oliver had shrunk from the
danger of the thick clubbed sticks that plied around him, and received
some stroke across the legs, for his voice rose whining, and was drowned
by shouts of, "Go to your mammy. That's Noll Leslie all over. Butter
shins!"

Randal's sallow face became scarlet. "The jest of boors--a Leslie!" he
muttered, and ground his teeth. He sprang over the stile, and
walked erect and haughtily across the ground. The players cried out
indignantly. Randal raised his hat, and they recognized him, and stopped
the game. For him at least a certain respect was felt. Oliver turned
round quickly, and ran up to him. Randal caught his arm firmly, and
without saying a word to the rest, drew him away towards the house.
Oliver cast a regretful, lingering look behind him, rubbed his shins,
and then stole a timid glance towards Randal's severe and moody
countenance.

"You are not angry that I was playing at hockey with our neighbours,"
said he, deprecatingly, observing that Randal would not break the
silence.

"No," replied the elder brother; "but in associating with his inferiors,
a gentleman still knows how to maintain his dignity. There is no harm
in playing with inferiors, but it is necessary to a gentleman to play so
that he is not the laughing-stock of clowns."

Oliver hung his head, and made no answer. They came into the slovenly
precincts of the court, and the pigs stared at them from the palings, as
their progenitors had stared, years before, at Frank Hazeldean.

Mr. Leslie, senior, in a shabby straw-hat, was engaged in feeding the
chickens before the threshold, and he performed even that occupation
with a maundering lack-a-daisical slothfulness, dropping down the grains
almost one by one from his inert dreamy fingers.

Randal's sister, her hair still and forever hanging about her ears, was
seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the
parlour window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high
fidget and complaint.

Somehow or other, as the young heir to all this helpless poverty stood
in the courtyard, with his sharp, refined, intelligent features, and his
strange elegance of dress and aspect, one better comprehended how,
left solely to the egotism of his knowledge and his ambition, in such
a family, and without any of the sweet nameless lessons of Home, he had
grown up into such close and secret solitude of soul,--how the mind had
taken so little nutriment from the heart, and how that affection and
respect which the warm circle of the heart usually calls forth had
passed with him to the graves of dead fathers, growing, as it were,
bloodless and ghoul-like amidst the charnels on which they fed.

"Ha, Randal, boy," said Mr. Leslie, looking up lazily, "how d' ye do?
Who could have expected you? My dear, my dear," he cried, in a broken
voice, and as if in helpless dismay, "here's Randal, and he'll be
wanting dinner, or supper, or something." But, in the mean while,
Randal's sister Juliet had sprung up and thrown her arms round her
brother's neck, and he had drawn her aside caressingly, for Randal's
strongest human affection was for this sister.

"You are growing very pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing back her hair;
"why do yourself such injustice,--why not pay more attention to your
appearance, as I have so often begged you to do?"

"I did not expect you, dear Randal; you always come so suddenly, and
catch us en dish-a-bill."

"Dish-a-bill!" echoed Randal, with a groan. "Dishabille! you ought never
to be so caught!"

"No one else does so catch us,--nobody else ever comes. Heigho!" and the
young lady sighed very heartily. "Patience, patience; my day is coming,
and then yours, my sister," replied Randal, with genuine pity, as he
gazed upon what a little care could have trained into so fair a flower,
and what now looked so like a weed.

Here Mrs. Leslie, in a state of intense excitement--having rushed
through the parlour, leaving a fragment of her gown between the yawning
brass of the never-mended Brummagem work-table--tore across the hall,
whirled out of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and left,
and clutched hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. "La, how you
do shake my nerves," she cried, after giving him a most hasty and
uncomfortable kiss. "And you are hungry too, and nothing in the house
but cold mutton! Jenny, Jenny, I say, Jenny! Juliet, have you seen
Jenny? Where's Jenny? Out with the odd man, I'll be bound."

"I am not hungry, Mother," said Randal; "I wish for nothing but tea."
Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the
tea, and also to "tidy herself." She dearly loved her fine brother, but
she was greatly in awe of him.

Randal seated himself on the broken pales. "Take care they don't come
down," said Mr. Leslie, with some anxiety.

"Oh, Sir, I am very light; nothing comes down with me." The pigs stared
up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger. "Mother," said the young man,
detaining Mrs. Leslie, who wanted to set off in chase of Jenny, "Mother,
you should not let Oliver associate with those village boors. It is time
to think of a profession for him."

"Oh, he eats us out of house and home--such an appetite! But as to a
profession, what is he fit for? He will never be a scholar."

Randal nodded a moody assent; for, indeed, Oliver had been sent to
Cambridge, and supported there out of Randal's income from his official
pay; and Oliver had been plucked for his Little Go.

"There is the army," said the elder brother,--"a gentleman's calling.
How handsome Juliet ought to be--but--I left money for masters--and she
pronounces French like a chambermaid."

"Yet she is fond of her book too. She's always reading, and good for
nothing else."

"Reading! those trashy novels!"

"So like you,--you always come to scold, and make things unpleasant,"
said Mrs. Leslie, peevishly. "You are grown too fine for us, and I am
sure we suffer affronts enough from others, not to want a little respect
from our own children."

"I did not mean to affront you," said Randal, sadly. "Pardon me. But who
else has done so?"

Then Mrs. Leslie went into a minute and most irritating catalogue of
all the mortifications and insults she had received; the grievances of
a petty provincial family, with much pretension and small power,--of all
people, indeed, without the disposition to please--without the ability
to serve--who exaggerate every offence, and are thankful for no
kindness. Farmer Jones had insolently refused to send his wagon twenty
miles for coals. Mr. Giles, the butcher, requesting the payment of his
bill, had stated that the custom at Rood was too small for him to allow
credit. Squire Thornhill, who was the present owner of the fairest slice
of the old Leslie domains, had taken the liberty to ask permission to
shoot over Mr. Leslie's land, since Mr. Leslie did not preserve. Lady
Spratt (new people from the city, who hired a neighbouring country-seat)
had taken a discharged servant of Mrs. Leslie's without applying for the
character. The Lord-Lieutenant had given a ball, and had not invited the
Leslies. Mr. Leslie's tenants had voted against their landlord's wish at
the recent election. More than all, Squire Hazeldean and his Harry had
called at Rood, and though Mrs. Leslie had screamed out to Jenny, "Not
at home," she had been seen at the window, and the squire had actually
forced his way in, and caught the whole family "in a state not fit to
be seen." That was a trifle, but the squire had presumed to instruct Mr.
Leslie how to manage his property, and Mrs. Hazeldean had actually told
Juliet to hold up her head, and tie up her hair, "as if we were her
cottagers!" said Mrs. Leslie, with the pride of a Montfydget.

All these, and various other annoyances, though Randal was too sensible
not to perceive their insignificance, still galled and mortified the
listening heir of Rood. They showed, at least, even to the well-meant
officiousness of the Hazeldeans, the small account in which the fallen
family was held. As he sat still on the moss-grown pales, gloomy and
taciturn, his mother standing beside him, with her cap awry, Mr. Leslie
shamblingly sauntered up, and said in a pensive, dolorous whine,

"I wish we had a good sum of money, Randal, boy!"

To do Mr. Leslie justice, he seldom gave vent to any wish that savoured
of avarice. His mind must be singularly aroused, to wander out of its
normal limits of sluggish, dull content.

So Randal looked at him in surprise, and said, "Do you, Sir?--why?"

"The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, and all the lands therein,
which my great-grandfather sold away, are to be sold again when Squire
Thornhill's eldest son comes of age, to cut off the entail. Sir John
Spratt talks of buying them. I should like to have them back again! 'T
is a shame to see the Leslie estates hawked about, and bought by Spratts
and people. I wish I had a great, great sum of ready money." The poor
gentleman extended his helpless fingers as he spoke, and fell into a
dejected revery.

Randal sprang from the paling, a movement which frightened the
contemplative pigs, and set them off squalling and scampering. "When
does young Thornhill come of age?"

"He was nineteen last August. I know it, because the day he was born I
picked up my fossil of the sea-horse, just by Dulmansberry church, when
the joy-bells were ringing. My fossil sea-horse! It will be an heirloom,
Randal--"

"Two years--nearly two years--yet--ah, ah!" said Randal; and his sister
now appearing, to announce that tea was ready, he threw his arm round
her neck and kissed her. Juliet had arranged her hair and trimmed up
her dress. She looked very pretty, and she had now the air of a
gentlewoman,--something of Randal's own refinement in her slender
proportions and well-shaped head.

"Be patient, patient still, my dear sister," whispered Randal, "and
keep your heart whole for two years longer." The young man was gay and
good-humoured over his simple meal, while his family grouped round
him. When it was over, Mr. Leslie lighted his pipe, and called for his
brandy-and-water. Mrs. Leslie began to question about London and Court,
and the new king and the new queen, and Mr. Audley Egerton, and hoped
Mr. Egerton would leave Randal all his money, and that Randal would
marry a rich woman, and that the king would make him a prime minister
one of these days; and then she should like to see if Farmer Jones would
refuse to send his wagon for coals! And every now and then, as the word
"riches" or "money" caught Mr. Leslie's ears, he shook his head, drew
his pipe from his mouth, "A Spratt should not have what belonged to my
great-great-grandfather. If I had a good sum of ready money! the
old family estates!" Oliver and Juliet sat silent, and on their good
behaviour; and Randal, indulging his own reveries, dreamily heard the
words "money," "Spratt," "great-great-grandfather," "rich wife," "family
estates;" and they sounded to him vague and afar off, like whispers from
the world of romance and legend,--weird prophecies of things to be.

Such was the hearth which warmed the viper that nestled and gnawed at
the heart of Randal, poisoning all the aspirations that youth should
have rendered pure, ambition lofty, and knowledge beneficent and divine.




CHAPTER VI.

When the rest of the household were in deep sleep, Randal stood long at
his open window, looking over the dreary, comfortless scene,--the moon
gleaming from skies half-autumnal, half-wintry, upon squalid decay,
through the ragged fissures of the firs; and when he lay down to rest,
his sleep was feverish, and troubled by turbulent dreams.

However, he was up early, and with an unwonted colour in his cheeks,
which his sister ascribed to the country air. After breakfast, he took
his way towards Hazeldean, mounted upon a tolerable, horse, which he
borrowed of a neighbouring farmer who occasionally hunted. Before noon,
the garden and ter race of the Casino came in sight. He reined in his
horse, and by the little fountain at which Leonard had been wont to eat
his radishes and con his book, he saw Riccabocca seated under the shade
of the red umbrella. And by the Italian's side stood a form that a Greek
of old might have deemed the Naiad of the Fount; for in its youthful
beauty there was something so full of poetry, something at once so sweet
and so stately, that it spoke to the imagination while it charmed the
sense.

Randal dismounted, tied his horse to the gate, and, walking down a
trellised alley, came suddenly to the spot. His dark shadow fell over
the clear mirror of the fountain just as Riccabocca had said, "All here
is so secure from evil!--the waves of the fountain are never troubled
like those of the river!" and Violante had answered in her soft native
tongue, and lifting her dark, spiritual eyes, "But the fountain would
be but a lifeless pool, oh my father, if the spray did not mount towards
the skies!"




CHAPTER VII.

RANDAL advanced--"I fear, Signor Riccabocca, that I am guilty of some
want of ceremony."

"To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a
compliment," replied the urbane Italian, as he recovered from his first
surprise at Randal's sudden address, and extended his hand.

Violante bowed her graceful head to the young man's respectful
salutation. "I am on my way to Hazeldean," resumed Randal, "and, seeing
you in the garden, could not resist this intrusion."

RICCOBOCCA.--"YOU come from London? Stirring times for you English, but
I do not ask you the news. No news can affect us."

RANDAL (softly).--"Perhaps yes."

RICCABOCCA (startled).--"How?"

VIOLANTE.--"Surely he speaks of Italy, and news from that country
affects you still, my father."

RICCABOCCA.--"Nay, nay, nothing affects me like this country; its east
winds might affect a pyramid! Draw your mantle round you, child, and go
in; the air has suddenly grown chill."

Violante smiled on her father, glanced uneasily towards Randal's grave
brow, and went slowly towards the house. Riccabocca, after waiting some
moments in silence, as if expecting Randal to speak, said, with affected
carelessness,

"So you think that you have news that might affect me? Corpo di Bacco! I
am curious to learn what?"

"I may be mistaken--that depends on your answer to one question. Do you
know the Count of Peschiera?"

Riccabocca winced, and turned pale. He could not baffle the watchful eye
of the questioner.

"Enough," said Randal; "I see that I am right. Believe in my sincerity.
I speak but to warn and to serve you. The count seeks to discover the
retreat of a countryman and kinsman of his own."

"And for what end?" cried Riccabocca, thrown off his guard, and his
breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye flashed; valour and defiance
broke from habitual caution and self-control. "But--pooh!" he added,
striving to regain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, "it matters not
to me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera; but what has
Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsman of so grand a personage?"

"Dr. Riccabocca--nothing. But--" here Randal put his lip close to the
Italian's ear, and whispered a brief sentence. Then retreating a step,
but laying his hand on the exile's shoulder, he added, "Need I say that
your secret is safe with me?"

Riccabocca made no answer. His eyes rested on the ground musingly.

Randal continued, "And I shall esteem it the highest honour you can
bestow on me, to be permitted to assist you in forestalling danger."

RICCABOCCA (slowly).--"Sir, I thank you; you have my secret, and I feel
assured it is safe, for I speak to an English gentleman. There may be
family reasons why I should avoid the Count di Peschiera; and, indeed,
he is safest from shoals who steers clearest of his relations."

The poor Italian regained his caustic smile as he uttered that wise,
villanous Italian maxim.

RANDAL.--"I know little of the Count of Peschiera save from the current
talk of the world. He is said to hold the estates of a kinsman who took
part in a conspiracy against the Austrian power."

RICCABOCCA.--"It is true. Let that content him; what more does he
desire? You spoke of forestalling danger; what danger? I am on the soil
of England, and protected by its laws."

RANDAL.--"Allow me to inquire if, had the kinsman no child, the Count di
Peschiera would be legitimate and natural heir to the estates he holds?"

RICCABOCCA.--"He would--What then?"

RANDAL.--"Does that thought suggest no danger to the child of the
kinsman?"

Riccabocca recoiled, and gasped forth, "The child! You do not mean to
imply that this man, infamous though he be, can contemplate the crime of
an assassin?"

Randal paused perplexed. His ground was delicate. He knew not what
causes of resentment the exile entertained against the count. He knew
not whether Riccabocca would not assent to an alliance that might
restore him to his country,--and he resolved to feel his way with
precaution.

"I did not," said he, smiling gravely, "mean to insinuate so horrible a
charge against a man whom I have never seen. He seeks you,--that is all
I know. I imagine, from his general character, that in this search he
consults his interest. Perhaps all matters might be conciliated by an
interview!"

"An interview!" exclaimed Riccabocca; "there is but one way we should
meet,--foot to foot, and hand to hand."

"Is it so? Then you would not listen to the count if he proposed some
amicable compromise,--if, for instance, he was a candidate for the hand
of your daughter?"

The poor Italian, so wise and so subtle in his talk, was as rash and
blind when it came to action as if he had been born in Ireland and
nourished on potatoes and Repeal. He bared his whole soul to the
merciless eye of Randal.

"My daughter!" he exclaimed. "Sir, your very question is an insult."

Randal's way became clear at once. "Forgive me," he said mildly; "I
will tell you frankly all that I know. I am acquainted with the count's
sister. I have some little influence over her. It was she who informed
me that the count had come here, bent upon discovering your refuge, and
resolved to wed your daughter. This is the danger of which I spoke. And
when I asked your permission to aid in forestalling it, I only intended
to suggest that it might be wise to find some securer home, and that I,
if permitted to know that home, and to visit you, could apprise you from
time to time of the count's plans and movements."

"Sir, I thank you sincerely," said Riccabocca, with emotion; "but am I
not safe here?"

"I doubt it. Many people have visited the squire in the shooting season,
who will have heard of you,--perhaps seen you, and who are likely
to meet the count in London. And Frank Hazeldean, too, who knows the
count's sister--"

"True, true" interrupted Riccabocca. "I see, I see. I will consider, I
will reflect. Meanwhile you are going to Hazel dean. Do not say a word
to the squire. He knows not the secret you have discovered."

With those words Riccabocca turned slightly away, and Randal took the
hint to depart.

"At all times command and rely on me," said the young traitor, and he
regained the pale to which he had fastened his horse.

As he remounted, he cast his eyes towards the place where he had left
Riccabocca. The Italian was still standing there. Presently the form of
Jackeymo was seen emerging from the shrubs. Riccabocca turned hastily
round, recognized his servant, uttered an exclamation loud enough to
reach Randal's ear, and then, catching Jackeymo by the arm, disappeared
with him amidst the deep recesses of the garden.

"It will be indeed in my favour," thought Randal, as he rode on, "if I
can get them into the neighbourhood of London,--all occasion there to
woo, and if expedient, to win, the heiress."




CHAPTER VIII.

"Br the Lord, Harry!" cried the squire, as he stood with his wife in the
park, on a visit of inspection to some first-rate Southdowns just added
to his stock,--"by the Lord, if that is not Randal Leslie trying to get
into the park at the back gate! Hollo, Randal! you must come round by
the lodge, my boy," said he. "You see this gate is locked to keep out
trespassers."

"A pity," said Randal. "I like short cuts, and you have shut up a very
short one."

"So the trespassers said," quoth the squire; "but Stirn insisted on
it--valuable man, Stirn. But ride round to the lodge. Put up your horse,
and you'll join us before we can get to the house."

Randal nodded and smiled, and rode briskly on. The squire rejoined his
Harry.

"Ah, William," said she, anxiously, "though certainly Randal Leslie
means well, I always dread his visits."

"So do I, in one sense," quoth the squire, "for he always carries away a
bank-note for Frank."

"I hope he is really Frank's friend," said Mrs. Hazeldean. "Who's else
can he be? Not his own, poor fellow, for he will never accept a shilling
from me, though his grandmother was as good a Hazeldean as I am. But,
zounds, I like his pride, and his economy too. As for Frank--"

"Hush, William!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean, and put her fair hand before
the squire's mouth. The squire was softened, and kissed the fair hand
gallantly,--perhaps he kissed the lips too; at all events, the worthy
pair were walking lovingly arm-in-arm when Randal joined them.

He did not affect to perceive a certain coldness in the manner of Mrs.
Hazeldean, but began immediately to talk to her about Frank; praise that
young gentleman's appearance; expatiate on his health, his popularity,
and his good gifts, personal and mental,--and this with so much warmth,
that any dim and undeveloped suspicions Mrs. Hazeldean might have formed
soon melted away.

Randal continued to make himself thus agreeable, until the squire,
persuaded that his young kinsman was a first-rate agriculturalist,
insisted upon carrying him off to the home-farm; and Harry turned
towards the house; to order Randal's room to be got ready: "For," said
Randal, "knowing that you will excuse my morning dress, I venture to
invite myself to dine and sleep at the Hall."

On approaching the farm-buildings, Randal was seized with the terror of
an impostor; for, despite all the theoretical learning on Bucolics and
Georgics with which he had dazzled the squire, poor Frank, so despised,
would have beat him hollow when it came to the judging of the points of
an ox, or the show of a crop.

"Ha, ha," cried the squire, chuckling, "I long to see how you'll
astonish Stirn. Why, you'll guess in a moment where we put the
top-dressing; and when you come to handle my short-horns, I dare swear
you'll know to a pound how much oil-cake has gone into their sides."

"Oh, you do me too much honour,--indeed you do. I only know the general
principles of agriculture; the details are eminently interesting, but I
have not had the opportunity to acquire them."

"Stuff!" cried the squire. "How can a man know general principles unless
he has first studied the details? You are too modest, my boy. Ho!
there 's Stirn looking out for us!" Randal saw the grim visage of Stirn
peering out of a cattleshed, and felt undone. He made a desperate rush
towards changing the squire's humour.

"Well, sir, perhaps Frank may soon gratify your wish, and turn farmer
himself."

"Eh!" quoth the squire, stopping short,--"what now?"

"Suppose he were to marry?"

"I'd give him the two best farms on the property rent free. Ha, ha! Has
he seen the girl yet? I'd leave him free to choose; sir, I chose for
myself,--every man should. Not but what Miss Stick-to-rights is an
heiress, and, I hear, a very decent girl, and that would join the two
properties, and put an end to that law-suit about the right of way,
which began in the reign of King Charles the Second, and is likely
otherwise to last till the day of judgment. But never mind her; let
Frank choose to please himself."

"I'll not fail to tell him so, sir. I did fear you might have some
prejudices. But here we are at the farmyard."

"Burn the farmyard! How can I think of farmyards when you talk of
Frank's marriage? Come on--this way. What were you saying about
prejudices?"

"Why, you might wish him to marry an Englishwoman, for instance."

"English! Good heavens, sir, does he mean to marry a Hindoo?"

"Nay, I don't know that he means to marry at all; I am only surmising;
but if he did fall in love with a foreigner--"

"A foreigner! Ah, then Harry was--" The squire stopped short.

"Who might, perhaps," observed Randal--not truly, if he referred to
Madame di Negra--"who might, perhaps, speak very little English?"

"Lord ha' mercy!"

"And a Roman Catholic--"

"Worshipping idols, and roasting people who don't worship them."

"Signor Riccabocca is not so bad as that."

"Rickeybockey! Well, if it was his daughter! But not speak English!
and not go to the parish church! By George, if Frank thought of such a
thing, I'd cut him off with a shilling. Don't talk to me, sir; I would.
I 'm a mild man, and an easy man; but when I say a thing, I say it, Mr.
Leslie. Oh, but it is a jest,--you are laughing at me. There 's no such
painted good-for-nothing creature in Frank's eye, eh?"

"Indeed, sir, if ever I find there is, I will give you notice in
time. At present, I was only trying to ascertain what you wished for a
daughter-in-law. You said you had no prejudice."

"No more I have,--not a bit of it."

"You don't like a foreigner and a Catholic?"

"Who the devil would?"

"But if she had rank and title?"

"Rank and title! Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble
and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and
title!--foreign cabbage and beef!--foreign bubble and foreign squeak!"
And the squire made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust and
indignation.

"You must have an Englishwoman?"

"Of course."

"Money?"

"Don't care, provided she is a tidy, sensible, active lass, with a good
character for her dower."

"Character--ah, that is indispensable?"

"I should think so, indeed. A Mrs. Hazeldean of Hazeldean--You frighten
me. He's not going to run off with a divorced woman, or a--"

The squire stopped, and looked so red in the face that Randal feared he
might be seized with apoplexy before Frank's crimes had made him alter
his will.

Therefore he hastened to relieve Mr. Hazeldean's mind, and assured him
that he had been only talking at random; that Frank was in the habit,
indeed, of seeing foreign ladies occasionally, as all persons in the
London world were; but that he was sure Frank would never marry without
the full consent and approval of his parents. He ended by repeating his
assurance, that he would warn the squire if ever it became necessary.
Still, however, he left Mr. Hazeldean so disturbed and uneasy that that
gentleman forgot all about the farm, and went moodily on in the opposite
direction, reentering the park at its farther extremity. As soon as they
approached the house, the squire hastened to shut himself with his wife
in full parental consultation; and Randal, seated upon a bench on the
terrace, revolved the mischief he had done, and its chances of success.

While thus seated, and thus thinking, a footstep approached cautiously,
and a low voice said, in broken English, "Sare, sare, let me speak vid
you."

Randal turned in surprise, and beheld a swarthy, saturnine face, with
grizzled hair and marked features. He recognized the figure that had
joined Riccabocca in the Italian's garden. "Speak-a-you Italian?"
resumed Jackeymo.

Randal, who had made himself an excellent linguist, nodded assent; and
Jackeymo, rejoiced, begged him to withdraw into a more private part of
the grounds.

Randal obeyed, and the two gained the shade of a stately chestnut
avenue.

"Sir," then said Jackeymo, speaking in his native tongue, and expressing
himself with a certain simple pathos, "I am but a poor man; my name
is Giacomo. You have heard of me; servant to the signore whom you saw
to-day,--only a servant; but he honours me with his confidence. We have
known danger together; and of all his friends and followers, I alone
came with him to the stranger's land."

"Good, faithful fellow," said Randal, examining the man's face, "say on.
Your master confides in you? He has confided that which I told him this
day?"

"He did. Ah, sir; the padrone was too proud to ask you to explain
more,--too proud to show fear of another. But he does fear, he ought
to fear, he shall fear," continued Jackeymo, working himself up to
passion,--"for the padrone has a daughter, and his enemy is a villain.
Oh, sir, tell me all that you did not tell to the padrone. You hinted
that this man might wish to marry the signora. Marry her!--I could cut
his throat at the altar!"

"Indeed," said Randal, "I believe that such is his object."

"But why? He is rich, she is penniless,--no, not quite that, for we have
saved--but penniless, compared to him."

"My good friend, I know not yet his motives; but I can easily learn
them. If, however, this count be your master's enemy, it is surely well
to guard against him, whatever his designs; and to do so, you should
move into London or its neighbourhood. I fear that, while we speak, the
count may get upon his track."

"He had better not come here!" cried the servant, menacingly, and
putting his hand where the knife was not.

"Beware of your own anger, Giacomo. One act of violence, and you would
be transported from England, and your mast'r would lose a friend."

Jackeymo seemed struck by this caution.

"And if the padrone were to meet him, do you think the padrone would
meekly say, 'Come sta sa Signoria'? The padrone would strike him dead!"

"Hush! hush! You speak of what in England is called murder, and is
punished by the gallows. If you really love your master, for Heaven's
sake get him from this place, get him from all chance of such passion
and peril. I go to town to-morrow; I will find him a house, that shall
be safe from all spies, all discovery. And there, too, my friend. I can
do what I cannot at this distance,--watch over him, and keep watch also
on his enemy."

Jackeymo seized Randal's hand, and lifted it towards his lip; then, as
if struck by a sudden suspicion, dropped the hand, and said bluntly,
"Signore, I think you have seen the padrone twice. Why do you take this
interest in him?"

"Is it so uncommon to take interest even in a stranger who is menaced by
some peril?"

Jackeymo, who believed little in general philanthropy, shook his head
sceptically.

"Besides," continued Randal, suddenly bethinking himself of a more
plausible reason,--"besides, I am a friend and connection of Mr.
Egerton; and Mr. Egerton's most intimate friend is Lord L'Estrange; and
I have heard that Lord L'Estrange--"

"The good lord! Oh, now I understand," interrupted Jackeymo, and his
brow cleared. "Ah, if he were in England! But you will let us know when
he comes?"

"Certainly. Now, tell me, Giacomo, is this count really unprincipled and
dangerous? Remember I know him not personally."

"He has neither heart nor conscience."

"That defect makes him dangerous to men; perhaps not less so to women.
Could it be possible, if he obtained any interview with the signora,
that he could win her affections?" Jackeymo crossed himself rapidly and
made no answer.

"I have heard that he is still very handsome." Jackeymo groaned.

Randal resumed, "Enough; persuade the padrone to come to town."

"But if the count is in town?"

"That makes no difference; the safest place is always the largest city.
Everywhere else, a foreigner is in himself an object of attention and
curiosity."

"True."

"Let your master, then, come to London, or rather, into its
neighbourhood. He can reside in one of the suburbs most remote from the
count's haunts. In two days I will have found him a lodging and write to
him. You trust to me now?"

"I do indeed,--I do, Excellency. Ah, if the signorina were married, we
would not care!"

"Married! But she looks so high!"

"Alas! not now! not here!"

Randal sighed heavily. Jackeymo's eyes sparkled. He thought he had
detected a new motive for Randal's interest,--a motive to an Italian the
most natural, the most laudable of all.

"Find the house, Signore, write to the padrone. He shall come. I'll talk
to him. I can manage him. Holy San Giacomo, bestir thyself now,--'t is
long since I troubled thee!"

Jackeymo strode off through the fading trees, smiling and muttering as
he went.

The first dinner-bell rang, and on entering the drawingroom, Randal
found Parson Dale and his wife, who had been invited in haste to meet
the unexpected visitor.

The preliminary greetings over, Mr. Dale took the opportunity afforded
by the squire's absence to inquire after the health of Mr. Egerton.

"He is always well," said Randal. "I believe he is made of iron."

"His heart is of gold," said the parson.

"Ah," said Randal, inquisitively, "you told me you had come in contact
with him once, respecting, I think, some of your old parishioners at
Lansmere?"

The parson nodded, and there was a moment's silence.

"Do you remember your battle by the stocks, Mr. Leslie?" said Mr. Dale,
with a good-humoured laugh.

"Indeed, yes. By the way, now you speak of it, I met my old opponent in
London the first year I went up to it."

"You did! where?"

"At a literary scamp's,--a cleverish man called Burley."

"Burley! I have seen some burlesque verses in Greek by a Mr. Burley."

"No doubt the same person. He has disappeared,--gone to the dogs, I dare
say. Burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present."

"Well, but Leonard Fairfield--you have seen him since?"

"No."

"Nor heard of him?"

"No; have you?"

"Strange to say, not for a long time. But I have reason to believe that
he must be doing well."

"You surprise me! Why?"

"Because two years ago he sent for his mother. She went to him."

"Is that all?"

"It is enough; for he would not have sent for her if he could not
maintain her."

Here the Hazeldeans entered, arm-in-arm, and the fat butler announced
dinner.

The squire was unusually taciturn, Mrs. Hazeldean thoughtful, Mrs.
Dale languid and headachy. The parson, who seldom enjoyed the luxury of
converse with a scholar, save when he quarrelled with Dr. Riccaboeca,
was animated by Randal's repute for ability into a great desire for
argument.

"A glass of wine, Mr. Leslie. You were saying, before dinner, that
burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present. Pray,
Sir, what knowledge is in power?"

RANDAL (laconically).--"Practical knowledge."

PARSON.--"What of?"

RANDAL.--"Men."

PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I suppose that is the most available sort of
knowledge, in a worldly point of view. How does one learn it? Do books
help?"

RANDAL.--"According as they are read, they help or injure."

PARSON.--"How should they be read in order to help?"

RANDAL.--"Read specially to apply to purposes that lead to power."

PARSON (very much struck with Randal's pithy and Spartan logic).--"Upon
my word, Sir, you express yourself very well. I must own that I began
these questions in the hope of differing from you; for I like an
argument."

"That he does," growled the squire; "the most contradictory creature!"

PARSON.--"Argument is the salt of talk. But now I am afraid I must agree
with you, which I was not at all prepared for."

Randal bowed and answered, "No two men of our education can dispute upon
the application of knowledge."

PARSON (pricking up his ears).--"Eh?--what to?"

RANDAL.--"Power, of course."

PARSON (overjoyed).--"Power!--the vulgarest application of it, or the
loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?"

RANDAL (in his turn interested and interrogative).--"What do you call
the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?"

PARSON.--"The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, beneficence."

Randal suppressed the half-disdainful smile that rose to his lip.

"You speak, Sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire your sentiment, and
adopt it; but I fear that the knowledge which aims only at beneficence
very rarely in this world gets any power at all."

SQUIRE (seriously).--"That's true; I never get my own way when I want
to do a kindness, and Stirn always gets his when he insists on something
diabolically brutal and harsh."

PARSON.--"Pray, Mr. Leslie, what does intellectual power refined to the
utmost, but entirely stripped of beneficence, most resemble?"

RANDAL.--"Resemble?--I can hardly say. Some very great man--almost
any very great man--who has baffled all his foes, and attained all his
ends."

PARSON.--"I doubt if any man has ever become very great who has not
meant to be beneficent, though he might err in the means. Caesar was
naturally beneficent, and so was Alexander. But intellectual power
refined to the utmost, and wholly void of beneficence, resembles only
one being, and that, sir, is the Principle of Evil."

RANDAL (startled).--"Do you mean the Devil?"

PARSON.--"Yes, Sir, the Devil; and even he, Sir, did not succeed! Even
he, Sir, is what your great men would call a most decided failure."

MRS. DALE.--"My dear, my dear!"

PARSON.--"Our religion proves it, my love; he was an angel, and he
fell."

There was a solemn pause. Randal was more impressed than he liked to
own to himself. By this time the dinner was over, and the servants had
retired. Harry glanced at Carry. Carry smoothed her gown and rose.

The gentlemen remained over their wine; and the parson, satisfied with
what he deemed a clencher upon his favourite subject of discussion,
changed the subject to lighter topics, till, happening to fall upon
tithes, the squire struck in, and by dint of loudness of voice, and
truculence of brow, fairly overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to
his own satisfaction that tithes were an unjust and unchristianlike
usurpation on the part of the Church generally, and a most especial and
iniquitous infliction upon the Hazeldean estates in particular.




CHAPTER IX.

On entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two ladies seated close
together, in a position much more appropriate to the familiarity of
their school-days than to the politeness of the friendship now existing
between them. Mrs. Hazeldean's hand hung affectionately over Carry's
shoulder, and both those fair English faces were bent over the same
book. It was pretty to see these sober matrons, so different from
each other in character and aspect, thus unconsciously restored to the
intimacy of happy maiden youth by the golden link of some Magician from
the still land of Truth or Fancy, brought together in heart, as each eye
rested on the same thought; closer and closer, as sympathy, lost in the
actual world, grew out of that world which unites in one bond of feeling
the readers of some gentle book.

"And what work interests you so much?" asked Randal, pausing by the
table.

"One you have read, of course," replied Mrs. Dale, putting a book-mark
embroidered by herself into the page, and handing the volume to Randal.
"It has made a great sensation, I believe."

Randal glanced at the title of the work. "True," said he, "I have heard
much of it in London, but I have not yet had time to read it."

MRS. DALE.--"I can lend it to you, if you like to look over it to-night,
and you can leave it for me with Mrs. Hazeldean."

PARSON (approaching).--"Oh, that book!--yes, you must read it. I do not
know a work more instructive."

RANDAL.--"Instructive! Certainly I will read it then. But I thought it
was a mere work of amusement,--of fancy. It seems so as I look over it."

PARSON.--"So is the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' yet what book more
instructive?"

RANDAL.--"I should not have said that of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' A
pretty book enough, though the story is most improbable. But how is it
instructive?"

PARSON.--"By its results: it leaves us happier and better. What can any
instruction do more? Some works instruct through the head, some through
the heart. The last reach the widest circle, and often produce the most
genial influence on the character. This book belongs to the last. You
will grant my proposition when you have read it."

Randal smiled and took the volume.

MRS. DALE.--"Is the author known yet?"

RANDAL.--"I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but I believe no one
has claimed it."

PARSON.--"I think it must have been written by my old college friend,
Professor Moss, the naturalist,--its descriptions of scenery are so
accurate."

MRS. DALE.--"La, Charles dear! that snuffy, tiresome, prosy professor?
How can you talk such nonsense? I am sure the author must be young,
there is so much freshness of feeling."

MRS. HAZELDEAN (positively).--"Yes, certainly, young."

PARSON (no less positively).--"I should say just the contrary. Its tone
is too serene, and its style too simple, for a young man. Besides, I
don't know any young man who would send me his book, and this book has
been sent me, very handsomely bound, too, you see. Depend upon it Moss
is the loan--quite his turn of mind."

MRS. DALE.--"You are too provoking, Charles dear! Mr. Moss is so
remarkably plain, too."

RANDAL.--"Must an author be handsome?"

PARSON.--"Ha! ha! Answer that if you can, Carry." Carry remained mute
and disdainful.

SQUIRE (with great naivete).--"Well, I don't think there's much in the
book, whoever wrote it; for I've read it myself, and understand every
word of it."

MRS. DALE.--"I don't see why you should suppose it was written by a man
at all. For my part, I think it must be a woman."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Yes, there's a passage about maternal affection, which
only a woman could have written."

PARSON.--"Pooh! pooh! I should like to see a woman who could have
written that description of an August evening before a thunderstorm;
every wild-flower in the hedgerow exactly the flowers of August, every
sign in the air exactly those of the month. Bless you! a woman would
have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. Nobody else but my
friend Moss could have written that description."

SQUIRE.--"I don't know; there's a simile about the waste of corn-seed in
hand-sowing, which makes me think he must be a farmer!"

MRS. DALE (scornfully).--"A farmer! In hobnailed shoes, I suppose! I say
it is a woman."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"A WOMAN, and A MOTHER!"

PARSON.--"A middle-aged man, and a naturalist."

SQUIRE.--"No, no, Parson, certainly a young man; for that love-scene
puts me in mind of my own young days, when I would have given my ears
to tell Harry how handsome I thought her; and all I could say was, 'Fine
weather for the crops, Miss.' Yes, a young man and a farmer. I should
not wonder if he had held the plough himself."

RANDAL (who had been turning over the pages).--"This sketch of Night in
London comes from a man who has lived the life of cities and looked at
wealth with the eyes of poverty. Not bad! I will read the book."

"Strange," said the parson, smiling, "that this little work should so
have entered into our minds, suggested to all of us different ideas, yet
equally charmed all,--given a new and fresh current to our dull country
life, animated us as with the sight of a world in our breasts we had
never seen before save in dreams: a little work like this by a man we
don't know and never may! Well, that knowledge is power, and a noble
one!"

"A sort of power, certainly, sir," said Randal, candidly; and that
night, when Randal retired to his own room, he suspended his schemes and
projects, and read, as he rarely did, without an object to gain by the
reading.

The work surprised him by the pleasure it gave. Its charm lay in the
writer's calm enjoyment of the beautiful. It seemed like some happy
soul sunning itself in the light of its own thoughts. Its power was so
tranquil and even, that it was only a critic who could perceive how much
force and vigour were necessary to sustain the wing that floated aloft
with so imperceptible an effort. There was no one faculty predominating
tyrannically over the others; all seemed proportioned in the felicitous
symmetry of a nature rounded, integral, and complete. And when the work
was closed, it left behind it a tender warmth that played round the
heart of the reader and vivified feelings which seemed unknown before.
Randal laid down the book softly; and for five minutes the ignoble and
base purposes to which his own knowledge was applied stood before him,
naked and unmasked.

"Tut!" said he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign
influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with
Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such
should be the true use of books to him who has the practical world to
subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise, as they may!"

And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the intellect from which
the guide of Beneficence was gone.




CHAPTER X.

Randal rose at the sound of the first breakfast-bell, and on the
staircase met Mrs. Haaeldean. He gave her back the book; and as he
was about to speak, she beckoned to him to follow her into a little
morning-room appropriated to herself,--no boudoir of white and gold,
with pictures by Watteau, but lined with large walnut-tree presses,
that held the old heirloom linen, strewed with lavender, stores for the
housekeeper, and medicines for the poor.

Seating herself on a large chair in this sanctum, Mrs. Hazeldean looked
formidably at home.

"Pray," said the lady, coming at once to the point, with her usual
straightforward candour, "what is all this you have been saying to my
husband as to the possibility of Frank's marrying a foreigner?"

RANDAL.--"Would you be as averse to such a notion as Mr. Hazeldean is?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"You ask me a question, instead of answering mine."

Randal was greatly put out in his fence by these rude thrusts. For
indeed he had a double purpose to serve,--first, thoroughly to know if
Frank's marriage with a woman like Madame di Negra would irritate the
squire sufficiently to endanger the son's inheritance; and, secondly, to
prevent Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean believing seriously that such a marriage
was to be apprehended, lest they should prematurely address Frank on
the subject, and frustrate the marriage itself. Yet, withal, he must so
express himself, that he could not be afterwards accused by the parents
of disguising matters. In his talk to the squire the preceding day, he
had gone a little too far,--further than he would have done but for his
desire of escaping the cattle-shed and short-horns. While he mused,
Mrs. Hazeldean observed him with her honest sensible eyes, and finally
exclaimed,

"Out with it, Mr. Leslie!"

"Out with what, my dear madam? The squire has sadly exaggerated the
importance of what was said mainly in jest. But I will own to you
plainly, that Frank has appeared to me a little smitten with a certain
fair Italian."

"Italian!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean. "Well, I said so from the first.
Italian!--that's all, is it?" and she smiled. Randal was more and more
perplexed. The pupil of his eye contracted, as it does when we retreat
into ourselves, and think, watch, and keep guard.

"And perhaps," resumed Mrs. Hazeldean, with a very sunny expression of
countenance, "you have noticed this in Frank since he was here?"

"It is true," murmured Randal; "but I think his heart or his fancy was
touched even before."

"Very natural," said Mrs. Hazeldean; "how could he help it?--such a
beautiful creature! Well, I must not ask you to tell Frank's secrets;
but I guess the object of attraction; and though she will have no
fortune to speak of, and it is not such a match as he might form, still
she is so amiable, and has been so well brought up, and is so little
like one's general notions of a Roman Catholic, that I think I could
persuade Hazeldean into giving his consent."

"Ah," said Randal, drawing a long breath, and beginning, with his
practised acuteness, to detect Mrs. Ilazeldean's error, "I am very much
relieved and rejoiced to hear this; and I may venture to give Frank some
hope, if I find him disheartened and desponding, poor fellow?"

"I think you may," replied Mrs. Hazeldean, laughing pleasantly. "But you
should not have frightened poor William so, hinting that the lady knew
very little English. She has an accent, to be sure; but she speaks our
tongue very prettily. I always forget that she 's not English born! Ha,
ha, poor William!"

RANDAL.--"Ha, ha!"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"We had once thought of another match for Frank,--a
girl of good English family."

RANDAL.--"Miss Sticktorights?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"No; that's an old whim of Hazeldean's. But I doubt if
the Sticktorights would ever merge their property in ours. Bless you! it
would be all off the moment they came to settlements, and had to give up
the right of way. We thought of a very different match; but there's no
dictating to young hearts, Mr. Leslie."

RANDAL.--"Indeed no, Mrs. Hazeldean. But since we now understand each
other so well, excuse me if I suggest that you had better leave things
to themselves, and not write to Frank on the subject. Young hearts, you
know, are often stimulated by apparent difficulties, and grow cool when
the obstacle vanishes."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Very possibly; it was not so with Hazeldean and
me. But I shall not write to Frank on the subject for a different
reason--though I would consent to the match, and so would William; yet
we both would rather, after all, that Frank married an Englishwoman, and
a Protestant. We will not, therefore, do anything to encourage the idea.
But if Frank's happiness becomes really at stake, then we will step in.
In short, we would neither encourage nor oppose. You understand?"

"Perfectly."

"And in the mean while, it is quite right that Frank should see the
world, and try to distract his mind, or at least to know it. And I dare
say it has been some thought of that kind which has prevented his coming
here."

Randal, dreading a further and plainer eclaircissement, now rose, and
saying, "Pardon me, but I must hurry over breakfast, and be back in time
to catch the coach"--offered his arm to his hostess, and led her into
the breakfast-parlour. Devouring his meal, as if in great haste, he
then mounted his horse, and, taking cordial leave of his entertainers,
trotted briskly away.

All things favoured his project,--even chance had befriended him in Mrs.
Hazeldean's mistake. She had, not unnaturally, supposed Violante to have
captivated Frank on his last visit to the Hall. Thus, while Randal had
certified his own mind that nothing could more exasperate the squire
than an alliance with Madame di Negra, he could yet assure Frank that
Mrs. Hazeldean was all on his side. And when the error was discovered,
Mrs. Hazeldean would only have to blame herself for it. Still more
successful had his diplomacy proved with the Riccaboccas: he had
ascertained the secret he had come to discover; he should induce the
Italian to remove to the neighbourhood of London; and if Violante were
the great heiress he suspected her to prove, whom else of her own age
would she see but him? And the old Leslie domains to be sold in two
years--a portion of the dowry might purchase them! Flushed by the
triumph of his craft, all former vacillations of conscience ceased. In
high and fervent spirits he passed the Casino, the garden of which
was solitary and deserted, reached his home, and, telling Oliver to be
studious, and Juliet to be patient, walked thence to meet the coach and
regain the capital.




CHAPTER XI.

Violante was seated in her own little room, and looking from the window
on the terrace that stretched below. The day was warm for the time of
year. The orange-trees had been removed under shelter for the approach
of winter; but where they had stood sat Mrs. Riccabocca at work. In the
belvidere, Riccabocca himself was conversing with his favourite servant.
But the casements and the door of the belvidere were open; and where
they sat, both wife and daughter could see the padrone leaning against
the wall, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the floor; while
Jackeymo, with one finger on his master's arm, was talking to him with
visible earnestness. And the daughter from the window and the wife from
her work directed tender, anxious eyes towards the still, thoughtful
form so dear to both. For the last day or two, Riccabocca had been
peculiarly abstracted, even to gloom. Each felt there was something
stirring at his heart,--neither, as yet, knew what.

Violante's room silently revealed the nature of the education by which
her character had been formed. Save a sketchbook, which lay open on a
desk at hand, and which showed talent exquisitely taught (for in this
Riccabocca had been her teacher), there was nothing that spoke of the
ordinary female accomplishments. No piano stood open, no harp occupied
yon nook, which seemed made for one; no broidery-frame, nor implements
of work, betrayed the usual and graceful resources of a girl; but ranged
on shelves against the wall were the best writers in English, Italian,
and French; and these betokened an extent of reading, that he who wishes
for a companion to his mind in the sweet commune of woman, which softens
and refines all it gives and takes in interchange, will never condemn as
masculine. You had but to look into Violante's face to see how noble
was the intelligence that brought soul to those lovely features. Nothing
hard, nothing dry and stern was there. Even as you detected knowledge,
it was lost in the gentleness of grace. In fact, whatever she gained in
the graver kinds of information became transmuted, through her heart and
her fancy, into spiritual, golden stores. Give her some tedious and arid
history, her imagination seized upon beauties other readers had
passed by, and, like the eye of the artist, detected everywhere the
Picturesque. Something in her mind seemed to reject all that was mean
and commonplace, and to bring out all that was rare and elevated in
whatever it received. Living so apart from all companions of her age,
she scarcely belonged to the present time. She dwelt in the Past, as
Sabrina in her crystal well. Images of chivalry, of the Beautiful and
the Heroic,--such as, in reading the silvery line of Tasso, rise before
us, softening force and valour into love and song,--haunted the reveries
of the fair Italian maid.

Tell us not that the Past, examined by cold Philosophy, was no better
and no loftier than the Present: it is not thus seen by pure and
generous eyes. Let the Past perish, when it ceases to reflect on its
magic mirror the beautiful Romance which is its noblest reality, though
perchance but the shadow of Delusion.

Yet Violante was not merely the dreamer. In her, life was so
puissant and rich, that action seemed necessary to its glorious
development,--action, but still in the woman's sphere,--action to bless
and to refine and to exalt all around her, and to pour whatever else of
ambition was left unsatisfied into sympathy with the aspirations of man.
Despite her father's fears of the bleak air of England, in that air she
had strengthened the delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic
step, her eyes full of sweetness and light, her bloom, at once soft and
luxuriant,--all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such
exquisite mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could
ennoble the passions of the South with the purity and devotion of the
North. Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more bold. Violante
was fearless. When she spoke, her eyes frankly met your own; and she
was so ignorant of evil, that as yet she seemed nearly unacquainted
with shame. From this courage, combined with affluence of idea, came a
delightful flow of happy converse. Though possessing so imperfectly
the accomplishments ordinarily taught to young women, and which may be
cultured to the utmost, and yet leave the thoughts so barren, and the
talk so vapid, she had that accomplishment which most pleases the taste,
and commands the love, of the man of talent; especially if his talent be
not so actively employed as to make him desire only relaxation where
he seeks companionship,--the accomplishment of facility in intellectual
interchange, the charm that clothes in musical words beautiful womanly
ideas.

"I hear him sigh at this distance," said Violante, softly, as she still
watched her father; "and methinks this is a new grief, and not for
his country. He spoke twice yesterday of that dear English friend, and
wished that he were here."

As she said this, unconsciously the virgin blushed, her hands drooped on
her knee, and she fell herself into thought as profound as her father's,
but less gloomy. From her arrival in England, Violante had been taught
a grateful interest in the name of Harley L'Estrange. Her father,
preserving a silence that seemed disdain of all his old Italian
intimates, had been pleased to converse with open heart of the
Englishman who had saved where countrymen had betrayed. He spoke of the
soldier, then in the full bloom of youth, who, unconsoled by fame, had
nursed the memory of some hidden sorrow amidst the pine-trees that cast
their shadow over the sunny Italian lake; how Riccabocca, then honoured
and happy, had courted from his seclusion the English signore, then the
mourner and the voluntary exile; how they had grown friends amidst
the landscapes in which her eyes had opened to the day; how Harley
had vainly warned him from the rash schemes in which he had sought to
reconstruct in an hour the ruins of weary ages; how, when abandoned,
deserted, proscribed, pursued, he had fled for life, the infant Violante
clasped to his bosom, the English soldier had given him refuge, baffled
the pursuers, armed his servants, accompanied the fugitive at night
towards the defile in the Apennines, and, when the emissaries of a
perfidious enemy, hot in the chase, came near, had said, "You have your
child to save! Fly on! Another league, and you are beyond the borders.
We will delay the foes with parley; they will not harm us." And not
till escape was gained did the father know that the English friend
had delayed the foe, not by parley, but by the sword, holding the pass
against numbers, with a breast as dauntless as Bayard's on the glorious
bridge.

And since then, the same Englishman had never ceased to vindicate his
name, to urge his cause; and if hope yet remained of restoration to land
and honours, it was in that untiring zeal.

Hence, naturally and insensibly, this secluded and musing girl had
associated all that she read in tales of romance and chivalry with
the image of the brave and loyal stranger. He it was who animated her
drearhs of the Past, and seemed born to be, in the destined hour, the
deliverer of the Future. Around this image grouped all the charms that
the fancy of virgin woman can raise from the enchanted lore of old
Heroic Fable. Once in her early girlhood, her father (to satisfy her
curiosity, eager for general description) had drawn from memory a sketch
of the features of the Englishman,--drawn Harley, as he was in that
first youth, flattered and idealized, no doubt, by art, and by partial
gratitude, but still resembling him as he was then, while the deep
mournfulness of recent sorrow yet shadowed and concentrated all the
varying expressions of his countenance; and to look on him was to say,
"So sad, yet so young!" Never did Violante pause to remember that the
same years which ripened herself from infancy into woman were passing
less gently over that smooth cheek and dreamy brow,--that the world
might be altering the nature as time the aspect. To her the hero of the
Ideal remained immortal in bloom and youth. Bright illusion, common to
us all, where Poetry once hallows the human form! Who ever thinks of
Petrarch as the old, timeworn man? 'Who does not see him as when he
first gazed on Laura?--

       "Ogni altra cosa ogni pensier va fore;
        E sol ivi con voi rimansi Amore!"



CHAPTER XII.

And Violante, thus absorbed in revery, forgot to keep watch on the
belvidere. And the belvidere was now deserted. The wife, who had no
other ideal to distract her thoughts, saw Riccabocca pass into the
house.

The exile entered his daughter's room, and she started to feel his hand
upon her locks and his kiss upon her brow. "My child!" cried Riccabocca,
seating himself, "I have resolved to leave for a time this retreat, and
to seek the neighbourhood of London."

"Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought? But what can be your
reason? Do not turn away; you know how care fully I have obeyed your
command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me."

"I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, with emotion. "I leave this place
in the fear lest my enemies discover me. I shall say to others that you
are of an age to require teachers not to be obtained here, but I should
like none to know where we go."

The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and hanging his
head. He said them in shame.

"My mother--[so Violante always called Jemima]--my mother--you have
spoken to her?"

"Not yet. THERE is the difficulty."

"No difficulty, for she loves you so well," replied Violante, with soft
reproach. "Ah, why not also confide in her? Who so true, so good?"

"Good--I grant it!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "What then? _'Da cattiva Donna
guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente.'_--[From the bad woman, guard
thyself; to the good woman trust nothing.]--And if you must trust,"
added the abominable man, "trust her with anything but a secret!"

"Fie," said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew her father's
humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally,--"fie
on your consistency, Padre Carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to
me?"

"You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the
secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will
stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we
shall leave to-night." Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried
away, and with a firm step strode the terrace, and approached his wife.
"Anima mia," said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising in the tenderest
words the cruellest intentions,--for one of his most cherished Italian
proverbs was to the effect that there is no getting on with a mule or
a woman unless you coax them,--"Anima mia, soul of my being, you have
already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here."

"She, poor child! Oh, no!"

"She does, core of my heart,--she does, and is as ignorant of music as I
am of tent-stitch."

"She sings beautifully."

"Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut.
Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to
take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We
shall see."

"All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?"

"We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,--you--"

"Ah!" interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands.

Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted
into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He
put his arm round his wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without
a single proverb at his heart. "Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be
back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss,
and there is so much to see to at home."

Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arm. She withdrew her
hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.

"Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me! What you think good, that
shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because
of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years
in which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your
breast,--all these years in which I have had no thought but, however
humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you
had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child,--I grieve
to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood
by my side at the altar."

"Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; "why
do you say 'trust'? In what have I distrusted you? I am sure," he
continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, "that I never doubted
your fidelity, hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never
pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never
heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept
the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs. Riccabocca
refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she
seemed scarcely to hear them.

"Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still
its struggles for relief in sobs,--"can you think that I could have
watched and thought and taxed my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture
what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that
you have secrets known to your daughter, your servant, not to me? Fear
not,--the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your
innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature; and do I not love
you because I know it?--it is for something connected with those
secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be incautious,
imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare
for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband." Mrs.
Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm. "O
Father, can you resist this? Trust her! trust her!--I am a woman like
her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself,--ever nobler than all
others, my own father."

"Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca.
"Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I
feared, and would be cautious?"

"For mine! Oh, then do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of
meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter,--the descendant of men who
never feared?" Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended
she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now
gained.

"Jemima, wife mine! pardon, pardon," cried the Italian, whose heart had
been yearning to repay such tenderness and devotion,--"come back to
my breast--it has been long closed,--it shall be open to you now and
forever."

In another moment the wife was in her right place,--on her husband's
bosom; and Violante, beautiful peacemaker, stood smiling awhile at both,
and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven and stole away.




CHAPTER XIII.

On Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumours
in the streets, and at the clubs, of the probable downfall of the
Government at the approaching session of parliament. These rumours had
sprung up suddenly, as if in an hour. True that, for some time, the
sagacious had shaken their heads and said, "Ministers could not last."
True, that certain changes in policy, a year or two before, had divided
the party on which the Government depended, and strengthened that which
opposed it. But still the more important members of that Government
had been so long identified with official station, and there seemed so
little power in the Opposition to form a Cabinet of names familiar to
official ears, that the general public had anticipated, at most, a few
partial changes. Rumour now went far beyond this. Randal, whose whole
prospects at present were but reflections from the greatness of
his patron, was alarmed. He sought Egerton, but the minister was
impenetrable, and seemed calm, confident, and imperturbed. Somewhat
relieved, Randal then set himself to work to find a safe home for
Riccabocca; for the greater need to succeed in obtaining fortune there,
if he failed in getting it through Egerton. He found a quiet house,
detached and secluded, in the neighbourhood of Norwood. No vicinity
more secure from espionage and remark. He wrote to Riccabocca, and
communicated the address, adding fresh assurances of his own power to
be of use. The next morning he was seated in his office, thinking
very little of the details, that he mastered, however, with mechanical
precision, when the minister who presided over that department of the
public service sent for him into his private room, and begged him to
take a letter to Egerton, with whom he wished to consult relative to a
very important point to be decided in the Cabinet that day. "I want you
to take it," said the minister, smiling (the minister was a frank homely
man), "because you are in Mr. Egerton's confidence, and he may give
you some verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is often over
cautious and brief in the litera scripta."

Randal went first to Egerton's neighbouring office--Egerton had not been
there that day. He then took a cabriolet and drove to Grosvenor Square.
A quiet-looking chariot was at the door. Mr. Egerton was at home; but
the servant said, "Dr. F----- is with him, sir; and perhaps he may not
like to be disturbed."

"What! is your master ill?"

"Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But he has looked
poorly the last day or two."

Randal hesitated a moment; but his commission might be important, and
Egerton was a man who so held the maxim that health and all else must
give way to business, that he resolved to enter; and, unannounced and
unceremoniously, as was his wont, he opened the door of the library. He
started as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back on the sofa, and
the doctor, on his knees before him, was applying the stethoscope to his
breast. Egerton's eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at
the noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. "Who's that? How
dare you?" he exclaimed, in a voice of great anger. Then recognizing
Randal, he changed colour, bit his lip, and muttered dryly, "I beg
pardon for my abruptness; what do you want, Mr. Leslie?"

"This letter from Lord--; I was told to deliver it immediately into your
own hands. I beg pardon--"

"There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. "I have had a slight attack
of bronchitis; and as parliament meets so soon, I must take advice from
my doctor, if I would be heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the
table, and be kind enough to wait for my reply."

Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in that house before,
and it seemed surprising that Egerton should even take a medical opinion
upon a slight attack. While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock
at the street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well dressed,
was shown in, and honoured Randal with an easy and half-familiar bow.
Randal remembered to have met this personage at dinner, and at the house
of a young nobleman of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him,
and did not even know him by name. The visitor was better informed.

"Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr. Leslie," said he, arranging the
camellia in his button-hole.

"Our friend Egerton!" It must be a very great man to say "Our friend
Egerton."

"He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned Randal, glancing his
shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's person.

"I trust not; my time is almost as precious as his own. I was not so
fortunate as to be presented to you when we met at Lord Spendquick's.
Good fellow, Spendquick; and decidedly clever."

Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman without three ideas.

Randal smiled.

In the mean while the visitor had taken out a card from an embossed
morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, who read thereon, "Baron
Levy, No.--, Bruton St."

The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name too often on the lips
of men of fashion not to have reached the ears of an habitue of good
society.

Mr. Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of late years
relinquished his ostensible calling: and not long since, in consequence
of some services towards the negotiation of a loan, had been created a
baron by one of the German kings. The wealth of Mr. Levy was said to be
only equalled by his good-nature to all who were in want of a temporary
loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it some day or other.

You seldom saw a finer-looking man than Baron Levy, about the same age
as Egerton, but looking younger: so well preserved, such magnificent
black whiskers, such superb teeth! Despite his name and his dark
complexion, he did not, however, resemble a Jew,--at least externally;
and, in fact, he was not a Jew on the father's side, but the natural son
of a rich English grand seigneur, by a Hebrew lady of distinction--in
the opera. After his birth, this lady had married a German trader of
her own persuasion, and her husband had been prevailed upon, for the
convenience of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him
his own Hebrew name. Mr. Levy, senior, was soon left a widower, and then
the real father, though never actually owning the boy, had shown him
great attention,--had him frequently at his house, initiated him betimes
into his own high-born society, for which the boy showed great taste.
But when my Lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to the younger
Levy, who was then about eighteen, that ambiguous person was articled to
an attorney by his putative sire, who shortly afterwards returned to his
native land, and was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be
seen. Young Levy, however, contrived to do very well without him. His
real birth was generally known, and rather advantageous to him in a
social point of view. His legacy enabled him to become a partner
where he had been a clerk, and his practice became great amongst the
fashionable classes of society. Indeed he was so useful, so pleasant,
so much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his
clients,--chiefly young men of rank; was on good terms with both Jew
and Christian; and being neither one nor the other, resembled (to use
Sheridan's incomparable simile) the blank page between the Old and the
New Testament.

Vulgar some might call Mr. Levy from his assurance, but it was not the
vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coarse society,--rather the
mauvais ton of a person not sure of his own position, but who has
resolved to swagger into the best one he can get. When it is remembered
that he had made his way in the world, and gleaned together an immense
fortune, it is needless to add that he was as sharp as a needle, and as
hard as a flint. No man had had more friends, and no man had stuck by
them more firmly--so long as there was a pound in their pockets!

Something of this character had Randal heard of the baron, and he now
gazed, first at his card, and then at him with--admiration.

"I met a friend of yours at Borrowell's the other day," resumed the
baron,--"young Hazeldean. Careful fellow--quite a man of the world."

As this was the last praise poor Frank deserved, Randal again smiled.

The baron went on: "I hear, Mr. Leslie, that you have much influence
over this same Hazeldean. His affairs are in a sad state. I should be
very happy to be of use to him, as a relation of my friend Egerton's;
but he understands business so well that he despises my advice."

"I am sure you do him injustice."

"Injustice! I honour his caution. I say to every man, 'Don't come to me:
I can get you money on much easier terms than any one else; and what's
the result! You come so often that you ruin yourself; whereas a regular
usurer without conscience frightens you. 'Cent percent,' you say; 'oh, I
must pull in.' If you have influence over your friend, tell him to stick
to his bill-brokers, and have nothing to do with Baron Levy."

Here the minister's bell rung, and Randal, looking through the window,
saw Dr. F----- walking to his carriage, which had made way for Baron
Levy's splendid cabriolet,--a cabriolet in the most perfect taste,
baron's coronet on the dark-brown panels, horse black, with such
action! harness just relieved with plating. The servant now entered, and
requested Randal to step in; and addressing the baron, assured him that
he would not be detained a minute.

"Leslie," said the minister, sealing a note, "take this back to Lord
------, and say that I shall be with him in an hour."

"No other message?--he seemed to expect one."

"I dare say he did. Well, my letter is official, my message is not: beg
him to see Mr. ----- before we meet,--he will understand,--all rests
upon that interview."

Egerton then, extending the letter, resumed gravely, "Of course you will
not mention to any one that Dr. F----- was with me: the health of public
men is not to be suspected. Hum,--were you in your own room or the
ante-room?"

"The ante-room, sir."

Egerton's brow contracted slightly. "And Mr. Levy was there, eh?"

"Yes--the baron."

"Baron! true. Come to plague me about the Mexican loan, I suppose. I
will keep you no longer."

Randal, much meditating, left the house, and re-entered his hack cab.
The baron was admitted to the statesman's presence.




CHAPTER XIV.

Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position
exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy
entered, there was something singularly different from that stateliness
of port common to the austere legislator. The very tone of his voice
was different. It was as if the statesman, the man of business, had
vanished; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler who, nodding
languidly to his visitor, said, "Levy, what money can I have for a
year?"

"The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, that last
election was the very devil. You cannot go on thus much longer."

"My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow"!
And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though
his lip curled.

"I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the
curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile,
bear L5,000 more."

"A hard pull on it. You had really better sell."

"I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley
Egerton is done up,--his property is for sale.'"

"It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may
be yet!"

"Be yet! How?"

Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors,--thick and
impervious, as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that,
with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks
of three nations, that might give us each a hundred thousand pounds. We
would go shares."

"Levy," said Egerton, coldly, though a deep blush overspread his face,
"you are a scoundrel; that is your look-out. I interfere with no man's
tastes and conscience. I don't intend to be a scoundrel myself. I have
told you that long ago."

The usurer's brows darkened, but he dispelled the cloud with an easy
laugh.

"Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimentary, but you shall
have the money. But yet, would it not be better," added Levy, with
emphasis, "to borrow it without interest, of your friend L'Estrange?"

Egerton started as if stung.

"You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed passionately. "I accept
pecuniary favours from Lord L'Estrange!--I!"

"Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not think so ill now of
that act in your life which--"

"Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!"

He stopped, and paced the room, muttering, in broken sentences, "To
blush before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!"

Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned
abruptly.

"Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure, "you hate me--why, I
know not."

"Hate you! How have I shown hatred? Would you ever have lived in this
palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its
ministers, but for my management, my whispers to the wealthy Miss
Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been,--perhaps a beggar."

"What shall I be now, if I live? And this fortune which my marriage
brought to me--it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be
patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the
world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that
he has the right to despise me!"

"Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need
not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling
to Lord L'Estrange? Again, dismiss from your mind the absurd thought
that I hate you. True, you snub me in private, you cut me in public,
you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still,
there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do
you want the L5,000?"

"Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready
when required."

"Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?"

"None."

"I will take my leave, then. By-the-by, what do you suppose the
Hazeldean rental is worth--net?"

"I don't know, nor care. You have no designs upon that too?"

"Well, I like keeping up family connections. Mr. Frank seems a liberal
young gentleman."

Before Egerton could answer, the baron had glided to the door, and,
nodding pleasantly, vanished with that nod. Egerton remained, standing
on his solitary hearth. A drear, single man's room it was, from wall
to wall, despite its fretted ceilings and official pomp of Brahmah
escritoires and red boxes. Drear and cheerless,--no trace of woman's
habitation, no vestige of intruding, happy children. There stood the
austere man alone. And then with a deep sigh he muttered, "Thank Heaven,
not for long,--it will not last long."

Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed
his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm had shot through it.

"So--I must shun all emotion!" said he, shaking his head gently.

In five minutes more Audley Egerton was in the streets, his mien erect,
and his step firm as ever.

"That man is made of bronze," said a leader of the Opposition to a
friend as they rode past the minister. "What would I not give for his
nerves!"




BOOK NINTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

ON PUBLIC LIFE.

Now that I am fairly in the heart of my story, these preliminary
chapters must shrink into comparatively small dimensions, and not
encroach upon the space required by the various personages whose
acquaintance I have picked up here and there, and who are now all
crowding upon me like poor relations to whom one has unadvisedly given
a general invitation, and who descend upon one simultaneously about
Christmas time. Where they are to be stowed, and what is to become of
them all, Heaven knows; in the mean while, the reader will have already
observed that the Caxton Family themselves are turned out of their own
rooms, sent a packing, in order to make way for the new comers.

But to proceed: Note the heading to the present Chapter, "ON PUBLIC
LIFE,"--a thesis pertinent to this portion of my narrative; and if
somewhat trite in itself, the greater is the stimulus to suggest thereon
some original hints for reflection.

Were you ever in public life, my dear reader? I don't mean, by that
question, to ask whether you were ever Lord Chancellor, Prime Minister,
Leader of the Opposition, or even a member of the House of Commons. An
author hopes to find readers far beyond that very egregious but very
limited segment of the Great Circle. Were you ever a busy man in your
vestry, active in a municipal corporation, one of a committee for
furthering the interests of an enlightened candidate for your native
burgh, town, or shire,--in a word, did you ever resign your private
comforts as men in order to share the public troubles of mankind? If
ever you have so far departed from the Lucretian philosophy, just look
back--was it life at all that you lived? Were you an individual
distinct existence,--a passenger in the railway,--or were you merely
an indistinct portion of that common flame which heated the boiler and
generated the steam that set off the monster train?--very hot, very
active, very useful, no doubt; but all your identity fused in flame, and
all your forces vanishing in gas.

And do you think the people in the railway carriages care for you? Do
you think that the gentleman in the worsted wrapper is saying to his
neighbour with the striped rug on his comfortable knees, "How grateful
we ought to be for that fiery particle which is crackling and hissing
under the boiler. It helps us on a fraction of an inch from Vauxhall
to Putney!" Not a bit of it. Ten to one but he is saying, "Not sixteen
miles an hour! What the deuce is the matter with the stoker?"

Look at our friend Audley Egerton. You have just had a glimpse of the
real being that struggles under the huge copper; you have heard the
hollow sound of the rich man's coffers under the tap of Baron Levy's
friendly knuckle, heard the strong man's heart give out its dull warning
sound to the scientific ear of Dr. F-----. And away once more vanishes
the separate existence, lost again in the flame that heats the boiler,
and the smoke that curls into air from the grimy furnace.

Look to it, O Public Man, whoever thou art, and whatsoever thy
degree,--see if thou canst not compound matters, so as to keep a little
nook apart for thy private life; that is, for thyself! Let the Great
Popkins Question not absorb wholly the individual soul of thee, as Smith
or Johnson. Don't so entirely consume thyself under that insatiable
boiler, that when thy poor little monad rushes out from the sooty
furnace, and arrives at the stars, thou mayest find no vocation for
thee there, and feel as if thou hadst nothing to do amidst the still
splendours of the Infinite. I don't deny to thee the uses of "Public
Life;" I grant that it is much to have helped to carry that Great
Popkins Question; but Private Life, my friend, is the life of thy
private soul; and there may be matters concerned with that which, on
consideration, thou mayest allow cannot be wholly mixed up with the
Great Popkins Question, and were not finally settled when thou didst
exclaim, "I have not lived in vain,--the Popkins Question is carried
at last!" Oh, immortal soul, for one quarter of an hour per diem
de-Popkinize thine immortality!




CHAPTER II.

It had not been without much persuasion on the part of Jackeymo that
Riccabocca had consented to settle himself in the house which Randal had
recommended to him. Not that the exile conceived any suspicion of the
young man beyond that which he might have shared with Jackeymo, namely,
that Randal's interest in the father was increased by a very natural
and excusable admiration of the daughter; but the Italian had the pride
common to misfortune,--he did not like to be indebted to others, and he
shrank from the pity of those to whom it was known that he had held a
higher station in his own land. These scruples gave way to the strength
of his affection for his daughter and his dread of his foe. Good men,
however able and brave, who have suffered from the wicked, are apt to
form exaggerated notions of the power that has prevailed against
them. Jackeymo had conceived a superstitious terror of Peschiera; and
Riccabocca, though by no means addicted to superstition, still had a
certain creep of the flesh whenever he thought of his foe.

But Riccabocca--than whom no man was more physically brave, and no man,
in some respects, more morally timid--feared the count less as a foe
than as a gallant. He remembered his kinsman's surpassing beauty, the
power he had obtained over women. He knew him versed in every art that
corrupts, and wholly void of the conscience that deters. And Riccabocca
had unhappily nursed himself into so poor an estimate of the female
character, that even the pure and lofty nature of Violante did not seem
to him a sufficient safeguard against the craft and determination of a
practised and remorseless intriguer. But of all the precautions he
could take, none appeared more likely to conduce to safety than his
establishing a friendly communication with one who professed to be able
to get at all the count's plans and movements, and who could apprise
Riccabocca at once should his retreat be discovered. "Forewarned is
forearmed," said he to himself, in one of the proverbs common to all
nations. However, as with his usual sagacity he came to reflect upon the
alarming intelligence conveyed to him by Randal, namely, that the
count sought his daughter's hand, he divined that there was some strong
personal interest under such ambition; and what could be that interest
save the probability of Riccabocca's ultimate admission to the Imperial
grace, and the count's desire to assure himself of the heritage to an
estate that he might be permitted to retain no more? Riccabocca was
not indeed aware of the condition (not according to usual customs in
Austria) on which the count held the forfeited domains. He knew not that
they had been granted merely on pleasure; but he was too well aware of
Peschiera's nature to suppose that he would woo a bride without a
dower, or be moved by remorse in any overture of reconciliation. He
felt assured too--and this increased all his fears--that Peschiera would
never venture to seek an interview with himself; all the count's designs
on Violante would be dark, secret, and clandestine. He was perplexed and
tormented by the doubt whether or not to express openly to Violante his
apprehensions of the nature of the danger to be apprehended. He had
told her vaguely that it was for her sake that he desired secrecy and
concealment. But that might mean anything: what danger to himself would
not menace her? Yet to say more was so contrary to a man of his Italian
notions and Machiavellian maxims! To say to a young girl, "There is a
man come over to England on purpose to woo and win you. For Heaven's
sake take care of him; he is diabolically handsome; he never fails
where he sets his heart.--Cospetto!" cried the doctor, aloud, as these
admonitions shaped themselves to speech in the camera obscura of his
brain; "such a warning would have undone a Cornelia while she was yet
an innocent spinster." No, he resolved to say nothing to Violante of the
count's intention, only to keep guard, and make himself and Jackeymo all
eyes and all ears.

The house Randal had selected pleased Riccabocca at first glance. It
stood alone, upon a little eminence; its upper windows commanded the
high road. It had been a school, and was surrounded by high walls, which
contained a garden and lawn sufficiently large for exercise. The garden
doors were thick, fortified by strong bolts, and had a little wicket
lattice, shut and opened at pleasure, from which Jackeymo could inspect
all visitors before he permitted them to enter.

An old female servant from the neighbourhood was cautiously hired;
Riccabocca renounced his Italian name, and abjured his origin. He spoke
English sufficiently well to think he could pass as an Englishman. He
called himself Mr. Richmouth (a liberal translation of Riccabocca). He
bought a blunderbuss, two pairs of pistols, and a huge housedog.
Thus provided for, he allowed Jackeymo to write a line to Randal and
communicate his arrival.

Randal lost no time in calling. With his usual adaptability and his
powers of dissimulation, he contrived easily to please Mrs. Riccabocca,
and to increase the good opinion the exile was disposed to form of him.
He engaged Violante in conversation on Italy and its poets. He promised
to bring her books. He began, though more distantly than he could have
desired,--for her sweet stateliness awed him,--the preliminaries of
courtship. He established himself at once as a familiar guest, riding
down daily in the dusk of evening, after the toils of office, and
returning at night. In four or five days he thought he had made great
progress with all. Riccabocca watched him narrowly, and grew absorbed
in thought after every visit. At length one night, when he and Mrs.
Riccabocca were alone in the drawing-room, Violante having retired to
rest, he thus spoke as he filled his pipe,--

"Happy is the man who has no children! Thrice happy he who has no
girls!"

"My dear Alphonso!" said the wife, looking up from the waistband to
which she was attaching a neat mother-o'-pearl button. She said no more;
it was the sharpest rebuke she was in the custom of administering to her
husband's cynical and odious observations. Riccabocca lighted his pipe
with a thread paper, gave three great puffs, and resumed,

"One blunderbuss, four pistols, and a house-dog called Pompey, who would
have made mincemeat of Julius Caesar!"

"He certainly eats a great deal, does Pompey!" said Mrs. Riccabocca,
simply. "But if he relieves your mind!"

"He does not relieve it in the least, ma'am," groaned Riccabocca; "and
that is the point I am coming to. This is a most harassing life, and a
most undignified life. And I who have only asked from Heaven dignity
and repose! But if Violante were once married, I should want neither
blunderbuss, pistol, nor Pompey. And it is that which would relieve my
mind, cara mia,--Pompey only relieves my larder."

Now Riccabocca had been more communicative to Jemima than he had been to
Violante. Having once trusted her with one secret, he had every motive
to trust her with another; and he had accordingly spoken out his fears
of the Count di Peschiera. Therefore she answered, laying down the work,
and taking her husband's hand tenderly,

"Indeed, my love, since you dread so much (though I own that I must
think unreasonably) this wicked, dangerous man, it would be the happiest
thing in the world to see dear Violante well married; because, you see,
if she is married to one person she cannot be married to another; and
all fear of this count, as you say, would be at an end."

"You cannot express yourself better. It is a great comfort to unbosom
one's-self to a wife, after all," quoth Riccabocca.

"But," said the wife, after a grateful kiss,--"but where and how can we
find a husband suitable to the rank of your daughter?"

"There! there! there!" cried Riccabocca, pushing back his chair to the
farther end of the room, "that comes of unbosoming one's-self! Out flies
one secret; it is opening the lid of Pandora's box; one is betrayed,
ruined, undone!"

"Why, there's not a soul that can hear us!" said Mrs. Riccabocca,
soothingly.

"'That's chance, ma'am! If you once contract the habit of blabbing out
a secret when nobody's by, how on earth can you resist it when you
have the pleasurable excitement of telling it to all the world? Vanity,
vanity,--woman's vanity! Woman never could withstand rank,--never!"
The doctor went on railing for a quarter of an hour, and was very
reluctantly appeased by Mrs. Riccabocca's repeated and tearful
assurances that she would never even whisper to herself that her husband
had ever held any other rank than that of doctor. Riccabocca, with a
dubious shake of the head, renewed,

"I have done with all pomp and pretension. Besides, the young man is a
born gentleman: he seems in good circumstances; he has energy and latent
ambition; he is akin to L'Estrange's intimate friend: he seems attached
to Violante. I don't think it probable that we could do better. Nay, if
Peschiera fears that I shall be restored to my country, and I learn
the wherefore, and the ground to take, through this young man--why,
gratitude is the first virtue of the noble!"

"You speak, then, of Mr. Leslie?"

"To be sure--of whom else?"

Mrs. Riccabocca leaned her cheek on her hand thoughtfully. "Now you have
told me that, I will observe him with different eyes."

"Anima mia, I don't see how the difference of your eyes will alter the
object they look upon!" grumbled Riccabocca, shaking the ashes out of
his pipe.

"The object alters when we see it in a different point of view!" replied
Jemima, modestly. "This thread does very well when I look at it in order
to sew on a button, but I should say it would never do to tie up Pompey
in his Kennel."

"Reasoning by illustration, upon my soul!" ejaculated Riccabocca,
amazed.

"And," continued Jemima, "when I am to regard one who is to constitute
the happiness of that dear child, and for life, can I regard him as I
would the pleasant guest of an evening? Ah, trust me, Alphonso; I don't
pretend to be wise like you; but when a woman considers what a man is
likely to prove to woman,--his sincerity, his honour, his heart,--oh,
trust me, she is wiser than the wisest man!"

Riccabocca continued to gaze on Jemima with unaffected admiration and
surprise. And certainly, to use his phrase, since he had unbosomed
himself to his better half, since he had confided in her, consulted with
her, her sense had seemed to quicken, her whole mind to expand.

"My dear," said the sage, "I vow and declare that Machiavelli was a fool
to you. And I have been as dull as the chair I sit upon, to deny myself
so many years the comfort and counsel of such a--But, corpo di Bacco!
forget all about rank; and so now to bed.--One must not holloa till
one's out of the wood," muttered the ungrateful, suspicious villain, as
he lighted the chamber candle.




CHAPTER III.

RICCABOCCA could not confine himself to the precincts within the walls
to which he condemned Violante. Resuming his spectacles, and wrapped
in his cloak, he occasionally sallied forth upon a kind of outwatch
or reconnoitring expedition,--restricting himself, however, to the
immediate neighbourhood, and never going quite out of sight of his
house. His favourite walk was to the summit of a hillock overgrown with
stunted bush-wood. Here he would sit himself musingly, often till the
hoofs of Randal's horse rang on the winding road, as the sun set, over
fading herbage, red and vaporous, in autumnal skies. Just below the
hillock, and not two hundred yards from his own house, was the only
other habitation in view,--a charming, thoroughly English cottage,
though somewhat imitated from the Swiss, with gable ends, thatched roof,
and pretty, projecting casements, opening through creepers and climbing
roses. From his height he commanded the gardens of this cottage, and his
eye of artist was pleased, from the first sight, with the beauty which
some exquisite taste had given to the ground. Even in that cheerless
season of the year, the garden wore a summer smile; the evergreens were
so bright and various, and the few flow ers still left so hardy and so
healthful. Facing the south, a colonnade, or covered gallery, of rustic
woodwork had been formed, and creeping plants, lately set, were already
beginning to clothe its columns. Opposite to this colonnade there was a
fountain which reminded Riccabocca of his own at the deserted Casino. It
was indeed singularly like it; the same circular shape, the same girdle
of flowers around it. But the jet from it varied every day, fantastic
and multiform, like the sports of a Naiad,--sometimes shooting up like
a tree, sometimes shaped as a convolvulus, sometimes tossing from its
silver spray a flower of vermilion, or a fruit of gold,--as if at play
with its toy like a happy child. And near the fountain was a large
aviary, large enough to enclose a tree. The Italian could just catch a
gleam of rich colour from the wings of the birds, as they glanced to
and fro within the network, and could hear their songs, contrasting the
silence of the freer populace of air, whom the coming winter had already
stilled.

Riccabocca's eye, so alive to all aspects of beauty, luxuriated in the
view of this garden. Its pleasantness had a charm that stole him from
his anxious fear and melancholy memories.

He never saw but two forms within the demesnes, and he could not
distinguish their features. One was a woman, who seemed to him of staid
manner and homely appearance: she was seen but rarely. The other a man,
often pacing to and fro the colonnade, with frequent pauses before the
playful fountain, or the birds that sang louder as he approached. This
latter form would then disappear within a room, the glass door of which
was at the extreme end of the colonnade; and if the door were left open,
Riccabocca could catch a glimpse of the figure bending over a table
covered with books.

Always, however, before the sun set, the man would step forth more
briskly, and occupy himself with the garden, often working at it with
good heart, as if at a task of delight; and then, too, the woman would
come out, and stand by as if talking to her companion. Riccabocca's
curiosity grew aroused. He bade Jemima inquire of the old maid-servant
who lived at the cottage, and heard that its owner was a Mr. Oran,--a
quiet gentleman, and fond of his book.

While Riccabocca thus amused himself, Randal had not been prevented,
either by his official cares or his schemes on Violante's heart and
fortune, from furthering the project that was to unite Frank Hazeldean
and Beatrice di Negra. Indeed, as to the first, a ray of hope was
sufficient to fire the ardent and unsuspecting lover. And Randal's
artful misrepresentation of his conference with Mrs. Hazeldean removed
all fear of parental displeasure from a mind always too disposed to give
itself up to the temptation of the moment. Beatrice, though her feelings
for Frank were not those of love, became more and more influenced by
Randal's arguments and representations, the more especially as her
brother grew morose, and even menacing, as days slipped on, and she
could give no clew to the retreat of those whom he sought for. Her
debts, too, were really urgent. As Randal's profound knowledge of human
infirmity had shrewdly conjectured, the scruples of honour and pride,
that had made her declare she would not bring to a husband her own
encumbrances, began to yield to the pressure of necessity. She listened
already, with but faint objections, when Randal urged her not to wait
for the uncertain discovery that was to secure her dowry, but by a
private marriage with Frank escape at once into freedom and security.
While, though he had first held out to young Hazeldean the inducement
of Beatrice's dowry as a reason of self-justification in the eyes of the
squire, it was still easier to drop that inducement, which had always
rather damped than fired the high spirit and generous heart of the poor
Guardsman. And Randal could conscientiously say, that when he had asked
the squire if he expected fortune with Frank's bride, the squire had
replied, "I don't care." Thus encouraged by his friend and his own
heart, and the softening manner of a woman who might have charmed many a
colder, and fooled many a wiser man, Frank rapidly yielded to the snares
held out for his perdition. And though as yet he honestly shrank from
proposing to Beatrice or himself a marriage without the consent, and
even the knowledge, of his parents, yet Randal was quite content to
leave a nature, however good, so thoroughly impulsive and undisciplined,
to the influences of the first strong passion it had ever known.
Meanwhile, it was so easy to dissuade Frank from even giving a hint to
the folks at home. "For," said the wily and able traitor, "though we
may be sure of Mrs. Hazeldean's consent, and her power over your father,
when the step is once taken, yet we cannot count for certain on the
squire, he is so choleric and hasty. He might hurry to town, see Madame
di Negra, blurt out some passionate, rude expressions, which would wake
her resentment, and cause her instant rejection. And it might be too
late if he repented afterwards, as he would be sure to do."

Meanwhile Randal Leslie gave a dinner at the Clarendon Hotel (an
extravagance most contrary to his habits), and invited Frank, Mr.
Borrowell, and Baron Levy.

But this house-spider, which glided with so much ease after its flies,
through webs so numerous and mazy, had yet to amuse Madame di Negra
with assurances that the fugitives sought for would sooner or later be
discovered. Though Randal baffled and eluded her suspicion that he
was already acquainted with the exiles ("the persons he had thought
of were," he said, "quite different from her description;" and he even
presented to her an old singing-master and a sallow-faced daughter, as
the Italians who had caused his mistake), it was necessary for Beatrice
to prove the sincerity of the aid she had promised to her brother, and
to introduce Randal to the count. It was no less desirable to Randal to
know, and even win the confidence of this man--his rival.

The two met at Madame di Negra's house. There is something very strange,
and almost mesmerical, in the rapport between two evil natures. Bring
two honest men together, and it is ten to one if they recognize each
other as honest; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may make
each misjudge the other. But bring together two men unprincipled and
perverted--men who, if born in a cellar, would have been food for the
hulks or gallows--and they understand each other by instant sympathy.
The eyes of Franzini, Count of Peschiera, and Randal Leslie no sooner
met than a gleam of intelligence shot from both. They talked on
indifferent subjects,--weather, gossip, politics,--what not. They bowed
and they smiled; but all the while, each was watching, plumbing the
other's heart, each measuring his strength with his companion; each inly
saying, "This is a very remarkable rascal; am I a match for him?" It was
at dinner they met; and following the English fashion, Madame di Negra
left them alone with their wine.

Then, for the first time, Count di Peschiera cautiously and adroitly
made a covered push towards the object of the meeting.

"You have never been abroad, my dear sir? You must contrive to visit
me at Vienna. I grant the splendour of your London world; but, honestly
speaking, it wants the freedom of ours,--a freedom which unites gayety
with polish. For as your society is mixed, there are pretension
and effort with those who have no right to be in it, and artificial
condescension and chilling arrogance with those who have to keep their
inferiors at a certain distance. With us, all being of fixed rank and
acknowledged birth, familiarity is at once established. Hence," added
the count, with his French lively smile,--"hence there is no place like
Vienna for a young man, no place like Vienna for bonnes fortunes."

"Those make the paradise of the idle," replied Randal, "but the
purgatory of the busy. I confess frankly to you, my dear count, that
I have as little of the leisure which becomes the aspirer to bonnes
fortunes as I have the personal graces which obtain them without an
effort;" and he inclined his head as in compliment.

"So," thought the count, "woman is not his weak side. What is?"

"Morbleu! my dear Mr. Leslie, had I thought as you do some years since,
I had saved myself from many a trouble. After all, Ambition is the best
mistress to woo; for with her there is always the hope, and never the
possession."

"Ambition, Count," replied Randal, still guarding himself in dry
sententiousness, "is the luxury of the rich, and the necessity of the
poor."

"Aha," thought the count, "it comes, as I anticipated from the
first,--comes to the bribe." He passed the wine to Randal, filling his
own glass, and draining it carelessly; "Sur mon ame, mon cher," said the
count, "luxury is ever pleasanter than necessity; and I am resolved
at least to give Ambition a trial; je vais me refugier dans le sein du
bonheur domestique,--a married life and a settled home. Peste! If it
were not for ambition, one would die of ennui. A propos, my dear sir, I
have to thank you for promising my sister your aid in finding a near and
dear kinsman of mine, who has taken refuge in your country, and hides
himself even from me."

"I should be most happy to assist in your search. As yet, however, I
have only to regret that all my good wishes are fruitless. I should have
thought, however, that a man of such rank had been easily found, even
through the medium of your own ambassador."

"Our own ambassador is no very warm friend of mine; and the rank would
be no clew, for it is clear that my kinsman has never assumed it since
he quitted his country."

"He quitted it, I understand, not exactly from choice," said Randal,
smiling. "Pardon my freedom and curiosity, but will you explain to me
a little more than I learn from English rumour (which never accurately
reports upon foreign matters still more notorious), how a person who had
so much to lose, and so little to win, by revolution, could put himself
into the same crazy boat with a crew of hair-brained adventurers and
visionary professors."

"Professors!" repeated the count; "I think you have hit on the very
answer to your question; not but what men of high birth were as mad as
the canaille. I am the more willing to gratify your curiosity, since
it will perhaps serve to guide your kind search in my favour. You
must know, then, that my kinsman was not born the heir to the rank he
obtained. He was but a distant relation to the head of the House which
he afterwards represented. Brought up in an Italian university, he was
distinguished for his learning and his eccentricities. There too, I
suppose, brooding over old wives' tales about freedom, and so forth,
he contracted his carbonaro, chimerical notions for the independence of
Italy. Suddenly, by three deaths, he was elevated, while yet young, to
a station and honours which might have satisfied any man in his senses.
Que diable! what could the independence of Italy do for him? He and I
were cousins; we had played together as boys; but our lives had been
separated till his succession to rank brought us necessarily together.
We became exceedingly intimate. And you may judge how I loved him,"
said the count, averting his eyes slightly from Randal's quiet, watchful
gaze, "when I add, that I forgave him for enjoying a heritage that, but
for him, had been mine."

"Ah, you were next heir?"

"And it is a hard trial to be very near a great fortune, and yet just to
miss it."

"True," cried Randal, almost impetuously. The count now raised his eyes,
and again the two men looked into each other's souls.

"Harder still, perhaps," resumed the count, after a short
pause,--"harder still might it have been to some men to forgive the
rival as well as the heir."

"Rival! how?"

"A lady, who had been destined by her parents to myself, though we had
never, I own, been formally betrothed, became the wife of my kinsman."

"Did he know of your pretensions?"

"I do him the justice to say he did not. He saw and fell in love with
the young lady I speak of. Her parents were dazzled. Her father sent
for me. He apologized, he explained; he set before me, mildly enough,
certain youthful imprudences or errors of my own, as an excuse for
his change of mind; and he asked me not only to resign all hope of his
daughter, but to conceal from her new suitor that I had ever ventured to
hope."

"And you consented?"

"I consented."

"That was generous. You must indeed have been much attached to your
kinsman. As a lover, I cannot comprehend it; perhaps, my dear count, you
may enable me to understand it better--as a man of the world."

"Well," said the count, with his most roue air, "I suppose we are both
men of the world?"

"Both! certainly," replied Randal, just in the tone which Peachum might
have used in courting the confidence of Lockit.

"As a man of the world, then, I own," said the count, playing with the
rings on his fingers, "that if I could not marry the lady myself (and
that seemed to me clear), it was very natural that I should wish to see
her married to my wealthy kinsman."

"Very natural; it might bring your wealthy kinsman and yourself still
closer together."

"This is really a very clever fellow!" thought the count, but he made no
direct reply.

"Enfin, to cut short a long story, my cousin afterwards got entangled in
attempts, the failure of which is historically known. His projects were
detected, himself denounced. He fled, and the emperor, in sequestrating
his estates, was pleased, with rare and singular clemency, to permit
me, as his nearest kinsman, to enjoy the revenues of half those estates
during the royal pleasure; nor was the other half formally confiscated.
It was no doubt his Majesty's desire not to extinguish a great Italian
name; and if my cousin and his child died in exile, why, of that name,
I, a loyal subject of Austria,--I, Franzini, Count di Peschiera, would
become the representative. Such, in a similar case, has been sometimes
the Russian policy towards Polish insurgents."

"I comprehend perfectly; and I can also conceive that you, in profiting
so largely, though so justly, by the fall of your kinsman, may have been
exposed to much unpopularity, even to painful suspicion."

"Entre nous, mon cher, I care not a stiver for popularity; and as to
suspicion, who is he that can escape from the calumny of the envious?
But, unquestionably, it would be most desirable to unite the divided
members of our house; and this union I can now effect by the consent
of the emperor to my marriage with my kinsman's daughter. You see,
therefore, why I have so great an interest in this research?"

"By the marriage articles you could no doubt secure the retention of
the half you hold; and if you survive your kinsman, you would enjoy the
whole. A most desirable marriage; and, if made, I suppose that would
suffice to obtain your cousin's amnesty and grace?"

"You say it."

"But even without such marriage, since the emperor's clemency has been
extended to so many of the proscribed, it is perhaps probable that your
cousin might be restored?"

"It once seemed to me possible," said the count, reluctantly; "but since
I have been in England, I think not. The recent revolution in France,
the democratic spirit rising in Europe, tend to throw back the cause
of a proscribed rebel. England swarms with revolutionists; my cousin's
residence in this country is in itself suspicious. The suspicion is
increased by his strange seclusion. There are many Italians here who
would aver that they had met with him, and that he was still engaged in
revolutionary projects."

"Aver--untruly?"

"Ma foi, it comes to the same thing; 'les absents ont toujours tort.'
I speak to a man of the world. No; without some such guarantee for his
faith as his daughter's marriage with myself would give, his recall is
improbable. By the heaven above us, it shall be impossible!" The count
rose as he said this,--rose as if the mask of simulation had fairly
fallen from the visage of crime; rose tall and towering, a very image of
masculine power and strength, beside the slight, bended form and sickly
face of the intellectual schemer. And had you seen them thus confronted
and contrasted, you would have felt that if ever the time should come
when the interest of the one would compel him openly to denounce
or boldly to expose the other, the odds were that the brilliant and
audacious reprobate would master the weaker nerve but superior wit
of the furtive traitor. Randal was startled; but rising also, he said
carelessly,

"What if this guarantee can no longer be given; what if, in despair
of return, and in resignation to his altered fortunes, your cousin has
already married his daughter to some English suitor?"

"Ah, that would indeed be, next to my own marriage with her, the most
fortunate thing that could happen to myself."

"How? I don't understand!"

"Why, if my cousin has so abjured his birthright, and forsworn his rank;
if this heritage, which is so dangerous from its grandeur, pass, in case
of his pardon, to some obscure Englishman,--a foreigner, a native of a
country that has no ties with ours, a country that is the very refuge
of levellers and Carbonari--mort de ma vie! do you think that such would
not annihilate all chance of my cousin's restoration, and be an excuse
even in the eyes of Italy for formally conferring the sequestrated
estates on an Italian? No; unless, indeed, the girl were to marry an
Englishman of such name and birth and connection as would in themselves
be a guarantee (and how in poverty is this likely?) I should go back
to Vienna with a light heart, if I could say, 'My kinswoman is an
Englishman's wife; shall her children be the heirs to a house so
renowned for its lineage, and so formidable for its wealth?' Parbleu!
if my cousin were but an adventurer, or merely a professor, he had
been pardoned long ago. The great enjoy the honour not to be pardoned
easily."

Randal fell into deep but brief thought. The count observed him, not
face to face, but by the reflection of an opposite mirror. "This man
knows something; this man is deliberating; this man can help me,"
thought the count.

But Randal said nothing to confirm these hypotheses. Recovering from his
abstraction, he expressed courteously his satisfaction at the count's
prospects, either way. "And since, after all," he added, "you mean so
well to your cousin, it occurs to me that you might discover him by a
very simple English process."

"How?"

"Advertise that, if he will come to some place appointed, he will hear
of something to his advantage."

The count shook his head. "He would suspect me, and not come."

"But he was intimate with you. He joined an insurrection; you were more
prudent. You did not injure him, though you may have benefited yourself.
Why should he shun you?"

"The conspirators forgive none who do not conspire; besides, to speak
frankly, he thought I injured him."

"Could you not conciliate him through his wife--whom you resigned to
him?"

"She is dead,--died before he left the country."

"Oh, that is unlucky! Still I think an advertisement might do good.
Allow me to reflect on that subject. Shall we now join Madame la
Marquise?"

On re-entering the drawing-room, the gentlemen found Beatrice in full
dress, seated by the fire, and reading so intently that she did not
remark them enter.

"What so interests you, ma seuur?--the last novel by Balzac, no doubt?"

Beatrice started, and, looking up, showed eyes that were full of tears.
"Oh, no! no picture of miserable, vicious, Parisian life. This is
beautiful; there is soul here."

Randal took up the book which the marchesa laid down; it was the same
which had charmed the circle at Hazeldean, charmed the innocent and
fresh-hearted, charmed now the wearied and tempted votaress of the
world.

"Hum," murmured Randal; "the parson was right. This is power,--a sort of
a power."

"How I should like to know the author! Who can he be? Can you guess?"

"Not I. Some old pedant in spectacles."

"I think not, I am sure not. Here beats a heart I have ever sighed to
find, and never found."

"Oh, la naive enfant!" cried the count; "comme son imagination s'egare
en reves enchantes. And to think that while you talk like an Arcadian,
you are dressed like a princess."

"Ah, I forgot--the Austrian ambassador's. I shall not go to-night. This
book unfits me for the artificial world."

"Just as you will, my sister. I shall go. I dislike the man, and he me;
but ceremonies before men!"

"You are going to the Austrian Embassy?" said Randal. "I, too, shall be
there. We shall meet." And he took his leave.

"I like your young friend prodigiously," said the count, yawning. "I
am sure that he knows of the lost birds, and will stand to them like a
pointer, if I can but make it his interest to do so. We shall see."




CHAPTER IV.

Randal arrived at the ambassador's before the count, and contrived to
mix with the young noblemen attached to the embassy, and to whom he was
known. Standing among these was a young Austrian, on his travels, of
very high birth, and with an air of noble grace that suited the ideal
of the old German chivalry. Randal was presented to him, and, after some
talk on general topics, observed, "By the way, Prince, there is now in
London a countryman of yours, with whom you are, doubtless, familiarly
acquainted,--the Count di Peschiera."

"He is no countryman of mine. He is an Italian. I know him but by sight
and by name," said the prince, stiffly.

"He is of very ancient birth, I believe."

"Unquestionably. His ancestors were gentlemen."

"And very rich."

"Indeed! I have understood the contrary. He enjoys, it is true, a large
revenue."

A young attache, less discreet than the prince; here observed, "Oh,
Peschiera! poor fellow, he is too fond of play to be rich."

"And there is some chance that the kinsman whose revenue he holds may
obtain his pardon, and re-enter into possession of his fortunes--so I
hear, at least," said Randal, artfully.

"I shall be glad if it be true," said the prince, with decision; "and I
speak the common sentiment at Vienna. That kinsman had a noble spirit,
and was, I believe, equally duped and betrayed. Pardon me, sir; but we
Austrians are not so bad as we are painted. Have you ever met in England
the kinsman you speak of?"

"Never, though he is supposed to reside here; and the count tells me
that he has a daughter."

"The count--ha! I heard something of a scheme,--a wager of that--that
count's. A daughter! Poor girl! I hope she will escape his pursuit; for,
no doubt, he pursues her."

"Possibly she may already have married an Englishman."

"I trust not," said the prince, seriously; "that might at present be a
serious obstacle to her father's return."

"You think so?"

"There can be no doubt of it," interposed the attache, with a grand and
positive air; "unless, indeed, the Englishman were of a rank equal to
her own."

Here there was a slight, well-bred murmur and buzz at the door, for
the Count di Peschiera himself was announced; and as he entered, his
presence was so striking, and his beauty so dazzling, that whatever
there might be to the prejudice of his character, it seemed instantly
effaced or forgotten in that irresistible admiration which it is the
prerogative of personal attributes alone to create.

The prince, with a slight curve of his lip at the groups that collected
round the count, turned to Randal, and said, "Can you tell me if a
distinguished countryman of yours is in England, Lord L'Estrange?"

"No, Prince, he is not. You know him?"

"Well."

"He is acquainted with the count's kinsman; and perhaps from him you
have learned to think so highly of that kinsman?"

The prince bowed, and answered as he moved away, "When one man of high
honour vouches for another, he commands the belief of all."

"Certainly," soliloquized Randal, "I must not be precipitate. I was
very near falling into a terrible trap. If I were to marry the girl, and
only, by so doing, settle away her inheritance on Peschiera!--how hard
it is to be sufficiently cautious in this world!"

While thus meditating, a member of parliament tapped him on the
shoulder.

"Melancholy, Leslie! I lay a wager I guess your thoughts."

"Guess," answered Randal.

"You were thinking of the place you are so soon to lose."

"Soon to lose!"

"Why, if ministers go out, you could hardly keep it, I suppose."

This ominous and horrid member of parliament, Squire Hazeldean's
favourite county member, Sir John, was one of those legislators
especially odious to officials,--an independent "large-acred" member,
who would no more take office himself than he would cut down the oaks
in his park, and who had no bowels of human feeling for those who had
opposite tastes and less magnificent means.

"Hem!" said Randal, rather surlily. "In the first place, Sir John,
ministers are not going out."

"Oh, yes, they will go. You know I vote with them generally, and would
willingly keep them in; but they are men of honour and spirit; and if
they can't carry their measures, they must resign; otherwise, by Jove, I
would turn round and vote them out myself!"

"I have no doubt you would, Sir John; you are quite capable of it; that
rests with you and your constituents. But even if ministers did go out,
I am but a poor subaltern in a public office,--I am no minister. Why
should I go out too?

"Why? Hang it, Leslie, you are laughing at me. A young fellow like you
could never be mean enough to stay in, under the very men who drove out
your friend Egerton?"

"It is not usual for those in the public offices to retire with every
change of government."

"Certainly not; but always those who are the relations of a retiring
minister; always those who have been regarded as politicians, and who
mean to enter parliament, as of course you will do at the next election.
But you know that as well as I do,--you who are so decided a politician,
the writer of that admirable pamphlet! I should not like to tell my
friend Hazeldean, who has a sincere interest in you, that you ever
doubted on a question of honour as plain as your A, B, C."

"Indeed, Sir John," said Randal, recovering his suavity, while he inly
breathed a dire anathema on his county member, "I am so new to these
things that what you say never struck me before. No doubt you must be
right; at all events I cannot have a better guide and adviser than Mr.
Egerton himself."

SIR JOHN.--"No, certainly; perfect gentleman, Egerton! I wish we could
make it up with him and Hazeldean."

RANDAL (sighing).--"Ah, I wish we could!"

SIR JOHN.--"And some chance of it now; for the time is coming when all
true men of the old school must stick together."

RANDAL.--"Wisely, admirably said, my dear Sir John. But, pardon me, I
must pay my respects to the ambassador." Randal escaped, and passing on,
saw the ambassador himself in the next room, conferring in a corner
with Audley Egerton. The ambassador seemed very grave, Egerton calm
and impenetrable, as usual. Presently the count passed by, and the
ambassador bowed to him very stiffly.

As Randal, some time later, was searching for his cloak below, Audley
Egerton unexpectedly joined him.

"Ah, Leslie," said the minister, with more kindness than usual, "if you
don't think the night air too cold for you, let us walk home together. I
have sent away the carriage."

This condescension in his patron was so singular, that it quite startled
Randal, and gave him a presentiment of some evil. When they were in the
street, Egerton, after a pause, began,

"My dear Mr. Leslie, it was my hope and belief that I had provided for
you at least a competence; and that I might open to you, later, a career
yet more brilliant. Hush! I don't doubt your gratitude; let me proceed.
There is a possible chance, after certain decisions that the Government
have come to, that we may be beaten in the House of Commons, and of
course resign. I tell you this beforehand, for I wish you to have time
to consider what, in that case, would be your best course. My power of
serving you may then probably be over. It would, no doubt (seeing our
close connection, and my views with regard to your future being so well
known),--no doubt, he expected that you should give up the place you
hold, and follow my fortunes for good or ill. But as I have no personal
enemies with the opposite party, and as I have sufficient position in
the world to uphold and sanction your choice, whatever it may be, if
you think it more prudent to retain your place, tell me so openly, and
I think I can contrive that you may do it without loss of character and
credit. In that case, confine your ambition merely to rising gradually
in your office, without mixing in politics. If, on the other hand, you
should prefer to take your chance of my return to office, and so resign
your present place; and, furthermore, should commit yourself to a policy
that may then be not only in opposition but unpopular, I will do my best
to introduce you into parliamentary life. I cannot say that I advise the
latter."

Randal felt as a man feels after a severe fall,--he was literally
stunned. At length he faltered out,--

"Can you think, sir, that I should ever desert your fortunes, your
party, your cause?"

"My dear Leslie," replied the minister, "you are too young to have
committed yourself to any men or to any party, except, indeed, in that
unlucky pamphlet. This must not be an affair of sentiment, but of sense
and reflection. Let us say no more on the point now; but by considering
the pros and the cons, you can better judge what to do, should the time
for option suddenly arrive."

"But I hope that time may not come."

"I hope so too, and most sincerely," said the minister, with deliberate
and genuine emphasis.

"What could be so bad for the country?" ejaculated Pandal. "It does not
seem to me possible, in the nature of things, that you and your party
should ever go out!"

"And when we are once out, there will be plenty of wiseacres to say it
is out of the nature of things that we should ever come in again. Here
we are at the door."




CHAPTER V.

Randal passed a sleepless night; but, indeed, he was one of those
persons who neither need, nor are accustomed to, much sleep. However,
towards morning, when dreams are said to be prophetic, he fell into a
most delightful slumber, a slumber peopled by visions fitted to lure on,
through labyrinths of law, predestined chancellors, or wreck upon the
rocks of glory the inebriate souls of youthful ensigns; dreams from
which Rood Hall emerged crowned with the towers of Belvoir or Raby,
and looking over subject lands and manors wrested from the nefarious
usurpation of Thornhills and Hazeldeans; dreams in which Audley
Egerton's gold and power, rooms in Downing Street, and saloons in
Grosvenor Square, had passed away to the smiling dreamer, as the empire
of Chaldaea passed to Darius the Median. Why visions so belying the
gloomy and anxious thoughts that preceded them should visit the pillow
of Randal Leslie, surpasses my philosophy to conjecture. He yielded,
however, passively to their spell, and was startled to hear the clock
strike eleven as he descended the stairs to breakfast. He was vexed at
the lateness of the hour, for he had meant to have taken advantage of
the unwonted softness of Egerton, and drawn therefrom some promises or
proffers to cheer the prospects which the minister had so chillingly
expanded before him the preceding night; and it was only at breakfast
that he usually found the opportunity of private conference with his
busy patron. But Audley Egerton would be sure to have sallied forth; and
so he had, only Randal was surprised to hear that he had gone out in his
carriage, instead of on foot, as was his habit. Randal soon despatched
his solitary meal, and with a new and sudden affection for his office,
thitherwards bent his way. As he passed through Piccadilly, he heard
behind a voice that had lately become familiar to him, and turning
round, saw Baron Levy walking side by side, though not arm-in-arm, with
a gentleman almost as smart as himself, but with a jauntier step and a
brisker air,--a step that, like Diomed's, as described by Shakspeare,--

       "Rises on the toe; that spirit of his
        In aspiration lifts him from the earth."

Indeed, one may judge of the spirits and disposition of a man by his
ordinary gait and mien in walking. He who habitually pursues abstract
thought looks down on the ground. He who is accustomed to sudden
impulses, or is trying to seize upon some necessary recollection, looks
up with a kind of jerk. He who is a steady, cautious, merely practical
man, walks on deliberately, his eyes straight before him; and, even in
his most musing moods, observes things around sufficiently to avoid a
porter's knot or a butcher's tray. But the man with strong ganglions--of
pushing, lively temperament, who, though practical, is yet speculative;
the man who is emulous and active, and ever trying to rise in life;
sanguine, alert, bold--walks with a spring, looks rather above the heads
of his fellow-passengers, but with a quick, easy turn of his own, which
is lightly set on his shoulders; his mouth is a little open, his eye
is bright, rather restless, but penetrative, his port has something
of defiance, his form is erect, but without stiffness. Such was the
appearance of the baron's companion. And as Randal turned round at
Levy's voice, the baron said to his companion, "A young man in the first
circles--you should book him for your fair lady's parties. How d' ye
do, Mr. Leslie? Let me introduce you to Mr. Richard Avenel." Then, as he
hooked his arm into Randal's, he whispered, "Man of first-rate talent,
monstrous rich, has two or three parliamentary seats in his pocket, wife
gives parties,--her foible."

"Proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said Mr. Avenel, lifting his
hat. "Fine day."

"Rather cold too," said Leslie, who, like all thin persons with weak
digestions, was chilly by temperament; besides, he had enough on his
mind to chill his body.

"So much the healthier,--braces the nerves," said Mr. Avenel; "but you
young fellows relax the system by hot rooms and late hours. Fond of
dancing, of course, sir?" Then, without waiting for Randal's negative,
Mr. Richard continued rapidly, "Mrs. Avenel has a soiree dansante on
Thursday,--shall be very happy to see you in Eaton Square. Stop, I have
a card;" and he drew out a dozen large invitation-cards, from which he
selected one, and presented it to Randal. The baron pressed that young
gentleman's arm, and Randal replied courteously that it would give him
great pleasure to be introduced to Mrs. Avenel. Then, as he was not
desirous to be seen under the wing of Baron Levy, like a pigeon under
that of a hawk, he gently extricated himself, and pleading great haste,
walked quickly on towards his office.

"That young man will make a figure some day," said the baron. "I don't
know any one of his age with so few prejudices. He is a connection by
marriage to Audley Egerton, who--"

"Audley Egerton!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel; "a d---d haughty, aristocratic,
disagreeable, ungrateful fellow!"

"Why, what do you know of him?"

"He owed his first seat in parliament to the votes of two near relations
of mine, and when I called upon him some time ago, in his office, he
absolutely ordered me out of the room. Hang his impertinence; if ever I
can pay him off, I guess I sha'n't fail for want of good will!"

"Ordered you out of the room? That's not like Egerton, who is civil, if
formal,--at least to most men. You must have offended him in his weak
point."

"A man whom the public pays so handsomely should have no weak point.
What is Egerton's?"

"Oh, he values himself on being a thorough gentleman,--a man of the
nicest honour," said Levy, with a sneer. "You must have ruffled his
plumes there. How was it?"

"I forget," answered Mr. Avenel, who was far too well versed in the
London scale of human dignities since his marriage, not to look back
with a blush at his desire of knighthood. "No use bothering our heads
now about the plumes of an arrogant popinjay. To return to the subject
we were discussing: you must be sure to let me have this money next
week."

"Rely on it."

"And you'll not let my bills get into the market; keep them under lock
and key."

"So we agreed."

"It is but a temporary difficulty,--royal mourning, such nonsense; panic
in trade, lest these precious ministers go out. I shall soon float over
the troubled waters."

"By the help of a paper boat," said the baron, laughing; and the two
gentlemen shook hands and parted.




CHAPTER VI.

Meanwhile Audley Egerton's carriage had deposited him at the door of
Lord Lansmere's house, at Knightsbridge. He asked for the countess, and
was shown into the drawing-room, which was deserted. Egerton was paler
than usual; and as the door opened, he wiped the unwonted moisture from
his forehead, and there was a quiver on his firm lip. The countess
too, on entering, showed an emotion almost equally unusual to her
self-control. She pressed Audley's hand in silence, and seating herself
by his side, seemed to collect her thoughts. At length she said,

"It is rarely indeed that we meet, Mr. Egerton, in spite of your
intimacy with Lansmere and Harley. I go so little into your world, and
you will not voluntarily come to me."

"Madam," replied Egerton, "I might evade your kind reproach by stating
that my hours are not at my disposal; but I answer you with plain
truth,--it must be painful to both of us to meet."

The countess coloured and sighed, but did not dispute the assertion.

Audley resumed: "And therefore, I presume that, in sending for me, you
have something of moment to communicate?"

"It relates to Harley," said the countess, as if in apology; "and I
would take your advice."

"To Harley! Speak on, I beseech you."

"My son has probably told you that he has educated and reared a young
girl, with the intention to make her Lady L'Estrange, and hereafter
Countess of Lansmere."

"Harley has no secrets from me," said Egerton, mournfully. "This young
lady has arrived in England, is here, in this house."

"And Harley too?"

"No, she came over with Lady N------and her daughters. Harley was to
follow shortly, and I expect him daily. Here is his letter. Observe,
he has never yet communicated his intentions to this young person, now
entrusted to my care, never spoken to her as the lover."

Egerton took the letter and read it rapidly, though with attention.

"True," said he, as he returned the letter: "and before he does so he
wishes you to see Miss Digby and to judge of her yourself,--wishes to
know if you will approve and sanction his choice."

"It is on this that I would consult you: a girl without rank; the
father, it is true, a gentleman, though almost equivocally one, but the
mother, I know not what. And Harley, for whom I hoped an alliance
with the first houses in England!" The countess pressed her hands
convulsively together.

EGERTON.--"He is no more a boy. His talents have been wasted, his life
a wanderer's. He presents to you a chance of resettling his mind,
of re-arousing his native powers, of a home besides your own. Lady
Lansmere, you cannot hesitate!"

LADY LANSMERE.--"I do, I do? After all that I have hoped after all that
I did to prevent--"

EGERTON (interrupting her).--"You owe him now an atonement; that is in
your power,--it is not in mine." The countess again pressed Audley's
hand, and the tears gushed from her eyes.

"It shall be so. I consent, I consent. I will silence, I will crush back
this proud heart. Alas! it well-nigh broke his own! I am glad you
speak thus. I like to think he owes my consent to you. In that there is
atonement for both."

"You are too generous, madam," said Egerton, evidently moved, though
still, as ever, striving to repress emotion. "And now may I see the
young lady? This conference pains me; you see even my strong nerves
quiver; and at this time I have much to go through,--need of all my
strength and firmness."

"I hear, indeed, that the Government will probably retire. But it is
with honour: it will be soon called back by the voice of the nation."

"Let me see the future wife of Harley L'Estrange," said Egerton, without
heed of this consolatory exclamation.

The countess rose and left the room. In a few minutes she returned with
Helen Digby.

Helen was wondrously improved from the pale, delicate child, with the
soft smile and intelligent eyes, who had sat by the side of Leonard
in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight, but
beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion which conveys
so well the idea of woman, in its undulating, pliant grace,--formed to
embellish life, and soften away its rude angles; formed to embellish,
not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of
an artist,--it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression
was eminently gentle and prepossessing; and there were few who would not
have exclaimed, "What a lovely countenance!" The mildness of her brow
was touched with melancholy--her childhood had left its traces on her
youth. Her step was slow, and her manner shy, subdued, and timid.

Audley gazed on her with earnestness as she approached him; and then
coming forward, took her hand and kissed it. "I am your guardian's
constant friend," said he, and he drew her gently to a seat beside him,
in the recess of a window. With a quick glance of his eye towards the
countess, he seemed to imply the wish to converse with Helen somewhat
apart. So the countess interpreted the glance; and though she remained
in the room, she seated herself at a distance, and bent over a book.

It was touching to see how the austere man of business lent himself
to draw forth the mind of this quiet, shrinking girl; and if you had
listened, you would have comprehended how he came to possess such social
influence, and how well, some time or other in the course of his life,
he had learned to adapt himself to women.

He spoke first of Harley L'Estrange,--spoke with tact and delicacy.
Helen at first answered by monosyllables, and then, by degrees, with
grateful and open affection. Audley's brow grew shaded. He then spoke
of Italy; and though no man had less of the poet in his nature, yet
with the dexterity of one long versed in the world, and who had been
accustomed to extract evidences from characters most opposed to his
own, he suggested such topics as might serve to arouse poetry in others.
Helen's replies betrayed a cultivated taste, and a charming womanly
mind; but they betrayed, also, one accustomed to take its colourings
from another's,--to appreciate, admire, revere the Lofty and the
Beautiful, but humbly and meekly. There was no vivid enthusiasm, no
remark of striking originality, no flash of the self-kindling, creative
faculty. Lastly, Egerton turned to England,--to the critical nature of
the times, to the claims which the country possessed upon all who had
the ability to serve and guide its troubled destinies. He enlarged
warmly on Harley's natural talents, and rejoiced that he had returned to
England, perhaps to commence some great career. Helen looked surprised,
but her face caught no correspondent glow from Audley's eloquence.
He rose, and an expression of disappointment passed over his grave,
handsome features, and as quickly vanished.

"Adieu, my dear Miss Digby; I fear I have wearied you, especially with
my politics. Adieu, Lady Lansmere; no doubt I shall see Harley as soon
as he returns."

Then he hastened from the room, gained his carriage, and ordered the
coachman to drive to Downing Street. He drew down the blinds, and leaned
back. A certain languor became visible in his face, and once or twice,
he mechanically put his hand to his heart.

"She is good, amiable, docile,--will make an excellent wife, no doubt,"
said he, murmuringly. "But does she love Harley as he has dreamed of
love? No! Has she the power and energy to arouse his faculties, and
restore to the world the Harley of old? No! Meant by Heaven to be the
shadow of another's sun--not herself the sun,--this child is not the one
who can atone for the Past and illume the Future."




CHAPTER VII.

That evening Harley L'Estrange arrived at his father's house. The few
years that had passed since we saw him last had made no perceptible
change in his appearance. He still preserved his elastic youthfulness
of form, and singular variety and play of countenance. He seemed
unaffectedly rejoiced to greet his parents, and had something of the
gayety and tenderness of a boy returned from school. His manner to Helen
bespoke the chivalry that pervaded all the complexities and curves
of his character. It was affectionate, but respectful,--hers to him,
subdued, but innocently sweet and gently cordial. Harley was the chief
talker. The aspect of the times was so critical that he could not avoid
questions on politics; and, indeed, he showed an interest in them which
he had never evinced before. Lord Lansmere was delighted.

"Why, Harley, you love your country after all?"

"The moment she seems in danger, yes!" replied the Patrician; and the
Sybarite seemed to rise into the Athenian. Then he asked with eagerness
about his old friend Audley; and, his curiosity satisfied there, he
inquired the last literary news. He had heard much of a book lately
published. He named the one ascribed by Parson Dale to Professor Moss;
none of his listeners had read it.

Harley pished at this, and accused them all of indolence and stupidity,
in his own quaint, metaphorical style. Then he said, "And town gossip?"

"We never hear it," said Lady Lansmere.

"There is a new plough much talked of at Boodle's," said Lord Lansmere.

"God speed it. But is not there a new man much talked of at White's?"

"I don't belong to White's."

"Nevertheless, you may have heard of him,--a foreigner, a Count di
Peschiera."

"Yes," said Lord Lansmere; "he was pointed out to me in the Park,--a
handsome man for a foreigner; wears his hair properly cut; looks
gentlemanlike and English."

"Ah, ah! He is here then!" and Harley rubbed his hands.

"Which road did you take? Did you pass the Simplon?"

"No; I came straight from Vienna."

Then, relating with lively vein his adventures by the way, he continued
to delight Lord Lansmere by his gayety till the time came to retire to
rest. As soon as Harley was in his own room his mother joined him.

"Well," said he, "I need not ask if you like Miss Digby? Who would not?"

"Harley, my own son," said the mother, bursting into tears, "be happy
your own way; only be happy, that is all I ask."

Harley, much affected, replied gratefully and soothingly to this fond
injunction. And then gradually leading his mother on to converse
of Helen, asked abruptly, "And of the chance of our happiness,--her
happiness as well as mine,--what is your opinion? Speak frankly."

"Of her happiness there can be no doubt," replied the mother, proudly.
"Of yours, how can you ask me? Have you not decided on that yourself?"

"But still it cheers and encourages one in any experiment, however well
considered, to hear the approval of another. Helen has certainly a most
gentle temper."

"I should conjecture so. But her mind--"

"Is very well stored."

"She speaks so little--"

"Yes. I wonder why? She's surely a woman!"

"Pshaw," said the countess, smiling in spite of herself.

"But tell me more of the process of your experiment. You took her as a
child, and resolved to train her according to your own ideal. Was that
easy?"

"It seemed so. I desired to instil habits of truth: she was already by
nature truthful as the day; a taste for Nature and all things natural:
that seemed inborn; perceptions of Art as the interpreter of Nature:
those were more difficult to teach. I think they may come. You have
heard her play and sing?"

"NO."

"She will surprise you. She has less talent for drawing; still, all
that teaching could do has been done,--in a word, she is accomplished.
Temper, heart, mind,--these all are excellent." Harley stopped, and
suppressed a sigh. "Certainly I ought to be very happy," said he; and he
began to wind up his watch.

"Of course she must love you," said the countess, after a pause. "How
could she fail?"

"Love me! My dear mother, that is the very question I shall have to
ask."

"Ask! Love is discovered by a glance; it has no need of asking."

"I have never discovered it, then, I assure you. The fact is, that
before her childhood was passed, I removed her, as you may suppose,
from my roof. She resided with an Italian family near my usual abode. I
visited her often, directed her studies, watched her improvement--"

"And fell in love with her?"

"Fall is such a very violent word. No; I don't remember to have had a
fall. It was all a smooth inclined plane from the first step, until at
last I said to myself, 'Harley L'Estrange, thy time has come. The bud
has blossomed into flower. Take it to thy breast.' And myself replied
to myself, meekly, 'So be it.' Then I found that Lady N-----, with her
daughters, was coming to England. I asked her Ladyship to take my
ward to your house. I wrote to you, and prayed your assent; and, that
granted, I knew you would obtain my father's. Iam here,--you give me the
approval I sought for. I will speak to Helen to-morrow. Perhaps, after
all, she may reject me."

"Strange, strange! you speak thus coldly, thus lightly, you, so capable
of ardent love!"

"Mother," said Harley, earnestly, "be satisfied! I am! Love as of old, I
feel, alas! too well, can visit me never more. But gentle companionship,
tender friendship, the relief and the sunlight of woman's smile,
hereafter the voices of children,--music that, striking on the hearts
of both parents, wakens the most lasting and the purest of all
sympathies,--these are my hope. Is the hope so mean, my fond mother?"

Again the countess wept, and her tears were not dried when she left the
room.




CHAPTER VIII.

Oh, Helen, fair Helen,--type of the quiet, serene, unnoticed, deep-felt
excellence of woman! Woman, less as the ideal that a poet conjures from
the air, than as the companion of a poet on the earth! Woman, who, with
her clear sunny vision of things actual, and the exquisite fibre of her
delicate sense, supplies the deficiencies of him whose foot stumbles
on the soil, because his eye is too intent upon the stars! Woman, the
provident, the comforting, angel whose pinions are folded round the
heart, guarding there a divine spring unmarred by the winter of the
world! Helen, soft Helen, is it indeed in thee that the wild and
brilliant "lord of wantonness and ease" is to find the regeneration
of his life, the rebaptism of his soul? Of what avail thy meek prudent
household virtues to one whom Fortune screens from rough trial; whose
sorrows lie remote from thy ken; whose spirit, erratic and perturbed,
now rising, now falling, needs a vision more subtle than thine to
pursue, and a strength that can sustain the reason, when it droops, on
the wings of enthusiasm and passion?

And thou, thyself, O nature, shrinking and humble, that needest to be
courted forth from the shelter, and developed under the calm and genial
atmosphere of holy, happy love--can such affection as Harley L'Estrange
may proffer suffice to thee? Will not the blossoms, yet folded in the
petal, wither away beneath the shade that may protect them from the
storm, and yet shut them from the sun? Thou who, where thou givest
love, seekest, though meekly, for love in return; to be the soul's sweet
necessity, the life's household partner to him who receives all thy
faith and devotion,--canst thou influence the sources of joy and of
sorrow in the heart that does not heave at thy name? Hast thou the charm
and the force of the moon, that the tides of that wayward sea shall ebb
and flow at thy will? Yet who shall say, who conjecture how near two
hearts can become, when no guilt lies between them, and time brings the
ties all its own? Rarest of all things on earth is the union in which
both, by their contrasts, make harmonious their blending; each supplying
the defects of the helpmate, and completing, by fusion, one strong human
soul! Happiness enough, where even Peace does but seldom preside, when
each can bring to the altar, if not the flame, still the incense. Where
man's thoughts are all noble and generous, woman's feelings all gentle
and pure, love may follow if it does not precede; and if not, if the
roses be missed from the garland, one may sigh for the rose, but one is
safe from the thorn.

The morning was mild, yet somewhat overcast by the mist which announces
coming winter in London, and Helen walked musingly beneath the trees
that surrounded the garden of Lord Lansmere's house. Many leaves were
yet left on the boughs; but they were sere and withered. And the birds
chirped at times; but their note was mournful and complaining. All
within this house, until Harley's arrival, had been strange and
saddening to Helen's timid and subdued spirits. Lady Lansmere had
received her kindly, but with a certain restraint; and the loftiness of
manner, common to the countess with all but Harley, had awed and chilled
the diffident orphan. Lady Lansmere's very interest in Harley's choice,
her attempts to draw Helen out of her reserve, her watchful eyes
whenever Helen shyly spoke or shyly moved, frightened the poor child,
and made her unjust to herself.

The very servants, though staid, grave, and respectful, as suited a
dignified, old-fashioned household, painfully contrasted the bright
welcoming smiles and free talk of Italian domestics. Her recollections
of the happy, warm Continental manner, which so sets the bashful at
their ease, made the stately and cold precision of all around her doubly
awful and dispiriting. Lord Lansmere himself, who did not as yet know
the views of Harley, and little dreamed that he was to anticipate a
daughter-in-law in the ward, whom he understood Harley, in a freak of
generous romance, had adopted, was familiar and courteous, as became a
host; but he looked upon Helen as a mere child, and naturally left
her to the countess. The dim sense of her equivocal position, of her
comparative humbleness of birth and fortunes, oppressed and pained her;
and even her gratitude to Harley was made burdensome by a sentiment of
helplessness. The grateful long to requite. And what could she ever do
for him?

Thus musing, she wandered alone through the curving walks; and this sort
of mock-country landscape--London loud, and even visible, beyond the
high gloomy walls, and no escape from the windows of the square formal
house--seemed a type of the prison bounds of Rank to one whose soul
yearns for simple loving Nature.

Helen's revery was interrupted by Nero's joyous bark. He had caught
sight of her, and came bounding up, and thrust his large head into her
hand. As she stooped to caress the dog, happy at his honest greeting,
and tears that had been long gathering at the lids fell silently on his
face (for I know nothing that more moves us to tears than the hearty
kindness of a dog, when something in human beings has pained or chilled
us), she heard behind the musical voice of Harley. Hastily she dried or
repressed her tears, as her guardian came up, and drew her arm within
his own.

"I had so little of your conversation last evening, my dear ward, that
I may well monopolize you now, even to the privation of Nero. And so you
are once more in your native land?"

Helen sighed softly.

"May I not hope that you return under fairer auspices than those which
your childhood knew?"

Helen turned her eyes with ingenuous thankfulness to her guardian, and
the memory of all she owed to him rushed upon her heart.

Harley renewed, and with earnest, though melancholy sweetness, "Helen,
your eyes thank me; but hear me before your words do. I deserve no
thanks. I am about to make to you a strange confession of egotism and
selfishness."

"You!--oh, impossible!"

"Judge yourself, and then decide which of us shall have cause to be
grateful. Helen, when I was scarcely your age--a boy in years, but
more, methinks, a man at heart, with man's strong energies and sublime
aspirings, than I have ever since been--I loved, and deeply--"

He paused a moment, in evident struggle. Helen listened in mute
surprise, but his emotion awakened her own; her tender woman's heart
yearned to console. Unconsciously her arm rested on his less lightly.

"Deeply, and for sorrow. It is a long tale, that may be told hereafter.
The worldly would call my love a madness. I did not reason on it then, I
cannot reason on it now. Enough: death smote suddenly, terribly, and
to me, mysteriously, her whom I loved. The love lived on. Fortunately,
perhaps, for me, I had quick distraction, not to grief, but to its inert
indulgence. I was a soldier; I joined our armies. Men called me brave.
Flattery! I was a coward before the thought of life. I sought death:
like sleep, it does not come at our call. Peace ensued. As when the
winds fall the sails droop, so when excitement ceased, all seemed to me
flat and objectless. Heavy, heavy was my heart. Perhaps grief had been
less obstinate, but that I feared I had causes for self-reproach. Since
then I have been a wanderer, a self-made exile. My boyhood had been
ambitious,--all ambition ceased. Flames, when they reach the core of the
heart, spread, and leave all in ashes. Let me be brief: I did not mean
thus weakly to complain,--I to whom Heaven has given so many blessings!
I felt, as it were, separated from the common objects and joys of men. I
grew startled to see how, year by year, wayward humours possessed me.
I resolved again to attach myself to some living heart--it was my sole
chance to rekindle my own. But the one I had loved remained as my type
of woman, and she was different from all I saw. Therefore I said to
myself, 'I will rear from childhood some young fresh life, to grow up
into my ideal.' As this thought began to haunt me, I chanced to discover
you. Struck with the romance of your early life, touched by your
courage, charmed by your affectionate nature, I said to myself, 'Here is
what I seek.' Helen, in assuming the guardianship of your 'Life, in all
the culture which I have sought to bestow on your docile childhood, I
repeat, that I have been but the egotist. And now, when you have reached
that age when it becomes me to speak, and you to listen; now, when
you are under the sacred roof of my own mother; now I ask you, can you
accept this heart, such as wasted years, and griefs too fondly nursed,
have left it? Can you be, at least, my comforter? Can you aid me to
regard life as a duty, and recover those aspirations which once soared
from the paltry and miserable confines of our frivolous daily being?
Helen, here I ask you, can you be all this, and under the name
of--Wife?"

It would be in vain to describe the rapid, varying, indefinable emotions
that passed through the inexperienced heart of the youthful listener
as Harley thus spoke. He so moved all the springs of amaze, compassion,
tender respect, sympathy, child-like gratitude, that when he paused and
gently took her hand, she remained bewildered, speechless, overpowered.
Harley smiled as he gazed upon her blushing, downcast, expressive face.
He conjectured at once that the idea of such proposals had never crossed
her mind; that she had never contemplated him in the character of wooer;
never even sounded her heart as to the nature of such feelings as his
image had aroused.

"My Helen," he resumed, with a calm pathos of voice, "there is some
disparity of years between us, and perhaps I may not hope henceforth for
that love which youth gives to the young. Permit me simply to ask, what
you will frankly answer, Can you have seen in our quiet life abroad, or
under the roof of your Italian friends, any one you prefer to me?"

"No, indeed, no!" murmured Helen. "How could I; who is like you?" Then,
with a sudden effort--for her innate truthfulness took alarm, and her
very affection for Harley, childlike and reverent, made her tremble lest
she should deceive him--she drew a little aside, and spoke thus,

"Oh, my dear guardian, noblest of all human beings, at least in my eyes,
forgive, forgive me, if I seem ungrateful, hesitating; but I cannot,
cannot think of myself as worthy of you. I never so lifted my eyes. Your
rank, your position--"

"Why should they be eternally my curse? Forget them, and go on."

"It is not only they," said Helen, almost sobbing, "though they are
much; but I your type, your ideal!--I?--impossible! Oh, how can I ever
be anything even of use, of aid, of comfort to one like you!"

"You can, Helen--you can," cried Harley, charmed by such ingenuous
modesty. "May I not keep this hand?" And Helen left her hand in
Harley's, and turned away her face, fairly weeping.

A stately step passed under the wintry trees.

"My mother," said Harley L'Estrange, looking up, "I present to you my
future wife."




CHAPTER IX.

With a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L'Estrange bent his way
towards Egerton's house, after his eventful interview with Helen. He had
just entered one of the streets leading into Grosvenor Square, when
a young man, walking quickly from the opposite direction, came full
against him, and drawing back with a brief apology, recognized him,
and exclaimed, "What! you in England, Lord L'Estrange! Accept my
congratulations on your return. But you seem scarcely to remember me."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Leslie. I remember you now by your smile; but
you are of an age in which it is permitted me to say that you look older
than when I saw you last."

"And yet, Lord L'Estrange, it seems to me that you look younger."

Indeed, this reply was so far true that there appeared less difference
of years than before between Leslie and L'Estrange; for the wrinkles
in the schemer's mind were visible in his visage, while Harley's dreamy
worship of Truth and Beauty seemed to have preserved to the votary the
enduring youth of the divinities.

Harley received the compliment with a supreme indifference, which might
have been suitable to a Stoic, but which seemed scarcely natural to
a gentleman who had just proposed to a lady many years younger than
himself.

Leslie renewed: "Perhaps you are on your way to Mr. Egerton's. If so,
you will not find him at home; he is at his office."

"Thank you. Then to his office I must re-direct my steps."

"I am going to him myself," said Randal, hesitatingly. L'Estrange had no
prepossessions in favour of Leslie from the little he had seen of that
young gentleman; but Randal's remark was an appeal to his habitual
urbanity, and he replied, with well-bred readiness, "Let us be
companions so far."

Randal accepted the arm proffered to him; and Lord L'Estrange, as
is usual with one long absent from his native land, bore part as a
questioner in the dialogue that ensued.

"Egerton is always the same man, I suppose,--too busy for illness, and
too firm for sorrow?"

"If he ever feel either, he will never stoop to complain. But, indeed,
my dear lord, I should like much to know what you think of his health."

"How! You alarm me!"

"Nay, I did not mean to do that; and pray do not let him know that
I went so far. But I have fancied that he looks a little worn and
suffering."

"Poor Audley!" said L'Estrange, in a tone of deep affection. "I will
sound him, and, be assured, without naming you; for I know well how
little he likes to be supposed capable of human infirmity. I am obliged
to you for your hint, obliged to you for your interest in one so dear to
me."

And Harley's voice was more cordial to Randal than it had ever been
before. He then began to inquire what Randal thought of the rumours that
had reached himself as to the probable defeat of the Government, and
how far Audley's spirits were affected by such risks. But Randal here,
seeing that Harley could communicate nothing, was reserved and guarded.

"Loss of office could not, I think, affect a man like Audley," observed
Lord L'Estrange. "He would be as great in opposition--perhaps greater;
and as to emoluments--"

"The emoluments are good," interposed Randal, with a half-sigh.

"Good enough, I suppose, to pay him back about a tenth of what his
place costs our magnificent friend. No, I will say one thing for English
statesmen, no man amongst them ever yet was the richer for place."

"And Mr. Egerton's private fortune must be large, I take for granted,"
said Randal, carelessly.

"It ought to be, if he has time to look to it."

Here they passed by the hotel in which lodged the Count di Peschiera.

Randal stopped. "Will you excuse me for an instant? As we are passing
this hotel, I will just leave my card here." So saying he gave his card
to a waiter lounging by the door. "For the Count di Peschiera," said he,
aloud.

L'Estrange started; and as Randal again took his arm, said, "So that
Italian lodges here; and you know him?"

"I know him but slightly, as one knows any foreigner who makes a
sensation."

"He makes a sensation?"

"Naturally; for he is handsome, witty, and said to be very rich,--that
is, as long as he receives the revenues of his exiled kinsman."

"I see you are well informed, Mr. Leslie. And what is supposed to bring
hither the Count di Peschiera?"

"I did hear something, which I did not quite understand, about a bet
of his that he would marry his kinsman's daughter, and so, I conclude,
secure to himself all the inheritance; and that he is therefore here
to discover the kinsman and win the heiress. But probably you know
the rights of the story, and can tell me what credit to give to such
gossip."

"I know this at least, that if he did lay such a wager, I would advise
you to take any odds against him that his backers may give," said
L'Estrange, dryly; and while his lip quivered with anger, his eye
gleamed with arch ironical humour.

"You think, then, that this poor kinsman will not need such an alliance
in order to regain his estates?"

"Yes; for I never yet knew a rogue whom I would not bet against, when he
backed his own luck as a rogue against Justice and Providence."

Randal winced, and felt as if an arrow had grazed his heart; but he soon
recovered.

"And indeed there is another vague rumour that the young lady in
question is married already--to some Englishman." This time it was
Harley who winced. "Good heavens! that cannot be true,--that would
undo all! An Englishman just at this moment! But some Englishman of
correspondent rank I trust, or at least one known for opinions opposed
to what an Austrian would call Revolutionary doctrines?"

"I know nothing. But it was supposed merely a private gentleman of
good family. Would not that suffice? Can the Austrian Court dictate a
marriage to the daughter as a condition for grace to the father?"

"No,--not that!" said Harley, greatly disturbed. "But put yourself in
the position of any minister to one of the great European monarchies.
Suppose a political insurgent, formidable for station and wealth, had
been proscribed, much interest made on his behalf, a powerful party
striving against it; and just when the minister is disposed to relent,
he hears that the heiress to this wealth and this station is married
to the native of a country in which sentiments friendly to the
very opinions for which the insurgent was proscribed are popularly
entertained, and thus that the fortune to be restored may be so
employed as to disturb the national security, the existing order of
things,--this, too, at the very time when a popular revolution has just
occurred in France, and its effects are felt most in the very land of
the exile;--suppose all this, and then say if anything could be more
untoward for the hopes of the banished man, or furnish his adversaries
with stronger arguments against the restoration of his fortune? But
pshaw! this must be a chimera! If true, I should have known of it."

   [As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be
   convenient to suggest that, according to the dates of this story,
   Harley no doubt alludes to that revolution which exiled Charles X.
   and placed Louis Philippe on the throne.]

"I quite agree with your lordship,--there can be no truth in such a
rumour. Some Englishman, hearing, perhaps, of the probable pardon of the
exile, may have counted on an heiress, and spread the report in order to
keep off other candidates. By your account, if successful in his suit,
he might fail to find an heiress in the bride."

"No doubt of that. Whatever might be arranged, I can't conceive that
he would be allowed to get at the fortune, though it might be held
in suspense for his children. But indeed it so rarely happens that an
Italian girl of high name marries a foreigner that we must dismiss this
notion with a smile at the long face of the hypothetical fortune-hunter.
Heaven help him, if he exist!"

"Amen!" echoed Randal, devoutly.

"I hear that Peschiera,'s sister is returned to England. Do you know her
too?"

"A little."

"My dear Mr. Leslie, pardon me if I take a liberty not warranted by our
acquaintance. Against the lady I say nothing. Indeed, I have heard some
things which appear to entitle her to compassion and respect. But as to
Peschiera all who prize honour suspect him to be a knave,--I know him
to be one. Now, I think that the longer we preserve that abhorrence for
knavery which is the generous instinct of youth, why, the fairer will
be our manhood, and the more reverend our age. You agree with me?"
And Harley suddenly turning, his eyes fell like a flood of light upon
Randal's pale and secret countenance.

"To be sure," murmured the schemer.

Harley, surveying him, mechanically recoiled, and withdrew his arm.

Fortunately for Randal, who somehow or other felt himself slipped into
a false position, he scarce knew how or why, he was here seized by the
arm; and a clear, open, manly voice cried, "My dear fellow, how are you?
I see you are engaged now; but look into my rooms when you can, in the
course of the day."

And with a bow of excuse for his interruption to Lord L'Estrange, the
speaker was then turning away, when Harley said,

"No, don't let me take you from your friend, Mr. Leslie. And you need
not be in a hurry to see Egerton; for I shall claim the privilege of
older friendship for the first interview."

"It is Mr. Egerton's nephew Frank Hazeldan."

"Pray, call him back, and present me to him. He has a face that would
have gone far to reconcile Timon to Athens." Randal obeyed, and after a
few kindly words to Frank, Harley insisted on leaving the two young men
together, and walked on to Downing Street with a brisker step.




CHAPTER X.

"That Lord L'Estrange seems a very good fellow."

"So-so; an effeminate humourist,--says the most absurd things, and
fancies them wise. Never mind him. You wanted to speak to me, Frank?"

"Yes; I am so obliged to you for introducing me to Levy. I must tell you
how handsomely he has behaved."

"Stop; allow me to remind you that I did not introduce you to Levy; you
had met him before at Borrowell's, if I recollect right, and he dined
with us at the Clarendon,--that is all I had to do with bringing you
together. Indeed I rather cautioned you against him than not. Pray
don't think I introduced you to a man who, however pleasant and perhaps
honest, is still a money-lender. Your father would be justly angry with
me if I had done so."

"Oh, pooh! you are prejudiced against poor Levy. But just hear: I was
sitting very ruefully, thinking over those cursed bills, and how the
deuce I should renew them, when Levy walked into my rooms; and
after telling me of his long friendship for my uncle Egerton and his
admiration for yourself, and (give me your hand, Randal) saying how
touched he felt by your kind sympathy in my troubles, he opened
his pocket-book, and showed me the bills safe and sound in his own
possession."

"How?"

"He had bought them up. 'It must be so disagreeable to me,' he said, 'to
have them flying about the London moneymarket, and those Jews would be
sure sooner or later to apply to my father. And now,' added Levy, 'I am
in no immediate hurry for the money, and we must put the interest upon
fairer terms.' In short, nothing could be more liberal than his tone.
And he says, he is thinking of a way to relieve me altogether, and will
call about it in a few days, when his plan is matured. After all, I must
owe this to you, Randal. I dare swear you put it into his head."

"Oh, no, indeed! On the contrary, I still say, Be cautious in all your
dealings with Levy. I don't know, I 'm sure, what he means to propose.
Have you heard from the Hall lately?"

"Yes, to-day. Only think--the Riccaboccas have disappeared. My mother
writes me word of it,--a very odd letter. She seems to suspect that I
know where they are, and reproaches me for 'mystery'--quite enigmatical.
But there is one sentence in her letter--see, here it is in the
postscript--which seems to refer to Beatrice: 'I don't ask you to tell
me your secrets, Frank, but Randal will no doubt have assured you that
my first consideration will be for your own happiness, in any matter in
which your heart is really engaged.'"

"Yes," said Randal, slowly; "no doubt this refers to Beatrice; but, as
I told you, your mother will not interfere one way or the other,--such
interference would weaken her influence with the squire. Besides, as she
said, she can't wish, you to marry a foreigner; though once married, she
would--But how do you stand now with the marchesa? Has she consented to
accept you?"

"Not quite; indeed I have not actually proposed. Her manner, though much
softened, has not so far emboldened me; and, besides, before a positive
declaration, I certainly must go down to the Hall and speak at least to
my mother."

"You must judge for yourself, but don't do anything rash: talk first to
me. Here we are at my office. Good-by; and--and pray believe that, in
whatever you do with Levy, I have no hand in it."




CHAPTER XI.

Towards the evening, Randal was riding fast on the road to Norwood. The
arrival of Harley, and the conversation that had passed between that
nobleman and Randal, made the latter anxious to ascertain how far
Riccabocca was likely to learn L'Estrange's return to England, and to
meet with him. For he felt that, should the latter come to know that
Riccabocca, in his movements, had gone by Randal's advice. Harley would
find that Randal had spoken to him disingenuously; and on the other
hand, Riccabocca, placed under the friendly protection of Lord
L'Estrange, would no longer need Randal Leslie to defend him from the
machinations of Peschiera. To a reader happily unaccustomed to dive
into the deep and mazy recesses of a schemer's mind, it might seem that
Randal's interest in retaining a hold over the exile's confidence would
terminate with the assurances that had reached him, from more than
one quarter, that Violante might cease to be an heiress if she
married himself. "But perhaps," suggests some candid and youthful
conjecturer,--"perhaps Randal Leslie is in love with this fair
creature?" Randal in love!--no! He was too absorbed by harder passions
for that blissful folly. Nor, if he could have fallen in love, was
Violante the one to attract that sullen, secret heart; her instinctive
nobleness, the very stateliness of her beauty, womanlike though it was,
awed him. Men of that kind may love some soft slave,--they cannot lift
their eyes to a queen. They may look down,--they cannot lookup. But on
the one hand, Randal could not resign altogether the chance of securing
a fortune that would realize his most dazzling dreams, upon the mere
assurance, however probable, which had so dismayed him; and on the other
hand, should he be compelled to relinquish all idea of such alliance,
though he did not contemplate the base perfidy of actually assisting
Peschiera's avowed designs, still, if Frank's marriage with Beatrice
should absolutely depend upon her brother's obtaining the knowledge
of Violante's retreat, and that marriage should be as conducive to his
interests as he thought he could make it, why--he did not then push
his deductions further, even to himself,--they seemed too black; but
he sighed heavily, and that sigh foreboded how weak would be honour
and virtue against avarice and ambition. Therefore, on all accounts,
Riccabocca was one of those cards in a sequence, which so calculating a
player would not throw out of his hand: it might serve for repique, at
the worst it might score well in the game. Intimacy with the Italian was
still part and parcel in that knowledge which was the synonym of power.

While the young man was thus meditating, on his road to Norwood,
Riccabocca and his Jemima were close conferring in their drawing-room.
And if you could have seen them, reader, you would have been seized with
equal surprise and curiosity: for some extraordinary communication had
certainly passed between them. Riccabocca was evidently much agitated,
and with emotions not familiar to him. The tears stood in his eyes at
the same time that a smile, the reverse of cynical or sardonic, curved
his lips; while his wife was leaning her head on his shoulder, her hand
clasped in his, and, by the expression of her face, you might guess
that he had paid her some very gratifying compliment, of a nature more
genuine and sincere than those which characterized his habitual hollow
and dissimulating gallantry. But just at this moment Giacomo entered,
and Jemima, with her native English modesty, withdrew in haste from
Riccabocca's sheltering side.

"Padrone," said Giacomo, who, whatever his astonishment at the
connubial position he had disturbed, was much too discreet to betray
it,--"Padrone, I see the young Englishman riding towards the house, and
I hope, when he arrives, you will not forget the alarming information I
gave to you this morning."

"Ah, ah!" said Riccabocca, his face falling. "If the signorina were but
married!"

"My very thought,--my constant thought!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "And you
really believe the young Englishman loves her?"

"Why else should he come, Excellency?" asked Giacomo, with great
naivete.

"Very true; why, indeed?" said Riccabocca. "Jemima, I cannot endure
the terrors I suffer on that poor child's account. I will open myself
frankly to Randal Leslie. And now, too, that which might have been a
serious consideration, in case I return to Italy, will no longer stand
in our way, Jemima."

Jemima smiled faintly, and whispered something to Riccabocca, to which
he replied,

"Nonsense, anima mia. I know it will be,--have not a doubt of it. I tell
you it is as nine to four, according to the nicest calculations. I will
speak at once to Randal. He is too young, too timid to speak himself."

"Certainly," interposed Giacomo; "how could he dare to speak, let him
love ever so well?"

Jemima shook her head.

"Oh, never fear," said Riccabocca, observing this gesture; "I will give
him the trial. If he entertain but mercenary views, I shall soon detect
them. I know human nature pretty well, I think, my love; and, Giacomo,
just get me my Machiavelli;--that's right. Now leave me, my dear; I must
reflect and prepare myself."

When Randal entered the house, Giacomo, with a smile of peculiar
suavity, ushered him into the drawing-room. He found Riccabocca alone,
and seated before the fireplace, leaning his face on his hand, with the
great folio of Machiavelli lying open on the table.

The Italian received him as courteously as usual; but there was in his
manner a certain serious and thoughtful dignity, which was perhaps
the more imposing, because but rarely assumed. After a few preliminary
observations, Randal remarked that Frank Hazeldean had informed him of
the curiosity which the disappearance of the Riccaboccas had excited at
the Hall, and inquired carelessly if the doctor had left instructions
as to the forwarding of any letters that might be directed to him at the
Casino.

"Letters!" said Riccabocca, simply; "I never receive any; or, at least,
so rarely, that it was not worth while to take an event so little to
be expected into consideration. No; if any letters do reach the Casino,
there they will wait."

"Then I can see no possibility of indiscretion; no chance of a clew to
your address."

"Nor I either."

Satisfied so far, and knowing that it was not in Riecabocca's habits
to read the newspapers, by which he might otherwise have learned of
L'Estrange's arrival in London, Randal then proceeded to inquire, with
much seeming interest, into the health of Violante,--hoped it did not
suffer by confinement, etc. Riccabocca eyed him gravely while he spoke,
and then suddenly rising, that air of dignity to which I have before
referred became yet more striking.

"My young friend," said he, "hear me attentively, and answer me frankly.
I know human nature--" Here a slight smile of proud complacency passed
the sage's lips, and his eye glanced towards his Machiavelli.

"I know human nature,--at least I have studied it," he renewed more
earnestly, and with less evident self-conceit; "and I believe that
when a perfect stranger to me exhibits an interest in my affairs, which
occasions him no small trouble,--an interest," continued the wise
man, laying his hand on Randal's shoulder, "which scarcely a son could
exceed, he must be under the influence of some strong personal motive."

"Oh, sir!" cried Randal, turning a shade more pale, and with a faltering
tone. Riccabocca, surveyed him with the tenderness of a superior being,
and pursued his deductive theories.

"In your case, what is that motive? Not political; for I conclude you
share the opinions of your government, and those opinions have not
favoured mine. Not that of pecuniary or ambitious calculations; for
how can such calculations enlist you on behalf of a ruined exile? What
remains? Why, the motive which at your age is ever the most natural and
the strongest. I don't blame you. Machiavelli himself allows that such
a motive has swayed the wisest minds, and overturned the most solid
States. In a word, young man, you are in love, and with my daughter
Violante."

Randal was so startled by this direct and unexpected charge upon his
own masked batteries, that he did not even attempt his defence. His head
drooped on his breast, and he remained speechless.

"I do not doubt," resumed the penetrating judge of human nature, "that
you would have been withheld by the laudable and generous scruples which
characterize your happy age, from voluntarily disclosing to me the state
of your heart. You might suppose that, proud of the position I once
held, or sanguine in the hope of regaining my inheritance, I might
be over-ambitious in my matrimonial views for Violante; or that you,
anticipating my restoration to honours and fortune, might seem actuated
by the last motives which influence love and youth; and, therefore, my
dear young friend, I have departed from the ordinary custom in England,
and adopted a very common one in my own country. With us, a suitor
seldom presents himself till he is assured of the consent of a father.
I have only to say this,--if I am right, and you love my daughter, my
first object in life is to see her safe and secure; and, in a word--you
understand me."

Now, mightily may it comfort and console us ordinary mortals, who
advance no pretence to superior wisdom and ability, to see the huge
mistakes made by both these very sagacious personages,--Dr. Riccabocca,
valuing himself on his profound acquaintance with character, and Randal
Leslie, accustomed to grope into every hole and corner of thought and
action, wherefrom to extract that knowledge which is power! For whereas
the sage, judging not only by his own heart in youth, but by the general
influence of the master passion on the young, had ascribed to Randal
sentiments wholly foreign to that able diplomatist's nature, so no
sooner had Riccabocca brought his speech to a close, than Randal,
judging also by his own heart, and by the general laws which influence
men of the mature age and boasted worldly wisdom of the pupil of
Machiavelli, instantly decided that Riccabocca presumed upon his youth
and inexperience, and meant most nefariously to take him in.

"The poor youth!" thought Riccabocca, "how unprepared he is for the
happiness I give him!"

"The cunning old Jesuit!" thought Randal; "he has certainly learned,
since we met last, that he has no chance of regaining his patrimony, and
so he wants to impose on me the hand of a girl without a shilling.
What other motive can he possibly have? Had his daughter the remotest
probability of becoming the greatest heiress in Italy, would he dream of
bestowing her on me in this off-hand way? The thing stands to reason."

Actuated by his resentment at the trap thus laid for him, Randal was
about to disclaim altogether the disinterested and absurd affection
laid to his charge, when it occurred to him that, by so doing, he might
mortally offend the Italian, since the cunning never forgive those who
refuse to be duped by them,--and it might still be conducive to his
interest to preserve intimate and familiar terms with Riccabocca;
therefore, subduing his first impulse, he exclaimed,

"Oh, too generous man! pardon me if I have so long been unable to
express my amaze, my gratitude; but I cannot--no, I cannot, while
your prospects remain thus uncertain, avail myself of your--of your
inconsiderate magnanimity. Your rare conduct can only redouble my own
scruples, if you, as I firmly hope and believe, are restored to your
great possessions--you would naturally look so much higher than me.
Should these hopes fail, then, indeed, it may be different; yet even
then, what position, what fortune, have I to offer to your daughter
worthy of her?"

"You are well born! all gentlemen are equals," said Riccabocca, with a
sort of easy nobleness. "You have youth, information, talent,--sources
of certain wealth in this happy country,--powerful connections; and, in
fine, if you are satisfied with marrying for love, I shall be contented;
if not, speak openly. As to the restoration to my possessions, I can
scarcely think that probable while my enemy lives. And even in that
case, since I saw you last, something has occurred," added Riccabocca,
with a strange smile, which seemed to Randal singularly sinister and
malignant, "that may remove all difficulties. Meanwhile, do not think me
so extravagantly magnanimous; do not underrate the satisfaction I must
feel at knowing Violante safe from the designs of Peschiera,--safe, and
forever, under a husband's roof. I will tell you an Italian proverb,--it
contains a truth full of wisdom and terror,

"'Hai cinquanta Amici?--non basta. Hai un Nemico?--e troppo.'" ["Have
you fifty friends?--it is not enough. Have you one enemy?--it is too
much."]

"Something has occurred!" echoed Randal, not heeding the conclusion of
this speech, and scarcely hearing the proverb, which the sage delivered
in his most emphatic and tragic tone. "Something has occurred! My dear
friend, be plainer. What has occurred?" Riccabocca remained silent.
"Something that induces you to bestow your daughter on me?" Riccabocca
nodded, and emitted a low chuckle.

"The very laugh of a fiend," muttered Randal. "Something that makes her
not worth bestowing. He betrays himself. Cunning people always do."

"Pardon me," said the Italian, at last, "if I don't answer your
question; you will know later; but at present this is a family secret.
And now I must turn to another and more alarming cause for my frankness
to you." Here Riccabocca's face changed, and assumed an expression of
mingled rage and fear. "You must know," he added, sinking his voice,
"that Giacomo has seen a strange person loitering about the house, and
looking up at the windows; and he has no doubt--nor have I--that this is
some spy or emissary of Peschiera's."

"Impossible; how could he discover you?"

"I know not; but no one else has any interest in doing so. The man kept
at a distance, and Giacomo could not see his face."

"It may be but a mere idler. Is this all?"

"No; the old woman who serves us said that she was asked at a shop 'if
we were not Italians'?"

"And she answered?"

"'No;' but owned that 'we had a foreign servant, Giacomo.'"

"I will see to this. Rely on it that if Peschiera has discovered you,
I will learn it. Nay, I will hasten from you in order to commence
inquiry."

"I cannot detain you. May I think that we have now an interest in
common?"

"Oh, indeed yes; but--but--your daughter! How can I dream that one so
beautiful, so peerless, will confirm the hope you have extended to me?"

"The daughter of an Italian is brought up to consider that it is a
father's right to dispose of her hand."

"But the heart?"

"Cospetto!" said the Italian, true to his infamous notions as to the
sex, "the heart of a girl is like a convent,--the holier the cloister,
the more charitable the door."




CHAPTER XII.

Randal had scarcely left the house before Mrs. Riccabocca, who was
affectionately anxious in all that concerned Violante, rejoined her
husband.

"I like the young man very well," said the sage,--"very well indeed.
I find him just what I expected, from my general knowledge of human
nature; for as love ordinarily goes with youth, so modesty usually
accompanies talent. He is young, ergo, he is in love; he has talent,
ergo, he is modest, modest and ingenuous."

"And you think not in any way swayed by interest in his affections?"

"Quite the contrary; and to prove him the more, I have not said a word
as to the worldly advantages which, in any case, would accrue to him
from an alliance with my daughter. In any case: for if I regain my
country, her fortune is assured; and if not, I trust" (said the poor
exile, lifting his brow with stately and becoming pride) "that I am too
well aware of my child's dignity, as well as my own, to ask any one to
marry her to his own worldly injury."

"Eh! I don't quite understand you, Alphonso. To be sure, your dear life
is insured for her marriage portion; but--"

"Pazzie-stuff!" said Riccabocca, petulantly; "her marriage portion would
be as nothing to a young man of Randal's birth and prospects. I think
not of that. But listen: I have never consented to profit by Harley
L'Estrange's friendship for me; my scruples would not extend to my
son-in-law. This noble friend has not only high rank, but considerable
influence,--influence with the government, influence with Randal's
patron, who, between ourselves, does not seem to push the young man as
he might do; I judge by what Randal says. I should write, therefore,
before anything was settled, to L'Estrange, and I should say to him
simply, 'I never asked you to save me from penury, but I do ask you
to save a daughter of my House from humiliation. I can give to her no
dowry; can her husband owe to my friend that advance in an honourable
career, that opening to energy and talent, which is more than a dowry to
generous ambition?'"

"Oh, it is in vain you would disguise your rank," cried Jemima, with
enthusiasm; "it speaks in all you utter, when your passions are moved."

The Italian did not seem flattered by that eulogy. "Pish," said he,
"there you are! rank again!"

But Jemima was right. There was something about her husband that
was grandiose and princely, whenever he escaped from his accursed
Machiavelli, and gave fair play to his heart.

And he spent the next hour or so in thinking over all that he could
do for Randal, and devising for his intended son-in-law the agreeable
surprise, which Randal was at that very time racking his yet cleverer
brains to disappoint.

These plans conned sufficiently, Riccabocca shut up his Machiavelli, and
hunted out of his scanty collection of books, Buffon on Man, and various
other psychological volumes, in which he soon became deeply absorbed.
Why were these works the object of the sage's study? Perhaps he will let
us know soon, for it is clearly a secret known to his wife; and though
she has hitherto kept one secret, that is precisely the reason why
Riccabocca would not wish long to overburden her discretion with
another.




CHAPTER XIII.

Randal reached home in time to dress for a late dinner at Baron Levy's.

The baron's style of living was of that character especially affected
both by the most acknowledged exquisites of that day, and, it must be
owned, also, by the most egregious parvenus. For it is noticeable
that it is your parvenu who always comes nearest in fashion (so far as
externals are concerned) to your genuine exquisite. It is your parvenu
who is most particular as to the cut of his coat, and the precision of
his equipage, and the minutia, of his menage. Those between the parvenu
and the exquisite, who know their own consequence, and have something
solid to rest upon, are slow in following all the caprices of fashion,
and obtuse in observation as to those niceties which neither give them
another ancestor, nor add another thousand to the account at their
banker's,--as to the last, rather indeed the contrary! There was a
decided elegance about the baron's house and his dinner. If he had been
one of the lawful kings of the dandies, you would have cried, "What
perfect taste!"--but such is human nature, that the dandies who dined
with him said to each other, "He pretend to imitate D----! vulgar dog!"
There was little affectation of your more showy opulence. The furniture
in the rooms was apparently simple, but, in truth, costly, from its
luxurious comfort; the ornaments and china scattered about the commodes
were of curious rarity and great value, and the pictures on the walls
were gems. At dinner, no plate was admitted on the table. The Russian
fashion, then uncommon, now more prevalent, was adopted, fruit and
flowers in old Sevres dishes of priceless vertu, and in sparkling glass
of Bohemian fabric. No livery servant was permitted to wait; behind each
guest stood a gentleman dressed so like the guest himself, in fine linen
and simple black, that guest and lacquey seemed stereotypes from one
plate.

The viands were exquisite; the wine came from the cellars of deceased
archbishops and ambassadors. The company was select; the party did not
exceed eight. Four were the eldest sons of peers (from a baron to
a duke); one was a professed wit, never to be got without a month's
notice, and, where a parvenu was host, a certainty of green peas and
peaches--out of season; the sixth, to Randal's astonishment, was Mr.
Richard Avenel; himself and the baron made up the complement.

The eldest sons recognized each other with a meaning smile; the most
juvenile of them, indeed (it was his first year in London), had the
grace to blush and look sheepish. The others were more hardened; but
they all united in regarding with surprise both Randal and Dick Avenel.
The former was known to most of them personally, and to all, by repute,
as a grave, clever, promising young man, rather prudent than lavish,
and never suspected to have got into a scrape. What the deuce did he do
there? Mr. Avenel puzzled them yet more. A middle-aged man, said to
be in business, whom they had observed "about town" (for he had a
noticeable face and figure),--that is, seen riding in the Park, or
lounging in the pit at the opera, but never set eyes on at a recognized
club, or in the coteries of their "set;" a man whose wife gave horrid
third-rate parties, that took up half a column in the "Morning Post"
with a list of "The Company Present," in which a sprinkling of dowagers
fading out of fashion, and a foreign title or two, made the darkness
of the obscurer names doubly dark. Why this man should be asked to
meet them, by Baron Levy, too--a decided tuft-hunter and would-be
exclusive--called all their faculties into exercise. The wit, who, being
the son of a small tradesman, but in the very best society, gave himself
far greater airs than the young lords, impertinently solved the mystery.
"Depend on it," whispered he to Spendquick,--"depend on it the man is
the X. Y. of the 'Times' who offers to lend any sum of money from L10
to half-a-million. He's the man who has all your bills; Levy is only his
jackal."

"'Pon my soul," said Spendquick, rather alarmed, "if that's the case,
one may as well be civil to him."

"You, certainly," said the wit. "But I never have found an X. Y. who
would advance me the L. s.; and therefore I shall not be more respectful
to X. Y. than to any other unknown quantity."

By degrees, as the wine circulated, the party grew gay and sociable.
Levy was really an entertaining fellow; had all the gossip of the town
at his fingers' ends; and possessed, moreover, that pleasant art of
saying ill-natured things of the absent, which those present always
enjoy. By degrees, too, Mr. Richard Avenel came out; and, as the whisper
had circulated round the table that he was X. Y., he was listened to
with a profound respect, which greatly elevated his spirits. Nay, when
the wit tried once to show him up or mystify him, Dick answered with a
bluff spirit, that, though very coarse, was found so humorous by Lord
Spendquick and other gentlemen similarly situated in the money-market
that they turned the laugh against the wit, and silenced him for the
rest of the night,--a circumstance which made the party go off much more
pleasantly. After dinner, the conversation, quite that of single men,
easy and debonnaire, glanced from the turf and the ballet and the last
scandal towards politics; for the times were such that politics were
discussed everywhere, and three of the young lords were county members.

Randal said little, but, as was his wont, listened attentively; and he
was aghast to find how general was the belief that the Government was
doomed. Out of regard to him, and with that delicacy of breeding which
belongs to a certain society, nothing personal to Egerton was said,
except by Avenel, who, however, on blurting out some rude expressions
respecting that minister, was instantly checked by the baron. "Spare
my friend and Mr. Leslie's near connection," said he, with a polite but
grave smile.

"Oh," said Avenel, "public men, whom we pay, are public
property,--aren't they, my Lord?" appealing to Spendquick.

"Certainly," said Spendquick, with great spirit,--"public property, or
why should we pay them? There must be a very strong motive to induce us
to do that! I hate paying people. In fact," he subjoined in an aside, "I
never do."

"However," resumed Mr. Avenel, graciously, "I don't want to hurt your
feelings, Mr. Leslie. As to the feelings of our host, the baron, I
calculate that they have got tolerably tough by the exercise they have
gone through."

"Nevertheless," said the baron, joining in the laugh which any lively
saying by the supposed X. Y. was sure to excite, "nevertheless, 'love
me, love my dog,'--love me, love my Egerton."

Randal started, for his quick ear and subtle intelligence caught
something sinister and hostile in the tone with which Levy uttered this
equivocal comparison, and his eye darted towards the baron. But the
baron had bent down his face, and was regaling himself upon an olive.

By-and-by the party rose from table. The four young noblemen had their
engagements elsewhere, and proposed to separate without re-entering the
drawing-room. As, in Goethe's theory, monads which have affinities with
each other are irresistibly drawn together, so these gay children of
pleasure had, by a common impulse, on rising from table, moved each
to each, and formed a group round the fireplace. Randal stood a little
apart, musing; the wit examined the pictures through his eye-glass; and
Mr. Avenel drew the baron towards the side-board, and there held him in
whispered conference. This colloquy did not escape the young gentlemen
round the fireplace; they glanced towards each other.

"Settling the percentage on renewal," said one, sotto voce. "X. Y. does
not seem such a very bad fellow," said another.

"He looks rich, and talks rich," said a third.

"A decided, independent way of expressing his sentiments; those moneyed
men generally have."

"Good heavens!" ejaculated Spendquick, who had been keeping his eye
anxiously fixed on the pair, "do look; X. Y. is actually taking out
his pocket-book; he is coming this way. Depend on it he has got our
bills--mine is due to-morrow!"

"And mine too," said another, edging off. "Why, it is a perfect
guet-apens."

Meanwhile, breaking away from the baron, who appeared anxious to detain
him, and failing in that attempt, turned aside, as if not to see Dick's
movements,--a circumstance which did not escape the notice of the
group, and confirmed all their suspicions,--Mr. Avenel, with a serious,
thoughtful face, and a slow step, approached the group. Nor did the
great Roman general more nervously "flutter the dove-cots in Corioli,"
than did the advance of the supposed X. Y. agitate the bosoms of Lord
Spendquick and his sympathizing friends. Pocket-book in hand, and
apparently feeling for something formidable within its mystic recesses,
step by step came Dick Avenel towards the fireplace. The group stood
still, fascinated by horror.

"Hum," said Mr. Avenel, clearing his throat.

"I don't like that hum at all," muttered Spendquick. "Proud to have made
your acquaintance, gentlemen," said Dick, bowing.

The gentlemen thus addressed bowed low in return.

"My friend the baron thought this not exactly the time to--" Dick
stopped a moment; you might have knocked down those four young
gentlemen, though four finer specimens of humanity no aristocracy in
Europe could produce,--you might have knocked them down with a feather!
"But," renewed Avenel, not finishing his sentence, "I have made it a
rule in life never to lose securing a good opportunity; in short, to
make the most of the present moment. And," added he, with a smile which
froze the blood in Lord Spendquick's veins, "the rule has made me a very
warm man! Therefore, gentlemen, allow me to present you each with one
of these"--every hand retreated behind the back of its well-born owner,
when, to the inexpressible relief of all, Dick concluded with,--"a
little soiree dansante," and extended four cards of invitation.

"Most happy!" exclaimed Spendquick. "I don't dance in general; but to
oblige X--I mean, to have a better acquaintance, sir, with you--I would
dance on the tight-rope."

There was a good-humoured, pleasant laugh at Spendquick's enthusiasm,
and a general shaking of hands and pocketing of the invitation cards.

"You don't look like a dancing man," said Avenel, turning to the wit,
who was plump and somewhat gouty,--as wits who dine out five days in the
week generally are; "but we shall have supper at one o'clock."

Infinitely offended and disgusted, the wit replied dryly, "that every
hour of his time was engaged for the rest of the season," and, with a
stiff salutation to the baron, took his departure. The rest, in good
spirits, hurried away to their respective cabriolets; and Leslie was
following them into the hall, when the baron, catching hold of him,
said, "Stay, I want to talk to you."




CHAPTER XIV.

The baron turned into his drawing-room, and Leslie followed.

"Pleasant young men, those," said Levy, with a slight sneer, as he threw
himself into an easy-chair and stirred the fire. "And not at all proud;
but, to be sure, they are--under great obligations to me. Yes; they
owe me a great deal a propos, I have had a long talk with Frank
Hazeldean,--fine young man, remarkable capacities for business. I can
arrange his affairs for him. I find, on reference to the Will Office,
that you were quite right; the Casino property is entailed on Frank. He
will have the fee simple. He can dispose of the reversion entirely. So
that there will be no difficulty in our arrangements."

"But I told you also that Frank had scruples about borrowing on the
event of his father's death."

"Ay, you did so. Filial affection! I never take that into account
in matters of business. Such little scruples, though they are highly
honourable to human nature, soon vanish before the prospect of the
King's Bench. And, too, as you so judiciously remarked, our clever young
friend is in love with Madame di Negra."

"Did he tell you that?"

"No; but Madame di Negra did!"

"You know her?"

"I know most people in good society, who now and then require a friend
in the management of their affairs. And having made sure of the fact you
stated, as to Hazeldean's contingent property (excuse my prudence), I
have accommodated Madame di Negra and bought up her debts."

"You have--you surprise me!"

"The surprise will vanish on reflection. But you are very new to the
world yet, my dear Leslie. By the way, I have had an interview with
Peschiera--"

"About his sister's debts?"

"Partly. A man of the nicest honour is Peschiera." Aware of Levy's habit
of praising people for the qualities in which, according to the judgment
of less penetrating mortals, they were most deficient, Randal only
smiled at this eulogy, and waited for Levy to resume. But the baron sat
silent and thoughtful for a minute or two, and then wholly changed the
subject.

"I think your father has some property in ----shire, and you probably
can give me a little information as to certain estates of a Mr.
Thornhill, estates which, on examination of the title-deeds, I find
once, indeed, belonged to your family." The baron glanced at a very
elegant memorandum-book.--"The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, with
sundry farms thereon. Mr. Thornhill wants to sell them--an old client of
mine, Thornhill. He has applied to me on the matter. Do you think it an
improvable property?"

Randal listened with a livid cheek and a throbbing heart. We have seen
that, if there was one ambitious scheme in his calculation which, though
not absolutely generous and heroic, still might win its way to a certain
sympathy in the undebased human mind, it was the hope to restore the
fallen fortunes of his ancient house, and repossess himself of the long
alienated lands that surrounded the dismal wastes of the mouldering
hall. And now to hear that those lands were getting into the inexorable
gripe of Levy--tears of bitterness stood in his eyes.

"Thornhill," continued Levy, who watched the young man's
countenance,--"Thornhill tells me that that part of his property--the
old Leslie lands--produces L2, 000 a year, and that the rental could
be raised. He would take L50,000 for it, L20,000 down, and suffer the
remaining L30,000 to lie on mortgage at four per cent. It seems a very
good purchase. What do you say?"

"Don't ask me," said Randal, stung into rare honesty; "for I had hoped I
might live to repossess myself of that property."

"Ah, indeed! It would be a very great addition to your consequence
in the world,--not from the mere size of the estate, but from its
hereditary associations. And if you have any idea of the purchase,
believe me, I'll not stand in your way."

"How can I have any idea of it?"

"But I thought you said you had."

"I understood that these lands could not be sold till Mr. Thornhill's
son came of age, and joined in getting rid of the entail."

"Yes, so Thornhill himself supposed, till, on examining the title-deeds,
I found he was under a mistake. These lands are not comprised in the
settlement made by old Jasper Thornhill, which ties up the rest of
the property. The title will be perfect. Thornhill wants to settle
the matter at once,--losses on the turf, you understand; an immediate
purchaser would get still better terms. A Sir John Spratt would give the
money; but the addition of these lands would make the Spratt property
of more consequence in the county than the Thornhill. So my client would
rather take a few thousands less from a man who don't set up to be his
rival. Balance of power in counties as well as nations."

Randal was silent.

"Well," said Levy, with great kindness of manner, "I see I pain you;
and though I am what my very pleasant guests would call a parvenu,
I comprehend your natural feelings as a gentleman of ancient birth.
Parvenu! Ah, is it not strange, Leslie, that no wealth, no fashion,
no fame can wipe out that blot? They call me a parvenu, and borrow my
money. They call our friend the wit a parvenu, and submit to all his
insolence--if they condescend to regard his birth at all--provided they
can but get him to dinner. They call the best debater in the parliament
of England a parvenu, and will entreat him, some day or other, to be
prime minister, and ask him for stars and garters. A droll world, and no
wonder the parvenus want to upset it."

Randal had hitherto supposed that this notorious tufthunter, this dandy
capitalist, this money-lender, whose whole fortune had been wrung from
the wants and follies of an aristocracy, was naturally a firm supporter
of things as they are--how could things be better for men like Baron
Levy? But the usurer's burst of democratic spleen did not surprise his
precocious and acute faculty of observation. He had before remarked,
that it is the persons who fawn most upon an aristocracy, and profit the
most by the fawning, who are ever at heart its bitterest disparagers.
Why is this? Because one full half of democratic opinion is made up of
envy; and we can only envy what is brought before our eyes, and
what, while very near to us, is still unattainable. No man envies an
archangel.

"But," said Levy, throwing himself back in his chair, "a new order of
things is commencing; we shall see. Leslie, it is lucky for you that
you did not enter parliament under the government; it would be your
political ruin for life."

"You think, then, that the ministry really cannot last?"

"Of course I do; and what is more, I think that a ministry of the same
principles cannot be restored. You are a young man of talent and spirit;
your birth is nothing compared to the rank of the reigning party; it
would tell, to a certain degree, in a democratic one. I say, you should
be more civil to Avenel; he could return you to parliament at the next
election."

"The next election! In six years! We have just had a general election."

"There will be another before this year, or half of it, or perhaps a
quarter of it, is out."

"What makes you think so?"

"Leslie, let there be confidence between us; we can help each other.
Shall we be friends?"

"With all my heart. But though you may help me, how can I help you?"

"You have helped me already to Frank Hazeldean and the Casino estate.
All clever men can help me. Come, then, we are friends; and what I say
is secret. You ask me why I think there will be a general election so
soon? I will answer you frankly. Of all the public men I ever met with,
there is no one who has so clear a vision of things immediately before
him as Audley Egerton."

"He has that character. Not far-seeing, but clear-sighted to a certain
limit."

"Exactly so. No one better, therefore, knows public opinion and its
immediate ebb and flow."

"Granted."

"Egerton, then, counts on a general election within three months, and I
have lent him the money for it."

"Lent him the money! Egerton borrow money of you, the rich Audley
Egerton!"

"Rich!" repeated Levy, in a tone impossible to describe, and
accompanying the word with that movement of the middle finger and thumb,
commonly called a "snap," which indicates profound contempt.

He said no more. Randal sat stupefied. At length the latter muttered,
"But if Egerton is really not rich; if he lose office, and without the
hope of return to it--"

"If so, he is ruined!" said Levy, coldly; "and therefore, from regard to
you, and feeling interest in your future fate, I say, Rest no hopes of
fortune or career upon Audley Egerton. Keep your place for the present,
but be prepared at the next election to stand upon popular principles.
Avenel shall return you to parliament; and the rest is with luck and
energy. And now, I'll not detain you longer," said Levy, rising and
ringing the bell. The servant entered. "Is my carriage here?"

"Yes, Baron."

"Can I set you down anywhere?"

"No, thank you, I prefer walking."

"Adieu, then. And mind you remember the soiree dansante at Mrs.
Avenel's." Randal mechanically shook the hand extended to him, and went
down the stairs.

The fresh frosty air roused his intellectual faculties, which Levy's
ominous words had almost paralyzed.

And the first thing the clever schemer said to himself was this,

"But what can be the man's motive in what he said to me?"

The next was,--

"Egerton ruined! What am I, then?" And the third was,

"And that fair remnant of the old Leslie property! L20,000 down--how to
get the sum? Why should Levy have spoken to me of this?"

And lastly, the soliloquy rounded back--"The man's motives! His
motives!"

Meanwhile, the baron threw himself into his chariot--the most
comfortable, easy chariot you can possibly conceive, single man's
chariot, perfect taste,--no married man ever had such a chariot; and in
a few minutes he was at ---------'s hotel, and in the presence of Giulio
Franzini, Count di Peschiera.

"Mon cher," said the baron, in very good French, and in a tone of the
most familiar equality with the descendant of the princes and heroes of
grand medieval Italy,--"mon cher, give me one of your excellent cigars.
I think I have put all matters in train."

"You have found out--"

"No; not so fast yet," said the baron, lighting the cigar extended to
him. "But you said that you should be perfectly contented if it only
cost you L20,000 to marry off your sister (to whom that sum is legally
due), and to marry yourself to the heiress."

"I did, indeed."

"Then I have no doubt I shall manage both objects for that sum, if
Randal Leslie really knows where the young lady is, and can assist you.
Most promising, able man is Randal Leslie--but innocent as a babe just
born."

"Ha, ha! Innocent? Que diable!"

"Innocent as this cigar, mon cher,--strong certainly, but smoked very
easily. Soyez tranquille!"




CHAPTER XV.

Who has not seen, who not admired, that noble picture by Daniel Maclise,
which refreshes the immortal name of my ancestor Caxton! For myself,
while with national pride I heard the admiring murmurs of the foreigners
who grouped around it (nothing, indeed, of which our nation may be more
proud had they seen in the Crystal Palace),--heard, with no less a pride
in the generous nature of fellow-artists, the warm applause of living
and deathless masters sanctioning the enthusiasm of the popular crowd,
what struck me more than the precision of drawing, for which the artist
has been always renowned, and the just, though gorgeous affluence of
colour which he has more recently acquired, was the profound depth of
conception, out of which this great work had so elaborately arisen. That
monk, with his scowl towards the printer and his back on the Bible over
which his form casts a shadow--the whole transition between the medieval
Christianity of cell and cloister, and the modern Christianity that
rejoices in the daylight, is depicted there, in the shadow that obscures
the Book, in the scowl that is fixed upon the Book-diffuser;--that
sombre, musing face of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, with the beauty
of Napoleon, darkened to the expression of a Fiend, looking far and
anxiously into futurity, as if foreseeing there what antagonism was
about to be created to the schemes of secret crime and unrelenting
force; the chivalrous head of the accomplished Rivers, seen but in
profile, under his helmet, as if the age when Chivalry must defend its
noble attributes in steel was already half passed away; and, not least
grand of all, the rude thews and sinews of the artisan forced into
service on the type, and the ray of intellect, fierce, and menacing
revolutions yet to be, struggling through his rugged features, and
across his low knitted brow,--all this, which showed how deeply the
idea of the discovery in its good and its evil, its saving light and
its perilous storms, had sunk into the artist's soul, charmed me as
effecting the exact union between sentiment and execution, which is the
true and rare consummation of the Ideal in Art. But observe, while
in these personages of the group are depicted the deeper and graver
agencies implicated in the bright but terrible invention, observe how
little the light epicures of the hour heed the scowl of the monk, or the
restless gesture of Richard, or the troubled gleam in the eyes of the
artisan, King Edward, handsome Poco curante, delighted in the surprise
of a child, with a new toy, and Clarence, with his curious, yet
careless, glance,--all the while Caxton himself, calm, serene,
untroubled, intent solely upon the manifestation of his discovery, and
no doubt supremely indifferent whether the first proofs of it shall be
dedicated to a Rivers or an Edward, a Richard or a Henry, Plantagenet or
Tudor--'t is all the same to that comely, gentle-looking man. So is it
ever with your Abstract Science!--not a jot cares its passionless logic
for the woe or weal of a generation or two. The stream, once emerged
from its source, passes on into the great Intellectual Sea, smiling over
the wretch that it drowns, or under the keel of the ship which it serves
as a slave.

Now, when about to commence the present chapter on the Varieties
of Life, this masterpiece of thoughtful art forced itself on my
recollection, and illustrated what I designed to convey. In the surface
of every age it is often that which but amuses for the moment the
ordinary children of pleasant existence, the Edwards and the Clarences
(be they kings and dukes, or simplest of simple subjects), which
afterwards towers out as the great serious epoch of the time. When we
look back upon human records, how the eye settles upon WRITERS as
the main landmarks of the past! We talk of the age of Augustus, of
Elizabeth, of Louis XIV., of Anne, as the notable eras of the world.
Why? Because it is their writers who have made them so. Intervals
between one age of authors and another lie unnoticed, as the flats and
common lands of uncultured history. And yet, strange to say, when these
authors are living amongst us, they occupy a very small portion of our
thoughts, and fill up but desultory interstices in the bitumen and tufo
wherefrom we build up the Babylon of our lives. So it is, and perhaps so
it should be, whether it pleases the conceit of penmen or not. Life is
meant to be active; and books, though they give the action to future
generations, administer but to the holiday of the present.

And so, with this long preface, I turn suddenly from the Randals and
the Egertons, and the Levys, Avenels, and Peschieras, from the plots
and passions of practical life, and drop the reader suddenly into one of
those obscure retreats wherein Thought weaves, from unnoticed moments, a
new link to the chain that unites the ages.

Within a small room, the single window of which opened on a fanciful and
fairy-like garden that has been before described, sat a young man alone.
He had been writing; the ink was not dry on his manuscript, but his
thoughts had been suddenly interrupted from his work, and his eyes, now
lifted from the letter which had occasioned that interruption, sparkled
with delight. "He will come," exclaimed the young man; "come here,--to
the home which I owe to him. I have not been unworthy of his friendship.
And she--" his breast heaved, but the joy faded from his face. "Oh,
strange, strange, that I feel sad at the thought to see her again! See
her--Ah, no! my own comforting Helen, my own Child-angel! Her I can
never see again! The grown woman--that is not my Helen. And yet--and
yet," he resumed after a pause, "if ever she read the pages in which
thought flowed and trembled under her distant starry light, if ever
she see how her image has rested with me, and feel that, while others
believe that I invent, I have but remembered, will she not, for a
moment, be my own Helen again? Again, in heart and in fancy, stand by my
side on the desolate bridge, hand in hand, orphans both, as we stood
in the days so sorrowful, yet, as I recall them, so sweet? Helen in
England--it is a dream!"

He rose, half-consciously, and went to the window. The fountain played
merrily before his eyes, and the birds in the aviary carolled loud to
his ear. "And in this house," he murmured, "I saw her last! And there,
where the fountain now throws its spray on high,--there her benefactor
and mine told me that I was to lose her, that I might win--fame. Alas!"

At this time a woman, whose dress was somewhat above her mien and air,
which, though not without a certain respectability, were very homely,
entered the room; and seeing the young man standing thus thoughtful by
the window, paused. She was used to his habits; and since his success
in life, had learned to respect them. So she did not disturb his revery,
but began softly to arrange the room, dusting, with the corner of her
apron, the various articles of furniture, putting a stray chair or two
in its right place, but not touching a single paper. Virtuous woman, and
rare as virtuous!

The young man turned at last, with a deep, yet not altogether painful
sigh,

"My dear mother, good day to you. Ah, you do well to make the room look
its best. Happy news! I expect a visitor!"

"Dear me, Leonard, will he want lunch--or what?"

"Nay, I think not, Mother. It is he to whom we owe all,--'Haec otia
fecit.' Pardon my Latin; it is Lord L'Estrange."

The face of Mrs. Fairfield (the reader has long since divined the name)
changed instantly, and betrayed a nervous twitch of all the muscles,
which gave her a family likeness to old Mrs. Avenel.

"Do not be alarmed, Mother. He is the kindest--"

"Don't talk so; I can't bear it!" cried Mrs. Fairfield.

"No wonder you are affected by the recollection of all his benefits. But
when once you have seen him, you will find yourself ever after at your
ease. And so, pray smile and look as good as you are; for I am proud of
your open honest look when you are pleased, Mother. And he must see your
heart in your face, as I do."

With this, Leonard put his arm round the widow's neck and kissed her.
She clung to him fondly for a moment, and he felt her tremble from head
to foot. Then she broke from his embrace, and hurried out of the room.
Leonard thought perhaps she had gone to improve her dress, or to carry
her housewife energies to the decoration of the other rooms; for "the
house" was Mrs. Fairfield's hobby and passion; and now that she worked
no more, save for her amusement, it was her main occupation. The hours
she contrived to spend daily in bustling about those little rooms, and
leaving everything therein to all appearance precisely the same,
were among the marvels in life which the genius of Leonard had never
comprehended. But she was always so delighted when Mr. Norreys, or some
rare visitor came, and said,--Mr. Norreys never failed to do so,-"How
neatly all is kept here. What could Leonard do without you, Mrs.
Fairfield?"

And, to Norreys's infinite amusement, Mrs. Fairfield always returned the
same answer. "'Deed, sir, and thank you kindly, but 't is my belief that
the drawin'-room would be awful dusty."

Once more left alone, Leonard's mind returned to the state of revery,
and his face assumed the expression that had now become to it habitual.
Thus seen, he was changed much since we last beheld him. His cheek was
more pale and thin, his lips more firmly compressed, his eye more
fixed and abstract. You could detect, if I may borrow a touching French
expression, that "Sorrow had passed by there." But the melancholy on his
countenance was ineffably sweet and serene, and on his ample forehead
there was that power, so rarely seen in early youth,--the power that has
conquered, and betrays its conquests but in calm. The period of doubt,
of struggle, of defiance, was gone, perhaps forever; genius and soul
were reconciled to human life. It was a face most lovable; so gentle and
peaceful in its character. No want of fire; on the contrary, the fire
was so clear and so steadfast, that it conveyed but the impression of
light. The candour of boyhood, the simplicity of the villager, were
still there,--refined by intelligence, but intelligence that seemed to
have traversed through knowledge, not with the 'footstep, but the wing,
unsullied by the mire, tending towards the star, seeking through the
various grades of Being but the lovelier forms of truth and goodness; at
home, as should be the Art that consummates the Beautiful,--

          "In den heitern Regionen
          Wo die reinen Formen wohnen."

          [At home--"In the serene regions
          Where dwell the pure forms."]

From this revery Leonard did not seek to rouse himself, till the bell at
the garden gate rang loud and shrill; and then starting up and hurrying
into the hall, his hand was grasped in Harley's.




CHAPTER XVI.

A full and happy hour passed away in Harley's questions and Leonard's
answers,--the dialogue that naturally ensued between the two, on the
first interview after an absence of years so eventful to the younger
man.

The history of Leonard during this interval was almost solely internal,
the struggle of intellect with its own difficulties, the wanderings of
imagination through its own adventurous worlds.

The first aim of Norreys, in preparing the mind of his pupil for its
vocation, had been to establish the equilibrium of its powers, to calm
into harmony the elements rudely shaken by the trials and passions of
the old hard outer life.

The theory of Norreys was briefly this: The education of a superior
human being is but the development of ideas in one for the benefit of
others. To this end, attention should be directed,--1st, To the value
of the ideas collected; 2dly, To their discipline; 3dly, To their
expression. For the first, acquirement is necessary; for the second,
discipline; for the third, art. The first comprehends knowledge purely
intellectual, whether derived from observation, memory, reflection,
books, or men, Aristotle or Fleet Street. The second demands training,
not only intellectual, but moral; the purifying and exaltation of
motives; the formation of habits; in which method is but a part of a
divine and harmonious symmetry, a union of intellect and conscience.
Ideas of value, stored by the first process; marshalled into force, and
placed under guidance, by the second,--it is the result of the third, to
place them before the world in the most attractive or commanding form.
This may be done by actions no less than words; but the adaptation of
means to end, the passage of ideas from the brain of one man into the
lives and souls of all, no less in action than in books, requires study.
Action has its art as well as literature. Here Norreys had but to deal
with the calling of the scholar, the formation of the writer, and so
to guide the perceptions towards those varieties in the sublime and
beautiful, the just combination of which is at once CREATION. Man
himself is but a combination of elements. He who combines in nature,
creates in art. Such, very succinctly and inadequately expressed, was
the system upon which Norreys proceeded to regulate and perfect the
great native powers of his pupil; and though the reader may perhaps say
that no system laid down by another can either form genius or dictate
to its results, yet probably nine-tenths at least of those in whom
we recognize the luminaries of our race have passed, unconsciously
to themselves (for self-education is rarely conscious of its phases),
through each of these processes. And no one who pauses to reflect
will deny, that according to this theory, illustrated by a man of vast
experience, profound knowledge, and exquisite taste, the struggles
of genius would be infinitely lessened, its vision cleared and
strengthened, and the distance between effort and success notably
abridged.

Norreys, however, was far too deep a reasoner to fall into the error of
modern teachers, who suppose that education can dispense with labour. No
mind becomes muscular without rude and early exercise. Labour should be
strenuous, but in right directions. All that we can do for it is to save
the waste of time in blundering into needless toils.

The master had thus first employed his neophyte in arranging and
compiling materials for a great critical work in which Norreys himself
was engaged. In this stage of scholastic preparation, Leonard was
necessarily led to the acquisition of languages, for which he had great
aptitude; the foundations of a large and comprehensive erudition were
solidly constructed. He traced by the ploughshare the walls of the
destined city. Habits of accuracy and of generalization became formed
insensibly; and that precious faculty which seizes, amidst
accumulated materials, those that serve the object for which they are
explored,--that faculty which quadruples all force, by concentrating it
on one point,--once roused into action, gave purpose to every toil and
quickness to each perception. But Norreys did not confine his pupil
solely to the mute world of a library; he introduced him to some of the
first minds in arts, science, and letters, and active life. "These,"
said he, "are the living ideas of the present, out of which books for
the future will be written: study them; and here, as in the volumes of
the past, diligently amass and deliberately compile."

By degrees Norreys led on that young ardent mind from the selection of
ideas to their aesthetic analysis,--from compilation to criticism; but
criticism severe, close, and logical,--a reason for each word of praise
or of blame. Led in this stage of his career to examine into the laws
of beauty, a new light broke upon his mind; from amidst the masses of
marble he had piled around him rose the vision of the statue.

And so, suddenly, one day Norreys said to him, "I need a compiler no
longer,--maintain yourself by your own creations." And Leonard wrote,
and a work flowered up from the seed deep buried, and the soil well
cleared to the rays of the sun and the healthful influence of expanded
air.

That first work did not penetrate to a very wide circle of readers, not
from any perceptible fault of its own--there is luck in these things;
the first anonymous work of an original genius is rarely at once
eminently successful. But the more experienced recognized the promise of
the book. Publishers, who have an instinct in the discovery of
available talent, which often forestalls the appreciation of the public,
volunteered liberal offers. "Be fully successful this time," said
Norreys; "think not of models nor of style. Strike at once at the
common human heart,--throw away the corks, swim out boldly. One word
more,--never write a page till you have walked from your room to Temple
Bar, and, mingling with men, and reading the human face, learn why great
poets have mostly passed their lives in cities."

Thus Leonard wrote again, and woke one morning to find himself famous.
So far as the chances of all professions dependent on health will
permit, present independence, and, with foresight and economy, the
prospects of future competence were secured.

"And, indeed," said Leonard, concluding a longer but a simpler narrative
than is here told,--"indeed, there is some chance that I may obtain at
once a sum that will leave me free for the rest of my life to select my
own subjects, and write without care for remuneration. This is what I
call the true (and, perhaps, alas! the rare) independence of him who
devotes himself to letters. Norreys, having seen my boyish plan for the
improvement of certain machinery in the steam engine, insisted on my
giving much time to mechanics. The study that once pleased me so greatly
now seemed dull; but I went into it with good heart; and the result is,
that I have improved so far on my original idea, that my scheme has
met the approbation of one of our most scientific engineers: and I am
assured that the patent for it will be purchased of me upon terms which
I am ashamed to name to you, so disproportioned do they seem to the
value of so simple a discovery. Meanwhile, I am already rich enough to
have realized the two dreams of my heart,--to make a home in the cottage
where I had last seen you and Helen--I mean Miss Digby; and to invite to
that home her who had sheltered my infancy."

"Your mother, where is she? Let me see her."

Leonard ran out to call the widow, but to his surprise and vexation
learned that she had quitted the house before L'Estrange arrived.

He came back, perplexed how to explain what seemed ungracious and
ungrateful, and spoke with hesitating lip and flushed cheek of the
widow's natural timidity and sense of her own homely station. "And so
overpowered is she," added Leonard, "by the recollection of all that we
owe to you, that she never hears your name without agitation or tears,
and trembled like a leaf at the thought of seeing you."

"Ha!" said Harley, with visible emotion. "Is it so?" And he bent down,
shading his face with his hand. "And," he renewed, after a pause, but
not looking up--"and you ascribe this fear of seeing me, this agitation
at my name, solely to an exaggerated sense of--of the circumstances
attending my acquaintance with yourself?"

"And, perhaps, to a sort of shame that the mother of one you have made
her proud of is but a peasant."

"That is all?" said Harley, earnestly, now looking up and fixing eyes in
which stood tears upon Leonard's ingenuous brow.

"Oh, my dear Lord, what else can it be? Do not judge her harshly."

L'Estrange arose abruptly, pressed Leonard's hand, muttered something
not audible, and then drawing his young friend's arm in his, led him
into the garden, and turned the conversation back to its former topics.

Leonard's heart yearned to ask after Helen, and yet something withheld
him from doing so, till, seeing Harley did not volunteer to speak of
her, he could not resist his impulse. "And Helen--Miss Digby--is she
much changed?"

"Changed, no--yes; very much."

"Very much!" Leonard sighed.

"I shall see her again?"

"Certainly," said Harley, in a tone of surprise. "How can you doubt it?
And I reserve to you the pleasure of saying that you are renowned.
You blush; well, I will say that for you. But you shall give her your
books."

"She has not yet read them, then?--not the last? The first was not
worthy of her attention," said Leonard, disappointed. "She has only just
arrived in England; and, though your books reached me in Germany, she
was not then with me. When I have settled some business that will take
me from town, I shall present you to her and my mother." There was a
certain embarrassment in Harley's voice as he spoke; and, turning round
abruptly, he exclaimed, "But you have shown poetry even here. I could
not have conceived that so much beauty could be drawn from what appeared
to me the most commonplace of all suburban gardens. Why, surely, where
that charming fountain now plays stood the rude bench in which I read
your verses."

"It is true; I wished to unite all together my happiest associations. I
think I told you, my Lord, in one of my letters, that I had owed a very
happy, yet very struggling time in my boyhood to the singular kindness
and generous instructions of a foreigner whom I served. This fountain
is copied from one that I made in his garden, and by the margin of which
many a summer day I have sat and dreamed of fame and knowledge."

"True, you told me of that; and your foreigner will be pleased to hear
of your success, and no less so of your grateful recollections. By the
way, you did not mention his name."

"Riccabocca."

"Riccabocca! My own dear and noble friend!--is it possible? One of my
reasons for returning to England is connected with him. You shall go
down with me and see him. I meant to start this evening."

"My dear Lord," said Leonard, "I think that you may spare yourself so
long a journey. I have reason to suspect that Signor Riccabocca is
my nearest neighbour. Two days ago I was in the garden, when suddenly
lifting my eyes to yon hillock I perceived the form of a man seated
amongst the brushwood; and though I could not see his features, there
was something in the very outline of his figure and his peculiar
posture, that irresistibly reminded me of Riccabocca. I hastened out of
the garden and ascended the hill, but he was gone. My suspicions were so
strong that I caused inquiry to be made at the different shops scattered
about, and learned that a family consisting of a gentleman, his wife,
and daughter had lately come to live in a house that you must have
passed in your way hither, standing a little back from the road,
surrounded by high walls; and though they were said to be English, yet
from the description given to me of the gentleman's person by one who
had noticed it, by the fact of a foreign servant in their employ, and
by the very name 'Richmouth,' assigned to the newcomers, I can scarcely
doubt that it is the family you seek."

"And you have not called to ascertain?"

"Pardon me, but the family so evidently shunning observation (no one but
the master himself ever seen without the walls), the adoption of another
name too, led me to infer that Signor Riccabocca has some strong motive
for concealment; and now, with my improved knowledge of life, and
recalling all the past, I cannot but suppose that Riccabocca was not
what he appeared. Hence, I have hesitated on formally obtruding myself
upon his secrets, whatever they be, and have rather watched for some
chance occasion to meet him in his walks."

"You did right, my dear Leonard; but my reasons for seeing my old friend
forbid all scruples of delicacy, and I will go at once to his house."

"You will tell me, my Lord, if I am right."

"I hope to be allowed to do so. Pray, stay at home till I return.
And now, ere I go, one question more: You indulge conjectures as to
Riccabocca, because he has changed his name,--why have you dropped your
own?"

"I wished to have no name," said Leonard, colouring deeply, "but that
which I could make myself."

"Proud poet, this I can comprehend. But from what reason did you assume
the strange and fantastic name of Oran?"

The flush on Leonard's face became deeper. "My Lord," said he, in a low
voice, "it is a childish fancy of mine; it is an anagram."

"Ah!"

"At a time when my cravings after knowledge were likely much to mislead,
and perhaps undo me, I chanced on some poems that suddenly affected
my whole mind, and led me up into purer air; and I was told that these
poems were written in youth by one who had beauty and genius,--one
who was in her grave,--a relation of my own, and her familiar name was
Nora--"

"Ah," again ejaculated Lord L'Estrange, and his arm pressed heavily upon
Leonard's.

"So, somehow or other," continued the young author, falteringly, "I
wished that if ever I won to a poet's fame, it might be to my own heart,
at least, associated with this name of Nora; with her whom death had
robbed of the fame that she might otherwise have won; with her who--"

He paused, greatly agitated.

Harley was no less so. But, as if by a sudden impulse, the soldier bent
down his manly head and kissed the poet's brow; then he hastened to the
gate, flung himself on his horse, and rode away.




CHAPTER XVII.

Lord L'Estrange did not proceed at once to Riecabocca's house. He was
under the influence of a remembrance too deep and too strong to yield
easily to the lukewarm claim of friendship. He rode fast and far; and
impossible it would be to define the feelings that passed through a mind
so acutely sensitive, and so rootedly tenacious of all affections. When,
recalling his duty to the Italian, he once more struck into the road to
Norwood, the slow pace of his horse was significant of his own exhausted
spirits; a deep dejection had succeeded to feverish excitement.
"Vain task," he murmured, "to wean myself from the dead! Yet I am now
betrothed to another; and she, with all her virtues, is not the one
to--" He stopped short in generous self-rebuke. "Too late to think of
that! Now, all that should remain to me is to insure the happiness
of the life to which I have pledged my own. But--" He sighed as he so
murmured. On reaching the vicinity of Riccabocca's house, he put up
his horse at a little inn, and proceeded on foot across the heathland
towards the dull square building, which Leonard's description had
sufficed to indicate as the exile's new home. It was long before any
one answered his summons at the gate. Not till he had thrice rung did he
hear a heavy step on the gravel walk within; then the wicket within the
gate was partially drawn aside, a dark eye gleamed out, and a voice in
imperfect English asked who was there.

"Lord L'Estrange; and if I am right as to the person I seek, that name
will at once admit me."

The door flew open as did that of the mystic cavern at the sound
of "Open, Sesame;" and Giacomo, almost weeping with joyous emotion,
exclaimed in Italian, "The good Lord! Holy San Giacomo! thou hast heard
me at last! We are safe now." And dropping the blunderbuss with which he
had taken the precaution to arm himself, he lifted Harley's hand to his
lips, in the affectionate greeting familiar to his countrymen.

"And the padrone?" asked Harley, as he entered the jealous precincts.

"Oh, he is just gone out; but he will not be long. You will wait for
him?"

"Certainly. What lady is that I see at the far end of the garden?"

"Bless her, it is our signorina. I will run and tell her you are come."

"That I am come; but she cannot know me even by name."

"Ah, Excellency, can you think so? Many and many a time has she talked
to me of you, and I have heard her pray to the holy Madonna to bless
you, and in a voice so sweet--"

"Stay, I will present myself to her. Go into the house, and we will wait
without for the padrone. Nay, I need the air, my friend." Harley, as he
said this, broke from Giacomo, and approached Violante.

The poor child, in her solitary walk in the obscurer parts of the dull
garden, had escaped the eye of Giacomo when he had gone forth to answer
the bell; and she, unconscious of the fears of which she was the object,
had felt something of youthful curiosity at the summons at the gate,
and the sight of a stranger in close and friendly conference with the
unsocial Giacomo.

As Harley now neared her with that singular grace of movement which
belonged to him, a thrill shot through her heart, she knew not why. She
did not recognize his likeness to the sketch taken by her father from
his recollections of Harley's early youth. She did not guess who he was;
and yet she felt herself colour, and, naturally fearless though she was,
turned away with a vague alarm.

"Pardon my want of ceremony, Signorina," said Harley, in Italian; "but I
am so old a friend of your father's that I cannot feel as a stranger to
yourself."

Then Violante lifted to him her dark eyes so intelligent and so
innocent,--eyes full of surprise, but not displeased surprise. And
Harley himself stood amazed, and almost abashed, by the rich and
marvellous beauty that beamed upon him. "My father's friend," she said
hesitatingly, "and I never to have seen you!"

"Ah, Signorina," said Harley (and something of its native humour, half
arch, half sad, played round his lip), "you are mistaken there; you have
seen me before, and you received me much more kindly then."

"Signor!" said Violante, more and more surprised, and with a yet richer
colour on her cheeks.

Harley, who had now recovered from the first effect of her beauty, and
who regarded her as men of his years and character are apt to regard
ladies in their teens, as more child than woman, suffered himself to be
amused by her perplexity; for it was in his nature that the graver and
more mournful he felt at heart, the more he sought to give play and whim
to his spirits.

"Indeed, Signorina," said he, demurely, "you insisted then on placing
one of those fair hands in mine; the other (forgive me the fidelity of
my recollections) was affectionately thrown around my neck."

"Signor!" again exclaimed Violante; but this time there was anger in her
voice as well as surprise, and nothing could be more charming than her
look of pride and resentment.

Harley smiled again, but with so much kindly sweetness, that the anger
vanished at once, or rather Violante felt angry with herself that she
was no longer angry with him. But she had looked so beautiful in
her anger, that Harley wished, perhaps, to see her angry again. So,
composing his lips from their propitiatory smile, he resumed gravely,

"Your flatterers will tell you, Signorina, that you are much improved
since then, but I liked you better as you were; not but what I hope to
return some day what you then so generously pressed upon me."

"Pressed upon you!--I? Signor, you are under some strange mistake."

"Alas! no; but the female heart is so capricious and fickle! You pressed
it upon me, I assure you. I own that I was not loath to accept it."

"Pressed it! Pressed what?"

"Your kiss, my child," said Harley; and then added, with a serious
tenderness, "and I again say that I hope to return it some day, when I
see you, by the side of father and of husband, in your native land,--the
fairest bride on whom the skies of Italy ever smiled! And now, pardon a
hermit and a soldier for his rude jests, and give your hand, in token of
that pardon, to Harley L'Estrange."

Violante, who at the first words of his address had recoiled, with a
vague belief that the stranger was out of his mind, sprang forward as it
closed, and in all the vivid enthusiasm of her nature pressed the hand
held out to her with both her own. "Harley L'Estrange! the preserver of
my father's life!" she cried; and her eyes were fixed on his with such
evident gratitude and reverence, that Harley felt at once confused
and delighted. She did not think at that instant of the hero of her
dreams,--she thought but of him who had saved her father. But, as his
eyes sank before her own, and his head, uncovered, bowed over the hand
he held, she recognized the likeness to the features on which she had
so often gazed. The first bloom of youth was gone, but enough of youth
still remained to soften the lapse of years, and to leave to manhood the
attractions which charm the eye. Instinctively she withdrew her hands
from his clasp, and in her turn looked down.

In this pause of embarrassment to both, Riccabocca let himself into the
garden by his own latch-key, and, startled to see a man by the side of
Violante, sprang forward with an abrupt and angry cry. Harley heard, and
turned.

As if restored to courage and self-possession by the sense of her
father's presence, Violante again took the hand of the visitor.
"Father," she said simply, "it is he,--he is come at last." And then,
retiring a few steps, she contemplated them both; and her face was
radiant with happiness, as if something, long silently missed and looked
for, was as silently found, and life had no more a want, nor the heart a
void.




BOOK TENTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

UPON THIS FACT,--THAT THE WORLD IS STILL MUCH THE SAME AS IT ALWAYS HAS
BEEN.

It is observed by a very pleasant writer, read nowadays only by the
brave pertinacious few who still struggle hard to rescue from the House
of Pluto the souls of departed authors, jostled and chased as those
souls are by the noisy footsteps of the living,--it is observed by the
admirable Charron, that "judgment and wisdom is not only the best, but
the happiest portion God Almighty hath distributed amongst men; for
though this distribution be made with a very uneven hand, yet nobody
thinks himself stinted or ill-dealt with, but he that hath never so
little is contented in this respect."

And, certainly, the present narrative may serve in notable illustration
of the remark so dryly made by the witty and wise preacher. For whether
our friend Riccabocca deduce theories for daily life from the great
folio of Machiavelli; or that promising young gentleman, Mr. Randal
Leslie, interpret the power of knowledge into the art of being too
knowing for dull honest folks to cope with him; or acute Dick Avenel
push his way up the social ascent with a blow for those before, and a
kick for those behind him, after the approved fashion of your strong New
Man; or Baron Levy--that cynical impersonation of Gold--compare himself
to the Magnetic Rock in the Arabian tale, to which the nails in every
ship that approaches the influence of the loadstone fly from the planks,
and a shipwreck per day adds its waifs to the Rock,--questionless, at
least; it is, that each of those personages believes that Providence has
bestowed on him an elder son's inheritance of wisdom. Nor, were we to
glance towards the obscurer paths of life, should we find good Parson
Dale deem himself worse off than the rest of the world in this precious
commodity,--as, indeed, he has signally evinced of late in that shrewd
guess of his touching Professor Moss. Even plain Squire Hazeldean takes
it for granted that he could teach Audley Egerton a thing or two worth
knowing in politics; Mr. Stirn thinks that there is no branch of useful
lore on which he could not instruct the squire; while Sprott the tinker,
with his bag full of tracts and lucifer matches, regards the whole
framework of modern society, from a rick to a constitution, with the
profound disdain of a revolutionary philosopher. Considering that every
individual thus brings into the stock of the world so vast a share of
intelligence, it cannot but excite our wonder to find that Oxenstiern is
popularly held to be right when he said, "See, my son, how little wisdom
it requires to govern States,"--that is, Men! That so many millions
of persons, each with a profound assurance that he is possessed of an
exalted sagacity, should concur in the ascendancy of a few inferior
intellects, according to a few stupid, prosy, matter-of-fact rules as
old as the hills, is a phenomenon very discreditable to the spirit and
energy of the aggregate human species! It creates no surprise that one
sensible watch-dog should control the movements of a flock of silly
grass-eating sheep; but that two or three silly grass-eating
sheep should give the law to whole flocks of such mighty sensible
watch-dogs--Diavolo! Dr. Riecabocca, explain that, if you can! And
wonderfully strange it is, that notwithstanding all the march of
enlightenment, notwithstanding our progressive discoveries in the
laws of Nature, our railways, steam-engines, animal magnetism, and
electrobiology,--we have never made any improvement that is generally
acknowledged, since men ceased to be troglodytes and nomads, in the
old-fashioned gamut of flats and sharps, which attunes into irregular
social jog-trot all the generations that pass from the cradle to the
grave; still, "the desire for something have have not" impels all the
energies that keep us in movement, for good or for ill, according to the
checks or the directions of each favourite desire.

A friend of mine once said to a millionaire, whom he saw forever engaged
in making money which he never seemed to have any pleasure in spending,
"Pray, Mr ----, will you answer me one question: You are said to have
two millions, and you spend L600 a year. In order to rest and enjoy,
what will content you?"

"A little more," answered the millionaire. That "little more" is the
mainspring of civilization. Nobody ever gets it!

"Philus," saith a Latin writer, "was not so rich as Laelius; Laelius was
not so rich as Scipio; Scipio was not so rich as Crassus; and Crassus
was not so rich--as he wished to be!" If John Bull were once contented,
Manchester might shut up its mills. It is the "little more" that makes a
mere trifle of the National Debt!--Long life to it!

Still, mend our law-books as we will, one is forced to confess that
knaves are often seen in fine linen, and honest men in the most shabby
old rags; and still, notwithstanding the exceptions, knavery is a very
hazardous game, and honesty, on the whole, by far the best policy.
Still, most of the Ten Commandments remain at the core of all the
Pandects and Institutes that keep our hands off our neighbours'
throats, wives, and pockets; still, every year shows that the parson's
maxim--"non quieta movere "--is as prudent for the health of communities
as when Apollo recommended his votaries not to rake up a fever by
stirring the Lake Camarina; still, people, thank Heaven, decline to
reside in parallelograms, and the surest token that we live under a free
government is when we are governed by persons whom we have a full
right to imply, by our censure and ridicule, are blockheads compared to
ourselves! Stop that delightful privilege, and, by Jove! sir, there is
neither pleasure nor honour in being governed at all! You might as well
be--a Frenchman!




CHAPTER II.

The Italian and his friend are closeted together.

"And why have you left your home in -----shire, and why this new change
of name?"

"Peschiera is in England."

"I know it."

"And bent on discovering me; and, it is said, of stealing from me my
child."

"He has had the assurance to lay wagers that he will win the hand
of your heiress. I know that too; and therefore I have come to
England,--first to baffle his design--for I do not think your fears
altogether exaggerated,--and next to learn from you how to follow up
a clew which, unless I am too sanguine, may lead to his ruin, and your
unconditional restoration. Listen to me. You are aware that, after
the skirmish with Peschiera's armed hirelings sent in search of you, I
received a polite message from the Austrian government, requesting me
to leave its Italian domains. Now, as I hold it the obvious duty of any
foreigner admitted to the hospitality of a State, to refrain from all
participation in its civil disturbances, so I thought my honour assailed
at this intimation, and went at once to Vienna, to explain to the
minister there (to whom I was personally known), that though I had, as
became man to man, aided to protect a refugee, who had taken shelter
under my roof, from the infuriated soldiers at the command of his
private foe, I had not only not shared in any attempt at revolt, but
dissuaded, as far as I could, my Italian friends from their enterprise;
and that because, without discussing its merits, I believed, as a
military man and a cool spectator, the enterprise could only terminate
in fruitless bloodshed. I was enabled to establish my explanation
by satisfactory proof; and my acquaintance with the minister assumed
something of the character of friendship. I was then in a position to
advocate your cause, and to state your original reluctance to enter into
the plots of the insurgents. I admitted freely that you had such natural
desire for the independence of your native land, that, had the standard
of Italy been boldly hoisted by its legitimate chiefs, or at the common
uprising of its whole people, you would have been found in the van,
amidst the ranks of your countrymen; but I maintained that you would
never have shared in a conspiracy frantic in itself, and defiled by the
lawless schemes and sordid ambition of its main projectors, had you not
been betrayed and decoyed into it by the misrepresentations and
domestic treachery of your kinsman,--the very man who denounced you.
Unfortunately, of this statement I had no proof but your own word. I
made, however, so far an impression in your favour, and, it may be,
against the traitor, that your property was not confiscated to the
State, nor handed over, upon the plea of your civil death, to your
kinsman."

"How!--I do not understand. Peschiera has the property?"

"He holds the revenues but of one half upon pleasure, and they would be
withdrawn, could I succeed in establishing the case that exists against
him. I was forbidden before to mention this to you; the minister, not
inexcusably, submitted you to the probation of unconditional exile.
Your grace might depend upon your own forbearance from further
conspiracies--forgive the word. I need not say I was permitted to return
to Lombardy. I found, on my arrival, that--that your unhappy wife
had been to my house, and exhibited great despair at hearing of my
departure."

Riccabocca knit his dark brows, and breathed hard.

"I did not judge it necessary to acquaint you with this circumstance,
nor did it much affect me. I believed in her guilt--and what could now
avail her remorse, if remorse she felt? Shortly afterwards, I heard that
she was no more."

"Yes," muttered Riccabocca, "she died in the same year that I left
Italy. It must be a strong reason that can excuse a friend for reminding
me even that she once lived!"

"I come at once to that reason," said L'Estrange, gently. "This autumn I
was roaming through Switzerland, and, in one of my pedestrian excursions
amidst the mountains, I met with an accident, which confined me for some
days to a sofa at a little inn in an obscure village. My hostess was
an Italian; and as I had left my servant at a town at some distance, I
required her attention till I could write to him to come to me. I was
thankful for her cares, and amused by her Italian babble. We became very
good friends. She told me she had been servant to a lady of great rank,
who had died in Switzerland; and that, being enriched by the generosity
of her mistress, she had married a Swiss innkeeper, and his people had
become hers. My servant arrived, and my hostess learned my name, which
she did not know before. She came into my room greatly agitated. In
brief, this woman had been servant to your wife. She had accompanied
her to my villa, and known of her anxiety to see me, as your friend.
The Government had assigned to your wife your palace at Milan, with a
competent income. She had refused to accept of either. Failing to see
me, she had set off towards England, resolved upon seeing yourself; for
the journals had stated that to England you had escaped."

"She dared! shameless! And see, but a moment before, I had forgotten
all but her grave in a foreign soil,--and these tears had forgiven her,"
murmured the Italian.

"Let them forgive her still," said Harley, with all his exquisite
sweetness of look and tone. "I resume. On entering Switzerland your
wife's health, which you know was always delicate, gave way. To fatigue
and anxiety succeeded fever, and delirium ensued. She had taken with her
but this one female attendant--the sole one she could trust--on leaving
home. She suspected Peschiera to have bribed her household. In the
presence of this woman she raved of her innocence, in accents of terror
and aversion denounced your kinsman, and called on you to vindicate her
name and your own."

"Ravings indeed! Poor Paulina!" groaned Riccabocca, covering his face
with both hands.

"But in her delirium there were lucid intervals. In one of these she
rose, in spite of all her servants could do to restrain her, took from
her desk several letters, and reading them over, exclaimed piteously,
'But how to get them to him; whom to trust? And his friend is gone!'
Then an idea seemed suddenly to flash upon her, for she uttered a joyous
exclamation, sat down, and wrote long and rapidly, enclosed what she
wrote with all the letters, in one packet, which she sealed carefully,
and bade her servant carry to the post, with many injunctions to take
it with her own hand, and pay the charge on it. 'For oh!' said she (I
repeat the words as my informant told them to me),--'for oh! this is my
sole chance to prove to my husband that, though I have erred, I am not
the guilty thing he believes me; the sole chance, too, to redeem my
error, and restore, perhaps, to my husband his country, to my child
her heritage.' The servant took the letter to the post; and when she
returned, her lady was asleep, with a smile upon her face. But from that
sleep she woke again delirious, and before the next morning her soul
had fled." Here Riccabocca lifted one hand from his face and grasped
Harley's arm, as if mutely beseeching him to pause. The heart of the man
struggled hard with his pride and his philosophy; and it was long before
Harley could lead him to regard the worldly prospects which this last
communication from his wife might open to his ruined fortunes,--not,
indeed, till Riccabocca had persuaded himself, and half persuaded Harley
(for strong, indeed, was all presumption of guilt against the dead),
that his wife's protestations of innocence from all but error had been
but ravings.

"Be this as it may," said Harley, "there seems every reason to suppose
that the letters enclosed were Peschiera's correspondence, and that, if
so, these would establish the proof of his influence over your wife,
and of his perfidious machinations against yourself. I resolved, before
coming hither, to go round by Vienna. There I heard, with dismay, that
Peschiera had not only obtained the imperial sanction to demand your
daughter's hand, but had boasted to his profligate circle that he should
succeed; and he was actually on his road to England. I saw at once that
could this design, by any fraud or artifice, be successful with Violante
(for of your consent, I need not say, I did not dream), the discovery
of the packet, whatever its contents, would be useless; Peschiera's end
would be secured. I saw also that his success would suffice forever to
clear his name; for his success must imply your consent (it would be to
disgrace your daughter, to assert that she had married without it), and
your consent would be his acquittal. I saw, too, with alarm, that to
all means for the accomplishment of his project he would be urged by
despair; for his debts are great, and his character nothing but new
wealth can support. I knew that he was able, bold, determined, and that
he had taken with him a large supply of money borrowed upon usury,--in
a word, I trembled for you both. I have now seen your daughter, and I
tremble no more. Accomplished seducer as Peschiera boasts himself, the
first look upon her face so sweet, yet so noble, convinced me that she
is proof against a legion of Peschieras. Now, then, return we to this
all-important subject,--to this packet. It never reached you. Long years
have passed since then.

"Does it exist still? Into whose hands would it have fallen?

"Try to summon up all your recollections. The servant could not remember
the name of the person to whom it was addressed; she only insisted that
the name began with a B, that it was directed to England, and that to
England she accordingly paid the postage. Whom then, with a name that
begins with B, or (in case the servant's memory here mislead her) whom
did you or your wife know, during your visit to England, with sufficient
intimacy to make it probable that she would select such a person for her
confidant?"

"I cannot conceive," said Riccabocca, shaking his head. "We came to
England shortly after our marriage. Paulina was affected by the climate.
She spoke not a word of English, and indeed not even French, as
might have been expected from her birth, for her father was poor,
and thoroughly Italian. She refused all society. I went, it is true,
somewhat into the London world,--enough to induce me to shrink from the
contrast that my second visit as a beggared refugee would have made
to the reception I met with on my first; but I formed no intimate
friendships. I recall no one whom she could have written to as intimate
with me."

"But," persisted Harley, "think again. Was there no lady well acquainted
with Italian, and with whom, perhaps, for that very reason, your wife
became familiar?"

"Ah, it is true. There was one old lady of retired habits, but who had
been much in Italy. Lady--Lady--I remember--Lady Jane Horton."

"Horton--Lady Jane!" exclaimed Harley; "again; thrice in one day!--is
this wound never to scar over?" Then, noting Riccabocca's look of
surprise, he said, "Excuse me, my friend; I listen to you with renewed
interest. Lady Jane was a distant relation of my own; she judged me,
perhaps, harshly--and I have some painful associations with her name;
but she was a woman of many virtues. Your wife knew her?"

"Not, however, intimately; still, better than any one else in London.
But Paulina would not have written to her; she knew that Lady Jane had
died shortly after her own departure from England. I myself was summoned
back to Italy on pressing business; she was too unwell to journey with
me as rapidly as I was obliged to travel; indeed, illness detained
her several weeks in England. In this interval she might have made
acquaintances. Ah, now I see; I guess. You say the name began with B.
Paulina, in my absence, engaged a companion,--a Mrs. Bertram. This lady
accompanied her abroad. Paulina became excessively attached to her, she
knew Italian so well. Mrs. Bertram left her on the road, and returned to
England, for some private affairs of her own. I forget why or wherefore;
if, indeed, I ever asked or learned. Paulina missed her sadly, often
talked of her, wondered why she never heard from her. No doubt it was to
this Mrs. Bertram that she wrote!"

"And you don't know the lady's friends, or address?"

"No."

"Nor who recommended her to your wife?"

"No."

"Probably Lady Jane Horton?"

"It may be so.

"Very likely."

"I will follow up this track, slight as it is."

"But if Mrs. Bertram received the communication, how comes it that it
never reached myself--Oh, fool that I am, how should it! I, who guarded
so carefully my incognito!"

"True. This your wife could not foresee; she would naturally imagine
that your residence in England would be easily discovered. But many
years must have passed since your wife lost sight of this Mrs. Bertram,
if their acquaintance was made so soon after your marriage; and now it
is a long time to retrace,--before even your Violante was born."

"Alas! yes. I lost two fair sons in the interval. Violante was born to
me as the child of sorrow."

"And to make sorrow lovely! how beautiful she is!" The father smiled
proudly.

"Where, in the loftiest houses of Europe, find a husband worthy of such
a prize?"

"You forget that I am still an exile, she still dowerless. You forget
that I am pursued by Peschiera; that I would rather see her a beggar's
wife--than--Pah, the very thought maddens me, it is so foul. Corpo di
Bacco! I have been glad to find her a husband already."

"Already! Then that young man spoke truly?"

"What young man?"

"Randal Leslie. How! You know him?" Here a brief explanation followed.
Harley heard with attentive ear, and marked vexation, the particulars of
Riccabocca's connection and implied engagement with Leslie.

"There is something very suspicious to me in all this," said he.

"Why should this young man have so sounded me as to Violante's chance of
losing fortune if she married, an Englishman?"

"Did he? Oh, pooh! Excuse him. It was but his natural wish to seem
ignorant of all about me. He did not know enough of my intimacy with you
to betray my secret."

"But he knew enough of it--must have known enough--to have made it right
that he should tell you I was in England. He does not seem to have done
so."

"No; that is strange--yet scarcely strange; for, when we last met, his
head was full of other things,--love and marriage. Basta! youth will be
youth."

"He has no youth left in him!" exclaimed Harley, passionately. "I doubt
if he ever had any. He is one of those men who come into the world with
the pulse of a centenarian. You and I never shall be as old as he was in
long clothes. Ah, you may laugh; but I am never wrong in my instincts.
I disliked him at the first,--his eye, his smile, his voice, his very
footstep. It is madness in you to countenance such a marriage; it may
destroy all chance of your restoration."

"Better that than infringe my word once passed."

"No, no," exclaimed Harley; "your word is not passed, it shall not be
passed. Nay, never look so piteously at me. At all events, pause till
we know more of this young man. If he be worthy of her without a dower,
why, then, let him lose you your heritage. I should have no more to
say."

"But why lose me my heritage? There is no law in Austria which can
dictate to a father what husband to choose for his daughter."

"Certainly not. But you are out of the pale of law itself just at
present; and it would surely be a reason for State policy to withhold
your pardon, and it would be to the loss of that favour with your own
countrymen, which would now make that pardon so popular, if it were
known that the representative of your name were debased by your
daughter's alliance with an English adventurer,--a clerk in a public
office. Oh, sage in theory, why are you such a simpleton in action?"

Nothing moved by this taunt, Riceabocca rubbed his hands, and then
stretched them comfortably over the fire.

"My friend," said he, "the representation of my name would pass to my
son."

"But you have no son."

"Hush! I am going to have one; my Jemima informed me of it yesterday
morning; and it was upon that information that I resolved to speak to
Leslie. Am I a simpleton now?"

"Going to have a son," repeated Harley, looking very bewildered; "how do
you know it is to be a son?"

"Physiologists are agreed," said the sage, positively, "that where the
husband is much older than the wife, and there has been a long interval
without children before she condescends to increase the population of
the world, she (that is, it is at least as nine to four)--she brings
into the world a male. I consider that point therefore as settled,
according to the calculations of statisticians and the researches of
naturalists."

Harley could not help laughing, though he was still angry and disturbed.

"The same man as ever; always the fool of philosophy."

"Cospetto!" said Riccabocca. "I am rather the philosopher of fools. And
talking of that, shall I present you to my Jemima?"

"Yes; but in turn I must present you to one who remembers with gratitude
your kindness, and whom your philosophy, for a wonder, has not ruined.
Some time or other you must explain that to me. Excuse me for a moment;
I will go for him.

"For him,--for whom? In my position I must be cautious; and--"

"I will answer for his faith and discretion. Meanwhile order dinner, and
let me and my friend stay to share it."

"Dinner? Corpo di Bacco!--not that Bacchus can help us here. What will
Jemima say?"

"Henpecked man, settle that with your connubial tyrant. But dinner it
must be."

I leave the reader to imagine the delight of Leonard at seeing once more
Riccabocca unchanged and Violante so improved, and the kind Jemima too;
and their wonder at him and his history, his books and his fame. He
narrated his struggles and adventures with a simplicity that removed
from a story so personal the character of egotism. But when he came to
speak of Helen he was brief and reserved.

Violante would have questioned more closely; but, to Leonard's relief,
Harley interposed.

"You shall see her whom he speaks of before long, and question her
yourself."

With these words, Harley turned the young man's narrative into new
directions; and Leonard's words again flowed freely. Thus the evening
passed away happily to all save Riccabocca. For the thought of his dead
wife rose ever and anon before the exile; but when it did, and became
too painful, he crept nearer to Jemima, and looked in her simple face,
and pressed her cordial hand. And yet the monster had implied to Harley
that his comforter was a fool,--so she was, to love so contemptible a
slanderer of herself and her sex.

Violante was in a state of blissful excitement; she could not analyze
her own joy. But her conversation was chiefly with Leonard; and the
most silent of all was Harley. He sat listening to Leonard's warm yet
unpretending eloquence,--that eloquence which flows so naturally from
genius, when thoroughly at its ease, and not chilled back on itself
by hard, unsympathizing hearers; listened, yet more charmed, to the
sentiments less profound, yet no less earnest,--sentiments so feminine,
yet so noble, with which Violante's fresh virgin heart responded to the
poet's kindling soul. Those sentiments of hers were so unlike all
he heard in the common world, so akin to himself in his gone youth!
Occasionally--at some high thought of her own, or some lofty line
from Italian song, that she cited with lighted eyes, and in melodious
accents--occasionally he reared his knightly head, and his lip quivered,
as if he had heard the sound of a trumpet. The inertness of long years
was shaken. The Heroic, that lay deep beneath all the humours of his
temperament, was reached, appealed to; and stirred within him, rousing
up all the bright associations connected with it, and long dormant. When
he arose to take leave, surprised at the lateness of the hour, Harley
said, in a tone that bespoke the sincerity of the compliment, "I thank
you for the happiest hours I have known for years." His eye dwelt on
Violante as he spoke.

But timidity returned to her with his words, at his look; and it was no
longer the inspired muse, but the bashful girl that stood before him.

"And when shall I see you again?" asked Riccabocca, disconsolately,
following his guest to the door.

"When? Why, of course, to-morrow. Adieu! my friend. No wonder you have
borne your exile so patiently,--with such a child!"

He took Leonard's arm, and walked with him to the inn where he had left
his horse. Leonard spoke of Violante with enthusiasm. Harley was silent.




CHAPTER III.

The next day a somewhat old-fashioned, but exceedingly patrician,
equipage stopped at Riccabocca's garden-gate. Giacomo, who, from a
bedroom window, had caught sight of its winding towards the house, was
seized with undefinable terror when he beheld it pause before their
walls, and heard the shrill summons at the portal. He rushed into his
master's presence, and implored him not to stir,--not to allow any
one to give ingress to the enemies the machine might disgorge. "I have
heard," said he, "how a town in Italy--I think it was Bologna--was once
taken and given to the sword, by incautiously admitting a wooden horse
full of the troops of Barbarossa and all manner of bombs and Congreve
rockets."

"The story is differently told in Virgil," quoth Riccabocca, peeping
out of the window. "Nevertheless, the machine looks very large and
suspicious; unloose Pompey."

"Father," said Violante, colouring, "it is your friend, Lord L'Estrange;
I hear his voice."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite. How can I be mistaken?"

"Go, then, Giacomo; but take Pompey with thee,--and give the alarm if we
are deceived."

But Violante was right; and in a few moments Lord L'Estrange was seen
walking up the garden, and giving the arm to two ladies.

"Ah," said Riccabocca, composing his dressing-robe round him, "go, my
child, and summon Jemima. Man to man; but, for Heaven's sake, woman to
woman."

Harley had brought his mother and Helen, in compliment to the ladies of
his friend's household.

The proud countess knew that she was in the presence of Adversity, and
her salute to Riccabocca was only less respectful than that with which
she would have rendered homage to her sovereign. But Riccabocca, always
gallant to the sex that he pretended to despise, was not to be outdone
in ceremony; and the bow which replied to the courtesy would have
edified the rising generation, and delighted such surviving relics of
the old Court breeding as may linger yet amidst the gloomy pomp of the
Faubourg St. Germain. These dues paid to etiquette, the countess briefly
introduced Helen as Miss Digby, and seated herself near the exile. In
a few moments the two elder personages became quite at home with each
other; and, really, perhaps Riccabocca had never, since we have known
him, showed to such advantage as by the side of his polished, but
somewhat formal visitor. Both had lived so little with our modern,
ill-bred age! They took out their manners of a former race, with a
sort of pride in airing once more such fine lace and superb brocade.
Riccabocca gave truce to the shrewd but homely wisdom of his proverbs,
perhaps he remembered that Lord Chesterfield denounces proverbs as
vulgar; and gaunt though his figure, and far from elegant though his
dressing-robe, there was that about him which spoke undeniably of the
grand seigneur,--of one to whom a Marquis de Dangeau would have offered
a fauteuil by the side of the Rohans and Montmorencies.

Meanwhile Helen and Harley seated themselves a little apart, and were
both silent,--the first, from timidity; the second, from abstraction.
At length the door opened, and Harley suddenly sprang to his
feet,--Violante and Jemima entered. Lady Lansinere's eyes first rested
on the daughter, and she could scarcely refrain from an exclamation of
admiring surprise; but then, when she caught sight of Mrs. Riccabocca's
somewhat humble, yet not obsequious mien,--looking a little shy, a
little homely, yet still thoroughly a gentlewoman (though of your plain,
rural kind of that genus), she turned from the daughter, and with the
savoir vivre of the fine old school, paid her first respects to the
wife; respects literally, for her manner implied respect,--but it
was more kind, simple, and cordial than the respect she had shown to
Riccabocca; as the sage himself had said, here "it was Woman to Woman."
And then she took Violante's hand in both hers, and gazed on her as if
she could not resist the pleasure of contemplating so much beauty. "My
son," she said softly, and with a half sigh,--"my son in vain told me
not to be surprised. This is the first time I have ever known reality
exceed description!"

Violante's blush here made her still more beautiful; and as the countess
returned to Riccabocca, she stole gently to Helen's side.

"Miss Digby, my ward," said Harley, pointedly, observing that his
mother had neglected her duty of presenting Helen to the ladies. He then
reseated himself, and conversed with Mrs. Riccabocca; but his bright,
quick eye glanced over at the two girls. They were about the same
age--and youth was all that, to the superficial eye, they seemed to have
in common. A greater contrast could not well be conceived; and, what is
strange, both gained by it. Violante's brilliant loveliness seemed yet
more dazzling, and Helen's fair, gentle face yet more winning. Neither
had mixed much with girls of her own age; each took to the other at
first sight. Violante, as the less shy, began the conversation.

"You are his ward,--Lord L'Estrange's?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you came with him from Italy?"

"No, not exactly; but I have been in Italy for some years."

"Ah! you regret--nay, I am foolish--you return to your native land.
But the skies in Italy are so blue,--here it seems as if Nature wanted
colours."

"Lord L'Estrange says that you were very young when you left Italy; you
remember it well. He, too, prefers Italy to England."

"He! Impossible!"

"Why impossible, fair sceptic?" cried Harley, interrupting himself in
the midst of a speech to Jemima.

Violante had not dreamed that she could be overheard--she was speaking
low; but, though visibly embarrassed, she answered distinctly,

"Because in England there is the noblest career for noble minds."

Harley was startled, and replied, with a slight sigh, "At your age I
should have said as you do. But this England of ours is so crowded with
noble minds that they only jostle each other, and the career is one
cloud of dust."

"So, I have read, seems a battle to a common soldier, but not to the
chief."

"You have read good descriptions of battles, I see."

Mrs. Riccabocca, who thought this remark a taunt upon her
step-daughter's studies, hastened to Violante's relief.

"Her papa made her read the history of Italy, and I believe that is full
of battles."

HARLEY.--"All history is, and all women are fond of war and of warriors.
I wonder why?"

VIOLANTE (turning to Helen, and in a very low voice, resolved that
Harley should not hear this time).--"We can guess why,--can we not?"

HARLEY (hearing every word, as if it had been spoken in St. Paul's
Whispering Gallery).--"If you can guess, Helen, pray tell me."

HELEN (shaking her pretty head, and answering with a livelier smile than
usual).--"But I am not fond of war and warriors."

HARLEY (to Violante).--"Then I must appeal at once to you,
self-convicted Bellona that you are. Is it from the cruelty natural to
the female disposition?"

VIOLANTE (with a sweet musical laugh). "From two propensities still more
natural to it."

HARLEY.--"YOU puzzle me: what can they be?"

VIOLANTE.--"Pity and admiration; we pity the weak and admire the brave."

Harley inclined his head, and was silent.

Lady Lansmere had suspended her conversation with Riccabocca to listen
to this dialogue. "Charming!" she cried.

"You have explained what has often perplexed me. Ah, Harley, I am glad
to see that your satire is foiled: you have no reply to that."

"No; I willingly own myself defeated, too glad to claim the signorina's
pity, since my cavalry sword hangs on the wall, and I can have no longer
a professional pretence to her admiration."

He then rose, and glanced towards the window. "But I see a more
formidable disputant for my conqueror to encounter is coming into the
field,--one whose profession it is to substitute some other romance for
that of camp and siege."

"Our friend Leonard," said Riccabocca, turning his eye also towards the
window. "True; as Quevedo says, wittily, 'Ever since there has been
so great a demand for type, there has been much less lead to spare for
cannon-balls.'"

Here Leonard entered. Harley had sent Lady Lansmere's footman to him
with a note, that prepared him to meet Helen. As he came into the room,
Harley took him by the hand and led him to Lady Lansmere.

"The friend of whom I spoke. Welcome him now for my sake, ever after for
his own;" and then, scarcely allowing time for the countess's elegant
and gracious response, he drew Leonard towards Helen. "Children," said
he, with a touching voice, that thrilled through the hearts of both, "go
and seat yourselves yonder, and talk together of the past. Signorina, I
invite you to renewed discussion upon the abstruse metaphysical subject
you have started; let us see if we cannot find gentler sources for pity
and admiration than war and warriors." He took Violante aside to the
window. "You remember that Leonard, in telling you his history last
night, spoke, you thought, rather too briefly of the little girl who had
been his companion in the rudest time of his trials. When you would
have questioned more, I interrupted you, and said, 'You should see her
shortly, and question her yourself.' And now what think you of Helen
Digby? Hush, speak low. But her ears are not so sharp as mine."

VIOLANTE.--"Ah! that is the fair creature whom Leonard called his
child-angel? What a lovely innocent face!--the angel is there still."

HARLEY (pleased both at the praise and with her who gave it).--"You
think so; and you are right. Helen is not communicative. But fine
natures are like fine poems,--a glance at the first two lines suffices
for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you read on."

Violante gazed on Leonard and Helen as they sat apart. Leonard was the
speaker, Helen the listener; and though the former had, in his narrative
the night before, been indeed brief as to the episode in his life
connected with the orphan, enough had been said to interest Violante
in the pathos of their former position towards each other, and in the
happiness they must feel in their meeting again,--separated for years on
the wide sea of life, now both saved from the storm and shipwreck. The
tears came into her eyes. "True," she said, very softly, "there is more
here to move pity and admiration than in--" She paused.

HARLEY.--"Complete the sentence. Are you ashamed to retract? Fie on your
pride and obstinacy!"

VIOLANTE.--"No; but even here there have been war and heroism,--the war
of genius with adversity, and heroism in the comforter who shared it
and consoled. Ah, wherever pity and admiration are both felt, something
nobler than mere sorrow must have gone before: the heroic must exist."

"Helen does not know what the word 'heroic' means," said Harley, rather
sadly; "you must teach her."

"Is it possible," thought he as he spoke, "that a Randal Leslie could
have charmed this grand creature? No 'Heroic' surely, in that sleek
young placeman.--Your father," he said aloud, and fixing his eyes on her
face, "sees much, he tells me, of a young man about Leonard's age, as to
date; but I never estimate the age of men by the parish register, and
I should speak of that so-called young man as a contemporary of my
great-grandfather,--I mean Mr. Randal Leslie. Do you like him?"

"Like him," said Violante, slowly, and as if sounding her own
mind,--"like him--yes."

"Why?" asked Harley, with dry and curt indignation. "His visits seem to
please my dear father. Certainly I like him."

"Hum. He professes to like you, I suppose?"

Violante laughed unsuspiciously. She had half a mind to reply, "Is that
so strange?" But her respect for Harley stopped her. The words would
have seemed to her pert. "I am told he is clever," resumed Harley.

"Oh, certainly."

"And he is rather handsome. But I like Leonard's face better."

"Better--that is not the word. Leonard's face is as that of one who has
gazed so often upon Heaven; and Mr. Leslie's--there is neither sunlight
nor starlight reflected there."

"My dear Violante?" exclaimed Harley, overjoyed; and he pressed her
hand.

The blood rushed over the girl's cheek and brow; her hand trembled in
his. But Harley's familiar exclamation might have come from a father's
lips.

At this moment Helen softly approached them, and looking timidly into
her guardian's face, said, "Leonard's mother is with him: he asks me to
call and see her. May I?"

"May you! A pretty notion the signorina must form of your enslaved state
of pupilage, when she hears you ask that question. Of course you may."

"Will you come with us?"

Harley looked embarrassed. He thought of the widow's agitation at his
name; of that desire to shun him, which Leonard had confessed, and of
which he thought he divined the cause. And so divining, he too shrank
from such a meeting.

"Another time, then," said he, after a pause. Helen looked disappointed,
but said no more.

Violante was surprised at this ungracious answer. She would have blamed
it as unfeeling in another; but all that Harley did was right in her
eyes.

"Cannot I go with Miss Digby?" said she, "and my mother will go too. We
both know Mrs. Fairfield. We shall be so pleased to see her again."

"So be it," said Harley; "I will wait here with your father till you
come back. Oh, as to my mother, she will excuse the--excuse Madame
Riccabocca, and you too. See how charmed she is with your father. I must
stay to watch over the conjugal interests of mine."

But Mrs. Riccabocca had too much good old country breeding to leave the
countess; and Harley was forced himself to appeal to Lady Lansmere. When
he had explained the case in point, the countess rose and said,

"But I will call myself, with Miss Digby."

"No," said Harley, gravely, but in a whisper. "No; I would rather not. I
will explain later."

"Then," said the countess aloud, after a glance of surprise at her son,
"I must insist on your performing this visit, my dear madam, and you,
Signorina. In truth, I have something to say confidentially to--"

"To me," interrupted Riccabocca. "Ah, Madame la Comtesse, you restore me
to five-and-twenty. Go, quick, O jealous and injured wife; go, both of
you, quick; and you, too, Harley."

"Nay," said Lady Lansmere, in the same tone, "Harley must stay, for my
design is not at present upon destroying your matrimonial happiness,
whatever it may be later. It is a design so innocent that my son will be
a partner in it."

Here the countess put her lips to Harley's ear, and whispered. He
received her communication in attentive silence; but when she had done,
pressed her hand, and bowed his head, as if in assent to a proposal.

In a few minutes the three ladies and Leonard were on their road to the
neighbouring cottage.

Violante, with her usual delicate intuition, thought that Leonard and
Helen must have much to say to each other; and (ignorant, as Leonard
himself was, of Helen's engagement to Harley) began already, in the
romance natural to her age, to predict for them happy and united days in
the future. So she took her stepmother's arm, and left Helen and Leonard
to follow.

"I wonder," she said musingly, "how Miss Digby became Lord L'Estrange's
ward. I hope she is not very rich, nor very high-born."

"La, my love," said the good Jemima, "that is not like you; you are not
envious of her, poor girl?"

"Envious! Dear mamma, what a word! But don't you think Leonard and Miss
Digby seem born for each other? And then the recollections of their
childhood--the thoughts of childhood are so deep, and its memories so
strangely soft!" The long lashes drooped over Violante's musing eyes as
she spoke. "And therefore," she said, after a pause,--"therefore I hoped
that Miss Digby might not be very rich nor very high-born."

"I understand you now, Violante," exclaimed Jemima, her own early
passion for match-making instantly returning to her; "for as Leonard,
however clever and distinguished, is still the son of Mark Fairfield the
carpenter, it would spoil all if--Miss Digby was, as you say, rich and
high-born. I agree with you,--a very pretty match, a very pretty match,
indeed. I wish dear--Mrs. Dale were here now,--she is so clever in
settling such matters."

Meanwhile Leonard and Helen walked side by side a few paces in the rear.
He had not offered her his arm. They had been silent hitherto since they
left Riccabocca's house.

Helen now spoke first. In similar cases it is generally the woman, be
she ever so timid, who does speak first. And here Helen was the bolder;
for Leonard did not disguise from himself the nature of his feelings,
and Helen was engaged to another, and her pure heart was fortified by
the trust reposed in it.

"And have you ever heard more of the good Dr. Morgan, who had powders
against sorrow, and who meant to be so kind to us,--though," she added,
colouring, "we did not think so then?"

"He took my child-angel from me," said Leonard, with visible emotion;
"and if she had not returned, where and what should I be now? But I have
forgiven him. No, I have never met him since."

"And that terrible Mr. Burley?"

"Poor, poor Burley! He, too, is vanished out of my present life. I have
made many inquiries after him; all I can hear is that he went abroad,
supposed as a correspondent to some journal. I should like so much to
see him again, now that perhaps I could help him as he helped me."

"Helped you--ah!"

Leonard smiled with a beating heart, as he saw again the dear prudent,
warning look, and involuntarily drew closer to Helen. She seemed more
restored to him and to her former self.

"Helped me much by his instructions; more, perhaps, by his very faults.
You cannot guess, Helen,--I beg pardon, Miss Digby, but I forgot that we
are no longer children,--you cannot guess how much we men, and more than
all, perhaps, we writers whose task it is to unravel the web of human
actions, owe even to our own past errors; and if we learned nothing by
the errors of others, we should be dull indeed. We must know where the
roads divide, and have marked where they lead to, before we can erect
our sign-post; and books are the sign-posts in human life."

"Books! and I have not yet read yours. And Lord L'Estrange tells me you
are famous now. Yet you remember me still,--the poor orphan child, whom
you first saw weeping at her father's grave, and with whom you burdened
your own young life, over-burdened already. No, still call me Helen--you
must always be to me a brother! Lord L'Estrange feels that; he said so
to me when he told me that we were to meet again. He is so generous, so
noble. Brother!" cried Helen, suddenly, and extending her hand, with
a sweet but sublime look in her gentle face,--"brother, we will never
forfeit his esteem; we will both do our best to repay him! Will we
not?--say so!"

Leonard felt overpowered by contending and unanalyzed emotions. Touched
almost to tears by the affectionate address, thrilled by the hand
that pressed his own, and yet with a vague fear, a consciousness that
something more than the words themselves was implied,--something that
checked all hope. And this word "brother," once so precious and so dear,
why did he shrink from it now; why could he not too say the sweet word
"sister"?

"She is above me now and evermore!" he thought mournfully; and the tones
of his voice, when he spoke again, were changed. The appeal to renewed
intimacy but made him more distant, and to that appeal itself he made no
direct answer; for Mrs. Riccabocca, now turning round, and pointing to
the cottage which came in view, with its picturesque gable-ends, cried
out,

"But is that your house, Leonard? I never saw anything so pretty."

"You do not remember it then," said Leonard to Helen, in accents of
melancholy reproach,--"there where I saw you last? I doubted whether
to keep it exactly as it was, and I said, '--No! the association is
not changed because we try to surround it with whatever beauty we can
create; the dearer the association, the more the Beautiful becomes to it
natural.' Perhaps you don't understand this,--perhaps it is only we poor
poets who do."

"I understand it," said Helen, gently. She looked wistfully at the
cottage.

"So changed! I have so often pictured it to myself, never, never like
this; yet I loved it, commonplace as it was to my recollection; and the
garret, and the tree in the carpenter's yard."

She did not give these thoughts utterance. And they now entered the
garden.




CHAPTER IV.

Mrs. Fairfield was a proud woman when she received Mrs. Riccabocca and
Violante in her grand house; for a grand house to her was that cottage
to which her boy Lenny had brought her home. Proud, indeed, ever was
Widow Fairfield; but she thought then in her secret heart, that if ever
she could receive in the drawing-room of that grand house the great Mrs.
Hazeldean, who had so lectured her for refusing to live any longer in
the humble, tenement rented of the squire, the cup of human bliss would
be filled, and she could contentedly die of the pride of it. She did
not much notice Helen,--her attention was too absorbed by the ladies who
renewed their old acquaintance with her, and she carried them all over
the house, yea, into the very kitchen; and so, somehow or other, there
was a short time when Helen and Leonard found themselves alone. It was
in the study. Helen had unconsciously seated herself in Leonard's own
chair, and she was gazing with anxious and wistful interest on the
scattered papers, looking so disorderly (though, in truth, in that
disorder there was method, but method only known to the owner), and at
the venerable well-worn books, in all languages, lying on the floor, on
the chairs--anywhere. I must confess that Helen's first tidy womanlike
idea was a great desire to arrange the litter. "Poor Leonard," she
thought to herself, "the rest of the house so neat, but no one to take
care of his own room and of him!"

As if he divined her thought, Leonard smiled and said, "It would be a
cruel kindness to the spider, if the gentlest band in the world tried to
set its cobweb to rights."

HELEN.--"You were not quite so bad in the old days."

LEONARD.--"Yet even then you were obliged to take care of the money. I
have more books now, and more money. My present housekeeper lets me take
care of the books, but she is less indulgent as to the money."

HELEN (archly).--"Are you as absent as ever?"

LEONARD.--"Much more so, I fear. The habit is incorrigible, Miss
Digby--"

HELEN.--"Not Miss Digby; sister, if you like."

LEONARD (evading the word that implied so forbidden an
affinity).--"Helen, will you grant me a favour? Your eyes and your smile
say 'yes.' Will you lay aside, for one minute, your shawl and bonnet?
What! can you be surprised that I ask it? Can you not understand that
I wish for one minute to think that you are at home again under this
roof?"

Helen cast down her eyes, and seemed troubled; then she raised them,
with a soft angelic candour in their dovelike blue, and, as if in
shelter from all thoughts of more warm affection, again murmured
"brother," and did as he asked her.

So there she sat, amongst the dull books, by his table, near the open
window, her fair hair parted on her forehead, looking so good, so calm,
so happy! Leonard wondered at his own self-command. His heart yearned to
her with such inexpressible love, his lips so longed to murmur, "Ah,
as now so could it be forever! Is the home too mean?" But that word
"brother" was as a talisman between her and him. Yet she looked so at
home--perhaps so at home she felt!--more certainly than she had yet
learned to do in that stiff stately house in which she was soon to have
a daughter's rights. Was she suddenly made aware of this, that she so
suddenly arose, and with a look of alarm and distress on her face.

"But--we are keeping Lady Lansmere too long," she said falteringly. "We
must go now," and she hastily took up her shawl and bonnet.

Just then Mrs. Fairfield entered with the visitors, and began making
excuses for inattention to Miss Digby, whose identity with Leonard's
child-angel she had not yet learned.

Helen received these apologies with her usual sweetness. "Nay," she
said, "your son and I are such old friends, how could you stand on
ceremony with me?"

"Old friends!" Mrs. Fairfield stared amazed, and then surveyed the
fair speaker more curiously than she had yet done. "Pretty, nice-spoken
thing," thought the widow; "as nice-spoken as Miss Violante, and
humbler-looking like,--though, as to dress, I never see anything so
elegant out of a picter."

Helen now appropriated Mrs. Riccabocca's arm; and, after a kind
leave-taking with the widow, the ladies returned towards Riccabocca's
house.

Mrs. Fairfield, however, ran after them with Leonard's hat and gloves,
which he had forgotten.

"'Deed, boy," she said, kindly, yet scoldingly, "but there'd be no more
fine books, if the Lord had not fixed your head on your shoulders. You
would not think it, marm," she added to Mrs. Riccabocca, "but sin' he
has left you, he's not the 'cute lad he was; very helpless at times,
marm!"

Helen could not resist turning round, and looking at Leonard, with a sly
smile.

The widow saw the smile, and catching Leonard by the arm, whispered,
"But where before have you seen that pretty young lady? Old friends!"

"Ah, Mother," said Leonard, sadly, "it is a long tale; you have heard
the beginning, who can guess the end?" and he escaped. But Helen still
leaned on the arm of Mrs. Riccabocca, and, in the walk back, it seemed
to Leonard as if the winter had re-settled in the sky.

Yet he was by the side of Violante, and she spoke to him with such
praise of Helen! Alas! it is not always so sweet as folks say to
hear the praises of one we love. Sometimes those praises seem to ask
ironically, "And what right hast thou to hope because thou lovest? All
love her."




CHAPTER V.

No sooner had Lady Lansmere found herself alone with Riccabocca and
Harley than she laid her hand on the exile's arm, and, addressing him
by a title she had not before given him, and from which he appeared to
shrink nervously, said, "Harley, in bringing me to visit you, was forced
to reveal to me your incognito, for I should have discovered it. You
may not remember me, in spite of your gallantry; but I mixed more in the
world than I do now, during your first visit to England, and once sat
next to you at dinner at Carlton House. Nay, no compliments, but listen
to me. Harley tells me you have cause for some alarm respecting the
designs of an audacious and unprincipled adventurer, I may call him; for
adventurers are of all ranks. Suffer your daughter to come to me on a
visit, as long as you please. With me, at least, she will be safe; and
if you, too, and the--"

"Stop, my dear madam," interrupted Riccabocca, with great vivacity;
"your kindness overpowers me. I thank you most gratefully for your
invitation to my child; but--"

"Nay," in his turn interrupted Harley, "no buts. I was not aware of my
mother's intention when she entered this room. But since she whispered
it to me, I have reflected on it, and am convinced that it is but a
prudent precaution. Your retreat is known to Mr. Leslie, he is known to
Peschiera. Grant that no indiscretion of Mr. Leslie's betray the
secret; still I have reason to believe that the count guesses Randal's
acquaintance with you. Audley Egerton this morning told me he had
gathered that, not from the young man himself, but from questions put to
himself by Madame di Negra; and Peschiera might and would set spies to
track Leslie to every house that he visits,--might and would, still more
naturally, set spies to track myself. Were this man an Englishman, I
should laugh at his machinations; but he is an Italian, and has been a
conspirator. What he could do I know not; but an assassin can penetrate
into a camp, and a traitor can creep through closed walls to one's
hearth. With my mother, Violante must be safe; that you cannot oppose.
And why not come yourself?"

Riccabocca had no reply to these arguments, so far as they affected
Violante; indeed, they awakened the almost superstitious terror with
which he regarded his enemy, and he consented at once that Violante
should accept the invitation proffered. But he refused it for himself
and Jemima.

"To say truth," said he, simply, "I made a secret vow, on re-entering
England, that I would associate with none who knew the rank I had
formerly held in my own land. I felt that all my philosophy was needed
to reconcile and habituate myself to my altered circumstances. In order
to find in my present existence, however humble, those blessings which
make all life noble,--dignity and peace,--it was necessary for poor,
weak human nature wholly to dismiss the past. It would unsettle me
sadly, could I come to your house, renew awhile, in your kindness and
respect--nay, in the very atmosphere of your society--the sense of what
I have been; and then (should the more than doubtful chance of recall
from my exile fail me) to awake, and find myself for the rest of life
what I am. And though, were I alone, I might trust myself perhaps to the
danger, yet my wife: she is happy and contented now; would she be so,
if you had once spoiled her for the simple position of Dr. Riccabocca's
wife? Should I not have to listen to regrets and hopes and fears that
would prick sharp through my thin cloak of philosophy? Even as it is,
since in a moment of weakness I confided my secret to her, I have had
'my rank' thrown at me,--with a careless hand, it is true, but it hits
hard nevertheless. No stone hurts like one taken from the ruins of one's
own home; and the grander the home, why, the heavier the stone! Protect,
dear madam, protect my daughter, since her father doubts his own power
to do so. But--ask no more."

Riccabocca was immovable here; and the matter was settled as he decided,
it being agreed that Violante should be still styled but the daughter of
Dr. Riccabocca.

"And now, one word more," said Harley. "Do not confide to Mr. Leslie
these arrangements; do not let him know where Violante is placed,--at
least, until I authorize such confidence in him. It is sufficient
excuse that it is no use to know unless he called to see her, and his
movements, as I said before, may be watched. You can give the same
reason to suspend his visits to yourself. Suffer me, meanwhile, to
mature my judgment on this young man. In the meanwhile, also, I think
that I shall have means of ascertaining the real nature of Peschiera's
schemes. His sister has sought to know me; I will give her the occasion.
I have heard some things of her in my last residence abroad, which make
me believe that she cannot be wholly the count's tool in any schemes
nakedly villanous; that she has some finer qualities in her than I once
supposed; and that she can be won from his influence. It is a state of
war; we will carry it into the enemy's camp. You will promise me, then,
to refrain from all further confidence in Mr. Leslie?"

"For the present, yes," said Riccabocca, reluctantly.

"Do not even say that you have seen me, unless he first tell you that
I am in England, and wish to learn your residence. I will give him full
occasion to do so. Pish! don't hesitate; you know your own proverb--

       "'Boccha chiusa, ed occhio aperto
        Non fece mai nissun deserto.'

"The closed mouth and the open eye,' etc."

"That's very true," said the doctor, much struck. "Very true. 'In boccha
chiusa non c'entrano mosche.' One can't swallow flies if one keeps one's
mouth shut. Corpo di Bacco! that's very true indeed."




CHAPTER VI.

Violante and Jemima were both greatly surprised, as the reader may
suppose, when they heard, on their return, the arrangements already
made for the former. The countess insisted on taking her at once, and
Riccabocca briefly said, "Certainly, the sooner the better." Violante
was stunned and bewildered. Jemima hastened to make up a little bundle
of things necessary, with many a woman's sigh that the poor wardrobe
contained so few things befitting. But among the clothes she slipped a
purse, containing the savings of months, perhaps of years, and with it a
few affectionate lines, begging Violante to ask the countess to buy her
all that was proper for her father's child. There is always something
hurried and uncomfortable in the abrupt and unexpected withdrawal of any
member from a quiet household. The small party broke into still smaller
knots. Violante hung on her father, and listened vaguely to his not very
lucid explanations. The countess approached Leonard, and, according
to the usual mode with persons of quality addressing young authors,
complimented him highly on the books she had not read, but which her son
assured her were so remarkable. She was a little anxious to know where
Harley had first met with Mr. Oran, whom he called his friend; but she
was too highbred to inquire, or to express any wonder that rank should
be friends with genius. She took it for granted that they had formed
their acquaintance abroad.

Harley conversed with Helen.--"You are not sorry that Violante is coming
to us? She will be just such a companion for you as I could desire; of
your own years too."

HELEN (ingenuously).--"It is hard to think I am not younger than she
is."

HARLEY.--"Why, my dear Helen?"

HELEN.--"She is so brilliant. She talks so beautifully. And I--"

HARLEY.--"And you want but the habit of talking, to do justice to your
own beautiful thoughts."

Helen looked at him gratefully, but shook her head. It was a common
trick of hers, and always when she was praised.

At last the preparations were made, the farewell was said, Violante was
in the carriage by Lady Lansmere's side. Slowly moved on the stately
equipage with its four horses and trim postilions, heraldic badges on
their shoulders, in the style rarely seen in the neighbourhood of the
metropolis, and now fast vanishing even amidst distant counties.

Riccabocca, Jemima, and Jackeymo continued to gaze after it from the
gate.

"She is gone," said Jackeymo, brushing his eyes with his coat-sleeve.
"But it is a load off one's mind."

"And another load on one's heart," murmured Riccabocca. "Don't cry,
Jemima; it may be bad for you, and bad for him that is to come. It
is astonishing how the humours of the mother may affect the unborn. I
should not like to have a son who has a more than usual propensity to
tears."

The poor philosopher tried to smile; but it was a bad attempt. He went
slowly in, and shut himself with his books. But he could not read. His
whole mind was unsettled. And though, like all parents, he had been
anxious to rid himself of a beloved daughter for life, now that she was
gone but for a while, a string seemed broken in the Music of Home.




CHAPTER VII.

The evening of the same day, as Egerton, who was to entertain a large
party at dinner, was changing his dress, Harley walked into his room.

Egerton dismissed his valet by a sign, and continued his toilet.

"Excuse me, my dear Harley, I have only ten minutes to give you. I
expect one of the royal dukes, and punctuality is the stern virtue of
men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes."

Harley had usually a jest for his friend's aphorisms; but he had none
now. He laid his hand kindly on Egerton's shoulder. "Before I speak of
my business, tell me how you are,--better?"

"Better,--nay, I am always well. Pooh! I may look a little tired,--years
of toil will tell on the countenance. But that matters little: the
period of life has passed with me when one cares how one looks in the
glass."

As he spoke, Egerton completed his dress, and came to the hearth,
standing there, erect and dignified as usual, still far handsomer than
many a younger man, and with a form that seemed to have ample vigour to
support for many a year the sad and glorious burden of power.

"So now to your business, Harley."

"In the first place, I want you to present me, at the earliest
opportunity, to Madame di Negra. You say she wished to know me."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, she receives this evening. I did not mean to go; but when
my party breaks up--"

"You can call for me at The Travellers. Do!"

"Next, you knew Lady Jane Horton better even than I did, at least in the
last year of her life." Harley sighed, and Egerton turned and stirred
the fire.

"Pray, did you ever see at her house, or hear her speak of, a Mrs.
Bertram?"

"Of whom?" said Egerton, in a hollow voice, his face still turned
towards the fire.

"A Mrs. Bertram; but heavens! my dear fellow, what is the matter? Are
you ill?"

"A spasm at the heart, that is all; don't ring, I shall be better
presently; go on talking. Mrs.--why do you ask?"

"Why? I have hardly time to explain; but I am, as I told you, resolved
on righting my old Italian friend, if Heaven will help me, as it ever
does help the just when they bestir themselves; and this Mrs. Bertram is
mixed up in my friend's affairs."

"His! How is that possible?"

Harley rapidly and succinctly explained. Audley listened attentively,
with his eyes fixed on the floor, and still seeming to labour under
great difficulty of breathing.

At last he answered, "I remember something of this Mrs.--Mrs.--Bertram.
But your inquiries after her would be useless. I think I have heard that
she is long since dead; nay, I am sure of it."

"Dead!--that is most unfortunate. But do you know any of her relations
or friends? Can you suggest any mode of tracing this packet, if it came
to her hands?"

"No."

"And Lady Jane had scarcely any friend that I remember except my mother,
and she knows nothing of this Mrs. Bertram. How unlucky! I think I shall
advertise. Yet, no. I could only distinguish this Mrs. Bertram from any
other of the same name, by stating with whom she had gone abroad, and
that would catch the attention of Peschiera, and set him to counterwork
us."

"And what avails it?" said Egerton. "She whom you seek is no more--no
more!" He paused, and went on rapidly: "The packet did not arrive
in England till years after her death, was no doubt returned to the
post-office, is destroyed long ago."

Harley looked very much disappointed. Egerton went on in a sort of set,
mechanical voice, as if not thinking of what he said, but speaking from
the dry practical mode of reasoning which was habitual to him, and by
which the man of the world destroys the hopes of an enthusiast. Then
starting up at the sound of the first thundering knock at the street
door, he said, "Hark! you must excuse me."

"I leave you, my dear Audley. But I must again ask, Are you better now?"

"Much, much,--quite well: I will call for you,--probably between eleven
and twelve."




CHAPTER VIII.

If any one could be more surprised at seeing Lord L'Estrange at the
house of Madame di Negra that evening than the fair hostess herself,
it was Randal Leslie. Something instinctively told him that this visit
threatened interference with whatever might be his ultimate projects
in regard to Riccabocca and Violante. But Randal Leslie was not one of
those who shrink from an intellectual combat. On the contrary, he was
too confident of his powers of intrigue not to take a delight in their
exercise. He could not conceive that the indolent Harley could be a
match for his own restless activity and dogged perseverance. But in a
very few moments fear crept on him. No man of his day could produce a
more brilliant effect than Lord L'Estrange, when he deigned to desire
it. Without much pretence to that personal beauty which strikes at first
sight, he still retained all the charm of countenance, and all the grace
of manner, which had made him in boyhood the spoiled darling of society.
Madame di Negra had collected but a small circle round her; still it was
of the elite of the great world,--not, indeed, those more precise and
reserved dames de chateau, whom the lighter and easier of the fair
dispensers of fashion ridicule as prudes; but nevertheless, ladies
were there, as unblemished in reputation, as high in rank, flirts and
coquettes, perhaps,--nothing more; in short, "charming women,"--the
gay butterflies that hover over the stiff parterre. And there were
ambassadors and ministers, and wits and brilliant debaters, and
first-rate dandies (dandies, when first-rate, are generally very
agreeable men). Amongst all these various persons, Harley, so long a
stranger to the London world, seemed to make himself at home with the
ease of an Alcibiades. Many of the less juvenile ladies remembered him,
and rushed to claim his acquaintance, with nods and becks, and wreathed
smiles. He had ready compliment for each. And few indeed were there,
men or women, for whom Harley L'Estrange had not appropriate attraction.
Distinguished reputation as soldier and scholar for the grave; whim and
pleasantry for the gay; novelty for the sated; and for the more vulgar
natures was he not Lord L'Estrange, unmarried, possessed already of
a large independence, and heir to an ancient earldom, and some fifty
thousands a year?

Not till he had succeeded in the general effect--which, it must be
owned, he did his best to create--did Harley seriously and especially
devote himself to his hostess. And then he seated himself by her side;
and, as if in compliment to both, less pressing admirers insensibly
slipped away and edged off.

Frank Hazeldean was the last to quit his ground behind Madame di Negra's
chair; but when he found that the two began to talk in Italian, and he
could not understand a word they said, he too--fancying, poor fellow,
that he looked foolish, and cursing his Eton education that had
neglected, for languages spoken by the dead, of which he had learned
little, those still in use among the living, of which he had learned
nought--retreated towards Randal, and asked wistfully, "Pray, what age
should you say L'Estrange was? He must be devilish old, in spite of his
looks. Why, he was at Waterloo!"

"He is young enough to be a terrible rival," answered Randal, with
artful truth.

Frank turned pale, and began to meditate dreadful bloodthirsty thoughts,
of which hair-triggers and Lord's Cricket-ground formed the staple.

Certainly there was apparent ground for a lover's jealousy; for Harley
and Beatrice now conversed in a low tone, and Beatrice seemed agitated,
and Harley earnest. Randal himself grew more and more perplexed. Was
Lord L'Estrange really enamoured of the marchesa? If so, farewell to all
hopes of Frank's marriage with her! Or was he merely playing a part in
Riccabocca's interest; pretending to be the lover, in order to obtain
an influence over her mind, rule her through her ambition, and secure
an ally against her brother? Was this finesse compatible with Randal's
notions of Harley's character? Was it consistent with that chivalric and
soldierly spirit of honour which the frank nobleman affected, to make
love to a woman in mere ruse de guerre? Could mere friendship for
Riccabocca be a sufficient inducement to a man, who, whatever his
weaknesses or his errors, seemed to wear on his very forehead a soul
above deceit, to stoop to paltry means, even for a worthy end? At this
question, a new thought flashed upon Randal,--might not Lord L'Estrange
have speculated himself upon winning Violante; would not that account
for all the exertions he had made on behalf of her inheritance at the
court of Vienna,--exertions of which Peschiera and Beatrice had both
complained? Those objections which the Austrian government might take
to Violante's marriage with some obscure Englishman would probably
not exist against a man like Harley L'Estrange, whose family not only
belonged to the highest aristocracy of England, but had always supported
opinions in vogue amongst the leading governments of Europe. Harley
himself, it is true, had never taken part in politics, but his notions
were, no doubt, those of a high-born soldier, who had fought, in
alliance with Austria, for the restoration of the Bourbons. And this
immense wealth--which Violante might lose, if she married one like
Randal himself--her marriage with the heir of the Lansmeres might
actually tend only to secure. Could Harley, with all his own
expectations, be indifferent to such a prize?--and no doubt he had
learned Violante's rare beauty in his correspondence with Riccabocca.

Thus considered, it seemed natural to Randal's estimate of human nature
that Harley's more prudish scruples of honour, as regards what is due to
women, could not resist a temptation so strong. Mere friendship was not
a motive powerful enough to shake them, but ambition was.

While Randal was thus cogitating, Frank thus suffering, and many a
whisper, in comment on the evident flirtation between the beautiful
hostess and the accomplished guest, reached the ears both of the
brooding schemer and the jealous lover, the conversation between the two
objects of remark and gossip had taken a new turn. Indeed, Beatrice had
made an effort to change it.

"It is long, my Lord," said she, still speaking Italian, "since I have
heard sentiments like those you address to me; and if I do not feel
myself wholly unworthy of them, it is from the pleasure I have felt in
reading sentiments equally foreign to the language of the world in which
I live." She took a book from the table as she spoke: "Have you seen
this work?"

Harley glanced at the title-page. "To be sure I have, and I know the
author."

"I envy you that honour. I should so like also to know one who has
discovered to me deeps in my own heart which I had never explored."

"Charming marchesa, if the book has done this, believe me that I have
paid you no false compliment,--formed no overflattering estimate of your
nature; for the charm of the work is but in its simple appeal to good
and generous emotions, and it can charm none in whom those emotions
exist not!"

"Nay, that cannot be true, or why is it so popular?"

"Because good and generous emotions are more common to the human heart
than we are aware of till the appeal comes."

"Don't ask me to think that! I have found the world so base."

"Pardon me a rude question; but what do you know of the world?"

Beatrice looked first in surprise at Harley, then glanced round the room
with significant irony.

"As I thought; you call this little room 'the world.' Be it so. I will
venture to say, that if the people in this room were suddenly converted
into an audience before a stage, and you were as consummate in the
actor's art as you are in all others that please and command--"

"Well?"

"And were to deliver a speech full of sordid and base sentiments, you
would be hissed. But let any other woman, with half your powers,
arise and utter sentiments sweet and womanly, or honest and lofty, and
applause would flow from every lip, and tears rush to many a worldly
eye. The true proof of the inherent nobleness of our common nature is
in the sympathy it betrays with what is noble wherever crowds are
collected. Never believe the world is base; if it were so, no society
could hold together for a day. But you would know the author of this
book? I will bring him to you."

"Do."

"And now," said Harley, rising, and with his candid, winning smile, "do
you think we shall ever be friends?"

"You have startled me so that I can scarcely answer. But why would you
be friends with me?"

"Because you need a friend. You have none?"

"Strange flatterer!" said Beatrice, smiling, though very sadly; and
looking up, her eye caught Randal's.

"Pooh!" said Harley, "you are too penetrating to believe that you
inspire friendship there. Ah, do you suppose that; all the while I have
been conversing with you, I have not noticed the watchful gaze of Mr.
Randal Leslie? What tie can possibly connect you together I know not
yet; but I soon shall."

"Indeed! you talk like one of the old Council of Venice. You try hard to
make me fear you," said Beatrice, seeking to escape from the graver
kind of impression Harley had made on her, by the affectation partly of
coquetry, partly of levity.

"And I," said L'Estrange, calmly, "tell you already that I fear you no
more." He bowed, and passed through the crowd to rejoin Audley, who was
seated in a corner whispering with some of his political colleagues.
Before Harley reached the minister, he found himself close to Randal and
young Hazeldean.

He bowed to the first, and extended his hand to the last. Randal felt
the distinction, and his sullen, bitter pride was deeply galled,--a
feeling of hate towards Harley passed into his mind. He was pleased to
see the cold hesitation with which Frank just touched the hand offered
to him. But Randal had not been the only person whose watch upon
Beatrice the keen-eyed Harley had noticed. Harley had seen the
angry looks of Frank Hazeldean, and divined the cause. So he smiled
forgivingly at the slight he had received. "You are like me, Mr.
Hazeldean," said he. "You think something of the heart should go with
all courtesy that bespeaks friendship--

        "'The hand of Douglas is his own.'"

Here Harley drew aside Randal. "Mr. Leslie, a word with you. If I wished
to know the retreat of Dr. Riccabocca, in order to render him a great
service, would you confide to me that secret?"

"That woman has let out her suspicions that I know the exile's retreat,"
thought Randal; and with quick presence of mind, he replied at once,

"My Lord, yonder stands a connection of Dr. Riccabocca's. Mr. Hazeldean
is surely the person to whom you should address this inquiry."

"Not so, Mr. Leslie; for I suspect that he cannot answer it, and that
you can. Well, I will ask something that it seems to me you may grant
without hesitation. Should you see Dr. Riccabocca, tell him that I am
in England, and so leave it to him to communicate with me or not; but
perhaps you have already done so?"

"Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, bowing low, with pointed formality,
"excuse me if I decline either to disclaim or acquiesce in the knowledge
you impute to me. If I am acquainted with any secret intrusted to me by
Dr. Riccabocca, it is for me to use my own discretion how best to guard
it. And for the rest, after the Scotch earl, whose words your Lordship
has quoted, refused to touch the hand of Marmion, Douglas could scarcely
have called Marmion back in order to give him--a message!"

Harley was not prepared for this tone in Mr. Egerton's protege, and his
own gallant nature was rather pleased than irritated by a haughtiness
that at least seemed to bespeak independence of spirit. Nevertheless,
L'Estrange's suspicions of Randal were too strong to be easily set
aside, and therefore he replied, civilly, but with covert taunt,

"I submit to your rebuke, Mr. Leslie, though I meant not the offence you
would ascribe to me. I regret my unlucky quotation yet the more,
since the wit of your retort has obliged you to identify yourself
with Marmion, who, though a clever and brave fellow, was an
uncommonly--tricky one." And so Harley, certainly having the best of it,
moved on, and joined Egerton, and in a few minutes more both left the
room.

"What was L'Estrange saying to you?" asked Frank. "Something about
Beatrice, I am sure."

"No; only quoting poetry."

"Then what made you look so angry, my dear fellow? I know it was your
kind feeling for me. As you say, he is a formidable rival. But that
can't be his own hair. Do you think he wears a toupet? I am sure he was
praising Beatrice. He is evidently very much smitten with her. But I
don't think she is a woman to be caught by mere rank and fortune! Do
you? Why can't you speak?"

"If you do not get her consent soon, I think she is lost to you," said
Randal, slowly; and before Frank could recover his dismay, glided from
the house.




CHAPTER IX.

Violante's first evening at the Lansmeres had passed more happily to her
than the first evening under the same roof had done to Helen. True that
she missed her father much, Jemima somewhat; but she so identified her
father's cause with Harley that she had a sort of vague feeling that
it was to promote that cause that she was on this visit to Harley's
parents. And the countess, it must be owned, was more emphatically
cordial to her than she had ever yet been to Captain Digby's orphan. But
perhaps the real difference in the heart of either girl was this, that
Helen felt awe of Lady Lansmere, and Violante felt only love for Lord
L'Estrange's mother. Violante, too, was one of those persons whom a
reserved and formal person, like the countess, "can get on with," as the
phrase goes. Not so poor little Helen,--so shy herself, and so hard to
coax into more than gentle monosyllables. And Lady Lansmere's favourite
talk was always of Harley. Helen had listened to such talk with respect
and interest. Violante listened to it with inquisitive eagerness, with
blushing delight. The mother's heart noticed the distinction between the
two, and no wonder that that heart moved more to Violante than to Helen.
Lord Lansmere, too, like most gentlemen of his age, clumped all young
ladies together as a harmless, amiable, but singularly stupid class of
the genus-Petticoat, meant to look pretty, play the piano, and talk
to each other about frocks and sweethearts. Therefore this animated,
dazzling creature, with her infinite variety of look and play of mind,
took him by surprise, charmed him into attention, and warmed him
into gallantry. Helen sat in her quiet corner, at her work, sometimes
listening with almost mournful, though certainly unenvious, admiration
at Violante's vivid, yet ever unconscious, eloquence of word and
thought, sometimes plunged deep into her own secret meditations. And all
the while the work went on the same, under the small, noiseless fingers.
This was one of Helen's habits that irritated the nerves of Lady
Lansmere. She despised young ladies who were fond of work. She did not
comprehend how often it is the resource of the sweet womanly mind, not
from want of thought, but from the silence and the depth of it. Violante
was surprised, and perhaps disappointed, that Harley had left the house
before dinner, and did not return all the evening. But Lady Lansmere, in
making excuse for his absence, on the plea of engagements, found so good
an opportunity to talk of his ways in general,--of his rare promise in
boyhood, of her regret at the inaction of his maturity, of her hope
to see him yet do justice to his natural powers,--that Violante almost
ceased to miss him.

And when Lady Lansmere conducted her to her room, and, kissing her cheek
tenderly, said, "But you are just the person Harley admires,--just the
person to rouse him from melancholy dreams, of which his wild humours
are now but the vain disguise"--Violante crossed her arms on her bosom,
and her bright eyes, deepened into tenderness, seemed to ask, "He
melancholy--and why?"

On leaving Violante's room, Lady Lansmere paused before the door of
Helen's; and, after musing a little while, entered softly.

Helen had dismissed her maid; and, at the moment Lady Lansmere entered,
she was kneeling at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped before her
face.

Her form, thus seen, looked so youthful and child-like, the attitude
itself was so holy and so touching, that the proud and cold expression
on Lady Lansmere's face changed. She shaded the light involuntarily, and
seated herself in silence that she might not disturb the act of prayer.

When Helen rose, she was startled to see the countess seated by the
fire, and hastily drew her hand across her eyes. She had been weeping.

Lady Lansmere did not, however, turn to observe those traces of tears,
which Helen feared were too visible. The countess was too absorbed in
her own thoughts; and as Helen timidly approached, she said--still with
her eyes on the clear low fire--"I beg your pardon, Miss Digby, for
my intrusion; but my son has left it to me to prepare Lord Lansmere to
learn the offer you have done Harley the honour to accept. I have not
yet spoken to my Lord; it may be days before I find a fitting occasion
to do so; meanwhile I feel assured that your sense of propriety will
make you agree, with me that it is due to Lord L'Estrange's father, that
strangers should not learn arrangements of such moment in his family
before his own consent be obtained."

Here the countess came to a full pause; and poor Helen, finding herself
called upon for some reply to this chilling speech, stammered out,
scarce audibly,

"Certainly, madam, I never dreamed of--"

"That is right, my dear," interrupted Lady Lansmere, rising suddenly,
and as if greatly relieved. "I could not doubt your superiority to
ordinary girls of your age, with whom these matters are never secret for
a moment. Therefore, of course, you will not mention, at present, what
has passed between you and Harley, to any of the friends with whom you
may correspond."

"I have no correspondents, no friends, Lady Lansmere," said Helen,
deprecatingly, and trying hard not to cry.

"I am very glad to hear it, my dear; young ladies never should have.
Friends, especially friends who correspond, are the worst enemies they
can have. Good-night, Miss Digby. I need not add, by the way, that
though we are bound to show all kindness to this young Italian lady,
still she is wholly unconnected with our family; and you will be as
prudent with her as you would have been with your correspondents, had
you had the misfortune to have any."

Lady Lansmere said the last words with a smile, and left an ungenial
kiss (the stepmother's kiss) on Helen's bended brow. She then left the
room, and Helen sat on the seat vacated by the stately, unloving form,
and again covered her face with her hands, and again wept. But when she
rose at last, and the light fell upon her face, that soft face was sad
indeed, but serene,--serene, as with some inward sense of duty, sad, as
with the resignation which accepts patience instead of hope.




CHAPTER X.

The next morning Harley appeared at breakfast. He was in gay spirits,
and conversed more freely with Violante than he had yet done. He
seemed to amuse himself by attacking all she said, and provoking her to
argument. Violante was naturally a very earnest person; whether grave or
gay, she spoke with her heart on her lips, and her soul in her eyes.
She did not yet comprehend the light vein of Harley's irony, so she grew
piqued and chafed; and she was so lovely in anger; it so brightened the
beauty and animated her words, that no wonder Harley thus maliciously
teased her. But what, perhaps, she liked still less than the
teasing--though she could not tell why--was the kind of familiarity that
Harley assumed with her,--a familiarity as if he had known her all her
life,--that of a good-humoured elder brother, or a bachelor uncle. To
Helen, on the contrary, when he did not address her apart, his manner
was more respectful. He did not call her by her Christian name, as he
did Violante, but "Miss Digby," and softened his tone and inclined his
head when he spoke to her. Nor did he presume to jest at the very few
and brief sentences he drew from Helen, but rather listened to them with
deference, and invariably honoured them with approval. After breakfast
he asked Violante to play or sing; and when she frankly owned how little
she had cultivated those accomplishments, he persuaded Helen to sit down
to the piano, and stood by her side while she did so, turning over the
leaves of her music-book with the ready devotion of an admiring amateur.
Helen always played well, but less well than usual that day, for her
generous nature felt abashed. It was as if she were showing off to
mortify Violante. But Violante, on the other hand, was so passionately
fond of music that she had no feeling left for the sense of her own
inferiority. Yet she sighed when Helen rose, and Harley thanked Miss
Digby for the delight she had given him.

The day was fine. Lady Lansmere proposed to walk in the garden. While
the ladies went up-stairs for their shawls and bonnets, Harley lighted
his cigar, and stepped from the window upon the lawn. Lady Lansmere
joined him before the girls came out.

"Harley," said she, taking his arm, "what a charming companion you have
introduced to us! I never met with any that both pleased and delighted
me like this dear Violante. Most girls who possess some power of
conversation, and who have dared to think for themselves, are so
pedantic, or so masculine; but she is always so simple, and always still
the girl. Ah, Harley!"

"Why that sigh, my dear mother?"

"I was thinking how exactly she would have suited you,--how proud I
should have been of such a daughter-in-law, and how happy you would have
been with such a wife."

Harley started. "Tut," said he, peevishly, "she is a mere child; you
forget my years."

"Why," said Lady Lansmere, surprised, "Helen is quite as young as
Violante."

"In dates-yes. But Helen's character is so staid; what it is now it will
be ever; and Helen, from gratitude, respect, or pity, condescends to
accept the ruins of my heart, while this bright Italian has the soul of
a Juliet, and would expect in a husband all the passion of a Romeo. Nay,
Mother, hush. Do you forget that I am engaged,--and of my own free will
and choice? Poor dear Helen! A propos, have you spoken to my father, as
you undertook to do?"

"Not yet. I must seize the right moment. You know that my Lord requires
management."

"My dear mother, that female notion of managing us men costs you ladies
a great waste of time, and occasions us a great deal of sorrow. Men are
easily managed by plain truth. We are brought up to respect it, strange
as it may seem to you!"

Lady Lansmere smiled with the air of superior wisdom, and the experience
of an accomplished wife. "Leave it to me, Harley, and rely on my Lord's
consent."

Harley knew that Lady Lansmere always succeeded in obtaining her
way with his father; and he felt that the earl might naturally be
disappointed in such an alliance, and, without due propitiation, evince
that disappointment in his manner to Helen. Harley was bound to save her
from all chance of such humiliation. He did not wish her to think that
she was not welcomed into his family; therefore he said, "I resign
myself to your promise and your diplomacy. Meanwhile, as you love me, be
kind to my betrothed."

"Am I not so?"

"Hem. Are you as kind as if she were the great heiress you believe
Violante to be?"

"Is it," answered Lady Lansmere, evading the question--"is it because
one is an heiress and the other is not that you make so marked a
difference in your own manner to the two; treating Violante as a spoilt
child, and Miss Digby as--"

"The destined wife of Lord L'Estrange, and the daughter-in-law of Lady
Lansmere,--yes."

The countess suppressed an impatient exclamation that rose to her lips,
for Harley's brow wore that serious aspect which it rarely assumed save
when he was in those moods in which men must be soothed, not resisted.
And after a pause he went on, "I am going to leave you to-day. I have
engaged apartments at the Clarendon. I intend to gratify your wish, so
often expressed, that I should enjoy what are called the pleasures of my
rank, and the privileges of single-blessedness,--celebrate my adieu to
celibacy, and blaze once more, with the splendour of a setting sun, upon
Hyde Park and May Fair."

"You are a positive enigma. Leave our house, just when you are betrothed
to its inmate! Is that the natural conduct of a lover?"

"How can your woman eyes be so dull, and your woman heart so obtuse?"
answered Harley, half laughing, half scolding. "Can you not guess that I
wish that Helen and myself should both lose the association of mere ward
and guardian; that the very familiarity of our intercourse under the
same roof almost forbids us to be lovers; that we lose the joy to meet,
and the pang to part. Don't you remember the story of the Frenchman, who
for twenty years loved a lady, and never missed passing his evenings at
her house. She became a widow. 'I wish you joy,' cried his friend; 'you
may now marry the woman you have so long adored.' 'Alas!' said the
poor Frenchman, profoundly dejected; 'and if so, where shall I spend my
evenings?'"

Here Violante and Helen were seen in the garden, walking affectionately
arm in arm.

"I don't perceive the point of your witty, heartless anecdote," said
Lady Lansmere, obstinately. "Settle that, however, with Miss Digby.
But to leave the very day after your friend's daughter comes as a
guest!--what will she think of it?"

Lord L'Estrange looked steadfastly at his mother. "Does it matter much
what she thinks of me,--of a man engaged to another; and old enough to
be--"

"I wish to heaven you would not talk of your age, Harley; it is a
reflection upon mine; and I never saw you look so well nor so handsome."
With that she drew him on towards the young ladies; and, taking Helen's
arm, asked her, aside, "If she knew that Lord L'Estrange had engaged
rooms at the Clarendon; and if she understood why?" As while she said
this she moved on, Harley was left by Violante's side.

"You will be very dull here, I fear, my poor child," said he.

"Dull! But why will you call me child? Am I so very--very child-like?"

"Certainly, you are to me,--a mere infant. Have I not seen you one; have
I not held you in my arms?"

VIOLANTE.--"But that was a long time ago!"

HARLEY.--"True. But if years have not stood still for you, they have not
been stationary for me. There is the same difference between us now that
there was then. And, therefore, permit me still to call you child, and
as child to treat you!"

VIOLANTE.--"I will do no such thing. Do you know that I always thought I
was good-tempered till this morning."

HARLEY.--"And what undeceived you? Did you break your doll?"

VIOLANTE (with an indignant flash from her dark
eyes).--"There!--again!--you delight in provoking me!"

HARLEY.--"It was the doll, then. Don't cry; I will get you another."

Violante plucked her arm from him, and walked away towards the countess
in speechless scorn. Harley's brow contracted, in thought and in gloom.
He stood still for a moment or so, and then joined the ladies.

"I am trespassing sadly on your morning; but I wait for a visitor whom
I sent to before you were up. He is to be here at twelve. With your
permission, I will dine with you tomorrow, and you will invite him to
meet me."

"Certainly. And who is your friend? I guess--the young author?"

"Leonard Fairfield," cried Violante, who had conquered, or felt ashamed,
of her short-lived anger.

"Fairfield!" repeated Lady Lansmere. "I thought, Harley, you said the
name was Oran."

"He has assumed the latter name. He is the son of Mark Fairfield, who
married an Avenel. Did you recognize no family likeness?--none in those
eyes, Mother?" said Harley, sinking his voice into a whisper.

"No;" answered the countess, falteringly.

Harley, observing that Violante was now speaking to Helen about Leonard,
and that neither was listening to him, resumed in the same low tone,
"And his mother--Nora's sister--shrank from seeing me! That is the
reason why I wished you not to call. She has not told the young man
why she shrank from seeing me; nor have I explained it to him as yet.
Perhaps I never shall."

"Indeed, dearest Harley," said the countess, with great gentleness,
"I wish you too much to forget the folly--well, I will not say that
word--the sorrows of your boyhood, not to hope that you will rather
strive against such painful memories than renew them by unnecessary
confidence to any one; least of all to the relation of--"

"Enough! don't name her; the very name pains me. And as to confidence,
there are but two persons in the world to whom I ever bare the old
wounds,--yourself and Egerton. Let this pass. Ha!--a ring at the
bell--that is he!"




CHAPTER XI.

Leonard entered on the scene, and joined the party in the garden. The
countess, perhaps to please her son, was more than civil,--she was
markedly kind to him. She noticed him more attentively than she had
hitherto done; and, with all her prejudices of birth, was struck to find
the son of Mark Fairfield the carpenter so thoroughly the gentleman. He
might not have the exact tone and phrase by which Convention stereotypes
those born and schooled in a certain world; but the aristocrats of
Nature can dispense with such trite minutia? And Leonard had lived,
of late at least, in the best society that exists for the polish of
language and the refinement of manners,--the society in which the most
graceful ideas are clothed in the most graceful forms; the society which
really, though indirectly, gives the law to courts; the society of
the most classic authors, in the various ages in which literature has
flowered forth from civilization. And if there was something in the
exquisite sweetness of Leonard's voice, look, and manner, which the
countess acknowledged to attain that perfection in high breeding, which,
under the name of "suavity," steals its way into the heart, so her
interest in him was aroused by a certain subdued melancholy which
is rarely without distinction, and never without charm. He and Helen
exchanged but few words. There was but one occasion in which they could
have spoken apart, and Helen herself contrived to elude it. His face
brightened at Lady Lansmere's cordial invitation, and he glanced at
Helen as he accepted it; but her eye did not meet his own.

"And now," said Harley, whistling to Nero, whom his ward was silently
caressing, "I must take Leonard away. Adieu! all of you, till to-morrow
at dinner. Miss Violante, is the doll to have blue eyes or black?"

Violante turned her own black eyes in mute appeal to Lady Lansmere, and
nestled to that lady's side as if in refuge from unworthy insult.




CHAPTER XII.

"Let the carriage go to the Clarendon," said Harley to his servant; "I
and Mr. Oran will walk to town. Leonard, I think you would rejoice at an
occasion to serve your old friends, Dr. Riccabocca and his daughter?"

"Serve them! Oh, yes." And there instantly returned to Leonard the
recollection of Violante's words when, on leaving his quiet village,
he had sighed to part from all those he loved; and the little dark-eyed
girl had said, proudly, yet consolingly, "But to SERVE those you love!"
He turned to L'Estrange, with beaming, inquisitive eyes.

"I said to our friend," resumed Harley, "that I would vouch for your
honour as my own. I am about to prove my words, and to confide the
secrets which your penetration has indeed divined,--our friend is not
what he seems." Harley then briefly related to Leonard the particulars
of the exile's history, the rank he had held in his native land, the
manner in which, partly through the misrepresentations of a kinsman he
had trusted, partly through the influence of a wife he had loved, he had
been drawn into schemes which he believed bounded to the emancipation
of Italy from a foreign yoke by the united exertions of her best and
bravest sons.

"A noble ambition!" interrupted Leonard, manfully. "And pardon me, my
Lord, I should not have thought that you would speak of it in a tone
that implies blame."

"The ambition in itself was noble," answered Harley; "but the cause to
which it was devoted became defiled in its dark channel through
Secret Societies. It is the misfortune of all miscellaneous political
combinations, that with the purest motives of their more generous
members are ever mixed the most sordid interests, and the fiercest
passions of mean confederates. When those combinations act openly, and
in daylight, under the eye of Public Opinion, the healthier elements
usually prevail; where they are shrouded in mystery, where they
are subjected to no censor in the discussion of the impartial and
dispassionate, where chiefs working in the dark exact blind obedience,
and every man who is at war with law is at once admitted as a friend of
freedom, the history of the world tells us that patriotism soon passes
away. Where all is in public, public virtue, by the natural sympathies
of the common mind, and by the wholesome control of shame, is likely to
obtain ascendancy; where all is in private, and shame is but for him who
refuses the abnegation of his conscience, each man seeks the indulgence
of his private vice. And hence in Secret Societies (from which may
yet proceed great danger to all Europe) we find but foul and hateful
Eleusinia, affording pretexts to the ambition of the great, to the
license of the penniless, to the passions of the revengeful, to the
anarchy of the ignorant. In a word, the societies of these Italian
Carbonari did but engender schemes in which the abler chiefs disguised
new forms of despotism, and in which the revolutionary many looked
forward to the overthrow of all the institutions that stand between Law
and Chaos. Naturally, therefore," added L'Estrange, dryly, "when their
schemes were detected, and the conspiracy foiled, it was for the silly,
honest men entrapped into the league to suffer, the leaders turned
king's evidence, and the common mercenaries became--banditti." Harley
then proceeded to state that it was just when the soi-disant Riccabocca
had discovered the true nature and ulterior views of the conspirators
he had joined, and actually withdrawn from their councils, that he was
denounced by the kinsman who had duped him into the enterprise, and who
now profited by his treason. Harley next spoke of the packet despatched
by Riccabocca's dying wife, as it was supposed, to Mrs. Bertram; and of
the hopes he founded on the contents of that packet, if discovered. He
then referred to the design which had brought Peschiera to England,--a
design which that personage had avowed with such effrontery to his
companions at Vienna, that he had publicly laid wagers on his success.

"But these men can know nothing of England, of the safety of English
laws," said Leonard, naturally. "We take it for granted that Riccabocca,
if I am still so to call him, refuses his consent to the marriage
between his daughter and his foe. Where, then, the danger? This count,
even if Violante were not under your mother's roof, could not get an
opportunity to see her. He could not attack the house and carry her off
like a feudal baron in the middle ages."

"All this is very true," answered Harley. "Yet I have found through life
that we cannot estimate danger by external circumstances, but by the
character of those from whom it is threatened. This count is a man of
singular audacity, of no mean natural talents,--talents practised in
every art of duplicity and intrigue; one of those men whose boast it is
that they succeed in whatever they undertake; and he is, here, urged on
the one hand by all that can whet the avarice, and on the other, by all
that can give invention to despair. Therefore, though I cannot guess
what plan he may possibly adopt, I never doubt that some plan, formed
with cunning and pursued with daring, will be embraced the moment he
discovers Violante's retreat,--unless, indeed, we can forestall all
peril by the restoration of her father, and the detection of the fraud
and falsehood to which Peschiera owes the fortune he appropriates. Thus,
while we must prosecute to the utmost our inquiries for the missing
documents, so it should be our care to possess ourselves, if possible,
of such knowledge of the count's machinations as may enable us to defeat
them. Now, it was with satisfaction that I learned in Germany that
Peschiera's sister was in London. I knew enough both of his disposition
and of the intimacy between himself and this lady, to make me think it
probable he will seek to make her his instrument and accomplice, should
he require one. Peschiera (as you may suppose by his audacious wager) is
not one of those secret villains who would cut off their right hand if
it could betray the knowledge of what was done by the left,--rather
one of those self-confident vaunting knaves of high animal spirits, and
conscience so obtuse that it clouds their intellect, who must have
some one to whom they can boast of their abilities and confide their
projects. And Peschiera has done all he can to render this poor woman
so wholly dependent on him as to be his slave and his tool. But I
have learned certain traits in her character that show it to be
impressionable to good, and with tendencies to honour. Peschiera had
taken advantage of the admiration she excited, some years ago, in a rich
young Englishman, to entice this admirer into gambling, and sought
to make his sister both a decoy and an instrument in his designs of
plunder. She did not encourage the addresses of our countryman, but she
warned him of the snare laid for him, and entreated him to leave the
place lest her brother should discover and punish her honesty. The
Englishman told me this himself. In fine, my hope of detaching this
lady from Peschiera's interests, and inducing her to forewarn us of his
purpose, consists but in the innocent, and, I hope, laudable artifice,
of redeeming herself,--of appealing to, and calling into disused
exercise, the better springs of her nature."

Leonard listened with admiration and some surprise to the singularly
subtle and sagacious insight into character which Harley evinced in
the brief clear strokes by which he had thus depicted Peschiera and
Beatrice, and was struck by the boldness with which Harley rested a
whole system of action upon a few deductions drawn from his reasonings
on human motive and characteristic bias. Leonard had not expected to
find so much practical acuteness in a man who, however accomplished,
usually seemed indifferent, dreamy, and abstracted to the ordinary
things of life. But Harley L'Estrange was one of those whose powers
lie dormant till circumstance applies to them all they need for
activity,--the stimulant of a motive.

Harley resumed: "After a conversation I had with the lady last night,
it occurred to me that in this part of our diplomacy you could render
us essential service. Madame di Negra--such is the sister's name--has
conceived an admiration for your genius, and a strong desire to know
you personally. I have promised to present you to her; and I shall do
so after a preliminary caution. The lady is very handsome, and very
fascinating. It is possible that your heart and your senses may not be
proof against her attractions."

"Oh, do not fear that!" exclaimed Leonard, with a tone of conviction so
earnest that Harley smiled.

"Forewarned is not always forearmed against the might of beauty, my dear
Leonard; so I cannot at once accept your assurance. But listen to me!
Watch yourself narrowly, and if you find that you are likely to be
captivated, promise, on your honour, to retreat at once from the field.
I have no right, for the sake of another, to expose you to danger; and
Madame di Negra, whatever may be her good qualities, is the last person
I should wish to see you in love with."

"In love with her! Impossible!"

"Impossible is a strong word," returned Harley; "still I own fairly (and
this belief alone warrants me in trusting you to her fascinations), that
I do think, as far as one man can judge of another, that she is not the
woman to attract you; and if filled by one pure and generous object in
your intercourse with her, you will see her with purged eyes. Still I
claim your promise as one of honour."

"I give it," said Leonard, positively. "But how can I serve Riccabocca?
How aid in--"

"Thus," interrupted Harley: "the spell of your writings is, that,
unconsciously to ourselves, they make us better and nobler. And your
writings are but the impressions struck off from your mind. Your
conversation, when you are roused, has the same effect. And as you grow
more familiar with Madame di Negra, I wish you to speak of your boyhood,
your youth. Describe the exile as you have seen him,--so touching
amidst his foibles, so grand amidst the petty privations of his fallen
fortunes, so benevolent while poring over his hateful Machiavelli,
so stingless in his wisdom of the serpent, so playfully astute in his
innocence of the dove--I leave the picture to your knowledge of humour
and pathos. Describe Violante brooding over her Italian Poets, and
filled with dreams of her fatherland; describe her with all the flashes
of her princely nature, shining forth through humble circumstance and
obscure position; waken in your listener compassion, respect, admiration
for her kindred exiles,--and I think our work is done. She will
recognize evidently those whom her brother seeks. She will question
you closely where you met with them, where they now are. Protect that
secret; say at once that it is not your own. Against your descriptions
and the feelings they excite, she will not be guarded as against mine.
And there are other reasons why your influence over this woman of mixed
nature may be more direct and effectual than my own."

"Nay, I cannot conceive that."

"Believe it, without asking me to explain," answered Harley.

For he did not judge it necessary to say to Leonard: "I am high-born and
wealthy, you a peasant's son, and living by your exertions. This woman
is ambitious and distressed. She might have projects on me that would
counteract mine on her. You she would but listen to, and receive,
through the sentiments of good or of poetical that are in her; you she
would have no interest to subjugate, no motive to ensnare."

"And now," said Harley, turning the subject, "I have another object in
view. This foolish sage friend of ours, in his bewilderment and fears,
has sought to save Violante from one rogue by promising her hand to a
man who, unless my instincts deceive me, I suspect much disposed to be
another. Sacrifice such exuberance of life and spirit to that bloodless
heart, to that cold and earthward intellect! By Heaven, it shall not
be!"

"But whom can the exile possibly have seen of birth and fortunes to
render him a fitting spouse for his daughter? Whom, my Lord, except
yourself?"

"Me!" exclaimed Harley, angrily, and changing colour. "I worthy of such
a creature?--I, with my habits! I, silken egotist that I am! And you, a
poet, to form such an estimate of one who might be the queen of a poet's
dream!"

"My Lord, when we sat the other night round Riccabocca's hearth, when
I heard her speak, and observed you listen, I said to myself, from such
knowledge of human nature as comes, we know not how, to us poets,--I
said, 'Harley L'Estrange has looked long and wistfully on the heavens,
and he now hears the murmur of the wings that can waft him towards
them.' And then I sighed, for I thought how the world rules us all in
spite of ourselves, and I said, 'What pity for both, that the exile's
daughter is not the worldly equal of the peer's son!' And you too
sighed, as I thus thought; and I fancied that, while you listened to
the music of the wing, you felt the iron of the chain. But the exile's
daughter is your equal in birth, and you are her equal in heart and in
soul."

"My poor Leonard, you rave," answered Harley, calmly. "And if Violante
is not to be some young prince's bride, she should be some young
poet's."

"Poet's! Oh, no!" said Leonard, with a gentle laugh. "Poets need repose
where they love!"

Harley was struck by the answer, and mused over it in silence. "I
comprehend," thought he; "it is a new light that dawns on me. What is
needed by the man whose whole life is one strain after glory--whose soul
sinks, in fatigue, to the companionship of earth--is not the love of a
nature like his own. He is right,--it is repose! While I!--it is true;
boy that he is, his intuitions are wiser than all my experience! It is
excitement, energy, elevation, that Love should bestow on me. But I have
chosen; and, at least, with Helen my life will be calm, and my hearth
sacred. Let the rest sleep in the same grave as my youth."

"But," said Leonard, wishing kindly to arouse his noble friend from a
revery which he felt was mournful, though he did not divine its true
cause,--"but you have not yet told me the name of the signorina's
suitor. May I know?"

"Probably one you never heard of. Randal Leslie,--a placeman. You
refused a place; you were right."

"Randal Leslie? Heaven forbid!" cried Leonard, revealing his surprise at
the name.

"Amen! But what do you know of him?

"Leonard related the story of Burley's pamphlet."

Harley seemed delighted to hear his suspicions of Randal confirmed.
"The paltry pretender;--and yet I fancied that he might be formidable!
However, we must dismiss him for the present,--we are approaching Madame
di Negra's house. Prepare yourself, and remember your promise."




CHAPTER XIII.

Some days have passed by. Leonard and Beatrice di Negra have already
made friends. Harley is satisfied with his young friend's report. He
himself has been actively occupied. He has sought, but hitherto in vain,
all trace of Mrs. Bertram; he has put that investigation into the hands
of his lawyer, and his lawyer has not been more fortunate than himself.
Moreover, Harley has blazed forth again in the London world, and
promises again de faire fureur; but he has always found time to spend
some hours in the twenty-four at his father's house. He has continued
much the same tone with Violante, and she begins to accustom herself to
it, and reply saucily. His calm courtship to Helen flows on in silence.
Leonard, too, has been a frequent guest at the Lansmeres: all welcome
and like him there. Peschiera has not evinced any sign of the deadly
machinations ascribed to him. He goes less into the drawing-room world;
for in that world he meets Lord L'Estrange; and brilliant and handsome
though Peschiera be, Lord L'Estrange, like Rob Roy Macgregor, is "on
his native heath," and has the decided advantage over the foreigner.
Peschiera, however, shines in the clubs, and plays high. Still, scarcely
an evening passes in which he and Baron Levy do not meet.

Audley Egerton has been intensely occupied with affairs, only seen once
by Harley. Harley then was about to deliver himself of his sentiments
respecting Randal Leslie, and to communicate the story of Burley and the
pamphlet. Egerton stopped him short.

"My dear Harley, don't try to set me against this young man. I wish to
hear nothing in his disfavour. In the first place, it would not alter
the line of conduct I mean to adopt with regard to him. He is my wife's
kinsman; I charged myself with his career, as a wish of hers, and
therefore as a duty to myself. In attaching him so young to my own fate,
I drew him necessarily away from the professions in which his industry
and talents (for he has both in no common degree) would have secured his
fortunes; therefore, be he bad, be he good, I shall try to provide
for him as I best can; and, moreover, cold as I am to him, and worldly
though perhaps he be, I have somehow or other conceived an interest in
him, a liking to him. He has been under my roof, he is dependent on
me; he has been docile and prudent, and I am a lone childless man;
therefore, spare him, since in so doing you spare me; and ah, Harley, I
have so many cares on me now that--"

"Oh, say no more, my dear, dear Audley," cried the generous friend; "how
little people know you!"

Audley's hand trembled. Certainly his nerves began to show wear and
tear.

Meanwhile, the object of this dialogue--the type of perverted intellect,
of mind without heart, of knowledge which had no aim but power--was in
a state of anxious, perturbed gloom. He did not know whether wholly to
believe Levy's assurance of his patron's ruin. He could not believe it
when he saw that great house in Grosvenor Square, its hall crowded with
lacqueys, its sideboard blazing with plate; when no dun was ever seen in
the antechamber; when not a tradesman was ever known to call twice for a
bill. He hinted to Levy the doubts all these phenomena suggested to him;
but the baron only smiled ominously, and said,

"True, the tradesmen are always paid; but the how is the question!
Randal, mon cher, you are too innocent. I have but two pieces of advice
to suggest, in the shape of two proverbs,--'Wise rats run from a falling
house,' and, 'Make hay while the sun shines.' A propos, Mr. Avenel likes
you greatly, and has been talking of the borough of Lansmere for you. He
has contrived to get together a great interest there. Make much of him."

Randal had indeed been to Mrs. Avenel's soiree dansante, and called
twice and found her at home, and been very bland and civil, and admired
the children. She had two, a boy and a girl, very like their father,
with open faces as bold as brass. And as all this had won Mrs. Avenel's
good graces, so it had propitiated her husband's. Avenel was shrewd
enough to see how clever Randal was. He called him "smart," and said "he
would have got on in America," which was the highest praise Dick Avenel
ever accorded to any man. But Dick himself looked a little careworn;
and this was the first year in which he had murmured at the bills of his
wife's dressmaker, and said with an oath, that "there was such a thing
as going too much ahead."

Randal had visited Dr. Riccabocca, and found Violante flown. True to his
promise to Harley, the Italian refused to say where, and suggested,
as was agreed, that for the present it would be more prudent if Randal
suspended his visits to himself. Leslie, not liking this proposition,
attempted to make himself still necessary by working on Riccabocca's
fears as to that espionage on his retreat, which had been among the
reasons that had hurried the sage into offering Randal Violante's hand.
But Riccabocca had already learned that the fancied spy was but his
neighbour Leonard; and, without so saying, he cleverly contrived to make
the supposition of such espionage an additional reason for the cessation
of Leslie's visits. Randal then, in his own artful, quiet, roundabout
way, had sought to find out if any communication had passed between
L'Estrange and Riccabocca. Brooding over Harley's words to him, he
suspected there had been such communication, with his usual penetrating
astuteness. Riceabocca, here, was less on his guard, and rather parried
the sidelong questions than denied their inferences.

Randal began already to surmise the truth. Where was it likely Violante
should go but to the Lansmeres? This confirmed his idea of Harley's
pretensions to her hand. With such a rival what chance had he? Randal
never doubted for a moment that the pupil of Machiavelli would "throw
him over," if such an alliance to his daughter really presented itself.
The schemer at once discarded from his objects all further aim on
Violante; either she would be poor, and he would not have her; or she
would be rich, and her father would give her to another. As his
heart had never been touched by the fair Italian, so the moment her
inheritance became more doubtful, it gave him no pang to lose her; but
he did feel very sore and resentful at the thought of being supplanted
by Lord L'Estrange,--the man who had insulted him.

Neither, as yet, had Randal made any way in his designs on Frank. For
several days Madame di Negra had not been at home either to himself or
young Hazeldean; and Frank, though very unhappy, was piqued and angry;
and Randal suspected, and suspected, and suspected, he knew not exactly
what, but that the devil was not so kind to him there as that father
of lies ought to have been to a son so dutiful. Yet, with all these
discouragements, there was in Randal Leslie so dogged and determined a
conviction of his own success, there was so great a tenacity of purpose
under obstacles, and so vigilant an eye upon all chances that could be
turned to his favour, that he never once abandoned hope, nor did
more than change the details in his main schemes. Out of calculations
apparently the most far-fetched and improbable, he had constructed a
patient policy, to which he obstinately clung. How far his reasonings
and patience served to his ends remains yet to be seen. But could
our contempt for the baseness of Randal himself be separated from the
faculties which he elaborately degraded to the service of that baseness,
one might allow that there was something one could scarcely despise in
this still self-reliance, this inflexible resolve. Had such qualities,
aided as they were by abilities of no ordinary acuteness, been applied
to objects commonly honest, one would have backed Randal Leslie against
any fifty picked prize-men from the colleges. But there are judges of
weight and metal who do that now, especially Baron Levy, who says to
himself as he eyes that pale face all intellect, and that spare form all
nerve, "This is a man who must make way in life; he is worth helping."

By the words "worth helping" Baron Levy meant "worth getting into my
power, that he may help me."




CHAPTER XIV.

But parliament had met. Events that belong to history had contributed
yet more to weaken the administration. Randal Leslie's interest became
absorbed in politics, for the stake to him was his whole political
career. Should Audley lose office, and for good, Audley could aid him no
more; but to abandon his patron, as Levy recommended, and pin himself,
in the hope of a seat in parliament, to a stranger,--an obscure
stranger, like Dick Avenel,--that was a policy not to be adopted at a
breath. Meanwhile, almost every night, when the House met, that pale
face and spare form, which Levy so identified with shrewdness and
energy, might be seen amongst the benches appropriated to those more
select strangers who obtain the Speaker's order of admission. There,
Randal heard the great men of that day, and with the half-contemptuous
surprise at their fame, which is common enough amongst clever,
well-educated young men, who know not what it is to speak in the House
of Commons. He heard much slovenly English, much trite reasoning, some
eloquent thoughts, and close argument, often delivered in a jerking
tone of voice (popularly called the parliamentary twang), and often
accompanied by gesticulations that would have shocked the manager of
a provincial theatre. He thought how much better than these great dons
(with but one or two exceptions), he himself could speak,--with what
more refined logic, with what more polished periods, how much more like
Cicero and Burke! Very probably he might have so spoken, and for that
very reason have made that deadest of all dead failures,--a pretentious
imitation of Burke and Cicero. One thing, however, he was obliged to
own,--namely, that in a popular representative assembly, it is not
precisely knowledge which is power, or if knowledge, it is but the
knowledge of that particular assembly, and what will best take with it;
passion, invective, sarcasm, bold declamation, shrewd common-sense, the
readiness so rarely found in a very profound mind,--he owned that all
these were the qualities that told; when a man who exhibited nothing but
"knowledge," in the ordinary sense of the word, stood an imminent chance
of being coughed down.

There at his left--last but one in the row of the ministerial
chiefs--Randal watched Audley Egerton, his arms folded on his breast,
his hat drawn over his brows, his eyes fixed with steady courage on
whatever speaker in the Opposition held possession of the floor. And
twice Randal heard Egerton speak, and marvelled much at the effect that
minister produced. For of those qualities enumerated above, and which
Randal had observed to be most sure of success, Audley Egerton only
exhibited to a marked degree the common-sense and the readiness. And
yet, though but little applauded by noisy cheers, no speaker seemed more
to satisfy friends, and command respect from foes. The true secret
was this, which Randal might well not divine, since that young person,
despite his ancient birth, his Eton rearing, and his refined air, was
not one of Nature's gentlemen,--the true secret was, that Audley Egerton
moved, looked, and spoke like a thorough gentleman of England,--a
gentleman of more than average talents and of long experience, speaking
his sincere opinions, not a rhetorician aiming at effect. Moreover,
Egerton was a consummate man of the world. He said, with nervous
simplicity, what his party desired to be said, and put what his
opponents felt to be the strong points of the case. Calm and decorous,
yet spirited and energetic, with little variety of tone, and action
subdued and rare, but yet signalized by earnest vigour, Audley Egerton
impressed the understanding of the dullest, and pleased the taste of the
most fastidious.

But once, when allusions were made to a certain popular question, on
which the premier had announced his resolution to refuse all concession,
and on the expediency of which it was announced that the Cabinet was
nevertheless divided, and when such allusions were coupled with direct
appeals to Mr. Egerton, as "the enlightened member of a great commercial
constituency," and with a flattering doubt that "that Right Honourable
gentleman, member for that great city, identified with the cause of
the Burgher class, could be so far behind the spirit of the age as his
official chief,"--Randal observed that Egerton drew his hat still
more closely over his brows, and turned to whisper with one of his
colleagues. He could not be got up to speak.

That evening Randal walked home with Egerton, and intimated his surprise
that the minister had declined what seemed to him a good occasion
for one of those brief, weighty replies by which Audley was chiefly
distinguished,--an occasion to which he had been loudly invited by the
"hears" of the House.

"Leslie," answered the statesman, briefly, "I owe all my success in
parliament to this rule,--I have never spoken against my convictions. I
intend to abide by it to the last."

"But if the question at issue comes before the House, you will vote
against it?"

"Certainly, I vote as a member of the Cabinet. But since I am not leader
and mouthpiece of the party, I retain as an individual the privilege to
speak or keep silence."

"Ah, my dear Mr. Egerton," exclaimed Randal, "forgive me. But this
question, right or wrong, has got such hold of the public mind. So
little, if conceded in time, would give content; and it is so clear (if
I may judge by the talk I hear everywhere I go) that by refusing all
concession, the Government must fall, that I wish--"

"So do I wish," interrupted Egerton, with a gloomy, impatient sigh,--"so
do I wish! But what avails it? If my advice had been taken but three
weeks ago--now it is too late--we could have doubled the rock; we
refused, we must split upon it."

This speech was so unlike the discreet and reserved minister, that
Randal gathered courage to proceed with an idea that had occurred to his
own sagacity. And before I state it, I must add that Egerton had of late
shown much more personal kindness to his protege; whether his spirits
were broken, or that at last, close and compact as his nature of bronze
was, he felt the imperious want to groan aloud in some loving ear, the
stern Audley seemed tamed and softened. So Randal went on,

"May I say what I have heard expressed with regard to you and your
position--in the streets, in the clubs?"

"Yes, it is in the streets and the clubs that statesmen should go to
school. Say on."

"Well, then, I have heard it made a matter of wonder why you, and one or
two others I will not name, do not at once retire from the ministry,
and on the avowed ground that you side with the public feeling on this
irresistible question."

"Eh!"

"It is clear that in so doing you would become the most popular man
in the country,--clear that you would be summoned back to power on the
shoulders of the people. No new Cabinet could be formed without you, and
your station in it would perhaps be higher, for life, than that which
you may now retain but for a few weeks longer. Has not this ever
occurred to you?"

"Never," said Audley, with dry composure.

Amazed at such obtuseness, Randal exclaimed, "Is it possible! And yet,
forgive me if I say I think you are ambitious, and love power."

"No man more ambitious; and if by power you mean office, it has grown
the habit of my life, and I shall not know what to do without it."

"And how, then, has what seems to me so obvious never occurred to you?"

"Because you are young, and therefore I forgive you; but not the gossips
who could wonder why Audley Egerton refused to betray the friends of his
whole career, and to profit by the treason."

"But one should love one's country before a party."

"No doubt of that; and the first interest of a country is the honour of
its public men."

"But men may leave their party without dishonour!"

"Who doubts that? Do you suppose that if I were an ordinary independent
member of parliament, loaded with no obligations, charged with no trust,
I could hesitate for a moment what course to pursue? Oh, that I were but
the member for ----------! Oh, that I had the full right to be a free
agent! But if a member of a Cabinet, a chief in whom thousands confide,
because he is outvoted in a council of his colleagues, suddenly retires,
and by so doing breaks up the whole party whose confidence he has
enjoyed, whose rewards he has reaped, to whom he owes the very position
which he employs to their ruin,--own that though his choice may be
honest, it is one which requires all the consolations of conscience."

"But you will have those consolations. And," added Randal,
energetically, "the gain to your career will be so immense!"

"That is precisely what it cannot be," answered Egerton, gloomily.
"I grant that I may, if I choose, resign office with the present
Government, and so at once destroy that Government; for my resignation
on such ground would suffice to do it. I grant this; but for that very
reason I could not the next day take office with another administration.
I could not accept wages for desertion. No gentleman could! and
therefore--" Audley stopped short, and buttoned his coat over his broad
breast. The action was significant; it said that the man's mind was made
up.

In fact, whether Audley Egerton was right or wrong in his theory depends
upon much subtler, and perhaps loftier, views in the casuistry of
political duties, than it was in his character to take. And I guard
myself from saying anything in praise or disfavour of his notions, or
implying that he is a fit or unfit example in a parallel case. I am but
describing the man as he was, and as a man like him would inevitably be,
under the influences in which he lived, and in that peculiar world of
which he was so emphatically a member. "Ce n'est pas moi qui parle,
c'est Marc Aurele."

He speaks, not I.

Randal had no time for further discussion. They now reached Egerton's
house, and the minister, taking the chamber candlestick from his
servant's hand, nodded a silent goodnight to Leslie, and with a jaded
look retired to his room.




CHAPTER XV.

But not on the threatened question was that eventful campaign of Party
decided. The Government fell less in battle than skirmish. It was one
fatal Monday--a dull question of finance and figures. Prosy and few were
the speakers,--all the Government silent, save the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and another business-like personage connected with the Board
of Trade, whom the House would hardly condescend to hear. The House was
in no mood to think of facts and figures. Early in the evening, between
nine and ten, the Speaker's sonorous voice sounded, "Strangers must
withdraw!" And Randal, anxious and foreboding, descended from his seat
and went out of the fatal doors. He turned to take a last glance
at Audley Egerton. The whipper-in was whispering to Audley; and the
minister pushed back his hat from his brows, and glanced round the
House, and up into the galleries, as if to calculate rapidly the
relative numbers of the two armies in the field; then he smiled
bitterly, and threw himself back into his seat. That smile long haunted
Leslie.

Amongst the strangers thus banished with Randal, while the division
was being taken, were many young men, like himself, connected with the
administration,--some by blood, some by place. Hearts beat loud in the
swarming lobbies. Ominous mournful whispers were exchanged. "They say
the Government will have a majority of ten." "No; I hear they will
certainly be beaten." "H--says by fifty." "I don't believe it," said
a Lord of the Bedchamber; "it is impossible. I left five Government
members dining at The Travellers." "No one thought the division would be
so early." "A trick of the Whigs-shameful!" "Wonder some one was not
set up to talk for time; very odd P--did not speak; however, he is so
cursedly rich, he does not care whether he is out or in." "Yes; and
Audley Egerton too, just such another: glad, no doubt, to be set free
to look after his property; very different tactics if we had men to whom
office was as necessary as it is--to me!" said a candid young placeman.
Suddenly the silent Leslie felt a friendly grasp on his arm. He turned
and saw Levy.

"Did I not tell you?" said the baron, with an exulting smile.

"You are sure, then, that the Government will be outvoted?"

"I spent the morning in going over the list of members with a
parliamentary client of mine, who knows them all as a shepherd does his
sheep. Majority for the Opposition at least twenty-five."

"And in that case must the Government resign, sir?" asked the candid
young placeman, who had been listening to the smart, well-dressed baron,
"his soul planted in his ears."

"Of course, sir," replied the baron, blandly, and offering his snuff-box
(true Louis Quinze, with a miniature of Madame de Pompadour, set in
pearls). "You are a friend to the present ministers? You could not wish
them to be mean enough to stay in?" Randal drew aside the baron.

"If Audley's affairs are as you state, what can he do?"

"I shall ask him that question to-morrow," answered the baron, with a
look of visible hate; "and I have come here just to see how he bears the
prospect before him."

"You will not discover that in his face. And those absurd scruples of
his! If he had but gone out in time--to come in again with the New Men!"

"Oh, of course, our Right Honourable is too punctilious for that!"
answered the baron, sneering.

Suddenly the doors opened, in rushed the breathless expectants. "What
are the numbers? What is the division?"

"Majority against ministers," said a member of Opposition, peeling an
orange, "twenty-nine."

The baron, too, had a Speaker's order; and he came into the House with
Randal, and sat by his side. But, to their disgust, some member was
talking about the other motions before the House.

"What! has nothing been said as to the division?" asked the baron of a
young county member, who was talking to some non-parliamentary friend
in the bench before Levy. The county member was one of the baron's pet
eldest sons, had dined often with Levy, was under "obligations" to him.
The young legislator looked very much ashamed of Levy's friendly pat on
his shoulder, and answered hurriedly, "Oh, yes; H------ asked if, after
such an expression of the House, it was the intention of ministers to
retain their places, and carry on the business of the Government."

"Just like H-------! Very inquisitive mind! And what was the answer he
got?"

"None," said the county member; and returned in haste to his proper seat
in the body of the House.

"There comes Egerton," said the baron. And, indeed, as most of the
members were now leaving the House, to talk over affairs at clubs or
in saloons, and spread through town the great tidings, Audley Egerton's
tall head was seen towering above the rest. And Levy turned away
disappointed. For not only was the minister's handsome face, though
pale, serene and cheerful, but there was an obvious courtesy, a marked
respect, in the mode in which that assembly--heated though it was--made
way for the fallen minister as he passed through the jostling crowd. And
the frank urbane nobleman, who afterwards, from the force, not of talent
but of character, became the leader in that House, pressed the hand of
his old opponent, as they met in the throng near the doors, and said
aloud, "I shall not be a proud man if ever I live to have office; but I
shall be proud if ever I leave it with as little to be said against me
as your bitterest opponents can say against you, Egerton."

"I wonder," exclaimed the baron, aloud, and leaning over the partition
that divided him from the throng below, so that his voice reached
Egerton--and there was a cry from formal, indignant members, "Order in
the strangers' gallery I wonder what Lord L'Estrange will say?"

Audley lifted his dark brows, surveyed the baron for an instant with
flashing eyes, then walked down the narrow defile between the last
benches, and vanished from the scene, in which, alas! so few of the most
admired performers leave more than an actor's short-lived name!




CHAPTER XVI.

Baron Levy did not execute his threat of calling on Egerton the next
morning. Perhaps he shrank from again meeting the flash of those
indignant eyes. And indeed Egerton was too busied all the forenoon to
see any one not upon public affairs, except Harley, who hastened to
console or cheer him. When the House met, it was announced that the
ministers had resigned, only holding their offices till their successors
were appointed. But already there was some reaction in their favour;
and when it became generally known that the new administration was to be
formed of men few indeed of whom had ever before held office, the common
superstition in the public mind that government is like a trade, in
which a regular apprenticeship must be served, began to prevail; and the
talk at the clubs was that the new men could not stand; that the former
ministry, with some modification, would be back in a month. Perhaps that
too might be a reason why Baron Levy thought it prudent not prematurely
to offer vindictive condolences to Mr. Egerton. Randal spent part of his
morning in inquiries as to what gentlemen in his situation meant to do
with regard to their places; he heard with great satisfaction that very
few intended to volunteer retirement from their desks. As Randal himself
had observed to Egerton, "Their country before their party!"

Randal's place was of great moment to him; its duties were easy, its
salary amply sufficient for his wants, and defrayed such expenses as
were bestowed on the education of Oliver and his sister. For I am bound
to do justice to this young man,--indifferent as he was towards his
species in general, the ties of family were strong with him; and he
stinted himself in many temptations most alluring to his age, in the
endeavour to raise the dull honest Oliver and the loose-haired pretty
Juliet somewhat more to his own level of culture and refinement. Men
essentially griping and unscrupulous often do make the care for their
family an apology for their sins against the world. Even Richard III.,
if the chroniclers are to be trusted, excused the murder of his nephews
by his passionate affection for his son. With the loss of that place,
Randal lost all means of support, save what Audley could give him; and
if Audley were in truth ruined? Moreover, Randal had already established
at the office a reputation for ability and industry. It was a career
in which, if he abstained from party politics, he might rise to a fair
station and to a considerable income. Therefore, much contented with
what he learned as to the general determination of his fellow officials,
a determination warranted by ordinary precedent in such cases, Randal
dined at a club with good relish, and much Christian resignation for
the reverse of his patron, and then walked to Grosvenor Square, on
the chance of finding Audley within. Learning that he was so, from the
porter who opened the door, Randal entered the library. Three gentlemen
were seated there with Egerton: one of the three was Lord L'Estrange;
the other two were members of the really defunct, though nominally still
existing, Government. He was about to withdraw from intruding on this
conclave, when Egerton said to him gently, "Come in, Leslie; I was just
speaking about yourself."

"About me, sir?"

"Yes; about you and the place you hold. I had asked Sir ---- [pointing
to a fellow minister] whether I might not, with propriety, request your
chief to leave some note of his opinion of your talents, which I know is
high, and which might serve you with his successor."

"Oh, sir, at such a time to think of me!" exclaimed Randal, and he was
genuinely touched.

"But," resumed Audley, with his usual dryness, "Sir ----, to my
surprise, thinks that it would better become you that you should resign.
Unless his reasons, which he has not yet stated, are very strong, such
would not be my advice."

"My reasons," said Sir ----, with official formality, "are simply these:
I have a nephew in a similar situation; he will resign, as a matter
of course. Every one in the public offices whose relations and near
connections hold high appointments in the Government will do so. I do
not think Mr. Leslie will like to feel himself a solitary exception."

"Mr. Leslie is no relation of mine,--not even a near connection,"
answered Egerton.

"But his name is so associated with your own: he has resided so long in
your house, is so well known in society (and don't think I compliment
when I add, that we hope so well of him), that I can't think it worth
his while to keep this paltry place, which incapacitates him too from a
seat in parliament."

Sir ---- was one of those terribly rich men, to whom all considerations
of mere bread and cheese are paltry. But I must add that he supposed
Egerton to be still wealthier than himself, and sure to provide
handsomely for Randal, whom Sir ---- rather liked than not; and for
Randal's own sake, Sir ---- thought it would lower him in the estimation
of Egerton himself, despite that gentleman's advocacy, if he did not
follow the example of his avowed and notorious patron.

"You see, Leslie," said Egerton, checking Randal's meditated reply,
"that nothing can be said against your honour if you stay where you are;
it is a mere question of expediency; I will judge that for you; keep
your place."

Unhappily the other member of the Government, who had hitherto been
silent, was a literary man. Unhappily, while this talk had proceeded, he
had placed his hand upon Randal Leslie's celebrated pamphlet, which lay
on the library table; and, turning over the leaves, the whole spirit and
matter of that masterly composition in defence of the administration
(a composition steeped in all the essence of party) recurred to his too
faithful recollection. He, too, liked Randal; he did more,--he admired
the author of that striking and effective pamphlet. And therefore,
rousing himself from the sublime indifference he had before felt for the
fate of a subaltern, he said, with a bland and complimentary smile, "No;
the writer of this most able publication is no ordinary placeman. His
opinions here are too vigorously stated; this fine irony on the very
person who in all probability will be the chief in his office has
excited too lively an attention to allow him the sedet eternumque
sedebit on an official stool. Ha, ha! this is so good! Read it,
L'Estrange. What say you?" Harley glanced over the page pointed out
to him. The original was in one of Burley's broad, coarse, but telling
burlesques, strained fine through Randal's more polished satire. It
was capital. Harley smiled, and lifted his eyes to Randal. The unlucky
plagiarist's face was flushed,--the beads stood on his brow. Harley was
a good hater; he loved too warmly not to err on the opposite side; but
he was one of those men who forget hate when its object is distressed
and humbled. He put down the pamphlet and said, "I am no politician;
but Egerton is so well known to be fastidious and over-scrupulous in
all points of official etiquette, that Mr. Leslie cannot follow a safer
counsellor."

"Read that yourself, Egerton," said Sir ----; and he pushed the pamphlet
to Audley.

Now Egerton had a dim recollection that that pamphlet was unlucky;
but he had skimmed over its contents hastily, and at that moment had
forgotten all about it. He took up the too famous work with a reluctant
hand, but he read attentively the passages pointed out to him, and then
said gravely and sadly,

"Mr. Leslie, I retract my advice. I believe Sir ---- is right,--that the
nobleman here so keenly satirized will be the chief in your office. I
doubt whether he will not compel your dismissal; at all events, he
could scarcely be expected to promote your advancement. Under the
circumstances, I fear you have no option as a--" Egerton paused a
moment, and, with a sigh that seemed to settle the question, concluded
with--"as a gentleman."

Never did Jack Cade, never did Wat Tyler, feel a more deadly hate to
that word "gentleman" than the well-born Leslie felt then; but he bowed
his head, and answered with his usual presence of mind,

"You utter my own sentiment."

"You think we are right, Harley?" asked Egerton, with an irresolution
that surprised all present.

"I think," answered Harley, with a compassion for Randal that was almost
over-generous, and yet with an equivoque on the words, despite the
compassion,--"I think whoever has served Audley Egerton never yet has
been a loser by it; and if Mr. Leslie wrote this pamphlet, he must have
well served Audley Egerton. If he undergoes the penalty, we may safely
trust to Egerton for the compensation."

"My compensation has long since been made," answered Randal, with grace;
"and that Mr. Egerton could thus have cared for my fortunes, at an hour
so occupied, is a thought of pride which--"

"Enough, Leslie! enough!" interrupted Egerton, rising and pressing his
protege's hand. "See me before you go to bed."

Then the two other ministers rose also and shook hands with Leslie, and
told him he had done the right thing, and that they hoped soon to see
him in parliament; and hinted, smilingly, that the next administration
did not promise to be very long-lived; and one asked him to dinner,
and the other to spend a week at his country-seat. And amidst these
congratulations at the stroke that left him penniless, the distinguished
pamphleteer left the room. How he cursed big John Burley!




CHAPTER XVII.

It was past midnight when Audley Egerton summoned Randal. The statesman
was then alone, seated before his great desk, with its manifold
compartments, and engaged on the task of transferring various papers and
letters, some to the waste-basket, some to the flames, some to two great
iron chests with patent locks, that stood, open-mouthed, at his feet.
Strong, stern, and grim looked those iron chests, silently receiving the
relics of power departed; strong, stern, and grim as the grave. Audley
lifted his eyes at Randal's entrance, signed to him to take a chair,
continued his task for a few moments, and then turning round, as if by
an effort he plucked himself from his master-passion,--Public Life, he
said, with deliberate tones,

"I know not, Randal Leslie, whether you thought me needlessly cautious,
or wantonly unkind, when I told you never to expect from me more than
such advance to your career as my then position could effect,--never to
expect from my liberality in life, nor from my testament in death, an
addition to your private fortunes. I see by your gesture what would
be your reply, and I thank you for it. I now tell you, as yet in
confidence, though before long it can be no secret to the world, that my
pecuniary affairs have been so neglected by me in my devotion to those
of the State, that I am somewhat like the man who portioned out his
capital at so much a day, calculating to live just long enough to make
it last. Unfortunately he lived too long." Audley smiled--but the
smile was cold as a sunbeam upon ice-and went on with the same firm,
unfaltering accents. "The prospects that face me I am prepared for; they
do not take me by surprise. I knew long since how this would end, if
I survived the loss of office. I knew it before you came to me, and
therefore I spoke to you as I did, judging it manful and right to guard
you against hopes which you might otherwise have naturally entertained.
On this head, I need say no more. It may excite your surprise, possibly
your blame, that I, esteemed methodical and practical enough in the
affairs of the State, should be so imprudent as to my own."

"Oh, sir! you owe no account to me."

"To you, at least, as much as to any one. I am a solitary man; my few
relations need nothing from me. I had a right do spend what I possessed
as I pleased; and if I have spent it recklessly as regards myself, I
have not spent it ill in its effect on others. It has been my object for
many years to have no Private Life,--to dispense with its sorrows, joys,
affections; and as to its duties, they did not exist for me. I have
said." Mechanically, as he ended, the minister's hand closed the lid of
one of the iron boxes, and on the closed lid he rested his firm foot.
"But now," he resumed, "I have failed to advance your career. True, I
warned you that you drew into a lottery; but you had more chance of
a prize than a blank. A blank, however, it has turned out, and the
question becomes grave,--What are you to do?"

Here, seeing that Egerton came to a full pause, Randal answered readily,

"Still, sir, to go by your advice."

"My advice," said Audley, with a softened look, "would perhaps be rude
and unpalatable. I would rather place before you an option. On the one
hand, recommence life again. I told you that I would keep your name
on your college books. You can return, you can take your degree, after
that, you can go to the Bar,--you have just the talents calculated to
succeed in that profession. Success will be slow, it is true; but, with
perseverance, it will be sure. And, believe me, Leslie, Ambition is only
sweet while it is but the loftier name for Hope. Who would care for a
fox's brush if it had not been rendered a prize by the excitement of the
chase?"

"Oxford--again! It is a long step back in life," said Randal, drearily,
and little heeding Egerton's unusual indulgence of illustration. "A long
step back--and to what? To a profession in which one never begins to
rise till one's hair is gray. Besides, how live in the mean while?"

"Do not let that thought disturb you. The modest income that suffices
for a student at the Bar, I trust, at least, to insure you from the
wrecks of my fortune."

"Ah, sir, I would not burden you further. What right have I to such
kindness, save my name of Leslie?" And in spite of himself, as Randal
concluded, a tone of bitterness, that betrayed reproach, broke forth.
Egerton was too much the man of the world not to comprehend the
reproach, and not to pardon it.

"Certainly," he answered calmly, "as a Leslie you are entitled to my
consideration, and would have been entitled perhaps to more, had I not
so explicitly warned you to the contrary. But the Bar does not seem to
please you?"

"What is the alternative, sir? Let me decide when I hear it," answered
Randal, sullenly. He began to lose respect for the roan who owned he
could do so little for him, and who evidently recommended him to shift
for himself.

If one could have pierced into Egerton's gloomy heart as he noted the
young man's change of tone, it may be a doubt whether one would have
seen there pain or pleasure,--pain, for merely from the force of habit
he had begun to like Randal, or pleasure at the thought that he might
have reason to withdraw that liking. So lone and stoical had grown
the man who had made it his object to have no private life! Revealing,
however, neither pleasure nor pain, but with the composed calmness of a
judge upon the bench, Egerton replied,--

"The alternative is, to continue in the course you have begun, and still
to rely on me."

"Sir, my dear Mr. Egerton," exclaimed Randal, regaining all his usual
tenderness of look and voice, "rely on you! But that is all I ask. Only"

"Only, you would say, I am going out of power, and you don't see the
chance of my return?"

"I did not mean that."

"Permit me to suppose that you did: very true; but the party I belong to
is as sure of return as the pendulum of that clock is sure to obey the
mechanism that moves it from left to right. Our successors profess to
come in upon a popular question. All administrations who do that are
necessarily short-lived. Either they do not go far enough to please
present supporters, or they go so far as to arm new enemies in the
rivals who outbid them with the people. 'T is the history of all
revolutions, and of all reforms. Our own administration in reality is
destroyed for having passed what was called a popular measure a year
ago, which lost us half our friends, and refusing to propose another
popular measure this year, in the which we are outstripped by the men
who hallooed us on to the last. Therefore, whatever our successors
do, we shall by the law of reaction, have another experiment of power
afforded to ourselves. It is but a question of time; you can wait for
it,--whether I can is uncertain. But if I die before that day arrives, I
have influence enough still left with those who will come in, to obtain
a promise of a better provision for you than that which you have lost.
The promises of public men are proverbially uncertain; but I shall
entrust your cause to a man who never failed a friend, and whose rank
will enable him to see that justice is done to you,--I speak of Lord
L'Estrange."

"Oh, not he; he is unjust to me; he dislikes me; he--"

"May dislike you (he has his whims), but he loves me; and though for no
other human being but you would I ask Harley L'Estrange a favour, yet
for you I will," said Egerton, betraying, for the first time in that
dialogue, a visible emotion,--"for you, a Leslie, a kinsman, however
remote, to the wife from whom I received my fortune! And despite all my
cautions, it is possible that in wasting that fortune I may have wronged
you. Enough: you have now before you the two options, much as you had
at first; but you have at present more experience to aid you in your
choice. You are a man, and with more brains than most men; think over it
well, and decide for yourself. Now to bed, and postpone thought till the
morrow. Poor Randal, you look pale!"

Audley, as he said the last words, put his hand on Randal's shoulder,
almost with a father's gentleness; and then suddenly drawing himself
up, as the hard inflexible expression, stamped on that face by years,
returned, he moved away and resettled to Public Life and the iron box.




CHAPTER XVIII.

Early the next day Randal Leslie was in the luxurious business-room
of Baron Levy. How unlike the cold Doric simplicity of the statesman's
library! Axminster carpets, three inches thick; portieres a la Francaise
before the doors; Parisian bronzes on the chimney-piece; and all the
receptacles that lined the room, and contained title-deeds and postobits
and bills and promises to pay and lawyer-like japan boxes, with many
a noble name written thereon in large white capitals--"making ruin
pompous," all these sepulchres of departed patrimonies veneered in
rosewood that gleamed with French polish, and blazed with ormulu. There
was a coquetry, an air of petit maitre, so diffused over the whole
room, that you could not, for the life of you, recollect you were with a
usurer! Plutus wore the aspect of his enemy Cupid; and how realize your
idea of Harpagon in that baron, with his easy French "Mon cher," and
his white, warm hands that pressed yours so genially, and his dress so
exquisite, even at the earliest morn? No man ever yet saw that baron in
a dressing-gown and slippers! As one fancies some feudal baron of old
(not half so terrible) everlastingly clad in mail, so all one's notions
of this grand marauder of civilization were inseparably associated with
varnished boots and a camellia in the button-hole.

"And this is all that he does for you!" cried the baron, pressing
together the points of his ten taper fingers. "Had he but let you
conclude your career at Oxford, I have heard enough of your scholarship
to know that you would have taken high honours, been secure of a
fellowship, have betaken yourself with content to a slow and laborious
profession, and prepared yourself to die on the woolsack."

"He proposes to me now to return to Oxford," said Randal. "It is not too
late!"

"Yes, it is," said the baron. "Neither individuals nor nations ever go
back of their own accord. There must be an earthquake before a river
recedes to its source."

"You speak well," answered Randal, "and I cannot gainsay you. But now!"

"Ah, the now is the grand question in life, the then is obsolete, gone
by,--out of fashion; and now, mon cher, you come to ask my advice?"

"No, Baron, I come to ask your explanation."

"Of what?"

"I want to know why you spoke to me of Mr. Egerton's ruin; why you spoke
to me of the lands to be sold by Mr. Thornhill; and why you spoke to
me of Count Peschiera. You touched on each of those points within ten
minutes, you omitted to indicate what link can connect them."

"By Jove," said the baron, rising, and with more admiration in his face
than you could have conceived that face, so smiling and so cynical,
could exhibit,--"by Jove, Randal Leslie, but your shrewdness is
wonderful. You really are the first young man of your day; and I
will 'help you,' as I helped Audley Egerton. Perhaps you will be more
grateful."

Randal thought of Egerton's ruin. The parallel implied by the baron did
not suggest to him the rare enthusiasm of gratitude. However, he merely
said, "Pray, proceed; I listen to you with interest."

"As for politics, then," said the baron, "we will discuss that topic
later. I am waiting myself to see how these new men get on. The first
consideration is for your private fortunes. You should buy this ancient
Leslie property--Rood and Dulmansberry--only L20,000 down; the rest may
remain on mortgage forever--or at least till I find you a rich wife,--as
in fact I did for Egerton. Thornhill wants the L20,000 now,--wants them
very much."

"And where," said Randal, with an iron smile, "are the L20,000 you
ascribe to me to come from?"

"Ten thousand shall come to you the day Count Peschiera marries the
daughter of his kinsman with your help and aid; the remaining ten
thousand I will lend you. No scruple, I shall hazard nothing, the
estates will bear that additional burden. What say you,--shall it be
so?"

"Ten thousand pounds from Count Peschiera!" said Randal, breathing
hard. "You cannot be serious? Such a sum--for what?--for a mere piece
of information? How otherwise can I aid him? There must be trick and
deception intended here."

"My dear fellow," answered Levy, "I will give you a hint. There is such
a thing in life as being over-suspicious. If you have a fault, it is
that. The information you allude to is, of course, the first assistance
you are to give. Perhaps more may be needed, perhaps not. Of that you
will judge yourself, since the L10,000 are contingent on the marriage
aforesaid."

"Over-suspicious or not," answered Randal, "the amount of the sum is
too improbable, and the security too bad, for me to listen to this
proposition, even if I could descend to--"

"Stop, mon cher. Business first, scruples afterwards. The security too
bad; what security?"

"The word of Count di Peschiera."

"He has nothing to do with it, he need know nothing about it. 'T is my
word you doubt. I am your security."

Randal thought of that dry witticism in Gibbon, "Abu Rafe says he will
be witness for this fact, but who will be witness for Abu Rafe?" but
he remained silent, only fixing on Levy those dark observant eyes, with
their contracted, wary pupils.

"The fact is simply this," resumed Levy: "Count di Peschiera has
promised to pay his sister a dowry of L20,000, in case he has the
money to spare. He can only have it to spare by the marriage we are
discussing. On my part, as I manage his affairs in England for him, I
have promised that, for the said sum of L20,000, I will guarantee the
expenses in the way of that marriage, and settle with Madame di Negra.
Now, though Peschiera is a very liberal, warm-hearted fellow, I don't
say that he would have named so large a sum for his sister's dowry, if
in strict truth he did not owe it to her. It is the amount of her own
fortune, which by some arrangements with her late husband, not exactly
legal, he possessed himself of. If Madame di Negra went to law with him
for it, she could get it back. I have explained this to him; and, in
short, you now understand why the sum is thus assessed. But I have
bought up Madame di Negra's debts, I have bought up young Hazeldean's
(for we must make a match between these two a part of our arrangements).
I shall present to Peschiera, and to these excellent young persons, an
account that will absorb the whole L20,000. That sum will come into my
hands. If I settle the claims against them for half the money, which,
making myself the sole creditor, I have the right to do, the moiety will
remain. And if I choose to give it to you in return for the services
which provide Peschiera with a princely fortune, discharge the debts of
his sister, and secure her a husband in my promising young client, Mr.
Hazeldean, that is my lookout,--all parties are satisfied, and no one
need ever be the wiser. The sum is large, no doubt; it answers to me to
give it to you; does it answer to you to receive it?"

Randal was greatly agitated; but vile as he was, and systematically as
in thought he had brought himself to regard others merely as they could
be made subservient to his own interest, still, with all who have not
hardened themselves in actual crime, there is a wide distinction between
the thought and the act; and though, in the exercise of ingenuity and
cunning, he would have had few scruples in that moral swindling which
is mildly called "outwitting another," yet thus nakedly and openly to
accept a bribe for a deed of treachery towards the poor Italian who
had so generously trusted him--he recoiled. He was nerving himself to
refuse, when Levy, opening his pocket-book, glanced over the memoranda
therein, and said, as to himself, "Rood Manor--Dulmansberry, sold to the
Thornhills by Sir Gilbert Leslie, knight of the shire; estimated present
net rental L2,250 7s. 0d. It is the greatest bargain I ever knew. And
with this estate in hand, and your talents, Leslie, I don't see why
you should not rise higher than Audley Egerton. He was poorer than you
once!"

The old Leslie lands--a positive stake in the country--the restoration
of the fallen family; and on the other hand, either long drudgery at
the Bar,--a scanty allowance on Egerton's bounty, his sister wasting
her youth at slovenly, dismal Rood, Oliver debased into a boor!--or
a mendicant's dependence on the contemptuous pity of Harley
L'Estrange,--Harley, who had refused his hand to him, Harley, who
perhaps would become the husband of Violante! Rage seized him as these
contrasting pictures rose before his view. He walked to and fro in
disorder, striving to re-collect his thoughts, and reduce himself from
the passions of the human heart into the mere mechanism of calculating
intellect. "I cannot conceive," said he, abruptly, "why you should tempt
me thus,--what interest it is to you!"

Baron Levy smiled, and put up his pocket-book. He saw from that moment
that the victory was gained.

"My dear boy," said he, with the most agreeable bonhommie, "it is very
natural that you should think a man would have a personal interest in
whatever he does for another. I believe that view of human nature is
called utilitarian philosophy, and is much in fashion at present. Let
me try and explain to you. In this affair I sha'n't injure myself. True,
you will say, if I settle claims which amount to L20,000 for L10,000, I
might put the surplus into my own pocket instead of yours. Agreed. But
I shall not get the L20,000, nor repay myself Madame di Negra's debts
(whatever I may do as to Hazeldean's), unless the count gets this
heiress. You can help in this. I want you; and I don't think I could
get you by a less offer than I make. I shall soon pay myself back the
L10,000 if the count get hold of the lady and her fortune. Brief, I see
my way here to my own interests. Do you want more reasons,--you shall
have them. I am now a very rich man. How have I become so? Through
attaching myself from the first to persons of expectations, whether from
fortune or talent. I have made connections in society, and society has
enriched me. I have still a passion for making money. 'Que voulez-vous?'
It is my profession, my hobby. It will be useful to me in a thousand
ways to secure as a friend a young man who will have influence with
other young men, heirs to something better than Rood Hall. You may
succeed in public life. A man in public life may attain to the knowledge
of State secrets that are very profitable to one who dabbles a little
in the Funds. We can perhaps hereafter do business together that may put
yourself in a way of clearing off all mortgages on these estates,--on
the encumbered possession of which I shall soon congratulate you. You
see I am frank; 't is the only way of coming to the point with so clever
a fellow as you. And now, since the less we rake up the mud in a pond
from which we have resolved to drink the better, let us dismiss all
other thoughts but that of securing our end. Will you tell Peschiera
where the young lady is, or shall I? Better do it yourself; reason
enough for it, that he has confided to you his hope, and asked you
to help him; why should not you? Not a word to him about our little
arrangement; he need never know it. You need never be troubled." Levy
rang the bell: "Order my carriage round."

Randal made no objection. He was deathlike pale, but there was a
sinister expression of firmness on his thin, bloodless lips.

"The next point," Levy resumed, "is to hasten the match between Frank
and the fair widow. How does that stand?"

"She will not see me, nor receive him."

"Oh, learn why! And if you find on either side there is a hitch, just
let me know; I will soon remove it."

"Has Hazeldean consented to the post-obit?"

"Not yet; I have not pressed it; I wait the right moment, if necessary."

"It will be necessary."

"Ah, you wish it. It shall be so."

Randal Leslie again paced the room, and after a silent self-commune came
up close to the baron, and said,

"Look you, sir, I am poor and ambitious; you have tempted me at the
right moment, and with the right inducement. I succumb. But what
guarantee have I that this money will be paid, these estates made mine
upon the conditions stipulated?"

"Before anything is settled," replied the baron, "go and ask my
character of any of our young friends, Borrowell, Spendquick--whom you
please; you will hear me abused, of course; but they will all say this
of me, that when I pass my word, I keep it. If I say, 'Mon cher, you
shall have the money,' a man has it; if I say, 'I renew your bill for
six months,' it is renewed. 'T, is my way of doing business. In all
cases any word is my bond. In this case, where no writing can pass
between us, my only bond must be my word. Go, then, make your mind clear
as to your security, and come here and dine at eight. We will call on
Peschiera afterwards."

"Yes," said Randal, "I will at all events take the day to consider.
Meanwhile, I say this, I do not disguise from myself the nature of the
proposed transaction, but what I have once resolved I go through with.
My sole vindication to myself is, that if I play here with a false die,
it will be for a stake so grand, as once won, the magnitude of the prize
will cancel the ignominy of the play. It is not this sum of money for
which I sell myself,--it is for what that sum will aid me to achieve.
And in the marriage of young Hazeldean with the Italian woman, I have
another, and it may be a larger interest. I have slept on it lately,--I
wake to it now. Insure that marriage, obtain the post-obit. from
Hazeldean, and whatever the issue of the more direct scheme for which
you seek my services, rely on my gratitude, and believe that you will
have put me in the way to render gratitude of avail. At eight I will be
with you."

Randal left the room.

The baron sat thoughtful. "It is true," said he to himself, "this young
man is the next of kin to the Hazeldean estate, if Frank displease his
father sufficiently to lose his inheritance; that must be the clever
boy's design. Well, in the long-run, I should make as much, or more, out
of him than out of the spendthrift Frank. Frank's faults are those of
youth. He will reform and retrench. But this man! No, I shall have
him for life. And should he fail in this project, and have but this
encumbered property--a landed proprietor mortgaged up to his ears--why,
he is my slave, and I can foreclose when I wish, or if he prove
useless;--no, I risk nothing. And if I did--if I lost L10,000--what
then? I can afford it for revenge!--afford it for the luxury of leaving
Audley Egerton alone with penury and ruin, deserted, in his hour of
need, by the pensioner of his bounty, as he will be by the last friend
of his youth, when it so pleases me,--me whom he has called 'scoundrel'!
and whom he--" Levy's soliloquy halted there, for the servant entered to
announce the carriage. And the baron hurried his band over his features,
as if to sweep away all trace of the passions that distorted their
smiling effrontery. And so, as he took up his cane and gloves, and
glanced at the glass, the face of the fashionable usurer was once more
as varnished as his boots.




CHAPTER XIX.

When a clever man resolves on a villanous action, he hastens, by the
exercise of his cleverness, to get rid of the sense of his villany. With
more than his usual alertness, Randal employed the next hour or two in
ascertaining how far Baron Levy merited the character he boasted, and
how far his word might be his bond. He repaired to young men whom
he esteemed better judges on these points than Spendquick and
Borrowell,--young men who resembled the Merry Monarch, inasmuch as--

          "They never said a foolish thing,
          And never did a wise one."

There are many such young men about town,--sharp and able in all affairs
except their own. No one knows the world better, nor judges of character
more truly, than your half-beggared roue. From all these Baron Levy
obtained much the same testimonials: he was ridiculed as a would-be
dandy, but respected as a very responsible man of business, and rather
liked as a friendly, accommodating species of the Sir Epicure Mammon,
who very often did what were thought handsome, liberal things; and, "in
short," said one of these experienced referees, "he is the best fellow
going--for a money-lender! You may always rely on what he promises, and
he is generally very forbearing and indulgent to us of good society;
perhaps for the same reason that our tailors are,--to send one of us to
prison would hurt his custom. His foible is to be thought a gentleman.
I believe, much as I suppose he loves money, he would give up half his
fortune rather than do anything for which we could cut him. He allows a
pension of three hundred a year to Lord S-----. True; he was his man of
business for twenty years, and before then S----- was rather a prudent
fellow, and had fifteen thousand a year. He has helped on, too, many
a clever young man,--the best borough-monger you ever knew. He likes
having friends in parliament. In fact, of course he is a rogue; but if
one wants a rogue, one can't find a pleasanter. I should like to see him
on the French stage,--a prosperous Macaire; Le Maitre could hit him off
to the life."

From information in these more fashionable quarters, gleaned with his
usual tact, Randal turned to a source less elevated, but to which he
attached more importance. Dick Avenel associated with the baron,--Dick
Avenel must be in his clutches. Now Randal did justice to that
gentleman's practical shrewdness. Moreover, Avenel was by profession a
man of business. He must know more of Levy than these men of pleasure
could; and as he was a plain-spoken person, and evidently honest, in the
ordinary acceptation of the word, Randal did not doubt that out of Dick
Avenel he should get the truth.

On arriving in Eaton Square, and asking for Mr. Avenel, Randal was at
once ushered into the drawing-room. The apartment was not in such
good, solid, mercantile taste as had characterized Avenel's more humble
bachelor's residence at Screwstown. The taste now was the Honourable
Mrs. Avenel's; and, truth to say, no taste could be worse. Furniture
of all epochs heterogeneously clumped together,--here a sofa a la
renaissance in Gobelin; there a rosewood Console from Gillow; a tall
mock-Elizabethan chair in black oak, by the side of a modern Florentine
table of Mosaic marbles; all kinds of colours in the room, and all at
war with each other; very bad copies of the best-known pictures in the
world in the most gaudy frames, and impudently labelled by the names of
their murdered originals,--"Raphael," "Corregio," "Titian," "Sebastian
del Piombo." Nevertheless, there had been plenty of money spent, and
there was plenty to show for it. Mrs. Avenel was seated on her sofa a la
renaissance, with one of her children at her feet, who was employed
in reading a new Annual in crimson silk binding. Mrs. Avenel was in an
attitude as if sitting for her portrait.

Polite society is most capricious in its adoptions or rejections. You
see many a very vulgar person firmly established in the beau monde;
others, with very good pretensions as to birth, fortune, etc., either
rigorously excluded, or only permitted a peep over the pales. The
Honourable Mrs. Avenel belonged to families unquestionably noble, both
by her own descent and by her first marriage; and if poverty had kept
her down in her earlier career, she now, at least, did not want wealth
to back her pretensions. Nevertheless, all the dispensers of fashion
concurred in refusing their support to the Honourable Mrs. Avenel. One
might suppose it was solely on account of her plebeian husband; but
indeed it was not so. Many a woman of high family can marry a low-born
man not so presentable as Avenel, and, by the help of his money, get the
fine world at her feet. But Mrs. Avenel had not that art. She was still
a very handsome, showy woman; and as for dress, no duchess could be more
extravagant. Yet these very circumstances had perhaps gone against her
ambition; for your quiet little plain woman, provoking no envy, slips
into coteries, when a handsome, flaunting lady--whom, once seen in your
drawing-room, can be no more over-looked than a scarlet poppy amidst
a violet bed--is pretty sure to be weeded out as ruthlessly as a poppy
would be in a similar position.

Mr. Avenel was sitting by the fire, rather moodily, his hands in his
pockets, and whistling to himself. To say truth, that active mind of his
was very much bored in London, at least during the fore part of the
day. He hailed Randal's entrance with a smile of relief, and rising and
posting himself before the fire--a coat tail under each arm--he scarcely
allowed Randal to shake hands with Mrs. Avenel, and pat the child on
the head, murmuring, "Beautiful creature!" (Randal was ever civil to
children,--that sort of wolf in sheep's clothing always is; don't be
taken in, O you foolish young mothers!)--Dick, I say, scarcely allowed
his visitor these preliminary courtesies, before he plunged far beyond
depth of wife and child into the political ocean. "Things now
were coming right,--a vile oligarchy was to be destroyed. British
respectability and British talent were to have fair play." To have heard
him you would have thought the day fixed for the millennium! "And what
is more," said Avenel, bringing down the fist of his right hand upon the
palm of his left, "if there is to be a new parliament, we must have
new men; not worn-out old brooms that never sweep clean, but men who
understand how to govern the country, Sir. I INTEND TO COME IN MYSELF!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Avenel, hooking in a word at last, "I am sure, Mr.
Leslie, you will think I did right. I persuaded Mr. Avenel that, with
his talents and property, he ought, for the sake of his country, to make
a sacrifice; and then you know his opinions now are all the fashion, Mr.
Leslie; formerly they would have been called shocking and vulgar!"

Thus saying, she looked with fond pride at Dick's comely face, which at
that moment, however, was all scowl and frown. I must do justice to Mrs.
Avenel; she was a weak woman, silly in some things, and a cunning one in
others, but she was a good wife as wives go. Scotch women generally are.
"Bother!" said Dick. "What do women know about politics? I wish you'd
mind the child,--it is crumpling up and playing almighty smash with that
flim-flam book, which cost me one pound one."

Mrs. Avenel submissively bowed her head, and removed the Annual from
the hands of the young destructive; the destructive set up a squall, as
destructives usually do when they don't have their own way. Dick clapped
his hand to his ears. "Whe-e-ew, I can't stand this; come and take a
walk, Leslie: I want stretching!" He stretched himself as he spoke,
first half-way up to the ceiling, and then fairly out of the room.

Randal, with his May Fair manner, turned towards Mrs. Avenel as if to
apologize for her husband and himself.

"Poor Richard!" said she, "he is in one of his humours,--all men have
them. Come and see me again soon. When does Almack's open?"

"Nay, I ought to ask you that question,--you who know everything that
goes on in our set," said the young serpent. Any tree planted in "our
set," if it had been but a crab-tree, would have tempted Mr. Avenel's
Eve to jump at its boughs.

"Are you coming, there?" cried Dick, from the foot of the stairs.




CHAPTER XX.

"I have just been at our friend Levy's," said Randal, when he and
Dick were outside the street door. "He, like you, is full of politics;
pleasant man,--for the business he is said to do."

"Well," said Dick, slowly, "I suppose he is pleasant, but make the best
of it--and still--"

"Still what, my dear Avenel?" (Randal here for the first time discarded
the formal Mister.)

MR. AVENEL.--"Still the thing itself is not pleasant."

RANDAL (with his soft hollow laugh).--"You mean borrowing money upon
more than five per cent?"

"Oh, curse the percentage. I agree with Bentham on the Usury Laws,--no
shackles in trade for me, whether in money or anything else. That's not
it. But when one owes a fellow money even at two per cent, and 't is not
convenient to pay him, why, somehow or other, it makes one feel small;
it takes the British Liberty out of a man!"

"I should have thought you more likely to lend money than to borrow it."

"Well, I guess you are right there, as a general rule. But I tell you
what it is, sir; there is too great a mania for competition getting up
in this rotten old country of ours. I am as liberal as most men. I like
competition to a certain extent, but there is too much of it, sir,--too
much of it." Randal looked sad and convinced. But if Leonard had heard
Dick Avenel, what would have been his amaze? Dick Avenel rail against
competition! Think there could be too much of it! "Of course heaven and
earth are coming together," said the spider, when the housemaid's broom
invaded its cobweb. Dick was all for sweeping away other cobwebs; but he
certainly thought heaven and earth coming together when he saw a great
Turk's-head besom poked up at his own.

Mr. Avenel, in his genius for speculation and improvement, had
established a factory at Screwstown, the first which had ever eclipsed
the church spire with its Titanic chimney. It succeeded well at first.
Mr. Avenel transferred to this speculation nearly all his capital.
"Nothing," quoth he, "paid such an interest. Manchester was getting worn
out,--time to show what Screwstown could do. Nothing like competition."
But by-and-by a still greater capitalist than Dick Avenel, finding out
that Screwstown was at the mouth of a coal mine, and that Dick's profits
were great, erected a still uglier edifice, with a still taller chimney.
And having been brought up to the business, and making his residence in
the town, while Dick employed a foreman and flourished in London, this
infamous competitor so managed, first to share, and then gradually to
sequester, the profits which Dick had hitherto monopolized, that no
wonder Mr. Avenel thought competition should have its limits. "The
tongue touches where the tooth aches," as Dr. Riccabocca would tell
us. By little and little our Juvenile Talleyrand (I beg the elder great
man's pardon) wormed out from Dick this grievance, and in the grievance
discovered the origin of Dick's connection with the money-lender.

"But Levy," said Avenel, candidly, "is a decentish chap in his
way,--friendly too. Mrs. A. finds him useful; brings some of your young
highflyers to her soirees. To be sure, they don't dance,--stand all in
a row at the door, like mutes at a funeral. Not but what they have been
uncommon civil to me lately, Spendquick particularly. By-the-by, I dine
with him to-morrow. The aristocracy are behindhand,--not smart, sir, not
up to the march; but when a man knows how to take 'em, they beat the New
Yorkers in good manners. I'll say that for them. I have no prejudice."

"I never saw a man with less; no prejudice even against Levy."

"No, not a bit of it! Every one says he's a Jew; he says he's not. I
don't care a button what he is. His money is English,--that's enough for
any man of a liberal turn of mind. His charges, too, are moderate. To be
sure, he knows I shall pay them; only what I don't like in him is a sort
of way he has of mon-cher-ing and my-good-fellow-ing one, to do things
quite out of the natural way of that sort of business. He knows I have
got parliamentary influence. I could return a couple of members for
Screwstown, and one, or perhaps two, for Lansmere, where I have of late
been cooking up an interest; and he dictates to--no, not dictates--but
tries to humbug me into putting in his own men. However, in one respect,
we are likely to agree. He says you want to come into parliament. You
seem a smart young fellow; but you must throw over that stiff red-tapist
of yours, and go with Public Opinion, and--Myself."

"You are very kind, Avenel; perhaps when we come to compare opinions we
may find that we agree entirely. Still, in Egerton's present position,
delicacy to him--However, we'll not discuss that now. But you really
think I might come in for Lansmere,--against the L'Estrange interest,
too, which must be strong there?"

"It was very strong, but I've smashed it, I calculate."

"Would a contest there cost very much?"

"Well, I guess you must come down with the ready. But, as you say,
time enough to discuss that when you have squared your account with
'delicacy;' come to me then, and we'll go into it."

Randal, having now squeezed his orange dry, had no desire to waste his
time in brushing up the rind with his coat-sleeve, so he unhooked his
arm from Avenel's, and, looking at his watch, discovered he should be
just in time for an appointment of the most urgent business,--hailed a
cab, and drove off.

Dick looked hipped and disconsolate at being left alone; he yawned very
loud, to the astonishment of three prim old maiden Belgravians who were
passing that way; and then his mind began to turn towards his factory
at Screwstown, which had led to his connection with the baron; and he
thought over a letter he had received from his foreman that morning,
informing him that it was rumoured at Screwstown that Mr. Dyce, his
rival, was about to have new machinery on an improved principle; and
that Mr. Dyce had already gone up to town, it was supposed, with the
intention of concluding a purchase for a patent discovery to be applied
to the new machinery, and which that gentleman had publicly declared in
the corn-market "would shut up Mr. Avenel's factory before the year was
out." As this menacing epistle recurred to him, Dick felt his desire to
yawn incontinently checked. His brow grew very dark; and he walked, with
restless strides, on and on, till he found himself in the Strand. He
then got into an omnibus, and proceeded to the city, wherein he spent
the rest of the day looking over machines and foundries, and trying in
vain to find out what diabolical invention the over-competition of Mr.
Dyce had got hold of. "If," said Dick Avenel to himself, as he returned
fretfully homeward--"if a man like me, who has done so much for British
industry and go-a-head principles, is to be catawampously champed up
by a mercenary, selfish cormorant of a capitalist like that interloping
blockhead in drab breeches, Tom Dyce, all I can say is, that the sooner
this cursed old country goes to the dogs, the better pleased I shall be.
I wash my hands of it."




CHAPTER XXI.

Randal's mind was made up. All he had learned in regard to Levy had
confirmed his resolves or dissipated his scruples. He had started from
the improbability that Pesehiera would offer, and the still greater
improbability that Peschiera would pay him, L10,000 for such information
or aid as he could bestow in furthering the count's object. But when
Levy took such proposals entirely on himself, the main question to
Randal became this,--could it be Levy's interest to make so considerable
a sacrifice? Had the baron implied only friendly sentiments as his
motives, Randal would have felt sure he was to be taken in; but the
usurer's frank assurance that it would answer to him in the long-run to
concede to Randal terms so advantageous, altered the case, and led our
young philosopher to look at the affair with calm, contemplative eyes.
Was it sufficiently obvious that Levy counted on an adequate return?
Might he calculate on reaping help by the bushel if he sowed it by the
handful? The result of Randal's cogitations was that the baron might
fairly deem himself no wasteful sower. In the first place, it was clear
that Levy, not without reasonable ground, believed that he could soon
replace, with exceeding good interest, any sum he might advance to
Randal, out of the wealth which Randal's prompt information might bestow
on Levy's client, the count; and secondly, Randal's self-esteem was
immense, and could he but succeed in securing a pecuniary independence
on the instant, to free him from the slow drudgery of the Bar, or from a
precarious reliance on Audley Egerton, as a politician out of power,
his convictions of rapid triumph in public life were as strong as if
whispered by an angel or promised by a fiend. On such triumphs, with
all the social position they would secure, Levy might well calculate for
repayment by a thousand indirect channels. Randal's sagacity detected
that, through all the good-natured or liberal actions ascribed to the
usurer, Levy had steadily pursued his own interests, he saw that Levy
meant to get him into his power, and use his abilities as instruments
for digging new mines, in which Baron Levy would claim the right
of large royalties. But at that thought Randal's pale lip curled
disdainfully; he confided too much in his own powers not to think that
he could elude the grasp of the usurer, whenever it suited him to do
so. Thus, on a survey, all conscience hushed itself; his mind rushed
buoyantly on to anticipations of the future. He saw the hereditary
estates regained,--no matter how mortgaged,--for the moment still his
own, legally his own, yielding for the present what would suffice for
competence to one of few wants, and freeing his name from that title of
Adventurer, which is so prodigally given in rich old countries to those
who have no estates but their brains. He thought of Violante but as the
civilized trader thinks of a trifling coin, of a glass bead, which
he exchanges with some barbarian for gold dust; he thought of Frank
Hazeldean married to the foreign woman of beggared means, and repute
that had known the breath of scandal,--married, and living on post-obit
instalments of the Casino property; he thought of the poor squire's
resentment; his avarice swept from the lands annexed to Rood on to
the broad fields of Hazeldean; he thought of Avenel, of Lansmere, of
parliament; with one hand he grasped fortune, with the next power. "And
yet I entered on life with no patrimony (save a ruined hall and a barren
waste),--no patrimony but knowledge. I have but turned knowledge from
books to men; for books may give fame after death, but men give us power
in life." And all the while he thus ruminated, his act was speeding his
purpose. Though it was but in a miserable hack-cab that he erected airy
scaffoldings round airy castles, still the miserable hack-cab was flying
fast, to secure the first foot of solid ground whereon to transfer the
mental plan of the architect to foundations of positive slime and
clay. The cab stopped at the door of Lord Lansmere's house. Randal
had suspected Violante to be there: he resolved to ascertain. Randal
descended from his vehicle and rang the bell. The lodge-keeper opined
the great wooden gates.

"I have called to see the young lady staying here,--the foreign young
lady."

Lady Lansmere had been too confident of the security of her roof to
condescend to give any orders to her servants with regard to her guest,
and the lodge-keeper answered directly,--

"At home, I believe, sir. I rather think she is in the garden with my
lady."

"I see," said Randal; and he did see the form of Violante at a distance.
"But, since she is walking, I will not disturb her at present. I will
call another day."

The lodge-keeper bowed respectfully, Randal jumped into his cab: "To
Curzon Street,--quick!"




CHAPTER XXII.

Harley had made one notable oversight in that appeal to Beatrice's
better and gentler nature, which he entrusted to the advocacy of
Leonard,--a scheme in itself very characteristic of Harley's romantic
temper, and either wise or foolish, according as his indulgent theory
of human idiosyncrasies in general, and of those peculiar to Beatrice
di Negra in especial, was the dream of an enthusiast, or the inductive
conclusion of a sound philosopher.

Harley had warned Leonard not to fall in love with the Italian,--he had
forgotten to warn the Italian not to fall in love with Leonard; nor had
he ever anticipated the probability of that event. This is not to
be very much wondered at; for if there be anything on which the
most sensible men are dull-eyed, where those eyes are not lighted by
jealousy, it is as to the probabilities of another male creature being
beloved. All, the least vain of the whiskered gender, think it prudent
to guard themselves against being too irresistible to the fair sex; and
each says of his friend, "Good fellow enough, but the last man for that
woman to fall in love with!"

But certainly there appeared on the surface more than ordinary cause for
Harley's blindness in the special instance of Leonard.

Whatever Beatrice's better qualities, she was generally esteemed worldly
and ambitious. She was pinched in circumstances, she was luxuriant and
extravagant; how was it likely that she could distinguish any aspirant
of the humble birth and fortunes of the young peasant-author? As a
coquette, she might try to win his admiration and attract his fancy;
but her own heart would surely be guarded in the triple mail of pride,
poverty, and the conventional opinions of the world in which she lived.
Had Harley thought it possible that Madame di Negra could stoop below
her station, and love, not wisely, but too well, he would rather have
thought that the object would be some brilliant adventurer of fashion,
some one who could turn against herself all the arts of deliberate
fascination, and all the experience bestowed by frequent conquest. One
so simple as Leonard, so young and so new! Harley L'Estrange would have
smiled at himself, if the idea of that image subjugating the ambitious
woman to the disinterested love of a village maid had once crossed his
mind. Nevertheless, so it was, and precisely from those causes which
would have seemed to Harley to forbid the weakness.

It was that fresh, pure heart, it was that simple, earnest sweetness, it
was that contrast in look, in tone, in sentiment, and in reasonings, to
all that had jaded and disgusted her in the circle of her admirers,--it
was all this that captivated Beatrice at the first interview with
Leonard. Here was what she had confessed to the sceptical Randal she
had dreamed and sighed for. Her earliest youth had passed into abhorrent
marriage, without the soft, innocent crisis of human life,--virgin love.
Many a wooer might have touched her vanity, pleased her fancy, excited
her ambition--her heart had never been awakened; it woke now. The world,
and the years that the world had wasted, seemed to fleet away as a
cloud. She was as if restored to the blush and the sigh of youth,--the
youth of the Italian maid. As in the restoration of our golden age
is the spell of poetry with us all, so such was the spell of the poet
himself on her.

Oh, how exquisite was that brief episode in the life of the woman palled
with the "hack sights and sounds" of worldly life! How strangely happy
were those hours, when, lured on by her silent sympathy, the young
scholar spoke of his early struggles between circumstance and impulse,
musing amidst the flowers, and hearkening to the fountain; or of his
wanderings in the desolate, lamp-lit streets, while the vision of
Chatterton's glittering eyes shone dread through the friendless shadows.
And as he spoke, whether of his hopes or his fears, her looks dwelt
fondly on the young face, that varied between pride and sadness,--pride
ever so gentle, and sad ness ever so nobly touching. She was never
weary of gazing on that brow, with its quiet power; but her lids dropped
before those eyes, with their serene, unfathomable passion. She felt, as
they haunted her, what a deep and holy thing love in such souls must
be. Leonard never spoke to her of Helen--that reserve every reader can
comprehend. To natures like his, first love is a mystery; to confide it
is to profane. But he fulfilled his commission of interesting her in the
exile and his daughter, and his description of them brought tears to her
eyes. She inly resolved not to aid Peschiera in his designs on Violante.
She forgot for the moment that her own fortune was to depend on the
success of those designs. Levy had arranged so that she was not reminded
of her poverty by creditors,--she knew not how. She knew nothing of
business. She gave herself up to the delight of the present hour, and to
vague prospects of a future associated with that young image,--with that
face of a guardian angel that she saw before her, fairest in the moments
of absence; for in those moments came the life of fairy-land, when we
shut our eyes on the world, and see through the haze of golden revery.
Dangerous, indeed, to Leonard would have been the soft society of
Beatrice di Negra, had not his heart been wholly devoted to one object,
and had not his ideal of woman been from that object one sole and
indivisible reflection. But Beatrice guessed not this barrier between
herself and him. Amidst the shadows that he conjured up from his past
life, she beheld no rival form. She saw him lonely in the world, as
she was herself. And in his lowly birth, his youth, in the freedom from
presumption which characterized him in all things (save that confidence
in his intellectual destinies which is the essential attribute of
genius), she but grew the bolder by the belief that, even if he loved
her, he would not dare to hazard the avowal.

And thus, one day, yielding, as she had ever been wont to yield, to the
impulse of her quick Italian heart--how she never remembered, in
what words she could never recall--she spoke, she owned her love, she
pleaded, with tears and blushes, for love in return. All that passed was
to her as a dream,--a dream from which she woke with a fierce sense
of agony, of humiliation,--woke as the woman "scorned." No matter how
gratefully, how tenderly Leonard had replied, the reply was refusal.

For the first time she learned she had a rival; that all he could give
of love was long since, from his boyhood, given to another. For the
first time in her life, that ardent nature knew jealousy, its torturing
stings, its thirst for vengeance, its tempest of loving hate. But, to
outward appearance, silent and cold she stood as marble. Words that
sought to soothe fell on her ear unheeded: they were drowned by the
storm within. Pride was the first feeling which dominated the warring
elements that raged in her soul. She tore her hand from that which
clasped hers with so loyal a respect. She could have spurned the form
that knelt at her feet, not for love, but for pardon. She pointed to the
door with the gesture of an insulted queen. She knew no more till she
was alone. Then came that rapid flash of conjecture peculiar to the
storms of jealousy; that which seems to single from all nature the
one object to dread and to destroy; the conjecture so often false, yet
received at once by our convictions as the revelation of instinctive
truth. He to whom she had humbled herself loved another; whom but
Violante,--whom else, young and beautiful, had he named in the record of
his life?--None! And he had sought to interest her, Beatrice di Negra,
in the object of his love; hinted at dangers which Beatrice knew too
well; implied trust in Beatrice's will to protect. Blind fool that she
had been! This, then, was the reason why he had come, day after day,
to Beatrice's house; this was the charm that had drawn him thither;
this--she pressed her hands to her burning temples, as if to stop the
torture of thought. Suddenly a voice was heard below, the door opened,
and Randal Leslie entered.




CHAPTER XXIII.

Punctually at eight o'clock that evening, Baron Levy welcomed the new
ally he had secured. The pair dined en tete a tete, discussing general
matters till the servants left them to their wine. Then said the
baron, rising and stirring the fire--then said the baron, briefly and
significantly,

"Well!"

"As regards the property you spoke of," answered Randal, "I am willing
to purchase it on the terms you name. The only point that perplexes me
is how to account to Audley Egerton, to my parents, to the world, for
the power of purchasing it."

"True," said the baron, without even a smile at the ingenious and truly
Greek manner in which Randal had contrived to denote his meaning, and
conceal the ugliness of it--"true, we must think of that. If we could
manage to conceal the real name of the purchaser for a year or so, it
might be easy,--you may be supposed to have speculated in the Funds;
or Egerton may die, and people may believe that he had secured to you
something handsome from the ruins of his fortune."

"Little chance of Egerton's dying."

"Humph!" said the baron. "However, this is a mere detail, reserved for
consideration. You can now tell us where the young lady is?"

"Certainly. I could not this morning,--I can now. I will go with you to
the count. Meanwhile, I have seen Madame di Negra; she will accept Frank
Hazeldean if he will but offer himself at once."

"Will he not?"

"No! I have been to him. He is overjoyed at my representations, but
considers it his duty to ask the consent of his parents. Of course they
will not give it; and if there be delay, she will retract. She is
under the influence of passions on the duration of which there is no
reliance."

"What passions? Love?"

"Love; but not for Hazeldean. The passions that bring her to accept his
hand are pique and jealousy. She believes, in a word, that one who
seems to have gained the mastery over her affections with a strange
suddenness, is but blind to her charms because dazzled by Violante's.
She is prepared to aid in all that can give her rival to Peschiera; and
yet, such is the inconsistency of woman" (added the young philosopher,
with a shrug of the shoulders), "that she is also prepared to lose all
chance of securing him she loves, by bestowing herself on another!"

"Woman, indeed, all over!" said the baron, tapping his snuff-box (Louis
Quinze), and regaling his nostrils with a scornful pinch. "But who is
the man whom the fair Beatrice has thus honoured? Superb creature! I had
some idea of her myself when I bought up her debts; but it might have
embarrassed me, in more general plans, as regards the count. All for the
best. Who's the man? Not Lord L'Estrange?"

"I do not think it is he; but I have not yet ascertained. I have told
you all I know. I found her in a state so excited, so unlike herself,
that I had no little difficulty in soothing her into confidence so far.
I could not venture more."

"And she will accept Frank?"

"Had he offered to-day she would have accepted him!"

"It may be a great help to your fortunes, mon cher, if Frank Hazeldean
marry this lady without his father's consent. Perhaps he may be
disinherited. You are next of kin.

"How do you know that?" asked Randal, sullenly.

"It is my business to know all about the chances and connections of
any one with whom I do money matters. I do money matters with young Mr.
Hazeldean; so I know that the Hazeldean property is not entailed; and,
as the squire's half-brother has no Hazeldean blood in him, you have
excellent expectations."

"Did Frank tell you I was next of kin?"

"I rather think so; but I am sure you did."

"I--when?"

"When you told me how important it was to you that Frank should marry
Madame di Negra. Peste! mon cher, do you think I am a blockhead?"

"Well, Baron, Frank is of age, and can marry to please himself. You
implied to me that you could help him in this."

"I will try. See that he call at Madame di Negra's tomorrow, at two
precisely."

"I would rather keep clear of all apparent interference in this matter.
Will you not arrange that he call on her? And do not forget to entangle
him in a post-obit."

"Leave it to me. Any more wine? No?--then let us go to the count's."




CHAPTER XXIV.

The next morning Frank Hazeldean was sitting over his solitary
breakfast-table. It was long past noon. The young man had risen early,
it is true, to attend his military duties, but he had contracted the
habit of breakfasting late. One's appetite does not come early when one
lives in London, and never goes to bed before daybreak.

There was nothing very luxurious or effeminate about Frank's rooms,
though they were in a very dear street, and he paid a monstrous high
price for them. Still, to a practised eye, they betrayed an inmate who
can get through his money, and make very little show for it. The
walls were covered with coloured prints of racers and steeple-chases,
interspersed with the portraits of opera-dancers, all smirk and caper.
Then there was a semi-circular recess covered with red cloth, and fitted
up for smoking, as you might perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish
pipes in cherry-stick and jessamine, with amber mouthpieces; while a
great serpent hookah, from which Frank could no more have smoked than he
could have smoked out of the head of a boa constrictor, coiled itself up
on the floor; over the chimney-piece was a collection of Moorish arms.
What use on earth ataghan and scimitar and damasquined pistols, that
would not carry straight three yards, could be to an officer in
his Majesty's Guards is more than I can conjecture, or even Frank
satisfactorily explain. I have strong suspicions that this valuable
arsenal passed to Frank in part payment of a bill to be discounted. At
all events, if so, it was an improvement on the bear that he had sold
to the hair-dresser. No books were to be seen anywhere, except a Court
Guide, a Racing Calendar, an Army List, the Sporting Magazine complete
(whole bound in scarlet morocco, at about a guinea per volume), and a
small book, as small as an Elzevir, on the chimney-piece, by the side of
a cigar-case. That small book had cost Frank more than all the rest put
together; it was his Own Book, his book par excellence; book made up by
himself,--his BETTING Book!

On a centre table were deposited Frank's well-brushed hat; a satinwood
box, containing kid-gloves, of various delicate tints, from primrose to
lilac; a tray full of cards and three-cornered notes; an opera-glass,
and an ivory subscription-ticket to his opera stall.

In one corner was an ingenious receptacle for canes, sticks, and
whips--I should not like, in these bad times, to have paid the bill for
them; and mounting guard by that receptacle, stood a pair of boots as
bright as Baron Levy's,--"the force of brightness could no further
go." Frank was in his dressing-gown,--very good taste, quite Oriental,
guaranteed to be true Indian cashmere, and charged as such. Nothing
could be more neat, though perfectly simple, than the appurtenances of
his breakfast-table: silver tea-pot, ewer, and basin, all fitting into
his dressing-box--for the which may Storr and Mortimer be now praised,
and some day paid! Frank looked very handsome, rather tired, and
exceedingly bored. He had been trying to read the "Morning Post," but
the effort had proved too much for him.

Poor dear Frank Hazeldean!--true type of many a poor dear fellow who
has long since gone to the dogs. And if, in this road to ruin, there
had been the least thing to do the traveller any credit by the way! One
feels a respect for the ruin of a man like Audley Egerton. He is ruined
en roi! From the wrecks of his fortune he can look down and see stately
monuments built from the stones of that dismantled edifice. In every
institution which attests the humanity of England was a record of the
princely bounty of the public man. In those objects of party, for
which the proverbial sinews of war are necessary, in those rewards for
service, which private liberality can confer, the hand of Egerton
had been opened as with the heart of a king. Many a rising member of
parliament, in those days when talent was brought forward through
the aid of wealth and rank, owed his career to the seat which Audley
Egerton's large subscription had secured to him; many an obscure
supporter in letters and the Press looked back to the day when he had
been freed from the jail by the gratitude of the patron. The city he
represented was embellished at his cost; through the shire that held his
mortgaged lands, which he had rarely ever visited, his gold had flowed
as a Pactolus; all that could animate its public spirit, or increase
its civilization, claimed kindred with his munificence, and never had a
claim disallowed. Even in his grand, careless household, with its
large retinue and superb hospitality, there was something worthy of a
representative of that time-honoured portion of our true nobility,
the untitled gentlemen of the land. The Great Commoner had, indeed,
"something to show" for the money he had disdained and squandered. But
for Frank Hazeldean's mode of getting rid of the dross, when gone, what
would be left to tell the tale? Paltry prints in a bachelor's lodging; a
collection of canes and cherry-sticks; half-a-dozen letters in ill-spelt
French from a figurante; some long-legged horses, fit for nothing but to
lose a race; that damnable Betting-Book; and--sic transit gloria--down
sweeps some hawk of a Levy, on the wings of an I O U, and not a feather
is left of the pigeon!

Yet Frank Hazeldean has stuff in him,--a good heart, and strict honour.
Fool though he seem, there is sound sterling sense in some odd corner
of his brains, if one could but get at it. All he wants to save him
from perdition is, to do what he has never yet done,--namely, pause and
think. But, to be sure, that same operation of thinking is not so easy
for folks unaccustomed to it, as people who think--think!

"I can't bear this," said Frank, suddenly, and springing to his feet.
"This woman, I cannot get her out of my head. I ought to go down to the
governor's; but then if he gets into a passion, and refuses his consent,
where am I? And he will, too, I fear. I wish I could make out what
Randal advises. He seems to recommend that I should marry Beatrice at
once, and trust to my mother's influence to make all right afterwards.
But when I ask, 'Is that your advice?' he backs out of it. Well, I
suppose he is right there. I can understand that he is unwilling, good
fellow, to recommend anything that my father would disapprove. But
still--"

Here Frank stopped in his soliloquy, and did make his first desperate
effort to--think!

Now, O dear reader, I assume, of course, that thou art one of the class
to which thought is familiar; and, perhaps, thou hast smiled in disdain
or incredulity at that remark on the difficulty of thinking which
preceded Frank Hazeldean's discourse to himself. But art thou quite sure
that when thou hast tried to think thou hast always succeeded? Hast thou
not often been duped by that pale visionary simulacrum of thought which
goes by the name of revery? Honest old Montaigne confessed that he did
not understand that process of sitting down to think, on which some
folks express themselves so glibly. He could not think unless he had
a pen in his hand and a sheet of paper before him; and so, by a manual
operation, seized and connected the links of ratiocination. Very often
has it happened to myself when I have said to Thought peremptorily,
"Bestir thyself: a serious matter is before thee, ponder it well, think
of it," that that same thought has behaved in the most refractory,
rebellious manner conceivable; and instead of concentrating its rays
into a single stream of light, has broken into all the desultory tints
of the rainbow, colouring senseless clouds, and running off into the
seventh heaven, so that after sitting a good hour by the clock, with
brows as knit as if I was intent on squaring the circle, I have suddenly
discovered that I might as well have gone comfortably to sleep--I have
been doing nothing but dream,--and the most nonsensical dreams! So when
Frank Hazeldean, as he stopped at that meditative "But still "--and
leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, and resting his face on his hand,
felt himself at the grave crisis of life, and fancied he was going
"to think on it," there only rose before him a succession of shadowy
pictures,--Randal Leslie, with an unsatisfactory countenance, from which
he could extract nothing; the squire, looking as black as thunder in
his study at Hazeldean; his mother trying to plead for him, and
getting herself properly scolded for her pains; and then off went that
Will-o'-the-wisp which pretended to call itself Thought, and began
playing round the pale, charming face of Beatrice di Negra, in the
drawing-room at Curzon Street, and repeating, with small elfin voice,
Randal Leslie's assurance of the preceding day, "as to her affection for
you, Frank, there is no doubt of that; she only begins to think you are
trifling with her." And then there was a rapturous vision of a young
gentleman on his knee, and the fair pale face bathed in blushes, and
a clergyman standing by the altar, and a carriage-and-four with white
favours at the church-door; and of a honeymoon, which would have
astonished as to honey all the bees of Hymettus. And in the midst of
these phantasmagoria, which composed what Frank fondly styled, "making
up his mind," there came a single man's elegant rat-tat-tat at the
street door.

"One never has a moment for thinking," cried Frank, and he called out to
his valet, "Not at home."

But it was too late. Lord Spendquick was in the hall, and presently
within the room. How d'ye do's were exchanged and hands shaken.

LORD SPENDQUICK.--"I have a note for you, Hazeldean."

FRANK (lazily).--"From whom?"

LORD SPENDQUICK.--"Levy. Just come from him,--never saw him in such a
fidget. He was going into the city,--I suppose to see X. Y. Dashed off
this note for you, and would have sent it by a servant, but I said I
would bring it."

FRANK (looking fearfully at the note).--"I hope he does not want his
money yet. 'Private and confidential,'--that looks bad."

SPENDQUICK.--"Devilish bad, indeed."

Frank opens the note, and reads, half aloud, "Dear Hazeldean--"

SPENDQUICK (interrupting.)--"Good sign! He always Spendquicks me when he
lends me money; and 't is 'My dear Lord' when he wants it back. Capital
sign!"

Frank reads on, but to himself, and with a changing countenance,

   DEAR HAZELDEAN,--I am very sorry to tell you that, in consequence of
   the sudden failure of a house at Paris with which I Had large
   dealings, I am pressed on a sudden for all the ready money I can
   get. I don't want to inconvenience you, but do try to see if you
   can take up those bills of yours which I hold, and which, as you
   know, have been due some little time. I had hit on a way of
   arranging your affairs; but when I hinted at it, you seemed to
   dislike the idea; and Leslie has since told me that you have strong
   objections to giving any security on your prospective property. So
   no more of that, my dear fellow. I am called out in haste to try
   what I can do for a very charming client of mine, who is in great
   pecuniary distress, though she has for her brother a foreign count,
   as rich as a Croesus. There is an execution in her house. I am
   going down to the tradesman who put it in, but have no hope of
   softening him; and I fear there will be others before the day is
   out. Another reason for wanting money, if you can help me, mon
   cher! An execution in the house of one of the most brilliant women
   in London,--an execution in Curzon Street, May Fair! It will be all
   over the town if I can't stop it.

   Yours in haste,
               LEVY.

   P.S.--Don't let what I have said vex you too much. I should not
   trouble you if Spendquick and Borrowell would pay me something.
   Perhaps you can get them to do so.

Struck by Frank's silence and paleness, Lord Spendquick here, in the
kindest way possible, laid his hand on the young Guardsman's shoulder.
and looked over the note with that freedom which gentlemen in
difficulties take with each other's private and confidential
correspondence. His eye fell on the postscript. "Oh, damn it," cried
Spendquick, "but that's too bad,--employing you to get me to pay him!
Such horrid treachery. Make yourself easy, my dear Frank; I could never
suspect you of anything so unhandsome. I could as soon suspect myself
of--paying him--"

"Curzon Street! Count!" muttered Frank, as if waking from a dream. "It
must be so." To thrust on his boots, change his dressing-robe for a
frock-coat, snatch at his hat, gloves, and cane, break from Spendquick,
descend the stairs, a flight at a leap, gain the street, throw himself
into a cabriolet,--all this was done before his astounded visitor could
even recover breath enough to ask "What's the matter?"

Left thus alone, Lord Spendquick shook his head,--shook it twice, as
if fully to convince himself that there was nothing in it; and then
re-arranging his hat before the looking-glass, and drawing on his gloves
deliberately, he walked downstairs, and strolled into White's, but with
a bewildered and absent air. Standing at the celebrated bow-window for
some moments in musing silence, Lord Spendquick at last thus addressed
an exceedingly cynical, sceptical old roue,

"Pray, do you think there is any truth in the stories about people in
former times selling themselves to the devil?"

"Ugh," answered the rout, much too wise ever to be surprised. "Have you
any personal interest in the question?"

"I!--no; but a friend of mine has just received a letter from Levy, and
he flew out of the room in the most ex-tra-ordi-na-ry manner,--just as
people did in those days when their time was up! And Levy, you know,
is--"

"Not quite as great a fool as the other dark gentleman to whom you would
compare him; for Levy never made such bad bargains for himself. Time up!
No doubt it is. I should not like to be in your friend's shoes."

"Shoes!" said Spendquick, with a sort of shudder; "you never saw a
neater fellow, nor one, to do him justice, who takes more time in
dressing than he does in general. And talking of shoes, he rushed out
with the right boot on the left foot, and the left boot on the right.
Very mysterious!" And a third time Lord Spendquick shook his head,--and
a third time that head seemed to him wondrous empty.




CHAPTER XXV.

Buy Frank had arrived in Curzon Street, leaped from the cabriolet,
knocked at the door, which was opened by a strange-looking man in a buff
waistcoat and corduroy smalls. Frank gave a glance at this
personage, pushed him aside, and rushed upstairs. He burst into the
drawing-room,--no Beatrice was there. A thin elderly man, with a
manuscript book in his hands, appeared engaged in examining the
furniture, and making an inventory, with the aid of Madame di Negra's
upper servant. The thin man stared at Frank, and touched the hat which
was on his head. The servant, who was a foreigner, approached Frank, and
said, in broken English, that his lady did not receive,--that she was
unwell, and kept her room. Frank thrust a sovereign into the servant's
hand, and begged him to tell Madame di Negra. that Mr. Hazeldean
entreated the honour of an interview. As soon as the servant vanished
on this errand, Frank seized the thin man by the arm. "What is this?--an
execution?"

"Yes, sir."

"For what sum?"

"Fifteen hundred and forty-seven pounds. We are the first in
possession."

"There are others, then?"

"Or else, sir, we should never have taken this step. Most painful to our
feelings, sir; but these foreigners are here to day, and gone to-morrow.
And--"

The servant re-entered. Madame di Negra would see Mr. Hazeldean. Would
he walk upstairs? Frank hastened to obey this summons.

Madame di Negra was in a small room which was fitted up as a boudoir.
Her eyes showed the traces of recent tears, but her face was composed,
and even rigid, in its haughty though mournful expression. Frank,
however, did not pause to notice her countenance, to hear her dignified
salutation. All his timidity was gone. He saw but the woman whom he
loved in distress and humiliation. As the door closed on him, he flung
himself at her feet. He caught at her hand, the skirt of her robe.

"Oh, Madame di Negra!--Beatrice!" he exclaimed, tears in his eyes, and
his voice half-broken by generous emotion; "forgive me, forgive me!
don't see in me a mere acquaintance. By accident I learned, or, rather,
guessed--this--this strange insult to which you are so unworthily
exposed. I am here. Think of me--but as a friend,--the truest friend.
Oh, Beatrice,"--and he bent his head over the hand he held,--"I never
dared say so before, it seems presuming to say it now, but I cannot
help it. I love you,--I love you with my whole heart and soul; to serve
you--if only but to serve you!--I ask nothing else." And a sob went from
his warm, young, foolish heart.

The Italian was deeply moved. Nor was her nature that of the mere sordid
adventuress. So much love and so much confidence! She was not prepared
to betray the one, and entrap the other.

"Rise, rise," she said softly; "I thank you gratefully. But do not
suppose that I--"

"Hush! hush!--you must not refuse me. Hush! don't let your pride speak."

"No, it is not my pride. You exaggerate what is occurring here. You
forget that I have a brother. I have sent for him. He is the only one
I can apply to. Ah, that is his knock! But I shall never, never forget
that I have found one generous noble heart in this hollow world."

Frank would have replied, but he heard the count's voice on the stairs,
and had only time to rise and withdraw to the window, trying hard to
repress his agitation and compose his countenance. Count di Peschiera
entered,--entered as a very personation of the beauty and magnificence
of careless, luxurious, pampered, egotistical wealth,--his surtout,
trimmed with the costliest sables, flung back from his splendid chest.
Amidst the folds of the glossy satin that enveloped his throat gleamed
a turquoise, of such value as a jeweller might have kept for fifty years
before he could find a customer rich and frivolous enough to buy it. The
very head of his cane was a masterpiece of art, and the man himself,
so elegant despite his strength, and so fresh despite his years!--it is
astonishing how well men wear when they think of no one but themselves!

"Pr-rr!" said the count, not observing Frank behind the draperies of
the window; "Pr-rr--It seems to me that you must have passed a very
unpleasant quarter of an hour. And now--Dieu me damne, quoi faire!"

Beatrice pointed to the window, and felt as if she could have sunk into
the earth for shame. But as the count spoke in French, and Frank did not
very readily comprehend that language, the words escaped him, though his
ear was shocked by a certain satirical levity of tone.

Frank came forward. The count held out his hand, and with a rapid change
of voice and manner, said, "One whom my sister admits at such a moment
must be a friend to me."

"Mr. Hazeldean," said Beatrice, with meaning, "would indeed have nobly
pressed on me the offer of an aid which I need no more, since you, my
brother, are here."

"Certainly," said the count, with his superb air of grand seigneur; "I
will go down and clear your house of this impertinent canaille. But I
thought your affairs were with Baron Levy. He should be here."

"I expect him every moment. Adieu! Mr. Hazeldean." Beatrice extended her
hand to her young lover with a frankness which was not without a certain
pathetic and cordial dignity. Restrained from further words by the
count's presence, Frank bowed over the fair hand in silence, and
retired. He was on the stairs when he was joined by Peschiera.

"Mr. Hazeldean," said the latter, in a low tone, "will you come into the
drawing-room?"

Frank obeyed. The man employed in his examination of the furniture was
still at his task: but at a short whisper from the count he withdrew.

"My dear sir," said Peschiera, "I am so unacquainted with your English
laws, and your mode of settling embarrassments of this degrading
nature, and you have evidently showed so kind a sympathy in my sister's
distress, that I venture to ask you to stay here, and aid me in
consulting with Baron Levy."

Frank was just expressing his unfeigned pleasure to be of the slightest
use, when Levy's knock resounded at the streetdoor, and in another
moment the baron entered.

"Ouf!" said Levy, wiping his brows, and sinking into a chair as if he
had been engaged in toils the most exhausting,--"ouf! this is a very sad
business,--very; and nothing, my dear count, nothing but ready money can
save us here."

"You know my affairs, Levy," replied Peschiera, mournfully shaking his
head, "and that though in a few months, or it may be weeks, I could
discharge with ease my sister's debts, whatever their amount, yet at
this moment, and in a strange land, I have not the power to do so. The
money I brought with me is nearly exhausted. Can you not advance the
requisite sum?"

"Impossible!--Mr. Hazeldean is aware of the distress under which I
labour myself."

"In that case," said the count, "all we can do to-day is to remove my
sister, and let the execution proceed. Meanwhile I will go among my
friends, and see what I can borrow from them."

"Alas!" said Levy, rising and looking out of the window--"alas!--we
cannot remove the marchesa,--the worst is to come. Look!--you see those
three men; they have a writ against her person: the moment she sets her
foot out of these doors she will be arrested."

   [At that date the law of mesne process existed still.]

"Arrested!" exclaimed Peschiera and Frank in a breath. "I have done my
best to prevent this disgrace, but in vain," said the baron, looking
very wretched. "You see these English tradespeople fancy they have no
hold upon foreigners. But we can get bail; she must not go to prison--"

"Prison!" echoed Frank. He hastened to Levy and drew him aside. The
count seemed paralyzed by shame and grief. Throwing himself back on the
sofa, he covered his face with his hands.

"My sister!" groaned the count--"daughter to a Peschiera, widow to a
Di Negra!" There was something affecting in the proud woe of this grand
patrician.

"What is the sum?" whispered Frank, anxious that the poor count
should not overhear him; and indeed the count seemed too stunned and
overwhelmed to hear anything less loud than a clap of thunder!

"We may settle all liabilities for L5,000. Nothing to Peschiera, who is
enormously rich. Entre nous, I doubt his assurance that he is without
ready money. It may be so, but--"

"Five thousand pounds! How can I raise such a sum?"

"You, my dear Hazeldean? What are you talking about? To be sure you
could raise twice as much with a stroke of your pen, and throw your own
debts into the bargain. But--to be so generous to an acquaintance!"

"Acquaintance!--Madame di Negra! the height of my ambition is to claim
her as my wife!"

"And these debts don't startle you?"

"If a man loves," answered Frank, simply, "he feels it most when the
woman he loves is in affliction. And," he added, after a pause, "though
these debts are faults, kindness at this moment may give me the power
to cure forever both her faults and my own. I can raise this money by a
stroke of the pen! How?"

"On the Casino property."

Frank drew back.

"No other way?"

"Of course not. But I know your scruples; let us see if they can be
conciliated. You would marry Madame di Negra; she will have L20,000
on her wedding-day. Why not arrange that, out of this sum, your
anticipative charge on the Casino property be paid at once? Thus, in
truth, it will be but for a few weeks that the charge will exist. The
bond will remain locked in my desk; it can never come to your father's
know ledge, nor wound his feelings. And when you marry (if you will but
be prudent in the mean while), you will not owe a debt in the world."

Here the count suddenly started up.

"Mr. Hazeldean, I asked you to stay and aid us by your counsel; I see
now that counsel is unavailing. This blow on our House must fall! I
thank you, Sir,--I thank you. Farewell. Levy, come with me to my poor
sister, and prepare her for the worst."

"Count," said Frank, "hear me. My acquaintance with you is but slight,
but I have long known and--and esteemed your sister. Baron Levy has
suggested a mode in which I can have the honour and the happiness of
removing this temporary but painful embarrassment. I can advance the
money."

"No, no!" exclaimed Peschiera. "How can you suppose that I will hear of
such a proposition? Your youth and benevolence mislead and blind you.
Impossible, sir,--impossible! Why, even if I had no pride, no delicacy
of my own, my sister's fair fame--"

"Would suffer indeed," interrupted Levy, "if she were under such
obligation to any one but her affianced husband. Nor, whatever my regard
for you, Count, could I suffer my client, Mr. Hazeldean, to make this
advance upon any less valid security than that of the fortune to which
Madame di Negra is entitled."

"Ha!--is this indeed so? You are a suitor for my sister's hand, Mr.
Hazeldean?"

"But not at this moment,--not to owe her hand to the compulsion of
gratitude," answered gentleman Frank. "Gratitude! And you do not know
her heart, then? Do not know--" the count interrupted himself, and went
on after a pause. "Mr. Hazeldean, I need not say that we rank among
the first Houses in Europe. My pride led me formerly into the error
of disposing of my sister's hand to one whom she did not love, merely
because in rank he was her equal. I will not again commit such an error,
nor would Beatrice again obey me if I sought to constrain her. Where she
marries, there she will love. If, indeed, she accepts you, as I believe
she will, it will be from affection solely. If she does, I cannot
scruple to accept this loan,--a loan from a brother-inlaw--loan to me,
and not charged against her fortune! That, sir," turning to Levy, with
his grand air, "you will take care to arrange. If she do not accept you,
Mr. Hazeldean, the loan, I repeat, is not to be thought of. Pardon me,
if I leave you. This, one way or other, must be decided at once." The
count inclined his head with much stateliness, and then quitted the
room. His step was heard ascending the stairs.

"If," said Levy, in the tone of a mere man of business--"if the count
pay the debts, and the lady's fortune be only charged with your own,
after all, it will not be a bad marriage in the world's eye, nor ought
it to be in a father's. Trust me, we shall get Mr. Hazeldean's consent,
and cheerfully too."

Frank did not listen; he could only listen to his love, to his heart
beating loud with hope and with fear.

Levy sat down before the table, and drew up a long list of figures in a
very neat hand,--a list of figures on two accounts, which the post-obit
on the Casino was destined to efface.

After a lapse of time, which to Frank seemed interminable, the count
re-appeared. He took Frank aside, with a gesture to Levy, who rose, and
retired into the drawing-room.

"My dear young friend," said Peschiera, "as I suspected, my sister's
heart is wholly yours. Stop; hear me out. But, unluckily, I informed her
of your generous proposal; it was most unguarded, most ill-judged in me,
and that has well-nigh spoiled all; she has so much pride and spirit;
so great a fear that you may think yourself betrayed into an imprudence
which you may hereafter regret, that I am sure she will tell you that
she does not love you, she cannot accept you, and so forth. Lovers like
you are not easily deceived. Don't go by her words; but you shall see
her yourself and judge. Come."

Followed mechanically by Frank, the count ascended the stairs, and threw
open the door of Beatrice's room. The marchesa's back was turned; but
Frank could see that she was weeping.

"I have brought my friend to plead for himself," said the count, in
French; "and take my advice, sister, and do not throw away all prospect
of real and solid happiness for a vain scruple. Heed me!" He retired,
and left Frank alone with Beatrice.

Then the marchesa, as if by a violent effort, so sudden was her
movement, and so wild her look, turned her face to her wooer, and came
up to him, where he stood.

"Oh," she said, clasping her hands, "is this true? You would save me
from disgrace, from a prison--and what can I give you in return? My
love! No, no. I will not deceive you. Young, fair, noble as you are, I
do not love you as you should be loved. Go; leave this house; you do
not know my brother. Go, go--while I have still strength, still virtue
enough to reject whatever may protect me from him! whatever--may--Oh,
go, go."

"You do not love me?" said Frank. "Well, I don't wonder at it; you are
so brilliant, so superior to me. I will abandon hope,--I will leave you,
as you command me. But at least I will not part with my privilege to
serve you. As for the rest, shame on me if I could be mean enough to
boast of love, and enforce a suit, at such a moment."

Frank turned his face and stole away softly. He did not arrest his steps
at the drawing-room; he went into the parlour, wrote a brief line to
Levy charging him quietly to dismiss the execution, and to come to
Frank's rooms with the necessary deeds; and, above all, to say nothing
to the count. Then he went out of the house and walked back to his
lodgings.

That evening Levy came to him, and accounts were gone into, and papers
signed; and the next morning Madame di Negra was free from debt; and
there was a great claim on the reversion of the Casino estates; and at
the noon of that next day, Randal was closeted with Beatrice; and before
the night came a note from Madame di Negra, hurried, blurred with tears,
summoning Frank to Curzon Street. And when he entered the marchesa's
drawing-room, Peschiera was seated beside his sister; and rising at
Frank's entrance, said, "My dear brother-in-law!" and placed Frank's
hand in Beatrice's.

"You accept--you accept me--and of your own free will and choice?"

And Beatrice answered, "Bear with me a little, and I will try to repay
you with all my--all my--" She stopped short, and sobbed aloud.

"I never thought her capable of such acute feelings, such strong
attachment," whispered the count.

Frank heard, and his face was radiant. By degrees Madame di Negra
recovered composure, and she listened with what her young lover deemed
a tender interest, but what, in fact, was mournful and humbled
resignation, to his joyous talk of the future. To him the hours passed
by, brief and bright, like a flash of sunlight. And his dreams when he
retired to rest were so golden! But when he awoke the next morning, he
said to himself, "What--what will they say at the Hall?" At that same
hour Beatrice, burying her face on her pillow, turned from the loathsome
day, and could have prayed for death. At that same hour, Giulio
Franzini, Count di Peschiera, dismissing some gaunt, haggard Italians,
with whom he had been in close conference, sallied forth to reconnoitre
the house that contained Violante. At that same hour, Baron Levy was
seated before his desk, casting up a deadly array of figures,
headed, "Account with the Right Hon. Audley Egerton, M. P., Dr. and
Cr."--title-deeds strewed around him, and Frank Hazeldean's post-obit
peeping out fresh from the elder parchments. At that same hour, Audley
Egerton had just concluded a letter from the chairman of his committee
in the city he represented, which letter informed him that he had not a
chance of being re-elected. And the lines of his face were as composed
is usual, and his foot rested as firm on the grim iron box; but his hand
was pressed to his heart, and his eye was on the clock, and his voice
muttered, "Dr. F--should be here!" And that hour Harley L'Estrange, who
the previous night had charmed courtly crowds with his gay humour, was
pacing to and fro the room in his hotel with restless strides and many a
heavy sigh; and Leonard was standing by the fountain in his garden,
and watching the wintry sunbeams that sparkled athwart the spray;
and Violante was leaning on Helen's shoulder, and trying archly, yet
innocently, to lead Helen to talk of Leonard; and Helen was gazing
steadfastly on the floor, and answering but by monosyllables; and Randal
Leslie was walking down to his office for the last time, and reading,
as he passed across the Green Park, a letter from home, from his sister;
and then, suddenly crumpling the letter in his thin pale hand, he looked
up, beheld in the distance the spires of the great national Abbey;
and recalling the words of our hero Nelson, he muttered, "Victory and
Westminster, but not the Abbey!" And Randal Leslie felt that, within the
last few days, he had made a vast stride in his ambition,--his grasp
on the old Leslie lands, Frank Hazeldean betrothed, and possibly
disinherited; and Dick Avenel, in the background, opening against the
hated Lansmere interest that same seat in parliament which had first
welcomed into public life Randal's ruined patron.

       "But some must laugh, and some must weep;
        Thus runs the world away!"




BOOK ELEVENTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HATE AS AN AGENT IN CIVILIZED LIFE.

It is not an uncommon crotchet amongst benevolent men to maintain that
wickedness is necessarily a sort of insanity, and that nobody would make
a violent start out of the straight path unless stung to such disorder
by a bee in his bonnet. Certainly when some very clever, well-educated
person like our friend, Randal Leslie, acts upon the fallacious
principle that "roguery is the best policy," it is curious to see how
many points he has in common with the insane: what over-cunning, what
irritable restlessness, what suspicious belief that the rest of the
world are in a conspiracy against him, which it requires all his wit
to baffle and turn to his own proper aggrandizement and profit. Perhaps
some of my readers may have thought that I have represented Randal as
unnaturally far-fetched in his schemes, too wire-drawn and subtle in
his speculations; yet that is commonly the case with very refining
intellects, when they choose to play the knave; it helps to disguise
from themselves the ugliness of their ambition, just as a philosopher
delights in the ingenuity of some metaphysical process, which ends
in what plain men call "atheism," who would be infinitely shocked and
offended if he were called an atheist.

Having premised thus much on behalf of the "Natural" in Randal Leslie's
character, I must here fly off to say a word or two on the agency in
human life exercised by a passion rarely seen without a mask in our
debonair and civilized age,--I mean Hate.

In the good old days of our forefathers, when plain speaking and hard
blows were in fashion, when a man had his heart at the tip of his
tongue, and four feet of sharp iron dangling at his side, Hate played
an honest, open part in the theatre of the world. In fact, when we read
History, Hate seems to have "starred it" on the stage. But now, where
is Hate? Who ever sees its face? Is it that smiling, good-tempered
creature, that presses you by the hand so cordially, or that dignified
figure of state that calls you its "Right Honourable friend"? Is it that
bowing, grateful dependent; is it that soft-eyed Amaryllis? Ask not,
guess not: you will only know it to be hate when the poison is in your
cup, or the poniard in your breast. In the Gothic age, grim Humour
painted "the Dance of Death;" in our polished century, some sardonic wit
should give us "the Masquerade of Hate."

Certainly, the counter-passion betrays itself with ease to our gaze.
Love is rarely a hypocrite. But Hate--how detect, and how guard against
it? It lurks where you least suspect it; it is created by causes that
you can the least foresee; and Civilization multiplies its varieties,
whilst it favours its disguise: for Civilization increases the number
of contending interests, and Refinement renders more susceptible to the
least irritation the cuticle of Self-Love. But Hate comes covertly
forth from some self-interest we have crossed, or some self-love we
have wounded; and, dullards that we are, how seldom we are aware of our
offence! You may be hated by a man you have never seen in your life: you
may be hated as often by one you have loaded with benefits; you may so
walk as not to tread on a worm; but you must sit fast on your easy-chair
till you are carried out to your bier, if you would be sure not to tread
on some snake of a foe. But, then, what harm does the hate do us? Very
often the harm is as unseen by the world as the hate is unrecognized
by us. It may come on us, unawares, in some solitary byway of our life;
strike us in our unsuspecting privacy; thwart as in some blessed hope
we have never told to another; for the moment the world sees that it is
Hate that strikes us, its worst power of mischief is gone.

We have a great many names for the same passion,--Envy, Jealousy,
Spite, Prejudice, Rivalry; but they are so many synonyms for the one old
heathen demon. When the death-giving shaft of Apollo sent the plague to
some unhappy Achaean, it did not much matter to the victim whether the
god were called Helios or Smintheus.

No man you ever met in the world seemed more raised above the malice
of Hate than Audley Egerton: even in the hot war of politics he had
scarcely a personal foe; and in private life he kept himself so aloof
and apart from others that he was little known, save by the benefits the
waste of his wealth conferred. That the hate of any one could reach the
austere statesman on his high pinnacle of esteem,--you would have smiled
at the idea! But Hate is now, as it ever has been, an actual Power
amidst "the Varieties of Life;" and, in spite of bars to the door, and
policemen in the street, no one can be said to sleep in safety while
there wakes the eye of a single foe.




CHAPTER II.

The glory of Bond Street is no more. The title of Bond Street Lounger
has faded from our lips. In vain the crowd of equipages and the blaze of
shops: the renown of Bond Street was in its pavement, its pedestrians.
Art thou old enough, O reader! to remember the Bond Street Lounger and
his incomparable generation? For my part, I can just recall the decline
of the grand era. It was on its wane when, in the ambition of boyhood, I
first began to muse upon high neck cloths and Wellington boots. But the
ancient habitues--the magni nominis umbrae, contemporaries of Brummell
in his zenith, boon companions of George IV. in his regency--still
haunted the spot. From four to six in the hot month of June, they
sauntered stately to and fro, looking somewhat mournful even then,
foreboding the extinction of their race. The Bond Street Lounger was
rarely seen alone: he was a social animal, and walked arm in arm with
his fellow-man. He did not seem born for the cares of these ruder
times; not made was he for an age in which Finsbury returns members to
parliament. He loved his small talk; and never since then has talk been
so pleasingly small. Your true Bond Street Lounger had a very dissipated
look. His youth had been spent with heroes who loved their bottle.
He himself had perhaps supped with Sheridan. He was by nature a
spendthrift: you saw it in the roll of his walk. Men who make money
rarely saunter; men who save money rarely swagger. But saunter and
swagger both united to stamp PRODIGAL on the Bond Street Lounger. And so
familiar as he was with his own set, and so amusingly supercilious with
the vulgar residue of mortals whose faces were strange to Bond Street!
But he is gone. The world, though sadder for his loss, still strives to
do its best without him; and our young men, nowadays, attend to
model cottages, and incline to Tractarianism. Still the place, to
an unreflecting eye, has its brilliancy and bustle; but it is a
thoroughfare, not a lounge. And adown the thoroughfare, somewhat
before the hour when the throng is thickest, passed two gentlemen of an
appearance exceedingly out of keeping with the place.--Yet both had
the air of men pretending to aristocracy,--an old-world air of
respectability and stake in the country, and Church-and-Stateism. The
burlier of the two was even rather a beau in his way. He had first
learned to dress, indeed, when Bond Street was at its acme, and Brummell
in his pride. He still retained in his garb the fashion of his youth;
only what then had spoken of the town, now betrayed the life of the
country. His neckcloth ample and high, and of snowy whiteness, set off
to comely advantage a face smooth-shaven, and of clear florid hues; his
coat of royal blue, with buttons in which you might have seen yourself
"veluti in speculum", was rather jauntily buttoned across a waist that
spoke of lusty middle age, free from the ambition, the avarice, and the
anxieties that fret Londoners into thread-papers; his small-clothes,
of grayish drab, loose at the thigh and tight at the knee, were made by
Brummell's own breeches-maker, and the gaiters to match (thrust half-way
down the calf), had a manly dandyism that would have done honour to
the beau-ideal of a county member. The profession of this gentleman's
companion was unmistakable,--the shovel-hat, the clerical cut of the
coat, the neckcloth without collar, that seemed made for its accessory
the band, and something very decorous, yet very mild, in the whole mien
of this personage, all spoke of one who was every inch the gentleman and
the parson.

"No," said the portlier of these two persons,--"no, I can't say I like
Frank's looks at all. There's certainly something on his mind. However,
I suppose it will be all out this evening."

"He dines with you at your hotel, Squire? Well, you must be kind to him.
We can't put old heads upon young shoulders."

"I don't object to his bead being young," returned the squire; "but I
wish he had a little of Randal Leslie's good sense in it. I see how
it will end; I must take him back to the country; and if he wants
occupation, why, he shall keep the hounds, and I'll put him into
Brooksby farm."

"As for the hounds," replied the parson, "hounds necessitate horses; and
I think more mischief comes to a young man of spirit from the stables
than from any other place in the world. They ought to be exposed from
the pulpit, those stables!" added Mr. Dale, thoughtfully; "see what they
entailed upon Nimrod! But Agriculture is a healthful and noble pursuit,
honoured by sacred nations, and cherished by the greatest men in
classical times. For instance, the Athenians were--"

"Bother the Athenians!" cried the squire, irreverently; "you need not go
so far back for an example. It is enough for a Hazeldean that his father
and his grandfather and his great-grandfather all farmed before him;
and a devilish deal better, I take it, than any of those musty old
Athenians, no offence to them. But I'll tell you one thing, Parson, a
man to farm well, and live in the country, should have a wife; it is
half the battle."

"As to a battle, a man who is married is pretty sure of half, though
not always the better half, of it," answered the parson, who seemed
peculiarly facetious that day. "Ah, Squire, I wish I could think
Mrs. Hazeldean right in her conjecture!--you would have the prettiest
daughter-in-law in the three kingdoms. And I do believe that, if I could
have a good talk with the young lady apart from her father, we could
remove the only objection I know to the marriage. Those Popish errors--"

"Ah, very true!" cried the squire; "that Pope sticks hard in my gizzard.
I could excuse her being a foreigner, and not having, I suppose, a
shilling in her pocket--bless her handsome face!--but to be worshipping
images in her room instead of going to the parish church, that will
never do. But you think you could talk her out of the Pope, and into the
family pew?"

"Why, I could have talked her father out of the Pope, only, when he had
not a word to say for himself, he bolted out of the window. Youth is
more ingenuous in confessing its errors."

"I own," said the squire, "that both Harry and I had a favourite notion
of ours till this Italian girl got into our heads. Do you know we
both took a great fancy to Randal's little sister,--pretty, blushing,
English-faced girl as ever you saw. And it went to Harry's good heart
to see her so neglected by that silly, fidgety mother of hers, her hair
hanging about her ears; and I thought it would be a fine way to bring
Randal and Frank more together, and enable me to do something for Randal
himself,--a good boy with Hazeldean blood in his veins. But Violante is
so handsome, that I don't wonder at the boy's choice; and then it is our
fault,--we let them see so much of each other as children. However, I
should be very angry if Rickeybockey had been playing sly, and running
away from the Casino in order to give Frank an opportunity to carry on a
clandestine intercourse with his daughter."

"I don't think that would be like Riccabocca; more like him to run
away in order to deprive Frank of the best of all occasions to court
Violante, if he so desired; for where could he see more of her than at
the Casino?"

SQUIRE.--"That's well put. Considering he was only a foreign doctor,
and, for aught we know, once went about in a caravan, he is a
gentleman-like fellow, that Rickeybockey. I speak of people as I find
them. But what is your notion about Frank? I see you don't think he is
in love with Violante, after all. Out with it, man; speak plain."

PARSON.--"Since you so urge me, I own I do not think him in love with
her; neither does my Carry, who is uncommonly shrewd in such matters."

SQUIRE.--"Your Carry, indeed!--as if she were half as shrewd as my
Harry. Carry--nonsense!"

PARSON (reddening).--"I don't want to make invidious remarks; but, Mr.
Hazeldean, when you sneer at my Carry, I should not be a man if I did
not say that--"

SQUIRE (interrupting).--"She is a good little woman enough; but to
compare her to my Harry!"

PARSON.--"I don't compare her to your Harry; I don't compare her to any
woman in England, Sir. But you are losing your temper, Mr. Hazeldean!"
SQUIRE.--"I!"

PARSON.--"And people are staring at you, Mr. Hazeldean. For decency's
sake, compose yourself, and change the subject. We are just at the
Albany. I hope that we shall not find poor Captain Higginbotham as
ill as he represents himself in his letter. Ah, is it possible? No, it
cannot be. Look--look!"

SQUIRE.--"Where--what--where? Don't pinch so hard. Bless me, do you see
a ghost?"

PARSON.--"There! the gentleman in black!"

SQUIRE.--"Gentleman in black! What! in broad daylight! Nonsense!"

Here the parson made a spring forward, and, catching the arm of the
person in question, who himself had stopped, and was gazing intently on
the pair, exclaimed,

"Sir, pardon me; but is not your name Fairfield? Ah, it is Leonard,--it
is--my dear, dear boy! What joy! So altered, so improved, but still
the same honest face. Squire, come here--your old friend, Leonard
Fairfield."

"And he wanted to persuade me," said the squire, shaking Leonard
heartily by the hand, "that you were the Gentleman in Black; but,
indeed, he has been in strange humours and tantrums all the morning.
Well, Master Lenny; why, you are grown quite a gentleman! The world
thrives with you, eh? I suppose you are head-gardener to some grandee."

"Not that, sir," said Leonard, smiling; "but the world has thriven with
me at last, though not without some rough usage at starting. Ah, Mr.
Dale, you can little guess how often I have thought of you and your
discourse on Knowledge; and, what is more, how I have lived to feel the
truth of your words, and to bless the lesson."

PARSON (much touched and flattered).--"I expected nothing less from you,
Leonard; you were always a lad of great sense, and sound judgment. So
you have thought of my little discourse on Knowledge, have you?"

SQUIRE.--"Hang knowledge! I have reason to hate the word. It burned
down three ricks of mine; the finest ricks you ever set eyes on, Mr.
Fairfield."

PARSON.--"That was not knowledge, Squire; that was ignorance."

SQUIRE.--"Ignorance! The deuce it was. I'll just appeal to you,
Mr. Fairfield. We have been having sad riots in the shire, and the
ringleader was just such another lad as you were!"

LEONARD.--"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Hazeldean. In what
respect?"

SQUIRE.--"Why, he was a village genius, and always reading some cursed
little tract or other; and got mighty discontented with King, Lords, and
Commons, I suppose, and went about talking of the wrongs of the poor,
and the crimes of the rich, till, by Jove, sir, the whole mob rose
one day with pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer Smart's
thrashing-machines; and on the same night my ricks were on fire.
We caught the rogues, and they were all tried; but the poor deluded
labourers were let off with a short imprisonment. The village genius,
thank Heaven, is sent packing to Botany Bay."

LEONARD.--"But did his books teach him to burn ricks and smash
machines?"

PARSON.--"No; he said quite the contrary, and declared that he had no
hand in those misdoings."

SQUIRE.--"But he was proved to have excited, with his wild talk, the
boobies who had! 'Gad, sir, there was a hypocritical Quaker once, who
said to his enemy, 'I can't shed thy blood, friend, but I will hold
thy head under water till thou art drowned.' And so there is a set
of demagogical fellows, who keep calling out, 'Farmer, this is an
oppressor, and Squire, that is a vampire! But no violence! Don't smash
their machines, don't burn their ricks! Moral force, and a curse on all
tyrants!' Well, and if poor Hodge thinks moral force is all my eye, and
that the recommendation is to be read backwards, in the devil's way of
reading the Lord's prayer, I should like to know which of the two ought
to go to Botany Bay,--Hodge, who comes out like a man, if he thinks he
is wronged, or t' other sneaking chap, who makes use of his knowledge to
keep himself out of the scrape?"

PARSON.--"It may be very true; but when I saw that poor fellow at the
bar, with his intelligent face, and heard his bold clear defence, and
thought of all his hard struggles for knowledge, and how they had ended,
because he forgot that knowledge is like fire, and must not be thrown
amongst flax,--why, I could have given my right hand to save him. And,
oh, Squire, do you remember his poor mother's shriek of despair when
he was sentenced to transportation for life--I hear it now! And what,
Leonard--what do you think had misled him? At the bottom of all the
mischief was a tinker's bag. You cannot forget Sprott?"

LEONARD.--"Tinker's bag! Sprott!"

SQUIRE.--"That rascal, sir, was the hardest follow to nab you could
possibly conceive; as full of quips and quirks as an Old Bailey lawyer.
But we managed to bring it home to him. Lord! his bag was choke-full of
tracts against every man who had a good coat on his back; and as if that
was not enough, cheek by jowl with the tracts were lucifers, contrived
on a new principle, for teaching my ricks the theory of spontaneous
combustion. The labourers bought the lucifers--"

PARSON.--"And the poor village genius bought the tracts."

SQUIRE.--"All headed with a motto, 'To teach the working classes that
knowledge is power.' So that I was right in saying that knowledge had
burnt my ricks; knowledge inflamed the village genius, the village
genius inflamed fellows more ignorant than himself, and they inflamed my
stackyard. However, lucifers, tracts, village genius, and Sprott are all
off to Botany Bay; and the shire has gone on much the better for it. So
no more of your knowledge for me, begging your pardon, Mr. Fairfield.
Such uncommonly fine ricks as mine were too! I declare, Parson, you
are looking as if you felt pity for Sprott; and I saw you, indeed,
whispering to him as he was taken out of court."

PARSON (looking sheepish).--"Indeed, Squire, I was only asking him what
had become of his donkey, an unoffending creature."

SQUIRE.--"Unoffending! Upset me amidst a thistle-bed in my own village
green! I remember it. Well, what did he say had become of the donkey?"

PARSON.--"He said but one word; but that showed all the vindictiveness
of his disposition. He said it with a horrid wink, that made my
blood run cold. 'What's become of your poor donkey?' said I, and he
answered--"

SQUIRE.--"Go on. He answered--"

PARSON.--"'Sausages.'"

SQUIRE.--"Sausages! Like enough; and sold to the poor; and that's what
the poor will come to if they listen to such revolutionizing villains.
Sausages! Donkey sausages!" (spitting)--"'T is bad as eating one
another; perfect cannibalism."

Leonard, who had been thrown into grave thought by the history of Sprott
and the village genius, now pressing the parson's hand, asked permission
to wait on him before Mr. Dale quitted London; and was about to
withdraw, when the parson, gently detaining him, said, "No; don't leave
me yet, Leonard,--I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. I shall
be at leisure shortly. We are just now going to call on a relation
of the squire's, whom you must recollect, I am sure,--Captain
Higginbotham--Barnabas Higginbotham. He is very poorly."

"And I am sure he would take it kind in you to call too," said the
squire, with great good-nature.

LEONARD.--"Nay, sir, would not that be a great liberty?"

SQUIRE.--"Liberty! To ask a poor sick gentleman how he is? Nonsense. And
I say, Sir, perhaps, as no doubt you have been living in town, and know
more of newfangled notions than I do,--perhaps you can tell us whether
or not it is all humbug,--that new way of doctoring people."

LEONARD.--"What new way, sir. There are so many."

SQUIRE.--"Are there? Folks in London do look uncommonly sickly. But
my poor cousin (he was never a Solomon) has got hold, he says, of a
homely--homely--What's the word, Parson?"

PARSON. "Homoeopathist."

SQUIRE.--"That's it. You see the captain went to live with one Sharpe
Currie, a relation who had a great deal of money, and very little
liver;--made the one, and left much of the other in Ingee, you
understand. The captain had expectations of the money. Very natural, I
dare say; but Lord, sir, what do you think has happened? Sharpe Currie
has done him. Would not die, Sir; got back his liver, and the captain
has lost his own. Strangest thing you ever heard. And then the
ungrateful old Nabob has dismissed the captain, saying, 'He can't bear
to have invalids about him;' and is going to marry, and I have no doubt
will have children by the dozen!"

PARSON.--"It was in Germany, at one of the Spas, that Mr. Currie
recovered; and as he had the selfish inhumanity to make the captain
go through a course of waters simultaneously with himself, it has
so chanced that the same waters that cured Mr. Currie's liver have
destroyed Captain Higginbotham's. An English homoeopathic physician,
then staying at the Spa, has attended the captain hither, and declares
that he will restore him by infinitesimal doses of the same chemical
properties that were found in the waters which diseased him. Can there
be anything in such a theory?"

LEONARD.--"I once knew a very able, though eccentric homoeopathist, and
I am inclined to believe there may be something in the system. My friend
went to Germany; it may possibly be the same person who attends the
captain. May I ask his name?"

SQUIRE.--"Cousin Barnabas does not mention it. You may ask it of
himself, for here we are at his chambers. I say, Parson" (whispering
slyly), "if a small dose of what hurt the captain is to cure him, don't
you think the proper thing would be a--legacy? Ha! ha!"

PARSON (trying not to laugh).--"Hush, Squire. Poor human nature! We must
be merciful to its infirmities. Come in, Leonard."

Leonard, interested in his doubt whether he might thus chance again upon
Dr. Morgan, obeyed the invitation, and with his two companions followed
the woman, who "did for the captain and his rooms," across the small
lobby, into the presence of the sufferer.




CHAPTER III.

Whatever the disposition towards merriment at his cousin's expense
entertained by the squire, it vanished instantly at the sight of the
captain's doleful visage and emaciated figure.

"Very good in you to come to town to see me,--very good in you, cousin,
and in you, too, Mr. Dale. How very well you are both looking! I'm a sad
wreck. You might count every bone in my body."

"Hazeldean air and roast beef will soon set you up, my boy," said
the squire, kindly. "You were a great goose to leave them, and these
comfortable rooms of yours in the Albany."

"They are comfortable, though not showy," said the captain, with tears
in his eyes. "I had done my best to make them so. New carpets, this
very chair--(morocco!), that Japan cat (holds toast and muffins)--just
when--just when"--(the tears here broke forth, and the captain fairly
whimpered)--"just when that ungrateful, bad-hearted man wrote me word
'he was--was dying and lone in the world;' and--and--to think what I've
gone through for him;--and to treat me so! Cousin William, he has grown
as hale as yourself, and--and--"

"Cheer up, cheer up!" cried the compassionate squire. "It is a very hard
case, I allow. But you see, as the old proverb says, ''T is ill waiting
for a dead man's shoes;' and in future--I don't mean offence--but I
think if you would calculate less on the livers of your relations, it
would be all the better for your own. Excuse me!"

"Cousin William," replied the poor captain, "I am sure I never
calculated; but still, if you had seen that deceitful man's
good-for-nothing face--as yellow as a guinea--and have gone through
all I've gone through, you would have felt cut to the heart, as I do.
I can't bear ingratitude. I never could. But let it pass. Will that
gentleman take a chair?"

PARSON.--"Mr. Fairfield has kindly called with us, because he knows
something of this system of homeeopathy which you have adopted, and may,
perhaps, know the practitioner. What is the name of your doctor?"

CAPTAIN (looking at his watch).--"That reminds me" (swallowing a
globule). "A great relief these little pills--after the physic I've
taken to please that malignant man. He always tried his doctor's stuff
upon me. But there's another world, and a juster!"

With that pious conclusion the captain again began to weep.

"Touched," muttered the squire, with his forefinger on his forehead.
"You seem to have a good--tidy sort of a nurse here, Cousin Barnabas. I
hope she 's pleasant, and lively, and don't let you take on so."

"Hist!--don't talk of her. All mercenary; every bit of her fawning!
Would you believe it? I give her ten shillings a week, besides all
that goes down of my pats of butter and rolls, and I overheard the
jade saying to the laundress that 'I could not last long; and she
'd--EXPECTATIONS!' Ah, Mr. Dale, when one thinks of the sinfulness there
is in this life! But I'll not think of it. No, I'll not. Let us change
the subject. You were asking my doctor's name. It is--"

Here the woman with "expectations" threw open the door, and suddenly
announced "DR. MORGAN."




CHAPTER IV.

The parson started, and so did Leonard.

The homoeopathist did not at first notice either. With an unobservant
bow to the visitors, he went straight to the patient, and asked, "How go
the symptoms?"

Therewith the captain commenced, in a tone of voice like a schoolboy
reciting the catalogue of the ships in Homer. He had been evidently
conning the symptoms, and learning them by heart. Nor was there a single
nook or corner in his anatomical organization, so far as the captain
was acquainted with that structure, but what some symptom or other was
dragged therefrom, and exposed to day. The squire listened with horror
to the morbific inventory, muttering at each dread interval, "Bless me!
Lord bless me! What, more still! Death would be a very happy release!"
Meanwhile the doctor endured the recital with exemplary patience, noting
down in the leaves of his pocketbook what appeared to him the salient
points in this fortress of disease to which he had laid siege, and then,
drawing forth a minute paper said,

"Capital,--nothing can be better. This powder must be dissolved in eight
tablespoonfuls of water; one spoonful every two hours."

"Tablespoonful?"

"Tablespoonful."

"'Nothing can be better,' did you say, sir?" repeated the squire, who in
his astonishment at that assertion applied to the captain's description
of his sufferings, had hitherto hung fire,--"nothing can be better?"

"For the diagnosis, sir!" replied Dr. Morgan.

"For the dogs' noses, very possibly," quoth the squire; "but for the
inside of Cousin Higginbotham, I should think nothing could be worse."

"You are mistaken, sir," replied Dr. Morgan. "It is not the captain
who speaks here,--it is his liver. Liver, sir, though a noble, is an
imaginative organ, and indulges in the most extraordinary fictions. Seat
of poetry and love and jealousy--the liver. Never believe what it says.
You have no idea what a liar it is! But--ahem--ahem. Cott--I think I've
seen you before, sir. Surely your name's Hazeldean?"

"William Hazeldean, at your service, Doctor. But where have you seen
me?"

"On the hustings at Lansmere. You were speaking on behalf of your
distinguished brother, Mr. Egerton."

"Hang it!" cried the squire: "I think it must have been my liver that
spoke there! for I promised the electors that that half-brother of mine
would stick by the land, and I never told a bigger lie in my life!"

Here the patient, reminded of his other visitors, and afraid he was
going to be bored with the enumeration of the squire's wrongs, and
probably the whole history of his duel with Captain Dashmore, turned
with a languid wave of his hand, and said, "Doctor, another friend
of mine, the Rev. Mr. Dale, and a gentleman who is acquainted with
homoeopathy."

"Dale? What, more old friends!" cried the doctor, rising; and the parson
came somewhat reluctantly from the window nook, to which he had retired.
The parson and the homoeopathist shook hands.

"We have met before on a very mournful occasion," said the doctor, with
feeling.

The parson held his finger to his lips, and glanced towards Leonard. The
doctor stared at the lad, but he did not recognize in the person before
him the gaunt, care-worn boy whom he had placed with Mr. Prickett, until
Leonard smiled and spoke. And the smile and the voice sufficed.

"Cott! and it is the poy!" cried Dr. Morgan; and he actually caught
hold of Leonard, and gave him an affectionate Welch hug. Indeed, his
agitation at these several surprises became so great that he stopped
short, drew forth a globule--"Aconite,--good against nervous shocks!"
and swallowed it incontinently.

"Gad," said the squire, rather astonished, "'t is the first doctor I
ever saw swallow his own medicine! There must be something in it."

The captain now, highly disgusted that so much attention was withdrawn
from his own case, asked in a querulous voice, "And as to diet? What
shall I have for dinner?"

"A friend!" said the doctor, wiping his eyes.

"Zounds!" cried the squire, retreating, "do you mean to say, that the
British laws (to be sure they are very much changed of late) allow you
to diet your patients upon their fellow-men? Why, Parson, this is worse
than the donkey sausages."

"Sir," said Dr. Morgan, gravely, "I mean to say, that it matters little
what we eat in comparison with care as to whom we eat with. It is better
to exceed a little with a friend than to observe the strictest
regimen, and eat alone. Talk and laughter help the digestion, and are
indispensable in affections of the liver. I have no doubt, sir, that it
was my patient's agreeable society that tended to restore to health his
dyspeptic relative, Mr. Sharpe Currie."

The captain groaned aloud.

"And, therefore, if one of you gentlemen will stay and dine with Mr.
Higginbotham, it will greatly assist the effects of his medicine."

The captain turned an imploring eye, first towards his cousin, then
towards the parson.

"I 'm engaged to dine with my son--very sorry," said the squire. "But
Dale, here--"

"If he will be so kind," put in the captain, "we might cheer the evening
with a game at whist,--double dummy." Now, poor Mr. Dale had set his
heart on dining with an old college friend, and having no stupid, prosy
double dummy, in which one cannot have the pleasure of scolding one's
partner, but a regular orthodox rubber, with the pleasing prospect of
scolding all the three other performers. But as his quiet life forbade
him to be a hero in great things, the parson had made up his mind to be
a hero in small ones. Therefore, though with rather a rueful face, he
accepted the captain's invitation, and promised to return at six o'clock
to dine. Meanwhile he must hurry off to the other end of the town, and
excuse himself from the pre-engagement he had already formed. He now
gave his card, with the address of a quiet family hotel thereon, to
Leonard, and not looking quite so charmed with Dr. Morgan as he was
before that unwelcome prescription, he took his leave. The squire too,
having to see a new churn, and execute various commissions for his
Harry, went his way (not, however, till Dr. Morgan had assured him
that, in a few weeks, the captain might safely remove to Hazeldean);
and Leonard was about to follow, when Morgan hooked his arm in his old
protege, and said, "But I must have some talk with you; and you have to
tell me all about the little orphan girl."

Leonard could not resist the pleasure of talking about Helen; and he got
into the carriage, which was waiting at the door for the homoeopathist.

"I am going in the country a few miles to see a patient," said the
doctor; "so we shall have time for undisturbed consultation. I have
so often wondered what had become of you. Not hearing from Prickett,
I wrote to him, and received from his heir an answer as dry as a bone.
Poor fellow, I found that he had neglected his globules and quitted the
globe. Alas, 'pulvis et umbra sumus!' I could learn no tidings of you.
Prickett's successor declared he knew nothing about you. I hoped
the best; for I always fancied you were one who would fall on your
legs,--bilious-nervous temperament; such are the men who succeed in
their undertakings, especially if they take a spoonful of chamomilla
whenever they are over-excited. So now for your history and the
little girl's,--pretty little thing,--never saw a more susceptible
constitution, nor one more suited to pulsatilla."

Leonard briefly related his own struggles and success, and informed the
good doctor how they had at last discovered the nobleman in whom poor
Captain Digby had confided, and whose care of the orphan had justified
the confidence.

Dr. Morgan opened his eyes at hearing the name of Lord L'Estrange.
"I remember him very well," said he, "when I practised murder as an
allopathist at Lansmere. But to think that wild boy, so full of whim and
life and spirit, should become staid enough for a guardian to that dear
little child, with her timid eyes and pulsatilla sensibilities. Well,
wonders never cease! And he has befriended you too, you say. Ah, he knew
your family."

"So he says. Do you think, sir, that he ever knew--ever saw--my mother?"

"Eh! your mother?--Nora?" exclaimed the doctor, quickly; and, as if
struck by some sudden thought, his brows met, and he remained silent
and musing a few moments; then, observing Leonard's eyes fixed on him
earnestly, he replied to the question,

"No doubt he saw her; she was brought up at Lady Lansmere's. Did he not
tell you so?"

"No." A vague suspicion here darted through Leonard's mind, but
as suddenly vanished. His father! Impossible. His father must have
deliberately wronged the dead mother. And was Harley L'Estrange a man
capable of such wrong? And had he been Harley's son, would not Harley
have guessed it at once, and so guessing, have owned and claimed him?
Besides, Lord L'Estrange looked so young,--old enough to be Leonard's
father!--he could not entertain the idea. He roused himself and said,
falteringly,

"You told me you did not know by what name I should call my father."

"And I told you the truth, to the best of my belief."

"By your honour, sir?"

"By my honour, I do not know it."

There was now a long silence. The carriage had long left London, and was
on a high road somewhat lonelier, and more free from houses than most of
those which form the entrances to the huge city. Leonard gazed wistfully
from the window, and the objects that met his eyes gradually seemed
to appeal to his memory. Yes! it was the road by which he had first
approached the metropolis, hand in hand with Helen--and hope so busy at
his poet's heart. He sighed deeply. He thought he would willingly have
resigned all he had won--independence, fame, all--to feel again the
clasp of that tender hand, again to be the sole protector of that gentle
life.

The doctor's voice broke on his revery. "I am going to see a very
interesting patient,--coats to his stomach quite worn out, sir,--man
of great learning, with a very inflamed cerebellum. I can't do him much
good, and he does me a great deal of harm."

"How harm?" asked Leonard, with an effort at some rejoinder.

"Hits me on the heart, and makes my eyes water; very pathetic
case,--grand creature, who has thrown himself away. Found him given over
by the allopathists, and in a high state of delirium tremens,
restored him for a time, took a great liking to him,--could not help
it,--swallowed a great many globules to harden myself against him, would
not do, brought him over to England with the other patients, who all
pay me well (except Captain Higginbotham). But this poor fellow pays
me nothing,--costs me a great deal in time and turnpikes, and board and
lodging. Thank Heaven, I'm a single man, and can afford it! My poy, I
would let all the other patients go to the allopathists if I could but
save this poor, big, penniless, princely fellow. But what can one do
with a stomach that has not a rag of its coats left? Stop" (the doctor
pulled the check-string). "This is the stile. I get out here and go
across the fields."

That stile, those fields--with what distinctness Leonard remembered
them. Ah, where was Helen? Could she ever, ever again be, his
child-angel?

"I will go with you, if you permit," said he to the good doctor. "And
while you pay your visit, I will saunter by a little brook that I think
must run by your way."

"The Brent--you know that brook? Ah, you should hear my poor patient
talk of it, and of the hours he has spent angling in it,--you would not
know whether to laugh or cry. The first day he was brought down to
the place, he wanted to go out and try once more, he said, for his old
deluding demon,--a one-eyed perch."

"Heavens!" exclaimed Leonard, "are you speaking of John Burley?"

"To be sure, that is his name,--John Burley."

"Oh, has it come to this? Cure him, save him, if it be in human power.
For the last two years I have sought his trace everywhere, and in
vain, the moment I had money of my own, a home of my own. Poor, erring,
glorious Burley! Take me to him. Did you say there was no hope?"

"I did not say that," replied the doctor. "But art can only assist
Nature; and though Nature is ever at work to repair the injuries we do
to her, yet, when the coats of a stomach are all gone, she gets puzzled,
and so do I. You must tell me another time how you came to know Burley,
for here we are at the house, and I see him at the window looking out
for me."

The doctor opened the garden gate of the quiet cottage to which poor
Burley had fled from the pure presence of Leonard's child-angel. And
with heavy step, and heavy heart, Leonard mournfully followed, to behold
the wrecks of him whose wit had glorified orgy, and "set the table in a
roar." Alas, poor Yorick!




CHAPTER V.

Audley Egerton stands on his hearth alone. During the short interval
that has elapsed since we last saw him, events had occurred memorable
in English history, wherewith we have nought to do in a narrative
studiously avoiding all party politics even when treating of
politicians. The new ministers had stated the general programme of their
policy, and introduced one measure in especial that had lifted them at
once to the dizzy height of popular power. But it became clear that this
measure could not be carried without a fresh appeal to the people.
A dissolution of parliament, as Audley's sagacious experience had
foreseen, was inevitable. And Audley Egerton had no chance of return for
his own seat, for the great commercial city identified with his name.
Oh, sad, but not rare, instance of the mutabilities of that same popular
favour now enjoyed by his successors! The great commoner, the weighty
speaker, the expert man of business, the statesman who had seemed a
type of the practical steady sense for which our middle class is
renowned,--he who, not three years since, might have had his honoured
choice of the largest popular constituencies in the kingdom,--he, Audley
Egerton, knew not one single town (free from the influences of private
property or interest) in which the obscurest candidate, who bawled out
for the new liberal measure, would not have beaten him hollow. Where one
popular hustings, on which that grave sonorous voice, that had stilled
so often the roar of faction, would not be drowned amidst the hoots of
the scornful mob?

True, what were called the close boroughs still existed; true, many a
chief of his party would have been too proud of the honour of claiming
Andley Egerton for his nominee. But the ex-minister's haughty soul
shrunk from this contrast to his past position. And to fight against
the popular measure, as member of one of the seats most denounced by the
people,--he felt it was a post in the grand army of parties below his
dignity to occupy, and foreign to his peculiar mind, which required the
sense of consequence and station. And if, in a few months, those seats
were swept away--were annihilated from the rolls of parliament--where
was he? Moreover, Egerton, emancipated from the trammels that had bound
his will while his party was in office, desired, in the turn of events,
to be nominee of no man,--desired to stand at least freely and singly on
the ground of his own services, be guided by his own penetration; no law
for action but his strong sense and his stout English heart. Therefore
he had declined all offers from those who could still bestow seats in
parliament. Seats that he could purchase with hard gold were yet open to
him. And the L5,000 he had borrowed from Levy were yet untouched.

To this lone public man, public life, as we have seen, was the all in
all. But now more than ever it was vital to his very wants. Around
him yawned ruin. He knew that it was in Levy's power at any moment to
foreclose on his mortgaged lands; to pour in the bonds and the bills
which lay within those rosewood receptacles that lined the fatal lair of
the sleek usurer; to seize on the very house in which now moved all the
pomp of a retinue that vied with the valetaille of dukes; to advertise
for public auction, under execution, "the costly effects of the Right
Hon. Audley Egerton." But, consummate in his knowledge of the world,
Egerton felt assured that Levy would not adopt these measures against
him while he could still tower in the van of political war,--while he
could still see before him the full chance of restoration to power,
perhaps to power still higher than before, perhaps to power the highest
of all beneath the throne. That Levy, whose hate he divined, though he
did not conjecture all its causes, had hitherto delayed even a visit,
even a menace, seemed to him to show that Levy still thought him one
"to be helped," or, at least, one too powerful to crush. To secure
his position in parliament unshackled, unfallen, if but for another
year,--new combinations of party might arise, new reactions take place,
in public opinion! And, with his hand pressed to his heart, the stern
firm man muttered, "If not, I ask but to die in my harness, and that men
may not know that I am a pauper until all that I need from my country is
a grave."

Scarce had these words died upon his lips ere two quick knocks in
succession resounded at the street door. In another moment Harley
entered, and, at the same time, the servant in attendance approached
Audley, and announced Baron Levy.

"Beg the baron to wait, unless he would prefer to name his own hour to
call again," answered Egerton, with the slightest possible change of
colour. "You can say I am now with Lord L'Estrange."

"I had hoped you had done forever with that deluder of youth," said
Harley, as soon as the groom of the chambers had withdrawn. "I remember
that you saw too much of him in the gay time, ere wild oats are sown;
but now surely you can never need a loan; and if so is not Harley
L'Estrange by your side?"

EGERTON.--"My dear Harley! doubtless he but comes to talk to me of some
borough. He has much to do with those delicate negotiations."

HARLEY.--"And I have come on the same business. I claim the priority.
I not only hear in the world, but I see by the papers, that Josiah
Jenkins, Esq., known to fame as an orator who leaves out his h's,
and young Lord Willoughby Whiggolin, who is just made a Lord of the
Admiralty, because his health is too delicate for the army, are certain
to come in for the city which you and your present colleague will as
certainly vacate. That is true, is it not?"

EGERTON.--"My old Committee now vote for Jenkins and Whiggolin; and I
suppose there will not be even a contest. Go on."

"So my father and I are agreed that you must condescend, for the sake of
old friendship, to be once more member for Lansmere."

"Harley," exclaimed Egerton, changing countenance far more than he had
done at the announcement of Levy's portentous visit, "Harley, no, no!"

"No! But why? Wherefore such emotion?" asked L'Estrauge, in surprise.

Audley was silent.

HARLEY.--"I suggested the idea to two or three of the late ministers;
they all concur in advising you to accede. In the first place, if
declining to stand for the place which tempted you from Lansmere,
what more natural than that you should fall back on that earlier
representation? In the second place, Lansmere is neither a rotten
borough to be bought, nor a close borough, under one man's nomination.
It is a tolerably large constituency. My father, it is true, has
considerable interest in it, but only what is called the legitimate
influence of property. At all events, it is more secure than a contest
for a larger town, more dignified than a seat for a smaller. Hesitating
still? Even my mother entreats me to say how she desires you to renew
that connection."

"Harley," again exclaimed Egerton; and fixing upon his friend's earnest
face eyes which, when softened by emotion, were strangely beautiful
in their expression,--"Harley, if you could but read my heart at this
moment, you would--you would--" His voice faltered, and he fairly bent
his proud head upon Harley's shoulder; grasping the hand he had caught
nervously, clingingly, "Oh, Harley, if I ever lose your love, your
friendship, nothing else is left to me in the world."

"Audley, my dear, dear Audley, is it you who speak to me thus? You, my
school friend, my life's confidant,--you?"

"I am grown very weak and foolish," said Egerton, trying to smile. "I
do not know myself. I, too, whom you have so often called 'Stoic,'
and likened to the Iron Man in the poem which you used to read by the
riverside at Eton."

"But even then, my Audley, I knew that a warm human heart (do what you
would to keep it down) beat strong under the iron ribs. And I often
marvel now, to think you have gone through life so free from the wilder
passions. Happier so!"

Egerton, who had turned his face from his friend's gaze, remained silent
for a few moments; and he then sought to divert the conversation, and
roused himself to ask Harley how he had succeeded in his views upon
Beatrice, and his watch on the count.

"With regard to Peschiera," answered Harley, "I think we must have
overrated the danger we apprehended, and that his wagers were but an
idle boast. He has remained quiet enough, and seems devoted to play. His
sister has shut her doors both on myself and my young associate during
the last few days. I almost fear that in spite of very sage warnings of
mine, she must have turned his poet's head, and that either he has met
with some scornful rebuff to incautious admiration or that, he himself
has grown aware of peril, and declines to face it; for he is very much
embarrassed when I speak to him respecting her. But if the count is not
formidable, why, his sister is not needed; and I hope yet to get justice
for my Italian friend through the ordinary channels. I have secured
an ally in a young Austrian prince, who is now in London, and who has
promised to back, with all his influence, a memorial I shall transmit
to Vienna.--a propos, my dear Audley, now that you have a little
breathing-time, you must fix an hour for me to present to you my young
poet, the son of her sister. At moments the expression of his face is so
like hers."

"Ay, ay," answered Egerton, quickly, "I will see him as you wish, but
later. I have not yet that breathing-time you speak of; but you say he
has prospered; and, with your friendship, he is secure from fortune. I
rejoice to think so."

"And your own protege, this Vandal Leslie, whom you forbid me to
dislike--hard task!--what has he decided?"

"To adhere to my fate. Harley, if it please Heaven that I do not live
to return to power, and provide adequately for that young man, do not
forget that he clung to me in my fall."

"If he still cling to you faithfully, I will never forget it. I will
forget only all that now makes me doubt him. But you talk of not living,
Audley! Pooh! your frame is that of a predestined octogenarian."

"Nay," answered Audley, "I was but uttering one of those vague
generalities which are common upon all mortal lips. And now farewell,--I
must see this baron."

"Not yet, until you have promised to consent to my proposal, and be
once more member for Lansmere. Tut! don't shake your head. I cannot be
denied. I claim your promise in right of our friendship, and shall be
seriously hurt if you even pause to reflect on it."

"Well, well, I know not how to refuse you, Harley; but you have not been
to Lansmere yourself since--since that sad event. You must not revive
the old wound,--you must not go; and--and, I own it, Harley, the
remembrance of it pains even me. I would rather not go to Lansmere."

"Ah, my friend, this is an excess of sympathy, and I cannot listen to
it. I begin even to blame my own weakness, and to feel that we have no
right to make ourselves the soft slaves of the past."

"You do appear to me of late to have changed," cried Egerton, suddenly,
and with a brightening aspect. "Do tell me that you are happy in the
contemplation of your new ties,--that I shall live to see you once more
restored to your former self."

"All I can answer, Audley," said L'Estrange, with a thoughtful brow,
"is, that you are right in one thing,--I am changed; and I am struggling
to gain strength for duty and for honour. Adieu! I shall tell my father
that you accede to our wishes."




CHAPTER VI.

When Harley was gone, Egerton sunk back on his chair, as if in extreme
physical or mental exhaustion, all the lines of his countenance relaxed
and jaded.

"To go back to that place--there--there--where--Courage, courage! what
is another pang?"

He rose with an effort, and folding his arms tightly across his breast,
paced slowly to and fro the large, mournful, solitary room. Gradually
his countenance assumed its usual cold and austere composure,--the
secret eye, the guarded lip, the haughty, collected front. The man of
the world was himself once more.

"Now to gain time, and to baffle the usurer," murmured Egerton, with
that low tone of easy scorn, which bespoke consciousness of superior
power and the familiar mastery over hostile natures. He rang the bell:
the servant entered.

"Is Baron Levy still waiting?"

"Yes, sir."

"Admit him." Levy entered.

"I beg your pardon, Levy," said the ex-minister, "for having so long
detained you. I am now at your commands."

"My dear fellow," returned the baron, "no apologies between friends so
old as we are; and I fear that my business is not so agreeable as to
make you impatient to discuss it."

EGERTON (with perfect composure).--"I am to conclude, then, that you
wish to bring our accounts to a close. Whenever you will, Levy."

THE BARON (disconcerted and surprised).--"Peste! mon cher, you take
things coolly. But if our accounts are closed, I fear you will have but
little to live upon."

EGERTON.--"I can continue to live on the salary of a Cabinet Minister."

BARON.--"Possibly; but you are no longer a Cabinet Minister."

EGERTON.--"You have never found me deceived--in a political prediction.
Within twelve months (should life be spared to me) I shall be in office
again. If the same to you, I would rather wait till then formally and
amicably to resign to you my lands and this house. If you grant that
reprieve, our connection can thus close without the eclat and noise
which may be invidious to you, as it would be disagreeable to me. But
if that delay be inconvenient, I will appoint a lawyer to examine your
accounts, and adjust my liabilities."

THE BARON (soliloquizing).--"I don't like this. A lawyer! That may be
awkward."

EGERTON (observing the baron, with a curl on his lip). "Well, Levy, how
shall it be?"

THE BARON.--"You know, my dear fellow, it is not my character to be hard
on any one, least of all upon an old friend. And if you really think
there is a chance of your return to office, which you apprehend that an
esclandre as to your affairs at present might damage, why, let us see
if we can conciliate matters. But, first, mon cher, in order to become a
minister, you must at least have a seat in parliament; and pardon me the
question, how the deuce are you to find one?"

EGERTON.--"It is found."

THE BARON.--"Ah, I forgot the L5,000 you last borrowed."

EGERTON.--"NO; I reserve that sum for another purpose."

THE BARON (with a forced laugh).--"Perhaps to defend yourself against
the actions you apprehend from me?"

EGERTON.--"You are mistaken. But to soothe your suspicions I will tell
you plainly, that finding any sum I might have insured on my life would
be liable to debts preincurred, and (as you will be my sole creditor)
might thus at my death pass back to you; and doubting whether, indeed,
any office would accept my insurance, I appropriate that sum to the
relief of my conscience. I intend to bestow it, while yet in life, upon
my late wife's kinsman, Randal Leslie. And it is solely the wish to do
what I consider an act of justice, that has prevailed with me to accept
a favour from the hands of Harley L'Estrange, and to become again the
member for Lansmere."

THE BARON.--"Ha!--Lansmere! You will stand for Lansmere?"

EGERTON (wincing).--"I propose to do so."

THE BARON.--"I believe you will be opposed, subjected to even a sharp
contest. Perhaps you may lose your election."

EGERTON.--"If so, I resign myself, and you can foreclose on my estates."

THE BARON (his brow clearing).--"Look you, Egerton, I shall be too happy
to do you a favour."

EGERTON (with stateliness).--"Favour! No, Baron Levy, I ask from you
no favour. Dismiss all thought of rendering me one. It is but a
consideration of business on both sides. If you think it better that we
shall at once settle our accounts, my lawyer shall investigate them. If
you agree to the delay I request, my lawyer shall give you no trouble;
and all that I have, except hope and character, pass to your hands
without a struggle."

THE BARON.--"Inflexible and ungracious, favour or not--put it as you
will--I accede, provided, first, that you allow me to draw up a fresh
deed, which will accomplish your part of the compact; and secondly, that
we saddle the proposed delay with the condition that you do not lose
your election."

EGERTON.--"Agreed. Have you anything further to say?"

THE BARON.--"Nothing, except that, if you require more money, I am still
at your service."

EGERTON.--"I thank you. No; I shall take the occasion of my retirement
from office to reduce my establishment. I have calculated already, and
provided for the expenditure I need, up to the date I have specified,
and I shall have no occasion to touch the L5,000 that I still retain."

"Your young friend, Mr. Leslie, ought to be very grateful to you," said
the baron, rising. "I have met him in the world,--a lad of much promise
and talent. You should try and get him also into parliament."

EGERTON (thoughtfully).--"You are a good judge of the practical
abilities and merits of men, as regards worldly success. Do you really
think Randal Leslie calculated for public life--for a parliamentary
career?"

THE BARON.--"Indeed I do."

EGERTON (speaking more to himself than Levy).--"Parliament without
fortune,--'t is a sharp trial; still he is prudent, abstemious,
energetic, persevering; and at the onset, under my auspices and advice,
he might establish a position beyond his years."

THE BARON. "It strikes me that we might possibly get him into the next
parliament; or, as that is not likely to last long, at all events, into
the parliament to follow,--not for one of the boroughs which will be
swept away, but for a permanent seat, and without expense."

EGERTON.--"Ay,--and how?"

THE BARON.--"Give me a few days to consider. An idea has occurred to me.
I will call again if I find it practicable. Good-day to you, Egerton,
and success to your election for Lansmere."




CHAPTER VII.

Peschiera had not been so inactive as he had appeared to Harley and
the reader. On the contrary, he had prepared the way for his ultimate
design, with all the craft and the unscrupulous resolution which
belonged to his nature. His object was to compel Riccabocca into
assenting to the count's marriage with Violante, or, failing that, to
ruin all chance of his kinsman's restoration. Quietly and secretly
he had sought out, amongst the most needy and unprincipled of his
own countrymen, those whom he could suborn to depose to Riccabocca's
participation in plots and conspiracies against the Austrian dominion.
These his former connection with the Carbonari enabled him to track to
their refuge in London; and his knowledge of the characters he had to
deal with fitted him well for the villanous task he undertook. He had,
therefore, already selected out of these desperadoes a sufficient number
either to serve as witnesses against his kinsman, or to aid him in any
more audacious scheme which circumstance might suggest to his adoption.
Meanwhile, he had (as Harley had suspected he would) set spies upon
Randal's movements; and the day before that young traitor confided to
him Violante's retreat, he had at least got scent of her father's.

The discovery that Violante was under a roof so honoured, and seemingly
so safe, as Lord Lansmere's, did not discourage this bold and desperate
adventurer. We have seen him set forth to reconnoitre the house at
Knightsbridge. He had examined it well, and discovered the quarter which
he judged favourable to a coup-de-main, should that become necessary.

Lord Lansmere's house and grounds were surrounded by a wall, the
entrance being to the high-road, and by a porter's lodge. At the rear
there lay fields crossed by a lane or byroad. To these fields a small
door in the wall, which was used by the gardeners in passing to and from
their work, gave communication. This door was usually kept locked;
but the lock was of the rude and simple description common to such
entrances, and easily opened by a skeleton key. So far there was no
obstacle which Peschiera's experience in conspiracy and gallantry did
not disdain as trivial. But the count was not disposed to abrupt and
violent means in the first instance. He had a confidence in his personal
gifts, in his address, in his previous triumphs over the sex, which made
him naturally desire to hazard the effect of a personal interview; and
on this he resolved with his wonted audacity. Randal's description of
Violante's personal appearance, and such suggestions as to her character
and the motives most likely to influence her actions as that young
lynx-eyed observer could bestow, were all that the count required of
present aid from his accomplice.

Meanwhile we return to Violante herself. We see her now seated in
the gardens at Knightsbridge, side by side with Helen. The place was
retired, and out of sight from the windows of the house.

VIOLANTE.--"But why will you not tell me more of that early time? You
are less communicative even than Leonard."

HELEN (looking down, and hesitatingly).--"Indeed there is nothing to
tell you that you do not know; and it is so long since, and things are
so changed now."

The tone of the last words was mournful, and the words ended with a
sigh.

VIOLANTE (with enthusiasm).--"How I envy you that past which you treat
so lightly! To have been something, even in childhood, to the formation
of a noble nature; to have borne on those slight shoulders half the load
of a man's grand labour; and now to see Genius moving calm in its clear
career; and to say inly, 'Of that genius I am a part!'"

HELEN (sadly and humbly).--"A part! Oh, no! A part? I don't understand
you."

VIOLANTE.--"Take the child Beatrice from Dante's life, and should we
have a Dante? What is a poet's genius but the voice of its emotions? All
things in life and in Nature influence genius; but what influences it
the most are its own sorrows and affections."

Helen looks softly into Violante's eloquent face, and draws nearer to
her in tender silence.

VIOLANTE (suddenly).--"Yes, Helen, yes,--I know by my own heart how
to read yours. Such memories are ineffaceable. Few guess what
strange self-weavers of our own destinies we women are in our veriest
childhood!" She sunk her voice into a whisper: "How could Leonard fail
to be dear to you,--dear as you to him,--dearer than all others?"

HELEN (shrinking back, and greatly disturbed).--"Hush, hush! you must
not speak to me thus; it is wicked,--I cannot bear it. I would not have
it be so; it must not be,--it cannot!"

She clasped her hands over her eyes for a moment, and then lifted her
face, and the face was very sad, but very calm.

VIOLANTE (twining her arm round Helen's waist).--"How have I wounded
you,--how offended? Forgive me, but why is this wicked? Why must it not
be? Is it because he is below you in birth?"

HELEN.--"No, no,--I never thought of that. And what am I? Don't ask
me,--I cannot answer. You are wrong, quite wrong as to me. I can only
look on Leonard as--as a brother. But--but, you can speak to him more
freely than I can. I would not have him waste his heart on me, nor
yet think me unkind and distant, as I seem. I know not what I say.
But--but--break to him--indirectly--gently--that duty in both forbids us
both to--to be more than friends--than--"

"Helen, Helen!" cried Violante, in her warm, generous passion, "your
heart betrays you in every word you say. You weep; lean on me, whisper
to me; why--why is this? Do you fear that your guardian would not
consent? He not consent? He who--"

HELEN.--"Cease--cease--cease!"

VIOLANTE.--"What! You can fear Harley--Lord L'Estrange? Fie; you do not
know him."

HELEN (rising suddenly).--"Violante, hold; I am engaged to another."

Violante rose also, and stood still, as if turned to stone; pale as
death, till the blood came, at first slowly, then with suddenness from
her heart, and one deep glow suffused her whole countenance. She caught
Helen's hand firmly, and said in a hollow voice,

"Another! Engaged to another! One word, Helen,--not to him--not
to--Harley--to--"

"I cannot say,--I must not. I have promised," cried poor Helen, and
as Violante let fall her hand, she hurried away. Violante sat down
mechanically; she felt as if stunned by a mortal blow. She closed her
eyes and breathed hard. A deadly faintness seized her; and when it
passed away, it seemed to her as if she were no longer the same being,
nor the world around her the same world,--as if she were but one
sense of intense, hopeless misery, and as if the universe were but one
inanimate void. So strangely immaterial are we really--we human beings,
with flesh and blood--that if you suddenly abstract from us but single,
impalpable, airy thought, which our souls have cherished, you seem to
curdle the air, to extinguish the sun, to snap every link that connects
us to matter, and to benumb everything into death, except woe.

And this warm, young, southern nature but a moment before was so full of
joy and life, and vigorous, lofty hope. It never till now had known its
own intensity and depth. The virgin had never lifted the veil from her
own soul of woman.

What, till then, had Harley L'Estrange been to Violante? An ideal, a
dream of some imagined excellence, a type of poetry in the midst of the
common world. It had not been Harley the man,--it had been Harley the
Phantom. She had never said to herself, "He is identified with my love,
my hopes, my home, my future." How could she? Of such he himself had
never spoken; an internal voice, indeed, had vaguely, yet irresistibly,
whispered to her that, despite his light words, his feelings towards her
were grave and deep. O false voice! how it had deceived her! Her quick
convictions seized the all that Helen had left unsaid. And now suddenly
she felt what it is to love, and what it is to despair. So she sat,
crushed and solitary, neither murmuring nor weeping, only now and then
passing her hand across her brow, as if to clear away some cloud that
would not be dispersed; or heaving a deep sigh, as if to throw off some
load that no time henceforth could remove. There are certain moments
in life in which we say to ourselves, "All is over; no matter what else
changes, that which I have made my all is gone evermore--evermore!" And
our own thought rings back in our ears, "Evermore--evermore!"




CHAPTER VIII.

As Violante thus sat, a stranger, passing stealthily through the trees,
stood between herself and the evening sun. She saw him not. He paused a
moment, and then spoke low, in her native tongue, addressing her by the
name which she had borne in Italy. He spoke as a relation, and excused
his intrusion: "For," said he, "I come to suggest to the daughter
the means by which she can restore to her father his country and his
honours."

At the word "father" Violante roused herself, and all her love for that
father rushed back upon her with double force. It does so ever,--we
love most our parents at the moment when some tie less holy is abruptly
broken; and when the conscience says, "There, at least, is a love that
has never deceived thee!"

She saw before her a man of mild aspect and princely form. Peschiera
(for it was he) had banished from his dress, as from his countenance,
all that betrayed the worldly levity of his character. He was acting a
part, and he dressed and looked it.

"My father!" she said, quickly, and in Italian. "What of him? And who
are you, signor? I know you not." Peschiera smiled benignly, and replied
in a tone in which great respect was softened by a kind of parental
tenderness,--"Suffer me to explain, and listen to me while I speak."
Then, quietly seating himself on the bench beside her, he looked into
her eyes, and resumed,--

"Doubtless you have heard of the Count di Peschiera?"

VIOLANTE.--"I heard that name, as a child, when in Italy. And when she
with whom I then dwelt (my father's aunt) fell ill and died, I was
told that my home in Italy was gone, that it had passed to the Count di
Peschiera,--my father's foe!"

PESCHTERA.--"And your father, since then, has taught you to hate this
fancied foe?"

VIOLANTE.--"Nay, my father did but forbid me ever to breathe his name."

PESCHIERA.--"Alas! what years of suffering and exile might have been
saved your father, had he but been more just to his early friend and
kinsman,--nay, had he but less cruelly concealed the secret of his
retreat. Fair child, I am that Giulio Franzini, that Count di Peschiera.
I am the man you have been told to regard as your father's foe. I am the
man on whom the Austrian Emperor bestowed his lands. And now judge if I
am, in truth, the foe. I have come hither to seek your father, in order
to dispossess myself of my sovereign's gift. I have come but with one
desire,--to restore Alphonso to his native land, and to surrender the
heritage that was forced upon me."

VIOLANTE.--"My father, my dear father! His grand heart will have room
once more. Oh, this is noble enmity, true revenge! I understand it,
signor, and so will my father, for such would have been his revenge on
you. You have seen him?"

PESCHIERA.--"No, not yet. I would not see him till I had seen yourself;
for you, in truth, are the arbiter of his destinies, as of mine."

VIOLANTE.--"I, Count? I--arbiter of my father's destinies? Is it
possible?"

PESCHIERA (with a look of compassionate admiration, and in a tone yet
more emphatically parental).--"How lovely is that innocent joy! But
do not indulge it yet. Perhaps it is a sacrifice which is asked from
you,--a sacrifice too hard to bear. Do not interrupt me. Listen still,
and you will see why I could not speak to your father until I had
obtained an interview with yourself. See why a word from you may
continue still to banish me from his presence. You know, doubtless,
that your father was one of the chiefs of a party that sought to free
Northern Italy from the Austrians. I myself was at the onset a warm
participator in that scheme. In a sudden moment I discovered that some
of its more active projectors had coupled with a patriotic enterprise
plots of a dark nature, and that the conspiracy itself was about to be
betrayed to the government. I wished to consult with your father; but
he was at a distance. I learned that his life was condemned. Not an
hour was to be lost. I took a bold resolve, that has exposed me to his
suspicions and to my country's wrath. But my main idea was to save him,
my early friend, from death, and my country from fruitless massacre.

"I withdrew from the intended revolt. I sought at once the head of the
Austrian government in Italy, and made terms for the lives of Alphonso
and of the other more illustrious chiefs, which otherwise would have
been forfeited. I obtained permission to undertake myself the charge of
securing my kinsman in order to place him in safety, and to conduct
him to a foreign land, in an exile that would cease when the danger was
dispelled. But unhappily he deemed that I only sought to destroy him. He
fled from my friendly pursuit. The soldiers with me were attacked by an
intermeddling Englishman; your father escaped from Italy, concealing
his retreat; and the character of his flight counteracted my efforts
to obtain his pardon. The government conferred on me half his revenues,
holding the other half at its pleasure. I accepted the offer in order to
save his whole heritage from confiscation. That I did not convey to him
what I pined to do,--namely, the information that I held but in trust
what was bestowed by the government, and the full explanation of what
seemed blamable in my conduct,--was necessarily owing to the secrecy he
maintained. I could not discover his refuge; but I never ceased to plead
for his recall. This year only I have partially succeeded. He can be
restored to his heritage and rank, on one proviso,--a guarantee for his
loyalty. That guarantee the government has named: it is the alliance
of his only child with one whom the government can trust. It was the
interest of all the Italian nobility that the representation of a House
so great falling to a female should not pass away wholly from the direct
line,--in a word, that you should ally yourself with a kinsman. But one
kinsman, and he the next in blood, presented himself. In short, Alphonso
regains all that he lost on the day in which his daughter gives her
hand to Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera. Ah," continued the count,
mournfully, "you shriek, you recoil. He thus submitted to your choice is
indeed unworthy of you. You are scarce in the spring of life, he is in
its waning autumn. Youth loves youth. He does not aspire to your love.
All that he can say is, love is not the only joy of the heart,--it is
joy to raise from ruin a beloved father; joy to restore, to a land poor
in all but memories, a chief in whom it reverences a line of heroes.
These are the joys I offer to you,--you, a daughter, and an Italian
maid. Still silent? Oh, speak to me!"

Certainly this Count Peschiera knew well how woman is to be wooed and
won; and never was woman more sensitive to those high appeals which most
move all true earnest womanhood than was the young Violante. Fortune
favoured him in the moment chosen. Harley was wrenched away from her
hopes, and love a word erased from her language. In the void of the
world, her father's image alone stood clear and visible. And she who
from infancy had so pined to serve that father, who at first learned to
dream of Harley as that father's friend! She could restore to him all
for which the exile sighed; and by a sacrifice of self,--self-sacrifice,
ever in itself such a temptation to the noble! Still, in the midst of
the confusion and disturbance of her mind, the idea of marriage with
another seemed so terrible and revolting, that she could not at once
conceive it; and still that instinct of openness and honour, which
pervaded all her character, warned even her inexperience that there was
something wrong in this clandestine appeal to herself.

Again the count besought her to speak, and with an effort she said,
irresolutely,

"If it be as you say, it is not for me to answer you; it is for my
father."

"Nay," replied Peschiera. "Pardon, if I contradict you. Do you know so
little of your father as to suppose that he will suffer his interest
to dictate to his pride? He would refuse, perhaps, even to receive my
visit, to hear my explanations; but certainly he would refuse to buy
back his inheritance by the sacrifice of his daughter to one whom he has
deemed his foe, and whom the mere disparity of years would incline the
world to say he had made the barter of his personal ambition. But if
I could go to him sanctioned by you; if I could say, 'Your daughter
overlooks what the father might deem an obstacle,--she has consented
to accept my hand of her own free choice, she unites her happiness,
and blends her prayers with mine,'--then, indeed, I could not fail of
success; and Italy would pardon my errors, and bless your name.
Ah, Signorina, do not think of me save as an instrument towards the
fulfilment of duties so high and sacred! think but of your ancestors,
your father, your native land, and reject not the proud occasion to
prove how you revere them all!"

Violante's heart was touched at the right chord. Her head rose, the
colour came back to her pale cheek, she turned the glorious beauty of
her countenance towards the wily tempter. She was about to answer and to
seal her fate, when at that instant Harley's voice was heard at a little
distance, and Nero came bounding towards her, and thrust himself, with
rough familiarity, between her and Peschiera. The count drew back, and
Violante, whose eyes were still fixed on his face, started at the change
that passed there. One quick gleam of rage sufficed in an instant to
light up the sinister secrets of his nature,--it was the face of the
baffled gladiator. He had time but for few words.

"I must not be seen here," he muttered; "but to-morrow, in these
gardens, about this hour. I implore you, for the sake of your
father,--his hopes, fortunes, his very life,--to guard the secret of
this interview,--to meet me again. Adieu!"

He vanished amidst the trees, and was gone,--noiselessly, mysteriously,
as he had come.




CHAPTER IX.

The last words of Peschiera were still ringing in Violante's ears when
Harley appeared in sight, and the sound of his voice dispelled the vague
and dreamy stupor which had crept over her senses. At that voice there
returned the consciousness of a mighty loss, the sting of an intolerable
anguish. To meet Harley there, and thus, seemed impossible. She turned
abruptly away, and hurried towards the horse. Harley called to her by
name, but she would not answer, and only quickened her steps. He paused
a moment in surprise, and then hastened after her.

"Under what strange taboo am I placed?" said he, gayly, as he laid his
hand on her shrinking arm. "I inquire for Helen,--she is ill, and cannot
see me. I come to sun myself in your presence, and you fly me as if gods
and men had set their mark on my brow. Child! child! what is this? You
are weeping?"

"Do not stay me now,--do not speak to me," answered Violante, through
her stifling sobs, as she broke from his hand and made towards the
house.

"Have you a grief, and under the shelter of my father's roof,--a grief
that you will not tell to me? Cruel!" cried Harley, with inexpressible
tenderness of reproach in his soft tones.

Violante could not trust herself to reply. Ashamed of her self-betrayal,
softened yet more by his pleading voice, she could have prayed to the
earth to swallow her. At length, checking her tears by an heroic effort,
she said, almost calmly, "Noble friend, forgive me. I have no grief,
believe me, which--which I can tell to you. I was but thinking of my
poor father when you came up; alarming myself about him, it may be, with
vain, superstitious fears; and so--even a slight surprise--your abrupt
appearance has sufficed to make me thus weak and foolish; but I wish to
see my father!--to go home--home!"

"Your father is well, believe me, and pleased that you are here. No
danger threatens him; and you, here, are safe."

"I safe--and from what?"

Harley mused irresolute. He inclined to confide to her the danger which
her father had concealed; but had he the right to do so against her
father's will?

"Give me," he said, "time to reflect, and to obtain permission to
intrust you with a secret which, in my judgment, you should know.
Meanwhile, this much I may say, that rather than you should incur the
danger that I believe he exaggerates, your father would have given you a
protector--even in Randal Leslie."

Violante started.

"But," resumed Harley, with a calm, in which a certain deep mournfulness
was apparent, unconsciously to himself, "but I trust you are reserved
for a fairer fate, and a nobler spouse. I have vowed to live henceforth
in the common workday world. But for you, bright child, for you, I am a
dreamer still!"

Violante turned her eyes for one instant towards the melancholy speaker.
The look thrilled to his heart. He bowed his face involuntarily. When he
looked up, she had left his side. He did not this time attempt to follow
her, but moved away and plunged amidst the leafless trees.

An hour afterwards he re-entered the house, and again sought to see
Helen. She had now recovered sufficiently to give him the interview he
requested.

He approached her with a grave and serious gentleness. "My dear Helen,"
said he, "you have consented to be my wife, my life's mild companion;
let it be soon--soon--for I need you. I need all the strength of that
holy tie. Helen, let me press you to fix the time."

"I owe you too much," answered Helen, looking down, "to have any will
but yours. But your mother," she added, perhaps clinging to the idea of
some reprieve,--"your mother has not yet--"

"My mother--true. I will speak first to her. You shall receive from my
family all honour due to your gentle virtues. Helen, by the way, have
you mentioned to Violante the bond between us?"

"No; that is, I fear I may have unguardedly betrayed it, against Lady
Lansmere's commands too--but--but--"

"So, Lady Lansmere forbade you to name it to Violante? This should not
be. I will answer for her permission to revoke that interdict. It is due
to Violante and to you. Tell your young friend all. Ah, Helen, if I am
at times cold or wayward, bear with me--bear with me; for you love me,
do you not?"




CHAPTER X.

That same evening Randal heard from Levy (at whose house he stayed late)
of that self-introduction to Violante which (thanks to his skeleton
key) Peschiera had contrived to effect; and the count seemed more than
sanguine,--he seemed assured as to the full and speedy success of his
matrimonial enterprise. "Therefore," said Levy, "I trust I may very soon
congratulate you on the acquisition of your family estates."

"Strange!" answered Randal, "strange that my fortunes seem so bound up
with the fate of a foreigner like Beatrice di Negra and her connection
with Frank Hazeldean." He looked up at the clock as he spoke, and added,

"Frank by this time has told his father of his engagement."

"And you feel sure that the squire cannot be coaxed into consent?"

"No; but I feel sure that the squire will be so choleric at the first
intelligence, that Frank will not have the self-control necessary for
coaxing; and, perhaps, before the squire can relent upon this point,
he may, by some accident, learn his grievances on another, which would
exasperate him still more."

"Ay, I understand,--the post-obit?" Randal nodded.

"And what then?" asked Levy.

"The next of kin to the lands of Hazeldean may have his day."

The baron smiled.

"You have good prospects in that direction, Leslie; look now to another.
I spoke to you of the borough of Lansmere. Your patron, Audley Egerton,
intends to stand for it."

Randal's heart had of late been so set upon other and more avaricious
schemes, that a seat in parliament had sunk into a secondary object;
nevertheless his ambitious and all-grasping nature felt a bitter pang,
when he heard that Egerton thus interposed between himself and any
chance of advancement.

"So," he muttered sullenly,--"so this man, who pretends to be my
benefactor, squanders away the wealth of my forefathers, throws me
penniless on the world; and, while still encouraging me to exertion and
public life, robs me himself of--"

"No!" interrupted Levy, "not robs you; we may prevent that. The Lansmere
interest is not so strong in the borough as Dick Avenel's."

"But I cannot stand against Egerton."

"Assuredly not,--you may stand with him."

"How?"

"Dick Avenel will never suffer Egerton to come in; and though he cannot,
perhaps, carry two of his own politics, he can split his votes upon
you."

Randal's eyes flashed. He saw at a glance that if Avenel did not
overrate the relative strength of parties, his seat could be secured.

"But," he said, "Egerton has not spoken to me on such a subject; nor can
you expect that he would propose to me to stand with him, if he foresaw
the chance of being ousted by the very candidate he himself introduced."

"Neither he nor his party will anticipate that possibility. If he ask
you, agree to stand,--leave the rest to me."

"You must hate Egerton bitterly," said Randal; "for I am not vain enough
to think that you thus scheme but from pure love to me."

"The motives of men are intricate and complicated," answered Levy, with
unusual seriousness. "It suffices to the wise to profit by the actions,
and leave the motives in shade."

There was silence for some minutes. Then the two drew closer towards
each other, and began to discuss details in their joint designs.

Randal walked home slowly. It was a cold moonlit night. Young idlers
of his own years and rank passed him by on their way from the haunts of
social pleasure. They were yet in the first fair holiday of life. Life's
holiday had gone from him forever. Graver men, in the various callings
of masculine labour--professions, trade, the State--passed him also.
Their steps might be sober, and their faces careworn; but no step had
the furtive stealth of his, no face the same contracted, sinister,
suspicious gloom. Only once, in a lonely thoroughfare, and on the
opposite side of the way, fell a footfall, and glanced an eye, that
seemed to betray a soul in sympathy with Randal Leslie's.

And Randal, who had heeded none of the other passengers by the way,
as if instinctively, took note of this one. His nerves crisped at
the noiseless slide of that form, as it stalked on from lamp to lamp,
keeping pace with his own. He felt a sort of awe, as if he had beheld
the wraith of himself; and even as he glanced suspiciously at the
stranger, the stranger glanced at him. He was inexpressibly relieved
when the figure turned down another street and vanished.

That man was a felon, as yet undetected. Between him and his kind there
stood but a thought,--a veil air-spun, but impassable, as the veil of
the Image at Sais.

And thus moved and thus looked Randal Leslie, a thing of dark and secret
mischief, within the pale of the law, but equally removed from man by
the vague consciousness that at his heart lay that which the eyes of man
would abhor and loathe. Solitary amidst the vast city, and on through
the machinery of Civilization, went the still spirit of Intellectual
Evil.




CHAPTER XI.

Early the next morning Randal received two notes, one from Frank,
written in great agitation, begging Randal to see and propitiate his
father, whom he feared he had grievously offended; and then running off,
rather incoherently, into protestations that his honour as well as his
affections were engaged irrevocably to Beatrice, and that her, at least,
he could never abandon.

And the second note was from the squire himself--short, and far less
cordial than usual--requesting Mr. Leslie to call on him.

Randal dressed in haste, and went first to Limmer's hotel. He found the
parson with Mr. Hazeldean, and endeavouring in vain to soothe him. The
squire had not slept all night, and his appearance was almost haggard.

"Oho! Mr. young Leslie," said he, throwing himself back in his chair
as Randal entered, "I thought you were a friend,--I thought you were
Frank's adviser. Explain, sir! explain!"

"Gently, my dear Mr. Hazeldean," said the parson. "You do but surprise
and alarm Mr. Leslie. Tell him more distinctly what he has to explain."

SQUIRE.--"Did you or did you not tell me or Mrs. Hazeldean that Frank
was in love with Violante Rickeybockey?"

RANDAL (as in amaze).--"I! Never, sir! I feared, on the contrary, that
he was somewhat enamoured of a very different person. I hinted at that
possibility. I could not do more, for I did not know how far Frank's
affections were seriously engaged. And indeed, sir, Mrs. Hazeldean,
though not encouraging the idea that your son could marry a foreigner
and a Roman Catholic, did not appear to consider such objections
insuperable, if Frank's happiness were really at stake."

Here the poor squire gave way to a burst of passion, that involved
in one tempest Frank, Randal, Harry herself, and the whole race of
foreigners, Roman Catholics, and women. While the squire was still
incapable of hearing reason, the parson, taking aside Randal, convinced
himself that the whole affair, so far as Randal was concerned, had its
origin in a very natural mistake; and that while that young gentleman
had been hinting at Beatrice, Mrs. Hazeldean had been thinking of
Violante. With considerable difficulty he succeeded in conveying this
explanation to the squire, and somewhat appeasing his wrath against
Randal. And the Dissimulator, seizing his occasion, then expressed so
much grief and astonishment at learning that matters had gone as far as
the parson informed him,--that Frank had actually proposed to Beatrice,
been accepted, and engaged himself, before even communicating with his
father; he declared so earnestly, that he could never conjecture such
evil, that he had had Frank's positive promise to take no step without
the sanction of his parents; he professed such sympathy with the
squire's wounded feelings, and such regret at Frank's involvement, that
Mr. Hazeldean at last yielded up his honest heart to his consoler,
and griping Randal's hand, said, "Well, well, I wronged you; beg your
pardon. What now is to be done?"

"Why, you cannot consent to this marriage,--impossible!" replied Randal;
"and we must hope, therefore, to influence Frank by his sense of duty."

"That's it," said the squire; "for I'll not give way. Pretty pass things
have come to, indeed! A widow, too, I hear. Artful jade! thought, no
doubt, to catch a Hazeldean of Hazeldean. My estates go to an outlandish
Papistical set of mongrel brats! No, no, never!"

"But," said the parson, mildly, "perhaps we may be unjustly prejudiced
against this lady. We should have consented to Violante; why not to her?
She is of good family?"

"Certainly," said Randal.

"And good character?"

Randal shook his head, and sighed. The squire caught him roughly by the
arm--"Answer the parson!" cried he, vehemently.

"Indeed, sir, I cannot speak disrespectfully of the character of a
woman,--who may, too, become Frank's wife; and the world is ill-natured
and not to be believed. But you can judge for yourself, my dear Mr.
Hazeldean. Ask your brother whether Madame di Negra is one whom he would
advise his nephew to marry."

"My brother!" exclaimed the squire, furiously. "Consult my distant
brother on the affairs of my own son?"

"He is a man of the world," put in Randal.

"And of feeling and honour," said the parson; "and, perhaps, through
him, we may be enabled to enlighten Frank, and save him from what
appears to be the snare of an artful woman."

"Meanwhile," said Randal, "I will seek Frank, and do my best with him.
Let me go now,--I will return in an hour or so."

"I will accompany you," said the parson.

"Nay, pardon me, but I think we two young men can talk more openly
without a third person, even so wise and kind as you."

"Let Randal go," growled the squire. And Randal went. He spent some
time with Frank, and the reader will easily divine how that time was
employed. As he left Frank's lodgings, he found himself suddenly seized
by the squire himself.

"I was too impatient to stay at home and listen to the parson's
prosing," said Mr. Hazeldean, nervously. "I have shaken Dale off. Tell
me what has passed. Oh, don't fear,--I'm a man, and can bear the worst."

Randal drew the squire's arm within his, and led him into the adjacent
park.

"My dear sir," said he, sorrowfully, "this is very confidential what
I am about to say. I must repeat it to you, because, without such
confidence, I see not how to advise you on the proper course to take.
But if I betray Frank, it is for his good, and to his own father;--only
do not tell him. He would never forgive me; it would forever destroy my
influence over him."

"Go on, go on," gasped the squire; "speak out. I'll never tell the
ungrateful boy that I learned his secrets from another."

"Then," said Randal, "the secret of his entanglement with Madame di
Negra is simply this: he found her in debt--nay, on the point of being
arrested--"

"Debt! arrested! Jezebel!"

"And in paying the debt himself, and saving her from arrest, he
conferred on her the obligation which no woman of honour could accept
save from an affianced husband. Poor Frank!--if sadly taken in, still we
must pity and forgive him!"

Suddenly, to Randal's great surprise, the squire's whole face brightened
up.

"I see, I see!" he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. "I have it, I have
it! 'T is an affair of money! I can buy her off. If she took money from
him--the mercenary, painted baggage I--why, then, she'll take it from
me. I don't care what if costs--half my fortune--all! I'd be content
never to see Hazeldean Hall again, if I could save my son, my own son,
from disgrace and misery; for miserable he will be, when he knows he has
broken my heart and his mother's. And for a creature like that! My boy,
a thousand hearty thanks to you. Where does the wench live? I'll go
to her at once." And as he spoke, the squire actually pulled out his
pocketbook, and began turning over and counting the bank-notes in it.

Randal at first tried to combat this bold resolution on the part of the
squire; but Mr. Hazeldean had seized on it with all the obstinacy of his
straightforward English mind. He cut Randal's persuasive eloquence off
in the midst.

"Don't waste your breath! I've settled it; and if you don't tell me
where she lives, 't is easily found out, I suppose."

Randal mused a moment. "After all," thought he, "why not? He will be
sure so to speak as to enlist her pride against himself, and to irritate
Frank to the utmost. Let him go."

Accordingly he gave the information required; and, insisting with great
earnestness on the squire's promise not to mention to Madame di Negra
his knowledge of Frank's pecuniary aid (for that would betray Randal
as the informant); and satisfying himself as he best might with the
squire's prompt assurance, "that he knew how to settle matters, without
saying why or wherefore, as long as he opened his purse wide enough,"
he accompanied Mr. Hazeldean back into the streets, and there left
him,--fixing an hour in the evening for an interview at Limmer's,
and hinting that it would be best to have that interview without the
presence of the parson.

"Excellent good man," said Randal, "but not with sufficient knowledge of
the world for affairs of this kind, which you understand so well."

"I should think so," quoth the squire, who had quite recovered his
good-humour. "And the parson is as soft as buttermilk. We must be firm
here,--firm, sir." And the squire struck the end of his stick on the
pavement, nodded to Randal, and went on to May Fair as sturdily and as
confidently as if to purchase a prize cow at a cattle-show.




CHAPTER XII.

"Bring the light nearer," said John Burley,--"nearer still."

Leonard obeyed, and placed the candle on a little table by the sick
man's bedside.

Burley's mind was partially wandering; but there was method in his
madness. Horace Walpole said that "his stomach would survive all the
rest of him." That which in Burley survived the last was his quaint,
wild genius. He looked wistfully at the still flame of the candle: "It
lives ever in the air!" said he.

"What lives ever?"

Burley's voice swelled, "Light!" He turned from Leonard, and
again contemplated the little flame. "In the fixed star, in the
Will-o'-the-wisp, in the great sun that illumines half a world, or the
farthing rushlight by which the ragged student strains his eyes,--still
the same flower of the elements! Light in the universe, thought in
the soul--Ay, ay, go on with the simile. My head swims. Extinguish the
light! You cannot; fool, it vanishes from your eye, but it is still in
the space. Worlds must perish, suns shrivel up, matter and spirit both
fall into nothingness, before the combinations whose union makes that
little flame which the breath of a babe can restore to darkness,
shall lose the power to form themselves into light once more. Lose the
power!--no, the necessity: it is the one Must in creation. Ay, ay, very
dark riddles grow clear now,--now when I could not cast up an addition
sum in the baker's bill! What wise man denied that two and two made
four? Do they not make four? I can't answer him. But I could answer a
question that some wise men have contrived to make much knottier." He
smiled softly, and turned his face for some minutes to the wall.

This was the second night on which Leonard had watched by his bedside,
and Burley's state had grown rapidly worse. He could not last many days,
perhaps many hours. But he had evinced an emotion beyond mere delight
at seeing Leonard again. He had since then been calmer, more himself. "I
feared I might have ruined you by my bad example," he said, with a touch
of humour that became pathos as he added, "That idea preyed on me."

"No, no; you did me great good."

"Say that,--say it often," said Burley, earnestly; "it makes my heart
feel so light."

He had listened to Leonard's story with deep interest, and was fond
of talking to him of little Helen. He detected the secret at the young
man's heart, and cheered the hopes that lay there, amidst fears and
sorrows. Burley never talked seriously of his repentance; it was not in
his nature to talk seriously of the things which he felt solemnly. But
his high animal spirits were quenched with the animal power that fed
them. Now, we go out of our sensual existence only when we are no longer
enthralled by the Present, in which the senses have their realm. The
sensual being vanishes when Ave are in the Past or the Future. The
Present was gone from Burley; he could no more be its slave and its
king.

It was most touching to see how the inner character of this man unfolded
itself, as the leaves of the outer character fell off and withered,--a
character no one would have guessed in him, an inherent refinement that
was almost womanly; and he had all a woman's abnegation of self. He
took the cares lavished on him so meekly. As the features of the old
man return in the stillness of death to the aspect of youth,--the lines
effaced, the wrinkles gone,--so, in seeing Burley now, you saw what he
had been in his spring of promise. But he himself saw only what he had
failed to be,--powers squandered, life wasted. "I once beheld," he said,
"a ship in a storm. It was a cloudy, fitful day, and I could see the
ship with all its masts fighting bard for life and for death. Then came
night, dark as pitch, and I could only guess that the ship fought on.
Towards the dawn the stars grew visible, and once more I saw the ship:
it was a wreck,--it went down just as the stars shone forth."

When he had made that allusion to himself, he sat very still for some
time, then he spread out his wasted hands, and gazed on them, and on
his shrunken limbs. "Good," said he, laughing low; "these hands were too
large and rude for handling the delicate webs of my own mechanism,
and these strong limbs ran away with me. If I had been a sickly, puny
fellow, perhaps my mind would have had fair play. There was too much of
brute body here! Look at this hand now! You can see the light through
it! Good, good!"

Now, that evening, until he had retired to bed, Burley had been
unusually cheerful, and had talked with much of his old eloquence, if
with little of his old humour. Amongst other matters, he had spoken with
considerable interest of some poems and other papers in manuscript which
had been left in the house by a former lodger, and which, the reader may
remember, Mrs. Goodyer had urged him in vain to read, in his last visit
to her cottage. But then he had her husband Jacob to chat with, and the
spirit bottle to finish, and the wild craving for excitement plucked his
thoughts back to his London revels. Now poor Jacob was dead, and it was
not brandy that the sick man drank from the widow's cruse; and London
lay afar amidst its fogs, like a world resolved back into nebula. So,
to please his hostess and distract his own solitary thoughts, he had
condescended (just before Leonard found him out) to peruse the memorials
of a life obscure to the world, and new to his own experience of coarse
joys and woes. "I have been making a romance, to amuse myself, from
their contents," said he. "They maybe of use to you, brother author. I
have told Mrs. Goodyer to place them in your room. Amongst those papers
is a sort of journal,--a woman's journal; it moved me greatly. A man
gets into another world, strange to him as the orb of Sirius, if he can
transport himself into the centre of a woman's heart, and see the
life there, so wholly unlike our own. Things of moment to us, to it so
trivial; things trifling to us, to it so vast. There was this journal,
in its dates reminding me of stormy events in my own existence, and
grand doings in the world's. And those dates there, chronicling but the
mysterious, unrevealed record of some obscure, loving heart! And in
that chronicle, O Sir Poet, there was as much genius, vigour of thought,
vitality of being, poured and wasted, as ever kind friend will say was
lavished on the rude outer world by big John Burley! Genius, genius! are
we all alike, then, save when we leash ourselves to some matter-of-fact
material, and float over the roaring seas on a wooden plank or a herring
tub?" And after he had uttered that cry of a secret anguish, John Burley
had begun to show symptoms of growing fever and disturbed brain; and
when they had got him into bed, he lay there muttering to himself,
until, towards midnight, he had asked Leonard to bring the light nearer
to him.

So now he again was quiet, with his face turned towards the wall; and
Leonard stood by the bedside sorrowfully, and Mrs. Goodyer, who did not
heed Burley's talk, and thought only of his physical state, was dipping
cloths into iced water to apply to his forehead. But as she approached
with these, and addressed him soothingly, Burley raised himself on his
arm, and waved aside the bandages. "I do not need them," said he, in a
collected voice. "I am better now. I and that pleasant light understand
one another, and I believe all it tells me. Pooh, pooh, I do not rave."
He looked so smilingly and so kindly into her face, that the poor woman,
who loved him as her own son, fairly burst into tears. He drew her
towards him, and kissed her forehead.

"Peace, old fool," said he, fondly. "You shall tell anglers hereafter
how John Burley came to fish for the one-eyed perch which he never
caught; and how, when he gave it up at the last, his baits all gone, and
the line broken amongst the weeds, you comforted the baffled man. There
are many good fellows yet in the world who will like to know that poor
Burley did not die on a dunghill. Kiss me. Come, boy, you too. Now, God
bless you, I should like to sleep." His cheeks were wet with the tears
of both his listeners, and there was a moisture in his own eyes, which,
nevertheless, beamed bright through the moisture.

He laid himself down again, and the old woman would have withdrawn the
light. He moved uneasily. "Not that," he murmured,--"light to the last!"
and putting forth his wan hand, he drew aside the curtain so that the
light might fall full on his face.

   [Every one remembers that Goethe's last words are said to have been,
   "More Light;" and perhaps what has occurred in the text may be
   supposed a plagiarism from those words. But, in fact, nothing is
   more common than the craving and demand for light a little before
   death. Let any consult his own sad experience in the last moments
   of those whose gradual close he has watched and tended. What more
   frequent than a prayer to open the shutters and let in the sun?
   What complaint more repeated and more touching than "that it is
   growing dark"? I once knew a sufferer, who did not then seem in
   immediate danger, suddenly order the sick room to be lit up as if
   for a gala. When this was told to the physician, he said gravely,
   "No worse sign."]

In a few minutes he was asleep, breathing calmly and regularly as an
infant.

The old woman wiped her eyes, and drew Leonard softly into the adjoining
room, in which a bed had been made up for him. He had not left the house
since he had entered it with Dr. Morgan. "You are young, sir," said she,
with kindness, "and the young want sleep. Lie down a bit: I will call
you when he wakes."

"No, I could not sleep," said Leonard. "I will watch for you."

The old woman shook her head. "I must see the last of him, sir; but I
know he will be angry when his eyes open on me, for he has grown very
thoughtful of others."

"Ah, if he had but been, as thoughtful of himself!" murmured Leonard;
and he seated himself by the table, on which, as he leaned his elbow, he
dislodged some papers placed there. They fell to the ground with a dumb,
moaning, sighing sound.--

"What is that?" said he, starting.

The old woman picked up the manuscripts and smoothed them carefully.

"Ah, sir, he bade me place these papers here. He thought they might keep
you from fretting about him, in case you would sit up and wake. And he
had a thought of me, too; for I have so pined to find out the poor young
lady, who left them years ago. She was almost as dear to me as he is;
dearer perhaps until now--when--when I am about to lose him!"

Leonard turned from the papers, without a glance at their contents: they
had no interest for him at such a moment. The hostess went on,

"Perhaps she is gone to heaven before him; she did not look like one
long for this world. She left us so suddenly. Many things of hers
besides these papers are still, here; but I keep them aired and dusted,
and strew lavender over them, in case she ever come for them again.
You never heard tell of her, did you, sir?" she added, with great
simplicity, and dropping a half courtesy.

"Of her--of whom?"

"Did not Mr. John tell you her name--dear, dear; Mrs. Bertram."

Leonard started; the very name so impressed upon his memory by Harley
L'Estrange!

"Bertram!" he repeated. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes, sir! And many years after she had left us, and we had heard no
more of her, there came a packet addressed to her here, from over sea,
sir. We took it in, and kept it, and John would break the seal, to know
if it would tell us anything about her; but it was all in a foreign
language like,--we could not read a word."

"Have you the packet? Pray show it to me. It may be of the greatest
value. To-morrow will do--I cannot think of that just now. Poor Burley!"

Leonard's manner indicated that he wished to talk no more, and to be
alone. So Mrs. Goodyer left him, and stole back to Burley's room on
tiptoe:

The young man remained in deep revery for some moments. "Light," he
murmured. "How often 'Light' is the last word of those round whom the
shades are gathering!" He moved, and straight on his view through the
cottage lattice there streamed light indeed,--not the miserable ray lit
by a human hand, but the still and holy effulgence of a moonlit heaven.
It lay broad upon the humble floors, pierced across the threshold of the
death chamber, and halted clear amidst its shadows.

Leonard stood motionless, his eye following the silvery silent
splendour.

"And," he said inly--"and does this large erring nature, marred by its
genial faults, this soul which should have filled a land, as yon orb the
room, with a light that linked earth to heaven--does it pass away into
the dark, and leave not a ray behind? Nay, if the elements of light are
ever in the space, and when the flame goes out, return to the vital air,
so thought once kindled lives forever around and about us, a part of our
breathing atmosphere. Many a thinker, many a poet, may yet illumine the
world, from the thoughts which yon genius, that will have no name, gave
forth to wander through air, and recombine again in some new form of
light."

Thus he went on in vague speculations, seeking, as youth enamoured
of fame seeks too fondly, to prove that mind never works, however
erratically, in vain, and to retain yet, as an influence upon earth,
the soul about to soar far beyond the atmosphere where the elements that
make fame abide. Not thus had the dying man interpreted the endurance of
light and thought.

Suddenly, in the midst of his revery, a loud cry broke on his ear. He
shuddered as he heard, and hastened forebodingly into the adjoining
room. The old woman was kneeling by the bedside, and chafing Burley's
hand, eagerly looking into his face. A glance sufficed to Leonard. All
was over. Burley had died in sleep,--calmly, and without a groan.

The eyes were half open, with that look of inexpressible softness which
death sometimes leaves; and still they were turned towards the light;
and the light burned clear.

Leonard closed tenderly the heavy lids; and as he covered the face, the
lips smiled a serene farewell.




CHAPTER XIII.

We have seen Squire Hazeldean (proud of the contents of his pocketbook,
and his knowledge of the mercenary nature of foreign women) set off on
his visit to Beatrice di Negra. Randal thus left, musing lone in the
crowded streets, resolved with astute complacency the probable results
of Mr. Hazeldean's bluff negotiation; and convincing himself that one of
his vistas towards Fortune was becoming more clear and clear, he turned,
with the restless activity of some founder of destined cities in a new
settlement, to lop the boughs that cumbered and obscured the others. For
truly, like a man in a vast Columbian forest, opening entangled space,
now with the ready axe, now with the patient train that kindles the
slower fire, this child of civilized life went toiling on against
surrounding obstacles, resolute to destroy, but ever scheming to
construct. And now Randal has reached Levy's dainty business-room, and
is buried deep in discussion how to secure to himself, at the expense
of his patron, the representation of Lansmere, and how to complete the
contract which shall reannex to his forlorn inheritance some fragments
of its ancient wealth.

Meanwhile, Chance fought on his side in the boudoir of May Fair. The
squire had found the marchesa at home, briefly introduced himself and
his business, told her she was mistaken if she had fancied she had
taken in a rich heir in his son; that, thank Heaven, he could leave his
estates to his ploughman, should he so please, but that he was willing
to do things liberally; and whatever she thought Frank was worth, he was
very ready to pay for.

At another time Beatrice would perhaps have laughed at this strange
address; or she might, in some prouder moment, have fired up with all
a patrician's resentment and a woman's pride; but now her spirit was
crushed, her nerves shattered: the sense of her degraded position, of
her dependence on her brother, combined with her supreme unhappiness at
the loss of those dreams with which Leonard had for a while charmed
her wearied waking life,--all came upon her. She listened; pale and
speechless; and the poor squire thought he was quietly advancing
towards a favourable result, when she suddenly burst into a passion
of hysterical tears; and just at that moment Frank himself entered the
room. At the sight of his father, of Beatrice's grief, his sense of
filial duty gave way. He was maddened by irritation, by the insult
offered to the woman he loved, which a few trembling words from her
explained to him,--maddened yet more by the fear that the insult had
lost her to him; warm words ensued between son and father, to close with
the peremptory command and vehement threat of the last.

"Come away this instant, sir! Come with me, or before the day is over, I
strike you out of my will!"

The son's answer was not to his father; he threw himself at Beatrice's
feet.

"Forgive him; forgive us both--"

"What! you prefer that stranger to me,--to the inheritance of
Hazeldean!" cried the squire, stamping his foot.

"Leave your estates to whom you will; all that I care for in life is
here!"

The squire stood still a moment or so, gazing on his son with a strange
bewildered marvel at the strength of that mystic passion, which none
not labouring under its fearful charm can comprehend, which creates the
sudden idol that no reason justifies, and sacrifices to its fatal shrine
alike the Past and the Future. Not trusting himself to speak, the father
drew his hand across his eyes, and dashed away the bitter tear
that sprang from a swelling and indignant heart; then he uttered an
inarticulate sound, and, finding his voice gone, moved away to the door,
and left the house.

He walked through the streets, bearing his head very erect, as a proud
man does when deeply wounded, and striving to shake off some affection
that he deems a weakness; and his trembling nervous fingers fumbled at
the button of his coat, trying to tighten the garment across his chest,
as if to confirm a resolution that still sought to struggle out of the
revolting heart.

Thus he went on, and the reader, perhaps, will wonder whither; and the
wonder may not lessen when he finds the squire come to a dead pause in
Grosvenor Square, and at the portico of his "distant brother's" stately
house.

At the squire's brief inquiry whether Mr. Egerton was at home, the
porter summoned the groom of the chambers; and the groom of the
chambers, seeing a stranger, doubted whether his master was not engaged,
but would take in the stranger's card and see.

"Ay, ay," muttered the squire, "this is true relationship!--my child
prefers a stranger to me; why should I complain that I am a stranger in
a brother's house? Sir," added the squire aloud, and very meekly--"sir,
please to say to your master that I am William Hazeldean."

The servant bowed low, and without another word conducted the visitor
into the statesman's library, and announcing Mr. Hazeldean, closed the
door.

Audley was seated at his desk, the grim iron boxes still at his feet,
but they were now closed and locked. And the ex-minister was no longer
looking over official documents; letters spread open before him of far
different nature; in his hand there lay a long lock of fair silken hair,
on which his eyes were fixed sadly and intently. He started at the sound
of his visitor's name, and the tread of the squire's stalwart footstep;
and mechanically thrust into his bosom the relic of younger and warmer
years, keeping his hand to his heart, which beat loud with disease under
the light pressure of that golden hair.

The two brothers stood on the great man's lonely hearth, facing each
other in silence, and noting unconsciously the change made in each
during the long years in which they had never met.

The squire, with his portly size, his hardy sunburned cheeks, the
partial baldness of his unfurrowed open forehead, looked his full
age,--deep into middle life. Unmistakably he seemed the pater familias,
the husband and the father, the man of social domestic ties. But about
Audley (really some few years junior to the squire), despite the lines
of care on his handsome face, there still lingered the grace of youth.
Men of cities retain youth longer than those of the country,--a remark
which Buffon has not failed to make and to account for. Neither did
Egerton betray the air of the married man; for ineffable solitariness
seemed stamped upon one whose private life had long been so stern a
solitude. No ray from the focus of Home played round that reserved,
unjoyous, melancholy brow. In a word, Audley looked still the man for
whom some young female heart might fondly sigh; and not the less because
of the cold eye and compressed lip, which challenged interest even while
seeming to repel it.

Audley was the first to speak, and to put forth the right hand, which
he stole slowly from its place at his breast, on which the lock of hair
still stirred to and fro at the heave of the labouring heart. "William,"
said he, with his rich deep voice, "this is kind. You are come to see
me, now that men say that I am fallen. The minister you censured is no
more; and you see again the brother."

The squire was softened at once by this address. He shook heartily the
hand tendered to him; and then, turning away his head, with an honest
conviction that Audley ascribed to him a credit which he did not
deserve, he said, "No, no, Audley; I am more selfish than you think me.
I have come--I have come to ask your advice,--no, not exactly that--your
opinion. But you are busy?"

"Sit down, William. Old days were coming over me when you entered; days
earlier still return now,--days, too, that leave no shadow when their
suns are set."

The proud man seemed to think he had said too much. His practical nature
rebuked the poetic sentiment and phrase. He re-collected himself, and
added, more coldly, "You would ask my opinion? What on? Some public
matter--some parliamentary bill that may affect your property?"

"Am I such a mean miser as that? Property--property? what does property
matter, when a man is struck down at his own hearth? Property, indeed!
But you have no child--happy brother!"

"Ay, ay; as you say, I am a happy man; childless! Has your son
displeased you? I have heard him well spoken of, too."

"Don't talk of him. Whether his conduct be good or ill is my affair,"
resumed the poor father, with a testy voice--jealous alike of Audley's
praise or blame of his rebellious son. Then he rose a moment, and made
a strong gulp, as if for air; and laying his broad brown hand on his
brother's shoulder, said, "Randal Leslie tells me you are wise,--a
consummate man of the world. No doubt you are so. And Parson Dale tells
me that he is sure you have warm feelings,--which I take to be a strange
thing for one who has lived so long in London, and has no wife and no
child, a widower, and a member of parliament,--for a commercial city,
too. Never smile; it is no smiling matter with me. You know a foreign
woman, called Negra or Negro; not a blackymoor, though, by any
means,--at least on the outside of her. Is she such a woman as a plain
country gentleman would like his only son to marry--ay or no?"

"No, indeed," answered Audley, gravely; "and I trust your son will
commit no action so rash. Shall I see him, or her? Speak, my dear
William. What would you have me do?"

"Nothing; you have said enough," replied the squire, gloomily; and his
head sank on his breast.

Audley took his hand, and pressed it fraternally. "William," said the
statesman, "we have been long estranged; but I do not forget that when
we last met, at--at Lord Lansmere's house, and when I took you aside,
and said, 'William, if I lose this election, I must resign all chance of
public life; my affairs are embarrassed. I would not accept money from
you,--I would seek a profession, and you can help me there,' you divined
my meaning, and said, 'Take orders; the Hazeldean living is just vacant.
I will get some one to hold it till you are ordained.' I do not forget
that. Would that I had thought earlier of so serene an escape from all
that then tormented me! My lot might have been far happier."

The squire eyed Audley with a surprise that broke forth from his more
absorbing emotions. "Happier! Why, all things have prospered with you;
and you are rich enough now; and--you shake your head. Brother, is it
possible! do you want money? Pooh, not accept money from your mother's
son!--stuff!" Out came the squire's pocketbook. Audley put it gently
aside.

"Nay," said he, "I have enough for myself; but since you seek and speak
with me thus affectionately, I will ask you one favour. Should I die
before I can provide for my wife's kinsman, Randal Leslie, as I could
wish, will you see to his fortunes, so far as you can, without injury to
others,--to your own son?"

"My son! He is provided for. He has the Casino estate--much good may it
do him! You have touched on the very matter that brought me here. This
boy, Randal Leslie, seems a praiseworthy lad, and has Hazeldean blood in
his veins. You have taken him up because he is connected with your late
wife. Why should I not take him up, too, when his grandmother was a
Hazeldean? My main object in calling was to ask what you mean to do for
him; for if you do not mean to provide for him, why, I will, as in duty
bound. So your request comes at the right time; I think of altering my
will. I can put him into the entail, besides a handsome legacy. You are
sure he is a good lad,--and it will please you too, Audley!"

"But not at the expense of your son. And stay, William: as to this
foolish marriage with Madame di Negra,--who told you Frank meant to take
such a step?"

"He told me himself; but it is no matter. Randal and I both did all we
could to dissuade him; and Randal advised me to come to you."

"He has acted generously, then, our kinsman Randal--I am glad to hear
it," said Audley, his brow somewhat clearing. "I have no influence
with this lady; but, at least, I can counsel her. Do not consider the
marriage fixed because a young man desires it. Youth is ever hot and
rash."

"Your youth never was," retorted the squire, bluntly.

"You married well enough, I'm sure. I will say one thing for you: you
have been, to my taste, a bad politician--beg pardon--but you were
always a gentleman. You would never have disgraced your family and
married a--"

"Hush!" interrupted Egerton, gently. "Do not make matters worse than
they are. Madame di Negra is of high birth in her own country; and if
scandal--"

"Scandal!" cried the squire, shrinking, and turning pale. "Are you
speaking of the wife of a Hazeldean? At least she shall never sit by the
hearth at which now sits his mother; and whatever I may do for Frank,
her children shall not succeed. No mongrel cross-breed shall kennel in
English Hazeldean. Much obliged to you, Audley, for your good feeling;
glad to have seen you; and hark ye, you startled me by that shake of
your head, when I spoke of your wealth; and from what you say about
Randal's prospects, I guess that you London gentlemen are not so
thrifty as we are. You shall let me speak. I say again, that I have some
thousands quite at your service. And though you are not a Hazeldean,
still you are my mother's son; and now that I am about to alter my will,
I can as well scratch in the name of Egerton as that of Leslie. Cheer
up, cheer up: you are younger than I am, and you have no child; so you
will live longer than I shall."

"My dear brother," answered Audley, "believe me, I shall never live to
want your aid. And as to Leslie, add to the L5,000 I mean to give him an
equal sum in your will, and I shall feel that he has received justice."

Observing that the squire, though he listened attentively, made no
ready answer, Audley turned the subject again to Frank; and with the
adroitness of a man of the world, backed by cordial sympathy in his
brother's distress, he pleaded so well Frank's lame cause, urged so
gently the wisdom of patience and delay, and the appeal to filial
feeling rather than recourse to paternal threats, that the squire grew
mollified in spite of himself, and left his brother's house a much less
angry and less doleful man.

Mr. Hazeldean was still in the Square, when he came upon Randal
himself, who was walking with a dark-whiskered, showy gentleman, towards
Egerton's house. Randal and the gentleman exchanged a hasty whisper, and
the former then exclaimed,

"What, Mr. Hazeldean, have you just left your brother's house? Is it
possible?"

"Why, you advised me to go there, and I did. I scarcely knew what I was
about. I am very glad I did go. Hang politics! hang the landed interest!
what do I care for either now?"

"Foiled with Madame di Negra?" asked Randal, drawing the squire aside.

"Never speak of her again!" cried the squire, fiercely. "And as to that
ungrateful boy--but I don't mean to behave harshly to him,--he shall
have money enough to keep her if he likes, keep her from coming to me,
keep him, too, from counting on my death, and borrowing post-obits on
the Casino--for he'll be doing that next--no, I hope I wrong him there;
I have been too good a father for him to count on my death already.
After all," continued the squire, beginning to relax, "as Audley says,
the marriage is not yet made; and if the woman has taken him in, he is
young, and his heart is warm. Make yourself easy, my boy. I don't forget
how kindly you took his part; and before I do anything rash, I'll at
least consult with his poor mother."

Randal gnawed his pale lip, and a momentary cloud of disappointment
passed over his face.

"True, sir," said he, gently; "true, you must not be rash. Indeed, I
was thinking of you and poor dear Frank at the very moment I met you. It
occurred to me whether we might not make Frank's very embarrassments a
reason to induce Madame di Negra to refuse him; and I was on my way to
Mr. Egerton, in order to ask his opinion, in company with the gentleman
yonder."

"Gentleman yonder. Why should he thrust his long nose into my family
affairs? Who the devil is he?"

"Don't ask, sir. Pray let me act."

But the squire continued to eye askant the dark-whiskered personage thus
interposed between himself and his son, and who waited patiently a
few yards in the rear, carelessly readjusting the camellia in his
button-hole.

"He looks very outlandish. Is he a foreigner too?" asked the squire at
last.

"No, not exactly. However, he knows all about Frank's embarrassments;
and--"

"Embarrassments! what, the debt he paid for that woman? How did he raise
the money?"

"I don't know," answered Randal; "and that is the reason I asked Baron
Levy to accompany me to Egerton's, that he might explain in private what
I have no reason--"

"Baron Levy!" interrupted the squire. "Levy, Levy--I have heard of a
Levy who has nearly ruined my neighbour Thornhill,--a money-lender.
Zounds! is that the man who knows my son's affairs? I'll soon learn,
sir."

Randal caught hold of the squire's arm: "Stop, stop; if you really
insist upon learning more about Frank's debts, you must not appeal to
Baron Levy directly, and as Frank's father: he will not answer you. But
if I present you to him as a mere acquaintance of mine, and turn the
conversation, as if carelessly, upon Frank, why, since, in the London
world, such matters are never kept secret, except from the parents of
young men, I have no doubt he will talk out openly."

"Manage it as you will," said the squire.

Randal took Mr. Hazeldean's arm, and joined Levy--"A friend of mine from
the country, Baron." Levy bowed profoundly, and the three walked slowly
on.

"By the by," said Randal, pressing significantly upon Levy's arm,
"my friend has come to town upon the somewhat unpleasant business of
settling the debts of another,--a young man of fashion,--a relation of
his own. No one, sir (turning to the squire), could so ably assist you
in such arrangements as could Baron Levy."

BARON (modestly, and with a moralizing air).--"I have some experience in
such matters, and I hold it a duty to assist the parents and relations
of young men who, from want of reflection, often ruin themselves for
life. I hope the young gentleman in question is not in the hands of the
Jews?"

RANDAL.--"Christians are as fond of good interest for their money as
ever the Jews can be."

BARON.--"Granted, but they have not always so much money to lend. The
first thing, sir" (addressing the squire),--"the first thing for you to
do is to buy up such of your relation's bills and notes of hand as may
be in the market. No doubt we can get them a bargain, unless the young
man is heir to some property that may soon be his in the course of
nature."

RANDAL.--"Not soon--Heaven forbid! His father is still a young
man,--a fine healthy man," leaning heavily on Levy's arm; "and as to
post-obits--"

BARON.--"Post-obits on sound security cost more to buy up, however
healthy the obstructing relative may be."

RANDAL.--"I should hope that there are not many sons who can calculate,
in cold blood, on the death of their fathers."

BARON.--"Ha, ha! He is young, our friend Randal; eh, sir?"

RANDAL.--"Well, I am not more scrupulous than others, I dare say; and I
have often been pinched hard for money, but I would go barefoot rather
than give security upon a father's grave! I can imagine nothing more
likely to destroy natural feeling, nor to instil ingratitude and
treachery into the whole character, than to press the hand of a
parent, and calculate when that hand may be dust; than to sit down with
strangers and reduce his life to the measure of an insurance-table;
than to feel difficulties gathering round one, and mutter in fashionable
slang, 'But it will be all well if the governor would but die.' And he
who has accustomed himself to the relief of post-obits must gradually
harden his mind to all this."

The squire groaned heavily; and had Randal proceeded another sentence in
the same strain, the squire would have wept outright. "But," continued
Randal, altering the tone of his voice, "I think that our young friend,
of whom we were talking just now, Levy, before this gentleman joined us,
has the same opinions as myself on this head. He may accept bills, but
he would never sign post-obits."

BARON (who, with the apt docility of a managed charger to the touch of
a rider's hand, had comprehended and complied with each quick sign of
Randal's).--"Pooh! the young fellow we are talking of? Nonsense.
He would not be so foolish as to give five times the percentage he
otherwise might. Not sign post-obits! Of course he has signed one."

RANDAL.--"Hist! you mistake, you mistake!"

SQUIRE (leaving Randal's arm and seizing Levy's).--"Were you speaking of
Frank Hazeldean?"

BARON.--"My dear sir, excuse me, I never mention names before
strangers."

SQUIRE.--"Strangers again! Man, I am the boy's father Speak out, sir,"
and his hand closed on Levy's arm with the strength of an iron vice.

BARON.--"Gently; you hurt me, sir: but I excuse your feelings. Randal,
you are to blame for leading me into this indiscretion; but I beg
to assure Mr. Hazeldean, that though his son has been a little
extravagant--"

RANDAL.--"Owing chiefly to the arts of an abandoned woman."

BARON.--"Of an abandoned woman;--still he has shown more prudence than
you would suppose; and this very post-obit is a proof of it. A simple
act of that kind has enabled him to pay off bills that were running on
till they would have ruined even the Hazeldean estate; whereas a charge
on the reversion of the Casino--"

SQUIRE.--"He has done it then? He has signed a postobit?"

RANDAL.--"No, no, Levy must be wrong."

BARON.--"My dear Leslie, a man of Mr. Hazeldean's time of life cannot
have your romantic boyish notions. He must allow that Frank has acted
in this like a lad of sense--very good head for business has my young
friend Frank! And the best thing Mr. Hazeldean can do is quietly to
buy up the post-obit, and thus he will place his son henceforth in his
power."

SQUIRE.--"Can I see the deed with my own eyes?"

BARON.--"Certainly, or how could you be induced to buy it up? But on
one condition; you must not betray me to your son. And, indeed, take my
advice, and don't say a word to him on the matter."

SQUIRE.--"Let me see it, let me see it with my own eyes! His mother else
will never believe it--nor will I."

BARON.--"I can call on you this evening."

SQUIRE.--"Now, now!"

BARON.--"You can spare me, Randal; and you yourself can open to Mr.
Egerton the other affair respecting Lansmere. No time should be lost,
lest L'Estrange suggest a candidate."

RANDAL (whispering).--"Never mind me. This is more important."
(Aloud)--"Go with Mr. Hazeldean. My dear kind friend" (to the squire),
"do not let this vex you so much. After all, it is what nine young men
out of ten would do in the same circumstances. And it is best you should
know it; you may save Frank from further ruin, and prevent, perhaps,
this very marriage."

"We will see," exclaimed the squire, hastily. "Now, Mr. Levy, come."

Levy and the squire walked on, not arm in arm, but side by side. Randal
proceeded to Egerton's house.

"I am glad to see you, Leslie," said the ex-minister. "What is it I have
heard? My nephew, Frank Hazeldean, proposes to marry Madame di Negra
against his father's consent? How could you suffer him to entertain an
idea so wild? And how never confide it to me?"

RANDAL.--"My dear Mr. Egerton, it is only to-day that I was informed of
Frank's engagement. I have already seen him, and expostulated in vain;
till then, though I knew your nephew admired Madame di Negra, I could
never suppose he harboured a serious intention."

EGERTON.--"I must believe you, Randal. I will myself see Madame di
Negra, though I have no power, and no right, to dictate to her. I
have but little time for all such private business. The dissolution of
parliament is so close at hand."

RANDAL (looking down).--"It is on that subject that I wished to speak
to you, sir. You think of standing for Lansmere. Well, Baron Levy has
suggested to me an idea that I could not, of course, even countenance,
till I had spoken to you. It seems that he has some acquaintance with
the state of parties in that borough. He is informed that it is not only
as easy to bring in two of our side as to carry one, but that it would
make your election still more safe not to fight single-handed against
two opponents; that if canvassing for yourself alone, you could not
carry a sufficient number of plumper votes; that split votes would go
from you to one or other of the two adversaries; that, in a word, it
is necessary to pair you with a colleague. If it really be so, you of
course will learn best from your own Committee; but should they concur
in the opinion Baron Levy has formed, do I presume too much on your
kindness to deem it possible that you might allow me to be the second
candidate on your side? I should not say this, but that Levy told me you
had some wish to see me in parliament, amongst the supporters of your
policy. And what other opportunity can occur? Here the cost of carrying
two would be scarcely more than that of carrying one. And Levy says the
party would subscribe for my election; you, of course, would refuse
all such aid for your own; and indeed, with your great name, and
Lord Lansmere's interest, there can be little beyond the strict legal
expenses."

As Randal spoke thus at length, he watched anxiously his patron's
reserved, unrevealing countenance.

EGERTON (dryly).--"I will consider. You may safely leave in my hands any
matter connected with your ambition and advancement. I have before told
you I hold it a duty to do all in my power for the kinsman of my late
wife, for one whose career I undertook to forward, for one whom honour
has compelled to share in my own political reverses."

Here Egerton rang the bell for his hat and gloves, and walking into the
hall, paused at the street door. There beckoning to Randal, he said,
slowly, "You seem intimate with Baron Levy; I caution you against
him,--a dangerous acquaintance, first to the purse, next to the honour."

RANDAL.--"I know it, sir; and am surprised myself at the acquaintance
that has grown up between us. Perhaps its cause is in his respect for
yourself."

EGERTON.--"Tut."

RANDAL.--"Whatever it be, he contrives to obtain a singular hold over
one's mind, even where, as in my case, he has no evident interest to
serve. How is this? It puzzles me!"

EGERTON.--"For his interest, it is most secured where he suffers it to
be least evident; for his hold over the mind, it is easily accounted
for. He ever appeals to two temptations, strong with all men,--Avarice
and Ambition. Good-day."

RANDAL.--"Are you going to Madame di Negra's? Shall I not accompany you?
Perhaps I may be able to back your own remonstrances."

EGERTON.--"No, I shall not require you."

RANDAL.--"I trust I shall hear the result of your interview? I feel so
much interested in it. Poor Frank!"

Audley nodded. "Of course, of course."




CHAPTER XIV.

On entering the drawing-room of Madame di Negra, the peculiar charm
which the severe Audley Egerton had been ever reputed to possess with
women would have sensibly struck one who had hitherto seen him chiefly
in his relations with men in the business-like affairs of life. It was
a charm in strong contrast to the ordinary manners of those who are
emphatically called "Ladies' men." No artificial smile, no conventional,
hollow blandness, no frivolous gossip, no varnish either of ungenial
gayety or affected grace. The charm was in a simplicity that unbent more
into kindness than it did with men. Audley's nature, whatever its
faults and defects, was essentially masculine; and it was the sense
of masculine power that gave to his voice a music when addressing the
gentler sex, and to his manner a sort of indulgent tenderness that
appeared equally void of insincerity and presumption.

Frank had been gone about half-an-hour, and Madame di Negra was scarcely
recovered from the agitation into which she had been thrown by the
affront from the father and the pleading of the son.

Egerton took her passive hand cordially, and seated himself by her side.

"My dear marchesa," I said he, "are we then likely to be near
connections? And can you seriously contemplate marriage with my young
nephew, Frank Hazeldean? You turn away. Ah, my fair friend, there are
but two inducements to a free woman to sign away her liberty at the
altar. I say a free woman, for widows are free, and girls are not. These
inducements are, first, worldly position; secondly, love. Which of these
motives can urge Madame di Negra to marry Mr. Frank Hazeldeani?"

"There are other motives than those you speak of,--the need of
protection, the sense of solitude, the curse of dependence, gratitude
for honourable affection. But you men never know women!"

"I grant that you are right there,--we never do; neither do women ever
know men. And yet each sex contrives to dupe and to fool the other!
Listen to me. I have little acquaintance with my nephew, but I allow he
is a handsome young gentleman, with whom a handsome young lady in her
teens might fall in love in a ball-room. But you, who have known the
higher order of our species, you who have received the homage of men,
whose thoughts and mind leave the small talk of drawing-room triflers
so poor and bald, you cannot look me in the face and say that it is
any passion resembling love which you feel for my nephew. And as to
position, it is right that I should inform you that if he marry you
he will have none. He may risk his inheritance. You will receive no
countenance from his parents. You will be poor, but not free. You
will not gain the independence you seek for. The sight of a vacant,
discontented face in that opposite chair will be worse than solitude.
And as to grateful affection," added the man of the world, "it is a
polite synonym for tranquil indifference."

"Mr. Egerton," said Beatrice, "people say you are made of bronze. Did
you ever feel the want of a home?"

"I answer you frankly," replied the statesman, "if I had not felt it,
do you think I should have been, and that I should be to the last, the
joyless drudge of public life? Bronze though you call my nature, it
would have melted away long since like wax in the fire, if I had sat
idly down and dreamed of a home!"

"But we women," answered Beatrice, with pathos, "have no public life,
and we do idly sit down and dream. Oh," she continued, after a short
pause, and clasping her hands firmly together, "you think me worldly,
grasping, ambitious; how different my fate had been had I known a
home!--known one whom I could love and venerate; known one whose smiles
would have developed the good that was once within me, and the fear of
whose rebuking or sorrowful eye would have corrected what is evil."

"Yet," answered Audley, "nearly all women in the great world have had
that choice once in their lives, and nearly all have thrown it away. How
few of your rank really think of home when they marry! how few ask to
venerate as well as to love! and how many, of every rank, when the
home has been really gained, have wilfully lost its shelter,--some in
neglectful weariness, some from a momentary doubt, distrust, caprice,
a wild fancy, a passionate fit, a trifle, a straw, a dream! True, you
women are ever dreamers. Commonsense, common earth, is above or below
your comprehension."

Both now are silent. Audley first roused himself with a quick, writhing
movement. "We two," said he, smiling half sadly, half cynically,--"we
two must not longer waste time in talking sentiment. We know both
too well what life, as it has been made for us by our faults or our
misfortunes, truly is. And once again, I entreat you to pause before
you yield to the foolish suit of my foolish nephew. Rely on it, you will
either command a higher offer for your prudence to accept; or, if you
needs must sacrifice rank and fortune, you, with your beauty and your
romantic heart, will see one who, at least for a fair holiday season
(if human love allows no more), can repay you for the sacrifice. Frank
Hazeldean never can."

Beatrice turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to her eyes.

"Think over this well," said Audley, in the softest tones of his mellow
voice. "Do you remember that when you first came to England, I told you
that neither wedlock nor love had any lures for me? We grew friends upon
that rude avowal, and therefore I now speak to you like some sage of
old, wise because standing apart and aloof from all the affections and
ties that mislead our wisdom. Nothing but real love--how rare it is; has
one human heart in a million ever known it?--nothing but real love can
repay us for the loss of freedom, the cares and fears of poverty, the
cold pity of the world that we both despise and respect. And all these,
and much more, follow the step you would inconsiderately take, an
imprudent marriage."

"Audley Egerton," said Beatrice, lifting her dark, moistened eyes, "you
grant that real love does compensate for an imprudent marriage. You
speak as if you had known such love--you! Can it be possible?"

"Real love--I thought that I knew it once. Looking back with remorse,
I should doubt it now but for one curse that only real love, when lost,
has the power to leave evermore behind it."

"What is that?"

"A void here," answered Egerton, striking his heart.
"Desolation!--Adieu!"

He rose and left the room.

"Is it," murmured Egerton, as he pursued his way through the
streets--"is it that, as we approach death, all the first fair feelings
of young life come back to us mysteriously? Thus I have heard, or read,
that in some country of old, children scattering flowers preceded a
funeral bier."




CHAPTER XV.

And so Leonard stood beside his friend's mortal clay, and watched, in
the ineffable smile of death, the last gleam which the soul had left
there; and so, after a time, he crept back to the adjoining room with a
step as noiseless as if he had feared to disturb the dead. Wearied as
he was with watching, he had no thought of sleep. He sat himself down by
the little table, and leaned his face on his hand, musing sorrowfully.
Thus time passed. He heard the clock from below strike the hours. In the
house of death the sound of a clock becomes so solemn. The soul that we
miss has gone so far beyond the reach of time! A cold, superstitious
awe gradually stole over the young man. He shivered, and lifted his eyes
with a start, half scornful, half defying. The moon was gone; the gray,
comfortless dawn gleamed through the casement, and carried its raw,
chilling light through the open doorway into the death-room. And there,
near the extinguished fire, Leonard saw the solitary woman, weeping low;
and watching still. He returned to say a word of comfort; she pressed
his hand, but waved him away. He understood. She did not wish for other
comfort than her quiet relief of tears. Again, he returned to his
own chamber, and his eye this time fell upon the papers which he had
hitherto disregarded. What made his heart stand still, and the blood
then rush so quickly through his veins? Why did he seize upon those
papers with so tremulous a hand, then lay them down, pause, as if
to nerve himself, and look so eagerly again? He recognized the
handwriting,--those fair, clear characters, so peculiar in their
woman-like delicacy and grace, the same as in the wild, pathetic poems,
the sight of which had made an era in his boyhood. From these pages the
image of the mysterious Nora rose once more before him. He felt that he
was with a mother. He went back, and closed the door gently, as if with
a jealous piety, to exclude each ruder shadow from the world of spirits,
and be alone with that mournful ghost. For a thought written in warm,
sunny life, and then suddenly rising up to us, when the hand that traced
and the heart that cherished it are dust, is verily as a ghost. It is a
likeness struck off of the fond human being, and surviving it. Far more
truthful than bust or portrait, it bids us see the tear flow, and the
pulse beat. What ghost can the churchyard yield to us like the writing
of the dead?

The bulk of the papers had been once lightly sewn to each other; they
had come undone, perhaps in Burley's rude hands, but their order
was easily apparent. Leonard soon saw that they formed a kind of
journal,--not, indeed, a regular diary, nor always relating to the
things of the day. There were gaps in time--no attempt at successive
narrative; sometimes, instead of prose, a hasty burst of verse, gushing
evidently from the heart; sometimes all narrative was left untold,
and yet, as it were, epitomized by a single burning line--a single
exclamation--of woe or joy! Everywhere you saw records of a nature
exquisitely susceptible; and, where genius appeared, it was so artless,
that you did not call it genius, but emotion. At the onset the writer
did not speak of herself in the first person. The manuscript opened with
descriptions and short dialogues, carried on by persons to whose names
only initial letters were assigned, all written in a style of simple
innocent freshness, and breathing of purity and happiness, like a dawn
of spring. Two young persons, humbly born, a youth and a girl, the last
still in childhood, each chiefly self-taught, are wandering on Sabbath
evenings among green dewy fields, near the busy town, in which labour
awhile is still. Few words pass between them. You see at once, though
the writer does not mean to convey it, how far beyond the scope of her
male companion flies the heavenward imagination of the girl. It is he
who questions, it is she who answers; and soon there steals upon you,
as you read, the conviction that the youth loves the girl, and loves in
vain. All in this writing, though terse, is so truthful! Leonard, in the
youth, already recognizes the rude imperfect scholar, the village bard,
Mark Fairfield. Then there is a gap in description; but there are short
weighty sentences, which show deepening thought, increasing years, in
the writer. And though the innocence remains, the happiness begins to be
less vivid on the page.

Now, insensibly, Leonard finds that there is a new phase in the writer's
existence. Scenes no longer of humble, workday rural life surround her,
and a fairer and more dazzling image succeeds to the companion of the
Sabbath eves. This image Nora evidently loves to paint,--it is akin to
her own genius; it captivates her fancy; it is an image that she (inborn
artist, and conscious of her art) feels to belong to a brighter and
higher school of the Beautiful. And yet the virgin's heart is not
awakened,--no trace of the heart yet there! The new image thus
introduced is one of her own years, perhaps; nay, it may be younger
still, for it is a boy that is described, with his profuse fair curls,
and eyes new to grief, and confronting the sun as a young eagle's; with
veins so full of the wine of life, that they overflow into every joyous
whim; with nerves quiveringly alive to the desire of glory; with the
frank generous nature, rash in its laughing scorn of the world, which
it has not tried. Who was this boy? it perplexed Leonard. He feared to
guess. Soon, less told than implied, you saw that this companionship,
however it chanced, brings fear and pain on the writer. Again (as
before, with Mark Fairfield), there is love on the one side and not on
the other; with her there is affectionate, almost sisterly, interest,
admiration, gratitude, but a something of pride or of terror that keeps
back love.

Here Leonard's interest grew intense. Were there touches by which
conjecture grew certainty; and he recognized, through the lapse of
years, the boy-lover in his own generous benefactor?

Fragments of dialogue now began to reveal the suit of an ardent,
impassioned nature, and the simple wonder and strange alarm of a
listener who pitied but could not sympathize. Some great worldly
distinction of rank between the two became visible,--that distinction
seemed to arm the virtue and steel the affections of the lowlier born.
Then a few sentences, half blotted out with tears, told of wounded and
humbled feelings,--some one invested with authority, as if the suitor's
parent, had interfered, questioned, reproached, counselled. And it was
evident that the suit was not one that dishonoured; it wooed to flight,
but still to marriage.

And now these sentences grew briefer still, as with the decision of a
strong resolve. And to these there followed a passage so exquisite, that
Leonard wept unconsciously as he read. It was the description of a
visit spent at home previous to some sorrowful departure. He caught the
glimpse of a proud and vain, but a tender wistful mother, of a father's
fonder but less thoughtful love. And then came a quiet soothing scene
between the girl and her first village lover, ending thus: "So she put
M.'s hand into her sister's, and said, 'You loved me through the fancy,
love her with the heart,' and left them comprehending each other, and
betrothed."

Leonard sighed. He understood now how Mark Fairfield saw, in the homely
features of his unlettered wife, the reflection of the sister's soul and
face.

A few words told the final parting,--words that were a picture. The long
friendless highway, stretching on--on--towards the remorseless city,
and the doors of home opening on the desolate thoroughfare, and the old
pollard-tree beside the threshold, with the ravens wheeling round it and
calling to their young. He too had watched that threshold from the same
desolate thoroughfare. He too had heard the cry of the ravens. Then
came some pages covered with snatches of melancholy verse, or some
reflections of dreamy gloom.

The writer was in London, in the house of some high-born
patroness,--that friendless shadow of a friend which the jargon of
society calls "companion." And she was looking on the bright storm of
the world as through prison bars. Poor bird, afar from the greenwood,
she had need of song,--it was her last link with freedom and nature. The
patroness seems to share in her apprehensions of the boy suitor, whose
wild rash prayers the fugitive had resisted; but to fear lest the suitor
should be degraded, not the one whom he pursues,--fear an alliance
ill-suited to a high-born heir. And this kind of fear stings the
writer's pride, and she grows harsh in her judgment of him who thus
causes but pain where he proffers love. Then there is a reference to
some applicant for her hand, who is pressed upon her choice; and she is
told that it is her duty so to choose, and thus deliver a noble family
from a dread that endures so long as her hand is free. And of this fear,
and of this applicant, there breaks out a petulant yet pathetic scorn.
After this the narrative, to judge by the dates, pauses for days and
weeks, as if the writer had grown weary and listless,--suddenly to
reopen in a new strain, eloquent with hopes and with fears never known
before. The first person was abruptly assumed,--it was the living "I"
that now breathed and moved along the lines. How was this? The woman was
no more a shadow and a secret unknown to herself. She had assumed the
intense and vivid sense of individual being; and love spoke loud in the
awakened human heart.

A personage not seen till then appeared on the page. And ever
afterwards this personage was only named as "He," as if the one and sole
representative of all the myriads that walk the earth. The first notice
of this prominent character on the scene showed the restless, agitated
effect produced on the writer's imagination. He was invested with
a romance probably not his own. He was described in contrast to the
brilliant boy whose suit she had feared, pitied, and now sought to
shun,--described with a grave and serious, but gentle mien, a voice that
imposed respect, an eye and lip that showed collected dignity of will.
Alas? the writer betrayed herself, and the charm was in the contrast,
not to the character of the earlier lover, but her own. And now, leaving
Leonard to explore and guess his way through the gaps and chasms of
the narrative, it is time to place before the reader what the narrative
alone will not reveal to Leonard.




CHAPTER XVI.

Nora Avenel had fled from the boyish love of Harley L'Estrange,
recommended by Lady Lansmere to a valetudinarian relative of her own,
Lady Jane Horton, as companion. But Lady Lansmere could not believe it
possible that the lowborn girl could long sustain her generous pride,
and reject the ardent suit of one who could offer to her the prospective
coronet of a countess. She continually urged upon Lady Jane the
necessity of marrying Nora to some one of rank less disproportioned to
her own, and empowered that lady to assure any such wooer of a dowry far
beyond Nora's station. Lady Jane looked around, and saw in the outskirts
of her limited social ring a young solicitor, a peer's natural son, who
was on terms of more than business-like intimacy with the fashionable
clients whose distresses made the origin of his wealth. The young man
was handsome, well-dressed, and bland. Lady Jane invited him to
her house; and, seeing him struck with the rare loveliness of Nora,
whispered the hint of the dower. The fashionable solicitor, who
afterwards ripened into Baron Levy, did not need that hint; for, though
then poor, he relied on himself for fortune, and, unlike Randal, he had
warm blood in his veins. But Lady Jane's suggestions made him sanguine
of success; and when he formally proposed, and was as formally refused,
his self-love was bitterly wounded. Vanity in Levy was a powerful
passion; and with the vain, hatred is strong, revenge is rankling. Levy
retired, concealing his rage; nor did he himself know how vindictive
that rage, when it cooled into malignancy, could become, until the
arch-fiend OPPORTUNITY prompted its indulgence and suggested its design.

Lady Jane was at first very angry with Nora for the rejection of a
suitor whom she had presented as eligible. But the pathetic grace of
this wonderful girl had crept into her heart, and softened it even
against family prejudice; and she gradually owned to herself that Nora
was worthy of some one better than Mr. Levy.

Now, Harley had ever believed that Nora returned his love, and that
nothing but her own sense of gratitude to his parents, her own instincts
of delicacy, made her deaf to his prayers. To do him justice, wild and
headstrong as he then was, his suit would have ceased at once had he
really deemed it persecution. Nor was his error unnatural; for his
conversation, till it had revealed his own heart, could not fail to have
dazzled and delighted the child of genius; and her frank eyes would have
shown the delight. How, at his age, could he see the distinction between
the Poetess and the Woman? The poetess was charmed with rare promise in
a soul of which the very errors were the extravagances of richness
and beauty. But the woman--no! the woman required some nature not yet
undeveloped, and all at turbulent, if brilliant, strife with its own
noble elements, but a nature formed and full-grown. Harley was a boy,
and Nora was one of those women who must find or fancy an Ideal that
commands and almost awes them into love.

Harley discovered, not without difficulty, Nora's new residence. He
presented himself at Lady Jane's, and she, with grave rebuke, forbade
him the house. He found it impossible to obtain an interview with Nora.
He wrote, but he felt sure that his letters never reached her, since
they were unanswered. His young heart swelled with rage. He dropped
threats, which alarmed all the fears of Lady Lansmere, and even the
prudent apprehensions of his friend, Audley Egerton. At the request
of the mother, and equally at the wish of the son, Audley consented to
visit at Lady Jane's, and make acquaintance with Nora.

"I have such confidence in you," said Lady Lansmere, "that if you once
know the girl, your advice will be sure to have weight with her. You
will show her how wicked it would be to let Harley break our hearts and
degrade his station."

"I have such confidence in you," said young Harley, "that if you once
know my Nora, you will no longer side with my mother. You will recognize
the nobility which nature only can create, you will own that Nora is
worthy a rank more lofty than mine; and my mother so believes in your
wisdom, that, if you plead in my cause, you will convince even her."

Audley listened to both with his intelligent, half-incredulous smile;
and wholly of the same opinion as Lady Lansmere, and sincerely anxious
to save Harley from an indiscretion that his own notions led him to
regard as fatal, he resolved to examine this boasted pearl, and to find
out its flaws. Audley Egerton was then in the prime of his earnest,
resolute, ambitious youth. The stateliness of his natural manners had
then a suavity and polish which, even in later and busier life, it never
wholly lost; since, in spite of the briefer words and the colder looks
by which care and power mark the official man, the minister had ever
enjoyed that personal popularity which the indefinable, external
something, that wins and pleases, can alone confer. But he had even
then, as ever, that felicitous reserve which Rochefoucauld has called
the "mystery of the body,"--that thin yet guardian veil which reveals
but the strong outlines of character, and excites so much of interest
by provoking so much of conjecture. To the man who is born with this
reserve, which is wholly distinct from shyness, the world gives credit
for qualities and talents beyond those that it perceives; and such
characters are attractive to others in proportion as these last are
gifted with the imagination which loves to divine the unknown.

At the first interview, the impression which this man produced upon Nora
Avenel was profound and strange. She had heard of him before as the one.
whom Harley most loved and looked up to; and she recognized at once
in his mien, his aspect, his words, the very tone of his deep tranquil
voice, the power to which woman, whatever her intellect, never
attains; and to which, therefore, she imputes a nobility not always
genuine,--namely, the power of deliberate purpose and self-collected,
serene ambition. The effect that Nora produced on Egerton was not less
sudden. He was startled by a beauty of face and form that belonged to
that rarest order, which we never behold but once or twice in our lives.

He was yet more amazed to discover that the aristocracy of mind could
bestow a grace that no aristocracy of birth could surpass. He was
prepared for a simple, blushing village girl, and involuntarily he bowed
low his proud front at the first sight of that delicate bloom, and that
exquisite gentleness which is woman's surest passport to the respect of
man. Neither in the first, nor the second, nor the third interview,
nor, indeed, till after many interviews, could he summon up courage to
commence his mission, and allude to Harley. And when he did so at last
his words faltered. But Nora's words were clear to him. He saw that
Harley was not loved; and a joy, which he felt as guilty, darted through
his whole frame. From that interview Audley returned home greatly
agitated, and at war with himself. Often, in the course of this story,
has it been hinted that, under all Egerton's external coldness and
measured self-control, lay a nature capable of strong and stubborn
passions. Those passions broke forth then. He felt that love had already
entered into the heart, which the trust of his friend should have
sufficed to guard.

"I will go there no more," said he, abruptly, to Harley.

"But why?"

"The girl does not love you. Cease then to think of her."

Harley disbelieved him, and grew indignant. But Audley had every worldly
motive to assist his sense of honour. He was poor, though with the
reputation of wealth, deeply involved in debt, resolved to rise in
life, tenacious of his position in the world's esteem. Against a host
of counteracting influences, love fought single-handed. Audley's was a
strong nature; but, alas! in strong natures, if resistance to temptation
is of granite, so the passions that they admit are of fire.

Trite is the remark that the destinies of our lives often date from the
impulses of unguarded moments. It was so with this man, to an ordinary
eye so cautious and so deliberate. Harley one day came to him in great
grief; he had heard that Nora was ill: he implored Andley to go once
more and ascertain. Audley went. Lady Jane Horton, who was suffering
under a disease which not long afterwards proved fatal, was too ill
to receive him. He was shown into the room set apart as Nora's. While
waiting for her entrance, he turned mechanically over the leaves of an
album, which Nora, suddenly summoned away to attend Lady Jane, had left
behind her on the table. He saw the sketch of his own features; he read
words inscribed below it,--words of such artless tenderness, and such
unhoping sorrow, words written by one who had been accustomed to regard
her genius as her sole confidant, under Heaven; to pour out to it,
as the solitary poet-heart is impelled to do, thoughts, feelings, the
confession of mystic sighs, which it would never breathe to a living
ear, and, save at such moments, scarcely acknowledge to itself. Audley
saw that he was beloved, and the revelation, with a sudden light,
consumed all the barriers between himself and his own love. And at that
moment Nora entered. She saw him bending over the book. She uttered
a cry, sprang forward, and then sank down, covering her face with her
hands. But Audley was at her feet. He forgot his friend, his trust;
he forgot ambition, he forgot the world. It was his own cause that he
pleaded,--his own love that burst forth from his lips. And when the two
that day parted, they were betrothed each to each. Alas for them, and
alas for Harley! And now this man, who had hitherto valued himself as
the very type of gentleman, whom all his young contemporaries had so
regarded and so revered, had to press the hand of a confiding friend,
and bid adieu to truth. He had to amuse, to delay, to mislead his
boy-rival,--to say that he was already subduing Nora's hesitating
doubts, and that with a little time, she could be induced to consent to
forget Harley's rank, and his parent's pride, and become his wife. And
Harley believed in Egerton, without one suspicion on the mirror of his
loyal soul.

Meanwhile, Audley, impatient of his own position,--impatient, as strong
minds ever are, to hasten what they have once resolved, to terminate a
suspense that every interview with Harley tortured alike by jealousy
and shame, to pass out of the reach of scruples, and to say to himself,
"Right--or wrong, there is no looking back; the deed is done,"--Audley,
thus hurried on by the impetus of his own power of will, pressed for
speedy and secret nuptials,--secret, till his fortunes, then wavering,
were more assured, his career fairly commenced. This was not his
strongest motive, though it was one. He shrank from the discovery of
his wrong to his friend, desired to delay the self-humiliation of such
announcement, until, as he persuaded himself, Harley's boyish passion
was over, had yielded to the new allurements that would naturally beset
his way. Stifling his conscience, Audley sought to convince himself that
the day would soon come when Harley could hear with indifference that
Nora Avenel was another's. "The dream of an hour, at his age," murmured
the elder friend; "but at mine the passion of a life!" He did not speak
of these latter motives for concealment to Nora. He felt that to own the
extent of his treason to a friend would lower him in her eyes. He spoke
therefore but slightingly of Harley, treated the boy's suit as a thing
past and gone. He dwelt only on reasons that compelled self-sacrifice
on his side or hers. She did not hesitate which to choose. And so, where
Nora loved, so submissively did she believe in the superiority of the
lover, that she would not pause to hear a murmur from her own loftier
nature, or question the propriety of what he deemed wise and good.

Abandoning prudence in this arch affair of life, Audley still
preserved his customary caution in minor details. And this indeed was
characteristic of him throughout all his career, heedless in large
things, wary in small. He would not trust Lady Jane Horton with his
secret, still less Lady Lansmere. He simply represented to the former
that Nora was no longer safe from Harley's determined pursuit under Lady
Jane's roof, and that she had better elude the boy's knowledge of
her movements, and go quietly away for a while, to lodge with some
connection of her own.

And so, with Lady Jane's acquiescence, Nora went first to the house of
a very distant kinswoman of her mother's, and afterwards to one that
Egerton took as their bridal home, under the name of Bertram. He
arranged all that might render their marriage most free from the chance
of premature discovery. But it so happened on the very morning of their
bridal, that one of the witnesses he selected (a confidential servant of
his own) was seized with apoplexy. Considering, in haste, where to find
a substitute, Egerton thought of Levy, his own private solicitor, his
own fashionable money-lender, a man with whom he was then as intimate
as a fine gentleman is with the lawyer of his own age, who knows all his
affairs, and has helped, from pure friendship, to make them as bad as
they are! Levy was thus suddenly summoned. Egerton, who was in great
haste, did not at first communicate to him the name of the intended
bride; but he said enough of the imprudence of the marriage, and his
reasons for secrecy, to bring on himself the strongest remonstrances;
for Levy had always reckoned on Egerton's making a wealthy
marriage,--leaving to Egerton the wife, and hoping to appropriate to
himself the wealth, all in the natural course of business. Egerton did
not listen to him, but hurried him on towards the place at which the
ceremony was to be performed; and Levy actually saw the bride before
he had learned her name. The usurer masked his raging emotions, and
fulfilled his part in the rites. His smile, when he congratulated the
bride, might have shot cold into her heart; but her eyes were cast on
the earth, seeing there but a shadow from heaven, and her heart was
blindly sheltering itself in the bosom to which it was given evermore.
She did not perceive the smile of hate that barbed the words of joy.
Nora never thought it necessary later to tell Egerton that Levy had been
a refused suitor. Indeed, with the exquisite tact of love, she saw that
such a confidence, the idea of such a rival, would have wounded the
pride of her high-bred, well-born husband.

And now, while Harley L'Estrange, frantic with the news that Nora had
left Lady Jane's roof, and purposely misled into wrong directions, was
seeking to trace her refuge in vain, now Egerton, in an assumed name,
in a remote quarter, far from the clubs, in which his word was oracular,
far from the pursuits, whether of pastime or toil, that had hitherto
engrossed his active mind, gave himself up, with wonder at his own
surrender, to the only vision of fairyland that ever weighs down the
watchful eyelids of hard ambition. The world for a while shut out, he
missed it not. He knew not of it. He looked into two loving eyes that
haunted him ever after, through a stern and arid existence, and said
murmuringly, "Why, this, then, is real happiness!" Often, often, in the
solitude of other years, to repeat to himself the same words, save that
for is, he then murmured was! And Nora, with her grand, full heart,
all her luxuriant wealth of fancy and of thought, child of light and of
song, did she then never discover that there was something comparatively
narrow and sterile in the nature to which she had linked her fate? Not
there could ever be sympathy in feelings, brilliant and shifting as the
tints of the rainbow. When Audley pressed her heart to his own, could he
comprehend one finer throb of its beating? Was all the iron of his mind
worth one grain of the gold she had cast away in Harley's love?

Did Nora already discover this? Surely no. Genius feels no want,
no repining, while the heart is contented. Genius in her paused and
slumbered: it had been as the ministrant of solitude: it was needed no
more. If a woman loves deeply some one below her own grade in the mental
and spiritual orders, how often we see that she unconsciously quits her
own rank, comes meekly down to the level of the beloved, is afraid lest
he should deem her the superior,--she who would not even be the equal.
Nora knew no more that she had genius; she only knew that she had love.

And so here, the journal which Leonard was reading changed its tone,
sinking into that quiet happiness which is but quiet because it is so
deep. This interlude in the life of a man like Audley Egerton could
never have been long; many circumstances conspired to abridge it. His
affairs were in great disorder; they were all under Levy's management.
Demands that had before slumbered, or been mildly urged, grew menacing
and clamorous. Harley, too, returned to London from his futile
researches, and looked out for Audley. Audley was forced to leave his
secret Eden, and reappear in the common world; and thenceforward it was
only by stealth that he came to his bridal home,--a visitor, no more the
inmate. But more loud and fierce grew the demands of his creditors, now
when Egerton had most need of all which respectability and position
and belief of pecuniary independence can do to raise the man who has
encumbered his arms, and crippled his steps towards fortune. He was
threatened with writs, with prison. Levy said "that to borrow more would
be but larger ruin," shrugged his shoulders, and even recommended a
voluntary retreat to the King's Bench. "No place so good for frightening
one's creditors into compounding their claims; but why," added Levy,
with covert sneer, "why not go to young L'Estrange, a boy made to be
borrowed from!"

Levy, who had known from Lady Jane of Harley's pursuit of Nora, had
learned already how to avenge himself on Egerton. Audley could not apply
to the friend he had betrayed. And as to other friends, no man in town
had a greater number. And no man in town knew better that he should lose
them all if he were once known to be in want of their money. Mortified,
harassed, tortured, shunning Harley, yet ever sought by him, fearful of
each knock at his door, Audley Egerton escaped to the mortgaged remnant
of his paternal estate, on which there was a gloomy manor-house, long
uninhabited, and there applied a mind, afterwards renowned for its quick
comprehension of business, to the investigation of his affairs, with a
view to save some wreck from the flood that swelled momently around him.

And now--to condense as much as possible a record that runs darkly on
into pain and sorrow--now Levy began to practise his vindictive arts;
and the arts gradually prevailed. On pretence of assisting Egerton in
the arrangement of his affairs, which he secretly contrived, however,
still more to complicate, he came down frequently to Egerton Hall for
a few hours, arriving by the mail, and watching the effect which Nora's
almost daily letters produced on the bridegroom, irritated by the
practical cares of life. He was thus constantly at hand to instil into
the mind of the ambitious man a regret for the imprudence of hasty
passion, or to embitter the remorse which Audley felt for his treachery
to L'Estrange. Thus ever bringing before the mind of the harassed debtor
images at war with love, and with the poetry of life, he disattuned it
(so to speak) for the reception of Nora's letters, all musical as they
were with such thoughts as the most delicate fancy inspires to the
most earnest love. Egerton was one of those men who never confide their
affairs frankly to women. Nora, when she thus wrote, was wholly in
the dark as to the extent of his stern prosaic distress. And so--and
so--Levy always near--type of the prose of life in its most cynic
form--so by degrees all that redundant affluence of affection, with its
gushes of grief for his absence, prayers for his return, sweet reproach
if a post failed to bring back an answer to the woman's yearning
sighs,--all this grew, to the sensible, positive man of real life,
like sickly romantic exaggeration. The bright arrows shot too high into
heaven to hit the mark set so near to the earth. Ah, common fate of all
superior natures! What treasure, and how wildly wasted! "By-the-by,"
said Levy, one morning, as he was about to take leave of Audley
and return to town,--"by-the-by, I shall be this evening in the
neighbourhood of Mrs. Egerton."

EGERTON.--"Say Mrs. Bertram!"

LEVY.--"Ay; will she not be in want of some pecuniary supplies?"

EGERTON. "My wife!--Not yet. I must first be wholly ruined before she
can want; and if I were so, do you think I should not be by her side?"

LEVY.--"I beg pardon, my dear fellow; your pride of gentleman is so
susceptible that it is hard for a lawyer not to wound it unawares. Your
wife, then, does not know the exact state of your affairs?"

EGERTON.--"Of course not. Who would confide to a woman things in which
she could do nothing, except to tease one the more?"

LEVY.--"True, and a poetess too! I have prevented your finishing your
answer to Mrs. Bertram's last letter. Can I take it--it may save a day's
delay--that is, if you do not object to my calling on her this evening."

EGERTON (sitting down to his unfinished letter).--"Object! no."

LEVY (looking at his watch).--"Be quick, or I shall lose the coach."

EGEPTON (sealing the letter).--"There. And I should be obliged to you if
you would call; and without alarming her as to my circumstances, you
can just say that you know I am much harassed about important affairs at
present, and so soothe the effects of my very short answers--"

LEVY.--"To those doubly-crossed, very long letters,--I will."

"Poor Nora," said Egerton, sighing, "she will think this answer brief
and churlish enough. Explain my excuses kindly, so that they will serve
for the future. I really have no time and no heart for sentiment. The
little I ever had is well-nigh worried out of me. Still I love her
fondly and deeply."

LEVY.--"You must have done so. I never thought it in you to sacrifice
the world to a woman."

EGERTON.--"Nor I either; but," added the strong man, conscious of that
power which rules the world infinitely more than knowledge, conscious of
tranquil courage, "but I have not sacrificed the world yet. This right
arm shall bear up her and myself too."

LEVY.--"Well said! but in the mean while, for heaven's sake, don't
attempt to go to London, nor to leave this place; for, in that case,
I know you will be arrested, and then adieu to all hopes of
parliament,--of a career."

Audley's haughty countenance darkened; as the dog, in his bravest mode,
turns dismayed from the stone plucked from the mire, so, when Ambition
rears itself to defy mankind, whisper "disgrace and a jail,"--and,
lo, crestfallen, it slinks away! That evening Levy called on Nora, and
ingratiating himself into her favour by praise of Egerton, with indirect
humble apologetic allusions to his own former presumption, he prepared
the way to renewed visits; she was so lonely, and she so loved to see
one who was fresh from seeing Audley, one who would talk to her of
him! By degrees the friendly respectful visitor thus stole into her
confidence; and then, with all his panegyrics on Audley's superior
powers and gifts, he began to dwell upon the young husband's worldly
aspirations, and care for his career; dwell on them so as vaguely to
alarm Nora,--to imply that, dear as she was, she was still but second
to Ambition. His way thus prepared, he next began to insinuate his
respectful pity at her equivocal position, dropped hints of gossip and
slander, feared that the marriage might be owned too late to preserve
reputation. And then what would be the feelings of the proud Egerton
if his wife were excluded from that world whose opinion he so prized?
Insensibly thus he led her on to express (though timidly) her own
fear, her own natural desire, in her letters to Audley. When could the
marriage be proclaimed? Proclaimed! Audley felt that to proclaim such a
marriage at such a moment would be to fling away his last cast for fame
and fortune. And Harley, too,--Harley still so uncured of his frantic
love! Levy was sure to be at hand when letters like these arrived.

And now Levy went further still in his determination to alienate these
two hearts. He contrived, by means of his various agents, to circulate
through Nora's neighbourhood the very slanders at which he had hinted.
He contrived that she should be insulted when she went abroad, outraged
at home by the sneers of her own servant, and tremble with shame at her
own shadow upon her abandoned bridal hearth.

Just in the midst of this intolerable anguish, Levy reappeared. His
crowning hour was ripe. He intimated his knowledge of the humiliations
Nora had undergone, expressed his deep compassion, offered to intercede
with Egerton "to do her justice." He used ambiguous phrases, that
shocked her ear and tortured her heart, and thus provoked her on to
demand him to explain; and then, throwing her into a wild state of
indefinite alarm, in which he obtained her solemn promise not to divulge
to Audley what he was about to communicate, he said, with villanous
hypocrisy of reluctant shame, "that her marriage was not strictly legal;
that the forms required by the law had not been complied with, that
Audley, unintentionally or purposely, had left himself free to disown
the rite and desert the bride." While Nora stood stunned and speechless
at a falsehood which, with lawyer-like show, he contrived to make
truth-like to her inexperience, he hurried rapidly on, to re-awake on
her mind the impression of Audley's pride, ambition, and respect for
worldly position. "These are your obstacles," said he; "but I think I
may induce him to repair the wrong, and right you at last." Righted at
last--oh, infamy!

Then Nora's anger burst forth. She believe such a stain on Audley's
honour!

"But where was the honour when he betrayed his friend? Did you not know
that he was entrusted by Lord L'Estrange to plead for him. How did he
fulfil the trust?"

"Plead for L'Estrange!" Nora had not been exactly aware of this,--in the
sudden love preceding those sudden nuptials, so little touching Harley
(beyond Audley's first timid allusions to his suit, and her calm and
cold reply) had been spoken by either.

Levy resumed. He dwelt fully on the trust and the breach of it, and then
said: "In Egerton's world, man holds it far more dishonour to betray
a man than to dupe a woman; and if Egerton could do the one, why doubt
that he would do the other? But do not look at me with those indignant
eyes. Put himself to the test; write to him to say that the suspicions
amidst which you live have become intolerable, that they infect even
yourself, despite your reason, that the secrecy of your nuptials, his
prolonged absence, his brief refusal, on unsatisfactory grounds, to
proclaim your tie, all distract you with a terrible doubt. Ask him, at
least (if he will not yet declare your marriage), to satisfy you that
the rites were legal."

"I will go to him," cried Nora, impetuously.

"Go to him!--in his own house! What a scene, what a scandal! Could he
ever forgive you?"

"At least, then, I will implore him to come here. I can not write such
horrible words; I cannot! I cannot! Go, go!" Levy left her, and hastened
to two or three of Audley's most pressing creditors,--men, in fact,
who went entirely by Levy's own advice. He bade them instantly surround
Audley's country residence with bailiffs. Before Egerton could reach
Nora, he would thus be lodged in a jail. These preparations made, Levy
himself went down to Audley, and arrived, as usual, an hour or two
before the delivery of the post.

And Nora's letter came; and never was Audley's grave brow more dark than
when he read it. Still, with his usual decision, he resolved to obey
her wish,--rang the bell, and ordered his servant to put up a change of
dress, and send for post-horses.

Levy then took him aside, and led him to the window. "Look under yon
trees. Do you see those men? They are bailiffs. This is the true reason
why I come to you to-day. You cannot leave this house."

Egerton recoiled. "And this frantic, foolish letter at such a time!" he
muttered, striking the open page, full of love in the midst of terror,
with his clenched hand. O Woman, Woman! if thy heart be deep, and its
chords tender, beware how thou lovest the man with whom all that plucks
him from the hard cares of the workday world is frenzy or a folly! He
will break thy heart, he will shatter its chords, he will trample out
from its delicate framework every sound that now makes musical the
common air, and swells into unison with the harps of angels.

"She has before written to me," continued Audley, pacing the room
with angry, disordered strides, "asking me when our marriage can be
proclaimed, and I thought my replies would have satisfied any reasonable
woman. But now, now this is worse, immeasurably worse,--she actually
doubts my honour! I, who have made such sacrifices,--actually doubts
whether I, Audley Egerton, an English gentleman, could have been base
enough to--"

"What?" interrupted Levy, "to deceive your friend L'Estrange? Did not
she know that?"

"Sir!" exclaimed Egerton, turning white.

"Don't be angry,--all's fair in love as in war; and L'Estrange will live
yet to thank you for saving him from such a misalliance. But you are
seriously angry: pray, forgive me."

With some difficulty and much fawning, the usurer appeased the storm
he had raised in Audley's conscience. And he then heard, as if with
surprise, the true purport of Nora's letter.

"It is beneath me to answer, much less to satisfy, such a doubt,"
said Audley. "I could have seen her, and a look of reproach would have
sufficed; but to put my hand to paper, and condescend to write, 'I am
not a villain, and I will give you the proofs that I am not'--never!"

"You are quite right; but let us see if we cannot reconcile matters
between your pride and her feelings. Write simply this: 'All that you
ask me to say or to explain, I have instructed Levy, as my solicitor, to
say and explain for me; and you may believe him as you would myself.'"

"Well, the poor fool, she deserves to be punished; and I suppose that
answer will punish her more than a lengthier rebuke.--My mind is so
distracted, I cannot judge of these trumpery woman-fears and whims;
there, I have written as you suggest. Give her all the proof she needs,
and tell her that in six months at furthest, come what will, she shall
bear the name of Egerton, as henceforth she must share his fate."

"Why say six months?"

"Parliament must be dissolved, and there must be a general election
before then. I shall either obtain a seat, be secure from a jail, have
won field for my energies, or--"

"Or what?"

"I shall renounce ambition altogether, ask my brother to assist me
towards whatever debts remain when all my property is fairly sold--they
cannot be much. He has a living in his gift; the incumbent is old, and,
I hear, very ill. I can take orders."

"Sink into a country parson!"

"And learn content. I have tasted it already. She was then by my side.
Explain all to her. This letter, I fear, is too unkind--But to doubt me
thus!"

Levy hastily placed the letter in his pocketbook; and, for fear it
should be withdrawn, took his leave.

And of that letter he made such use, that the day after he had given
it to Nora, she had left the house, the neighbourhood; fled, and not
a trace! Of all the agonies in life, that which is most poignant and
harrowing, that which for the time most annihilates reason, and leaves
our whole organization one lacerated, mangled heart, is the conviction
that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of love. The
moment the anchor snaps, the storm comes on, the stars vanish behind the
cloud.

When Levy returned, filled with the infamous hope which had stimulated
his revenge,--the hope that if he could succeed in changing into
scorn and indignation Nora's love for Audley, he might succeed also
in replacing that broken and degraded idol,--his amaze and dismay were
great on hearing of her departure. For several days he sought her traces
in vain. He went to Lady Jane Horton's,--Nora had not been there. He
trembled to go back to Egerton. Surely Nora would have written to her
husband, and in spite of her promise, revealed his own falsehood; but as
days passed, and not a clew was found, he had no option but to repair to
Egerton Hall, taking care that the bailiffs still surrounded it.
Audley had received no line from Nora. The young husband was surprised,
perplexed, uneasy, but had no suspicion of the truth.

At length Levy was forced to break to Audley the intelligence of Nora's
flight. He gave his own colour to it. Doubtless she had gone to seek
her own relations, and, by their advice, take steps to make her marriage
publicly known. This idea changed Audley's first shock into deep and
stern resentment. His mind so little comprehended Nora's, and was ever
so disposed to what is called the common-sense view of things, that he
saw no other mode to account for her flight and her silence. Odious to
Egerton as such a proceeding would be, he was far too proud to take
any steps to guard against it. "Let her do her worst," said he, coldly,
masking emotion with his usual self-command; "it will be but a nine
days' wonder to the world, a fiercer rush of my creditors on their
hunted prey"

"And a challenge from Lord L'Estrange."

"So be it," answered Egerton, suddenly placing his hand at his heart.

"What is the matter? Are you ill?"

"A strange sensation here. My father died of a complaint of the heart,
and I myself was once told to guard, through life, against excess of
emotion. I smiled at such a warning then. Let us sit down to business."

But when Levy had gone, and solitude reclosed round that Man of the
Iron Mask, there grew upon him more and more the sense of a mighty loss.
Nora's sweet loving face started from the shadows of the forlorn walls.
Her docile, yielding temper, her generous, self-immolating spirit, came
back to his memory, to refute the idea that wronged her. His love, that
had been suspended for awhile by busy cares, but which, if without much
refining sentiment, was still the master passion of his soul, flowed
back into all his thoughts,--circumfused the very atmosphere with a
fearful, softening charm. He escaped under cover of the night from
the watch of the bailiffs. He arrived in London. He himself sought
everywhere he could think of for his missing bride. Lady Jane Horton was
confined to her bed, dying fast, incapable even to receive and reply to
his letter. He secretly sent down to Lansmere to ascertain if Nora had
gone to her parents. She was not there. The Avenels believed her still
with Lady Jane Horton.

He now grew most seriously alarmed; and in the midst of that alarm, Levy
secretly contrived that he should be arrested for debt; but he was not
detained in confinement many days. Before the disgrace got wind, the
writs were discharged, Levy baffled. He was free. Lord L'Estrange had
learned from Audley's servant what Audley would have concealed from him
out of all the world. And the generous boy, who, besides the munificent
allowance he received from the earl, was heir to an independent and
considerable fortune of his own, when he should attain his majority,
hastened to borrow the money and discharge all the obligations of his
friend. The benefit was conferred before Audley knew of it, or could
prevent. Then a new emotion, and perhaps scarce less stinging than the
loss of Nora, tortured the man who had smiled at the warning of science;
and the strange sensation at the heart was felt again and again.

And Harley, too, was still in search of Nora,--would talk of nothing but
her, and looked so haggard and grief-worn. The bloom of the boy's youth
was gone. Could Audley then have said, "She you seek is another's; your
love is razed out of your life; and, for consolation, learn that your
friend has betrayed you"? Could Audley say this? He did not dare. Which
of the two suffered the most?

And these two friends, of characters so different, were so singularly
attached to each other,--inseparable at school, thrown together in the
world, with a wealth of frank confidences between them, accumulated
since childhood. And now, in the midst of all his own anxious sorrow,
Harley still thought and planned for Egerton. And self-accusing remorse,
and all the sense of painful gratitude, deepened Audley's affection
for Harley into a devotion as to a superior, while softening it into a
reverential pity that yearned to relieve, to atone; but how,--oh, how?

A general election was now at hand, still no news of Nora. Levy kept
aloof from Audley, pursuing his own silent search. A seat for the
borough of Lansmere was pressed upon Audley, not only by Harley, but his
parents, especially by the countess, who tacitly ascribed to Audley's
wise counsels Nora's mysterious disappearance.

Egerton at first resisted the thought of a new obligation to his injured
friend; but he burned to have it, some day, in his power to repay at
least his pecuniary debt: the sense of that debt humbled him more
than all else. Parliamentary success might at last obtain for him some
lucrative situation abroad, and thus enable him gradually to remove
this load from his heart and his honour. No other chance of repayment
appeared open to him. He accepted the offer, and went down to Lansmere.
His brother, lately married, was asked to meet him; and there also
was Miss Leslie the heiress, whom Lady Lansmere secretly hoped her son
Harley would admire, but who had long since, no less secretly, given her
heart to the unconscious Egerton.

Meanwhile, the miserable Nora--deceived by the arts and representations
of Levy, acting on the natural impulse of a heart so susceptible to
shame, flying from a home which she deemed dishonoured, flying from a
lover whose power over her she knew to be so great that she dreaded lest
he might reconcile her to dishonour itself--had no thought save to hide
herself forever from Audley's eye. She would not go to her relations,
to Lady Jane; that were to give the clew, and invite the pursuit. An
Italian lady of high rank had visited at Lady Jane's,--taken a great
fancy to Nora; and the lady's husband, having been obliged to precede
her return to Italy, had suggested the notion of engaging some
companion; the lady had spoken of this to Nora and to Lady Jane Horton,
who had urged Nora to accept the offer, elude Harley's pursuit, and go
abroad for a time. Nora then had refused; for she then had seen Audley
Egerton.

To this Italian lady she now went, and the offer was renewed with the
most winning kindness, and grasped at in the passion of despair. But the
Italian had accepted invitations to English country-houses before she
finally departed for the Continent. Meanwhile Nora took refuge in a
quiet lodging in a sequestered suburb, which an English servant in the
employment of the fair foreigner recommended. Thus had she first come
to the cottage in which Burley died. Shortly afterwards she left England
with her new companion, unknown to all,--to Lady Jane as to her parents.

All this time the poor girl was under a moral delirium, a confused
fever, haunted by dreams from which she sought to fly. Sound
physiologists agree that madness is rarest amongst persons of the finest
imagination. But those persons are, of all others, liable to a temporary
state of mind in which judgment sleeps,--imagination alone prevails with
a dire and awful tyranny. A single idea gains ascendancy, expels all
others, presents itself everywhere with an intolerable blinding glare.
Nora was at that time under the dread one idea, to fly from shame!

But when the seas rolled, and the dreary leagues interposed between
her and her lover; when new images presented themselves; when the fever
slaked, and reason returned,--doubt broke upon the previous despair. Had
she not been too credulous, too hasty? Fool, fool! Audley have been so
poor a traitor! How guilty was she, if she had wronged him! And in the
midst of this revulsion of feeling, there stirred within her another
life. She was destined to become a mother. At that thought her high
nature bowed; the last struggle of pride gave way; she would return
to England, see Audley, learn from his lips the truth, and even if the
truth were what she had been taught to believe, plead not for herself,
but for the false one's child.

Some delay occurred in the then warlike state of affairs on the
Continent before she could put this purpose into execution; and on her
journey back, various obstructions lengthened the way. But she returned
at last, and resought the suburban cottage in which she had last lodged
before quitting England. At night, she went to Audley's London house;
there was only a woman in charge of it. Mr. Egerton was absent,
electioneering somewhere; Mr. Levy, his lawyer, called every day for
any letters to be forwarded to him. Nora shrank from seeing Levy, shrank
from writing even a letter that would pass through his bands. If she
had been deceived, it had been by him, and wilfully. But parliament
was already dissolved; the election would soon be over. Mr. Egerton
was expected to return to town within a week. Nora went back to Mrs.
Goodyer's and resolved to wait, devouring her own heart in silence. But
the newspapers might inform her where Audley really was; the newspapers
were sent for and conned daily.

And one morning this paragraph met her eye:--

   The Earl and Countess of Lansmere are receiving a distinguished
   party at their country seat. Among the guests is Miss Leslie, whose
   wealth and beauty have excited such sensation in the fashionable
   world. To the disappointment of numerous aspirants amongst our
   aristocracy, we hear that this lady has, however, made her
   distinguished choice in Mr. Audley Egerton. That gentleman is now a
   candidate for the borough of Lansmere, as a supporter of the
   Government; his success is considered certain, and, according to the
   report of a large circle of friends, few new members will prove so
   valuable an addition to the ministerial ranks. A great career may
   indeed be predicted for a young man so esteemed for talent and
   character, aided by a fortune so immense as that which he will
   shortly receive with the hand of the accomplished heiress.

Again the anchor snapped, again the storm descended, again the stars
vanished. Nora was now once more under the dominion of a single thought,
as she had been when she fled from her bridal home. Then, it was to
escape from her lover,--now, it was to see him. As the victim stretched
on the rack implores to be led at once to death, so there are moments
when the annihilation of hope seems more merciful than the torment of
suspense.




CHAPTER XVII.

When the scenes in some long diorama pass solemnly before us, there is
sometimes one solitary object, contrasting, perhaps, the view of stately
cities or the march of a mighty river, that halts on the eye for
a moment, and then glides away, leaving on the mind a strange,
comfortless, undefined impression.

Why was the object presented to us? In itself it seemed comparatively
insignificant. It may have been but a broken column, a lonely pool with
a star-beam on its quiet surface,--yet it awes us. We remember it when
phantasmal pictures of bright Damascus, or of colossal pyramids, of
bazaars in Stamboul, or lengthened caravans that defile slow amidst the
sands of Araby, have sated the wondering gaze. Why were we detained in
the shadowy procession by a thing that would have been so commonplace
had it not been so lone? Some latent interest must attach to it. Was it
there that a vision of woe had lifted the wild hair of a Prophet; there
where some Hagar had stilled the wail of her child on her indignant
breast? We would fain call back the pageantry procession, fain see again
the solitary thing that seemed so little worth the hand of the artist,
and ask, "Why art thou here, and wherefore dost thou haunt us?"

Rise up,--rise up once more, by the broad great thoroughfare that
stretches onward and onward to the remorseless London! Rise up, rise up,
O solitary tree with the green leaves on thy bough, and the deep rents
in thy heart; and the ravens, dark birds of omen and sorrow, that build
their nest amidst the leaves of the bough, and drop with noiseless
plumes down through the hollow rents of the heart, or are heard, it may
be in the growing shadows of twilight, calling out to their young.

Under the old pollard-tree, by the side of John Avenel's house, there
cowered, breathless and listening, John Avenel's daughter Nora. Now,
when that fatal newspaper paragraph, which lied so like truth, met her
eyes, she obeyed the first impulse of her passionate heart,--she tore
the wedding ring from her finger, she enclosed it, with the paragraph
itself, in a letter to Audley,--a letter that she designed to convey
scorn and pride--alas! it expressed only jealousy and love. She could
not rest till she had put this letter into the post with her own hand,
addressed to, Audley at Lord Lansmere's. Scarce had it left her ere she
repented. What had she done,--resigned the birth-right of the child
she was so soon to bring into the world, resigned her last hope in her
lover's honour, given up her life of life--and from belief in what?--a
report in a newspaper! No, no; she would go herself to Lansmere; to
her father's home,--she could contrive to see Audley before that letter
reached his hand. The thought was scarcely conceived before obeyed.
She found a vacant place in a coach that started from London some hours
before the mail, and went within a few miles of Lansmere; those last
miles she travelled on foot. Exhausted, fainting, she gained at last the
sight of home, and there halted, for in the little garden in front
she saw her parents seated. She heard the murmur of their voices, and
suddenly she remembered her altered shape, her terrible secret. How
answer the question,

"Daughter, where and who is thy husband?" Her heart failed her; she
crept under the old pollard-tree, to gather up resolve, to watch, and to
listen. She saw the rigid face of the thrifty, prudent mother, with the
deep lines that told of the cares of an anxious life, and the chafe of
excitable temper and warm affections against the restraint of decorous
sanctimony and resolute pride. The dear stern face never seemed to
her more dear and more stern. She saw the comely, easy, indolent,
good-humoured father; not then the poor, paralytic sufferer, who could
yet recognize Nora's eyes under the lids of Leonard, but stalwart and
jovial,--first bat in the Cricket Club, first voice in the Glee Society,
the most popular canvasser of the Lansmere Constitutional True Blue
Party, and the pride and idol of the Calvinistical prim wife; never from
those pinched lips of hers had come forth even one pious rebuke to
the careless, social man. As he sat, one hand in his vest, his profile
turned to the road, the light smoke curling playfully up from the pipe,
over which lips, accustomed to bland smile and hearty laughter, closed
as if reluctant to be closed at all, he was the very model of the
respectable retired trader in easy circumstances, and released from the
toil of making money while life could yet enjoy the delight of spending
it.

"Well, old woman," said John Avenel, "I must be off presently to see to
those three shaky voters in Fish Lane; they will have done their work
soon, and I shall catch 'em at home. They do say as how we may have an
opposition; and I know that old Smikes has gone to Lonnon in search of
a candidate. We can't have the Lansmere Constitutional Blues beat by a
Lonnoner! Ha, ha, ha!"

"But you will be home before Jane and her husband Mark come? How ever
she could marry a common carpenter!"

"Yes," said John, "he is a carpenter; but he has a vote, and that
strengthens the family interest. If Dick was not gone to Amerikay, there
would be three on us. But Mark is a real good Blue! A Lonnoner, indeed!
a Yellow from Lonnon beat my Lord and the Blues! Ha, ha!"

"But, John, this Mr. Egerton is a Lonnoner!"

"You don't understand things, talking such nonsense. Mr. Egerton is the
Blue candidate, and the Blues are the Country Party; therefore how can
he be a Lonnoner? An uncommon clever, well-grown, handsome young man,
eh! and my young Lord's particular friend."

Mrs. Avenel sighed.

"What are you sighing and shaking your head for?"

"I was thinking of our poor, dear, dear Nora!"

"God bless her!" cried John, heartily.

There was a rustle under the boughs of the old hollow-hearted
pollard-tree.

"Ha, ha! Hark! I said that so loud that I have startled the ravens!"

"How he did love her!" said Mrs. Avenel, thoughtfully. "I am sure he
did; and no wonder, for she looks every inch a lady; and why should not
she be my lady, after all?"

"He? Who? Oh, that foolish fancy of yours about my young Lord? A prudent
woman like you!--stuff! I am glad my little beauty is gone to Lonnon,
out of harm's way."

"John, John, John! No harm could ever come to my Nora. She 's too pure
and too good, and has too proper a pride in her, to--"

"To listen to any young lords, I hope," said John; "though," he added,
after a pause, "she might well be a lady too. My Lord, the young one,
took me by the hand so kindly the other day, and said, 'Have not you
heard from her--I mean Miss Avenel--lately?' and those bright eyes of
his were as full of tears as--as--as yours are now."

"Well, John, well; go on."

"That is all. My Lady came up, and took me away to talk about the
election; and just as I was going, she whispered, 'Don't let my wild boy
talk to you about that sweet girl of yours. We must both see that she
does not come to disgrace.' 'Disgrace!' that word made me very angry
for the moment. But my Lady has such a way with her that she soon put
me right again. Yet, I do think Nora must have loved my young Lord, only
she was too good to show it. What do you say?" And the father's voice
was thoughtful.

"I hope she'll never love any man till she's married to him; it is not
proper, John," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat starchly, though very mildly.

"Ha, ha!" laughed John, chucking his prim wife under the chin, "you
did not say that to me when I stole your first kiss under that very
pollard-tree--no house near it then!"

"Hush, John, hush!" and the prim wife blushed like a girl.

"Pooh," continued John, merrily, "I don't see why we plain folk should
pretend to be more saintly and prudish-like than our betters. There's
that handsome Miss Leslie, who is to marry Mr. Egerton--easy enough to
see how much she is in love with him,--could not keep her eyes off from
him even in church, old girl! Ha, ha! What the deuce is the matter with
the ravens?"

"They'll be a comely couple, John. And I hear tell she has a power of
money. When is the marriage to be?"

"Oh, they say as soon as the election is over. A fine wedding we shall
have of it! I dare say my young Lord will be bridesman. We'll send for
our little Nora to see the gay doings!"

Out from the boughs of the old tree came the shriek of a lost
spirit,--one of those strange, appalling sounds of human agony which,
once heard, are never forgotten. It is as the wail of Hope, when SHE,
too, rushes forth from the Coffer of Woes, and vanishes into viewless
space; it is the dread cry of Reason parting from clay, and of Soul,
that would wrench itself from life! For a moment all was still--and then
a dull, dumb, heavy fall!

The parents gazed on each other, speechless: they stole close to the
pales, and looked over. Under the boughs, at the gnarled roots of the
oak, they saw--gray and indistinct--a prostrate form. John opened the
gate, and went round; the mother crept to the road-side, and there stood
still.

"Oh, wife, wife!" cried John Avenel, from under the green boughs, "it is
our child Nora! Our child! our child!"

And, as he spoke, out from the green boughs started the dark ravens,
wheeling round and round, and calling to their young!

And when they had laid her on the bed, Mrs. Avenel whispered John to
withdraw for a moment; and with set lips but trembling hands began
to unlace the dress, under the pressure of which Nora's heart heaved
convulsively. And John went out of the room bewildered, and sat
himself down on the landing-place, and wondered whether he was awake or
sleeping; and a cold numbness crept over one side of him, and his head
felt very heavy, with a loud, booming noise in his ears. Suddenly his
wife stood by his side, and said, in a very low voice,

"John, run for Mr. Morgan,--make haste. But mind--don't speak to any one
on the way. Quick, quick!"

"Is she dying?"

"I don't know. Why not die before?" said Mrs. Avenel, between her teeth;
"but Mr. Morgan is a discreet, friendly man."

"A true Blue!" muttered poor John, as if his mind wandered; and rising
with difficulty, he stared at his wife a moment, shook his head, and was
gone.

An hour or two later, a little, covered, taxed cart stopped at Mr.
Avenel's cottage, out of which stepped a young man with pale face and
spare form, dressed in the Sunday suit of a rustic craftsman; then a
homely, but pleasant, honest face bent down to him, smilingly; and two
arms emerging from under covert of a red cloak extended an infant, which
the young man took tenderly. The baby was cross and very sickly; it
began to cry. The father hushed, and rocked, and tossed it, with the air
of one to whom such a charge was familiar.

"He'll be good when we get in, Mark," said the young woman, as she
extracted from the depths of the cart a large basket containing poultry
and home-made bread.

"Don't forget the flowers that the squire's gardener gave us," said Mark
the Poet.

Without aid from her husband, the wife took down basket and nosegay,
settled her cloak, smoothed her gown, and said, "Very odd! they don't
seem to expect us, Mark. How still the house is! Go and knock; they
can't ha' gone to bed yet."

Mark knocked at the door--no answer. A light passed rapidly across the
windows on the upper floor, but still no one came to his summons. Mark
knocked again. A gentleman dressed in clerical costume, now coming from
Lansinere Park, on the opposite side of the road, paused at the sound of
Mark's second and more impatient knock, and said civilly,

"Are you not the young folks my friend John Avenel told me this morning
he expected to visit him?"

"Yes, please, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Fairfield, dropping her courtesy.
"You remember me! and this is my dear good man!"

"What! Mark the Poet?" said the curate of Lansmere, with a smile. "Come
to write squibs for the election?"

"Squibs, sir!" cried Mark, indignantly.

"Burns wrote squibs," said the curate, mildly.

Mark made no answer, but again knocked at the door.

This time, a man, whose face, even seen by the starlight, was much
flushed, presented himself at the threshold.

"Mr. Morgan!" exclaimed the curate, in benevolent alarm; "no illness
here, I hope?"

"Cott! it is you, Mr. Dale!--Come in, come in; I want a word with you.
But who the teuce are these people?"

"Sir," said Mark, pushing through the doorway, "my name is Fairfield,
and my wife is Mr. Avenel's daughter!"

"Oh, Jane--and her baby too!--Cood! cood! Come in; but be quiet, can't
you? Still, still--still as death!"

The party entered, the door closed; the moon rose, and shone calmly on
the pale silent house, on the sleeping flowers of the little garden, on
the old pollard with its hollow core. The horse in the taxed cart dozed
unheeded; the light still at times flitted across the upper windows.
These were the only signs of life, except when a bat, now and then
attracted by the light that passed across the windows, brushed against
the panes, and then, dipping downwards, struck up against the nose of
the slumbering horse, and darted merrily after the moth that fluttered
round the raven's nest in the old pollard.




CHAPTER XVIII.

All that day Harley L'Estrange had been more than usually mournful and
dejected. Indeed, the return to scenes associated with Nora's presence
increased the gloom that had settled on his mind since he had lost sight
and trace of her. Audley, in the remorseful tenderness he felt for his
injured friend, had induced L'Estrange towards evening to leave the
Park, and go into a district some miles off, on pretence that he
required Harley's aid there to canvass certain important outvoters: the
change of scene might rouse him from his reveries. Harley himself was
glad to escape from the guests at Lansmere. He readily consented to go.
He would not return that night. The outvoters lay remote and scattered,
he might be absent for a day or two. When Harley was gone, Egerton
himself sank into deep thought. There was rumour of some unexpected
opposition. His partisans were alarmed and anxious. It was clear that
the Lansmere interest, if attacked, was weaker than the earl would
believe; Egerton might lose his election. If so, what would become of
him? How support his wife, whose return to him he always counted on, and
whom it would then become him at all hazards to acknowledge? It was
that day that he had spoken to William Hazeldean as to the family
living.--"Peace, at least," thought the ambitious man,--"I shall have
peace!" And the squire had promised him the rectory if needed; not
without a secret pang, for his Harry was already using her conjugal
influence in favour of her old school-friend's husband, Mr. Dale;
and the squire thought Audley would be but a poor country parson, and
Dale--if he would only grow a little plumper than his curacy would
permit him to be--would be a parson in ten thousand. But while Audley
thus prepared for the worst, he still brought his energies to bear on
the more brilliant option; and sat with his Committee, looking into
canvass-books, and discussing the characters, politics, and local
interests of every elector, until the night was well-nigh gone. When he
gained his room; the shutters were unclosed, and he stood a few moments
at the window, gazing on the moon. At that sight, the thought of Nora,
lost and afar, stole over him. The man, as we know, had in his nature
little of romance and sentiment. Seldom was it his wont to gaze upon
moon or stars. But whenever some whisper of romance did soften his hard,
strong mind, or whenever moon or stars did charm his gaze from earth,
Nora's bright Muse-like face, Nora's sweet loving eyes, were seen in
moon and star-beam, Nora's low tender voice heard in the whisper of
that which we call romance, and which is but the sound of the mysterious
poetry that is ever in the air, would we but deign to hear it! He turned
with a sigh, undressed, threw himself on his bed, and extinguished his
light. But the light of the moon would fill the room. It kept him awake
for a little time; he turned his face from the calm, heavenly beam
resolutely towards the dull blind wall, and fell asleep. And, in the
sleep, he was with Nora,--again in the humble bridal-home. Never in
his dreams had she seemed to him so distinct and life-like,--her
eyes upturned to his, her hands clasped together, and resting on his
shoulder, as had been her graceful wont, her voice murmuring meekly,
"Has it, then, been my fault that we parted? Forgive, forgive me!"
And the sleeper imagined that he answered, "Never part from me
again,--never, never!" and that he bent down to kiss the chaste lips
that so tenderly sought his own. And suddenly he heard a knocking
sound, as of a hammer,--regular, but soft, low, subdued. Did you ever,
O reader, hear the sound of the hammer on the lid of a coffin in a house
of woe,--when the undertaker's decorous hireling fears that the living
may hear how he parts them from the dead? Such seemed the sound to
Audley. The dream vanished abruptly.

He woke, and again heard the knock; it was at his door. He sat up
wistfully; the moon was gone, it was morning. "Who is there?" he cried
peevishly.

A low voice from without answered, "Hush, it is I; dress quick; let me
see you."

Egerton recognized Lady Lansmere's voice. Alarmed and surprised, he
rose, dressed in haste, and went to the door. Lady Lansmere was standing
without, extremely pale. She put her finger to her lip, and beckoned him
to follow her. He obeyed mechanically. They entered her dressing-room, a
few doors from his own chamber, and the countess closed the door.

Then laying her slight firm hand on his shoulder, she said, in
suppressed and passionate excitement,

"Oh, Mr. Egerton, you must serve me, and at once. Harley! Harley! save
my Harley! Go to him, prevent his coming back here, stay with him; give
up the election,--it is but a year or two lost in your life, you will
have other opportunities; make that sacrifice to your friend."

"Speak--what is the matter? I can make no sacrifice too great for
Harley!"

"Thanks, I was sure of it. Go then, I say, at once to Harley; keep him
away from Lansmere on any excuse you can invent, until you can break the
sad news to him,--gently, gently. Oh, how will he bear it; how recover
the shock? My boy, my boy!"

"Calm yourself! Explain! Break what news; recover what shock?"

"True; you do not know, you have not heard. Nora Avenel lies yonder, in
her father's house,--dead, dead!"

Audley staggered back, clapping his hand to his heart, and then dropping
on his knee as if bowed down by the stroke of heaven.

"My bride, my wife!" he muttered. "Dead--it cannot be!"

Lady Lansmere was so startled at this exclamation, so stunned by a
confession wholly unexpected, that she remained unable to soothe, to
explain, and utterly unprepared for the fierce agony that burst from the
man she had ever seen so dignified and cold, when he sprang to his feet,
and all the sense of his eternal loss rushed upon his heart.

At length he crushed back his emotions, and listened in apparent
calm, and in a silence broken but by quick gasps for breath, to Lady
Lansmere's account.

One of the guests in the house, a female relation of Lady Lansmere's,
had been taken suddenly ill about an hour or two before; the house had
been disturbed, the countess herself aroused, and Mr. Morgan summoned
as the family medical practitioner. From him she had learned that Nora
Avenel had returned to her father's house late on the previous evening,
had been seized with brain fever, and died in a few hours.

Audley listened, and turned to the door, still in silence. Lady Lansmere
caught him by the arm. "Where are you going? Ah, can I now ask you
to save my son from the awful news, you yourself the sufferer? And
yet--yet--you know his haste, his vehemence, if he learned that you were
his rival, her husband; you whom he so trusted! What, what would be the
result?--I tremble!"

"Tremble not,--I do not tremble! Let me go! I will be back soon, and
then,"--(his lips writhed)--"then we will talk of Harley."

Egerton went forth, stunned and dizzy. Mechanically he took his way
across the park to John Avenel's house. He had been forced to enter that
house, formally, a day or two before, in the course of his canvass; and
his worldly pride had received a shock when the home, the birth, and the
manners of his bride's parents had been brought before him. He had even
said to himself, "And is it the child of these persons that I, Audley
Egerton, must announce to the world as wife?" Now, if she had been the
child of a beggar-nay, of a felon--now if he could but recall her to
life, how small and mean would all that dreaded world appear to him!
Too late, too late! The dews were glistening in the sun, the birds were
singing overhead, life wakening all around him--and his own heart felt
like a charnel-house. Nothing but death and the dead there,--nothing! He
arrived at the door: it was open: he called; no one answered: he walked
up the narrow stairs, undisturbed, unseen; he came into the chamber of
death. At the opposite side of the bed was seated John Avenel; but he
seemed in a heavy sleep. In fact, paralysis had smitten him; but he knew
it not; neither did any one. Who could heed the strong hearty man in
such a moment? Not even the poor anxious wife! He had been left there
to guard the house, and watch the dead,--an unconscious man; numbed,
himself, by the invisible icy hand! Audley stole to the bedside; he
lifted the coverlid thrown over the pale still face. What passed within
him during the minute he stayed there who shall say? But when he left
the room, and slowly descended the stairs, he left behind him love and
youth, all the sweet hopes and joys of the household human life, for
ever and ever!

He returned to Lady Lansmere, who awaited his coming with the most
nervous anxiety.

"Now," said he, dryly, "I will go to Harley, and I will prevent his
returning hither."

"You have seen the parents. Good heavens! do they know of your
marriage?"

"No; to Harley I must own it first. Meanwhile, silence!"

"Silence!" echoed Lady Lansmere; and her burning hand rested in
Audley's, and Audley's hand was as ice.

In another hour Egerton had left the house, and before noon he was with
Harley.

It is necessary now to explain the absence of all the Avenel family,
except the poor stricken father.

Nora had died in giving birth to a child,--died delirious. In her
delirium she had spoken of shame, of disgrace; there was no holy nuptial
ring on her finger. Through all her grief, the first thought of Mrs.
Avenel was to save the good name of her lost daughter, the unblemished
honour of all the living Avenels. No matron long descended from
knights or kings had keener pride in name and character than the poor,
punctilious Calvinistic trader's wife. "Sorrow later, honour now!" With
hard dry eyes she mused and mused, and made out her plan. Jane Fairfield
should take away the infant at once, before the day dawned, and nurse
it with her own. Mark should go with her, for Mrs. Avenel dreaded the
indiscretion of his wild grief. She would go with them herself part of
the way, in order to command or reason them into guarded silence. But
they could not go back to Hazeldean with another infant; Jane must
go where none knew her; the two infants might pass as twins. And Mrs.
Avenel, though naturally a humane, kindly woman, and with a mother's
heart to infants, looked with almost a glad sternness at Jane's puny
babe, and thought to herself, "All difficulty would be over should there
be only one! Nora's child could thus pass throughout life for Jane's!"

Fortunately for the preservation of the secret, the Avenels kept no
servant,--only an occasional drudge, who came a few hours in the day,
and went home to sleep. Mrs. Avenel could count on Mr. Morgan's silence
as to the true cause of Nora's death. And Mr. Dale, why should be reveal
the dishonour of a family? That very day, or the next at furthest, she
could induce her husband to absent himself, lest he should blab out the
tale while his sorrow was greater than his pride. She alone would then
stay in the house of death until she could feel assured that all else
were hushed into prudence. Ay, she felt, that with due precautions, the
name was still safe. And so she awed and hurried Mark and his wife away,
and went with them in the covered cart, that hid the faces of all three,
leaving for an hour or two the house and the dead to her husband's
charge, with many an admonition, to which he nodded his head, and which
he did not hear. Do you think this woman was unfeeling and inhuman?
Had Nora looked from heaven into her mother's heart Nora would not have
thought so. A good name when the burial stone closes over dust is still
a possession upon the earth; on earth it is indeed our only one! Better
for our friends to guard for us that treasure than to sit down and weep
over perishable clay. And weep!--Oh, stern mother, long years were left
to thee for weeping! No tears shed for Nora made such deep furrows on
the cheeks as thine did! Yet who ever saw them flow?

Harley was in great surprise to see Egerton; more surprised when Egerton
told him that he found he was to be opposed,--that he had no chance of
success at Lansmere, and had, therefore, resolved to retire from the
contest. He wrote to the earl to that effect; but the countess knew
the true cause, and hinted it to the earl; so that, as we saw at the
commencement of this history, Egerton's cause did not suffer when
Captain Dashmore appeared in the borough; and, thanks to Mr. Hazeldean's
exertions and oratory, Audley came in by two votes,--the votes of John
Avenel and Mark Fairfield. For though the former had been removed a
little way from the town, and by medical advice, and though, on other
matters, the disease that had smitten him left him docile as a child
(and he had but vague indistinct ideas of all the circumstances
connected with Nora's return, save the sense of her loss), yet he still
would hear how the Blues went on, and would get out of bed to keep his
word: and even his wife said,

"He is right; better die of it than break his promise!" The crowd gave
way as the broken man they had seen a few days before so jovial and
healthful was brought up in a chair to the poll, and said, with his
tremulous quavering voice, "I 'm a true Blue,--Blue forever!"

Elections are wondrous things! No man who has not seen can guess how the
zeal in them triumphs over sickness, sorrow, the ordinary private life
of us!

There was forwarded to Audley, from Lansmere Park, Nora's last letter.
The postman had left it there an hour or two after he himself had gone.
The wedding-ring fell on the ground, and rolled under his feet. And
those burning, passionate reproaches, all that anger of the wounded
dove, explained to him the mystery of her return, her unjust suspicions,
the cause of her sudden death, which he still ascribed to brain fever,
brought on by excitement and fatigue. For Nora did not speak of the
child about to be born; she had not remembered it when she wrote, or she
would not have written. On the receipt of this letter, Egerton could not
remain in the dull village district,--alone, too, with Harley. He
said, abruptly, that he must go to London; prevailed on L'Estrange to
accompany him; and there, when he heard from Lady Lansmere that the
funeral was over, he broke to Harley, with lips as white as the dead,
and his hand pressed to his heart, on which his hereditary disease was
fastening quick and fierce, the dread truth that Nora was no more. The
effect upon the boy's health and spirits was even more crushing than
Audley could anticipate. He only woke from grief to feel remorse. "For,"
said the noble Harley, "had it not been for my passion, my rash pursuit,
would she ever have left her safe asylum,--ever even have left her
native town? And then--and then--the struggle between her sense of
duty and her love to me! I see it all--all! But for me she were living
still!"

"Oh, no!" cried Egerton, his confession now rushing to his lips.

"Believe me, she never loved you as you think. Nay, nay, hear me! Rather
suppose that she loved another, fled with him, was perhaps married to
him, and--"

"Hold!" exclaimed Harley, with a terrible burst of passion,--"you kill
her twice to me if you say that! I can still feel that she lives--lives
here, in my heart--while I dream that she loved me--or, at least, that
no other lip ever knew the kiss that was denied to mine! But if you tell
me to doubt that--you--you--" The boy's anguish was too great for
his frame; he fell suddenly back into Audley's arms; he had broken a
blood-vessel. For several days he was in great danger; but his eyes were
constantly fixed on Audley's, with wistful intense gaze. "Tell me,"
he muttered, at the risk of re-opening the ruptured veins, and of the
instant loss of life,--"tell me, you did not mean that! Tell me you have
no cause to think she loved another--was another's!"

"Hush, hush! no cause--none--none! I meant but to comfort you, as I
thought,--fool that I was!--that is all!" cried the miserable friend.
And from that hour Audley gave up the idea of righting himself in his
own eyes, and submitted still to be the living lie,--he, the haughty
gentleman!

Now, while Harley was still very weak and suffering, Mr. Dale came to
London, and called on Egerton. The curate, in promising secrecy to Mrs.
Avenel, had made one condition, that it should not be to the positive
injury of Nora's living son. What if Nora were married after all?
And would it not be right, at least, to learn the name of the child's
father?

Some day he might need a father. Mrs. Avenel was obliged to content
herself with these reservations. However, she implored Mr. Dale not to
make inquiries. What could they do? If Nora were married, her husband
would naturally, of his own accord, declare himself; if seduced and
forsaken, it would but disgrace her memory (now saved from stain) to
discover the father to a child of whose very existence the world as
yet knew nothing. These arguments perplexed the good curate. But Jane
Fairfield had a sanguine belief in her sister's innocence; and all her
suspicions naturally pointed to Lord L'Estrange. So, indeed, perhaps;
did Mrs. Avenel's, though she never owned them. Of the correctness
of these suspicions Mr. Dale was fully convinced; the young lord's
admiration, Lady Lansmere's fears, had been too evident to one who had
often visited at the Park; Harley's abrupt departure just before Nora's
return home; Egerton's sudden resignation of the borough before even
opposition was declared, in order to rejoin his friend, the very day of
Nora's death,--all confirmed his ideas that Harley was the betrayer or
the husband. Perhaps there might have been a secret marriage--possibly
abroad--since Harley wanted some years of his majority. He would, at
least, try to see and to sound Lord L'Estrange. Prevented this interview
by Harley's illness, the curate resolved to ascertain how far he could
penetrate into the mystery by a conversation with Egerton. There was
much in the grave repute which the latter had acquired, and the singular
and pre-eminent character for truth and honour with which it was
accompanied, that made the curate resolve upon this step. Accordingly;
he saw Egerton, meaning only diplomatically to extract from the new
member for Lansmere what might benefit the family of the voters who had
given him his majority of two.

He began by mentioning, as a touching fact, how poor John Avenel, bowed
down by the loss of his child and the malady which had crippled his
limbs and enfeebled his mind, had still risen from his bed to keep his
word. And Audley's emotions seemed to him so earnest and genuine, to
show so good a heart, that out by little and little came more: first,
his suspicions that poor Nora had been betrayed; then his hopes that
there might have been private marriage; and as Audley, with his iron
self-command, showed just the proper degree of interest, and no more, he
went on, till Audley knew that he had a child.

"Inquire no further!" said the man of the world. "Respect Mrs. Avenel's
feelings and wishes, I entreat you; they are the right ones. Leave
the rest to me. In my position--I mean as a resident of London--I
can quietly and easily ascertain more than you could, and provoke no
scandal! If I can right this--this--poor--[his voice trembled]--right
the lost mother, or the living child, sooner or later you will hear
from me; if not, bury this secret where it now rests, in a grave which
slander has not reached. But the child--give me the address where it is
to be found--in case I succeed in finding the father, and touching his
heart."

"Oh, Mr. Egerton, may I not say where you may find that father--who he
is?"

"Sir!"

"Do not be angry; and, after all, I cannot ask you to betray any
confidence which a friend may have placed in you. I know what you men
of high honour are to each other, even in sin. No, no, I beg pardon; I
leave all in your hands. I shall hear from you then?"

"Or if not, why, then, believe that all search is hopeless. My friend!
if you mean Lord L'Estrange, he is innocent. I--I--I--[the voice
faltered]--am convinced of it."

The curate sighed, but made no answer. "Oh, ye men of the world!"
thought he. He gave the address which the member for Lansmere had asked
for, and went his way, and never heard again from Audley Egerton. He was
convinced that the man who had showed such deep feeling had failed in
his appeal to Harley's conscience, or had judged it best to leave
Nora's name in peace, and her child to her own relations and the care of
Heaven.

Harley L'Estrange, scarcely yet recovered, hastened to join our armies
on the Continent, and seek the Death which, like its half-brother,
rarely comes when we call it.

As soon as Harley was gone, Egerton went to the village to which Mr.
Dale had directed him, to seek for Nora's child. But here he was led
into a mistake which materially affected the tenor of his own life, and
Leonard's future destinies. Mrs. Fairfield had been naturally ordered
by her mother to take another name in the village to which she had gone
with the two infants, so that her connection with the Avenel family
might not be traced, to the provocation of inquiry and gossip. The grief
and excitement through which she had gone dried the source of nutriment
in her breast. She put Nora's child out to nurse at the house of a small
farmer, at a little distance from the village, and moved from her first
lodging to be nearer to the infant. Her own child was so sickly and
ailing, that she could not bear to intrust it to the care of an other.
She tried to bring it up by hand; and the poor child soon pined away
and died. She and Mark could not endure the sight of their baby's grave;
they hastened to return to Hazeldean, and took Leonard with them. From
that time Leonard passed for the son they had lost.

When Egerton arrived at the village, and inquired for the person whose
address had been given to him, he was referred to the cottage in which
she had last lodged, and was told that she had been gone some days,--the
day after her child was buried. Her child buried! Egerton stayed to
inquire no more; thus he heard nothing of the infant that had been put
out to nurse. He walked slowly into the churchyard, and stood for some
minutes gazing on the small new mound; then, pressing his hand on the
heart to which all emotion had been forbidden, he re-entered his chaise
and returned to London. The sole reason for acknowledging his marriage
seemed to him now removed. Nora's name had escaped reproach. Even
had his painful position with regard to Harley not constrained him to
preserve his secret, there was every motive to the world's wise and
haughty son not to acknowledge a derogatory and foolish marriage, now
that none lived whom concealment could wrong.

Audley mechanically resumed his former life,--sought to resettle his
thoughts on the grand objects of ambitious men. His poverty still
pressed on him; his pecuniary debt to Harley stung and galled his
peculiar sense of honour. He saw no way to clear his estates, to repay
his friend, but by some rich alliance. Dead to love, he faced this
prospect first with repugnance, then with apathetic indifference. Levy,
of whose treachery towards himself and Nora he was unaware, still held
over him the power that the money-lender never loses over the man that
has owed, owes, or may owe again. Levy was ever urging him to propose,
to the rich Miss Leslie; Lady Lansmere, willing to atone, as she
thought, for his domestic loss, urged the same; Harley, influenced by
his mother, wrote from the Continent to the same effect.

"Manage it as you will," at last said Egerton to Levy, "so that I am not
a wife's pensioner."

"Propose for me, if you will," he said to Lady Lansmere,--"I cannot
woo,--I cannot talk of love."

Somehow or other the marriage, with all its rich advantages to the
ruined gentleman, was thus made up. And Egerton, as we have seen, was
the polite and dignified husband before the world,--married to a woman
who adored him. It is the common fate of men like him to be loved too
well!

On her death-bed his heart was touched by his wife's melancholy
reproach,--"Nothing I could do has ever made you love me!"

"It is true," answered Audley, with tears in his voice and eyes; "Nature
gave me but a small fund of what women like you call 'love,' and I
lavished it all away." And he then told her, though with reserve, some
portion of his former history; and that soothed her; for when she saw
that he had loved, and could grieve, she caught a glimpse of the human
heart she had not seen before. She died, forgiving him, and blessing.

Audley's spirits were much affected by this new loss. He inly resolved
never to marry again. He had a vague thought at first of retrenching his
expenditure, and making young Randal Leslie his heir. But when he first
saw the clever Eton boy, his feelings did not warm to him, though his
intellect appreciated Randal's quick, keen talents. He contented himself
with resolving to push the boy,--to do what was merely just to the
distant kinsman of his late wife. Always careless and lavish in money
matters, generous and princely, not from the delight of serving others,
but from a grand seigneur's sentiment of what was due to himself and his
station, Audley had a mournful excuse for the lordly waste of the large
fortune at his control. The morbid functions of the heart had become
organic disease. True, he might live many years, and die at last of some
other complaint in the course of nature; but the progress of the disease
would quicken with all emotional excitement; he might die suddenly--any
day--in the very prime, and, seemingly, in the full vigour, of his
life. And the only physician in whom he confided what he wished to
keep concealed from the world (for ambitious men would fain be thought
immortal) told him frankly that it was improbable that, with the wear
and tear of political strife and action, he could advance far into
middle age. Therefore, no son of his succeeding--his nearest relations
all wealthy--Egerton resigned himself to his constitutional disdain
of money; he could look into no affairs, provided the balance in his
banker's hands were such as became the munificent commoner. All else
he left to his steward and to Levy. Levy grew rapidly rich,--very, very
rich,--and the steward thrived.

The usurer continued to possess a determined hold over the imperious
great man. He knew Audley's secret; he could reveal that secret to
Harley. And the one soft and tender side of the statesman's nature--the
sole part of him not dipped in the ninefold Styx of practical prosaic
life, which renders man so invulnerable to affection--was his remorseful
love for the school friend whom he still deceived.

Here then you have the key to the locked chambers of Audley Egerton's
character, the fortified castle of his mind. The envied minister, the
joyless man; the oracle on the economies of an empire, the prodigal in
a usurer's hands; the august, high-crested gentleman, to whom princes
would refer for the casuistry of honour, the culprit trembling lest the
friend he best loved on earth should detect his lie! Wrap thyself in the
decent veil that the Arts or the Graces weave for thee, O Human Nature!
It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold
without shame and offence!




CHAPTER XIX.

Of the narrative just placed before the reader, it is clear that
Leonard could gather only desultory fragments. He could but see that his
ill-fated mother had been united to a man she had loved with surpassing
tenderness; had been led to suspect that the marriage was fraudulent;
had gone abroad in despair; returned repentant and hopeful; had gleaned
some intelligence that her lover was about to be married to another,
and there the manuscript closed with the blisters left on the page by
agonizing tears. The mournful end of Nora, her lonely return to die
under the roof of her parents,--this he had learned before from the
narrative of Dr. Morgan.

But even the name of her supposed husband was not revealed. Of him
Leonard could form no conjecture, except that he was evidently of higher
rank than Nora. Harley L'Estrange seemed clearly indicated in the early
boy-lover. If so, Harley must know all that was left dark to Leonard,
and to him Leonard resolved to confide the manuscripts. With this
resolution he left the cottage, resolving to return and attend the
funeral obsequies of his departed friend. Mrs. Goodyer willingly
permitted him to take away the papers she had lent to him, and added
to them the packet which had been addressed to Mrs. Bertram from the
Continent.

Musing in anxious gloom over the record he had read, Leonard entered
London on foot, and bent his way towards Harley's hotel; when, just as
he had crossed into Bond Street, a gentleman in company with Baron Levy,
and who seemed, by the flush on his brow and the sullen tone of his
voice, to have had rather an irritating colloquy with the fashionable
usurer, suddenly caught sight of Leonard, and, abruptly quitting Levy,
seized the young man by the arm.

"Excuse me, sir," said the gentleman, looking hard into Leonard's face,
"but unless these sharp eyes of mine are mistaken, which they seldom
are, I see a nephew whom, perhaps, I behaved to rather too harshly, but
who still has no right to forget Richard Avenel."

"My dear uncle," exclaimed Leonard, "this is indeed a joyful surprise;
at a time, too, when I needed joy! No; I have never forgotten your
kindness, and always regretted our estrangement."

"That is well said; give us your fist again. Let me look at you--quite
the gentleman, I declare--still so good-looking too. We Avenels always
were a handsome family.

"Good-by, Baron Levy. Need not wait for me; I am not going to run away.
I shall see you again."

"But," whispered Levy, who had followed Avenel across the street, and
eyed Leonard with a quick, curious, searching glance--"but it must be
as I say with regard to the borough; or (to be plain) you must cash the
bills on the day they are due."

"Very well, sir, very well. So you think to put the screw upon me, as
if I were a poor little householder. I understand,--my money or my
borough?"

"Exactly so," said the baron, with a soft smile.

"You shall hear from me." (Aside, as Levy strolled away)--"D---d
tarnation rascal!"

Dick Avenel then linked his arm in his nephew's, and strove for some
minutes to forget his own troubles, in the indulgence of that curiosity
in the affairs of another, which was natural to him, and in this
instance increased by the real affection which he had felt for Leonard.
But still his curiosity remained unsatisfied; for long before Leonard
could overcome his habitual reluctance to speak of his success in
literature, Dick's mind wandered back to his rival at Screwstown,
and the curse of "over-competition,"--to the bills which Levy had
discounted, in order to enable Dick to meet the crushing force of a
capitalist larger than himself, and the "tarnation rascal" who now
wished to obtain two seats at Lansmere, one for Randal Leslie, one for
a rich Nabob whom Levy had just caught as a client, and Dick, though
willing to aid Leslie, had a mind to the other seat for himself.
Therefore Dick soon broke in upon the hesitating confessions of Leonard,
with exclamations far from pertinent to the subject, and rather for the
sake of venting his own griefs and resentment than with any idea that
the sympathy or advice of his nephew could serve him.

"Well, well," said Dick, "another time for your history. I see you have
thrived, and that is enough for the present. Very odd; but just now I
can only think of myself. I'm in a regular fix, sir. Screwstown is not
the respectable Screwstown that you remember it--all demoralized
and turned topsy-turvy by a demoniacal monster capitalist, with
steam-engines that might bring the falls of Niagara into your back
parlour, sir! And as if that was not enough to destroy and drive into
almighty shivers a decent fair-play Britisher like myself, I hear he
is just in treaty for some patent infernal invention that will make his
engines do twice as much work with half as many hands! That's the way
those unfeeling ruffians increase our poor-rates! But I 'll get up a
riot against him, I will! Don't talk to me of the law! What the devil
is the good of the law if it don't protect a man's industry,--a liberal
man, too, like me!" Here Dick burst into a storm of vituperation against
the rotten old country in general, and Mr. Dyce, the monster capitalist
of Screwstown, in particular.

Leonard started; for Dick now named, in that monster capitalist, the
very person who was in treaty for Leonard's own mechanical improvement
on the steam-engine.

"Stop, uncle, stop! Why, then, if this man were to buy the contrivance
you speak of, it would injure you?"

"Injure me, sir! I should be a bankrupt,--that is, if it succeeded; but
I dare say it is all a humbug."

"No, it will succeed,--I 'll answer for that!"

"You! You have seen it?"

"Why, I invented it!"

Dick hastily withdrew his arm from Leonard's.

"Serpent's tooth!" he said falteringly, "so it is you, whom I warmed at
my hearth, who are to ruin Richard Avenel?"

"No; but to save him! Come into the City and look at my model. If you
like it, the patent shall be yours!"

"Cab, cab, cab," cried Dick Avenel, stopping a 'Ransom;' "jump in,
Leonard,--jump in. I'll buy your patent,--that is, if it be worth a
straw; and as for payment--"

"Payment! Don't talk of that!"

"Well, I won't," said Dick, mildly; "for 't is not the topic of
conversation I should choose myself, just at present. And as for that
black-whiskered alligator, the baron, let me first get out of those
rambustious, unchristian, filbert-shaped claws of his, and then--but
jump in! jump in! and tell the man where to drive!"

A very brief inspection of Leonard's invention sufficed to show Richard
Avenel how invaluable it would be to him. Armed with a patent, of which
the certain effects in the increase of power and diminution of labour
were obvious to any practical man, Avenel felt that he should have no
difficulty in obtaining such advances of money as he required, whether
to alter his engines, meet the bills discounted by Levy, or carry on
the war with the monster capitalist. It might be necessary to admit into
partnership some other monster capitalist--What then? Any partner better
than Levy. A bright idea struck him.

"If I can just terrify and whop that infernal intruder on my own
ground for a few months, he may offer, himself, to enter into
partnership,--make the two concerns a joint-stock friendly combination,
and then we shall flog the world."

His gratitude to Leonard became so lively that Dick offered to bring his
nephew in for Lansmere instead of himself; and when Leonard declined the
offer, exclaimed, "Well, then, any friend of yours; I'm all for reform
against those high and mighty right honourable borough-mongers; and what
with loans and mortgages on the small householders, and a long course
of 'Free and Easies' with the independent freemen, I carry one--seat
certain, perhaps both seats of the town of Lansmere, in my breeches
pocket." Dick then, appointing an interview with Leonard at his
lawyer's, to settle the transfer of the invention, upon terms which he
declared "should be honourable to both parties," hurried off, to search
amongst his friends in the City for some monster capitalist, who alight
be induced to extricate him from the jaws of Levy and the engines of his
rival at Screwstown. "Mullins is the man, if I can but catch him," said
Dick. "You have heard of Mullins?--a wonderful great man; you should see
his nails; he never cuts them! Three millions, at least, he has scraped
together with those nails of his, sir. And in this rotten old country,
a man must have nails a yard long to fight with a devil like Levy!
Good-by, good-by,--Goon-by, MY DEAR, nephew!"




CHAPTER XX.

Harley L'Estrange was seated alone in his apartments. He had just put
down a volume of some favourite classic author, and he was resting
his hand firmly clenched upon the book. Ever since Harley's return to
England, there had been a perceptible change in the expression of his
countenance, even in the very bearing and attitudes of his elastic
youthful figure. But this change had been more marked since that last
interview with Helen which has been recorded. There was a compressed,
resolute firmness in the lips, a decided character in the brow. To
the indolent, careless grace of his movements had succeeded a certain
indescribable energy, as quiet and self-collected as that which
distinguished the determined air of Audley Egerton himself. In fact, if
you could have looked into his heart, you would have seen that Harley
was, for the first time, making a strong effort over his passions and
his humours; that the whole man was nerving himself to a sense of duty.
"No," he muttered,--"no! I will think only of Helen; I will think
only of real life! And what (were I not engaged to another) would that
dark-eyed Italian girl be to me?--What a mere fool's fancy is this! I
love again,--I, who through all the fair spring of my life have clung
with such faith to a memory and a grave! Come, come, come, Harley
L'Estrange, act thy part as man amongst men, at last! Accept regard;
dream no more of passion. Abandon false ideals. Thou art no poet--why
deem that life itself can be a poem?"

The door opened, and the Austrian prince, whom Harley had interested
in the cause of Violante's father, entered, with the familiar step of a
friend.

"Have you discovered those documents yet?" said the prince. "I must now
return to Vienna within a few days; and unless you can arm me with
some tangible proof of Peschiera's ancient treachery, or some more
unanswerable excuse for his noble kinsman, I fear that there is no other
hope for the exile's recall to his country than what lies in the hateful
option of giving his daughter to his perfidious foe."

"Alas!" said Harley, "as yet all researches have been in vain; and
I know not what other steps to take, without arousing Peschiera's
vigilance, and setting his crafty brains at work to counteract us. My
poor friend, then, must rest contented with exile. To give Violante to
the count were dishonour. But I shall soon be married; soon have a home,
not quite unworthy of their due rank, to offer both to father and to
child."

"Would the future Lady L'Estrange feel no jealousy of a guest so fair
as you tell me this young signorina is? And would you be in no danger
yourself, my poor friend?"

"Pooh!" said Harley, colouring. "My fair guest would have two fathers;
that is all. Pray do not jest on a thing so grave as honour."

Again the door opened, and Leonard appeared.

"Welcome," cried Harley, pleased to be no longer alone under the
prince's penetrating eye,--"welcome. This is the noble friend who shares
our interest for Riccabocca, and who could serve him so well, if we
could but discover the document of which I have spoken to you."

"It is here," said Leonard, simply; "may it be all that you require!"

Harley eagerly grasped at the packet, which had been sent from Italy to
the supposed Mrs. Bertram, and, leaning his face on his hand, rapidly
hurried through the contents.

"Hurrah!" he cried at last, with his face lighted up, and a boyish toss
of his right hand. "Look, look, Prince, here are Peschiera's own letters
to his kinsman's wife; his avowal of what he calls his 'patriotic
designs;' his entreaties to her to induce her husband to share them.
Look, look, how he wields his influence over the woman he had once
wooed; look how artfully he combats her objections; see how reluctant
our friend was to stir, till wife and kinsman both united to urge him!"

"It is enough,-quite enough," exclaimed the prince, looking at the
passages in Peschiera's letters which Harley pointed out to him.

"No, it is not enough," shouted Harley, as he continued to read the
letters with his rapid sparkling eyes. "More still! O villain, doubly
damned! Here, after our friend's flight, here is Peschiera's avowal
of guilty passion; here, he swears that he had intrigued to ruin his
benefactor, in order to pollute the home that had sheltered him. Ah, see
how she answers! thank Heaven her own eyes were opened at last, and she
scorned him before she died! She was innocent! I said so. Violante's
mother was pure. Poor lady, this moves me! Has your emperor the heart of
a man?"

"I know enough of our emperor," answered the prince, warmly, "to know
that, the moment these papers reach him, Peschiera is ruined, and your
friend is restored to his honours. You will live to see the daughter, to
whom you would have given a child's place at your hearth, the wealthiest
heiress of Italy,--the bride of some noble lover, with rank only below
the supremacy of kings!"

"Ah," said Harley, in a sharp accent, and turning very pale,--"ah, I
shall not see her that! I shall never visit Italy again!--never see her
more,--never, after she has once quitted this climate of cold iron cares
and formal duties! never, never!" He turned his head for a moment, and
then came with quick step to Leonard. "But you, O happy poet! No Ideal
can ever be lost to you. You are independent of real life. Would that I
were a poet!" He smiled sadly.

"You would not say so, perhaps, my dear Lord," answered Leonard,
with equal sadness, "if you knew how little what you call 'the Ideal'
replaces to a poet the loss of one affection in the genial human world.
Independent of real life! Alas! no. And I have here the confessions of
a true poet-soul, which I will entreat you to read at leisure; and when
you have read, say if you would still be a poet!"

He took forth Nora's manuscripts as he spoke.

"Place them yonder, in my escritoire, Leonard; I will read them later."

"Do so, and with heed; for to me there is much here that involves my own
life,--much that is still a mystery, and which I think you can unravel!"

"I!" exclaimed Harley; and he was moving towards the escritoire, in a
drawer of which Leonard had carefully deposited the papers, when once
more, but this time violently, the door was thrown open, and Giacomo
rushed into the room, accompanied by Lady Lansmere.

"Oh, my Lord, my Lord!" cried Giacomo, in Italian, "the signorina! the
signorina! Violante!"

"What of her? Mother, Mother! what of her? Speak, speak!"

"She has gone,--left our house!"

"Left! No, no!" cried Giacomo. "She must have been deceived or forced
away. The count! the count! Oh, my good Lord, save her, as you once
saved her father!"

"Hold!" cried Harley. "Give me your arm, Mother. A second such blow in
life is beyond the strength of man,--at least it is beyond mine. So, so!
I am better now! Thank you, Mother. Stand back, all of you! give me
air. So the count has triumphed, and Violante has fled with him! Explain
all,--I can bear it!"




BOOK TWELFTH.




INITIAL CHAPTER.

WHEREIN THE CAXTON FAMILY REAPPEAR.

"Again," quoth my father,--"again behold us! We who greeted the
commencement of your narrative, who absented ourselves in the midcourse
when we could but obstruct the current of events, and jostle personages
more important,--we now gather round the close. Still, as the chorus to
the drama, we circle round the altar with the solemn but dubious
chant which prepares the audience for the completion of the appointed
destinies; though still, ourselves, unaware how the skein is to be
unravelled, and where the shears are to descend."

So there they stood, the Family of Caxton,--all grouping round me,
all eager officiously to question, some over-anxious prematurely to
criticise.

"Violante can't have voluntarily gone off with that horrid count," said
my mother; "but perhaps she was deceived, like Eugenia by Mr. Bellamy,
in the novel of 'CAMILLA'."

"Ha!" said my father, "and in that case it is time yet to steal a hint
from Clarissa Harlowe, and make Violante die less of a broken heart than
a sullied honour. She is one of those girls who ought to be killed! All
things about her forebode an early tomb!"

"Dear, dear!" cried Mrs. Caxton, "I hope not!"

"Pooh, brother," said the captain, "we have had enough of the tomb in
the history of poor Nora. The whole story grows out of a grave, and if
to a grave it must return--if, Pisistratus, you must kill somebody--kill
Levy."

"Or the count," said my mother, with unusual truculence. "Or Randal
Leslie," said Squills. "I should like to have a post-mortem cast of his
head,--it would be an instructive study."

Here there was a general confusion of tongues, all present conspiring
to bewilder the unfortunate author with their various and discordant
counsels how to wind up his story and dispose of his characters.

"Silence!" cried Pisistratus, clapping his hands to both ears. "I can no
more alter the fate allotted to each of the personages whom you honour
with your interest than I can change your own; like you, they must
go where events lead there, urged on by their own characters and the
agencies of others. Providence so pervadingly governs the universe,
that you cannot strike it even out of a book. The author may beget a
character, but the moment the character comes into action, it escapes
from his hands,--plays its own part, and fulfils its own inevitable
doom."

"Besides," said Squills, "it is easy to see, from the phrenological
development of the organs in those several heads which Pisistratus has
allowed us to examine, that we have seen no creations of mere fiction,
but living persons, whose true history has set in movement their various
bumps of Amativeness, Constructiveness, Acquisitiveness, Idealty,
Wonder, Comparison, etc. They must act, and they must end, according
to the influences of their crania. Thus we find in Randal Leslie the
predominant organs of Constructiveness, Secretiveness, Comparison, and
Eventuality, while Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Adhesiveness, are
utterly nil. Now, to divine how such a man must end, we must first see
what is the general composition of the society in which he moves, in
short, what other gases are brought into contact with his phlogiston.
As to Leonard, and Harley, and Audley Egerton, surveying them
phrenologically, I should say that--"

"Hush!" said my father, "Pisistratus has dipped his pen in the ink, and
it seems to me easier for the wisest man that ever lived to account for
what others have done than to predict what they should do. Phrenologists
discovered that Mr. Thurtell had a very fine organ of Conscientiousness;
yet, somehow or other, that erring personage contrived to knock the
brains out of his friend's organ of Individuality. Therefore I rise to
propose a Resolution,--that this meeting be adjourned till Pisistratus
has completed his narrative; and we shall then have the satisfaction of
knowing that it ought, according to every principle of nature, science,
and art, to have been completed differently. Why should we deprive
ourselves of that pleasure?"

"I second the motion," said the captain; "but if Levy be not hanged, I
shall say that there is an end of all poetical justice."

"Take care of poor Helen," said Blanche, tenderly: "nor, that I would
have you forget Violante."

"Pish! and sit down, or they shall both die old maids." Frightened at
that threat, Blanche, with a deprecating look, drew her stool quietly
near me, as if to place her two proteges in an atmosphere mesmerized to
matrimonial attractions; and my mother set hard to work--at a new frock
for the baby. Unsoftened by these undue female influences, Pisistratus
wrote on at the dictation of the relentless Fates. His pen was of iron,
and his heart was of granite. He was as insensible to the existence of
wife and baby as if he had never paid a house bill, nor rushed from
a nursery at the sound of an infant squall. O blessed privilege of
Authorship!

          "O testudinis aureae
          Dulcem quae strepitum, Pieri, temperas!
          O mutis quoque piscibus
          Donatura cyeni, si libeat, sonum!"

   ["O Muse, who dost temper the sweet sound of the golden shell of the
   tortoise, and couldst also give, were it needed, to silent fishes
   the song of the swan."]




CHAPTER II.

It is necessary to go somewhat back in the course of this narrative, and
account to the reader for the disappearance of Violante.

It may be remembered that Peschiera, scared by the sudden approach of
Lord L'Estrange, had little time for further words to the young Italian,
than those which expressed his intention to renew the conference, and
press for her decision. But the next day, when he re-entered the garden,
secretly and stealthily, as before, Violante did not appear. And after
watching round the precincts till dusk, the count retreated, with an
indignant conviction that his arts had failed to enlist on his side
either the heart or the imagination of his intended victim. He began now
to revolve and to discuss with Levy the possibilities of one of those
bold and violent measures, which were favoured by his reckless daring
and desperate condition. But Levy treated with such just ridicule any
suggestion to abstract Violante by force from Lord Lansmere's house, so
scouted the notions of nocturnal assault, with the devices of scaling
windows and rope-ladders, that the count reluctantly abandoned that
romance of villany so unsuited to our sober capital, and which would no
doubt have terminated in his capture by the police, with the prospect of
committal to the House of Correction.

Levy himself found his invention at fault, and Randal Leslie was called
into consultation. The usurer had contrived that Randal's schemes of
fortune and advancement were so based upon Levy's aid and connivance,
that the young man, with all his desire rather to make instruments
of other men, than to be himself their instrument, found his superior
intellect as completely a slave to Levy's more experienced craft, as
ever subtle Genius of air was subject to the vulgar Sorcerer of earth.

His acquisition of the ancestral acres, his anticipated seat in
parliament, his chance of ousting Frank from the heritage of Hazeldean,
were all as strings that pulled him to and fro, like a puppet in the
sleek, filbert-nailed fingers of the smiling showman, who could exhibit
him to the admiration of a crowd, or cast him away into dust and lumber.

Randal gnawed his lip in the sullen wrath of a man who bides his hour
of future emancipation, and lent his brain to the hire of the present
servitude, in mechanical acquiescence. The inherent superiority of the
profound young schemer became instantly apparent over the courage of
Peschiera and the practised wit of the baron.

"Your sister," said Randal, to the former, "must be the active agent in
the first and most difficult part of your enterprise. Violante cannot
be taken by force from Lord Lansmere's,--she must be induced to leave
it with her own consent. A female is needed here. Woman can best decoy
woman."

"Admirably said," quoth the count; "but Beatrice has grown restive, and
though her dowry, and therefore her very marriage with that excellent
young Hazeldean, depend on my own alliance with my fair kinswoman, she
has grown so indifferent to my success that I dare not reckon on her
aid. Between you and me, though she was once very eager to be married,
she now seems to shrink from the notion; and I have no other hold over
her."

"Has she not seen some one, and lately, whom she prefers to poor Frank?"

"I suspect that she has; but I know not whom, unless it be that detested
L'Estrange."

"Ah, well, well. Interfere with her no further yourself, but have all
in readiness to quit England, as you had before proposed, as soon as
Violante be in your power."

"All is in readiness," said the count. "Levy has agreed to purchase a
famous sailing-vessel of one of his clients. I have engaged a score or
so of determined outcasts, accustomed to the sea,--Genoese, Corsicans,
Sardinians, ex-Carbonari of the best sort,--no silly patriots, but
liberal cosmopolitans, who have iron at the disposal of any man's gold.
I have a priest to perform the nuptial service, and deaf to any fair
lady's 'No.' Once at sea, and wherever I land, Violante will lean on my
arm as Countess of Peschiera."

"But Violante," said Randal, doggedly, determined not to yield to the
disgust with which the count's audacious cynicism filled even him--"but
Violante cannot be removed in broad daylight at once to such a vessel,
nor from a quarter so populous as that in which your sister resides."

"I have thought of that too," said the count; "my emissaries have found
me a house close by the river, and safe for our purpose as the dungeons
of Venice."

"I wish not to know all this," answered Randal, quickly; "you will
instruct Madame di Negra where to take Violante.--my task limits itself
to the fair inventions that belong to intellect; what belongs to force
is not in my province. I will go at once to your sister, whom I think I
can influence more effectually than you can; though later I may give
you a hint to guard against the chance of her remorse. Meanwhile as, the
moment Violante disappears, suspicion would fall upon you, show yourself
constantly in public surrounded by your friends. Be able to account for
every hour of your time--"

"An alibi?" interrupted the ci-devant solicitor.

"Exactly so, Baron. Complete the purchase of the vessel, and let the
count man it as he proposes. I will communicate with you both as soon
as I can put you into action. To-day I shall have much to do; it will be
done."

As Randal left the room, Levy followed him.

"What you propose to do will be well done, no doubt," quoth the usurer,
linking his arm in Randal's; "but take care that you don't get yourself
into a scrape, so as to damage your character. I have great hopes of you
in public life; and in public life character is necessary,--that is, so
far as honour is concerned."

"I damage my character!--and for a Count Peschiera!" said Randal,
opening his eyes. "I! What do you take me for?"

The baron let go his hold.

"This boy ought to rise very high," said he to himself, as he turned
back to the count.




CHAPTER III.

Randal's acute faculty of comprehension had long since surmised the
truth that Beatrice's views and temper of mind had been strangely and
suddenly altered by some such revolution as passion only can effect;
that pique or disappointment had mingled with the motive which had
induced her to accept the hand of his rash young kinsman; and that,
instead of the resigned indifference with which she might at one time
have contemplated any marriage that could free her from a position that
perpetually galled her pride, it was now with a repugnance, visible to
Randal's keen eye, that she shrank from the performance of that pledge
which Frank had so dearly bought. The temptations which the count could
hold out to her to become his accomplice in designs of which the fraud
and perfidy would revolt her better nature had ceased to be of avail. A
dowry had grown valueless, since it would but hasten the nuptials from
which she recoiled. Randal felt that he could not secure her aid, except
by working on a passion so turbulent as to confound her judgment. Such
a passion he recognized in jealousy. He had once doubted if Harley were
the object of her love; yet, after all, was it not probable? He knew,
at least, of no one else to suspect. If so, he had but to whisper,
"Violante is your rival. Violante removed, your beauty may find its
natural effect; if not, you are an Italian, and you will be at least
avenged." He saw still more reason to suppose that Lord L'Estrange was
indeed the one by whom he could rule Beatrice, since, the last time
he had seen her, she had questioned him with much eagerness as to the
family of Lord Lansmere, especially as to the female part of it. Randal
had then judged it prudent to avoid speaking of Violante, and feigned
ignorance; but promised to ascertain all particulars by the time he next
saw the marchesa. It was the warmth with which she had thanked him that
had set his busy mind at work to conjecture the cause of her curiosity
so earnestly aroused, and to ascribe that cause to jealousy. If Harley
loved Violante (as Randal himself had before supposed), the little of
passion that the young man admitted to himself was enlisted in aid
of Peschiera's schemes. For though Randal did not love Violante, he
cordially disliked L'Estrange, and would have gone as far to render that
dislike vindictive, as a cold reasoner, intent upon worldly fortunes,
will ever suffer mere hate to influence him.

"At the worst," thought Randal, "if it be not Harley, touch the chord of
jealousy, and its vibration will direct me right."

Thus soliloquizing, he arrived at Madame di Negra's.

Now, in reality the marchesa's inquiries as to Lord Lansmere's family
had their source in the misguided, restless, despairing interest with
which she still clung to the image of the young poet, whom Randal had
no reason to suspect. That interest had become yet more keen from the
impatient misery she had felt ever since she had plighted herself
to another. A wild hope that she might yet escape, a vague regretful
thought that she had been too hasty in dismissing Leonard from her
presence,--that she ought rather to have courted his friendship, and
contended against her unknown rival,--at times drew her wayward mind
wholly from the future to which she had consigned herself. And, to
do her justice, though her sense of duty was so defective, and the
principles which should have guided her conduct were so lost to her
sight, still her feelings towards the generous Hazeldean were not so
hard and blunted but what her own ingratitude added to her torment; and
it seemed as if the sole atonement she could make to him was to find
an excuse to withdraw her promise, and save him from herself. She had
caused Leonard's steps to be watched; she had found that he visited at
Lord Lansmere's; that he had gone there often, and stayed there long.
She had learned in the neighbourhood that Lady Lansmere had one or
two young female guests staying with her. Surely this was the
attraction--here was the rival!

Randal found Beatrice in a state of mind that answered his purpose;
and first turning his conversation on Harley, and noting that her
countenance did not change, by little and little he drew forth her
secret.

Then said Randal, gravely, "If one whom you honour with a tender thought
visits at Lord Lansmere's house, you have, indeed, cause to fear for
yourself, to hope for your brother's success in the object which has
brought him to England; for a girl of surpassing beauty is a guest in
Lord Lansmere's house, and I will now tell you that that girl is she
whom Count Peschiera would make his bride."

As Randal thus spoke, and saw how his listener's brow darkened and her
eye flashed, he felt that his accomplice was secured. Violante! Had not
Leonard spoken of Violante, and with such praise? Had not his boyhood
been passed under her eyes? Who but Violante could be the rival?
Beatrice's abrupt exclamations, after a moment's pause, revealed to
Randal the advantage he had gained. And partly by rousing her jealousy
into revenge, partly by flattering her love with assurances that,
if Violante were fairly removed from England, were the wife of Count
Peschiera, it would be impossible that Leonard could remain insensible
to her own attractions; that he, Randal, would undertake to free her
honourably from her engagement to Frank Hazeldean, and obtain from her
brother the acquittal of the debt which had first fettered her hand to
that confiding suitor,--he did not quit the marchesa until she had not
only promised to do all that Randal might suggest, but impetuously urged
him to mature his plans, and hasten the hour to accomplish them. Randal
then walked some minutes musing and slow along the streets, revolving
the next meshes in his elaborate and most subtle web. And here his craft
luminously devised its masterpiece.

It was necessary, during any interval that might elapse between
Violante's disappearance and her departure from England, in order to
divert suspicion from Peschiera (who might otherwise be detained), that
some cause for her voluntary absence from Lord Lansmere's should be at
least assignable; it was still more necessary that Randal himself should
stand wholly clear from any surmise that he could have connived at the
count's designs, even should their actual perpetrator be discovered or
conjectured. To effect these objects, Randal hastened to Norwood, and
obtained an interview with Riccabocca. In seeming agitation and alarm,
he informed the exile that he had reason to know that Peschiera had
succeeded in obtaining a secret interview with Violante, and he feared
had made a certain favourable impression on her mind; and speaking as
if with the jealousy of a lover, he entreated Riccabocca to authorize
Randal's direct proposals to Violante, and to require her consent to
their immediate nuptials.

The poor Italian was confounded with the intelligence conveyed to him;
and his almost superstitious fears of his brilliant enemy, conjoined
with his opinion of the susceptibility to outward attractions common
to all the female sex, made him not only implicitly credit, but
even exaggerate, the dangers that Randal intimated. The idea of his
daughter's marriage with Randal, towards which he had lately cooled, he
now gratefully welcomed.

But his first natural suggestion was to go, or send, for Violante, and
bring her to his own house. This, however, Randal artfully opposed.

"Alas! I know," said he, "that Peschiera has discovered your retreat,
and surely she would be far less safe here than where she is now!"

"But, diavolo! you say the man has seen her where she is now, in spite
of all Lady Lansmere's promises and Harley's precautions."

"True. Of this Peschiera boasted to me. He effected it not, of course,
openly, but in some disguise. I am sufficiently, however, in his
confidence--any man may be that with so audacious a braggart--to deter
him from renewing his attempt for some days. Meanwhile, I or yourself
will leave discovered some surer home than this, to which you can
remove, and then will be the proper time to take back your daughter.
And for the present, if you will send by me a letter to enjoin her to
receive me as her future bridegroom, it will necessarily divert all
thought at once from the count; I shall be able to detect by the manner
in which she receives me, how far the count has overstated the effect
he pretends to have produced. You can give me also a letter to Lady
Lansmere, to prevent your daughter coming hither. Oh, sir, do not reason
with me. Have indulgence for my lover's fears. Believe that I advise for
the best. Have I not the keenest interest to do so?"

Like many a man who is wise enough with pen and paper before him, and
plenty of time wherewith to get up his wisdom, Riccabocca was flurried,
nervous, and confused when that wisdom was called upon for any ready
exertion. From the tree of knowledge he had taken grafts enough to
serve for a forest; but the whole forest could not spare him a handy
walking-stick. The great folio of the dead Machiavelli lay useless
before him,--the living Machiavelli of daily life stood all puissant by
his side. The Sage was as supple to the Schemer as the Clairvoyant is to
the Mesmerist; and the lean slight fingers of Randal actually dictated
almost the very words that Riccabocca wrote to his child and her
hostess.

The philosopher would have liked to consult his wife; but he was ashamed
to confess that weakness. Suddenly he remembered Harley, and said, as
Randal took up the letters which Riccabocca had indited,

"There, that will give us time; and I will send to Lord L'Estrange and
talk to him."

"My noble friend," replied Randal, mournfully, "may I entreat you not
to see Lord L'Estrange until at least I have pleaded my cause to your
daughter,--until, indeed, she is no longer under his father's roof?"

"And why?"

"Because I presume that you are sincere when you deign to receive me as
a son-in-law, and because I am sure that Lord L'Estrange would hear with
distaste of your disposition in my favour. Am I not right?"

Riccabocca was silent.

"And though his arguments would fail with a man of your honour and
discernment, they might have more effect on the young mind of your
child. Think, I beseech you, the more she is set against me, the more
accessible she may be to the arts of Peschiera. Speak not, therefore, I
implore you, to Lord L'Estrange till Violante has accepted my hand, or
at least until she is again under your charge; otherwise take back your
letter,--it would be of no avail."

"Perhaps you are right. Certainly Lord L'Estrange is prejudiced against
you; or rather, he thinks too much of what I have been, too little of
what I am."

"Who can see you, and not do so? I pardon him." After kissing the hand
which the exile modestly sought to withdraw from that act of homage,
Randal pocketed the letters; and, as if struggling with emotion, rushed
from the house.

Now, O curious reader, if thou wilt heedfully observe to what uses
Randal Leslie put those letters,--what speedy and direct results he drew
forth from devices which would seem to an honest simple understanding
the most roundabout, wire-drawn wastes of invention,--I almost fear
that in thine admiration for his cleverness, thou mayest half forget thy
contempt for his knavery.

But when the head is very full, it does not do to have the heart very
empty; there is such a thing as being top-heavy!




CHAPTER IV.

Helen and Violante had been conversing together, and Helen had obeyed
her guardian's injunction, and spoken, though briefly, of her positive
engagement to Harley. However much Violante had been prepared for the
confidence, however clearly she had divined that engagement, however
before persuaded that the dream of her childhood was fled forever, still
the positive truth, coming from Helen's own lips, was attended with that
anguish which proves how impossible it is to prepare the human heart for
the final verdict which slays its future. She did not, however, betray
her emotion to Helen's artless eyes; sorrow, deep-seated, is seldom
self-betrayed. But, after a little while, she crept away; and, forgetful
of Peschiera, of all things that could threaten danger (what danger
could harm her more!) she glided from the house, and went her desolate
way under the leafless wintry trees. Ever and anon she paused, ever
and anon she murmured the same words: "If she loved him, I could be
consoled; but she does not! or how could she have spoken to me
so calmly! how could her very looks have been so sad! Heartless!
heartless!"

Then there came on her a vehement resentment against poor Helen,
that almost took the character of scorn or hate,--its excess startled
herself. "Am I grown so mean?" she said; and tears that humbled her
rushed to her eyes. "Can so short a time alter one thus? Impossible!"

Randal Leslie rang at the front gate, inquired for Violante, and,
catching sight of her form as he walked towards the house, advanced
boldly and openly. His voice startled her as she leaned against one of
the dreary trees, still muttering to herself,--forlorn. "I have a letter
to you from your father, Signorina," said Randal; "but before I give it
to your hands, some explanation is necessary. Condescend, then, to hear
me." Violante shook her head impatiently, and stretched forth her hand
for the letter. Randal observed her countenance with his keen, cold,
searching eye; but he still withheld the letter, and continued, after a
pause,

"I know that you were born to princely fortunes; and the excuse for my
addressing you now is, that your birthright is lost to you, at least
unless you can consent to a union with the man who has despoiled you
of your heritage,--a union which your father would deem dishonour to
yourself and him. Signorina, I might have presumed to love you, but I
should not have named that love, had your father not encouraged me by
his assent to my suit."

Violante turned to the speaker, her face eloquent with haughty surprise.
Randal met the gaze unmoved. He continued, without warmth, and in the
tone of one who reasons calmly, rather than of one who feels acutely,

"The man of whom I spoke is in pursuit of you. I have cause to believe
that this person has already intruded himself upon you. Ah, your
countenance owns it; you have seen Peschiera? This house is, then,
less safe than your father deemed it. No house is safe for you but a
husband's. I offer to you my name,--it is a gentleman's; my fortune,
which is small; the participation in my hopes of the future, which are
large. I place now your father's letter in your hand, and await your
answer." Randal bowed slightly, gave the letter to Violante, and retired
a few paces.

It was not his object to conciliate Violante's affection, but rather to
excite her repugnance, or at least her terror,--we must wait to
discover why; so he stood apart, seemingly in a kind of self-confident
indifference, while the girl read the following letter:

   "My child, receive with favour Mr. Leslie. He has my consent to
   address you as a suitor. Circumstances of which it is needless now
   to inform you render it essential to my very peace and happiness
   that your marriage should be immediate. In a word, I have given my
   promise to Mr. Leslie, and I confidently leave it to the daughter of
   my House to redeem the pledge of her anxious and tender father."

The letter dropped from Violante's hand. Randal approached, and restored
it to her. Their eyes met. Violante recoiled.

"I cannot marry you," said she, passionately.

"Indeed?" answered Randal, dryly. "Is it because you cannot love me?"

"Yes."

"I did not expect that you would as yet, and I still persist in my suit.
I have promised to your father that I would not recede before your first
unconsidered refusal."

"I will go to my father at once."

"Does he request you to do so in his letter? Look again. Pardon me, but
he foresaw your impetuosity; and I have another note for Lady Lansmere,
in which he begs her ladyship not to sanction your return to him (should
you so wish) until he come or send for you himself. He will do so
whenever your word has redeemed his own."

"And do you dare to talk to me thus, and yet pretend to love me?"

Randal smiled ironically.

"I pretend but to wed you. Love is a subject on which I might have
spoken formerly, or may speak hereafter. I give you some little time to
consider. When I next call, let me hope that we may fix the day for our
wedding."

"Never!"

"You will be, then, the first daughter of your House who disobeyed a
father; and you will have this additional crime; that you disobeyed him
in his sorrow, his exile, and his fall."

Violante wrung her hands.

"Is there no choice, no escape?"

"I see none for either. Listen to me. I love you, it is true; but it is
not for my happiness to marry one who dislikes me, nor for my ambition
to connect myself with one whose poverty is greater than my own. I marry
but to keep my plighted faith with your father, and to save you from a
villain you would hate more than myself, and from whom no walls are
a barrier, no laws a defence. One person, indeed, might perhaps have
preserved you from the misery you seem to anticipate with me; that
person might defeat the plans of your father's foe,--effect, it might
be, terms which could revoke his banishment and restore his honours;
that person is--"

"Lord L'Estrange?"

"Lord L'Estrange!" repeated Randal, sharply, and watching her pale
parted lips and her changing colour; "Lord L'Estrange! What could he do?
Why did you name him?"

Violante turned aside. "He saved my father once," said she, feelingly.

"And has interfered, and trifled, and promised, Heaven knows what, ever
since: yet to what end? Pooh! The person I speak of your father
would not consent to see, would not believe if he saw her; yet she is
generous, noble, could sympathize with you both. She is the sister of
your father's enemy, the Marchesa di Negra. I am convinced that she
has great influence with her brother,--that she has known enough of his
secrets to awe him into renouncing all designs on yourself; but it is
idle now to speak of her."

"No, no," exclaimed Violante. "Tell me where she lives--I will see her."

"Pardon me, I cannot obey you; and, indeed, her own pride is now aroused
by your father's unfortunate prejudices against her. It is too late to
count upon her aid. You turn from me,--my presence is unwelcome. I rid
you of it now. But welcome or unwelcome, later you must endure it--and
for life."

Randal again bowed with formal ceremony, walked towards the house, and
asked for Lady Lansmere. The countess was at home. Randal delivered
Riccabocca's note, which was very short, implying that he feared
Peschiera had discovered his retreat, and requesting Lady Lansmere to
retain Violante, whatever her own desire, till her ladyship heard from
him again.

The countess read, and her lip curled in disdain. "Strange!" said she,
half to herself.

"Strange!" said Randal, "that a man like your correspondent should fear
one like the Count di Peschiera. Is that it?"

"Sir," said the countess, a little surprised, "strange that any man
should fear another in a country like ours!"

"I don't know," said Randal, with his low soft laugh; "I fear many men,
and I know many who ought to fear me; yet at every turn of the street
one meets a policeman!"

"Yes," said Lady Lansmere. "But to suppose that this profligate
foreigner could carry away a girl like Violante against her will,--a man
she has never seen, and whom she must have been taught to hate!"

"Be on your guard, nevertheless, I pray you, madam; 'Where there's a
will there's a way'!"

Randal took his leave, and returned to Madame di Negra's. He stayed with
her an hour, revisited the count, and then strolled to Limmer's.

"Randal," said the squire, who looked pale and worn, but who scorned
to confess the weakness with which he still grieved and yearned for his
rebellious son, "Randal, you have nothing now to do in London; can you
come and stay with me, and take to farming? I remember that you showed a
good deal of sound knowledge about thin sowing."

"My dear sir, I will come to you as soon as the general election is
over."

"What the deuce have you got to do with the general election?"

"Mr. Egerton has some wish that I should enter parliament; indeed,
negotiations for that purpose are now on foot."

The squire shook his head. "I don't like my half-brother's politics."

"I shall be quite independent of them," cried Randal, loftily; "that
independence is the condition for which I stipulate."

"Glad to hear it; and if you do come into parliament, I hope you'll not
turn your back on the land?"

"Turn my back on the land!" cried Randal, with devout horror. "Oh, sir,
I am not so unnatural!"

"That's the right way to put it," quoth the credulous squire; "it is
unnatural! It is turning one's back on one's own mother. The land is a
mother--"

"To those who live by her, certainly,--a mother," said Randal, gravely.
"And though, indeed, my father starves by her rather than lives, and
Rood Hall is not like Hazeldean, still--I--"

"Hold your tongue," interrupted the squire; "I want to talk to you. Your
grandmother was a Hazeldean."

"Her picture is in the drawing-room at Rood. People think me very like
her."

"Indeed!" said the squire. "The Hazeldeans are generally inclined to be
stout and rosy, which you are certainly not. But no fault of yours. We
are all as Heaven made us. However, to the point. I am going to alter
my will,"--(said with a choking gulp). "This is the rough draft for the
lawyers to work upon."

"Pray, pray, sir, do not speak to me on such a subject. I cannot bear to
contemplate even the possibility of--of--"

"My death? Ha, ha! Nonsense. My own son calculated on the date of it by
the insurance-tables. Ha, ha, ha! A very fashionable son, eh! Ha, ha!"

"Poor Frank! do not let him suffer for a momentary forgetfulness of
right feeling. When he comes to be married to that foreign lady, and be
a father himself, he--"

"Father himself!" burst forth the squire. "Father to a swarm of
sallow-faced Popish tadpoles! No foreign frogs shall hop about my
grave in Hazeldean churchyard. No, no. But you need not look so
reproachful,--I 'm not going to disinherit Frank."

"Of course not," said Randal, with a bitter curve in the lip that
rebelled against the joyous smile which he sought to impose on it.

"No; I shall leave him the life-interest in the greater part of
the property; but if he marry a foreigner, her children will not
succeed,--you will stand after him in that case. But--now don't
interrupt me--but Frank looks as if he would live longer than you, so
small thanks to me for my good intentions, you may say. I mean to do
more for you than a mere barren place in the entail. What do you say to
marrying?"

"Just as you please," said Randal, meekly.

"Good. There's Miss Sticktorights disengaged,--great heiress. Her lands
run onto Rood. At one time I thought of her for that graceless puppy of
mine. But I can manage more easily to make up the match for you. There's
a mortgage on the property; old Sticktorights would be very glad to pay
it off. I 'll pay it out of the Hazeldean estate, and give up the Right
of Way into the bargain. You understand?

"So come down as soon as you can, and court the young lady yourself."

Randal expressed his thanks with much grateful eloquence; and he then
delicately insinuated, that if the squire ever did mean to bestow upon
him any pecuniary favours (always without injury to Frank), it would
gratify him more to win back some portions of the old estate of Rood,
than to have all the acres of the Sticktorights, however free from any
other incumbrance than the amiable heiress.

The squire listened to Randal with benignant attention. This wish the
country gentleman could well understand and sympathize with. He promised
to inquire into the matter, and to see what could be done with old
Thornhill.

Randal here let out that Mr. Thornhill was about to dispose of a large
slice of the ancient Leslie estate through Levy, and that he, Randal,
could thus get it at a more moderate price than would be natural, if Mr.
Thornhill knew that his neighbour the squire would bid for the purchase.

"Better say nothing about it either to Levy or Thornhill."

"Right," said the squire. "No proprietor likes to sell to another
proprietor, in the same shire, as largely acred as himself: it spoils
the balance of power. See to the business yourself; and if I can help
you with the purchase (after that boy is married,--I can attend to
nothing before), why, I will."

Randal now went to Egerton's. The statesman was in his library, settling
the accounts of his house-steward, and giving brief orders for the
reduction of his establishment to that of an ordinary private gentleman.

"I may go abroad if I lose my election," said Egerton, condescending to
assign to his servant a reason for his economy; "and if I do not lose
it, still, now I am out of office, I shall live much in private."

"Do I disturb you, sir?" said Randal, entering.

"No; I have just done."

The house-steward withdrew, much surprised and disgusted, and meditating
the resignation of his own office,--in order, not like Egerton, to save,
but to spend. The house steward had private dealings with Baron Levy,
and was in fact the veritable X. Y. of the "Times," for whom Dick Avenel
had been mistaken. He invested his wages and perquisites in the discount
of bills; and it was part of his own money that had (though unknown to
himself) swelled the last L5,000 which Egerton had borrowed from Levy.

"I have settled with our committee; and, with Lord Lansmere's consent,"
said Egerton, briefly, "you will stand for the borough, as we proposed,
in conjunction with myself. And should any accident happen to me,--that
is, should I vacate this seat from any cause,--you may succeed to it,
very shortly perhaps. Ingratiate yourself with the electors, and speak
at the public-houses for both of us. I shall stand on my dignity, and
leave the work of the election to you. No thanks,--you know how I hate
thanks. Good-night."

"I never stood so near to fortune and to power," said Randal, as he
slowly undressed. "And I owe it but to knowledge,--knowledge of men,
life, of all that books can teach us."

So his slight thin fingers dropped the extinguisher on the candle, and
the prosperous Schemer laid himself down to rest in the dark. Shutters
closed, curtains drawn--never was rest more quiet, never was room more
dark!

That evening, Harley had dined at his father's. He spoke much to Helen,
scarcely at all to Violante. But it so happened that when later, and
a little while before he took his leave, Helen, at his request, was
playing a favourite air of his, Lady Lausmere, who had been seated
between him and Violante, left the room, and Violante turned quickly
towards Harley.

"Do you know the Marchesa di Negra?" she asked, in a hurried voice.

"A little. Why do you ask?"

"That is my secret," answered Violante, trying to smile with her old
frank, childlike archness. "But, tell me, do you think better of her
than of her brother?"

"Certainly. I believe her heart to be good, and that she is not without
generous qualities."

"Can you not induce my father to see her? Would you not counsel him to
do so?"

"Any wish of yours is a law to me," answered Harley, gallantly. "You
wish your father to see her? I will try and persuade him to do so. Now,
in return, confide to me your secret. What is your object?"

"Leave to return to my Italy. I care not for honours, for rank; and
even my father has ceased to regret their loss. But the land, the native
land--Oh, to see it once more! Oh, to die there!"

"Die! You children have so lately left heaven, that ye talk as if
ye could return there, without passing through the gates of sorrow,
infirmity, and age! But I thought you were content with England. Why
so eager to leave it? Violante, you are unkind to us,--to Helen, who
already loves you so well." As Harley spoke, Helen rose from the piano,
and approaching Violante, placed her hand caressingly on the Italian's
shoulder. Violante shivered, and shrunk away. The eyes both of Harley
and Helen followed her. Harley's eyes were very grave and thoughtful.

"Is she not changed--your friend?" said he, looking down.

"Yes, lately; much changed. I fear there is something on her mind,--I
know not what."

"Ah," muttered Harley, "it may be so; but at your age and hers, nothing
rests on the mind long. Observe, I say the mind,--the heart is more
tenacious."

Helen sighed softly, but deeply.

"And therefore," continued Harley, half to himself, "we can detect when
something is on the mind,--some care, some fear, some trouble. But when
the heart closes over its own more passionate sorrow, who can discover,
who conjecture? Yet you at least, my pure, candid Helen,--you might
subject mind and heart alike to the fabled window of glass."

"Oh, no!" cried Helen, involuntarily.

"Oh, yes! Do not let me think that you have one secret I may not know,
or one sorrow I may not share. For, in our relationship, that would be
deceit."

He pressed her hand with more than usual tenderness as he spoke, and
shortly afterwards left the house.

And all that night Helen felt like a guilty thing,--more wretched even
than Violante.




CHAPTER V.

Early the next morning, while Violante was still in her room, a letter
addressed to her came by the post. The direction was in a strange hand.
She opened it, and read, in Italian, what is thus translated:--

   I would gladly see you, but I cannot call openly at the house in
   which you live. Perhaps I may have it in my power to arrange family
   dissensions,--to repair any wrongs your father may have sustained.
   Perhaps I may be enabled to render yourself an essential service.
   But for all this it is necessary that we should meet and confer
   frankly. Meanwhile time presses, delay is forbidden. Will you meet
   me, an hour after noon, in the lane, just outside the private gate
   of your gardens? I shall be alone, and you cannot fear to meet one
   of your own sex, and a kinswoman. Ah, I so desire to see you!
   Come, I beseech you.

                         BEATRICE.

Violante read, and her decision was taken. She was naturally fearless,
and there was little that she would not have braved for the chance of
serving her father. And now all peril seemed slight in comparison
with that which awaited her in Randal's suit, backed by her father's
approval. Randal had said that Madame di Negra alone could aid her in
escape from himself. Harley had said that Madame di Negra had generous
qualities; and who but Madame di Negra would write herself a kinswoman,
and sign herself "Beatrice"?

A little before the appointed hour, she stole unobserved through the
trees, opened the little gate, and found herself in the quiet, solitary
lane. In a few minutes; a female figure came up, with a quick, light
step; and throwing aside her veil, said, with a sort of wild, suppressed
energy, "It is you! I was truly told. Beautiful! beautiful! And oh! what
youth and what bloom!"

The voice dropped mournfully; and Violante, surprised by the tone, and
blushing under the praise, remained a moment silent; then she said, with
some hesitation,

"You are, I presume, the Marchesa di Negra? And I have heard of you
enough to induce me to trust you."

"Of me! From whom?" asked Beatrice, almost fiercely. "From Mr Leslie,
and--and--"

"Go on; why falter?"

"From Lord L'Estrange."

"From no one else?"

"Not that I remember."

Beatrice sighed heavily, and let fall her veil. Some foot-passengers now
came up the lane; and seeing two ladies, of mien so remarkable, turned
round, and gazed curiously.

"We cannot talk here," said Beatrice, impatiently; "and I have so much
to say, so much to know. Trust me yet more; it is for yourself I speak.
My carriage waits yonder. Come home with me,--I will not detain you an
hour; and I will bring you back."

This proposition startled Violante. She retreated towards the gate with
a gesture of dissent. Beatrice laid her hand on the girl's arm, and
again lifting her veil, gazed at her with a look half of scorn, half of
admiration.

"I, too, would once have recoiled from one step beyond the formal line
by which the world divides liberty from woman. Now see how bold I am.
Child, child, do not trifle with your destiny. You may never again have
the same occasion offered to you. It is not only to meet you that I
am here; I must know something of you,--something of your heart. Why
shrink? Is not the heart pure?"

Violante made no answer; but her smile, so sweet and so lofty, humbled
the questioner it rebuked.

"I may restore to Italy your father," said Beatrice, with an altered
voice. "Come!"

Violante approached, but still hesitatingly. "Not by union with your
brother?"

"You dread that so much then?"

"Dread it? No. Why should I dread what is in my power to reject. But if
you can really restore my father, and by nobler means, you may save me
for--"

Violante stopped abruptly; the marchesa's eyes sparkled.

"Save you for--ah! I can guess what you leave unsaid. But come, come!
more strangers, see; you shall tell me all at my own house. And if you
can make one sacrifice, why, I will save you all else. Come, or farewell
forever!"

Violante placed her hand in Beatrice's, with a frank confidence that
brought the accusing blood into the marchesa's cheek.

"We are women both," said Violante; "we descend from the same noble
House; we have knelt alike to the same Virgin Mother; why should I not
believe and trust you?"

"Why not?" muttered Beatrice, feebly; and she moved on, with her head
bowed on her breast, and all the pride of her step was gone.

They reached a carriage that stood by the angle of the road. Beatrice
spoke a word apart to the driver, who was an Italian, in the pay of the
count; the man nodded, and opened the carriage door. The ladies entered.
Beatrice pulled down the blinds; the man remounted his box, and drove on
rapidly. Beatrice, leaning back, groaned aloud. Violante drew nearer to
her side. "Are you in pain?" said she, with her tender, melodious voice;
"or can I serve you as you would serve me?"

"Child, give me your hand, and be silent while I look at you. Was I ever
so fair as this? Never! And what deeps--what deeps roll between her and
me!"

She said this as of some one absent, and again sank into silence; but
continued still to gaze on Violante, whose eyes, veiled by their long
fringes, drooped beneath the gaze.

Suddenly Beatrice started, exclaiming, "No, it shall not be!" and placed
her hand on the check-string.

"What shall not be?" asked Violante, surprised by the cry and the
action. Beatrice paused; her breast heaved visibly under her dress.

"Stay," she said slowly. "As you say, we are both women of the same
noble House; you would reject the suit of my brother, yet you have seen
him; his the form to please the eye, his the arts that allure the fancy.
He offers to you rank, wealth, your father's pardon and recall. If I
could remove the objections which your father entertains, prove that
the count has less wronged him than he deems, would you still reject the
rank and the wealth and the hand of Giulio Franzini?"

"Oh, yes, yes; were his hand a king's!"

"Still, then, as woman to woman--both, as you say, akin, and sprung from
the same lineage--still, then, answer me, answer me, for you speak to
one who has loved--Is it not that you love another? Speak."

"I do not know. Nay, not love,--it was a romance; it is a thing
impossible. Do not question,--I cannot answer." And the broken words
were choked by sudden tears.

Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she lowered her veil, and
withdrew her hand from the check-string; but the coachman had felt the
touch, and halted. "Drive on," said Beatrice, "as you were directed."

Both were now long silent,--Violante with great difficulty recovering
from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, and her arms folded firmly
across her breast.

Meanwhile the carriage had entered London; it passed the quarter in
which Madame di Negra's house was situated; it rolled fast over a
bridge; it whirled through a broad thoroughfare, then through defiles of
lanes, with tall blank dreary houses on either side. On it went, and
on, till Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?" she said,
drawing up the blind, and gazing in dismay on the strange, ignoble
suburb. "I shall be missed already. Oh, let us turn back, I beseech
you!"

"We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this road in order to
avoid those streets in which we might have been seen together,--perhaps
by my brother himself. Listen to me, and talk of-of the lover whom
you rightly associate with a vain romance. 'Impossible,'--yes, it is
impossible!"

Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed down her head.
"Why are you so cruel?" said she. "This is not what you promised. How
are you to serve my father, how restore him to his country? This is what
you promised!"

"If you consent to one sacrifice, I will fulfil that promise. We are
arrived."

The carriage stopped before a tall, dull house, divided from other
houses by a high wall that appeared to enclose a yard, and standing
at the end of a narrow lane, which was bounded on the one side by the
Thames. In that quarter the river was crowded with gloomy, dark-looking
vessels and craft, all lying lifeless under the wintry sky.

The driver dismounted and rang the bell. Two swarthy Italian faces
presented themselves at the threshold. Beatrice descended lightly, and
gave her hand to Violante. "Now, here we shall be secure," said she;
"and here a few minutes may suffice to decide your fate."

As the door closed on Violante, who, now waking to suspicion, to alarm,
looked fearfully round the dark and dismal hall, Beatrice turned: "Let
the carriage wait."

The Italian who received the order bowed and smiled; but when the two
ladies had ascended the stairs he re-opened the street-door, and said to
the driver, "Back to the count, and say, 'All is safe.'"

The carriage drove off. The man who had given this order barred and
locked the door, and, taking with him the huge key, plunged into the
mystic recesses of the basement and disappeared. The hall, thus left
solitary, had the grim aspect of a prison,--the strong door sheeted with
iron, the rugged stone stairs, lighted by a high window grimed with the
dust of years, and jealously barred, and the walls themselves abutting
out rudely here and there, as if against violence even from within.




CHAPTER VI.

It was, as we have seen, without taking counsel of the faithful Jemima
that the sage recluse of Norwood had yielded to his own fears and
Randal's subtle suggestions, in the concise and arbitrary letter which
he had written to Violante; but at night, when churchyards give up the
dead, and conjugal hearts the secrets hid by day from each other,
the wise man informed his wife of the step he had taken. And Jemima
then--who held English notions, very different from those which prevail
in Italy, as to the right of fathers to dispose of their daughters
without reference to inclination or repugnance--so sensibly yet so
mildly represented to the pupil of Machiavelli that he had not gone
exactly the right way to work, if he feared that the handsome count
had made some impression on Violante, and if he wished her to turn with
favour to the suitor he recommended,--that so abrupt a command could
only chill the heart, revolt the will, and even give to the
audacious Peschiera some romantic attraction which he had not before
possessed,--as effectually to destroy Riccabocca's sleep that night. And
the next day he sent Giacomo to Lady Lansmere's with a very kind letter
to Violante and a note to the hostess, praying the latter to bring his
daughter to Norwood for a few hours, as he much wished to converse
with both. It was on Giacomo's arrival at Knightsbridge that Violante's
absence was discovered. Lady Lansmere, ever proudly careful of the
world and its gossip, kept Giacomo from betraying his excitement to her
servants, and stated throughout the decorous household that the young
lady had informed her she was going to visit some friends that morning,
and had no doubt gone through the garden gate, since it was found open;
the way was more quiet there than by the high-road, and her friends
might have therefore walked to meet her by the lane. Lady Lansmere
observed that her only surprise was that Violante had gone earlier
than she had expected. Having said this with a composure that compelled
belief, Lady Lansmere ordered the carriage, and, taking Giacomo with
her, drove at once to consult her son.

Harley's quick intellect had scarcely recovered from the shock upon his
emotions before Randal Leslie was announced. "Ah," said Lady Lansmere,
"Mr. Leslie may know something. He came to her yesterday with a note
from her father. Pray let him enter."

The Austrian prince approached Harley. "I will wait in the next room,"
he whispered. "You may want me if you have cause to suspect Peschiera in
all this."

Lady Lansmere was pleased with the prince's delicacy, and, glancing at
Leonard, said, "Perhaps you, too, sir, may kindly aid us, if you would
retire with the prince. Mr. Leslie may be disinclined to speak of
affairs like these, except to Harley and myself."

"True, madam, but beware of Mr. Leslie."

As the door at one end of the room closed on the prince and Leonard,
Randal entered at the other, seemingly much agitated.

"I have just been to your house, Lady Lansmere. I heard you were here;
pardon me if I have followed you. I have called at Knightsbridge to see
Violante, learned that she had left you. I implore you to tell me how
or wherefore. I have the right to ask: her father has promised me her
hand." Harley's falcon eye had brightened tip at Randal's entrance. It
watched steadily the young man's face. It was clouded for a moment by
his knitted brows at Randal's closing words; but he left it to Lady
Lansmere to reply and explain. This the countess did briefly.

Randal clasped his hands. "And has she not gone to her father's? Are you
sure of that?"

"Her father's servant has just come from Norwood."

"Oh, I am to blame for this! It is my rash suit, her fear of it, her
aversion! I see it all!" Randal's voice was hollow with remorse and
despair. "To save her from Peschiera, her father insisted on her
immediate marriage with myself. His orders were too abrupt, my own
wooing too unwelcome. I knew her high spirit; she has fled to escape
from me. But whither, if not to Norwood,--oh, whither? What other
friends has she, what relations?"

"You throw a new light on this mystery," said Lady Lansmere; "perhaps
she may have gone to her father's after all, and the servant may have
crossed, but missed her on the way. I will drive to Norwood at once."

"Do so,--do; but if she be not there, be careful not to alarm Riccabocca
with the news of her disappearance. Caution Giacomo not to do so. He
would only suspect Peschiera, and be hurried to some act of violence."

"Do not you, then, suspect Peschiera, Mr. Leslie?" asked Harley,
suddenly.

"Ha! is it possible? Yet, no. I called on him this morning with Frank
Hazeldean, who is to marry his sister. I was with him till I went on to
Knightsbridge, at the very time of Violante's disappearance. He could
not then have been a party to it."

"You saw Violante yesterday. Did you speak to her of Madame di Negra?"
asked Harley, suddenly recalling the questions respecting the marchesa
which Violante had addressed to him.

In spite of himself, Randal felt that he changed countenance. "Of Madame
di Negra? I do not think so. Yet I might. Oh, yes, I remember now. She
asked me the marchesa's address; I would not give it."

"The address is easily found. Can she have gone to the marchesa's
house?"

"I will run there, and see," cried Randal, starting up. "And I with you.
Stay, my dear mother. Proceed, as you propose, to Norwood, and take Mr.
Leslie's advice. Spare our friend the news of his daughter's loss--if
lost she be--till she is restored to him. He can be of no use mean
while. Let Giacomo rest here; I may want him."

Harley then passed into the next room, and entreated the prince and
Leonard to await his return, and allow Giacomo to stay in the same room.

He then went quickly back to Randal. Whatever might be his fears or
emotions, Harley felt that he had need of all his coolness of judgment
and presence of mind. The occasion made abrupt demand upon powers which
had slept since boyhood, but which now woke with a vigour that would
have made even Randal tremble, could he have detected the wit,
the courage, the electric energies, masked under that tranquil
self-possession. Lord L'Estrange and Randal soon reached the marchesa's
house, and learned that she had been out since morning in one of Count
Peschiera's carriages. Randal stole an alarmed glance at Harley's face.
Harley did not seem to notice it.

"Now, Mr. Leslie, what do you advise next?"

"I am at a loss. Ah, perhaps, afraid of her father, knowing how despotic
is his belief in paternal rights, and how tenacious he is of his word
once passed, as it has been to me, she may have resolved to take refuge
in the country, perhaps at the Casino, or at Mrs. Dale's, or Mrs.
Hazeldean's. I will hasten to inquire at the coach-office. Meanwhile,
you--"

"Never mind me, Mr. Leslie. Do what you think best. But, if your
surmises be just, you must have been a very rude wooer to the high-born
lady you aspired to win."

"Not so; but perhaps an unwelcome one. If she has indeed fled from me,
need I say that my suit will be withdrawn at once? I am not a selfish
lover, Lord L'Estrange."

"Nor I a vindictive man. Yet, could I discover who has conspired against
this lady, a guest under my father's roof, I would crush him into the
mire as easily as I set my foot upon this glove. Good-day to you, Mr.
Leslie."

Randal stood still for a few moments as Harley strided on; then his lip
sneered as it muttered, "Insolent! But does he love her? If so, I am
avenged already."




CHAPTER VII.

Harley went straight to Peschiera's hotel. He was told that the count
had walked out with Mr. Frank Hazeldean and some other gentlemen who had
breakfasted with him. He had left word, in case any one called, that he
had gone to Tattersall's to look at some horses that were for sale. To
Tattersall's went Harley. The count was in the yard leaning against a
pillar, and surrounded by fashionable friends. Lord L'Estrange paused,
and, with an heroic effort at self-mastery, repressed his rage. "I may
lose all if I show that I suspect him; and yet I must insult and fight
him rather than leave his movements free. Ah, is that young Hazeldean?
A thought strikes me!" Frank was standing apart from the group round the
count, and looking very absent and very sad. Harley touched him on the
shoulder, and drew him aside unobserved by the count.

"Mr. Hazeldean, your uncle Egerton is my dearest friend. Will you be a
friend to me? I want you."

"My Lord--"

"Follow me. Do not let Count Peschiera see us talking together."

Harley quitted the yard, and entered St. James's Park by the little
gate close by. In a very few words he informed Frank of Violante's
disappearance and of his reasons for suspecting the count. Frank's first
sentiment was that of indignant disbelief that the brother of Beatrice
could be so vile; but as he gradually called to mind the cynical
and corrupt vein of the count's familiar conversation, the hints to
Peschiera's prejudice that had been dropped by Beatrice herself, and
the general character for brilliant and daring profligacy which even the
admirers of the count ascribed to him, Frank was compelled to reluctant
acquiescence in Harley's suspicions; and he said, with an earnest
gravity very rare to him,

"Believe me, Lord L'Estrange, if I can assist you in defeating a base
and mercenary design against this poor young lady, you have but to show
me how. One thing is clear, Peschicra was not personally engaged in this
abduction, since I have been with him all day; and--now I think of it--I
begin to hope that you wrong him; for he has invited a large party of us
to make an excursion with him to Boulogne next week, in order to try his
yacht, which he could scarcely do if--"

"Yacht, at this time of the year! a man who habitually resides at
Vienna--a yacht!"

"Spendquick sells it a bargain, on account of the time of year and other
reasons; and the count proposes to spend next summer in cruising about
the Ionian Isles. He has some property on those isles, which he has
never yet visited."

"How long is it since he bought this yacht?"

"Why, I am not sure that it is already bought,--that is, paid for.
Levy was to meet Spendquick this very morning to arrange the matter.
Spendquick complains that Levy screws him."

"My dear Mr. Hazeldean, you are guiding me through the maze. Where shall
I find Lord Spendquick?"

"At this hour, probably in bed. Here is his card."

"Thanks. And where lies the vessel?"

"It was off Blackwall the other day. I went to see it, 'The Flying
Dutchman,'--a fine vessel, and carries guns."

"Enough. Now, heed me. There can be no immediate danger to Violante, so
long as Peschiera does not meet her, so long as we know his movements.
You are about to marry his sister. Avail yourself of that privilege to
keep close by his side. Refuse to be shaken off. Make what excuses
for the present your invention suggests. I will give you an excuse. Be
anxious and uneasy to know where you can find Madame di Negra."

"Madame di Negra!" cried Frank. "What of her? Is she not in Curzon
Street?"

"No; she has gone out in one of the count's carriages. In all
probability the driver of that carriage, or some servant in attendance
on it, will come to the count in the course of the day; and in order
to get rid of you, the count will tell you to see this servant, and
ascertain yourself that his sister is safe. Pretend to believe what
the man says, but make him come to your lodgings on pretence of writing
there a letter for the marchesa. Once at your lodgings, and he will
be safe; for I shall see that the officers of justice secure him. The
moment he is there, send an express for me to my hotel."

"But," said Frank, a little bewildered, "if I go to my lodgings, how can
I watch the count?"

"It will nor then be necessary. Only get him to accompany you to your
lodgings, and part with him at the door."

"Stop, stop! you cannot suspect Madame di Negra of connivance in a
scheme so infamous. Pardon me, Lord L'Estrange; I cannot act in this
matter,--cannot even hear you except as your foe, if you insinuate a
word against the honour of the woman I love."

"Brave gentleman, your hand. It is Madame di Negra I would save, as
well as my friend's young child. Think but of her, while you act as
I entreat, and all will go well. I confide in you. Now, return to the
count."

Frank walked back to join Peschiera, and his brow was thoughtful, and
his lips closed firmly. Harley had that gift which belongs to the genius
of Action. He inspired others with the light of his own spirit and the
force of his own will. Harley next hastened to Lord Spendquick, remained
with that young gentleman some minutes, then repaired to his hotel,
where Leonard, the prince, and Giacomo still awaited him.

"Come with me, both of you. You, too, Giacomo. I must now see the
police. We may then divide upon separate missions."

"Oh, my dear Lord," cried Leonard, "you must have had good news. You
seem cheerful and sanguine."

"Seem! Nay, I am so! If I once paused to despond--even to doubt--I
should go mad. A foe to baffle, and an angel to save! Whose spirits
would not rise high, whose wits would not move quick to the warm pulse
of his heart?"




CHAPTER VIII.

Twilight was dark in the room to which Beatrice had conducted Violante.
A great change had come over Beatrice. Humble and weeping, she knelt
beside Violante, hiding her face, and imploring pardon. And Violante,
striving to resist the terror for which she now saw such cause as no
woman-heart can defy, still sought to soothe, and still sweetly assured
forgiveness.

Beatrice had learned, after quick and fierce questions, which at last
compelled the answers that cleared away every doubt, that her jealousy
had been groundless, that she had no rival in Violante. From that moment
the passions that had made her the tool of guilt abruptly vanished, and
her conscience startled her with the magnitude of her treachery. Perhaps
had Violante's heart been wholly free, or she had been of that mere
commonplace, girlish character which women like Beatrice are apt to
despise, the marchesa's affection for Peschiera, and her dread of him,
might have made her try to persuade her young kinswoman at least to
receive the count's visit,--at least to suffer him to make his own
excuses, and plead his own cause. But there had been a loftiness of
spirit in which Violante had first defied the mareliesa's questions,
followed by such generous, exquisite sweetness, when the girl perceived
how that wild heart was stung and maddened, and such purity of mournful
candour when she had overcome her own virgin bashfulness sufficiently to
undeceive the error she detected, and confess where her own affections
were placed, that Beatrice bowed before her as mariner of old to some
fair saint that had allayed the storm.

"I have deceived you!" she cried, through her sobs; "but I will now save
you at any cost. Had you been as I deemed,--the rival who had despoiled
all the hopes of my future life,--I could without remorse have been
the accomplice I am pledged to be. But now you--Oh, you, so good and
so noble--you can never, be the bride of Peschiera. Nay, start not; he
shall renounce his designs forever, or I will go myself to our emperor,
and expose the dark secrets of his life. Return with me quick to the
home from which I ensnared you."

Beatrice's hand was on the door while she spoke. Suddenly her face fell,
her lips grew white; the door was locked from without. She called,--no
one answered; the bell-pull in the room gave no sound; the windows were
high and barred,--they did not look on the river, nor the street, but on
a close, gloomy, silent yard, high blank walls all round it; no one to
hear the cry of distress, rang it ever so loud and sharp.

Beatrice divined that she herself had been no less ensnared than her
companion; that Peschiera, distrustful of her firmness in evil, had
precluded her from the power of reparation. She was in a house only
tenanted by his hirelings. Not a hope to save Violante from a fate that
now appalled her seemed to remain. Thus, in incoherent self-reproaches
and frenzied tears, Beatrice knelt beside her victim, communicating more
and more the terrors that she felt, as the hours rolled on, and the room
darkened, till it was only by the dull lamp which gleamed through the
grimy windows from the yard without, that each saw the face of the
other.

Night came on; they heard a clock from some distant church strike
the hours. The dim fire had long since burned out, and the air became
intensely cold. No one broke upon their solitude,--not a voice was heard
in the house. They felt neither cold nor hunger,--they felt but the
solitude, and the silence, and the dread of something that was to come.

At length, about midnight, a bell rang at the street door; then there
was the quick sound of steps, of sullen bolts withdrawn, of low,
murmured voices. Light streamed through the chinks of the door to the
apartment, the door itself opened. Two Italians bearing tapers entered,
and the Count di Peschiera followed.

Beatrice sprang up, and rushed towards her brother. He laid his hand
gently on her lips, and motioned to the Italians to withdraw. They
placed the lights on the table, and vanished without a word.

Peschiera then, putting aside his sister, approached Violante.

"Fair kinswoman," said he, with an air of easy but resolute assurance,
"there are things which no man can excuse, and no woman can pardon,
unless that love, which is beyond all laws, suggests excuse for the one,
and obtains pardon for the other. In a word, I have sworn to win you,
and I have had no opportunities to woo. Fear not; the worst that can
befall you is to be my bride! Stand aside, my sister, stand aside."

"Giulio Franzini, I stand between you and her; you shall strike me to
the earth before you can touch even the hem of her robe!"

"What, my sister! you turn against me?"

"And unless you instantly retire and leave her free, I will unmask you
to the emperor."

"Too late, mon enfant! You will sail with us. The effects you may
need for the voyage are already on board. You will be witness to our
marriage, and by a holy son of the Church. Then tell the emperor what
you will."

With a light and sudden exertion of his strength, the count put away
Beatrice, and fell on his knee before Violante, who, drawn to her full
height, death-like pale, but untrembling, regarded him with unutterable
disdain.

"You scorn me now," said he, throwing into his features an expression
of humility and admiration, "and I cannot wonder at it. But, believe
me, that until the scorn yield to a kinder sentiment, I will take no
advantage of the power I have gained over your fate."

"Power!" said Violante, haughtily. "You have ensnared me into this
house, you have gained the power of a day; but the power over my
fate,--no!"

"You mean that your friends have discovered your disappearance, and are
on your track. Fair one, I provide against your friends, and I defy all
the laws and police of England. The vessel that will bear you from these
shores waits in the river hard by. Beatrice, I warn you,--be still,
unhand me. In that vessel will be a priest who shall join our hands, but
not before you will recognize the truth, that she who flies with Giulio
Peschiera must become his wife or quit him as the disgrace of her House,
and the scorn of her sex."

"O villain! villain!" cried Beatrice.

"Peste, my sister, gentler words. You, too, would marry. I tell no tales
of you. Signorina, I grieve to threaten force. Give me your hand; we
must be gone."

Violante eluded the clasp that would have profaned her, and darting
across the room, opened the door, and closed it hastily behind her.
Beatrice clung firmly to the count to detain him from pursuit. But just
without the door, close, as if listening to what passed within, stood a
man wrapped from head to foot in a large boat cloak. The ray of the lamp
that beamed on the man glittered on the barrel of a pistol which he held
in his right hand.

"Hist!" whispered the man in English, and passing his arm round her; "in
this house you are in that ruffian's power; out of it, safe. Ah, I am by
your side,--I, Violante!"

The voice thrilled to Violante's heart. She started, looked up, but
nothing was seen of the man's face, what with the hat and cloak, save a
mass of raven curls, and a beard of the same hue.

The count now threw open the door, dragging after him his sister, who
still clung round him.

"Ha, that is well!" he cried to the man, in Italian. "Bear the lady
after me, gently; but if she attempt to cry out, why, force enough to
silence her, not more. As for you, Beatrice, traitress that you are, I
could strike you to the earth, but--No, this suffices." He caught
his sister in his arms as he spoke, and regardless of her cries and
struggles, sprang down the stairs.

The hall was crowded with fierce, swarthy men. The count turned to
one of them, and whispered; in an instant the marchesa was seized and
gagged. The count cast a look over his shoulder; Violante was close
behind, supported by the man to whom Peschiera had consigned her, and
who was pointing to Beatrice, and appeared warning Violante against
resistance.

Violante was silent, and seemed resigned. Peschiera smiled cynically,
and, preceded by some of his hirelings, who held torches, descended a
few steps that led to an abrupt landing-place between the hall and the
basement story. There a small door stood open, and the river flowed
close by. A boat was moored on the bank, round which grouped four men,
who had the air of foreign sailors. At the appearance of Peschiera,
three of these men sprang into the boat, and got ready their oars. The
fourth carefully re-adjusted a plank thrown from the boat to the wharf,
and offered his arm obsequiously to Peschiera. The count was the first
to enter, and, humming a gay opera air, took his place by the helm.
The two females were next lifted in, and Violante felt her hand
pressed almost convulsively by the man who stood by the plank. The rest
followed, and in another minute the boat bounded swiftly over the waves
towards a vessel that lay several furlongs adown the river, and apart
from all the meaner craft that crowded the stream. The stars struggled
pale through the foggy atmosphere; not a word was heard within the
boat,--no sound save the regular splash of the oars. The count paused
from his lively tune, and gathering round him the ample fold of his fur
pelisse, seemed absorbed in thought. Even by the imperfect light of the
stars, Peschiera's face wore an air of sovereign triumph. The result
had justified that careless and insolent confidence in himself and in
fortune, which was the most prominent feature in the character of the
man, who, both bravo and gamester, had played against the world with
his rapier in one hand and cogged dice in the other. Violante, once in
a vessel filled by his own men, was irretrievably in his power. Even
her father must feel grateful to learn that the captive of Peschiera had
saved name and repute in becoming Peschiera's wife. Even the pride of
sex in Violante herself must induce her to confirm what Peschiera, of
course, intended to state,--namely, that she was a willing partner in
a bridegroom's schemes of flight towards the altar rather than the poor
victim of a betrayer, and receiving his hand but from his mercy. He
saw his fortune secured, his success envied, his very character
rehabilitated by his splendid nuptials. Ambition began to mingle with
his dreams of pleasure and pomp. What post in the Court or the State too
high for the aspirations of one who had evinced the most incontestable
talent for active life,--the talent to succeed in all that the will had
undertaken? Thus mused the count, half-forgetful of the present, and
absorbed in the golden future, till he was aroused by a loud hail from
the vessel and the bustle on board the boat, as the sailors caught at
the rope flung forth to them.

He then rose and moved towards Violante. But the man who was still in
charge of her passed the count lightly, half-leading, half-carrying his
passive prisoner. "Pardon, Excellency," said the man, in Italian, "but
the boat is crowded, and rocks so much that your aid would but disturb
our footing." Before Peschiera could reply, Violante was already on the
steps of the vessel, and the count paused till, with elated smile,
he saw her safely standing on the deck. Beatrice followed, and then
Peschiera himself; but when the Italians in his train also thronged
towards the sides of the boat, two of the sailors got before them, and
let go the rope, while the other two plied their oars vigorously,
and pulled back towards shore. The Italians burst into an amazed and
indignant volley of execrations. "Silence," said the sailor who had
stood by the plank, "we obey orders. If you are not quiet, we shall
upset the boat. We can swim; Heaven and Monsignore San Giacomo pity you
if you cannot!"

Meanwhile, as Peschiera leaped upon deck, a flood of light poured upon
him from lifted torches. That light streamed full on the face and form
of a man of commanding stature, whose arm was around Violante, and whose
dark eyes flashed upon the count more luminously than the torches. On
one side this man stood the Austrian prince; on the other side (a cloak,
and a profusion of false dark locks, at his feet) stood Lord L'Estrange,
his arms folded, and his lips curved by a smile in which the ironical
humour native to the man was tempered with a calm and supreme disdain.
The count strove to speak, but his voice faltered.

All around him looked ominous and hostile. He saw many Italian faces,
but they scowled at him with vindictive hate; in the rear were English
mariners, peering curiously over the shoulders of the foreigners, and
with a broad grin on their open countenances. Suddenly, as the count
thus stood perplexed, cowering, stupefied, there burst from all
the Italians present a hoot of unutterable scorn, "Il traditore! il
traditore!" (the traitor! the traitor!)

The count was brave, and at the cry he lifted his head with a certain
majesty.

At that moment Harley, raising his hand as if to silence the hoot, came
forth from the group by which he had been hitherto standing, and towards
him the count advanced with a bold stride.

"What trick is this?" he said, in French, fiercely. "I divine that it is
you whom I can single out for explanation and atonement."

"Pardieu, Monsieur le Comte," answered Harley, in the same language,
which lends itself so well to polished sarcasm and high-bred enmity,
"let us distinguish. Explanation should come from me, I allow; but
atonement I have the honour to resign to yourself. This vessel--"

"Is mine!" cried the count. "Those men, who insult me, should be in my
pay."

"The men in your pay, Monsieur le Comte, are on shore, drinking success
to your voyage. But, anxious still to procure you the gratification of
being amongst your own countrymen, those whom I have taken into my pay
are still better Italians than the pirates whose place they supply;
perhaps not such good sailors; but then I have taken the liberty to add
to the equipment of a vessel which cost me too much to risk lightly,
some stout English seamen, who are mariners more practised than even
your pirates. Your grand mistake, Monsieur le Comte, is in thinking that
the 'Flying Dutchman' is yours. With many apologies for interfering with
your intention to purchase it, I beg to inform you that Lord Spendquick
has kindly sold it to me. Nevertheless, Monsieur le Comte, for the next
few weeks I place it--men and all--at your service."

Peschiera smiled scornfully.

"I thank your Lordship; but since I presume that I shall no longer have
the travelling companion who alone could make the voyage attractive, I
shall return to shore, and will simply request you to inform me at what
hour you can receive the friend whom I shall depute to discuss that
part of the question yet untouched, and to arrange that the atonement,
whether it be due from me or yourself, may be rendered as satisfactory
as you have condescended to make the explanation."

"Let not that vex you, Monsieur le Comte; the atonement is, in much,
made already; so anxious have I been to forestall all that your nice
sense of honour would induce so complete a gentleman to desire. You have
ensnared a young heiress, it is true; but you see that it was only to
restore her to the arms of her father. You have juggled an illustrious
kinsman out of his heritage; but you have voluntarily come on board this
vessel, first, to enable his Highness the Prince Von ------, of whose
rank at the Austrian Court you are fully aware, to state to your emperor
that he himself has been witness of the manner in which you interpreted
his Imperial Majesty's assent to your nuptials with a child of one of
the first subjects in his Italian realm; and, next, to commence by an
excursion to the seas of the Baltic the sentence of banishment which I
have no doubt will accompany the same act that restores to the chief of
your House his lands and his honours."

The count started.

"That restoration," said the Austrian prince, who had advanced to
Harley's side, "I already guarantee. Disgrace that you are, Giulio
Franzini, to the nobles of the Empire, I will not leave my royal master
till his hand strike your name from the roll. I have here your own
letters, to prove that your kinsman was duped by yourself into the
revolt which you would have headed as a Catiline, if it had not better
suited your nature to betray it as a Judas. In ten days from this time,
these letters will be laid before the emperor and his Council."

"Are you satisfied, Monsieur le Comte," said Harley, "with your
atonement so far? If not, I have procured you the occasion to render it
yet more complete. Before you stands the kinsman you have wronged. He
knows now, that though, for a while, you ruined his fortunes, you failed
to sully his hearth. His heart can grant you pardon, and hereafter his
hand may give you alms. Kneel then, Giulio Franzini, kneel at the feet
of Alphonso, Duke of Serrano."

The above dialogue had been in French, which only a few of the Italians
present understood, and that imperfectly; but at the name with which
Harley concluded his address to the count, a simultaneous cry from those
Italians broke forth.

"Alphonso the Good! Alphonso the Good! Viva, viva, the good Duke of
Serrano!"

And, forgetful even of the count, they crowded round the tall form of
Riccabocca, striving who should first kiss his hand, the very hem of his
garment.

Riccabocca's eyes overflowed. The gaunt exile seemed transfigured into
another and more kingly man. An inexpressible dignity invested him. He
stretched forth his arms, as if to bless his countrymen. Even that rude
cry, from humble men, exiles like himself, consoled him for years of
banishment and penury.

"Thanks, thanks," he continued; "thanks! Some day or other, you will all
perhaps return with me to the beloved land!"

The Austrian prince bowed his head, as if in assent to the prayer.

"Giulio Franzini," said the Duke of Serrano,--for so we may now call the
threadbare recluse of the Casino,--"had this last villanous design of
yours been allowed by Providence, think you that there is one spot on
earth on which the ravisher could have been saved from a father's arm?
But now, Heaven has been more kind. In this hour let me imitate its
mercy;" and with relaxing brow the duke mildly drew near to his guilty
kinsman.

From the moment the Austrian prince had addressed him, the count had
preserved a profound silence, showing neither repentance nor shame.
Gathering himself up, he had stood firm, glaring round him like one at
bay. But as the duke now approached, he waved his hand, and exclaimed,
"Back, pedant; back; you have not triumphed yet. And you, prating
German, tell your tales to our emperor. I shall be by his throne to
answer,--if, indeed, you escape from the meeting to which I will force
you by the way." He spoke, and made a rush towards the side of the
vessel. But Harley's quick wit had foreseen the count's intention, and
Harley's quick eye had given the signal by which it was frustrated.
Seized in the gripe of his own watchful and indignant countrymen, just
as he was about to plunge into the stream, Peschiera was dragged back,
pinioned clown. Then the expression of his whole countenance changed;
the desperate violence of the inborn gladiator broke forth. His great
strength enabled him to break loose more than once, to dash more than
one man to the floor of the deck; but at length, overpowered by numbers,
though still struggling, all dignity, all attempt at presence of mind
gone, uttering curses the most plebeian, gnashing his teeth, and foaming
at the mouth, nothing seemed left of the brilliant Lothario but the
coarse fury of the fierce natural man.

Then still preserving that air and tone of exquisite imperturbable
irony, which the highest comedian might have sought to imitate in vain,
Harley bowed low to the storming count.

"Adieu, Monsieur le Comte, adieu! The vessel which you have honoured me
by entering is bound to Norway. The Italians who accompany you were
sent by yourself into exile, and, in return, they now kindly promise to
enliven you with their society, whenever you feel somewhat tired of
your own. Conduct the count to his cabin. Gently there, gently. Adieu,
Monsieur le Comte, adieu! et bon voyage."

Harley turned lightly on his heel, as Peschiera, in spite of his
struggles, was now fairly carried down to the cabin.

"A trick for the trickster," said L'Estrange to the Austrian prince.
"The revenge of a farce on the would-be tragedian."

"More than that,-he is ruined."

"And ridiculous," quoth Harley. "I should like to see his look when
they land him in Norway." Harley then passed towards the centre of the
vessel, by which, hitherto partially concealed by the sailors, who were
now busily occupied, stood Beatrice,--Frank Hazeldean, who had first
received her on entering the vessel, standing by her side; and Leonard,
a little apart from the two, in quiet observation of all that had passed
around him. Beatrice appeared but little to heed Frank; her dark eyes
were lifted to the dim starry skies, and her lips were moving as if in
prayer; yet her young lover was speaking to her in great emotion, low
and rapidly.

"No, no, do not think for a moment that we suspect you, Beatrice. I will
answer for your honour with my life. Oh, why will you turn from me; why
will you not speak?"

"A moment later," said Beatrice, softly. "Give me one moment yet." She
passed slowly and falteringly towards Leonard, placed her hand, that
trembled, on his arm, and led him aside to the verge of the vessel.
Frank, startled by her movement, made a step as if to follow, and
then stopped short and looked on, but with a clouded and doubtful
countenance. Harley's smile had gone, and his eye was also watchful.

It was but a few words that Beatrice spoke, it was but a sentence or so
that Leonard answered; and then Beatrice extended her hand, which the
young poet bent over, and kissed in silence. She lingered an instant;
and even by the starlight, Harley noted the blush that overspread her
face. The blush faded as Beatrice returned to Frank. Lord L'Estrange
would have retired,--she signed to him to stay.

"My Lord," she said, very firmly, "I cannot accuse you of harshness
to my sinful and unhappy brother. His offence might perhaps deserve a
heavier punishment than that which you inflict with such playful scorn.
But whatever his penance, contempt now or poverty later, I feel that
his sister should be by his side to share it. I am not innocent if he be
guilty; and, wreck though he be, nothing else on this dark sea of life
is now left to me to cling to. Hush, my Lord! I shall not leave this
vessel. All that I entreat of you is, to order your men to respect my
brother, since a woman will be by his side."

"But, Marchesa, this cannot be; and--"

"Beatrice, Beatrice--and me!--our betrothal? Do you forget me?" cried
Frank, in reproachful agony.

"No, young and too noble lover; I shall remember you ever in my prayers.
But listen. I have been deceived, hurried on, I might say, by others,
but also, and far more, by my own mad and blinded heart,--deceived,
hurried on, to wrong you and to belie myself. My shame burns into me
when I think that I could have inflicted on you the just anger of your
family, linked you to my own ruined fortunes,--my own--"

"Your own generous, loving heart!--that is all I asked!" cried Frank.

"Cease, cease! that heart is mine still!" Tears gushed from the
Italian's eyes.

"Englishman, I never loved you; this heart was dead to you, and it will
be dead to all else forever. Farewell. You will forget me sooner than
you think for,--sooner than I shall forget you, as a friend, as a
brother--if brothers had natures as tender and as kind as yours! Now, my
Lord, will you give me your arm? I would join the count."

"Stay; one word, Madame," said Frank, very pale, and through his set
teeth, but calmly, and with a pride on his brow which had never before
dignified its habitual careless expression,--"one word. I may not be
worthy of you in anything else, but an honest love, that never doubted,
never suspected, that would have clung to you though all the world were
against,--such a love makes the meanest man of worth. One word, frank
and open. By all that you hold most sacred in your creed, did you speak
the truth when you said that you never loved me?"

Beatrice bent down her head; she was abashed before this manly nature
that she had so deceived, and perhaps till then undervalued.

"Pardon, pardon," she said, in reluctant accents, half-choked by the
rising of a sob.

At her hesitation, Frank's face lighted as if with sudden hope. She
raised her eyes, and saw the change in him, then glanced where Leonard
stood, mournful and motionless. She shivered, and added firmly,

"Yes, pardon; for I spoke the truth, and I had no heart to give. It
might have been as wax to another,--it was of granite to you." She
paused, and muttered inly, "Granite, and--broken!"

Frank said not a word more. He stood rooted to the spot, not even gazing
after Beatrice as she passed on, leaning on the arm of Lord L'Estrange.
He then walked resolutely away, and watched the boat that the men were
now lowering from the side of the vessel. Beatrice stopped when she came
near the place where Violante stood, answering in agitated whispers her
father's anxious questions. As she stopped, she leaned more heavily upon
Harley. "It is your arm that trembles now, Lord L'Estrange," said she,
with a mournful smile, and, quitting him ere he could answer, she bowed
down her head meekly before Violante. "You have pardoned me already,"
she said, in a tone that reached only the girl's ear, "and my last words
shall not be of the past. I see your future spread bright before me
under those steadfast stars. Love still; hope and trust. These are the
last words of her who will soon die to the world. Fair maid, they are
prophetic!"

Violante shrunk back to her father's breast, and there hid her glowing
face, resigning her hand to Beatrice, who pressed it to her bosom.
The marchesa then came back to Harley, and disappeared with him in the
interior of the vessel.

When Harley again came on deck, he seemed much flurried and disturbed.
He kept aloof from the duke and Violante, and was the last to enter the
boat, that was now lowered into the water.

As he and his companions reached the land, they saw the vessel in
movement, gliding slowly down the river. "Courage, Leonard, courage!"
murmured Harley. "You grieve, and nobly. But you have shunned the worst
and most vulgar deceit in civilized life; you have not simulated love.
Better that yon poor lady should be, awhile, the sufferer from a harsh
truth, than the eternal martyr of a flattering lie! Alas, my Leonard!
with the love of the poet's dream are linked only the Graces; with the
love of the human heart come the awful Fates!"

"My Lord, poets do not dream when they love. You will learn how the
feelings are deep in proportion as the fancies are vivid, when you read
that confession of genius and woe which I have left in your hands."

Leonard turned away. Harley's gaze followed him with inquiring interest,
and suddenly encountered the soft dark grateful eyes of Violante. "The
Fates, the Fates!" murmured Harley.




CHAPTER IX.

We are at Norwood in the sage's drawing-room. Violante has long since
retired to rest. Harley, who had accompanied the father and daughter to
their home, is still conversing with the former.

"Indeed, my dear Duke," said Harley

"Hush, hush! Diavolo, don't call me Duke yet; I am at home here once
more as Dr. Riccabocca."

"My dear doctor, then, allow me to assure you that you overrate my claim
to your thanks. Your old friends, Leonard and Frank Hazeldean, must come
in for their share. Nor is the faithful Giacomo to be forgotten."

"Continue your explanation."

"In the first place, I learned, through Frank, that one Baron Levy, a
certain fashionable money-lender, and general ministrant to the
affairs of fine gentlemen, was just about to purchase a yacht from Lord
Spendquick on behalf of the count. A short interview with Spendquick
enabled me to outbid the usurer, and conclude a bargain by which the
yacht became mine,--a promise to assist Spendquick in extricating
himself from the claws of the money-lender (which I trust to do by
reconciling him with his father, who is a man of liberality and sense)
made Spendquick readily connive at my scheme for outwitting the enemy.
He allowed Levy to suppose that the count might take possession of
the vessel; but affecting an engagement, and standing out for terms,
postponed the final settlement of the purchase-money till the next day.
I was thus master of the vessel, which I felt sure was destined to serve
Peschiera's infamous design. But it was my business not to alarm the
count's suspicions; I therefore permitted the pirate crew he had
got together to come on board. I knew I could get rid of them when
necessary. Meanwhile, Frank undertook to keep close to the count until
he could see and cage within his lodgings the servant whom Peschiera
had commissioned to attend his sister. If I could but apprehend this
servant, I had a sanguine hope that I could discover and free your
daughter before Peschiera could even profane her with his presence. But
Frank, alas! was no pupil of Machiavelli. Perhaps the count detected his
secret thoughts under his open countenance, perhaps merely wished to
get rid of a companion very much in his way; but, at all events, he
contrived to elude our young friend as cleverly as you or I could have
done,--told him that Beatrice herself was at Roehampton, had borrowed
the count's carriage to go there, volunteered to take Frank to the
house, took him. Frank found himself in a drawing-room; and after
waiting a few minutes, while the count went out on pretence of seeing
his sister, in pirouetted a certain distinguished opera-dancer!
Meanwhile the count was fast back on the road to London, and Frank had
to return as he could. He then hunted for the count everywhere, and saw
him no more. It was late in the day when Frank found me out with this
news. I became seriously alarmed. Peschiera might perhaps learn my
counter-scheme with the yacht, or he might postpone sailing until he had
terrified or entangled Violante into some--In short, everything was to
be dreaded from a man of the count's temper. I had no clew to the place
to which your daughter was taken, no excuse to arrest Peschiera, no
means even of learning where he was. He had not returned to Mivart's.
The Police was at fault, and useless, except in one valuable piece
of information. They told me where some of your countrymen, whom
Peschiera's perfidy had sent into exile, were to be found. I
commissioned Giacomo to seek these men out, and induce them to man the
vessel. It might be necessary, should Peschiera or his confidential
servants come aboard, after we had expelled or drawn off the pirate
crew, that they should find Italians whom they might well mistake for
their own hirelings. To these foreigners I added some English sailors
who had before served in the same vessel, and on whom Spendquick assured
me I could rely. Still these precautions only availed in case Peschiera
should resolve to sail, and defer till then all machinations against
his captives. While, amidst my fears and uncertainties, I was struggling
still to preserve presence of mind, and rapidly discussing with the
Austrian prince if any other steps could be taken, or if our sole
resource was to repair to the vessel and take the chance of what might
ensue, Leonard suddenly and quietly entered my room. You know his
countenance, in which joy or sadness is not betrayed so much by
the evidence of the passions as by variations in the intellectual
expression. It was but by the clearer brow and the steadier eye that I
saw he had good tidings to impart."

"Ah," said Riccabocca,--for so, obeying his own request, we will yet
call the sage,--"ah, I early taught that young man the great lesson
inculcated by Helvetius. 'All our errors arise from our ignorance or our
passions.' Without ignorance and without passions, we should be serene,
all-penetrating intelligences."

"Mopsticks," quoth Harley, "have neither ignorance nor passions; but as
for their intelligence--"

"Pshaw!" interrupted Riccabocca,--"proceed."

"Leonard had parted from us some hours before. I had commissioned him
to call at Madame di Negra's, and, as he was familiarly known to her
servants, seek to obtain quietly all the information he could collect,
and, at all events, procure (what in my haste I had failed to do) the
name and description of the man who had driven her out in the morning,
and make what use he judged best of every hint he could gather or glean
that might aid our researches. Leonard only succeeded in learning the
name and description of the coachman, whom he recognized as one Beppo,
to whom she had often given orders in his presence. None could say where
he then could be found, if not at the count's hotel. Leonard went next
to that hotel. The man had not been there all the day. While revolving
what next he should do, his eye caught sight of your intended
son-in-law, gliding across the opposite side of the street. One of those
luminous, inspiring conjectures, which never occur to you philosophers,
had from the first guided Leonard to believe that Randal Leslie was
mixed up in this villanous affair."

"Ha! He?" cried Riccabocca. "Impossible! For what interest, what
object?"

"I cannot tell, neither could Leonard; but we had both formed the same
conjecture. Brief: Leonard resolved to follow Randal Leslie, and
track all his movements. He did then follow him, unobserved,--and at a
distance, first to Audley Egerton's house, then to Eaton Square, thence
to a house in Bruton Street, which Leonard ascertained to be Baron
Levy's. Suspicious that, my clear sage?"

"Diavolo, yes!" said Riccabocca, thoughtfully.

"At Levy's, Randal stayed till dusk. He then came out, with his
cat-like, stealthy step, and walked quickly into the neighbourhood of
Leicester Square. Leonard saw him enter one of those small hotels which
are appropriated to foreigners. Wild, outlandish fellows were loitering
about the door and in the street. Leonard divined that the count or the
count's confidants were there."

"If that can be proved," cried Riccabocca, "if Randal could have been
thus in communication with Peschiera, could have connived at such
perfidy, I am released from my promise. Oh, to prove it!"

"Proof will come later, if we are on the right track. Let me go on.
While waiting near the door of this hotel, Beppo himself, the very man
Leonard was in search of, came forth, and, after speaking a few words
to some of the loitering foreigners, walked briskly towards Piccadilly.
Leonard here resigned all further heed of Leslie, and gave chase
to Beppo, whom he recognized at a glance. Coming up to him, he said
quietly, 'I have a letter for the Marchesa di Negra. She told me I was
to send it to her by you. I have been searching for you the whole day.'
The man fell into the trap, and the more easily, because--as he since
owned in excuse for a simplicity which, I dare say, weighed on his
conscience more than any of the thousand-and-one crimes he may have
committed in the course of his illustrious life--he had been employed
by the marchesa as a spy upon Leonard, and, with an Italian's acumen in
affairs of the heart, detected her secret."

"What secret?" asked the innocent sage.

"Her love for the handsome young poet. I betray that secret, in order to
give her some slight excuse for becoming Peschiera's tool. She believed
Leonard to be in love with your daughter, and jealousy urged her to
treason. Violante, no doubt, will explain this to you. Well, the man
fell into the trap. 'Give me the letter, Signor, and quick.'

"'It is at a hotel close by; come there, and you will have a guinea for
your trouble.'

"So Leonard walked our gentleman into my hotel; and having taken him
into my dressing-room, turned the key and there left him. On learning
this capture, the prince and myself hastened to see our prisoner. He was
at first sullen and silent; but when the prince disclosed his rank and
name (you know the mysterious terror the meaner Italians feel for an
Austrian magnate), his countenance changed, and his courage fell. What
with threats and what with promises, we soon obtained all that we sought
to know; and an offered bribe, which I calculated at ten times the
amount the rogue could ever expect to receive from his spendthrift
master, finally bound him cheerfully to our service, soul and body. Thus
we learned the dismal place to which your noble daughter had been
so perfidiously ensnared. We learned also that the count had not yet
visited her, hoping much from the effect that prolonged incarceration
might have in weakening her spirit and inducing her submission.
Peschiera was to go to the house at midnight, thence to transport her to
the vessel. Beppo had received orders to bring the carriage to Leicester
Square, where Peschiera would join him. The count (as Leonard surmised)
had taken skulking refuge at the hotel in which Randal Leslie had
disappeared. The prince, Leonard, Frank (who was then in the hotel), and
myself held a short council. Should we go at once to the house, and,
by the help of the police, force an entrance, and rescue your daughter?
This was a very hazardous resource. The abode, which, at various times,
had served for the hiding-place of men haunted by the law, abounded,
according to our informant, in subterranean vaults and secret passages,
and had more than one outlet on the river. At our first summons at the
door, therefore, the ruffians within might not only escape themselves,
but carry off their prisoner. The door was strong, and before our
entrance could be forced, all trace of her we sought might be lost.
Again, too, the prince was desirous of bringing Peschiera's guilty
design home to him,--anxious to be able to state to the emperor, and
to the great minister his kinsman, that he himself had witnessed the
count's vile abuse of the emperor's permission to wed your daughter. In
short, while I only thought of Violante, the prince thought also of her
father's recall to his dukedom. Yet, still to leave Violante in that
terrible house, even for an hour, a few minutes, subjected to the actual
presence of Peschiera, unguarded save by the feeble and false woman who
had betrayed and might still desert her--how contemplate that fearful
risk? What might not happen in the interval between Peschiera's visit
to the house and his appearance with his victim on the vessel? An idea
flashed on me: Beppo was to conduct the count to the house; if I could
accompany Beppo in disguise, enter the house, myself be present?--I
rushed back to our informant, now become our agent; I found the plan
still more feasible than I had at first supposed. Beppo had asked the
count's permission to bring with him a brother accustomed to the sea,
and who wished to quit England. I might personate that brother. You
know that the Italian language, in most of its dialects and varieties of
patois--Genoese, Piedmontese, Venetian--is as familiar tome as Addison's
English! Alas! rather more so. Presto! the thing was settled. I felt my
heart, from that moment, as light as a feather, and my sense as keen as
the dart which a feather wings. My plans now were formed in a breath,
and explained in a sentence. It was right that you should be present
on board the vessel, not only to witness your foe's downfall, but to
receive your child in a father's arms. Leonard set out to Norwood for
you, cautioned not to define too precisely for what object you were
wanted, till on board.

"Frank, accompanied by Beppo (for there was yet time for these
preparations before midnight), repaired to the yacht, taking Giacomo by
the way. There our new ally, familiar to most of that piratical crew,
and sanctioned by the presence of Frank, as the count's friend and
prospective brother-in-law, told Peschiera's hirelings that they were to
quit the vessel, and wait on shore under Giacomo's auspices till further
orders; and as soon as the decks were cleared of these ruffians (save a
few left to avoid suspicion, and who were afterwards safely stowed down
in the hold), and as soon as Giacomo had lodged his convoy in a public
house, where he quitted them drinking his health over unlimited rations
of grog, your inestimable servant quietly shipped on board the Italians
pressed into the service, and Frank took charge of the English sailors.

"The prince, promising to be on board in due time, then left me to make
arrangements for his journey to Vienna by the dawn. I hastened to a
masquerade warehouse, where, with the help of an ingenious stagewright
artificer, I disguised myself into a most thorough-paced-looking
cut-throat, and then waited the return of my friend Beppo with the most
perfect confidence."

"Yet, if that rascal had played false, all these precautions were lost.
Cospetto! you were not wise," said the prudent philosopher.

"Very likely not. You would have been so wise, that by this time your
daughter would have been lost to you forever."

"But why not employ the police?"

"First, Because I had already employed them to little purpose; secondly,
Because I no longer wanted them; thirdly, Because to use them for
my final catastrophe would be to drag your name, and your daughter's
perhaps, before a police court,--at all events, before the tribunal
of public gossip; and lastly, Because, having decided upon the proper
punishment, it had too much of equity to be quite consistent with law;
and in forcibly seizing a man's person, and shipping him off to Norway,
my police would have been sadly in the way. Certainly my plan rather
savours of Lope de Vega than of Blackstone. However, you see success
atones for all irregularities. I resume: Beppo came back in time to
narrate all the arrangements that had been made, and to inform me that
a servant from the count had come on board just as our new crew were
assembled there, to order the boat to be at the place where we found
it. The servant it was deemed prudent to detain and secure. Giacomo
undertook to manage the boat.

"I am nearly at the close of my story. Sure of my disguise, I got on the
coach-box with Beppo. The count arrived at the spot appointed, and did
not even honour myself with a question or glance. 'Your brother?' he
said to Beppo; 'one might guess that; he has the family likeness. Not a
handsome race yours! Drive on.'

"We arrived at the house. I dismounted to open the carriage-door. The
count gave me one look. 'Beppo says you have known the sea.'

"'Excellency, yes. I am a Genoese.'

"'Ha! how is that? Beppo is a Lombard.'--Admire the readiness with which
I redeemed my blunder.

"'Excellency, it pleased Heaven that Beppo should be born in Lombardy,
and then to remove my respected parents to Genoa, at which city they
were so kindly treated that my mother, in common gratitude, was bound
to increase its population. It was all she could do, poor woman. You see
she did her best.'

"The count smiled, and said no more. The door opened, I followed him;
your daughter can tell you the rest."

"And you risked your life in that den of miscreants! Noble friend!"

"Risked my life,--no; but I risked the count's. There was one moment
when my hand was on my trigger, and my soul very near the sin of
justifiable homicide. But my tale is done. The count is now on the
river, and will soon be on the salt seas, though not bound to Norway,
as I had first intended. I could not inflict that frigid voyage on his
sister. So the men have orders to cruise about for six days, keeping
aloof from shore, and they will then land the count and the marchesa, by
boat, on the French coast. That delay will give time for the prince to
arrive at Vienna before the count could follow him."

"Would he have that audacity?"

"Do him more justice! Audacity, faith! he does not want for that. But I
dreaded not his appearance at Vienna with such evidence against him.
I dreaded his encountering the prince on the road, and forcing a duel,
before his character was so blasted that the prince could refuse it; and
the count is a dead shot of course,--all such men are!"

"He will return, and you--"

"I! Oh, never fear; he has had enough of me. And now, my dear
friend,--now that Violante is safe once more under your own roof;
now that my honoured mother must long ere this have been satisfied by
Leonard, who left us to go to her, that our success has been achieved
without danger, and, what she will value almost as much, without
scandal; now that your foe is powerless as a reed floating on the water
towards its own rot, and the Prince Von -------is perhaps about to enter
his carriage on the road to Dover, charged with the mission of restoring
to Italy her worthiest son,--let me dismiss you to your own happy
slumbers, and allow me to wrap myself in my cloak, and snatch a short
sleep on the sofa, till yonder gray dawn has mellowed into riper day.
My eyes are heavy, and if you stay here three minutes longer, I shall be
out of reach of hearing, in the land of dreams. Buona notte!"

"But there is a bed prepared for you."

Harley shook his head in dissent, and composed himself at length on the
sofa.

Riccabocca, bending, wrapped the cloak round his guest, kissed him on
the forehead, and crept out of the room to rejoin Jemima, who still sat
up for him, nervously anxious to learn from him those explanations which
her considerate affection would not allow her to ask from the agitated
and exhausted Violante. "Not in bed!" cried the sage, on seeing her.
"Have you no feelings of compassion for my son that is to be? Just, too,
when there is a reasonable probability that we can afford a son?"

Riccabocca here laughed merrily, and his wife threw herself on his
shoulder, and cried for joy.

But no sleep fell on the lids of Harley L'Estrange. He started up when
his host had left him, and paced the apartment, with noiseless but rapid
strides. All whim and levity had vanished from his face, which, by the
light of the dawn, seemed death-like pale. On that pale face there was
all the struggle and all the anguish of passion.

"These arms have clasped her," he murmured; "these lips have inhaled her
breath! I am under the same roof, and she is saved,--saved evermore from
danger and from penury, and forever divided from me. Courage, courage!
Oh, honour, duty; and thou, dark memory of the past,--thou that didst
pledge love at least to a grave,--support, defend me! Can I be so weak!"

The sun was in the wintry skies when Harley stole from the house. No
one was stirring except Giacomo, who stood by the threshold of the door,
which he had just unbarred, feeding the house-dog. "Good-day," said the
servant, smiling. "The dog has not been of much use, but I don't think
the padrone will henceforth grudge him a breakfast. I shall take him to
Italy, and marry him there, in the hope of improving the breed of our
native Lombard dogs."

"Ah," said Harley, "you will soon leave our cold shores. May sunshine
settle on you all!" He paused, and looked up at the closed windows
wistfully.

"The signorina sleeps there," said Giacomo, in a husky voice, "just over
the room in which you slept."

"I knew it," muttered Harley. "An instinct told me of it. Open the gate;
I must go home. My excuses to your lord, and to all."

He turned a deaf ear to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till at least the
signorina was up,--the signorina whom he had saved. Without trusting
himself to speak further, he quitted the demesne, and walked with swift
strides towards London.




CHAPTER X.

Harley had not long reached his hotel, and was still seated before his
untasted breakfast, when Mr. Randal Leslie was announced. Randal, who
was in the firm belief that Violante was now on the wide seas with
Peschiera, entered, looking the very personation of anxiety and fatigue.
For like the great Cardinal Richelieu, Randal had learned the art how
to make good use of his own delicate and somewhat sickly aspect. The
cardinal, when intent on some sanguinary scheme requiring unusual
vitality and vigour, contrived to make himself look a harmless sufferer
at death's door. And Randal, whose nervous energies could at that moment
have whirled him from one end of this huge metropolis to the other, with
a speed that would have outstripped a prize pedestrian, now sank into
a chair with a jaded weariness that no mother could have seen without
compassion. He seemed since the last night to have galloped towards the
last stage of consumption.

"Have you discovered no trace, my Lord? Speak, speak!"

"Speak! certainly. I am too happy to relieve your mind, Mr. Leslie. What
fools we were! Ha, ha!"

"Fools--how?" faltered Randal.

"Of course; the young lady was at her father's house all the time."

"Eh? what?"

"And is there now."

"It is not possible!" said Randal, in the hollow, dreamy tone of a
somnambulist. "At her father's house, at Norwood! Are you sure?"

"Sure."

Randal made a desperate and successful effort at self-control. "Heaven
be praised!" he cried. "And just as I had begun to suspect the count,
the marchesa; for I find that neither of them slept at home last night;
and Levy told me that the count had written to him, requesting the
baron to discharge his bills, as he should be for some time absent from
England."

"Indeed! Well, that is nothing to us,--very much to Baron Levy, if he
executes his commission, and discharges the bills. What! are you going
already?"

"Do you ask such a question? How can I stay? I must go to Norwood,--must
see Violante with my own eyes! Forgive my emotion--I--I--"

Randal snatched at his hat and hurried away. The low scornful laugh of
Harley followed him as he went.

"I have no more doubt of his guilt than Leonard has. Violante at
least shall not be the prize of that thin-lipped knave. What strange
fascination can he possess, that he should thus bind to him the two
men I value most,--Audley Egerton and Alphonso di Serrano? Both so wise
too!--one in books, one in action. And both suspicious men! While I, so
imprudently trustful and frank--Ah, that is the reason; our natures are
antipathetic; cunning, simulation, falsehood, I have no mercy, no pardon
for these. Woe to all hypocrites if I were a grand Inquisitor!"

"Mr. Richard Avenel," said the waiter, throwing open the door.

Harley caught at the arm of the chair on which he sat, and grasped
it nervously, while his eyes became fixed intently on the form of the
gentleman who now advanced into the room. He rose with an effort.

"Mr. Avenel!" he said falteringly. "Did I hear your name aright?
Avenel!"

"Richard Avenel, at your service, my Lord," answered Dick. "My family is
not unknown to you; and I am not ashamed of my family, though my parents
were small Lansmere tradesfolks, and I am--ahem!--a citizen of the
world, and well-to-do!" added Dick, dropping his kid gloves into his
hat, and then placing the hat on the table, with the air of an old
acquaintance who wishes to make himself at home. Lord L'Estrange bowed
and said, as he reseated himself (Dick being firmly seated already),
"You are most welcome, sir; and if there be anything I can do for one of
your name--"

"Thank you, my Lord," interrupted Dick. "I want nothing of any man. A
bold word to say; but I say it. Nevertheless, I should not have presumed
to call on your Lordship, unless, indeed, you had done me the honour
to call first at my house, Eaton Square, No. ---- I should not have
presumed to call if it had not been on business,--public business, I may
say--NATIONAL business!"

Harley bowed again. A faint smile flitted for a moment to his lip, but,
vanishing, gave way to a mournful, absent expression of countenance, as
he scanned the handsome features before him, and, perhaps, masculine and
bold though they were, still discovered something of a family likeness
to one whose beauty had once been his ideal of female loveliness; for
suddenly he stretched forth his hand, and said, with more than his usual
cordial sweetness, "Business or not business, let us speak to each other
as friends,--for the sake of a name that takes me back to Lansmere, to
my youth. I listen to you with interest."

Richard Avenel, much surprised by this unexpected kindliness, and
touched, he knew not why, by the soft and melancholy tone of Harley's
voice, warmly pressed the hand held out to him; and seized with a rare
fit of shyness, coloured and coughed and hemmed and looked first down,
then aside, before he could find the words which were generally ready
enough at his command.

"You are very good, Lord L'Estrange; nothing can be handsomer. I feel it
here, my Lord," striking his buff waistcoat,--"I do, 'pon my honour. But
not to waste your time (time's money), I come to the point. It is about
the borough of Lansmere. Your family interest is very strong in that
borough; but excuse me if I say that I don't think you are aware that I
too have cooked up a pretty considerable interest on the other side. No
offence,--opinions are free. And the popular tide runs strong with us--I
mean with me--at the impending crisis,--that is, at the next election.
Now, I have a great respect for the earl your father, and so have those
who brought me into the world--my father, John, was always a regular
good Blue,--and my respect for yourself since I came into this room
has gone up in the market a very great rise indeed,--considerable. So I
should just like to see if we could set our heads together, and settle
the borough between us two, in a snug private way, as public men ought
to do when they get together, nobody else by, and no necessity for that
sort of humbug, which is so common in this rotten old country. Eh, my
Lord?"

"Mr. Avenel," said Harley, slowly, recovering himself from the
abstraction with which he had listened to Dick's earlier sentences, "I
fear I do not quite understand you; but I have no other interest in the
next election for the borough of Lansmere than as may serve one whom,
whatever be your politics, you must acknowledge to be--"

"A humbug!"

"Mr. Avenel, you cannot mean the person I mean. I speak of one of the
first statesmen of our time,--of Mr. Audley Egerton, of--"

"A stiff-necked, pompous--"

"My earliest and dearest friend."

The rebuke, though gently said, sufficed to silence Dick for a moment;
and when he spoke again, it was in an altered tone.

"I beg your pardon, my Lord, I am sure. Of course, I can say nothing
disrespectful of your friend,--very sorry that he is your friend. In
that case, I am almost afraid that nothing is to be done. But Mr. Audley
Egerton has not a chance.

"Let me convince you of this." And Dick pulled out a little book, bound
neatly in red.

"Canvass book, my Lord. I am no aristocrat. I don't pretend to carry a
free and independent constituency in my breeches' pocket. Heaven forbid!
But as a practical man of business, what I do is done properly. Just
look at this book.

"Well kept, eh? Names, promises, inclinations, public opinions, and
private interests of every individual Lansmere elector! Now, as one man
of honour to another, I show you this book, and I think you will see
that we have a clear majority of at least eighty votes as against Mr.
Egerton."

"That is your view of the question," said Harley, taking the book
and glancing over the names catalogued and ticketed therein. But his
countenance became serious as he recognized many names familiar to his
boyhood as those of important electors on the Lansmere side, and which
he now found transferred to the hostile. "But surely there are persons
here in whom you deceive yourself,--old friends of my family, stanch
supporters of our party."

"Exactly so. But this new question has turned all old things
topsy-turvy. No relying on any friend of yours. No reliance except in
this book!" said Dick, slapping the red cover with calm but ominous
emphasis.

"Now, what I want to propose is this: Don't let the Lansmere interest be
beaten; it would vex the old earl,--go to his heart, I am sure."

Harley nodded.

"And the Lansmere interest need not be beaten, if you'll put up another
man instead of this red-tapist. (Beg pardon.) You see I only want to get
in one man, you want to get in another. Why not? Now, there 's a smart
youth,--connection of Mr. Egerton's,--Randal Leslie. I have no objection
to him, though he is of your colours. Withdraw Mr. Egerton, and I 'll
withdraw my second man before it comes to the poll; and so we shall
halve the borough slick between us. That's the way to do business,--eh,
my Lord?"

"Randal Leslie! Oh, you wish to bring in Mr. Leslie? But he stands with
Egerton, not against him."

"Ah," said Dick, smiling as if to himself, "so I hear; and we could
bring him in over Egerton without saying a word to you. But all our
family respect yours, and so I have wished to do the thing handsome and
open. Let the earl and your party be content with young Leslie."

"Young Leslie has spoken to you?"

"Not as to my coming here. Oh, no, that's a secret,--private and
confidential, my Lord. And now, to make matters still more smooth, I
propose that my man shall be one to your Lordship's own heart. I find
you have been very kind to my nephew; does you credit, my Lord,--a
wonderful young man, though I say it. I never guessed there was so much
in him. Yet all the time he was in my house, he had in his desk the very
sketch of an invention that is now saving me from ruin,--from positive
ruin,--Baron Levy, the King's Bench, and almighty smash! Now, such
a young man ought to be in parliament. I like to bring forward a
relation,--that is, when he does one credit; 't is human nature and
sacred ties--one's own flesh and blood; and besides, one hand rubs the
other, and one leg helps on the other, and relations get on best in
the world when they pull together; that is, supposing that they are the
proper sort of relations, and pull one on, not down. I had once thought
of standing for Lansmere myself,--thought of it very lately. The country
wants men like me, I know that; but I have an idea that I had better see
to my own business. The country may, or may not, do without me, stupid
old thing that she is! But my mill and my new engines--there is no doubt
that they cannot do without me. In short, as we are quite alone, and,
as I said before, there 's no kind of necessity for that sort of humbug
which exists when other people are present, provide elsewhere for Mr.
Egerton, whom I hate like poison,--I have a right to do that, I suppose,
without offence to your Lordship,--and the two younkers, Leonard
Fairfield and Randal Leslie, shall be members for the free and
independent borough of Lansmere!"

"But does Leonard wish to come into parliament?"

"No, he says not; but that's nonsense. If your Lordship will just
signify your wish that he should not lose this noble opportunity to
raise himself in life, and get something handsome out of the nation, I'm
sure he owes you too much to hesitate,--'specially when 't is to his own
advantage. And besides, one of us Avenels ought to be in parliament; and
if I have not the time and learning, and so forth, and he has, why, it
stands to reason that he should be the man. And if he can do something
for me one day--not that I want anything--but still a baronetcy or so
would be a compliment to British Industry, and be appreciated as such by
myself and the public at large,--I say, if he could do something of
that sort, it would keep up the whole family; and if he can't, why, I'll
forgive him."

"Avenel," said Harley, with that familiar and gracious charm of manner
which few ever could resist, "Avenel, if as a great personal favour to
myself--to me your fellow-townsman (I was born at Lansmere)--if I asked
you to forego your grudge against Audley Egerton, whatever that grudge
be, and not oppose his election, while our party would not oppose your
nephew's, could you not oblige me? Come, for the sake of dear Lansmere,
and all the old kindly feelings between your family and mine, say 'yes,
so shall it be.'"

Richard Avenel was almost melted. He turned away his face; but there
suddenly rose to his recollection the scornful brow of Audley Egerton,
the lofty contempt with which he, then the worshipful Mayor of
Screwstown, had been shown out of the minister's office-room; and the
blood rushing over his cheeks, he stamped his foot on the floor, and
exclaimed angrily, "No; I swore that Audley Egerton should smart for his
insolence to me, as sure as my name be Richard Avenel; and all the soft
soap in the world will not wash out that oath. So there is nothing for
it but for you to withdraw that man, or for me to defeat him. And I
would do so, ay,--and in the way that could most gall him,--if it cost
me half my fortune. But it will not cost that," said Dick, cooling, "nor
anything like it; for when the popular tide runs in one's favour, 't
is astonishing how cheap an election may be. It will cost him enough
though, and all for nothing,--worse than nothing. Think of it, my Lord."

"I will, Mr. Avenel. And I say, in my turn, that my friendship is as
strong as your hate; and that if it costs me, not half, but my whole
fortune, Audley Egerton shall come in without a shilling of expense to
himself, should we once decide that he stand the contest."

"Very well, my Lord,--very well," said Dick, stiffly, and drawing on
his kid gloves; "we'll see if the aristocracy is always to ride over
the free choice of the people in this way. But the people are roused,
my Lord. The March of Enlightenment is commenced, the Schoolmaster is
abroad, and the British Lion--"

"Nobody here but ourselves, my dear Avenel. Is not this rather what you
call--humbug?"

Dick started, stared, coloured, and then burst out laughing, "Give us
your hand again, my Lord. You are a good fellow, that you are. And for
your sake--"

"You'll not oppose Egerton?"

"Tooth and nail, tooth and nail!" cried Dick, clapping his hands to his
ears, and fairly running out of the room.

There passed over Harley's countenance that change so frequent to
it,--more frequent, indeed, to the gay children of the world than those
of consistent tempers and uniform habits might suppose. There is many a
man whom we call friend, and whose face seems familiar to us as our own;
yet, could we but take a glimpse of him when we leave his presence, and
he sinks back into his chair alone, we should sigh to see how often the
smile on the frankest lip is but a bravery of the drill, only worn when
on parade.

What thoughts did the visit of Richard Avenel bequeath to Harley? It
were hard to define them.

In his place, an Audley Egerton would have taken some comfort from the
visit, would have murmured, "Thank Heaven! I have not to present to the
world that terrible man as my brother-in-law." But probably Harley had
escaped, in his revery, from Richard Avenel altogether. Even as the
slightest incident in the daytime causes our dreams at night, but is
itself clean forgotten, so the name, so the look of the visitor, might
have sufficed but to influence a vision, as remote from its casual
suggester as what we call real life is from that life much more real,
that we imagine, or remember, in the haunted chambers of the brain. For
what is real life? How little the things actually doing around us affect
the springs of our sorrow or joy; but the life which our dulness calls
romance,--the sentiment, the remembrance, the hope, or the fear, that
are never seen in the toil of our hands, never heard in the jargon on
our lips,--from that life all spin, as the spider from its entrails,
the web by which we hang in the sunbeam, or glide out of sight into the
shelter of home.

"I must not think," said Harley, rousing himself with a sigh, "either of
past or present. Let me hurry on to some fancied future. 'Happiest are
the marriages,' said the French philosopher, and still says many a
sage, 'in which man asks only the mild companion, and woman but the calm
protector.' I will go to Helen."

He rose; and as he was about to lock up his escritoire, he remembered
the papers which Leonard had requested him to read. He took them from
their deposit, with a careless hand, intending to carry them with him
to his father's house. But as his eye fell upon the characters, the hand
suddenly trembled, and he recoiled some paces, as if struck by a violent
blow. Then, gazing more intently on the writing, a low cry broke from
his lips. He reseated himself, and began to read.




CHAPTER XI.

Randal--with many misgivings at Lord L'Estrange's tone, in which he
was at no loss to detect a latent irony--proceeded to Norwood. He found
Riccabocca exceedingly cold and distant; but he soon brought that sage
to communicate the suspicions which Lord L'Estrange had instilled
into his mind, and these Randal was as speedily enabled to dispel. He
accounted at once for his visits to Levy and Peschiera. Naturally he had
sought Levy, an acquaintance of his own,--nay, of Audley Egerton's,--but
whom he knew to be professionally employed by the count. He had
succeeded in extracting from the baron Peschiera's suspicious change of
lodgment from Mivart's Hotel to the purlieus of Leicester Square; had
called there on the count, forced an entrance, openly accused him
of abstracting Violante; high words had passed between them,--even a
challenge. Randal produced a note from a military friend of his, whom he
had sent to the count an hour after quitting the hotel. This note stated
that arrangements were made for a meeting near Lord's Cricket Ground,
at seven o'clock the next morning. Randal then submitted to Riccabocca
another formal memorandum from the same warlike friend, to the purport
that Randal and himself had repaired to the ground, and no count had
been forthcoming. It must be owned that Randal had taken all suitable
precautions to clear himself. Such a man is not to blame for want of
invention, if he be sometimes doomed to fail.

"I, then, much alarmed," continued Randal, "hastened to Baron Levy, who
informed me that the count had written him word that he should be for
some time absent from England. Rushing thence, in despair, to your
friend Lord L'Estrange, I heard that your daughter was safe with you.
And though, as I have just proved, I would have risked my life against
so notorious a duellist as the count, on the mere chance of preserving
Violante from his supposed designs, I am rejoiced to think that she had
no need of my unskilful arm. But how and why can the count have left
England after accepting a challenge? A man so sure of his weapon,
too,--reputed to be as fearless of danger as he is blunt in conscience.
Explain,--you who know mankind so well,--explain. I cannot." The
philosopher could not resist the pleasure of narrating the detection and
humiliation of his foe, the wit, ingenuity, and readiness of his
friend. So Randal learned, by little and little, the whole drama of the
preceding night. He saw, then, that the exile had all reasonable hope
of speedy restoration to rank and wealth. Violante, indeed; would be
a brilliant prize,--too brilliant, perhaps, for Randal, but not to be
sacrificed without an effort. Therefore wringing convulsively the hand
of his meditated father-in-law, and turning away his head as if to
conceal his emotions, the ingenuous young suitor faltered forth that
now Dr. Riccabocca was so soon to vanish into the Duke di Serrano,
he--Randal Leslie of Rood, born a gentleman, indeed, but of fallen
fortunes--had no right to claim the promise which had been given to him
while a father had cause to fear for a daughter's future; with the fear
ceased the promise. Alight Heaven bless father and daughter both!

This address touched both the heart and honour of the exile. Randal
Leslie knew his man. And though, before Randal's visit, Riccabocca was
not quite so much a philosopher but what he would have been well pleased
to have found himself released, by proof of the young man's treachery,
from an alliance below the rank to which he had all chance of early
restoration, yet no Spaniard was ever more tenacious of plighted word
than this inconsistent pupil of the profound Florentine. And Randal's
probity being now clear to him, he repeated, with stately formalities,
his previous offer of Violante's hand.

"But," still falteringly sighed the provident and far-calculating
Randal--"but your only child, your sole heiress! Oh, might not your
consent to such a marriage (if known before your recall) jeopardize your
cause? Your lands, your principalities, to devolve on the child of an
humble Englishman! I dare not believe it. Ah, would Violante were not
your heiress!"

"A noble wish," said Riccabocca, smiling blandly, "and one that the
Fates will realize. Cheer up; Violante will not be my heiress."

"Ah," cried Randal, drawing a long breath--"ah, what do I hear?"

"Hist! I shall soon a second time be a father. And, to judge by the
unerring researches of writers upon that most interesting of all
subjects, parturitive science, I shall be the father of a son. He will,
of course, succeed to the titles of Serrano. And Violante--"

"Will have nothing, I suppose?" exclaimed Randal, trying his best to
look overjoyed till he had got his paws out of the trap into which he
had so incautiously thrust them.

"Nay, her portion by our laws--to say nothing of my affection--would far
exceed the ordinary dower which the daughters of London merchants bring
to the sons of British peers. Whoever marries Violante, provided I
regain my estates, must submit to the cares which the poets assure us
ever attend on wealth."

"Oh!" groaned Randal, as if already bowed beneath the cares, and
sympathizing with the poets.

"And now, let me present you to your betrothed." Although poor Randal
had been remorselessly hurried along what Schiller calls the "gamut
of feeling," during the last three minutes, down to the deep chord of
despair at the abrupt intelligence that his betrothed was no heiress
after all; thence ascending to vibrations of pleasant doubt as to the
unborn usurper of her rights, according to the prophecies of parturitive
science; and lastly, swelling into a concord of all sweet thoughts at
the assurance that, come what might, she would be a wealthier bride
than a peer's son could discover in the matrimonial Potosi of Lombard
Street,--still the tormented lover was not there allowed to repose
his exhausted though ravished soul. For, at the idea of personally
confronting the destined bride--whose very existence had almost vanished
from his mind's eye, amidst the golden showers that it saw falling
divinely round her--Randal was suddenly reminded of the exceeding
bluntness with which, at their last interview, it had been his policy to
announce his suit, and of the necessity of an impromptu falsetto suited
to the new variations that tossed him again to and fro on the merciless
gamut. However, he could not recoil from her father's proposition,
though, in order to prepare Riccabocca for Violante's representation,
he confessed pathetically that his impatience to obtain her consent and
baffle Peschiera had made him appear a rude and presumptuous wooer. The
philosopher, who was disposed to believe one kind of courtship to be
much the same as another, in cases where the result of all courtships
was once predetermined, smiled benignly, patted Randal's thin cheek,
with a "Pooh, pooh, pazzie!" and left the room to summon Violante.

"If knowledge be power," soliloquized Randal, "ability is certainly good
luck, as Miss Edgeworth shows in that story of Murad the Unlucky, which
I read at Eton; very clever story it is, too. So nothing comes amiss to
me. Violante's escape, which has cost me the count's L10,000, proves to
be worth to me, I dare say, ten times as much. No doubt she'll have a
hundred thousand pounds at the least. And then, if her father have no
other child, after all, or the child he expects die in infancy, why,
once reconciled to his Government and restored to his estates, the law
must take its usual course, and Violante will be the greatest heiress
in Europe. As to the young lady herself, I confess she rather awes me; I
know I shall be henpecked. Well, all respectable husbands are. There is
something scampish and ruffianly in not being henpecked." Here Randal's
smile might have harmonized well with Pluto's "iron tears;" but, iron
as the smile was, the serious young man was ashamed of it. "What am I
about," said he, half aloud, "chuckling to myself and wasting time, when
I ought to be thinking gravely how to explain away my former cavalier
courtship? Such a masterpiece as I thought it then! But who could
foresee the turn things would take? Let me think; let me think. Plague
on it, here she comes."

But Randal had not the fine ear of your more romantic lover; and, to
his great relief, the exile entered the room unaccompanied by Violante.
Riccabocca looked somewhat embarrassed.

"My dear Leslie, you must excuse my daughter to-day; she is still
suffering from the agitation she has gone through, and cannot see you."

The lover tried not to look too delighted.

"Cruel!" said he; "yet I would not for worlds force myself on her
presence. I hope, Duke, that she will not find it too difficult to obey
the commands which dispose of her hand, and intrust her happiness to my
grateful charge."

"To be plain with you, Randal, she does at present seem to find it more
difficult than I foresaw. She even talks of--"

"Another attachment--Oh, heavens!"

"Attachment, pazzie! Whom has she seen? No, a convent! But leave it to
me. In a calmer hour she will comprehend that a child must know no lot
more enviable and holy than that of redeeming a father's honour. And
now, if you are returning to London, may I ask you to convey to young
Mr. Hazeldean my assurances of undying gratitude for his share in my
daughter's delivery from that poor baffled swindler."

It is noticeable that, now Peschiera was no longer an object of dread to
the nervous father, he became but an object of pity to the philosopher,
and of contempt to the grandee.

"True," said Randal, "you told me Frank had a share in Lord L'Estrange's
very clever and dramatic device. My Lord must be by nature a fine
actor,--comic, with a touch of melodrame! Poor Frank! apparently he
has lost the woman he adored,--Beatrice di Negra. You say she has
accompanied the count. Is the marriage that was to be between her and
Frank broken off?"

"I did not know such a marriage was contemplated. I understood her to be
attached to another. Not that that is any reason why she would not have
married Mr. Hazeldean. Express to him my congratulations on his escape."

"Nay, he must not know that I have inadvertently betrayed his
confidence; but you now guess, what perhaps puzzled you before,--namely,
how I came to be so well acquainted with the count and his movements. I
was so intimate with my relation Frank, and Frank was affianced to the
marchesa."

"I am glad you give me that explanation; it suffices. After all, the
marchesa is not by nature a bad woman,--that is, not worse than women
generally are, so Harley says, and Violante forgives and excuses her."

"Generous Violante! But it is true. So much did the marchesa appear
to me possessed of fine, though ill-regulated qualities, that I always
considered her disposed to aid in frustrating her brother's criminal
designs. So I even said, if I remember right, to Violante."

Dropping this prudent and precautionary sentence, in order to guard
against anything Violante might say as to that subtle mention of
Beatrice which had predisposed her to confide in the marchesa, Randal
then hurried on, "But you want repose. I leave you the happiest, the
most grateful of men. I will give your courteous message to Frank."




CHAPTER XII.

Curious to learn what had passed between Beatrice and Frank, and deeply
interested in all that could oust Frank out of the squire's goodwill,
or aught that could injure his own prospects by tending to unite son and
father, Randal was not slow in reaching his young kinsman's lodgings. It
might be supposed that having, in all probability, just secured so
great a fortune as would accompany Violante's hand, Randal might be
indifferent to the success of his scheme on the Hazeldean exchequer.
Such a supposition would grievously wrong this profound young man.
For, in the first place, Violante was not yet won, nor her father yet
restored to the estates which would defray her dower; and, in the next
place, Randal, like Iago, loved villany for the genius it called forth
in him. The sole luxury the abstemious aspirer allowed to himself was
that which is found in intellectual restlessness. Untempted by wine,
dead to love, unamused by pleasure, indifferent to the arts, despising
literature save as means to some end of power, Randal Leslie was
the incarnation of thought hatched out of the corruption of will.
At twilight we see thin airy spectral insects, all wing and nippers,
hovering, as if they could never pause, over some sullen mephitic pool.
Just so, methinks, hover over Acheron such gnat-like, noiseless soarers
into gloomy air out of Stygian deeps, as are the thoughts of spirits
like Randal Leslie's. Wings have they, but only the better to pounce
down,--draw their nutriment from unguarded material cuticles; and just
when, maddened, you strike, and exulting exclaim, "Caught, by Jove!"
wh-irr flies the diaphanous, ghostly larva, and your blow falls on your
own twice-offended cheek.

The young men who were acquainted with Randal said he had not a
vice! The fact being that his whole composition was one epic vice, so
elaborately constructed that it had not an episode which a critic could
call irrelevant. Grand young man!

"But, my dear fellow," said Randal, as soon as he had learned from Frank
all that had passed on board the vessel between him and Beatrice, "I
cannot believe this. 'Never loved you'? What was her object, then, in
deceiving not only you, but myself? I suspect her declaration was but
some heroical refinement of generosity. After her brother's dejection
and probable ruin, she might feel that she was no match for you. Then,
too, the squire's displeasure! I see it all; just like her,--noble,
unhappy woman!"

Frank shook his head. "There are moments," said he, with a wisdom that
comes out of those instincts which awake from the depths of youth's
first great sorrow,--"moments when a woman cannot feign, and there are
tones in the voice of a woman which men cannot misinterpret. She does
not love me,--she never did love me; I can see that her heart has been
elsewhere. No matter,--all is over. I don't deny that I am suffering
an intense grief; it gnaws like a kind of sullen hunger; and I feel so
broken, too, as if I had grown old, and there was nothing left worth
living for. I don't deny all that."

"My poor, dear friend, if you would but believe--"

"I don't want to believe anything, except that I have been a great fool.
I don't think I can ever commit such follies again. But I'm a man. I
shall get the better of this; I should despise myself if I could not.
And now let us talk of my dear father. Has he left town?"

"Left last night by the mail. You can write and tell him you have given
up the marchesa, and all will be well again between you."

"Give her up! Fie, Randal! Do you think I should tell such a lie? She
gave me up; I can claim no merit out of that."

"Oh, yes! I can make the squire see all to your advantage. Oh, if it
were only the marchesa! but, alas! that cursed postobit! How could
Levy betray you? Never trust to usurers again; they cannot resist the
temptation of a speedy profit.

"They first buy the son, and then sell him to the father. And the squire
has such strange notions on matters of this kind."

"He is right to have them. There, just read this letter from my mother.
It came to me this morning. I could hang myself if I were a dog; but I'm
a man, and so I must bear it."

Randal took Mrs. Hazeldean's letter from Frank's trembling hand. The
poor mother had learned, though but imperfectly, Frank's misdeeds from
some hurried lines which the squire had despatched to her; and she wrote
as good, indulgent, but sensible, right-minded mothers alone can write.
More lenient to an imprudent love than the squire, she touched with
discreet tenderness on Frank's rash engagements with a foreigner, but
severely on his own open defiance of his father's wishes. Her anger
was, however, reserved for that unholy post-obit. Here the hearty genial
wife's love overcame the mother's affection. To count, in cold blood, on
that husband's death, and to wound his heart so keenly, just where its
jealous, fatherly fondness made it most susceptible!

   "O Frank, Frank!" wrote Mrs. Hazeldean, "were it not for this, were
   it only for your unfortunate attachment to the Italian lady, only
   for your debts, only for the errors of hasty, extravagant youth, I
   should be with you now, my arms round your neck, kissing you,
   chiding you back to your father's heart. But--but the thought that
   between you and his heart has been the sordid calculation of his
   death,--that is a wall between us. I cannot come near you. I
   should not like to look on your face, and think how my William's
   tears fell over it, when I placed you, new born, in his arms, and
   bade him welcome his heir. What! you a mere boy still, your father
   yet in the prime of life, and the heir cannot wait till nature
   leaves him fatherless. Frank; Frank this is so unlike you. Can
   London have ruined already a disposition so honest and
   affectionate?--No; I cannot believe it. There must be some mistake.
   Clear it up, I implore you; or, though as a mother I pity you, as a
   wife I cannot forgive."

Even Randal was affected by the letter; for, as we know, even Randal
felt in his own person the strength of family ties. The poor squire's
choler and bluffness had disguised the parental heart from an eye that,
however acute, had not been willing to search for it; and Randal, ever
affected through his intellect, had despised the very weakness on which
he had preyed. But the mother's letter, so just and sensible (allowing
that the squire's opinions had naturally influenced the wife to
take what men of the world would call a very exaggerated view of
the every-day occurrence of loans raised by a son, payable only at
a father's death),--this letter, I say, if exaggerated according to
fashionable notions, so sensible if judged by natural affections,
touched the dull heart of the schemer, because approved by the quick
tact of his intelligence.

"Frank," said he, with a sincerity that afterwards amazed himself, "go
down at once to Hazeldean; see your mother, and explain to her how this
transaction really happened. The woman you loved, and wooed as wife,
in danger of an arrest, your distraction of mind, Levy's counsels, your
hope to pay off the debt, so incurred to the usurer, from the fortune
you would shortly receive with the marchesa. Speak to your mother,--she
is a woman; women have a common interest in forgiving all faults that
arise from the source of their power over us men,--I mean love. Go!"

"No, I cannot go; you see she would not like to look on my face. And I
cannot repeat what you say so glibly. Besides, somehow or other, as I am
so dependent upon my father,--and he has said as much,--I feel as if
it would be mean in me to make any excuses. I did the thing, and must
suffer for it. But I'm a in--an--no--I 'm not a man here." Frank burst
into tears.

At the sight of those tears, Randal gradually recovered from his strange
aberration into vulgar and low humanity. His habitual contempt for his
kinsman returned; and with contempt came the natural indifference to the
sufferings of the thing to be put to use. It is contempt for the worm
that makes the angler fix it on the hook, and observe with complacency
that the vivacity of its wriggles will attract the bite. If the worm
could but make the angler respect, or even fear it, the barb would find
some other bait. Few anglers would impale an estimable silkworm, and
still fewer the anglers who would finger into service a formidable
hornet.

"Pooh, my--dear Frank," said Randal; "I have given you my advice; you
reject it. Well, what then will you do?"

"I shall ask for leave of absence, and run away some where," said Frank,
drying his tears. "I can't face London; I can't mix with others. I want
to be by myself, and wrestle with all that I feel here--in my heart.
Then I shall write to my mother, say the plain truth, and leave her to
judge as kindly of me as she can."

"You are quite right. Yes, leave town! Why not go abroad? You have never
been abroad. New scenes will distract your mind. Run over to Paris."

"Not to Paris--I don't want gayeties; but I did intend to go abroad
somewhere,--any dull dismal hole of a place. Good-by! Don't think of me
any more for the present."

"But let me know where you go; and meanwhile I will see the squire."

"Say as little of me as you can to him. I know you mean most kindly, but
oh, how I wish there never had been any third person between me and my
father! There: you may well snatch away your hand. What an ungrateful
wretch to you I am. I do believe I am the wickedest fellow. What! you
shake hands with me still! My dear Randal, you have the best heart--God
bless you!" Frank turned away, and disappeared within his dressing-room.

"They must be reconciled now, sooner or later,--squire and son," said
Randal to himself, as he left the lodgings. "I don't see how I can
prevent that,--the marchesa being withdrawn,--unless Frank does it for
me. But it is well he should be abroad,--something maybe made out
of that; meanwhile I may yet do all that I could reasonably hope
to do,--even if Frank had married Beatrice,--since he was not to be
disinherited. Get the squire to advance the money for the Thornhill
purchase, complete the affair; this marriage with Violante will help;
Levy must know that; secure the borough;--well thought of. I will go to
Avenel's. By-the-by, by-the-by, the squire might as well keep me still
in the entail after Frank, supposing Frank die childless. This love
affair may keep him long from marrying. His hand was very hot,--a hectic
colour; those strong-looking fellows often go off in rapid decline,
especially if anything preys on their minds,--their minds are so very
small.

"Ah, the Hazeldean parson,--and with Avenel! That young man, too, who
is he? I have seen him before some where.--My dear Mr. Dale, this is
a pleasant surprise. I thought you had returned to Hazeldean with our
friend the squire?"

MR. DALE.--"The squire! Has he left town, and without telling me?"

RANDAL (taking aside the parson).--"He was anxious to get back to Mrs.
Hazeldean, who was naturally very uneasy about her son and this foolish
marriage; but I am happy to tell you that that marriage is effectually
and permanently broken off."

MR. DALE.--"How, how? My poor friend told me he had wholly failed to
make any impression on Frank,--forbade me to mention the subject. I was
just going to see Frank myself. I always had some influence with him.
But, Mr. Leslie, explain this very sudden and happy event. The marriage
broken off!"

RANDAL.--"It is a long story, and I dare not tell you my humble share in
it. Nay, I must keep that secret. Frank might not forgive me. Suffice
it that you have my word that the fair Italian has left England, and
decidedly refused Frank's addresses. But stay, take my advice, don't
go to him; you see it was not only the marriage that has offended the
squire, but some pecuniary transactions,--an unfortunate post-obit bond
on the Casino property. Frank ought to be left to his own repentant
reflections. They will be most salutary; you know his temper,--he don't
bear reproof; and yet it is better, on the other hand, not to let him
treat too lightly what has passed. Let us leave him to himself for a few
days He is in an excellent frame of mind."

MR. DALE (shaking Randal's hand warmly).--"You speak admirably--a
post-obit!--so often as he has heard his father's opinion on such
transactions. No, I will not see him; I should be too angry--"

RANDAL (leading the parson back, resumes, after an exchange of
salutations with Avenel, who, meanwhile, had been conferring with his
nephew).--"You should not be so long away from your rectory, Mr. Dale.
What will your parish do without you?"

MR. DALE.--"The old fable of the wheel and the fly. I am afraid the
wheel rolls on the same. But if I am absent from my parish, I am still
in the company of one who does me honour as an old parishioner. You
remember Leonard Fairfield, your antagonist in the Battle of the
Stocks?"

MR. AVENEL.--"My nephew, I am proud to say, sir." Randal bowed with
marked civility, Leonard with a reserve no less marked.

MR. AVENEL (ascribing his nephew's reserve to shyness).--"You should be
friends, you two youngsters. Who knows but you may run together in the
same harness? Ah, that reminds me, Leslie, I have a word or two to say
to you. Your servant, Mr. Dale. Shall be happy to present you to
Mrs. Avenel. My card,--Eaton Square, Number --. You will call on me
to-morrow, Leonard. And mind, I shall be very angry if you persist in
your refusal. Such an opening!" Avenel took Randal's arm, while the
parson and Leonard walked on.

"Any fresh hints as to Lansmere?" asked Randal.

"Yes; I have now decided on the plan of contest. You must fight two and
two,--you and Egerton against me and (if I can get him to stand, as I
hope) my nephew, Leonard."

"What!" said Randal, alarmed; "then, after all, I can hope for no
support from you?"

"I don't say that; but I have reason to think Lord L'Estrange will
bestir himself actively in favour of Egerton. If so, it will be a very
sharp contest; and I must manage the whole election on our side, and
unite all our shaky votes, which I can best do by standing myself in
the first instance, reserving it to after consideration whether I shall
throw up at the last; for I don't particularly want to come in, as I
did a little time ago, before I had found out my nephew. Wonderful young
man! with such a head,--will do me credit in the rotten old House; and
I think I had best leave London, go to Screwstown, and look to my
business. No, if Leonard stand, I roust first see to get him in; and
next, to keep Egerton out. It will probably, therefore, end in the
return of one and one or either side, as we thought of before,--Leonard
on our side; and Egerton sha'n't be the man on the other. You
understand?"

"I do, my dear Avenel. Of course, as I before said, I can't dictate to
your party whom they should prefer,--Egerton or myself. And it will be
obvious to the public that your party would rather defeat so eminent an
adversary as Mr. Egerton than a tyro in politics like me. Of course I
cannot scheme for such a result; it would be misconstrued, and damage my
character. But I rely equally on your friendly promise."

"Promise! No, I don't promise. I must first see how the cat jumps; and
I don't know yet how our friends may like you, nor how they can be
managed. All I can say is, that Audley Egerton sha'n't be M.P. for
Lansmere. Meanwhile, you will take care not to commit yourself in
speaking so that our party can't vote for you consistently; they must
count on having you--when you get into the House."

"I am not a violent party-man at present," answered Randal, prudently.
"And if public opinion prove on your side, it is the duty of a statesman
to go with the times."

"Very sensibly said; and I have a private bill or two, and some other
little jobs, I want to get through the House, which we can discuss
later, should it come to a frank understanding between us. We must
arrange how to meet privately at Lansmere, if necessary. I'll see to
that. I shall go down this week. I think of taking a hint from the free
and glorious land of America, and establishing secret caucuses. Nothing
like 'em."

"Caucuses?"

"Small sub-committees that spy on their men night and day, and don't
suffer them to be intimidated to vote the other way."

"You have an extraordinary head for public affairs, Avenel. You should
come into parliament yourself; your nephew is so very young."

"So are you."

"Yes; but I know the world. Does he?"

"The world knows him, though not by name, and he has been the making of
me."

"How? You surprise me."

Avenel first explained about the patent which Leonard had secured
to him; and next confided, upon honour, Leonard's identity with the
anonymous author whom the parson had supposed to be Professor Moss.

Randal Leslie felt a jealous pang. What! then--had this village boy,
this associate of John Burley (literary vagabond, whom he supposed
had long since gone to the dogs, and been buried at the expense of the
parish)--had this boy so triumphed over birth, rearing, circumstance,
that, if Randal and Leonard had met together in any public place, and
Leonard's identity with the rising author had been revealed, every eye
would have turned from Randal to gaze on Leonard? The common consent of
mankind would have acknowledged the supreme royalty of genius when it
once leaves its solitude, and strides into the world. What! was
this rude villager the child of Fame, who, without an effort, and
unconsciously, had inspired in the wearied heart of Beatrice di Negra
a love that Randal knew, by an instinct, no arts, no craft, could ever
create for him in the heart of woman? And now, did this same youth stand
on the same level in the ascent to power as he, the well-born Randal
Leslie, the accomplished protege of the superb Audley Egerton? Were they
to be rivals in the same arena of practical busy life? Randal gnawed his
quivering lip.

All the while, however, the young man whom he so envied was a prey to
sorrows deeper far than could ever find room or footing in the narrow
and stony heart of the unloving schemer.

As Leonard walked through the crowded streets with the friend and
monitor of his childhood, confiding the simple tale of his earlier
trials,--when, amidst the wreck of fortune and in despair of fame, the
Child-angel smiled by his side, like Hope,--all renown seemed to him so
barren, all the future so dark! His voice trembled, and his countenance
became so sad, that his benignant listener, divining that around the
image of Helen there clung some passionate grief that overshadowed all
worldly success, drew Leonard gently and gently on, till the young man,
long yearning for some confidant, told him all,--how, faithful through
long years to one pure and ardent memory, Helen had been seen once more,
the child ripened to woman, and the memory revealing itself as love.

The parson listened with a mild and thoughtful brow, which expanded into
a more cheerful expression as Leonard closed his story.

"I see no reason to despond," said Mr. Dale. "You fear that Miss
Digby does not return your attachment; you dwell upon her reserve, her
distant, though kindly manner. Cheer up! All young ladies are under the
influence of what phrenologists call the organ of Secretiveness, when
they are in the society of the object of their preference. Just as you
describe Miss Digby's manner to you, was my Carry's manner to myself."

The parson here indulged in a very appropriate digression upon female
modesty, which he wound up by asserting that that estimable virtue
became more and more influenced by the secretive organ, in proportion as
the favoured suitor approached near and nearer to a definite proposal.
It was the duty of a gallant and honourable lover to make that proposal
in distinct and orthodox form, before it could be expected that a young
lady should commit herself and the dignity of her sex by the slightest
hint as to her own inclinations.

"Next," continued the parson, "you choose to torment yourself by
contrasting your own origin and fortunes with the altered circumstances
of Miss Digby,--the ward of Lord L'Estrange, the guest of Lady Lansmere.
You say that if Lord L'Estrange could have countenanced such a union,
he would have adopted a different tone with you,--sounded your heart,
encouraged your hopes, and so forth. I view things differently. I
have reason to do so; and from all you have told me of this nobleman's
interest in your fate, I venture to make you this promise, that if Miss
Digby would accept your hand, Lord L'Estrange shall ratify her choice."

"My dear Mr. Dale," cried Leonard, transported, "you make me that
promise?"

"I do,--from what you have said, and from what I myself know of Lord
L'Estrange. Go, then, at once to Knightsbridge, see Miss Digby, show
her your heart, explain to her, if you will, your prospects, ask her
permission to apply to Lord L'Estrange (since he has constituted
himself her guardian); and if Lord L'Estrange hesitate,--which, if your
happiness be set on this union, I think he will not,--let me know, and
leave the rest to me."

Leonard yielded himself to the parson's persuasive eloquence. Indeed,
when he recalled to mind those passages in the manuscripts of the
ill-fated Nora, which referred to the love that Harley had once borne
to her,--for he felt convinced that Harley and the boy suitor of Nora's
narrative were one and the same; and when all the interest that Harley
had taken in his own fortunes was explained by his relationship to her
(even when Lord L'Estrange had supposed it less close than he would now
discover it to be), the young man, reasoning by his own heart, could not
but suppose that the noble Harley would rejoice to confer happiness upon
the son of her, so beloved by his boyhood.

"And to thee, perhaps, O my mother!" thought Leonard, with swimming
eyes--"to thee, perhaps, even in thy grave, I shall owe the partner
of my life, as to the mystic breath of thy genius I owe the first pure
aspirations of my soul."

It will be seen that Leonard had not confided to the parson his
discovery of Nora's manuscripts, nor even his knowledge of his real
birth; for the proud son naturally shrank from any confidence that
implicated Nora's fair name, until at least Harley, who, it was clear
from those papers, must have intimately known his father, should
perhaps decide the question which the papers themselves left so terribly
vague,--namely, whether he were the offspring of a legal marriage, or
Nora had been the victim of some unholy fraud.

While the parson still talked, and while Leonard still mused and
listened, their steps almost mechanically took the direction towards
Knightsbridge, and paused at the gates of Lord Lansmere's house.

"Go in, my young friend; I will wait without to know the issue," said
the parson, cheeringly. "Go, and with gratitude to Heaven, learn how to
bear the most precious joy that can befall mortal man; or how to submit
to youth's sharpest sorrow, with the humble belief that even sorrow is
but some mercy concealed."




CHAPTER XIII.

Leonard was shown into the drawing-room, and it so chanced that Helen
was there alone. The girl's soft face was sadly changed, even
since Leonard had seen it last; for the grief of natures mild and
undemonstrative as hers, gnaws with quick ravages; but at Leonard's
unexpected entrance, the colour rushed so vividly to the pale cheeks
that its hectic might be taken for the lustre of bloom and health. She
rose hurriedly, and in great confusion faltered out, "that she believed
Lady Lansmere was in her room,--she would go for her," and moved towards
the door, without seeming to notice the hand tremulously held forth to
her; when Leonard exclaimed in uncontrollable emotions which pierced to
her very heart, in the keen accent of reproach,--

"Oh, Miss Digby--oh, Helen--is it thus that you greet me,--rather thus
that you shun me? Could I have foreseen this when we two orphans stood
by the mournful bridge,--so friendless, so desolate, and so clinging
each to each? Happy time!" He seized her hand suddenly as he spoke the
last words, and bowed his face over it.

"I must not hear you. Do not talk so, Leonard, you break my heart. Let
me go, let me go!"

"Is it that I am grown hateful to you; is it merely that you see my love
and would discourage it? Helen, speak to me,--speak!"

He drew her with tender force towards him; and, holding her firmly
by both hands, sought to gaze upon the face that she turned from
him,--turned in such despair.

"You do not know," she said at last, struggling for composure,--"you do
not know the new claims on me, my altered position, how I am bound, or
you would be the last to speak thus to me, the first to give me courage,
and bid me--bid me--"

"Bid you what?"

"Feel nothing here but duty!" cried Helen, drawing from his clasp both
her hands, and placing them firmly on her breast.

"Miss Digby," said Leonard, after a short pause of bitter reflection, in
which he wronged, while he thought to divine, her meaning, "you speak of
new claims on you, your altered position--I comprehend. You may retain
some tender remembrance of the past; but your duty now is to rebuke my
presumption. It is as I thought and feared. This vain reputation which
I have made is but a hollow sound,--it gives me no rank, assures me no
fortune. I have no right to look for the Helen of old in the Helen of
to-day. Be it so--forget what I have said, and forgive me."

This reproach stung to the quick the heart to which it appealed. A flash
brightened the meek, tearful eyes, almost like the flash of resentment;
her lips writhed in torture, and she felt as if all other pain were
light compared with the anguish that Leonard could impute to her motives
which to her simple nature seemed so unworthy of her, and so galling to
himself.

A word rushed as by inspiration to her lip, and that word calmed and
soothed her.

"Brother!" she said touchingly, "brother!"

The word had a contrary effect on Leonard. Sweet as it was, tender as
the voice that spoke it, it imposed a boundary to affection, it came as
a knell to hope. He recoiled, shook his head mournfully: "Too late to
accept that tie,--too late even for friendship. Henceforth--for long
years to come--henceforth, till this heart has ceased to beat at your
name to thrill at your presence, we two--are strangers."

"Strangers! Well--yes, it is right--it must be so; we must not meet. Oh,
Leonard Fairfield, who was it that in those days that you recall to me,
who was it that found you destitute and obscure; who, not degrading you
by charity, placed you in your right career; opened to you, amidst the
labyrinth in which you were well-nigh lost, the broad road to knowledge,
independence, fame? Answer me,--answer! Was it not the same who reared,
sheltered your sister orphan? If I could forget what I have owed to
him, should I not remember what he has done for you? Can I hear of your
distinction, and not remember it? Can I think how proud she may be who
will one day lean on your arm, and bear the name you have already raised
beyond all the titles of an hour,--can I think of this, and not remember
our common friend, benefactor, guardian? Would you forgive me, if I
failed to do so?"

"But," faltered Leonard, fear mingling with the conjectures these words
called forth--"but is it that Lord L'Estrange would not consent to our
union? Or of what do you speak? You bewilder me."

Helen felt for some moments as if it were impossible to reply; and the
words at length were dragged forth as if from the depth of her very
soul.

"He came to me, our noble friend. I never dreamed of it. He did not tell
me that he loved me. He told me that he was unhappy, alone; that in me,
and only in me, he could find a comforter, a soother--He, he! And I had
just arrived in England, was under his mother's roof, had not then once
more seen you; and--and--what could I answer? Strengthen me, strengthen
me, you whom I look up to and revere. Yes, yes, you are right. We must
see each other no more. I am betrothed to another,--to him! Strengthen
me!"

All the inherent nobleness of the poet's nature rose at once at this
appeal.

"Oh, Helen--sister--Miss Digby, forgive me. You need no strength from
me; I borrow it from you. I comprehend you, I respect. Banish all
thought of me. Repay our common benefactor. Be what he asks of you,--his
comforter, his soother; be more,--his pride and his joy. Happiness will
come to you, as it comes to those who confer happiness and forget self.
God comfort you in the passing struggle; God bless you, in the long
years to come. Sister, I accept the holy name now, and will claim it
hereafter, when I too can think more of others than myself."

Helen had covered her face with her hands, sobbing; but with that soft,
womanly constraint which presses woe back into the heart. A strange
sense of utter solitude suddenly pervaded her whole being, and by that
sense of solitude she knew that he was gone.




CHAPTER XIV.

In another room in that same house sat, solitary as Helen, a stern,
gloomy, brooding man, in whom they who had best known him from his
childhood could scarcely have recognized a trace of the humane,
benignant, trustful, but wayward and varying Harley, Lord L'Estrange.

He had read that fragment of a memoir, in which, out of all the chasms
of his barren and melancholy past, there rose two malignant truths that
seemed literally to glare upon him with mocking and demon eyes. The
woman whose remembrance had darkened all the sunshine of his life had
loved another; the friend in whom he had confided his whole affectionate
loyal soul had been his perfidious rival. He had read from the first
word to the last, as if under a spell that held him breathless; and when
he closed the manuscript, it was without a groan or sigh; but over his
pale lips there passed that withering smile, which is as sure an index
of a heart overcharged with dire and fearful passions, as the arrowy
flash of the lightning is of the tempests that are gathered within the
cloud.

He then thrust the papers into his bosom, and, keeping his hand over
them, firmly clenched, he left the room, and walked slowly on towards
his father's house. With every step by the way, his nature, in the war
of its elements, seemed to change and harden into forms of granite.
Love, humanity, trust, vanished away. Hate, revenge, misanthropy,
suspicion, and scorn of all that could wear the eyes of affection,
or speak with the voice of honour, came fast through the gloom of his
thoughts, settling down in the wilderness, grim and menacing as the
harpies of ancient song--

        "Uncaeque manus, et pallida semper Ora."

     "Hands armed with fangs, and lips forever pale."

Thus the gloomy man had crossed the threshold of his father's house, and
silently entered the apartments still set apart for him. He had arrived
about an hour before Leonard; and as he stood by the hearth, with his
arms folded on his breast, and his eyes fixed lead-like on the ground,
his mother came in to welcome and embrace him. He checked her eager
inquiries after Violante, he recoiled from the touch of her hand.

"Hold, madam," said he, startling her ear with the cold austerity of his
tone. "I cannot heed your questions,--I am filled with the question I
must put to yourself. You opposed my boyish love for Leonora Avenel. I
do not blame you,--all mothers of equal rank would have done the same.
Yet, had you not frustrated all frank intercourse with her, I might have
taken refusal from her own lips,--survived that grief, and now been a
happy man. Years since then have rolled away,--rolled over her quiet
slumbers, and my restless waking life. All this time were you aware that
Audley Egerton had been the lover of Leonora Avenel?"

"Harley, Harley! do not speak to me in that cruel voice, do not look at
me with those hard eyes!"

"You knew it, then,--you, my mother!" continued Harley, unmoved by her
rebuke; "and why did you never say, 'Son, you are wasting the bloom
and uses of your life in sorrowful fidelity to a lie! You are lavishing
trust and friendship on a perfidious hypocrite.'"

"How could I speak to you thus; how could I dare to do so, seeing you
still so cherished the memory of that unhappy girl, still believed that
she had returned your affection? Had I said to you what I knew (but not
till after her death), as to her relations with Audley Egerton--"

"Well? You falter; go on; had you done so?"

"Would you have felt no desire for revenge? Might there not have been
strife between you, danger, bloodshed? Harley, Harley! Is not such
silence pardonable in a mother? And why deprive you too of the only
friend you seemed to prize; who alone had some influence over you; who
concurred with me in the prayer and hope, that some day you would find
a living partner worthy to replace this lost delusion, arouse your
faculties,--be the ornament your youth promised to your country? For you
wrong Audley,--indeed you do!"

"Wrong him! Ah, let me not do that. Proceed."

"I do not excuse him his rivalship, nor his first concealment of it. But
believe me, since then, his genuine remorse, his anxious tenderness for
your welfare, his dread of losing your friendship--"

"Stop! It was doubtless Audley Egerton who induced you yourself to
conceal what you call his 'relations' with her whom I can now so calmly
name,--Leonora Avenel?"

"It was so, in truth; and from motives that--"

"Enough! let me hear no more."

"But you will not think too sternly of what is past? You are about to
form new ties. You cannot be wild and wicked enough to meditate what
your brow seems to threaten. You cannot dream of revenge,--risk Audley's
life or your own?"

"Tut, tut, tut! What cause here for duels? Single combats are out of
date; civilized men do not slay each other with sword and pistol. Tut!
revenge! Does it look like revenge, that one object which brings me
hither is to request my father's permission to charge myself with the
care of Audley Egerton's election? What he values most in the world is
his political position; and here his political existence is at stake.
You know that I have had through life the character of a weak, easy,
somewhat over-generous man. Such men are not revengeful. Hold! You lay
your hand on my arm,--I know the magic of that light touch, Mother;
but its power over me is gone. Countess of Lansmere, hear me! Ever from
infancy (save in that frantic passion for which I now despise myself), I
have obeyed you, I trust, as a duteous son. Now, our relative positions
are somewhat altered. I have the right to exact--I will not say to
command--the right which wrong and injury bestow upon all men. Madam,
the injured man has prerogatives that rival those of kings. I now
call upon you to question me no more; not again to breathe the name of
Leonora Avenel, unless I invite the subject; and not to inform Audley
Egerton by a hint, by a breath, that I have discovered--what shall I
call it?--his 'pardonable deceit.' Promise me this, by your affection
as mother, and on your faith as gentlewoman; or I declare solemnly, that
never in life will you look upon my face again."

Haughty and imperious though the countess was, her spirit quailed before
Harley's brow and voice.

"Is this my son,--this my gentle Harley?" she said falteringly. "Oh, put
your arms round my neck; let me feel that I have not lost my child!"

Harley looked softened, but he did not obey the pathetic prayer;
nevertheless, he held out his hand, and turning away his face, said, in
a milder voice, "Have I your promise?"

"You have, you have; but on condition that there pass no words between
you and Audley that can end but in the strife which--"

"Strife!" interrupted Harley. "I repeat that the idea of challenge and
duel between me and my friend from our school days, and on a quarrel
that we could explain to no seconds, would be a burlesque upon all that
is grave in the realities of life and feeling. I accept your promise and
seal it thus--"

He pressed his lips to his mother's forehead, and passively received her
embrace.

"Hush," he said, withdrawing from her arms, "I hear my father's voice."

Lord Lansmere threw open the door widely, and with a certain
consciousness that a door by which an Earl of Lansmere entered ought to
be thrown open widely. It could not have been opened with more majesty
if a huissier or officer of the Household had stood on either side. The
countess passed by her lord with a light step, and escaped.

"I was occupied with my architect in designs for the new infirmary, of
which I shall make a present to our county. I have only just heard that
you were here, Harley. What is all this about our fair Italian guest?
Is she not coming back to us? Your mother refers me to you for
explanations."

"You shall have them later, my dear father; at present I can think only
of public affairs."

"Public affairs! they are indeed alarming. I am rejoiced to hear you
express yourself so worthily. An awful crisis, Harley! And, gracious
Heaven! I have heard that a low man, who was born in Lansmere, but made
a fortune in America, is about to contest the borough. They tell me he
is one of the Avenels,--a born Blue; is it possible?"

"I have come here on that business. As a peer you cannot, of course,
interfere; but I propose, with your leave, to go down myself to
Lansmere, and undertake the superintendence of, the election. It would
be better, perhaps, if you were not present; it would give us more
liberty of action."

"My dear Harley, shake hands; anything you please. You know how I have
wished to see you come forward, and take that part in life which becomes
your birth."

"Ah, you think I have sadly wasted my existence hitherto."

"To be frank with you, yes, Harley," said the earl, with a pride that
was noble in its nature, and not without dignity in its expression. "The
more we take from our country, the more we owe to her. From the moment
you came into the world as the inheritor of lands and honours, you were
charged with a trust for the benefit of others, that it degrades one of
our order of gentleman not to discharge."

Harley listened with a sombre brow, and made no direct reply.

"Indeed," resumed the earl, "I would rather you were about to canvass
for yourself than for your friend Egerton. But I grant he is an example
that it is never too late to follow. Why, who that had seen you both
as youths, notwithstanding Audley had the advantage of being some
years your senior--who could have thought that he was the one to become
distinguished and eminent, and you to degenerate into the luxurious
idler, averse to all trouble and careless of all fame? You, with such
advantages, not only of higher fortunes, but, as every one said, of
superior talents; you, who had then so much ambition, so keen a desire
for glory, sleeping with Plutarch's Lives under your pillow, and only,
my wild son, only too much energy. But you are a young man still; it is
not too late to redeem the years you have thrown away."

"The years are nothing,--mere dates in an almanac; but the feelings,
what can give me back those?--the hope, the enthusiasm, the--No matter!
feelings do not, help men to rise in the world. Egerton's feelings are
not too lively. What I might have been, leave it to me to remember; let
us talk of the example you set before me,--of Audley Egerton."

"We must get him in," said the earl, sinking his voice into a whisper.
"It is of more importance to him than I even thought for. But you know
his secrets. Why did you not confide to me frankly the state of his
affairs?"

"His affairs? Do you mean that they are seriously embarrassed? This
interests me much. Pray speak; what do you know?"

"He has discharged the greater part of his establishment. That in itself
is natural on quitting office; but still it set people talking; and it
has got wind that his estates are not only mortgaged for more than they
are worth, but that he has been living upon the discount of bills; in
short, he has been too intimate with a man whom we all know by sight,--a
man who drives the finest horses in London, and they tell me (but that
I cannot believe) lives in the familiar society of the young puppies
he snares to perdition. What's the man's name? Levy, is it not?--yes,
Levy."

"I have seen Levy with him," said Harley; and a sinister joy lighted up
his falcon eyes. "Levy--Levy--it is well."

"I hear but the gossip of the clubs," resumed the earl; "but they do say
that Levy makes little disguise of his power over our very distinguished
friend, and rather parades it as a merit with our party (and, indeed,
with all men--for Egerton has personal friends in every party) that he
keeps sundry bills locked up in his desk until Egerton is once more safe
in parliament. Nevertheless if, after all, our friend were to lose his
election, and Levy were then to seize on his effects, and proclaim his
ruin, it would seriously damage, perhaps altogether destroy, Audley's
political career."

"So I conclude," said Harley. "A Charles Fox might be a gamester, and
a William Pitt be a pauper. But Audley Egerton is not of their giant
stature; he stands so high because he stands upon heaps of respectable
gold. Audley Egerton, needy and impoverished, out of parliament, and, as
the vulgar slang has it, out at elbows, skulking from duns, perhaps in
the Bench--"

"No, no; our party would never allow that; we would subscribe--"

"Worse than all, living as the pensioner of the party he aspired to
lead! You say truly, his political prospects would be blasted. A man
whose reputation lay in his outward respectability! Why, people would
say that Audley Egerton has been--a solemn lie; eh, my father?"

"How can you talk with such coolness of your friend? You need say
nothing to interest me in his election--if you mean that. Once in
parliament, he must soon again be in office,--and learn to live on
his salary. You must get him to submit to me the schedule of his
liabilities. I have a head for business, as you know. I will arrange his
affairs for him. And I will yet bet five to one, though I hate wagers,
that he will be prime minister in three years. He is not brilliant, it
is true; but just at this crisis we want a safe, moderate, judicious,
conciliatory man; and Audley has so much tact, such experience of the
House, such knowledge of the world, and," added the earl, emphatically
summing up his eulogies, "he is so thorough a gentleman!"

"A thorough gentleman, as you say,--the soul of honour! But, my dear
father, it is your hour for riding; let me not detain you. It is
settled, then; you do not come yourself to Lansmere. You put the house
at my disposal, and allow me to invite Egerton, of course, and what
other guests I may please; in short, you leave all to me?"

"Certainly; and if you cannot get in your friend, who can? That borough,
it is an awkward, ungrateful place, and has been the plague of my life.
So much as I have spent there, too,--so much as I have done to its
trade!" And the earl, with an indignant sigh, left the room.

Harley seated himself deliberately at his writing-table, leaning his
face on his hand, and looking abstractedly into space from under knit
and lowering brows.

Harley L'Estrange was, as we have seen, a man singularly tenacious
of affections and impressions. He was a man, too, whose nature was
eminently bold, loyal, and candid; even the apparent whim and levity
which misled the world, both as to his dispositions and his powers,
might be half ascribed to that open temper which, in its over-contempt
for all that seemed to savour of hypocrisy, sported with forms and
ceremonials, and extracted humour, sometimes extravagant, sometimes
profound, from "the solemn plausibilities of the world." The shock
he had now received smote the very foundations of his mind, and,
overthrowing all the airier structures which fancy and wit had built
upon its surface, left it clear as a new world for the operations of the
darker and more fearful passions. When a man of a heart so loving and
a nature so irregularly powerful as Harley's suddenly and abruptly
discovers deceit where he had most confided, it is not (as with the
calmer pupils of that harsh teacher, Experience) the mere withdrawal
of esteem and affection from the one offender; it is, that trust in
everything seems gone; it is, that the injured spirit looks back to the
Past, and condemns all its kindlier virtues as follies that conduced
to its own woe; and looks on to the Future as to a journey beset with
smiling traitors, whom it must meet with an equal simulation, or
crush with a superior force. The guilt of treason to men like these
is incalculable,--it robs the world of all the benefits they would
otherwise have lavished as they passed; it is responsible for all the
ill that springs from the corruption of natures whose very luxuriance,
when the atmosphere is once tainted, does but diffuse disease,--even as
the malaria settles not over thin and barren soils, not over wastes that
have been from all time desolate, but over the places in which southern
suns had once ripened delightful gardens, or the sites of cities, in
which the pomp of palaces has passed away.

It was not enough that the friend of his youth, the confidant of his
love, had betrayed his trust,--been the secret and successful rival; not
enough that the woman his boyhood had madly idolized, and all the while
he had sought her traces with pining, remorseful heart-believing she
but eluded his suit from the emulation of a kindred generosity, desiring
rather to sacrifice her own love than to cost to his the sacrifice of
all which youth rashly scorns and the world so highly estimates,--not
enough that all this while her refuge had been the bosom of another.
This was not enough of injury. His whole life had been wasted on a
delusion; his faculties and aims, the wholesome ambition of lofty
minds, had been arrested at the very onset of fair existence; his
heart corroded by a regret for which there was no cause; his conscience
charged with the terror that his wild chase had urged a too tender
victim to the grave, over which he had mourned. What years that might
otherwise have been to himself so serene, to the world so useful, had
been consumed in objectless, barren, melancholy dreams! And all this
while to whom had his complaints been uttered?--to the man who knew
that his remorse was an idle spectre and his faithful sorrow a mocking
self-deceit. Every thought that could gall man's natural pride, every
remembrance that could sting into revenge a heart that had loved too
deeply not to be accessible to hate, conspired to goad those maddening
Furies who come into every temple which is once desecrated by the
presence of the evil passions. In that sullen silence of the soul,
vengeance took the form of justice. Changed though his feelings towards
Leonora Avenel were, the story of her grief and her wrongs embittered
still more his wrath against his rival. The fragments of her memoir left
naturally on Harley's mind the conviction that she had been the victim
of an infamous fraud, the dupe of a false marriage. His idol had not
only been stolen from the altar,--it had been sullied by the sacrifice;
broken with remorseless hand, and thrust into dishonoured clay;
mutilated, defamed; its very memory a thing of contempt to him who had
ravished it from worship. The living Harley and the dead Nora--both
called aloud to their joint despoiler, "Restore what thou hast taken
from us, or pay the forfeit!"

Thus, then, during the interview between Helen and Leonard, thus Harley
L'Estrange sat alone! and as a rude irregular lump of steel, when
wheeled round into rapid motion, assumes the form of the circle it
describes, so his iron purpose, hurried on by his relentless passion,
filled the space into which he gazed with optical delusions, scheme
after scheme revolving and consummating the circles that clasped a foe.




CHAPTER XV.

The entrance of a servant, announcing a name which Harley, in the
absorption of his gloomy revery, did not hear, was followed by that of a
person on whom he lifted his eyes in the cold and haughty surprise
with which a man much occupied greets and rebukes the intrusion of an
unwelcome stranger.

"It is so long since your Lordship has seen me," said the visitor, with
mild dignity, "that I cannot wonder you do not recognize my person, and
have forgotten my name."

"Sir," answered Harley, with an impatient rudeness, ill in harmony with
the urbanity for which he was usually distinguished,--"sir, your person
is strange to me, and your name I did not hear; but, at all events, I am
not now at leisure to attend to you. Excuse my plainness."

"Yet pardon me if I still linger. My name is Dale. I was formerly curate
at Lansmere; and I would speak to your Lordship in the name and the
memory of one once dear to you,--Leonora Avenel."

HARLEY (after a short pause).--"Sir, I cannot conjecture your business.
But be seated. I remember you now, though years have altered both, and
I have since heard much in your favour from Leonard Fairfield. Still let
me pray, that you will be brief."

MR. DALE.--"May I assume at once that you have divined the parentage
of the young man you call Fairfield? When I listened to his grateful
praises of your beneficence, and marked with melancholy pleasure
the reverence in which he holds you, my heart swelled within me. I
acknowledged the mysterious force of nature."

HARLEY.--"Force of nature! You talk in riddles."

MR. DALE (indignantly).--"Oh, my Lord, how can you so disguise your
better self? Surely in Leonard Fairfield you have long since recognized
the son of Nora Avenel?"

Harley passed his hand over his face. "Ah," thought he, "she lived to
bear a son then,--a son to Egerton! Leonard is that son. I should have
known it by the likeness, by the fond foolish impulse that moved me to
him. This is why he confided to me these fearful memoirs. He seeks his
father,--he shall find him."

MR. DALE (mistaking the cause of Harley's silence).--"I honour your
compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to
speak to your worldly pride."

HARLEY.--"My compunction, heart, conscience! Mr. Dale, you insult me!"

MR. DALE (sternly).--"Not so; I am fulfilling my mission, which bids me
rebuke the sinner. Leonora Avenel speaks in me, and commands the guilty
father to acknowledge the innocent child!"

Harley half rose, and his eyes literally flashed fire; but he calmed his
anger into irony. "Ha!" said he, with a sarcastic smile, "so you suppose
that I was the perfidious seducer of Nora Avenel,--that I am the callous
father of the child who came into the world without a name. Very well,
sir, taking these assumptions for granted, what is it you demand from me
on behalf of this young man?"

"I ask from you his happiness," replied Mr. Dale, imploringly; and
yielding to the compassion with which Leonard inspired him, and
persuaded that Lord L'Estrange felt a father's love for the boy whom
he had saved from the whirlpool of London, and guided to safety and
honourable independence, he here, with simple eloquence, narrated all
Leonard's feelings for Helen,--his silent fidelity to her image, though
a child's, his love when he again beheld her as a woman, the modest
fears which the parson himself had combated, the recommendation that Mr.
Dale had forced upon him, to confess his affection to Helen, and plead
his cause. "Anxious, as you may believe, for his success," continued
the parson, "I waited without your gates till he came from Miss Digby's
presence. And oh, my Lord, had you but seen his face!--such emotion and
such despair! I could not learn from him what had passed. He escaped
from me and rushed away. All that I could gather was from a few
broken words, and from those words I formed the conjecture (it may be
erroneous) that the obstacle to his happiness was not in Helen's heart,
my Lord, but seemed to me as if it were in yourself. Therefore, when he
had vanished from my sight, I took courage, and came at, once to you.
If he be your son, and Helen Digby be your ward,--she herself an orphan,
dependent on your bounty,--why should they be severed? Equals in years,
united by early circumstance, congenial, it seems, in simple habits and
refined tastes,--what should hinder their union, unless it be the want
of fortune? And all men know your wealth, none ever questioned your
generosity. My Lord, my Lord, your look freezes me. If I have offended,
do not visit my offence on him,--on Leonard!"

"And so," said Harley, still controlling his rage, "so this boy--whom,
as you say, I saved from that pitiless world which has engulfed many
a nobler genius--so, in return for all, he has sought to rob me of the
last affection, poor and lukewarm though it was, that remained to me
in life? He presume to lift his eyes to my affianced bride! He! And for
aught I know, steal from me her living heart, and leave to me her icy
hand!"

"Oh, my Lord, your affianced bride! I never dreamed of this. I implore
your pardon. The very thought is so terrible, so unnatural! the son to
woo the father's! Oh, what sin have I fallen into! The sin was mine,--I
urged and persuaded him to it. He was ignorant as myself. Forgive him,
forgive him!"

"Mr. Dale," said Harley, rising, and extending his hand, which the
poor parson felt himself--unworthy to take,--"Mr. Dale, you are a good
man,--if, indeed, this universe of liars contains some man who does not
cheat our judgment when we deem him honest. Allow me only to ask why you
consider Leonard Fairfield to be my son."

"Was not your youthful admiration for poor Nora evident to me? Remember
I was a frequent guest at Lansmere Park; and it was so natural that you,
with all your brilliant gifts, should captivate her refined fancy, her
affectionate heart."

"Natural--you think so,--go on."

"Your mother, as became her, separated you. It was not unknown to me
that you still cherished a passion which your rank forbade to be lawful.
Poor girl! she left the roof of her protectress, Lady Jane. Nothing
was known of her till she came to her father's house to give birth to a
child, and die. And the same day that dawned on her corpse, you hurried
from the place. Ah, no doubt your conscience smote you; you have never
returned to Lansmere since."

Harley's breast heaved, he waved his hand; the parson resumed,

"Whom could I suspect but you? I made inquiries: they confirmed my
suspicions."

"Perhaps you inquired of my friend, Mr. Egerton? He was with me
when--when--as you say, I hurried from the place."

"I did, my Lord."

"And he?"

"Denied your guilt; but still, a man of honour so nice, of heart so
feeling, could not feign readily. His denial did not deceive me."

"Honest man!" said Harley; and his hand griped at the breast over which
still rustled, as if with a ghostly sigh, the records of the dead. "He
knew she had left a son, too?"

"He did, my Lord; of course, I told him that."

"The son whom I found starving in the streets of London! Mr. Dale,
as you see, your words move me very much. I cannot deny that he who
wronged, it may be with no common treachery, that young mother--for Nora
Avenel was not one to be lightly seduced into error--"

"Indeed, no!"

"And who then thought no more of the offspring of her anguish and
his own crime--I cannot deny that that man deserves some
chastisement,--should render some atonement. Am I not right here? Answer
with the plain speech which becomes your sacred calling."

"I cannot say otherwise, my Lord," replied the parson, pitying what
appeared to him such remorse. "But if he repent--"

"Enough," interrupted Harley. "I now invite you to visit me at Lansmere;
give me your address, and I will apprise you of the day on which I will
request your presence. Leonard Fairfield shall find a father--I was
about to say, worthy of himself. For the rest--stay; reseat yourself.
For the rest"--and again the sinister smile broke from Harley's eye and
lip--"I will not yet say whether I can, or ought to, resign to a younger
and fairer suitor the lady who has accepted my own hand. I have
no reason yet to believe that she prefers him. But what think you,
meanwhile, of this proposal? Mr. Avenel wishes his nephew to contest
the borough of Lansmere, has urged me to obtain the young man's consent.
True, that he may thus endanger the seat of Mr. Audley Egerton. What
then? Mr. Audley Egerton is a great man, and may find another seat; that
should not stand in the way. Let Leonard obey his uncle. If he win the
election, why, he 'll be a more equal match, in the world's eye, for
Miss Digby, that is, should she prefer him to myself; and if she do not,
still, in public life, there is a cure for all private sorrow. That is
a maxim of Mr. Audley Egerton's; and he, you know, is a man not only
of the nicest honour, but the deepest worldly wisdom. Do you like my
proposition?"

"It seems to me most considerate, most generous."

"Then you shall take to Leonard the lines I am about to write."

   LORD L'ESTRANGE TO LEONARD FAIRFIELD.

   I have read the memoir you intrusted to me. I will follow up all
   the clews that it gives me. Meanwhile I request you to suspend all
   questions; forbear all reference to a subject which, as you may well
   conjecture, is fraught with painful recollections to myself. At
   this moment, too, I am compelled to concentre my thoughts upon
   affairs of a public nature, and yet which may sensibly affect
   yourself. There are reasons why I urge you to comply with your
   uncle's wish, and stand for the borough of Lansmere at the
   approaching election. If the exquisite gratitude of your nature so
   overrates what I may have done for you that you think you owe me
   some obligations, you will richly repay them on the day in which I
   bear you hailed as member for Lansmere. Relying on that generous
   principle of self-sacrifice, which actuates all your conduct,
   I shall count upon your surrendering your preference to private
   life, and entering the arena of that noble ambition which has
   conferred such dignity on the name of my friend Audley Egerton. He,
   it is true, will be your opponent; but he is too generous not to
   pardon my zeal for the interests of a youth whose career I am vain
   enough to think that I have aided. And as Mr. Randal Leslie stands
   in coalition with Egerton, and Mr. Avenel believes that two
   candidates of the same party cannot both succeed, the result may be
   to the satisfaction of all the feelings which I entertain for Audley
   Egerton, and for you, who, I have reason to think, will emulate his
   titles to my esteem.

   Yours,            L'ESTRANGE.

"There, Mr. Dale," said Harley, sealing his letter, and giving it into
the parson's hands,--"there, you shall deliver this note to your friend.
But no; upon second thoughts, since he does not yet know of your visit
to me, it is best that he should be still in ignorance of it. For should
Miss Digby resolve to abide by her present engagements, it were surely
kind to save Leonard the pain of learning that you had communicated
to me that rivalry he himself had concealed. Let all that has passed
between us be kept in strict confidence."

"I will obey you, my Lord," answered the parson, meekly, startled to
find that he who had come to arrogate authority was now submitting to
commands; and all at fault what judgment he could venture to pass upon
the man whom he had regarded as a criminal, who had not even denied the
crime imputed to him, yet who now impressed the accusing priest with
something of that respect which Mr. Dale had never before conceded but
to Virtue. Could he have then but looked into the dark and stormy heart,
which he twice misread!

"It is well,--very well," muttered Harley, when the door had closed upon
the parson. "The viper and the viper's brood! So it was this man's son
that I led from the dire Slough of Despond; and the son unconsciously
imitates the father's gratitude and honour--Ha, ha!" Suddenly the bitter
laugh was arrested; a flash of almost celestial joy darted through the
warring elements of storm and darkness. If Helen returned Leonard's
affection, Harley L'Estrange was free! And through that flash the face
of Violante shone upon him as an angel's. But the heavenly light and
the angel face vanished abruptly, swallowed up in the black abyss of the
rent and tortured soul.

"Fool!" said the unhappy man, aloud, in his anguish--"fool! what then?
Were I free, would it be to trust my fate again to falsehood? If, in all
the bloom and glory of my youth, I failed to win the heart of a village
girl; if, once more deluding myself, it is in vain that I have tended,
reared, cherished, some germ of woman's human affection in the orphan
I saved from penury,--how look for love in the brilliant princess, whom
all the sleek Lotharios of our gaudy world will surround with their
homage when once she alights on their sphere! If perfidy be my
fate--what hell of hells, in the thought!--that a wife might lay her
head in my bosom, and--oh, horror! horror! No! I would not accept her
hand were it offered, nor believe in her love were it pledged to me.
Stern soul of mine, wise at last, love never more,--never more believe
in truth!"




CHAPTER XVI.

As Harley quitted the room, Helen's pale sweet face looked forth from a
door in the same corridor. She advanced towards him timidly.

"May I speak with you?" she said, in almost inaudible accents; "I have
been listening for your footstep."

Harley looked at her steadfastly. Then, without a word, he followed her
into the room she had left, and closed the door.

"I, too," said he, "meant to seek an interview with yourself--but later.
You would speak to me, Helen,--say on. Ah, child, what mean you? Why
this?"--for Helen was kneeling at his feet.

"Let me kneel," she said, resisting the hand that sought to raise her.
"Let me kneel till I have explained all, and perhaps won your pardon.
You said something the other evening. It has weighed on my heart and my
conscience ever since. You said 'that I should have no secret from you;
for that, in our relation to each other, would be deceit.' I have had
a secret; but oh, believe me! it was long ere it was clearly visible to
myself. You honoured me with a suit so far beyond my birth, my merits.
You said that I might console and comfort you. At those words, what
answer could I give,--I, who owe you so much more than a daughter's
duty? And I thought that my affections were free,--that they would
obey that duty. But--but--but--" continued Helen, bowing her head still
lowlier, and in a voice far fainter--"I deceived myself. I again saw him
who had been all in the world to me, when the world was so terrible, and
then--and then--I trembled. I was terrified at my own memories, my own
thoughts. Still I struggled to banish the past, resolutely, firmly. Oh,
you believe me, do you not? And I hoped to conquer. Yet ever since those
words of yours, I felt that I ought to tell you even of the struggle.
This is the first time we have met since you spoke them. And now--now--I
have seen him again, and--and--though not by a word could she you
had deigned to woo as your bride encourage hope in another; though
there--there where you now stand--he bade me farewell, and we parted
as if forever,--yet--yet O Lord L'Estrange! in return for your
rank, wealth, your still nobler gifts of nature, what should I
bring?--Something more than gratitude, esteem; reverence,--at least an
undivided heart, filled with your image, and yours alone. And this I
cannot give. Pardon me,--not for what I say now, but for not saying it
before. Pardon me, O my benefactor, pardon me!"

"Rise, Helen," said Harley, with relaxing brow, though still unwilling
to yield to one softer and holier emotion. "Rise!" And he lifted her up,
and drew her towards the light. "Let me look at your face. There seems
no guile here. These tears are surely honest. If I cannot be loved,
it is my fate, and not your crime. Now, listen to me. If you grant me
nothing else, will you give me the obedience which the ward owes to the
guardian, the child to the parent?"

"Yes, oh, yes!" murmured Helen.

"Then while I release you from all troth to me, I claim the right to
refuse, if I so please it, my assent to the suit of--of the person you
prefer. I acquit you of deceit, but I reserve to myself the judgment I
shall pass on him. Until I myself sanction that suit, will you promise
not to recall in any way the rejection which, if I understand you
rightly, you have given to it?"

"I promise."

"And if I say to you, 'Helen, this man is not worthy of you '"

"No, no! do not say that,--I could not believe you." Harley frowned, but
resumed calmly, "If, then, I say, 'Ask me not wherefore, but I forbid
you to be the wife of Leonard Fairfield, I what would be your answer?'"

"Ah, my Lord, if you can but comfort him, do with me as you will! but do
not command me to break his heart."

"Oh, silly child," cried Harley, laughing scornfully, "hearts are not
found in the race from which that man sprang. But I take your promise,
with its credulous condition. Helen, I pity you. I have been as weak as
you, bearded man though I be. Some day or other, you and I may live
to laugh at the follies at which you weep now. I can give you no other
comfort, for I know of none."

He moved to the door, and paused at the threshold: "I shall not see you
again for some days, Helen. Perhaps I may request my mother to join me
at Lansmere; if so, I shall pray you to accompany her. For the present,
let all believe that our position is unchanged. The time will soon come
when I may--"

Helen looked up wistfully through her tears.

"I may release you from all duties to me," continued Harley, with
grave and severe coldness; "or I may claim your promise in spite of the
condition; for your lover's heart will not be broken. Adieu!"




CHAPTER XVII.

As Harley entered London, he came suddenly upon Randal Leslie, who was
hurrying from Eaton Square, having not only accompanied Mr. Avenel
in his walk, but gone home with him, and spent half the day in that
gentleman's society. He was now on his way to the House of Commons, at
which some disclosure as to the day for the dissolution of parliament
was expected.

"Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, "I must stop you. I have been to
Norwood, and seen our noble friend. He has confided to me, of course,
all that passed. How can I express my gratitude to you! By what rare
talent, with what signal courage, you have saved the happiness--perhaps
even the honour--of my plighted bride!"

"Your bride! The duke, then, still holds to the promise you were
fortunate enough to obtain from Dr. Riccabocca?"

"He confirms that promise more solemnly than ever. You may well be
surprised at his magnanimity."

"No; he is a philosopher,--nothing in him can surprise me. But he seemed
to think, when I saw him, that there were circumstances you might find
it hard to explain."

"Hard! Nothing so easy. Allow me to tender to you the same explanations
which satisfied one whom philosophy itself has made as open to truth as
he is clear-sighted to imposture."

"Another time, Mr. Leslie. If your bride's father be satisfied, what
right have I to doubt? By the way, you stand for Lansmere. Do me the
favour to fix your quarters at the Park during the election. You will,
of course, accompany Mr. Egerton."

"You are most kind," answered Randal, greatly surprised.

"You accept? That is well. We shall then have ample opportunity for
those explanations which you honour me by offering; and, to make your
visit still more agreeable, I may perhaps induce our friends at Norwood
to meet you. Good-day." Harley walked on, leaving Randal motionless in
amaze, but tormented with suspicion. What could such courtesies in Lord
L'Estrange portend? Surely no good.

"I am about to hold the balance of justice," said Harley to himself. "I
will cast the light-weight of that knave into the scale. Violante never
can be mine; but I did not save her from a Peschiera to leave
her to a Randal Leslie. Ha, ha! Audley Egerton has some human
feeling,--tenderness for that youth whom he has selected from the world,
in which he left Nora's child to the jaws of Famine. Through that side
I can reach at his heart, and prove him a fool like myself, where he
esteemed and confided! Good."

Thus soliloquizing, Lord L'Estrange gained the corner of Bruton Street,
when he was again somewhat abruptly accosted.

"My dear Lord L'Estrange, let me shake you by the hand; for Heaven knows
when I may see you again, and you have suffered me to assist in one good
action."

"Frank Hazeldean, I am pleased indeed to meet you. Why do you indulge in
that melancholy doubt as to the time when I may see you again?"

"I have just got leave of absence. I am not well, and I am rather
hipped, so I shall go abroad for a few weeks."

In spite of himself, the sombre, brooding man felt interest and sympathy
in the dejection that was evident in Frank's voice and countenance.
"Another dupe to affection," thought he, as if in apology to
himself,--"of course, a dupe; he is honest and artless--at present." He
pressed kindly on the arm which he had involuntarily twined within his
own. "I conceive how you now grieve, my young friend," said he; "but you
will congratulate yourself hereafter on what this day seems to you an
affliction."

"My dear Lord--"

"I am much older than you, but not old enough for such formal ceremony.
Pray call me L'Estrange."

"Thank you; and I should indeed like to speak to you as a friend.
There is a thought on my mind which haunts me. I dare say it is foolish
enough, but I am sure you will not laugh at me. You heard what Madame di
Negra said to me last night. I have been trifled with and misled, but I
cannot forget so soon how dear to me that woman was. I am not going to
bore you with such nonsense; but from what I can understand, her
brother is likely to lose all his fortune; and, even if not, he is a sad
scoundrel. I cannot bear the thought that she should be so dependent
on him, that she may come to want. After all, there must be good in
her,--good in her to refuse my hand if she did not love me. A mercenary
woman so circumstanced would not have done that."

"You are quite right. But do not torment yourself with such generous
fears. Madame di Negra shall not come to want, shall not be dependent on
her infamous brother. The first act of the Duke of Serrano, on regaining
his estates, will be a suitable provision for his kinswoman. I will
answer for this."

"You take a load off my mind. I did mean to ask you to intercede with
Riccabocca,--that is, the duke (it is so hard to think he can be a
duke!)--I, alas! have nothing in my power to bestow upon Madame di
Negra. I may, indeed, sell my commission; but then I have a debt which
I long to pay off, and the sale of the commission would not suffice even
for that; and perhaps my father might be still more angry if I do sell
it. Well, good-by. I shall now go away happy,--that is, comparatively.
One must bear things like--a man!"

"I should like, however, to see you again before you go abroad. I will
call on you. Meanwhile, can you tell me the number of one Baron Levy? He
lives in this street, I know."

"Levy! Oh, have no dealings with him, I advise, I entreat you! He is the
most plausible, dangerous rascal; and, for Heaven's sake! pray be warned
by me, and let nothing entangle you into--a POST-OBIT!"

"Be re-assured, I am more accustomed to lend money than borrow it;
and as to a post-obit, I have a foolish prejudice against such
transactions."

"Don't call it foolish, L'Estrange; I honour you for it. How I wish I
had known you earlier--so few men of the world are like you. Even Randal
Leslie, who is so faultless in most things, and never gets into a scrape
himself, called my own scruples foolish. However--"

"Stay--Randal Leslie! What! He advised you to borrow on a post-obit, and
probably shared the loan with you?"

"Oh, no; not a shilling."

"Tell me all about it, Frank. Perhaps, as I see that Levy is mixed up in
the affair, your information may be useful to myself, and put me on my
guard in dealing with that popular gentleman."

Frank, who somehow or other felt himself quite at home with Harley,
and who, with all his respect for Randal Leslie's talents, had a vague
notion that Lord L'Estrange was quite as clever, and, from his years
and experience, likely to be a safer and more judicious counsellor, was
noways loath to impart the confidence thus pressed for.

He told Harley of his debts, his first dealings with Levy, the unhappy
post-obit into which he had been hurried by the distress of Madame di
Negra; his father's anger, his mother's letter, his own feelings of
mingled shame and pride, which made him fear that repentance would but
seem self-interest, his desire to sell his commission, and let its sale
redeem in part the post-obit; in short, he made what is called a clean
breast of it. Randal Leslie was necessarily mixed up with this recital;
and the subtle cross-questionings of Harley extracted far more as to
that young diplomatist's agency in all these melancholy concerns than
the ingenuous narrator himself was aware of.

"So then," said Harley, "Mr. Leslie assured you of Madame di Negra's
affection, when you yourself doubted of it?"

"Yes; she took him in, even more than she did me."

"Simple Mr. Leslie! And the same kind friend?--who is related to you,
did you say?"

"His grandmother was a Hazeldean."

"Humph. The same kind relation led you to believe that you could pay
off this bond with the marchesa's portion, and that he could obtain the
consent of your parents to your marriage with that lady?"

"I ought to have known better; my father's prejudices against foreigners
and Papists are so strong."

"And now Mr. Leslie concurs with you, that it is best for you to
go abroad, and trust to his intercession with your father. He has
evidently, then, gained a great influence over Mr. Hazeldean."

"My father naturally compares me with him,--he so clever, so promising,
so regular in his habits, and I such a reckless scapegrace."

"And the bulk of your father's property is unentailed; Mr. Hazeldean
might disinherit you?"

"I deserve it. I hope he will."

"You have no brothers nor sisters,--no relation, perhaps, after your
parents, nearer to you than your excellent friend Mr. Randal Leslie?"

"No; that is the reason he is so kind to me, otherwise I am the last
person to suit him. You have no idea how well-informed and clever he
is," added Frank, in a tone between admiration and awe.

"My dear Hazeldean, you will take my advice, will you not?"

"Certainly. You are too good."

"Let all your family, Mr. Leslie included, suppose you to be gone
abroad; but stay quietly in England, and within a day's journey of
Lansmere Park. I am obliged to go thither for the approaching election.
I may ask you to come over. I think I see a way to serve you; and if so,
you will soon hear from me. Now, Baron Levy's number?"

"That is the house with the cabriolet at the door. How such a fellow can
have such a horse!--'t is out of all keeping!"

"Not at all; horses are high-spirited, generous, unsuspicious animals.
They never know if it is a rogue who drives them. I have your promise,
then, and you will send me your address?"

"I will. Strange that I feel more confidence in you than I do even in
Randal. Do take care of Levy."

Lord L'Estrange and Frank here shook hands, and Frank, with an anxious
groan, saw L'Estrange disappear within the portals of the sleek
destroyer.




CHAPTER XVII.

Lord L'Estrange followed the spruce servant into Baron Levy's luxurious
study.

The baron looked greatly amazed at his unexpected visitor; but he got
up, handed a chair to my Lord with a low bow. "This is an honour," said
he.

"You have a charming abode here," said Lord L'Estrange, looking round.
"Very fine bronzes,--excellent taste. Your reception-rooms above are,
doubtless, a model to all decorators?"

"Would your Lordship condescend to see them?" said Levy, wondering, but
flattered.

"With the greatest pleasure."

"Lights!" cried Levy, to the servant who answered his bell. "Lights in
the drawing-rooms,--it is growing dark." Lord L'Estrange followed the
usurer upstairs; admired everything,--pictures, draperies, Sevres china,
to the very shape of the downy fauteuils, to the very pattern of the
Tournay carpets. Reclining then on one of the voluptuous sofas, Lord
L'Estrange said smilingly, "You are a wise man: there is no advantage in
being rich, unless one enjoys one's riches."

"My own maxim, Lord L'Estrange."

"And it is something, too, to have a taste for good society. Small pride
would you have, my dear baron, in these rooms, luxurious though they
are, if filled with guests of vulgar exterior and plebeian manners.
It is only in the world in which we move that we find persons who
harmonize, as it were, with the porcelain of Sevres, and these sofas
that might have come from Versailles."

"I own," said Levy, "that I have what some may call a weakness in a
parvenu like myself. I have a love for the beau monde. It is indeed a
pleasure to me when I receive men like your Lordship."

"But why call yourself a parvenu? Though you are contented to honour
the name of Levy, we, in society, all know that you are the son of a
long-descended English peer. Child of love, it is true; but the Graces
smile on those over whose birth Venus presided. Pardon my old-fashioned
mythological similes,--they go so well with these rooms--Louis Quinze."

"Since you have touched on my birth," said Levy, his colour rather
heightening, not with shame, but with pride, "I don't deny that it has
had some effect on my habits and tastes in life. In fact--"

"In fact, own that you would be a miserable man, in spite of all your
wealth, if the young dandies, who throng to your banquets, were to cut
you dead in the streets; if, when your high-stepping horse stopped at
your club, the porter shut the door in your face; if, when you lounged
into the opera-pit, handsome dog that you are, each spendthrift rake
in 'Fop's Alley,' who now waits but the scratch of your pen to endorse
billets doux with the charm that can chain to himself for a month some
nymph of the Ballet, spinning round in a whirlwind of tulle, would
shrink from the touch of your condescending forefinger with more dread
of its contact than a bailiff's tap in the thick of Pall Mall
could inspire; if, reduced to the company of city clerks, parasite
led-captains--"

"Oh, don't go on, my dear Lord," cried Levy, laughing affectedly.
"Impossible though the picture be, it is really appalling. Cut me off
from May Fair and St. James's, and I should go into my strong closet and
hang myself."

"And yet, my dear baron, all this may happen if I have the whim just to
try; all this will happen, unless, ere I leave your house, you concede
the conditions I come here to impose."

"My Lord!" exclaimed Levy, starting up, and pulling down his waistcoat
with nervous passionate fingers, "if you were not under my own roof, I
would--"

"Truce with mock heroics. Sit down, sir, sit down. I will briefly state
my threat, more briefly my conditions. You will be scarcely more prolix
in your reply. Your fortune I cannot touch, your enjoyment of it I
can destroy. Refuse my conditions, make me your enemy,--and war to the
knife! I will interrogate all the young dupes you have ruined. I will
learn the history of all the transactions by which you have gained the
wealth that it pleases you to spend in courting the society and sharing
the vices of men who--go with these rooms, Louis Quinze. Not a roguery
of yours shall escape me, down even to your last notable connivance with
an Italian reprobate for the criminal abduction of an heiress. All
these particulars I will proclaim in the clubs to which you have gained
admittance, in every club in London which you yet hope to creep into;
all these I will impart to some such authority in the Press as Mr. Henry
Norreys; all these I will, upon the voucher of my own name, have so
published in some journals of repute, that you must either tacitly
submit to the revelations that blast you, or bring before a court of
law actions that will convert accusations into evidence. It is but by
sufferance that you are now in society; you are excluded when one man
like me comes forth to denounce you. You try in vain to sneer at my
menace--your white lips show your terror. I have rarely in life drawn
any advantage from my rank and position; but I am thankful that they
give me the power to make my voice respected and my exposure triumphant.
Now, Baron Levy, will you go into your strong closet and hang yourself,
or will you grant me my very moderate conditions? You are silent. I will
relieve you, and state those conditions. Until the general election,
about to take place, is concluded, you will obey me to the letter in
all that I enjoin,--no demur and no scruple. And the first proof
of obedience I demand is, your candid disclosure of all Mr. Audley
Egerton's pecuniary affairs."

"Has my client, Mr. Egerton, authorized you to request of me that
disclosure?"

"On the contrary, all that passes between us you will conceal from your
client."

"You would save him from ruin? Your trusty friend, Mr. Egerton!" said
the baron, with a livid sneer.

"Wrong again, Baron Levy. If I would save him from ruin, you are
scarcely the man I should ask to assist me."

"Ah, I guess. You have learned how he--"

"Guess nothing, but obey in all things. Let us descend to your business
room."

Levy said not a word until he had reconducted his visitor into his den
of destruction, all gleaming with spoliaria in rosewood. Then he said
this: "If, Lord L'Estrange, you seek but revenge on Audley Egerton, you
need not have uttered those threats. I too--hate the man."

Harley looked at him wistfully, and the nobleman felt a pang that he
had debased himself into a single feeling which the usurer could
share. Nevertheless, the interview appeared to close with satisfactory
arrangements, and to produce amicable understanding. For as the baron
ceremoniously followed Lord L'Estrange through the hall, his noble
visitor said, with marked affability,

"Then I shall see you at Lansmere with Mr. Egerton, to assist in
conducting his election. It is a sacrifice of your time worthy of your
friendship; not a step farther, I beg. Baron, I have the honour to wish
you good-evening."

As the street door opened on Lord L'Estrange he again found himself
face to face with Randal Leslie, whose hand was already lifted to the
knocker.

"Ha, Mr. Leslie!--you too a client of Baron Levy's,--a very useful,
accommodating man."

Randal stared and stammered. "I come in haste from the House of Commons
on Mr. Egerton's business. Don't you hear the newspaper vendors crying
out 'Great News, Dissolution of Parliament'?"

"We are prepared. Levy himself consents to give us the aid of his
talents. Kindly, obliging, clever person!" Randal hurried into Levy's
study, to which the usurer had shrunk back, and was now wiping his brow
with his scented handkerchief, looking heated and haggard, and very
indifferent to Randal Leslie.

"How is this?" cried Randal. "I come to tell you first of Peschiera's
utter failure, the ridiculous coxcomb, and I meet at your door the
last man I thought to find there,--the man who foiled us all, Lord
L'Estrange. What brought him to you? Ah, perhaps his interest in
Egerton's election?"

"Yes," said Levy, sulkily. "I know all about Peschiera. I cannot talk to
you now; I must make arrangements for going to Lansmere."

"But don't forget my purchase from Thornhill. I shall have the money
shortly from a surer source than Peschiera."

"The squire?"

"Or a rich father-in-law."

In the mean while, as Lord L'Estrange entered Bond Street, his ears were
stunned by vociferous cries from the Stentors employed by "Standard,"
"Sun," and "Globe,"

--"Great News! Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" The gas-lamps
were lighted; a brown fog was gathering over the streets, blending
itself with the falling shades of night. The forms of men loomed large
through the mist. The lights from the shops looked red and lurid.
Loungers usually careless as to politics were talking eagerly and
anxiously of King, Lords, Commons, "Constitution at stake," "Triumph
of liberal opinions,"--according to their several biases. Hearing, and
scorning--unsocial, isolated--walked on Harley L'Estrange. With his
direr passions had been roused up all the native powers that made
them doubly dangerous. He became proudly conscious of his own great
faculties, but exulted in them only so far as they could minister to the
purpose which had invoked them.

"I have constituted myself a Fate," he said inly; "let the gods be but
neutral, while I weave the meshes. Then, as Fate itself when it has
fulfilled its mission, let me pass away into shadow, with the still and
lonely stride that none may follow,--

        "'Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.'

"How weary I am of this world of men!" And again the cry "Great
News--National Crisis--Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" rang
through the jostling throng. Three men, arm-in-arm, brushed by Harley,
and were stopped at the crossing by a file of carriages. The man in
the centre was Audley Egerton. His companions were an ex-minister like
himself, and one of those great proprietors who are proud of being above
office, and vain of the power to make and unmake Governments.

"You are the only man to lead us, Egerton," said this last personage.
"Do but secure your seat, and as soon as this popular fever has passed
away, you must be something more than the leader of Opposition,--you
must be the first man in England."

"Not a doubt of that," chimed in the fellow ex-minister, a worthy man,
perfect red-tapist, but inaudible in the reporters' gallery. "And your
election is quite safe, eh? All depends on that. You must not be thrown
out at such a time, even for a month or two. I hear that you will have
a contest--some townsmen of the borough, I think. But the Lansmere
interest must be all-powerful; and I suppose L'Estrange will come out
and canvass for you. You are not the man to have lukewarm friends!"

"Don't be alarmed about my election. I am as sure of that as of
L'Estrange's friendship."

Harley heard, with a grim smile, and passing his hand within his vest,
laid it upon Nora's memoir.

"What could we do in parliament without you?" said the great proprietor,
almost piteously.

"Rather what could I do without parliament? Public life is the only
existence I own. Parliament is all in all to me. But we may cross now."

Harley's eye glittered cold as it followed the tall form of the
statesman, towering high above all other passers-by. "Ay," he muttered,
"ay, rest as sure of my friendship as I was of thine! And be Lansmere
our field of Philippi! There where thy first step was made in the only
life that thou own'st as existence, shall the ladder itself rot from
under thy footing. There, where thy softer victim slunk to death from
the deceit of thy love, shall deceit like thine own dig a grave for thy
frigid ambition. I borrow thy quiver of fraud; its still arrows shall
strike thee; and thou too shalt say, when the barb pierces home, 'This
comes from the hand of a friend.' Ay, at Lansmere, at Lansmere, shall
the end crown the whole! Go, and dot on the canvas the lines for a
lengthened perspective, where my eyes note already the vanishing point
of the picture."

Then through the dull fog and under the pale gas-lights Harley
L'Estrange pursued his noiseless way, soon distinguished no more amongst
the various, motley, quick-succeeding groups, with their infinite
sub-divisions of thought, care, and passion; while, loud over all their
low murmurs, or silent hearts, were heard the tramp of horses and din of
wheels, and the vociferous discordant cry that had ceased to attract and
interest in the ears it vexed, "Great News, Great News--Dissolution of
Parliament--Great News!"




CHAPTER XIX.

The scene is at Lansmere Park,--a spacious pile, commenced in the reign
of Charles II.; enlarged and altered in the reign of Anne. Brilliant
interval in the History of our National Manners, when even the courtier
dreaded to be dull, and Sir Fopling raised himself on tiptoe to catch
the ear of a wit; when the names of Devonshire and Dorset, Halifax and
Carteret, Oxford and Bolingbroke, unite themselves, brotherlike, with
those of Hobbes and of Dryden, of Prior and Bentley, of Arbuthnot, Gay,
Pope, and Swift; and still, wherever we turn, to recognize some ideal of
great Lord or fine Gentleman, the Immortals of Literature stand by his
side.

The walls of the rooms at Lansmere were covered with the portraits of
those who illustrate that time which Europe calls the Age of Louis XIV.
A L'Estrange, who had lived through the reigns of four English princes
(and with no mean importance through all) had collected those likenesses
of noble contemporaries. As you passed through the chambers--opening one
on the other in that pomp of parade introduced with Charles II. from
the palaces of France, and retaining its mode till Versailles and the
Trianon passed, themselves, out of date--you felt you were in excellent
company. What saloons of our day, demeaned to tailed coats and white
waistcoats, have that charm of high breeding which speaks out from
the canvas of Kneller and Jervis, Vivien and Rigaud? And withal,
notwithstanding lace and brocade--the fripperies of artificial
costume--still those who give interest or charm to that day look from
their portraits like men,--raking or debonair, if you will, never
mincing nor feminine. Can we say as much of the portraits of Lawrence?
Gaze there on fair Marlborough; what delicate perfection of features,
yet how easy in boldness, how serene in the conviction of power! So
fair and so tranquil he might have looked through the cannon reek at
Ramillies and Blenheim, suggesting to Addison the image of an angel
of war. Ah, there, Sir Charles Sedley, the Lovelace of wits! Note
that strong jaw and marked brow; do you not recognize the courtier who
scorned to ask one favour of the king with whom he lived as an equal,
and who stretched forth the right hand of man to hurl from a throne the
king who had made his daughter--a countess?

   [Sedley was so tenacious of his independence that when his affairs
   were most embarrassed, he refused all pecuniary aid from Charles II.
   His bitter sarcasm, in vindication of the part he took in the
   deposition of James II., who had corrupted his daughter, and made
   her Countess of Dorchester, is well known. "As the king has made my
   daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to
   assist in making his Majesty's daughter--a queen!"]

Perhaps, from his childhood thus surrounded by the haunting faces--that
spoke of their age as they looked from the walls--that age and those
portraits were not without influence on the character of Harley
L'Estrange. The whim and the daring, the passion for letters and
reverence for genius, the mixture of levity and strength, the polished
sauntering indolence, or the elastic readiness of energies once called
into action,--all might have found their prototypes in the lives which
those portraits rekindled. The deeper sentiment, the more earnest
nature, which in Harley L'Estrange were commingled with the attributes
common to a former age,--these, indeed, were of his own. Our age so
little comprehended, while it colours us from its atmosphere! so full of
mysterious and profound emotions, which our ancestors never knew!--will
those emotions be understood by our descendants?

In this stately house were now assembled, as Harley's guests, many of
the more important personages whom the slow length of this story has
made familiar to the reader. The two candidates for the borough in the
True Blue interest,--Audley Egerton and Randal Leslie; and Levy,--chief
among the barons to whom modern society grants a seignorie of pillage,
which, had a baron of old ever ventured to arrogate, burgess and
citizen, socman and bocman, villein and churl, would have burned him
alive in his castle; the Duke di Serrano, still fondly clinging to his
title of Doctor and pet name of Riccabocca; Jemima, not yet with the
airs of a duchess, but robed in very thick silks, as the chrysalis state
of a duchess; Violante, too, was there, sadly against her will, and
shrinking as much as possible into the retirement of her own chamber.
The Countess of Lansmere had deserted her lord, in order to receive the
guests of her son; my lord himself, ever bent on being of use in some
part of his country, and striving hard to distract his interest from
his plague of a borough, had gone down into Cornwall to inquire into the
social condition of certain troglodytes who worked in some mines which
the earl had lately had the misfortune to wring from the Court of
Chancery, after a lawsuit commenced by his grandfather; and a Blue Book,
issued in the past session by order of parliament, had especially
quoted the troglodytes thus devolved on the earl as bipeds who were
in considerable ignorance of the sun, and had never been known to wash
their feet since the day when they came into the world,--their world
underground, chipped off from the Bottomless Pit!

With the countess came Helen Digby, of course; and Lady Lansmere, who
had hitherto been so civilly cold to the wife elect of her son, had,
ever since her interview with Harley at Knightsbridge, clung to Helen
with almost a caressing fondness. The stern countess was tamed by fear;
she felt that her own influence over Harley was gone; she trusted to
the influence of Helen--in case of what?--ay, what? It was because
the danger was not clear to her that her bold spirit trembled:
superstitions, like suspicions, are "as bats among birds, and fly by
twilight." Harley had ridiculed the idea of challenge and strife between
Audley and himself; but still Lady Lansmere dreaded the fiery emotions
of the last, and the high spirit and austere self-respect which were
proverbial to the first. Involuntarily she strengthened her intimacy
with Helen. In case her alarm should appear justified, what mediator
could be so persuasive in appeasing the angrier passions, as one whom
courtship and betrothal sanctified to the gentlest?

On arriving at Lansmere, the countess, however, felt somewhat relieved.
Harley had received her, if with a manner less cordial and tender
than had hitherto distinguished it, still with easy kindness and calm
self-possession. His bearing towards Audley Egerton still more reassured
her: it was not marked by an exaggeration of familiarity or friendship,
which would at once have excited her apprehensions of some sinister
design,--nor; on the other hand, did it betray, by covert sarcasms, an
ill-suppressed resentment. It was exactly what, under the circumstances,
would have been natural to a man who had received an injury from an
intimate friend, which, in generosity or discretion, he resolved to
overlook, but which those aware of it could just perceive had cooled or
alienated the former affection. Indefatigably occupying himself with
all the details of the election, Harley had fair pretext for absenting
himself from Audley, who, really looking very ill, and almost worn out,
pleaded indisposition as an excuse for dispensing with the fatigues of
a personal canvass, and, passing much of his time in his own apartments,
left all the preparations for contest to his more active friends. It
was not till he had actually arrived at Lansmere that Audley became
acquainted with the name of his principal opponent. Richard Avenel! the
brother of Nora! rising up from obscurity, thus to stand front to front
against him in a contest on which all his fates were cast. Egerton
quailed as before an appointed avenger. He would fain have retired from
the field; he spoke to Harley.

"How can you support all the painful remembrances which the very name of
my antagonist must conjure up?"

"Did you not tell me," answered Harley, "to strive against such
remembrances,--to look on them as sickly dreams? I am prepared to brave
them. Can you be more sensitive than I?"

Egerton durst not say more. He avoided all further reference to the
subject. The strife raged around him, and he shut himself out from
it,--shut himself up in solitude with his own heart. Strife enough
there! Once, late at night, he stole forth and repaired to Nora's grave.
He stood there, amidst the rank grass and under the frosty starlight,
long, and in profound silence. His whole past life seemed to rise before
him; and, when he regained his lonely room, and strove to survey the
future, still he could behold only that past and that grave.

In thus declining all active care for an election, to his prospects so
important, Audley Egerton was considered to have excuse, not only in
the state of his health, but in his sense of dignity. A statesman so
eminent, of opinions so well known, of public services so incontestable,
might well be spared the personal trouble that falls upon obscurer
candidates. And besides, according to current report, and the judgment
of the Blue Committee, the return of Mr. Egerton was secure. But
though Audley himself was thus indulgently treated, Harley and the Blue
Committee took care to inflict double work upon Randal. That active
young spirit found ample materials for all its restless energies. Randal
Leslie was kept on his legs from sunrise to starlight. There does not
exist in the Three Kingdoms a constituency more fatiguing to a candidate
than that borough of Lansmere. As soon as you leave the High Street,
wherein, according to immemorial usage, the Blue canvasser is first
led, in order to put him into spirits for the toils that await him
(delectable, propitious, constitutional High Street, in which at least
two-thirds of the electors, opulent tradesmen employed at the Park,
always vote for "my lord's man," and hospitably prepare wine and cakes
in their tidy back-parlours!)--as soon as you quit this stronghold
of the party, labyrinths of lanes and defiles stretch away into the
farthest horizon; level ground is found nowhere; it is all up hill and
down hill,--now rough, craggy pavements that blister the feet, and at
the very first tread upon which all latent corns shook prophetically;
now deep, muddy ruts, into which you sink ankle-deep, oozing slush
creeping into the pores, and moistening the way for catarrh, rheum,
cough, sore throat, bronchitis, and phthisis; black sewers and drains
Acherontian, running before the thresholds, and so filling the homes
behind with effluvia, that, while one hand clasps the grimy paw of
the voter, the other instinctively guards from typhus and cholera your
abhorrent nose. Not in those days had mankind ever heard of a sanitary
reform! and, to judge of the slow progress which that reform seems
to make, sewer and drain would have been much the same if they had.
Scot-and-lot voters were the independent electors of Lansmere, with the
additional franchise of Freemen. Universal suffrage could scarcely more
efficiently swamp the franchises of men who care a straw what becomes of
Great Britain! With all Randal Leslie's profound diplomacy, all his
art in talking over, deceiving, and (to borrow Dick Avenel's vernacular
phrase) "humbugging" educated men, his eloquence fell flat upon minds
invulnerable to appeals, whether to State or to Church, to Reform or
to Freedom. To catch a Scot-and-lot voter by such frivolous
arguments--Randal Leslie might as well have tried to bring down a
rhinoceros by a pop-gun charged with split peas! The young man who so
firmly believed that "knowledge was power" was greatly disgusted. It was
here the ignorance that foiled him. When he got hold of a man with some
knowledge, Randal was pretty sure to trick him out of a vote.

Nevertheless, Randal Leslie walked and talked on, with most creditable
perseverance. The Blue Committee allowed that he was an excellent
canvasser. They conceived a liking for him, mingled with pity. For,
though sure of Egerton's return, they regarded Randal's as out of the
question. He was merely there to keep split votes from going to the
opposite side; to serve his patron, the ex-minister; shake the paws, and
smell the smells which the ex-minister was too great a man to shake
and to smell. But, in point of fact, none of that Blue Committee knew
anything of the prospects of the election. Harley received all the
reports of each canvass-day. Harley kept the canvass-book locked up from
all eyes but his own, or it might be Baron Levy's, as Audley Egerton's
confidential, if not strictly professional adviser, Baron Levy, the
millionaire, had long since retired from all acknowledged professions.
Randal, however--close, observant, shrewd--perceived that he himself
was much stronger than the Blue Committee believed; and, to his infinite
surprise, he owed that strength to Lord L'Estrange's exertions on
his behalf. For though Harley, after the first day, on which he
ostentatiously showed himself in the High Street, did not openly canvass
with Randal, yet when the reports were brought in to him, and he saw the
names of the voters who gave one vote to Audley, and withheld the other
from Randal, he would say to Randal, dead beat as that young gentleman
was, "Slip out with me, the moment dinner is over, and before you go the
round of the public-houses; there are some voters we must get for you
to-night." And sure enough a few kindly words from the popular heir
of the Lansmere baronies usually gained over the electors, from whom,
though Randal had proved that all England depended on their votes in his
favour, Randal would never have extracted more than a "Wu'll, I shall
waute gin the Dauy coomes!" Nor was this all that Harley did for the
younger candidate. If it was quite clear that only one vote could be won
for the Blues, and the other was pledged to the Yellows, Harley would
say, "Then put it down to Mr. Leslie,"--a request the more readily
conceded, since Audley Egerton was considered so safe by the Blues, and
alone worth a fear by the Yellows.

Thus Randal, who kept a snug little canvass-book of his own, became
more and more convinced that he had a better chance than Egerton, even
without the furtive aid he expected from Avenel; and he could only
account for Harley's peculiar exertions in his favour by supposing that
Harley, unpractised in elections, and deceived by the Blue Committee,
believed Egerton to be perfectly safe, and sought, for the honour of the
family interest, to secure both the seats.

Randal's public cares thus deprived him of all opportunity of pressing
his courtship on Violante; and, indeed, if ever he did find a moment
in which he could steal to her reluctant side, Harley was sure to seize
that very moment to send him off to canvass an hesitating freeman, or
harangue in some public-house.

Leslie was too acute not to detect some motive hostile to his wooing,
however plausibly veiled in the guise of zeal for his election, in this
officiousness of Harley's. But Lord L'Estrange's manner to Violante was
so little like that of a jealous lover, and he was so well aware of her
engagement to Randal, that the latter abandoned the suspicion he had
before conceived, that Harley was his rival. And he was soon led to
believe that Lord L'Estrange had another, more disinterested, and
less formidable motive for thus stinting his opportunities to woo the
heiress.

"Mr. Leslie," said Lord L'Estrange, one day, "the duke has confided to
me his regret at his daughter's reluctance to ratify his own promise;
and knowing the warm interest I take in her welfare, for his sake and
her own; believing, also, that some services to herself, as well as
to the father she so loves, give me a certain influence over her
inexperienced judgment, he has even requested me to speak a word to her
in your behalf!"

"Ah, if you would!" said Randal, surprised.

"You must give me the power to do so. You were obliging enough to
volunteer to me the same explanations which you gave to the duke, his
satisfaction with which induced him to renew or confirm the promise of
his daughter's hand. Should those explanations content me, as they did
him, I hold the duke bound to fulfil his engagement, and I am convinced
that his daughter would, in that case, not be inflexible to your suit.
But, till such explanations be given, my friendship for the father,
and my interest in the child, do not allow me to assist a cause which,
however, at present suffers little by delay."

"Pray, listen at once to those explanations."

"Nay, Mr. Leslie, I can now only think of the election. As soon as that
is over, rely on it you shall have the amplest opportunity to dispel any
doubts which your intimacy with Count di Peschiera and Madame di Negra
may have suggested.--a propos of the election, here is a list of voters
you must see at once in Fish Lane. Don't lose a moment."

In the mean while, Richard Avenel and Leonard had taken up their
quarters in the hotel appropriated to the candidates for the Yellows;
and the canvass on that side was prosecuted with all the vigour which
might be expected from operations conducted by Richard Avenel, and
backed by the popular feeling.

The rival parties met from time to time in the streets and lanes, in
all the pomp of war,--banners streaming, fifes resounding (for bands and
colours were essential proofs of public spirit, and indispensable
items in a candidate's bills, in those good old days). When they thus
encountered, very distant bows were exchanged between the respective
chiefs; but Randal, contriving ever to pass close to Avenel, had ever
the satisfaction of perceiving that gentleman's countenance contracted
into a knowing wink, as much as to say, "All right, in spite of this
tarnation humbug."

But now that both parties were fairly in the field, to the private arts
of canvassing were added the public arts of oratory. The candidates had
to speak, at the close of each day's canvass, out from wooden boxes,
suspended from the windows of their respective hotels, and which looked
like dens for the exhibition of wild beasts. They had to speak at
meetings of Committees, meetings of electors, go the nightly round of
enthusiastic public-houses, and appeal to the sense of an enlightened
people through wreaths of smoke and odours of beer.

The alleged indisposition of Audley Egerton had spared him the
excitement of oratory, as well as the fatigue of canvassing. The
practised debater had limited the display of his talents to a concise,
but clear and masterly exposition of his own views on the leading public
questions of the day, and the state of parties, which, on the day after
his arrival at Lansmere, was delivered at a meeting of his general
Committee, in the great room of their hotel, and which was then printed
and circulated amongst the voters.

Randal, though he expressed himself with more fluency and
self-possession than are usually found in the first attempts of a public
speaker, was not effective in addressing an unlettered crowd; for a
crowd of this kind is all heart--and we know that Randal Leslie's heart
was as small as heart could be. If he attempted to speak at his
own intellectual level, he was so subtle and refining as to be
incomprehensible; if he fell into the fatal error--not uncommon to
inexperienced orators--of trying to lower himself to the intellectual
level of his audience, he was only elaborately stupid. No man can speak
too well for a crowd,--as no man can write too well for the stage; but
in neither case should he be rhetorical, or case in periods the dry
bones of reasoning. It is to the emotions or to the humours that the
speaker of a crowd must address himself; his eye must brighten with
generous sentiment, or his lip must expand in the play of animated fancy
or genial wit. Randal's voice, too, though pliant and persuasive in
private conversation, was thin and poor when strained to catch the ear
of a numerous assembly. The falsehood of his nature seemed to come out
when he raised the tones which had been drilled into deceit. Men like
Randal Leslie may become sharp debaters, admirable special pleaders;
they can no more become orators than they can become poets. Educated
audiences are essential to them, and the smaller the audience (that is,
the more the brain supersedes the action of the heart) the better they
can speak.

Dick Avenel was generally very short and very pithy in his addresses.
He had two or three favourite topics, which always told. He was a
fellow-townsman,--a man who had made his own way in life; he wanted to
free his native place from aristocratic usurpation; it was the battle
of the electors, not his private cause, etc. He said little against
Randal,--"Pity a clever young man should pin his future to two yards of
worn-out red tape;" "He had better lay hold of the strong rope, which
the People, in compassion to his youth, were willing yet to throw out to
save him from sinking," etc. But as for Audley Egerton, "the gentleman
who would not show, who was afraid to meet the electors, who could only
find his voice in a hole-and-corner meeting, accustomed all his venal
life to dark and nefarious jobs"--Dick, upon that subject, delivered
philippics truly Demosthenian. Leonard, on the contrary, never attacked
Harley's friend, Mr. Egerton; but he was merciless against the youth who
had filched reputation from John Burley, and whom he knew that Harley
despised as heartily as himself. And Randal did not dare to retaliate
(though boiling over with indignant rage), for fear of offending
Leonard's uncle. Leonard was unquestionably the popular speaker of the
three. Though his temperament was a writer's, not an orator's; though
he abhorred what he considered the theatrical exhibition of self, which
makes what is called "delivery" more effective than ideas; though he had
little interest at any time in party politics; though at this time
his heart was far away from the Blues and Yellows of Lansmere, sad and
forlorn,--yet, forced into action, the eloquence that was natural to his
conversation poured itself forth. He had warm blood in his veins;
and his dislike to Randal gave poignancy to his wit, and barbed his
arguments with impassioned invective. In fact, Leonard could conceive no
other motive for Lord L'Estrange's request to take part in the election
than that nobleman's desire to defeat the man whom they both regarded
as an impostor; and this notion was confirmed by some inadvertent
expressions which Avenel let fall, and which made Leonard suspect that,
if he were not in the field, Avenel would have exerted all his interest
to return Randal instead of Egerton. With Dick's dislike to that
statesman Leonard found it impossible to reason; nor, on the other hand,
could all Dick's scoldings or coaxings induce Leonard to divert his
siege on Randal to an assault upon the man who, Harley had often said,
was dear to him as a brother.

In the mean while, Dick kept the canvass-book of the Yellows as closely
as Harley kept that of the Blues; and in despite of many pouting fits
and gusts of displeasure, took precisely the same pains for Leonard as
Harley took for Randal. There remained, however, apparently unshaken by
the efforts on either side, a compact body of about a Hundred and Fifty
voters, chiefly freemen. Would they vote Yellow? Would they vote Blue?
No one could venture to decide; but they declared that they would all
vote the same way. Dick kept his secret "caucuses," as he called them,
constantly nibbling at this phalanx. A hundred and fifty voters!--they
had the election in their hands! Never were hands so cordially shaken,
so caressingly clung to, so fondly lingered upon! But the votes
still stuck as firm to the hands as if a part of the skin, or of the
dirt,--which was much the same thing!




CHAPTER XX.

Whenever Audley joined the other guests of an evening--while Harley was
perhaps closeted with Levy and committeemen, and Randal was going the
round of the public-houses--the one with whom he chiefly conversed was
Violante. He had been struck at first, despite his gloom, less perhaps
by her extraordinary beauty than by something in the expression of
her countenance which, despite differences in feature and complexion,
reminded him of Nora; and when, by his praises of Harley, he drew her
attention, and won into her liking, he discovered, perhaps, that the
likeness which had thus impressed him came from some similarities
in character between the living and the lost one,--the same charming
combination of lofty thought and childlike innocence, the same
enthusiasm, the same rich exuberance of imagination and feeling. Two
souls that resemble each other will give their likeness to the looks
from which they beam. On the other hand, the person with whom Harley
most familiarly associated, in his rare intervals of leisure, was Helen
Digby. One day, Audley Egerton, standing mournfully by the window of
the sitting-room appropriated to his private use, saw the two, whom he
believed still betrothed, take their way across the park, side by side.
"Pray Heaven, that she may atone to him for all!" murmured Audley. "But
ah, that it had been Violante! Then I might have felt assured that the
Future would efface the Past,--and found the courage to tell him all.
And when last night I spoke of what Harley ought to be to England, how
like were Violante's eyes and smile to Nora's, when Nora listened in
delighted sympathy to the hopes of my own young ambition." With a
sigh he turned away, and resolutely sat down to read and reply to the
voluminous correspondence which covered the table of the busy public
man. For Audley's return to parliament being considered by his political
party as secure, to him were transmitted all the hopes and fears of the
large and influential section of it whose members looked up to him as
their future chief, and who in that general election (unprecedented for
the number of eminent men it was fated to expel from parliament, and the
number of new politicians it was fated to send into it) drew their only
hopes of regaining their lost power from Audley's sanguine confidence in
the reaction of that Public Opinion which he had hitherto so profoundly
comprehended; and it was too clearly seen, that the seasonable adoption
of his counsels would have saved the existence and popularity of the
late Administration, whose most distinguished members could now scarcely
show themselves on the hustings.

Meanwhile Lord L'Estrange led his young companion towards a green
hill in the centre of the park, on which stood a circular temple; that
commanded a view of the country round for miles. They had walked in
silence till they gained the summit of the sloped and gradual ascent;
and then, as they stood still, side by side, Harley thus spoke,

"Helen, you know that Leonard is in the town, though I cannot receive
him at the Park, since he is standing in opposition to my guests,
Egerton and Leslie."

HELEN.--"But that seems to me so strange. How--how could Leonard do
anything that seems hostile to you?"

HARLEY.--"Would his hostility to me lower him in your opinion? If he
know that I am his rival, does not rivalry include hate?"

HELEN.--"Oh, Lord L'Estrange, how can you speak thus; how so wrong
yourself? Hate--hate to you! and from Leonard Fairfield!"

HARLEY.--"You evade my question. Would his hate or hostility to me
affect your sentiments towards him?"

HELEN (looking down).--"I could not force myself to believe in it."

HARLEY.--"Why?"

HELEN.--"Because it would be so unworthy of him."

HARLEY.--"Poor child! You have the delusion of your years. You deck a
cloud in the hues of the rainbow, and will not believe that its glory is
borrowed from the sun of your own fancy. But here, at least, you are not
deceived. Leonard obeys but my wishes, and, I believe, against his own
will. He has none of man's noblest attribute, Ambition."

HELEN.--"No ambition!"

HARLEY.--"It is vanity that stirs the poet to toil,--if toil the wayward
chase of his own chimeras can be called. Ambition is a more masculine
passion."

Helen shook her head gently, but made no answer.

HARLEY.--"If I utter a word that profanes one of your delusions, you
shake your head and are incredulous. Pause: listen one moment to my
counsels,--perhaps the last I may ever obtrude upon you. Lift your eyes;
look around. Far as your eye can reach, nay, far beyond the line which
the horizon forms in the landscape, stretch the lands of my inheritance.
Yonder you see the home in which my forefathers for many generations
lived with honour, and died lamented. All these, in the course of
nature, might one day have been your own, had you not rejected my
proposals. I offered you, it is true, not what is commonly called Love;
I offered you sincere esteem, and affections the more durable for their
calm. You have not been reared by the world in the low idolatry of rank
and wealth; but even romance cannot despise the power of serving others,
which rank and wealth bestow. For myself, hitherto indolence, and lately
disdain, rob fortune of these nobler attributes. But she who will share
my fortune may dispense it so as to atone for my sins of omission.
On the other side, grant that there is no bar to your preference for
Leonard Fairfield, what does your choice present to you? Those of his
kindred with whom you will associate are unrefined and mean. His sole
income is derived from precarious labours; the most vulgar of all
anxieties--the fear of bread itself for the morrow--must mingle with
all your romance, and soon steal from love all its poetry. You think his
affection will console you for every sacrifice. Folly! the love of poets
is for a mist, a moonbeam, a denizen of air, a phantom that they call
an Ideal. They suppose for a moment that they have found that Ideal in
Chloe or Phyllis, Helen or a milkmaid. Bah! the first time you come to
the poet with the baker's bill, where flies the Ideal? I knew one more
brilliant than Leonard, more exquisitely gifted by nature; that one
was a woman; she saw a man hard and cold as that stone at your feet,--a
false, hollow, sordid worldling; she made him her idol, beheld in him
all that history would not recognize in a Caesar, that mythology would
scarcely grant to an Apollo: to him she was the plaything of an hour;
she died, and before the year was out he had married for money! I knew
another instance,--I speak of myself. I loved before I was your age. Had
an angel warned me then, I would have been incredulous as you. How
that ended, no matter: but had it not been for that dream of
maudlin delirium, I had lived and acted as others of my kind and my
sphere,--married from reason and judgment, been now a useful and happy
man. Pause, then. Will you still reject me for Leonard Fairfield? For
the last time you have the option,--me and all the substance of waking
life, Leonard Fairfield and the shadows of a fleeting dream. Speak! You
hesitate. Nay, take time to decide."

HELEN.--"Ah, Lord L'Estrange, you who have felt what it is to love,
how can you doubt my answer; how think that I could be so base, so
ungrateful as take from yourself what you call the substance of waking
life, while my heart was far away, faithful to what you call a dream?"

HARLEY.--"But can you not dispel the dream?"

HELEN (her whole face one flush).--"It was wrong to call it dream! It is
the reality of life to me. All things else are as dreams."

HARLEY (taking her hand and kissing it with respect).--"Helen, you have
a noble heart, and I have tempted you in vain. I regret your choice,
though I will no more oppose it. I regret it, though I shall never
witness your disappointment. As the wife of that man, I shall see and
know you no more."

HELEN.--"Oh, no! do not say that. Why? Wherefore?"

HARLEY (his brows meeting).--"He is the child of fraud and of shame.
His father is my foe, and my hate descends to the son. He, too, the son,
filches from me--But complaints are idle. When the next few days are
over, think of me but as one who abandons all right over your actions,
and is a stranger to your future fate. Pooh! dry your tears: so long as
you love Leonard or esteem me, rejoice that our paths do not cross."

He walked on impatiently; but Helen, alarmed and wondering, followed
close, took his arm timidly, and sought to soothe him. She felt that he
wronged Leonard,--that he knew not how Leonard had yielded all hope when
he learned to whom she was affianced. For Leonard's sake she conquered
her bashfulness, and sought to explain. But at her first hesitating,
faltered words, Harley, who with great effort suppressed the emotions
which swelled within him, abruptly left her side, and plunged into the
recesses of thick, farspreading groves, that soon wrapped him from her
eye.

While this conversation occurred between Lord L'Estrange and his ward,
the soi-disant Riccabocca and Violante were walking slowly through the
gardens. The philosopher, unchanged by his brightening prospects,--so
far as the outer man was concerned,--still characterized by the red
umbrella and the accustomed pipe,--took the way mechanically towards
the sunniest quarter of the grounds, now and then glancing tenderly at
Violante's downcast, melancholy face, but not speaking; only, at each
glance, there came a brisker cloud from the pipe, as if obedient to a
fuller heave of the heart.

At length, in a spot which lay open towards the south, and seemed to
collect all the gentlest beams of the November sun, screened from the
piercing east by dense evergreens, and flanked from the bleak north by
lofty walls, Riccabocca paused and seated himself. Flowers still bloomed
on the sward in front, over which still fluttered the wings of those
later and more brilliant butterflies that, unseen in the genial days
of our English summer, come with autumnal skies, and sport round the
mournful steps of the coming winter,--types of those thoughts which
visit and delight the contemplation of age, while the current yet
glides free from the iron ice, and the leaves yet linger on the boughs;
thoughts that associate the memories of the departed summer with
messages from suns that shall succeed the winter, and expand colours the
most steeped in light and glory, just as the skies through which they
gleam are darkening, and the flowers on which they hover fade from the
surface of the earth, dropping still seeds, that sink deep out of sight
below.

"Daughter," said Riccabocca, drawing Violante to his side with caressing
arm,--"Daughter! Mark how they who turn towards the south can still find
the sunny side of the land scape! In all the seasons of life, how much
of chill or of warmth depends on our choice of the aspect! Sit down: let
us reason."

Violante sat down passively, clasping her father's hand in both her
own. Reason! harsh word to the ears of Feeling! "You shrink," resumed
Riccabocca, "from even the courtship, even the presence of the suitor in
whom my honour binds me to recognize your future bridegroom."

Violante drew away her hands, and placed them before her eyes
shudderingly.

"But" continued Riccabocca, rather peevishly, "this is not listening to
reason. I may object to Mr. Leslie, because he has not an adequate rank
or fortune to pretend to a daughter of my house; that would be what
every one would allow to be reasonable in a father; except, indeed,"
added the poor sage, trying hard to be sprightly, and catching hold of
a proverb to help him--"except, indeed, those wise enough to recollect
that admonitory saying, 'Casa il figlio quando vuoi, e la figlia quando
puoi,'--[Marry your son when you will, your daughter when you can].
Seriously, if I overlook those objections to Mr. Leslie, it is not
natural for a young girl to enforce them. What is reason in you is quite
another thing from reason in me. Mr. Leslie is young, not ill-looking,
has the air of a gentleman, is passionately enamoured of you, and
has proved his affection by risking his life against that villanous
Peschiera,--that is, he would have risked it had Peschiera not been
shipped out of the way. If, then, you will listen to reason, pray what
can reason say against Mr. Leslie?"

"Father, I detest him!"

"Cospetto!" persisted Riccabocca, testily, "you have no reason to detest
him. If you had any reason, child, I am sure that I should be the last
person to dispute it. How can you know your own mind in such a matter?
It is not as if you had seen anyone else you could prefer. Not another
man of your own years do you even know,--except, indeed, Leonard
Fairfield, whom, though I grant he is handsomer, and with more
imagination and genius than Mr. Leslie, you still must remember as the
boy who worked in my garden. Ah, to be sure, there is Frank Hazeldean;
fine lad, but his affections are pre-engaged. In short," continued
the sage, dogmatically, "there is no one else you can, by any possible
caprice, prefer to Mr. Leslie; and for a girl who has no one else in
her head to talk of detesting a well-looking, well-dressed, clever young
man, is--a nonsense--'Chi lascia il poco per haver l'assai ne l'uno, ne
l'altro avera mai'--which may be thus paraphrased,--The young lady who
refuses a mortal in the hope of obtaining an angel, loses the one, and
will never fall in with the other. So now, having thus shown that the
darker side of the question is contrary to reason, let us look to the
brighter. In the first place--"

"Oh, Father, Father!" cried Violante, passionately, "you to whom I once
came for comfort in every childish sorrow do not talk to me with this
cutting levity. See, I lay my head upon your breast, I put my arms
around you; and now, can you reason me into misery?"

"Child, child, do not be so wayward. Strive, at least, against a
prejudice that you cannot defend. My Violante, my darling, this is no
trifle. Here I must cease to be the fond, foolish father, whom you can
do what you will with. Here I am Alphonso, Duke di Serrano; for here my
honour as noble and my word as man are involved. I, then, but a helpless
exile, no hope of fairer prospects before me, trembling like a coward
at the wiles of my unscrupulous kinsman, grasping at all chances to save
you from his snares,--self offered your hand to Randal Leslie,--offered,
promised, pledged it; and now that my fortunes seem assured, my rank in
all likelihood restored, my foe crushed, my fears at rest, now, does it
become me to retract what I myself have urged? It is not the noble, it
is the parvenu, who has only to grow rich, in order to forget those
whom in poverty he hailed as his friends. Is it for me to make the poor
excuse, never heard on the lips of an Italian prince, 'that I cannot
command the obedience of my child;' subject myself to the galling
answer, 'Duke of Serrano, you could once command that obedience, when,
in exile, penury, and terror you offered me a bride without a dower'?
Child, Violante, daughter of ancestors on whose honour never slander set
a stain, I call on you to redeem your father's plighted word."

"Father, must it be so? Is not even the convent open to me? Nay, look
not so coldly on me. If you could but read my heart! And oh! I feel so
assured of your own repentance hereafter,--so assured that this man
is not what you believe him. I so suspect that he has been playing
throughout some secret and perfidious part."

"Ha!" interrupted Riccabocca, "Harley has perhaps infected you with that
notion."

"No, no! But is not Harley, is not Lord L'Estrange one whose opinion you
have cause to esteem? And if he distrusts Mr. Leslie--"

"Let him make good his distrust by such proof as will absolve my word,
and I shall share your own joy. I have told him this. I have invited
him to make good his suspicions, he puts me off. He cannot do so," added
Riccabocca, in a dejected tone; "Randal has already so well explained
all that Harley deemed equivocal. Violante, my name and my honour rest
in your hands. Cast them away if you will; I cannot constrain you, and
I cannot stoop to implore. Noblesse oblige! With your birth you took
its duties. Let them decide between your vain caprice and your father's
solemn remonstrance."

Assuming a sternness that he was far from feeling, and putting aside
his daughter's arms, the exile walked away. Violante paused a moment,
shivered, looked round as if taking a last farewell of joy and peace
and hope on earth, and then approaching her father with a firm step, she
said, "I never rebelled, Father; I did but entreat. What you say is my
law now, as it has ever been; and come what may, never shall you hear
complaint or murmur from me. Poor Father, you will suffer more than I
shall. Kiss me!"

About an hour afterwards, as the short day closed in, Harley,
returning from his solitary wanderings, after he had parted from Helen,
encountered on the terrace, before the house, Lady Lansmere and Audley
Egerton arm in arm.

Harley had drawn his hat over his brows, and his eyes were fixed on the
ground, so that he did not see the group upon which he came unawares,
until Audley's voice startled him from his revery.

"My dear Harley," said the ex-minister, with a faint smile, "you must
not pass us by, now that you have a moment of leisure from the cares of
the election. And, Harley, though we are under the same roof, I see you
so little." Lord L'Estrange darted a quick glance towards his mother,--a
glance that seemed to say, "You leaning on Audley's arm! Have you kept
your promise?" And the eye that met his own reassured him.

"It is true," said Harley; "but you, who know that, once engaged in
public affairs, one has no heart left for the ties of private life, will
excuse me. And this election is so important!"

"And you, Mr. Egerton," said Lady Lansmere, "whom the election most
concerns, seem privileged to be the only one who appears indifferent to
success."

"Ay; but you are not indifferent?" said Lord L'Estrange, abruptly.

"No. How can I be so, when my whole future career may depend on it?"

Harley drew Egerton aside. "There is one voter you ought at least to
call upon and thank. He cannot be made to comprehend that, for the sake
of any relation, even for the sake of his own son, he is to vote against
the Blues,--against you; I mean, of course, Nora's father, John Avenel.
His vote and his son-in-law's gained your majority at your first
election."

EGERTON.--"Call on John Avenel! Have you called?"

HARLEY (calmly).--"Yes. Poor old man, his mind has been affected ever
since Nora's death. But your name as the candidate for the borough at
that time,--the successful candidate for whose triumph the joy-bells
chimed with her funeral knell,--your name brings up her memory; and he
talks in a breath of her and of you. Come, let us walk together to his
house; it is close by the Park Lodge."

The drops stood on Audley's brow! He fixed his dark handsome eyes, in
mournful amaze, upon Harley's tranquil face.

"Harley, at last, then, you have forgotten the Past."

"No; but the Present is more imperious. All my efforts are needed to
requite your friendship. You stand against her brother,--yet her father
votes for you. And her mother says to her son, 'Let the old man alone.
Conscience is all that is well alive in him; and he thinks if he were to
vote against the Blues, he would sin against honour.' 'An electioneering
prejudice,' some sceptics would say. But you must be touched by this
trait of human nature,--in her father, too,--you, Audley Egerton, who
are the soul of honour. What ails you?"

EGERTON.--"Nothing; a spasm at the heart; my old complaint. Well, I will
call on the poor man later, but not now,--not with you. Nay, nay, I will
not,--I cannot. Harley, just as you joined us, I was talking to your
mother."

HARLEY.--"Ay, and what of?"

EGERTON.--"Yourself. I saw you from my windows walking with your
betrothed. Afterwards I observed her coming home alone; and by the
glimpse I caught of her gentle countenance, it seemed sad. Harley, do
you deceive us?"

HARLEY.--"Deceive! I! How?"

EGERTON.--"DO you really feel that your intended marriage will bestow on
you the happiness, which is my prayer, as it must be your mother's?"

HARLEY.--"Happiness, I hoped so. But perhaps--"

EGERTON.--"Perhaps what?"

HARLEY.--"Perhaps the marriage may not take place. Perhaps I have a
rival; not an open one,--a secret, stealthy wooer, in one, too, whom
I have loved, served, trusted. Question me not now. Such instances of
treachery make one learn more how to prize a friendship honest, devoted,
faithful as your own, Audley Egerton. But here comes your protege,
released awhile from his canvass, and your confidential adviser, Baron
Levy. He accompanied Randal through the town to-day. So anxious is he to
see that that young man does not play false, and regard his own interest
before yours! Would that surprise you?"

EGERTON.--"You are too severe upon Randal Leslie. He is ambitious,
worldly, has no surplus of affection at the command of his heart--"

HARLEY.--"Is it Randal Leslie you describe?"

EGERTON (with a languid smile).--"Yes, you see I do not flatter. But he
is born and reared a gentleman; as such he would scarcely do anything
mean. And, after all, it is with me that he must rise or fall. His
very intellect must tell him that. But again I ask, do not strive to
prepossess me against him. I am a man who could have loved a son. I have
none. Randal, such as he is, is a sort of son. He carries on my projects
and my interest in the world of men beyond the goal of the tomb."

Audley turned kindly to Randal.

"Well, Leslie, what report of the canvass?"

"Levy has the book, sir. I think we have gained ten fresh votes for you,
and perhaps seven for me."

"Let me rid you of your book, Baron Levy," said Harley. Just at this
time Riccabocca and Violante approached the house, both silent. The
Italian caught sight of Randal, and made him a sign to join them. The
young lover glanced fearfully towards Harley, and then with alacrity
bounded forward, and was soon at Violante's side. But scarce had Harley,
surprised by Leslie's sudden disappearance, remarked the cause, than
with equal abruptness he abandoned the whispered conference he had
commenced with Levy, and hastening to Randal, laid hand on the young
man's shoulder, exclaiming, "Ten thousand pardons to all three! But I
cannot allow this waste of time, Mr. Leslie. You have yet an hour before
it grows dark. There are three out-voters six miles off, influential
farmers, whom you must canvass in person with my father's steward.
Hasten to the stables; choose your own horse. To saddle, to saddle!
Baron Levy, go and order my Lord's steward, Mr. Smart, to join Mr.
Leslie at the stables; then come back to me,--quick. What! loitering
still, Mr. Leslie! You will make me throw up your whole cause in disgust
at your indolence and apathy."

Alarmed at this threat, Randal lifted his accusing eyes to heaven and
withdrew.

Meanwhile Audley had drawn close to Lady Lansmere, who was leaning, in
thought, over the balustrade of the terrace. "Do you note," said Audley,
whispering, "how Harley sprang forward when the fair Italian came in
sight? Trust me, I was right. I know little of the young lady, but I
have conversed with her. I have gazed on the changes in her face. If
Harley ever love again, and if ever love influence and exalt his mind,
wish with me that his choice may yet fall where I believe that his heart
inclines it."

LADY LANSMERE.--"Ah, that it were so! Helen, I own, is charming;
but--but--Violante is equal in birth! Are you not aware that she is
engaged to your young friend Mr. Leslie?"

AUDLEY.--"Randal told me so; but I cannot believe it. In fact, I have
taken occasion to sound that fair creature's inclinations, and if I know
aught of women, her heart is not with Randal. I cannot believe her to be
one whose affections are so weak as to be easily constrained; nor can
I suppose that her father could desire to enforce a marriage that is
almost a misalliance. Randal must deceive himself; and from something
Harley just let fall, in our painful but brief conversation, I suspect
that his engagement with Miss Digby is broken off. He promises to tell
me more later. Yes," continued Audley, mournfully, "observe Violante's
countenance, with its ever-varying play; listen to her voice, to which
feeling seems to give the expressive music, and tell me whether you
are not sometimes reminded of--of--In one word, there is one who,
even without rank or fortune, would be worthy to replace the image of
Leonora, and be to Harley--what Leonora could not; for sure I am that
Violante loves him."

Harley, meanwhile, had lingered with Riccabocca and Violante, speaking
but on indifferent subjects, obtaining short answers from the first,
and none from the last, when the sage drew him a little aside, and
whispered, "She has consented to sacrifice herself to my sense of
honour. But, O Harley! if she be unhappy, it will break my heart. Either
you must give me sufficient proof of Randal's unworthiness, to absolve
me from my promise, or I must again entreat, you to try and conciliate
the poor child in his favour. All you say has weight with her; she
respects you as--a second father."

Harley did not seem peculiarly flattered by that last assurance; but
he was relieved from an immediate answer by the appearance of a man who
came from the direction of the stables, and whose dress, covered with
dust, and travel-stained, seemed like that of a foreign courier. No
sooner did Harley catch sight of this person, than he sprang forward,
and accosted him briefly and rapidly.

"You have been quick; I did not expect you so soon. You discovered the
trace? You gave my letter--"

"And have brought back the answer, my Lord," replied the man, taking the
letter from a leathern pouch at his side. Harley hastily broke open
the seal, and glanced over the contents, which were comprised in a few
lines.

"Good. Say not whence you came. Do not wait here; return at once to
London."

Harley's face seemed so unusually cheerful as he rejoined the Italians,
that the duke exclaimed,--

"A despatch from Vienna? My recall!"

"From Vienna, my dear friend! Not possible yet. I cannot calculate
on hearing from the prince till a day or two before the close of this
election. But you wish me to speak to Violante. Join my mother yonder.
What can she be saying to Mr. Egerton? I will address a few words apart
to your fair daughter, that may at least prove the interest in her fate
taken by--her second father."

"Kindest of friends!" said the unsuspecting pupil of Machiavelli, and
he walked towards the terrace. Violante was about to follow. Harley
detained her.

"Do not go till you have thanked me; for you are not the noble Violante
for whom I take you, unless you acknowledge gratitude to any one who
delivers you from the presence of an admirer in Mr. Randal Leslie."

VIOLANTE.--"Ought I to hear this of one whom--whom--"

HARLEY.--"One whom your father obstinately persists in obtruding on your
repugnance? Yet, O dear child, you who, when almost an infant, ere yet
you knew what snares and pitfalls, for all who trust to another, lie
under the sward at our feet, even when decked the fairest with the
flowers of spring; you who put your small hands around my neck, and
murmured in your musical voice, 'Save us,--save my father,'--you at
least I will not forsake, in a peril worse than that which menaced you
then,--a peril which affrights you more than that which threatened
you in the snares of Peschiera. Randal Leslie may thrive in his meaner
objects of ambition; those I fling to him in scorn: but you!
the presuming varlet!" Harley paused a moment, half stifled with
indignation. He then resumed, calmly, "Trust to me, and fear not. I will
rescue this hand from the profanation of Randal Leslie's touch; and then
farewell, for life, to every soft emotion. Before me expands the
welcome solitude. The innocent saved, the honest righted, the perfidious
stricken by a just retribution,--and then--what then? Why, at least I
shall have studied Machiavelli with more effect than your wise father;
and I shall lay him aside, needing no philosophy to teach me never again
to be deceived." His brow darkened; he turned abruptly away, leaving
Violante lost in amaze, fear, and a delight, vague, yet more vividly
felt than all.




CHAPTER XXI.

That night, after the labours of the day, Randal had gained the
sanctuary of his own room, and seated himself at his table, to prepare
the heads of the critical speech he would have now very soon to deliver
on the day of nomination,--critical speech when, in the presence of foes
and friends, reporters from London, and amidst all the jarring interests
that he sought to weave into the sole self-interest of Randal Leslie,
he would be called upon to make the formal exposition of his political
opinions. Randal Leslie, indeed, was not one of those speakers whom
either modesty, fastidiousness, or conscientious desire of truth
predisposes towards the labour of written composition. He had too much
cleverness to be in want of fluent period or ready commonplace,--the
ordinary materials of oratorical impromptu; too little taste for the
Beautiful to study what graces of diction will best adorn a noble
sentiment; too obtuse a conscience to care if the popular argument
were purified from the dross which the careless flow of a speech wholly
extemporaneous rarely fails to leave around it. But this was no ordinary
occasion. Elaborate study here was requisite, not for the orator,
but the hypocrite. Hard task, to please the Blues, and not offend the
Yellows; appear to side with Audley Egerton, yet insinuate sympathy with
Dick Avenel; confront, with polite smile, the younger opponent whose
words had lodged arrows in his vanity, which rankled the more gallingly
because they had raised the skin of his conscience.

He had dipped his pen into the ink and smoothed the paper before him,
when a knock was heard at the door.

"Come in," said he, impatiently. Levy entered saunteringly.

"I am come to talk over matters with you, mon cher," said the baron,
throwing himself on the sofa. "And, first, I wish you joy of your
prospects of success."

Randal postponed his meditated composition with a quick sigh, drew his
chair towards the sofa, and lowered his voice into a whisper. "You think
with me, that the chance of my success--is good?"

"Chance! Why, it is a rubber of whist, in which your partner gives you
all the winnings, and in which the adversary is almost sure to revoke.
Either Avenel or his nephew, it is true, must come in; but not both. Two
parvenus aspiring to make a family seat of an earl's borough! Bah! too
absurd!"

"I hear from Riccabocca (or rather the Duke di Serrano) that this same
young Fairfield is greatly indebted to the kindness of Lord L'Estrange.
Very odd that he should stand against the Lansmere interest."

"Ambition, mon cher. You yourself are under some obligations to Mr.
Egerton. Yet, in reality, he has more to apprehend from you than from
Mr. Fairfield."

"I disown obligations to Mr. Egerton. And if the electors prefer me to
him (whom, by-the-by, they once burned in effigy), it is no fault
of mine: the fault, if any, will rest with his own dearest friend,
L'Estrange. I do not understand how a man of such clear sense as
L'Estrange undoubtedly possesses, should be risking Egerton's election
in his zeal for mine. Nor do his formal courtesies to myself deceive me.
He has even implied that he suspects me of connivance with Peschiera's
schemes on Violante. But those suspicions he cannot support. For of
course, Levy, you would not betray me--"

"I! What possible interest could I serve in that?"

"None that I can discover, certainly," said Randal, relaxing into a
smile. "And when I get into parliament, aided by the social position
which my marriage will give me, I shall have so many ways to serve you.
No, it is certainly your interest not to betray me; and I shall count on
you as a witness, if a witness can be required."

"Count on me, certainly, my dear fellow," said the baron. "And I suppose
there will be no witness the other way. Done for eternally is my poor
dear friend Peschiera, whose cigars, by-the-by, were matchless;--I
wonder if there will be any for sale. And if he were not so done for, it
is not you, it is L'Estrange, that he would be tempted to do for!"

"We may blot Peschiera out of the map of the future," rejoined Randal.
"Men from whom henceforth we have nothing to hope or to fear are to us
as the races before the deluge."

"Fine remark," quoth the baron, admiringly. "Peschiera, though not
without brains, was a complete failure. And when the failure of one I
have tried to serve is complete, the rule I have adopted through life is
to give him up altogether."

"Of course," said Randal.

"Of course," echoed the baron. "On the other hand, you know that I like
pushing forward young men of mark and promise. You really are amazingly
clever; but how comes it you don't speak better? Do you know, I doubt
whether you will do in the House of Commons all that I expected from
your address and readiness in private life."

"Because I cannot talk trash vulgar enough for a mob? Pooh! I shall
succeed wherever knowledge is really power. Besides, you must allow for
my infernal position. You know, after all, that Avenel, if he can only
return himself or his nephew, still holds in his hands the choice of
the candidate upon our side. I cannot attack him; I cannot attack his
insolent nephew--"

"Insolent!--not that, but bitterly eloquent. He hits you hard. You are
no match for him, Randal, before a popular audience; though, en petit
comite, the devil himself were hardly a match for you. But now to a
somewhat more serious point. Your election you will win, your bride is
promised to you; but the old Leslie lands, in the present possession of
Squire Thornhill, you have not gained,--and your chance of gaining them
is in great jeopardy. I did not like to tell you this morning,--it would
have spoiled your temper for canvassing; but I have received a letter
from Thornhill himself. He has had an offer for the property, which is
only L1000 short of what he asks. A city alderman, called Jobson, is the
bidder; a man, it seems, of large means and few words. The alderman has
fixed the date on which he must have a definite answer; and that date
falls on the --th, two days after that fixed for the poll at Lansmere.
The brute declares he will close with another investment, if Thornhill
does not then come in to his terms. Now, as Thornhill will accept these
terms unless I can positively promise him better, and as those funds on
which you calculated (had the marriage of Peschiera with Violante, and
Frank Hazeldean with Madame di Negra, taken place) fail you, I see no
hope for your being in time with the money,--and the old lands of the
Leslies must yield their rents to a Jobson."

"I care for nothing on earth like those old lands of my forefathers,"
said Randal, with unusual vehemence; "I reverence so little amongst the
living, and I do reverence the dead. And my marriage will take place so
soon; and the dower would so amply cover the paltry advance required."

"Yes; but the mere prospect of a marriage to the daughter of a man whose
lands are still sequestered would be no security to a money-lender."

"Surely," said Randal, "you, who once offered to assist me when my
fortunes were more precarious, might now accommodate me with this loan,
as a friend, and keep the title-deeds of the estate as--"

"As a money-lender," added the baron, laughing pleasantly. "No, mon
cher, I will still lend you half the sum required in advance, but
the other half is more than I can afford as friend, or hazard as
money-lender; and it would damage my character,--be out of all
rule,--if, the estates falling by your default of payment into my own
hands, I should appear to be the real purchaser of the property of my
own distressed client. But, now I think of it, did not Squire Hazeldean
promise you his assistance in this matter?"

"He did so," answered Randal, "as soon as the marriage between Frank
and Madame di Negra was off his mind. I meant to cross over to Hazeldean
immediately after the election. How can I leave the place till then?"

"If you do, your election is lost. But why not write to the squire?"

"It is against my maxim to write where I can speak. However, there is
no option; I will write at once. Meanwhile, communicate with Thornhill;
keep up his hopes; and be sure, at least, that he does not close with
this greedy alderman before the day fixed for decision."

"I have done all that already, and my letter is gone. Now, do your part:
and if you write as cleverly as you talk, you would coax the money
out from a stonier heart than poor Mr. Hazeldean's. I leave you now;
good-night."

Levy took up his candlestick, nodded, yawned, and went. Randal still
suspended the completion of his speech, and indited the following
epistle:--

   MY DEAR MR. HAZELDEAN,--I wrote to you a few hasty lines on leaving
   town, to inform you that the match you so dreaded was broken off,
   and proposing to defer particulars till I could visit your kind and
   hospitable roof, which I trusted to do for a few hours during my
   stay at Lansmere, since it is not a day's journey hence to
   Hazeldean. But I did not calculate on finding so sharp a contest.
   In no election throughout the kingdom do I believe that a more
   notable triumph, or a more stunning defeat, for the great landed
   interest can occur. For in this town--so dependent on agriculture--
   we are opposed by a low and sordid manufacturer, of the most
   revolutionary notions, who has, moreover, the audacity to force his
   own nephew--that very boy whom I chastised for impertinence on your
   village green, son of a common carpenter--actually the audacity, I
   say, to attempt to force this peasant of a nephew, as well as
   himself, into the representation of Lansmere, against the earl's
   interest, against your distinguished brother,--of myself I say
   nothing. You should hear the language in which these two men
   indulge against all your family! If we are beaten by such persons
   in a borough supposed to be so loyal as Lansmere, every one with a
   stake in the country may tremble at such a prognostic of the ruin
   that must await not only our old English Constitution, but the
   existence of property itself. I need not say that on such an
   occasion I cannot spare myself. Mr. Egerton is ill too. All the
   fatigue of the canvass devolves on me. I feel, my dear and revered
   friend, that I am a genuine Hazeldean, fighting your battle; and
   that thought carries me through all. I cannot, therefore, come to
   you till the election is over; and meanwhile you, and my dear Mrs.
   Hazeldean, must be anxious to know more about the affair that so
   preyed on both your hearts than I have yet informed you, or can well
   trust to a letter. Be assured, however, that the worst is over; the
   lady has gone abroad. I earnestly entreated Frank (who showed me
   Mrs. Hazeldean's most pathetic letter to him) to hasten at once to
   the Hall and relieve your minds. Unfortunately he would not be
   ruled by me, but talked of going abroad too--not, I trust (nay, I
   feel assured), in pursuit of Madame di Negra; but still--In short, I
   should be so glad to see you, and talk over the whole. Could you
   not come hither--I pray do. And now, at the risk of your thinking
   that in this I am only consulting my own interest (but no--your
   noble English heart will never so misiudge me!), I will add with
   homely frankness, that if you could accommodate me immediately with
   the loan you not long since so generously offered, you would save
   those lands once in my family from passing away from us forever. A
   city alderman--one Jobson--is meanly taking advantage of Thornhill's
   necessities, and driving a hard bargain for those lands. He has
   fixed the --th inst. for Thornhill's answer, and Levy (who is here
   assisting Mr. Egerton's election) informs me that Thornhill will
   accept his offer, unless I am provided with L10,000 beforehand; the
   other L10,000, to complete the advance required, Levy will lend me.
   Do not be surprised at the usurer's liberality; he knows that I am
   about shortly to marry a very great heiress (you will be pleased
   when you learn whom, and will then be able to account for my
   indifference to Miss Sticktorights), and her dower will amply serve
   to repay his loan and your own, if I may trust to your generous
   affection for the grandson of a Hazeldean! I have the less scruple
   in this appeal to you, for I know bow it would grieve you that a
   Jobson, who perhaps never knew a grandmother, should foist your own
   kinsman from the lands of his fathers. Of one thing I am
   convinced,--we squires and sons of squires must make common cause
   against those great moneyed capitalists, or they will buy us all out
   in a few generations. The old race of country gentlemen is already
   much diminished by the grasping cupidity of such leviathans; and if
   the race be once extinct, what will become of the boast and strength
   of England?

   Yours, my dear Mr. Hazeldean, with most affectionate and grateful
   respect,

               RANDAL LESLIE.




CHAPTER XXII.

Nothing to Leonard could as yet be more distasteful or oppressive than
his share in this memorable election. In the first place, it chafed
the secret sores of his heart to be compelled to resume the name of
Fairfeld, which was a tacit disavowal of his birth. It had been such
delight to him that the same letters which formed the name of Nora
should weave also that name of Oran, to which he had given distinction,
which he had associated with all his nobler toils, and all his hopes of
enduring fame,--a mystic link between his own career and his mother's
obscurer genius. It seemed to him as if it were rendering to her
the honours accorded to himself,--subtle and delicate fancy of the
affections, of which only poets would be capable, but which others
than poets may perhaps comprehend! That earlier name of Fairfield was
connected in his memory with all the ruder employments, the meaner
trials of his boyhood; the name of Oran, with poetry and fame. It was
his title in the ideal world, amongst all fair shapes and spirits. In
receiving the old appellation, the practical world, with its bitterness
and strife, returned to him as at the utterance of a spell. But in
coming to Lansmere he had no choice. To say nothing of Dick, and Dick's
parents with whom his secret would not be safe, Randal Leslie knew that
he had gone by the name of Fairfield,--knew his supposed parentage, and
would be sure to proclaim them. How account for the latter name without
setting curiosity to decipher the anagram it involved, and perhaps
guiding suspicion to his birth from Nora, to the injury of her memory,
yet preserved from stain?

His feelings as connected with Nora--sharpened and deepened as they all
had been by his discovery of her painful narrative-were embittered still
more by coming in contact with her parents. Old John was in the same
helpless state of mind and body as before,--neither worse nor better;
but waking up at intervals with vivid gleams of interest in the election
at the wave of a blue banner, at the cry of "Blue forever!" It was the
old broken-clown charger, who, dozing in the meadows, starts at the roll
of the drum. No persuasions Dick could employ would induce his father to
promise to vote even one Yellow. You might as well have expected the
old Roman, with his monomaniac cry against Carthage, to have voted for
choosing Carthaginians for consuls. But poor John, nevertheless, was
not only very civil, but very humble to Dick,--"very happy to oblige the
gentleman."

"Your own son!" bawled Dick; "and here is your own grandson."

"Very happy to serve you both; but you see you are the wrong colour."

Then as he gazed at Leonard, the old man approached him with trembling
knees, stroked his hair, looked into his face, piteously. "Be thee my
grandson?" he faltered. "Wife, wife, Nora had no son, had she? My memory
begins to fail me, sir; pray excuse it; but you have a look about the
eyes that--" Old John began to weep, and his wife led him away.

"Don't come again," she said to Leonard, harshly, when she returned.
"He'll not sleep all night now." And then, observing that the tears
stood in Leonard's eyes, she added, in softened tones, "I am glad to see
you well and thriving, and to hear that you have been of great service
to my son Richard, who is a credit and an honour to the family, though
poor John cannot vote for him or for you against his conscience; and he
should not be asked," she added, firing up; "and it is a sin to ask it,
and he so old, and no one to defend him but me. But defend him I will
while I have life!"

The poet recognized woman's brave, loving, wife-like heart here, and
would have embraced the stern grandmother, if she had not drawn back
from him; and, as she turned towards the room to which she had led her
husband, she said over her shoulder,--

"I'm not so unkind as I seem, boy; but it is better for you, and for
all, that you should not come to this house again,--better that you had
not come into the town."

"Fie, Mother!" said Dick, seeing that Leonard, bending his head,
silently walked from the room. "You should be prouder of your grandson
than you are of me."

"Prouder of him who may shame us all yet?"

"What do you mean?"

But Mrs. Avenel shook her head and vanished.

"Never mind her, poor old soul," said Dick, as he joined Leonard at the
threshold; "she always had her tempers. And since there is no vote to be
got in this house, and one can't set a caucus on one's own father,--at
least in this extraordinary rotten and prejudiced old country, which is
quite in its dotage,--we'll not come here to be snubbed any more. Bless
their old hearts, nevertheless!"

Leonard's acute sensibility in all that concerned his birth, deeply
wounded by Mrs. Avenel's allusions, which he comprehended better than
his uncle did, was also kept on the edge by the suspense to which he
was condemned by Harley's continued silence as to the papers confided
to that nobleman. It seemed to Leonard almost unaccountable that Harley
should have read those papers, be in the same town with himself, and
yet volunteer no communication. At length he wrote a few lines to Lord
L'Estrange, bringing the matter that concerned him so deeply before
Harley's recollection, and suggesting his own earnest interest in any
information that could supply the gaps and omissions of the desultory
fragments. Harley, in replying to this note, said, with apparent reason,
"that it would require a long personal interview to discuss the subject
referred to, and that such an interview, in the thick of the contest
between himself and a candidate opposed to the Lansmere party, would
be sure to get wind, be ascribed to political intrigues, be impossible
otherwise to explain, and embarrass all the interests confided to their
respective charge. That for the rest, he had not been unmindful of
Leonard's anxiety, which must now mainly be to see justice done to the
dead parent, and learn the name, station, and character of the parent
yet surviving. And in this Harley trusted to assist him as soon as the
close of the poll would present a suitable occasion." The letter was
unlike Harley's former cordial tone: it was hard and dry. Leonard
respected L'Estrange too much to own to himself that it was unfeeling.
With all his rich generosity of nature, he sought excuses for what he
declined to blame. Perhaps something in Helen's manner or words had led
Harley to suspect that she still cherished too tender an interest in the
companion of her childhood; perhaps under this coldness of expression
there lurked the burning anguish of jealousy. And, oh, Leonard so well
understood, and could so nobly compassionate even in his prosperous
rival, that torture of the most agonizing of human passions, in which
all our reasonings follow the distorted writhings of our pain.

And Leonard himself, amidst his other causes of disquiet, was at once
so gnawed and so humbled by his own jealousy. Helen, he knew, was still
under the same roof as Harley. They, the betrothed, could see each other
daily, hourly. He would soon hear of their marriage. She would be borne
afar from the very sphere of his existence,--carried into a loftier
region, accessible only to his dreams. And yet to be jealous of one to
whom both Helen and himself were under such obligations debased him in
his own esteem,--jealousy here was so like ingratitude. But for Harley,
what could have become of Helen, left to his boyish charge,--he who had
himself been compelled, in despair, to think of sending her from his
side, to be reared into smileless youth in his mother's humble cottage,
while he faced famine alone, gazing on the terrible river, from the
bridge by which he had once begged for very alms,--begged of that Audley
Egerton to whom he was now opposed as an equal; or flying from the
fiend that glared at him under the lids of the haunting Chatterton? No,
jealousy here was more than agony,--it was degradation, it was crime!
But, all! if Helen were happy in these splendid nuptials! Was he sure
even of that consolation? Bitter was the thought either way,--that she
should wholly forget him, in happiness from which he stood excluded as a
thing of sin; or sinfully herself remember, and be wretched!

With that healthful strength of will which is more often proportioned to
the susceptibility of feeling than the world suppose, the young man at
last wrenched himself for awhile from the iron that had entered into his
soul, and forced his thoughts to seek relief in the very objects from
which they otherwise would have the most loathingly recoiled. He aroused
his imagination to befriend his reason; he strove to divine some motive
not explained by Harley, not to be referred to the mere defeat, by
counter-scheme, of the scheming Randal, nor even to be solved by
any service to Audley Egerton, which Harley might evolve from the
complicated meshes of the election,--some motive that could more
interest his own heart in the contest, and connect itself with Harley's
promised aid in clearing up the mystery of his parentage. Nora's memoir
had clearly hinted that his father was of rank and station far beyond
her own. She had thrown the glow of her glorious fancies over the
ambition and the destined career of the lover in whom she had merged her
ambition as poetess, and her career as woman. Possibly the father might
be more disposed to own and to welcome the son, if the son could achieve
an opening, and give promise of worth, in that grand world of public
life in which alone reputation takes precedence of rank. Possibly, too,
if the son thus succeeded, and became one whom a proud father could with
pride acknowledge, possibly he might not only secure a father's welcome,
but vindicate a mother's name. This marriage, which Nora darkly hinted
she had been led to believe was fraudulent, might, after all, have
been legal,--the ceremony concealed, even till now, by worldly shame at
disparity of rank. But if the son could make good his own footing--there
where rank itself owned its chiefs in talent--that shame might vanish.
These suppositions were not improbable; nor were they uncongenial to
Leonard's experience of Harley's delicate benignity of purpose. Here,
too, the image of Helen allied itself with those of his parents, to
support his courage and influence his new ambition. True, that she was
lost to him forever. No worldly success, no political honours, could now
restore her to his side. But she might hear him named with respect in
those circles in which alone she would hereafter move, and in which
parliamentary reputation ranks higher than literary fame. And perhaps in
future years, when love, retaining its tenderness, was purified from its
passion, they might thus meet as friends. He might without a pang take
her children on his knees, and say, perhaps in their old age, when he
had climbed to a social equality even with her high-born lord, "It
was the hope to regain the privilege bestowed on our childhood, that
strengthened me to seek distinction when you and happiness forsook my
youth." Thus regarded, the election, which had before seemed to him so
poor and vulgar an exhibition of vehement passions for petty objects,
with its trumpery of banners and its discord of trumpets, suddenly grew
into vivid interest, and assumed dignity and importance. It is ever thus
with all mortal strife. In proportion as it possesses, or is void of,
the diviner something that quickens the pulse of the heart, and elevates
the wing of the imagination, it presents a mockery to the philosopher,
or an inspiration to the bard. Feel that something, and no contest is
mean! Feel it not, and, like Byron, you may class with the slaughter of
Cannae that field which, at Waterloo, restored the landmarks of nations;
or may jeer with Juvenal at the dust of Hannibal, because he sought to
deliver Carthage from ruin, and free a world from Rome.




CHAPTER XXIII.

Once then, grappling manfully with the task he had undertaken, and
constraining himself to look on what Riccabocca would have called "the
southern side of things," whatever there was really great in principle
or honourable to human nature, deep below the sordid details and pitiful
interests apparent on the face of the agitated current, came clear to
his vision. The ardour of those around him began to be contagious:
the generous devotion to some cause apart from self, which pervades an
election, and to which the poorest voter will often render sacrifices
that may be called sublime; the warm personal affection which community
of zeal creates for the defender of beloved opinions,--all concurred to
dispel that indifference to party politics, and counteract that disgust
of their baser leaven, which the young poet had first conceived. He
even began to look with complacency, for itself, on a career of toil and
honours strange to his habitual labours and intellectual ambition. He
threw the poetry of idea within him (as poets ever do) into the prose of
action to which he was hurried forward. He no longer opposed Dick Avenel
when that gentleman represented how detrimental it would be to his
business at Screwstown if he devoted to his country the time and the
acumen required by his mill and its steamengine; and how desirable it
would be, on all accounts, that Leonard Fairfield should become the
parliamentary representative of the Avenels. "If, therefore," said
Dick, "two of us cannot come in, and one must retire, leave it to me
to arrange with the Committee that you shall be the one to persist. Oh,
never fear but what all scruples of honour shall be satisfied. I
would not for the sake of the Avenels have a word said against their
representative."

"But," answered Leonard, "if I grant this, I fear that you have some
intention of suffering the votes that your resignation would release to
favour Leslie at the expense of Egerton."

"What the deuce is Egerton to you?"

"Nothing, except through my gratitude to his friend Lord L'Estrange."

"Pooh! I will tell you a secret. Levy informs me privately that
L'Estrange will be well satisfied if the choice of Lansmere fall upon
Leslie instead of Egerton; and I think I convinced my Lord--for I saw
him in London--that Egerton would have no chance, though Leslie might."

"I must think that Lord L'Estrange would resist to the utmost any
attempt to prefer Leslie--whom he despises--to Egerton, whom he honours.
And, so thinking, I too would resist it, as you may judge by the
speeches which have so provoked your displeasure."

"Let us cut short a yarn of talk which, when it comes to likings and
dislikings, might last to almighty crack: I'll ask you to do nothing
that Lord L'Estrange does not sanction. Will that satisfy you?"

"Certainly, provided I am assured of the sanction."

And now, the important day preceding the poll, the day in which the
candidates were to be formally nominated, and meet each other in all the
ceremony of declared rivalship, dawned at last. The town-hall was the
place selected for the occasion; and before sunrise, all the streets
were resonant with music, and gay with banners.

Audley Egerton felt that he could not--without incurring some
just sarcasm on his dread to face the constituency he had formerly
represented, and by the malcontents of which he had been burned in
effigy--absent himself from the townhall, as he had done from balcony
and hostel. Painful as it was to confront Nora's brother, and wrestle
in public against all the secret memories that knit the strife of the
present contest with the anguish that recalled the first,--still the
thing must be done; and it was the English habit of his life to face
with courage whatever he had to do.




CHAPTER XXIV.

The chiefs of the Blue party went in state from Lansmere Park; the
two candidates in open carriages, each attended with his proposer and
seconder. Other carriages were devoted to Harley and Levy, and the
principal members of the Committee. Riccabocca was seized with a fit of
melancholy or cynicism, and declined to join the procession. But just
before they started, as all were assembling without the front door, the
postman arrived with his welcome bag. There were letters for Harley,
some for Levy, many for Egerton, one for Randal Leslie.

Levy, soon hurrying over his own correspondence, looked, in the familiar
freedom wherewith he usually treated his particular friends, over
Randal's shoulder.

"From the squire?" said he. "Ah, he has written at last! What made him
delay so long? Hope he relieves your mind?"

"Yes," cried Randal, giving way to a joy that rarely lighted up
his close and secret countenance,--"yes, he does not write from
Hazeldean,--not there when my letter arrived, in London, could not rest
at the Hall,--the place reminded him too much of Frank;--went again to
town, on the receipt of my first letter concerning the rupture of the
marriage, to see after his son, and take up some money to pay off his
post-obit. Read what he says:--

   "'So, while I was about a mortgage--never did I guess that I should
   be the man to encumber the Hazeldean estate--I thought I might as
   well add L20,000 as L10,000 to the total. Why should you be
   indebted at all to that Baron Levy? Don't have dealings with money-
   lenders. Your grandmother was a Hazeldean; and from a Hazeldean you
   shall have the whole sum required in advance for those Rood lands,--
   good light soil some of them. As to repayment, we'll talk of that
   later. If Frank and I come together again, as we did of old, why,
   my estates will be his some day, and he'll not grudge the mortgage,
   so fond as he always was of you; and if we don't come together, what
   do I care for hundreds or thousands, either more or less? So I
   shall be down at Lansmere the day after to-morrow, just in the thick
   of your polling. Beat the manufacturer, my boy, and stick up for
   the land. Tell Levy to have all ready. I shall bring the money
   down in good bank-notes, and a brace of pistols in my coat pocket to
   take care of them in ease robbers get scent of the notes and attack
   me on the road, as they did my grandfather sixty years ago, come
   next Michaelmas. A Lansmere election puts one in mind of pistols.
   I once fought a duel with an officer in his Majesty's service, R.N.,
   and had a ball lodged in my right shoulder, on account of an
   election at Lansmere; but I have forgiven Audley his share in that
   transaction. Remember me to him kindly. Don't get into a duel
   yourself; but I suppose manufacturers don't fight,--not that I blame
   them for that--far from it.'"

The letter then ran on to express surprise, and hazard conjecture, as to
the wealthy marriage which Randal had announced as a pleasing surprise
to the squire.

"Well," said Levy, returning the letter, "you must have written as
cleverly as you talk, or the squire is a booby indeed."

Randal smiled, pocketed his letter, and responding to the impatient call
of his proposer, sprang lightly into the carriage.

Harley, too, seemed pleased with the letters delivered to himself, and
now joined Levy, as the candidates drove slowly off.

"Has not Mr. Leslie received from the squire an answer to that letter of
which you informed me?"

"Yes, my Lord, the squire will be here to-morrow."

"To-morrow? Thank you for apprising me; his rooms shall be prepared."

"I suppose he will only stay to see Leslie and myself, and pay the
money."

"Aha! Pay the money. Is it so, then?"

"Twice the sum, and, it seems, as a gift, which Leslie only asked as a
loan. Really, my Lord, Mr. Leslie is a very clever man; and though I am
at your commands, I should not like to injure him. With such matrimonial
prospects, he could be a very powerful enemy; and if he succeed in
parliament, still more so."

"Baron, these gentlemen are waiting for you. I will follow by myself."




CHAPTER XXV.

In the centre of the raised platform in the town-hall sat the mayor.
On either hand of that dignitary now appeared the candidates of the
respective parties,--to his right, Audley Egerton and Leslie; to his
left, Dick Avenel and Leonard.

The place was as full as it could hold. Rows of grimy faces peeped in,
even from the upper windows outside the building. The contest was one
that created intense interest, not only from public principles, but
local passions. Dick Avenel, the son of a small tradesman, standing
against the Right Honourable Audley Egerton, the choice of the powerful
Lansmere aristocratic party,--standing, too, with his nephew by his
side; taking, as he himself was wont to say, "the tarnation Blue Bull
by both its oligarchical horns!"--there was a pluck and gallantry in the
very impudence of the attempt to convert the important borough--for one
member of which a great earl had hitherto striven, "with labour dire and
weary woe" into two family seats for the House of Avenel and the triumph
of the Capelocracy.

This alone would have excited all the spare passions of a country
borough; but, besides this, there was the curiosity that attached to
the long-deferred public appearance of a candidate so renowned as the
ex-minister,--a man whose career had commenced with his success at
Lansmere, and who now, amidst the popular tempest that scattered his
colleagues, sought to refit his vessel in the same harbour from which
it had first put forth. New generations had grown up since the name of
Audley Egerton had first fluttered the dovecotes in that Corioli. The
questions that had then seemed so important were, for the most part,
settled and at rest. But those present who remembered Egerton in the
former day, were struck to see how the same characteristics of bearing
and aspect which had distinguished his early youth revived their
interest in the mature and celebrated man. As he stood up for a few
moments, before he took his seat beside the mayor, glancing over the
assembly, with its uproar of cheers and hisses, there was the
same stately erectness of form and steadfastness of look, the same
indefinable and mysterious dignity of externals, that imposed respect,
confirmed esteem, or stilled dislike. The hisses involuntarily ceased.

The preliminary proceedings over, the proposers and seconders commenced
their office.

Audley was proposed, of course, by the crack man of the party,--a
gentleman who lived on his means in a white house in the High Street,
had received a University education, and was a cadet of a "County
Family." This gentleman spoke much about the Constitution, something
about Greece and Rome; compared Egerton with William Pitt, also with
Aristides; and sat down, after an oration esteemed classical by the
few, and pronounced prosy by the many. Audley's seconder, a burly and
important maltster, struck a bolder key. He dwelt largely upon the
necessity of being represented by gentlemen of wealth and rank, and
not by "upstarts and adventurers." (Cheers and groans.) "Looking at the
candidates on the other side, it was an insult to the respectability
of Lansmere to suppose its constituents could elect a man who had no
pretensions whatever to their notice, except that he had once been a
little boy in the town, in which his father kept a shop,--and a very
noisy, turbulent, dirty little boy he was!" Dick smoothed his spotless
shirt-front, and looked daggers, while the Blues laughed heartily, and
the Yellows cried "Shame!" "As for the other candidate on the same side,
he [the maltster] had nothing to say against him.--He was, no doubt,
seduced into presumption by his uncle and his own inexperience. It was
said that that candidate, Mr. Fairfield, was an author and a poet; if
so, he was unknown to fame, for no bookseller in the town had ever even
heard of Mr. Fairfield's works. Then it was replied Mr. Fairfield had
written under another name. What would that prove? Either that he was
ashamed of his name, or that the works did him no credit. For his
part, he [the maltster] was an Englishman; he did not like anonymous
scribblers; there was something not right in whatever was concealed. A
man should never be afraid to put his name to what he wrote. But grant
that Mr. Fairfield was a great author and a great poet, what the borough
of Lansinere wanted was, not a member who would pass his time in
writing sonnets to Peggy or Moggy, but a practical man of business,--a
statesman,--such a man as Mr. Audley Egerton, a gentleman of ancient
birth, high standing, and princely fortune. The member for such a place
as Lansmere should have a proper degree of wealth." ("Hear, hear!" from
the Hundred and Fifty Hesitators, who all stood in a row at the
bottom of the hall; and "Gammon!" "Stuff!" from some revolutionary but
incorruptible Yellows.) Still the allusion to Egerton's private fortune
had considerable effect with the bulk of the audience, and the maltster
was much cheered on concluding. Mr. Avenel's proposer and seconder--the
one a large grocer, the other the proprietor of a new shop for ticketed
prints, shawls, blankets, and counterpanes,--a man, who, as he boasted,
dealt with the People for ready money, and no mistake, at least none
that he ever rectified--next followed. Both said much the same
thing. Mr. Avenel had made his fortune by honest industry, was a
fellow-townsman, must know the interests of the town better than
strangers, upright public principles, never fawn on governments, would
see that the people had their rights, and cut down army, navy, and all
other jobs of a corrupt aristocracy, etc. Randal Leslie's proposer, a
captain on half-pay, undertook a long defence of army and navy, from the
unpatriotic aspersions of the preceding speakers, which defence diverted
him from the due praise of Randal, until cries of "Cut it short,"
recalled him to that subject; and then the topics he selected for
eulogium were "amiability of character, so conspicuous in the urbane
manners of his young friend;" "coincidence in the opinions of that
illustrious statesman with whom he was conjoined;" "early tuition in the
best principles; only fault, youth,--and that was a fault which would
diminish every day." Randal's seconder was a bluff yeoman, an outvoter
of weight with the agricultural electors. He was too straightforward
by half,--adverted to Audley Egerton's early desertion of questions
espoused by landed interest, hoped he had had enough of the large towns;
and he (the yeoman) was ready to forgive and forget, but trusted that
there would be no chance of burning their member again in effigy. As to
the young gentleman, whose nomination he had the pleasure to second,
did not know much about him; but the Leslies were an old family in the
neighbouring county, and Mr. Leslie said he was nearly related to Squire
Hazeldean,--as good a man as ever stood upon shoe leather. He (the
yeoman) liked a good breed in sheep and bullocks; and a good breed
in men he supposed was the same thing. He (the yeoman) was not for
abuses,--he was for King and Constitution. He should have no objection,
for instance, to have tithes lowered, and the malt-tax repealed,--not
the least objection. Mr. Leslie seemed to him a likely young chap, and
uncommon well-spoken; and, on the whole, for aught he (the yeoman)
could see, would do quite as well in parliament as nine-tenths of the
gentlemen sent there. The yeoman sat down, little cheered by the Blues,
much by the Yellows, and with a dim consciousness that somehow or other
he had rather damaged than not the cause of the party he had been chosen
to advocate. Leonard was not particularly fortunate in his proposer,
a youngish gentleman, who, having tried various callings, with signal
unsuccess, had come into a small independence, and set up for a literary
character. This gentleman undertook the defence of poets, as the
half-pay captain had undertaken that of the army and navy; and after
a dozen sentences spoken through the nose, about the "moonlight of
existence," and "the oasis in the desert," suddenly broke down, to the
satisfaction of his impatient listeners. This failure was, however,
redeemed by Leonard's seconder, a master tailor, a practised speaker and
an earnest, thinking man, sincerely liking and warmly admiring Leonard
Fairfield. His opinions were delivered with brief simplicity, and
accompanied by expressions of trust in Leonard's talents and honesty,
that were effective, because expressed with feeling.

These preparatory orations over, a dead silence succeeded, and Audley
Egerton arose.

At the first few sentences, all felt they were in the presence of one
accustomed to command attention, and to give to opinions the weight
of recognized authority. The slowness of the measured accents, the
composure of the manly aspect, the decorum of the simple gestures,--all
bespoke and all became the minister of a great empire, who had less
agitated assemblies by impassioned eloquence, than compelled their
silent respect to the views of sagacity and experience. But what might
have been formal and didactic in another was relieved in Egerton by
that air, tone, bearing of gentleman, which have a charm for the most
plebeian audience. He had eminently these attributes in private life;
but they became far more conspicuous whenever he had to appear in
public. The "senatorius decor" seemed a phrase coined for him.

Audley commenced with notice of his adversaries in that language of
high courtesy which is so becoming to superior station, and which
augurs better for victory than the most pointed diatribes of hostile
declamation. Inclining his head towards Avenel, he expressed regret that
he should be opposed by a gentleman whose birth naturally endeared
him to the town, of which he was a distinguished native, and whose
honourable ambition was in itself a proof of the admirable nature
of that Constitution, which admitted the lowliest to rise to its
distinctions, while it compelled the loftiest to labour and compete for
those honours which were the most coveted, because they were derived
from the trust of their countrymen, and dignified by the duties which
the sense of responsibility entailed. He paid a passing but generous
compliment to the reputed abilities of Leonard Fairfield; and alluding
with appropriate grace to the interest he had ever taken in the success
of youth striving for place in the van of the new generation that
marched on to replace the old, he implied that he did not consider
Leonard as opposed to himself, but rather as an emulous competitor for a
worthy prize with his "own young and valued friend, Mr. Randal Leslie."
"They are happy at their years!" said the statesman, with a certain
pathos. "In the future they see nothing to fear, in the past they have
nothing to defend. It is not so with me." And then, passing on to the
vague insinuations or bolder charges against himself and his policy
proffered by the preceding speakers, Audley gathered himself up, and
paused; for his eye here rested on the Reporters seated round the
table just below him; and he recognized faces not unfamiliar to his
recollection when metropolitan assemblies had hung on the words which
fell from lips then privileged to advise a king. And involuntarily it
occurred to the ex-minister to escape altogether from this contracted
audience,--this election, with all its associations of pain,--and
address himself wholly to that vast and invisible Public, to which those
Reporters would transmit his ideas. At this thought his whole manner
gradually changed. His eye became fixed on the farthest verge of the
crowd; his tones grew more solemn in their deep and sonorous swell. He
began to review and to vindicate his whole political life. He spoke of
the measures he had aided to pass, of his part in the laws which now
ruled the land. He touched lightly, but with pride, on the services
he had rendered to the opinions he had represented. He alluded to his
neglect of his own private fortunes; but in what detail, however minute,
in the public business committed to his charge, could even an enemy
accuse him of neglect? The allusion was no doubt intended to prepare the
public for the news that the wealth of Audley Egerton was gone. Finally,
he came to the questions that then agitated the day; and made a general
but masterly exposition of the policy which, under the changes he
foresaw, he should recommend his party to adopt.

Spoken to the motley assembly in that town-hall, Audley's speech
extended to a circle of interest too wide for their sympathy. But that
assembly he heeded not,--he forgot it. The reporters understood him, as
their flying pens followed words which they presumed neither to correct
nor to abridge. Audley's speech was addressed to the nation,--the speech
of a man in whom the nation yet recognized a chief, desiring to clear
all misrepresentation from his past career; calculating, if life were
spared to him, on destinies higher than he had yet fulfilled; issuing a
manifesto of principles to be carried later into power, and planting a
banner round which the divided sections of a broken host might yet rally
for battle and for conquest. Or perhaps, in the deeps of his heart (not
even comprehended by reporters, nor to be divined by the public), the
uncertainty of life was more felt than the hope of ambition; and the
statesman desired to leave behind him one full vindication of that
public integrity and honour, on which, at least, his conscience
acknowledged not a stain.

"For more than twenty years," said Audley, in conclusion, "I have known
no day in which I have not lived for my country. I may at times have
opposed the wish of the People,--I may oppose it now; but, so far as I
can form a judgment, only because I prefer their welfare to their wish.
And if--as I believe--there have been occasions on which, as one amongst
men more renowned, I have amended the laws of England, confirmed her
safety, extended her commerce, upheld her honour, I leave the rest to
the censure of my enemies, and [his voice trembled] to the charity of my
friends."

Before the cheers that greeted the close of this speech were over,
Richard Avenel arose. What is called "the more respectable part" of
an audience--namely, the better educated and better clad, even on the
Yellow side of the question--winced a little for the credit of their
native borough, when they contemplated the candidate pitted against the
Great Commoner, whose lofty presence still filled the eye, and whose
majestic tones yet sounded in the ear. But the vast majority on both
sides, Blue and Yellow, hailed the rise of Dick Avenel as a relief
to what, while it had awed their attention, had rather strained their
faculties. The Yellows cheered and the Blues groaned; there was a
tumultuous din of voices, and a reel to and fro of the whole excited
mass of unwashed faces and brawny shoulders. But Dick had as much pluck
as Audley himself; and by degrees, his pluck and his handsome features,
and the curiosity to hear what he had to say, obtained him a hearing;
and that hearing Dick having once got, he contrived to keep. His
self-confidence was backed by a grudge against Egerton, that attained to
the elevation of malignity. He had armed himself for this occasion with
an arsenal of quotations from Audley's speeches, taken out of Hansard's
Debates; and, garbling these texts in the unfairest and most ingenious
manner, he contrived to split consistency into such fragments of
inconsistency--to cut so many harmless sentences into such unpopular,
arbitrary, tyrannical segments of doctrine--that he made a very pretty
case against the enlightened and incorruptible Egerton, as shuffler and
trimmer, defender of jobs, and eulogist of Manchester massacres, etc.
And all told the more because it seemed courted and provoked by the
ex-minister's elaborate vindication of himself. Having thus, as he
declared, "triumphantly convicted the Right Honourable Gentleman out of
his own mouth," Dick considered himself at liberty to diverge into what
he termed "the just indignation of a freeborn Briton;" in other words,
into every variety of abuse which bad taste could supply to acrimonious
feeling. But he did it so roundly and dauntlessly, in such true hustings
style, that for the moment, at least, he carried the bulk of the crowd
along with him sufficiently to bear down all the resentful murmurs of
the Blue Committee men, and the abashed shakes of the head with which
the more aristocratic and well-bred among the Yellows signified to each
other that they were heartily ashamed of their candidate. Dick concluded
with an emphatic declaration that the Right Honourable Gentleman's day
was gone by; that the people had been pillaged and plundered enough by
pompous red-tapists, who only thought of their salaries, and never went
to their offices except to waste the pen, ink, and paper which they
did not pay for; that the Right Honourable Gentleman had boasted he had
served his country for twenty years. Served his country!--he should have
said served her out! (Much laughter.) Pretty mess his country was in
now. In short, for twenty years the Right Honourable Gentleman had put
his hands into his country's pockets. "And I ask you," bawled Dick,
"whether any of you are a bit the better for all that he has taken out
of them!" The Hundred and Fifty Hesitators shook their heads. "Noa,
that we ben't!" cried the Hundred and Fifty, dolorously. "You hear THE
PEOPLE!" said Dick, turning majestically to Egerton, who, with his arms
folded on his breast, and his upper lip slightly curved, sat like "Atlas
unremoved,"--"you hear THE PEOPLE! They condemn you and the whole set of
you. I repeat here what I once vowed on a less public occasion, 'As
sure as my name is Richard Avenel, you shall smart for'--Dick
hesitated--'smart for your contempt of the just rights, honest
claims, and enlightened aspirations of your indignant countrymen. The
schoolmaster is abroad, and the British Lion is aroused!'"

Dick sat down. The curve of contempt had passed from Egerton's lip; at
the name of Avenel, thus harshly spoken, he had suddenly shaded his face
with his hand.

But Randal Leslie next arose, and Audley slowly raised his eyes, and
looked towards his protege with an expression of kindly interest.
What better debut could there be for a young man warmly attached to an
eminent patron who had been coarsely assailed,--for a political aspirant
vindicating the principles which that patron represented? The Blues,
palpitating with indignant excitement, all prepared to cheer every
sentence that could embody their sense of outrage, even the meanest
amongst the Yellows, now that Dick had concluded, dimly aware that
their orator had laid himself terribly open, and richly deserved (more
especially from the friend of Audley Egerton) whatever punishing retort
could vibrate from the heart of a man to the tongue of an orator. A
better opportunity for an honest young debutant could not exist; a more
disagreeable, annoying, perplexing, unmanageable opportunity for Randal
Leslie, the malice of the Fates could not have contrived. How could
he attack Dick Avenel,--he who counted upon Dick Avenel to win his
election? How could he exasperate the Yellows, when Dick's solemn
injunction had been, "Say nothing to make the Yellows not vote for you"?
How could he identify himself with Egerton's policy, when it was his
own policy to make his opponents believe him an unprejudiced, sensible
youth, who would come all right and all Yellow one of these days?
Demosthenes himself would have had a sore throat worse than when he
swallowed the golden cup of Harpalus, had Demosthenes been placed in
so cursed a fix. Therefore Randal Leslie may well be excused if he
stammered and boggled, if he was appalled by a cheer when he said a
word in vindication of Egerton, and looked cringing and pitiful when
he sneaked out a counter civility to Dick. The Blues were sadly
disappointed, damped; the Yellows smirked and took heart. Audley
Egerton's brows darkened. Harley, who was on the platform, half seen
behind the front row, a quiet listener, bent over and whispered dryly to
Audley, "You should have given a lesson beforehand to your clever young
friend. His affection for you overpowers him!"

Audley made no rejoinder, but tore a leaf out of his pocketbook, and
wrote, in pencil, these words, "Say that you may well feel embarrassed
how to reply to Mr. Avenel, because I had especially requested you not
to be provoked to one angry expression against a gentleman whose father
and brother-in-law gave the majority of two by which I gained my first
seat in parliament; then plunge at once into general politics." He
placed this paper in Randal's hand, just as that unhappy young man was
on the point of a thorough breakdown. Randal paused, took breath, read
the words attentively, and amidst a general titter; his presence of
mind returned to him; he saw a way out of the scrape, collected himself,
suddenly raised his head, and in tones unexpectedly firm and fluent,
enlarged on the text afforded to him,--enlarged so well that he took
the audience by surprise, pleased the Blues by an evidence of Audley's
generosity, and touched the Yellows by so affectionate a deference to
the family of their two candidates. Then the speaker was enabled to come
at once to the topics on which he had elaborately prepared himself, and
delivered a set harangue, very artfully put together,--temporizing it
is true, and trimming, but full of what would have been called admirable
tact and discretion in an old stager who did not want to commit himself
to anybody or to anything. On the whole, the display became creditable,
at least as an evidence of thoughtful reserve, rare in a man so young;
too refining and scholastic for oratory, but a very good essay,--upon
both sides of the question. Randal wiped his pale forehead and sat down,
cheered, especially by the lawyers present, and self-contented. It was
now Leonard's turn to speak. Keenly nervous, as men of the literary
temperament are, constitutionally shy, his voice trembled as he began.
But he trusted, unconsciously, less to his intellect than his warm heart
and noble temper; and the warm heart prompted his words, and the
noble temper gradually dignified his manner. He took advantage of the
sentences which Audley had put into Randal's mouth, in order to efface
the impression made by his uncle's rude assault. "Would that the Right
Honourable Gentleman had himself made that generous and affecting
allusion to the services which he had deigned to remember, for, in that
case, he [Leonard] was confident that Mr. Avenel would have lost all the
bitterness which political contest was apt to engender in proportion to
the earnestness with which political opinions were entertained. Happy
it was when some such milder sentiment as that which Mr. Egerton had
instructed Mr. Leslie to convey, preceded the sharp encounter, and
reminded antagonists, as Mr. Leslie had so emphatically done, that every
shield had two sides, and that it was possible to maintain the one side
to be golden, without denying the truth of the champion who asserted
the other side to be silver." Then, without appearing to throw over
his uncle, the young speaker contrived to insinuate an apology on his
uncle's behalf, with such exquisite grace and good feeling, that he was
loudly cheered by both parties; and even Dick did not venture to utter
the dissent which struggled to his lips.

But if Leonard dealt thus respectfully with Egerton, he had no such
inducement to spare Randal Leslie. With the intuitive penetration of
minds accustomed to analyze character and investigate human nature,
he detected the varnished insincerity of Randal's artful address. His
colour rose, his voice swelled, his fancy began to play, and his wit
to sparkle, when he came to take to pieces his younger antagonist's
rhetorical mosaic. He exposed the falsehood of its affected moderation;
he tore into shreds the veil of words, with their motley woof of yellow
and blue, and showed that not a single conviction could be discovered
behind it. "Mr. Leslie's speech," said he, "puts me in mind of a
ferry-boat; it seems made for no purpose but to go from one side to the
other." The simile hit the truth so exactly that it was received with a
roar of laughter: even Egerton smiled. "For myself," concluded Leonard,
as he summed up his unsparing analysis, "I am new to party warfare; yet
if I were not opposing Mr. Leslie as a candidate for your suffrages,
if I were but an elector,--belonging, as I do, to the people by my
condition and my labours,--I should feel that he is one of those
politicians in whom the welfare, the honour, the moral elevation of the
people, find no fitting representative."

Leonard sat down amidst great applause, and after a speech that raised
the Yellows in their own estimation, and materially damaged Randal
Leslie in the eyes of the Blues. Randal felt this, with a writhing of
the heart, though a sneer on the lips. He glanced furtively towards Dick
Avenel, on whom, after all, his election, in spite of the Blues, might
depend. Dick answered the furtive glance by an encouraging wink. Randal
turned to Egerton, and whispered to him, "How I wish I had had more
practice in speaking, so that I could have done you more justice!"

"Thank you, Leslie; Mr. Fairfield has supplied any omission of yours,
so far as I am concerned. And you should excuse him for his attack on
yourself, because it may serve to convince you where your fault as a
speaker lies."

"Where?" asked Leslie, with jealous sullenness.

"In not believing a single word that you say," answered Egerton, very
dryly; and then turning away, he said aloud to his proposer, and with
a slight sigh, "Mr. Avenel maybe proud of his nephew! I wish that young
man were on our side; I could train him into a great debater."

And now the proceedings were about to terminate with a show of hands,
when a tall, brawny elector in the middle of the hall suddenly arose,
and said he had some questions to put. A thrill ran through the
assembly, for this elector was the demagogue of the Yellows,--a fellow
whom it was impossible to put down, a capital speaker, with lungs of
brass. "I shall be very short," said the demagogue. And therewith, under
the shape of questions to the two Blue candidates, he commenced a most
furious onslaught on the Earl of Lansmere, and the earl's son,
Lord L'Estrange, accusing the last of the grossest intimidation and
corruption, and citing instances thereof as exhibited towards various
electors in Fish Lane and the Back Slums, who had been turned from
Yellow promises by the base arts of Blue aristocracy, represented in the
person of the noble lord, whom he now dared to reply. The orator paused,
and Harley suddenly passed into the front of the platform, in token that
he accepted the ungracious invitation. Great as had been the curiosity
to hear Audley Egerton, yet greater, if possible, was the curiosity to
hear Lord L'Estrange. Absent from the place for so many years, heir to
such immense possessions, with a vague reputation for talents that he
had never proved,--strange, indeed, if Blue and Yellow had not strained
their ears and hushed their breaths to listen.

It is said that the poet is born, and the orator made,--a saying only
partially true. Some men have been made poets, and some men have been
born orators. Most probably Harley L'Estrange had hitherto never
spoken in public; and he had not now spoken five minutes before all the
passions and humours of the assembly were as much under his command as
the keys of the instrument are under the hands of the musician. He had
taken from nature a voice capable of infinite variety of modulation, a
countenance of the most flexible play of expression; and he was keenly
alive (as profound humourists are) equally to the ludicrous and the
graver side of everything presented to his vigorous understanding.
Leonard had the eloquence of a poet, Audley Egerton that of a
parliamentary debater; but Harley had the rarer gift of eloquence in
itself, apart from the matter it conveys or adorns,--that gift which
Demosthenes meant by his triple requisite of an orator, which has been
improperly translated "action," but means in reality "the acting," "the
stage-play." Both Leonard and Audley spoke well, from the good sense
which their speeches contained; but Harley could have talked nonsense,
and made it more effective than sense,--even as a Kemble or Macready
could produce effects from the trash talked by "The Stranger," which
your merely accomplished performer would fail to extract from the
beauties of Hamlet. The art of oratory, indeed, is allied more closely
to that of the drama than to any other; and throughout Harley's
whole nature there ran, as the reader may have noted (though quite
unconsciously to Harley himself), a tendency towards that concentration
of thought, action, and circumstance on a single purpose, which makes
the world form itself into a stage, and gathers various and scattered
agencies into the symmetry and compactness of a drama. This tendency,
though it often produces effects that appear artificially theatrical,
is not uncommon with persons the most genuine and single-minded. It is,
indeed, the natural inclination of quick energies springing from warm
emotions. Hence the very history of nations in their fresh, vigorous,
half-civilized youth always shapes itself into dramatic forms; while, as
the exercise of sober reason expands with civilization, to the injury of
the livelier faculties and more intuitive impulses, people look to the
dramatic form of expression, whether in thought or in action, as if it
were the antidote to truth, instead of being its abstract and essence.

But to return from this long and somewhat metaphysical digression:
whatever might be the cause why Harley L'Estrange spoke so wonderfully
well, there could be no doubt that wonderfully well he did speak. He
turned the demagogue and his attack into the most felicitous ridicule,
and yet with the most genial good-humour; described that virtuous
gentleman's adventures in search of corruption through the pure regions
of Fish Lane and the Back Slums; and then summed up the evidences on
which the demagogue had founded his charge, with a humour so caustic and
original that the audience were convulsed with laughter. From laughter
Harley hurried his audience almost to the pathos of tears,--for he
spoke of the insinuations against his father so that every son and every
father in the assembly felt moved as at the voice of Nature.

A turn in a sentence, and a new emotion seized the assembly. Harley was
identifying himself with the Lansmere electors. He spoke of his pride in
being a Lansmere man, and all the Lansmere electors suddenly felt proud
of him. He talked with familiar kindness of old friends remembered in
his schoolboy holidays, rejoicing to find so many alive and prospering.
He had a felicitous word to each.

"Dear old Lansmere!" said he, and the simple exclamation won him the
hearts of all. In fine, when he paused, as if to retire, it was amidst a
storm of acclamation. Audley grasped his hand, and whispered, "I am
the only one here not surprised, Harley. Now you have discovered your
powers, never again let them slumber. What a life may be yours if you no
longer waste it!" Harley extricated his hand, and his eye glittered. He
made a sign that he had more to say, and the applause was hushed. "My
Right Honourable friend chides me for the years that I have wasted.
True; my years have been wasted,--no matter how nor wherefore! But his!
how have they been spent? In such devotion to the public that those
who know him not as I do, have said that he had not one feeling left to
spare to the obscurer duties and more limited affections, by which men
of ordinary talents and humble minds rivet the links of that social
order which it is the august destiny of statesmen--like him who now sits
beside me--to cherish and defend. But, for my part, I think that there
is no being so dangerous as the solemn hypocrite, who, because he
drills his cold nature into serving mechanically some conventional
abstraction,--whether he calls it 'the Constitution' or 'the
Public,'--holds himself dispensed from whatever, in the warm blood of
private life, wins attachment to goodness, and confidence to truth. Let
others, then, praise my Right Honourable friend as the incorruptible
politician. Pardon me if I draw his likeness as the loyal sincere man,
who might say with the honest priest 'that he could not tell a lie to
gain heaven by it!'--and with so fine a sense of honour, that he would
hold it a lie merely to conceal the truth." Harley then drew a brilliant
picture of the type of chivalrous honesty,--of the ideal which the
English attach to the phrase of "a perfect gentleman," applying each
sentence to his Right Honourable friend with an emphasis that seemed
to burst from his heart. To all of the audience, save two, it was an
eulogium which the fervent sincerity of the eulogist alone saved from
hyperbole. But Levy rubbed his hands, and chuckled inly; and Egerton
hung his head, and moved restlessly on his seat. Every word that Harley
uttered lodged an arrow in Audley's breast. Amidst the cheers that
followed this admirable sketch of the "loyal man," Harley recognized
Leonard's enthusiastic voice. He turned sharply towards the young
man: "Mr. Fairfield cheers this description of integrity, and its
application; let him imitate the model set before him, and he may live
to hear praise as genuine as mine from some friend who has tested his
worth as I have tested Mr. Egerton's. Mr. Fairfield is a poet: his
claim to that title was disputed by one of the speakers who preceded
me!--unjustly disputed! Mr. Fairfield is every inch a poet. But, it has
been asked, 'Are poets fit for the business of senates? Will they not
be writing sonnets to Peggy and Moggy, when you want them to concentrate
their divine imagination on the details of a beer bill?' Do not let
Mr. Fairfield's friends be alarmed. At the risk of injury to the two
candidates whose cause I espouse, truth compels me to say, that poets,
when they stoop to action, are not less prosaic than the dullest amongst
us; they are swayed by the same selfish interests, they are moved by
the same petty passions. It is a mistake to suppose that any detail in
common life, whether in public or private, can be too mean to seduce
the exquisite pliances of their fancy. Nay, in public life, we may trust
them better than other men; for vanity is a kind of second conscience,
and, as a poet has himself said,--

    "'Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,
     And free from conscience, is a slave to shame.'

In private life alone we do well to be on our guard against these
children of fancy, for they so devote to the Muse all their treasury
of sentiment, that we can no more expect them to waste a thought on the
plain duties of men, than we can expect the spendthrift, who dazzles the
town, 'to fritter away his money in paying his debts.' But all the world
are agreed to be indulgent to the infirmities of those who are their
own deceivers and their own chastisers. Poets have more enthusiasm, more
affection, more heart than others; but only for fictions of their own
creating. It is in vain for us to attach them to ourselves by vulgar
merit, by commonplace obligations, strive and sacrifice as we may. They
are ungrateful to us, only because gratitude is so very unpoetical a
subject. We lose them the moment we attempt to bind. Their love--

       "'Light as air, at sight of human ties,
        Spreads its light wings, and in a moment flies.'

"They follow their own caprices, adore their own delusions, and, deeming
the forms of humanity too material for their fantastic affections,
conjure up a ghost, and are chilled to death by its embrace!"

Then, suddenly aware that he was passing beyond the comprehension of his
audience, and touching upon the bounds of his bitter secret (for here he
was thinking, not of Leonard, but of Nora), Harley gave a new and more
homely direction to his terrible irony,--turned into telling ridicule
the most elevated sentiments Leonard's speech had conveyed, hastened on
to a rapid view of political questions in general, defended Leslie
with the same apparent earnestness and latent satire with which he had
eulogized Audley, and concluded a speech which, for popular effect,
had never been equalled in that hall, amidst a diapason of cheers that
threatened to bring down the rafters.

In a few minutes more the proceedings were closed, a show of hands
taken. The show was declared by the Mayor, who was a thorough Blue, in
favour of the Right Hon. Audley Egerton and Randal Leslie, Esquire.

Cries of "No," "Shame," "Partial," etc., a poll demanded on behalf of
the other two candidates, and the crowd began to pour out of the hall.

Harley was the first who vanished, retreating by the private entrance.
Egerton followed; Randal lingering, Avenel came up and shook hands with
him openly, but whispered privately, "Meet me to-night in Lansmere Park,
in the oak copse, about three hundred yards from the turnstile, at
the town end of the park. We must see how to make all right. What a
confounded humbug this has been!"




CHAPTER XXVI.

If the vigour of Harley's address had taken by surprise both friend
and foe, not one in that assembly--not even the conscience-stricken
Egerton--felt its effect so deeply as the assailed and startled Leonard.
He was at first perfectly stunned by sarcasms which he so ill deserved;
nor was it till after the assembly had broken up, that Leonard could
even conjecture the cause which had provoked the taunt and barbed
its dart. Evidently Harley had learned (but learned only in order to
misconceive and to wrong) Leonard's confession of love to Helen Digby.
And now those implied accusations of disregard to the duties of common
life not only galled the young man's heart, but outraged his honour. He
felt the generous indignation of manhood. He must see Lord L'Estrange
at once, and vindicate himself,--vindicate Helen; for thus to accuse one
was tacitly to asperse the other.

Extricating himself from his own enthusiastic partisans, Leonard went
straight on foot towards Lansmere House. The Park palings touched
close upon the town, with a shall turnstile for foot passengers. And as
Leonard, availing himself of this entrance, had advanced some hundred
yards or so through the park, suddenly, in the midst of that very copse
in which Avenel had appointed to meet Leslie, he found himself face to
face with Helen Digby herself.

Helen started, with a faint cry. But Leonard, absorbed in his own desire
to justify both, hailed the sight, and did not pause to account for his
appearance, nor to soothe her agitation.

"Miss Digby!" he exclaimed, throwing into his voice and manner that
respect which often so cruelly divides the past familiarity from the
present alienation, "Miss Digby, I rejoice to see you,--rejoice to ask
your permission to relieve myself from a charge that in truth wounds
even you, while levelled but at me. Lord L'Estrange has just implied, in
public, that I--I--who owe him so much, who have honoured him so
truly, that even the just resentment I now feel half seems to me the
ingratitude with which he charges me, has implied that--ah! Miss Digby,
I can scarcely command words to say what it so humiliates me to have
heard. But you know how false is all accusation that either of us could
deceive our common benefactor. Suffer me to repeat to your guardian what
I presumed to say to you when we last met, what you answered, and state
how I left your presence."

"Oh, Leonard! yes; clear yourself in his eyes. Go! Unjust that he is,
ungenerous Lord L'Estrange!"

"Helen Digby!" cried a voice, close at hand. "Of whom do you speak
thus?"

At the sound of that voice Helen and Leonard both turned, and beheld
Violante standing before them, her young beauty rendered almost sublime
by the noble anger that lit her eyes, glowed in her cheeks, animated her
stately form.

"Is it you who thus speak of Lord L'Estrange? You, Helen Digby,--you!"

From behind Violante now emerged Mr. Dale. "Softly, children," he said;
and placing one hand on Violante's shoulder, he extended the other to
Leonard. "What is this? Come hither to me, Leonard, and explain."

Leonard walked aside with the parson, and in a few sentences gave vent
to his swelling heart.

The parson shared in Leonard's resentment; and having soon drawn
from him all that had passed in his memorable interview with Helen,
exclaimed,--

"Enough! Do not yet seek Lord L'Estrange yourself; I am going to see
him,--I am here at his request. His summons, indeed, was for to-morrow;
but the squire having written me a hurried line, requesting me to meet
him at Lansmere tomorrow and proceed with him afterwards in search of
poor Frank, I thought I might have little time for communications with
Lord L'Estrange, unless I forestalled his invitation and came to-day.
Well that I did so! I only arrived an hour since, found he was gone
to the town-hall, and joined the young ladies in the Park. Miss Digby,
thinking it natural that I might wish to say something in private to
my old young friend Violante, walked a few paces in advance. Thus,
fortunately, I chanced to be here, to receive your account, and I trust
to remove misunderstanding. Lord L'Estrange must now be returned. I will
go back to the house. You, meanwhile, return to the town, I beseech you.
I will come to you afterwards at your inn. Your very appearance in these
grounds, even the brief words that have passed between Helen and you,
might only widen the breach between yourself and your benefactor. I
cannot bear to anticipate this. Go back, I entreat you. I will explain
all, and Lord L'Estrange shall right you! That is,--that must be his
intention!"

"IS--must be his intention--when he has just so wronged me!"

"Yes, yes," faltered the poor parson, mindful of his promise to
L'Estrange not to reveal his own interview with that nobleman, and yet
not knowing otherwise how to explain or to soothe; but still believing
Leonard to be Harley's son, and remembering all that Harley had so
pointedly said of atonement, in apparent remorse for crime, Mr. Dale
was wholly at a loss himself to understand why Harley should have thus
prefaced atonement by an insult. Anxious, however, to prevent a meeting
between Harley and Leonard while both were under the influence of such
feelings towards each other, he made an effort over himself, and so
well argued in favour of his own diplomacy, that Leonard reluctantly
consented to wait for Mr. Dale's report.

"As to reparation or excuse," said he, proudly, "it must rest with Lord
L'Estrange. I ask it not. Tell him only this,--that if the instant
I heard that she whom I loved and held sacred for so many years was
affianced to him, I resigned even the very wish to call her mine--if
that were desertion of man's duties, I am guilty. If to have prayed
night and day that she who would have blessed my lonely and toilsome
life may give some charm to his, not bestowed by his wealth and his
greatness--if that were ingratitude, I am ungrateful; let him still
condemn me. I pass out of his sphere,--a thing that has crossed it a
moment, and is gone. But Helen he must not blame, suspect; even by a
thought. One word more. In this election, this strife for objects
wholly foreign to all my habits, unsuited to my poverty, at war with
aspirations so long devoted to fairer goals, though by obscurer paths,
I obeyed but his will or whim,--at a moment too when my whole soul
sickened for repose and solitude. I had forced myself at last to take
interest in what I had before loathed. But in every hope for the future,
every stimulant to ambition, Lord L'Estrange's esteem still stood before
me. Now, what do I here longer? All of his conduct, save his contempt
for myself, is an enigma. And sinless he repeat a wish, which I would
fain still regard as a law, I retire from the contest he has embittered;
I renounce the ambition he has poisoned; and, mindful of those humble
duties which he implies that I disdain, I return to my own home."

The parson nodded assent to each of these sentences; and Leonard,
passing by Violante and Helen, with a salutation equally distant to
both, retraced his steps towards the town.

Meanwhile Violante and Helen had also been in close conference, and that
conference had suddenly endeared each to the other; for Helen, taken
by surprise, agitated, overpowered, had revealed to Violante that
confession of another attachment, which she had made to Lord L'Estrange,
the rupture of her engagement with the latter. Violante saw that Harley
was free. Harley, too, had promised to free herself. By a sudden
flash of conviction, recalling his words, looks, she felt that she was
beloved,--deemed that honour alone (while either was yet shackled) had
forbidden him to own that love. Violante stood a being transformed,
"blushing celestial rosy red," heaven at her heart, joy in her
eyes,--she loved so well, and she trusted so implicitly! Then from
out the overflow of her own hope and bliss she poured forth such sweet
comfort to Helen, that Helen's arm stole around her; cheek touched
cheek,--they were as sisters.

At another moment, Mr. Dale might have felt some amazement at the sudden
affection which had sprung up between these young persons; for in
his previous conversation with Violante, he had, as he thought, very
artfully, and in a pleasant vein, sounded the young Italian as to her
opinion of her fair friend's various good qualities, and Violante
had rather shrunk from the title of "friend;" and though she had the
magnanimity to speak with great praise of Helen, the praise did not
sound cordial. But the good man was at this moment occupied in preparing
his thoughts for his interview with Harley; he joined the two girls
in silence, and, linking an arm of each within his own, walked slowly
towards the house. As he approached the terrace he observed Riccabocca
and Randal pacing the gravel walk side by side.

Violante, pressing his arm, whispered, "Let us go round the other way; I
would speak with you a few minutes undisturbed."

Mr. Dale, supposing that Violante wished to dispense with the presence
of Helen, said to the latter, "My dear young lady, perhaps you will
excuse me to Dr. Riccabocca,--who is beckoning to me, and no doubt very
much surprised to see me here,--while I finish what I was saying to
Violante when we were interrupted."

Helen left them, and Violante led the parson round through the
shrubbery, towards the side door in another wing of the house.

"What have you to say to me?" asked Mr. Dale, surprised that she
remained silent.

"You will see Lord L'Estrange. Be sure that you convince him of
Leonard's honour. A doubt of treachery so grieves his noble heart that
perhaps it may disturb his judgment."

"You seem to think very highly of the heart of this Lord L'Estrange,
child!" said the parson, in some surprise. Violante blushed, but went on
firmly, and with serious earnestness: "Some words which he-that is,
Lord L'Estrange--said to me very lately, make me so glad that you are
here,--that you will see him; for I know how good you are, and how wise,
dear, dear Mr. Dale! He spoke as one who had received some grievous
wrong, which had abruptly soured all his views of life. He spoke of
retirement, solitude,--he on whom his country has so many claims. I know
not what he can mean, unless it be that his--his marriage with Helen
Digby is broken off."

"Broken off! Is that so?"

"I have it from herself. You may well be astonished that she could even
think of another after having known him!" The parson fixed his eyes very
gravely on the young enthusiast. But though her cheek glowed, there was
in her expression of face so much artless, open innocence, that Mr. Dale
contented himself with a slight shake of the head, and a dry remark,--

"I think it quite natural that Helen Digby should prefer Leonard
Fairfield. A good girl, not misled by vanity and ambition,--temptations
of which it behoves us all to beware; nor least, perhaps, young ladies
suddenly brought in contact with wealth and rank. As to this nobleman's
merits, I know not yet whether to allow or to deny them; I reserve my
judgment till after our interview. This is all you have to say to me?"

Violante paused a moment. "I cannot think," she said, half smiling,--"I
cannot think that the change that has occurred in him,--for changed he
is,--that his obscure hints as to injury received, and justice to be
done, are caused merely by his disappointment with regard to Helen. But
you can learn that; learn if he be so very much disappointed. Nay, I
think not!"

She slipped her slight hand from the parson's arm, and darted away
through the evergreens. Half concealed amidst the laurels, she turned
back, and Mr. Dale caught her eye, half arch, half melancholy; its light
came soft through a tear.

"I don't half like this," muttered the parson; "I shall give Dr.
Riccabocca a caution." So muttering, he pushed open the side door, and
finding a servant, begged admittance to Lord L'Estrange.

Harley at that moment was closeted with Levy, and his countenance was
composed and fearfully stern. "So, so, by this time to-morrow," said he,
"Mr. Egerton will be tricked out of his election by Mr. Randal Leslie!
good! By this time to-morrow his ambition will be blasted by the
treachery of his friends! good! By this time to-morrow the bailiffs will
seize his person,--ruined, beggared, pauper, and captive,--all because
he has trusted and been deceived! good! And if he blame you, prudent
Baron Levy, if he accuse smooth Mr. Randal Leslie, forget not to say,
'We were both but the blind agents of your friend Harley L'Estrange. Ask
him why you are so miserable a dupe.'"

"And might I now ask your Lordship for one word of explanation?"

"No, sir!--it is enough that I have spared you. But you were never
my friend; I have no revenge against a man whose hand I never even
touched."

The baron scowled, but there was a power about his tyrant that cowed him
into actual terror. He resumed, after a pause, "And though Mr. Leslie
is to be member for Lansmere,--thanks to you,--you still desire that I
should--"

"Do exactly as I have said. My plans now never vary a hair's breadth."

The groom of the chambers entered.

"My Lord, the Reverend Mr. Dale wishes to know if you can receive him."

"Mr. Dale! he should have come to-morrow. Say that I did not expect
him to-day; that I am unfortunately engaged till dinner, which will be
earlier than usual. Show him into his room; he will have but little
time to change his dress. By the way, Mr. Egerton dines in his own
apartment."




CHAPTER XXVII.

The leading members of the Blue Committee were invited to dine at the
Park, and the hour for the entertainment was indeed early, as there
might be much need yet of active exertion on the eve of a poll in a
contest expected to be so close, and in which the inflexible Hundred
and Fifty "Waiters upon Providence" still reserved their very valuable
votes.

The party was gay and animated, despite the absence of Audley Egerton,
who, on the plea of increased indisposition, had shut himself up in his
rooms the instant that he had returned from the town-hall, and sent word
to Harley that he was too unwell to join the party at dinner.

Randal was really in high spirits, despite the very equivocal success
of his speech. What did it signify if a speech failed, provided the
election was secure? He was longing for the appointment with Dick Avenel
which was to make "all right!" The squire was to bring the money for the
purchase of the coveted lands the next morning. Riccabocca had assured
him, again and again, of Violante's hand. If ever Randal Leslie could be
called a happy man, it was as he sat at that dinner taking wine with Mr.
Mayor and Mr. Alderman, and looking, across the gleaming silver plateau,
down the long vista into wealth and power.

The dinner was scarcely over, when Lord L'Estrauge, in a brief speech,
reminded his guests of the work still before them; and after a toast to
the health of the future members for Lansmere, dismissed the Committee
to their labours.

Levy made a sign to Randal, who followed the baron to his own room.

"Leslie, your election is in some jeopardy. I find, from the
conversation of those near me at dinner, that Egerton has made such way
amongst the Blues by his speech, and they are so afraid of losing a man
who does them so much credit, that the Committee men not only talk of
withholding from you their second votes and of plumping Egerton, but of
subscribing privately amongst themselves to win over that coy body of a
Hundred and Fifty, upon whom I know that Avenel counts in whatever votes
he may be able to transfer to you."

"It would be very unhandsome in the Committee, which pretends to act for
both of us, to plump Egerton," said Randal, with consistent anger; "but
I don't think they can get those Hundred and Fifty without the most open
and exortant bribery,--an expense which Egerton will not pay, and which
it would be very discreditable to Lord L'Estrange or his father to
countenance."

"I told them flatly," returned Levy, "that, as Mr. Egerton's agent, I
would allow no proceedings that might vitiate the election, but that I
would undertake the management of these men myself; and I am going into
the town in order to do so. I have also persuaded the leading Committee
men to reconsider their determination to plump Egerton; they have
decided to do as L'Estrange directs, and I know what he will say.
You may rely on me," continued the baron, who spoke with a dogged
seriousness, unusual to his cynical temper, "to obtain for you the
preference over Audley, if it be in my power to do so. Meanwhile, you
should really see Avenel this very night."

"I have an appointment with him at ten o'clock; and judging by his
speech against Egerton, I cannot doubt on his aid to me, if convinced
by his poll-books that he is not able to return both himself and his
impertinent nephew. My speech, however sarcastically treated by Mr.
Fairfield, must at least have disposed the Yellow party to vote rather
for me than for a determined opponent like Egerton."

"I hope so; for your speech and Fairfield's answer have damaged you
terribly with the Blues. However, your main hope rests on my power
to keep those Hundred and Fifty rascals from splitting their votes
on Egerton, and to induce them, by all means short of bringing myself
before a Committee of the House of Commons for positive bribery,--which
would hurt most seriously my present social position,--to give one vote
to you. I shall tell them, as I have told the Committee, that Egerton is
safe, and will pay nothing; but that you want the votes, and that
I--in short, if they can be bought upon tick, I will buy them. Avenel,
however, can serve you best here; for as they are all Yellows at heart,
they make no scruple of hinting that they want twice as much for voting
Blue as they will take for voting Yellow. And Avenel being a townsman,
and knowing their ways, could contrive to gain them, and yet not bribe."

RANDAL (shaking his head incredulously).--"Not bribe!"

LEVY.--"Pooh! Not bribe so as to be found out." There was a knock at the
door. A servant entered and presented Mr. Egerton's compliments to Baron
Levy, with a request that the baron would immediately come to his rooms
for a few minutes.

"Well," said Levy, when the servant had withdrawn, "I must go to
Egerton, and the instant I leave him I shall repair to the town. Perhaps
I may pass the night there." So saying, he left Randal, and took his way
to Audley's apartment.

"Levy," said the statesman, abruptly, upon the entrance of the baron,
"have you betrayed my secret--my first marriage--to Lord L'Estrange?"

"No, Egerton; on my honour, I have not betrayed it."

"You heard his speech! Did you not detect a fearful irony under his
praises, or is it but--but-my conscience?" added the proud man, through
his set teeth.

"Really," said Levy, "Lord L'Estrange seemed to me to select for his
praise precisely those points in your character which any other of your
friends would select for panegyric."

"Ay, any other of my friends!--What friends?" muttered Egerton,
gloomily. Then, rousing himself, he added, in a voice that had none
of its accustomed clear firmness of tone, "Your presence here in this
house, Levy, surprised me, as I told you at the first; I could not
conceive its necessity. Harley urged you to come,--he with whom you are
no favourite! You and he both said that your acquaintance with
Richard Avenel would enable you to conciliate his opposition. I cannot
congratulate you on your success."

"My success remains to be proved. The vehemence of his attack may be but
a feint to cover his alliance to-morrow."

Audley went on without notice of the interruption. "There is a change
in Harley,--to me and to all; a change, perhaps, not perceptible to
others--but I have known him from a boy."

"He is occupied for the first time with the practical business of life.
That would account for a much greater change than you remark."

"Do you see him familiarly, converse with him often?"

"No, and only on matters connected with the election. Occasionally,
indeed, he consults me as to Randal Leslie, in whom, as your special
protege, he takes considerable interest."

"That, too, surprises me. Well, I am weary of perplexing myself. This
place is hateful; after to-morrow I shall leave it, and breathe in
peace. You have seen the reports of the canvass; I have had no heart to
inspect them. Is the election as safe as they say?"

"If Avenel withdraws his nephew, and the votes thus released split off
to you, you are secure."

"And you think his nephew will be withdrawn? Poor young man! defeat at
his age, and with such talents, is hard to bear." Audley sighed.

"I must leave you now, if you have nothing important to say," said the
baron, rising. "I have much to do, as the election is yet to be won,
and--to you the loss of it would be--"

"Ruin, I know. Well, Levy, it is, on the whole, to your advantage that
I should not lose. There may be more to get from me yet. And, judging by
the letters I received this morning, my position is rendered so safe by
the absolute necessity of my party to keep me up, that the news of my
pecuniary difficulties will not affect me so much as I once feared.
Never was my career so free from obstacle, so clear towards the highest
summit of ambition; never, in my day of ostentatious magnificence, as
it is now, when I am prepared to shrink into a lodging, with a single
servant."

"I am glad to hear it; and I am the more anxious to secure your
election, upon which this career must depend, because--nay, I hardly
like to tell you--"

"Speak on."

"I have been obliged, by a sudden rush on all my resources, to consign
some of your bills and promissory notes to another, who, if your person
should not be protected from arrest by parliamentary privilege, might be
harsh and--"

"Traitor!" interrupted Egerton, fiercely, all the composed contempt with
which he usually treated the usurer giving way, "say no more. How could
I ever expect otherwise! You have foreseen my defeat, and have planned
my destruction. Presume no reply! Sir, begone from my presence!"

"You will find that you have worse friends than myself," said the baron,
moving to the door; "and if you are defeated, if your prospects for
life are destroyed, I am the last man you will think of blaming. But
I forgive your anger, and trust that to-morrow you will receive those
explanations of my conduct which you are now in no temper to bear. I go
to take care of the election."

Left alone, Audley's sudden passion seemed to forsake him.

He gathered together, in that prompt and logical precision which the
habit of transacting public business bestows, all his thoughts, and
sounded all his fears; and most vivid of every thought, and most
intolerable of every fear, was the belief that the baron had betrayed
him to L'Estrange.

"I cannot bear this suspense," he cried aloud and abruptly. "I will see
Harley myself. Open as he is, the very sound of his voice will tell me
at once if I am a bankrupt even of human friendship. If that friendship
be secure, if Harley yet clasp my hand with the same cordial warmth, all
other loss shall not wring from my fortitude one complaint."

He rang the bell; his valet, who was waiting in the anteroom, appeared.

"Go and see if Lord L'Estrange is engaged. I would speak with him."

The servant came back in less than two minutes.

"I find that my Lord is now particularly engaged, since he has given
strict orders that he is not to be disturbed."

"Engaged! on what, whom with?"

"He is in his own room, sir, with a clergyman, who arrived, and dined
here, to-day. I am told that he was formerly curate of Lansmere."

"Lansmere! curate! His name, his name! Not Dale?"

"Yes, sir, that is the name,--the Reverend Mr. Dale."

"Leave me," said Audley, in a faint voice. "Dale! the man who suspected
Harley, who called on me in London, spoke of a child,--my child,--and
sent me to find but another grave! He closeted with Harley,--he!"

Audley sank back on his chair, and literally gasped for breath. Few
men in the world had a more established reputation for the courage that
dignifies manhood, whether the physical courage or the moral. But at
that moment it was not grief, not remorse, that paralyzed Audley,--it
was fear. The brave man saw before him, as a thing visible and menacing,
the aspect of his own treachery,--that crime of a coward; and into
cowardice he was stricken. What had he to dread? Nothing save the
accusing face of an injured friend,--nothing but that. And what more
terrible? The only being, amidst all his pomp of partisans, who survived
to love him, the only being for whom the cold statesman felt the happy,
living, human tenderness of private affection, lost to him forever!
He covered his face with both hands, and sat in suspense of something
awful, as a child sits in the dark, the drops on his brow, and his frame
trembling.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

Meanwhile Harley had listened to Mr. Dale's vindication of Leonard with
cold attention.

"Enough," said he, at the close. "Mr. Fairfield (for so we will yet call
him) shall see me to-night; and if apology be due to him, I will make
it. At the same time, it shall be decided whether he continue this
contest or retire. And now, Mr. Dale, it was not to hear how this young
man wooed, or shrunk from wooing, my affianced bride, that I availed
myself of your promise to visit me at this house. We agreed that the
seducer of Nora Avenel deserved chastisement, and I promised that
Nora Avenel's son should find a father. Both these assurances shall be
fulfilled to-morrow. And you, sir," continued Harley, rising, his whole
form gradually enlarged by the dignity of passion, "who wear the garb
appropriated to the holiest office of Christian charity; you who have
presumed to think that, before the beard had darkened my cheek, I could
first betray the girl who had been reared under this roof, then abandon
her,--sneak like a dastard from the place in which my victim came to
die, leave my own son, by the woman thus wronged, without thought or
care, through the perilous years of tempted youth, till I found him, by
chance, an outcast in a desert more dread than Hagar's,--you, sir, who
have for long years thus judged of me, shall have the occasion to direct
your holy anger towards the rightful head; and in me, you who have
condemned the culprit shall respect the judge."

Mr. Dale was at first startled, and almost awed, by this unexpected
burst. But, accustomed to deal with the sternest and the darkest
passions, his calm sense and his habit of authority over those whose
souls were bared to him, nobly recovered from their surprise. "My Lord,"
said he, "first, with humility I bow to your rebuke, and entreat your
pardon for my erring, and, as you say, my uncharitable opinions.
We dwellers in a village and obscure pastors of a humble flock, we,
mercifully removed from temptation, are too apt, perhaps, to exaggerate
its power over those whose lots are cast in that great world which has
so many gates ever open to evil. This is my sole excuse if I was misled
by what appeared to me strong circumstantial evidence. But forgive me
again if I warn you not to fall into an error perhaps little lighter
than my own. Your passion, when you cleared yourself from reproach,
became you. But ah, my Lord, when with that stern brow and those
flashing eyes, you launched your menace upon another over whom you would
constitute yourself the judge, forgetful of the divine precept,
'Judge not,' I felt that I was listening no longer to honest
self-vindication,--I felt that I was listening to fierce revenge!"

"Call it revenge, or what you will," said Harley, with sullen firmness;
"but I have been stung too deeply not to sting. Frank with all, till the
last few days, I have ever been. Frank to you, at least, even now,
this much I tell you: I pretend to no virtue in what I still hold to be
justice; but no declamations nor homilies tending to prove that justice
is sinful will move my resolves. As man I have been outraged, and as
man I will retaliate. The way and the mode, the true criminal and his
fitting sentence, you will soon learn, sir. I have much to do to-night;
forgive me if I adjourn for the present all further conference."

"No, no; do not dismiss me. There is something, in spite of your present
language, which so commands my interest; I see that there has been so
much suffering where there is now so much wrath,--that I would save you
from the suffering worse than all,--remorse. Oh, pause, my dear Lord,
pause and answer me but two questions; then I will leave your after
course to yourself."

"Say on, sir," said Lord L'Estrange, touched, and with respect.

"First; then, analyze your own feelings. Is this anger merely to punish
an offender and to right the living,--for who can pretend to right the
dead? Or is there not some private hate that stirs and animates and
confuses all?"

Harley remained silent. Mr. Dale renewed,

"You loved this poor girl. Your language even now reveals it. You speak
of treachery: perhaps you had a rival who deceived you; I know not,
guess not, whom. But if you would strike the rival, must you not wound
the innocent son? And, in presenting Nora's child to his father, as
you pledge yourself to do, can you mean some cruel mockery that, under
seeming kindness, implies some unnatural vengeance?"

"You read well the heart of man," said Harley; "and I have owned to you
that I am but man. Pass on; you have another question."

"And one more solemn and important. In my world of a village, revenge is
a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems
it noble! but Christ's religion, which is the sublime Civilizer,
emphatically condemns it. Why? Because religion ever seeks to ennoble
a man; and nothing so debases him as revenge. Look into your own heart,
and tell me whether, since you have cherished this passion, you have not
felt all sense of right and wrong confused,--have not felt that whatever
would before have seemed to you mean and base, appears now but just
means to your heated end. Revenge is ever a hypocrite: rage, at least,
strikes with the naked sword; but revenge, stealthy and patient,
conceals the weapon of the assassin. My Lord, your colour changes. What
is your answer to my question?"

"Oh," exclaimed Harley, with a voice thrilling in its mournful anguish,
"it is not since I have cherished the revenge that I am changed, that
right and wrong grow dark to me, that hypocrisy seems the atmosphere fit
for earth. No; it is since the discovery that demands the vengeance. It
is useless, sir," he continued impetuously,--"useless to argue with me.
Were I to sit down, patient and impotent, under the sense of the wrong
which I have received, I should feel, indeed, that debasement which you
ascribe to the gratification of what you term revenge. I should never
regain the self-esteem which the sentiment of power now restores to me;
I should feel as if the whole world could perceive and jeer at my meek
humiliation. I know not why I have said so much,--why I have betrayed
to you so much of my secret mind, and stooped to vindicate my purpose. I
never meant it. Again I say, we must close this conference." Harley here
walked to the door, and opened it significantly.

"One word more, Lord L'Estrange,--but one. You will not hear me. I am a
comparative stranger, but you have a friend, a friend dear and intimate,
now under the same roof. Will you consent, at least, to take counsel
of Mr. Audley Egerton? None can doubt his friendship for you; none
can doubt that whatever he advise will be that which best becomes your
honour. What, my Lord, you hesitate,--you feel ashamed to confide to
your dearest friend a purpose which his mind would condemn? Then I
will seek him, I will implore him to save you from what can but entail
repentance."

"Mr. Dale, I must forbid you to see Mr. Egerton. What has passed between
us ought to be as sacred to you as a priest of Rome holds confession.
This much, however, I will say to content you: I promise that I will
do nothing that shall render me unworthy of Mr. Audley Egerton's
friendship, or which his fine sense of honour shall justify him in
blaming. Let that satisfy you."

"Ah, my Lord," cried Mr. Dale, pausing irresolute at the doorway, and
seizing Harley's hand, "I should indeed be satisfied if you would submit
yourself to higher counsel than mine,--than Mr. Egerton's, than man's.
Have you never felt the efficacy of prayer?"

"My life has been wasted," replied Harley, "and I dare not, therefore,
boast that I have found prayer efficacious. But, so far back as I can
remember, it has at least been my habit to pray to Heaven, night and
morning, until at least--until--" The natural and obstinate candour of
the man forced out the last words, which implied reservation. He stopped
short.

"Until you have cherished revenge? You have not dared to pray since?
Oh, reflect what evil there is within us, when we dare not come before
Heaven,--dare not pray for what we wish. You are moved. I leave you to
your own thoughts." Harley inclined his head, and the parson passed him
by, and left him alone,--startled indeed; but was he softened? As Mr.
Dale hurried along the corridor, much agitated, Violante stole from a
recess formed by a large bay window, and linking her arm in his, said
anxiously, but timidly: "I have been waiting for you, dear Mr. Dale; and
so long! You have been with Lord L'Estrange?"

"Well!"

"Why do you not speak? You have left him comforted, happier?"

"Happier! No."

"What!" said Violante, with a look of surprise, and a sadness not
unmixed with petulance in her quick tone. "What! does he then so grieve
that Helen prefers another?"

Despite the grave emotions that disturbed his mind, Mr. Dale was struck
by Violante's question, and the voice in which it was said. He loved
her tenderly. "Child, child," said he, "I am glad that Helen has escaped
Lord L'Estrange. Beware, oh, beware how he excite any gentler interest
in yourself. He is a dangerous man,--more dangerous for glimpses of a
fine original nature. He may well move the heart of the innocent and
inexperienced, for he has strangely crept into mine. But his heart is
swollen with pride and ire and malice."

"You mistake; it is false!" cried Violante, impetuously. "I cannot
believe one word that would asperse him who has saved my father from a
prison, or from death. You have not treated him gently. He fancies he
has been wronged by Leonard, received ingratitude from Helen. He has
felt the sting in proportion to his own susceptible and generous heart,
and you have chided where you should have soothed. Poor Lord L'Estrange!
And you have left him still indignant and unhappy?"

"Foolish girl! I have left him meditating sin; I have left him afraid to
pray; I have left him on the brink of some design--I know not what--but
which involves more than Leonard in projects of revenge; I have left him
so, that if his heart be really susceptible and generous, he will wake
from wrath to be the victim of long and unavailing remorse. If your
father has influence over him, tell Dr. Riccabocca what I say, and bid
him seek, and in his turn save, the man who saved himself. He has not
listened to religion,--he maybe more docile to philosophy. I cannot stay
here longer,--I must go to Leonard."

Mr. Dale broke from Violante and hurried down the corridor; Violante
stood on the same spot, stunned and breathless. Harley on the brink of
some strange sin! Harley to wake, the victim of remorse! Harley to be
saved, as he had saved her father! Her breast heaved, her colour went
and came, her eyes were raised, her lips murmured. She advanced with
soft footsteps up the corridor; she saw the lights gleaming from
Harley's room, and suddenly they were darkened, as the inmate of the
room shut to the door, with angry and impatient hand.

An outward act often betrays the inward mind. As Harley had thus closed
the door, so had he sought to shut his heart from the intrusion of
softer and holier thoughts. He had turned to his hearthstone, and
stood on it, resolved and hardened. The man who had loved with such
pertinacious fidelity far so many years could not at once part with
hate. A passion once admitted to his breast, clung to it with such
rooted force! But woe, woe to thee, Harley L'Estrange, if tomorrow
at this hour thou stand at the hearthstone, thy designs accomplished,
knowing that, in the fulfilment of thy blind will, thou hast met
falsehood with falsehood, and deception with deceit! What though those
designs now seem so consummate, so just, so appropriate, so exquisite a
revenge,--seem to thee the sole revenge wit can plan and civilized life
allow: wilt thou ever wash from thy memory the stain that will sully
thine honour? Thou, too, professing friendship still, and masking
perfidy under smiles! Grant that the wrong be great as thou deem it,--be
ten times greater: the sense of thy meanness, O gentleman and soldier,
will bring the blush to thy cheek in the depth of thy solitude. Thou,
who now thinkest others unworthy a trustful love, wilt feel thyself
forever unworthy theirs. Thy seclusion will know not repose. The dignity
of man will forsake thee. Thy proud eye will quail from the gaze. Thy
step will no longer spurn the earth that it treads on. He who has
once done a base thing is never again wholly reconciled to honour. And
woe--thrice woe, if thou learn too late that thou hast exaggerated thy
fancied wrong: that there is excuse, where thou seest none; that thy
friend may have erred, but that his error is venial compared to thy
fancied retribution!

Thus, however, in the superb elation of conscious power, though lavished
on a miserable object,--a terrible example of what changes one evil and
hateful thought, cherished to the exclusion of all others, can make
in the noblest nature, stood, on the hearth of his fathers, and on the
abyss of a sorrow and a shame from which there could be no recall, the
determined and scornful man.

A hand is on the door,--he does not hear it; a form passes the
threshold,-he does not see it; a light step pauses, a soft eye gazes.
Deaf and blind still to both.

Violante came on, gathering courage, and stood at the hearth by his
side.




CHAPTER XXIX.

"LORD L'ESTRANGE, noble friend!"

"You!--and here--Violante? Is it I whom you seek? For what? Good
heavens! what has happened? Why are you so pale; why tremble?"

"Have you forgiven Helen?" asked Violante, beginning with evasive
question, and her cheek was pale no more. "Helen, the poor child! I have
nothing in her to forgive, much to thank her for. She has been frank and
honest."

"And Leonard--whom I remember in my childhood--you have forgiven him?"

"Fair mediator," said Harley, smiling, though coldly, "happy is the man
who deceives another; all plead for him. And if the man deceived cannot
forgive, no one will sympathize or excuse."

"But Leonard did not deceive you?"

"Yes, from the first. It is a long tale, and not to be told to you; but
I cannot forgive him."

"Adieu! my Lord. Helen must, then, still be very dear to you!" Violante
turned away. Her emotion was so artless, her very anger so charming,
that the love, against which, in the prevalence of his later and darker
passions, he had so sternly struggled, rushed back upon Harley's breast;
but it came only in storm.

"Stay, but talk not of Helen!" he exclaimed. "Ah, if Leonard's sole
offence had been what you appear to deem it, do you think I could feel
resentment? No; I should have gratefully hailed the hand that severed a
rash and ungenial tie. I would have given my ward to her lover with such
a dower as it suits my wealth to bestow. But his offence dates from
his very birth. To bless and to enrich the son of a man who--Violante,
listen to me. We may soon part, and forever. Others may misconstrue my
actions; you, at least, shall know from what just principle they spring.
There was a man whom I singled out of the world as more than a brother.
In the romance of my boyhood I saw one who dazzled my fancy, captivated
my heart. It was a dream of Beauty breathed into waking life. I
loved,--I believed myself beloved. I confided all my heart to this
friend,--this more than brother; he undertook to befriend and to aid
my suit. On that very pretext he first saw this ill-fated girl, saw,
betrayed, destroyed her; left me ignorant that her love, which I had
thought mine, had been lavished so wildly on another; left me to believe
that my own suit she had fled, but in generous self-sacrifice,--for
she was poor and humbly born; that--oh, vain idiot that I was!--the
self-sacrifice had been too strong for a young human heart, which had
broken in the struggle; left me to corrode my spring of life in remorse;
clasped my hand in mocking comfort, smiled at my tears of agony--not one
tear himself for his own poor victim! And suddenly, not long since, I
learned all this. And in the father of Leonard Fairfield, you behold
the man who has poisoned all the well-spring of joy to me. You weep!
Oh, Violante! the Past he has blighted and embittered,--that I could
forgive; but the Future is blasted too. For just ere this treason
was revealed to me, I had begun to awake from the torpor of my dreary
penance, to look with fortitude towards the duties I had slighted, to
own that the pilgrimage before me was not barren. And then, oh then, I
felt that all love was not buried in a grave. I felt that you, had
fate so granted, might have been all to my manhood which youth only
saw through the delusion of its golden mists. True, I was then bound
to Helen; true, that honour to her might forbid me all hope. But still,
even to know that my heart was not all ashes, that I could love again,
that that glorious power and privilege of our being was still mine,
seemed to me so heavenly sweet. But then this revelation of falsehood
burst on me, and all truth seemed blotted from the universe. I am freed
from Helen; ah, freed, forsooth,--because not even rank and wealth, and
benefits and confiding tenderness, could bind to me one human heart!
Free from her; but between me and your fresh nature stands Suspicion as
an Upas tree. Not a hope that would pass through the tainted air and fly
to you, but falls dead under the dismal boughs. I love!

"Ha, ha! I--I, whom the past has taught the impossibility to be loved
again. No: if those soft lips murmured 'Yes' to the burning prayer that,
had I been free but two short weeks ago, would have rushed from
the frank deeps of my heart, I should but imagine that you deceived
yourself,--a girl's first fleeting delusive fancy,--nothing more! Were
you my bride, Violante, I should but debase your bright nature by my own
curse of distrust. At each word of tenderness, my heart would say, 'How
long will this last; when will the deception come?' Your beauty, your
gifts, would bring me but jealous terror, eternally I should fly from
the Present to the Future, and say. 'These hairs will be gray, while
flattering youth will surround her in the zenith of her charms.' Why
then do I hate and curse my foe? Why do I resolve upon revenge? I
comprehend it now. I knew that there was something more imperious than
the ghost of the Past that urged me on. Gazing on you, I feel that it
was the dim sense of a mighty and priceless loss; it is not the dead
Nora,--it is the living Violante. Look not at me with those reproachful
eyes: they cannot reverse my purpose; they cannot banish suspicion from
my sickened soul; they cannot create a sunshine in the midst of this
ghastly twilight. Go, go; leave me to the sole joy that bequeaths no
disappointment, the sole feeling that unites me to social man; leave me
to my revenge."

"Revenge! Oh, cruel!" exclaimed Violante, laying her hand on his arm.
"And in revenge, it is your own life that you will risk!"

"My life, simple child! This is no contest of life against life. Could I
bare to all the world my wrongs for their ribald laughter, I should only
give to my foe the triumph to pity my frenzy, to shun the contest; or
grant it, if I could find a second--and then fire in the air. And all
the world would say, 'Generous Egerton! soul of honour!'"

"Egerton, Mr. Egerton! He cannot be this foe? It is not on him you can
design revenge,--you who spend all your hours in serving his cause, you
to whom he trusts so fondly, you who leaned yesterday on his shoulder,
and smiled so cheeringly in his face?"

"Did I? Hypocrisy against hypocrisy, snare against snare: that is my
revenge."

"Harley, Harley! Cease, cease!"

The storm of passion rushed on unheeding.

"I seem to promote his ambition but to crush it into the mire. I have
delivered him from the gentler gripe of an usurer, so that he shall hold
at my option alms or a prison--"

"Friend, friend! Hush, hush!"

"I have made the youth he has reared and fostered into treachery like
his own (your father's precious choice, Randal Leslie) mine instrument
in the galling lesson how ingratitude can sting. His very son shall
avenge the mother, and be led to his father's breast as victor, with
Randal Leslie, in the contest that deprives sire and benefactor of all
that makes life dear to ambitious egotism. And if, in the breast of
Audley Egerton, there can yet lurk one memory of what I was to him
and to truth, not his least punishment will be the sense that his own
perfidy has so changed the man whose very scorn of falsehood has taught
him to find in fraud itself the power of retribution."

"If this be not a terrible dream," murmured Violante, recoiling, "it is
not your foe alone that you will deprive of all that makes life dear.
Act thus--and what, in the future, is left to me?"

"To you? Oh, never fear. I may give Randal Leslie a triumph over his
patron, but in the same hour I will unmask his villany, and sweep
him forever from your path. What in the future is left to you?--your
birthright and your native land; hope, joy, love, felicity. Could it be
possible that in the soft but sunny fancy which plays round the heart
of maiden youth, but still sends no warmth into its deeps,--could it be
possible that you had Honoured me with a gentler thought, it will pass
away, and you will be the pride and delight of one of your own years, to
whom the vista of Time is haunted by no chilling spectres, one who can
look upon that lovely face, and not turn away to mutter, 'Too fair, too
fair for me!'"

"Oh, agony!" exclaimed Violante, with sudden passion. "In my turn hear
me. If, as you promise, I am released from the dreadful thought that he,
at whose touch I shudder, can claim this hand, my choice is irrevocably
made. The altars which await me will not be those of a human love. But
oh, I implore you--by all the memories of your own life, hitherto, if
sorrowful, unsullied, by the generous interest you yet profess for
me, whom you will have twice saved from a danger to which death were
mercy--leave, oh, leave to me the right to regard your image as I have
done from the first dawn of childhood. Leave me the right to honour and
revere it. Let not an act accompanied with a meanness--oh that I should
say the word!--a meanness and a cruelty that give the lie to your whole
life--make even a grateful remembrance of you an unworthy sin. When I
kneel within the walls that divide me from the world, oh, let me think
that I can pray for you as the noblest being that the world contains!
Hear me! hear me!"

"Violante!" murmured Harley, his whole frame heaving with emotion, "bear
with me. Do not ask of me the sacrifice of what seems to me the cause
of manhood itself,--to sit down, meek and patient, under a wrong that
debases me, with the consciousness that all my life I have been the
miserable dupe to affections I deemed so honest, to regrets that I
believed so holy. Ah, I should feel more mean in my pardon than you can
think me in revenge! Were it an acknowledged enemy, I could open my arms
to him at your bidding; but the perfidious friend!--ask it not. My
cheek burns at the thought, as at the stain of a blow. Give me but
to-morrow--one day--I demand no more--wholly to myself and to the past,
and mould me for the future as you will. Pardon, pardon the ungenerous
thoughts that extended distrust to you. I retract them; they are
gone,--dispelled before those touching words, those ingenuous eyes. At
your feet, Violante, I repent and I implore! Your father himself shall
banish your sordid suitor. Before this hour to-morrow you will be free.
Oh, then, then! will you not give me this hand to guide me again into
the paradise of my youth? Violante, it is in vain to wrestle with
myself, to doubt, to reason, to be wisely fearful! I love, I love you! I
trust again in virtue and faith. I place my fate in your keeping." If
at times Violante may appear to have ventured beyond the limit of strict
maiden bashfulness, much may be ascribed to her habitual candour, her
solitary rearing, and remoteness from the world, the very innocence of
her soul, and the warmth of heart which Italy gives its daughters. But
now that sublimity of thought and purpose which pervaded her nature,
and required only circumstances to develop, made her superior to all the
promptings of love itself. Dreams realized which she had scarcely dared
to own; Harley free, Harley at her feet; all the woman struggling at her
heart, mantling in her blushes, still stronger than love, stronger than
the joy of being loved again, was the heroic will,--will to save him,
who in all else ruled her existence, from the eternal degradation to
which passion had blinded his own confused and warring spirit.

Leaving one hand in his impassioned clasp, as he still knelt before her,
she raised on high the other. "Ah," she said, scarce audibly,--"ah, if
heaven vouchsafe me the proud and blissful privilege to be allied to
your fate, to minister to your happiness, never should I know one fear
of your distrust. No time, no change, no sorrow--not even the loss of
your affection--could make me forfeit the right to remember that you had
once confided to me a heart so noble. But"--here her voice rose in its
tone, and the glow fled from her cheek--"but, O Thou the Ever Present,
hear and receive the solemn vow. If to me he refuse to sacrifice the sin
that would debase him, that sin be the barrier between us evermore;
and may my life, devoted to Thy service, atone for the hour in which
he belied the nature he received from Thee! Harley, release me! I have
spoken: firm as yourself, I leave the choice to you."

"You judge me harshly," said Harley, rising, with sullen anger; "but at
least I have not the meanness to sell what I hold as justice, though the
bribe may include my last hope of happiness."

"Meanness! Oh, unhappy, beloved Harley!" exclaimed Violante, with such
a gush of exquisite reproachful tenderness, that it thrilled him as
the voice of the parting guardian angel. "Meanness! But it is that from
which I implore you to save yourself. You cannot judge, you cannot see.
You are dark, dark. Lost Christian that you are, what worse than
heathen darkness to feign the friendship the better to betray; to punish
falsehood by becoming yourself so false; to accept the confidence even
of your bitterest foe, and then to sink below his own level in deceit?
And oh, worse than all--to threaten that a son--son of the woman you
professed to love--should swell your vengeance against a father! No! it
was not you that said this,--it was the Fiend!"

"Enough!" exclaimed Harley, startled, conscience-stricken, and rushing
into resentment, in order to escape the sense of shame. "Enough! you
insult the man you professed to honour."

"I honoured the prototype of gentleness and valour. I honoured one who
seemed to me to clothe with life every grand and generous image that is
born from the souls of poets. Destroy that ideal, and you destroy the
Harley whom I honoured. He is dead to me forever. I will mourn for him
as his widow, faithful to his memory, weeping over the thought of what
he was." Sobs choked her voice; but as Harley, once more melted, sprang
forward to regain her side, she escaped with a yet quicker movement,
gained the door, and darting down the corridor, vanished from his sight.

Harley stood still one moment, thoroughly irresolute, nay, almost
subdued. Then sternness, though less rigid than before, gradually came
to his brow. The demon had still its hold in the stubborn and marvellous
pertinacity with which the man clung to all that once struck root at his
heart. With a sudden impulse that still withheld decision, yet spoke
of sore-shaken purpose, he strode to his desk, drew from it Nora's
manuscript, and passed from his room.

Harley had meant never to have revealed to Audley the secret he
had gained until the moment when revenge was consummated. He had
contemplated no vain reproach. His wrath would have spoken forth in
deeds, and then a word would have sufficed as the key to all. Willing,
perhaps, to hail some extenuation of perfidy, though the possibility
of such extenuation he had never before admitted, he determined on
the interview which he had hitherto so obstinately shunned, and went
straight to the room in which Audley Egerton still sat, solitary and
fearful.




CHAPTER XXX.

Egerton heard the well-known step advancing near and nearer up the
corridor, heard the door open and reclose; and he felt, by one of those
strange and unaccountable instincts which we call forebodings, that the
hour he had dreaded for so many secret years had come at last. He nerved
his courage, withdrew his hands from his face, and rose in silence.

No less silent, Harley stood before him. The two men gazed on each
other; you might have heard their breathing.

"You have seen Mr. Dale?" said Egerton, at length. "You know--"

"All!" said Harley, completing the arrested sentence. Audley drew a long
sigh. "Be it so; but no, Harley, you deceive yourself; you cannot know
all, from any one living, save myself."

"My knowledge comes from the dead," answered Harley, and the fatal
memoir dropped from his hand upon the table. The leaves fell with a
dull, low sound, mournful and faint as might be the tread of a ghost, if
the tread gave sound. They fell, those still confessions of an obscure,
uncomprehended life, amidst letters and documents eloquent of the strife
that was then agitating millions,--the fleeting, turbulent fears and
hopes that torture parties and perplex a nation; the stormy business
of practical public life, so remote from individual love and individual
sorrow.

Egerton's eye saw them fall. The room was but partially lighted. At
the distance where he stood, he did not recognize the characters; but
involuntarily he shivered, and involuntarily drew near.

"Hold yet awhile," said Harley. "I produce my charge, and then I leave
you to dispute the only witness that I bring. Audley Egerton, you took
from me the gravest trust one man can confide to another. You knew how
I loved Leonora Avenel. I was forbidden to see and urge my suit; you had
the access to her presence which was denied to myself. I prayed you
to remove scruples that I deemed too generous, and to woo her not to
dishonour, but to be my wife. Was it so? Answer."

"It is true," said Audley, his hand clenched at his heart. "You saw her
whom I thus loved,--her thus confided to your honour. You wooed her for
yourself. Is it so?"

"Harley, I deny it not. Cease here. I accept the penalty; I resign your
friendship; I quit your roof; I submit to your contempt; I dare not
implore your pardon. Cease; let me go hence, and soon!"

The strong man gasped for breath. Harley looked at him steadfastly, then
turned away his eyes, and went on. "Nay," said he, "is that ALL? You
wooed her for yourself,--you won her. Account to me for that life which
you wrenched from mine. You are silent. I will take on myself your task;
you took that life and destroyed it."

"Spare me, spare me!"

"What was the fate of her who seemed so fresh from heaven when these
eyes beheld her last? A broken heart, a dishonoured name, an early doom,
a forgotten gravestone!"

"No, no--forgotten,--no!"

"Not forgotten! Scarce a year passed, and you were married to another.
I aided you to form those nuptials which secured your fortunes. You
have had rank and power and fame. Peers call you the type of English
gentlemen; priests hold you as a model of Christian honour. Strip the
mask, Audley Egerton; let the world know you for what you are!"

Egerton raised his head, and folded his arms calmly; but he said, with a
melancholy humility, "I bear all from you; it is just. Say on."

"You took from me the heart of Nora Avenel. You abandoned her, you
destroyed. And her memory cast no shadow over your daily sunshine; while
over my thoughts, over my life--oh, Egerton--Audley, Audley--how could
you have deceived me thus!" Here the inherent tenderness under all this
hate, the fount imbedded under the hardening stone, broke out. Harley
was ashamed of his weakness, and hurried on,

"Deceived,--not for an hour, a day, but through blighted youth, through
listless manhood,--you suffered me to nurse the remorse that should have
been your own; her life slain, mine wasted,--and shall neither of us
have revenge?"

"Revenge! Ah, Harley, you have had it!"

"No, but I await it! Not in vain from the charnel have come to me the
records I produce. And whom did fate select to discover the wrongs of
the mother, whom appoint as her avenger? Your son,--your own son; your
abandoned, nameless son!"

"Son! son!"

"Whom I delivered from famine, or from worse; and who, in return, has
given into my hands the evidence which proclaims in you the perjured
friend of Harley L'Estrange, and the fraudulent seducer, under mock
marriage forms--worse than all franker sin--of Leonora Avenel."

"It is false! false!" exclaimed Egerton, all his stateliness and all his
energy restored to him. "I forbid you to speak thus to me. I forbid you
by one word to sully the memory of my lawful wife!"

"Ah!" said Harley, startled. "Ah! false? prove that, and revenge is
over! Thank Heaven!"

"Prove it! What so easy? And wherefore have I delayed the proof;
wherefore concealed, but from tenderness to you,--dread, too--a selfish
but human dread--to lose in you the sole esteem that I covet; the only
mourner who would have shed one tear over the stone inscribed with some
lying epitaph, in which it will suit a party purpose to proclaim the
gratitude of a nation. Vain hope. I resign it! But you spoke of a son.
Alas, alas! you are again deceived. I heard that I had a son,--years,
long years ago. I sought him, and found a grave. But bless you, Harley,
if you succoured one whom you even erringly suspect to be Leonora's
child!" He stretched forth his hands as he spoke.

"Of your son we will speak later," said Harley, strangely softened. "But
before I say more of him, let me ask you to explain; let me hope that
you can extenuate what--"

"You are right," interrupted Egerton, with eager quickness. "You would
know from my own lips at last the plain tale of my own offence against
you. It is due to both. Patiently hear me out."

Then Egerton told all,--his own love for Nora, his struggles against
what he felt as treason to his friend, his sudden discovery of Nora's
love for him; on that discovery, the overthrow of all his resolutions;
their secret marriage, their separation; Nora's flight, to which Audley
still assigned but her groundless vague suspicion that their nuptials
had not been legal, and her impatience of his own delay in acknowledging
the rite.

His listener interrupted him here with a few questions, the clear
and prompt replies to which enabled Harley to detect Levy's plausible
perversion of the facts; and he vaguely guessed the cause of the
usurer's falsehood, in the criminal passion which the ill-fated bride
had inspired.

"Egerton," said Harley, stifling with an effort his own wrath against
the vile deceiver both of wife and husband, "if, on reading those
papers, you find that Leonora had more excuse for her suspicions and
flight than you now deem, and discover perfidy in one to whom you
trusted your secret, leave his punishment to Heaven. All that you say
convinces me more and more that we cannot even see through the cloud,
much less guide the thunderbolt. But proceed."

Audley looked surprised and startled, and his eye turned wistfully
towards the papers; but after a short pause he continued his recital. He
came to Nora's unexpected return to her father's house, her death, his
conquest of his own grief, that he might spare Harley the abrupt
shock of learning her decease. He had torn himself from the dead, in
remorseful sympathy with the living. He spoke of Harley's illness, so
nearly fatal, repeated Harley's jealous words, "that he would rather
mourn Nora's death, than take comfort from the thought that she had
loved another." He spoke of his journey to the village where Mr. Dale
had told him Nora's child was placed--"and, hearing that child and
mother were alike gone, whom now could I right by acknowledging a bond
that I feared would so wring your heart?" Audley again paused a moment,
and resumed in short, nervous, impressive sentences. This cold, austere
man of the world for the first time bared his heart,--unconscious,
perhaps, that he did so; unconscious that he revealed how deeply,
amidst State cares and public distinctions, he had felt the absence of
affections; how mechanical was that outer circle in the folds of life
which is called a "career;" how valueless wealth had grown--none to
inherit it. Of his gnawing and progressive disease alone he did not
speak; he was too proud and too masculine to appeal to pity for physical
ills. He reminded Harley how often, how eagerly, year after year, month
after month, he had urged his friend to rouse himself from mournful
dreams, devote his native powers to his country, or seek the surer
felicity of domestic ties. "Selfish in these attempts I might be," said
Egerton; "it was only if I saw you restored to happiness that I could
believe you could calmly hear my explanation of the past, and on the
floor of some happy home grant me your forgiveness. I longed to confess,
and I dared not. Often have the words rushed to my lips,--as often
some chance sentence from you repelled me. In a word, with you were so
entwined all the thoughts and affections of my youth--even those
that haunted the grave of Nora--that I could not bear to resign your
friendship, and, surrounded by the esteem and honour of a world I cared
not for, to meet the contempt of your reproachful eye."

Amidst all that Audley said, amidst all that admitted of no excuse,
two predominant sentiments stood clear, in unmistakable and touching
pathos,--remorseful regret for the lost Nora, and self-accusing,
earnest, almost feminine tenderness for the friend he had deceived.
Thus, as he continued to speak, Harley more and more forgot even the
remembrance of his own guilty and terrible interval of hate; the gulf
that had so darkly yawned between the two closed up, leaving them still
standing side by side, as in their schoolboy days. But he remained
silent, listening, shading his face from Audley, and as if under some
soft but enthralling spell, till Egerton thus closed,

"And now, Harley, all is told. You spoke of revenge?"

"Revenge!" muttered Harley, starting.

"And believe me," continued Egerton, "were revenge in your power, I
should rejoice at it as an atonement. To receive an injury in return
for that which, first from youthful passion, and afterwards from the
infirmity of purpose that concealed the wrong, I have inflicted
upon you--why, that would soothe my conscience, and raise my lost
self-esteem. The sole revenge you can bestow takes the form which most
humiliates me,--to revenge is to pardon."

Harley groaned; and still hiding his face with one hand, stretched forth
the other, but rather with the air of one who entreats than who accords
forgiveness. Audley took and pressed the hand thus extended.

"And NOW, Harley, farewell. With the dawn I leave this house. I
cannot now accept your aid in this election. Levy shall announce my
resignation. Randal Leslie, if you so please it, may be returned in
my stead. He has abilities which, under safe guidance, may serve his
country; and I have no right to reject from vain pride whatever will
promote the career of one whom I undertook, and have failed, to serve."

"Ay, ay," muttered Harley; "think not of Randal Leslie; think but of
your son."

"My son! But are you sure that he still lives? You smile; you--you--oh,
Harley, I took from you the mother,--give to me the son; break my heart
with gratitude. Your revenge is found!"

Lord L'Estrange rose with a sudden start, gazed on Audley for a
moment,--irresolute, not from resentment, but from shame. At that moment
he was the man humbled; he was the man who feared reproach, and who
needed pardon. Audley, not divining what was thus passing in Harley's
breast, turned away.

"You think that I ask too much; and yet all that I can give to the child
of my love and the heir of my name is the worthless blessing of a ruined
man. Harley, I say no more. I dare not add, 'You too loved his mother!
and with a deeper and a nobler love than mine.'" He stopped short, and
Harley flung himself on his breast.

"Me--me--pardon me, Audley! Your offence has been slight to mine. You
have told me your offence; never can I name to you my own. Rejoice that
we have both to exchange forgiveness, and in that exchange we are equal
still, Audley, brothers still. Look up! look up! think that we are boys
now as we were once,--boys who have had their wild quarrel, and who, the
moment it is over, feel dearer to each other than before."

"Oh, Harley, this is revenge! It strikes home," murmured Egerton, and
tears gushed fast from eyes that could have gazed unwinking on the rack.
The clock struck; Harley sprang forward.

"I have time yet," he cried. "Much to do and to undo. You are saved from
the grasp of Levy; your election will be won; your fortunes in much may
be restored; you have before you honours not yet achieved; your career
as yet is scarce begun; your son will embrace you to-morrow. Let me
go--your hand again! Ah, Audley, we shall be so happy yet!"




CHAPTER XXXI.

"There is a hitch," said Dick, pithily, when Randal joined him in the
oak copse at ten o'clock. "Life is full of hitches."

RANDAL.--"The art of life is to smooth them away. What hitch is this, my
dear Avenel?"

DICK.--"Leonard has taken huff at certain expressions of Lord
L'Estrange's at the nomination to-day, and talks of retiring from the
contest."

RANDAL (with secret glee).--"But his resignation would smooth a
hitch,--not create one. The votes promised to him would thus be freed,
and go to--"

DICK.--"The Right Honourable Red-Tapist!"

RANDAL.--"Are you serious?"

DICK.--"As an undertaker! The fact is, there are two parties among the
Yellows as there are in the Church,--High Yellow and Low Yellow. Leonard
has made great way with the High Yellows, and has more influence with
them than I; and the High Yellows infinitely preferred Egerton to
yourself. They say, 'Politics apart, he would be an honour to the
borough.' Leonard is of the same opinion; and if he retires, I don't
think I could coax either him or the Highflyers to make you any the
better by his resignation."

RANDAL.--"But surely your nephew's sense of gratitude to you would
induce him not to go against your wishes?"

DICK.--"Unluckily, the gratitude is all the other way. It is I who am
under obligations to him,--not he to me. As for Lord L'Estrange, I
can't make head or tail of his real intentions; and why he should have
attacked Leonard in that way puzzles me more than all, for he wished
Leonard to stand; and Levy has privately informed me that, in spite
of my Lord's friendship for the Right Honourable, you are the man he
desires to secure."

RANDAL.--"He has certainly shown that desire throughout the whole
canvass."

DICK.--"I suspect that the borough-mongers have got a seat for Egerton
elsewhere; or, perhaps, should his party come in again, he is to be
pitchforked into the Upper House."

RANDAL (smiling).--"Ah, Avenel, you are so shrewd; you see through
everything. I will also add that Egerton wants some short respite from
public life, in order to nurse his health and attend to his affairs,
otherwise I could not even contemplate the chance of the electors
preferring me to him, without a pang."

DICK.--"Pang! stuff--considerable. The oak-trees don't hear us! You want
to come into parliament, and no mistake. If I am the man to retire,--as
I always proposed, and had got Leonard to agree to, before this
confounded speech of L'Estrange's,--come into parliament you will, for
the Low Yellows I can twist round my finger, provided the High Yellows
will not interfere; in short, I could transfer to you votes promised to
me, but I can't answer for those promised to Leonard. Levy tells me you
are to marry a rich girl, and will have lots of money; so, of course,
you will pay my expenses if you come in through my votes."

RANDAL.--"My dear Avenel, certainly I will."

DICK.--"And I have two private bills I want to smuggle through
parliament."

RANDAL.--"They shall be smuggled, rely on it. Mr. Fairfield being on
one side of the House, and I on the other, we two could prevent all
unpleasant opposition. Private bills are easily managed,--with that tact
which I flatter myself I possess."

DICK.--"And when the bills are through the House, and you have had time
to look about you, I dare say you will see that no man can go against
Public Opinion, unless he wants to knock his own head against a stone
wall; and that Public Opinion is decidedly Yellow."

RANDAL (with candour).--"I cannot deny that Public Opinion is Yellow;
and at my age, it is natural that I should not commit myself to the
policy of a former generation. Blue is fast wearing out. But, to return
to Mr. Fairfield: you do not speak as if you had no hope of keeping him
straight to what I understand to be his agreement with yourself. Surely
his honour is engaged to it?"

DICK.--"I don't know as to honour; but he has now taken a fancy to
public life,--at least so he said no later than this morning before we
went into the hall; and I trust that matters will come right. Indeed,
I left him with Parson Dale, who promised me that he would use all his
best exertions to reconcile Leonard and my Lord, and that Leonard should
do nothing hastily."

RANDAL.--"But why should Mr. Fairfield retire because Lord L'Estrange
wounds his feelings? I am sure Mr. Fairfield has wounded mine, but that
does not make me think of retiring."

DICK.--"Oh, Leonard is a poet, and poets are quite as crotchety as
L'Estrange said they were. And Leonard is under obligations to Lord
L'Estrange, and thought that Lord L'Estrange was pleased by his
standing; whereas, now--In short, it is all Greek to me, except that
Leonard has mounted his high horse, and if that throws him, I am afraid
it will throw you. But still I have great confidence in Parson Dale,--a
good fellow who has much influence with Leonard. And though I thought it
right to be above-board, and let you know where the danger lies, yet one
thing I can promise,--if I resign, you shall come in; so shake hands on
it."

RANDAL.--"My dear Avenel! And your wish is to resign?"

DICK.--"Certainly. I should do so a little time after noon, contriving
to be below Leonard on the poll. You know Emanuel Trout, the captain of
the Hundred and Fifty 'Waiters on Providence,' as they are called?"

RANDAL.--"To be sure I do."

DICK.--"When Emanuel Trout comes into the booth, you will know how the
election turns. As he votes, all the Hundred and Fifty will vote. Now I
must go back. Good-night.

"You'll not forget that my expenses are to be paid. Point of honour.
Still, if they are not paid, the election can be upset,--petition for
bribery and corruption; and if they are paid, why, Lansmere may be your
seat for life."

RANDAL.--"Your expenses shall be paid the moment my marriage gives me
the means to pay them,--and that must be very soon."

DICK.--"So Levy says. And my little jobs--the private bills?"

RANDAL.--"Consider the bills passed and the jobs done."

DICK.--"And one must not forget one's country. One must do the best one
can for one's principles. Egerton is infernally Blue. You allow Public
Opinion--is--"

RANDAL.--"Yellow. Not a doubt of it."

DICK.--"Good-night. Ha, ha! humbug, eh?"

RANDAL.--"Humbug! Between men like us,--oh, no. Good-night, my dear
friend, I rely on you."

DICK.--"Yes; but mind, I promise nothing if Leonard Fairfield does not
stand."

RANDAL.--"He must stand; keep him to it. Your affairs, your business,
your mill--"

DICK.--"Very true. He must stand. I have great faith in Parson Dale."

Randal glided back through the park. When he came on the terrace, he
suddenly encountered Lord L'Estrange. "I have just been privately into
the town, my dear Lord, and heard a strange rumour, that Mr. Fairfield
was so annoyed by some remarks in your Lordship's admirable speech, that
he talks of retiring from the contest. That would give a new feature
to the election, and perplex all our calculations; and I fear, in that
case, there might be some secret coalition between Avenel's friends
and our Committee, whom, I am told, I displeased by the moderate speech
which your Lordship so eloquently defended,--a coalition by which Avenel
would come in with Mr. Egerton, whereas, if we all four stand, Mr.
Egerton, I presume, will be quite safe,--and I certainly think I have an
excellent chance."

LORD L'ESTRANGE.--"SO Mr. Fairfield would retire in consequence of my
remarks! I am going into the town, and I intend to apologize for those
remarks, and retract them."

RANDAL (joyously).--"Noble!"

Lord L'Estrange looked at Leslie's face, upon which the stars gleamed
palely. "Mr. Egerton has thought more of your success than of his own,"
said he, gravely, and hurried on.

Randal continued on the terrace. Perhaps Harley's last words gave him
a twinge of compunction. His head sunk musingly on his breast, and he
paced to and fro the long gravel-walk, summoning up all his intellect to
resist every temptation to what could injure his self-interest.

"Skulking knave!" muttered Harley. "At least there will be nothing to
repent, if I can do justice on him. That is not revenge. Come, that must
be a fair retribution. Besides, how else can I deliver Violante?"

He laughed gayly, his heart was so light; and his foot bounded on as
fleet as the deer that he startled amongst the fern.

A few yards from the turnstile he overtook Richard Avenel, disguised in
a rough great-coat and spectacles. Nevertheless, Harley's eye detected
the Yellow candidate at the first glance. He caught Dick familiarly by
the arm. "Well met! I was going to you. We have the election to settle."

"On the terms I mentioned to your Lordship?" said Dick, startled. "I
will agree to return one of your candidates; but it must not be Audley
Egerton." Harley whispered close in Avenel's ear.

Avenel uttered an exclamation of amazement. The two gentlemen walked on
rapidly, and conversing with great eagerness.

"Certainly," said Avenel, at length, stopping short, "one would do a
great deal to serve a family connection,--and a connection that does
a man so much credit; and how can one go against one's own
brother-in-law,--a gentleman of such high standing, pull up the whole
family! How pleased Mrs. Richard Avenel will be! Why the devil did not
I know it before? And poor--dear--dear Nora. Ah, that she were living!"
Dick's voice trembled.

"Her name will be righted; and I will explain why it was my fault that
Egerton did not before acknowledge his marriage, and claim you as a
brother. Come, then, it is all fixed and settled."

"No, my Lord; I am pledged the other way. I don't see how I can get
off my word--to Randal Leslie. I'm not over nice, nor what is called
Quixotic; but still my word is given that if I retire from the election,
I will do my best to return Leslie instead of Egerton."

"I know that through Baron Levy. But if your nephew retires?"

"Oh, that would solve all difficulties. But the poor boy has now a wish
to come into parliament; and he has done me a service in the hour of
need."

"Leave it to me. And as to Randal Leslie, he shall have an occasion
himself to acquit you and redeem himself; and happy, indeed, will it
be for him if he has yet one spark of gratitude, or one particle of
honour!"

The two continued to converse for a few moments, Dick seeming to forget
the election itself, and ask questions of more interest to his heart,
which Harley answered so, that Dick wrung L'Estrange's hand with great
emotion, and muttered, "My poor mother! I understand now why she would
never talk to me of Nora. When may I tell her the truth?"

"To-morrow evening, after the election, Egerton shall embrace you all."

Dick started, and saying, "See Leonard as soon as you can,--there is
no time to lose," plunged into a lane that led towards the obscurer
recesses of the town. Harley continued his way with the same light
elastic tread which (lost during his abnegation of his own nature) was
now restored to the foot, that seemed loath to leave a print upon the
mire.

At the commencement of the High Street he encountered Mr. Dale and
Fairfield, walking slowly, arm-in-arm.

HARLEY.--"Leonard, I was coming to you. Give me your hand. Forget for
the present the words that justly stung and offended you. I will do more
than apologize,--I will repair the wrong. Excuse me, Mr. Dale, I have
one word to say in private to Leonard." He drew Fairfield aside.

"Avenel tells me that if you were to retire from this contest, it would
be a sacrifice of inclination. Is it so?"

"My Lord, I have sorrows that I would fain forget; and though I at first
shrunk from the strife in which I have been since engaged, yet now a
literary career seems to me to have lost its old charm; and I find that,
in public life, there is a distraction to the thoughts which embitter
solitude, that books fail to bestow. Therefore, if you still wish me to
continue this contest, though I know not your motive, it will not be
as it was to begin it,--a reluctant and a painful obedience to your
request."

"I understand. It was a sacrifice of inclination to begin the contest;
it would be now a sacrifice of inclination to withdraw?"

"Honestly, yes, my Lord."

"I rejoice to hear it, for I ask that sacrifice,--a sacrifice which you
will recall hereafter with delight and pride; a sacrifice sweeter, if
I read your nature aright--oh, sweeter far, than all which commonplace
ambition could bestow! And when you learn why I make this demand, you
will say, 'This, indeed, is reparation for the words that wounded my
affections, and wronged my heart.'"

"My Lord, my Lord!" exclaimed Leonard, "the injury is repaired already.
You give me back your esteem, when you so well anticipate my answer.
Your esteem!--life smiles again. I can return to my more legitimate
career without a sigh. I have no need of distraction from thought
now. You will believe that, whatever my past presumption, I can pray
sincerely for your happiness."

"Poet, you adorn your career; you fulfil your mission, even at this
moment; you beautify the world; you give to the harsh form of Duty
the cestus of the Graces," said Harley, trying to force a smile to his
quivering lips. "But we must hasten back to the prose of existence. I
accept your sacrifice. As for the time and mode I must select in order
to insure its result, I will ask you to abide by such instructions as I
shall have occasion to convey through your uncle. Till then, no word
of your intentions,--not even to Mr. Dale. Forgive me if I would rather
secure Mr. Egerton's election than yours. Let that explanation suffice
for the present. What think you, by the way, of Audley Egerton?"

"I thought when I heard him speak and when he closed with those touching
words,--implying that he left all of his life not devoted to his country
'to the charity of his friends,'--how proudly, even as his opponent, I
could have clasped his hand; and if he had wronged me in private life,
I should have thought it ingratitude to the country he had so served to
remember the offence."

Harley turned away abruptly, and joined Mr. Dale.

"Leave Leonard to go home by himself; you see that I have healed
whatever wounds I inflicted on him."

PARSON.--"And, your better nature thus awakened, I trust, my dear Lord,
that you have altogether abandoned the idea of--"

HARLEY.--"Revenge?--no. And if you do not approve that revenge
to-morrow, I will never rest till I have seen you--a bishop!"

MR. DALE (much shocked).--"My Lord, for shame!"

HARLEY (seriously).--"My levity is but lip-deep, my dear Mr. Dale. But
sometimes the froth on the wave shows the change in the tide."

The parson looked at him earnestly, and then seized him by both hands
with holy gladness and affection.

"Return to the Park now," said Harley, smiling; "and tell Violante,
if it be not too late to see her, that she was even more eloquent than
you."

Lord L'Estrange bounded forward.

Mr. Dale walked back through the park to Lansmere House. On the terrace
he found Randal, who was still pacing to and fro, sometimes in the
starlight, sometimes in the shadow.

Leslie looked up, and seeing Mr. Dale, the close astuteness of his
aspect returned; and stepping out of the starlight deep into the shadow,
he said,

"I was sorry to learn that Mr. Fairfield had been so hurt by Lord
L'Estrange's severe allusions. Pity that political differences should
interfere with private friendships; but I hear that you have been to
Mr. Fairfield,--and, doubtless, as the peacemaker. Perhaps you met
Lord L'Estrange by the way? He promised me that he would apologize and
retract."

"Good young man!" said the unsuspecting parson, "he has done so."

"And Mr. Leonard Fairfield will, therefore, I presume, continue the
contest?"

"Contest--ah, this election! I suppose so, of course. But I grieve that
he should stand against you, who seem to be disposed towards him so
kindly."

"Oh," said Randal, with a benevolent smile, "we have fought before, you
know, and I beat him then. I may do so again!"

And he walked into the house, arm-in-arm with the parson. Mr. Dale
sought Violante; Leslie retired to his own room, and felt his election
was secured.

Lord L'Estrange had gained the thick of the streets--passing groups of
roaring enthusiasts--Blue and Yellow--now met with a cheer, now followed
by a groan. Just by a public-house that formed the angle of a lane with
the High Street, and which was all ablaze with light and all alive with
clamour, he beheld the graceful baron leaning against the threshold,
smoking his cigar, too refined to associate its divine vapour with the
wreaths of shag within, and chatting agreeably with a knot of females,
who were either attracted by the general excitement, or waiting to see
husband, brother, father, or son, who were now joining in the chorus
of "Blue forever!" that rang from tap-room to attic of the illumined
hostelry. Levy, seeing Lord L'Estrange, withdrew his cigar from his
lips, and hastened to join him. "All the Hundred and Fifty are in
there," said the baron, with a backward significant jerk of his thumb
towards the inn. "I have seen them all privately, in tens at a time;
and I have been telling the ladies without that it will be best for the
interest of their families to go home, and let us lock up the Hundred
and Fifty safe from the Yellows, till we bring them to the poll. But I
am afraid," continued Levy, "that the rascals are not to be relied upon
unless I actually pay them beforehand; and that would be disreputable,
immoral,--and, what is more, it would upset the election. Besides, if
they are paid beforehand, query, is it quite sure how they will vote
afterwards?"

"Mr. Avenel, I dare say, can manage them," said Harley. "Pray do nothing
immoral, and nothing that will upset the election. I think you might as
well go home."

"Home! No, pardon me, my Lord; there must be some head to direct the
Committee, and keep our captains at their posts upon the doubtful
electors. A great deal of mischief may be done between this and the
morrow; and I would sit up all night--ay, six nights a week for the next
three months--to prevent any awkward mistake by which Audley Egerton can
be returned."

"His return would really grieve you so much?" said Harley.

"You may judge of that by the zeal with which I enter into all your
designs."

Here there was a sudden and wondrously loud shout from another inn,--a
Yellow inn, far down the lane, not so luminous as the Blue hostelry; on
the contrary, looking rather dark and sinister, more like a place for
conspirators or felons than honest, independent electors,--"Avenel
forever! Avenel and the Yellows!"

"Excuse me, my Lord, I must go back and watch over my black sheep, if
I would have them blue!" said Levy; and he retreated towards the
threshold. But at that shout of "Avenel forever!" as if at a signal,
various electors of the redoubted Hundred and Fifty rushed from the Blue
hostelry, sweeping past Levy, and hurrying down the lane to the dark
little Yellow inn, followed by the female stragglers, as small birds
follow an owl. It was not, however, very easy to get into that Yellow
inn; Yellow Reformers, eminent for their zeal on behalf of purity of
election, were stationed outside the door, and only strained in one
candidate for admittance at a time. "After all," thought the baron, as
he passed into the principal room of the Blue tavern, and proposed the
national song of "Rule Britannia,"--"after all, Avenel hates Egerton as
much as I do, and both sides work to the same end." And thrumming on the
table, he joined with a fine lass in the famous line,

        "For Britons never will be slaves!"

In the interim, Harley had disappeared within the Lansmere Arms, which
was the headquarters of the Blue Committee. Not, however, mounting to
the room in which a few of the more indefatigable were continuing their
labours, receiving reports from scouts, giving orders, laying wagers,
and very muzzy with British principles and spirits, Harley called aside
the landlord, and inquired if the stranger, for whom rooms had been
prepared, was yet arrived. An affirmative answer was given, and Harley
followed the host up a private stair, to a part of the house remote from
the rooms devoted to the purposes of the election. He remained with this
stranger about half an hour, and then walked into the Committee-room,
got rid of the more excited, conferred with the more sober, issued a few
brief directions to such of the leaders as he felt he could most rely
upon, and returned home as rapidly as he had quitted it.

Dawn was gray in the skies when Harley sought his own chamber. To
gain it, he passed by the door of Violante's. His heart suffused with
grateful ineffable tenderness, he paused and kissed the threshold. When
he stood within his room (the same that he had occupied in his early
youth), he felt as if the load of years were lifted from his bosom. The
joyous, divine elasticity of spirit, that in the morning of life springs
towards the Future as a bird soars into heaven, pervaded his whole sense
of being. A Greek poet implies that the height of bliss is the sudden
relief of pain: there is a nobler bliss still,--the rapture of the
conscience at the sudden release from a guilty thought. By the bedside
at which he had knelt in boyhood, Harley paused to kneel once more. The
luxury of prayer, interrupted since he had nourished schemes of which
his passions had blinded him to the sin, but which, nevertheless, he
dared not confess to the All-Merciful, was restored to him. And yet,
as he bowed his knee, the elation of spirits he had before felt forsook
him. The sense of the danger his soul had escaped, the full knowledge of
the guilt to which the fiend had tempted, came dread before his clearing
vision; he shuddered in horror of himself. And he who but a few hours
before had deemed it so impossible to pardon his fellow-man, now felt
as if years of useful and beneficent deeds could alone purify his own
repentant soul from the memory of one hateful passion.




CHAPTER XXXII

But while Harley had thus occupied the hours of night with cares for the
living, Audley Egerton had been in commune with the dead. He had taken
from the pile of papers amidst which it had fallen, the record of Nora's
silenced heart. With a sad wonder he saw how he had once been loved.
What had all which successful ambition had bestowed on the lonely
statesman to compensate for the glorious empire he had lost,--such
realms of lovely fancy; such worlds of exquisite emotion; that infinite
which lies within the divine sphere that unites spiritual genius with
human love? His own positive and earthly nature attained, for the
first time, and as if for its own punishment, the comprehension of that
loftier and more ethereal visitant from the heavens, who had once looked
with a seraph's smile through the prison-bars of his iron life; that
celestial refinement of affection, that exuberance of feeling which
warms into such varieties of beautiful idea, under the breath of the
earth-beautifier, Imagination,--all from which, when it was all his own,
he had turned half weary and impatient, and termed the exaggerations
of a visionary romance, now that the world had lost them evermore, he
interpreted aright as truths. Truths they were, although illusions. Even
as the philosopher tells us that the splendour of colours which deck the
universe is not on the surface whereon we think to behold it, but in our
own vision; yet, take the colours from the universe, and what philosophy
can assure us that the universe has sustained no loss?

But when Audley came to that passage in the fragment which, though but
imperfectly, explained the true cause of Nora's flight; when he saw how
Levy, for what purpose he was unable to conjecture, had suggested to his
bride the doubts that had offended him,--asserted the marriage to be a
fraud, drawn from Audley's own brief resentful letters to Nora proof of
the assertion, misled so naturally the young wife's scanty experience of
actual life, and maddened one so sensitively pure into the conviction of
dishonour,--his brow darkened, and his hand clenched. He rose and went
at once to Levy's room. He found it deserted, inquired, learned that
Levy was gone forth, and had left word he might not be at home for the
night. Fortunate, perhaps, for Audley, fortunate for the baron, that
they did not then meet. Revenge, in spite of his friend's admonition,
might at that hour have been as potent an influence on Egerton as it had
been on Harley, and not, as with the latter, to be turned aside.

Audley came back to his room and finished the tragic record. He traced
the tremor of that beloved hand through the last tortures of doubt and
despair; he saw where the hot tears had fallen; he saw where the hand
had paused, the very sentence not concluded; mentally he accompanied
his--fated bride in the dismal journey to her maiden home, and beheld
her before him as he had last seen, more beautiful even in death than
the face of living woman had ever since appeared to him; and as he bent
over the last words, the blank that they left on the leaf, stretching
pale beyond the quiver of the characters and the blister of the
tears,--pale and blank as the void which departed love leaves behind
it,--he felt his Heart suddenly stand still, its course arrested as the
record closed. It beat again, but feebly,--so feebly! His breath became
labour and pain, his sight grew dizzy; but the constitutional firmness
and fortitude of the man clung to him in the stubborn mechanism of
habit, his will yet fought against his disease, life rallied as the
light flickers up in the waning taper.

The next morning, when Harley came into his friend's room, Egerton was
asleep. But the sleep seemed much disturbed; the breathing was hard
and difficult; the bed-clothes were partially thrown off, as if in the
tossing of disturbed dreams; the sinewy strong arm, the broad athletic
breast, were partly bare. Strange that so deadly a disease within should
leave the frame such apparent power that, to the ordinary eye, the
sleeping sufferer seemed a model of healthful vigour. One hand was
thrust with uneasy straining over the pillows,--it had its hold on
the fatal papers; a portion of the leaves was visible; and where the
characters had been blurred by Nora's tears, were the traces, yet moist,
of tears perhaps more bitter.

Harley felt deeply affected; and while he still stood by the bed,
Egerton sighed heavily and woke. He stared round him, as if perplexed
and confused, till his eyes resting on Harley, he smiled and said,

"So early! Ah, I remember, it is the day for our great boat-race. We
shall have the current against us; but you and I together--when did we
ever lose?"

Audley's mind was wandering; it had gone back to the old Eton days. But
Harley thought that he spoke in metaphorical allusion to the present
more important contest.

"True, my Audley,--you and I together--when did we ever lose? But will
you rise? I wish you would be at the polling-place to shake hands with
your voters as they come up. By four o'clock you will be released, and
the election won."

"The election! How! what!" said Egerton, recovering himself. "I
recollect now. Yes,--I accept this last kindness from you. I always said
I would die in harness. Public life--I have no other. Ah, I dream again!
Oh, Harley my son, my son!"

"You shall see him after four o'clock. You will be proud of each other.
But make haste and dress. Shall I ring the bell for your servant?"

"Do," said Egerton, briefly, and sinking back. Harley quitted the room,
and joined Randal and some of the more important members of the Blue
Committee, who were already hurrying over their breakfast.

All were anxious and nervous except Harley, who dipped his dry toast
into his coffee, according to his ordinary abstemious Italian habit,
with serene composure. Randal in vain tried for an equal tranquillity.
But though sure of his election, there would necessarily follow a scene
trying to the nerve of his hypocrisy. He would have to affect profound
chagrin in the midst of vile joy; have to act the part of decorous
high-minded sorrow, that by some untoward chance, some unaccountable
cross-splitting, Randal Leslie's gain should be Audley Egerton's loss.
Besides, he was flurried in the expectation of seeing the squire, and
of appropriating the money which was to secure the dearest object of his
ambition. Breakfast was soon despatched. The Committee-men, bustling for
their hats, and looking at their watches, gave the signal for departure;
yet no Squire Hazeldean had made his appearance. Harley, stepping from
the window upon the terrace, beckoned to Randal, who took his hat and
followed.

"Mr. Leslie," said Harley, leaning against the balustrade, and
carelessly patting Nero's rough, honest head, "you remember that
you were good enough to volunteer to me the explanation of certain
circumstances in connection with the Count di Peschiera, which you gave
to the Duke di Serrano; and I replied that my thoughts were at present
engaged on the election, but as soon as that was over, I should be very
willing to listen to any communications affecting yourself and my old
friend the duke, with which you might be pleased to favour me."

This address took Randal by surprise, and did not tend to calm his
nerves. However, he replied readily,

"Upon that, as upon any other matter that may influence the judgment you
form of me, I shall be but too eager to remove a single doubt that, in
your eyes, can rest upon my honour."

"You speak exceedingly well, Mr. Leslie; no man can express himself more
handsomely; and I will claim your promise with the less scruple because
the duke is powerfully affected by the reluctance of his daughter
to ratify the engagement that binds his honour, in case your own is
indisputably cleared. I may boast of some influence over the young lady,
since I assisted to save her from the infamous plot of Peschiera; and
the duke urges me to receive your explanation, in the belief that, if
it satisfy me, as it has satisfied him, I may conciliate his child in
favour of the addresses of a suitor who would have hazarded his very
life against so redoubted a duellist as Peschiera."

"Lord L'Estrange," replied Randal, bowing, "I shall indeed owe you much
if you can remove that reluctance on the part of my betrothed bride,
which alone clouds my happiness, and which would at once put an end to
my suit, did I not ascribe it to an imperfect knowledge of myself, which
I shall devote my life to improve into confidence and affection."

"No man can speak more handsomely," reiterated Harley, as if with
profound admiration; and indeed he did eye Randal as we eye some rare
curiosity. "I am happy to inform you, too," continued L'Estrange, "that
if your marriage with the Duke of Serrano's daughter take place--"

"If!" echoed Randal.

"I beg pardon for making an hypothesis of what you claim the right to
esteem a certainty,--I correct my expression: when your marriage with
that young lady takes place, you will at least escape the rock on which
many young men of ardent affections have split at the onset of the grand
voyage. You will form no imprudent connection. In a word, I received
yesterday a despatch from Vienna, which contains the full pardon and
formal restoration of Alphonso, Duke di Serrano. And I may add, that the
Austrian government (sometimes misunderstood in this country) is bound
by the laws it administers, and can in no way dictate to the duke, once
restored, as to the choice of his son-in-law, or as to the heritage that
may devolve on his child."

"And does the duke yet know of his recall?" exclaimed Randal, his cheeks
flushed and his eyes sparkling.

"No. I reserve that good news, with other matters, till after the
election is over. But Egerton keeps us waiting sadly. Ah, here comes his
valet."

Audley's servant approached. "Mr. Egerton feels himself rather more
poorly than usual, my Lord; he begs you will excuse his going with
you into the town at present. He will come later if his presence is
absolutely necessary."

"No. Pray tell him to rest and nurse himself. I should have liked him to
witness his own triumph,--that is all. Say I will represent him at the
polling-place. Gentlemen, are you ready? We will go on."

The polling booth was erected in the centre of the marketplace. The
voting had already commenced; and Mr. Avenel and Leonard were already at
their posts, in order to salute and thank the voters in their cause who
passed before them. Randal and L'Estrange entered the booth amidst loud
hurrahs, and to the national air of "See the Conquering Hero comes." The
voters defiled in quick succession. Those who voted entirely according
to principle or colour--which came to much the same thing--and were
therefore above what is termed "management," flocked in first, voting
straightforwardly for both Blues or both Yellows. At the end of the
first half-hour the Yellows were About ten ahead of the Blues. Then
sundry split votes began to perplex conjecture as to the result; and
Randal, at the end of the first hour, had fifteen majority over Audley
Egerton, two over Dick Avenel, Leonard Fairfield heading the poll by
five. Randal owed his place in the lists to the voters that Harley's
personal efforts had procured for him; and he was well pleased to see
that Lord L'Estrange had not withdrawn from him a single promise so
obtained. This augured well for Harley's ready belief in his appointed
"explanations." In short, the whole election seemed going just as he
had calculated. But by twelve o'clock there were some changes in the
relative position of the candidates. Dick Avenel had gradually gained
ground,--passing Randal, passing even Leonard. He stood at the head
of the poll by a majority of ten. Randal came next. Audley was twenty
behind Randal, and Leonard four behind Audley. More than half the
constituency had polled, but none of the Committee on either side, nor
one of the redoubted corps of a Hundred and Fifty.

The poll now slackened sensibly. Randal, looking round, and longing for
an opportunity to ask Dick whether he really meant to return himself
instead of his nephew, saw that Harley had disappeared; and presently a
note was brought to him requesting his presence in the Committee-room.
Thither he hastened.

As he forced his way through the bystanders in the lobby, towards the
threshold of the room, Levy caught hold of him and whispered, "They
begin to fear for Egerton. They want a compromise in order to secure
him. They will propose to you to resign, if Avenel will withdraw
Leonard. Don't be entrapped. L'Estrange may put the question to you;
but--a word in your ear--he would be glad enough to throw over Egerton.
Rely upon this, and stand firm."

Randal made no answer, but, the crowd giving way for him, entered the
room. Levy followed. The doors were instantly closed. All the Blue
Committee were assembled. They looked heated, anxious, eager. Lord
L'Estrange, alone calm and cool, stood at the head of the long table.
Despite his composure, Harley's brow was thoughtful. "Yes," said he
to himself, "I will give this young man the fair occasion to prove
gratitude to his benefactor; and if he here acquit himself, I will spare
him, at least, public exposure of his deceit to others. So young, he
must have some good in him,--at least towards the man to whom he owes
all."

"Mr. Leslie," said L'Estrange, aloud, "you see the state of the poll.
Our Committee believe that, if you continue to stand, Egerton must be
beaten. They fear that, Leonard Fairfield having little chance, the
Yellows will not waste their second votes on him, but will transfer them
to you, in order to keep out Egerton. If you retire, Egerton will be
safe. There is reason to suppose that Leonard would, in that case, also
be withdrawn."

"You can hope and fear nothing more from Egerton," whispered Levy. "He
is utterly ruined; and, if he lose, will sleep in a prison. The bailiffs
are waiting for him."

Randal was still silent, and at that silence an indignant murmur ran
through the more influential members of the Committee. For, though
Audley was not personally very popular, still a candidate so eminent was
necessarily their first object, and they would seem very small to
the Yellows, if their great man was defeated by the very candidate
introduced to aid him,--a youth unknown. Vanity and patriotism
both swelled that murmur. "You see, young sir," cried a rich, blunt
master-butcher, "that it was an honourable understanding that Mr.
Egerton was to be safe. You had no claim on us, except as fighting
second to him. And we are all astonished that you don't say at once,
'Save Egerton, of course.' Excuse my freedom, sir. No time for palaver."

"Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, turning mildly from the butcher, "do
you, as the first here in rank and influence, and as Mr. Egerton's
especial friend, call upon me to sacrifice my election, and what appear
to be the inclinations of the majority of the constituents, in order to
obtain what is, after all, a doubtful chance of returning Mr. Egerton in
my room?

"I do not call upon you, Mr. Leslie. It is a matter of feeling or of
honour, which a gentleman can very well decide for himself."

"Was any such compact made between your Lordship and myself, when you
first gave me your interest and canvassed for me in person?"

"Certainly not. Gentlemen, be silent. No such compact was mentioned by
me."

"Neither was it by Mr. Egerton. Whatever might be the understanding
spoken of by the respected elector who addressed me, I was no party to
it. I am persuaded that Mr. Egerton is the last person who would wish
to owe his election to a trick upon the electors in the midst of
the polling, and to what the world would consider a very unhandsome
treatment of myself, upon whom all the toil of the canvass has
devolved."

Again the murmur rose; but Randal had an air so determined, that it
quelled resentment, and obtained a continued, though most chilling and
half-contemptuous hearing.

"Nevertheless," resumed Randal, "I would at once retire were I not under
the firm persuasion that I shall convince all present, who now seem to
condemn me, that I act precisely according to Mr. Egerton's own private
inclinations. That gentleman, in fact, has never been amongst you, has
not canvassed in person, has taken no trouble, beyond a speech, that
was evidently meant to be but a general defence of his past political
career. What does this mean? Simply that his standing has been merely a
form, to comply with the wish of his party, against his own desire."

The Committee-men looked at each other amazed and doubtful. Randal saw
he had gained an advantage; he pursued it with a tact and ability which
showed that, in spite of his mere oratorical deficiencies, he had in
him the elements of a dexterous debater. "I will be plain with you,
gentlemen. My character, my desire to stand well with you all, oblige me
to be so. Mr. Egerton does not wish to come into parliament at present.
His health is much broken; his private affairs need all his time and
attention. I am, I may say, as a son to him. He is most anxious for
my success; Lord L'Estrange told me but last night, very truly, 'more
anxious for my success than his own.' Nothing could please him more
than to think I were serving in parliament, however humbly, those great
interests which neither health nor leisure will, in this momentous
crisis, allow himself to defend with his wonted energy. Later,
indeed, no doubt, he will seek to return to an arena in which he is
so distinguished; and when the popular excitement, which produces the
popular injustice of the day, is over, what constituency will not be
proud to return such a man? In support and proof of what I have thus
said, I now appeal to Mr. Egerton's own agent,--a gentleman who,
in spite of his vast fortune and the rank he holds in society, has
consented to act gratuitously on behalf of that great statesman. I ask
you, then, respectfully, Baron Levy, Is not Mr. Egerton's health much
broken, and in need of rest?"

"It is," said Levy.

"And do not his affairs necessitate his serious and undivided
attention?"

"They do indeed," quoth the baron. "Gentlemen, I have nothing to urge
in behalf of my distinguished friend as against the statement of his
adopted son, Mr. Leslie."

"Then all I can say," cried the butcher, striking his huge fist on the
table, "is, that Mr. Egerton has behaved d---d unhandsome to us, and we
shall be the laughing-stock of the borough."

"Softly, softly," said Harley. "There is a knock at the door behind.
Excuse me."

Harley quitted the room, but only for a minute or two. On his return he
addressed himself to Randal.

"Are we then to understand, Mr. Leslie, that your intention is not to
resign?"

"Unless your Lordship actually urge me to the contrary, I should say,
Let the election go on, and all take our chance. That seems to me the
fair, manly, ENGLISH [great emphasis on the last adjective], honourable
course."

"Be it so," replied Harley; "'let all take their chance.' Mr. Leslie,
we will no longer detain you. Go back to the polling-place,--one of the
candidates should be present; and you, Baron Levy, be good enough to go
also, and return thanks to those who may yet vote for Mr. Egerton."

Levy bowed, and went out arm-in-arm with Randal. "Capital, capital,"
said the baron. "You have a wonderful head."

"I did not like L'Estrange's look, nevertheless. But he can't hurt me
now; the votes he got for me instead of for Egerton have already polled.
The Committee, indeed, may refuse to vote for me; but then there is
Avenel's body of reserve. Yes, the election is virtually over. When we
get back, Hazeldean will have arrived with the money for the purchase of
my ancestral property; Dr. Riccabocca is already restored to the estates
and titles of Serrano; what do I care further for Lord L'Estrange?
Still, I do not like his look."

"Pooh, you have done just what he wished. I am forbidden to say more.
Here we are at the booth. A new placard since we left. How are the
numbers? Avenel forty ahead of you; you thirty above Egerton; and
Leonard Fairfield still last on the poll. But where are Avenel and
Fairfield?" Both those candidates had disappeared, perhaps gone to their
own Committee-room.

Meanwhile, as soon as the doors had closed on Randal and the baron,
in the midst of the angry hubbub succeeding to their departure, Lord
L'Estrange sprang upon the table. The action and his look stilled every
sound.

"Gentlemen, it is in our hands to return one of our candidates, and to
make our own choice between the two. You have heard Mr. Leslie and Baron
Levy. To their statement I make but this reply,--Mr. Egerton is needed
by the country; and whatever his health or his affairs, he is ready to
respond to that call. If he has not canvassed, if he does not appear
before you at this moment, the services of more than twenty years plead
for him in his stead. Which, then, of the two candidates do you choose
as your member,--a renowned statesman, or a beardless boy? Both have
ambition and ability; the one has identified those qualities with the
history of a country, and (as it is now alleged to his prejudice) with
a devotion that has broken a vigorous frame and injured a princely
fortune. The other evinces his ambition by inviting you to prefer him
to his benefactor, and proves his ability by the excuses he makes for
ingratitude. Choose between the two,--an Egerton or a Leslie."

"Egerton forever!" cried all the assembly, as with a single voice,
followed by a hiss for Leslie.

"But," said a grave and prudent Committee-man, "have we really the
choice? Does not that rest with the Yellows? Is not your Lordship too
sanguine?"

"Open that door behind; a deputation from our opponents waits in the
room on the other side the passage. Admit them."

The Committee were hushed in breathless silence while Harley's order was
obeyed. And soon, to their great surprise, Leonard Fairfield himself,
attended by six of the principal members of the Yellow party, entered
the room.

LORD L'ESTRANGE.--"You have a proposition to make to us, Mr. Fairfield,
on behalf of yourself and Mr. Avenel, and with the approval of your
Committee?"

LEONARD (advancing to the table).--"I have. We are convinced that
neither party can carry both its candidates. Mr. Avenel is safe. The
only question is, which of the two candidates on your side it best
becomes the honour of this constituency to select. My resignation, which
I am about to tender, will free sufficient votes to give the triumph
either to Mr. Egerton or to Mr. Leslie."

"Egerton forever!" cried once more the excited Blues. "Yes, Egerton
forever!" said Leonard, with a glow upon his cheek. "We may differ from
his politics, but who can tell us those of Mr. Leslie? We may differ
from the politician, but who would not feel proud of the senator? A
great and incalculable advantage is bestowed on that constituency which
returns to parliament a distinguished man. His distinction ennobles the
place he represents, it sustains public spirit, it augments the manly
interest in all that affects the nation. Every time his voice hushes the
assembled parliament, it reminds us of our common country; and even the
discussion amongst his constituents which his voice provokes, clears
their perceptions of the public interest, and enlightens themselves,
from the intellect which commands their interests, and compels their
attention. Egerton, then, forever! If our party must subscribe to the
return of one opponent, let all unite to select the worthiest. My
Lord L'Estrange, when I quit this room, it will be to announce my
resignation, and to solicit those who have promised me their votes to
transfer them to Mr. Audley Egerton."

Amidst the uproarious huzzas which followed this speech, Leonard drew
near to Harley. "My Lord, I have obeyed your wishes, as conveyed to me
by my uncle, who is engaged at this moment elsewhere in carrying them
into effect."

"Leonard," said Harley, in the same undertone, "you have insured to
Audley Egerton what you alone could do,--the triumph over a perfidious
dependent, the continuance of the sole career in which he has hitherto
found the solace or the zest of life. He must thank you with his own
lips. Come to the Park after the close of the poll. There and then shall
the explanations yet needful to both be given and received."

Here Harley bowed to the assembly and raised his voice: "Gentlemen,
yesterday, at the nomination of the candidates, I uttered remarks that
have justly pained Mr. Fairfield. In your presence I wholly retract and
frankly apologize for them. In your presence I entreat his forgiveness,
and say, that if he will accord me his friendship, I will place him
in my esteem and affection side by side with the statesman whom he has
given to his country."

Leonard grasped the hand extended to him with both his own, and then,
overcome by his emotions, hurried from the room; while Blues and Yellows
exchanged greetings, rejoiced in the compromise that would dispel all
party irritation, secure the peace of the borough, and allow quiet
men, who had detested each other the day before, and vowed reciprocal
injuries to trade and custom, the indulgence of all amiable and
fraternal feelings--until the next general election.

In the mean while the polling had gone on slowly as before, but still to
the advantage of Randal. "Not two-thirds of the constituency will poll,"
murmured Levy, looking at his watch. "The thing is decided. Aha, Audley
Egerton! you who once tortured me with the unspeakable jealousy that
bequeaths such implacable hate; you who scorned my society, and called
me 'scoundrel,' disdainful of the very power your folly placed within my
hands,--aha, your time is up! and the spirit that administered to your
own destruction strides within the circle to seize its prey!"

"You shall have my first frank, Levy," said Randal, "to enclose your
letter to Mr. Thornhill's solicitor. This affair of the election is
over; we must now look to what else rests on our hands."

"What the devil is that placard?" cried Levy, turning pale.

Randal looked, and right up the market-place, followed by an immense
throng, moved, high over the heads of all, a Yellow Board, that seemed
marching through the air, cometlike:--

                       Two o'clock p.m.

            RESIGNATION OF FAIRFIELD.

                 ------

                YELLOWS!

                Vote For

             AVENEL AND EGERTON.

                  (Signed) Timothy Alljack

   Yellow Committee Room.

"What infernal treachery is this?" cried Randal, livid with honest
indignation.

"Wait a moment; there is Avenel!" exclaimed Levy; and at the head of
another procession that emerged from the obscurer lanes of the town,
walked, with grave majesty, the surviving Yellow candidate. Dick
disappeared for a moment within a grocer's shop in the broadest part of
the place, and then culminated at the height of a balcony on the first
story, just above an enormous yellow canister, significant of the
profession and the politics of the householder. No sooner did Dick, hat
in hand, appear on this rostrum, than the two processions halted below,
bands ceased, flags drooped round their staves, crowds rushed within
hearing, and even the poll clerks sprang from the booth. Randal and Levy
themselves pressed into the throng. Dick on the balcony was the Deus ex
machina.

"Freemen and electors!" said Dick, with his most sonorous accents,
"finding that the public opinion of this independent and enlightened
constituency is so evenly divided, that only one Yellow candidate can be
returned, and only one Blue has a chance, it was my intention last night
to retire from the contest, and thus put an end to all bickerings and
ill-blood (Hold your tongues there, can't you!). I say honestly, I
should have preferred the return of my distinguished and talented young
nephew--honourable relation--to my own; but he would not hear of it, and
talked all our Committee into the erroneous but high-minded notion, that
the town would cry shame if the nephew rode into parliament by breaking
the back of the uncle." (Loud cheers from the mob, and partial cries of
"We 'll have you both!")

"You'll do no such thing, and you know it; hold your jaw," resumed Dick,
with imperious good-humour. "Let me go on, can't you?--time presses. In
a word, my nephew resolved to retire, if, at two o'clock this day, there
was no chance of returning both of us; and there is none. Now, then, the
next thing for the Yellows who have not yet voted, is to consider how
they will give their second votes. If I had been the man to retire,
why, for certain reasons, I should have recommended them to split with
Leslie,--a clever chap, and pretty considerable sharp."

"Hear, hear, hear!" cried the baron, lustily.

"But I'm bound to say that my nephew has an opinion of his own,--as an
independent Britisher, let him be twice your nephew, ought to have; and
his opinion goes the other way, and so does that of our Committee."

"Sold!" cried the baron; and some of the crowd shook their heads, and
looked grave,--especially those suspected of a wish to be bought.

"Sold! Pretty fellow you with the nosegay in your buttonhole to talk of
selling! You who wanted to sell your own client,--and you know it. [Levy
recoiled.] Why, gentlemen, that's Levy the Jew, who talks of selling!
And if he asperses the character of this constituency, I stand here to
defend it! And there stands the parish pump, with a handle for the arm
of Honesty, and a spout for the lips of Falsehood!"

At the close of this magniloquent period, borrowed, no doubt, from some
great American orator, Baron Levy involuntarily retreated towards the
shelter of the polling-booth, followed by some frowning Yellows with
very menacing gestures.

"But the calumniator sneaks away; leave him to the reproach of his
conscience," resumed Dick, with a generous magnanimity.

"SOLD! [the word rang through the place like the blast of a trumpet]
Sold! No, believe me, not a man who votes for Egerton instead
of Fairfield will, so far as I am concerned, be a penny the
better--[chilling silence]--or [with a scarce perceivable wink
towards the anxious faces of the Hundred and Fifty who filled the
background]--or a penny the worse. [Loud cheers from the Hundred and
Fifty, and cries of 'Noble!'] I don't like the politics of Mr. Egerton.
But I am not only a politician,--I am a MAN! The arguments of our
respected Committee--persons in business, tender husbands, and devoted
fathers--have weight with me. I myself am a husband and a father. If a
needless contest be prolonged to the last, with all the irritations
it engenders, who suffer?--why, the tradesman and the operative.
Partiality, loss of custom, tyrannical demands for house rent, notices
to quit,--in a word, the screw!"

"Hear, hear!" and "Give us the Ballot!"

"The Ballot--with all my heart, if I had it about me! And if we had the
Ballot, I should like to see a man dare to vote Blue. [Loud cheers from
the Yellows.] But, as we have not got it, we must think of our families.
And I may add, that though Mr. Egerton may come again into office, yet
[added Dick solemnly] I will do my best, as his colleague, to keep him
straight; and your own enlightenment (for the schoolmaster is abroad)
will show him that no minister can brave public opinion, nor quarrel
with his own bread and butter. [Much cheering.] In these times the
aristocracy must endear themselves to the middle and working class; and
a member in office has much to give away in the Stamps and Excise, in
the Customs, the Post Office, and other State departments in this
rotten old--I mean this magnificent empire, by which he can benefit his
constituents, and reconcile the prerogatives of aristocracy with the
claims of the people,--more especially in this case, the people of the
borough of Lausmere. [Hear, hear!]

"And therefore, sacrificing party inclinations (since it seems that
I can in no way promote them) on the Altar of General Good Feeling, I
cannot oppose the resignation of my nephew,--honourable relation!--nor
blind my eyes to the advantages that may result to a borough so
important to the nation at large, if the electors think fit to choose my
Right Honourable brother--I mean the Right Honourable Blue candidate--as
my brother colleague. Not that I presume to dictate, or express a wish
one way or the other; only, as a Family Man, I say to you, Electors and
Freemen, having served your country in returning me, you have nobly won
the right to think of the little ones at home."

Dick put his hand to his heart, bowed gracefully, and retired from the
balcony amidst unanimous applause.

In three minutes more Dick had resumed his place in the booth in his
quality of candidate. A rush of Yellow electors poured in, hot and fast.
Up came Emanuel Trout, and, in a firm voice, recorded his vote, "Avenel
and Egerton." Every man of the Hundred and Fifty so polled. To each
question, "Whom do you vote for?" "Avenel and Egerton" knelled on the
ears of Randal Leslie with "damnable iteration." The young man folded
his arms across his breast in dogged despair. Levy had to shake hands
for Mr. Egerton with a rapidity that took away his breath. He longed to
slink away,--longed to get at L'Estrange, whom he supposed would be
as wroth at this turn in the wheel of fortune as himself. But how, as
Egerton's representative, escape from the continuous gripes of those
horny hands? Besides, there stood the parish pump, right in face of the
booth, and some huge truculent-looking Yellows loitered round it, as
if ready to pounce on him the instant he quitted his present sanctuary.
Suddenly the crowd round the booth receded; Lord L'Estrange's carriage
drove up to the spot, and Harley, stepping from it, assisted out of the
vehicle an old, gray-haired, paralytic man. The old man stared round
him, and nodded smilingly to the mob. "I'm here,-I'm come; I'm but a
poor creature, but I'm a good Blue to the last!"

"Old John Avenel,--fine old John!" cried many a voice.

And John Avenel, still leaning on Harley's arm, tottered into the booth,
and plumped for "Egerton."

"Shake hands, Father," said Dick, bending forward, "though you'll not
vote for me."

"I was a Blue before you were born," answered the old man, tremulously;
"but I wish you success all the same, and God bless you, my boy!"

Even the poll-clerks were touched; and when Dick, leaving his place, was
seen by the crowd assisting Lord L'Estrange to place poor John again
in the carriage, that picture of family love in the midst of political
difference--of the prosperous, wealthy, energetic son, who, as a boy,
had played at marbles in the very kennel, and who had risen in life
by his own exertions, and was now virtually M. P. for his native town,
tending on the broken-down, aged father, whom even the interests of
a son he was so proud of could not win from the colours which he
associated with truth and rectitude--had such an effect upon the rudest
of the mob there present, that you might have heard a pin fall,--till
the carriage drove away back to John's humble home; and then there rose
such a tempest of huzzas! John Avenel's vote for Egerton gave another
turn to the vicissitudes of that memorable election. As yet Avenel had
been ahead of Audley; but a plumper in favour of Egerton, from Avenel's
own father, set an example and gave an excuse to many a Blue who had not
yet voted, and could not prevail on himself to split his vote between
Dick and Audley; and, therefore, several leading tradesmen, who, seeing
that Egerton was safe, had previously resolved not to vote at all, came
up in the last hour, plumped for Egerton, and carried him to the head
of the poll; so that poor John, whose vote, involving that of Mark
Fairfield, had secured the first opening in public life to the young
ambition of the unknown son-in-law, still contributed to connect with
success and triumph, but also with sorrow, and, it may be, with death,
the names of the high-born Egerton and the humble Avenel.

The great town-clock strikes the hour of four; the returning officer
declares the poll closed; the formal announcement of the result will
be made later. But all the town knows that Audley Egerton and Richard
Avenel are the members for Lausmere. And flags stream, and drums beat,
and men shake each other by the hand heartily; and there is talk of the
chairing to-morrow; and the public-houses are crowded; and there is an
indistinct hubbub in street and alley, with sudden bursts of uproarious
shouting; and the clouds to the west look red and lurid round the sun,
which has gone down behind the church tower,--behind the yew-trees that
overshadow the quiet grave of Nora Avenel.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

Amidst the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Leslie walked through
Lansmere Park towards the house. He had slunk away before the poll was
closed,--crept through bylanes, and plunged into the leafless copses
of the earl's stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of
his thoughts--at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance had
befallen him, inclined to ascribe it to Leonard's influence over Avenel,
but suspecting Harley, and half doubtful of Baron Levy--he sought to
ascertain what fault of judgment he himself had committed, what wile he
had forgotten, what thread in his web he had left ragged and incomplete.
He could discover none. His ability seemed to him unimpeachable,--totus,
teres, atque rotundas. And then there came across his breast a sharp
pang,--sharper than that of baffled ambition,--the feeling that he had
been deceived and bubbled and betrayed. For so vital a necessity to all
living men is TRUTH, that the vilest traitor feels amazed and wronged,
feels the pillars of the world shaken, when treason recoils on himself.
"That Richard Avenel, whom I trusted, could so deceive me!" murmured
Randal, and his lip quivered.

He was still in the midst of the Park, when a man with a yellow cockade
in his hat, and running fast from the direction of the town, overtook
him with a letter, on delivering which the messenger, waiting for no
answer, hastened back the way he had come. Randal recognized Avenel's
hand on the address, broke the seal, and read as follows:

            (Private and Confidential.)

   DEAR LESLIE,--Don't be down-hearted,--you will know to-night or
   to-morrow why I have had cause to alter my opinion as to the Right
   Honourable; and you will see that I could not, as a Family Man, act
   otherwise than I have done. Though I have not broken my word to
   you,--for you remember that all the help I promised was dependent on
   my own resignation, and would go for nothing if Leonard resigned
   instead,--yet I feel you must think yourself rather bamboozled. But
   I have been obliged to sacrifice you, from a sense of Family Duty,
   as you will soon acknowledge. My own nephew is sacrificed also; and
   I have sacrificed my own concerns, which require the whole man of me
   for the next year or two at Screwstown. So we are all in the same
   boat, though you may think you are set adrift by yourself. But I
   don't mean to stay in parliament. I shall take the Chiltern
   Hundreds, pretty considerable soon. And if you keep well with the
   Blues, I'll do my best with the Yellows to let you walk over the
   course in my stead. For I don't think Leonard will want to stand
   again. And so a word to the wise,--and you may yet be member for
   Lansmere.

                       R. A.

In this letter, Randal, despite all his acuteness, could not detect the
honest compunction of the writer. He could at first only look at the
worst side of human nature, and fancy that it was a paltry attempt
to stifle his just anger and ensure his discretion; but, on second
thoughts, it struck him that Dick might very naturally be glad to be
released to his mill, and get a quid pro quo out of Randal, under the
comprehensive title, "repayment of expenses." Perhaps Dick was not
sorry to wait until Randal's marriage gave him the means to make the
repayment. Nay, perhaps Randal had been thrown over for the present,
in order to wring from him better terms in a single election. Thus
reasoning, he took comfort from his belief in the mercenary motives of
another. True; it might be but a short disappointment. Before the next
parliament was a month old, he might yet take his seat in it as member
for Lansmere. But all would depend on his marriage with the heiress; he
must hasten that.

Meanwhile, it was necessary to knit and gather up all his thought,
courage, and presence of mind. How he shrunk from return to Lansmere
House,--from facing Egerton, Harley, all. But there was no choice. He
would have to make it up with the Blues,--to defend the course he had
adopted in the Committee-room. There, no doubt, was Squire Hazeldean
awaiting him with the purchase-money for the lands of Rood; there
was the Duke di Serrano, restored to wealth and honour; there was his
promised bride, the great heiress, on whom depended all that could
raise the needy gentleman into wealth and position. Gradually, with the
elastic temper that is essential to a systematic schemer, Randal Leslie
plucked himself from the pain of brooding over a plot that was defeated,
to prepare himself for consummating those that yet seemed so near
success. After all, should he fail in regaining Egerton's favour,
Egerton was of use no more. He might rear his head, and face out what
some might call "ingratitude," provided he could but satisfy the Blue
Committee. Dull dogs, how could he fail to do that! He could easily
talk over the Machiavellian sage. He should have small difficulty in
explaining all to the content of Audley's distant brother, the squire.
Harley alone--but Levy had so positively assured him that Harley was not
sincerely anxious for Egerton; and as to the more important explanation
relative to Peschiera, surely what had satisfied Violante's father ought
to satisfy a man who had no peculiar right to demand explanations at
all; and if these explanations did not satisfy, the onus to disprove
them must rest with Harley; and who or what could contradict Randal's
plausible assertions,--assertions in support of which he himself could
summon a witness in Baron Levy? Thus nerving himself to all that could
task his powers, Randal Leslie crossed the threshold of Lansmere House,
and in the hall he found the baron awaiting him.

"I can't account," said Levy, "for what has gone so cross in this
confounded election. It is L'Estrange that puzzles me; but I know that
he hates Egerton. I know that he will prove that hate by one mode of
revenge, if he has lost it in another. But it is well, Randal, that
you are secure of Hazeldean's money and the rich heiress's hand;
otherwise--"

"Otherwise, what?"

"I should wash my hands of you, mon cher; for, in spite of all your
cleverness, and all I have tried to do for you, somehow or other I
begin to suspect that your talents will never secure your fortune. A
carpenter's son beats you in public speaking, and a vulgar mill-owner
tricks you in private negotiation. Decidedly, as yet, Randal Leslie, you
are--a failure. And, as you so admirably said, 'a man from whom we have
nothing to hope or fear we must blot out of the map of the future.'"

Randal's answer was cut short by the appearance of the groom of the
chambers.

"My Lord is in the saloon, and requests you and Mr. Leslie will do him
the honour to join him there." The two gentlemen followed the servant up
the broad stairs.

The saloon formed the centre room of the suite of apartments. From its
size, it was rarely used save on state occasions. It had the chilly and
formal aspect of rooms reserved for ceremony.

Riccabocca, Violante, Helen, Mr. Dale, Squire Hazeldean, and Lord
L'Estrange were grouped together by the cold Florentine marble table,
not littered with books and female work, and the endearing signs of
habitation, that give a living smile to the face of home; nothing
thereon save a great silver candelabrum, that scarcely lighted the
spacious room, and brought out the portraits on the walls as a part of
the assembly, looking, as portraits do look, with searching, curious
eyes upon every eye that turns to them.

But as soon as Randal entered, the squire detached himself from the
group, and, coming to the defeated candidate, shook hands with him
heartily.

"Cheer up, my boy; 't is no shame to be beaten. Lord L'Estrange says you
did your best to win, and man can do no more. And I'm glad, Leslie, that
we don't meet for our little business till the election is over; for,
after annoyance, something pleasant is twice as acceptable. I've the
money in my pocket. Hush! and I say, my dear, dear boy, I cannot find
out where Frank is, but it is really all off with that foreign woman,
eh?"

"Yes, indeed, sir, I hope so. I'll talk to you about it when we can be
alone. We may slip away presently, I trust."

"I'll tell you a secret scheme of mine and Harry's," said the squire, in
a still low whisper. "We, must drive that marchioness, or whatever
she is, out of the boy's head, and put a pretty English girl into it
instead. That will settle him in life too. And I must try and swallow
that bitter pill of the post-obit. Harry makes worse of it than I do,
and is so hard on the poor fellow that I've been obliged to take his
part. I've no idea of being under petticoat government, it is not the
way with the Hazeldeans. Well, but to come back to the point: Whom do
you think I mean by the pretty girl?"

"Miss Sticktorights?"

"Zounds, no!--your own little sister, Randal. Sweet pretty face! Harry
liked her from the first, and then you'll be Frank's brother, and your
sound head and good heart will keep him right. And as you are going to
be married too (you must tell me all about that later), why, we shall
have two marriages, perhaps, in the family on the same day."

Randal's hand grasped the squire's, and with an emotion of human
gratitude,--for we know that, hard to all else, he had natural feelings
for his fallen family; and his neglected sister was the one being on
earth whom he might almost be said to love. With all his intellectual
disdain for honest simple Frank, he knew no one in the world with whom
his young sister could be more secure and happy. Transferred to the
roof, and improved by the active kindness, of Mrs. Hazeldean, blest
in the manly affection of one not too refined to censure her own
deficiencies of education, what more could he ask for his sister, as he
pictured her to himself, with her hair hanging over her ears, and her
mind running into seed over some trashy novel. But before he could
reply, Violante's father came to add his own philosophical consolations
to the squire's downright comfortings.

"Who could ever count on popular caprice? The wise of all ages had
despised it. In that respect, Horace and Machiavelli were of the same
mind," etc. "But," said the duke, with emphatic kindness "perhaps your
very misfortune here may serve you elsewhere. The female heart is prone
to pity, and ever eager to comfort. Besides, if I am recalled to Italy,
you will have leisure to come with us, and see the land where, of all
others, ambition can be most readily forgotten, even" added the Italian
with a sigh--"even by her own sons!"

Thus addressed by both Hazeldean and the duke, Randal recovered his
spirits. It was clear that Lord L'Estrange had not conveyed to them
any unfavourable impression of his conduct in the Committee-room. While
Randal had been thus engaged, Levy had made his way to Harley, who
retreated with the baron into the bay of the great window.

"Well, my Lord, do you comprehend this conduct on the part of Richard
Avenel? He secure Egerton's return!--he!"

"What so natural, Baron Levy,--his own brother-in-law?" The baron
started, and turned very pale.

"But how did he know that? I never told him. I meant indeed--"

"Meant, perhaps, to shame Egerton's pride at the last by publicly
declaring his marriage with a shopkeeper's daughter. A very good revenge
still left to you; but revenge for what? A word with you, now, Baron,
that our acquaintance is about to close forever. You know why I have
cause for resentment against Egerton. I do but suspect yours; will you
make it clear to me?"

"My Lord, my Lord," faltered Baron Levy, "I, too, wooed Nora Avenel as
my wife; I, too, had a happier rival in the haughty worldling who did
not appreciate his own felicity; I too--in a word, some women inspire an
affection that mingles with the entire being of a man, and is fused with
all the currents of his life-blood. Nora Avenel was one of those women."

Harley was startled. This burst of emotion from a man so corrupt and
cynical arrested even the scorn he felt for the usurer. Levy soon
recovered himself. "But our revenge is not baffled yet. Egerton, if not
already in my power, is still in yours. His election may save him from
arrest, but the law has other modes of public exposure and effectual
ruin."

"For the knave, yes,--as I intimated to you in your own house,--you who
boast of your love to Nora Avenel, and know in your heart that you were
her destroyer; you who witnessed her marriage, and yet dared to tell her
that she was dishonoured!"

"My Lord--I--how could you know--I mean, how think that--that--"
faltered Levy, aghast.

"Nora Avenel has spoken from her grave," replied Harley, solemnly.
"Learn that, wherever man commits a crime, Heaven finds a witness!"

"It is on me, then," said Levy, wrestling against a superstitious thrill
at his heart--"on me that you now concentre your vengeance; and I must
meet it as I may. But I have fulfilled my part of our compact. I have
obeyed you implicitly--and--"

"I will fulfil my part of our bond, and leave you undisturbed in your
wealth."

"I knew I might trust to your Lordship's honour," exclaimed the usurer,
in servile glee.

"And this vile creature nursed the same passions as myself; and but
yesterday we were partners in the same purpose, and influenced by the
same thought!" muttered Harley to himself. "Yes," he said aloud, "I
dare not, Baron Levy, constitute myself your judge. Pursue your own
path,--all roads meet at last before the common tribunal. But you are
not yet released from our compact; you must do some good in spite of
yourself. Look yonder, where Randal Leslie stands, smiling secure,
between the two dangers he has raised up for himself. And as Randal
Leslie himself has invited me to be his judge, and you are aware that
he cited yourself this very day as his witness, here I must expose the
guilty; for here the innocent still live, and need defence."

Harley turned away, and took his place by the table. "I have wished,"
said he, raising his voice, "to connect with the triumph of my earliest
and dearest friend the happiness of others in whose welfare I feel an
interest. To you, Alphonso, Duke of Serrano, I now give this despatch,
received last evening by a special messenger from the Prince Von ------,
announcing your restoration to your lands and honours."

The squire stared with open mouth. "Rickeybockey a duke? Why, Jemima's a
duchess! Bless me, she is actually crying!" And his good heart prompted
him to run to his cousin and cheer her up a bit.

Violante glanced at Harley, and flung herself on her father's breast.
Randal involuntarily rose, and moved to the duke's chair.

"And you, Mr. Randal Leslie," continued Harley, "though you have lost
your election, see before you at this moment such prospects of wealth
and happiness, that I shall only have to offer you congratulations to
which those that greet Mr. Audley Egerton may well appear lukewarm and
insipid, provided you prove that you have not forfeited the right to
claim that promise which the Duke di Serrano has accorded to the
suitor of his daughter's hand. Some doubts resting on my mind, you have
volunteered to dispel them. I have the duke's permission to address to
you a few questions, and I now avail myself of your offer to reply to
them."

"Now,--and here, my Lord?" said Randal, glancing round the room, as if
deprecating the presence of so many witnesses. "Now,--and here. Nor are
those present so strange to your explanations as your question would
imply. Mr. Hazeldean, it so happens that much of what I shall say to Mr.
Leslie concerns your son."

Randal's countenance fell. An uneasy tremor now seized him.

"My son! Frank? Oh, then, of course, Randal will speak out. Speak, my
boy!"

Randal remained silent. The duke looked at his working face, and drew
away his chair.

"Young man, can you hesitate?" said he. "A doubt is expressed which
involves your honour."

"'s death!" cried the squire, also gazing on Randal's cowering eye and
quivering lip, "what are you afraid of?"

"Afraid!" said Randal, forced into speech, and with a hollow
laugh--"afraid?--I? What of? I was only wondering what Lord L'Estrange
could mean."

"I will dispel that wonder at once. Mr. Hazeldean, your son displeased
you first by his proposals of marriage to the Marchesa di Negra against
your consent; secondly, by a post-obit bond granted to Baron Levy. Did
you understand from Mr. Randal Leslie that he had opposed or favoured
the said marriage,--that he had countenanced or blamed the said
post-obit?"

"Why, of course," cried the squire, "that he had opposed both the one
and the other."

"Is it so, Mr. Leslie?"

"My Lord--I--I--my affection for Frank, and my esteem for his respected
father--I--I--" (He nerved himself, and went on with firm voice)--"Of
course, I did all I could to dissuade Frank from the marriage; and as to
the post-obit, I know nothing about it."

"So much at present for this matter. I pass on to the graver one,
that affects your engagement with the Duke di Serrano's daughter. I
understand from you, Duke, that to save your daughter from the snares
of Count di Peschiera, and in the belief that Mr. Leslie shared in
your dread of the count's designs, you, while in exile and in poverty,
promised to that gentleman your daughter's hand? When the probabilities
of restoration to your principalities seemed well-nigh certain, you
confirmed that promise on learning from Mr. Leslie that he had, however
ineffectively, struggled to preserve your heiress from a perfidious
snare. Is it not so?"

"Certainly. Had I succeeded to a throne, I could not recall the promise
that I had given in penury and banishment; I could not refuse to him who
would have sacrificed worldly ambition in wedding a penniless bride, the
reward of his own generosity. My daughter subscribes to my views."

Violante trembled, and her hands were locked together; but her gaze was
fixed on Harley.

Mr. Dale wiped his eyes, and thought of the poor refugee feeding on
minnows, and preserving himself from debt amongst the shades of the
Casino.

"Your answer becomes you, Duke," resumed Harley. "But should it be
proved that Mr. Leslie, instead of wooing the princess for herself,
actually calculated on the receipt of money for transferring her to
Count Peschiera; instead of saving her from the dangers you dreaded,
actually suggested the snare from which she was delivered,--would you
still deem your honour engaged to--"

"Such a villain? No, surely not!" exclaimed the duke. "But this is a
groundless hypothesis! Speak, Randal."

"Lord L'Estrange cannot insult me by deeming it otherwise than a
groundless hypothesis!" said Randal, striving to rear his head.

"I understand then, Mr. Leslie, that you scornfully reject such a
supposition?"

"Scornfully--yes. And," continued Randal, advancing a step, "since the
supposition has been made, I demand from Lord L'Estrange, as his equal
(for all gentlemen are equals where honour is to be defended at the cost
of life), either instant retractation--or instant proof."

"That's the first word you have spoken like a man," cried the squire. "I
have stood my ground myself for a less cause. I have had a ball through
my right shoulder."

"Your demand is just," said Harley, unmoved. "I cannot give the
retractation,--I will produce the proof."

He rose and rang the bell; the servant entered, received his whispered
order, and retired. There was a pause painful to all. Randal, however,
ran over in his fearful mind what evidence could be brought against
him--and foresaw none. The folding doors of the saloon were thrown open
and the servant announced--

          THE COUNT DI PESCHIERA.

A bombshell, descending through the roof could not have produced a more
startling sensation. Erect, bold, with all the imposing effect of his
form and bearing, the count strode into the centre of the ring; and
after a slight bend of haughty courtesy, which comprehended all present,
reared up his lofty head, and looked round, with calm in his eye and a
curve on his lip,--the self-assured, magnificent, high-bred Daredevil.

"Duke di Serrano," said the count, in English, turning towards his
astounded kinsman, and in a voice that, slow, clear, and firm, seemed to
fill the room, "I returned to England on the receipt of a letter from my
Lord L'Estrange, and with a view, it is true, of claiming at his hands
the satisfaction which men of our birth accord to each other, where
affront, from what cause soever, has been given or received. Nay, fair
kinswoman,"--and the count, with a slight but grave smile, bowed to
Violante, who had uttered a faint cry,--"that intention is abandoned. If
I have adopted too lightly the old courtly maxim, that 'all stratagems
are fair in love,' I am bound also to yield to my Lord L'Estrange's
arguments, that the counter-stratagems must be fair also. And, after
all, it becomes me better to laugh at my own sorry figure in defeat,
than to confess myself gravely mortified by an ingenuity more successful
than my own." The count paused, and his eye lightened with sinister
fire, which ill suited the raillery of his tone and the polished ease of
his bearing. "Ma foi!" he continued, "it is permitted me to speak thus,
since at least I have given proofs of my indifference to danger, and my
good fortune when exposed to it. Within the last six years I have
had the honour to fight nine duels, and the regret to wound five, and
dismiss from the world four, as gallant and worthy gentlemen as ever the
sun shone upon."

"Monster!" faltered the parson.

The squire stared aghast, and mechanically rubbed the shoulder which had
been lacerated by Captain Dashinore's bullet. Randal's pale face grew
yet more pale, and the eye he had fixed upon the count's hardy visage
quailed and fell.

"But," resumed the count, with a graceful wave of the hand, "I have to
thank my Lord L'Estrange for reminding me that a man whose courage is
above suspicion is privileged not only to apologize if he has injured
another, but to accompany apology with atonement. Duke of Serrano, it is
for that purpose that I am here. My Lord, you have signified your wish
to ask me some questions of serious import as regards the duke and his
daughter; I will answer them without reserve."

"Monsieur le Comte," said Harley, "availing myself of your courtesy,
I presume to inquire who informed you that this young lady was a guest
under my father's roof?"

"My informant stands yonder,--Mr. Randal Leslie; and I call upon Baron
Levy to confirm my statement."

"It is true," said the baron, slowly, and as if overmastered by the tone
and mien of an imperious chieftain.

There came a low sound like a hiss from Randal's livid lips.

"And was Mr. Leslie acquainted with your project for securing the person
and hand of your young kinswoman?"

"Certainly,--and Baron Levy knows it." The baron bowed assent. "Permit
me to add--for it is due to a lady nearly related to myself--that it
was, as I have since learned, certain erroneous representations made to
her by Mr. Leslie which alone induced that lady, after my own arguments
had failed, to lend her aid to a project which otherwise she would
have condemned as strongly as, Duke di Serrano, I now with unfeigned
sincerity do myself condemn it."

There was about the count, as he thus spoke, so much of that personal
dignity which, whether natural or artificial, imposes for the moment
upon human judgment,--a dignity so supported by the singular advantages
of his superb stature, his handsome countenance, his patrician
air,--that the duke, moved by his good heart, extended his hand to the
perfidious kinsman, and forgot all the Machiavellian wisdom which should
have told him how little a man of the count's hardened profligacy
was likely to be influenced by any purer motives, whether to frank
confession or to manly repentance. The count took the hand thus extended
to him, and bowed his face, perhaps to conceal the smile which would
have betrayed his secret soul. Randal still remained mute, and pale
as death. His tongue clove to his mouth. He felt that all present were
shrinking from his side. At last, with a violent effort, he faltered
out, in broken sentences,

"A charge so sudden may well--may well confound me. But--but--who can
credit it? Both the law and commonsense pre-suppose some motive for a
criminal action; what could be my motive here? I--myself the suitor for
the hand of the duke's daughter--I betray her! Absurd--absurd! Duke,
Duke, I put it to your own knowledge of mankind whoever goes thus
against his own interest--and--and his own heart?"

This appeal, however feebly made, was not without effect on the
philosopher. "That is true," said the duke, dropping his kinsman's hand;
"I see no motive."

"Perhaps," said Harley, "Baron Levy may here enlighten us. Do you know
of any motive of self-interest that could have actuated Mr. Leslie in
assisting the count's schemes?"

Levy hesitated. The count took up the word. "Pardieu!" said he, in his
clear tone of determination and will--"pardieu! I can have no doubt
thrown on my assertion, least of all by those who know of its truth; and
I call upon you, Baron Levy, to state whether, in case of my marriage
with the duke's daughter, I had not agreed to present my sister with
a sum, to which she alleged some ancient claim, and which would have
passed through your hands?"

"Certainly, that is true," said the baron.

"And would Mr. Leslie have benefited by any portion of that sum?"

Levy paused again.

"Speak, sir," said the count, frowning.

"The fact is," said the baron, "that Mr. Leslie was anxious to complete
a purchase of certain estates that had once belonged to his family, and
that the count's marriage with the signora, and his sister's marriage
with Mr. Hazeldean, would have enabled me to accommodate Mr. Leslie with
a loan to effect that purchase."

"What! what!" exclaimed the squire, hastily buttoning his breast-pocket
with one hand, while he seized Randal's arm with the other--"my son's
marriage! You lent yourself to that, too? Don't look so like a lashed
hound! Speak out like a man, if man you be!"

"Lent himself to that, my good sir!" said the count. "Do you suppose
that the Marchesa di Negra could have condescended to an alliance with a
Mr. Hazeldean--"

"Condescended! a Hazeldean of Hazeldean!" exclaimed the squire, turning
fiercely, and half choked with indignation. "Unless," continued the
count, imperturbably, "she had been compelled by circumstances to do
that said Mr. Hazeldean the honour to accept a pecuniary accommodation,
which she had no other mode to discharge? And here, sir, the family
of Hazeldean, I am bound to say, owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr.
Leslie; for it was he who most forcibly represented to her the necessity
for this misalliance; and it was he, I believe, who suggested to my
friend the baron the mode by which Mr. Hazeldean was best enabled to
afford the accommodation my sister deigned to accept."

"Mode! the post-obit!" ejaculated the squire, relinquishing his hold of
Randal to lay his gripe upon Levy.

The baron shrugged his shoulders. "Any friend of Mr. Frank Hazeldean's
would have recommended the same, as the most economical mode of raising
money."

Parson Dale, who had at first been more shocked than any one present at
these gradual revelations of Randal's treachery, now turning his eyes
towards the young man, was so seized with commiseration at the sight of
Randal's face, that he laid his hand on Harley's arm, and whispered him,
"Look, look at that countenance!--and one so young! Spare him, spare
him!"

"Mr. Leslie," said Harley, in softened tones, "believe me that nothing
short of justice to the Duke di Serrano--justice even to my young friend
Mr. Hazeldean--has compelled me to this painful duty. Here let all
inquiry terminate."

"And," said the count, with exquisite blandness, "since I have been
informed by my Lord L'Estrange that Mr. Leslie has represented as a
serious act on his part that personal challenge to myself, which I
understood was but a pleasant and amicable arrangement in our baffled
scheme, let me assure Mr. Leslie that if he be not satisfied with the
regret that I now express for the leading share I have taken in these
disclosures, I am wholly at Mr. Leslie's service."

"Peace, homicide," cried the parson, shuddering; and he glided to
the side of the detected sinner, from whom all else had recoiled in
loathing.

Craft against craft, talent against talent, treason against treason--in
all this Randal Leslie would have risen superior to Giulio di Peschiera.
But what now crushed him was not the superior intellect,--it was the
sheer brute power of audacity and nerve. Here stood the careless,
unblushing villain, making light of his guilt, carrying it away from
disgust itself, with resolute look and front erect. There stood the
abler, subtler, profounder criminal, cowering, abject, pitiful; the
power of mere intellectual knowledge shivered into pieces against the
brazen metal with which the accident of constitution often arms some
ignobler nature.

The contrast was striking, and implied that truth so universally felt,
yet so little acknowledged in actual life, that men with audacity
and force of character can subdue and paralyze those far superior to
themselves in ability and intelligence. It was these qualities which
made Peschiera Randal's master; nay, the very physical attributes of
the count, his very voice and form, his bold front and unshrinking eye,
overpowered the acuter mind of the refining schemer, as in a popular
assembly some burly Cleon cows into timorous silence every dissentient
sage. But Randal turned in sullen impatience from the parson's whisper,
that breathed comfort or urged repentance; and at length said, with
clearer tones than he had yet mustered,

"It is not a personal conflict with the Count di Peschiera that
can vindicate my honour; and I disdain to defend myself against the
accusations of a usurer, and of a mam who--"

"Monsieur!" said the count, drawing himself up.

"A man who," persisted Randal, though he trembled visibly, "by his own
confession, was himself guilty of all the schemes in which he would
represent me as his accomplice, and who now, not clearing himself, would
yet convict another--"

"Cher petit monsieur!" said the count, with his grand air of disdain,
"when men like me make use of men like you, we reward them for a service
if rendered, or discard them if the service be not done; and if I
condescend to confess and apologize for any act I have committed,
surely Mr. Randal Leslie might do the same without disparagement to
his dignity. But I should never, sir, have taken the trouble to appear
against you, had you not, as I learn, pretended to the hand of the lady
whom I had hoped, with less presumption, to call my bride; and in this,
how can I tell that you have not tricked and betrayed me? Is there
anything in our past acquaintance that warrants me to believe that,
instead of serving me, you sought but to serve yourself? Be that as it
may, I had but one mode of repairing to the head of my house the wrongs
I have done him, and that was by saving his daughter from a derogatory
alliance with an impostor who had abetted my schemes for hire, and who
now would filch for himself their fruit."

"Duke!" exclaimed Randal.

The duke turned his back. Randal extended his hands to the squire. "Mr.
Hazeldean--what? you, too, condemn me, and unheard?"

"Unheard!--zounds, no! If you have anything to say, speak truth, and
shame the devil."

"I abet Frank's marriage! I sanction the post-obit! Oh!" cried Randal,
clinging to a straw, "if Frank himself were but here!"

Harley's compassion vanished before this sustained hypocrisy.

"You wish for the presence of Frank Hazeldean? It is just." Harley
opened the door of the inner room, and Frank appeared at the entrance.

"My son! my son!" cried the squire, rushing forward, and clasping Frank
to his broad, fatherly breast.

This affecting incident gave a sudden change to the feelings of the
audience, and for a moment Randal himself was forgotten. The young
man seized that moment. Reprieved, as it were, from the glare of
contemptuous, accusing eyes, slowly he crept to the door, slowly and
noiselessly, as the viper, when it is wounded, drops its crest and
glides writhing through the grass. Levy followed him to the threshold,
and whispered in his ear,

"I could not help it,--you would have done the same by me. You see you
have failed in everything; and when a man fails completely, we both
agreed that we must give him up altogether."

Randal said not a word, and the baron marked his shadow fall on the
broad stairs, stealing down, down, step after step, till it faded from
the stones.

"But he was of some use," muttered Levy. "His treachery and his exposure
will gall the childless Egerton. Some little revenge still!"

The count touched the arm of the musing usurer,

"J'ai bien joue mon role, n'est ce pas?"--(I have well played my part,
have I not?)

"Your part! Ah, but, my dear count, I do not quite understand it."

"Ma foi, you are passably dull. I had just been landed in France, when
a letter from L'Estrange reached me. It was couched as an invitation,
which I interpreted to--the duello. Such invitations I never refuse.
I replied: I came hither, took my lodgings at an inn. My Lord seeks me
last night.

"I begin in the tone you may suppose. Pardieu! he is clever, milord! He
shows me a letter from the Prince Von -----, Alphonse's recall, my own
banishment. He places before me, but with admirable suavity, the option
of beggary and ruin, or an honourable claim on Alphonso's gratitude. And
as for that petit monsieur, do you think I could quietly contemplate my
own tool's enjoyment of all I had lost myself? Nay, more, if that young
Harpagon were Alphonso's son-inlaw, could the duke have a whisperer at
his ear more fatal to my own interests? To be brief, I saw at a glance
my best course. I have adopted it. The difficulty was to extricate
myself as became a man de sang et de jeu. If I have done so,
congratulate me. Alphonso has taken my hand, and I now leave it to him
to attend to my fortunes, and clear up my repute."

"If you are going to London," said Levy, "my carriage, ere this, must be
at the door, and I shall be proud to offer you a seat, and converse with
you on your prospects. But, peste, mon cher, your fall has been from a
great height, and any other man would have broken his bones."

"Strength is ever light," said the count, smiling; "and it does not
fall; it leaps down and rebounds."

Levy looked at the count, and blamed himself for having disparaged
Peschiera and overrated Randal.

While this conference went on, Harley was by Violante's side.

"I have kept my promise to you," said he, with a kind of tender
humility. "Are you still so severe on me?"

"Ah," answered Violante, gazing on his noble brow, with all a woman's
pride in her eloquent, admiring eyes, "I have heard from Mr. Dale that
you have achieved a conquest over yourself, which makes me ashamed to
think that I presumed to doubt how your heart would speak when a moment
of wrath (though of wrath so just) had passed away."

"No, Violante, do not acquit me yet; witness my revenge (for I have not
foregone it), and then let my heart speak, and breathe its prayer that
the angel voice, which it now beats to hear, may still be its guardian
monitor."

"What is this?" cried an amazed voice; and Harley, turning round, saw
that the duke was by his side; and, glancing with ludicrous surprise,
now to Harley, now to Violante, "Am I to understand that you--"

"Have freed you from one suitor for this dear hand, to become myself
your petitioner!"

"Corpo di Bacco!" cried the sage, almost embracing Harley, "this,
indeed, is joyful news. But I must not again make a rash pledge,--not
again force my child's inclinations. And Violante; you see, is running
away."

The duke stretched out his arm, and detained his child. He drew her
to his breast, and whispered in her ear. Violante blushed crimson, and
rested her head on his shoulder. Harley eagerly pressed forward.

"There," said the duke, joining Harley's hand with his daughter's, "I
don't think I shall hear much more of the convent; but anything of this
sort I never suspected. If there be a language in the world for which
there is no lexicon nor grammar, it is that which a woman thinks in, but
never speaks."

"It is all that is left of the language spoken in paradise," said
Harley.

"In the dialogue between Eve and the serpent,--yes," quoth the
incorrigible sage. "But who comes here?--our friend Leonard."

Leonard now entered the room; but Harley could scarcely greet him,
before he was interrupted by the count. "Milord," said Peschiera,
beckoning him aside, "I have fulfilled my promise, and I will now leave
your roof. Baron Levy returns to London, and offers me a seat in his
carriage, which is already, I believe, at your door. The duke and his
daughter will readily forgive me if I do not ceremoniously bid
them farewell. In our altered positions, it does not become me too
intrusively to claim kindred; it became me only to remove, as I trust I
have done, a barrier against the claim. If you approve my conduct, you
will state your own opinion to the duke." With a profound salutation the
count turned to depart; nor did Harley attempt to stay him, but attended
him down the stairs with polite formality.

"Remember only, my Lord, that I solicit nothing. I may allow myself to
accept,--voilia tout." He bowed again, with the inimitable grace of the
old regime, and stepped into the baron's travelling carriage.

Levy, who had lingered behind, paused to accost L'Estrange. "Your
Lordship will explain to Mr. Egerton how his adopted son deserved his
esteem, and repaid his kindness. For the rest, though you have bought up
the more pressing and immediate demands on Mr. Egerton, I fear that even
your fortune will not enable you to clear those liabilities which will
leave him, perhaps, a pauper!"

"Baron Levy," said Harley, abruptly, "if I have forgiven Mr. Egerton,
cannot you too forgive? Me he has wronged; you have wronged him, and
more foully."

"No, my Lord, I cannot forgive him. You he has never humiliated, you he
has never employed for his wants, and scorned as his companion. You have
never known what it is to start in life with one whose fortunes were
equal to your own, whose talents were not superior. Look you, Lord
L'Estrange, in spite of this difference between me and Egerton, that he
has squandered the wealth that he gained without effort, while I
have converted the follies of others into my own ample revenues, the
spendthrift in his penury has the respect and position which millions
cannot bestow upon me. You would say that I am an usurer, and he is a
statesman. But do you know what I should have been, had I not been born
the natural son of a peer? Can you guess what I should have been if
Nora Avenel had been my wife? The blot on my birth, and the blight on my
youth, and the knowledge that he who was rising every year into the rank
which entitled him to reject me as a guest at his table--he whom the
world called the model of a gentleman--was a coward and a liar to the
friend of his youth,--all this made me look on the world with contempt;
and, despising Audley Egerton, I yet hated him and envied. You, whom
he wronged, stretch your hand as before to the great statesman; from my
touch you would shrink as pollution. My Lord, you may forgive him whom
you love and pity; I cannot forgive him whom I scorn and envy. Pardon my
prolixity. I now quit your house." The baron moved a step, then, turning
back, said with a withering sneer,--

"But you will tell Mr. Egerton how I helped to expose the son he
adopted! I thought of the childless man when your Lordship imagined I
was but in fear of your threats. Ha! ha! that will sting."

The baron gnashed his teeth as, hastily entering the carriage, he drew
down the blinds. The post-boys cracked their whips, and the wheels
rolled away.

"Who can judge," thought Harley, "through what modes retribution comes
home to the breast? That man is chastised in his wealth, ever gnawed by
desire for what his wealth cannot buy!" He roused himself, cleared his
brow, as from a thought that darkened and troubled; and, entering the
saloon, laid his hand upon Leonard's shoulder, and looked, rejoicing,
into the poet's mild, honest, lustrous eyes. "Leonard," said he, gently,
"your hour is come at last."




CHAPTER XXXIV.

Audely Egerton was alone in his apartment. A heavy sleep had come over
him, shortly after Harley and Randal had left the house in the early
morning; and that sleep continued till late in the day. All the while
the town of Lansmere had been distracted in his cause, all the while so
many tumultuous passions had run riot in the contest that was to close
or re-open for the statesman's ambition the Janus gates of political
war, the object of so many fears and hopes, schemes and counter-schemes,
had slumbered quietly as an infant in the cradle. He woke but in time to
receive Harley's despatch, announcing the success of his election; and
adding, "Before the night you shall embrace your son. Do not join us
below when I return. Keep calm,--we will come to you."

In fact, though not aware of the dread nature of Audley's complaint,
with its warning symptoms, Lord L'Estrange wished to spare to his friend
the scene of Randal's exposure.

On the receipt of that letter Egerton rose. At the prospect of seeing
his son--Nora's son--the very memory of his disease vanished. The poor,
weary, over-laboured heart indeed beat loud, and with many a jerk and
spasm. He heeded it not. The victory, that restored him to the sole life
for which he had hitherto cared to live, was clean forgotten. Nature
claimed her own,--claimed it in scorn of death, and in oblivion of
renown.

There sat the man, dressed with his habitual precision,--the black
coat, buttoned across the broad breast; his countenance, so mechanically
habituated to self-control, still revealing little of emotion, though
the sickly flush came and went on the bronzed cheek, and the eye watched
the hand of the clock, and the ear hungered for a foot-tread along the
corridor. At length the sound was heard,--steps, many steps. He sprung
to his feet, he stood on the hearth. Was the hearth to be solitary no
more? Harley entered first. Egerton's eyes rested on him eagerly for
a moment, and strained onward across the threshold. Leonard came
next,--Leonard Fairfield, whom he had seen as his opponent! He began
to suspect, to conjecture, to see the mother's tender eyes in the son's
manly face. Involuntarily he opened his arms; but, Leonard remaining
still, let them fall with a deep sigh, and fancied himself deceived.

"Friend," said Harley, "I give to you a son proved in adversity, and who
has fought his own way to fame. Leonard, in the man to whom I prayed you
to sacrifice your own ambition, of whom you have spoken with such
worthy praise, whose career of honour you have promoted, and whose life,
unsatisfied by those honours, you will soothe with your filial love,
behold the husband of Nora Avenel! Kneel to your father! O Audley,
embrace your son!"

"Here, here!" exclaimed Egerton, as Leonard bent his knee,--"here to my
heart! Look at me with those eyes!--kindly, forgivingly: they are your
mother's!" His proud head sunk on his son's shoulder.

"But this is not enough," said Harley, leading Helen, and placing her by
Leonard's side. "You must open your heart for more. Take into its folds
my sweet ward and daughter. What is a home without the smile of woman?
They have loved each other from children. Audley, yours be the hand to
join,--yours be the lips to bless."

Leonard started anxiously. "Oh, sir!--oh, my father!--this generous
sacrifice may not be; for he--he who has saved me for this surpassing
joy--he too loves her!"

"Nay, Leonard," said Harley, smiling, "I am not so neglectful of myself.
Another home woos you, Audley. He whom you long so vainly sought to
reconcile to life, exchanging mournful dreams for happy duties,--he,
too, presents you to his bride. Love her for my sake,--for your own. She
it is, not I, who presides over this hallowed reunion. But for her, I
should have been a blinded, vindictive, guilty, repentant man; and--"
Violante's soft hand was on his lips. "Thus," said the parson, with mild
solemnity, "man finds that the Saviour's precepts, 'Let not the sun go
down upon thy wrath,' and 'Love one another,' are clews that conduct us
through the labyrinth of human life, when the schemes of fraud and hate
snap asunder, and leave us lost amidst the maze."

Egerton reared his head, as if to answer; and all present were struck
and appalled by the sudden change that had come over his countenance.
There was a film upon the eye, a shadow on the aspect; the words
failed his lips; he sunk on the seat beside him. The left hand rested
droopingly upon the piles of public papers and official documents, and
the fingers played with them, as the bedridden dying sufferer plays with
the coverlid he will soon exchange for the winding-sheet. But his right
hand seemed to feel, as through the dark, for the recovered son; and
having touched what it sought, feebly drew Leonard near and nearer.
Alas! that blissful PRIVATE LIFE--that close centre round the core of
being in the individual man--so long missed and pined for, slipped from
him, as it were, the moment it reappeared; hurried away, as the circle
on the ocean, which is scarce seen ere it vanishes amidst infinity.
Suddenly both hands were still; the head fell back. Joy had burst
asunder the last ligaments, so fretted away in unrevealing sorrow. Afar,
their sound borne into that room, the joy-bells were pealing triumph;
mobs roaring out huzzas; the weak cry of John Avenel might be blent in
those shouts, as the drunken zealots reeled by his cottage door, and
startled the screaming ravens that wheeled round the hollow oak. The
boom which is sent from the waves on the surface of life, while the
deeps are so noiseless in their march, was wafted on the wintry air into
the chamber of the statesman it honoured, and over the grass sighing low
upon Nora's grave. But there was one in the chamber, as in the grave,
for whom the boom on the wave had no sound, and the march of the deep
had no tide. Amidst promises of home, and union, and peace, and fame,
Death strode into the household ring, and, seating itself, calm and
still, looked life-like,--warm hearts throbbing round it; lofty hopes
fluttering upward; Love kneeling at its feet; Religion, with lifted
finger, standing by its side.




FINAL CHAPTER.

   SCENE--The Hall in the Old Tower of CAPTAIN ROLAND DE CAXTON.

"But you have not done?" said Augustine Caxton.

PISISTRATUS.--"What remains to do?"

MR. CAXTON.--"What! why, the Final Chapter!--the last news you can give
us of those whom you have introduced to our liking or dislike."

PISISTRATUS.--"Surely it is more dramatic to close the work with a
scene that completes the main design of the plot, and leave it to the
prophetic imagination of all whose flattering curiosity is still not
wholly satisfied, to trace the streams of each several existence, when
they branch off again from the lake in which their waters converge, and
by which the sibyl has confirmed and made clear the decree that 'Conduct
is Fate.'"

MR. CAXTON.--"More dramatic, I grant; but you have not written a drama.
A novelist should be a comfortable, garrulous, communicative, gossiping
fortune-teller; not a grim, laconical, oracular sibyl. I like a novel
that adopts all the old-fashioned customs prescribed to its art by
the rules of the Masters,--more especially a novel which you style 'My
Novel' par emphasis."

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"A most vague and impracticable title 'My Novel'! It
must really be changed before the work goes in due form to the public."

MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly the present title cannot be even pronounced by
many without inflicting a shock upon their nervous system. Do you think,
for instance, that my friend, Lady Priscilla Graves--who is a great
novel-reader indeed, but holds all female writers unfeminine deserters
to the standard of Man--could ever come out with, 'Pray, sir, have you
had time to look at--MY Novel?'--She would rather die first. And yet
to be silent altogether on the latest acquisition to the circulating
libraries would bring on a functional derangement of her ladyship's
organs of speech. Or how could pretty Miss Dulcet--all sentiment, it
is true, but all bashful timidity--appall Captain Smirke from proposing
with, 'Did not you think the parson's sermon a little too dry in--MY
Novel'? It will require a face of brass, or at least a long course
of citrate of iron, before a respectable lady or unassuming young
gentleman, with a proper dread of being taken for scribblers, could
electrify a social circle with 'The reviewers don't do justice to the
excellent things in--My Novel.'"

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Awful consequences, indeed, may arise from the
mistakes such a title gives rise to. Counsellor Digwell, for instance, a
lawyer of literary tastes, but whose career at the Bar was long delayed
by an unjust suspicion amongst the attorneys that he had written a
'Philosophical Essay'--imagine such a man excusing himself for being
late at a dinner of bigwigs, with 'I could not get away from--My Novel!'
It would be his professional ruin! I am not fond of lawyers in general,
but still I would not be a party to taking the bread out of the mouth
of those with a family; and Digwell has children,--the tenth an innocent
baby in arms."

MR. CAXTON.--"As to Digwell in particular, and lawyers in general, they
are too accustomed to circumlocution to expose themselves to the danger
your kind heart apprehends; but I allow that a shy scholar like myself,
or a grave college tutor, might be a little put to the blush, if he were
to blurt forth inadvertently with, 'Don't waste your time over trash
like--MY Novel.' And that thought presents to us another and more
pleasing view of this critical question. The title you condemn places
the work under universal protection. Lives there a man or a woman so
dead to self-love as to say, 'What contemptible stuff is--MY Novel'?
Would he or she not rather be impelled by that strong impulse of an
honourable and virtuous heart, which moves us to stand as well as we can
with our friends, to say, 'Allow that there is really a good thing now
and then in--My Novel.' Moreover, as a novel aspires to embrace most of
the interests or the passions that agitate mankind,--to generalize, as
it were, the details of life that come home to us all,--so, in reality,
the title denotes that if it be such as the author may not unworthily
call his Novel, it must also be such as the reader, whoever he be, may
appropriate in part to himself, representing his own ideas, expressing
his own experience, reflecting, if not in full, at least in profile,
his own personal identity. Thus, when we glance at the looking-glass in
another man's room, our likeness for the moment appropriates the mirror;
and according to the humour in which we are, or the state of our spirits
and health, we say to ourselves, 'Bilious and yellow!--I might as well
take care of my diet!' Or, 'Well, I 've half a mind to propose to dear
Jane; I'm not such an ill-looking dog as I thought for!' Still, whatever
result from that glance at the mirror, we never doubt that 't is our
likeness we see; and each says to the phantom reflection, 'Thou art
myself,' though the mere article of furniture that gives the reflection
belongs to another. It is my likeness if it be his glass. And a
narrative that is true to the Varieties of Life is every Man's Novel,
no matter from what shores, by what rivers, by what bays, in what pits,
were extracted the sands and the silex, the pearlash, the nitre, and
quicksilver which form its materials; no matter who the craftsman who
fashioned its form; no matter who the vendor that sold, or the customer
who bought: still, if I but recognize some trait of myself, 't is my
likeness that makes it 'My Novel.'"

MR. SQUILLS (puzzled, and therefore admiring).--"Subtle, sir,--very
subtle. Fine organ of Comparison in Mr. Caxton's head, and much called
into play this evening!"

MR. CAXTON (benignly).--"Finally, the author by this most admirable and
much signifying title dispenses with all necessity of preface. He need
insinuate no merits, he need extenuate no faults; for, by calling his
work thus curtly 'MY Novel,' he doth delicately imply that it is no use
wasting talk about faults or merits."

PISISTRATUS (amazed).--"How is that, sir?"

MR. CAXTON.--"What so clear? You imply that, though a better novel may
be written by others, you do not expect to write a novel to which,
taken as a novel, you would more decisively and unblushingly prefix that
voucher of personal authorship and identity conveyed in the monosyllable
'My.' And if you have written your best, let it be ever so bad, what can
any man of candour and integrity require more from you? Perhaps you will
say that, if you had lived two thousand years ago, you might have called
it 'The Novel,' or the 'Golden Novel,' as Lucius called his story 'The
Ass;' and Apuleius, to distinguish his own more elaborate Ass from all
Asses preceding it, called his tale 'The Golden Ass.' But living in the
present day, such a designation--implying a merit in general, not
the partial and limited merit corresponding only with your individual
abilities--would be presumptuous and offensive. True, I here anticipate
the observation I see Squills is about to make--"

SQUILLS.--"I, Sir?"

MR. CAXTON.--"You would say that, as Scarron called his work of fiction
'The Comic Novel,' so Pisistratus might have called his 'The Serious
Novel,' or 'The Tragic Novel.' But, Squills, that title would not have
been inviting nor appropriate, and would have been exposed to comparison
with Scarron, who being dead is inimitable. Wherefore--to put the
question on the irrefragable basis of mathematics--wherefore as A B 'My
Novel' is not equal to B C 'The Golden Novel,' nor to D E 'The Serious
or Tragic Novel,' it follows that A B 'My Novel' is equal to P C
'Pisistratus Caxton,' and P C 'Pisistratus Caxton' must therefore be
just equal, neither more nor less, to A B 'My Novel,'--which was to be
demonstrated." My father looked round triumphantly, and observing that
Squills was dumfounded, and the rest of his audience posed, he added
mildly,

"And so now, 'non quieta movere,' proceed with the Final Chapter, and
tell us first what became of that youthful Giles Overreach, who was
himself his own Marrall?"

"Ay," said the captain, "what became of Randal Leslie? Did he repent and
reform?"

"Nay," quoth my father, with a mournful shake of the head, "you can
regulate the warm tide of wild passion, you can light into virtue the
dark errors of ignorance; but where the force of the brain does but clog
the free action of the heart, where you have to deal, not with ignorance
misled, but intelligence corrupted, small hope of reform; for reform
here will need re-organization. I have somewhere read (perhaps in Hebrew
tradition) that of the two orders of fallen spirits,--the Angels of Love
and the Angels of Knowledge,--the first missed the stars they had lost,
and wandered back through the darkness, one by one, into heaven; but the
last, lighted on by their own lurid splendours, said, 'Wherever we go,
there is heaven!' And deeper and lower descending, lost their shape
and their nature, till, deformed and obscene, the bottomless pit closed
around them."

MR. SQUILLS.--"I should not have thought, Mr. Caxton, that a book-man
like you would be thus severe upon Knowledge."

MR. CAXTON (in wrath).--"Severe upon knowledge! Oh, Squills, Squills,
Squills! Knowledge perverted is knowledge no longer. Vinegar, which,
exposed to the sun, breeds small serpents, or at best slimy eels, not
comestible, once was wine. If I say to my grandchildren, 'Don't drink
that sour stuff, which the sun itself fills with reptiles,' does that
prove me a foe to sound sherry? Squills, if you had but received a
scholastic education, you would know the wise maxim that saith, 'All
things the worst are corruptions from things originally designed as the
best.' Has not freedom bred anarchy, and religion fanaticism? And if I
blame Marat calling for blood, or Dominic racking a heretic, am I severe
on the religion that canonized Francis de Sales, or the freedom that
immortalized Thrasybulus?"

Mr. Squills, dreading a catalogue of all the saints in the calendar,
and an epitome of Ancient History, exclaimed eagerly, "Enough, sir; I am
convinced!"

MR. CAXTON.--"Moreover, I have thought it a natural stroke of art in
Pisistratus to keep Randal Leslie, in his progress towards the rot
of the intellect unwholesomely refined, free from all the salutary
influences that deter ambition from settling into egotism. Neither in
his slovenly home, nor from his classic tutor at his preparatory school,
does he seem to have learned any truths, religious or moral, that might
give sap to fresh shoots, when the first rank growth was cut down by the
knife; and I especially noted, as illustrative of Egerton, no less than
of Randal, that though the statesman's occasional hints of advice to
his protege are worldly wise in their way, and suggestive of honour as
befitting the creed of a gentleman, they are not such as much influence
a shrewd reasoner like Randal, whom the example of the playground at
Eton had not served to correct of the arid self-seeking, which looked
to knowledge for no object but power. A man tempted by passions like
Audley, or seduced into fraud by a cold, subtle spirit like Leslie,
will find poor defence in the elegant precept, 'Remember to act as
a gentleman.' Such moral embroidery adds a beautiful scarf to one's
armour; but it is not the armour itself! Ten o'clock, as I live! Push
on, Pisistratus! and finish the chapter."

MRS. CAXTON (benevolently).--"Don't hurry. Begin with that odious Randal
Leslie, to oblige your father; but there are others whom Blanche and I
care much more to hear about."

Pisistratus, since there is no help for it, produces a supplementary
manuscript, which proves that, whatever his doubt as to the artistic
effect of a Final Chapter, he had foreseen that his audience would not
be contented without one.

Randal Leslie, late at noon the day after he quitted Lansmere Park,
arrived on foot at his father's house. He had walked all the way, and
through the solitudes of the winter night; but he was not sensible of
fatigue till the dismal home closed round him, with its air of hopeless
ignoble poverty; and then he sunk upon the floor feeling himself a
ruin amidst the ruins. He made no disclosure of what had passed to his
relations. Miserable man, there was not one to whom he could confide,
or from whom he might hear the truths that connect repentance with
consolation! After some weeks passed in sullen and almost unbroken
silence, be left as abruptly as he had appeared, and returned to London.
The sudden death of a man like Egerton had even in those excited
times created intense, though brief sensation. The particulars of the
election, that had been given in detail in the provincial papers, were
copied into the London journals, among those details, Randal Leslie's
conduct in the Committee-room, with many an indignant comment on
selfishness and ingratitude. The political world of all parties formed
one of those judgments on the great man's poor dependant, which fix a
stain upon the character and place a barrier in the career of ambitious
youth. The important personages who had once noticed Randal for Audley's
sake, and who, on their subsequent and not long-deferred restoration to
power, could have made his fortune, passed him in the streets without
a nod. He did not venture to remind Avenel of the promise to aid him in
another election for Lansmere, nor dream of filling up the vacancy which
Egerton's death had created. He was too shrewd not to see that all hope
of that borough was over,--he would have been hooted in the streets and
pelted from the hustings. Forlorn in the vast metropolis as Leonard
had once been, in his turn he loitered on the bridge, and gazed on the
remorseless river. He had neither money nor connections,--nothing save
talents and knowledge to force his way back into the lofty world in
which all had smiled on him before; and talents and knowledge, that had
been exerted to injure a benefactor, made him but the more despised.
But even now, Fortune, that had bestowed on the pauper heir of Rood
advantages so numerous and so dazzling, out of which he had cheated
himself, gave him a chance, at least, of present independence, by which,
with patient toil, he might have won, if not to the highest places, at
least to a position in which he could have forced the world to listen
to his explanations; and perhaps receive his excuses. The L5,000
that Audley designed for him, and which, in a private memorandum, the
statesman had entreated Harley to see safely rescued from the fangs of
the law, were made over to Randal by Lord L'Estrange's solicitor; but
this sum seemed to him so small after the loss of such gorgeous hopes,
and the up-hill path seemed so slow after such short cuts to power,
that Randal looked upon the unexpected bequest simply as an apology for
adopting no profession. Stung to the quick by the contrast between his
past and his present place in the English world, he hastened abroad.
There, whether in distraction from thought, or from the curiosity of a
restless intellect to explore the worth of things yet untried, Randal
Leslie, who had hitherto been so dead to the ordinary amusements of
youth, plunged into the society of damaged gamesters and third-rate
roues. In this companionship his very talents gradually degenerated, and
their exercise upon low intrigues and miserable projects but abased his
social character, till, sinking step after step as his funds decayed,
he finally vanished out of the sphere in which even profligates still
retain the habits, and cling to the caste of gentlemen. His father died;
the neglected property of Rood devolved on Randal, but out of its scanty
proceeds he had to pay the portions of his brother and sister, and
his mother's jointure; the surplus left was scarcely visible in the
executor's account. The hope of restoring the home and fortunes of his
forefathers had long ceased. What were the ruined hall and its bleak
wastes, without that hope which had once dignified the wreck and the
desert? He wrote from St. Petersburg, ordering the sale of the property.
No one great proprietor was a candidate for the unpromising investment;
it was sold in lots among small freeholders and retired traders. A
builder bought the hall for its material. Hall, lands, and name were
blotted out of the map and the history of the county.

The widow, Oliver, and Juliet removed to a provincial town in another
shire. Juliet married an ensign in a marching regiment; and died of
neglect after childbirth. Mrs. Leslie did not long survive her. Oliver
added to his little fortune by marriage with the daughter of a retail
tradesman, who had amassed a few thousand pounds. He set up a brewery,
and contrived to live without debt, though a large family and his own
constitutional inertness extracted from his business small profits and
no savings. Nothing of Randal had been heard of for years after the sale
of Rood, except that he had taken up his residence either in Australia
or the United States; it was not known which, but presumed to be the
latter. Still, Oliver had been brought up with so high a veneration of
his brother's talents, that he cherished the sanguine belief that Randal
would some day appear, wealthy and potent, like the uncle in a
comedy; lift rip the sunken family, and rear into graceful ladies and
accomplished gentlemen the clumsy little boys and the vulgar little
girls who now crowded round Oliver's dinner-table, with appetites
altogether disproportioned to the size of the joints.

One winter day, when from the said dinner-table wife and children had
retired, and Oliver sat sipping his half-pint of bad port, and looking
over unsatisfactory accounts, a thin terrier, lying on the threadbare
rug by the niggard fire, sprang up and barked fiercely. Oliver lifted
his dull blue eyes, and saw opposite to him, at the window, a human
face. The face was pressed close to the panes, and was obscured by the
haze which the breath of its lips drew forth from the frosty rime that
had gathered on the glass.

Oliver, alarmed and indignant, supposing this intrusive spectator of his
privacy to be some bold and lawless tramper, stepped out of the room,
opened the front door, and bade the stranger go about his business;
while the terrier still more inhospitably yelped and snapped at the
stranger's heels. Then a hoarse voice said, "Don't you know me, Oliver?
I am your brother Randal! Call away your dog and let me in." Oliver
stared aghast; he could not believe his slow senses, he could not
recognize his brother in the gaunt grim apparition before him; but at
length he came forward, gazed into Randal's face, and, grasping his hand
in amazed silence, led him into the little parlour. Not a trace of
the well-bred refinement which had once characterized Randal's air and
person was visible. His dress bespoke the last stage of that terrible
decay which is significantly called the "shabby genteel." His mien was
that of the skulking, timorous, famished vagabond. As he took off his
greasy tattered hat, he exhibited, though still young in years, the
signs of premature old age. His hair, once so fine and silken, was of
a harsh iron-gray, bald in ragged patches; his forehead and visage were
ploughed into furrows; intelligence was still in the aspect, but an
intelligence that instinctively set you on your guard,--sinister,
gloomy, menacing.

Randal stopped short all questioning. He seized the small modicum of
wine on the table, and drained it at a draught. "Poole," said he, "have
you nothing that warms a man better than this?" Oliver, who felt as if
under the influence of a frightful dream, went to a cupboard and took
out a bottle of brandy three-parts full. Randal snatched at it eagerly,
and put his lips to the mouth of the bottle. "Ah," said he, after a
short pause, "this comforts; now give me food." Oliver hastened himself
to serve his brother; in fact, he felt ashamed that even the slipshod
maid-servant should see his visitor. When he returned with such
provisions as he could extract from the larder, Randal was seated by the
fire, spreading over the embers emaciated bony hands, like the talons of
a vulture.

He devoured the cold meat set before him with terrible voracity, and
nearly finished the spirits left in the bottle; but the last had no
effect in dispersing his gloom. Oliver stared at him in fear; the
terrier continued to utter a low suspicious growl.

"You would know my history?" at length said Randal, bluntly. "It is
short. I have tried for fortune and failed, I am without a penny and
without a hope. You seem poor,--

"I suppose you cannot much help me. Let me at least stay with you for a
time,--I know not where else to look for bread and for shelter."

Oliver burst into tears, and cordially bade his brother welcome. Randal
remained some weeks at Oliver's house, never stirring out of the doors,
and not seeming to notice, though he did not scruple to use, the new
habiliments, which Oliver procured ready-made, and placed, without
remark, in his room. But his presence soon became intolerable to the
mistress of the house, and oppressive even to its master. Randal, who
had once been so abstemious that he had even regarded the most
moderate use of wine as incompatible with clear judgment and vigilant
observation, had contracted the habit of drinking spirits at all hours
of the day; but though they sometimes intoxicated him into stupor, they
never unlocked his heart nor enlivened his sullen mood. If he observed
less acutely than of old, he could still conceal just as closely.
Mrs. Oliver Leslie, at first rather awed and taciturn, grew cold and
repelling, then pert and sarcastic, at last undisguisedly and vulgarly
rude. Randal made no retort; but his sneer was so galling that the wife
flew at once to her husband, and declared that either she or his brother
must leave the house. Oliver tried to pacify and compromise, with
partial success; and a few days afterwards, he came to Randal and said
timidly, "You see, my wife brought me nearly all I possess, and you
don't condescend to make friends with her. Your residence here must be
as painful to you as to me. But I wish to see you provided for; and I
could offer you something, only it seems, at first glance, so beneath--"

"Beneath what?" interrupted Randal, witheringly. "What I was--or what I
am? Speak out!"

"To be sure you are a scholar; and I have heard you say fine things
about knowledge and so forth; and you'll have plenty of books at your
disposal, no doubt; and you are still young, and may rise--and--"

"Hell and torments! Be quick,--say the worst or the best!" cried Randal,
fiercely.

"Well, then," said poor Oliver, still trying to soften the intended
proposal, "you must know that our poor sister's husband was nephew
to Dr. Felpem, who keeps a very respectable school. He is not learned
himself, and attends chiefly to arithmetic and book-keeping, and such
matters; but he wants an usher to teach the classics, for some of the
boys go to college. And I have written to him, just to sound--I did not
mention your name till I knew if you would like it; but he will take my
recommendation. Board, lodging, L50 a year; in short, the place is yours
if you like it." Randal shivered from head to foot, and was long
before he answered. "Well, be it so; I have come to that. Ha, ha! yes,
knowledge is power!" He paused a few moments. "So, the old Hall is razed
to the ground, and you are a tradesman in a small country town, and my
sister is dead, and I henceforth am--John Smith! You say that you did
not mention my name to the schoolmaster,--still keep it concealed;
forget that I once was a Leslie. Our tie of brotherhood ceases when I
go from your hearth. Write, then, to your head-master, who attends
to arithmetic, and secure the rank of his usher in Latin and Greek
for--John Smith!"

Not many days afterwards, the protege of Audley Egerton entered on his
duties as usher in one of those large, cheap schools, which comprise a
sprinkling of the sons of gentry and clergymen designed for the learned
professions, with a far larger proportion of the sons of traders,
intended, some for the counting-house, some for the shop and the till.
There, to this day, under the name of John Smith, lives Randal Leslie.

It is probably not pride alone that induces him to persist in that
change of name, and makes him regard as perpetual the abandonment of
the one that he took from his forefathers, and with which he had once
identified his vaulting ambition; for shortly after he had quitted
his brother's house, Oliver read in the weekly newspaper, to which he
bounded his lore of the times in which he lived, an extract from
an American journal, wherein certain mention was made of an English
adventurer who, amongst other aliases, had assumed the name of
Leslie,--that extract caused Oliver to start, turn pale, look round,
and thrust the paper into the fire. From that time he never attempted to
violate the condition Randal had imposed on him, never sought to renew
their intercourse, nor to claim a brother. Doubtless, if the adventurer
thus signalized was the man Oliver suspected, whatever might be imputed
to Randal's charge that could have paled a brother's cheek, it was none
of the more violent crimes to which law is inexorable, but rather (in
that progress made by ingratitude and duplicity, with Need and Necessity
urging them on) some act of dishonesty which may just escape from the
law, to sink, without redemption, the name. However this be, there is
nothing in Randal's present course of life which forbodes any deeper
fall. He has known what it is to want bread, and his former restlessness
subsides into cynic apathy.

He lodges in the town near the school, and thus the debasing habit of
unsocial besotment is not brought under the eyes of his superior. The
drain is his sole luxury; if it be suspected, it is thought to be his
sole vice. He goes through the ordinary routine of tuition with average
credit; his spirit of intrigue occasionally shows itself in attempts
to conciliate the favour of the boys whose fathers are wealthy, who are
born to higher rank than the rest; and he lays complicated schemes to
be asked home for the holidays. But when the schemes succeed, and the
invitation comes, he recoils and shrinks back,--he does not dare to show
himself on the borders of the brighter world he once hoped to sway; he
fears that he may be discovered to be--a Leslie! On such days, when his
taskwork is over, he shuts himself up in his room, locks the door, and
drugs himself into insensibility.

Once he found a well-worn volume running the round of delighted
schoolboys, took it up, and recognized Leonard's earliest popular work,
which had, many years before, seduced himself into pleasant thoughts and
gentle emotions. He carried the book to his own lodgings, read it again;
and when he returned it to its young owner, some of the leaves were
stained with tears. Alas! perhaps but the maudlin tears of broken
nerves, not of the awakened soul,--for the leaves smelt strongly of
whiskey. Yet, after that re-perusal, Randal Leslie turned suddenly to
deeper studies than his habitual drudgeries required. He revived and
increased his early scholarship; he chalked the outline of a work of
great erudition, in which the subtlety of his intellect found field
in learned and acute criticism. But he has never proceeded far in this
work. After each irregular and spasmodic effort, the pen drops from his
hand, and he mutters, "But to what end?

"I can never now raise a name. Why give reputation to--John Smith?"

Thus he drags on his life; and perhaps, when he dies, the fragments of
his learned work may be discovered in the desk of the usher, and serve
as hints to some crafty student, who may filch ideas and repute from the
dead Leslie, as Leslie had filched them from the living Burley.

While what may be called poetical justice has thus evolved itself from
the schemes in which Randal Leslie had wasted rare intellect in baffling
his own fortunes, no outward signs of adversity evince the punishment
of Providence on the head of the more powerful offender, Baron Levy. No
fall in the Funds has shaken the sumptuous fabric, built from the ruined
houses of other men. Baron Levy is still Baron Levy the millionaire; but
I doubt if at heart he be not more acutely miserable than Randal Leslie
the usher. For Levy is a man who has admitted the fiercer passions into
his philosophy of life; he has not the pale blood and torpid heart which
allow the scotched adder to dose away its sense of pain. Just as old age
began to creep upon the fashionable usurer, he fell in love with a young
opera-dancer, whose light heels had turned the lighter heads of half the
eligans of Paris and London. The craft of the dancer was proof against
all lesser bribes than that of marriage; and Levy married her. From
that moment his house, Louis Quinze, was more crowded than ever by the
high-born dandies whose society he had long so eagerly courted. That
society became his curse. The baroness was an accomplished coquette; and
Levy (with whom, as we have seen, jealousy was the predominant passion)
was stretched on an eternal rack. His low estimate of human nature, his
disbelief in the possibility of virtue, added strength to the agony
of his suspicions, and provoked the very dangers he dreaded. His
self-torturing task was that of the spy upon his own hearth. His
banquets were haunted by a spectre; the attributes of his wealth were as
the goad and the scourge of Nemesis. His gay cynic smile changed into
a sullen scowl, his hair blanched into white, his eyes were hollow with
one consuming care. Suddenly he left his costly house,--left London;
abjured all the society which it had been the joy of his wealth
to purchase; buried himself and his wife in a remote corner of the
provinces; and there he still lives. He seeks in vain to occupy his days
with rural pursuits,--he to whom the excitements of a metropolis, with
all its corruption and its vices, were the sole sources of the torpid
stream that he called "pleasure." There, too, the fiend of jealousy
still pursues him: he prowls round his demesnes with the haggard eye
and furtive step of a thief; he guards his wife as a prisoner, for she
threatens every day to escape. The life of the man who had opened the
prison to so many is the life of a jailer. His wife abhors him, and does
not conceal it; and still slavishly he dotes on her. Accustomed to the
freest liberty, demanding applause and admiration as her rights; wholly
uneducated, vulgar in mind, coarse in language, violent in temper, the
beautiful Fury he had brought to his home makes that home a hell. Thus,
what might seem to the superficial most enviable, is to their possessor
most hateful. He dares not ask a soul to see how he spends his gold;
he has shrunk into a mean and niggardly expenditure, and complains
of reverse and poverty, in order to excuse himself to his wife for
debarring her the enjoyments which she anticipated from the Money Bags
she had married. A vague consciousness of retribution has awakened
remorse, to add to his other stings. And the remorse coming from
superstition, not religion (sent from below, not descending from above),
brings with it none of the consolations of a genuine repentance. He
never seeks to atone, never dreams of some redeeming good action. His
riches flow around him, spreading wider and wider--out of his own reach.

The Count di Peschiera was not deceived in the calculations which
had induced him to affect repentance, and establish a claim upon his
kinsman. He received from the generosity of the Duke di Serrano an
annuity not disproportioned to his rank, and no order from his court
forbade his return to Vienna. But, in the very summer that followed his
visit to Lansmere, his career came to an abrupt close. At Baden-Baden
he paid court to a wealthy and accomplished Polish widow; and his fine
person and terrible repute awed away all rivals, save a young Frenchman,
as daring as himself, and much more in love. A challenge was given and
accepted. Peschiera appeared on the fatal ground, with his customary
sang-froid, humming an opera air, and looking so diabolically gay that
his opponent's nerves were affected in spite of his courage; and the
Frenchman's trigger going off before he had even taken aim, to his own
ineffable astonishment, he shot the count through the heart, dead.

Beatrice di Negra lived for some years after her brother's death in
strict seclusion, lodging within a convent, though she did not take
the veil, as she at first proposed. In fact, the more she saw of the
sisterhood, the more she found that human regrets and human passions
(save in some rarely gifted natures) find their way through the barred
gates and over the lofty walls. Finally, she took up her abode in Rome,
where she is esteemed for a life not only marked by strict propriety,
but active benevolence. She cannot be prevailed on to accept from the
duke more than a fourth of the annuity that had been bestowed on her
brother; but she has few wants, save those of charity; and when charity
is really active, it can do so much with so little gold! She is not
known in the gayer circles of the city; but she gathers round her a
small society composed chiefly of artists and scholars, and is never so
happy as when she can aid some child of genius,--more especially if his
country be England.

The squire and his wife still flourish at Hazeldean, where Captain
Barnabas Higginbotham has taken up his permanent abode. The captain is a
confirmed hypochondriac; but he brightens up now and then when he hears
of any illness in the family of Mr. Sharpe Currie, and, at such times,
is heard to murmur, "If those seven sickly children should go off, I
might still have very great--EXPECTATIONS,"--for the which he has been
roundly scolded by the squire, and gravely preached at by the parson.
Upon both, however, he takes his revenge in a fair and gentlemanlike
way, three times a week, at the whist-table, the parson no longer having
the captain as his constant partner, since a fifth now generally cuts
in at the table,--in the person of that old enemy and neighbour, Mr.
Sticktorights. The parson, thus fighting his own battles unallied to the
captain, observes with melancholy surprise that there is a long run of
luck against him, and that he does not win so much as he used to
do. Fortunately that is the sole trouble--except Mrs. Dale's "little
tempers," to which he is accustomed--that ever disturbs the serene tenor
of the parson's life. We must now explain how Mr. Sticktorights came
to cut in at the Hazeldean whist-table. Frank has settled at the Casino
with a wife who suits him exactly, and that wife was Miss Sticktorights.
It was two years before Frank recovered the disappointment with which
the loss of Beatrice saddened his spirits, but sobered his habits and
awoke his reflection. An affection, however misplaced and ill-requited,
if honestly conceived and deeply felt, rarely fails to advance the
self-education of man. Frank became steady and serious; and, on a visit
to Hazeldean, met at a county ball Miss Sticktorights, and the two young
persons were instantly attracted towards each other, perhaps by the
very feud that had so long existed between their houses. The marriage
settlements were nearly abandoned, at the last moment, by a discussion
between the parents as to the Right of Way; but the dispute was happily
appeased by Mr. Dale's suggestion that as both properties would
be united in the children of the proposed marriage, all cause for
litigation would naturally cease, since no man would go to law with
himself. Mr. Sticktorights and Mr. Hazeldean, however, agreed in the
precaution of inserting a clause in the settlements (though all the
lawyers declared that it could not be of any legal avail), by which
it was declared, that if, in default of heritable issue by the said
marriage, the Sticktorights' estate devolved on some distant scion of
the Sticktorights family, the right of way from the wood across the
waste land would still remain in the same state of delectable dispute
in which it then stood. There seems, however, little chance of a lawsuit
thus providently bequeathed to the misery of distant generations, since
two sons and two daughters are already playing at hide-and-seek on
the terrace where Jackeymo once watered the orange-trees, and in the
belvidere where Riccabocca had studied his Machiavelli.

Jackeymo, though his master has assessed the long arrears of his wages
at a sum which would enable him to have orange-groves and servants
of his own, still clings to his former duties, and practises his
constitutional parsimony. His only apparent deviation into profusion
consists in the erection of a chapel to his sainted namesake, to whom
he burns many a votive taper,--the tapers are especially tall, and their
sconces are wreathed with garlands, whenever a letter with the foreign
postmark brings good news of the absent Violante and her English lord.

Riccabocca was long before he reconciled himself to the pomp of his
principalities and his title of Duke. Jemima accommodated herself much
more readily to greatness; but she retained all her native Hazeldean
simplicity at heart, and is adored by the villagers around her,
especially by the young of both sexes, whom she is always ready to marry
and to portion,--convinced, long ere this, of the redeemable qualities
of the male sex by her reverence for the duke, who continues to satirize
women and wedlock, and deem himself--thanks to his profound experience
of the one, and his philosophical endurance of the other--the only happy
husband in the world. Longer still was it before the sage, who had been
so wisely anxious to rid himself of the charge of a daughter, could
wean his thoughts from the remembrance of her tender voice and loving
eyes,--not, indeed, till he seriously betook himself to the task of
educating the son with whom, according to his scientific prognostics,
Jemima presented him shortly after his return to his native land.
The sage began betimes with his Italian proverbs, full of hardhearted
worldly wisdom, and the boy was scarce out of the hornbook before he was
introduced to Machiavelli. But somehow or other the simple goodness
of the philosopher's actual life, with his high-wrought patrician
sentiments of integrity and honour, so counteract the theoretical
lessons, that the Heir of Serrano is little likely to be made more wise
by the proverbs, or more wicked by the Machiavelli, than those studies
have practically made the progenitor, whose opinions his countrymen
still shame with the title of "Alphonso the Good."

The duke long cherished a strong curiosity to know what had become of
Randal. He never traced the adventurer to his closing scene. But once
(years before Randal had crept into his present shelter) in a visit
of inspection to the hospital at Genoa, the duke, with his peculiar
shrewdness of observation in all matters except those which concerned
himself, was remarking to the officer in attendance, "that for one dull,
honest man whom fortune drove to the hospital or the jail, he had found,
on investigation of their antecedents, three sharp-witted knaves who had
thereto reduced themselves"--when his eye fell upon a man asleep in
one of the sick wards; and recognizing the face, not then so changed as
Oliver had seen it, he walked straight up, and gazed upon Randal Leslie.

"An Englishman," said the official. "He was brought hither insensible,
from a severe wound on the head, inflicted, as we discovered, by a
well-known chevalier d'industrie, who declared that the Englishman had
outwitted and cheated him. That was not very likely, for a few crowns
were all we could find on the Englishman's person, and he had been
obliged to leave his lodgings for debt. He is recovering, but there is
fever still."

The duke gazed silently on the sleeper, who was tossing restlessly on
his pallet, and muttering to himself; then he placed his purse in the
official's hand. "Give this to the Englishman," said he; "but conceal
my name. It is true, it is true, the proverb is very true," resumed the
duke, descending the stairs, "Piu pelli di volpi the di asini vanno in
Pellieciaria." (More hides of foxes than of asses find their way to the
tanner's).

Dr. Morgan continues to prescribe globules for grief, and to administer
infinitesimally to a mind diseased. Practising what he prescribes,
he swallows a globule of caustic whenever the sight of a distressed
fellow-creature moves him to compassion,--a constitutional tendency
which, he is at last convinced, admits of no radical cure. For the rest,
his range of patients has notably expanded; and under his sage care
his patients unquestionably live as long--as Providence pleases. No
allopathist can say more.

The death of poor John Burley found due place in the obituary of
"literary men." Admirers, unknown before, came forward and subscribed
for a handsome monument to his memory in Kensall Green. They would have
subscribed for the relief of his widow and children, if he had left
any. Writers in magazines thrived for some months on collections of his
humorous sayings, anecdotes of his eccentricities, and specimens of
the eloquence that had lightened through the tobacco-reek of tavern
and club-room. Leonard ultimately made a selection from his scattered
writings which found place in standard libraries, though their subjects
were either of too fugitive an interest, or treated in too capricious
a manner, to do more than indicate the value of the ore, had it been
purified from its dross and subjected to the art of the mint. These
specimens could not maintain their circulation as the coined money of
Thought, but they were hoarded by collectors as rare curiosities. Alas,
poor Burley!

The Pompleys sustained a pecuniary loss by the crash of a railway
company, in which the colonel had been induced to take several shares
by one of his wife's most boasted "connections," whose estate the said
railway proposed to traverse, on paying L400 an acre, in that golden age
when railway companies respected the rights of property. The colonel was
no longer able, in his own country, to make both ends meet at Christmas.
He is now straining hard to achieve that feat in Boulogne, and has in
the process grown so red in the face, that those who meet him in his
morning walk on the pier, bargaining for fish, shake their heads and
say, "Old Pompley will go off in a fit of apoplexy; a great loss to
society; genteel people the Pompleys! and very highly 'connected.'"

The vacancy created in the borough of Lansmere by Audley Egerton's
death was filled up by our old acquaintance, Haveril Dashmore, who had
unsuccessfully contested that seat on Egerton's first election. The
naval officer was now an admiral, and perfectly reconciled to the
Constitution, with all its alloy of aristocracy.

Dick Avenel did not retire from parliament so soon as he had
anticipated. He was not able to persuade Leonard, whose brief fever of
political ambition was now quenched in the calm fountain of the Muse,
to supply his place in the senate, and he felt that the House of Avenel
needed one representative. He contrived, however, to devote, for the
first year or two, much more of his time to his interests at Screwstown
than to the affairs of his country, and succeeded in baffling the
over-competition to which he had been subjected by taking the competitor
into partnership. Having thus secured a monopoly at Screwstown, Dick, of
course, returned with great ardour to his former enlightened opinions in
favour of free trade. He remained some years in parliament; and though
far too shrewd to venture out of his depth as an orator, distinguished
himself so much by his exposure of "humbug" on an important Committee,
that he acquired a very high reputation as a man of business, and
gradually became so in request amongst all the members who moved for
"Select Committees," that he rose into consequence; and Mrs. Avenel,
courted for his sake, more than her own, obtained the wish of her
heart, and was received as an acknowledged habituee into the circles
of fashion. Amidst these circles, however, Dick found that his home
entirely vanished; and when he came home from the House of Commons,
tired to death, at two in the morning, disgusted at always hearing that
Mrs. Avenel was not yet returned from some fine lady's ball, he formed a
sudden resolution of cutting Parliament, Fashion, and London altogether;
withdrew his capital, now very large, from his business; bought the
remaining estates of Squire Thornhill; and his chief object of ambition
is in endeavouring to coax or bully out of their holdings all the small
freeholders round, who had subdivided amongst them, into poles and
furlongs, the fated inheritance of Randal Leslie. An excellent justice
of the peace, though more severe than your old family proprietors
generally are; a spirited landlord, as to encouraging and making, at
a proper percentage, all permanent improvements on the soil, but
formidable to meet if the rent be not paid to the day, or the least
breach of covenant be heedlessly incurred on a farm that he could let
for more money; employing a great many hands in productive labour, but
exacting rigorously from all the utmost degree of work at the smallest
rate of wages which competition and the poor-rate permit; the young
and robust in his neighbourhood never stinted in work, and the aged
and infirm, as lumber worn out, stowed away in the workhouse,--Richard
Avenel holds himself an example to the old race of landlords; and, taken
altogether, he is no very bad specimen of the rural civilizers whom the
application of spirit and capital raise up in the new.

From the wrecks of Egerton's fortune, Harley, with the aid of his
father's experience in business, could not succeed in saving, for the
statesman's sole child and heir, more than a few thousand pounds; and
but for the bonds and bills which, when meditating revenge, he had
bought from Levy, and afterwards thrown into the fire--paying dear
for that detestable whistle--even this surplus would not have been
forthcoming.

Harley privately paid out of his own fortune the L5,000 Egerton had
bequeathed to Leslie; perhaps not sorry, now that the stern duty of
exposing the false wiles of the schemer was fulfilled, to afford some
compensation even to the victim who had so richly deserved his fate;
and pleased, though mournfully, to comply with the solemn request of the
friend whose offence was forgotten in the remorseful memory of his own
projects of revenge.

Leonard's birth and identity were easily proved, and no one appeared to
dispute them. The balance due to him as his father's heir, together with
the sum Avenel ultimately paid to him for the patent of his invention,
and the dowry which Harley insisted upon bestowing on Helen, amounted to
that happy competence which escapes alike the anxieties of poverty, and
(what to one of contemplative tastes and retired habits are often more
irksome to bear) the show and responsibilities of wealth. His father's
death made a deep impression upon Leonard's mind; but the discovery that
he owed his birth to a statesman of so great a repute, and occupying a
position in society so conspicuous, contributed not to confirm, but to
still, the ambition which had for a short time diverted him from his
more serene aspirations. He had no longer to win a rank which might
equal Helen's. He had no longer a parent, whose affections might be best
won through pride. The memories of his earlier peasant life, and his
love for retirement,--in which habit confirmed the constitutional
tendency,--made him shrink from what a more worldly nature would have
considered the enviable advantages of a name that secured the entrance
into the loftiest sphere of our social world. He wanted not that name to
assist his own path to a rank far more durable than that which kings can
confer. And still he retained in the works he had published, and still
he proposed to bestow on the works more ambitious that he had, in
leisure and competence, the facilities to design with care, and complete
with patience, the name he had himself invented, and linked with the
memory of the low-born mother. Therefore, though there was some
wonder, in drawing-rooms and clubs, at the news of Egerton's first
unacknowledged marriage, and some curiosity expressed as to what the son
of that marriage might do,--and great men were prepared to welcome, and
fine ladies to invite and bring out, the heir to the statesman's grave
repute,--yet wonder and curiosity soon died away; the repute soon passed
out of date, and its heir was soon forgotten. Politicians who fall short
of the highest renown are like actors; no applause is so vivid while
they are on the stage, no oblivion so complete when the curtain falls on
the last farewell.

Leonard saw a fair tomb rise above Nora's grave, and on the tomb was
engraved the word of WIFE, which vindicated her beloved memory. He
felt the warm embrace of Nora's mother, no longer ashamed to own her
grandchild; and even old John was made sensible that a secret weight
of sorrow was taken from his wife's stern silent heart. Leaning
on Leonard's arm, the old man gazed wistfully on Nora's tomb, and
muttering, "Egerton! Egerton! 'Leonora, the first wife of the Right
Honourable Audley Egerton!' Ha! I voted for him. She married the right
colour. Is that the date? Is it so long since she died? Well, well! I
miss her sadly. But wife says we shall both now see her soon; and wife
once thought we should never see her again,--never; but I always knew
better. Thank you, sir. I'm a poor creature, but these tears don't pain
me,--quite otherwise. I don't know why, but I'm very happy. Where's my
old woman? She does not mind how much I talk about Nora now. Oh,
there she is! Thank you, sir, humbly; but I'd rather lean on my old
woman,--I'm more used to it; and--wife, when shall we go to Nora?"

Leonard had brought Mrs. Fairfield to see her parents, and Mrs. Avenel
welcomed her with unlooked-for kindness. The name inscribed upon Nora's
tomb softened the mother's heart to her surviving daughter. As poor John
had said, "She could now talk about Nora;" and in that talk, she and the
child she had so long neglected discovered how much they had in common.
So when, shortly after his marriage with Helen, Leonard went abroad,
Jane Fairfield remained with the old couple. After their death, which
was within a day of each other, she refused, perhaps from pride, to take
up her residence with Leonard; but she settled near the home which he
subsequently found in England. Leonard remained abroad for some years.
A quiet observer of the various manners and intellectual development of
living races, a rapt and musing student of the monuments that revive
the dead, his experience of mankind grew large in silence, and his
perceptions of the Sublime and Beautiful brightened into tranquil art
under their native skies.

On his return to England he purchased a small house amidst the most
beautiful scenes of Devonshire, and there patiently commenced a work
in which he designed to bequeath to his country his noblest thoughts
in their fairest forms. Some men best develop their ideas by constant
exercise; their thoughts spring from their brain ready-armed, and seek,
like the fabled goddess, to take constant part in the wars of men. And
such are, perhaps, on the whole, the most vigorous and lofty writers;
but Leonard did not belong to this class. Sweetness and serenity were
the main characteristics of his genius; and these were deepened by his
profound sense of his domestic happiness. To wander alone with Helen
by the banks of the murmurous river; to gaze with her on the deep still
sea; to feel that his thoughts, even when most silent, were comprehended
by the intuition of love, and reflected on that translucent sympathy so
yearned for and so rarely found by poets,--these were the Sabbaths of
his soul, necessary to fit him for its labours: for the Writer has this
advantage over other men, that his repose is not indolence. His duties,
rightly fulfilled, are discharged to earth and men in other capacities
than those of action. If he is not seen among those who act, he is
all the while maturing some noiseless influence, which will guide or
illumine, civilize or elevate, the restless men whose noblest actions
are but the obedient agencies of the thoughts of writers. Call not,
then, the Poet whom we place amidst the Varieties of Life, the sybarite
of literary ease, if, returning on Summer eves, Helen's light footstep
by his musing side, he greets his sequestered home, with its trellised
flowers smiling out from amidst the lonely cliffs in which it is
embedded; while lovers still, though wedded long, they turn to each
other, with such deep joy in their speaking eyes, grateful that the
world, with its various distractions and noisy conflicts, lies so far
from their actual existence,--only united to them by the happy link that
the writer weaves invisibly with the hearts that he moves and the souls
that he inspires. No! Character and circumstance alike unfitted Leonard
for the strife of the thronged literary democracy; they led towards the
development of the gentler and purer portions of his nature,--to the
gradual suppression of the more combative and turbulent. The influence
of the happy light under which his genius so silently and calmly grew,
was seen in the exquisite harmony of its colours, rather than the
gorgeous diversities of their glow. His contemplation, intent upon
objects of peaceful beauty, and undisturbed by rude anxieties and
vehement passions, suggested only kindred reproductions to the creative
faculty by which it was vivified; so that the whole man was not only
a poet, but, as it were, a poem,--a living idyl, calling into pastoral
music every reed that sighed and trembled along the stream of life. And
Helen was so suited to a nature of this kind, she so guarded the ideal
existence in which it breathes! All the little cares and troubles of
the common practical life she appropriated so quietly to herself,--the
stronger of the two, as should be a poet's wife, in the necessary
household virtues of prudence and forethought. Thus if the man's genius
made the home a temple, the woman's wisdom gave to the temple the
security of the fortress. They have only one child,--a girl; they call
her Nora. She has the father's soul-lit eyes, and the mother's warm
human smile. She assists Helen in the morning's noiseless domestic
duties; she sits in the evening at Leonard's feet, while he reads or
writes. In each light grief of childhood she steals to the mother's
knee; but in each young impulse of delight, or each brighter flash of
progressive reason, she springs to the father's breast. Sweet Helen,
thou hast taught her this, taking to thyself the shadows even of thine
infant's life, and leaving to thy partner's eyes only its rosy light!

But not here shall this picture of Helen close. Even the Ideal can only
complete its purpose by connection with the Real; even in solitude the
writer must depend upon mankind.

Leonard at last has completed the work, which has been the joy and the
labour of so many years,--the work which he regards as the flower of all
his spiritual being, and to which he has committed all the hopes that
unite the creature of today with the generations of the future. The work
has gone through the press, each line lingered over with the elaborate
patience of the artist, loath to part with the thought he has sculptured
into form, while an improving touch can be imparted by the chisel. He
has accepted an invitation from Norreys. In the restless excitement
(strange to him since his first happy maiden effort) he has gone to
London. Unrecognized in the huge metropolis, he has watched to see if
the world acknowledge the new tie he has woven between its busy life and
his secluded toil. And the work came out in an unpropitious hour; other
things were occupying the public; the world was not at leisure to heed
him, and the book did not penetrate into the great circle of readers.
But a savage critic has seized on it, and mangled, distorted, deformed
it, confounding together defect and beauty in one mocking ridicule; and
the beauties have not yet found an exponent, nor the defects a defender;
and the publisher shakes his head, points to groaning shelves, and
delicately hints that the work which was to be the epitome of the sacred
life within life does not hit the taste of the day. Leonard thinks over
the years that his still labour has cost him, and knows that he has
exhausted the richest mines of his intellect, and that long years will
elapse before he can recruit that capital of ideas which is necessary to
sink new shafts and bring to light fresh ore; and the deep despondency
of intellect, frustrated in its highest aims, has seized him, and all
he has before done is involved in failure by the defeat of the crowning
effort. Failure, and irrecoverable, seems his whole ambition as writer;
his whole existence in the fair Ideal seems to have been a profitless
dream, and the face of the Ideal itself is obscured. And even Norreys
frankly, though kindly, intimates that the life of a metropolis is
essential to the healthful intuition of a writer in the intellectual
wants of his age, since every great writer supplies a want in his own
generation, for some feeling to be announced, some truth to be revealed.
And as this maxim is generally sound, as most great writers have lived
in cities, Leonard dares not dwell on the exception; it is only success
that justifies the attempt to be an exception to the common rule; and
with the blunt manhood of his nature, which is not a poet's, Norreys
sums up with, "What then? One experiment has failed; fit your life to
your genius, and try again." Try again! Easy counsel enough to the man
of ready resource and quick combative mind; but to Leonard, how hard
and how harsh! "Fit his life to his genius!"--renounce contemplation and
Nature for the jostle of Oxford Street! Would that life not scare away
the genius forever? Perplexed and despondent, though still struggling
for fortitude, he returns to his home; and there at his hearth awaits
the Soother, and there is the voice that repeats the passages most
beloved, and prophesies so confidently of future fame; and gradually all
around smiles from the smile of Helen. And the profound conviction that
Heaven places human happiness beyond the reach of the world's contempt
or praise, circulates through his system and restores its serene calm.
And he feels that the duty of the intellect is to accomplish and perfect
itself,--to harmonize its sounds into music that may be heard in heaven,
though it wake not an echo on the earth. If this be done, as with some
men, best amidst the din and the discord, be it so; if, as with him,
best in silence, be it so too. And the next day he reclines with Helen
by the seashore, gazing calmly as before on the measureless sunlit
ocean; and Helen, looking into his face, sees that it is sunlit as the
deep. His hand steals within her own, in the gratitude that endears
beyond the power of passion, and he murmurs gently, "Blessed be the
woman who consoles."

The work found its way at length into fame, and the fame sent its voices
loud to the poet's home. But the applause of the world had not a sound
so sweet to his ear, as, when, in doubt, humiliation, and sadness, the
lips of his Helen had whispered "Hope! and believe!"

Side by side with this picture of Woman the Consoler, let me place the
companion sketch. Harley L'Estrange, shortly after his marriage with
Violante, had been induced, whether at his bride's persuasions, or to
dissipate the shadow with which Egerton's death still clouded his wedded
felicity, to accept a temporary mission, half military, half civil, to
one of our colonies. On this mission he had evinced so much ability
and achieved so signal a success, that on his return to England he was
raised to the peerage, while his father yet lived to rejoice that the
son who would succeed to his honours had achieved the nobler dignity
of honours not inherited, but won. High expectations were formed of
Harley's parliamentary success; but he saw that such success, to be
durable, must found itself on the knowledge of wearisome details, and
the study of that practical business which jarred on his tastes, though
it suited his talents. Harley had been indolent for so many years,--and
there is so much to make indolence captivating to a man whose rank is
secured, who has nothing to ask from fortune, and who finds at his home
no cares from which he seeks a distraction; so he laughed at ambition in
the whim of his delightful humours, and the expectations formed from
his diplomatic triumph died away. But then came one of those political
crises, in which men ordinarily indifferent to politics rouse themselves
to the recollection that the experiment of legislation is not made upon
dead matter, but on the living form of a noble country; and in both
Houses of Parliament the strength of party is put forth.

It is a lovely day in spring, and Harley is seated by the window of
his old room at Knightsbridge,--now glancing to the lively green of
the budding trees; now idling with Nero, who, though in canine old age,
enjoys the sun like his master; now repeating to himself, as he turns
over the leaves of his favourite Horace, some of those lines that make
the shortness of life the excuse for seizing its pleasures and
eluding its fatigues, which formed the staple morality of the polished
epicurean; and Violante (into what glorious beauty her maiden bloom
has matured!) comes softly into the room, seats herself on a low stool
beside him, leaning her face on her hands, and looking up at him
through her dark, clear, spiritual eyes; and as she continues to speak,
gradually a change comes over Harley's aspect, gradually the brow grows
thoughtful, and the lips lose their playful smile. There is no hateful
assumption of the would-be "superior woman," no formal remonstrance, no
lecture, no homily which grates upon masculine pride; but the high theme
and the eloquent words elevate unconsciously of themselves, and the
Horace is laid aside,--a Parliamentary Blue Book has been, by some
marvel or other, conjured there in its stead; and Violante now moves
away as softly as she entered. Harley's hand detains her.

"Not so. Share the task, or I quit it. Here is an extract I condemn you
to copy. Do you think I would go through this labour if you were not to
halve the success?--halve the labour as well!"

And Violante, overjoyed, kisses away the implied rebuke, and sits down
to work, so demure and so proud, by his side. I do not know if Harley
made much way in the Blue Book that morning; but a little time after he
spoke in the Lords, and surpassed all that the most sanguine had hoped
from his talents. The sweetness of fame and the consciousness of utility
once fully tasted, Harley's consummation of his proper destinies
was secure. A year later, and his voice was one of the influences of
England. His boyish love of glory revived,--no longer vague and dreamy,
but ennobled into patriotism, and strengthened into purpose. One night,
after a signal triumph, he returned home, with his father, who had
witnessed it, and Violante--who all lovely, all brilliant, though she
was, never went forth in her lord's absence, to lower among fops and
flatterers the dignity of the name she so aspired to raise--sprang to
meet him. Harley's eldest son--a boy yet in the nursery--had been kept
up later than usual; perhaps Violante had anticipated her husband's
triumph, and wished the son to share it. The old earl beckoned the
child to him, and laying his hand on the infant's curly locks, said with
unusual seriousness,

"My boy, you may see troubled times in England before these hairs are
as gray as mine; and your stake in England's honour and peace will be
great. Heed this hint from an old man who had no talents to make a
noise in the world, but who yet has been of some use in his generation.
Neither sounding titles, nor wide lands, nor fine abilities, will give
you real joy, unless you hold yourself responsible for all to your God
and to your country; and when you are tempted to believe that the gifts
you may inherit from both entail no duties, or that duties are at war
with true pleasure, remember how I placed you in your father's arms,
and said, 'Let him be as proud of you some day as I at this hour am of
him.'"

The boy clung to his father's breast, and said manfully, "I will try!"
Harley bent his fair smooth brow over the young earnest face, and said
softly, "Your mother speaks in you!"

Then the old countess, who had remained silent and listening on her
elbow-chair, rose and kissed the earl's hand reverently. Perhaps in that
kiss there was the repentant consciousness how far the active goodness
she had often secretly undervalued had exceeded, in its fruits, her own
cold unproductive powers of will and mind. Then passing on to Harley,
her brow grew elate, and the pride returned to her eye.

"At last," she said, laying on his shoulder that light firm hand, from
which he no longer shrunk,--"at last, O my noble son, you have fulfilled
all the promise of your youth!"

"If so," answered Harley, "it is because I have found what I then sought
in vain." He drew his arm around Violante, and added, with half tender,
half solemn smile, "Blessed is the woman who exalts!"

So, symbolled forth in these twin and fair flowers which Eve saved for
Earth out of Paradise, each with the virtue to heal or to strengthen,
stored under the leaves that give sweets to the air; here, soothing the
heart when the world brings the trouble; here, recruiting the soul which
our sloth or our senses enervate, leave we Woman, at least in the place
Heaven assigns to her amidst the multiform "Varieties of Life."

Farewell to thee, gentle Reader; and go forth to the world, O MY NOVEL!


THE END.





End of Project Gutenberg's My Novel, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton