THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 o 
 
 5
 
 
 HETTY 
 
 Unb (Other stories. 
 
 i;v 
 
 HENRY KINGSLEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " RAVENSHOE," "MADEMOISELLE MAT II II. Ills, " II 
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY, EVANS, & CO., 10. BOUVERIE STREET. 
 
 1S71. %f
 
 \77l 
 
 H ETT Y.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 khbecca's reasons for marrying anybody who would 
 take her i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MRS. RUSSEL TELLS MISS SOPER SO MUCH AS SHE KNOWS 
 
 OF THE FAMILY HISTORY 4 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 kebecca's lover, and avhat she thought of him . 9 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IN WHICH REBECCA LETS HER SENTIMENTS BE KNOWN, 
 NOT ONLY TO HER LOVER, BUT TO THE WORLD IN 
 GENERAL 20 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TWO LITTLE FRIENDS 27 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE RETURN 33 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NEW LIFE 40
 
 vi CONTENTS. ' 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LORD DUCETOY . 45 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SKYE-TERRIER 49 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. MORLEY 53 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 hetty's lover 57 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 hagbut's new intentions 63 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A FRANK EXPLANATION 69 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HARTOP 73 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Rebecca's voyage with him, and what they saw, and 
 
 avhat she saw when they came home 80 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A CONFIDENCE OF THREE 89 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A WEDDING 92 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONFIDENCES 102
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 DARKER HOURS STILL I05 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE IIO 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A SUDDEN SURPRISE 119 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RUIN I3S 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TllAI.ATTA I43 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HOMEWARD ALONE I48 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 1IAGBUT IN A NEW LIGHT 1 53 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE GAZETTE 1 58 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE WALPURGIS NIGHT 167 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 TURNER SNUFFS THE SEA WIND IQI 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PILOT TERRACE 194
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LORD DUCETOY'S PROPOSALS 200 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 BREAKING WINDOWS 204 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 'HIE GREAT HETTY MYSTERY CLEARED UP . . . . 20"J 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WAITING BY THE TIDE 214 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE FIRST MESSAGE FROM THE SEA 219 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 HETTY AT LAST 222 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 NO NEWS 230 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE SECOND MESSAGE FROM THE SEA .... 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE THIRD MESSAGE FROM THE SEA 239 
 
 The Two Cadets 233 
 
 Our Brown Passenger 293 
 
 Seeking your Fortune 323
 
 HETTY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REBECCA'S REASONS FOR MARRYING ANYBODY WHO WOULD 
 
 TAKE HER. 
 
 N one of the narrowest and dullest lanes in the 
 neighbourhood of Walham Green lived George 
 Turner, Esq., Solicitor, of Gray's Inn. His house 
 was the largest in the lane, had certainly preten- 
 sions to be, or to have been, a " gentleman's " house, 
 for there was a coach-house and stable beside it ; and the 
 garden before and behind was full three quarters of an acre. 
 The other houses in the lane were eight- roomed, semi- 
 detached, brown brick boxes of houses ; with long gardens 
 in front, and little back-yards, with a water-butt and a 
 clothes-line, behind. They were miserable little places ; yet 
 Rebecca Turner, the youngest daughter, while lolling and 
 yawning, would envy their inhabitants the possession of the 
 key many times a day. 
 
 For there was life among them. Those among them 
 who were thrifty, or well to do, or childless, or whose 
 children were good, had pretty plots of flowers even ; but 
 this was rare, for there were too many children ; and so, on 
 a washing-day, the clothes-lines and poles were always up in 
 
 B
 
 2 HETTY. 
 
 the front garden, stamped hard and black by a hundred 
 little feet. Nay, there was another reason against flowers. 
 The landlord of that lane did not see his way to new 
 palings; and so, if you wanted flowers, you must keep the 
 palings in repair yourself. Yet there was life enough there. 
 The neighbours — the women — dawdled into one another's 
 houses, and gossiped ; nay, now and then, but very seldom, 
 quarrelled. Once there was a fire, and Miss Turner, the 
 precise elder daughter, seeing them running, hoped it was 
 not their house. " No such luck," said Miss Rebecca, with 
 such singular emphasis that her elder sister let her be. 
 
 Turner's house, or The Cedars, stood back from the road, 
 in a blotch of mangy grass, and a blotch of mangy soot- 
 stained gravel, and accounted for its apparent usurped title 
 by one miserable stump and one miserable bough of the tree 
 of Lebanon, which solitary bough pointed meekly and sor- 
 rowfully to where its brother had once stood. Behind the 
 house was a bit of kitchen-garden, and a bit of grass un- 
 mown for years ; which would have been something had it 
 been secluded, but even that was denied you. It ended in a 
 wide, wild waste of market-garden, stretching away acre after 
 acre. The timber on the estate consisted of a broken down 
 mulberry tree, and a large quantity of sooty lilac. 
 
 The house, though in habitable repair, was in that half 
 state of dilapidation which is sometimes a good deal more 
 melancholy than a really good downright ruin. The ruin 
 says to you, " Here, come here, I belong to you as much as 
 to anyone now; come, and I will tell you stories;" and tells 
 them to you accordingly; whereas the half-dilapidated house 
 says only, " We have secrets here yet." Turner's house was 
 dark red brick, with a high tile roof, perpendicular to the 
 top of the garret windows, and then sloping like another, — 
 the most hideous of roofs ; its door was approached by high
 
 HETTY. 3 
 
 steps, and the windows of the living-rooms were long and 
 narrow, with thick wooden frames, and bulgy glass panes ; 
 some had a nob in the middle, which made looking out of 
 window a luxury difficult to indulge in : internally, the furni- 
 ture was principally of horse-hair and dark mahogany. And 
 Miss Rebecca wished it was burned down. 
 
 In this house she lived. Mr. Turner was, in religion, of 
 the strictest form of Calvinism and Sabbatarianism, for- 
 bidding any books except theological ones on a Sunday, and 
 never allowing a novel or a book of poetry into the house. 
 There had been a time once when she had been able to 
 escape all this : before she had grown up ; but that was all 
 over. ' She had, unlike her sister, grown up good-looking. 
 The widower, her father, had consulted religious women of 
 the congregation ; they had been unanimous ; the girl Re- 
 becca was much too pretty to go out by herself. From that 
 time she was a prisoner, for her father was no man to be 
 trifled with. Can one wonder that a high-spirited girl, capa- 
 ble of any kind of pleasure, should one very wet Sunday even- 
 ing, after chapel and a sermon of an hour, as she was going 
 to bed, emphatically wish she was dead, wish she had never 
 been born, and most particularly wish she had been ugly. 
 
 " If I had been as ugly as you I could have gone any- 
 where I chose, and done as I liked. It was old Mother 
 Russel and Miss Soper that put him up to my being pretty. 
 I wish they were dead with all my heart." 
 
 " My dear sister Rebecca ! After chapel, too ! " said he 
 sister Carry, solemnly. 
 
 She didn't say she wished that was dead ; she only clenched 
 her hands and gasped for breath. That was the last of it 
 all — all the dull misery of her life came before her stronger 
 than ever at the mention of chapel, and she cast herself 
 sobbing on the bed. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 HETTY. 
 
 " I wish somebody would come and marry me," she said ; 
 " but there's no chance,— no young men ever come near us. 
 I'd marry Akin, I'd marry anybody — except that beast," she 
 added, suddenly, with a shrill determination which pointed 
 to a small chance in favour of the beast's prospects, and then 
 by degrees she sobbed herself quiet. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MRS. RUSSEL TELLS MISS SOPER SO MUCH AS SHE KNOWS 
 OF THE FAMILY HISTORY. 
 
 HE lady so disrespectfully mentioned by Miss 
 Rebecca as old Mother Russel, was taking tea 
 with Miss Soper. Mrs. Russel had been, some 
 said, born at Walham Green ; but was cer- 
 tainly, with few exceptions, the oldest inhabitant 
 there; Miss Soper, on the other hand, was a comparatively 
 new-comer. These, it will be remembered, were the two 
 ladies who had given poor Rebecca such very dire offence by 
 persuading her father that she was too pretty to walk out by 
 herself; and, having just talked through some of their other 
 neighbours in whom we are not interested, and having come 
 to the Turners, in whom we are, we will just make bold to 
 listen a Utile to them. 
 
 Mrs. Russel was a fat, heavy woman, whose fat, unlike 
 that of some people, had become physically distressing to 
 her, and had made her cross. She had discovered the 
 solace of spirits, but used them moderately. It is possible 
 that she may have been a good-natured woman once, but 
 the continual distress of her earthly load had made her ill- 
 natured. Religion with her meant a slight excitement and 
 society, but little more.
 
 HETTY. 5 
 
 Miss Soper was a very different woman,— pale, gaunt, 
 black, rigid, with a face like a Roman-nosed horse. She 
 had been for some years teacher in a small suburban ladies' 
 school, until she came into a little money, when she retired, 
 with no heart and a small annuity, to Walham Green. It 
 was in her capacity as ex-schoolmistress that she voted on 
 Rebecca's not going out alone. She was consulted as an 
 expert, and left no doubt on the minds of Mrs. Russel and 
 Mr. Turner as to her opinion on that score. In her religion 
 she was most deeply sincere, in her duties most rigid ; she 
 saw no harm in talking over her neighbours' affairs, and she 
 had a voice like an aged pieman to do it with. 
 
 " That's a bright, clever-looking girl, that Rebecca 
 Turner," she said. " Quick to learn." 
 
 " A deal too quick," said Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " She seems quicker than her sister." 
 
 " Caroline is a real good pious girl, and takes after her 
 father." 
 
 " Rebecca does not, then?" said Miss Soper. 
 
 " No, Rebecca is another sort of girl. She looks so like 
 her mother sometimes that I shake like a mould of jelly " 
 (which was an apt illustration). " She takes after her 
 mother ; and Turner is a man who washes his dirty linen 
 at home, but I misdoubt he has trouble with her now. If 
 he hasn't, he will." 
 
 " Did he have trouble with her mother, then ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to say you have never heard?" said Mrs. 
 Russel, in solemn staccato. 
 
 " How could I ? I had not come to the Green. Do tell," 
 said Miss Soper, eagerly. 
 
 Mrs. Russel took her cup in her hand, and having stirred 
 her tea, used the spoon for rhetorical purposes, and solemnly 
 and immediately began.
 
 6 HETTY. 
 
 " There's never been murder done in that house, my dear, 
 for there's many a slip between cup and lip, but it's been 
 hollered often enough. Awful nights have been in that 
 house, my dear, between Turner and his wife," she con- 
 tinued, drawing closer, and speaking low ; " she yelling at 
 the top of her voice at him, calling him every bad name she 
 could lay her tongue to ; he praying at the top of his voice, 
 to pray the evil spirit out of her, until he'd lose his temper 
 and fist hold of her, and you'd hear her trying to bite him ; 
 and the little children a-screaming, and the maid run away 
 for fear, and all the lane out to listen ! Ah, quiet as Turner 
 looks now, he has had something to go through in his time. 
 You may well ask if he had trouble with his wife." 
 
 "Was she mad?" 
 
 " He never dared say it of her at all events," said Mrs. 
 Russel. " I'll tell you all I know. She was a lady. Says 
 you, so are we. I mean a real lady. Says you again, so are 
 we. But I mean a real tip-top carriage lady, you know." 
 
 So did Miss Soper, who nodded. " And how did she 
 come to marry him, then ? " 
 
 " Well, Turner is a good figure of a man ; though it was 
 not that. He had got the management of her affairs when 
 she was left a widow, and he managed them well enough to 
 excite her gratitude; and she had been ill-used, and her 
 friends had dropped away, and I fancy she thought she 
 might do worse, and so she had him; and a bad job it 
 was. But if a good sound protestant marries a papist and 
 a worldling with his eyes open, he must take the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 " A papist ! " almost screeched Miss Soper. " Mr. Turner 
 marry a papist ! " 
 
 " \\ ell, she had a fine penny of money, mind you, and she 
 was a thorough worldling, and careless of religion, and
 
 HETTY. 7 
 
 Turner thought he could convert her. We used to have her 
 name down for conversion in the general prayer ever so 
 long, until she found it out, and had words with him. But 
 it all came to nothing ; she laughed him to scorn when he 
 spoke to her about it ; all of which he has told us at ex- 
 perience-meetings ; and she found that out, and got furious, 
 and things went on from bad to worse, until Caroline being 
 born put things square for a time. But after that Rebecca 
 was born, Mrs. Turner fell ill, and asked for a priest to 
 come to her, she having, of course, gone to mass on her own 
 accord ; and he made answer that no priest should cross 
 his doors, not if she was on her death-bed. That was. the 
 worst scene she made him, for she started up in a shawl 
 and petticoat to run all the way to Cadogan Terrace, by 
 Sloane Street, and had to be fetched back by force. Well, 
 then nothing went right any way, and she seemed to lose 
 head. She accused him of taking her money, and insisted 
 that one of the children should be brought up a papist, and 
 used to smuggle off Rebecca continually to mass and con- 
 fession, and such things, and some say got the child baptized 
 into the Romish faith." 
 
 "It is extremely probable," said Miss Soper; "and how 
 did it end?" 
 
 " It was after a worse row than usual," said Mrs. Russel, 
 lowering her voice again. "It was the worst and the last, 
 and there had been violence — it all came out at the inquest 
 — and she went out somewhere, some said to the public- 
 house, but I never saw nothing of that, and others will 
 confirm me ; and when she came back he had gone away 
 with little Rebecca, leaving word that she would never see 
 the child no more, for that he had taken it away to save 
 its soul." 
 
 " He was a fool to do that," said Miss Soper.
 
 3 HETTY. 
 
 Mrs. Russel eyed her curiously. " You're a sensible 
 woman, ma'am," she said ; " though I doubt if we are right 
 religiously, seeing that he saved it from popery. But," 
 added the vulgar old gossip, flushing up scarlet, " if my man 
 had come between me and my children in the old times, I'd 
 
 have But as I was saying, when she hears that, she 
 
 outs into the lane and carries on to that extent that Airs. 
 Akin (the washerwoman, you know, my dear soul, Jim 
 Akin's, the costermonger's, mother, whose mother had been 
 with the barrer for years herself) says she never heard any- 
 thing like it. There was nothing low in it— no vulgar 
 language or swearing— but just downright awful cursing, 
 like that in the Bible; and it frightened all that heard it. 
 Then she went int<5 the house and upstairs ; and the maid 
 had run away. And when he came home, the neighbours 
 told him what they'd seen, and how the child (that's Caro- 
 line now) had been a-crying all the afternoon. And when 
 they burst in there she was a-lying stone dead at the bottom 
 of the stairs." 
 
 " What did the inquest say?" 
 
 "Nothing. Whether she fell down, or chucked herself 
 down, there was nothing to show. The child only said that 
 it had found its mamma asleep on her face, and that it 
 wanted its tea, and couldn't make her wake. Well, ma'am, 
 and that's the history of that little mystery." 
 
 " I'll go and see 'em," said Miss Soper, emphatically. 
 " What time do they have their tea ? "
 
 HETTY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REBECCA'S LOVER, AND WHAT SHE THOUGHT OF HIM. 
 
 R. TURNER, a man of about sixty, must 
 have been at one time handsome, but now, 
 although his features were good, his com- 
 plexion was gone ; and the continual habit, 
 persisted in for so many years, of self- 
 contemplation, had left an expression, which was not very 
 pleasant, on his face ; a look which an ill-natured person 
 might say, was something between a scowl and a sneer, as 
 though he was continually saying, " I am George Turner, 
 that is who I am, and who the deuce are you? " His con- 
 versation was, like that of many other men of the same 
 standing, entirely about himself ; arguing, one would fancy, 
 from a certain feeling of being wanting in the more 
 ornamental business of life, and from a determination that 
 the hearer should know what an exceeding fine fellow he was. 
 Partly from religion, and partly from temper, he had been 
 very careful to banish everything graceful from his house, so 
 that there should not be a snare in it. So he had sternly 
 refused poor Rebecca's, who craved for such things, petitions 
 for cocks and hens, for rabbits, nay, even for one poor little 
 tiny bird. However, in an old house, where there are rats 
 and mice, you must have a cat ; and you'll not hinder a cat 
 having kittens. And so it came about that Rebecca had 
 two kittens to play with ; and her father letting himself into 
 the house at half-past four on a winter's afternoon, found 
 Rebecca, perfectly happy, lying in the dark before the fire, 
 playing with her two kittens, one of which had a blue ribbon 
 round its neck, and the other a red.
 
 io HETTY. 
 
 " Get up," he said, " and don't lie three like a hoyden. 
 Get up, and make yourself tidy. There are people coming 
 to tea." 
 
 Rebecca never answered : that would only make her father 
 colourably and openly angry, and she would have had the 
 worst of it. But by long practice in this happy household 
 she had got the trick of annoying him, and yet of keeping 
 within the law. 
 
 " Pretty little darlings," she said with effusion, as she rose 
 with a cat on each arm. " I wonder if you have immortal 
 souls, dears ; if so, they don't seem to be much trouble to you." 
 
 " Don't talk such nonsense as that. People would say that 
 you were mad, if they heard you. For a grown girl to be 
 kissing cats, too, and a marriageable girl ! Bah ! " 
 
 " Who's coming to tea, pa ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Russel and Miss Soper." 
 
 " Daniel Lambert and the Old Dragoon. Pa, I wonder 
 if Miss Soper was regularly discharged from the army, 
 or whether she deserted. If I was she I should shave off 
 that mustache, and let my whiskers grow. Who else is 
 coming ? " 
 
 " Mr. Morley," said Turner, without any open manifesta- 
 tion of anger, for certain reasons ; " and also, I believe, Mr. 
 Hagbut." 
 
 " Oh, pa ! " 
 
 " I am at a loss to conceive why you should make an ; 
 exclamation at Mr. Hagbut's name," said Turner. 
 
 " Are you ? " said Rebecca. " I am not. If you were as 
 young and as pretty as I am, how would you like such a — 
 minister of the gospel, sitting down beside you the whole 
 evening, quoting texts of Scripture to you which bore on the 
 subject of love and marriage ? If he wants to marry me, 
 why don't he say so like a man, — and get his answer ? "
 
 HETTY. n 
 
 " I should feel highly flattered by Mr. Hagbut's attentions," 
 said Mr. Turner ; " and, moreover, I should reflect that his 
 suit was backed by your father. Only, mind one thing, 
 Rebecca, — you refuse that good man at your peril. I insist 
 on the match, mind that. You dare refuse him, that is all." 
 
 Not one word did Rebecca say to this, but left her father 
 secretly fuming with anger. She went upstairs to her room, 
 and began her toilet very slowly and very thoughtfully, and 
 as she thought the face grew darker and darker, until the 
 muscles in it began to quiver, and there grew upon it a look 
 of deep horror and deep loathing, terrible to see. She arose 
 stealthily, and went with her candle to a box in the corner of 
 the room, and, secretly taking out a book, began reading 
 with shaking hands ; the book came open easily at the place 
 she wanted, and she was deep in the passage when she was 
 utterly scared by her sister's voice in the room, crying 
 petulantly, " Why, Rebecca, you'll never be ready in time. 
 Mr. Hagbut's come already." 
 
 " I'll be ready directly, dear Carry ; don't tell on me. It 
 is only one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and it is so interest- 
 ing at the end." 
 
 " So it seems," said matter-of-fact Carry. " Why you are 
 as pale as a ghost, and all of a tremble ! Now I can see why 
 the ministers forbid us to read such godless rant." 
 
 One of Sir Walter Scott's novels, she said. Could it have 
 been the Bride of Lammermoor ? Heaven forbid ! 
 
 Although she was going into company which she disliked, 
 and although there was at least one man there whom she 
 hated, and whom she wished to hate her, yet in the irre- 
 sistible instinct of beauty she dressed herself prettily, and 
 coming calmly and proudly into the room with a bow, sat 
 down by her sister. 
 
 Mrs. Russeland Miss Soperwere there, and two ministers,
 
 12 HETTY. 
 
 one of whom she had never seen before, but one of whom 
 was only known too well. 
 
 He was a very large, stout man, with a head the colour 
 and shape of an addled egg, with the small end uppermost. 
 He had a furze of gray hair, and whiskers shaved close in 
 the middle of his cheeks ; he had large pale blue, almost 
 opaque, eyes, very large ears, and a continual smile on a 
 mouth made for talking. Probably black dress clothes and a 
 white tie are as becoming a dress as exists — on certain 
 people : — on him they were hideous : his collarless cravat 
 was a wisp, the lapels of his coat were like elephants' ears, 
 and the coat itself was perfectly straight down the back, so 
 as to set off his great stomach better in profile. His cuffs 
 nearly concealed his great fat hands, and his short, ill-made 
 trowsers scarce met his clumsy shoes. The whole man was 
 a protest against beauty, or grace of life in any way ; to 
 Rebecca he was loathsome, hideous beyond measure ; and 
 she was to marry him — unless she herself, alone and unaided, 
 could fight a battle against all her little world. Poor 
 thing ! it was hard for her ; it was, indeed. Forgive her 
 desperation. 
 
 This horrible great moon-calf rose from his chair when she 
 entered, and with a leering conscious smile on his face stood 
 there, following her with his pale eyes, until she sat down. 
 Mrs. Russel looked " arch," — a horrible thing for anybody to 
 do off the stage of a third-rate theatre, still more horrible in 
 the case of a fat old woman. Miss Soper, an fait at things 
 of this kind, moved from her seat, and gave it up to the Rev. 
 Mr. Hagbut, so that he now sat next poor shuddering 
 Rebecca. 
 
 " Will you ask a blessing, Mr. Hagbut ? " 
 
 Smooth came the easy words from that mouth, in the well- 
 practised, whining falsetto ; dexterously quoted were the
 
 HETTY. 13 
 
 well-known texts of Scripture, so dexterously that he brought 
 in the Marriage in Cana, and made through that an allusion 
 to earthly marriages. " He has not asked me yet," she 
 thought ; " and if I am firm they can't kill me." 
 
 His style of talking was what one may be allowed to call 
 spondaic ; that is, he lengthened every syllable, and even 
 when he came across one which was unavoidably short he 
 lengthened it as much as possible. Then again he put the 
 emphasis of his sentence just where no one else would have 
 put it ; and his discourse on the whole was one of the most 
 painfully laboured masses of artificiality and affectation ever 
 seen. That the man may have been a good man I do not 
 deny, I have only to do with his effect on Rebecca. 
 
 He gave himself, if not the airs of an accepted lover, at 
 least of a man who was sure of his game. 
 
 "You heard my discourse the last Sabbath evening, Miss 
 Turner ? " he said, bringing his head as near hers as he 
 could. 
 
 '' I heard it," said Rebecca ; " but I did not attend to it." 
 
 " The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak," said he, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I don't think that the spirit was willing," she answered. 
 " I hate sermons." 
 
 This was very confusing, but under these circumstances 
 one must say something. 
 
 " The prayer, or the hymn, pleases you better, doubtless?" 
 
 " I hate the prayer worse than the sermon, but I like some 
 f the hymns, — nay, most of them. I should like the service 
 to be all music, light, and ornament, as it was at the Catholic 
 church where I used to go with my poor mother." 
 
 " Vanity, my dear daughter, vanity." 
 
 " I don't see any particular vanity about it. Why, when 
 you are praying extempore before a large congregation, and
 
 14 HETTY. 
 
 take pains, you are thinking all the time how it will succeed 
 with the congregation. I have watched you." 
 
 Really it was very uphill work with this young lady ; but 
 see how beautiful she was, and besides she would have a 
 little property. Mr. Hagbut drew nearer still to the shrink- 
 ing hot form that held the ice-cold heart. 
 
 " Are you cold, dear Miss Turner ? " he drawled. 
 
 " No, I am uncomfortably hot," she snapped out. " I 
 think that I am not well. I think that I shall go nearer the 
 door, if you will let me pass." 
 
 He was forced to do so, and with a great gasp she went 
 and sat beside Mr. Morley and her father : her father seeing 
 the Rev. Hagbut, his future son-in-law, looking exceedingly 
 foolish, went to his assistance, and bound up the cracks in 
 that savoury vessel, leaving Rebecca sitting with Mr. 
 Morley. 
 
 Now Rebecca knew Mr. Morley to be a Dissenting 
 minister, as her father described him, of " great unction ; " 
 consequently she regarded him in the light of her natural 
 enemy, and was prepared to do battle with him on the very 
 smallest provocation. She could not, however, avoid con- 
 fessing that he was a considerable improvement on that 
 other horrible fat man with a head like an egg. 
 
 Indeed she might have said, a very great improvement, in- 
 deed. Mr. Morley was a man with a well-shaped head, good 
 and singularly amiable features, hair but slightly grizzled, 
 curling all over his head, a fine deep brown complexion, and 
 a beautiful set of regular white teeth, which contrasted well 
 with the complexion, and which were pretty frequently shown 
 by a manly, kindly smile. He looked a man every inch of 
 him, although his face was gentle even to softness. 
 
 He had been watching Rebecca and her troubles. He 
 had been brought here as the friend of Mr. Hagbut, he
 
 HETTY. 
 
 15 
 
 having to-day preached a sermon for him. He had of course 
 been welcomed heartily by Mr. Turner, who in the openness 
 of his heart towards a minister, and a friend of Mr. Hagbut, 
 had let him know the high honour which was in store for 
 Rebecca. So Mr. Morley had watched while talking to Mr. 
 Turner : and he had seen brutish, low, calculating admira- 
 tion on the one side ; and on the other a depth of loathing 
 aversion which was terrible to him. He said to Mr. Turner — 
 
 " They will be happy, you think ? " 
 
 " Any woman would be happy with such a man of God as 
 Mr. Hagbut." And when he had said it, he scorned himself 
 Yet for mere decency's sake, seeing that Morley knew, he 
 put in the rider, " If she does not love him in the way of the 
 world now, she will get to do so. Hundreds of girls would 
 give ten years of their life to be in her place." 
 
 " That is, doubtless, true," said Morley, quietly, and the 
 conversation went on to other matters, until it so chanced 
 that the beautiful girl, with rage and fury in her heart, came 
 and sat beside him. 
 
 He had a pleasantly modulated voice, a voice of cultivation 
 too, and he spoke to her. 
 
 " The wind has quite gone down," he said. 
 
 " Has it ?" she answered. " I have not noticed." 
 
 " Yes, it has quite gone down. But it blew hard down at 
 our place last night : I expected some of my chimney-pots 
 down, several times. The Eliza, in the outside tier, broke 
 from her moorings, and has stove the bows of one of the 
 screw colliers ; yes, it blew very hard from east, shifting to 
 south-east : are you a sailor at all ? " 
 
 " I know nothing of the sea." 
 
 " Pity, you should. I am half a sailor myself. I should 
 know something about it, for half my work lies among sai- 
 lors. Have you never been to sea at all, then ? "
 
 16 HETTY. 
 
 " I have never left this most utterly abominable spot in all 
 my life." 
 
 " Well, I don't want to flatter you," said Morley, " and so 
 I will say that it is intolerably dull. My place is considered 
 almost the very worst and most wretched in London. I am 
 surrounded with sin, crime, and occasionally fury and 
 murder ; but I would sooner be there than here." 
 
 " Where do you live, then, Mr. Morley ? " said Rebecca, 
 becoming interested. 
 
 " At Limehouse." 
 
 " Is it uglier there than here ?" 
 
 " Very far uglier. This place is, in all that the eye desires, 
 a paradise to it. If an educated man, like myself, were doomed 
 to live in Limehouse in idleness, he would break his heart." 
 
 " You have not broken yours." 
 
 " No ; I am too busy," he replied, laughing. 
 
 " Where is it?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " Down the river. Down where the ships are." 
 
 " Where do the ships go to ? " 
 
 " All parts of the world. You can get on board a ship 
 there, and go anywhere." 
 
 " Do any of them go to countries where there are no 
 chapels ? " 
 
 " Plenty, I am sorry to say." 
 
 " Where you can do exactly as you please, and not be 
 called to account for it afterwards ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. No such ships sail, because there is no 
 country such as you describe. Not in all the countless mil- 
 lions of stars which you see on a frosty night is there any such 
 country. Such ships would have plenty of passengers, though." 
 
 " It is a weary world, then," said Rebecca. " Do you 
 believe in the immortality of the soul?" 
 
 " Certainly I do."
 
 HETTY. 17 
 
 " Some do not. Is it not so ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " Scarcely any," said Mr. Morley. 
 
 "Yet it is such a comfortable doctrine, I should have 
 thought it would be popular. To think, to believe, that 
 death did end it all, and that there was to be no more 
 trouble, no more headache, no more anger. It is really not 
 so, then ? " 
 
 " Assure yourself of that. Ask yourself — Is it conceivable 
 that the will which causes you, so mysteriously, by acting on 
 your muscles, to raise your hand to your head — the will 
 which may prompt you to a noble deed, or save you from a 
 shameful fate — can die ? I could speak at length of these 
 things to you, but there is your father beckoning." 
 
 She rose without another word, and went towards her 
 father, who was sitting beside Mr. Hagbut ; he moved away 
 and pointed to his seat. 
 
 She, however, stood, and Mr. Hagbut, rising, took her 
 right hand between his two fat ones, and looked her in the 
 face with his sweetest smile. 
 
 She was deadly pale. There was too much fat covering 
 the nerves of Mr. Hagbut's hand, or he would have felt, 
 surely, the creeping horror in hers. It shrunk so from be- 
 tween his palms that it slid out and fell dead and pale by 
 her side before he had time to speak. 
 
 "I was going to ask," said the unconscious nobody, "a 
 little favour of my sweet Christian sister. I was going to ask 
 if I might see her to-morrow morning for half an hour, just 
 to ask one little question, to which I think I shall have a 
 favourable answer. May I come?" 
 
 " Oh Lord, yes," gasped Rebecca. " Come to-morrow and 
 let us get it over," and so left the room abruptly. 
 
 ' She has taken him," said Miss Soper to Mrs. Russel, as 
 they blundered home together in the fog. 
 
 C
 
 18 HETTY. 
 
 " Lucky girl, of course she has," replied Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " He will have trouble with her," said Miss Soper. " I 
 know girls. I've had girls throw themselves out of window 
 before now, and he will have trouble with her." 
 
 " Well, if you come to that, Henrietta," said Mrs. Russel, 
 growing confidential in the dark, and in anticipation of the 
 little hot supper which Miss Soper and she were about to 
 partake of together, and blundering up against Miss Soper 
 in her fat walk, " she will have trouble with him. For al- 
 though he is a Saint, he keeps his saint's temper pretty 
 much in the cupboard ; she'll have to manage him, that's 
 what she'll have to do. I know men, and the management 
 of them. I've had to manage them." 
 
 Mrs. Russel's knowledge of men was confined to two, her 
 husband, whom she had managed into death by worry and 
 delirium tremens; and her son, whom she had managed 
 into enlisting into the 40th Regiment, now in New Zealand, 
 from which island he had dutifully written, saying that " now 
 the water was betwixt 'em, he could express his mind more 
 free." Which he proceeded to do. 
 
 Morley and Hagbut walked eastward together through the 
 fog, and Morley was the first to speak. 
 
 " Hagbut," he said, " are you going to marry that girl ? " 
 
 "Assuredly, my brother," said Hagbut. 
 
 "Have you thought of what you are doing?" asked 
 Morley. 
 
 " Indeed, yes, with prayer," said Hagbut. 
 
 " But, see here, Hagbut. You are as shrewd as another. 
 Let us speak as though we were of the world, worldly. Are 
 you not making a great fool of yourself?" 
 
 " I think not, brother Morley," answered Hagbut, far too 
 shrewd to give up such advantages as a religious phraseo- 
 logy gave him. " I think, looking at the matter even as one
 
 HETTY. 19 
 
 unredeemed and still of this world, that it promises well. 
 The girl is fair to look upon, and she will have a little 
 property." 
 
 " But do you think she cares for you ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly. No constraint has been put upon her, and 
 she has as good as taken me. Our roads diverge here, dear 
 brother. Good-night." 
 
 Omnibus after omnibus passed Mr. Morley, yet somehow 
 he preferred to walk, and set his head steadily for Fenchurch 
 Street, dark as the night was. And as he walked he thought, 
 and thought of one thing only — this approaching marriage. 
 It seemed to him so monstrous a proceeding altogether. If 
 the girl consented it would have been bad enough, but against 
 her will 
 
 Why the girl's beauty alone ought to ensure her a good 
 match, an excellent provision with any one of a dozen young 
 men of her own age ; and she had fortune too, he heard ; 
 and for the whole of it to be offered up at the shrine of that 
 ugly, windy donkey, with the education of a charity-school 
 boy, and the manners of a boor. How pitiful a case for one 
 so beautiful ! And then he went on thinking of her beauty, 
 and pitying her all the way home. Which was not good for 
 the peace of mind of the. Rev. Alfred Morley. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IN WHICH REBECCA LETS HER SENTIMENTS BE KNOWN, 
 NOT ONLY TO HER LOVER, BUT TO THE WORLD IN 
 GENERAL. 
 
 XD, alas! for poor Rebecca. She was in very- 
 evil case indeed. She would have cried aloud for 
 help from man, but there was none to help her ; 
 as for prayer, religion had been for a long time 
 hateful to her, so that way out of her trouble 
 was denied her. 
 
 The phase of anger and scorn in which her soul had 
 stayed so long was gone now she was alone. The reaction 
 from it was a feeling of plaintive, pathetic loneliness, infi- 
 nitely mournful. This in its turn produced silent tears ; they 
 in their turn produced calm, and calm thought. 
 
 Thought sadly lame, incoherent, unconsecutive, but 
 thought still. Here was an evil, to her most real and 
 horrible, to be escaped from. What were her chances 
 alone against the world? 
 
 Sheer angry persistent defiance and wrath? How would 
 that do ? Well enough as long as it lasted ; but could she 
 depend on it to last for ever ? Would they not beat her by 
 sheer perseverance? Hagbut and her father were uncom- 
 pressible men of strong physical capacity : could they not 
 wear her out ? merely tire her out ? For look at her now ; 
 tired out in body by her long effort, as weak as a child, 
 sitting on the floor crying and calling on her dead mother, 
 without even energy to go to bed. A fortnight's fight with 
 her father would reduce her to this state permanently, and 
 they would be able to do as they liked with her. That would 
 not do.
 
 HETTY. 21 
 
 Craft, procrastination ? No, that would not do with her 
 father. She knew him too well for that. It would only 
 weaken her hand, and the end would be just the same. No, 
 try again, poor Rebecca ! 
 
 The Roman Catholics ! Her face brightened, and her 
 breath came fast as she thought of that. If she ran away 
 to the Roman Catholics, they would take her in for her 
 mother's sake, and shelter her behind their altars. She 
 believed that she had been baptised into their Church ; if so, 
 they would know in Cadogan Street, and that would give 
 them a right over her. It seemed for a moment a brilliant 
 
 idea, but it was soon dulled. The case of Miss T was 
 
 fresh then, and she knew that as a minor (she was but nine- 
 teen), a policeman had only to trace her, her father to 
 demand her, and she would be brought back a culprit, in a 
 worse case than before. 
 
 Evils fairly faced vanish away one half of them into thin 
 air. She had found no solution as yet, yet she felt if she 
 could only go on thinking, that one would come. It made 
 her almost glad in her desperation, when she first got the 
 faith, that she certainly should find a way out of her trouble 
 if she only thought long enough. So that, when some 
 wandering fiend said to her, " If the worst comes to the 
 worst, Putney Bridge is close by ; and when the tide is 
 ebbing strong there is an undersuck there which gives back 
 nothing alive," she rose, laughed, and shaking out her black 
 sharply curled hair before the glass, looked at her beauty, 
 and'said : " Not for him. I will bed in no Thames ooze for 
 such as he." 
 
 "Suicide, no !" she said, proudly ; and all in a momen'c, 
 as she said the words, a crude, shapeless idea came rolling 
 into her brain, dazing her, and making her gasp. 
 
 Whence came it, this frightful amorphous idea? Was it
 
 22 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 only the last result of some mental sorites, tangled beyond 
 the possibility of reduction ; or was it a direct suggestion 
 from the unseen powers, in which we all believe in one way 
 or another? It was so shapeless at first that it made her 
 head whirl ; but as she, in her desperation, steadily faced it, 
 it crystallised itself, and took form. The form it took was 
 ugly enough, yet it looked beautiful to her beside the hideous 
 fate to which she was to be condemned to-morrow. 
 
 Suicide ! Why did lost women commit physical suicide ? 
 Why did weak, cowardly women gather courage to leap off 
 dizzy places into dark water— off places which they shud- 
 dered to look at with their protecting lovers' arms round 
 their waist ? What gave them this preternatural courage ? 
 Why, they had committed suicide before. They had done 
 that which left them no place in this English world. Done 
 that which made them a loathing, and a scorn to father, 
 brother, sister, — to every one, save mother — and she had 
 none. What if she were to pretend to do that which would 
 make it at all events utterly impossible for this horrible old 
 man to marry her. What then? Was there no escape 
 there ? There was. 
 
 For her father she had no pity whatever. He had brought 
 it on himself, and it would do him good. Her mother had 
 been her only friend, and he had ill-treated her mother. 
 She knew the whole of the old story, partly from memory 
 and partly from cross-examining her foolish sister Caroline. 
 She had no pity for him. He knew well her hatred for this 
 match, and had pitilessly thrust it on. Let him look to 
 
 himself. 
 
 But here came a difficulty. How was she, after she had 
 gained her own object, to rehabilitate herself? What means 
 should she use to prove herself utterly stainless and innocent 
 before the world, whenever it should suit her to do so ? She
 
 HETTY. 23 
 
 walked up and down an hour thinking over this. Without 
 holding in her hand irrefragable proofs of her own innocence, 
 she would have played her part too well, and would have 
 made it impossible for her, at the proper time, to hurl back 
 the scorn of their miserable little world upon itself. The way- 
 out of this difficulty came on her suddenly, like a clear flash 
 of light ; and she laughed at her own stupidity in not think- 
 ing of it before. 
 
 The night wore on, and she packed away her clothes in 
 her drawers, putting a few necessaries in a carpet-bag. She 
 counted out her money — 18/. odd — more than sufficient for 
 her purpose. Then she sat down and wrote a short letter to 
 her father : — 
 
 " Sir, — It has pleased you, in spite of my frequently- 
 expressed repugnance, to urge on my marriage with Mr. 
 Hagbut. 
 
 " As I desire to remain single I have chosen, between two 
 evils, to disgrace myself and my family sooner than contract 
 such a monstrous alliance. 
 
 " Your daughter, 
 
 " Rebecca." 
 
 It was not broad daylight until half-past six. At which 
 time Jim Akin, the costermonger, and Mr. Spicer, the sweep, 
 saw her come out of the door with her carpet-bag, close it 
 behind her, and walk straight away, apparently in the direc- 
 tion of Putney Bridge. 
 
 " Off at last," said Jim Akin. 
 
 " Wonder she hadn't gone afore," said Mr. Spicer. " She's 
 a' stood it a dratted sight longer ner I thought she would. 
 Who's the young man, then ? "
 
 24 HETTY. 
 
 " Doubt there ain't nerry one," said Jim Akin. " I ain't 
 seen none round." 
 
 " She is off to the Catholics, then," said Mr. Spicer. " Her 
 mother was one, and so is my wife. They'll take good care 
 on her." 
 
 " I am glad of that," said Jim Akin, the costermonger : 
 " for she is a gallus kindly, good wench. She's got what I 
 call a young 'art, that gal has. She nigh kep my old girl 
 when I was in — in the 'orspital." 
 
 Mr. Spicer, possibly from a habit of regarding the world 
 in his early youth out of the tops of chimneys, very early in 
 the morning, when there was little smoke, was a philosopher. 
 This, also, was one of his clean days ; he had had his bath 
 overnight, having sent one of his assistants to the " black 
 bed," and was a respectable tradesman instead of a grimy 
 ruffian. He philosophised thus : — 
 
 " Gals is much the same as boys is. I've hammered and 
 leathered a boy into a cross flue, and he has choked hisself 
 for spite. I've coaxed another boy into that self-same flue, 
 and he has gone through it like a ferret. That gal has been 
 leathered too much morally. I hope she will do no worse 
 than going to the Catholics. Meanwhile it ain't, neither for 
 you nor for me, to give the office on her." 
 
 Mr. Hagbut, coming for his answer at ten o'clock, found 
 a scared household. Turner had not gone to business. He 
 received Mr. Hagbut in the parlour. 
 
 Turner's state of mind was fury, nothing short of it. His 
 daughter had utterly disgraced him, and perhaps it was 
 fortunate for her that she was beyond his reach. At work in 
 Turner's mind just then there were all the elements which, 
 boiled in a caldron together, produce a thorough hell-broth 
 of blind anger. His religion was very precious to him. I 
 cannot say why, for it gave him no comfort, but one sees it
 
 HETTY. 25 
 
 every day ; and his pet scheme had been to increase his 
 influence in this sect by the marriage of his daughter to their 
 most popular and most ripandu minister. It was to him 
 like a marriage with a duke : here his vanity was touched. 
 Again, he prided himself on being master in his own house, 
 and had been defied and beaten. Once again, as a man of 
 the world, he knew that he had been an utter fool in trying 
 to force that beautiful, self-willed daughter of his on this 
 dreadful, crawling old imbecile : here his self-love was 
 touched. Once more, he saw now that he had acted like a 
 fool throughout : and here was the auctor malt, the dreadful, 
 unctuous old man, with a head like a bladder of lard, turning 
 his hands over and over before him, and asking how his 
 sweet sister was this bright morning. 
 
 Turner, who was a man, saw the utter folly of the whole 
 thing in one moment. 
 
 " If by your sweet sister you mean my daughter," he said, 
 " she is utterly ruined and lost. She has run away, God 
 knows whither and with whom." 
 
 " Our dear sister fled ?" said Mr. Hagbut. 
 
 A man cannot, however religious, continually sit in law 
 courts without knowing something of the ordinary language 
 of his fellowmen. Mr. Turner was excited and angry, and, 
 in his language at least, fell away from grace. 
 
 " I speak plainly. She has run away ; and, upon my soul 
 and body, I admire her for it. I wish I could get the wench 
 back again, though. There were worse wenches than she. 
 You and I are two fools, I doubt, Hagbut." 
 
 Mr. Hagbut began, " Peradventure " 
 
 " Say perhaps," said Turner, testily. 
 
 " Perhaps, then," said Mr. Hagbut, solemnly, "your other 
 daughter is at home, likewise the handmaiden." 
 
 " What do you want with them ? "
 
 26 HETTY. 
 
 " Only, in the presence of Christian witnesses, to say that 
 it cannot be with me and your daughter as it was before. 
 The few sheep in the wilderness " 
 
 " What do you mean, man?" said Turner, sternly. " Do 
 you mean that it is all over between you and my daughter ? " 
 
 " Doubtless," said Mr. Hagbut. " The flock " 
 
 " Hang the flock !" snapped Turner. " Can't you see that 
 my poor girl would not touch you with a pair of tongs ; that 
 she would sooner ruin her reputation (and she's a high- 
 spirited girl), than have anything to do with you ? Of course 
 it is all over. We were fools to think of it." 
 
 " Doubtless," said Mr. Hagbut. 
 
 " Look here, man," said Turner, speaking as the man and the 
 lawyer ; " there must be one thing understood about my girl. 
 She has left her father's roof, and I don't know where she is 
 gone. But if you, or any of your good women, dare to say 
 one word against her character, without legal proof, by the 
 living Lord I'll make you sweat for it, or I'm no lawyer ! 
 Perhaps I've been wrong with the wench, perhaps I was 
 wrong with her mother ; but you mind what I tell you." 
 
 So Rebecca had won her first move. She would have 
 laughed had she known it, but she did not. She had taken 
 down a tress of grey hair, and had twisted it in one of her 
 own black curls, and had said : " How long will it be, Eliza- 
 beth, before they make my hair as grey as yours with their 
 nonsense ? " And old Elizabeth had said : " Well, we shall 
 see the sea at the next station, and I have not seen it for 
 forty years." 
 
 That was not a lucky day for Mr. Hagbut. He could not 
 go near anyone without being sympathised with, which was 
 very terrible. Some lamented with him, some piously con- 
 gratulated him on his escape : while the more influential of
 
 HETTY. 27 
 
 his congregation, those who could not be well refused, made 
 him tell them all about it. A jilted man always looks more 
 or less of a fool. The world has always put in force its 
 penalty of contempt against those who are unsuccessful in 
 love or war ; and Mr. Hagbut knew that he was undergoing 
 it, and, using his vast powers of looking foolish, he really 
 succeeded in doing so. A most unsuccessful day ! 
 
 Meanwhile, one thing was certain. Whatever had become 
 of Rebecca, she would be persecuted by no more offers of 
 marriage. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TWO LITTLE FRIENDS. 
 
 [EADER Street, Chelsea, is one of those streets 
 which utterly and entirely belong to the poor. 
 It is a place where you may see the very poor at 
 home in person, and looking at the stalls and 
 shops where they traffic for their daily bread, 
 may guess how hard it is for them to live. 
 
 The largest and most frequented shop in this street, was 
 the coal and green-grocery shop, dealing also in potatoes, 
 bundles of firewood, and ginger-beer. The grocer's was a 
 Saturday-night shop, as was also the butcher's. The green- 
 grocer's, however, supplied some littler want, which might 
 arrive at any moment. Half-a-hundred of coals, a bundle of 
 wood, a couple of pounds of potatoes, were things in demand 
 all the week round. Tibbeys were seldom still. 
 
 Tibbey himself was a very little man, like an innocent 
 little bird, with a little hop, and a twittering way of serving 
 in his shop that reminded you of a robin or some other soft- 
 billed bird. Mrs. Tibbey was much larger, blonde, stout,
 
 28 HETTY. 
 
 and gray, and she looked as though she might have been 
 something of a beauty in her youth ; and indeed she was 
 beautiful now, as far as an expression of gentle goodness 
 could make her so. 
 
 This couple were perfectly devoted to one another, and 
 were uneasy at the absence of either. In religion they were 
 Primitive Methodists ; and they were childless. 
 
 Except indeed by adoption, as it were. One child, whom 
 Mrs. Tibbey had nursed, was very near to both their hearts, 
 and always remembered in their prayers night and morning. 
 They had risen from their knees, and almost had her name 
 in their mouths, when the door opened and she stood before 
 them. 
 
 Rebecca, ready dressed for travelling. Before they had 
 time to ejaculate, she said, " Libber, dear, I have run away 
 to you." Whereupon Mrs. Tibbey, as a preliminary mea- 
 sure, folded her in her arms. 
 
 " And I want my breakfast, please ; I am so hungry. 
 Please put some more tea in, Mr. Tibbey, for I shall want a 
 deal, and I hate it weak. And could you let me have the 
 cat ? Then I will tell you all about it." 
 
 She was as wilful with these good souls as she was at 
 home ; but ah ! with what a different wilfulness. 
 
 " Yes," she said, as they began bustling about, " I have 
 run right away, Mr. Tibbey. They were going to marry me 
 to Mr. Hagbut." 
 
 " My pretty bird," said Mrs. Tibbey, pausing in her pre- 
 parations, to swell in pigeon-like indignation, and coo out her 
 wrath, " my pretty love, how dared they ? " 
 
 " Like their impudence, was it not ? " replied Rebecca, very 
 anxious not to make the matter look too serious. "Well, 
 you know I was not going to stand that, — far from it, — and 
 so I have run away to you, Libber, to make my terms from
 
 HETTY. 29 
 
 a distance. And you will lend her to me for three days, 
 won't you, Mr. Tibbey, just to take care of me ?" 
 
 "Miss Rebecca," said the little man, "you may, I think, 
 depend on Elizabeth, as heretofore, always doing what is 
 right And what is right in this case, my dear young lady, 
 is that she should go with you where you will, so that here- 
 after the finger do I use* too strong an expression, and 
 
 give offence ? " 
 
 "Just what I mean," cried Rebecca. 
 
 " Then I will use that strong expression ; — that the finger 
 of scorn may never be p'inted. And indeed," continued the 
 good little man, with the ferocious air of that most pugnacious 
 bird the robin, " I should like to see the man who would 
 dare." 
 
 What could Rebecca do but kiss him ? She did it, how- 
 ever ; and Mr. Tibbey toasted a muffin with many ominous 
 shakes of the head, as though he would say, " I shall have to 
 look some of these folks up some day, if they don't mind their 
 manners." 
 
 It was a dingy little parlour enough, (scrupulously neat, in 
 spite of the smell of the stock in trade,) though in addition to 
 the smell which I have smelt elsewhere, but have always, 
 from early association, associated with Leader Street, under- 
 lying the whiff of red-herring, cabbage, and coal, with per- 
 haps a whiff of turpentine from the bundles of fire-wood, 
 there was the true, low-London odour of soot and confined 
 humanity. Yet what a free little paradise it was to Rebecca ! 
 The inevitable going home was days off in the dim distance 
 as yet. She was free, and with those who loved her ; her 
 heart was so light that she could have sung aloud. 
 
 These simple, gentle Methodists, primitive in more than 
 their methodism, saw nothing very extraordinary in the step 
 which Rebecca had taken. It seemed to them that she had
 
 30 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 acted with singular discretion in coming straight to them. 
 Living there as they did, in perfect purity and innocence, 
 with sin and vice and poverty all around them, they were 
 well used to far more terrible things than the mere fact of a 
 young lady, sore-bestead by an uncongenial marriage, taking 
 refuge with them. Only one remark did Mrs. Tibbey make 
 on the subject during breakfast. 
 
 " Why, my dear soul, your good pa must be mad to think 
 of such a thing ! Why, he is sixty ! " 
 
 4i He is very rich," said Mr. Tibbey, blowing a saucer of 
 tea. " He is the richest minister in that communion. He 
 got no less than twenty — five — thousand — pound with his last 
 wife. She was the widder Ackerman of Cheyne Walk, and 
 he convinced her of sin and married her." 
 
 " Law ! " said Mrs. Tibbey, evidently not disinclined to 
 hear more. " That would be a great snare for a minister. 
 Got all her money, did he ? " 
 
 " Every shilling," said Mr. Tibbey, holding out his cup for 
 some more tea. " It was thought down the river-side way, 
 that her cousin, Mrs. Morley, would have had some of it, for 
 she brought him' into the house. But she didn't." 
 
 '• What Mrs. Morley was that ? " asked Rebecca, interested. 
 
 " Minister Morley's wife of Lime'us 'ole, my dear. She is 
 dead some years now. Overworked herself, trapesing round 
 after him among the poor of his communion, as lives round 
 the 'ole, and up Ratcliff 'ighway, and all along shore there to 
 Wapping. And she died, poor dear. Ah ! the folks in their 
 communion say that she was never truly awakened, and fell 
 away from grace to the extent of refusing the Ordinances 
 altogether. But he loved her as I love Elizabeth. And she 
 died." 
 
 " I know Mr. Morley," said Rebecca, eagerly. 
 ' " Then, my dear, you know a man who is as a sweet
 
 HETTY. 31 
 
 savour in God's nostrils. He is not of our communion on 
 this earth ; but we shall know him in Heaven, and her too, 
 maybe." 
 
 " What was Mr. Morlcy ? " asked Rebecca. 
 
 " A gentleman, my dear." * 
 
 " I thought so," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Yes, a gentleman and a scholar," said Mr. Tibbey ; " with 
 more of the knowledge of this world, and of science, — falsely 
 so called,— than is good for a true Christian ; for the know- 
 ledge of this world is vanity." 
 
 " I should like to judge for myself about that," thought 
 Rebecca. 
 
 "He were a doctor, but he got converted, and joined their 
 communion. He was from Cambridge College, — one of the 
 Simonitcs, I think they call 'em,— but he pitched it all up 
 when he got converted. There is the shop. Now you and 
 Elizabeth see what you are going to do." And so the good 
 man went out to weigh coals. 
 
 " Elizabeth," said Rebecca, " we must go from here this 
 morning. Are you afraid to go to Broadstairs ?" 
 
 " Not in the least. Would, indeed, very much like it." 
 
 " Then get ready," was all that Rebecca said ; and the 
 good woman departed to do so. The simple woman was 
 entirely at the girl's disposal. She dreaded nothing but sin, 
 and as far as that was concerned, would have trusted her 
 darling anywhere. But she knew also, that as long as she 
 kept by the girl, her fair fame could not be touched ; and she 
 went with cheerful recklessness. 
 
 It was not long before they had found an omnibus in the 
 King's Road. An hour and a half afterwards, they were 
 whirling along through the chalk pits of Kent, towards the 
 sea. In the evening they were having tea together, at an 
 open window in a little cottage, with the sea gossiping to
 
 -: BETTY. 
 
 them at their feet ; the Foreland a dim black wall, close on 
 their right, and the white-winged ships creeping away ; 
 happy lands, where there was no chapel and no Sund:. 
 
 So said Rebecca. " It is good for me to be here," she 
 said ; *" I could stand everything. : that man, if : 
 
 would let me come here three days in the year. I could live 
 six months in the recollection, and the next six on the antici- 
 pation. Libber, dear, let us run away again next year." 
 
 It was pleasant enough by daylight, it was pleasant enough 
 by moonlight ; but in the dark, dark morning, when the moon 
 
 5 down, and she awoke in the dark in a strange room, how 
 
 is it then? Ghastly, horrible ! What frightful machinery 
 was this she had put in motion for the temporary destruction 
 of her own good name and her fathers ? And how was it at 
 that weary, ghostly old house at Walham Green? "What 
 were they saying of her ? And she must go back to it in 
 three days — a marked girL Would she dare do so? or 
 would she die of fright, of sheer terror, as she approached 
 it There was the horrible old house, and there waited her 
 angry father at the door. She had only taken the sole means 
 to save herself from a fate worse than death ; and now, in the 
 darkness, she felt like a murderess and an outcast. What 
 had she done that God should plague her so ? 
 
 She could he no longer in her horror. She rose and went 
 to the window. The very blessed sea talked no longer under 
 her windows, but had gone far out on to the sands, and was 
 whispering there. There was no light in the sky, and there 
 was darkness and terror in her souL 
 
 Darkness and terror ! The crowning horror in Franken- 
 stein is the closed room where the monster must be. Her 
 crowning horror was the old house at Walham Green to 
 which she must return and meet her father. The men who 
 study a certain kind of wickedness say that what is wanted
 
 HETTY. 
 
 33 
 
 with women is opportunity, which is a foul lie. But I believe 
 that if the Rev. Mr. Hagbut had been able to take advantage 
 of his opportunity, and had pressed his suit just then, poor 
 Rebecca would have accepted him and thanked him. As she 
 was in the dark, in the strange room, that man, coarse brute 
 as he was, would have been a release from the closed, dull, 
 disgraced house at home, with all its traditions and respecta- 
 bilities violated in her wildly audacious person. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE RETURN. 
 
 HESE were night thoughts, how different were 
 those of the day ! The sea had come back and 
 was rippling and splashing crisply at her feet. 
 The bright sun was overhead, and a brisk east 
 wind was driving the ships past the Downs and 
 down the channel. A pleasant sight. The outward-bound 
 ones, full-breasted, crowded with canvas, gay ; the home- 
 going ones, sailless, melancholy, towed by steamers against 
 the wind ; however, one need only look at the outward- 
 bound ones just now ; in three days' time one may think of 
 the others. 
 
 Many ships went to and fro before Rebecca was tired 01 
 looking at them. She got more and more interested in them 
 as time went on, asking all manner of questions about them 
 from the boatmen and others on the beach ; simple Cockney 
 questions, which puzzled those she asked in their very sim- 
 plicity ; even when her weary head was turned homeward 
 they were still in her mind's eye. 
 
 Her despair at going back was so dull that it was nearly
 
 34 HETTY. 
 
 painless. "What signifies a little agony, more or less?" 
 Here, however, had been three days of which they could not 
 deprive her ; they would last her a long time, these three days. 
 
 She came home about nine o'clock on the Saturday night. 
 Her father opened the door, and she passed in quite silently, 
 and, taking off her bonnet, sat down, whereupon her sister 
 Caroline began to cry, which assisted Mr. Turner in open- 
 ing the conversation. 
 
 " You may well cry, my poor child," he began ; " you must 
 be worn out with this three days' anxiety, my dear ; your 
 sister seems none the worse for her disgraceful escapade." 
 
 " I am hungry and I want my supper," was all she said. 
 "You can scold while I eat it. Only make a finish and end 
 of it as soon as you can." 
 
 " Rebecca, where have you been ; and what have you been 
 doing ?" said her father. 
 
 " I am not going to tell you," she replied ; " I am not 
 going to say one word." 
 
 "Are you aware that Mr. Hagbut's visits have per- 
 manently ceased, in consequence of your extraordinary 
 conduct, and that your character is not worth that?" 
 
 " It was you who drove me to this, course by your cruel 
 abetting of that most unnatural marriage. If my mother 
 had been alive, you would not have dared to do it. Have 
 you anything more to say ? " 
 
 " I have," said Turner, getting thoroughly angry, " your 
 sister's character and position are affected." 
 
 " What, old Carry ; why what has she been doing ? " 
 
 " I mean that her position is affected through you. Are 
 you aware that young Mr. Vergril seemed exceedingly likely 
 to pay attention to your sister, and that your behaviour has 
 rendered such a course impossible on the part of any 
 member of such an exceedingly strict family."
 
 HETTY. 35 
 
 " Give Carry the money you were going to give me, in 
 addition to her own, and he will come fast enough, I'll 
 warrant you. My poor old Carry," she went on, kissing her 
 sister, " I hope I have not lost you your sweetheart. They 
 drove me to it, you know." 
 
 Carry only introduced an imbecile whimper into her cry- 
 ing, as though she had been playing the organ, and pulled 
 out another stop. The stop would not go in again, and so 
 she arose swiftly and went hysterically up-stairs. 
 
 " Poor Carry," said Rebecca, dolefully, " I am very sorry 
 for her ; she would have liked the persistent self-inflicted 
 misery of that Vergril family, and would have enjoyed her- 
 self thoroughly." So saying, she rose and rang the bell, 
 and, when the maid came, ordered supper. 
 
 When the maid was gone, Mr. Turner had a few more 
 words to say. " You are carrying matters cooly, Rebecca 
 But there is one thing I wish you distinctly to understand. 
 The next time you leave my house without my permission, 
 you leave it for good." 
 
 " I quite understand that ! You drove me out of it, and I 
 went for my own purposes. I shall not go again. Have you 
 anything more to say ? " 
 
 "Nothing at present." 
 
 "This may seem an unpropitious time to say what I am 
 going to say, but I will say it, nevertheless," resumed 
 Rebecca, very quietly and calmly. " Father, I remember 
 something, and I know more. I know that this has always 
 been a miserable and most unhappy house. I know that you 
 and my mother were bitter enemies, instead of being as 
 husband and wife should be. I know that all your recollec- 
 tions of my poor mother are painful, revolting, shocking ; 
 and I know that I, being like her in person and temper, have 
 kept them alive. We have never been friends. Say that it 
 
 D 2
 
 36 HETTY. 
 
 has been my fault. I say that I am tired of it, and wish to 
 be friends ; I am sick of this everlasting antagonism of will 
 between us ; it has done no good. I have resisted you, but 
 you are as obstinate as ever ; you have tried to coerce me, 
 with what success I leave the last three days to tell. Why 
 should this battle — this unnatural battle go on ? Cannot you 
 let me love you ? Such a little yielding on your part would 
 make a heaven out of this most miserable world. Will you 
 answer ? " 
 
 Not one word would he answer, except to say, " Have you 
 anything more to advance ?" 
 
 " Yes. I left here three days ago, a desperate, hardened 
 woman, casting my good name to the winds, to save myself 
 from a fate worse than death, which you had prepared for 
 me. During those three days I have been lapped irl love — 
 a love abundant and never failing, and surrounded by a 
 religion purer and gentler than yours, father ; a religion 
 which hopeth all things, and believeth all things. And in 
 spite of my bold bearing and my hard words, I have come 
 back softened and purified. Father, life is not so very long, 
 and we shall, I suppose, never part again. If I have said 
 hard and bitter things since I came into the house, will you 
 forgive them me as I forgive what you have said, and let us 
 learn to love one another ? " 
 
 No. His heart was dumb to it. He had never yielded to 
 the mother, was it likely he would yield to the daughter ? 
 He told her in a surly voice to show her repentance and 
 amendment by duty and obedience, and then began supper, 
 as she did also, feeling obstinate, angry, and humiliated, but 
 also having " a mighty disposition to cry." 
 
 She spoke next, hard as iron. " My health will suffer if I 
 am entirely confined to this house, and you would scarcely 
 wish that. May I walk up and down the lane, if I promise
 
 HETTY. 37 
 
 not to go out of it ? You may set Mrs. Russel and Miss 
 Sopor to watch me, if you like ; or, if you think it worth 
 having, I will give you my word of honour." 
 
 " You may go from one end of the lane to the other, but 
 no further. I'll have no scandals any more. I ain't so rich 
 as some think, but I'm well trusted, — very few dream how 
 much. And my good name is more precious to me than any 
 money. And I've tried to keep it good," he went on in a 
 loud excited manner. " And any other would have made 
 thousands, where I've made hundreds ; and no one has ever 
 dragged my name in the dirt except your mother and you. 
 And I served God faithful," he went on, now beginning to 
 weep, poor fellow. " And I tried to keep my name clean : 
 the greatest in the land have said to me, ' Turner, you are 
 not a lawyer, you know, you are a friend, we can trust you 
 here, your name is unspotted ; ' and God has afflicted me 
 like this. First your mother, and then you." 
 
 Rebecca's bolder and more generous nature, which indeed 
 was, ill-directed, the main cause of her petulance, was tho- 
 roughly aroused. She went to him and took both his hands, 
 saying, quickly : 
 
 " Father ! father ! your good name shall not suffer from 
 me. I am as innocent as the day. I can prove my innocence 
 at any moment. Do you think that / have done anything 
 unworthy of you ? Do you think that I did not leave my 
 proofs behind me as clear as noon?" 
 
 " Proofs ! silly girl, yes, but who will believe them ? You 
 little know this wretched world and its tongues. * Do you 
 think that anything will ever quiet old Russel and old Soper's 
 tongues ? You are a fool if you do." 
 
 " And who are they ? " asked Rebecca, loftily. 
 
 " The tongues of the world we live in. The tongues which 
 would turn against me first of all, and ruin me in our reli-
 
 38 HETTY. 
 
 gious connection, if anything went wrong. You don't know 
 the world, and are a fool." 
 
 " I wish you had been away with me these three days, 
 father ; you might have got to despise this little squalid 
 world of ours." 
 
 But he remained sulky and silent. Yet in a surly strange 
 manner he took her into his confidence before he went to bed. 
 
 " You are a bold, courageous girl," he growled. " I 
 needn't ask that ; this week's experience shows that." 
 
 " I believe that I have good courage, father." 
 
 " That's lucky, because your sister Carry is a nervous fool. 
 And you are a light sleeper, too, I know." 
 
 " Yes, the slightest thing awakes me." 
 
 " Then see if you can make yourself useful. If you hear 
 the very slightest noise in the night, you run to my bedroom 
 just as you are, shake me, and pull me out of bed. You will 
 find a light burning. I am apt to be mazed and stupid when 
 first awakened. Are you afraid of fire-arms ? " 
 
 " I never saw any. I will do what you tell me. I will 
 trust you thoroughly." 
 
 He went to a drawer in the sideboard, and came back with 
 a Deane and Adams revolver in his hand. 
 
 " See here," he said. " If I am not fairly awake you will 
 find this on the stand by my bed's head. If any man comes 
 into my room before I am ready, take it — so — hold the bar- 
 rel towards him— so — and keep pulling the trigger back — so. 
 And screech murder, the while. Can you do that ? " 
 
 " I will try. But why is this ? Have you much money in 
 the house?" 
 
 " Money and worse." 
 
 " Could you not pay it into the banker's?" 
 
 " No, I daren't. I know too much. You would not be 
 fool enough to talk of this ? "
 
 HETTY. 39 
 
 "Is it likely?" she said, smiling. "Will you say good- 
 night ? " 
 
 "Yes, I will say good-night. But mind, your treatment 
 depends on your behaviour. If you think you are forgiven, 
 you will find yourself mistaken. I'll have obedience." 
 
 And so he went. And she began putting away the con- 
 sumable portions of the banquet, that portion of the family 
 supplies which, by a fiction current in such houses, the little 
 servant is supposed habitually to pick and steal (their little 
 servant would as lief have eaten molten lead). She had put 
 away the cheese, the sugar, the whisky, and had locked the 
 cupboard. She had got the ham, the loaf, and the lettuce on 
 a tray, and was starting down-stairs to lock them up in the 
 larder away from the cat, who was all the time playing a 
 game combined of cat's cradle and puss in the corner, 
 between her feet, mewing in a bland whisper, when she drove 
 the tray into her father's chest, and brought him up short, as 
 he returned. 
 
 "Ho!" he said. "Putting the things away. That's 
 right." 
 
 The cat at once intertwined herself between his legs and 
 amicably tripped him up. 
 
 " Bother the cat ! " he exclaimed ; " but she reminds me, 
 though. I don't want to make it any duller than I can for 
 you, Rebecca ; only I will have order kept. You asked 
 me last year if you might have a dog. And I said, no." 
 
 " You did." 
 
 " I say yes, now. You can have a dog, if it is a pleasure 
 to you " — 
 
 " May 1 have a large one, or a little one ? " 
 
 " Any size, but let him be a barker, a tearer, a dog that 
 never sleeps. Silcox has got dogs that would tear the heart's 
 life out of a man, if he bent his black brows at them, and the
 
 4 o 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 other day I saw his grandchildren playing at horses with 
 them. Get a dog like that if you can ; but get a barker." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NEW LIFE. 
 
 N the whole history of insurrections I honestly 
 believe that comparatively few are entirely un- 
 successful. The position of the insurgent party is, 
 in most instances, after a short time, bettered. The 
 fact is, one would fancy that no government is 
 strong enough to stand many serious insurrections, and 
 therefore, as soon as its stomach or its safety will allow, gives 
 magnanimously what it would be dangerous to refuse to a 
 high-spirited and well-organised minority — like Rebecca. 
 
 Her insurrection was not entirely without its fruits. If 
 you come to consider, a daughter, who has shown herself 
 able and willing, under provocation, to absent herself 
 promptly and secretly from home— making you look like a 
 fool, and harassing you with inexorable terrors— is by no 
 means a young lady to be trifled with. I once, in the range 
 of my own personal experience, knew a young lady of tender 
 years, in a certain school, who had the singular physical 
 power of being ill under the slightest contradiction ; I mean ill 
 as people are ill off the North Foreland. That child ruled the 
 school, and learnt just what she chose— which was nothing. 
 
 Turner was going to have no more escapades in his house. 
 If Rebecca had only known her power, she might have done 
 pretty much as she liked, but she did not know it. Her 
 feeling was, that she had utterly overstepped natural bounds, 
 and had been on the whole, for her father, kindly received 
 home. Her feeling about her escapade was one of sheer
 
 HETTY. 41 
 
 terror, now that the whole manner of life was all around hei\ 
 It would take a still more dreadful provocation to make her 
 take such a step again. 
 
 Women, trained for so many centuries to entire depen- 
 dence, are not good at a long, steady defiance to association 
 and habit. That they are capable of it, the whole world 
 knows ; but if it is forced on them, the sustained effort which 
 it costs them makes them coarse, fierce, and unwomanly. 
 This continual effort of defiance will soon make, from habit, 
 a woman's voice hoarse and man-like. 
 
 Rebecca happily escaped this. Her father had yielded, 
 grudgingly indeed, yet still had yielded ; more than she had 
 hoped for. Her condition was improved. The heretofore 
 forbidden lane, with all its wonders, was at all events hers 
 now. With fresh, healthy vitality, with the curiosity towards 
 the world and its ways of a child in a wood, this lane, with 
 its swarming, dirty population, was as a deeply interesting 
 book to her, which she was eager to read. 
 
 She was the first moving in the household on Monday 
 morning : the intervening Sunday she had passed in bed. 
 She roused the maid, and left the others sleeping. When 
 they came down, there was breakfast ready, the Bible set by 
 her father's plate, his boots in their place, the newspaper 
 warmed and ready for him, and his rasher of bacon hot in 
 the fender. These facts, being taken by the allied powers as 
 denoting contrition on her part, were received by her father 
 in dumb silence, and by good Carry, who always trumped 
 her father's trick, by a wondering sniff or two. 
 
 She did not care. She was to go into the lane, and have 
 a dog of her own. Hagbut was a thing of the past ; she 
 would soon win these two over. 
 
 The portion of Scripture which Mr. Turner had to read 
 that morning was rather unpropitious to his purpose of
 
 42 HETTY. 
 
 twisting a moral out of it to hurl at Rebecca's head. It was 
 the journey of Jonah to Nineveh. He thought that he should 
 have to leave her moral exercitation to the prayer, when, 
 stumbling on, he came to the fact that Jonah was three days 
 and three nights in the whale's belly, exactly the time which 
 Rebecca had been away. He emphasised this point so 
 strongly, and paused so long, that Carry groaned, and the 
 little maid — aroused suddenly from the orthodox religious 
 coma, into which she always fell on the celebration of any 
 form of worship, public or private, — exclaimed, " Laws a 
 mercy me ! " 
 
 It was a great, although unforeseen point or hit, this sug- 
 gested parallel between Jonah and Rebecca ; but Mr. Turner 
 was too old a hand not to see that it would not hold water 
 too far. Rebecca thought that he would have twisted it into 
 the prayer ; but he knew better. He started from an entirely 
 new basis of operations. " It don't matter," said Rebecca ; 
 " I shall catch it somehow." And so, when her father said, 
 " Let us pray," she knelt down, wondering how he was going 
 to do it. 
 
 He led up to his theme in the most masterly manner. It 
 was feebly like some Scotch sermons, which one dimly re- 
 members. You know the preacher's theme from his text, 
 and you hear him go away into subjects apparently irrele- 
 vant, possibly three vague themes, which seem to have no 
 relation to his text. You sit puzzled, and yet pleased, while 
 he spins his first crude mass of yarn off into a single thread 
 and leaves it. Then he spins you another heap of yarn into 
 a thread ; and leaving that, another ; and then, taking his 
 three threads, he spins them into a cord, which brings you 
 back to his original proposition, and his text. Then you 
 take out your watch, and find that you have been sitting, 
 with your intellect at its highest power, for one hour or so,
 
 HETTY. 43 
 
 and have thought it twenty minutes. A good Scotch sermon 
 is not a thing to be despised. The Scotch are not con- 
 sidered to be devoid of brains, and they like such sermons. 
 
 Turner's prayer had no similarity to a good Scotch sermon 
 more than this. Rebecca knew that she would be his theme, 
 and wondered how he would handle it. He handled it well 
 enough for an Englishman. A Scotchman or a French 
 preaching priest would have done it better ! but it was 
 creditable in a mere amateur. 
 
 Turner began by airing the old question of the permission 
 of evil. The higher power doubtless knew best, he wished 
 that there might be no mistake about that; but, at the same 
 time, he, Turner, did beg and pray the First Cause to re- 
 consider his opinions, and take to governing the universe 
 more in accordance with his, Turner's, ideas than heretofore. 
 He proceeded to offer a singular number of practical sug- 
 gestions to the First Cause, which he hoped might be 
 practically attended to on the first opportunity. And then 
 he began to draw up to Rebecca, who knelt with her head 
 on one side, wondering what he was going to say. 
 
 It was in the thanksgiving part of the prayer that he over- 
 threw and demolished Rebecca, to her great admiration and 
 wonder. She had begun to think that he was going to leave 
 her alone altogether, for she was at a loss to understand how 
 he could have any great thanksgiving to make on her ac- 
 count ; but when he began to thank the First Cause for such 
 afflictions as had been sent him, and also for the strength 
 which had been given to him in bearing them, she saw how 
 he was going to do it — and admired. 
 
 She wondered much at his ingenuity in attacking her 
 under a form of thanksgiving to the Deity. She wondered 
 still more at the ingenuity of the details ; but what she ad- 
 mired most of all was the singular self-complacent egotism
 
 44 HETTY. 
 
 ■which underlay his whole prayer, and which cropped up at 
 every point. She knew of old her father's habit, common 
 enough to men who live in a little world, of talking of him- 
 self to other men ; but to hear him, while attacking her, 
 point out his manifest excellences to the Deity, and then 
 compare himself to a miserable worm, filled her with pure 
 astonishment. She had never before seen how entirely her 
 father was given to self-worship. Abraham's pleading was 
 reasonable ; her father's was utterly unreasonable. When he 
 came to the ultimate point of summing up his utterly blame- 
 less life, and thanking Providence for afflicting him with an 
 undutiful and rebellious daughter to keep him from the sin of 
 self-glorification, she was pained and dazed. She wanted to 
 love him ; how could she when he was so far from all else 
 that she loved ? Her father's religious exercise this morning 
 had by no means a good effect on her. She was angry and 
 sulky when she rose from her knees. 
 
 And she had meant to be so good. She left Carry to ad- 
 minister the little cares of domestic life which she, in the 
 warmth of her heart, had prepared. She was silent and 
 angry, and her father congratulated himself on having 
 brought her to a sense of sin. He had brought her to a deep 
 hatred of his form of religion. 
 
 She ate her breakfast in silence, but, keeping in mind the 
 admissions of last night, saw that they must be kept before 
 him. Towards the end of breakfast she said, — 
 
 " I am to have a dog ; and I am to walk up and down the 
 lane ; that is allowed. I wish that some arrangement might 
 be come to under which I was not to be prayed at by pa 
 before the maid, but that I suppose is hopeless. I can only 
 say that, if it happens again, I shall rise from my knees and 
 walk in the lane. I hate it." 
 
 " My dearest Rebecca ! " said poor Carry.
 
 HETTY. 45 
 
 " You may well say your dearest Rebecca, you two," said 
 Rebecca, sullenly. " I meant to be as good as gold this 
 morning, and submit, and be cheerful, and all that sort of 
 thing. But I wish it understood that I will not be prayed at 
 by pa, and thanksgivinged for by pa, or by any one else. I 
 may as well state my intentions at once. It is more than 
 probable that very shortly I shall join the communion of the 
 Primitive Methodists." 
 
 This was not quite such a dreadful threat to Mr. Turner as 
 it was to Carry. Certainly, Mr. Turner reflected, the poor little 
 Primitives were a low and poor sect, and the secession of one 
 of the members of his household from a sect so rich as his, 
 small though it was, a sect which was looked on with envy 
 for its wealth, would be as sad a thing as the secession of an 
 ultra-evangelical in the National Church to Wesleyanism, or 
 the Baptists. Yet, after all, if she go, it would be' one way 
 of accounting for her eccentricity. He put on his boots, and 
 went to business in tolerable humour. If she did not do 
 worse than go to the Primitive Methodists, and if that 
 abominably sleepy policeman would keep his eye on the 
 house for a few months, matters would right themselves. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LORD DUCETOY. 
 
 HE moment that Turner had shaken the dust of 
 his own house off his feet, the little anxieties of 
 that house were cast in the background, and he 
 was in another world. For, to tell the truth, at 
 this very time Turner's religion, and Turner's 
 domestic troubles, were actually swamped in another great 
 matter, — had become for a time, as it were, relaxations. The
 
 46 HETTY. 
 
 man was living two disconnected lives (unless Rebecca could 
 connect them), and the least disagreeable was to him almost 
 a relaxation. This great matter shall develope itself. 
 
 On Walham Green he caught the white Putney omnibus 
 as usual ; but not as usual did it drop him at the bottom of 
 Chancery- Lane. He got out at Arlington Street, Piccadilly, 
 and made his way quickly to a private house in Duke Street, 
 St. James. 
 
 " Is Lord Ducetoy up ? " he asked of the quiet-looking 
 servant in black who came to. the door. 
 
 Lord Ducetoy was up, had finished breakfast, and was 
 ready for Mr. Turner. He was shown upstairs into Lord 
 Ducetoy's presence, and he looked on him with very great 
 curiosity. 
 
 A handsome, well-made, young man enough, light in hair, 
 blonde in moustache, with the deep brown of the Western 
 prairies still on his face ; standing, with his back against the 
 chimney-piece, and lovingly wiping a gun with his handker- 
 chief. 
 
 " How d'ye do, my dear Mr. Turner?" said Lord Ducetoy. 
 " Thanks for coming so promptly, for I am in trouble." 
 
 " In trouble, my lord," said Turner, very seriously. "Please 
 tell me how." 
 
 " Well, it seems that I have not got any money." 
 
 " Your lordship has plenty of money. I can let you have 
 a thousand pounds at this moment." 
 
 " Then I wish you would. I wrote a cheque for a hundred 
 pounds on my uncle, Sir Gorham Philpott, yesterday, and 
 they have cashed it certainly. But they have written to me 
 to say, as there is only £37 10s. in their hands, they request, 
 either that more money may be paid in, or that our account 
 may be closed." 
 
 " Oh, that is their move, is it ? " said Mr. Turner.
 
 HETTY. 47 
 
 "That is their move, my dear Mr. Turner," said Lord 
 Ducetoy. " Rather a disagreeable one for me. You must 
 know, as my uncle's old man of business, that I never 
 expected to come into this earldom, and this money. My 
 uncle's death was utterly unexpected ; my cousin's death at 
 Madeira, equally so. I was hammering about in Canada, 
 trying to invest a certain thousand pounds I had, so as to 
 bring me in a living, when I suddenly found myself an earl, 
 with a considerable income. Coming home, I find my 
 cheque nearly dishonoured at my own uncle's for one hundred 
 pounds. I am a quiet fellow, but must live. I should be 
 glad of some money." 
 
 "There is plenty of money," said Turner. 
 
 " I should like to see some of it," said Lord Ducetoy. 
 
 Turner sat musing and looking at Lord Ducetoy for some 
 little time. At last he said : — 
 
 " I suppose you know your estates are rather heavily 
 mortgaged ? " 
 
 " I have heard as much." 
 
 "And that the mortgages are held by Sir Gorham Phil- 
 pott & Co. ? " 
 
 Lord Ducetoy had not heard that. 
 
 " Do you know that Sir Gorham Philpott & Co. are now 
 Sir Gorham Philpott & Co., Limited ? " 
 
 Lord Ducetoy laughed, and said, " that he was not aware 
 of the fact : but their ideas of credit were certainly limited." 
 
 " They are, my lord," said Turner. " For limited liability 
 is only another name for unlimited irresponsibility. Do you 
 know nothing of the family jewels, of the family papers ? " 
 
 " I know that there are great jewels, and cash, and papers. 
 I suppose they are at the banker's." 
 
 " My lord, they are nothing of the kind. They are at my 
 house. My lord, the limited bank, long really bankrupt,
 
 48 HETTY. 
 
 which has been trading under the name, once respectable, 
 of Sir Gorham Philpott, holds the mortgages on your 
 estates, about the only asset they have. It has not seemed to 
 me expedient to break with them, and bank with another 
 house, lest they should inconveniently foreclose. But I have 
 kept all out of their hands that I could. I, as executor under 
 your uncle's will, have received the plate, the jewels, the 
 deeds, under my own roof ; and the responsibility of them 
 is turning me grey." 
 
 " Could we not send them to Child's or to Drum- 
 mond's?" 
 
 " My lord, we owe Philpott's money, — a great deal, I 
 doubt." 
 
 " Can we pay it ? " 
 
 " Yes, we can pay it. But their name is and when the 
 
 smash comes we must take our chance with the others. I 
 don't want our jewels and plate to be put into their bank- 
 ruptcy." 
 
 "Then keep them where they are," said Lord Ducetoy. 
 " I can trust you." And he whistled as he rubbed his gun, 
 and said, laughing : " Well, I suppose now I have got 
 money, I shall never be happy again. There is one thing I 
 wish to say, in our prairie way, Mr. Turner. My mother 
 says that I can trust you through thick and thin ; and so I 
 mean to, for she never was wrong in her life. So, if you 
 find it possible, I should like to make our relations as 
 friendly as possible. There is, by the way, a touch of New 
 England in that, because I can't do without you. I don't 
 mean that we are to rush into one another's arms, but if we 
 try we may get friendly in time, I don't think it will take 
 long." Here he got very red. " I only just remember my 
 cousin. I hope to know her husband better. Will you dine 
 with my mother and me to-day ? "
 
 HETTY. 49 
 
 Turner went up to him, and taking his hand, looked him 
 frankly in the face, and said, " Did she ask me?" 
 
 Lord Ducetoy nodded. 
 
 " Then tell her No. It is best all over and done with. 
 Tell her, also, that the trouble we thought past has begun 
 again in my daughter. Good-bye. You may trust me." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SKYE TERRIER. 
 
 EBECCA'S £ood humour came back the instant 
 
 ^ v 
 
 she was outside the garden, and into the lane. 
 She had tempted Carry to come, but Carry 
 wouldn't. " You had better come," said Re- 
 becca, " we shall have some amusement. I am 
 going to Jim Akin about a dog, and it will be very pleasant." 
 Carry would have liked to have gone very much, but she had 
 said that she wouldn't in the first instance ; and consistency, 
 or, as some low people call it, obstinacy, is the brightest 
 jewel in the British female's crown, so she declined to enjoy 
 herself with her sister ; and visited her self-imposed queru- 
 lousness on the little maid. 
 
 Neither Jim Akin nor Mr. Spicer the sweep was out. With 
 Akin it was always a slack day on Mondays, having worked 
 Chelsea, principally Jews-row and Turks-row, with peri- 
 winkles, whelks, and shrimps the Sunday afternoon, and rest- 
 ing before going out to buy stock from the market gardeners. 
 With Mr. Spicer also it was a "clean" day, few owners of 
 houses of sufficient respectability to require their chimneys 
 swept by the hand of a master, caring to make preparations 
 for the sweep on Sunday night. 
 
 E
 
 So HETTY. 
 
 Very respectable Mr. Spicer looked, in his off-duty clothes, 
 comically unlike the hideous fiend-like figure he was when on 
 duty. Rebecca had the advantage of the respectful counsel 
 of these two excellent people on this occasion. 
 
 "If you please, Mr. Akin and Mr. Spicer," she said, after 
 the usual salutation, " I want to get a dog ; pa is going to let 
 me keep a dog." 
 
 They were both deeply interested at once. Mr. Akin, 
 being professionally more accustomed to conversation, dashed 
 into the subject at once. 
 
 " Warmint or general, Miss ?" 
 
 " I don't quite understand," said Rebecca ; and so Mr. 
 Spicer a sententious man, much looked up to in the row, 
 leant against the fence and defined after the Aristotelian 
 method. 
 
 "A warmint dog, Miss, as his name implies, is a dog as 
 is kept for the killing of warmint. Now there's a many 
 kinds of 'em : bull-dog, bull-terrier, fox-terrier, black-and-tan 
 terrier, toy, Dandy, and Skye. Similarly there's varieties in 
 the nature of warmint, as badger, pole-cat, weasel, and rat. 
 Of badgers there is country badgers and old hands. Of 
 pole-cats there is wild and tame. Of- rats, why there's as 
 much difference in rats, lor bless you, as what there is in 
 Christians. I've seen big rats as a new-born kitten could 
 kill ; and contrariwise, one of my young men went to enter 
 a well-bred year-old toy with an old rat, and I'm blessed if 
 the dog didn't cut and run for his life, howling, round the 
 lanes, and the rat after him." 
 
 " I seen it," said Jim Akin. 
 
 " But I don't want a dog to kill anything," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Miss wants a general dog, I expect, miller," said Jim 
 Akin to the master chimney-sweep. " Tip her some of your 
 advice now."
 
 HETTY. 51 
 
 " General dogs, miss," said the miller, complacently, " is 
 like warmint dogs, various ; and I never seen none that was 
 much 'count, takin' into consideration what dogs was made 
 for. Still Providence made 'em, and the fancy gives prizes 
 for 'em, similarly as they do for fantails and pouters, and 
 other rubbish that were only created for showing and 
 dealing. If I had my will, Miss, there should be no prizes 
 for any pigeons except carriers, and none for any dogs ex- 
 cept real warmint." 
 
 " Greyhounds," murmured Jim Akin. 
 
 "And you may add pointers and setters," said Mr. Spicer; 
 " but they're gentry dogs. When you are a gentleman with 
 a moor in the 'ighlands, talk about 'em ; not now." 
 
 "Miss wouldn't want a fighting dog?" suggested Jim 
 Akin, accepting the rebuke. 
 
 "Do she look like it, neighbour?" said Mr. Spicer, almost 
 severely. 
 
 " A fighting dog ain't half a bad thing to mind a young 
 lady, if she wanted to go a walking far by herself," said Jim 
 Akin, not to be entirely driven from his point. 
 
 Mr. Spicer was very fond of his neighbour, but he had to 
 ignore him, he was getting low. 
 
 " With regard to general dogs, Miss, which were your 
 views ? " 
 
 " Well," said Rebecca, " I should like a dog which would 
 bark if it heard a noise, and a dog I should be fond of. I 
 think I should like a little dog the best. I think I should 
 like a little hairy dog, like the Queen's in the picture, you 
 know, which is begging to the macaw for its biscuit ; if it 
 did not cobt too much." 
 
 I know nothing of the private life of Mr. Spicer or Mr. 
 Akin; when I am thrown against gentlemen in that par- 
 ticular circle of society, I ask few questions. If any of our- 
 
 E 2
 
 52 HETTY. 
 
 selves had no education, and associated with, bought and 
 sold with, ay, and intermarried with the criminal classes, 
 should we look on the lighter crimes with the same detesta- 
 tion we do now ! A man whose wife's brother has been 
 transported, and yet who gets treated as a respectable and 
 trustworthy person by the district inspector, seems to me 
 to be in his way meritorious. If a stray dog follows him 
 home, or if a strange pigeon come into his trap, why, he is 
 possibly not so chivalrously particular as you or I should 
 be ; when you get to the very verge of the criminal class, 
 you must make allowances. 
 
 Jim Akin and Mr. Spicer interchanged a glance, and then 
 Jim Akin spoke. " I have got a little dog in my back yard, 
 Miss, which you might care to look at." 
 
 " Undeniable character," said Mr. Spicer. " Never 'tized, 
 but character un-de-niable, against all the Pleece in crea- 
 tion." 
 
 Rebecca assented at once, and they went in through Jim 
 Akin's close-smelling house, which had a mingled scent of 
 washing, dirt, children, cabbage-stalks, baby and cheese ; 
 and out into the little back yard, separated from the neigh- 
 bours' back yards by a low, broken paling. There was no 
 vegetation in it, except, at the farther corner, an elder-tree. 
 And at the foot of the elder-tree there was an American 
 flour-barrel, and at the entrance of the flour-barrel, sat a little 
 tiny innocent dog, chained up and looking very unhappy. 
 
 It was a very beautiful little Skye terrier, a dog worth 
 money, but grimed with ashes and soot, unkempt, unwashed, 
 utterly and entirely miserable and woebegone. It was a dog 
 which had been cared for and loved, and tended in its time, 
 so carefully tended that it had lost its instinct of self-care, 
 and had lost its mistress, or let itself be stolen, and had 
 come to this. It cowered when it saw Jim Akin and Mr.
 
 HETTY. 
 
 53 
 
 Spicer ; but when it saw a lady with them, it looked up at 
 her with its light hazel eyes, and held up its poor innocent 
 little paw. 
 
 Her father might well call her a fool. I suppose she was 
 a fool according to his light. Her heart seemed to swell 
 suddenly within her, and her eyes not all unready for tears, 
 for the little dog, out of its misery, had appealed to her, as 
 Friday did to Crusoe. She went straight to the barrel, undid 
 the dog, and took it to her bosom. 
 
 " I will buy this dog of you, Mr. Akin," she said, without 
 turning round. " My father will pay for it. Send in a 
 moderate price to him, or he will not let me have it. I will 
 pay the difference. I will have this dog." 
 
 " Will you let me give you the little dog?" said a voice, 
 close at her elbow. 
 
 She turned quickly round. It was Mr. Morley, the dis- 
 senting minister, who stood close beside her. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. MORLEY. 
 
 OBODY likes to be caught suddenly in a senti- 
 mental mood. Every true-born Briton hates it 
 almost as much as he hates being caught in 
 (respectable) sin. Rebecca had just been caught 
 in a sentimental mood, over a grimy Skye ter- 
 rier, in company with a chimney-sweep and a costermonger, 
 by a dissenting minister. In the revulsion brought on by a 
 nearly strange face, the situation, instead of being really 
 beautiful, as it was one minute ago, was in the highest degree 
 ridiculous — as she thought-
 
 54 HETTY. 
 
 " How did you come here, Mr. Morley ? " she asked. " I 
 am surprised." 
 
 " I came to see you, and I saw you come in here, and I 
 followed you." 
 
 " I am much obliged. My father's house is over the way. 
 I think you asked me if you might pay for this dog ? My 
 answer is, No." 
 
 " There ain't nothing to pay," said Jim Akin. " Miss has 
 took a fancy to the dog, and she is welcome to her." 
 
 "Do you mean to say that you will give me the dog as a 
 present ? " 
 
 " Certainly, Miss, and will swear to her agin all Christen- 
 dom." 
 
 "I'll take it, Jim Akin," she said. "And I'll never pay 
 one farthing for it, except in good will. If I don't pay you in 
 cash, I will pay you in kind. Let me give you one more 
 chance, I will give you a five-pound note for this dog ; I will 
 go across the street and get it now." 
 
 " Won't take it, Miss. I'll take it out in good will. The 
 mistake as you gentry makes," continued Jim Akin, speaking 
 sententiously, and looking at Mr. Morley, who certainly 
 looked like a gentleman, " is this. You thinks we're for cash, 
 and all cash; and it ain't so. Fve got as much money as I 
 want. You gentlemen as studies has got good words. Why 
 can't you give us some of your good words now and again, in 
 a friendly way, the same as I give she the little dog ? " 
 
 " Well," said Rebecca, turning homewards with her new 
 treasure in her arms, " all I can say is, that you shall always 
 have good words from me ; and so good-bye. Mr. Morley, 
 I have just been so cross with you. I am afraid you must 
 think me very silly." 
 
 " On what grounds ? " 
 
 " On the grounds of being very nearly crying for pity over
 
 HETTY. 55 
 
 a poor lonely little dog. If your life were as lonely as 
 mine " 
 
 " What then ? " said Mr. Morley, as they crossed the street. 
 
 " Why then, I fancy, I may be wrong, but I do fancy that 
 you are the sort of person who would be just as likely to 
 make a goose of yourself over such a matter as me." 
 
 " That is not grammar, you know, as it stands," said Mr. 
 Morley. 
 
 " Then let it be grammar as it sits," said Rebecca. " You 
 know what I mean." 
 
 " I am afraid I do ; and what is more and worse, I am 
 afraid it is true." 
 
 " Then you do sometimes make a goose of yourself? " 
 
 " Have I not come to see you ? " 
 
 "That is true enough. Talking of geese, what is the 
 opinion of Pythagoras concerning water-fowl ? " 
 
 " That a minister of the gospel had better mind his own 
 business, and not come to visit houses where common stage 
 plays are read habitually." 
 
 " Only one single number of Knight's Illustrated, I give 
 you my honour," said Rebecca. " You have read it, you 
 know ; at least, you seem pretty familiar with it. Did you 
 really come to see me ? " 
 
 " I did, indeed." 
 
 " I have leave to walk up and down the lane. Will you 
 walk with me ? " 
 
 Mr. Morley consented gladly. 
 
 " I want to talk to you very much, but about very many 
 things. You seem to have had an education different to — 
 to the men I have seen here.. For instance, you know 
 Shakspeare ? " 
 
 " I know Shakspeare very well." 
 
 " I know nothing of him but this one play. And that is so
 
 56 HETTY. 
 
 wonderful, — so utterly unlike, both in thought and diction, to 
 anything I have ever seen before, that I can nearly say it by 
 heart. Are the other plays to be compared in goodness to 
 this one ? " 
 
 " Certainly. In perfect dexterity and elegance, I rank 
 Twelfth Night as high as any ; but for no other qualities. 
 Hamlet is the finest of them all." 
 
 " And what is that about ? " 
 
 " The old Calvinist business, — the business without be- 
 ginning and without end, — which keeps so many preachers 
 on their legs, for the simple reason that, let them turn it 
 inside out as often as they will, there is no answer to it. 
 Hamlet, with its beautiful language and deep thought, runs 
 mainly on predestination, the permission of evil and the re- 
 sponsibility in this world and in the next of bad or careless 
 action, committed, as it would seem, almost unavoidably." 
 
 "And how does Shakspeare get us out of the old difficulty, 
 familiar enough to me, I am sure ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " The characters all stab and poison one another," said 
 Mr. Morley. 
 
 " Mark my words, Mr. Morley," said Rebecca, stopping 
 short, and stroking the head of her little dog, who, under the 
 impression that it had only been stolen once more in a dif- 
 ferent sort of way, was low in its little mind ; " mark my 
 words, Mr. Morley, that Shakspeare was a man not entirely 
 deprived of understanding. I am aware that you people hate 
 him, curse him from your pulpits, and so on. But there is 
 something in the man." 
 
 " I never cursed him," said Morley. " I love him." 
 
 " You ! " said Rebecca. " I never sat under you. The 
 man whom you call your brother, — the man whose opinions 
 you are bound to endorse, does, though. I mean the man 
 Hagbut, for I have heard him."
 
 HETTY. S7 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HETTY'S LOVER. 
 
 T is not so pleasant in here as in the lane," said 
 Rebecca, leading the way in to their dull, nar- 
 row-windowed sitting-room. " This is the place 
 where I am scolded and admonished. I sit here, 
 do you see, and you sit there. Now, will you 
 please begin and get it over." 
 
 " Can you suppose that I mean to scold you ?" he said. 
 
 " I suppose that you have come commissioned by my 
 father to see after my spiritual state," she replied. " Are you 
 not Mr. Hagbut's successor? If so, I am afraid that you 
 will have a thankless task." 
 
 " I assure you on my honour," he said, eagerly, " that my 
 visit is solely and entirely to you ; that I dislike Mr. Hag- 
 but ; that I have no commission from your father whatever. 
 May I go on ? I am much older than you, and God knows, 
 I wish you well." 
 
 " If you put matters on those friendly grounds, I am sure 
 that you may say what you like. If you intend to be truly 
 my friend in a worldly point of view, I can meet you half- 
 way, for I am sure I want one badly." 
 
 "We will sign no compact of friendship," he answered; 
 " but you shall try me. I am an old widower of forty- two, and 
 have a daughter nearly as old as you." 
 
 " A daughter ! " said Rebecca. " I never heard of that 
 before." 
 
 She blushed scarlet as she said it, for she betrayed the 
 fact that he was interesting to her, and that she had inquired 
 about him.
 
 58 HETTY. 
 
 "Yes, I have a daughter," said Morley, stroking his chin. 
 " Yes ; quite so. Hetty (that is short for Hephsibah, not for 
 Esther, you will understand) is nearly as old as you are, I 
 should say." 
 
 " I suppose she is very fond of you ? " said Rebecca, still 
 in confusion. 
 
 " Why, yes," said Mr. Morley, still stroking his chin. 
 " Hetty is very fond of me indeed. But I will show you how 
 much I am inclined to put confidence in you, Miss Turner, 
 by telling you that my dear daughter is not a popular 
 person." 
 
 "Is she cross ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 a No, she's not cross. When I say that she is unpopular, 
 I mean that she is unpopular among our religious connexion, 
 and — well — is a great stumbling-block with them." 
 
 " She seems to be very much in my condition then," said 
 Rebecca. 
 
 " Very much indeed," said Mr. Morley, the truth being far 
 too great to be kept back. " Very much so." 
 
 " Did she ever run away and hide for three days, as I 
 did ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 Mr. Morley did not answer in speech at all, neither did he 
 look at Rebecca at all. He only looked at space, with a com- 
 pound expression jn which there was, simply in a very slight 
 movement of the mouth, a touch of humour, but no anger or 
 sorrow. Rebecca began to have an intense desire to know 
 the young lady, and said so. 
 
 " She would be highly flattered, I am sure," said Mr. 
 Morley, "if I told her so; but I shall not do it, however. 
 By the bye, may I presume to be sufficiently in your con- 
 fidence to ask a favour ? " 
 
 " Provided it is not a guilty secret, of course," said 
 Rebecca.
 
 HETTY. 59 
 
 " But it is," said Mr. Morley. " Don't say anything about 
 my daughter up here. This part of our connexion does not 
 know anything about her. Even Hagbut keeps the dreadful 
 secret, knowing that if anything of her ways was known here, 
 Mrs. Russel and Miss Sopcr would at once find out or invent 
 quite enough about her to make me perfectly useless as a 
 minister to this congregation, when he wanted my services, 
 as he pretty often does. Besides, the girl is a connexion of 
 his. You will not mention her ? " 
 
 " I will not, indeed," said Rebecca, pleased very much at 
 being taken into anyone's confidence and treated like a 
 woman. " I am sure she is good." 
 
 " There is good in her somewhere," replied Morley, slightly 
 showing his white teeth ; " you will keep my secret, then, 
 from your Russel and Soper; now let us talk of other matters. 
 Your father looks very ill and worn." 
 
 " I have been behaving very ill, and have given him 
 trouble. I ran away for three days to avoid doing something 
 he had set his heart on my doing. I am very truly penitent 
 for having given him anxiety, but I would do it again to- 
 morrow ; and so would your daughter." 
 
 " People don't run away from me," said Mr. Morley ; 
 "they are more apt to come after me, I think. While I 
 have been sitting here, and looking out of the window, I 
 have noticed one ; he has found the house at last ; he rings 
 the bell ; he asks for me ; yes, and here your little maid 
 shows him in." 
 
 And into the room came a magnificent young sailor, with 
 the fresh, wild vitality of the sea shining in his bold brown 
 eyes, showing in his noble free gait and bright free smile. A 
 splendid apparition just risen from the ocean, in his ocean's 
 garb ; such a youth as Rebecca had never seen before. As 
 one looked at him with travelled eyes, there came on one
 
 60 HETTY. 
 
 dim memories of peaceful seas among soft blue islands far 
 away ; of angry, cruel icebergs ; of wild, horrible, staggering 
 nights when ruin was abroad, and death looked with pale face 
 over the steersman's shoulder at the dim-lit reeling binnacle. 
 A youth who had looked steadily at death often, and would 
 look again and yet again without terror, and die at the last 
 fighting fiercely. Still young, handsome, and gentle. 
 
 The old narrow-windowed parlour seemed the darker and 
 the dingier for his presence. With the exception of Rebecca 
 herself, there had been nothing there so splendid for many 
 years. Rebecca had never seen anything like this ; she had 
 seen youth and vitality before, in Jim Akin and the like, but 
 never anything like this young man. She looked at him 
 with keen curiosity and admiration ; and Mr. Morley watched 
 her. 
 
 " I have run you to earth, sir," said the young sailor, who, 
 by his dress, seemed of the superior mate class. " Hetty told 
 me that you would be here." 
 
 " Chapter of accidents," said Mr. Morley. " What business 
 was it of Hetty's, or of yours ? " 
 
 " Hetty said that you were to come home to dinner ; and, 
 indeed, we want you." 
 
 " You want me a great deal, I have no doubt," said Mr. 
 Morley. 
 
 " Indeed, we do want you very much," said the young 
 sailor ; " in fact, Hetty would not let me into the house until 
 you came. She only " 
 
 " Never mind that, sir." 
 
 " Well, I won't," he said, laughing ; " but you know that 
 she will not take her pleasure without your sharing it. And 
 if Miss Turner," he added, with a bright smile, " will spare 
 you to us this one evening, we will try to make amends in 
 future. May I be introduced to Miss Turner? "
 
 HETTY. 61 
 
 " This, Miss Turner," said Mr. Morley, " is young Jack 
 Hartop* He is of the salt-water persuasion. The remark- 
 able fact about him is that he never sails in any kind of ship, 
 but what that ship meets with a very serious accident. Like- 
 wise, on the occasion of these accidents, some one else is 
 always on the watch. I introduce him." 
 
 " I am delighted, I am sure," said Jack Hartop, " to make 
 Miss Turner's acquaintance. In what you may be allowed 
 to call, on an occasion of this kind, the flowering vale of 
 tears, there is little doubt that our acquaintance will .be im- 
 proved to mutual satisfaction. For you must not believe 
 him about me, Miss Turner. His bark is worse than his 
 bite. Nobody cares twopence-halfpenny for him. Now, Mr. 
 Morley, are you coming home to dinner?" 
 
 " Wait for me at the lane's end, boy, and I will come," 
 said Mr. Morley ; and the young sailor bowed and departed. 
 
 " What do you think of him ? " he said to Rebecca, when 
 he had gone. 
 
 " He is very splendid," said Rebecca, dreamily. " I have 
 never seen anyone like him." 
 
 " He is a splendid sailor," said Morley. "May I tell you 
 a secret which would ruin us all if it was known ? " 
 
 " There would be a little excitement about it," said 
 Rebecca ; " I think you had better tell me." 
 
 "Well, then, I will trust you. He is Hetty's lover." 
 
 " She must have good taste, then. I should not entirely 
 break my heart if he was mine." 
 
 "No?" said Mr. Morley. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Rebecca. " That young man 
 and I should never hit it off, you know. He seems as if he 
 liked his own way." 
 
 " The most biddable lad going," said Mr. Morley. 
 
 "Then he wouldn't suit me. Hetty may have him. I
 
 62 HETTY. 
 
 want ordering about, I can't take care of myself. But speak- 
 ing to you as a minister, or, as the Papists call it, at father 
 confessor, Mr. Morley, I confess to you that I could, with 
 very small effort, have fallen in love with that young man. 
 If Hetty has got him, let her keep him. I shall know Hetty 
 one day, I see. For the present I have made my arrange- 
 ments for marriage." 
 
 " I dare not ask what arrangements." 
 
 " I will save your cowardice, then ; I have, for my own 
 purposes, made it impossible for any man to marry me ; and 
 I am going to marry old Tibbey." 
 
 " Tibbey, the Primitive Methodist, in Leader Street ? He 
 is married already." 
 
 " Not him, but his wife. I am going to marry her. At 
 all events, I am going to get out of this house in some way. 
 I would to heaven that I could turn Roman Catholic. They 
 find a life and a business for women like me. If I could 
 swallow their miserable superstitions, I could join them to- 
 morrow. Why do not you extreme Protestants make provi- 
 sion for women who are willing to devote their love to God 
 and to the poor, as do the Papists ? You cry out at the 
 Papists getting so many converts among women ; what is 
 the real reason ? These Papists, with a false, low, and I 
 hope moribund form of Christianity, are the only sect which 
 offers a career to an ordinary and ill-educated woman. 
 Whose fault is it that we are ill-educated ? You have refused 
 us education, and we are as clever as you. You teach us to 
 play the piano. The Papists show us a suffering Christ 
 through suffering humanity. They find a sphere for a 
 woman " 
 
 " Which you would occupy for possibly a week"
 
 HETTY. 63 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 hagbut's new intentions. 
 
 HE saw no more of her two new acquaintances 
 for nearly a fortnight, and the old life came 
 back again with almost the old misery and dul- 
 ness. Yet Rebecca was never exactly as she 
 had been any more. She was more desperately 
 unhappy, — that I do not disguise, — but her unhappiness now 
 was of a different kind. It was active. Her old unhappiness 
 was as that of one imprisoned in a living tomb from her 
 birth, hopeless, and without any room for fancy, which is one 
 of the greatest mitigators of human ills. She was very mise- 
 rable again now, but only because dreams, now become 
 possible to her, seemed unattainable. Before this she had 
 no dreams at all : her life was merely a painful sleep. And 
 now, also, she had a companion and a confidant, her little 
 dog. 
 
 The man who has never known a woman who will confide 
 to a baby or a dog, matters which she would not confide to 
 an intelligent being, must be unfortunate in his experiences. 
 Poor Rebecca told her little Skye terrier a great many things 
 about herself, in which she scarcely believed as to herself, 
 and which she would have denied with the extremest scorn 
 to any person in the world, unless possibly in deep distress 
 to old Mrs. Tibbey. 
 
 She had broken all bounds for the first time in her life. In 
 her desperation regarding her marriage to Mr. Hagbut, she 
 had been forced into arms ; into a thoroughly successful 
 revolution. True, she had in her weariness come back, as it 
 were, to Caesarism ; but it rests with the politicians to tell us
 
 64 HETTY. 
 
 whether the individual or the nation ever gets back into its 
 old frame of mind again after one good taste of liberty. 
 What has been done once may be done twice. The ruler 
 of a once thoroughly revolutionised kingdom sits uneasy on 
 his throne ; and, what is more to the purpose, the subject 
 knows it. At least Rebecca did. And so now, when the house 
 was dullest, and her father most disagreeable, instead of 
 "wishing she was dead," or declaring that she would marry 
 a costermonger if he would only take her out of this, she 
 used milder formulas ; only told her little dog that he would 
 drive her to it again, he would : and that Mab and she and 
 Mrs. Tibbey would go to Ramsgate, and stay there all to- 
 gether their time ; and live on shrimps, and keep a nice 
 little oyster shop, and never go to chapel any more. And 
 if that nasty tiresome Hetty was near, Mab should bark at 
 her. 
 
 This babyish nonsense was very good for her. She had 
 had too little of it in her childhood ; books like Hans An- 
 dersen's had never been seen in that house. It was well 
 for her that she had still child enough left in her after her 
 embittered life, only to talk to her little innocent dog in 
 a petulant childish way about Hetty; for she might have 
 talked in a very different one a little time before. Yet one 
 thing she told her dog now, but which she never confessed 
 to herself, was that she hated Hetty. 
 
 Hetty the unknown, Hetty the innocent. It was surely 
 unreasonable. 
 
 It would be merely confusion of counsel to try and account 
 for it as she did. That Hetty was free; that she could 
 come and go ; that she had a father who loved her ; and was 
 not watched by two pernicious old trots (meaning Mrs. 
 Russel and Miss Soper) ; she did not believe in all that 
 herself. Hetty was welcome to all that. She had been in-
 
 HETTY. 65 
 
 clined to admire Hetty, until Mr. Morlcy, for reasons of his 
 own, had told her that the young sailor Hartop was her 
 lover. 
 
 She had not cared at the time ; if he and Hetty had 
 come arm in arm, the next day, and made love before her, 
 she would not have cared much, more particularly if Mr. 
 Morley had come too. But this grand young sailor had 
 left his image on a late awakened and fully developed mind, 
 and it would not go. He was the first really splendid man 
 she had ever seen. 
 
 And he had appeared, only to draw her only friend, Mr. 
 Morley, away from her. They had left her at once, to go 
 after this Hetty, and all their schemes, and goings on down 
 at Limehouse, the gate of freedom : for you might get on 
 board a ship in Limehouse, and you might sail away any- 
 where, — to the happy islands in the Western Sea, where 
 there was no chapel-going, or tea-meeting, or Sunday 
 school, all of which Mr. Morley wished to establish there; 
 or even further, to those islands where you could do as you 
 pleased, and escape the consequences of your own actions ; 
 in which islands Mr. Morley did not believe. (This was, of 
 course, only said to the little dog.) But even to her sister 
 Carry she grumbled, after a few days. She told her that 
 she thought Mr. Morley had whisked himself off with his 
 young friend rather unceremoniously. 
 
 " I am glad to hear that he has been here," said Carry. 
 
 " Yes ; he came to see me. And I should like him to 
 come again. But the young sailor, to whom his daughter is 
 engaged, came and carried him off." 
 
 " Mr. Morley has no daughter," said Carry. 
 
 " Indeed but he has, though," said Rebecca. " And I wish 
 he hadn't." 
 
 " Dearest Rebecca," said Caroline with just such tact as 
 
 F
 
 66 HETTY. 
 
 she had gathered from her station, and her school, " believe 
 a tender sister, when she tells you that Mr. Morley has no 
 family.'' 
 
 " But I tell you he has. Hetty was alive a week ago ; 
 bother her." 
 
 " You are in a perfect dream, my dear sister," said Carry. 
 " Mr. Morley is perfectly unincumbered, and his prospects 
 are, in a pecuniary point of view, very good indeed. I give 
 you my honour he has no daughter. I tell you, you have 
 been dreaming." 
 
 " That is true enough," said Rebecca. " I have been 
 dreaming a deal too much. But who told you he had no 
 daughter ? " 
 
 " Mr. Hagbut to-night, at Miss Sopor's." 
 "How did he come to say it there?" said Rebecca, who 
 was beginning to get a little uneasy about this mysterious 
 Hetty's legal relation to Mr. Morley. 
 
 Carry was a certain kind of British woman, who, when 
 she saw occasion, would walk clean through half a dozen 
 quickset hedges, without, as vulgar people say, winking her 
 eye. She did so on this occasion, as on many others. 
 
 " The fact of the matter is, my dear Rebecca, that Mr. 
 Hagbut has announced his intention to several mutual 
 friends, of paying his addresses to me. He has not com- 
 mitted himself to me in any way as yet ; he has not suffi- 
 ciently studied my character. But he has said, with a view 
 of my hearing it at second hand, that if I should be found 
 worthy of his great position, and if he sees hopes of form- 
 ing my character to his standard, he will overlook the 
 disgrace which one member of our family has brought on 
 it ; and - — " 
 
 " He is rapid in his determinations," said Rebecca, 
 
 quietly.
 
 HETTY. 67 
 
 " He is very determined. He is a man to be obeyed. 
 But this is a little past the matter. His opinion is that 
 Mr. Morley is very much inclined to marry you, in spite of 
 all that has happened.'' 
 
 " Yes," said Rebecca, very quietly. 
 
 " Indeed he thinks so," said Carry ; " and we all rejoiced 
 with a great joy. I consider, that if you are careful, such 
 a thing might be. And in the course of conversation I 
 asked if he had any family ; and he said that there was a 
 daughter, but that she was dead." 
 
 " He meant dead in trespasses and sins, you know," said 
 Rebecca. 
 
 " He said dead," said Carry. " Now you know the whole 
 truth, my dear." 
 
 Burning lava over boiling water makes a good explosion, 
 as geologists tell us. There were all the elements of it in 
 Rebecca's heart. She could have killed them all with 
 burning words. For them to dare, after her resolution, to 
 buy and sell her like this. The way in which the crust of 
 respectability forms quickly over the lava of revolution is 
 what drives some men, who will not look to the great cy- 
 clical advance of matters, mad. And really, Charles the 
 Second and Drydcn, as successors and apparently results 
 of Cromwell and Milton, is a bitter pill for a Whig. Men, 
 maddened with this view of things, try to assassinate inno- 
 cent sovereigns. Can we wonder that Rebecca felt a strong 
 inclination to box her sister's ears? 
 
 Only for one moment. She was a clear-hearted woman, 
 with all her faults. She saw her own sister before her, and 
 all her little petty woes and wrongs were forgotten. Easily 
 forgotten, for she had freed herself. Instead of giving way 
 to ill-temper, she gave way to good ; and, kneeling before 
 her sister, said, — 
 
 F 2
 
 68 HETTY. 
 
 " Carry, sister ! We have always been good friends. In 
 heaven's name have nothing to do with that man. Are you 
 forced ? / was forced ; but I beat them, the mean tattlers 
 and time-servers. Do as I did, if you hate it. Come away 
 as I did, sister ; and see what the world is out of this 
 miserable lane. 1 will never leave you, dear ; no more will 
 Elizabeth Tibbey ; no more will Mab. Fly from it, dear, with 
 me. We could keep a little shop, or anything : Mr. Tibbey 
 would tell us. Or we would go to Mr. Morley, and he would 
 tell us what to do. But oh, that man, Carry ! There is a 
 time to save yourself ; in heaven's name think what you are 
 doing." 
 
 Rebecca's wild appeal failed absolutely. Carry's mind 
 was too well formed. Rebecca's appeal to her, beautiful in 
 its affectionate unselfishness, if in nothing else, was to her 
 hideous and amorphous — shapeless to her : her sister was a 
 woman with a wild, ill-regulated mind : an object of pity. 
 Yet, in her reply, she unconsciously allowed that there was 
 reason in Rebecca's wild plea to her; for, instead of show- 
 ing pity, she showed resentment. And Rebecca had so 
 nearly won, that this resentment took the form of anger : 
 anger expressed as she had heard it expressed in her family, 
 a little coarsely. 
 
 " You fool, get up, and don't kneel to me ; kneel to your 
 Maker. You are the plague of our lives. When I am 
 married to him you will always be held over my head like 
 a whip. The old business was just hushed up, when you 
 must break out. Get up." 
 
 She got up at once, but she smiled kindly, too. " You 
 will be sorry for these words, Carry dear, long after I have 
 forgotten them." 
 
 " 1 know I shall, you wicked thing," said Carry, sobbing 
 bitterly. " Why did you tempt me to say them ? "
 
 HETTY. 
 
 69 
 
 " Because I did not like to see one I love marry a man 
 utterly beneath her, and utterly unworthy of her." 
 
 Whereupon poor old Carry gathered up her skirts, and 
 walked through another quickset hedge, consisting of Mr. 
 
 Hagbut's virtues. 
 
 Through which we will not follow her. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A FRANK EXPLANATION. 
 
 HEN the sisters had parted, Rebecca was very 
 f angry again. For them to have dared to use 
 her name like this once more. " Still the 
 question arises," she said, " is it not all their 
 own inconceivable folly ? Mr. Morley is far 
 too much of a gentleman to have spoken to any of them, at 
 all events, before he spoke to me. He is inclined to like 
 me, and I am fond enough of him ; but he does not admire 
 me." 
 
 Her father came in, and, without looking at him, she said, 
 - — " Has Mr. Morley spoken to you about any intentions of 
 his with regard to me, sir ? " 
 
 " Certainly not !" said her father. " Do you mean matri- 
 monial intentions ? Why, you have scarcely seen him ; and 
 if Morley had any such intentions, he, with his breeding, 
 would most surely have made himself safe with you in the 
 first instance. Tell us the story, Rebecca ; do not let us 
 mistake one another again. Has he shown you any atten- 
 tions ? " 
 
 " None whatever, except those of an interested friend. He 
 has been very kind to me." 
 
 " Then how has this report come about ? " asked her
 
 7 o HETTY. 
 
 father. And Rebecca simply told him what Carry had told 
 her. 
 
 " So you see,"' she added, " that my name is the common 
 talk of Miss Soper's tea-table in connection with his." 
 
 "What an abominable shame ! Who said it ?" 
 
 " Mr. Hagbut." 
 
 " Oh, I see," said Mr. Turner. " Yes, yes ! quite so. My 
 dear daughter, I have reason to believe now that Mr. Morlcy 
 does really more or less admire you, and that Mr. Hagbut 
 has remarked it." 
 
 " Am I never to be let alone ? " cried Rebecca. 
 
 " Do not interrupt ; listen — open your eyes. I have reason 
 now to believe that Hagbut at least suspects that, in course 
 of time, Mr. Morley may come to admire you, and that he 
 has, knowing your proud and uncontrollable temper, put this 
 report about in such a way as may set you utterly against Mr. 
 Morley." 
 
 " What on earth is it to him ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 " Between five and six thousand pounds, my dear. If you 
 marry so well as Morley — marry, in fact, a gentleman of 
 respectability and strength of character, like him — you will 
 have the same fortune as your sister. If you remain single at 
 my death, you will have one hundred a year ; if you make a 
 foolish match, you will have eighteen shillings a week, tied up 
 to you, and payable weekly. Hagbut thinks that if he can in 
 any way get rid of this match, he will net certainly five, and 
 possibly seven thousand pounds." 
 
 " He is a villain," said Rebecca, with singular emphasis ; 
 "and I always told you so." 
 
 " This is rather sharp practice, certainly," said Mr. Turner. 
 " Now, I may have made such sharp practice, or I may not. 
 I can't say. I meet and am friendly with men who would do 
 such things, and I am never angry with them. But I am
 
 HETTY. 7' 
 
 angry now. For him to put his pudding brains against mine ! 
 Oh, Master Hagbut, the Tope shall be the richer for that odd 
 money sooner than you. For him to come lawyer. And 
 over me ! " 
 
 " Why is my sister to be sacrificed to such a wretch ? " 
 
 " He is not a wretch. She will lick his feet, and he will 
 let her, and be kind to her. It is the same between priests 
 and women in all churches. 1 myself would lick the dust off 
 the shoes of any man who could assure me of heaven — still 
 more will a frightened and ignorant woman. He will be very 
 kind to her, and she will adore him. Have you been saying 
 anything to her against him ? " 
 
 " I fear a great deal," said Rebecca, in downright honesty, 
 expecting an outburst. 
 
 " Uo not do so again, my dear Rebecca. Nothing can 
 prevent their being husband and wife, and so sow no seeds 
 of discord. Remember that, child. This has not been a 
 happy house ; do not use your power to make another such." 
 
 What between her father's kindness, and her ideal future 
 of poor Carry, it was through tears that she promised that 
 she would not. 
 
 " Do you like Mr. Morley ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, very much indeed. But I could never think of mar- 
 rying him."' 
 
 " Don't let us deceive one another, Rebecca. Is there any 
 one else ? " 
 
 " No," she said at once. Who could there be ? She was 
 not allowed to go out of the lane, and never saw anyone. 
 But she said it with so poor an air that her father looked sus- 
 piciously at her, and said, — 
 
 " Well, my girl, we had a great fight, and you won. Per- 
 haps I am older and wiser than when I knew your mother. 
 At all events, if I made errors with her, I do not wish to
 
 72 HETTY. 
 
 repeat them with you. I have told you how you will be 
 situated as regards money matters. Further than that, no 
 more constraint shall be put upon you than is now. Do you 
 understand ?" 
 
 " I am thankful." 
 
 " Keep your ears open, and your attention awake, and 
 never repeat what I am going to tell you. When you brought 
 disgrace on this house as you did, that fellow Hagbut came 
 to me to break off his engagement with you, as he was almost 
 bound to do. But the way he did it showed me he was a 
 rascal and a sneak, every inch of him. By heaven ! he little 
 knew how near he was being pitched into the lane." 
 
 "And yet poor Cany " began Rebecca. 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! you have enough to do without 
 minding Carry. Mind yourself and listen tome. You say 
 that no one has your heart ; I ask no further. But mind, if 
 there is, and Hagbut knows who it is, he will, if the man is 
 likely to be entirely displeasing to me, throw him against 
 you." 
 
 Rebecca sat perfectly silent, and her father saw that there 
 was more than he cared to know. At last she said : " Please, 
 father, has Mr. Morley a daughter?" 
 
 " He may have a dozen for aught I know. I only know his 
 eminent character ; I know_nothing of his domestic life, 
 except that he is a widower." 
 
 " Because he told me he had, and told me much about her. 
 And Hagbut denies that there is any such daughter." 
 
 " Hagbut is probably over-reaching himself in some way," 
 said Mr. Turner, coolly. " Suppose, for an instance, that 
 Morley had a daughter who had done him discredit, such as 
 yourself, you know, he might possibly be scheming to keep 
 her as long as possible in the background, and make anger 
 between you and Morley. In which, you see, he has already
 
 HETTY. 73 
 
 failed, for Morley has told you all about her. Mind, once 
 more, in conclusion ; if there is any man of whom I should 
 disapprove in this case, Hagbut tliinks he wins ^5000 by 
 your marrying him, and he will contrive that you should 
 meet him. And so, good-night.'' 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HARTOP. 
 
 PHiglP^ifAB, the little dog, used to bark furiously at 
 strangers in general, and regarded both Carry 
 and Mr. Turner in that light. So, when, two 
 days after the last conversation, Rebecca was 
 told that there was a gentleman to see her, 
 Mab barked all the way down-stairs, but on getting to the 
 sitting-room door began to whine and scratch joyously, so 
 that Rebecca thought it was Mr. Morley. 
 
 But it was not ; it was only the magnificent young sailor, 
 Hartop. She was sorry that he had come; and without per- 
 ceiving her cold reserved air, he came frankly and joyously 
 up to her, and took her hand. 
 
 " I could not get to you a moment before ; I have been 
 unloading all the day long, ever since we were in port till to- 
 day. My cousin, Mr. Hagbut, suggested to me that it would 
 be only kind if I were to come and tell you about those two." 
 
 Her father's words came on her with a shock. This, then, 
 was the man selected by Mr. Hagbut as the one most likely 
 to make mischief between her and her father. The man of 
 all others the most dangerous. 
 
 " Yet how could he have known that ? " It was indeed a 
 puzzle, if it were not an accident. All this went through her
 
 74 HETTY. 
 
 mind so quickly that she did not keep him waiting for his 
 answer. She said, promptly, " Which two ? " 
 
 "Why Mr. Morley and Hetty, to be sure," he replied, 
 wondering. 
 
 " Then there is a Hetty ? " said Rebecca, with animation. 
 
 " There was three days ago," he said laughing ; " and I 
 think you will find a young person of her appearance, and 
 claiming her name, walking about with her father in the 
 Boopjes of Rotterdam this afternoon.'' 
 
 " She is a good sailor, I dare say," said Rebecca. 
 
 " It would be a queer thing for her if she wasn't,"" said 
 Hartop, with another look of wonder. " But I didn't come 
 here to talk about her; I should talk all the afternoon if I 
 began about her. Do allow me to assure you that of all the 
 pretty, innocent little birds that fly over the tropic sea, she is 
 the prettiest and most innocent ; and of all the brave hearts 
 which beat truest and most steady in the worst gale that ever 
 blew, hers is the truest and steadiest. They will set you 
 against her, but don't believe them." 
 
 " Why should they set ine against her?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " She broke through rules, you know," said he, seriously» 
 "'If she and I had been what we are now, I should most 
 likely have been against it. But that was afterwards. We 
 won't talk of her; you shall judge her for yourself. Now 
 I want to ask you to walk with me. Do come. It is the 
 only civility I can show you." 
 
 " I will go and ask my father," she said, and so left him. 
 
 Mr. Turner was sitting alone in his bedroom, brooding in 
 his chair, and hearing some one coming, caught up his Bible 
 and bent his head over it ; a fact made patent to Rebecca by 
 seeing that he held it upside down. 
 
 " Father," she said quietly, as soon as she had shut the 
 door, "the young man you warned me of has come from
 
 HETTY. 75 
 
 Mr. Hagbut; and I have come to ask your leave to go out 
 to walk with him for an hour or so." 
 
 "No!" cried Mr. Turner, shutting up his Bible. '"Why, 
 this is as good as a play. Tell mc all about it. Who is 
 he?" 
 
 " He is young Hartop, a sailor; Mr. Hagbut*s cousin." 
 
 " Hagbut knows something against him, then, or— stay, 
 let us condemn no man — he has calculated on my having 
 objections to your marrying a sailor; that is it. Now, my 
 girl, let us have it all out ; there is more to come. I have 
 not watched witnesses' eyes for nothing all my life." 
 
 "You remember that Mr. Hagbut denied that Mr. Morley 
 had a daughter ?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "Well, he has such a daughter, and her name is Hetty; 
 and this young man is engaged to be married to her. And 
 he describes her as the most perfect being ever seen. I 
 don't know how I know it, but I do know this— if anything 
 were to come between this splendid Hetty and himself, he 
 would be a lost man." 
 
 " Then you see my theory of her being disreputable, and 
 of Hagbut's keeping her in the background to make a 
 quarrel on the score of want of confidence between you and 
 Morley, falls to the ground. 1 was under the impression 
 that, if there were such a girl, Hagbut would advise Morley 
 to keep her in the background until you were well committed 
 to him, and then reveal her disreputable existence by means 
 of one of those savoury old catamarans— vessels, I mean. 
 But this theory falls to the ground now, if she is what the 
 young man says she is. She cannot have done anything." 
 
 " She has done something, though, and something rather 
 strong. Her own father hinted it to me, and her own 
 devoted lover confirmed it. I don*t want to know what it is,
 
 76 HETTY. 
 
 but the young man, who is to marry her, hoped just now, 
 that the good ladies, whom you so well describe as savoury 
 catamarans, would not prejudice me against her. He says 
 she has broken through rules." 
 
 " I wish / could," said poor Mr. Turner, "but I am too 
 old. Go on, Rebecca, we have had less than half at present. 
 You have never got together evidence yet, my good girl, and 
 so you can't tell by a witness's eyes whether the story is all 
 told." 
 
 Rebecca laughed, and for the first time in her life, sat 
 down by her father's knee and leant her head against it. 
 
 " You are right," she went on. "Do you remember that 
 you said — well, if there was any ycung man with whom I was 
 in danger, who was disagreeable to you, that Hagbut would 
 throw him against me ? He has done so." 
 
 " Is there danger with this young man then ? Where 
 could you have seen him ? " 
 
 " In your own house; here, in the presence of Mr. Morley. 
 And there 7vas danger about him. And I want to go out a- 
 walking with him. And you are going to let me." 
 
 " Then there is no danger now ?" 
 
 " Not a bit," said Rebecca. "He has blown all my fancies 
 to the winds in ten minutes by his clear, manly frankness, 
 just as I created them in ten minutes for myself. No danger 
 at all." 
 
 "That is well," said Mr. Turner, noticing that, now his 
 hand was very near his daughter's beautiful hair, there was a 
 strange pleasure in passing his hand through it. " But have 
 you ever been indiscreet about this young man : to Carry, 
 for instance ?" 
 
 " I could not tell Carry what I had never confessed to 
 myself," said Rebecca. "Yet it would seem as if Mr. Hagbut 
 had second sight."
 
 HETTY. 77 
 
 " Carry possibly gave him some hint." 
 
 " But she could not have done so, father. She never heard 
 of him in her life." 
 
 "Then I will tell you what it is, my child. It is only an 
 old dodge of priest-craft, which is now called Jesuitism ; as 
 if a real Jesuit would have made such a risk. He sent him 
 here on chance of confusing counsel, finding himself possible 
 to make the most likely hash of matters, and pick his own 
 interest out— that is all; but Mr. Morley has put you on 
 your guard. Nothing more than that." And indeed, there 
 was nothing more: for Hagbut often overreached himself. 
 
 '•Well, he has failed," said Mr. Turner. "Where is the 
 young man ? Let us see him." 
 
 Rebecca, rising, reminded her father that the young man 
 had been waiting down-stairs above half-an-hour ; and they 
 went to see him. 
 
 The yoilng man, splendid as he was in beauty and stature, 
 accustomed to bully all sailors and officials in every part of 
 the globe, was terribly frightened at this dry old English 
 attorney. He and Jack Hord (of Wilmington, U.S., the 
 New York branch of the family, lately enriched, call them- 
 selves Howard) had with their stretchers alone kept the boat 
 free from the swarm of monkey-like Portuguese, nearly two 
 hundred strong, gesticulating and showing knives, while the 
 rest of their comrades were half-persuading, half-carrying, 
 that very indiscreet young man, Cornelius Kelly, back to the 
 boat; Cornelius not being in the least drunk, but having 
 been insulted by being called Lutherano, to which he could 
 only answer by howling, " Mono ! Mono!" That had been 
 a very dangerous disturbance, as dangerous a one as Belem 
 Castle sees often in these peaceful times. Also this young 
 man had been in other rows of a different kind. His strong 
 lungs and his commanding presence had brought him into
 
 7 8 HETTY. 
 
 trouble before now. While he was in the service of a small 
 house, in a screw steamer off the west coast of South America, 
 he, noticing the barometer and the weather generally, had 
 given orders to get up steam and put to sea, the captain being 
 still on shore, and he dreading a gale. There was no gale. 
 only an earthquake, and he proved clearly that the ship 
 would have been thrown a mile inland, if he had not given 
 these orders ; but the captain got him dismissed. In short, 
 this young man Hartop had been in all kinds of trouble and 
 bother, and had never yet shown himself afraid of anyone. 
 When his certificate was in question he was as bold and as 
 free before the court as any man. But this dry old lawyer 
 frightened him to death. For a guilty man is frightened 
 before a lawyer, and a sailor hates and dreads one. I think 
 a real sailor fears nothing but a lawyer. What must a guilty 
 sailor feel ? 
 
 And Hartop was a deeply guilty man. To the people he 
 loved and trusted more than any in the world, to Hartop and 
 Hetty, Mr. Morley had confided the fact that he was going 
 to ask Rebecca to be his wife, if things looked in any way 
 promising ; and had at the same time begged them never 
 to confide the fact to any human being. The poor girl must 
 not be put in a false position again. So young Hartop, being 
 full of kindliness and happiness, did not know how much his 
 future father-in-law had said to Rebecca, and was under the 
 general impression that old Turner was a Turk, — with a large 
 dowry ready, provided no indiscretion was committed — who 
 knew nothing about the arrangement. And also this Turk 
 was a lawyer, a creature worse than any Turk. So the 
 young man, treading on molten iron, bowed down, terrified, 
 before Mr. Turner. 
 
 Mr. Turner could not have known this, but he might have 
 guessed it possible. He was happy, as far as he could be,
 
 HETTY. 
 
 79 
 
 but the chance of bullying a young sailor was too good to be 
 lost. He did not re-assure that young man at all. 
 
 ' ; How do you do, sir? My daughter informs me that you 
 wish to take her out for a walk." 
 
 ; ' If it met your views, sir," said young Hartop. 
 
 "The question is whether it meets my daughter's views?" 
 said Mr. Turner, grimly. " Our neighbours are censorious. 
 But if she wants to go she can." 
 
 " 1 do want to go, pa," she saicl. 
 
 " Then get your bonnet on," he added, and followed her. 
 
 " Rebecca," he said to her, following her into her room, 
 '■ there is no harm in that lad, my child. That lad is in 
 love, and not with you." 
 
 " I know that," said Rebecca, cheerfully. 
 
 " Then look here," said her father ; " don't cross-question 
 him about this daughter of Morley's, this Hetty. It is not 
 fair on him. If she has been a fool he won't care much to 
 tell you about it. Are you quite safe, old girl ?' - ' 
 
 " Quite safe, pa," said Rebecca. And somehow they 
 kissed one another. And Rebecca said, " Pa, dear, why are 
 we not always like this ?" 
 
 And he said, " Let us try to be." 
 
 And so ended the incipient romance of the young sailor 
 Hartop. At least as regards Rebecca.
 
 8o HETTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 m 
 
 
 B3ggm 
 
 mm 
 
 
 i^aBH- 
 
 REBECCA'S VOYAGE WITH HIM, AND WHAT THEY SAW, 
 AND WHAT SHE SAW WHEN THEY CAME HOME. 
 
 HIS was the occasion of Rebecca's first voyage. 
 And she took her voyage in the sole company 
 of the young man whom she had considered to 
 be dangerous to her peace of mind. And it is 
 singular that he was not so now ; now that the 
 brooding engendered by the house and by the lane were 
 no more, he was no longer dangerous at all. But she wanted 
 to talk about Hetty, but did not do so because he did not ; 
 and he did not talk about Hetty because he thought her a 
 dangerous subject. For Hetty had broken rules. He talked 
 about the sea, and about the wild free lands that lay beyond 
 Limehouse. He asked her if she were a good sailor, and 
 she answered that she supposed she was no worse than 
 another, and repeated her question, " Was Hetty a good 
 sailor?" and he repeated his previous mysterious answer, 
 " It would be a queer thing surely if she were not." 
 
 The wind was free and fresh from the south, and the little 
 steamer went fast and busy from wharf to wharf down the 
 river. Under the bright sun, and the nimble pure air, and 
 the changing of the scene, Rebecca grew happy, and showed 
 her happiness by a thoughtful silence. 
 
 "Are you comfortable, Miss Turner?" said Hartop. 
 
 " I am more than comfortable. I am perfectly happy. I 
 cannot tell why, but it is so. It was wonderfully kind of 
 you to bring me here. I have never seen anything like 
 this before in my life. This is most wonderful and most 
 beautiful."
 
 HETTY, 81 
 
 " It is as good as carrying the north-east trade over the 
 line, to hear you say so," replied Hartop. 
 
 Said Rebecca, " I wish we could go to some place where 
 we could sec which way the ship was going." 
 
 And so Hartop carried her to the front of the little vessel, 
 and set her there. And she said, " Would you be so good 
 as not to talk to me. You sailors smoke your pipes, I know. 
 Would you kindly smoke yours now, and let me sit in 
 silence." 
 
 Hartop sat on the deck at her feet, to leeward, and 
 smoked. The little throbbing boat carried them both, past 
 the wharves and the city, towards the sea ; she sitting in a 
 Cashmere shawl like a figure-head. From time to time she 
 said to him, " Are you tired ? " and he said "No. He was 
 very happy. Why should he be tired ? " 
 
 " Because you are not talking to anybody," said Rebecca. 
 " I don't wish to talk ; and I am afraid that I am bad 
 company." 
 
 "You are very good and comfortable company," said 
 Hartop. " The worst mate of all is a sulky mate, and the 
 next worst is a jawing mate. I took you out for pleasure^ 
 not to talk to me. For instance, where were you when you 
 spoke ? " 
 
 " I was at the island of St. Boronden in the Atlantic. The 
 island where all things go right for evermore," said Rebecca. 
 " Where were you ? " 
 
 " I don't know that island," said Hartop. " For my part 
 I was crawling along in a fruit brig under Teneriffe, and 
 thinking how Hetty got on in that short chopping North 
 Sea. Break your slate, you know, and tilt the fragment up 
 in the window above the level of your eye, and you get 
 Teneriffe. But lor, you can't dream what Teneriffe is. And 
 still less Tristan d'Acunha. And still less the approach to 
 
 G
 
 82 HETTY. 
 
 the Australian shore. No man knows what that is till he 
 has seen it. Did you ever see the west front of Wells 
 Cathedral?" 
 
 "No. Why?" 
 
 " Because it is like Madeira, on the Atlantic side," said 
 Hartop. " But what can you know about islands ? You 
 have never seen any." 
 
 Rebecca had not. 
 
 " Islands are like cathedrals. Have you ever seen a 
 cathedral ? " 
 
 Only St. Paul's it seemed, with a distant view of West- 
 minster. 
 
 " Mr. Morley told us you had seen nothing," said this 
 young man. " Now, islands and cathedrals are one and the 
 same thing. They are the cathedrals of the wide, cruel 
 sea, and God Almighty built them with his own kind hands. 
 The cathedrals ashore were built by the priests : the cathe- 
 drals of the sea were built by God Almighty's own hands. 
 Think of that, Miss Rebecca. And what is the object of a 
 cathedral ? Peace. I have sailed with all creeds, and they 
 all ask for peace ; and I tell them all, that after the wild 
 wandering sea, you get peace on an island. I wish we could 
 go to an island — us four together." 
 
 Rebecca was too far in dream-land to ask him what he 
 meant by " us four." The river grew yet and yet more busy, 
 and at last the tall masts in the Pool came in sight, the 
 nimble little steamer stopped, and Hartop aroused her by 
 saying : " Will you go back now, or where will you go ? " 
 
 " Take me on towards the sea and let me be still," she 
 said. And in a few minutes the dexterous Hartop had her 
 on board a boat bound for Gravesend, and they throbbed 
 along on their strange voyage once more. 
 
 As the ships grew larger and larger her eyes seemed
 
 HETTY. 83 
 
 to expand. Hartop looked on her with that strange 
 reverential superstition which the highest class of sailor 
 has towards a beautiful woman. The old sailors' fancy 
 is that a ship in full sail, a field of corn, and a beau- 
 tiful woman, are the three finest things in nature ; and 
 the reason they will give you for this is that all of these 
 three things shadow out the hope of increase. For my own 
 part I know many less beautiful superstitions ; but that part 
 of it which relates to the beautiful woman was very much in 
 bold Hartop's soul that day, as he sat looking stealthily at 
 her, in the light of his future mother-in-law, thinking that 
 she was really after all worthy even of Mr. Morley; and, 
 moreover, turning over the wonderful fact that she had never 
 seen Hetty in her life. She spoke at last. 
 
 "Are these the real ships that go down into the great 
 deep sea ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said, eagerly. " There they are, Miss Turner, 
 ready for anything, from Cameroons to Sydney. See that 
 long-bodied, low-lying screw there. Very sister ship to that 
 Hetty was wrecked in two years ago." 
 
 " Has Hetty been shipwrecked, then ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 Hartop looked at her wonderingly for an instant, but 
 thought, " She knows nothing. It is for Morley to tell her." 
 
 " Yes, she has been wrecked three times now. That last 
 time was the time when the Queen wrote to her, and sent 
 her the Bible. I have often laughed when I told her that I 
 would never sail in the same ship with her." 
 
 " Wrecked three times ! " said Rebecca, half-awakened. 
 "Was Mr. Morley ever wrecked with his daughter?" 
 
 " Not likely," said Hartop. ' : The Lord don't cast his 
 best tools aside like that. It is easy enough, Miss Turner, 
 for a game and plucky girl like Hetty to stand on a cracking, 
 bursting deck, with the cruel sea hurling around her, no 
 
 G 2
 
 84 HETTY. 
 
 hope of life, and keep a parcel of women from going quite 
 mad, by singing of hymns to them, and by telling them of 
 Christ who walked on the waters, as Hetty did ; why that is 
 a thing any woman could do. You could do it if you gave 
 your mind to it. Het did that, and Het is a brick. But she 
 didn't do this. It took a man to do this. Mr. Morley went 
 alone into the rowdiest drinking house in the Nevada track 
 in the old times in California. Taylor himself had warned 
 him that he was a dead man if he went, for to refuse drink 
 in that house meant death. Morley laughed at Taylor him- 
 self, went into the grog-shop, was challenged to drink, and 
 then cast the liquor on the ground, and before he came out 
 of that grog-shop had given them a piece of his mind. 
 Taylor said that he would not have done it. What do you 
 think of that for instance ? " 
 
 " I am all abroad," said Rebecca. " It would seem that 
 Hetty is brave, but that Mr. Morley is braver." 
 
 " There is no man alive like Mr. Morley," said Hartop. 
 "He don't know what fear is." 
 
 " Let us talk about these ships," said Rebecca, " and leave 
 Mr. Morley to take care of himself." 
 
 So he told her all about them — where they sailed to, how 
 strangely they leaped and plunged in their agony at sea, for 
 all they were so still and silent now. This one had come 
 from sliding on slowly and silently among towering icebergs, 
 the one beside her was fresh from the palm-fringed quays of 
 the Pacific. So he sat in his gentle loyalty and talked to 
 her, she speaking seldom, but sitting wrapped in herself: 
 he never tiring of talking to her and sitting near her. Little 
 did she dream of the tie which bound him so closely to her; 
 little did she know what sacred and deeply-loved being she 
 w;is to him ; how he and the two others had talked about 
 her hour by hour ; how deeply important she was to three
 
 HETTY. 85 
 
 people : one of whom she had never seen, one whom she 
 had seen but twice, and a third she had scarcely seen half-a- 
 dozen times. These kind souls had been preparing a home 
 for her in their hearts, and she knew not of it. 
 
 It was only when he left her, very late, they having come 
 from Woolwich by railway, at her father's door, that she 
 appreciated hew utterly she had lost herself. " I fear he 
 will scold me," she thought, " and our new-made confidence 
 will suffer ; " but the maid only said that he was busy, and 
 that Miss Caroline was in her room. Somehow the com- 
 pany of this most excellent and most .admirable Carry did 
 not seem in any way to suit this young lady who had been 
 wool-gathering in the moon all day; she took off her hat, 
 and catching up her little dog, walked slowly along the hall. 
 When she was nearly opposite her father's room-door she 
 put down her little dog and took off her hat, letting her hair 
 fall down by accident. Mab immediately began to . run 
 round and round, barking, after her tail. 
 
 The noise instantly aroused Mr. Turner, for coming out 
 quickly and closing the door behind him, he found himself 
 face to face, under the light in the passage, with a beautiful 
 and noble looking woman, draped nearly from head to foot 
 in a Cashmere shawl, with part of her hair fallen down — a 
 woman who looked very quiet, still, and calm, and whom he 
 recognised, to his own astonishment, as his own daughter, 
 Rebecca. 
 
 He had never realised her before. He had never truly 
 trusted her before. There was something now in the calm, 
 strong, gentle face, which made him see an ally, an ally 
 worth all the world. Mr. Turner had been something else 
 before he had been converted, it seemed ; for the first real 
 word of confidence he ever uttered to his daughter, smelt 
 very strongly of the evil odour of the old Adam.
 
 86 HETTY. 
 
 " Where the devil have you been all this time ? " 
 
 " I have been down among the ships with Hetty's lover, 
 Jack Hartop," she said. " I am very sorry, father, but I was 
 so happy " 
 
 " Hang Jack Hartop," said Mr. Turner, in a whisper. 
 " Come in here, and hold your tongue. I want your help, 
 child ; take up your dog and nurse it, it will be an excuse 
 for not talking." 
 
 " Hetty is brave, but Morley is braver," was what she 
 thought. " Let me see what I can do." So she took up 
 Mab, stilled her and passed in, to find two men in her 
 father's room, whom she had never seen before. 
 
 The first her eye rested on was a gallant looking young 
 gentleman, Lord Ducetoy. She had seen a specimen of his 
 class before, had been with one all day, indeed, so her eyes 
 turned to the other, who was a man the like of which she had 
 never seen before, and which, I hope, we may never see. 
 
 A noble looking old gentleman. In his dress, in his 
 hands, in his complexion, there was gentleman written with 
 no unerring hand. Yet sunk in a heap on a chair, with limp 
 limbs, bowed head, and an appealing, whipped hound look 
 in his handsome face. She had never seen such a fine 
 gentleman before ; and she had never seen such a hopeless 
 look of humble pleading woe. Mr. Spicer the sweep on 
 Sunday, or Jim Akin the costermonger, looked grander 
 than he. 
 
 " My daughter," said Mr. Turner, as he brought in 
 Rebecca. " Lord Ducetoy, Sir Gorham Philpot." 
 
 " You have brought in the young lady to put a stop to this 
 conversation, I suppose ? " said Sir Gorham. 
 
 " That is the case exactly," said Mr. Turner. But Lord 
 Ducetoy and Sir Gorham, both heated, continued it. 
 
 " I never harmed you, Ducetoy. That protest from the
 
 HETTY. 87 
 
 bank only came from one of the rascally directors. Why 
 should you serve me thus ? " 
 
 " Because, uncle, as I have told you before, I do not 
 desire that my plate, jewels, and bonds should go in the 
 bankruptcy." 
 
 " And as I have told you before, the mere re-deposit of 
 them would just enable us to pull through. If the chattels 
 and papers so long left in our hands were now deposited 
 again, it would give confidence in quarters where we want 
 confidence, and pull us through." 
 
 " Uncle, the utmost I will do will be to pay in ,£500, and 
 not withdraw my account." 
 
 " I have never, I swear solemnly," said Sir Gorham, 
 " done anything to injure any human being. I worked hard 
 at that bank, and we sold it for two hundred thousand 
 pounds. Since then I have been living as a country squire. 
 By my connection with religion I attracted deposits from 
 Christian widows and orphans. It is not I only that am 
 ruined, for my estates will not one half stand the drain on 
 them. I could stand an almshouse myself, (God knows, I 
 wish I were alone with God in one now.) but all these 
 widows and orphans are to sink into poverty through their 
 trust in me. I profess, and I ruin widows and orphans, all 
 because my nephew refuses to deposit papers and jewels 
 which would pull us through. And my poor son. Oh, my 
 poor son! And so you won't pull us through as you might? 
 The mere fact of your moving them to another banker's is 
 ruin to us." 
 
 " I tell you, uncle, that I will not remove my account." 
 
 " Your account. Our only assets are your mortgages. 
 These papers, you have moved them to another banker's. 
 Where are they then ? " said the old man, with his first 
 flush of fire. Turner answered, —
 
 88 HETTY. 
 
 " Sir Gorham, the papers to which you allude are in a 
 place which renders it unlikely that they will ever be used in 
 a criminal court against any one. I am sorry to close the 
 conversation in this way, but consider it closed." 
 
 Sir Gorham said not one word, but rose firmly and calmly, 
 and walked towards the door. Lord Ducetoy said, " Good- 
 night, uncle," but the old man never answered him. Mr. 
 Turner was going to escort him to the door, when he sud- 
 denly found himself confronted by his daughter, with a 
 candle in her hand, who boldly and firmly put her hand 
 upon his chest and pushed him back. Saying in a whisper, — 
 
 " That is a broken man, he wants a woman with him." 
 Turner bowed his head reverentially and went back. Sir 
 Gorham went downstairs with Rebecca, holding the light 
 
 " You have lost your money, sir, have you not ? " she said. 
 
 He answered, " Yes." 
 
 " A good many people who come here have lost their 
 money," she said, briskly. " I wish 1 had lost mine, all 
 the trouble I ever had in my life has been through the 
 money my father is going to leave me when he dies, which 
 will be the bitterest day of my life. Keep up your spirits 
 and laugh about it." 
 
 " You cannot laugh after seventy, madam," said the old 
 man ; yet she fancied that he walked out into the dim dark 
 night more cheerfully for what she had said.
 
 HETTY. 89 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A CONFIDENCE OF THREE. 
 
 HEN she came back Lord Ducetoy was 
 walking up and down, and saying, — 
 
 " It would have been perfectly monstrous 
 for me to do what he proposed. I might 
 have ruined myself and gone to Canada 
 again to help him ; but to help an unlimited Company, 
 no. You will continue your trust for friendship's sake. 
 Ah, here is my cousin. Cousin, if you were engaged to 
 the finest girl in the whole world, — who, I am happy to 
 say, has not ten pounds, — you would scarcely put a con- 
 siderable part of your property into bankruptcy to please 
 your uncle ? " 
 
 " As I never was engaged to the finest girl in the world," 
 said Rebecca ; " and as I have no uncle, I cannot answer 
 the question, Lord Ducetoy. But it is supper-time, and I 
 am very hungry, for I have spent most of the day among the 
 ships down the river, in company with a very handsome 
 young sailor, a man I am getting more and more fond of 
 every time I see him : a young man who will be fairly in a 
 position to marry after his next voyage." 
 
 If Lord Ducetoy had lived only in England he might have 
 mistaken her. But he had been to the Westward, and had 
 seen what pure and true gallantry may exist between man 
 and woman with the most entire freedom of innocent speech. 
 Mr. Turner's brow grew dark when she said this. Lord 
 Ducetoy laughed, and said, " You are bridesmaid, then ; and 
 who is the bride ? " 
 
 " Hetty Morley is the bride," said Rebecca, at supper,
 
 90 HETTY. 
 
 with her eyes wide open ; " but what she is I cannot con- 
 ceive. She has done something extraordinary ; has pulled 
 down the pillars of the Philistines' temple in some way. 
 But 1 want to speak about the old man whom I saw 
 out. Be tender with him, you two. I mean my Lord, and 
 Father." 
 
 " Believe me we will, Miss Turner," said Lord Ducetoy. 
 " Believe me that we mean nothing else. He will never 
 want for anything he has been accustomed to till the day of 
 his death. Tell my cousin that, Turner." 
 
 " Why do you call me cousin ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 " Your mother was my first cousin," said he. 
 
 And soon after that she went away ; but her father told 
 her not to go to bed. Lord Ducetoy said, when she had 
 gone away, — 
 
 " What a splendid creature. How have I angered her ? " 
 
 " By mentioning your cousinship, my Lord. In our case, 
 our family connexion with yours has not been happy ; the 
 girl knows something of it, or her instincts have told her. 
 And instead of harking back to the traditions of your order, 
 or staying in the respectable mean of ours, she has cast 
 herself into utter Radicalism, which has given me great 
 trouble in my religious connexion. The girl does not know 
 a duchess from a dustman's wife." 
 
 " Well, I got the same way of thinking in the prairies," 
 said the honest young fellow. 
 
 " Yes, there is no radical like a young whig," said Turner, 
 with a sneer. 
 
 " I shall get it all knocked out of me as I grow up, then ? " 
 said Lord Ducetoy. 
 
 " Undoubtedly," said Turner, suddenly and keenly, some 
 old gleam of Puritan democracy flashing out irrepressibly. 
 " In your class the metal never rings true. It can't. Every
 
 HETTY. 91 
 
 word you say is said with a view to excuse your order, to 
 excuse its mere existence." 
 
 " We are afraid of your attacking our property, you see," 
 said the youth ; " you democrats arc always holding that over 
 us ; that is what makes Tories. It is odd that a man like 
 you, who have made so much money by the mere legal waifs 
 and strays of our family property, should be a radical. I am. 
 I have land in Canada, and land in the United States, and 
 if you don't know it, I can tell you that society in New 
 England is much pleasanter than I can find in this cockney- 
 fied England." 
 
 Mr. Turner was not prepared with arguments. This young 
 lord was mad. At tJiat time. He would not be considered 
 quite so mad now. The idea of a man of many acres, and 
 high position, craving for the rest and peace of pure demo- 
 cracy was horrifying to him. His religion was tolerably 
 democratic, certainly; but he had never reduced it to 
 practice. 
 
 There was one thing he knew, however, and practised, 
 too, which he' had got from his religion, — mercy. 
 
 Rebecca was waiting for him in his bed-room, and she 
 began : — 
 
 " What is the matter about that old gentleman ? " 
 
 " I kept you up to tell you," he answered. " He and his 
 brother sold their bank to a company, and retired on their 
 property, leaving their accumulated property liable to the 
 claims of the limited company; and his brother has died 
 without any children ; and the old man has left his eldest 
 son in the bank ; and both father and son, to keep things 
 square, have forged names. They have forged my name 
 among others ; and I have got the forged papers in the 
 house ; and they know it. And I want to spare the old one 
 if I can; but the young one knows I have his forgeries
 
 9 2 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 here, and he has set men on — for burglary, no less. If 
 those papers were to go out of my hands and get into the 
 bankruptcy which is coming, those two men, father and son, 
 would go to Portland. If I were to move the jewellery to 
 another banker's it would be known, and bring on the 
 smash sooner. And so it is all here, and you know it. 
 Thirty thousand pounds are under that bed. So keep 
 awake, and keep your dog awake. Give me a kiss, and 
 go to bed now." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A WEDDING. 
 
 S the little story runs on, we must come again 
 to Mr. Hagbut's affair. 
 
 Was this actually Carry ? Yes, it was ac- 
 tually Carry. Rebecca had helped to dress 
 her, but Rebecca scarcely knew her, when she 
 came into the room in her modest bride's dress. She was 
 so pretty and so bright that Rebecca scarcely knew her own 
 sister. 
 
 Rebecca was by no means acting as bridesmaid, far from 
 it. In the first place, her father had rebelled against brides- 
 maids altogether, and in the course of a somewhat peppery 
 conversation with Rebecca, had said that she herself, con- 
 sidering what her relations with the bridegroom had been, 
 had much better stay away. But Rebecca, getting more 
 and more sure of her position with her father every day, had 
 declined to stay away. 
 
 " Not see old Carry married ! " she said ; " I am sure 
 I would not miss it for all the world. She has been a dear,
 
 HETTY. 93 
 
 good, loving sister to me, and has borne more petulance 
 from me than 1 ever have from her." 
 
 " Then you don't feel any spite against her or him ? " 
 said Mr. Turner. 
 
 " Law, pa, what nonsense ! " said Rebecca. 
 
 Although there were no real bridesmaids, at the same 
 time two young ladies were, as Hartop or Morley (or, for 
 that matter, Hetty) would have said, " told off" to act in 
 that capacity. They were from Miss Soper's late school, 
 and they wept as copiously as any bridesmaids at St. 
 George's, Hanover Square. Carry did not feel at all as if 
 she wanted to cry ; but she thought it was the proper thing 
 to do, and cried hard. 
 
 The neighbours came in and chattered and giggled, — 
 Mrs. Russel and Miss Soper among them. After they had 
 come in and saluted the bride, Miss Soper drove her sharp 
 elbow into Mrs. RusseFs side, and said, — 
 
 "Is he coming?" 
 
 "Who?" said Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " Morley." 
 
 " / don't know," said Mrs. Russel. " Don't shove like 
 that ; you've broke two of my ribs, I do believe." 
 
 " Where's she ? " said Miss Soper. 
 
 " Who?" said Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " Rebecca." 
 
 " / don't know," said Mrs. Russel. " She will hardly 
 have the face to show, I should think. I wish you 
 would get out of that trick of ramming your elbow into 
 another person's ribs when you ask a question. I'm 
 
 black and blue No. Why, that's her, ain't it, again the 
 
 wall?" 
 
 It ivas her, Mrs. Russel. That grand beauty, with her 
 chin on her hand, and her elbow on her knee, who sat
 
 94 HETTY. 
 
 alone, with her great speculative eyes, seeing beyond you 
 and the crowd behind you, was Rebecca. And as she sat 
 there that morning, all alone, dressed in dove-coloured silk 
 and pearls, there was scarcely a handsomer woman in all 
 old England, from palace to cottage. Your eye was not 
 trained for beauty ; you could not see it. 
 
 Miss Soper could, to a certain extent. In her business 
 of schoolmistress she had had so much beauty put under 
 her eye that she knew it when she saw it. Mrs. Russel's 
 definition of beauty would have limited itself to " a fresh 
 complexion." Miss Soper had a dim idea of generalising 
 from fact. Jewellers' clerks get a knowledge of what is the 
 prevailing taste in jewellery. An old picture-dealer's clerk 
 will tell you what will sell and what will not. So Soper, in 
 her trade, knew a pretty girl when she saw one, though in 
 her office of dragon she disliked receiving them. But she 
 knew more. She was well-connected in the trade, and she 
 knew houses who would take an article which was seldom 
 offered to her, and which often, in her way of doing things, 
 gave her great trouble— a very handsome girl. So looking 
 at Rebecca, she said, — 
 
 " She is wonderfully handsome." 
 
 " Do you think so, my dear?" said Mrs. Russel. " I 
 can't see it." 
 
 " No one ever supposed so," said Miss Soper. 
 
 " Don't shove again, dear; pray don't," said Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " What did I tell you about that girl when we got her 
 forbidden to go out of the lane? " said Miss Soper. 
 
 " I forget," said Mrs. Russel. 
 
 As it seemed that Miss Soper had forgotten also, she 
 resumed the discussion at another point. 
 
 " Shall we go and speak to her? " said Miss Soper. 
 
 " My dear soul," said the really good though cross Russel,
 
 HETTY. 95 
 
 " I think we ought. The poor child is pining over Mr. 
 Hagbut; it would be only kind." 
 
 Was she, Mrs. Russel? No, she was away from you all, 
 with the sounds of the great sea. While she had been 
 sitting there in her dove-coloured silk all alone she had 
 watched your figures till she had tired of them, and had 
 gone to sea once or twice. You were quite out of her 
 thought. She did not want to be naughty, but she could. 
 Why did not you leave her alone? 
 
 She could be horribly naughty, and she had the most 
 intense dislike for these two ladies. If you had told her that 
 Mrs. Russel was only a hot-tempered, gossiping scold, who 
 would have given the bed from under her to release the son 
 she had scolded out of doors, she would have laughed at you. 
 If you had told her that that intolerable woman, Miss Soper, 
 was in her way a heroine, and had slaved all her life to keep 
 a ruined family together, and in doing so — in training virtu- 
 ous women, had done more good than was ever likely to fall 
 to the share of our poor Rebecca, she would have laughed at 
 you again. Their formulas had been rendered hateful to 
 her, and she hated them through their formulas, which had 
 plagued her. She was a very naughty girl, and they made 
 her naughtier. 
 
 She was rounding some dim wild cape in a gale of 
 wind, and there were two with her whom she knew and 
 one who always stood perversely behind her. And the 
 one who stood behind her kept saying like a cuckoo, 
 " Not yet. Not yet." And again like a black-bird, " Not 
 till you're fit. Not till you're fit." And there suddenly ap- 
 proached to her her deadly enemies, the Russel and the 
 Soper. What reader would trust her temper under such 
 circumstances ? 
 
 She rose and gave them a sweeping curtsey and, may I
 
 96 HETTY. 
 
 say it, the devil entered into her. It was only a very little 
 one. 
 
 " Are you quite well, Miss Turner?" said the fat Russel. 
 
 " I am quite well, thank you," said Rebecca. " I had a 
 holiday lately. It has done me much good." 
 
 " Indeed! another ?" said the Soper, alluding to the terri- 
 ble escapade to Ramsgate. 
 
 "Yes," said Rebecca, looking at her with a look which 
 the Soper had never seen in any of her school girls' faces. 
 " Another. A young gentleman from the sea, came and took 
 me out for a holiday, and he took me down the river all the 
 way to Gravesend. And we were together all day." 
 
 " Who went with you, my dear ?" said Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " He did," said Rebecca. 
 
 "No one else?" 
 
 "What did we want with any one else? He was very 
 handsome and agreeable, and a third would have been one 
 too many. I should like you to be introduced to that young 
 gentleman, Miss Soper. His hair is so beautiful. Little 
 curls all over his head. He sat at my feet the most of the 
 time, and if I had had a pair of scissors, I believe I should 
 have snipped one off." 
 
 The allied powers retreated. Says Russel, " That girl 
 will go to the bad." 
 
 " Not she," hissed Soper in her ear. " She is just the very 
 one of all others who won't. She is not in my line, I did not 
 have that article in my establishment, but I know enough to 
 know that." 
 
 Rebecca said to herself, " It is the only way to treat you 
 people. If kings and priests would not make outrageous 
 pretensions, democracy would die : at least pa says so. Ha! 
 you two, Carry said you were coming." 
 
 She sat perfectly still after this, in her old attitude, quite
 
 HETTY. 97 
 
 quiet, knowing that they would come to her. The chairs 
 beside her were unoccupied, for the Philistines did not know 
 exactly, whether they ought to go near her. and her father 
 made no sign. " Those two," were quickly sitting beside 
 her. She was determined to amuse herself, and in answer to 
 their greetings she replied, without raising her chin from her 
 hand, — 
 
 "Where is Hetty?" 
 
 " She is at home," said Mr. Morley. 
 
 " What is she doing?" said Rebecca, without moving. 
 
 " She is not doing anything to-day," said young Hartop. 
 " She is getting the duds together. Change of ship, you 
 know." 
 
 " Now, Jack," said Mr. Morley. " Mind your promise." 
 
 Rebecca, from young Hartop's silence, thought that Morley 
 was angry, but moving her chin from her hand and looking 
 up in his face she saw that his eyebrows were raised, and 
 that the corners of his mouth were down. She also noticed 
 that he looked in his way more handsome than any man she 
 had ever seen. But she had noticed that before. 
 
 The next properly arranged wedding you go to, when you 
 have looked at the bridegroom long enough, look at the 
 bride's father. If it is a well-arranged marriage there will 
 be the same light in the eyes of both. This was not a well- 
 arranged wedding, for our poor Rebecca, whom I hope you 
 have forgiven, had rather spoilt it by her wild conduct. Mr. 
 Hagbut had changed rather quickly too; and there was a 
 cloud over it by his mere presence. Mr. Turner, man of the 
 world, knew this, and did not show to advantage; he was 
 haggard and worn, and bent his head. 
 
 He had been into the room and out again. She had 
 scarcely noticed him at first, but when he came in a second 
 time, she watched his bowed head and rose to her feet. 
 
 H
 
 9 3 HETTY. 
 
 I know a young lady of such strange and radiant beauty, 
 that I and my companion always know, when we go to a 
 country gathering, in one instant, whether she is there or 
 not. Rebecca's beauty was not so great as that lady's, I will 
 allow; yet when she rose from between Hartop and Mr. 
 Morley her presence was felt. The babble which was so'mo- 
 on in awaiting the bridegroom died into whispers— into 
 silence — as she came softly forward and kissed her father. 
 
 " Give me your blessing, father." 
 
 Turner raised his head as she bent hers. 
 
 " The Lord of Miriam and of Jael bless thee, my daughter. 
 Smite as Jael, then sing as Miriam. Thou art blessed, oh! 
 my daughter." 
 
 And so he kissed her, and she went back and sat between 
 Hartop and Mr. Morley again. 
 
 "He has forgiven her," whispered Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " Hold your tongue," said Miss Soper. " There is some- 
 thing / can't understand about this, and so I don't suppose 
 you can." 
 
 " Keep close to me, you two," said Rebecca, in a whisper; 
 " I am frightened. Don't leave me, you two." 
 
 " Are you ill ?" said Hartop, also in a whisper. 
 
 " No, I am never ill. But these people frighten me. 
 This house is frightful, and the lane is frightful. You 
 don't know what this house is. There is poison in it. 
 My father cannot give me his blessing without frightening 
 me. And Carry says that there is blood at the foot of the 
 stairs," she added, wildly and hurriedly. " Why should he 
 talk of Jael?" 
 
 " I wish Hetty was here," said Hartop, in a low voice. 
 
 " Quiet, my child, quiet," said Mr. Morley, laying his 
 hand on her arm ; " talk of something else. What shall we 
 talk of?"
 
 HETTY. 99 
 
 "The sea," said Rebecca, herself in an instant; " I want 
 to know about the sea, or about Hetty Morley." 
 
 " There is no such person," said Hartop, turning and look- 
 ing into Rebecca's face. 
 
 " No such person ! " said Rebecca, aghast ; " is she 
 drowned ?" 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Hartop, bringing his face close 
 to hers ; " Hetty is alive, but she is Hetty Hartop now, 
 for she and I were married by Mr. Morley yesterday 
 morning." 
 
 Her dull horror of the old house, and the quaint company, 
 was gone at once by this pretty piece of news. It was some- 
 thing so bright, so human, so well, so romantic, that a 
 
 great smile spread over her face as she said, — 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Fact, I assure you. Yesterday morning. You were not 
 to be told, but I saw you were getting low." And, indeed, 
 the tact of this young sailor was very great, for Rebecca was 
 quite roused again and gay. 
 
 " You provoking people. I want to see Hetty, and you 
 will tell me nothing of her." 
 
 " It wouldn't do here," said] Hartop ; " they wouldn't 
 stand it." 
 
 " But what is she like ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " What is she like ?" said the bridegroom. " Why, she is 
 like her father; that's about what she is like. You've seen 
 him" he growled. 
 
 Rebecca turned on Mr. Morley. " She is like you I" 
 
 " But younger, you know, and more good-looking," said 
 Mr. Morley, with a bow. 
 
 And Rebecca had just settled emphatically in her mind 
 that Hetty was very handsome, when enter the bride- 
 
 II 2
 
 ioo HETTY. 
 
 " Why that is never him," said Rebecca, suddenly. 
 
 It was, though. A man at his best (and a man generally 
 makes the best of himself when he is going to be married,) is 
 a very different thing from a man at his worst. Rebecca and 
 Hartop had only known him at his worst, and even Morley, 
 knowing him better than they did, was surprised. " That 
 big, fat, pale-faced man," he thought, " has actually more 
 vitality than I have. I shall last longer, but if I had been 
 what he has been, I could not have shown such a presence." 
 
 A man, we must remember, with sufficient physique for 
 the first or second Life-Guards, who has spent his life in 
 talking religionism to foolish and uneducated woman, is 
 very likely to become fat, ill-dressed, and untidy. But put 
 that man on his mettle. Get him rejected by a beautiful 
 girl, and make him bridegroom to another girl, and I fancy 
 you will find some of the old Adam in him. There was a 
 considerable deal of the old Adam in Hagbut that day; so 
 much that he looked a rather noble person. 
 
 Rebecca leant back in wonder, and said aloud, (for she 
 knew that no one could hear her but Mr. Morleyand Hartop; 
 and she did not " mind " them,) " I could not have believed 
 it. Why the man is handsome and noble looking." 
 
 ' Is there any reason why he should not look noble," said 
 Mr. Morley, quietly. " My dear child, that man has done 
 more good in his day, than ever you will have the chance of 
 doing, even if you had the power or the will. His formulas 
 displease you ; they are purely scriptural, and move the dead 
 bones of the middle class into life. His vulgarity displeases 
 you ; that very vulgarity is the key note of his power among 
 the vulgar, who would dislike and possibly resent the minis- 
 trations of a scholar and a gentleman, who could not under- 
 stand their ways of thought, and who would continually keep 
 their inferiority before their eyes, by talking in a dialect more
 
 HETTY. 101 
 
 refined than their own. I pray God that when I die I may 
 claim to have done as much good as Hagbut has." 
 
 " Yes ! " said Rebecca, thinking. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Morley. "There are those who say 
 that such men as Hagbut vulgarise religion. It is not true, 
 or at best only half true. They find a vulgarised religion 
 among vulgar people, and they preach it, as honestly and 
 as nobly as this man has ; and he raises his people by 
 doing so." 
 
 "How can he raise them by being vulgar?" asked Re- 
 becca. 
 
 " He raises them, in spite of all his vulgarity, to the level 
 of Christianity ; and at that point both he and they cease to 
 be vulgar. I daresay that the Covenanters ate with their 
 knives, but they could die like the best gentleman of the lot. 
 While there are vulgar people, you must have vulgar priests. 
 I, being a gentleman myself, know that well. That man 
 Hagbut, whose ways of speech and of action are an offence 
 to me, has brought more souls to Christ than ever I shall 
 bring, with my twopenny refinements. He comes of their 
 own class, and their language is his. Their language is 
 foreign to me, and I cannot imitate it. And that lower middle 
 class is the very one which wants rousing and exciting. The 
 great use of the dissenting clergymen is to rouse that class, 
 and to ennoble them. Hagbut can do it. I cannot. I am 
 a useless man compared to him." 
 
 "Yet you can bring sailors to chapel, sir," said Hartop, 
 quietly. 
 
 " Ah, yes, I can do that," said Mr. Morley, with sudden 
 animation. " Yes, boy, I can do that. That was a good 
 thing for you to say. Yes ! Yes ! they come again and 
 again. It is not utterly nothing to keep lads in the faith 
 their mothers taught them through all temptations. You
 
 k 
 
 1 02 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 must come down and hear me preach some day, Miss Turner. 
 See, the bride is moving. We must go." 
 
 So they went. And Hagbut married Carry; and the 
 Hagbut episode in her little life came to an end. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONFIDENCES. 
 
 |JND Carry was gone, and Rebecca had to under- 
 take her duties. 
 
 " I shall make a fine mess of it at first, pa," 
 she said to her father on the first day, " for I 
 have been most diligently idle all my life. But 
 I will do the best I can. I .can't scold and worry, but I 
 will keep the maids in order for all that. You shan't want 
 anything, my dear." 
 
 "You will do well enough if you care to do it," said Mr. 
 Turner, "/don't want scolding or worrying; I have lost my 
 faith in it. That is what made the mischief between your 
 mother and me." 
 
 " Well, dear pa, that is all over and gone. We shall be 
 happy together, you know." 
 
 "/don't know. You maybe happy, for you have hope 
 before you — the hope of my death. I am a broken man. I 
 wish I was dead." 
 
 " I am sure I don't know why, father," said Rebecca, with 
 a heavy heart and a light tongue ; " what nonsense you talk. 
 Is there any man in our connexion more honoured than you 
 are ? As for the money I am to have at your death, I wish 
 you would leave it to Carry, and then you would not suspect 
 my love."
 
 HETTY. 103 
 
 " You are a foolish girl." 
 
 "I think you are a very foolish man," .said Rebecca, 
 stoutly ; " that prospective money has been the greatest 
 plague of my life ; I wish it was in the deep Atlantic. That 
 
 Mr. Hatrbut would have left me alone if it had not been 
 
 for that money." 
 
 " You were too good for him,'' said Turner. " Child, have 
 you ever thought of any one else ? " 
 
 " As a husband ? " 
 
 " Yes ; as a husband." 
 
 " Certainly," said Rebecca ; " for a whole week I thought 
 I should have liked very much to marry young Hartop. But, 
 here, he has gone and married Hetty, leaving me desolate 
 and disconsolate. There was never any one so shamefully 
 deceived as I have been." 
 
 " Do you know Hetty Morley?" said Mr. Turner. 
 
 "No, I don't," said Rebecca; "the artful young puss! 
 
 When I do I will give her a piece of my mind. Young 
 
 I mean Mr. Hartop, has used me shamefully. It is all 
 very well for you to laugh, pa, but you wouldn't like it 
 yourself." 
 
 " Come here," said Mr. Turner. And Rebecca came and 
 sat at his feet. 
 
 " I have been a hard father to you, my child, and I do not 
 know how I have won your love. But I seem to have it. 
 God is very good. He is not what they want to make Him 
 out, is He?" 
 
 Rebecca answered her father by stroking his hand and 
 putting it to her lips. 
 
 " My head is growing old, girl. I am a broken man ; but 
 I will do my duty to the very last. I am not to be trusted. 
 This responsibility about Ducetoy's papers is killing me. I 
 never thought I should have found my truest, kindest
 
 104 HETTY. 
 
 friend in you, but it is so. You will stay by me to the 
 end?" 
 
 "To the death, father;" she did not want him to get ex- 
 cited, and so she said no more. 
 
 " You are a better man than I am, child, and 1 wander 
 to-night. But, believe me, that Morley's God is the true 
 God — is the true God— and — and not Hagbut's. Where is 
 the little dog ? " 
 
 " She is here, father," said Rebecca, putting Mab on his 
 lap. 
 
 " Pretty little beast ; bonny little beast. Bark for us, little 
 one. Defend us. My dear Rebecca, the God who m*ade 
 this little thing was not Hagbut's God, but Morley's." 
 
 "^There is one — but one God, father," said Rebecca. And 
 she said it because she did not know what to say. 
 
 " Yes, but they make two or three. See. girl ! Will you 
 promise me one thing ? " 
 
 " I will do as you tell me," said Rebecca ; " if you will be 
 always as you are now." 
 
 " Promise me that you will never join the established church 
 after I am dead." 
 
 Rebecca sat silent for a long time. At last she said, — 
 
 " I don't think that I could promise as much as that, 
 father. I think it extremely improbable, but I will not pledge 
 myself. I tell you honestly that if I were to quit our con- 
 nexion, I should go either to the Moravians or to the Primi- 
 tive Methodists." . 
 
 " They are not a very high sect, my child," said Mr. 
 Turner. 
 
 " I don't want a very high sect," said Rebecca ; " but that 
 is just where it is."
 
 1 1 L2TTY. 
 
 it>5 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DARKER HOURS STILL. 
 
 ULL was the old house, duller, alas, than ever it 
 was, for there was not even old Carry now ; and 
 Mr. Turner left alone in the house with the 
 favourite daughter of his dead wife, began to 
 mope and brood over that miserable old busi- 
 ness. It was evident also to Rebecca, that his mind was 
 not by any means what it had been. 
 
 She was free to go where she would now, but she never 
 went far out of the lane, except a few times as far as Putney 
 Bridge. She used to slip across sometimes to see Mrs. 
 Spicer or Mrs. Akin, in a quiet neighbourly way, and hear 
 their gossip, give them books, and other little things, doing 
 them high honour. It would have been an evil time for 
 any man who insulted her while Mr. Spicer or Akin were 
 near. 
 
 Those two worthies were the very picture of comfort and 
 contentment every Sunday morning, each in his shirt sleeves 
 and a long pipe in his mouth, as Rebecca took her father to 
 chapel, but one morning she missed them, and thought they 
 had gone for an expedition somewhere : "It is very little 
 pleasure they get,'' she thought. " We ought not to begrudge 
 it to them." But when they got inside the chapel, who should 
 be sitting near the door but Spicer and Akin in their best 
 clothes. Rebecca flushed up with real pleasure, and when 
 service was over, she made her father stop while she spoke 
 to them. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you here." 
 
 " Yes, miss," replied Akin. " It looked so nice seeing you
 
 io5 HETTY. 
 
 and the govenor going every Sunday, that we thought we'd 
 go. That's about the size of it, miss." 
 
 " I hope you like it." 
 
 " Yes, miss, we likes it well enough," said Jim Akin, "but 
 we don't make much fist on it at fust." 
 
 " Ah ! you won't find it strange long," said Rebecca. And 
 so they parted. 
 
 Her father asked her as they went home under the dull 
 grey sky, if she had asked these men to come to chapel : 
 and she had said, " Xo, that she had never mentioned it to 
 them," and he said: "I am very glad of that. Whatever 
 you do, don't undertake the responsibility of forcing religion 
 on other people. Let them find it out for themselves — " he 
 was going on to say a great deal more, as it seemed to 
 Rebecca from the tone of his voice, but he checked himself 
 suddenly. 
 
 It was dull, miserable, dripping, motionless weather, 
 and she sat day after day utterly alone while her father 
 was away on business ; alone save for her little dog. 
 She tried hard to be very good, and as is usually the 
 case when a person tries that, she succeeded. Only 
 she fretted a little that she did not hear from her friends 
 in Limehouse. 
 
 Many things in the house-keeping were great puzzles to 
 her, and she used to take them patiently, and lay them at 
 the feet of her beloved old nurse Tibbcy, in Leader Street, 
 Chelsea ; but it was rather a long way there, so she saw but 
 little of those excellent souls at present. 
 
 One day there came a letter which made her cry; it was 
 from Mr. Morley. Jack Hartop and Hetty were off to sea, 
 and Hetty was so hard at work, shifting into her new ship, 
 that it would be quite impossible for her, or Jack either, to 
 get to Walham Green. He added, that as soon as they
 
 HETTY. 107 
 
 were gone, he would very likely come and see her himself. 
 She cried a good deal over this letter, but it was not in 
 anger and rebellion. That night-mare, Mr. Hagbut, being 
 removed from his position of possible husband, she rather 
 liked him than otherwise, and was at peace with all the 
 world ; and the Limehouse people had done her much good ; 
 and she was in one way and another very far from the 
 Rebecca of old times. She cried because she had wanted to 
 see Hetty, and she told her father so, frankly, that night, 
 when he asked her why her eyes were red. 
 
 " Why do you want to see her ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't know. I am sure she is nice." 
 
 « Why ? " 
 
 " Because those two are so fond of her, and those two are 
 the nicest people I know." 
 
 " Miss Hetty Morley," said Mr. Turner, " chose to dis- 
 grace herself and ruin her father's connexion, by a stupid 
 and rebellious course of action. As Mrs. Hartop she is 
 continuing it. If you walked the earth round, you would not 
 find, in the dissenting connexion, three such sentimental 
 idiots as Morley, his daughter, and Jack Hartop." 
 
 " What has Hetty done, pa ? " 
 
 " Degraded herself ; dropped into a low sphere of life, and 
 dragged her fool of a father down with her. Morley may 
 choose to tell you in his own good time, for he is as obstinate 
 as a pig, what she has done ; but he chooses to keep the 
 secret, and I won't betray him." 
 
 " But you like Mr. Morley, pa." 
 
 "Yes. He is a good and a noble man, a pure Christian, 
 and a real gentleman ; but he will have to answer to God 
 for his indulgence to that girl." 
 
 " But you would listen to him on spiritual matters ? " 
 
 " Yes, to no man sooner. But he has been a fool in a
 
 108 HETTY. 
 
 worldly point of view, by allowing that girl to do as she has 
 done." 
 
 And this was all she could get out of her father. And 
 the great mystery about Hetty was no nearer solution than 
 ever. 
 
 This was one of the most weary times she had ever had ; 
 for even if Carry had been there, she had lost the heart to 
 scold her, and so her sole amusement was gone. She had 
 her cats, and was still kind to them, though her little dog 
 Mab had supplanted them in her affections. She told Mab 
 everything now; and Mab seemed to understand. She 
 could have told her father everything, but there was a 
 reason. 
 
 At one time, not long ago, she had believed that there 
 would have been perfect accord between herself and her 
 father. It was not to be. The overwhelming sense -of 
 responsibility with regard to Lord Ducetoy's papers were too 
 much for his mind, and it became clouded ; and in its 
 clouding there came on a phase of religious doubt, which 
 may be laughed at by doctrinaires, but which in practice, in 
 reality, was, to Rebecca at least, horrible. 
 
 If he would have broken out into unbelief and sheer blas- 
 phemy at once, she could have stood it better. But he got 
 dreadful silent fits, ending in sharp pointed deductions, the 
 result of an hour's solitary silent argument with himself. 
 He would sit perfectly silent, with his hands occasionally 
 wandering one over the other for an hour, until he nearly 
 drove the silently sewing Rebecca, opposite him, out of her 
 mind ; and at last, when the poor unguided girl, working so 
 hard and so nobly at her duty, was nearly out of her mind 
 through sheer nervousness, he would say, suddenly and 
 sharply, — 
 
 " If one actually regains consciousness after the dissolu-
 
 HETTY. 
 
 109 
 
 tion of the body, and if one finds that the whole scheme has 
 been a mistake from beginning to end. How then ? One 
 will regret that one had not been a profligate ; a man who 
 takes such pleasure as he can find, and discounts his bills on 
 the future state." 
 
 And so on. Which has nothing to do with us, further 
 than this. It was horrible and intolerable to Rebecca. It 
 frightened her. She had rebelled against a certain close 
 form of nonconformist Christianity, as being narrow, cold, 
 and in her eyes worthless, because it wanted the one element 
 of sentimentalism. There had come to her the stout non- 
 conformist Morley, who had shown her a form of dissent, as 
 beautiful and as spiritual as the highest forms of Angli- 
 canism or Romanism, though wanting in the ceremonialisms, 
 which, as the daughter of a Papist mother, she loved in her 
 heart. And now here was her father cutting the ground 
 from under her feet, just as she was feeling for it. De pro- 
 fundis clamavit, that is to say, she turned on her father once 
 and said, most emphatically, — ■ 
 
 " I am sorry you have lost your faith, pa ; but I can't see 
 that there is the slightest reason for your undermining mine; 
 I am beginning to believe. Please let me." 
 
 Turner saw what she meant, and uttered no more of his 
 doubts. But he sat there opposite Rebecca, night after 
 night, scowling over his Bible as he turned the leaves, and 
 looking unutterable things. Which did not mend matters 
 much for poor Rebecca, — which in fact made them rather 
 worse, for she could never tell what he was thinking of now. 
 In the foolish old days, before one thought, many of us 
 used to read the account of the prize fights in Bell's Life ; 
 and one used to read that Bob So-and-so "was a glutton 
 for punishment."' Now I claim for Rebecca that she was a 
 better "glutton for punishment" than any snake-headed,
 
 no HETTY. 
 
 bright-eyed young man, who ever made a brute of himself 
 in the prize ring. 
 
 Punishment enough she got in these days. Her father 
 fading and growing mad before her eyes. No society ; and 
 as it seemed to her, no hope. The responsibility of the 
 enormous amount of valuable heirlooms and papers in the 
 house, thrown on her own shoulders, for her father was as 
 no one, save in his determination to hold by them. No 
 help, no advice, nothing for her but a dull mulish obstinacy ; 
 a determination to act honestly as circumstances should 
 direct. And all the time her father in one of his " girding- " 
 moods ; accusing her of idleness, and making his case good 
 to her about her dead mother. Punishment enough, poor 
 child. But she took it bravely and nobly. 
 
 " Pa," she said, one night, " don't gird at me." 
 
 His face had been fixed before, but it relaxed now. 
 
 " Have I been girding at you, Rebecca?" 
 
 " Yes, pa. Don't, please." 
 
 " I won't, dear. I didn't mean to. Tell me when I gird 
 at you, and I will leave off." 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE. 
 
 T last Mr. Morley came. Surely no brown, 
 handsome face, no quiet hazel eyes, no very 
 slightly grizzled head of curling hair, was ever 
 more welcome in a Christian house than 
 were his. 
 
 It was in the dreary middle of the day when he came, 
 and Rebecca, who was kneading dough (and making an
 
 HETTY. m 
 
 awful mess of it), uttered a joyful exclamation when she 
 saw him. I think that I have mentioned before that in 
 social matters this odd young lady was rather radical. She 
 certainly behaved on this occasion in a way which would 
 have horrified the better conducted sister Carry. She ran 
 up the stairs and opened the door herself with her hands, 
 nay, with her finely-moulded bare arms all over flour, and 
 she said, — " Come in ; I thought you must be dead. Tell 
 me about those two." 
 
 " Go and wash your hands, and come and talk to me in 
 the parlour," said Mr. Morley, quietly, and Rebecca slid 
 away and did as he told her. 
 
 " Now," she said, when she was seated by him on the 
 sofa, " tell me all about Jack and Hetty." 
 
 " That will depend on your account of your behaviour," 
 said Mr. Morley. " How have you been behaving ?" 
 
 " I have been as good as gold." 
 
 " Then I shall not tell you one word," said Mr. Morley ; 
 "you are in a vain-glorious and self-seeking frame of mind, 
 and I will mortify you by not telling you one single word." 
 
 " Well, then, I have been very naughty." 
 
 " One of your propositions must be false, and so I shall 
 certainly tell you nothing now." 
 
 " Then you are a most disagreeable man, and I hate 
 you — no I don't — don't mind me. I love you very much, 
 Mr. Morley. Only come sometimes and tell me what to 
 do, for really and truly I don't know." 
 
 " You have been well brought up, and you ought to know 
 for yourself. At least I mean to leave you to find out. How 
 is your father?" 
 
 Rebecca remained perfectly silent, with her chin in her 
 hand for a long time, and Morley sat looking at her steadily, 
 although she did not know it. She sat so long thus that he
 
 112 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 repeated his question, I very much fear to catch the light 
 in her eye. Rebecca turned to him quickly for one instant, 
 and he had his will. She gave him one kindly glance, and 
 saying, " Wait a little," resumed her old attitude of thought 
 — that of Michael Angelo's Lorenzo de Medici. 
 
 Morley waited for her in silence and in patience. " Here," 
 he said to himself, " is a woman who will actually think 
 before she speaks. Here is also a woman who can act, 
 who has acted, on far-seeing, deliberate conviction, care- 
 less of present consequences. Are there two Hettys in the 
 world?" He sat and watched her, wondering what would 
 come. 
 
 He had a long time to wait before it came, for she did 
 not open her mouth until she had made up her mind. And 
 ihen she told him everything decisively, and straight- 
 forwardly, as one man tells a whole matter to another man 
 who is his friend. 
 
 She moved closer to him on the sofa where they sat, so 
 that the two beautiful faces were not very far apart, and so 
 that her eyes could look straight up into his. And there and 
 then she told him everything. 
 
 Her wasted, rebellious, furious youth; her secret hanker- 
 ing after Popery — the religion of her mother, he must mind 
 — as promising some sort of rest to her furious heart; the 
 quieting effect that the gentle Primitive Methodists had 
 had on her always ; her rage and hatred against Hagbut be- 
 cause he wanted to marry her ; the real reason of her wild 
 escapade to Ramsgate ; her love for her father ; her love for 
 Carry; her love for her little dog; her love for Mr. Spicer 
 and Jim Akin; her love for Jack Hartop ; for Hetty, whom 
 she had never seen, and her love for him — Morley. " I 
 assure you, Mr. Morley, that I believe I am a most affec- 
 tionate person, if I had fair chance. But people are so
 
 HETTY. 113 
 
 cross. I'd get fond of old Russel and old Sopcr if they 
 would only be civil." 
 
 Mr. Morley said, " Quite so." 
 
 Then she went on, resuming the Lorenzo de Medici atti- 
 tude again, and leaving herself and her experience, told him 
 in a plain, business-like manner, the whole story of her 
 father, and her troubles from beginning to end. " For," she 
 said, " you have got kind, trustworthy eyes, like Mab's, and 
 if one wants to keep out of Bedlam, one must tell some 
 one." And so she told him all about the fearful responsi- 
 bility her father had undertaken, pointed out to him that 
 her father's action was nearly illegal, being done without 
 the consent of trustees, of whom Sir Gorham Philpott 
 was one. 
 
 Here Mr. Morley interrupted her for a moment. "Was 
 Lord Ducetoy married?" 
 
 "No; and he would not get married for a month or so, 
 until affairs were in some way square. He was to be married 
 to Miss Egerton of Delamere." 
 
 Mr. Morley was satisfied at once, and begged her to 
 proceed. 
 
 She went on at once, eagerly, not catching the drift of 
 Morley's last inquiry; for he was so surprised at Turner's 
 singular and chivalrous behaviour that it had entered into 
 his, not generally a suspicious mind, that Turner wished 
 Lord Ducetoy to marry Rebecca. Rebecca, I say, went on, 
 and told him of the clouding of her father's mind ; of his 
 religious doubts ; of his strange midnight wanderings up and 
 down the old house ; of the awful responsibility which weighed 
 on her with regard to him. She told him all ; and then, 
 turning her face to his again, asked for his advice. 
 
 " It is easily given, Rebecca," he said; "go on as you are 
 going now. Do your duty to him as you are doing it now, 
 
 1
 
 114 HETTY. 
 
 and you will not fail. You have a clear, sharp brain, use it j 
 and you will do well." 
 
 " But I have done nothing," said Rebecca. 
 
 " What could you do?" said Morley. 
 
 Rebecca's chin went in her hand again directly ; and after 
 a time she said, — 
 
 " I don't see, speaking honestly, that I could have done 
 any more than I have. The time for action has not come. 
 And then I am such a fool, you know." 
 
 "Are you?" 
 
 " They all say so." 
 
 " Well, then, of course it is true. About this business, 
 taken as a whole, you can do nothing more than you have 
 done. It is one of those matters on which one cannot 
 decide. Your father is behaving splendidly ; but if his 
 religion goes from him in the struggle, your father will die. 
 I will talk to him. You are a good girl ; indeed, I always 
 thought you were, do you know;" and Morley laughed. 
 
 " That is all very fine," said Rebecca ; " but at the same 
 time one would like a little practical advice." 
 
 " I'll manage matters for you, my child," said Morley. 
 " I'll shift no responsibility off your shoulders on to mine, but 
 I will make things easier for you. You do your little duty, 
 and you will come to no harm." 
 
 " Then you don't think me such a very naughty girl?" 
 
 '" Well, well ! you are behaving well now." 
 
 " Am I naughtier than Hetty?" 
 
 " You leave Hetty alone; Hetty is no business of yours." 
 
 " But Hetty was naughty. What did she do, Mr. Morley?" 
 
 " She was exceedingly naughty, and I was very nearly 
 being angry with her ; that is what she did." 
 
 "Am I never to see Hetty?" 
 
 " What on earth do you want to see her for?"
 
 HETTY. 115 
 
 " I don't know," said Rebecca. " I think I should like 
 her. There cannot be much harm about her, or Jack Hartop 
 would not love her as he does. He says that she has been 
 wrecked three times, and that the Oueen wrote her a letter. 
 Why was she shipwrecked?" 
 
 " Because she shipped on board ships which happened to 
 get wrecked." 
 
 "Hum!" said Rebecca. " But why did the Oueen write 
 to her?" 
 
 " Because she did her duty, as you are doing yours now." 
 
 " But tell me more," said Rebecca, eagerly. " Let me 
 know something of her, for I love her, and I can't tell why. 
 What did she do that the Oueen should have written to her ? 
 Tell me." 
 
 Dangerous work this. Two noble and enthusiastic souls, 
 sitting close to one another, and telling of great and noble 
 deeds. As for Morley, he had made up his mind long before. 
 He was determined to marry Rebecca, and Hartop and 
 Hetty knew it. As for Rebecca, she brought her fate on 
 herself. If she had desired her freedom she should not have 
 sat on the sofa beside a very attractive dissenting minister, 
 and have forced him to tell the tale of his daughter's heroism. 
 All that happened to her was her own fault. But they will 
 do it. Searching among rare old books the other day, I 
 came across a very scarce play called Othello, or the Moo?- of 
 Venice. In that play the Moor actually wins his Venetian 
 beauty by telling travellers' taradiddles of the Sir John 
 Mandeville type. Morley did not do this ; he only told the 
 plain truth about his daughter. But the telling of chivalrous 
 adventures is a very successful way of courting. At least* 
 the man Shakspeare thought so. 
 
 " I have no objection to tell you what Hetty did on that 
 occasion," said Mr. Morley. "It may show you what a 
 
 1 2
 
 n6 HETTY. 
 
 woman may be worth under certain circumstances. She 
 had been up and down the North Devon coast so often that 
 she could tell every headland in the darkest night. Well, 
 one night, working up from Hayle, against a slow eastering 
 wind, and a heavy ebb tide, the wind shifted against the sun, 
 and came from nor'-west a hurricane. The skipper put her 
 
 head for Cardiff, but that Sirius is the most thundering 1 
 
 beg a thousand pardons, you must remember that I live 
 among sailors." 
 
 " You did not say anything," said Rebecca. 
 
 "Well, I was very near doing it," said Morley. "My 
 dear, that Bride is the most thundering idiot of a ship you 
 ever saw. With even the N.W. sea, she shipped enough 
 water on board to put out her fires, and there she lay entirely 
 without deck ports to let the water away, trusting to her 
 scuppers, which were choked with deck lumber, close to a 
 lee shore, with the seas getting up from the Atlantic, nothing 
 between you and Charleston, South Carolina, and the skipper 
 utterly uncertain as to where he was. Do you understand 
 this, my dear Rebecca ?" 
 
 " Not a bit," she said. " You and Hetty must teach me." 
 
 "We will," said Morley. "My dear Hetty, .finding her 
 cabins flooded and the ship nearly water-logged, with fires 
 out, and stokers and firemen on deck, naturally came on 
 deck herself, bareheaded, with all her glorious beauty, wild 
 in the storm ; you know Hetty's beauty — no, by-thc-bye, you 
 don't— but it is greater than your own, child. And in the 
 terror of the tempest she asked the skipper where they were. 
 
 "And the skipper said: 'I think we have sea-room, Miss 
 Morley; we are off the Bideford river, and we may get 
 anchorage and ride it out. Can you see to leeward? Is it 
 not so?' 
 
 " But Hetty never answered one word. She peered to lee-
 
 HETTY. 
 
 117 
 
 ward through the fury of the tempest, and she came back to 
 him with the message of death, quite quietly. 
 
 "' My dear Captain Jeffries, you are not off the' Bide ford 
 river at all. Look there over the starboard bow. That black 
 wall is Baggy Point. Think; can it be anything else ?' 
 
 " And the skipper put his hat on the deck and trampled 
 on it. 
 
 " But Hetty said, ' I will go and get my women ready for 
 death, for with this set of the tide, we shall be on the Morte 
 Stone in ten minutes. Alas ! I wish this was untrue.' And 
 the skipper said, ' Is there nothing to be done?' And Hetty 
 said, ' Yes. Make sail on her and put her ashore at Wolla- 
 combe.' ' With rising tide?' said the skipper. 'It is better 
 than Morte Stone,' said Hetty. 
 
 "And he did it, my dear Rebecca. He made sail on her 
 and put her helm up. And she burst heavily on shore, with 
 the rising tide behind her, and the rapidly accumulating sea 
 following her and getting more furious each moment. 
 
 "It was a dim, dark winter's night, my dear, and there 
 was no help to be had. One by one the sailors leaped into 
 the long surf, and some were drowned, and some escaped. 
 Hetty got her women into the forecastle, for the ship had 
 gone stem on, and at last no one was left but the women and 
 the skipper. 
 
 " The skipper was doubtful about the ship lasting out the 
 tide, but Hetty pointed out to him, that she, although a beast, 
 was strongly built. To the women under her care she pointed 
 out the fact, that in three hours they would walk on shore. 
 And as she was telling them this the ship, by the rising of the 
 tide, shifted broadside on, with a sickening, thumping lurch, 
 and the sea, which hitherto had only been beating over the 
 poop, burst in its rising anger over the whole ship. 
 
 " And all the women, young and old, huddled round my
 
 n8 HETTY. 
 
 beautiful daughter, crying to her to save them. And she, 
 believing that the end had actually come, quieted them by 
 prayer." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " You say they were saved ? Oh yes ! they were saved. 
 The captain and the women walked ashore the next morning 
 and went to Ilfracombe. But the Queen wrote to Hetty, and 
 that is what she wrote about." 
 
 Dangerous talk this, or the rare play of Othello errs. 
 
 Mr. Morley came very- often indeed now, and his gentle, 
 kindly ministrations had some good effect on Mr. Turner. 
 Morley took this line with him : that he had devoted his life 
 to what he thought the right, and that if he had erred it was 
 only in searching after a nearly impossible excellence. This 
 was in the main true, and it comforted Turner exceedingly. 
 The effect on Turner was not so satisfactory as Mr. Morley 
 could have desired. He suddenly developed a vain-glorious, 
 boastful mood, and would talk by the hour to Rebecca in 
 particular, on his virtuous and blameless life ; would compare 
 his life to the lives of all the other men he knew, very much 
 to his own advantage. In fact, the poor man's brain was 
 upset by anxiety, and he had got into that frame of thought, 
 which consists in persistently stating one's case against des- 
 tiny, proceeds into a perpetual contemplation of self, and 
 ends in Bedlam. Morley saw this after a time, and counter- 
 acted it as well as he was able. On the whole, however, he 
 did Turner much good, and made life easier for Rebecca.
 
 HETTY. 
 
 119 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A SUDDEN SURPRISE. 
 
 ]NE Saturday night her father was in a very 
 silent, thoughtful mood, and would not speak 
 at all, but sat brooding, and now and then 
 would kneel down and pray ; to poor Rebecca's 
 great discomfiture. How many bitter tears she 
 shed that night, who can tell ? She saw that he was not 
 angry with her, for even when he sat by the half-hour 
 together, looking steadily at her, his look was not unkind. 
 This little fact saved her from hysterics, for, to an exceed- 
 ingly sensitive nature like hers, the fact of having a stern 
 old man, sitting perfectly silent before her, hour after hour, 
 and staring at her with intervals of prayer, was nearly too 
 much. She was relieved when he took his candle and pre- 
 pared to go to bed. 
 
 " Rebecca," he said, " I desire that you will be ready for 
 Mr. Morley to-morrow morning by the first boat." 
 
 " What does he want with me ?" 
 
 " I do not know ; but you will have the goodness to go 
 with him. Good night ;" and he went. 
 
 It would be very difficult to say what Rebecca's thoughts 
 were that night. They were, one would fancy, not very pro- 
 found. She had tact enough to see that Mr. Morley would, 
 most probably, ask her no question requiring any immediate 
 answer ; yet he might. Long before morning dawned she had 
 thought it all through, and had come to the resolution that if 
 on this occasion, or on any other, Mr. Morley chose to put a 
 certain question to her, that he would have a most decided 
 and emphatic answer; an answer which would prevent his
 
 i2o HETTY. 
 
 ever repeating his question. " For we do love him, Mab, 
 don't we ?'"' she said, to her little dog. " The only question 
 is, what does he think of us ? " 
 
 She had breakfast ready for him, and was nicely dressed 
 when he came. "Well, Mr. Morley," she said, "and so I 
 am to have a Sunday out with you? If you are pleased, I 
 am sure I am. This is very kind and considerate of you, 
 indeed. Where are we going?" 
 
 '• I was going to ask you to come down to Limehouse with 
 me." 
 
 " I am dressed, ready to go where you will. Now we will 
 start, or you will be late for your service." 
 
 Morley rose and leant against the chimney-piece, and Re- 
 becca stood before him. The man had resolved the night 
 before to examine her character more closely, in times of 
 trial, for another six months. He had resolved that he would 
 see her under every form of temptation before he committed 
 himself irrevocably ; he had determined that he would see 
 how far he could mould her character — had made a hundred 
 priggish resolutions. But as she stood before him at that 
 moment, she looked so grand, so noble, and withal so good, 
 that his resolutions all went to the wind; and, like a true man 
 as he was, he spoke his mind. 
 
 " Rebecca, child, I love you more than all the world 
 besides." 
 
 She only flushed up and stood quite still. She was as 
 utterly unprepared for this as he was himself. She hardly 
 thought it would come at all ; still less on this day ; still less 
 at the beginning. But these accidents happen, and Rebecca, 
 although prepared with her answer, could not give it from 
 sheer surprise. 
 
 "Are you angry with me? Is there another? "he said; 
 and she quickly found her tongue — " Oh ! no, no ! no other.
 
 HETTY. 121 
 
 Please try to love me, Mr. Morley, and I will do my very 
 best." 
 
 And so they kissed one another and jogged out to the 
 steam-boat arm-in-arm, with no further words which would 
 assist the telling of this story ; and it was all over and done, 
 for ever and ever, a great deal sooner than either of them 
 dreamt of. And men of the world have informed me that 
 this is frequently the case. " If a man and a woman," said 
 one of them sentcntiously, " have made up their minds to 
 make fools of themselves, they no more know at what parti- 
 cular time they will do it, any more than you or I do. They, 
 however, always do it before they mean to." 
 
 They jogged out arm-in-arm down the lane in the most 
 sedate manner conceivable. But you cannot keep that sort 
 of thing quiet ; it will show itself. Mr. Spicer and Mr. Akin 
 were taking the refreshment of shag tobacco, out of the style 
 of pipe which they called "long churchwardens," when Mr. 
 Morley and Rebecca passed. They saw what had happened 
 directly. Mr. Akin said, — 
 
 " She's took him." 
 
 Mr. Spicer said, "He has got her, hard and fast." 
 
 " He is a Methody, ain*t he?" said Mr. Akin. 
 
 "Oh!" said Mr. Spicer, "but he is a sailor Methody. 
 Why that man," he went on, pointing after the disappearing 
 Mr. Morley with his pipe-stem, "has been a bursted up, with 
 shipwrecks, and earthquakes, and gales of wind, more than 
 any skipper as sails upon the sea. He has got a good 'un, 
 and she has got a good 'un. There is her little dog a-coming 
 out, Jim, a-trying to foller ; send her back. Hish back, 
 little dcg. Hish back, little pretty pet." 
 
 But Jim Akin, having secured Mab, with that intense love 
 of a highly bred dog which seems almost ingrained in the 
 Londoner's nature, possessed himself of Mab's person, and
 
 122 HETTY. 
 
 made her take breakfast on a chair among his children. 
 Mab, as great a radical as her mistress, enjoyed this ex- 
 tremely, and was in fact not taken back till just before 
 chapel time ; by which time our two friends were landing 
 far down the river. 
 
 The steamer was nearly empty, for it was very early, and 
 they sat alone and talked. 
 
 "When did you think of this first, my beloved?" said 
 Morley. 
 
 " Only very lately. I am utterly taken by surprise." 
 
 " And I also. I never dreamt of speaking so soon. My 
 own, I have no home to offer you. I am bound for the sea." 
 
 " And I must stay by father," she said. " So that happens 
 well." 
 
 " Then will you wait, Rebecca ? " 
 
 " Wait for what ? " 
 
 " To be married." 
 
 " Of course I will wait any time. I have got your heart ; 
 I care for nothing more." 
 
 " Now I am going to say something which will offend 
 you," said Mr. Morley. 
 
 " I think not," said Rebecca, " but say it." 
 
 " All this has been talked over time after time, between 
 Hetty, Jack Hartop, and^j." ^yj^, 
 
 " No, really. Well, I am very glad of that. Does Hetty 
 think she will like me, dear ? " 
 
 " You shall find out that for yourself." 
 
 " I am content. Alfred, this is the first day I have ever 
 felt peace in my whole life. When may I know Hetty ?" 
 
 " When she comes back from America, perhaps." 
 
 " Only ' perhaps.' Are you going to America, Alfred ? " 
 
 " I am going farther than what one generally calls 
 America. I have failed here to a certain extent. I am only
 
 HETTY. 
 
 123 
 
 popular among sailors, and sailors come and go ; and the 
 regular connexion at Limehouse dislike me for preaching 
 pure moralisms, and for consorting with the men of the 
 establishment. They are right. But I am a scholar and a 
 gentleman, and it is a sore temptation for me to mix with 
 the men of the establishment, who are, some of them, 
 scholars and gentlemen. And as for preaching moralisms, 
 what can .one preach else, when the heart is sick ? And, 
 again, Hetty, my darling Hetty, is a standing scandal to 
 a certain set, the rich set, down there ; and so I am going 
 abroad ; and I have no home to give you." 
 
 But," said Rebecca, " if you have power among the 
 sailors, they should keep you." 
 
 " Well, you see, your brother-in-law, Hagbut, has gone so 
 terribly against Hetty. And he is all-powerful there." 
 
 " I will ask no more about Hetty," said Rebecca, laughing, 
 " because I shan't be told. But all dissenters are not so 
 narrow as these." 
 
 " Bless you, no. It is only our little connexion, fighting 
 for sheer existence, which is so narrow. Any one of the 
 larger sects would welcome me, ay, and Hetty with me." 
 
 " And you could not join them ? " 
 
 " No," said Morley. " Theoretically our people are the 
 only pure Christians. Practically, from ignorance, vanity, 
 and stupidity, we are the weakest of all sects. But I am no 
 turncoat." 
 
 " Where thou goest I will go. Thy people shall be my 
 people, and thy God my God," murmured Rebecca ; and so 
 they went on their Sabbath-day's journey, 
 
 " Until the forward creeping tides 
 Began to foam and they to draw, 
 From deep to deep to where they saw 
 The great ships lift their shining sides."
 
 T2 4 HETTY. 
 
 And Mr. Morley said, " This is Limehouse. Do you think 
 you shall like it ? " 
 
 " I'll see," said Rebecca, as they went on shore. 
 
 He was very anxious to know, for he had his plans ; but 
 he did not press her, but waited anxiously, for Limehouse is 
 not at all an attractive place. Rebecca's first impressions of 
 it were, that it was very dirty ; that it smelt of tar and coals; 
 that the ladies of Limehouse did not do their hair at their 
 first toilet, or levee, and that they stood in the middle of the 
 street, with their arms crossed, and stopped talking to stare 
 at her. That there were too many bare-armed ladies leaning 
 out of upper windows, who talked to one another across the 
 street, and had the same disconcerting habit of being per- 
 fectly and suddenly dumb, as she and Mr. Morley went by. 
 Likewise the gentlemen, although evidently sailors, were by 
 no means sailors of the Hartop type, being far less deferential 
 and far more ostentatious in the admiration of her beauty 
 than was at all desirable ; and, moreover, she could not dis- 
 guise from herself that but a few of these gentlemen were 
 exactly sober, though only one was drunk : a Norwegian 
 skipper, a short, stout man, with a great blonde curling 
 beard down over his broad chest, who had been making a 
 night of it, and was bent on making a day of it, but who 
 was being taken to his ship by a select committee or caucus 
 of experienced topers, and whose reiterated argument was 
 that his ship lay off the back-door of every public house which 
 he passed. This was strange, and not very agreeable, to 
 Rebecca, and she still withheld her opinion. 
 
 But, when they went further, she began to alter her 
 opinion, and, in fact, changed it altogether. 
 
 On the edge of the brimming river they came on a quiet, 
 peaceful row of houses. These houses partly faced the river 
 one way, and on the other a dock, in which ships, small
 
 HETTY. 125 
 
 ones it is true, but still real ships which had fought the great 
 ocean, lay with their yard-arms against the windows of the 
 houses. 
 
 They came along this dock in approaching the river, and 
 Rebecca looked down on the decks of the ships, and began 
 wondering how those dull inert masses must look at the 
 mercy of all the fury of wind and sea combined against 
 them. There was no sign of the great sea struggle on them 
 now ; only a waste of coiled ropes on deck, and cobweb-like 
 rigging aloft. On one of them was a boy, a coaly boy, in a 
 blue jersey. He, in the surrounding silence and peace, was 
 remarkable. On board another was another boy (washed, 
 this one), who played with the skipper's dog : this boy was 
 an event ; on another was the skipper's boy climbing up a 
 high ladder to shore with the Sunday's dinner of neck of 
 mutton, with potatoes under it, and a solitary onion atop, 
 balanced on his head, going to the baker's, while, from 
 below, the skipper's wife, baby on arm, watched # him breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 " I shall like this place very much indeed," she said, 
 emphatically and suddenly. 
 
 " That is well," said Morley. 
 
 " Do you knoiu these people ? " asked Rebecca. 
 
 Morley stood still until the boy with the potatoes and 
 mutton had effected his dangerous landing on that iron- 
 bound coast, and continued to look down on to the deck of 
 the ship. After a time the skipper's wife's eye, being diverted 
 from the very dangerous landing of that bold young mariner 
 the apprentice, rested on Mr. Morley. Whereupon she 
 danced the baby, and "hailed" Mr. Morley in that peculiar 
 yell with which the wives of coasting skippers hail the wives 
 of other coasting skippers, their gossips, on the high sea. 
 C in alto staccato, I suppose, not being musical myself:
 
 125 HETTY. 
 
 notes inaudible to the male ear on the waste of waters, but 
 perfectly audible in dock to a priest as well used to sailors' 
 wives as Mr. Morley. While Rebecca was reading on the 
 stern of the vessel, Jane, Ilfracombe, she heard the following 
 dialogue. 
 
 " My dear, tender heart, how be ye ! " 
 
 " All well here, Mrs. Camp ? " 
 
 " He has a gone to chapel, my dear," said Mrs. Camp, 
 " and he"s a-going to stay. So nice and kind he is. And 
 I'm coming if the boy is back in time ; but I can't leave the 
 ship." 
 
 " Listen to me," said Morley, in a strangely emphatic 
 voice. " Have you any fire on board ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Camp, coming close under him, and 
 speaking eagerly. 
 
 " Then, if the boy don't come back, leave the ship and 
 come and communicate. Remember it may be the last 
 chance either of you will have to communicate together for 
 ever. Come and kneel with him. There will be an empty 
 place in his heart some day, maybe, if you do not." 
 
 The woman said " Wait," and went into the cabin, and in 
 a moment had re-appeared with a bonnet on, not clean, and 
 a grey shawl over her shoulders (for these people were not 
 rich), and her baby on her arm. " Now," she said, " minister, 
 I am ready. God bless you for pointing it out." 
 
 And they three walked away together. And Rebecca took 
 all these things, and hid them in her heart. 
 
 Now baby had occurred as. a difficulty to Rebecca, but 
 Mrs. Camp had provided for baby, and was going to leave 
 him on the way with one Mrs. Tryon, widow of a deceased 
 warrant officer, R.N., who lived on his pension, and on the 
 letting of lodgings to dissenting skippers. She was the most 
 terrible tartar in that peaceful waterside community, and the
 
 HETTY. 127 
 
 most difficult to manage. " No one," said the dwellers in 
 Pilot Terrace, " could get to the windward of Mrs. Tryon, 
 save Mr. Morley and a sailor's wife in distress." 
 
 Now it so happened, in the everlasting fitness of things, 
 that Captain Moriarty, of Waterford, a papist, had run his 
 schooner, the Ninety-eight, in on the tide opposite her 
 house, and had then incontinently gone ashore and amused 
 himself. And that schooner, finding herself deserted by 
 the tide, with no hawsers, laid out to larboard, had, in an 
 idiotic and beery way, heeled over, and poked her foretop- 
 sail-yard through Mrs. Tryon's best parlour window, to the 
 destruction of property. If it had been a Protestant ship 
 she would not have cared ; but a papist ship — the Ninety 
 eight (she was old enough to remember Hoche) was too 
 much. The damage to property was small ; but if a staunch 
 dissenting Protestant woman's windows were to be broken 
 
 by the yard-arm of a papist ship, why then So she had 
 
 laid in wait for Captain Moriarty. 
 
 Captain Moriarty had kept away like a good sailor and a 
 dexterous Irishman, till he supposed she had started for 
 chapel. But it was no good. As Mr. Morley and Rebecca 
 came up they were hard at it. Both Mr. Moriarty and Mrs. 
 Tryon were sincerely religious in their very various ways ; 
 and Mrs. Tryon, knowing this well, exercised him prin- 
 cipally on religious grounds, until he was half crazy with 
 anger. 
 
 " That is what the old fool at Rome tells you to do, is it ? 
 To break into widows' houses with your foretopsail-yard, 
 and for a pretence make long prayers. Oh, yours is a pre- 
 cious religion, yours is." 
 
 " You insult my religion, Mrs. Tryon," said the Irishman ; 
 " I never insulted yours. It was an accident, and I am very 
 sorry."
 
 128 HETTY. 
 
 "Accident? said Mrs. Tryon. "Why, if my poor man 
 that is gone had come home the worse for drink, and had 
 moored his ship as you had moored yours, me and my gal 
 would have gone out in the dead of the darkest night, and 
 have taken the hawsers to larboard ourselves. Bah ! " 
 
 By this moment our party had arrived, and had heard 
 what had been said. There was no need for any interference 
 on the part of Mr. Morley, for Mrs. Camp stepped up to 
 Mrs. Tryon with baby, and said, — 
 
 " My dear, mind baby for me. I want to go to chapel 
 with Mr. Morley, and take sacrament with my old man. 
 For we are going to the old Cameroons, on the West Coast, 
 and we shall never come back no more, I doubt." 
 
 Hard-featured Mrs. Tryon flushed up. " Here, Keziah," 
 she said, to her maid, " take this baby; I am going to chapel. 
 Moriarty, don't mind my tongue, for you are a good man ; 
 mind your larboard hawsers." 
 
 And so they all went together. And Rebecca said, as they 
 went, " I think I shall like this place very much indeed." 
 
 When they came out from chapel there was a brimming 
 flood tide under a bright sun, with the ships passing up- 
 wards under a good brisk wind from the free happy sea 
 beyond. 
 
 " How far is it to the sea, Alfred ? " asked Rebecca, in a 
 whisper, for the congregation was still round them. 
 
 " Fifty miles." 
 
 " We shall sail on it together one day, shan't we, with 
 Hetty and Hartop?" 
 
 "I hope so," said Mr. Morley, quietly; "but much must 
 happen first. I must provide a home." 
 
 " Yes. I do not mean that," said Rebecca ; " I was only 
 thinking of your sermon. Why did you take such a text on 
 such a happy day as this, and preach only of the cruelty of
 
 HETTY. 129 
 
 the sea? Such a wild, strange text — 'The burden of the 
 desert of the sea.'" 
 
 " I only wished to check your fanciful love for it, Rebecca. 
 A day will come when you will not love it as well as you do 
 now." 
 
 And Rebecca said only, " Well, the present is with us, and 
 I am very happy." 
 
 " I want to ask you, Rebecca, if you have any objection to 
 my telling what has happened between us two to a few 
 intimate friends ? " 
 
 " I have none at all, Alfred, if you think it right. I am 
 very proud of it, I assure you." 
 
 I, for my part, don't think that there was much necessity 
 for any announcement at all. The whole congregation might 
 run and read, and in fact did so. When they saw their very 
 handsome and eminently marriageable minister with a 
 beautiful young lady on his arm, to whom he talked in 
 whispers, they formed their own conclusions, and generally 
 " overhauled " her (we are in a nautical neighbourhood), at 
 their one o'clock dinner, some saying she was too fine for 
 him, but the most of them thinking that she would do, but 
 that her beauty put them too strongly in mind of that poor 
 Mrs. Hartop ; they hoped that he might have better luck with 
 his wife than he had had with his daughter, but generally 
 acquiesced in what did not in the least concern them, and 
 wished their good minister well. Two young ladies seceded 
 for a week or so, and met one another at various chapels in 
 the neighbourhood for a few Sundays ; but even they got 
 over it in time. The " minister's wooing " was a patent thing 
 to all. 
 
 But here were the minister and his sweetheart (we have no 
 better word than that dear old English one, except that 
 abominable P'rench one, fiancee .') on the breezy quay, with 
 
 K
 
 130 HETTY. 
 
 all the congregation gone, except a very few, dreaming and 
 whispering. They were aroused by the emphatic voice of 
 Mrs. Tryon, a woman given to management from her youth 
 upwards, who said, — 
 
 " Where do you take your dinner to-day, minister? " 
 
 "Dear me !" said Mr. Morley, with a start. " I had not 
 thought about that." 
 
 " No one ever believed that you had," said Mrs. Tryon. 
 " But here are Captain and Mrs. Camp making an extra- 
 ordinary proposal." 
 
 And, indeed, there was no one on the wharf but Mrs. 
 Tryon, and Mr. and Mrs. Camp, when Mr. Morley turned 
 round to speak to them. 
 
 " My dear friends," he said, " I want to tell you something. 
 This young lady has promised to be my wife." 
 
 " So I should have supposed," said Mrs. Tryon, the irre- 
 pressible. " And a lucky woman too, if she only knows it. 
 Well, my dear, I wish you all joy and happiness. There's no 
 such good husbands in the world as sailors, my dear. And 
 he is a sailor, true blue, every inch of him. But what do 
 you say to this ridiculous proposal of Captain and Mrs. 
 Camp?" 
 
 Captain Camp stood meekly behind his wife and pushed 
 her forward, prompting her in whispers from behind his 
 hand ; and Mrs. Camp did the talking. 
 
 " Mr. Morley, me and my old man thought, that you being 
 a real sailor, and having made no arrangements for dinner, 
 and Mrs. Tryon's windows being broke in " 
 
 " By the yard-arm of a Papist fore-topsail schooner," inter- 
 posed Mrs. Tryon, with emphasis. 
 
 " Quite so, thank you," said Mrs. Camp, turning to Mrs. 
 Tryon gratefully, as if from the stores of Mrs. Tryon's 
 wisdom she had been assisted with an additional argument
 
 1 1 E I TV. 
 
 J 3i 
 
 which had previously escaped her. " Mrs. Tryon's house 
 being broke into by Captain Moriarty, a dear loved friend, I 
 am sure, but incautious : we thought that perhaps — seeing 
 that we're for the Cameroons, and might never come back — 
 that you would have your dinner aboard. But the young 
 lady. Miss, I humbly wish you every joy, but I doubt it 
 wouldn't do for you, Miss." 
 
 " Please let me go, Alfred. Do let me go," said Rebecca, 
 eagerly. Whereupon Captain Camp came forward, and 
 Rebecca looked at him. 
 
 A splendid young sailor, truly, but not of the Hartop type. 
 Very blonde, with a golden beard, cool, deliberate, but want- 
 ing vitality ; a man who is apt to knock under on a bad 
 coast, an anxious man, who kills himself by worrying about 
 his responsibilities, when coarser natures, often culpably- 
 careless, lose their ships and make such a good sailor-like 
 show before the Board, that they keep their certificates, while 
 men like Captain Camp have theirs suspended. This young 
 man said to them very quietly, — 
 
 " If it was possible, Mr. Morley, that you could dine with 
 us, it would give us great pleasure. If this lady is to be a 
 true wife to you, and if you are the same man as ever, she 
 will fare rougher than she will to-day. Our last voyage was 
 to Levant, Miss, and we can give you pretty and delicate 
 things to eat, which you could scarcely buy in shops." 
 
 " Please let me go, Alfred ! " 
 
 " My dear, I am not preventing you. I should like you to 
 go. Only I thought " 
 
 to 
 < 
 
 1 Never mind what you thought. I am very hungry, and 
 Mrs. Camp's mutton must be on its way home, so we had 
 better get on board ship as soon as possible." 
 
 " You will do, my dear," said Mrs. Tryon. " Camp, you 
 had better start your boy up to my place for some knives and 
 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 forks and things. You shall have my place with your back 
 against the mizen-mast." 
 
 "Are you coming ?" said Rebecca, as they walked. "I 
 am glad of that." 
 
 " Are you, my dear ? Well, that is good hearing, for it is 
 few that like me. As for coming, I make it a rule never to 
 
 dine ashore on Sundays Rabbit the man, he will never be 
 
 quiet in his grave till he has had my house down." 
 
 This last exclamation was tortured out of her as they 
 rounded the corner and had come in sight of her own house, 
 and the reason of it was this, the schooner Ninety-Eight 
 had righted with the rising tide, and in so righting herself, 
 pulled away the whole of Mrs. Tryon's verandah. It was 
 really a serious disaster in a small way, and Mrs. Camp 
 dreaded a terrible storm. She took Mrs. Try on the terrible 
 by the arm, and said, — ■ 
 
 " Don't be angry with him, dear; he is only an Irishman. 
 Think where we have been together to-day, and don't be 
 angry with him, he is such a good fellow." 
 
 "/won't be angry with him, my dear," said Mrs. Tryon. 
 "But I will have it out of his owners if there is a law in the 
 land." 
 
 " And then the Board will stop his certificate," said Mrs. 
 Camp. " Don't'ee say anything, don't'ee. He was so kind 
 to us, when my man got his ship ashore at Fayal. Don't'ee 
 say anything. Minister, ask her not to quarrel with him." 
 
 " I will take no steps at all," said Mrs. Tryon, " further than 
 asking him to moor his ship opposite some other widow's 
 house. But how has he managed to do it ? My old man 
 used to say, when talking of gunnery, that the angle of 
 incidence was equal to the angle of reflection. So I should 
 have supposed that when he had once poked his yard-arm 
 through my window, he could have taken it out again, with-
 
 HETTY. 133 
 
 out pulling half the wall down. I sec, this is your Irish 
 seamanship." 
 
 Captain Moriarty was straight in their way, and it was un- 
 avoidable that there should be an interchange of broadsides. 
 They were all a little nervous, as the frigate Tryon ranged 
 alongside the frigate Moriarty. Moriarty prepared fire. 
 
 Mrs. Tryon delivered her broadside and passed on, leaving 
 Moriarty in a state of collapse. 
 
 " Seas and tidal waters," she said, " are free to all nations, 
 in times of peace. At the same time, Captain Moriarty, the 
 next time it pleases you to knock a Protestant widow's house 
 about her ears, I would trouble you to remember, that it is 
 better seamanship, according to English Protestant rights, 
 to let a ship right as she went over, and not to alter her 
 angle by useless hawsers. Likewise, if you had let go your 
 larboard tacks and sheets, your yard-arm would have come 
 out of my parlour without carrying away the verandah. 
 Whereas, there they arc all taut now to shame you, as taut 
 as any standing rigging. Have you navigated Mrs. Camp's 
 baby to death, or has it escaped ? " 
 
 No, Mrs. Camp's baby was waiting for them opposite 
 Captain Camp's ship. Keziah had made it ill with ipecacu- 
 anha lozenges, but babies generally are ill, as far as I have 
 ever observed, and so it did not much matter. Not only the 
 baby was here, but the boy, arriving from the baker's, with 
 the mutton on his head, and going across the ladder (for it 
 was now high tide) before them, without apology, feeling 
 himself master of the situation. In less than three minutes 
 Rebecca found herself, with her back to the mizen-mast, in a 
 rather small cabin, eating baked mutton and potatoes, — and 
 liking it too. 
 
 "I hope you like your dinner, Miss Turner ?" said Mrs. 
 Camp, anxiously.
 
 134 HETTY. 
 
 " I like it very much," said Rebecca. " And I like the 
 place I eat it in, and I like the people I eat it with." 
 
 " So you can make your mind easy, Mrs. Camp," struck in 
 Mrs. Tryon. And to Rebecca, " I knew you were one of us, 
 my dear, the first moment I set eyes on you." 
 
 " I'll do my best," said Rebecca. " If people will be kind 
 to me, I will do anything. But I am foolish. If anyone is 
 unkind to me, I will sit moping and dull, without any power 
 of action, for days and days." 
 
 " That's bad," said Mrs. Tryon ; " but it is better than 
 flying out and saying things you never meant, and which 
 you can't recall. If a man don't love a woman, her hard 
 words are nothing. If he does, her words mean more than 
 she thought, and he wants time to forget them, and don't 
 always do that. And a man's hard words to a woman are 
 worse, because a woman can't ship for a voyage as a man 
 can, and come home like a bridegroom. As for me, I only 
 speak of what I have seen in others, for I have had no 
 experience myself." 
 
 "You were married a long time, Mrs. Tryon?" said 
 Rebecca. 
 
 " Yes, but me and my old man never had words. We 
 both had tempers, and so knowing that, we kept them. And 
 he was a good husband to me ; and the parting was bitter. 
 With the Sacrament in my mouth, I should not bear ill-will; 
 but it was that African squadron killed him, and so I bear 
 ill-will to the Cameroons. It didn't much matter. Our 
 minister has assurance that we shall meet again. And then 
 all doubts will be cleared up, and old love revived, (as if it 
 wanted reviving,) and we shall go on hand in hand through 
 eternity. Therefore, Miss Turner, what does such a trifling 
 parting as ours matter ? " 
 
 " Then we shall meet our loved ones again ?" said Rebecca.
 
 HETTY. 135 
 
 " Certainly," said Mrs. Tryon : "unless the book lies, ' I 
 shall <ro to him, but he shall not return to me.' I think that 
 finishes the argument, Miss, if there were any. Piff." 
 
 The gentle Mrs. Camp changed the conversation, by 
 arriving after a short absence with her husband, laden with 
 quaint boxes and quainter bottles, the spoils of the East. 
 
 " We sailed to Levant last voyage, Miss," she said, " and 
 we brought these things home, for friends. And if Mr. 
 Morley and his sweetheart (I know no better word, Miss 
 Turner) are not friends, who are ? Here are figs from Syra, 
 better than you can buy, and here are the little grapes from 
 Xante, (you call them currants,) which I laid in sugar by my 
 own hand, just before baby was born. You don't take wine, 
 I doubt ; but take a little to-day, for our sakes ; this is some 
 that my old man bought at St. Lucaz — Spanish wine, strong, 
 but very good. Do be hospitable, my dear young lady, with 
 a Devonshire woman, and drink a little drop of wine with us." 
 
 Rebecca consented most willingly, and indeed the wine 
 was most admirable wine like port, a wine not got in this 
 country. 
 
 "You find this cabin close, now," said Mrs. Camp, as soon 
 as the boy, who had waited perfectly, as he waited from good- 
 will, had been sent to his dinner, and baby was established 
 on his throne. " You would feel baked in such a little cabin 
 as this." 
 
 " It is the nicest place I have ever been in," said Rebecca. 
 " I suppose it is different in a gale of wind at sea ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mrs. Camp. " I have been through it all more 
 than once, with the old man, in this cabin. This ain't our 
 first babv, Miss Turner. Our first was drowned down there, 
 under that locker, behind you, when I lay drowned, and nigh 
 dead on this very place, with my head cut open." 
 
 "Well, we don't want to hear about that," said Mrs.
 
 136 HETTY. 
 
 Tryon. " Sailors' wives have their trials, and you have had 
 yours. Similarly I have had mine. Similarly Miss Turner 
 will have hers. Why, my boy was eighteen when he sailed 
 for the West Coast, and never came home again. Therefore, 
 what are your troubles to mine ? " 
 
 " That is very true, Mrs. Tryon," said the humble Mrs. 
 Camp ; " and I am wicked to think of my little troubles in 
 any way. But I think I am sentimental to-day ; and that is 
 what a sailor's wife should never be. I suppose it is because 
 I went to Sacrament with the old man for the last time." 
 
 " What do you mean by the last time ? said Mrs. Tryon, 
 sternly. 
 
 " I didn't mean any harm," said Mrs. Camp. " But we 
 are going to the West Coast." 
 
 " Better folks than you have been to the West Coast, and 
 come back again," said Mrs. Tryon. " Don't cry out before 
 you are hurt. The Cleopatra has only lost ten hands in 
 eighteen months. Of course, if you, in your lazy, merchant 
 way, choose to moor in a mango swamp, you will all die. 
 Veer out a couple of cables, and lie well off shore, out of the 
 land fog, as Her Majesty's ships do, and you will come to no 
 harm at all. If you sneak into fever holds, you will have 
 fever. Mr. Morley, I am going to chapel." 
 
 Mr. Morley, who had been having a quiet conversation at 
 the end of the table with Mr. Camp, asked Rebecca if she 
 was inclined to go ; but told Mrs. Camp that he was not 
 going to chapel, but had provided for his duty. 
 
 "Then why not stay longer with us?" said Captain Camp. 
 " We shall never see you again." 
 
 " She and I have much to speak of, as you may under- 
 stand," said Mr. Morley. " I only said the words to her this 
 morning." 
 • " You have a prize," said Captain Camp.
 
 HETTY. 
 
 i37 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said Morley. " I have known her, and 
 watched her for long." 
 
 " What does Hetty think of her?" said Captain Camp. 
 
 " She has never seen her ; and Rebecca knows nothing of 
 Hetty. Jack Hartop is the only one of our local connexion 
 who has ever seen her." 
 
 " But, my dear minister, is this concealment wise?" 
 
 " Hagbut hates Hetty so ; and he is all-powerful." 
 
 " That is true. Well, this Rebecca is a trump, at all events. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 And Mr. Morley and Rebecca crossed the ladder, and 
 stood again on the wharf. The afternoon had become wild 
 and rainy, and the tide was going down ; and Mr. Moriarty's 
 ship's maintopsail-yard was (through Mr. Moriarty's careless 
 arrangement of hawsers) rapidly approaching Mrs. Tryon's 
 bed-room window. Mrs. Tryon had resigned herself to this 
 fresh desecration of her hearth-stone, and gone to chapel : 
 the Camps had got ready for a sailor's dawdle among the 
 ships. But our two set their heads westward, knowing that 
 their end for the present was Walham Green. 
 
 " Could you get on with such people as those, Rebecca?" 
 said he. " If I was long away, could you live with them?" 
 
 " I could live and die with them," said Rebecca. " Those 
 people are alive, ours are dead. Is the sea so cruel as they 
 tell us, dear?" 
 
 " The sea is very cruel. The world is cruel, also. Come, 
 you have seen that." 
 
 " I shall have to wait for you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I wish I could wait for you there. Mrs. Tryon is better 
 than Miss Soper ; and I do so dearly like those Camps." 
 
 "You will hardly see much of them," said Mr. Morley; 
 " they are bound on a long voyage."
 
 138 HETTY. 
 
 Ay, indeed, they were. An old, old story, read in the 
 papers every day ; but a wearisome one to tell, from sheer 
 reiteration. The Camps sailed away on ebb tide, a week 
 after this, with their baby, and their apprentice, and five 
 hands all told. And they sailed westward, before the east 
 wind of late March ; and they sailed away into the golden 
 west of early spring, and nothing was ever heard of them 
 from that day to this. Nothing will ever be heard of them 
 until the sea gives up her dead. They had taken the Sacra- 
 ment together for the last time on earth. 
 
 To Rebecca they had been like a bright gleam of sunshine, 
 on the happiest, most April-like day of her whole life. In the 
 times soon to come, when she was all alone, watching a 
 dying life, behind windows which quivered and rattled in the 
 furious blast, she would hear the cry of sailors mporing their 
 ship. And she, in that vague, foolish superstition, of which 
 those who have watched long by the beds of the dying can 
 tell you, would slip down silently, saying, " That is Camp's 
 ship." But it never was Camp's ship, and it never will be ; 
 for Camp's ship, wife, baby, boy, and all her crew, are at the 
 bottom of the blue, wandering sea. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RUIN. 
 
 EBECCA got home soon after afternoon chapel, 
 and Mr. Morley left her at the door. She was 
 very quiet and cool over what had happened, 
 not seeing any great reason why she should be 
 otherwise. Mr. Morley had bidden her tell her 
 father at once, and she went upstairs to do so very quietly. 
 He was sitting alone with the little dog on his knee, read-
 
 HETTY. 139 
 
 ing the Pilgritrts Progress. His mind was perfectly quiet 
 and unclouded this day, and he brightened up when he saw 
 his handsome daughter before him. The little dog wriggled 
 and scolded in his lap to get at her, and Mr. Turner put 
 her down and smiled when she ran to Rebecca. 
 
 " My dear father, I hope you have not been dull ?" 
 
 " No, daughter. I have been very happy. I was at the 
 Communion with you in spirit ; and I was glad to think that 
 you were in pleasant goodly company. Come and tell me 
 where you have been." 
 
 " Please, pa," said Rebecca, kneeling at his feet, " I want 
 to tell you something very particular indeed. Mr. Morley 
 has asked me to marry him, and I have said that 1 would, if 
 you would let me. And you will let me, won't you?" 
 
 "I am very glad of this," said Mr. Turner; "this is 
 the only wish I had in this world, I think. I am very glad, 
 my dear ; God bless you. Try to be worthy of him." 
 
 " I will, father, indeed." 
 
 " I doubt you will be very poor," said Mr. Turner, as soon 
 as Rebecca was seated. "You will have about .£150 a year, 
 — he will never have anything to speak of. He is not a 
 drawing man, to any except the poor. But I don't see why 
 you should not be happy. I'll tie your money up, and you 
 shall have it when you marry. Four thousand pounds is all 
 I can guarantee you. There may be a little more, but 1 
 can't tell. Hagbut is a near man." 
 
 " I was not thinking of money, father," said Rebecca. 
 
 " It would be extremely indecent if you were," said Mr. 
 Turner : " but I was. I have secured you from actual 
 poverty, and Hagbut is hard and near ; and I gave my word 
 to certain things with regard to Carry, or we should have 
 had her on our hands for ever and a day ; and my word is as 
 good as my bond. Beyond this four thousand pounds I can
 
 140 HETTY. 
 
 only give you Hobson Bay scrip, which may be worth some- 
 thing or nothing, but which has escaped that man's ferret 
 eyes. You won't starve, Rebecca." 
 
 " Pa, don't talk about money to-day." 
 
 " Well, I won't. Get me my tea." 
 
 She soon did that, and made him comfortable before the 
 fire. " Come," he said, " don't take all the good things to 
 yourself; give me the little dog," and Mab, a black peaked 
 nose, and hair, was handed reluctantly to him by Rebecca. 
 
 Mab had a great idea of Air. Turner, considering him in 
 the light of an idol or fetish, requiring continual propitiation 
 and flattery. So she scuffled over his waistcoat, licked his 
 face, and only desisted from her cultus of him when he gave 
 her a little slap, after which she was quiet. Rebecca thought 
 that she had seen the same sort of thing before in certain 
 chapels ; and indeed one may see the same in certain 
 churches also. 
 
 " Pa," she said, when Mab was quiet, " tell me all about 
 the Establishment.'' 
 
 " I don't know much about it. Is he going to join it?" 
 
 " Lor, no. He would die sooner. Only I wanted to know." 
 
 " Well, the Establishment is the gentleman's church. 
 Never mind the Establishment. You listen to me, girl, and 
 never you mind the Established Church." 
 
 " I was only talking to amuse you, sir ; and I will trouble 
 you to remember that I have taken brevet rank, that I am 
 engaged to Mr. Morley. So no airs." 
 
 They were but silly words, but they were said so prettily 
 that Turner himself laughed for a moment. " Come, girl," 
 he said, " you are happy to-day, and indeed, old Rebecca, I 
 am happy in your happiness. I assure you that I am ; but I 
 am in trouble after trouble. Are you going to him at once, 
 for I am sore bestead, and I want you at home ? "
 
 HETTY. 141 
 
 " My dear father, he has asked mc to wait a very long 
 time, and I have told him that I could not leave you, and 
 that lie must wait a very long time." 
 
 "That is good," said Mr. Turner; "that is very good. 
 Listen carefully to me, for my mind is unclouded to-night, 
 and it may be clouded again to-morrow ; for I have had a 
 hard life of it, child. I have never had a day's holiday ; and 
 your mother — well, never mind her, poor dear, you have made 
 it square between us — and my head goes at times : listen 
 now, and be mute." 
 
 Rebecca listened intently. 
 
 " You have heard of the great house of Philpott & Co. 
 (limited, in all ways, save an unlimited smash)." 
 
 Rebecca nodded. 
 
 " Well, they are hopelessly smashed for two millions and a 
 half of money. They have been bankrupt for a long while ; 
 and their last effort was to get our cousin Ducetoy's title 
 deeds, and lease money on them, by which he would have 
 been brought into the bankruptcy. His father had meddled 
 and muddled with them in the old times, before they were a 
 company ; and they thought they could connect him with the 
 company. I have saved him — utterly illegally." 
 
 " But he is nothing to us." 
 
 " He was your mother's cousin, and I owe her reparation," 
 he said, gloomily ; " I have papers which would tell one way, 
 I don't say which. But they dare not ask for them." 
 
 "You mean papers which would involve Lord Ducetoy?" 
 
 " Yes, and I am acting illegally in withholding them." 
 
 " Then why do you withhold them ? " asked Rebecca. 
 " Be sure it is best to follow the law." 
 
 " I don't know that," said Mr. Turner ; " I have seen too 
 much of law. These papers, if produced, would put Lord 
 Ducetoy's property into the bankruptcy."
 
 14= HETTY. 
 
 " But the creditors," said Rebecca, aghast ; " the poor 
 souls who have invested their money, have you no pity for 
 them ? " 
 
 "They would take any advantage of the company, and 
 they must take their chance." 
 
 " But, pa, wrong can't make right. I am sorry for Lord 
 Ducetoy, but for heaven's sake restore these papers." 
 
 " I can't," said Mr. Turner. 
 
 " Nonsense. Why not?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " Because I have burnt them," said Mr. Turner ; "now as 
 you have your father's character, and in consequence his life 
 in your hands, I wish to point out another little matter, more 
 in your way of business." 
 
 Rebecca, sitting pale and calm, was dumb from that mo- 
 ment and for ever about her father's felony. But their rela- 
 tions from this moment were altered, never to be replaced on 
 their former footing. 
 
 .She never showed this fact to him, but he knew it, and 
 acted on it. He was deferential to her after this. Some- 
 times he was insolent to her, but very seldom, and for a very 
 short time ; he was generally easy and almost jocular with 
 her, but from this moment she was in a way mistress of the 
 situation. 
 
 She had now entered into a community of guilt with her 
 father. That her father's motives were of the highest order 
 was certain, but still her father might be a convict to-morrow. 
 
 What was the effect of this singular community of fault 
 between them ? A strange one to ordinary eyes. A love 
 which had never existed before. If pity, combined with 
 admiration and fear for the object, does not produce love, 
 what does ? Again, if admiration and trust do not produce 
 love, what again does ? These two hearts were together 
 now.
 
 HETTY. 
 
 I4j 
 
 But I must return to the original conversation. Rebecca 
 said, " But these documents will be demanded of you, pa ! " 
 
 " No, they won't, my dear. I have too many forgeries, 
 those of my own name among others, by Sir Gorham and 
 Captain Philpott, for them ever to ask for them. Our danger 
 docs not lie here." 
 
 ''Where does it lie then, father ?" said Rebecca. 
 
 " In this," said Air. Turner ; " they will try to get into the 
 house, and murder me to get at their own forgeries. So 
 don't leave me, girl, and let the little dog sleep with me.'' 
 
 And so he went to bed. And Rebecca spent the first 
 evening of her engagement in brooding over the fire, alone 
 and terrified. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THALATTA. 
 
 WO days after Mr. Morley called, and was told 
 by the little maid that Miss Turner was too ill 
 to see him, but she gave him a note, which he, 
 as is usual in such cases, opened and read, 
 
 " Dear Sir.- Let Sunday be as though it never had 
 been. Forget it, and forget me. It was all a mistake from 
 beginning to end. I should like to have seen Hetty ; but 
 that can never be. My love for you is unalterable. I never 
 loved any one on earth as I do you. But what we talked of 
 on Sunday is utterly and entirely impossible. 
 
 " Rebecca." 
 
 Morley stepped into Mr.»Turner's study, and taking pen 
 and ink, wrote, —
 
 144 HETTY. 
 
 " Come downstairs directly, and tell me all about it. Don't 
 keep me waiting, for I have news for you, and but little time 
 to give you. Look sharp, and don't dawdle. "A. M." 
 
 So she came down. She was very pale, but there was no 
 sign of wildness about her. He was shocked at her appear- 
 ance, but he did not show it at all. He received her affec- 
 tionately, and kissed her. 
 
 " My dear Rebecca," he said, " can you explain to me the 
 meaning of the note you sent me down just now ? " 
 
 "No, Alfred," she said; "an explanation would involve 
 others." 
 
 " So I have supposed for a very long time," he answered. 
 " I have quite expected to hear of something like this for a 
 year past. But that note I got this morning from you was 
 never written. It does not exist." 
 
 " I am no fit wife for you," said Rebecca. 
 
 " I am surely the best judge of that. You are held to your 
 words, Rebecca. Have you repented of that silly note? 
 Cannot you trust me, as I am going to trust you ? " 
 
 " If you knew all, Alfred ! " 
 
 " Bah ! sweetheart ; I know more than all. Do you think 
 that your sister knows nothing? Do you think that Hagbut 
 has not got it out of her ? Do you not think that Russel and 
 Soper have not heard of it from him, and illustrated it? My 
 story is that your father has raised money on Lord Ducetoy's 
 title-deeds, to pay Carry's marriage portion." 
 
 " You never dared believe it of him ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 " Not for one instant," said Mr. Morley, laughing ; "only, 
 this being the report about him in our little society, I asked 
 his daughter to marry me. There is very little time to talk 
 nonsense, my dear ; let us therefore talk sense. If your 
 father's affairs got utterly wrong, what earthly difference
 
 HETTY. 145 
 
 would it make between us ? And under any cirumstances, 
 you know," he went on, laughing louder, " you can never be 
 the plague and disgrace to me that Hetty has been." 
 
 Whenever he mentioned Hetty, a smile came on his face, 
 and a brightness in his eye. What had Rebecca to say to 
 such wooing ? Why, nothing. 
 
 " I repent. I am all yours. I will never distrust you 
 again." 
 
 " Bravely said. Now I am going utterly away from you, 
 to leave you entirely alone, without one solitary friend, for a 
 long time. I have no hopes in England ; my chapel is 
 only full of sailors, and sailors do not pay. But our con- 
 nexion has given me the new Tahiti mission, wisely, and 
 well ; for at Tahiti every one can manage the natives, but no 
 one the sailors. Another man was appointed, but has got a 
 good chapel, and has refused. They offered it to me this 
 morning, and it came to me like a gleam of light, pretty bird, 
 that my work for my Master lay among the sailors, and 1 
 said yes." 
 
 " I see," said Rebecca, nodding her head, and smiling ; 
 " this is good." 
 
 " I am half a sailor myself, you know, and I can talk to 
 our rough men in their own language without affectation and 
 without mistake, which is a great thing ; for men dislike 
 following a man who exhibits ignorance on their own 
 speciality. They say, he talks seamanship, and makes errors 
 which the cook's mate would be ashamed of ; how can we 
 trust him in other things ? It is silly and illogical on their 
 parts ; but they are silly and illogical. For my part, I think 
 the priest who simply confesses ignorance, and applies to 
 them for instruction, will have a good chance with them ; 
 possibly better than mine. I mean the man who will show 
 them his ignorance, and then show them their own. But 
 
 1.
 
 146 HETTY. 
 
 we have not these men. Our men are all too scholastic ; 
 they will talk to our fellows about the one thing of which 
 they know nothing — seamanship. Hagbut preached a 
 nautical sermon at my chapel once, which made my ears 
 burn with sheer shame; and the lubber believes to this day 
 that he produced a profound impression — as indeed he did, 
 of his own utter pretentious imbecility. I have not time to 
 go into this. I feel that I am the right man in the right 
 place ; and, to use our Saviour's own words, humbly and 
 reverently, ' I go to prepare a place for you.' Are you con- 
 tent ? " 
 
 " I am more than content. You are doing well. Shall 
 you be away long ? " 
 
 " A year, at least." 
 
 " A whole year ? And when do you go ? " 
 
 " The day after to-morrow." 
 
 " That is very sudden. But is all right and well, and very 
 good, Alfred ? I shall know that you are not lost, but work- 
 ing, and shall leave home to prove to you that I am worthy 
 of you. Yes. This is a little hard, and a little bitter, too : 
 but it is right and good. You have forgiven my folly of this 
 morning ? " 
 
 " Why, I really don't know that there was any folly to for- 
 give. You acted exactly as I should have wished my wife to 
 act. You are the dearer to me for it." 
 
 " May I help you with your preparations ? " she asked. 
 
 " My chest is always packed," he answered, with a smile. 
 "It does not take long to ship such an old sailor as me. One 
 chest of clothes, and one of books, are all I own ; and my 
 landlady has taken good care of them." 
 
 " But I may come and see you off?" she asked. 
 
 " Surely," he said ; and they passed on to talk of other 
 matters, and talked until it was time for him to go.
 
 HETTY. 147 
 
 She scarcely knew how to break this sudden resolution to 
 her father ; whether he would think it a kind of desertion on 
 Mr. Morley's part, she could not tell. He took it quite 
 quietly, and only said, " So soon, hey ! Well, I am glad he 
 has left me you. We will wait for him together, my child ; 
 and perhaps when he comes to fetch you away, you shall 
 take me with you out of this hateful, miserable place, to a 
 happier one." 
 
 There was a wild, surging wind from the north-west, 
 bringing with it occasional heavy showers of cold rain, and 
 brilliant gleams of cold sunshine : one of those bitter days 
 which are almost worse than any weather in England, except 
 east. The river was brisk, though dull, leaden, and muddy, 
 dashing in short crisp waves against the piles of Pilot Ter- 
 race. Mr. Morley was gone on board a little higher up the 
 river, and Rebecca had said the last words to him. She 
 was standing at the edge of the river, in the piercing blast, 
 wrapped up from head to foot, shielding her little dog from 
 the cold, and watching the ships pass swiftly seaward until 
 his should come. 
 
 It was not long in coming. A beautiful schooner eager 
 for her battle with the sea, curving her sharp high bows in 
 triumphant anticipation, flying before the swift squall with 
 only a foretopsail set. He stood upon the poop and waved 
 his hand, and so the ship passed on eastward, under a gleam 
 of sun, towards a heavy black cloud, which lay upon her 
 path, and he was gone. And she stood silently weeping on 
 the shore, and holding her little dog close to nearly the most 
 desolate heart which beat in England that day.
 
 
 148 HETTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HOMEWARD ALONE. 
 
 UT by degrees her silent crying stilled itself, 
 and, the cold blast arousing her, she turned 
 resolutely westward against the wind, which, 
 cold as it was, caused her but little annoyance, 
 for the heavy weariness which showed itself in 
 her gait, and the feeling of solitude which gnawed at her 
 heart, made her indifferent to the weather. 
 
 A gleam of such happiness so rapidly evcrclouded. She 
 had only had him for three days, and had never realised 
 actually her position towards him. Never, until she saw him 
 on the deck of the schooner passing rapidly eastward down 
 the river. Then she knew really, for the first time, that 
 Morley had wooed her well ; had understood her thoroughly, 
 and persistently shown her the best side of herself and of 
 himself also ; had petted and encouraged what was good in 
 her, and ignored what was bad ; had gone so high in the art 
 of wooing, that he had shown her herself at her best, and 
 himself as something better still. And she found there was 
 no one like him in the whole of her little world, and she 
 believed no one like him in the larger world beyond hers. 
 She knew that she loved him entirely, with her whole heart. 
 There was not much sentimentality in her love for him. 
 He was very handsome, certainly, of a rare and peculiar 
 beauty, dangerous to the " peace of mind " of most young 
 ladies, but she thought little of that. It was his "way'"' 
 which was so irresistible, and the impression left on her mind 
 was that he had selected her, the poor wild girl who had 
 been a plague to everyone, to do her the highest honour that
 
 HETTY. 149 
 
 man can do woman. That he was a penniless, friendless, 
 and unpopular man she never considered. She looked on 
 him as having descended from a high pedestal of perfect 
 truth and perfect virtue, to do honour to her. She could not 
 understand it, for, like most very noble people, she utterly 
 undervalued herself ; but the fact was the same. He loved 
 her, and she had lost him. 
 
 So she thought as she set her face westward, in her 
 solitude, towards her miserable home. If there was any 
 mere sentimentalism in her deep love, it was not for Morley. 
 She could not be romantic and sentimental about him. In 
 fact, a sentimental young lady would scarcely have liked her 
 lover sailing away in a foretopsail schooner, for a twelve- 
 month, three days after he had proposed to her. In Rebecca's 
 sensible eyes this only made him nobler and more dear to 
 her ; she was assured of his love, and could laugh at Russel 
 and Soper, and all the rest of them. 
 
 But this young lady had a good deal of sentimentality 
 also, but, strangely enough, or rather naturally enough, she 
 reserved all her stores of that article, not for Morley, but for 
 his daughter Hetty, whom she had never seen. 
 
 If one was a Frenchman one might write, " Sentimental 
 love is born of Mystery. Calypso steps from her pedestal 
 and assists Eros to bind the napkin over his eyes." But one 
 is not a Frenchman, and so will not say it. There was 
 certainly nothing Calyptic about Rebecca's love for Mr. 
 Morley. 
 
 But with regard to his daughter. That young lady was a 
 consummate mystery to her (which made Calypso step from 
 her pedestal). And she had certainly, in some way or 
 another, broken through all rules, which caused Rebecca to 
 love her, while knowing nothing about her. (Calypso binds 
 the eyes of Eros.) And so, fighting westward against the
 
 150 HETTY. 
 
 wind, she found herself thinking very much about Hetty. 
 " She will be home before him, and we can talk together 
 about him. I know that I shall love her." 
 
 Stereoscopes are to some only magnified photographs. 
 Others have the stereoscopic eye. Let us look at her with a 
 different eye — say the left. 
 
 There went wearily along the streets of Bermondsey that 
 day, a weak, ill-clad woman, with a baby on her arm, against 
 the wind westward. There came such a driving, furious storm 
 of cold rain, that this poor woman was forced to put into an 
 archway, and took this opportunity of opening her bosom 
 and giving the baby her milk. 
 
 While she was doing so a shadow passed before her, and 
 she hurriedly was drawing her shawl over the arrangement, 
 when she saw that it was only a woman, and was more at her 
 ease. 
 
 It was a singular woman, too. Very young, very hand- 
 somely dressed, and wrapped up from head to foot in a shawl, 
 the price of which would have kept that cowering woman for 
 a twelvemonth. Her hat was of golden seal-skin, the value 
 of which that poor woman had reason to know, and in it was 
 set a storm petrel, a bird that woman knew too well also. 
 She carried her head high, this lady, and was so beautiful in 
 face and in carriage that the cowering woman turned away. 
 
 In her bosom this splendid lady had something which was 
 not a baby, only a little dog, with bright eyes, who put its 
 head out to sneeze. 
 
 She put her grand head down to look at it, and caught 
 sight of her shivering companion. She spoke at once, in the 
 high, clear, splendid voice of an unaffected English lady. 
 
 " My dear creature, you are very cold." 
 
 "Yes, my lady," said the woman, "but my master is 
 colder."
 
 HETTY. 151 
 
 '• Where is he ?" said Rebecca. 
 
 " He is gone to sea, my lady, with half his kit, poor dear. 
 He broke his arm in the frost, hauling a rotten foretopsail 
 halyard, and he missed a voyage, and we have pawned 
 everything, and now my man is gone to sea again." 
 
 " So is mine," said Rebecca, without thinking. 
 
 " Yes, my dear lady, but your good gentleman has his full 
 kit aboard, no doubt. My poor man will be up reefing top- 
 sails in the snow, thin-clad, while yours is warm and 
 comfortable." 
 
 " Do you worry and vex yourself all the time your hus- 
 band is away ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 '• What would be the good ?"' the woman answered. " I've 
 got to live, and to hope." 
 
 " Has he left you money to live on ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 '• Lord bless you, no, he hadn't got none to leave. He will 
 bring back some, though." 
 
 " And what have you to live on, then ? " asked Rebecca, 
 deeply interested. 
 
 ' Charing and needle-work." 
 
 " Have you plenty of it ? " 
 
 '• Yes," she said. " I don't need to be beholden, I have a 
 connection among seafaring men and women, and I can 
 make my three shillings a week till he comes back." 
 
 ' ; Look here," said Rebecca, suddenly and quickly ; " our 
 cases are similar in some way, but your necessity is greater 
 than mine. I have money, you have not. Take this five 
 pounds. I meant it to buy a present for him, but had not 
 time. When you want more, write to me." 
 
 " But I might be an impostor, Miss," said the woman, 
 aghast. 
 
 ''Your words show that you are none," said Rebecca, and 
 giving her address, she walked quickly away.
 
 152 HETTY. 
 
 Quiet, through having got thoroughly well tired, she 
 turned, after an eight miles' walk, into her own dismal lane, 
 and found herself confronted with Miss Soper and Mrs. 
 Russel. 
 
 In small communities, news fly fast : the whole earth is a 
 small community now, thanks to the telegraph ; hence our 
 telegrams, which always require to be emphatically con- 
 tradicted next day. It had got about in the small Walham 
 Green connexion, that Mr. Morlcy was going to marry Miss 
 Turner, but that she had shown such abominable temper 
 that he had shipped on board a fast brig, and gone to sea ; 
 and that she had started early that morning, down to the 
 docks, to bring him to book. This was too good a thing for 
 Russel and Soper to miss. She must come home some time 
 in the afternoon, and so Russel and Soper cruised off the 
 end of the lane, as Anson did for the Acapulco plate ship ; 
 knowing that if they could lay her by the board they would 
 have something to reward them. 
 
 Their cruise was (comparatively speaking) as long as Lord 
 Anson's, and in the end very little more successful. They 
 made raids into the lane, and took Akin's house, and Mr. 
 Spicer's house — with tracts ; but they were always soon on 
 their post off the lane's end ; and after a time the Acapulco 
 ship arrived, and they boarded her, to the intense delight of 
 Akin and Mr. Spicer, who were watching. 
 
 Rebecca, tall, handsome, fresh from the sea, head in air, 
 with sealskin hat and storm-petrel for ornament, thinking of 
 things far away, was arrested by Russel and Soper. Mab, 
 who had not been let to walk, had accommodated herself 
 to circumstances so far ; but Soper was too much for her, 
 and she barked so furiously at that good lady that she was 
 put down ; a liberty which she used for a cloak of licentious- 
 ness, for she bit Soper's gown without a moment's hesitation,
 
 HETTY. 
 
 J 53 
 
 and kept hold of it, too ; which so agitated Soper that fat 
 old Russel had to do the talking. 
 
 " She is a varmint little thing," said Akin to Spicer, in the 
 distance. 
 
 " So is her mistress," said Mr. Spicer. 
 
 " My dear," said Russel, " we were here, and saw you com- 
 ing. Are we to congratulate you ? " 
 
 "On what?" said Rebecca. " Mab, you naughty little 
 thing, be quiet." 
 
 " On your approaching marriage with Mr. Morley." 
 
 " No, I think not," said Rebecca. " He sailed for Tahiti 
 this morning. But I am very much obliged to you, all the same." 
 
 " Is he coming back soon ? " said Miss Soper, who had been 
 delivered from Mab by Rebecca. 
 
 " I should think not," said Rebecca. " It is quite impossible 
 that he can be back under a twelvemonth ; possibly, not for 
 two years. But it is of no consequence that I know of." 
 
 And so those two very good people went away, and told 
 the whole truth to the connexion. And the whole truth was, 
 that Mr. Morley had found out too much, and had shipped 
 for Tahiti. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HAGBUT IN A NEW LIGHT. 
 
 ' UT to Rebecca's great and never-ending astonish- 
 ment, Hagbut came out in an entirely new line 
 at this juncture. Hagbut was stupid, vain, 
 avaricious, and selfish. You will find such cha- 
 racters in every form of religion, just as you will 
 find Morley's. But Hagbut was an exceptional man. The 
 man had power. He had put a few ends before him, social
 
 154 
 
 HETTY 
 
 and religious ; and in steadily pursuing those ends, he looked 
 neither to the right nor the left. The success of his own 
 small religious connexion, and his own personal governance 
 of that connexion, were his two great objects. Take him 
 apart from those objects, and you would find a man, not 
 without strength, but who seemed narrow, because he re- 
 ferred all matters in heaven and earth to his own service and 
 that of his own sect. If any matter did not appear to him to 
 interfere with these two objects, he could b& as just and as 
 generous as another. 
 
 Now Rebecca had done no such thing as the scandalous 
 
 Hetty; and besides — and besides well, he had been fond 
 
 of Rebecca once on a time. And sometimes, when Carry 
 was most religious, and most affectionate, — when he was 
 wearied with religious work, and would gladly have heard 
 something of the world which he was bound to despise in 
 words, Hagbut thought seriously that he had made a mis- 
 take. Rebecca would not have him, it is true ; still Carry, 
 with her money, was a great bore, and Rebecca was worth 
 ten of her. 
 
 Russel and Soper invaded him when he was thinking of 
 these things, and saying to himself that he was glad the poor 
 girl was so well fitted with Morley ; and honestly, and, as 
 far as he was able, tenderly, wishing her good luck. Russel 
 and Soper did not meet with the reception they anticipated. 
 
 " He has gone and left her," said .Miss Soper. " Rebecca 
 Turner was down after him to the docks, this morning ; but 
 he has gone and left her." 
 
 " He has gone to provide a home for her,'' said Mr. Hagbut. 
 
 " Mr. Hagbut, it is not so. Mr. Morley has run away. She 
 told us with her own lips that he was gone away, and that she 
 didn't care when he came back." 
 
 " I know she didn't say that" said Hagbut, bending his
 
 HETTY. 155 
 
 ugly pale face on Miss Soper, and thrusting out his powerful 
 jaw in a way which Miss Soper did not like. " What were 
 her words ? " 
 
 " Her words were, that he was gone for a twelvemonth, and 
 that it was no matter," said Mrs. Russel. 
 
 " Sec how you stand cross-examination, you two," said 
 Ilagbut. "I can't trust a word you say. Now look you 
 here, you two. That girl is my sister-in-law, and a good 
 girl, too ; and Morley is the most refined and educated man 
 in our connexion,— a connexion which wants, what I have 
 not got, refinement and education, more than most. I won't 
 have Rebecca's name pulled about. She is a fine creature." 
 
 The more cowardly Russel was abashed at once ; not so 
 the more resolute and sourer Soper, who had never felt a 
 man's influence, but who had got her living by bullying girls. 
 
 " You pulled her name about at one time pretty freely, 
 yourself," said she. 
 
 " Yes ; but that was my business. This is none of yours. 
 You mind what I say, and leave the girl alone. I won't have 
 her meddled with. Mind, I mean what I say." 
 
 And, indeed, he looked very much as if he did. Pale, ugly, 
 and generally lazy, as he was, there was an immense amount 
 of powerful animation in the man, with some shrewd sense. 
 Russel and Soper had brains enough to find out this ; Re- 
 becca had brains enough to find out more. 
 
 She was alone that evening, with an atlas before her, fol- 
 lowing Morley across the map, when the little maid told her 
 that Mr. Hagbut was come to see her. And she said, " Show 
 him in." 
 
 Mr. Hagbut came in, and they greeted one another civilly ; 
 after which, Mr. Hagbut pointed to the atlas, and said, — 
 
 "Alter htm?" 
 
 " Yes."
 
 i,6 HETTY. 
 
 l o' 
 
 " You arc a happy woman, Rebecca, if it is all right be- 
 tween you and Morley. Come, sister-in-law, tell me that 
 it is." 
 
 " It is ' all right,' as you call it," said Rebecca, laughing. 
 " He is going to be away for an indefinite time; but we are, 
 what the world calls, engaged." 
 
 " I wish you happy, most heartily," said Hagbut, leaning 
 his ugly face on his great fat hands, and looking at her. " It 
 is your own fault if you are not. He is refined, and a gentle- 
 man ; I am neither the one nor the other." 
 
 " I think you are a very good man, Mr. Hagbut," she said, 
 looking him frankly in the face. 
 
 " I do among vulgar people, being vulgar myself. And I 
 do good where a gentleman would fail. But, Rebecca, it is 
 well we did not marry." 
 
 " It is very well, indeed," said Rebecca. 
 
 " I suppose you have often put this case to yourself, with 
 regard to me, — ' If I had married that ugly, fat man, without 
 ideas, without the manners of a gentleman, without education; 
 death would have been better than life.' You have put it so, 
 have you not ? " 
 
 " Not so strongly as that, Mr. Hagbut ; but still very 
 strongly," said Rebecca, with resolution. 
 
 " Did you ever put the other side of the question?" asked 
 Hagbut. " Did you ever think of me? Did you ever think 
 for one instant what a hell on earth (I beg pardon) my life 
 would have been ; tied for life to a beautiful, clever, refined, 
 and furiously rebellious woman like yourself? You congra- 
 tulate yourself on your escape ; congratulate me on mine. 
 We should not have lived together a month in decency ; for 
 my will is immovable." 
 
 Rebecca paused for a long time. At last she said, — 
 
 " It seems to me, brother-in-law, that you are a very honest
 
 HETTY. 157 
 
 man. You served me ill once ; but let us forget all, and be- 
 friends : God knows I want them. Come, brother-in-law, do 
 not be my enemy, although we can never be companions ; for 
 we should squabble so dreadfully over ways of speech on reli- 
 gious matters, you know: and I doubt if we should. agree 
 with regard to Hetty." 
 
 "What do you know of her?" said Mr. Hagbut. 
 
 " Nothing. What has she done ? " 
 
 "If you do not know, /see no reason for telling you. I 
 have taken my side there, and will maintain it." 
 
 "Well, if you go against her, you will spare me?" said 
 Rebecca. 
 
 Hagbut would not have taken an oath in a court of justice 
 to save his life ; but, in his heart, without speech, he swore a 
 deep and terrible oath then. No religionist can be without 
 sentiment ; and the deepest sentimental part of Hagbut's 
 soul was aroused by the spectacle of this utterly solitary and 
 defenceless girl, whom he had once thought that he had 
 loved, in spite of his fear of her, alone against the world. 
 Hagbut made affirmation silently to himself, that he would 
 stand between this poor child and the world, which meant 
 their small connexion. And he did it, like a leal and loyal 
 soul. It is easy to see the worst of these men. You must 
 know them to find out the best of them. For my part, I 
 have known many ministers of religion. Roman Catholic 
 verbiage, or Dissenting verbiage, may be offensive to the 
 ear ; but in twenty years I have only known two bad minis- 
 ters of religion of any sect, and that is not a large per cen- 
 tage, after all : one speaks, of course, merely of a large per- 
 sonal acquaintance. Being on dangerous ground, I will step 
 off it ; only enrolling my opinion, that the ministers of religion, 
 with all their eccentricities, are nearly the most valuable class 
 in the community.
 
 158 HETTY. 
 
 Hagbut spoke to Rebecca no more after this. Carry would 
 have been jealous had she known that he had said so much. 
 But Russel and Soper's vilipendings of Rebecca were now 
 reduced to sniffs and glances. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE GAZETTE. 
 
 j^ss^ssp ND so it came about, that Rebecca, who began, 
 
 ^|J H at the very beginning of this story, by wishing 
 
 £3s|i f&\ herself dead, wished nothing of the kind now ; 
 
 yij|gj|f j but only wished like Jane Eyre, " that she might 
 
 ' keep in good health and not die." 
 
 Yet she was infinitely worse off than in the old times when 
 she wished herself dead. She was in utter and entire soli- 
 tude, for her father was not much better company than can 
 be found in the saner side of Bedlam. She had not a soul to 
 speak to in any sort of way approaching the confidential, ex- 
 cept Mab, and Mab could not answer her. 
 
 Although Hagbut had stilled all tongues, with his fat em- 
 phatic fist, yet even he could not prevent people looking at 
 Rebecca in chapel : and she knew that they were looking at 
 her, and she hated it. She never saw them looking at her, 
 but she felt it ; and the effect of this consciousness on her 
 face was to produce an expression of calm, careless anger, 
 which assisted devotion in no way whatever. 
 
 Had she known that they were only studying, in a humble 
 way, her imperial, magnificent beauty, read it like a book, 
 and learning from it, as one learns art at first, from a great 
 and traditionally authenticated picture, she might have been 
 content, and have given them at times softer developments
 
 J I ETTY. 159 
 
 of her not very mobile face. But she thought they -were only 
 staring at her ; and she hated her chapel worse than ever. 
 
 She felt this more than ever one morning, when she had 
 gone alone, her father being too ill to come. " I will never 
 go again,'' she said. " They hate me." And she stalked out 
 through the crowd with her head in the air. 
 
 Soper was helping Russel along, and said, " Did you ever 
 sec anything like that?" 
 
 "A bold-faced jig," said Russel. 
 
 " 1 mean," said Soper the schoolmistress, " did you ever 
 see such beauty in all your life ; because I have had some 
 experience, and I never did." 
 
 Soper and Russel went their ways, and Rebecca went hers ; 
 but she was followed home by two admirers. 
 
 Mr. Akin and Mr. Spicer. When they had turned into 
 their own lane, they came up beside her, one on each side, 
 and spoke to her boldly and eagerly. 
 
 " Glad to see you about, Miss. Mr. Turner is quite well, 
 I hope?" 
 
 " My father is not at all well," said Rebecca. " I am so 
 glad to see you two at chapel." 
 
 "We will leave that alone, Miss, at present," said Mr. 
 Spicer. " We want to speak to you very particular indeed, 
 Miss. Don't us, Jim ? " 
 
 " Indeed we do." 
 
 "You see, Miss," said Mr. Spicer the sweep, "we sweeps 
 as a general rule are the cleanest of all working chaps, always 
 taking a bath afore we turns in. But we have what we call 
 the black bed, into which we turns in all our crock when 
 there's a difficult flue early in the morning. And we got 
 orders for Beaufort House, and (you won't tell on a man for 
 breaking the act) I lay in the black bed with my youngest 
 son Tom, to put he up the flue before the police was round.
 
 160 HETTY. 
 
 It was agen the law I know, but that boy loves his profession ; 
 I should say his art : for that boy is as much an artist in a 
 crooked flue, as the great Anelay is in the Mysteries of Lon- 
 don. With a father's feelings I went with him of course, 
 and we was no sooner out of our house, than he said, — 
 
 " ' See to those coves round Mr. Turner's, father.' " 
 
 " Burglars ? " asked Rebecca. 
 
 " There was two on them, Miss. It was pretty dark, but 
 we could see. One was a young swell, and the other I 
 know'd." 
 
 " This is very alarming," said Rebecca. " What did you 
 do?" 
 
 " I called out the name of the man I know'd. I said, 
 ' Bob Syers, you hook it.' And he offered in return a low 
 remark, referring to a misfortune of mine in years gone by ; 
 but he hooked it all the same." 
 
 " Whatever shall we do ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 ' ; Put the police to watch. Syers is well know'd, as is 
 doubtless the young s\\ ell." 
 
 ' : I can't employ the police," said Rebecca, incautiously. 
 •• Whatever shall I do ? " 
 
 In the following paragraph I am only speaking of what I 
 have seen with my own eyes. It is wrong and immoral, but 
 there it is, for better or for worse, — a great deal for worse, I 
 should say. 
 
 Rebecca had won these men. Not by her beauty, for their 
 eyes were too utterly untrained to see her beauty. They 
 would probably have pronounced Buckingham Palace to be- 
 finer than Wells, Bayeux, or Salisbury, and have called Win- 
 chester a barn. They would possibly have called a red-faced 
 Devon lass far prettier than Rebecca. It was not her beauty 
 which had won these men, it was her sympathy and geni- 
 ality. They were neither of them very respectable men ;
 
 HETTY. l6 i 
 
 but either of them would have fought for her, merely in return 
 for kind words and kind acts to their wives, at any time. 
 Now that she had confessed to them that there was some- 
 thing the matter in her father's house, which forbade the 
 police being called in, they would die for her, or risk it. 
 There was a new bond of sympathy between her and these 
 gentlemen now, which made them reach- for anything in her 
 behalf. It is all wrong and bad, but so it is. You don't 
 know where the criminal class begins. Still {ess do you 
 know where tin- sympathy wjth the criminal class begins. 
 
 And further, Mr. Turner, solicitor and Methodist, had been 
 an offensive person to them both, by his mere existence 
 hitherto. Now that there was an obvious hitch in his affairs, 
 insoluble by those enemies of mankind the Metropolitan 
 police, they began to have a fellow-feeling with him, which 
 they never had before. The sympathies of people like Mr. 
 Spicer and Mr. Akin, are distinctly not on the side of the 
 law. On all sentimental grounds they were perfectly ready 
 to assist Rebecca. 
 
 "Lord bless you, Miss," said Mr. Spicer, "don't vex your- 
 self. We will watch. You have got a little dog as will bark." 
 
 " Yes," said Rebecca, showing Mab. 
 
 " Pretty dear," said Jim Akin, " there she is. Let me have 
 the handling of her, Miss, please. She is worth ten pound, 
 Miss ; there ain't a p'int about this dog which is at fault, 
 Miss," he continued, nursing Mab. 
 
 " Never mind the clog, Jim," said Mr. Spicer. 
 
 "Ah, but I do mind the dog, Spicer," said Mr. Akin. 
 " You ain't a cynosure in dogs, you see." 
 
 " He'd serve six months for a rat-tailed terrier, Miss," said 
 Mr. Spicer. "We all have our fancies. But see here ; durst 
 you fire a gun?" 
 
 " Yes, I know how ; my father has shown me." 
 
 M
 
 i6j HETTY. 
 
 " Then," said Mr. Spicer, "every time that little dog barks, 
 you fire a gun out a winder, and me and Jim will be with 
 you. They won't try it on often, if you do that, Miss. Their 
 nerves is never good. If it only comes to nothing at all, they 
 will get scared ; if we get 'em in the house, why then we shall 
 know what to do. You needn't bother about the policemen. 
 In fact, we don't want no police round here." 
 
 " I will do what you tell me," said Rebecca. " If anything 
 were to happen, you could hold your tongues — keep silent — 
 could you not ? " 
 
 Mr. Spicer sniffed, and Mr. Akin, in giving back Mab, 
 winked. " Tell her about the backer, Spicer," said this 
 coarse young man. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you fool," said Mr. Spicer. "What 
 do you suppose the young lady would want to know about 
 the running of a twopenny-halfpenny, four hundred boxes of 
 cigars, so high up the river as this, in a ballast lighter ? I am 
 ashamed on you. Good afternoon, Miss" ; depend on us." 
 And so they went. 
 
 Leaving Rebecca with the terrible impression that she had 
 connected herself with the criminal classes, not through her 
 own fault, but utterly without hope of extrication. She was 
 so utterly puzzled by her quaint position, that she was actually 
 whimsical, almost humorous over it. 
 
 " I shall be in gaol, my dear," she said to Mab. " And 
 you will be reduced to bacon and cold potatoes, at Akin's, 
 until I come out again. I wish father had not broken the 
 law in this matter, even from his very high motives. Bother 
 you," she continued, shaking her fist at the law of the land, 
 " you will pass over Sir Gorham Philpott, and Lord Ducetoy, 
 and you will catch my father. You Brute, not if I can 
 stop it." 
 
 She had come at her purpose before she reached home.
 
 HETTY. j6 3 
 
 Her father was in a very difficult position : detaining papers 
 which he had no right to detain : detaining them on very 
 chivalrous grounds. But he had only seen part of the con- 
 sequences in a sentimental, or as she put it, Walham Green 
 way ; the first thing she had to do, was to put the Limchouse 
 view of the question before him. 
 
 So she burst in on him suddenly, and said. " Pa, you have 
 made a nice mess of it. They are going to rob and murder 
 us all. They were about the house two nights ago." 
 
 " So I suppose," said Mr. Turner. 
 
 " So you sitppos:" said Rebecca. " Well I tell you, pa, 
 that I am not used to it, and that I am not going to stand it. 
 Trampling about in other people's gardens, indeed ! I tell 
 you, pa, that I am not going to endure it." 
 
 " \xcyou going to leave me, Becky ? " said Mr. Turner. 
 
 Rebecca had not calculated on this. The thread of her 
 argument was ravelled. 
 
 " Leave you, dear," she said, kneeling at his feet. " Why 
 father, father, I have no one left but you, now Alfred is gone. 
 My dear, I will never leave you this side of the grave." 
 
 "Is Alfred Morley actually gone?" said Mr. Turner, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, but he will come back. He is only gone for a weary 
 year or two ; just to leave us alone, you know." 
 
 " I thought from your manner that you were angry with 
 me ; stay by me." 
 
 " I was and am angry with you," said Rebecca ; " you are 
 moping and brooding when you should be acting. We want 
 your brains to direct us ; we will find hands to assist." 
 
 "We?" said Mr. Turner. 
 
 " Yes, we," said Rebecca ; " Spicer and Akin and I, not 
 to mention Mab. Tell us what to do." 
 
 " You have strange accomplices," said Turner. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 HETTY. 
 
 " And you have done a strange thing. Their motives are 
 as high as yours. They help us from mere love." 
 
 " What have they seen ? " asked Mr. Turner, rousing 
 himself. 
 
 " Our house was 'attempted' two days ago by two men. 
 One, Syers, a burglar, and the other a young gentleman. 
 Spicer the sweep knew Syers, and challenged him. The 
 young gentleman he did not know." 
 
 Mr. Turner lay back in his chair and laughed — laughed 
 again almost heartily ; then he began to speak. 
 
 " My dear child, this is exactly as I supposed. The man 
 Syers is, as you tell me, you being acquainted with the 
 criminal class so intimately, a burglar. Now the young 
 gentleman who was with him is Edmund Philpott, whose 
 forgeries, those of my own name in particular, I hold." 
 
 " Well," said Rebecca. 
 
 " You may well say ' well,'" said Mr. Turner, "you don't 
 understand business ; indeed no one will soon, now that 
 financing has come in, and the L. C. & D. can't exactly 
 make out whether Mr. P. owes them six millions of money, 
 or they owe him two-and-a-half millions. But you under- 
 stand enough for this. That a Limited Liability Company 
 bought the Gorham- Philpott business for ,£500,000, and have 
 made a mess of it, as limited companies always do and 
 always will. We don't want limited liability, girl, we want 
 unlimited responsibility. Ha ! look at M. when he was 
 short : what did the trade say to the limited liability com- 
 panies ? Why they said, one and all, ' we will have the man 
 and not a parcel of- irresponsible shareholders. We know 
 the man, and the man is honest as knows the business,' 
 says they, 'but we don't know five hundred irresponsible 
 shareholders ; ' and the trade pulled the man through, and 
 there he is now.
 
 HETTY. 165 
 
 " Well, child, you can't understand this, though every 
 reader of a newspaper can. This Gorham-Philpott business 
 was sold ; and I gave up my position as their attorney. 
 And first of all I did a wrong thing for our relation, Lord 
 Ducetoy — I kept his papers here to save them from the 
 smash. And secondly, to save Sir Gorham, I kept all the 
 papers which young Edmund had forged." 
 
 " And you did well and nobly," said Rebecca. " You have 
 broken the law, I doubt not. But I am with you." 
 
 " Well, that is finely said," said Mr. Turner. " But don't 
 you go breaking the law; you know one is quite enough in 
 a family. Listen, and don't talk nonsense. The Limited 
 Company has gone to unutterable ruin. The property of 
 the old house was guaranteed to the company, and their 
 deeds must come into the Bankruptcy Court. Some I have 
 burnt in my brooding folly, some are here still. I hardly 
 know, child, what I have destroyed and what I have not. 
 But young Philpott has forged heavily : he believes that his 
 forgeries are here, and he will murder us all." 
 
 "And indeed he will murder none of us," said Rebecca ; 
 " I'll sort him if he comes here. Pa, dear, what on earth 
 ever caused you to be so silly ? " 
 
 "As how?" 
 
 " As to burn those papers." 
 
 " Brooding and brooding," said Mr. Turner ; " brooding 
 about your mother eternally, for one thing. I don't know 
 what I have burnt and what I have not." 
 
 " Can't you look and see, pa ? " 
 
 " No. I am gone beyond that. It kills me to look at 
 papers. I am a lost man." 
 
 " Are you in debt, pa ? " 
 
 " No. There will be money enough when I am gone. 
 But Hagbut told me on our last meeting about business
 
 166 HETTY. 
 
 matters that he saw no signs of grace in me. And he is an 
 experienced man in spiritual matters; therefore I doubt that 
 I have never been convicted of "sin, and am damned ever- 
 lastingly. That is all." 
 
 " This is worse nonsense than the other," said Rebecca, 
 furiously : " pa, how can you sit there and talk like that, 
 with the good God listening to you ? Hagbut is a good 
 fellow, but he ought to be hung if he told you that." 
 
 " He did not, my dear. I know it," said Mr. Turner. 
 
 " Well, I can do nothing with you," said Rebecca, " except 
 ask you not to talk nonsense. Do you think they will try 
 the house again ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Shall you shoot young Philpott, if you meet him ? " said 
 Rebecca. 
 
 The answer was a curious one. Mr. Turner raised a 
 wan, pale face to hers, from which every kind of expression 
 was banished. Her father's brain had gone. The me- 
 chanical work of his office for so many years, his terrible 
 troubles with his wife in old times, and this last miserable, 
 silly, inextricable confusion, had been too much for him. 
 Rebecca saw that she could not trust him again. 
 
 Once see that dead stare in the eyes of one you love, and 
 love may remain; but confidence has departed for ever. 
 
 Rebecca repeated her question, with an artificial laugh. 
 " You won't shoot young Philpott, will you, pa ? " 
 
 His answer was worse than his silence. He looked at her 
 steadily, and with some recollection of the old days, of which 
 she knew nothing, said, — 
 
 " Trout should be as bright as peacocks before you should 
 catch them. Or to be more correct, like the butterfly called 
 Vanessa Io. You should lay them carefully in cowslips and 
 grass; an orchis or two atop is not amiss ; Morio or Pyrami-
 
 HETTY. 167 
 
 dalis would do; but above all things a sprig of 'Gcum,' which 
 the hinds call ' Avcns,' Lord knows why. Seek also in the 
 damp meadows for your Ophioglossum, and put a piece of it 
 in your biggest trout's mouth. And when she sees it she will 
 know what you mean by her. And she will walk in the sun 
 along the south wall, and will pick for you Rosemary, Old 
 man, and the flower which fools call ' Prince's feather,' but 
 which men call ' Love lies a-bleeding.' That is what she will 
 do, and then go and marry George Somers." 
 
 ''Lord help me!" said poor Rebecca. "His mind is 
 gone." 
 
 Not gone, Rebecca, only babbling of green fields. Most 
 men have lived at least three lives before they get married, 
 and once and for all lay everything at the feet of one woman. 
 He was only dazed a little in his brain, and, as I have 
 noticed in dying men, reverting to the first of his lives — a life 
 she knew not of. He was shrewd enough next morning; his 
 keenness was more painful to her than his wandering.. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE WALPURGIS NIGHT. 
 
 f R. TURNER slept, or pretended to, till nine 
 jj o'clock, then he began furiously ringing his 
 j: bell. Rebecca came to him in her dressing- 
 _ji! gown. 
 
 " Is the Times come, child ?" he said. 
 " How could it be come, pa ?" 
 " Go eastward, child, and meet it. Quick, go !" 
 She dressed herself and went Eastward, she had got 
 nearly to the South Kensington Museum before she got the 
 Times, and she hurried back with it. Her father sat up in
 
 i53 HETTY. 
 
 bed while he opened it. After glancing at a column or so, 
 he said, "What a thundering lie !'"' 
 
 "What, pa?" 
 
 " Philpott & Co., Limited," he answered, " bankrupt for 
 ,£800,000. Why, child, I could account for ,£1,200,000. I 
 will have another nap after that. If any- genteel-looking 
 man calls, tell him, — well, tell him he had better call some- 
 where else. We know too much here." 
 
 What between Turner's wildness of the night before, and 
 his shrewd jocularity now, poor Rebecca was utterly puzzled. 
 One thing she knew, and that was that Morley, Hartop, and 
 the never-seen Hetty, were all at sea, that her father's mind 
 was going, and that he and she were alone in the world 
 together. 
 
 One can see how our nation has developed by turning 
 over old novels ; for one, over Dombey and Son, written by 
 Dickens, a man not unacquainted with the ways of this 
 world, but by our new lights rather behind his time, in a few 
 particulars. 
 
 For instance, Mr. Dombey goes bankrupt for the mean 
 sum of one hundred thousand pounds. That was all very 
 well in 1848, but we have improved on that since. Mr. 
 Perch, the messenger, congratulated himself on the fact that 
 Dombey had gone for " one hundred — thousand — pound." 
 That is but a small smash now. Great, and heretofore 
 trusted names in trade, seem to be vying with the worst of 
 the old aristocratic scoundrels, and beating them hollow. 
 The frightful recklessness of the habitual gambler, Lord 
 Mornington (about ,£700,000, leaving no one unpaid in the 
 end), or that of the unhappy boy just dead (some ,£200,000), 
 is fairly beaten out of calculation by the deficiencies of some 
 of the clearest and best heads in the world of business. 
 How these men can keep sane under such a nightmare of
 
 HETTY. 169 
 
 hopeless debt is the wonder to some. Sec if this little case 
 of the Philpotts is overstated in any way. Do we not all 
 know of an honoured (justly honoured) member of the House, 
 now dead and beyond trouble, who sat later than any one at 
 the House; sat through the most wearisome of business, 
 sooner than go home. There was a leaden weight of 
 ,£300,000 on that man's soul. That hopeless deficiency of 
 capital, which, well used, would have saved Bethnal Green, 
 or the Isle of Dogs, from their present state, hanging on his 
 mind ; hanging round his neck. It was no error of his, but 
 of younger branches of his family. He was one of the 
 purest, best, and noblest of men, but condemned to silence 
 for the love which he bore to his family. 
 
 Such an old age is not good to think about. Better to 
 study William Blake, when he is most wildly melancholy, 
 and most unutterably sad. Still in Blake's deepest sadness, 
 there is almost always tenderness and hope. And so we 
 should think of this poor member, who had never one selfish 
 thought in his heart. Turn to Blake's great masterpiece, 
 Death's Door* (which I have known since I was six years 
 
 * Notes are very unpopular, but one seems necessary here. The 
 piece I mean is to be found at p. 224 of Gilchrist's Life of Make, but 
 has been copied many times. A bent old man, doubled up with age, is 
 hobbling on crutches into a vault. He is not well clad, and the winds 
 of the world are blowing on him from behind, and helping him towards 
 the dark doorway, — a half-open iron door set in Cyclopic stonework. 
 The attitude and gait of the old man are, as far as my experience goes, 
 not only unapproached but unapproachable. Many Frenchmen— and a 
 few Englishmen — can paint action in double-quick time. Blake here 
 lias expressed action, not in double-quick time, or even in quick time. 
 but in slow time. I have no space to descant on the marvellous senti- 
 mental beauties of this wonderful piece, worthy to rank with Michael 
 Angelo's Lorenzo de Medici, or Velasquez's " Orlando Muerto." Below 
 the feet of the old man, dimly seen in the darkness, are the barred
 
 170 HETTY. 
 
 old, and which never palls on one), when you think of an old 
 man, dishonoured through no fault of his, creeping to his 
 tomb, as Sir Gorham Philpott was to his. 
 
 The younger members of a dishonoured family will, how- 
 ever, sometimes make a fight to save what cannot be saved, 
 more particularly where there has been criminality. Young 
 Philpott was distinctly criminal. He had forged more 
 boldly than Sir John Paul. He was, unlike that man, disso- 
 lute, dissipated, and utterly reckless. He was perfectly safe 
 if he could recover his own forgeries, and he knew that 
 Turner had them all. Could he get those forgeries in his 
 own hand, he was well provided for. With a view to these 
 contingencies he had bought heavily in foreign funds, deny- 
 ing himself every kind of luxury to do so. In the case of a 
 mere bankruptcy, these funds could not be tracked, but in 
 the case of a criminal prosecution, his money was of little 
 value to him, for he would spend his time at Portland. This 
 made him desperate. 
 
 Another thing made him still more desperate. This young 
 forger was a very handsome young fellow, of good manners, 
 and his family had caused him to make a great alliance 
 with another great house ; and so he had married, somewhat 
 against his will, one of the most beautiful and charming 
 women ever born. 
 
 He married her first, and fell in love with her afterwards, 
 as is often the case. His love for her grew as time went on : 
 her exquisite grace, her perfect equable temper, her beauty, 
 her deference to him, her intelligence — all had their effect on 
 him. And after two years, he awoke one morning, by her 
 
 windows of the charnel-house, to which we must all come. But above 
 and aloft, in blazing sunlight, is the newly-awakened figure of a young 
 man rising naked and wondering into the wonders of the new life.
 
 HETTY. 171 
 
 side, and saw the whole of his very ghastly position. He- 
 was a felon, who might be in Cold-Bath Fields to-morrow, 
 and she thought him an honest and respectable man. 
 
 " She would stand the bankruptcy, but she could not stand 
 that? was what he said. " By the Lord ! I have a good 
 mind to tell her the whole business, and get it over." 
 
 So it happened one morning that Mrs. Philpott, turning 
 over in her bed, found her husband kneeling at the bedside 
 with the sheets bathed in blood. " I have hurt my head," 
 he said. " I got out of bed incautiously, and have broken 
 my head over the dressing-table." She was piteous and 
 tender over his accident ; little thinking that the young man, 
 in his mad despair, had rushed against the wall. Enough of 
 such things ; the man was desperate. 
 
 His desperation little matters to us, save that he brought it 
 to Turner's house, and so involved our Rebecca, and her 
 dog Mab. In a little story, about homely facts like these, 
 one has not room for one's rascals. Neither has one the 
 genius of Shakspeare to develop one's rascal (Falstaff) until 
 wrong gets to be right, and one loves him. 
 
 Rebecca said to her father, " Pa, haven't you made a great 
 mess of it ?" 
 
 " Very great indeed, my dear." 
 
 " Why don't you tell the whole truth, pa ?" 
 
 " Because I should be in Cold-Bath Fields Prison, my 
 dear." 
 
 " But we can't come out of it, dear pa, any way." 
 
 •' My dear child," said Mr. Turner; " the whole thing is a 
 stale-mate at chess. No one dare move for his life. I have 
 seen worse muddled matters than this got through." And, 
 indeed, lie gave her proof. 
 
 '•Why, even in Paul's case," he said; "if it had not been 
 for a high-minded and indignant parson, the whole thing
 
 i 7 2 HETTY. 
 
 would have dropped through. I tell you, child, that you 
 don't know business. Nobody is safe except a magistrate's 
 butler. I am very, very tired again, Rebecca. I am going 
 to die." 
 
 " Pa, you had better go to bed again, if you talk such 
 nonsense as that." 
 
 " I am going, my dear. I shall sleep through the day, and 
 wake at night. They will try the house to-night. Be ready 
 for them." 
 
 " How shall I be ready for them, father?" 
 
 " Bless the girl, I don't know. Ducetoy's deeds are in the 
 iron safe. Philpott's papers are in the box under my bed. 
 Do the best you can, child; I am horribly drowsy — deadly 
 drowsy. They will try the house to-night, and if the house 
 gets into the possession of the police, I can't say what will 
 happen. Go and see to matters, I am going to sleep." 
 
 Rebecca, seeing that there was nothing more to be got out 
 of her father, did probably the quaintest and most indiscreet 
 thing which she ever did in all her life. Matters were very 
 desperate with her. Anticipated disaster had been familiar 
 with her for some time. But here was disaster itself. Dis- 
 aster of the very worst kind. She knew perfectly well that 
 in the opinion of experienced lawyers about the great bank- 
 ruptcy of the Philpotts, her father must sooner or later, 
 through his folly, be involved. How deep she knew not. 
 Her father, with the highest motives possible, had broken the 
 law. She went for advice and assistance to people whom she 
 dreamt had had some experience that way themselves. 
 
 It was twelve o'clock, high noon, when she put her hat on, 
 and stepped across the lane to Mrs. Akin. 
 
 Mrs. Akin was in a deluge of soapsuds. She took in 
 washing. Rebecca said to her, " Mrs. Akin, is your hus- 
 band at home ?'"
 
 HETTY. 173 
 
 " Dear Miss," she said; "no. He is out with his barrer. 
 There is some husbands, Miss, which you will find yourself, 
 when you are married, and a nicer gentleman I never see, I 
 am sure, who objects to any washing at home at all, but wants 
 it all put out, and I am sure I hope for your favours, Miss. 
 Some will stand one washing-day in the week, and some 
 won't. But my dear man, he has a washing-day every week, 
 and never grumbles. He may come round home to dinner, 
 Miss, but I ask you to look at his little home, full of damp 
 linen; you arc a-sneezing yourself. If he comes home shall 
 I make him step across ?" 
 
 " If you would be so good,"' said Rebecca. 
 
 " He would step further than that for you, Miss," she said ; 
 "there is a little one in heaven pleading for you with us, 
 Miss. The old fellow shall come across." * 
 
 Rebecca left the costermonger's wife — not a noticeable 
 woman in any way — and went next door to the chimney- 
 sweep's wife, who was decidedly a noticeable person. 
 
 She was a very stout, florid woman, with all the ill-temper 
 which is produced by the accumulation of fat round the 
 heart ; she scowled on Rebecca. 
 
 "Is Mr. Spicer at home, please ?" she asked. 
 
 " No, he ain't." 
 
 " I am very sorry for that, for I wanted to speak to him." 
 
 " What about ? " 
 
 " I only wanted a little advice," said Rebecca. 
 
 " I can give you some of that. Don't you go trampoline- 
 ing about with those Methodist parsons too much. They 
 are no good." 
 
 * To meet any charge of want of verisimilitude from any one not 
 acquainted with the labouring classes so well as myself, I have repro- 
 duced actual dialogue.
 
 i 7 4 HETTY. 
 
 " I shall not have the chance of doing so any more, Mrs. 
 Spicer," said she. 
 
 " And a good job, too. And now you have come to us for 
 advice, I'll advise you a little more. Don't you come here 
 unsettling my man's mind, and getting him to chapel, and 
 setting his mind to the keeping of the law about the boys. 
 Why I suppose your advice has cost me a cool 20/. a year. 
 He won't send a boy up a flue now since he has taken to con- 
 sort with you. And, if you knew anything at all, you would 
 know there was flues which could not be swep' without boys. 
 And our connection resents it naturally. My man says, ' it 
 is agin the law,' and they make answer, ' do you accuse us of 
 abetting an' breaking the law?' and he, with his spirit, 
 makes answer, ' I do.' Then you need not call again, Mr. 
 Spicer,' they says ; and that is your doing." 
 
 " You are very impertinent and entirely wrong," said 
 Rebecca ; " if I have prevented Mr. Spicer, my very good 
 friend, from sending boys up these horrible chimneys, I am 
 very glad. I would have anyone transported who sent those 
 children up the chimneys. I want to know when Mr. Spicer 
 will be at home." 
 
 " Then you just shan't. I don't want him near yours. 
 There's worse gone on in that house than sending boys up 
 flues. Better send a boy up a flue than chuck a woman 
 
 downstairs. You shan't see him — you shan't see him 
 
 lawk, old man, is that you ? " 
 
 It was indeed that worthy chimney-sweep, who had been 
 awakened by his wife's voice, and had heard the whole of 
 the argument while he was dressing. And a very fine, 
 ^rave-looking man Mr. Spicer was too ; ugly, but rather 
 grand, owing none of his good looks to his complexion, 
 which was rendered very pale by daily applications of spot. 
 He laid his hand on his wife's shoulder, and with the
 
 HETTY. 175 
 
 cool determination which seems almost a speciality in his 
 trade* beckoned to her to retire, which she did, perfectly 
 dumb. 
 
 " We will walk across the road, Miss, if you please," said 
 Mr. Spicer, and he led the way. As soon as they were clear 
 of the house he said, "The best woman in the world, Miss, 
 if you only knew it. : ' 
 
 '• So I should fancy," said Rebecca; "she does not like 
 me, but there are many others who do not. In fact I do not 
 at all like myself." 
 
 " Indeed, Miss ! " said Mr. Spicer. 
 • " No," said Rebecca ; " I do not like myself at all. I do 
 not hate myself, Mr. Spicer; I only dislike and despise myself, 
 for you know, Mr. Spicer, I am a most contemptible fool." 
 
 " Indeed, Miss. Now, I should not have thought that, 
 unless you had told me. But it is no doubt true, you are 
 better educated than I am." 
 
 " You are not a gentleman, Mr. Spicer," said Rebecca, 
 laughing in spite of herself. 
 
 " No, Miss ; but in what particular ? " 
 
 '• When anyone accuses themselves to a gentleman, Mr. 
 Spicer, the -gentleman excuses them. Now, you have con- 
 tinned my view of myself, doubtless from politeness ; but 
 still, you are no gentleman. You should have told me that 
 
 * Chimney-sweeps arc but little known or understood. Very few 
 people know that that splendid young man, Sadler, who raced Kelly 
 himself so hard the other day, was a chimney-sweep. I was trying once 
 to make peace between a working bricklayer (Harris) and a working 
 cooper (Let well). Old Harris struck out in pride of family ; Letwell's 
 sifter (I think) had married a nucep. Old Harris afterwards got two 
 months for a violent breach of the revenue laws, about which 1 had 
 warned him ; so I suppose there was no further question about family 
 precedence.
 
 i 7 6 HETTY. 
 
 I was one mass of wisdom ; as it is, you have merely con- 
 firmed my opinion, somewhat emphatically, that I am a 
 contemptible fool." 
 
 " I only meant to mind my manners, Miss ; and my 
 manners tell me, that you should never contradict a lady. 
 .That is what Mr. Hagbut calls the unwritten law. That is 
 about the size of that" 
 
 " Well," said Rebecca, " we must not joke any more, 
 Spicer ; I am in serious trouble." 
 
 " We know all about it, my dear Miss," said Spicer ; " the 
 only question is When and where ? " 
 
 " The when is to-night, I am afraid ; and the where will 
 be inside the house." 
 
 " Then there is no reason for much talk, Miss. The least 
 said the soonest mended. Bob and I will come in and lay 
 down anywhere." 
 
 " But I want to explain to you," went on Rebecca. 
 
 " Just exactly what we don't want, Miss. We want to 
 know nothing. Did you ever hear a man cross-examined ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Ah ! If the grand jury would take the trouble to follow 
 some of their ' true bills ' downstairs, instead of going off to 
 play billiards, they wouldn't send so much downstairs as 
 they do. I don't want no cross-examination, unless I can 
 say, No. Tell me and Bob what you want done, but nothing 
 more." 
 
 " Can Mr. Akin and you sleep together in one garret ? 
 And can you know nothing at all ? " 
 
 " We can sleep together well enough, and we can easy 
 manage holding our tongues, if there is nothing told us to 
 talk about." 
 
 " Then come about ten o'clock, please, and I will have 
 everything arranged for you."
 
 HETTY. i 77 
 
 Her father slept all day, but at night got up and dressed 
 himself, and took dinner and wine. Then, setting all the 
 doors open, he walked up and down the house. At the last 
 she told him what she had done ; and he, having got feeble 
 and ill again, was persuaded to go to bed, with his clothes 
 and his pistol, all ready. 
 
 " 1 shall not sleep a wink,"' he said ; and saying so, laid 
 his weary head over, and was asleep in one moment." 
 
 Then Rebecca began her tiger walk up and down the 
 house, until Mr. Akin and Mr. Spicer turned in. Mr. Akin, 
 a scientific and experienced hand, got Mab, and put her to 
 sleep in the small of his back ; which, as he explained to 
 his companion, was the wakefullest place of all for a dog. 
 Mab was well enough content, and scarcely recognised her 
 mistress, during her frequent visits to her two sleeping friends. 
 For they soon slept, after a consultation about taking off their 
 boots. Mr. Spicer could never, he said, sleep well in his 
 boots, unless he was three-quarters on. But Mr. Akin, 
 having pointed out to him that this job would come to 
 rough-and-tumble in any way, or might come to Chevy-high- 
 ho the grinder; Mr. Spicer determined to sleep without even 
 the removal of his boots ; which determination he put in 
 force with the rapidity of a man who has to do his day's 
 work long before other people are awake. 
 
 It was a wild night, dripping wet, with great rushes of 
 wind from the westward — the middle of a wild spring, when 
 Rebecca began her night watch.. She set dim candles in 
 different rooms, and began her walk up and down ; going 
 from her own room along the main passage at the head of 
 the stairs, towards her father's door, and passing that to the 
 room where her two indifferent, honest friends slept and 
 snored. 
 
 The wind howled at every window and door, in the crazy 
 
 N
 
 178 HETTY. 
 
 old house; and, with an car tuned to concert-pitch, by 
 anxiety and nervousness, she listened for something more 
 than the wind, but nothing came. 
 
 It would have been less dreary, perhaps, had the night 
 been silent and still. But the dreariness of that house to 
 one listening for suspicious sounds, and hearing a hundred, 
 was terrible, even before the lane was still and asleep. After 
 that, terror grew into horror, and horror into a kind of tem- 
 porary loss of judgment. 
 
 Dim, inexpressible, causeless terrors come, I believe, on 
 the most prosperous of us, when we wake in the night, in the 
 dark. I know a military officer of good repute, excellent 
 courage, respectable fortune, and without one solitary anxiety 
 in this world, who takes his recreation in these sad, solitary 
 hours, by thinking of death. By putting to himself that he 
 must die some time or another, and trying to make out what 
 the last, horrible hour will be like. Rebecca's fantasies, this 
 night, were scarcely more reasonable than his. 
 
 There was very little cause for fear of any kind: there was 
 nothing of what some call sensational about her position. 
 She was splendidly protected. Her father had done a very 
 quaint thing, but she had practically checkmated all conse- 
 quences. Still, she was in a state of nervous anxiety; and 
 that anxiety became precordial, and made her start with 
 inexplicable terrors at every sound, and in passing every 
 dark place. The physical effects of this nervousness was to 
 make her knees tremble, and so cause her to walk unsteadily. 
 The mental effects of it were still stranger. 
 
 For her anxiety began to take a single point as its cul- 
 minating one. I do not think that this is by any means 
 a rare case. A man confused in ruin, brought on by an 
 accumulation of causes, will say, that he always knew that 
 the beginning of it was some twenty-pound speculation. A
 
 HETTY. 1 79 
 
 man, dazed, stunned, and ruined by his wife's death, will 
 attribute it to her swallowing a pin ten years before, after his 
 neighbours had been hearing her bark her heart out all the 
 winter, with tubercular disease of the lungs. Not well 
 chosen as examples, possibly, but which will do. When 
 peoples minds are confused, they will pick out a cause for a 
 particular form of anxiety, seldom the right one. Rebecca 
 did on this occasion. The door behind Carry's bed — dis- 
 used, and locked and bolted for so many years, — was the 
 point she fixed on as the most horrible and dangerous point 
 in the house. 
 
 It communicated, as the reader may remember, between 
 the used portion of the house and the unused. Since her 
 mother's death, that back staircase, and all the adjacent part 
 of the house, had been closed up, and had been a mystery 
 and a horror to them. In very early days, as early as 
 Rebecca could remember, Carry used to have a habit of 
 shrieking out suddenly, in the night, that some one was 
 trying the door; after which she would fly, in her nightgown, 
 and leave Rebecca in the terror of death. And now, on this, 
 to her, as she believed, supreme night, Rebecca, with a soli- 
 tary candle, feebly lighting up the great room, stood before 
 that door, and thought of what lay behind it. 
 
 What was there, locked up for twenty years, behind 
 Carry's bed ? The skin of her head had a cold, nervous 
 creeping in it (which is what the romantic people mean when 
 they say that So-and-so's hair stood on end). She had a 
 horror on her which was indescribable, as awful as the horror 
 which occasionally precedes death ; it had a somewhat 
 singular effect on her, for she moved Carry's bed out of the 
 way, and looked at the door: and as she did so she says that 
 the handle was softly turned, and some one pressed on the 
 door from the outside. 
 
 N 2
 
 1S0 HETTY. 
 
 One bolt, and the lock was all that opposed her. She had 
 got into a state of horror by solitude and mystery. One 
 simple physical movement, even of a door-handle, restored 
 her to herself in an instant. 
 
 " We will get this through, my gentleman," she thought, 
 with a low laugh : and suddenly and dexterously unlocked 
 and unbolted the door, threw it open, and said, " Walk in, if 
 you please." 
 
 - No one was there. There was nothing before her but a 
 dark passage, ending in darkness. The solitary glance at 
 her feet showed her, not only that no one was there, but that 
 no one had been there at all. The dust of twenty years, so 
 lightly laid by the hand of ever busy Nature, was untouched. 
 The foot of a spider might be traced on it, but not that of 
 a man. The door had been tried by hands not of this 
 world. 
 
 So her horror revived again tenfold; but, in her obstinacy, 
 she went on into the passage. And as she went she turned 
 round, and saw the marks of her own footsteps in the dust. 
 She was the first there. There were no other footsteps. The 
 door had been tried by a ghost : and she went on, until she 
 came to the head of the stairs, at the foot of which her 
 mother had been picked up dead. And as she looked down 
 them, her candle struck against something, and she saw that 
 it was a halter hanging from the ceiling with a noose in it, 
 ready for any man to put his head into. Had there been a 
 corpse as ghastly as that of Bewick's over the trout stream in 
 it, she could not have been more unutterably terrified. She 
 fled swiftly, with some member of the other world's skinny 
 hand entwined in her back hair, with a view of detaining 
 her, and showing her a little more. But she was strong and 
 resolute ; and when she had got back to her bedroom, locked 
 and bolted the door, put Carry's bed back, and, found her
 
 HETTY. 1S1 
 
 back hair unruffled, she began to believe that she had been 
 making a fool of herself, and thought she would go and look 
 at her friends. 
 
 Mr. Akin was what you may call a violent sleeper. Like 
 the famous hackney-coachman of our youth, Tamaroo, what- 
 ever he did was done with fury and effusion. The frantic 
 physical exertion which that young man had to go through 
 in going to sleep would have ruined some constitutions. It 
 was a University race to him going to sleep, and a ten-mile 
 handicap (he starting from Scratch) for him to wake up 
 again. At this time he was quiescent. He had taken off 
 his velveteen coat, strangled himself with the arms round 
 his neck, and suffocated himself by ramming his head into 
 one of the hare-pockets. He likewise found it necessary to 
 cross his left leg over his body, and hold on tight by his left 
 boot with his right hand. It was impossible, in regarding 
 this young man in his sleep, to avoid wondering what Mrs. 
 Akin thought of it. 
 
 In a similar way, when one looked at Mr. Spicer at rest, 
 one wondered whether Mrs. Spicer, in spite of accumulating 
 wealth and good position, did not wish that there might be a 
 few alterations in trifling details. For Mr. Spicer, though a 
 quiet sleeper, lay on his back, and spread himself out in 
 every possible direction, snoring magnificently. And, more- 
 over, he talked in his sleep, very constantly, as people who 
 sleep under constant expectation of being awakened always 
 do. And Rebecca heard him say, as she watched them for 
 a moment, " Jane's mother is a lie. The chaney and tea- 
 spoons was give to you by word of mouth." 
 
 This was realistic enough to do away with the folly of the 
 deserted staircase; her father's conduct dissipated her silly 
 terror much more. 
 
 He was sitting up before his writing-table, examining
 
 182 HETTY. 
 
 papers and accounts. " Come in, old girl," he said. " Is 
 there any news?" 
 
 " There is none yet, father," she said. " How are you to- 
 night?" 
 
 " I am better, my love ; hard at work, you see." 
 
 " Pa," she said, " is it wise of you to work?" 
 
 "My dear," he said, " believe an old man. Mere work 
 never hurt anyone in this world. Just look at the lives of 
 our public men. Those who have lived the longest are 
 generally found to have worked the hardest. Work don't 
 kill : excitement does. This mechanical work which I am 
 doing now is doing me more good than a doctor's shopfull of 
 medicine. Where have you been?" 
 
 " I have been frightened, father. I opened the door 
 behind Carry's bed, and I got utterly terrified. There was 
 a rope there with a noose to it, as though one was going to 
 hang himself." 
 
 " You silly child, to frighten yourself with fancies, when 
 there is real danger abroad. That is the rope of the old bell 
 which hangs in the cupola." 
 
 "Gracious me !" said Rebecca. "What a gaby I must 
 have been not to think cf that." 
 
 " Did you see many ghosts?" said Mr. Turner. 
 
 " Heaps," said Rebecca. 
 
 " How many ?" 
 
 "A dozen or two. One of them turned the handle of the 
 door, under my nose." 
 
 " A ghost, you think ? Be sure." 
 
 " Oh, yes, a ghost. The dust on the staircase was quite 
 undisturbed." 
 
 " You are sure of that ?" 
 
 " Yes, I am quite sure." 
 
 " Because we must mind that they do not get in that way."
 
 HETTY. 183 
 
 " I will put my sheets on Carry's bed, and sleep there," 
 said Rebecca. 
 
 " I would if I were you," said her father. " Ho ! They 
 will not come to-night." 
 
 " Will they come at all, father ?" 
 
 " They will most certainly come, one would fancy. But 
 they will come soon, I should think. It is possible that they 
 have been round the house to-night, and have seen us 
 moving. Leave these two good fellows to sleep here for 
 another night or so. We can reward them." 
 
 Morning dawned, and there was no sign of any burglary. 
 Rebecca had a consultation with Mr. Spicer and Mr. Akin 
 before they went away. 
 
 " My opinion is, Miss," said Akin (and Spicer hung on his 
 words, as on those of an expert), " that they won't try it 
 on until everything is quiet. Is it plate, Miss, or is it 
 jewels ?" 
 
 " Neither," said Rebecca. " Papers." 
 
 Spicer and Akin looked at one another, and laughed. 
 " Lord love you, Miss ; that accounts for the swell being in 
 it. Papers, eh ? He'll get another professional hand ; we 
 sprung one, and they will make a mess of it at last. Have 
 you got a pistol, or any kind of firearm ?" 
 
 "We have pistols ; but I am a little afraid of them." 
 
 " Well, we will sleep here, turn and turn about, for a week. 
 Arter that, if you hear anything, fire your pistol, and we will 
 be with you. The little dog is your best alarm. I wish you 
 and your father slept closer together. You trust to us and 
 the little dog." 
 
 " Do you know anything about the part of our house 
 which is shut up ? " asked Rebecca. 
 
 " The part under the bell-tower, Miss? No, I don't, and 
 I cton't want to."
 
 1C4 HETTY. 
 
 " Come with me, then,"' said Rebecca. " Good morning, 
 Mr. Spicer, and a hundred thanks." 
 
 Akin left alone with Rebecca, exhibited a strange un- 
 willingness to follow her. Still you would be utterly mis- 
 taken if you fancied that the cockney was neither chivalrous 
 nor superstitious. He would sooner have fought any man 
 within a mile, than have followed Rebecca. He would 
 sooner have seen a man privately hanged than have gone 
 into the disused part of the house, " where the accident 
 was." 
 
 But she took him to her bed -oom. " You see, Mr. Akin, 
 you know more of this sort of thing than I do." (He knew 
 more than he need have done.) " I am going to put my bed 
 across this door. Just move that bed, — will you ? — and 
 come with me." 
 
 Akin followed most unwillingly, though it was broad day. 
 ' Do you see these footsteps ? " she asked, when they were 
 in the passage ; " they are mine last night. Do you see any 
 others ?" 
 
 " There have been no footsteps, but those of yourn for 
 i .venty years, Miss," said Akin, with emphasis. "Are you 
 going any fariher ? " 
 
 " Yes," sa ; d Rebecca ; " I want to see what is below." 
 
 And she led the way down the stairs, Akin following in 
 the same state of mind as Shin ei. 
 
 " You are quite right," she chattered, " the stairs are piled 
 with dust. It was all my fancy last night about someone 
 having got in here. There is not a footmark on the dust. 
 See, here, at the bottom of the stairs, is a shoe with a blue 
 rosette, I will have that." 
 
 " Come away, Miss, ard leave it alone," said Akin, 
 sharply ; " there is ghostesses enough without yourn." For 
 Akin had a shrewd suspicion that this shoe had been left
 
 HETTY. 1 3s 
 
 there after the removal of Rebecca's mother from the very- 
 same place. 
 
 Rebecca got scared also, and came back with him some- 
 what hurriedly, with the ghost feeling at her back. But she 
 brought the shoe with her, too. 
 
 " If you put your bed across that door, Miss," said Akin, 
 '• as you propose, you stop 'em that way. I can't make out 
 myself which way they will come. There is plenty if we 
 leaves watching," 
 
 "Do you think they will come at all, Mr. Akin?" said 
 Rebecca, confidentially. 
 
 •' Will they come ? I gather that there is forged papers. 
 I gather that there is a swell with cash. I gather that the 
 governor has those papers here. And that swell will come 
 after those papers, with professional assistance, as sure as they 
 apple trees will blossom next April. Sooner or later he will 
 have those papers. Why, if he will get two years for 'em, it 
 stands to reason that he will chance three (and it's seldom 
 more for a first offence) for stealing 'em. Hell come fast 
 enough." 
 
 " What can poor father do ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 " That is easy enough to tell," said Akin ; " let your pa 
 write to that swell and say, ' Here, Tom,' and he says, ' you 
 have been a-writing of other folk's names here, and I have 
 got the writings. None of your gammon,' says your father. 
 ' I've got your forged writing, and I'll Old Bailey you as 
 sure as there is a Old Bailey.' Says your pa again, ' You 
 have been a-hanging about my little place, and giving a 
 world of trouble, keeping Akin and Spicer up all night, and 
 my daughter and me sleeps habitual with Armstrong re- 
 volvers in consequence of your goings on. Why,' says your 
 pa, ' you are a regular nuisance, that is about what you are. 
 But I'll tell you what I'll do with you,' says your pa ; ' you
 
 1 86 HETTY. 
 
 send me ten thousand pounds, notes of the Bank of England, 
 and you shall have they documents. Not otherwise. There's 
 been several rows,' says your pa, ' about convicted swells 
 being kep' in the okum yard, at the 'Ouse of 'Crection, but 
 Portland is bleak for delicate constutions in the spring 
 months, and the beaks theirselves has been touched up in 
 some of their speculations, and they mean Portland and 
 nothing short.' That is what your father ought to say to 
 this yourtg swell. Your father, as a gentleman, would 
 naturally dress it up, and draw it milder than an ignorant 
 man like me. Still, I wish the plant was mine. I'd have 
 the old girl to Ramsgate every year, if it was." 
 
 "It might be yours," said Rebecca, suddenly, with that 
 strange heedlessness which was the great fault in her. 
 
 " Don't say such dreadful things as those, Miss," said 
 Akin, turning pale ; " that ain't worthy of you." 
 
 " What have I said ? " said Rebecca, aghast. 
 
 " What was wrote in that book, Miss, which you give us, 
 about Charles Steward ? " 
 
 " The Pretender, yes. What have I said ? " 
 
 " It is wrote down in that book, Miss, that Charles 
 Steward, who had been up to some game or other, I never 
 made out what, had thirty thousand pounds set on his head. 
 And he was loose among the Highlanders (a bad lot) and 
 not one of them gave the pleece the office on him, not one 
 out of all them— not for thirty thousand pound. And you 
 would rank me lower than a common Highland drover." 
 
 " Dear Akin, I did not mean it. I spoke only in compli- 
 ment. I know you would never turn on us. Please don't 
 be angry." 
 
 There was a child in heaven who had left her footprints 
 behind her, which prevented Jim ever being angry with 
 Rebecca. Still, she had heedlessly touched his honour.
 
 1 1 KIT Y. 187 
 
 There is a mass of potential chivalry in this queer nation of 
 ours, to which, under our present military rdgime, we do not 
 get. I wish I had the Queen's commission to raise a regi- 
 ment. Kingsley's Foot should be as terrible as my grand- 
 uncle's, Kingslcy's Horse. And equally queer in their 
 antecedents, I doubt. I should trouble Lord Shaftesbury 
 for about two dozen from Field Lane to begin with. 
 
 To Rebecca the next fortnight was actually worse than 
 any time since the breaking of the Philpott bank. Her 
 father had told her that the house would be broken into for 
 the forged papers, which was one evidence, and Akin, a most 
 experienced man, had confirmed his opinion emphatically. 
 But she believed in it day after clay less and less, and after 
 Mr. Spicer and Mr. Akin had taken to sleep at home she 
 was quite comfortable. They were all wrong together. She 
 had never really believed in it at all." 
 
 The weather might have been better, for even in this part 
 of the metropolis it howled and raved. St. Swithin had 
 been unpropitious, and the land was deluged and drowned. 
 Still, Mr. Morley was possibly safe, and wind was better 
 than burglary. 
 
 " Pa," she said, one night, " they are not going to rob and 
 murder us at all." 
 
 " 1 am glad to hear it, my dear ; for I am getting very ill." 
 
 " Shall I sleep in your room, pa?" 
 
 " No. Let me have the little dog. That is a very dear 
 little dog, Rebecca." 
 
 " You can have the dog, pa. She is very nice. Let me 
 sleep in your room, dear." 
 
 " No, no," said Mr. Turner. " I am well enough, only I 
 am very ill indeed." 
 
 " You have not been to the office for ten days, pa ; you are 
 not well.
 
 1 88 HETTY. 
 
 " I am going to sell out of the business, my love. It was 
 too much for me." 
 
 "And the papers?" said Rebecca. 
 
 " You will hear about them," said he. And they went to 
 their respective beds. 
 
 Rebecca, with her bed across the mysterious door, went 
 to sleep and dreamt of absolutely nothing. She told Alfred 
 Morley in after times that she never dreamt less in her life. 
 After, as it seemed to her, a good night's sleep, she was 
 awakened by what she thought was morning. But it was 
 not morning at all. It was the light of a lantern on her face, 
 held by a man with a black mask on, and two others behind 
 him. 
 
 "Miss Turner," said this man, "we must trouble you to 
 get up. If you speak we shall use violence." 
 
 " How on earth did they get in ? " thought Rebecca. 
 " This your burglary, is it ? I'll manage your business," she 
 added to herself. " Mr. Philpott, you have no possible 
 business in a lady's bedroom. If you only came after your 
 own forgeries we should not care; but there are others. If 
 you will retire, I will go to my father, and your rascalities 
 shall be put into your own hand." 
 
 Young Philpott took the key from the door without one 
 solitary word, and locked the door on the outside. The 
 instant he did so, Rebecca was out of bed. She wrapped 
 herself in her dressing-gown, and pulling her bed aside, un- 
 locked and unbolted the door, ran barefooted to the rope of 
 the bell, which hung in the turret. 
 
 Philpott heard the door unlocked, and ran in. But he 
 was too late ; the pluck and nerve of that solitary and de- 
 fenceless girl had beaten his well-laid plot. The girl who 
 was to have been intimidated, and held as hostage until the 
 necessary papers were got from her father had passed
 
 HETTY. 189 
 
 through their net. Instead of cowering among them in 
 terror, she was pulling resolutely at a rope, and sending forth 
 upon the night air clang, clang, clang, in a terrible staccato> 
 which in old times would have brought thirty thousand men 
 out of St. Antoine, and even now would people it with ghosts, 
 if there were a St. Antoine; a tocsin which promised to rouse 
 Walham Green, if not St. Antoine. 
 
 Her enemies were utterly beaten. Philpott (no fool) was 
 prepared for both pluck and obstinacy ; for such rapidly 
 acting dexterity he was not prepared. The girl's brains 
 were keener than his. He was unused to crime, and accus- 
 tomed to music. When he heard his burglary proclaimed 
 at midnight in an amorphous staccato (I am sorry to use bad 
 language), he fled. When he thought of the courage and 
 dexterity through which Rebecca had outwitted him, he fled 
 faster for mere shame. The bell, disused and dumb for 
 twenty years, went on clang, clang, clang, clang, proclaiming 
 him to the world as a ruined gamester, who had staked all 
 to keep his wife's respect, and had lost. The poor fellow 
 fled away. 
 
 Lost through the courage and dexterity of an idle girl, 
 who was going to be married to a Methodist parson — (if he 
 came back) ; but who had had messages from the sea which 
 gave her sailors' courage, and sailors' recklessness. And 
 she still went on ringing that horrible bell. And if he had 
 gone back and cut her throat it would have been much the 
 same. He had met with a nature more powerful than his 
 own. He was beaten. His wife must know all now, and 
 he was desperate, for he, potential felon as he was, did not 
 trust her. 
 
 One hardly knows sometimes whether Providence is kind 
 or unkind. In the end, it seems to me (and to others) that 
 Providence always acts for the best. When you come to
 
 i go HETTY. 
 
 mere details, anyone can say Providence should have done 
 otherwise. One would say to those who question the govern- 
 ment of this world, that you must wait. One would say to 
 them, par cxcmpl'c, was not the 2nd December the seal of 
 Democracy, not of wax, but of iron. 
 
 I have only a very poor little illustration to offer for my 
 pretentious theory. It gets infinitesimally small as one looks 
 at it. Still, granting that the little dog Mab was not brought 
 into the world for nothing, you must grant this. 
 
 When Rebecca began clanging the bell, Mab began to 
 bark, and aroused Mr. Turner, who put on his trousers, and 
 got hold of his pistol. Coming out he met young Philpott 
 in a mask, but knew him, and challenged him by name, 
 holding his pistol towards him. Philpott, in his desperation, 
 tired at him and wounded him, and Mr. Turner fell at the 
 head of the stairs. 
 
 The whole district was gathered round now. Akin and 
 Spicer were in and had Philpott and his accomplices in hand 
 very quickly. Turner only said, " Let them go before the 
 police come, and stop that bell. Where is Rebecca?" 
 
 Akin, the dexterous, assisted by Spicer, carried the cap- 
 tured men through Rebecca's bedroom to get down the back 
 stairs. On their way they came on Rebecca ringing away 
 as hard as ever. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Miss, stop that noise," said Akin ; 
 " the parish engine's in the lane. Let us get these folks out 
 this way. Is there any road this way?" 
 
 There was, it seemed, and Philpott and his friends were 
 got out. There was nothing saved from the bankruptcy save 
 his wife's fortune, and she knows nothing of his midnight 
 meeting with Rebecca. To pleasanter matters.
 
 HETTY. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 TURNER SNUFFS THE SF.A WIND. 
 
 HE neighbourhood was aroused, and there were 
 six engines in the lane. The parish engine, 
 anxious to assert itself against the office engines, 
 played upon the house for a little time, and 
 then stopped and drivelled into imbecility. The 
 other engines went home smoking pipes, and wondering why 
 they had been sent for, when there was no fire. The police- 
 man had come to see what was the matter, and had been 
 promptly turned out by Rebecca. The lane had gone to 
 bed, on the theory that Mr. Turner had been took by his 
 conscience in the night, and had rung the bell for prayers. 
 There were more unconscious lies told that night, than 
 there are twice a year, and in the midst of it all Mr. Turner 
 lay, severely wounded through the deltoid, and Rebecca 
 minding him. • 
 
 She had got singularly emphatic all of a sudden. 
 
 " Pa, you don't want a doctor from here ? " 
 
 " No. All this must be kept quiet." 
 
 " You will die if you don't have one. Will you let me 
 move you to Limehouse?" 
 
 " That is the best," he said, " good girl. We must take 
 the safe." 
 
 " Lor bless you, yes, dear pa. We will take that fast 
 enough. Bother the safe, I wish it was chucked in the 
 water. You will have to move in an hour, pa." 
 
 " I wish I was well out of it," said he, " with the safe." 
 
 " You will be well out of it directly," she said. " Keep 
 quiet."
 
 192 HETTY. 
 
 She ran down to the livery stables near by, and ordered a 
 fly, to take her father away in half an hour's time. It was 
 here punctually, and she hurried him in. 
 
 She had tied everything she could find tight round his 
 deltoid, and it is not a very difficult wound to staunch. He 
 was very quiet, in that lethargic state which comes from loss 
 of blood, and he cared nothing about anything. 
 
 She looked back on the old house until they turned the 
 lane. And she said, " There is an end of that, thank heaven." 
 He did not care at all, "Where are you taking me?" he 
 said once. 
 
 " Limehouse," she answered. "9, Pilot Terrace. Keep 
 quiet or the hemorrhage will come on again." 
 
 "Where is Morley?" he asked, as they were going along 
 Bird Cage Walk. 
 
 " At sea," she said. " Keep quiet. Everything depends 
 on your keeping absolutely quiet and trusting implicitly to 
 me. Your wound is a severe one, and will be shortly fol- 
 lowed by fever. You must be perfectly quiet." 
 
 When they wera passing Tower Hill, he said, " You are a 
 brave, good girl, Rebecca, where did you get your courage?" 
 
 " From Hetty," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Where did you see her then? " said Mr. Turner. 
 
 " / have never seen her," said Rebecca, " and I don"r 
 suppose I ever shall. But she is Alfred's daughter. And I 
 have made a daughter for Alfred, whom I suppose does not 
 exist at all." 
 
 " Talk to me, darling," said Turner. " My own Rebecca, 
 talk to me, for my wound is aching, and I am going to 
 die. Let me hear you talk. What do you conceive about 
 this Hetty?" 
 
 " Give me your wounded arm, father, and put it over my 
 breast ; lay your head on my breast, and if you keep quite
 
 / 
 
 1 1 ETTY. i 93 
 
 quiet, I will tell you what I have imagined Hetty to be. If 
 1 am wrong, do not undeceive me. 
 
 " Hetty had no mother. Some girls have none. I had 
 none. 
 
 ' Hetty was a radical and a dissenter in her heart. For 
 no person is a radical or a dissenter, except from senti- 
 ment." 
 
 The wounded man said, " Radicals and dissenters form 
 their opinion on pure reason.'' 
 
 " Hold your tongue, pa, or I will knock you. Hetty 
 found herself, as a radical and a dissenter, bound hand 
 and foot, by radical and dissenting haybands. And she 
 broke them." 
 
 " And we all wished she had been at the bottom of 
 Jordan when she did so," said the wounded man. 
 
 " But she was right in what she did, pa." 
 
 " No she wasn't/' said he. " She is one of the most 
 thundering fools on the face of the earth. I never heard 
 of the girl doing any good, that a costermonger's wife 
 could not have done. She has smashed her father's con- 
 nexion in our sect, and forced him abroad, for which you 
 have to thank her ; because I am going to die, and you will 
 be all alone until he comes back." 
 
 " But she is good," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Many fools are," was the only reply she got. 11 
 
 Hetty had been tried as a subject of conversation and 
 had utterly failed. Their silence towards one another was 
 barely become oppressive, when they were at Morley's 
 house. 
 
 Very few words were necessary from Rebecca to tell her 
 story. They were at home at once. Mr. Morley's landlady 
 was easily aroused, and it was a bright summer morning, 
 with the river gaily dancing on among the ships towards 
 
 o
 
 194 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 the sea, when Mr. Turner stepped out of his carriage, and 
 looked about him. 
 
 " Hush !" he said. " It is good for us to be here. What 
 a lovely place to die in ! " 
 
 " To get well in, I think you mean, father," said Rebecca. 
 
 " No I don't," said he. " There is but little business 
 left me to do. That done I will go to sleep. I am sick 
 of it all." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PILOT TERRACE. 
 
 TIME now came, which Rebecca has separated 
 from all times in her life. Such a time may 
 come again, she says, but it has not yet. 
 
 Ceaseless activity and care, ceaseless em- 
 ployment, ceaseless anxiety, ceaseless thought 
 for others. A strange mixture of melancholy waiting for 
 death, and for life. 
 
 And all about and around, golden summer weather, bright 
 water, moving ships, distant Kentish hill-sides basking in 
 the sun. The tomb at Walham Green had given up the 
 soul so long imprisoned there, and it had escaped not to 
 useless idleness but to anxious usefulness. 
 
 " As I saw him fading away, day after day, before my eyes, 
 I loved him more and more, but, believing that he was 
 going to his God, I do not think I was unhappy. I do 
 not think I could be unhappy under any circumstances at 
 Pilot Terrace." 
 
 The girl was not talking nonsense when she said this. 
 Inbred in her nature was a love for brightness and motion,
 
 HETTY. I9S 
 
 without which she was petulant and miserable. Hereditary 
 proclivities are one of the few things which are absolutely 
 certain ; in the greatest number of instances, the sire sets 
 his seal upon the race, but in the case of a very strong will 
 in the mother, she may compete with her mate in the 
 formation of characteristics. Rebecca's mother coming of 
 a stock which had been used to light gaiety and music for 
 centuries, had left this want with Rebecca, as her legacy — 
 the fortune on which she was to exist in the horrible prison 
 at Walham Green. In addition to this precious legacy of 
 her mother's, she had got from her father not only the 
 virtue, determination, but the vice, obstinacy (as Carry well 
 knew). And furthermore, in addition to it all she had got — 
 Cod knows where — I do not, some bright clear spark of 
 the divine nature, which made her very errors and indis- 
 cretions lovely. 
 
 Poor child. What if she ran away to Ramsgate, thereby 
 violating a law never mentioned so far south as, and of 
 course never dreamt of in, Philistia: she was very sorry 
 afterwards, and she took her most discreet and excellently- 
 beloved old nurse. Poor old Rebecca, when she found 
 her duty ready to her hand, she did it. Have we all 
 done so ? 
 
 She wanted light and beauty. She had seen dimly in old 
 time the Popish worship with her mother ; and up to the 
 time when she had run away to Ramsgate and seen the sea 
 that was the only beautiful thing she had seen. There was 
 movement, light, brightness of colour ; the tinsel is as good as 
 the gold to a child. She had dimly recollected it, in the Ion"- 
 hours of Puritan seclusion at Walham Green. How long, 
 oh my Puritan brothers, will you make religion hideous to 
 one half at least of your children ? think, in these days, when 
 the nation is becoming educated to a rough love of light and 
 
 O 2
 
 196 HETTY. 
 
 beauty, what mischief you are doing, not to us, but to 
 yourselves. 
 
 Rebecca says that the first pretty thing she saw when she 
 was grown up was young Hartop the sailor. She always 
 declares to Hetty that she was desperately in love with 
 Hartop for a week, and that he used her disgracefully. 
 However, Rebecca was worthy of seeing something more 
 than a pretty sailor. She was capable of understanding real 
 beautv, of the very highest form. 
 
 Mr. Morley. I would have made Mr. Morley a duke if I 
 could, only for the simple fact, that he was a dissenting 
 minister, and considered unsound and unsafe even in that 
 capacity. How many times that brown sailor-like face, that 
 grizzled hair, and those stead)' brown eyes had passed before 
 Rebecca's retina, before they were fixed on it for ever, I do 
 not know. But they were fixed there firmly enough now. 
 
 He was the first man, practically, who had ever introduced 
 her to real light and beauty. She might have loved Hartop, 
 but Hartop was for Hetty ; and with her keen intellect, she 
 quickly found out this : that Hartop, brave, glorious, beau- 
 tiful, was not so brave or so glorious as brown-faced Mr. 
 Morley, with the slightly grizzled hair. " I would not change 
 with Hetty," she said. 
 
 However he was at sea, and she was all alone, and her 
 father was dying, and she declares that she was not un- 
 happy at this quaint time, which lasted long. And that 
 makes my explanation quite good enough for my little 
 story. 
 
 She did well in every detail now. Quick, keen wits, once 
 roused by love, seem to do without experience almost 
 magically. The higher nature seems to descend to the 
 level of the lower, intellect is assisted by instinct, Cupido by 
 Eros, (a thinking friend of the writers says that I am utterly
 
 HETTY 197 
 
 wrong, and that the love of the child for the parent is re- 
 flected. I give him this opportunity of adding to the 
 amount of human knowledge). Love and sympathy supplied 
 experience. If all Sisters and trained nurses had had a 
 conference with Gamp and Prig, they could have done no 
 more for Mr. Turner than Rebecca did, with slight hints 
 about details to the landlady. 
 
 I resume my story. She put his bed in the bow-window 
 so that he could see the river and the ships. The landlady 
 saw after him while Rebecca went out in the early morning 
 until she could find a doctor. There were a dozen doctors 
 close by, and the landlady recommended her to one, and 
 Rebecca knocked him up. 
 
 He put a head out of window, and said, — 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 And Rebecca said, — " He won't do. Pa would never stand 
 him." 
 
 Then she was going to pull at the bell of the next doctor's, 
 when the door was suddenly opened, and a fat gentleman of 
 fifty said to her, "The advertisement said four o'clock and 
 it is half-past. Come in."' Whereupon she marched off; 
 and thought " you won't do, my gentleman." 
 
 " Bother the doctors," she said. " I wish — I beg your 
 pardon, Sir," for she had run up against a queer little man 
 with one leg shorter than the other, coming round a corner. 
 
 "Go away from me," he said, waving her off, " you most 
 ridiculous and incautious young woman. I am one satura- 
 tion of scarlet fever from head to foot. I have been attend- 
 ing a scarlet fever case, and I have pulled my pretty ones 
 through. There are between eighty and ninety thousand 
 sporules on your fine velvet cloak at this moment, chuck it 
 over your little sister's bed to keep her warm ; and then say 
 it was me."
 
 198 HETTY. 
 
 " You will do," said Rebecca emphatically. 
 
 - Well I suppose so,'' said the little gentleman ; " what do 
 you want ? " 
 
 " Pistol wound.'' 
 
 '• My heavens : " he said, turning his queer shrewd little 
 face up to hers. 
 
 ' ; Sir," she answered. 
 
 " Ho ! " he said. " Ha ! aristocratic or long shore ? " 
 
 " Neither. But mysterious.'' 
 
 '' Young man dead ? " 
 
 " No, but faint," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Ha. I'll tret these fever clothes off and come directly. 
 What is the house ? " 
 
 " 9, Pilot Terrace."' 
 
 " Morley's ? Yes, quite so. You are Miss Turner. I 
 warned Morley that he was flying his kite too high. I told 
 him that there would be bloodshed if he sought a wife among 
 the Aristocrats. And my words have come true, you see. Well 
 you are a wise young lady in choosing him. I am a Romanist 
 myself: Dr. Slop, you know; Hey? Don't know your 
 secret ; of course not. I knew they would shoot some one 
 over you." 
 
 - That has nothing to do with me," said Rebecca. 
 
 <; Of course not," said Dr. Barnham. " Lord bless you, 
 a know. Of course not. Bless you! call us Jesuits at one 
 moment, and deny us common knowledge of the world at 
 another. I'll change my fever clothes and come in." 
 
 The whole story of Mr. Turner's pistol wound was care- 
 fully explained to Dr. Barnham by at least three people ; 
 but he never believed it. He only said, " Yes! yes ! quite so. 
 We are men of the world, we Catholics." 
 
 But Barnham was a great acquisition to them. He treated 
 Mr. Turner with great skill and bonhomie ; and Mr. Turner
 
 HETTY. 199 
 
 loved him and waited for his coming. Both men were 
 intensely in earnest ; Barnham a violent Ultramontane, 
 Turner a violent Protestant. They used to argue furiously, 
 the Bishop of Rome was alternately the old man of Rome on 
 Mr. Turner's side, and something which one does not care 
 to write about another human being, on Dr. Barnham's. 
 These two gentlemen used mutually to assure one another 
 of the utter impossibility of the other's ultimate salvation, in 
 a way which I dare not produce, not believing that God's 
 mercy depends on a few details, as these men did. But they 
 liked one another the bctte'r for all their quarrelling : and 
 this quaint little Romanist was one of the brightest things in 
 their new short life. 
 
 Turner would be in the bow-window, looking at the ships 
 < r oing to and fro, and would invent arguments against the 
 doctor. And he would say to Rebecca, " Come, old girl, 
 give a hand next time, and we will smash him and put an 
 end to him." 
 
 And Rebecca would laugh, and cower down by her father; 
 and say " I won't say one word against him. And you know 
 that you love him in your heart." 
 
 He was indeed the only educated friend they had. Mr. 
 Turner was quietly falling away day after day, and finding 
 his time getting short, he wrote notes to several people 
 calling on them to come. 
 
 Lord Ducetoy was the first. " How de do, my lord," said 
 Turner. " I have summoned up the phantom."
 
 2oo HETTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 LORD DUCETOY'S PROPOSALS. 
 ■glpiplERE first she began to learn the artistic value 
 
 ff&^tp'''*^^ an d beauty of tones, crossed indefinitely by 
 
 8) B§*!^*i f|l other tones, perfectly harmonious, and some- 
 
 k^%®lz3 v'l times without incident. At times of the night, 
 
 _ " when the tide was even brimming full, and she 
 
 was watching, she would operr the window, and hear the 
 
 sounds of the river, all melted into one, and assisted by the 
 
 dull undertone of the city. At first, in her ignorance and her 
 
 cockneyishness, she had thought that the city was the sea ; 
 
 and that the eternal crawling hum, waxing and waning in the 
 
 night, was the crawling of the breakers upon the shore ; but 
 
 Lord Ducetoy, standing in the balcony with her one evening, 
 
 laughed at her for thinking so, and pointed out her mistake. 
 
 " But water runs down hill, my lord ; and the water is 
 running that way." 
 
 " My fair cockney cousin, do you not notice that it runs 
 the other way sometimes ? " 
 
 Yes, it was so. Her beloved sea was further off than she 
 thought, and it was silent to her. He was right. She had 
 mistaken the music of the hated city for the dim, far-heard 
 melody of the free sea. 
 
 " Do you ever sail upon the sea, my lord ? " she said; 
 
 "Not at present, my lady," he answered. "Your good 
 father has given me the means of keeping a yacht, and when 
 the king has his own again perhaps you will sail with me. 
 Have you heard from Mr. Morley?" 
 
 " Not one word. Nor from Hartop or Hetty, either. I 
 am all alone, with my father."
 
 HETTY. 201 
 
 " Except for mc," he said. 
 
 " Except for you," she answered, looking straight at him ; 
 " exactly. It is very kind of you to come here and see us." 
 
 " Now, Rebecca, I want to have a serious talk with you. 
 I shall offend you deeply, I know ; but a man must speak 
 what is in him, or " 
 
 " Hold his tongue." 
 
 " Exactly. I am not going to hold mine. Rebecca, do 
 you know that I love you heartily ? " 
 
 " I thought you did, and I am very glad. I suppose there 
 is not the wildest chance of my ever seeing Lady Ducetoy ? ' 
 
 " Not if you go to the South Sea Islands. But, Rebecca, 
 do you love me ?" 
 
 " Very much indeed." 
 
 Dead stop. Rebecca had some dim idea that he was 
 going to make a fool of himself; and she was not going to 
 help him. 
 
 '* I suppose," he said in a very awkward manner, " that no 
 one was ever placed in a more difficult position than I am at 
 this present moment." 
 
 Rebecca merely stood and looked at him. 
 
 " You see, I don't know how to begin." 
 
 " Well, then, don't begin," said Rebecca. " No one wants 
 you to." 
 
 " Yes, but you don't know. I have a great personal 
 admiration for you, and I am your cousin, and I think you 
 an uncommonly gentlemanly old fellow, one of the most 
 splendid creatures, and one of the most admirably formed 
 ladies I have ever met. Now, cousin Rebecca, I am under 
 terribly great obligations to you for your gallantry. I don't 
 know what your father has done for me, or how his affairs 
 are. Tell me one thing ; what money shall you have when 
 you marry Mr. Morley?"
 
 202 HETTY. 
 
 Rebecca gave a gasp of relief ; she was afraid that he was 
 going to talk some sentimental nonsense. " I don't suppose 
 we shall have any,"' she said. '• Hagbut has drained away 
 pa's cash for Carry's settlements. I should have liked to take 
 him money, and yet I shouldn't." 
 
 " I don't understand," said Lord Ducetoy. 
 
 " Can't you see that, cousin? I should like to take him 
 money, because I should like him to have money for his 
 works and his charities, for which he lives. Yet, I should 
 also like to go to him, cousin, saying, ' You chose me, and 
 here I am, without one penny. Will you take me still ?' And 
 he would. And he would love me better without the money 
 than with it. For if I had all Carry's money it would only 
 be a cloud between us. He, the noblest man in all the world, 
 has honoured poor little me, with all my indiscretions and 
 errors, above all women in the world. And I would sooner 
 go to him, in forma pauperis. You are talking to an attorney's 
 daughter, you know." 
 
 "But Rebecca, do you mean to say, that you would sooner 
 marry a mere dissenting clergyman without money than 
 with. It is totally incredible to me why you should marry 
 him at all : but without the power over him, which money 
 could give ! Are you mad ? " 
 
 " Not in the least. "When you find in your order as fine a 
 gentleman as Alfred Morley, I shall be glad to hear from 
 you." 
 
 " He must be an exception." 
 
 " Of course he is,'' said she. " There is another exception 
 coming to plague pa. Stay and see the other exception, and 
 finish what you were going to say.'' 
 
 "Well, Rebecca, I only wanted to know this. If money 
 should run short with you, will you accept some from me." 
 
 " Certainly," said Rebecca. " I am very much obliged to
 
 HETTY. 203 
 
 you. Some of your money may come in very useful, if pa 
 lias been drawn dry by Him, and if we have not got any of it. 
 We should be very glad of some of yours under those cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 " A few thousands," began Lord Ducetoy. 
 
 " Thousands," said Rebecca, laughing. " If you can find 
 us .£150 some day, it is quite as much as wc are fit to be 
 trusted with. Don't give Alfred Morley more. He would 
 only give it away. Tell me. Is this offer of money all you 
 were going to say to me when you began ? " 
 
 " It was all, indeed." 
 
 " Bless me, I thought you were going to talk nonsense to 
 me. You were not, were you ?" 
 
 " I assure you, Rebecca, that I had not the least intention 
 of doing so." 
 
 " Quite sure?" 
 
 " I am not quite sure that you are sane in dreaming of such 
 a thing. Come, you are the very last person on the face of 
 the earth that I would dare to talk nonsense to. How Mr. 
 Morley got into his present position with you I don't know. 
 I would not have dared to say as much as he has dared. 
 Cousin, I only wanted to try and help you, and you are so 
 very quaint and emportec that I had to beat about the bush. 
 I was a little in love with you once, but I have quite got over 
 any little sentimental feeling of that sort." 
 
 They had come into the upper room out of the balcony as 
 he said this, and she said, " Bend down your head, my lord." 
 And he bent it down to her and she kissed him, saying, 
 " You are a good man, cousin, and we understand one 
 another." 
 
 And if any one thinks she was wrong I happen to disagree 
 with them. 
 
 Since Eve kissed her firstborn (unfortunately for the illus-
 
 2o 4 HETTY. 
 
 tration, Cain, I believe, unless some new State papers have 
 been grubbed out at Fetter Lane or Simancas, to the contrary) 
 no purer kiss was given or received than Rebecca gave to 
 Lord Ducetoy. And he, being a gentleman, knew it. 
 
 " Now let us come downstairs," she said. " You have 
 spoken of Mr. Morley as a dissenting minister. As if they 
 were all alike. As if you Nobles were all alike." And she 
 gave illustrations. " Come and see what I have escaped, 
 will you ? " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 BREAKING WINDOWS. 
 
 HY do people break windows? Some do it to 
 get locked up ; but I do not mean them. 
 Why do people who do not want to be locked 
 up at all, habitually break windows? Who 
 breaks windows? Every one. You and I, 
 and Rebecca. You and 1 are wise people, and hold our 
 hands from a window, unless we can get something by 
 breaking it. Now Rebecca was a fool, and never could keep 
 her hands off a window. Morley said she was nearly as bad 
 as Hetty. 
 
 There is something very exasperating to a certain kind of 
 mind in a smooth square of plate glass. One does not 
 demand much, one only demands what nature will give, at 
 any point, at any time of the year. Half and quarter tints, 
 melting into one another, yet making a great harmony, and 
 an " arrangement," as great as Turner's Heidelberg. That 
 was all Rebecca wanted, though she had never seen it, and 
 could not tell you exactly what she did want. She knew,
 
 HETTY. 
 
 205 
 
 however, that plate glass with gas behind it, exasperated 
 her. So she was given to window breaking. 
 
 One says she had never learnt the subtle interminable 
 delight, and beauty of half tints. It is not true. She had 
 learnt it from Mr. Morley's grizzled head, and brown face. And 
 now she came downstairs with Lord Ducetoy, of the prairies, 
 thinking about Morley of the sea: of men with an incon- 
 ceivable number of half and quarter loves about them : and 
 she found Hagbut, and Carry ; plate-glass and gas. A 
 window, a bald, shallow window. She instantaneously broke 
 it, with the first stone she could find, and you can generally 
 find a stone if you stoop down. 
 
 It was very naughty of her. I offer no defence. I am 
 not bound to carry a heroine through everything. Still 
 Hagbut and Carry, sitting in a row, drinking tea, and 
 smiling, were not calculated to make anyone the less 
 petulant. 
 
 " Where have you been, Rebecca ? " said her father. 
 
 " Upstairs, with Lord Ducetoy." 
 
 " Did you hear Mr. Hagbut come in ? " 
 
 " Yes, I heard him." 
 
 " Where were you ? " 
 
 " In the upper passage, kissing Lord Ducetoy." 
 
 " Becky, old girl," said Mr. Turner. " Don't say such 
 things." 
 
 " Why not ? Yoii ought to tell the truth, ought you not ? 
 And I was kissing Lord Ducetoy on the stairs." 
 
 Hagbut said, very quietly, " For my part, not being a 
 gentleman myself, I am uneasy in the company of even an 
 ordinary gentleman, still more so in the company of a noble- 
 man. However, by your confession of having kissed his 
 lordship on the stairs, my elephantine awkwardness is some- 
 what easier to bear. About the outrageous impropriety of
 
 2o6 HETTY. 
 
 the thing happening at all, and of Rebecca telling about it 
 afterwards, I say nothing. But from all I can hear, two very 
 good people have kissed one another, and are not ashamed 
 of it either." 
 
 Lord Ducetoy laughed aloud. " It was her, you know, 
 Padre, mind that. She kissed me in the passage. You 
 believe me, I am sure." 
 
 " My lord, I am bound to believe the statement of any 
 hereditary legislator, the more particularly in this case, 
 because I am perfectly certain that you would never have 
 obtained the favour on your own account." 
 
 Carry sat utterly aghast. Lord Ducetoy had kissed Becky 
 in the passage, and they were all making fun of it. Her 
 husband and her father were laughing, and Becky and Lord 
 Ducetoy were smiling. She began to cry. 
 
 Hagbut did not attend to her at first, for his eyes were 
 fixed on Mr. Turner. He turned suddenly on Carry and 
 ordered her to run for the doctor. 
 
 " Rebecca, look at your father," he said. " Good heavens 
 and earth ! it can't be so, while we have been chattering 
 nonsense here. Go away, Rebecca, go and fetch the land- 
 lady, or the surgeon, or the fire-engine, or some one. My 
 lord, things have gone wrong here. Are you afraid of 
 death ? " 
 
 " Is he dead ? " said Lord Ducetoy.
 
 HETTY. 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE GREAT HETTY MYSTERY CLEARED UP. 
 
 OOR old Turner. He was dead enough. The 
 life, fierce at first in its vitality, nay, some said 
 wild, had come to an almost eventless end. He 
 had died in his chair quite quietly laughing. A 
 nobleman and a dissenting minister were carry- 
 ing his body to a sofa, and a scared, beautiful daughter, 
 looking on death now for the first time, was holding the 
 candle. That was the end and finish of it all. 
 
 "Worth?" Yes. "Silence?" Beyond that of most. 
 "Ambition?" Yes. "Money?" Enough. "Love?" Aye, 
 and hate too. We shall never know that story. " Respect 
 in the world?" More than most. "Capabilities of enjoy- 
 ment ? " Very great, but never exercised. " Religion ? " 
 That is no matter here, just now, when Ducetoy the Puseyite, 
 and Hagbut the Dissenter, are carrying him to the sofa. 
 One of his shoes fell off and Rebecca picked it up and tried 
 to put it on. 
 
 " It is of no use to do that," said Lord Ducetov. 
 No use to put on his shoe. Not one bit. There had come 
 an end and finish. The man as known to sight and touch, 
 was utterly gone, with all his works and ways, bearing the 
 consequences with him. The very tree in front of the house 
 would last longer than he. A few days and the very image 
 must be hidden in the earth. Shall we ever dare to appre- 
 ciate the memory of death ? Shall we ever dare to deduce 
 the great future of the soul, from the contempt which our 
 good God shows towards this poor pretty toy of a body 
 which He has lent us?
 
 208 HETTY. 
 
 He was dead. Shut your eyes for only one minute, and 
 think of it. At one time all a man's schemes and plots, 
 honourable and other, must come to an end. The man, 
 as you knew him, must be quickly put out of the way 
 and hidden; the man exists no more. Who can wonder at 
 Religion being the one thing which people are most furious 
 about? That terror of utter annihilation which produced 
 the slightly illogical Phcedo, is the basis of all religions. 
 There is only one tribe in the world, so far as I know, 
 who disbelieve in a future state, and it would be unpolite 
 to name them. 
 
 However, Turner, with all his sins and virtues, was, to his 
 scared daughter, no more than a heap of bones and flesh. 
 No wrong which one had ever done the other could be 
 righted now. It was all over. She had no means of .believ- 
 ing that they would ever meet again. Her religion denied 
 her the shocking and yet beautifully tender superstition of 
 masses for his soul ; she had been trained in too sharp a 
 school to believe that divine mercy could be bought with 
 music and candles. She only thought that her father had 
 done his best, and that God would have mercy on him. In 
 her terror, in her dumb, stunned grief, she would have asked 
 even Hagbut about her father's future ; but his people had 
 told her so many cruel things, that she feared he might say 
 that her father was in hell, and she also very much feared 
 that she should believe it ; and so she merely hung round 
 his body tenderly, without one solitary tear as yet, and 
 moaned to herself, " Alfred ! Alfred !" 
 
 But Morley was far away on the wild sea. There was no 
 hope from him ; and it was no use lying on the floor beside 
 the corpse, which was on the sofa, and saying at intervals, 
 in a whisper, ghostly from want of hope, " Pa ! " That was 
 obviously no good whatever. All kinds of methods have
 
 HETTY. 209 
 
 been tried for speaking' with the dead, but I have never heard 
 of one which has succeeded. 
 
 Moaning inarticulately with all the weight of what might 
 have been between her and that poor corpse weighing on her 
 more and more as the minutes went on, she lay dumb and 
 tearless. Lord Ducetoy and Mr. Hagbut, with that delicacy 
 of manhood, which is nearly as fine as that of womanhood, 
 left her alone, and stayed about the house whispering. Carry 
 had been hurried out of the house, (being in an interesting- 
 condition,) not having the least idea that her father was dead. 
 What to do with the moaning, tearless Rebecca was becom- 
 ing a puzzle to Lord Ducetoy. Hagbut was perfectly calm, 
 and only said, " Wait, my lord. She will have faces round 
 her soon which she will know. I was to preach here to- 
 night, and I have ordered some women of my communion, 
 who are come to hear me, to come to her." 
 
 Rebecca had nearly moaned herself to sleep, on the hard 
 floor, when she felt a kind, gentle arm round her waist, 
 and heard a very gentle voice say, " My love, come with me. 
 Get up." 
 
 " I will be very obedient," said Rebecca. " I was wrong 
 to go to Ramsgate. Now that death is here I know it. 
 Alfred Morley has forgiven me, and pa forgave me too. I 
 will go to Walham Green, and ask forgiveness of all. I am 
 sure even Miss Soper would forgive me now." 
 
 " My sweet child, my own bonny girl," said old Soper ; 
 " what have / to forgive ? You have got to forgive an ill- 
 tempered old maid, driven wild by girls. Come away, dear, 
 and scold me. See here is Mrs. Russel ; you will come with 
 us, won't you ? " 
 
 "Pretty sweetheart," said Mrs. Russel; "come with us. 
 We never hit it off together yet, but we will do so for the 
 future. Becky, my pretty love, come and lie down." 
 
 P
 
 2io HETTY. 
 
 All the well written or well talked sentimentality in the 
 world could never have had the effect which the kindness of 
 these two old women had on Rebecca. The rock was smit- 
 ten, and the tears came forth. 
 
 Soper and Russel behaved gloriously. Soper never 
 yielded an inch in her principles. Rebecca had once done a 
 thing which if done too often would entirely ruin the ladies' 
 school business, for which Soper had a sentimental regard, 
 seeing that she had made a modest competence out of it. 
 About the Ramsgate business Soper nailed her colours to 
 the mast ; but on all other points she gave way, and turned 
 out the thoroughly good fellow which she really was. Russel 
 and she stayed in the house until the end, and as they never 
 got on from one week's end to another without a squabble, 
 they naturally had one here. 
 
 Russel said one evening at tea that Rebecca would be all 
 alone now. Mr. Hagbut was not likely to let Carry see 
 much of her, and she would be alone. 
 
 " A good job too," said Soper. " I hate Carry." 
 
 " She is a well-conducted girl," said Russel. 
 
 " Her sister is worth ten of her," said Soper, the experi- 
 enced. " Don't talk nonsense. If Rebecca was a barrack- 
 master's daughter (you don't know what that means, I sup- 
 pose ?) there would never be a scandal about her." 
 
 Russel was so used to getting her old ears boxed by Soper, 
 that she submitted as usual, and said, " You know best, my 
 dear, of course. That Morley's daughter, that Hetty, will be 
 home soon, and she will be thrown against Rebecca. I sup- 
 pose you will be saying next that you approve of that." 
 
 "Yes, I shall," said Soper. "I have retired from busi- 
 ness, and sold my connexion. I'll say that. There are girls 
 and girls, and we in our trade don't study that enough. 
 Yes, I'll say that? said Soper, rubbing her nose. " I don't
 
 HETTY. 21 r 
 
 want to injure the woman's business who bought my school ; 
 but I will say as much as thai." 
 
 " Don't be angry, my clear," said Russel. 
 
 " I shall, if I choose. Morley's daughter is the best com- 
 panion for Morley's wife." 
 
 "After what she has done?" cried Russel. 
 
 " What has she done ? " asked Soper. 
 
 " Outraged every law of respectability," said Mrs. Russel, 
 stoutly. " Oh, Lord ! look there." 
 
 It was only Rebecca in her dressing-gown, looking cer- 
 tainly very ghostly. 
 
 " My dear friends," she said, " is there anything wrong?" 
 
 " Yes," said Russel, " Miss Soper is backing up Hetty." 
 
 " And I don't see why I should not," said Soper ; " the girl 
 was plagued out of her life, and rebelled. Morley had not 
 any money to give her, and she went honestly and bravely 
 away to get money to keep herself and to help him. And 
 she went as stewardess on board a Scotch steamer. And she 
 went as stewardess on board an American steamer, and she 
 got money, and she got prestige for business habits, and 
 she prospered. She is a noble soul, that is about what she 
 is, and those who decry her are fools." 
 
 " Fool is a strong word," said Mrs. Russel. " Come, tell 
 the whole truth." 
 
 " About her shipwrecks ? About her heroism ? " 
 
 " You know what I mean," said Russel. 
 
 " About the Lord Clyde ? Yes, I will tell Becky about 
 that. Now, my dear, you shall have the very whole of it. 
 Hetty, long a disgrace to our respectable connexion, in 
 consequence of her — a minister's daughter — lowering herself 
 so far as to go to sea as a stewardess. In our connexion, 
 my dear, as in some others, we seldom lower ourselves 
 so far as to marry into the ministry. Mr. Spurgeon has 
 
 P 2
 
 212 HETTY. 
 
 pointed out that. But we expect our ministers' daughters to 
 keep their rank. Hetty Morley violated pur traditions, and 
 did worse." 
 
 " I am sure she did no wrong," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Oh, didn"t she ?" said Soper, now venomous. " If there 
 was a Northern sympathiser, in this world, it was Alfred 
 Morley. If any sect in Catholic Europe was more united 
 than ours on the subject of hatred to the slave-owners of the 
 South, it was ours. Hartop, the man to whom she was 
 engaged, was an open favourer of the Northern States. 
 What did Hetty do ? Flew in the face of her father, her 
 lover, and her connexion, and run the blockade into 
 Charleston." 
 
 "Is that all she has done ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " Enough too," said Russel, now very angry indeed. 
 " Disgraced herself by taking service as a stewardess ; and 
 then, on sentimental grounds, assisting Jezebels of slavery 
 into that stronghold of abomination, Charleston." 
 
 I believe that it was the late great and good President 
 Lincoln who first said, that you could do nothing with a 
 woman when her back was up. You could do nothing with 
 Soper now. Her major premiss was " Humbug," and she 
 never got to her minor, and dropped grammar in her 
 fury. 
 
 " That Lord Clyde," she said, " was took for blockade 
 running. And Hetty Morley was stewardess aboard of her, 
 in the Clyde. And there comes two ladies, one big with 
 child. And they says, mutually about one another, ' My 
 husband's killed,' one on 'em says; 'and hers' pointing to 
 the one in the family way, ' he is wounded.' ' Do you know 
 the danger ? ' says the skipper. ' I am uncommon deep this 
 time, and they have built a gun-boat to catch me : and I 
 doubt I can't take ladies.'"
 
 HKTTY. 
 
 213 
 
 " Stop your story, Miss Sopor, - ' said Mrs. Russel. " It's 
 too much for her." 
 
 Rebecca, perfectly white, and a little wild, was staring at 
 Miss Soper. The experienced Soper looked at her one 
 instant and went on. 
 
 " It won't hurt you to tell. It will draw your mind from 
 what is up-stairs. The skipper said, ' I can't take ladies.' 
 They says, ' But us. Think on us,' they said. ' For the 
 memory of your mother take us.' And the one whose hus- 
 band was alive, said, ' She can't see him again, but I may 
 see my man.' And the skipper said, ' You two will never get 
 through without some other woman. I expect to be took 
 this time. And our stewardess is ordered not to go. I won't 
 trust myself with you without her.' And he asked Hetty; 
 and Hetty said ' Willing.' And she went ; and all I say is, 
 that God went with her. That is what Hetty did." 
 
 " Did the two slave-owning ladies get safe in ? " asked 
 Rebecca. 
 
 " Yes," said the violent emancipationist Soper, triumph- 
 antly ; " they did, thank God." 
 
 " Thank God, also," said Rebecca. " Tell us the rest of 
 what Hetty did." 
 
 " Not much," said Soper, " except behaving like an En- 
 glish woman. The Lord Clyde was deep, and touched the 
 ground under a battery, and she was wounded in the face by 
 the splinter of a shell ; but she stood to her work plucky 
 until the very last."
 
 2i 4 HETTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WAITING BY THE TIDE. 
 
 HE little tale is nearly told. A little more 
 trouble. A little more heart gnawing, weary- 
 waiting, and our bold wild hawk will have been 
 purged from the fault, mainly brought on her by 
 J her old unsuitable life, and our once wild pere- 
 grine shall be tamed. She shall stoop to the master's wrist 
 directly ; no lure needed any longer. No need for jesses, 
 hood, or bell ; she shall perch upon his wrist, I promise you, 
 and then she shall spread her pretty wings and fly away 
 across the sea towards the morning. 
 
 I tried hard to make you like her from the very first ; but 
 she was a naughty girl, I doubt. Yet love had done for her 
 what law never did, and she was good enough now, poor 
 child, left all alone. 
 
 All alone ! Why, no. She could never be alone any more 
 now. Her soul had been awakened in the light of a new- 
 dawn, to which the naming primrose of Australian morning 
 is but darkness. The sentimental love and admiration for 
 one greyish headed man, now alone upon the broad weltering 
 sea, a love which, fed on absence, had wrought such a change 
 in her that she found her body transformed into a temple of 
 new hopes and fears, new sympathies ' and anxieties. She 
 was living, so she could never be alone. 
 
 She had money now, nearly ^5000. Mr. Hagbut, as one 
 of her father's executors, had done better by her than he was 
 absolutely warranted by law : of that she never knew. " How 
 on earth," said Lord Ducetoy to her once, "do you manage 
 to get eight per cent, for your money? I can't." Hagbut
 
 HETTY. ' 215 
 
 knew. That frank, Americanised young nobleman consulted 
 her often on business matters relating to his approaching 
 marriage, declaring that he was certain that her father's 
 genius for business must have descended on her. The most 
 he made by it, however, was being looted of ^20 for the 
 Sailors' Orphans' Home. 
 
 For she was waiting by the tide for her man at sea who 
 came not, and sent no message or sign. Her life was the 
 life of the sea-folks now. The good Tibbeys from Chelsea 
 had more than once come to see her, and had begged her to 
 come to them ; but her answer was always the same : " That 
 life is dead and past. 1 am waiting by the tide, my dears, 
 for him who is at sea. I Mill never go westward again into 
 that wilderness. I wait upon the shore for him, and I think 
 he will come back to me. If he does not, I will wait still." 
 
 Carry and Mrs. Russel said that poor Rebecca was moping 
 herself to death all alone clown at Limehouse. Now, on the 
 other hand, Miss Soper, whose father was dead, having had 
 a look or two at Limehouse, took apartments there, and 
 carrying her mother clown, established herself; thereby em- 
 phatically proving her opinion of the difference between 
 Walham Green and Limehouse. The split between herself 
 and Carry and Russel was complete. 
 
 " Rebecca," said the old schoolmistress, " is worth the lot 
 of you put together. The girl is doing hard work and good 
 work, and I have been used to hard work since I was four- 
 teen ; " (as, indeed, she had,) " and I am going to do some 
 more of it. Mrs. Russel, it is the want of hard work which 
 has spoilt my temper and yours ; and it will spoil yours, too, 
 Mrs. Hagbut." The two saw very little of her after this. 
 
 I am not Homer, and so I cannot describe the fearful 
 battles which went on between Miss Soper and Doctor Barn- 
 hanij the Papist. The number of times a day which they
 
 2i6 HETTY. 
 
 announced one another's ultimate destruction was something 
 fearful. But they were excellent good friends, and worked 
 together admirably, in the little sharp attack of cholera in 
 that year ; partly, I think, from jealousy, to see who could do 
 most. 
 
 So it came to pass that Rebecca saw more of her old 
 enemy than ever she had done before. And when she came 
 to compare Soper's life with her own, she felt herself a very 
 worthless person. 
 
 The very first and purest pleasure which Rebecca got, 
 when she had settled down, was a certain school for sailors' 
 children, got together and kept together by a fat old woman, 
 Mrs. Frump. She founded it, she taught it (mainly), she 
 managed it, and she paid for it. She was it. Soper grubbed 
 out the story about it ; and it was, that her son had gone 
 away, and had been lost in a " cyphoon," leaving her two 
 infant children to educate. And Mrs. Frump had decided 
 that it was best that the children should have company. And 
 so the school had grown from two sailor's orphans to twenty- 
 eight sailors' children, whose fathers might return, or, on the 
 other hand, might not. And it was by the tideway, and the 
 little ones could see the ships as they passed close by. 
 
 It was one of those temporary schools, kept together by 
 the force of character of a single person ; and which, when 
 God thinks fit to say to that person, "Well done, good 
 and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," 
 break up and go to pieces, and are heard of no more. 
 
 Yet their good works live after them. I am not foolish 
 enough, of course, to say for an instant that unorganised 
 schools, dependent on mere individuals, should in any way 
 take the place of organised schools ; yet I say thus much 
 about such schools as these, which I have known, that they 
 have impressed a certain die of character on the children
 
 HETTY. 217 
 
 taught there, and have deserved well of the State. Nay, 
 more : I believe, that on the last great gathering, when one 
 of the founders and keepers of these schools shall come up 
 for judgment, and the Great One shall say, " Who will speak 
 for this man ? " hundreds of white hands will be held up out 
 of the crowd, and their owners will say, " Lord, he showed 
 us the way to thy Son." 
 
 Well, that is only my opinion about those schools. We 
 are getting too serious, I fear. 
 
 Rebecca watched old Frump as a cat watches a mouse. 
 But she was. a determined old girl, our Rebecca, and intended 
 to have her wicked will of Frump. She confronted Frump 
 in the street one day, and asked her if she might come and 
 teach in her school. 
 
 Frump eyed her over from top to toe, and said, " Why ? " 
 
 Rebecca was perfectly ready for her. She told Frump the 
 whole of her story from beginning to end ; and, in con- 
 clusion, said pitifully, " Please, let me help." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Frump, " as a general rule I don't like 
 Dissenters round my place. But you have got the right kind 
 of eye, and I know Morley. You can come, if you like." 
 
 " I thank vou very much," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Are you fond of your tea, child ? " asked Frump. 
 
 " Yes, I like it very much," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Then you had better come along and have some of it 
 with me," said Frump. 
 
 And at tea Rebecca explained to Frump that her father 
 had been a Dissenter and her mother a Papist. Frump was 
 inclined, on the whole, to look on this in the light of a good 
 cross ; not like the orthodox thing certainly, but not so very 
 bad. She cautioned Rebecca carefully about the expression 
 of unorthodox opinions on one side or the other. Rebecca 
 promised strict obedience ; and they became good friends.
 
 218 HETTY. 
 
 So she got among the pretty, innocent sailors' children, 
 and loved them, and worked diligently among them, not only 
 for their own sweet sakes, but for the sake of her own dear 
 sailor far away upon the wild sea. 
 
 Another thing which raised her soul much in these times 
 was this : the ritualisms of the sect to which she clung were 
 not bald and barren to her here, as they were at Walham 
 Green. She craved for light and music in her ritual ; and to 
 some extent she got it here. The light was in the upturned 
 eyes of the little congregation, the music was got by the rush- 
 ing of the wind and the lapping of the tide outside the chapel. 
 
 But there was a great attraction in her chapel just now. A 
 young missionary had come home, having lost his wife in 
 some wild attempt to spread Christianity in some dim spot 
 on the Congo, where the Capuchins and Jesuits had failed 
 200 years before. A wild young man with a tangled head, 
 blazing black eyes, a bad heart-disease, a precarious income 
 of £58 a year, and what I choose to call a golden faith. This 
 young man had gone through more troubles than St. Paul 
 himself, and had come home to take Morley's duty. Barn- 
 ham, the Papist, told Miss Soper that that man was a loss to 
 the Catholic Church, for that he preached the Real Presence, 
 as in his language he most certainly did. She, Soper, was 
 furious, but Dr. Barnham was a great deal too strong for 
 her, Soper not being able from her professions to urgQpetitio 
 ftriiicipii against him, and leaving him free to argue from 
 their common major. 
 
 Frump, however, retired on the lines of Torres Ycdras, 
 until the country should be wasted before her. Her lines 
 were, that young Jones, the Dissenting missionary, was a 
 Jesuit in disguise. Which was a safe thing to say. 
 
 But in spite of the rather singular things which this tangle- 
 headed young man said about the necessity of baptism, the
 
 HETTY. 2r 9 
 
 inconceivable sin of falling away from grace, and the (prac- 
 tically) ultra-Romish views of the communion, Rebecca loved 
 to hear this young man preach. For there was an earnest 
 fury about every word of his which took her heart, and his 
 words carried with them the scent of the distant sea, the 
 waves of which wandered over his dead wife's coffin. 
 
 So, busy and active, yet perfectly peaceful, still she waited 
 for Alfred Morley beside the tide. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE FIRST MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 
 ■r\y ,;0 she hung on, doing the work which God in his 
 
 kindness had given her. Waiting by the tide, 
 month after month, for a message from the sea. 
 ^§J Morley, Hartop, and Hetty, had arranged in 
 council to try her, and they tried her hard. But 
 they were sure of her from the first. Those who go down 
 into the sea in ships, and do their business in the great 
 waters, these people know a man or a woman when they 
 see one. 
 
 There came to Rebecca pious Roman Catholics, who said, 
 " You have money, and your mother was a Catholic. Come 
 and see what we are doing among the Irish dock labourers." 
 And she gave to them. And three weeks afterwards a quiet 
 Protestant gentleman, while beginning to give a lecture on 
 Garibaldi, at Birkenhead, had the windows of his hall stoned, 
 which rather irritated Rebecca, who loved Garibaldi. 
 
 But there was not much irritation going on at Pilot Ter- 
 race. They did not know yet that the Camps were drowned, 
 and they were too busy to be very much irritated. Mrs. 
 Tryon and Miss Soper fought pretty persistently, not being
 
 220 HETTY. 
 
 at all fond of one another. Soper set up for being a lady, and 
 Mrs. Tryon thanked heaven that she was not one. This was 
 a very pretty cause of quarrel as it stood, and neither lady 
 was in any way inclined to forego it on any opportunity. As 
 for Rebecca, she never quarrelled with anybody, and no one 
 ever quarrelled with her. She was the pet and the admiration 
 of the whole row. Her extraordinary beauty, now developing 
 rapidly, and her imperial carriage, were sufficient to ensure 
 her from impertinence anywhere. It would have been ill for 
 the man who had dared to insult her. She went everywhere, 
 into all kinds of odd places, so much that Carry came weep- 
 ing to Miss Soper and Mrs. Tryon about it. 
 
 " Fiddlededee," said the Soper. " The girl is right enough. 
 She is doing good and learning good. Stuff!" 
 
 " But she is seeing so much sin," wept Carry. 
 
 " Yes, and its consequences," snapped Soper. "A precious 
 good thing for her." 
 
 Mrs. Tryon took a stronger line, and requested Carry to 
 remark that there were always plenty of sailors about, she 
 believed. 
 
 Poor Carry said that indeed they were such a terrible lot 
 of roughs, she could hardly sleep in her bed for thinking of 
 Rebecca among such savages. 
 
 It is hard to depict the wrath and fury of Mrs. Tryon. 
 
 " Roughs and savages," she growled. " That I at sixty 
 years should have lived to hear my man called a rough and 
 a savage ! Your sister is safer among our lads than ever she 
 would be among your West End dandies. Though, mind 
 you, I have been in many ports, and a woman who respects 
 herself is safe in any one of them. Roughs and savages ! 
 Even if they were, such as she should go among them, then, 
 and civilise them. Shame on you, woman !" 
 
 Carry took nothing at all, therefore, by her motion what-
 
 HETTY. 221 
 
 ever, and after this Rebecca was left quite alone to get on 
 with Moriarty, Soper, Russcl, Tryon, Frump, the sailors and 
 the poor as best she could, which was very well indeed. 
 
 When the wind was very wild, and the rain beat upon the 
 glass, she would get up, and do as she had now so often seen 
 the sailors' wives do, walk up and down the room with her 
 arms tightly folded ; thinking of the man she loved at sea. 
 
 It was a very wild fierce night six months after she came 
 there, and was very late. She had not long come in, after 
 making one of some eighty women who had been out in the 
 rain and the wild weather to see an accident. Captain 
 .Moriarty had drifted from his moorings in the gale, and 
 caused an alarm as great as if the Houses of Parliament 
 were a-fire. Rebecca had ended with a hearty laugh when 
 all things were put straight, and had come home to her 
 solitary supper of bread and cheese ; and the wind was very 
 wild, and her heart was very heavy, and she ate her supper 
 walking up and down, and, I am very much afraid, crying. 
 
 The door was opened, and a voice coming from a figure 
 which she could not see, said, " If you please, Miss, old Job 
 Partridge, of the Mary Ann, is much worse, and wants to see 
 you immediate." 
 
 " I will be with you directly," said Rebecca ; " how far 
 is it?" 
 
 "About a mile straight in the teeth of the wind, and it is 
 raining cats, dogs, marlin-spikes and copper sheathing," 
 said the voice. 
 
 " I will be with you in two minutes," said Rebecca. " I 
 
 have been out and got my hair wet, and have been drying it. 
 
 . Mr. Moriarty has lost his moorings, but he has been brought 
 
 up by a hawser from the Elizabeth now. I will not detain 
 
 you an instant." 
 
 The voice said, in a most emphatic manner, " You will
 
 222 
 
 HETTY. 
 
 do," and out of the darkness came a young woman shorter 
 than herself, who put her two hands on Rebecca's shoulders, 
 and looked up, and Rebecca knew in an instant that she was 
 looking on a beauty more splendid than her own. 
 
 She was perfectly amazed, and stammered out, "Is it, 
 is it *' 
 
 " Of course it is, my dear soul."' 
 
 " Is it Hetty?" said Rebecca. 
 
 " Of course it is, my dear. Who else did you think it was? 
 Now have a good look at me." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 HETTY AT LAST. 
 
 OW look at me, said Hetty ; and Rebecca 
 did so, with fixed eyes and open mouth, 
 for this mysterious long-concealed Hetty 
 was the strangest creature she had ever seen 
 in her life. 
 
 She was dressed in close-ficting sailor's blue, and had just 
 taken a sailor's tarpaulin hat off her head, and shaken out 
 her hair ; it was a crown of dark chestnut. In features, 
 more particularly in the quaint beautiful mouth, turned 
 habitually up at the corners, she resembled very closely 
 Sir Joshua's Muscipula; as she shaded her great hazel 
 eyes with her hand, to get a good look at Rebecca, Re- 
 becca saw that she was like her father, but also like some 
 one she had never seen. 
 
 Rebecca was dazed and stunned at the apparition. She 
 had loved beauty deeply, and been told that Hetty was 
 beautiful ; but she was not prepared for this. And where 
 did the girl get that wondrous, tender, pathetic expression
 
 i i i ;tty. 223 
 
 from, almost as strange as her beauty? Rebecca soon 
 knew whence came that look. 
 
 " Rebecca, dear," said Hetty, " God is sending Jack ancN^ ; |/| >. 
 a little one. Will you nurse me until it is born, and I am 
 fit to go afloat again ? " 
 
 That was all she said, and Rebecca said exactly nothing 
 at all ; but she laughed such a happy laugh that Hetty 
 laughed again ; and kissing her and shaking the rain- 
 drops from her hair, sat down upon the easy chair and 
 demanded tea. 
 
 The seed-time of Rebecca's life had been hard and bitter, 
 but the harvest was beginning now. Beginning in doubt, 
 trouble, anxiety, but in deep glorious happiness. She was 
 getting a share in the great life which was moving about 
 her. The arrival of this strange, beautiful storm-bird from 
 the wild sea, was now, to her, a deeper, more intense plea- 
 sure than all the castles, broughams, opera-boxes, and dia- 
 monds, that any lady ever had in this world. 
 
 Idle women will not understand this ; on the other hand, 
 women who have courageously done their best to assist in 
 the great task of civilization, under all kinds of sneers and 
 discouragement, will understand it. 
 
 Do you say that there was nothing to make her abso- 
 lutely intoxicated with pure sentimental happiness, in the 
 arrival of this little beauty from her strange wild adventures, 
 coming to her for protection ? If you say that, I disagree 
 with you. There was a great deal which made her feel that 
 the harvest-time of her life had fairly begun. 
 
 Experts say that those passages in Joachim's intonation 
 of Beethoven, which make ox-like, heavy men, of good 
 brains, twitch their hands nervously in the excess of won- 
 der and pleasure, are got by sliding not impinging. That 
 is to say that the good Herr, in passing from one note to
 
 224 HETTY. 
 
 another, gives you an incalculable million of tones, and 
 talks a language not of this earth, but known and half 
 understood by most ; whether in the past or the future, I 
 am unable to say. Wordsworth says the past ; but who 
 told him? The notes in Rebecca's little sonata of life had 
 all been violently impinged. 
 
 Until she came to Limehouse among the sailors' wives, 
 the music of her life had been written in violent staccato. 
 Now she began to find herself among tones as delicate, as 
 indescribable as those of Joachim or Burne Jones.* 
 
 Here came to her Hetty from the sea. And she was wife 
 of a man she had been inclined to love, and daughter of a 
 man whom she loved better than all the world put together. 
 And Rebecca loved her : and there was another not yet visi- 
 ble, and she loved it. And it was blowing nearly a gale of 
 wind, and she did not know where Morley was, and Hetty 
 did not know where Hart op was ; and the Camps had not 
 been heard of; and Mr. Moriarty, in moving the Ninety- 
 eight to fresh moorings, had got thwart hawse with a Prus- 
 sian and extremely Protestant brig, and had used language 
 unbefitting him ; and little Billy Pitcher had tipped himself 
 into the dock at low water, and broken his head ; and she 
 must go and see the child as soon as she had made Hetty's 
 tea, — Becky was living plenty of half and quarter tones now. 
 
 "Hetty, dear; Hetty, sweet," said Rebecca; "can you 
 spare me for a very little time ? Billy Pitcher has fallen on 
 his head in the dock, and I promised him a horse, and he 
 won't go to sleep without it." 
 
 Said Hetty, drinking her tea, — 
 
 * I am only speaking of Mr. Burne Jones' colour. On other points 
 he has incurred the penalty of death. Perhaps the Habitual Criminals' 
 Bill will touch him up. Ten years' penal servitude among third-rate 
 " Presents par l'Empereur " pictures in France might bring him to a 
 sense of his sins.
 
 HETTY; 225 
 
 " Bother the child. He can get on without his horse to- 
 night. Sailors' children must go to sleep without toys. But, 
 my dear, you must go out, unless you have a girl to send ; 
 you must go to old Tryon, and tell her to come here and 
 bring her things. It is blowing S.S.E., and half a gale, so 
 you will get wet. Mind the hawsers, you know, or you will 
 go the way of Billy Pitcher." 
 
 And so Rebecca departed, with the wind in her face, to 
 Mrs. Tryon. Mrs. Tryon did not object to the arrangement 
 at all ; but she said that she was not going to Hetty or to 
 any woman in the world until Tommy Bithers had brought 
 his brig in. She was not going to be Moriartied twice ; 
 and Bithers, though a sound Protestant, was worse than 
 Moriarty ; and his berth was opposite her house, and she 
 did not want it pulled about her ears. " Tide would serve 
 about twelve," she said ; " and so you two fools go and talk 
 it over till then." 
 
 Rebecca went back, and sat on the floor by Hetty's sofa, 
 shaking the rain-drops out of her hair. Rebecca had heard 
 that when families were to be increased the ladies who in- 
 creased them were not by any means to be agitated. Still 
 Hetty had put her arm round her neck, and they were most 
 comfortable together. 
 
 " I think we shall be very fond of one another," said 
 Hetty. 
 
 "That is quite my opinion," said Rebecca. "Where 
 have you been, Hetty ? " 
 
 " Slopping round," said Hetty. " I am perfectly sick and 
 tired of these clipper ships ; and I declare most positively, 
 that when what is going to happen has happened, I will 
 never put my kit on board of another. Jack, thank Heaven, 
 has got one of the old sort." 
 
 " Has he got a ship ?" asked Rebecca, eagerly. 
 
 Q
 
 226 HETTY. 
 
 " Certainly he has," said Hetty. " I will tell you all about 
 it, if you will not jump out of your skin. He has had his 
 certificate now for two years, and the skipper of the Flying 
 Cloud died at Aspinwall. And he was telegraphed to, when 
 he was at New York, to go down and take charge of her; and 
 he went away, and I went on a little way with the old ship, 
 taking hardware to St. Thomas's, not of much use, for we 
 had no passengers except a fat man whow we rather thought 
 had robbed a bank. But when we came to St. Thomas, 
 there was the Severn (she is the West Indy Mail, my dear), 
 and Captain Gardiner he comes on board in a pretty state of 
 mind, for Jane Higgs (his head stewardess, formerly on the 
 Liverpool and Belfast), had fallen down the companion and 
 injured her chest. 'And, Mrs. Hartop,' he said, 'if you 
 don't help me, I don't know whatever I shall do : I have 
 got three ladies and eight children for Rio, all as helpless 
 and as innocent as babies.' ' I would do more than that 
 for you, Captain Gardiner,' I said. And so I chucked my 
 kit aboard her, and away we went, thundering southward ! 
 The finest ship ever I sailed in. 
 
 " It was very pleasant. The most of the men knew me, 
 or all about me, and gold was not too good for me to eat 
 off. Ah ! you don't know sailors yet. If any man on board 
 that ship had dared to look rude at me, I doubt he would 
 have gone overboard. 
 
 " One of the babies died. When I heard the little corpse 
 go sliding overboard, I knew that God had given a life for 
 the one he had just taken, and I told the poor mother so. 
 She was very glad of it ; I thought that I was perhaps wrong 
 in telling her, for fear of wounding her, but the words came 
 out of my mouth, and they comforted her. For which, God 
 be thanked. 
 
 "Well, my dear, we got to Rio with only this one death.
 
 HETTY. 227 
 
 And there the strangest surprise happened ever you heard of 
 in your life. I don't think anything in the Arabian Nights 
 happened stranger. Our engine-room men had got up 
 steam, and we were moving through the water, when there 
 came in tli rough the heads a great ship, a perfect cloud of 
 duck, Rebecca, carrying on to the last minute. I was stand- 
 ing with Gardiner on the bridge, as she came racing on, and 
 when she stowed sail after sail, and brought up so neat, I 
 said to Gardiner, ' There is a man in command of that 
 ship.' 
 
 " ' What a beauty she is ! What is she ?' said Gardiner. 
 " And old Rangoon, who was down in the waist, and had 
 sailed with me before, sang out, ' She is Missis Hartop's 
 man's ship, the Flying Cloud. / know her. That's Hartop 
 himself on the forecastle, piloting himself, as usual. I wouldn't 
 give eighteen- pence for that young man's certificate if he 
 carries on into harbour like this, without a pilot. He has 
 heard of the missis being here, and has been carrying on. 
 My opinion is that your missis is your missis, but that 
 similarly your owners is your owners. I don't hold with 
 skippers carrying away expensive sticks a following of their 
 wives.' 
 
 " Gardiner gave the word to bank up fires, and catch 
 moorings again. We had a boat lowered in five minutes, 
 and in two more I was with Jack on his own quarter-deck — 
 his own, my dear, think of that ! There was no one but he 
 and I and the young man at the wheel. Jack's mate, an 
 excellent young man, but who from his eye looks very much 
 like carrying on for a passage — a young man 1 shall remove 
 when I am well, he moored the ship, so I had twenty minutes 
 with Jack. He wanted me sadly to go with him ; but I told 
 him what was the matter, and that he had not one woman 
 aboard, and he yielded. God bless that man ! He would 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 HETTY. 
 
 make any one believe in a good God if one had not done so 
 before. 
 
 " ' God go with you, dear little wife,' he said. Gardiner 
 will see to you. Gardiner is a good man. Go home straight 
 to Rebecca and old Tryon ; they are true salt, both of them.' 
 And so we had a kiss once more, and I went over the side, 
 and came thundering home in the Severn with Gardiner." 
 
 " And where is Jack Hartop gone ? " asked Rebecca. 
 
 " Callao, for orders," said Hetty ; " that, he says, expresses, 
 in sailors' language, Greek Kalends. Ships cleared for Callao 
 never know where they are going ; it may be Melbourne, 
 and it may be Hong Kong — one as likely as the other. I 
 shall not see him for a year." 
 
 " Are you not impatient ? " asked Rebecca. 
 
 " My good soul, if sailors' wives were to get impatient they 
 would go mad. I have laid my heart and soul at the feet of 
 one sailor, and you have laid yours at the feet of another. 
 Sailors' wives must know how to wait and suffer. And if you 
 have a common religion, if you believe that there is no cloud 
 at death between you and your husband, you can get through 
 anything. That is the case between Jack and myself." 
 
 " Yes," said Rebecca. And there was a great deal in her 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Now," said Hetty, " I am going to tell you a thing which 
 will make you very angry and make you hate me. Jack 
 has openly joined the Church of England, and I have gone 
 with him." 
 
 "Why not, Hetty?" said Rebecca, turning her face to 
 Hetty. 
 
 " Why not ?" said Hetty. "Why, of all the indiscretions 
 I ever committed, this is the worst. I hope you will not be 
 so foolish as I have been." 
 
 " Why not ? " said Rebecca.
 
 EIETTY. 22; 
 
 " Because you would cut the last ground from under my 
 father's feet. Rebecca, you have a noble soul committed to 
 your care, for which you will have to answer at the Day of 
 Judgment. Follow him — do not lead him. A led man is an 
 ill thing. I have been to sea, and I know." 
 
 Here there was an interruption : Mrs. Tryon stood at the 
 door. 
 
 " Now then, Miss Turner ; you are talking her to death. 
 Het, old girl, how are you ? You did right to come home to 
 Miss Turner and I, though Miss Turner is a fool." 
 
 " I have known that for a long time," said Rebecca, 
 quietly ; for Mrs. Tryon had called her a fool in a way which 
 did not give offence. There are different ways of calling 
 people fools. 
 
 " Where is your man gone ? "said Mrs. Tryon, to Hetty. 
 
 " To Callao for orders," said Hetty. 
 
 " He is a fool, and you were a fool for letting him go," said 
 Tryon. 
 
 " Don't talk nonsense, my dear soul," said Hetty. " You 
 may think it fine, but we do not." 
 
 " Is he going through the Straits or round the Horn?" 
 asked Tryon. 
 
 " Round the Horn," said Hetty. "His ship would never 
 beat through the Straits, she is bad to get about. I did not 
 like his crew myself. Too many Malays. I don't like it 
 altogether, and the ship is, I doubt, wet ; and in my opinion, 
 Mrs. Tryon, she is extremely over-sparred. Why, Jack told 
 me himself that she had broken her main-yard lift by sheer 
 rolling, and dropped it on to the slings." 
 
 " Those iron lifts are all rubbish," said Mrs. Tryon. 
 
 " I know that," said Hetty ; " but that does not make 
 amends for Jack's carrying on round the Horn with iron lifts. 
 And his ship's bows are too far aft, so that she don't seem as
 
 230 HETTY. 
 
 though she would lift well with a reefed foresail, when she is 
 going before it. As for laying her to, in a gale of wind, my 
 dear, if I was on board of her when Jack proposed to do it, 
 I should get out and walk." 
 
 " Look at her," said Tryon, quietly. 
 
 It was Rebecca to whom she called attention. She had 
 gone to sleep on the floor with her head on a hassock. 
 " Pretty sweet," said Tryon. " Have you heard anything of 
 Morley, dear ? " 
 
 " Speak very low," said Hetty. " Pa has gone on to Pata- 
 gonia in the Eliza. And the Sydney Herald says that they 
 are all dead." 
 
 " You don't believe it, dear ? " said Mrs. Tryon. 
 
 "Of course I don't," said Hetty. "Jack says that he 
 don't believe a hang of it." 
 
 That is the way religious sailors' wives talk confidentially, 
 ladies and gentlemen. Of course they ought not to do so, 
 but they do it. 
 
 " I don't believe a solitary word of it," said Tryon. " But 
 that Patagonian coast is a awful bad 'un. Look how sweet 
 she sleeps, pretty love, pretty dear." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 X' i NEWS. 
 
 s&i^HERE came a long time now, while those two 
 abode together like Ruth and Naomi. But all 
 danger to Rebecca was over, in the presence of 
 a necessity greater than her own. Her own self 
 was dead and ended, and she had three others, 
 Morley, Hetty, and Hartop ; not to mention three dozen 
 others in the swarming, seafaring population all around her.
 
 HETTY. 231 
 
 To lose sight of self utterly for one moment, is to have 
 lived for one moment. 
 
 Rebecca lived much now, for she never had time to 
 think of herself at all. And the very person who took 
 her away from herself most was that bonny, shrewd, beautiful 
 Hetty. 
 
 Mrs. Tryon had a fight with Hetty about her treatment of 
 Rebecca ; but after a long engagement of an hour Tryon 
 retired, with all her masts shot away (but with her colours 
 flying), leaving Hetty the victory : as I cannot, from want of 
 space, give an account of the whole of this great battle, I 
 will give the last part of it ; so, that, ex pede Herculem, the 
 reader may judge what the beginning of the fight was like. 
 And, I may say, that if the last sentence is not the neatest 
 example of Catachresis written this year, I should be glad to 
 see the other. 
 
 " You worry the girl so," said Tryon. 
 
 " I want to," said Hetty. " I want to take her out of her- 
 self, and make her think of me, not of my father." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I am beginning to believe that my father is in 
 heaven,'' said Hetty. " The Society are getting very 
 anxious." 
 
 " But you will make Rebecca dislike you," said Tryon. 
 
 '• Well, that would not much matter, that I know of. Per- 
 haps it would be better for her if she could. But that can 
 never happen, Mrs. Tryon. She and I have seen such deep, 
 unutterable light of love in one another's eyes, more than 
 once, that we know it can never be quenched." 
 
 " But sending her these errands, in such weather," said 
 Mrs. Tryon ; "you will kill her." 
 
 " She is not made of sugar," said Hetty. 
 
 Rebecca came in at this moment, and as an illustration of
 
 232 HETTY. 
 
 how much Hetty meant to attend to Mrs. Tryon, she said to 
 Rebecca coolly, — 
 
 " I want sardines for my supper. I am to have everything 
 I fancy, and I fancy them. And the sardines at the corner 
 shop are nothing but pilchards, and taste of hair-oil. Go up 
 the street, and get a box of the small ones at Elms's." 
 
 And Rebecca went out into the rain again, without one 
 word. 
 
 " I call it shameful usage,*' said Mrs. Tryon. 
 
 " It is the system I mean to pursue with her," said Hetty, 
 coolly. And the good Tryon flumped out of the room, and 
 went and had tea with Soper and Frump, and Captain 
 Moriarty dropped in for a social chat with the ladies, and to 
 take his tay wather. And Frump (Establishment) fell foul of 
 Soper and Tryon (Dissenting) ; and when they had pretty 
 well blown off the steam, they all three pitched into 
 Moriarty (Papist), and made a kind of religious Walpurgis 
 night of it, giving to one another, all at once, and at the top 
 of their voices, the most remarkable religious experiences. 
 Moriarty left at eight to go on board, leaving the ladies in 
 full wrangle ; but Moriarty's apprentice deponed to Tryon 
 the next day, that he never came on board till half-past two, 
 and was then disguised in drink, and singing the seditious 
 song known as Croppies lie do7vn. 
 
 But Rebecca knew nothing of the good Irishman's eccen- 
 tricities. She came back with the sardines, and Hetty called 
 her to her. 
 
 " Rebecca, Mrs. Tryon has been saying that if I try you as 
 I do you will lose your love for me. Is that so ? " 
 
 " She must be perfectly foolish," said Rebecca, sharply. 
 " I wish you would try me more. You don't think it, Hetty ? " 
 
 " Not I. I will tell you the whole truth. If sailors' wives 
 brood and think of nothing but themselves and their hus-
 
 HETTY. 
 
 2 33 
 
 bands, they will go mad. Unless you arc busy you will 
 
 | never be happy. My father told me that when I was very 
 
 young ; and I acted on it in a way which did not please him 
 
 I or some others very much. Get out of yourself. Make! 
 
 i others' troubles your own, and your own will be as nothing. ' 
 
 I have no letter from Jack, from Valparaiso." 
 
 " And I have none from Alfred."' 
 
 " Self again. You should a*4 think of me, not of my 
 father. I told you that pa was gone to Patagonia, and you 
 don't suppose that there are letter-boxes there. You should 
 think about >/ie." 
 
 But Rebecca cried very much indeed, and Hetty let her 
 alone for a little. " She must get trained as I did or she 
 will never stand the news," said Hetty. 
 
 " Becky, dear," she said at last, " get me to bed, and send 
 for Dr. Barnham. I am going to be ill." And Rebecca got 
 her to bed and sent for the doctor. 
 
 Meanwhile, Hetty had leant her face to the wall, weeping 
 silently. " Father and Jack both together. O God, in thine 
 infinite mercy, judge me not too heavily." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE SECOND MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 
 
 UT a week or more after, Hetty, lying in the 
 same bed where Mr. Turner had died, and 
 watching the ships pass up and down the river, 
 lay with a brave boy on her bosom, and was 
 quite quiet, and well, saying very little indeed. 
 She asked Rebecca to go out and see how the wind and the 
 mercury were, and Rebecca came back with the intelligence 
 that the wind was S.S.E. half E., and that the mercury was
 
 234 HETTY. 
 
 cupped at 29/10. "Not that it matters to you and I, my 
 dear," said Hetty, "only it is a good habit for a sailor's wife 
 to notice ; our men are too far away." 
 
 She had only sent Rebecca out that she might have some 
 fresh air. But Rebecca, sleepy and pale, had arisen and 
 gone after the weathercock and barometer so cheerfully, that 
 Hetty had emphatically determined that she should be tried 
 no longer. 
 
 She asked her to take the baby, and when she had done 
 so, she looked her straight in the face, and said, — ■ 
 
 " Rebecca, from this moment I and you are one. Nothing 
 must ever divide us. ' Where thou goest I will go, thy people 
 shall be my people, and thy God my God.'" 
 
 " It should be so, and shall be so," said Rebecca. " Hetty, 
 I have loved you so long, and sought your love so hard, it 
 should surely be so." 
 
 "Becky," said Hetty, quietly, "suppose that you were 
 maid- widow, and I was mother- widow, could you give your 
 life to a work ? " 
 
 " If you will tell me, I will do as you say. But why do 
 you ask me ? " 
 
 " Because we may both be widows — some day. Will you 
 abide with me and work among the sailors' wives, while I 
 drown my grief in the dear salt sea, and work at civilising 
 the sailors ? " 
 
 " I will do so ; what you say and do is good to hear, good 
 to do. But why " 
 
 " There is old Tryon come to inquire," said Hetty ; " go 
 down and tell her something or another. No, stay, have her 
 up ; for she is true blue salt, a forty fathom woman, if there 
 ever was one. And so are you, Becky. Was there ever a 
 sailor in your mother's family, Beck ? " 
 
 " My grandfather was an admiral."
 
 HETTY. 235 
 
 "Hah! that accounts for it," said Hetty; "I knew that 
 there were deep sea soundings somewhere. Now go fetch 
 up old Tryon." 
 
 Hetty went to do so, but Mrs. Tryon, being admitted into 
 the passage, put her helm down, and, with a smart collision, 
 sent Rebecca into the front parlour. 
 
 She stood looking at Rebecca in a great state of anger, 
 and, after a few seconds, said, " You have made a nice mess 
 of it among you." 
 
 " Please* Mrs. Tryon," said Rebecca, " tell Hetty and my- 
 self what is the matter." 
 
 " You may well say what is the matter ? " said Mrs. Tryon. 
 " How is Hetty, and how is the baby ? " 
 
 " They are both quite well." 
 
 " I am glad it is a girl ?" said Mrs. Tryon. 
 
 " Yes, it is a boy," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Well, they have more chance of getting their living than 
 girls. That is one comfort. I suppose you know that Jack 
 Hartop has lost his ship." 
 
 Rebecca was so puzzled by the news that she found herself 
 wondering whether Jack Hartop had dropped his ship down 
 an area railings, or lost it at cards, or left it accidentally in a 
 railway carriage, or gone on shore forgetfully and let it sail 
 away by itself into unknown seas; when Mrs. Tryon said, 
 sharply, — 
 
 " You are wool-gathering. Don't do it. He has lost his 
 ship on Cape Northumberland, and his certificate with it." 
 
 u It will kill her," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Yes, if she is told. But she must not be. Now you 
 understand." 
 
 '• Yes, / understand," said Rebecca, and Mrs. Tryon walked 
 out ; and just after Mr. Moriarty walked in. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Moriarty," said Rebecca, eagerly, " dear
 
 236 HETT . 
 
 old friend. Tell me the truth about this dreadful busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Haven't I come to tell you. divil another ? Male your 
 mind easy, Miss Turner. He is safe enough." 
 
 " Why do you think so ? " 
 
 " He went to Callao for orders, and was sent to Melbourne. 
 And he has got cast away on Cape Northumberland ; like 
 any other gentleman. Why Miss Turner, you have seen me, 
 on two occasions, come to grief in this very dock." 
 
 " But will he lose his certificate ? " asked Rebecca. 
 
 " He'll have it suspended^ said Moriarty ; " you may little 
 think it, Miss Turner, but my certificate was suspended for 
 two years, when I commanded the Tipperary screw, for, and 
 because only that the Derry, screw collier, coming up stream, 
 and I going down, I gave her a playful little bit of a Donny- 
 brook ram in consequence of her name. And she got ashore 
 before she sank, which was all she did. And it was potatoes 
 and point with me for two years. Oh, yes, his certificate is 
 gone." 
 
 So Rebecca went up again to Hetty, and made Tryon's 
 apologies for not coming up. 
 
 It was along time before Hetty was well enough to be told 
 anything about Hartop's mishap. It was a much longer time 
 before Rebecca said one word to her about it. 
 
 She did not know what to do. God solved the problem for 
 her ultimately, in this way : 
 
 Hetty had got about, on the wharf, and by the river, with 
 her baby, impressing on the newly-formed retina of that 
 young gentleman the images of ships. Otherwise the life 
 went on among the sailors' wives left waiting for some who 
 came back hearty and well ; for some who came back 
 broken, though as dear as ever : and for some who never 
 came back at all. It had come on to rain one evening, and
 
 HETTY. 
 
 237 
 
 Rebecca caught Hetty on the wharf, and pulled her into the 
 house. 
 
 " I have news," said Rebecca. 
 
 "You need not trouble to say that, Becky," said Hetty. 
 "Is it Pa or Jack?" 
 
 " Jack," said Rebecca. " He has lost his ship and been 
 court-martialed." 
 
 " Then he is not dead ? " said Hetty. 
 
 " Not he," said Rebecca. 
 
 " Then," said Hetty, very quietly, " may the good God to 
 whom I have prayed in my deep affliction, comfort you, Re- 
 becca, when your affliction comes, as you have comforted me 
 in mine." 
 
 No self. No care for anything, save her God, her husband, 
 and her duty. 
 
 " To thank me first," she thought. And she stood perfectly 
 quiet, for knowing how Hetty loved Jack Hartop, she was 
 surprised that she took it so quietly. 
 
 " Has Jack lost his certificate ? " asked Hetty. 
 
 " No, Hetty. Hetty, be quiet, and I will tell you every- 
 thing. Hetty, listen, and be quiet." 
 
 " I am quite quiet," said Hetty. "If Jack is alive and 
 well, what care I ? You say that he has not lost his cer- 
 tificate. If the\- had dared to take it away, I would have 
 tweaked Dr. Deanc's nose till they renewed it." 
 
 " But I have to read you something," said Rebecca. 
 
 " You had better read it, then," said Hetty. 
 
 Rebecca read in a very fluttering voice, from a newspaper, 
 The Argus of Melbourne : — 
 
 " ' The Board which sat on Captain Hartop, of the ship 
 Flying Cloud, have reported — 
 
 " ' It appears that Captain Hartop was keeping his due 
 course, when, being warned by the sudden fall of the mer-
 
 238 HETTY. 
 
 cury, he made for sea, but in consequence of the calm which 
 preceded the hurricane which has devastated our southern 
 shores, he was unable to get way on his ship. After the 
 cyclone struck her, of course there was no possibility of 
 saving her. Up to this point the Board consider that Cap- 
 tain Hartop's conduct was most seamanlike ' " 
 
 "Thank you for nothing, quoth the gallipot," said Hetty, 
 quietly. " If Jack could not fiddle his ship out of anything 
 in reason, I should like to see the man who could." 
 
 " ' After the ship struck on the reef under Cape North- 
 umberland, the conduct of Captain Hartop was beyond all 
 praise for which they can find words. His personal prestige 
 among his sailors seems to have been so great, that on this 
 terrible night they passed quietly into the boats, in the calmer 
 water, in the lee of the reef, without noticing that he himself 
 had remained with his first mate, Green ' " 
 
 " I shall not discharge that young man," said Hetty, with 
 a slight flutter in her voice ; "go on, Rebecca. Jack, Jack, 
 you are a sailor." 
 
 " ' In order to see whether there was any chance of saving 
 anything for the underwriters in case of the gale moderating, 
 taking his chance of swimming on shore. The Board wish 
 it to be distinctly understood that their opinion is, that during 
 this unhappy wreck, and in the long march between the 
 place of the wreck and the nearest settlement, Captain Har- 
 top conducted himself from first to last like a splendid British 
 sailor.' " 
 
 " Of course, Jack did," said Hetty, quietly. " Do not / 
 know him ? Jack is a man of pluck and energy. Jack is a 
 sailor, every inch of him. I suppose his owners will give 
 him another ship at once, after that report. If they don't, I 
 will spend a little time at their office not very pleasantly for 
 them."
 
 HKTTY. 
 
 239 
 
 And she looked Rebecca straight in the face as cool as a 
 cucumber. And Rebecca was deeply puzzled. 
 
 "Well, and so that is the whole of it, is it?" said Hetty. 
 " I am glad that beast of a ship is at the bottom of the sea 
 without drowning Jack or any of the men. Is there anything 
 more to tell ? " 
 
 Rebecca was getting more and more puzzled. " Has she 
 a heart at all ?" she said to herself. 
 
 "Yes, Hetty," she said ; "but I do not know how to tell 
 it. The Panama route " 
 
 There was no need to say more, or to question whether or 
 no Hetty had a heart. The doorway opened quickly, and in 
 the open doorway stood Jack Hartop. 
 
 Hetty stood up and spread out her ten fingers towards 
 him. In less than a second her pretty arms were around his 
 neck, and he was hugging her like a bear. She said, " Love, 
 love, love," and he said, " Darling, darling, darling," which 
 is folly the most incurable. But if you will bring me any 
 gentleman who will affirm on his oath that he has never 
 made a fool of himself to the same extent as far as his oppor- 
 tunities have gone, I will politely decline that gentleman's 
 acquaintance. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE THIRD MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 
 
 HE life thus enriched by two whom she loved 
 went smoothly on. Not cheerfully, for there 
 came no word of Mr. Morley at all. Hetty and 
 Hartop spoke continually about him, always 
 pleasantly. When it was hot, Hetty would say, 
 " I doubt he is cold, poor dear, there where he is," and 
 Hartop would say, " Ay, it is winter there now." At dinner,
 
 240 HETTY. 
 
 Hetty might say, " I doubt he has no lamb and green peas 
 to-day, poor man ; " and Hartop would say, " No, he will be 
 having mainly fish and seal beef for his dinner. It is not 
 bad, but not so good as this." 
 
 So they would talk to her, keeping his image perpetually 
 before her mind, they both having given up all hope. 
 
 They kept from her the news that the missionary ship had 
 been lost, but that a few of the missionaries were heard to 
 be alive three months after. They kept from her their know- 
 ledge of the bitter, hopeless coast of Patagonia, and Hetty 
 had so persistently forced on her the maxim that sailors' 
 wives must not fret that she believed her, and abode in 
 quiet, busy, and not unhappy, ignorance of the chances of 
 the sea. 
 
 But day by day it became evident to her that Jack Hartop 
 was growing to be a person of great consequence amongst a 
 certain great and powerful society. Her father had belonged 
 to this society, and she had been to a May meeting of it, 
 presided over by a certain great earl ; and one day in these 
 times she found this same earl, whom she knew by sight, 
 talking eagerly and familiarly with Jack Hartop. 
 
 She heard him say, " It is certainly a splendid offer — a 
 splendid offer. And as a sailor, Mr. Hartop, you think that 
 the yacht is big enough." 
 
 " Bless you, my lord, I would sail her anywhere ! 280 
 tons — why she is a frigate." 
 
 "It is somewhat singular that Lord Duce'toy, who is not 
 even a subscriber, and a " 
 
 At this moment Rebecca passed with a slight bow, and 
 went on. 
 
 " Who is that young lady ? " asked Lord S. 
 
 " Miss Turner." 
 
 " Oh ; 1 was saying that it seems singular that a mere sports-
 
 1 1 E TI Y. 
 
 241 
 
 man like Lord Ducctoy should interest himself so deeply in 
 a cause like this, as to lend her his yacht and stores, and 
 offer to pay a picked crew out of his own pocket, on condi- 
 tion of your commanding the expedition." 
 
 " My lord," said Hartop, "it is easily accounted for. Lord 
 Ducetoy is cousin to Miss Turner, who has just passed, and 
 Lord Ducetoy was under the deepest obligations to her 
 father for saving his property from the Philpott smash." 
 
 "But what has .Miss Turner to do with it?" 
 
 " She is engaged to be married to Morley, and she does 
 not know what you and I do." 
 
 " God help her in her grief," said Lord S., raising his hat 
 solemnly. 
 
 " Amen," said Jack Hartop. 
 
 " When can you sail ? " 
 
 " Well, in consequence of this offer of Lord Ducetoy's, I 
 can get to sea in a week. If they are alive, they owe their 
 lives to Lord Ducetoy." 
 
 " Under God," said Lord S. 
 
 " Under God, I mean," said Jack. " But he has saved 
 us in one way or another two months of valuable time." 
 
 " It is really so." 
 
 " By-the-bye, my lord, Miss Turner is to know nothing of 
 Lord Ducetoy's gift." 
 
 " Indeed, was there ever any tenderness in that quarter?" 
 
 " Oh, never, I think. He lost his heart effectually before 
 he ever knew much of her ; but he has a profound admira- 
 tion for her." 
 
 " Is Mrs. Hartop going?" said Lord S. ' * \ 
 
 " Oh yes, my lord, she is going. You may be quite 
 certain that she could not keep her hand out of a thine- G f 
 this kind." 
 
 " God go with her ! " said Lord S., and so they parted. 
 
 R
 
 242 HETTY. 
 
 " Rebecca," said Hetty to her, next morning, " Jack has 
 got another ship." 
 
 " A good one ? " 
 
 " A splendid 'one. A missionary ship. United Missionary 
 Society. The U. M. S. have picked him out. And I am 
 going too." 
 
 " I wish I was," said Rebecca ; " but I am so glad for 
 Jack. I cannot go, for Alfred might come while I was away, 
 and would be very sorry to miss me." 
 
 Hetty went quietly out of the room, humming a tune, as if 
 to fetch something, went up-stairs, and threw herself on her 
 bed in a fury and tempest of tears. She believed — as we all 
 did — that she was bound on a quest for some relic or remnant 
 of the dead, left carelessly by wolf or the hardly less cruel 
 savage. 
 
 Jack, however, had given his orders that Hetty was to be 
 ready in six days, and so there was fine stitching, and sew- 
 ing, and shopping, with not much time to talk about matters. 
 The yacht had come round from Cowes, and was lying off 
 the terrace, and Moriarty and Jack were working like furies, 
 getting her stores aboard, while Mrs. Tryon sat in a Windsor 
 chair on deck, superintending in the absence of Hetty, and in 
 fact in charge of the ship. 
 
 " Take another haul on that foretopsail lift," she would 
 say. " Put some elbow-grease into it. B'lay, B'lay. That's 
 better. A good sailor should like to see his wife smart on 
 Sundays, and his ship all the week." 
 
 Another time, to a landsman moving a case clumsily, 
 " Now then, young man, if you think that bitter beer bottles 
 are made of copper sheathing, I don't. Chips," to the car- 
 penter, "just prize that case open, and see how many he has 
 broke and enter it. Besides, young man," she continued 
 severely, " if you conceive that Lord Ducetoy's deck was
 
 IIKTTY. 
 
 243 
 
 made for you to shove iron-bound packing-cases about on, 
 you are deceived : I should like to see you try that on board 
 a man-of-war, my lad." 
 
 Soper came on board once, with the best intentions, in a 
 boat ; but the hoisting her in, and hoisting her out, and her 
 getting sea-sick, and one thing or another, made such a 
 nuisance that the Tryon recommended her to go ashore and 
 stay there, which she did. 
 
 The ship was to sail on Saturday, and on Friday, all day 
 long, Rebecca was working in Hetty's cabin. She thought 
 to herself, "What a beautiful place." Indeed it was, for it 
 was the cabin which Lord Ducetoy had decorated" for his 
 young wife. 
 
 She heard Lord Ducetoy's voice in the main cabin, and a 
 
 lady's voice who talked to him. She could not help hearing. 
 
 " My love," said the lady. " I quite agree with you ; by 
 
 giving up our cruize the Society gains two months. I do not 
 
 regret." 
 
 " But I had her decorated for you, love— only for Channel 
 work : and she is going to the ocean." 
 
 " Well," said Lady Ducetoy, " I frankly and freely give my 
 decorations to the ocean. My husband has done a generous 
 and beautiful deed, for the sake of a noble woman ; that is 
 worth all decorations to me." 
 
 They did not know she was on board, and they did not see 
 her : but she heard them, and after a time understood what 
 Lady Ducetoy meant. She hid from them, and it was only 
 after the schooner had sailed that she knew that the " noble 
 woman," spoken of by Lady Ducetoy, was none other than 
 her own self. 
 
 For the first time in her life she slept on board ship that 
 night with Hetty and the baby. The baby was quiet, an ex- 
 cellent baby in every relation of life : religious in times and 
 
 R 2
 
 244 HETTY. 
 
 seasons beyond all babies : never crying before four o'clock 
 in the morning. The swirl of the tide against the bows of 
 the yacht kept her awake nearly all the night, and it was 
 mixed with the cries and the shoutings of men on ships 
 bound for the great ocean, to which she so deeply longed to 
 go ; for she knew that Morley was there, somewhere. Hetty 
 dismissed her very early on the Saturday morning. 
 
 Then she went to the Tryon, who made her have break- 
 fast, and finding that she was tearful, made her go up-stairs 
 and lie on her (Tryon's) bed, for a good cry. And she had 
 one. And when she had had it, Tryon came and said, " Get 
 up, the slack water is moving seaward, the ebb will down 
 strong directly, and they are going." 
 
 She arose and followed her at once. The wind was from 
 the west, from the Gloucestershire hills which are the home 
 of the river, and the air was thick with smoke. 
 
 On the wharf was a crowd of the strangest people — a 
 bishop. Lord S., and Lord Ducetoy foremost ; with them a 
 larger number of ecclesiastical persons, ranging from two 
 Papist priests to a Quaker gentleman who was solemnly 
 saying something to Jack Hartop about the wearing of 
 flannel. But Rebecca heard her name passed from mouth to 
 mouth, " Miss Turner ! hush, Miss Turner !" 
 
 She knew not why. The kind folks had kept the truth 
 from her. She gave a deep sweeping courtesy to the bishop 
 and Lord S., and a smile to Lord Ducetoy, and then she 
 went up to Jack Hartop, and kissed him heartily on both 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Jack, dear, I am so sorry you should go away. Take 
 care of your Hetty and your ship, dear. God be with 
 you." 
 
 And Jack said nothing at all, but kissed her. And then 
 he was in his boat, and then he was on his deck with Hetty
 
 HETTY. 245 
 
 beside him ; and then the tug had caught the schooner's 
 hawser, and she went out through the mist into the Kent and 
 Essex sunlight. And that was over. 
 
 Lord Ducetoy and the bishop were with her as she rounded 
 the turn of the river. " Rebecca,' - ' said Lord Ducetoy, "could 
 we have sent two better ones to seek him ? " 
 
 " To seek whom ? " 
 
 " Morley." 
 
 "Is he dead?" 
 
 " They are gone to sec," said Lord Ducetoy; " it has been 
 kept from you." 
 
 Rebecca stood amazed, but quite quiet. 
 
 " My dear lady," said the bishop ; " this matter has been 
 kept from you by a consultation of many men. We are very 
 anxious about Morley, and some of us believe that there is no 
 hope. I am not of those who think there is no hope. For I 
 most entirely think that God has a great work in hand for 
 Morley, and that Morley has not been taken to his rest yet. 
 I may be wrong — who can judge God's ways ? but, my dear 
 young lady, I believe you will live to see Morley by your side 
 again, doing God's work with your assistance." 
 
 " Meanwhile?" said Rebecca, calmly. 
 
 "Meanwhile," said the bishop, calmly, "do as you are 
 doing. If you are not to meet him again on earth, you are 
 rendering yourself more fit to meet him in heaven." 
 
 For the next nine months the inhabitants of Limehouse 
 got familiarised to a tall and splendidly beautiful young lady, 
 always dressed in black, who walked perpetually about 
 among the poor, followed by a little withered lady in grey, 
 who carried her basket, and did what the tall young lady 
 told her with never one murmur. These two were Rebecca 
 and Miss Soper, for Rebecca had conquered and vanquished 
 her Soper ; and if it had pleased Rebecca to turn Roman
 
 246 HETTY. 
 
 Catholic, I fear that the old man at Rome would have had 
 two converts instead of one. 
 
 Russel and Carry came down once or twice. But they 
 were an ill match for Rebecca, with the vigorous, wary, and 
 emphatic Soper at her chariot-wheels. The hearty goodness 
 which had always been in Miss Soper, kept in by penury, by 
 responsibility for others, and by formulas, came out now. 
 The lean, wizened, cross old Soper has become one of the 
 best and kindliest workers among the sailors' wives and 
 sweethearts at the East End. 
 
 Said Soper to Rebecca once, in these times, " Becky, I 
 tried to find out the secret of living to God ; and I failed, 
 until you showed it to me. Who showed it to you ? " 
 
 " Morley," said Rebecca. 
 
 Nine months ; and hope growing dead as time went on. 
 Hope of Morley utterly gone now to her, but not to others. 
 
 She was sitting in her class of girls one day, when the 
 bishop came in, and touched her on the shoulder. Rebecca, 
 although a dissenter, had that love and reverence for this 
 bishop which, I believe, is common to all sects in the Church 
 of Christ. She rose from her seat, with her black lace shawl 
 drooping from one shoulder, and bowed deeply. And the 
 young dissenters stared open-eyed at the spectacle of a l-eal 
 bishop talking to Teacher. 
 
 " I have news from the sea," said the bishop ; holding out 
 his left hand. 
 
 " Good or bad, my lord ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 " That is what I cannot make out," said the bishop. " We 
 have heard from Hartop. He has recovered two, but believes 
 Morley to be alive ten miles to the northward. Until we get 
 his next letter we know nothing." 
 
 " And when shall we get his letter ?" asked Rebecca. 
 
 " Well," said the bishop, " he only allows himself ten days
 
 HETTY. 247 
 
 for exploration: and so it comes to this, that he will bring his 
 own letter." 
 
 " Then the news about Mr. Morley will be brought by 
 Hartop and Hetty?" she said. 
 
 " That is exactly the case," said the bishop. 
 
 So she abode quietly, seeing her good works ripen in fruit 
 about her everywhere. As month after month passed she 
 became a great object of interest to people belonging to the 
 great Society which had sent out Hartop and Hetty to seek 
 for Morley. 
 
 There was a romance about her situation which took the 
 kind hearts of these good people greatly. The beautiful 
 Miss Turner was talked of in many places of which she little 
 dreamt. 
 
 She only knew that people were very kind to her. All 
 sects of Christians were alike kind to her, and perhaps the 
 Jews were as kind as any of them. As Lord Ducetoy said, 
 " In a case of patience and work like that, differences of 
 creed vanish, because what was only human has become 
 divine." 
 
 Morley was given up for many months now. By degrees, 
 Tryon had broken it to her, and with true kindness had told 
 her that there was no hope at all for him, and that people 
 were even getting anxious about Hetty and Hartop. So she 
 worked harder and harder, and never cried at all except for a 
 few hours in the dead of night when she woke. 
 
 A little of the old life came to her now and then. The 
 Tibbeys would make a Sabbath day's journey to her, and 
 have cake and tea. Mr. Spicer or Mr. Akin would come and 
 bid her God speed, like fine fellows as they were ; and still 
 the little dog Mab trailed after in her swift walking, doing 
 good. 
 
 But one summer's day there was news ; she would not ask
 
 2 4 3 HETTY. 
 
 what it was, but she was certain there was news. On the 
 wharf there was Lord S. and Lord Uucetoy, excited, with 
 Moriarty and Mrs. Tryon. Moriarty drew a diagram in the 
 dust for the instruction of Lord Ducetoy, and Mrs. Tryon 
 altered it with the ferrule of her umbrella. Whereupon 
 those two fell out. Rebecca was sure there was news. And 
 so there was. 
 
 It was half-past eleven, and a very dark night, and she was 
 sitting up at some of her charity accounts, but listening for 
 every sound, when she heard a step on the stair and sat rigid. 
 
 She knew it was Hetty's. Hetty came very a^ickly up the 
 stair, threw open the door in all her full beauty, fresh from 
 the sea, bare-headed, with the very salt on her hair. And 
 Rebecca gave a loud wild cry, not articulate, but meaning 
 much, /or she sou that Hetty was not in mourning. 
 
 Not one solitary scrap of black about her. A great deal 
 of pink ribbon, certainly ; sailors love it, and so their wives 
 wear it. 
 
 " Becky, my sweetheart,"' she said, " you must keep your- 
 self cool ; it is absolutely necessary that I am not to be dis- 
 turbed on any account whatever." 
 
 " Is there news ?" said Rebecca. 
 
 " I do not know what you mean by news, Becky," said 
 Hetty. " But if you mean that we have found pa, and got 
 pa, and brought pa home, and that pa is standing outside 
 the door waiting to come in, why I say you are right." And 
 she sat down on a chair by the door, and beat her knees, and 
 cried. 
 
 It was actually true. From the lonely cavern on the ocean 
 shore, death, in whose jaws he had lived so long, had given 
 him up to love. It seemed incredible, even to Hetty now, 
 but there was his grizzled hair smothered in Rebecca's, and 
 she laughed and believed.
 
 HETTY. 249 
 
 They had begun their hunt to the very north, searching 
 bay after bay, losing heart, losing hope, until they came to 
 the Bay of St. Julian. Jack and Hetty were on the fore- 
 castle, watching the reef, but having a fine easterly suck of 
 wind behind them, not caring much whether they took Piga- 
 fettas Channel or Sir Francis Drake's ; Hetty was wondering 
 aloud whereabouts Captain Uoughtie had been hung, when 
 she uttered a loud cry. 
 
 Before them was a long sandy beach, half-a-mile off, 
 fringed with white surf; behind the beach was the prairie 
 rolling off westward toward the Andes, and upon the beach 
 was a solitary black figure, which walked up and clown. 
 
 He was perfectly quiet when they got through the surf to 
 him. 
 
 " I knew Jack would be after me if he could," he said, 
 " but I thought he could not possibly be home in time."* 
 And he told them the details of his adventure, and took them 
 to the cave where his last faithful friend, Holt, lay in bed, 
 covered with seaweed and grass, reading Ouarlc's Emblems 
 to while away the short time before death. 
 
 Hetty had instantaneously possessed herself of the person 
 of the Rev. Mr. Holt, leaving her father to Jack. He had been 
 living on oysters, had Mr. Holt, which Mr. Morley had 
 gathered day by day, and he said that they lay very cold on his 
 stomach, and that he much missed his Baxter's Sainfs Rest, 
 which he had dropped on the Pampas in walking here with 
 Brother Morley, whom God had doubtless rescued for more 
 successful work. Hetty, directing four of Lord Ducetoy's 
 young men, got him through the surf and aboard, after which 
 she had her will with him, and the Rev. Mr. Holt came home 
 in better condition than he went out. 
 
 * This story is so dreadful and painful in reality that I would not 
 write it. The original Morley met with a very different fate.
 
 250 HETTY. 
 
 Morley was a man of splendid physical conformation, yet 
 with a quiet soul which is more powerful than mere physique. 
 None of all this terrible work had made much difference in 
 him. He was certainly a degree more handsome, and a little 
 more grey than ever, otherwise there was no change. 
 
 Those four sat together that night, and the peace which 
 Morley had brought to Rebecca in old times was with them 
 that evening, the peace of God which passes all under- 
 standing. 
 
 The news of the safety of Morley had been known in 
 London before Rebecca knew it. The Society had met, and 
 it was unanimously agreed that Mr. Morley should be re- 
 quested to accept the mission of Honawoora as soon as his 
 health would permit. The offer came to him the day after 
 his arrival, and he answered that his health was in perfect 
 order, and that, as he was getting slightly older, the sooner 
 he went the better. He wanted three weeks to be married 
 in, and then he was ready. He heartily thanked the com- 
 mittee for appointing his son-in-law Hartop, to the command 
 of the ship. 
 
 So one day, three weeks after this, Soper, Lord Ducetoy, 
 Mr. Spicer, Lord S., the little Popish doctor, Mrs. Russel, 
 the two Tibbeys, Mr. Akin, Mr. Hagbut, and Carry, and one 
 hundred and fifty new friends, unnamed in this story, went 
 to see the great missionary ship, Eirene, pass by out on her 
 glorious expedition. 
 
 As she passed they cheered, as surely no people ever 
 cheered before ; for on her quarter-deck stood Morley and 
 Rebecca, Jack Hartop and Hetty. 
 
 Tryon wept violently, and cast herself on Lord Ducetoy's 
 bosom. " It's all your doing, my dear," she said, between 
 her tears, " if it had not been for that there yacht of yourn, 
 we should never have got him. She only wants twenty ton
 
 HETTY. 251 
 
 more iron ballast in her well aft, and the blocks of the topsail 
 lift raised nine inches, to make her a craft in which ;;// man 
 that is gone, would not have despised to have sailed in 
 himself." 
 
 And so they went away to the work which God had found 
 them to do. Whether they lived long and died happy, 
 whether they were rich or poor, or whether they had many 
 children or few, is nothing to us. God fitted these four 
 people for a certain work in this world, and three of them 
 had to wait till the fourth was fit to join them. I have tried 
 to show how Rebecca was made ready for the others. Re- 
 becca's difficulties have been so continually before one, that 
 some might think I ought to call my story Rebecca. But I 
 think, if you please, that in honour of the young lady, the 
 reputation of whose deeds kept Rebecca firm, I will call my 
 story after its real heroine, Hetty.
 
 THE TWO CADETS.
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 3 Storg in £(uo (JHjaptrrs. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IA.DETS, not at Woolwich or Sandhurst, (such 
 was not their good fortune,) but cadets of old 
 and now impoverished houses — of houses which 
 j still kept up their ancient state. They were 
 J both handsome, well-grown, well-bred, but utterly- 
 poor, and utterly unfitted by their education for anything in 
 the world, or to speak more truly, for anything in any world 
 but their own. Neither of them had place or provision of 
 any kind, and both had been used to luxury from their 
 youth up. 
 
 They were cousins — Edward Hornby and Lionel Horton. 
 Edward was a large, loud, fierce man, very vicious, very 
 handsome, a terrible bully (these were in the older times — 
 the Camelford times), a splendid rider, a fine shot, as brave 
 as a lion, and as treacherous as a leopard. Lionel was cast 
 in a gentler and more feminine mould to all appearance ; 
 not quite so tall, perhaps even more handsome, and of pleas- 
 ing genial manners. Somewhat idle even in the few things 
 he had to do, but a most amiable and excellent young fellow,
 
 256 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 disgusted with his life, and knowing himself fit for higher 
 things. 
 
 They had a third and mutual cousin, slightly younger, a 
 young lady. Her family was as poor as were either of theirs, 
 but she was rich. She was dowered with a beauty so wonder- 
 ful that people in the world began to speak of it even now, 
 before she was out ; and to this beauty her father and mother 
 looked, in part, to restore the fallen fortunes of their house, 
 for they were heirless, and she was the last of the long old 
 line. 
 
 She had been seen by few, but had been very much in the 
 company of her cousins. Inevitably, but with singular in- 
 felicity, those two unhappy young men fell deeply in love 
 with her, and more unfortunately still, she returned the love 
 of the more gentle Lionel. 
 
 It was in the autumn, at one of their dilapidated old country 
 houses, that this took place. Edward broke the fiercest 
 horses for her amusement ; swam the broad cold river in 
 November because she was on the other side, and that he 
 might have the happiness of walking home beside her in his 
 dripping clothes in the biting wind. But she did not care 
 for him, she was far too refined a woman to be won by mere 
 exhibitions of brute strength which any prize-fighter could 
 surpass. When he did not frighten her he displeased her ; 
 she disliked him, and he saw it. 
 
 Lionel was a perfect gentleman, and though not a close 
 scholar, had read somewhat. And he had a gentle, playful 
 manner, too, and a pleasant quiet way of saying humorous 
 things, and altogether was such a very charming person that 
 she gave him the preference from the first, and grew to love 
 him deeply before she had any idea that such was the case. 
 He was only her cousin. 
 
 She was at first very careful in her behaviour to the two to
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 257 
 
 show no marked preference for either. But each of them 
 before long saw perfectly well how the matter stood. 
 
 The old people of course guessed nothing of it ; if they 
 had, it would have given them only a temporary uneasiness. 
 Her father was so inexorably certain of her destiny that 
 nothing could have disturbed his certainty ; the car of Jug- 
 gernaut is not to be turned aside by a stick. And the poor 
 young lady was well aware of what awaited her, and but for 
 this appearance of Lionel in these autumn days, would have 
 looked forward with extreme pleasure to that destiny. 
 
 Lionel was roused from his lethargy of life by this newly- 
 found love, and he formed a scheme, a foolish lover's scheme. 
 
 " If she will be constant for a year or two, I will win a 
 position for her. There is, at all events, India." 
 
 Alas, poor youth ! he should have known that he would 
 get no nearer to the moon by going to India than he would 
 to his cousin Alice. 
 
 As the autumn drew towards a close, she began to relax a 
 little in the extreme care with which she had kept the balance 
 between them, and somewhat to unbend towards Lionel. 
 Edward, hating with a deep and deadly hatred, watched 
 them closely, and saw the growing hope in Lionel's eyes. 
 
 " The fool will not be long before he speaks." 
 
 Lionel was not long before he spoke. One day she was 
 distant and cold to him, and in asking an explanation of this 
 coldness he determined to say the great word to her, to lay 
 his life at her feet, to pray her to wait. 
 
 He found her alone. Had he not been nervous, had he 
 but looked a little more at her face, he would have seen that 
 she was very angry, and would not have spoken. To his 
 great astonishment she repelled him with extreme anger. 
 Before there was any time to ask for an explanation, the 
 father and mother entered, the father livid with rage. 
 
 S
 
 258 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 " Then my watching is rewarded," said the old gentleman, 
 " I was not deceived. Wretched Lionel, how have you 
 abused my confidence and violated my hospitality ! Lionel, 
 you have traded on your familiarity as a cousin in a base and 
 cowardly way." 
 
 " My lord," said Lionel, " may I be allowed to tell you what 
 has just passed before I leave your house for ever ? I have 
 just proposed to my cousin." 
 
 " This is might)- well," said the old man, " wondrous well, 
 my young lady." 
 
 " Do hear me, my lord," said Lionel. " I wish you to 
 blame the right person. I am alone to blame. My cousin 
 has rejected me with scorn. For heaven's sake understand 
 that in your anger." 
 
 The old man's hand went round the daughter's waist as he 
 turned to Lionel. 
 
 " Nephew," he said, "you are a gentleman. Xo one is 
 more sorry than myself that this has happened through my 
 carelessness. But my daughter, you see, knows her 
 duty." 
 
 Alice herself turned and spoke to him. 
 
 " I cannot believe you utterly lost to all honour. Read this 
 letter and clear yourself. If you choose, you can write to me 
 in explanation. We have seen each other for the last time." 
 
 She tossed a letter towards him, but it fell close to where 
 she was standing. Her father made a dart to get it, but she 
 put her foot upon it and waved him imperiously off. My 
 lord obeyed. There were traditions in his family, and he, 
 like many of his order, was the slave of tradition. The 
 women of his house had the hereditary character of being 
 easily managed and tractable when led ; but fierce and 
 desperately vindictive when driven. Ther^ were unfor- 
 tunately two or three ugly stories in the history of the family
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 259 
 
 to confirm this tradition ; and my lord let the letter lie on the 
 floor. 
 
 Edward picked the letter up and read it. The passage 
 which concerned him was this : — 
 
 "Your sweet cousin Lionel was dining at the mess of the 
 140th last night, and used your name in a scandalously public 
 manner. He toasted you in the very coarsest terms, and 
 spoke of you as his fiancee. My brother told me this this 
 morning. 1 hoped that your cousin had been drunk, but 
 Georgey says he was perfectly sober. 
 
 " Yours ever lovingly, 
 
 " Clara Brabazon." 
 
 Clara Brabazon was an intimate friend of Alice's. Her 
 brother, the " Georgey " of this letter, was a pleasant, kind 
 young cornet of dragoons. That the blow was Edward's 
 Lionel was certain. It was Edward who had got the foul lie 
 written ; it was Edward who had set the old people to watch. 
 But the blow had come through George Brabazon ; he must 
 have an explanation from him, and the whole thing would 
 come out. He wrote a peremptory letter to the cornet, stat- 
 ing that he had been making unfounded, assertions with 
 regard to him, and demanding a public apology. Alas ! the 
 letter which he wrote in his indignation was a little too per- 
 emptory for that regiment and for those times. George 
 Brabazon was advised, which meant ordered, by his brother 
 officers, directed, I fear, by the colonel, to send a man to 
 Lionel for an explanation. The fatal step was taken, no 
 arrangement was possible now. And so they met, the kindly 
 Lionel and the merry, popular young cornet. 
 
 Lionel said most solemnly to his dying day that he never 
 meant to hit the cornet, but only fired nervously towards him, 
 
 S 2
 
 -Co THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 with some vague instinct of self-defence. However that may 
 be, and I believe it, the instant after he fired the poor young 
 man, after staring round him for one moment, with a ghastly 
 look of horror, fell down in a heap upon the grass, dead ! 
 
 Lionel's horror and remorse were terrible to witness. The 
 habits of reserve and repression in which people of his order 
 were then educated, gave way utterly. He lost the self- 
 possession of an English gentleman, and raved and impre- 
 cated curses upon himself so fiercely that the officers who 
 stood around began to get more scared at him than they were 
 at the solemn and beautiful corpse which lay at their feet. 
 But there was the necessity of flight, even in those days ; 
 and when Lionel appeared at midnight beside the bed of his 
 startled father, he was calm, though he looked five or six 
 years older. 
 
 His father had a plan for him, and they talked it over for 
 to-morrow. His father was poor, and he sincerely regretted 
 that he had no provision or career to offer his son, worthy of 
 a gentleman, in this country. But many gentlemen were 
 doing well in New South Wales, at the wool-growing. Did 
 lie think that he could bring his mind to entertain such an 
 idea ? 
 
 " You tell me that England has grown hateful to you after 
 these miserable occurrences, my poor boy. Try to forget 
 them in business." 
 
 " I would gladly go," he said, " but we have no money." 
 
 " I will lend you five thousand pounds of your mother's, 
 bearing interest. If you succeed, you can pay her again ; if 
 you lose it all, why it will be gone, and you will have nothing 
 left but our love and our blessing. Those you will always 
 have. You have been a good son to us, and God bless you." 
 
 And so he sailed ; and the world went on and forgot him 
 utterly. His cousin Alice married a young nobleman of vast
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 261 
 
 wealth, the Marquis of Granton, in her first season, and 
 became one of the first ladies in the land. 
 
 In Australia, year glides into year, and one almost undis- 
 tinguishable season fades into another, and time, divided 
 and unmarked by events, goes on with equal pace. The 
 years are not marked as with us, by the snows and frosts of 
 Christmas, or by leafless trees. In winter there the grass is 
 greener than the trees ; in summer the trees, though remain- 
 ing the same colour, are greener than the grey dried grass. 
 That is all the change, except some little in temperature. 
 
 Ten years had gone over Lionel's head, and he was a 
 steady, rich, sedate magistrate of three-and-thirty before he 
 could believe such a thing possible. 
 
 He was wealthy even for the wealthy community in which 
 he lived. Besides his vast flocks of sheep, he had made 
 some singularly bold and lucky investments in town lands. 
 He had no genius for commerce, but he was a steady, con- 
 templative, quiet man, who did not care about making money, 
 and still his money grew. He had no partner, but lived 
 alone, about 250 miles from town. 
 
 A very pleasant place was this solitary station of his, ten 
 miles from the next neighbours. A creek, overarched by 
 vast white stemmed trees, running in a deep glen cut out of 
 the table-land, wandered on between the forest and the plain, 
 and in one of the pleasantest of its bends his house was 
 placed overlooking it. The house stood quite by itself, in the 
 midst of a beautiful garden, which grew everything, from 
 gooseberries to peaches. The great outbuildings, which were 
 necessary for his wool and his men, were a quarter of a 
 mile oft". He had a quiet place. 
 
 The time did not go unpleasantly to him. He had his 
 books, carefully added to year after year ; and what is more, 
 he read them. He had his newspapers and magazines in
 
 262 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 those days three months after date. He had expeditions to 
 Sydney, at that time even growing to be a beautiful place ; 
 and long rides over plain and through forest, after his 
 business. Last, and not least, he had his sporting. 
 
 He got to be the greatest sportsman of those parts. His 
 " run," as they call the ground occupied under lease from 
 government by a squatter, was a vast stretch of country, 
 twenty-five miles by twenty ; nearly all bare, rich, level plain, 
 at a considerable elevation above the sea, almost entirely 
 without wood, and only marked here and there by two or 
 three grass-grown extinct volcanos, which rose perhaps three 
 or four hundred feet above the level of the table-land. It 
 was one of the richest " runs " in those parts, keeping a sheep 
 to every three acres, but it was a very bad sporting run. 
 There were many lakes upon it, swarming with waterfowl, 
 from the gigantic pelican and black swan, down to the tiny 
 grey grebe ; but it was a bad country for sport. He hardly 
 ever fired a gun on his own run, save at the clucks, and 
 more particularly at one other species of game, which I shall 
 notice directly. 
 
 But his house stood at the very edge of his run, close to 
 the " plough line " which separated him from his neighbours. 
 And behind his house began the great forests of which his 
 neighbours' run consisted. These forests, at first open, that 
 is to say, formed by large trees without underwood, rolled 
 up into a densely-thicketed (scrubby) region of greater eleva- 
 tion—a wilderness of flowers, a paradise of game ; at that 
 time, merely a wild labyrinth of rocky gullies, or little glens, 
 where the virgin gold lay about on the surface, shining, after 
 each shower, out of the red clay which formed the soil, like 
 the window of a jeweller's shop. Afterwards this very hunt- 
 ing-ground of Lionel's held a population of thirty thousand 
 souls ; now, like the " Fiery Creek," for instance, it has nearly
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 263 
 
 returned to its original solitude. Nobody was more amused 
 than himself when he heard of the vast treasures which his 
 old hunting-ground had yielded, from the surface and from 
 a few fee,: deep. 
 
 To show that one does not exaggerate, I myself knew well 
 a tract of low-lying forest ranges, at the foot of Mount Cole, 
 in Victoria, utterly desolate and uninhabited, a place to 
 which our lost sheep wandered and died of foot-rot. I saw 
 that same tract of country after it had supported a popula- 
 tion of 50,000 souls, and was still supporting about 10,000. 
 With gold, however, we have nothing to do, and only with 
 hunting for a specific purpose. 
 
 For these upland gullies, — all a-blossom in spring with 
 Grevilleas, Epacris, and innumerable other beautiful flowers 
 (the exquisite series of Australian orchids trampled under 
 one's horse's feet unnoticed), — these sparsely-timbered flower- 
 gardens became his hunting-ground. They lay higher than 
 the great forest, but not high enough to get the fresh breeze 
 from the mountain, which still towered above and beyond 
 them : and in spring and early summer they were hot, bright, 
 happy sorts of places, smelling not unlike an old-fashioned 
 walled garden in England. Nobody ever went there ; there 
 was nothing to attract the cattle or the sheep, for the soil " 
 was bare of grass, showing the red clay everywhere through 
 the flowers, and the gold too, had anyone had eyes to see it : 
 and " shikarees" (like the late Mr. Wheelwright, the ' : old 
 bushman' of the Field), did not exist in Australia in those 
 clays. It was an utterly desolate region, and Lionel himself 
 only rode into it accidentally on one occasion, when he was 
 steering for his head-station by compass. 
 
 He often came again. Your horse could not go fast 
 in consequence of the abruptness of the gullies and the 
 denseness of the flowering shrubs, and you seldom rode far
 
 264 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 in a contemplative mood, without becoming dimly aware of 
 a presence, and an eye ; and, on looking more carefully, 
 finding that you were within a few yards of a great grey 
 (or sometimes red) kangaroo, sitting up like a small donkey 
 on its hind-legs, and going away, click, click, fifteen miles an 
 hour as soon as you noticed it. Then, again, coming round 
 the corner of a belt of shrubbery, you would come on a knot 
 of birds, standing from six to eight feet high, which, after 
 examining you, would get a panic, and race away twenty 
 miles an hour — Emus to wit. Parrots — why thicker than 
 sparrows and linnets in England ; cockatoos, lorekeets ; 
 Scansores innumerable, sulphur-crested, rose-crested, black 
 and red, black and yellow, beyond telling ; eagles, larger 
 than any European species, would come from the great blue 
 overhead and almost brush your ear with their wings ; and 
 alighting on a bare bough close by, would sit and watch 
 you. Snakes ? why, unfortunately, yes ; some almost steel- 
 coloured, gliding swiftly among the flowers ; others more 
 deadly and more horrible, lying with their soft bodies fitting 
 to the ground as if they had grown there, and only raising 
 their flat unutterably wicked heads as you passed. Monster 
 lizards, five, ay, and seven feet long ; other lizards of all 
 colours ; one a mass of evil horns and wings (the " Mo- 
 loch "). For the rest — scorpions, centipedes, ridiculously- 
 fantastic beetles ; M ant idee, like straws and sticks and 
 leaves, which crawled on your blankets if you camped 
 there ; and stinging ants, with a grievance against the rest 
 of animated nature, always promptly revenged. A " para- 
 dise," as I said, in the sense in which old Xenophon * uses 
 the word. In another sense of the word, it was a " para- 
 dise " to Lionel. One of the specialties of his order for all 
 time has been that of the destruction of wild animals.
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 26^ 
 
 o 
 
 From the hero of the Ter centum millia fierdicum in 
 " Sartor Resartus" up to K. G., statesman and sports- 
 man, it has always been the same. Lionel did not belong 
 to the school who are shocked at the killing of poor innocent 
 dumb animals ; in fact, the school scarcely existed then, 
 certainly not in that part of the world ; for I greatly fear 
 that some animals by no means dumb had been shot down 
 n those parts ; and though Lionel's hands were clean, he 
 was an exception. Sport of some kind was one of the tra- 
 ditions of the order, and he found sport in these secondary 
 gullies which lay under the great dominating mountains, 
 and followed it. 
 
 In his own way. At first he took the usual course which 
 is followed in the colonies, and had dogs, half-bred grey- 
 hounds, for the kangaroos, but he lost half of them ; then he 
 tried on many occasions to ride down emus on his best 
 horses, but he lamed his horses, lost his emus, and once had 
 a serious accident against a tree himself. He put his wits 
 to work. Stalking was quite impossible on account of the 
 snakes, but in those early times any kind of game would 
 allow the close approach of a horse ; while, in consequence 
 of their being used to an attack by natives, no kind of 
 game in any way worth having, would allow the approach 
 of a man on foot. He got himself a carbine, and looked 
 about for a horse who would stand the firing of this same 
 carbine from his back. 
 
 His stock horses, the horses employed in driving in his 
 cattle, being used to the stock-whip, which makes a report 
 like a pistol, could be got to stand it after a time. But stock 
 horses do not do for sporting purposes. One leg among 
 four of them is a good average. He took his youngest and 
 best horse, and carefully trained him to standing fire. He 
 got some terrible falls ; but the British aristocracy, though,
 
 266 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 as some say, wanting in all the cardinal virtues, have never 
 been accused of having less pluck than other folks, and he 
 persevered. He got a high-bred young horse to stand fire, 
 after which he had splendid sport. He would ride up to a 
 kangaroo, and shoot it dead with a single bullet from his 
 carbine ; he would ride into a flock of turkeys (bustards) on 
 his own plains, and with the reins on his spirited young 
 horse's neck, would pick off three or four before the foolish 
 creatures thought it time to move. 
 
 So far. He vegetated on here with his accumulating 
 wealth, with his books, his business, and his sport, and there 
 was but little to disturb him. Old memories were getting 
 very dim ; and the most painful parts of them, with the dark 
 exception of his most unhappy duel, were getting so mel- 
 lowed by time as to be almost pleasant. So when he, after 
 five years' vegetation, got the intelligence that his cousin, 
 the Honourable Edward Hornby had come into the colony, 
 and had been made inspector of police for the southern 
 district (Victoria was a mere district then, though central 
 now), he did not care very much. It was all over and done 
 with so many years ago, and the sun had gone to sleep with 
 her last light upon the peaceful eastern hills so often. In 
 that land of untellable melancholy peace called Australia, 
 the setting of the sun — a peaceful event everywhere — is 
 more peaceful, more calm, possibly more beautiful, than 
 in any other country in the world. Once see for yourself 
 those dim, lonely, long-drawn plains of grey grass, 
 and see the sunlight die on the solitary wooded peak 
 which stands out from them twenty miles away, and then 
 you will know what I mean. Lionel had seen this awful 
 sunset spectacle every day for five years, and he said, 
 " Who am I, that the sun should go down on my wrath ?" 
 
 He had met Edward Hornby at sessions, with an open
 
 THE TWO CADETS, 267 
 
 brow and an open hand, two years after he had heard of his 
 being in the colony as police inspector, which was seven 
 years after his own arrival, when he was getting to be a 
 wealthy and well-to-do man. The meeting on his part was 
 cordial, and on that of his cousin's apparently so. But he 
 was very much struck by his cousin's appearance. 
 
 He did not look dissipated : all his nerve and vitality 
 were left, but there was a wild, fierce, bandit-look about the 
 man for which he could not in any way account. He 
 asked the head stipendiary magistrate about him in con- 
 fidence. This officer was a very dear friend of his, and 
 they had a mutual respect for one another. 
 
 "It is an awful shame," said the stipendiary' magis- 
 trate to Lionel ; the Home Government serves us shame- 
 fully.* This is a home appointment. This man, this 
 cousin of yours, my dear Lionel, is a desperate man : 
 he has been kicked out of every billiard-room from 
 Brussels to Naples. But his cousin and your cousin, 
 
 Lady Alice , married Lord Granton ; and so, when 
 
 Europe is too hot to hold him, he is foisted on us as 
 police inspector. It is too monstrous. We are not 
 strong enough to cast the old country oft", but the time will 
 come when we shall be. You are making your fortune, you 
 have your position, you will go home and go into Parlia- 
 ment. Do for heaven's sake tell the assembled British 
 nation that we are sick already of having ill-reputed cadets 
 thrust upon upon us in responsible positions. Do for hea- 
 ven's sake, man, tell them that we are forced to stand it now, 
 but that the time will come when we will stand it no longer." 
 
 Lionel saw but little of his cousin after this. When 
 Edward, as inspector of police, came his way, he was 
 
 * "We have changed all that." I am speaking of old times — 
 " Killin? extinct Satans."
 
 2 68 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 always absent from the bench. The last time — save two 
 — he ever saw him was at a fancy ball at Government 
 House. Edward was dressed as a bandit, and Lionel was 
 obliged to agree that he looked the part to perfection. 
 
 Now one has to explain again, for we fear that few of our 
 readers know the meaning of the word " bushranger." 
 
 The first bushrangers were escaped convicts from Sydney. 
 Bushranging began almost as soon as the Blue Mountains 
 were crossed and the great interior opened ; making the 
 strict police, possible while the colony was confined to the 
 eastward of that mountain chain, now impossible. After 
 this, bushranging spread far and wide: more to the north, 
 towards the Hunter and Clarence at first ; but afterwards, 
 as the flocks went south, into the most outlying districts in 
 that direction. The object of these bushrangers was to 
 avenge themselves on the society which they had once 
 defied, by new crimes ; and if you will take the newest 
 digest of the criminal laws, and run your eye down the 
 list of crimes, you will find not one which they did not 
 commit. Such were the first generation of bushrangers. 
 The second were hardly so brutal ; but, strange to say, 
 young men whose fathers had been convicts, but who were 
 reformed and were doing well, — getting rich indeed, — joined 
 this second generation of bushrangers from mere love of ad- 
 venture and of old association. I date the second genera- 
 tion of bushrangers at 1830; what shall we say of 1865— of 
 the third generation — when no road in New South Wales 
 was safe, and when the grandsons of the original convicts 
 join the bushrangers and defy the police ? On one occasion, 
 in 1865, they actually held a town for two days and gave a 
 ball, at which the policemen were obliged to dance. If it is 
 so in 1865, what must it have been in 1830? Is it at all 
 surprising that the feeling of the respectable colonists like
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 269 
 
 Lionel Horton, with the dread of horrors to which those of 
 the sack of St. Sebastian are child's play, hanging over 
 them, should be one of intense wrath, bordering on ferocity. 
 
 In his quiet southern home, with his flocks grazing far 
 across the plains, and the stolos of old, quiet, good-humoured, 
 contended London pickpockets and forgers around him, he 
 had troubled himself but little about these bushrangers. His 
 people were all rogues and convicts. He knew that very 
 well ; but they were not men who had been convicted of 
 violent crimes, with the exception of one, who had fired a 
 loaded pistol at his colonel at Gibraltar, because the colonel 
 had refused to let him marry.* This would-be murderer was 
 a great friend of Lionel's. On the whole, he felt perfectly 
 safe about his people. 
 
 " I debauched my moral sense among these people, you 
 know," he said once to Lady Granton, whilom his cousin 
 Alice. " They didn't care anything for me, though I was a 
 magistrate. I assure you these people are much nicer than 
 your people. Take yourself, for instance : you are supposed 
 to know everybody ; but you don't know anybody who has 
 robbed a goldsmith, and is perfectly ready to tell you all 
 about it. And you are supposed to know the world. Oh ! 
 my poor cousin." 
 
 It was about the eighth year of his calm sojourn in these 
 quiet solitudes, that there came a noise or report from the 
 north, dim and vague at first, and clouded with a mist of 
 incidents and anecdotes which the younger folks took to be 
 original, but which the older hands recognised as mere re- 
 
 * A fact. A difficult man, but not what I should call an awkward 
 man. You had to smooth him the right way. If he threw down his 
 pack or his tools, you must leave him alone. If you had gone about 
 further with him, I should suspect that he would become dangerous. I 
 never tried the experiment, and so the reader has the present story.
 
 270 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 plicats of old stories. But, in spite of the surrounding mist 
 of old stories reproduced, the noise or report began to shape 
 itself into form, and at last crystallised itself into certainty. 
 There was a great gang of bushrangers abroad; by rumour 
 more numerous, more bold, more cunning, and more cruel 
 than any which had appeared on the continent. One had to 
 go to the legends of the neighbouring island of Van Diemen's 
 Land to match them for strength and for ferocity. 
 
 There was little doubt about their leader : he had been 
 seen many times, and could be sworn to by a hundred 
 mouths, — no less a person than Mike Howe, the baby-killer 
 of Van Diemen's Land. This was not true : Howe never 
 went into the bush on the mainland, as far as I can gather. 
 But that awful name was sufficient to cause a panic among 
 the outlying settlers, and many of the outlying squatters 
 (country gentlemen) removed their books and their wives, 
 and went to Sydney, leaving ex-convict overseers to make 
 the best bargain they could with the terrible bandit. 
 
 A fearful bandit he was. The foulest, fellest, and fiercest 
 with which the land had ever been plagued. The three 
 types of bushrangers which came most naturally to one's 
 memory are those represented by Mike Howe, Rocky Whe- 
 lan, and Melville. Michael Howe was a handsome devil — a 
 man beside whom Nana Sahib appears only as an enraged 
 patriot with a personal grievance. He took the child from 
 the mother's breast, and beat its brains out against a tree. 
 Rocky Whelan was a feller devil even than this — a murderer 
 from sheer love of seeing his victim die. Melville was diffe- 
 rent ^ either of them, and by far the most remarkable. A 
 smallish man, the son of a Scotch clergyman, of the most 
 intense vitality, with a courage of the most transcendent 
 order. A man utterly without fear ; not, as far as I know, 
 either cruel or unclean, but a man whose whole soul was, for
 
 Till: TWO CADETS. 271 
 
 no reason whatever, in utter rebellion against order, law, 
 society ; nay, I fear against God himself. The man could 
 never have shed blood, or he would have been hanged with- 
 out mercy. He was never hanged, for there never was any- 
 thing against him worse than highway robber)-. He was 
 under sentence for something like thirty years, when, in one 
 of his mad attempts to escape from the hulk, he got drowned. 
 This last man is a puzzle to me still. I would give much 
 to have a talk to him. I had a chance once ; I might have 
 got near the man. But who can undertake to talk with a 
 man mad in two-thirds of his soul, in flat rebellion against 
 society and her ministers, tearing furiously at his iron bars 
 like a hungry disappointed tiger? 
 
 The three types of bushrangers which I have roughly 
 sketched out were all of them well represented in this new 
 bandit leader. As cruel as Howe, as brutal as Whelan, as 
 irrepressibly fierce and restless as Melville. Marks was his 
 name ; a very tall man, with a large black beard. His whole 
 history became perfectly well known afterwards. He was a 
 manufacturer's son at Bradford or Leeds; and, maddened 
 by some disappointment in love, took to every kind of evil 
 course, and having ended in forgery, was transported. He 
 had become for some time apparently respectable in Van 
 Diemen's Land, where he was free ; but the devil, which he 
 had originally invited, came for another visit, and stayed. 
 The man became Berserk, and went to the bush, with seven 
 new devils in his company. The history of the man, and 
 the man's person even, were, be it remembered, as well 
 known to the criminal population as that of Governor Gipps. 
 
 He was one of the " uncatchable " class of bushrangers. 
 His gang was "broken up" several times, and many of them 
 captured and hanged ; but no man ever laid hands on him.
 
 272 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 He exhibited some of the qualities of a Garibaldi (if I dare 
 use that sacred and loved name on such an occasion) in his 
 Guerilla warfare. Although a big man, and " an expensive 
 man to horse," he always rode the finest cattle in the colony, 
 far finer than it was possible for any of his pursuers to ride. 
 No fine weight-carrying horse was safe from him. Five 
 hundred pounds' worth of horse-flesh, in the person of one 
 horse, might be neighing in your paddock at sunset, and at 
 sunrise the slip-rails would be down, and the horse gone. 
 And, again, the man was such a dead shot with a pistol, 
 that few policemen of any rank dared ride too near him. 
 He held the colony in terror, and got more audacious day 
 after day r . 
 
 Terror gave place to mad though powerless exasperation 
 after the following incidents : — Captain Thompson, of the 
 50th, one of the most popular men in the whole colony, a man 
 respected and beloved by the Governor, the military, the 
 colonists, and the convicts alike, once more succeeded in 
 breaking up this man's gang; but in hunting the well- 
 mounted leader himself, he got separated from his party. 
 These two men had evidently met face to face in the bush, 
 and with the saddest consequences. Captain Thompson, 
 being followed by some of his victorious party, was found 
 dead in the bush beside his dead horse, shot through the 
 lungs. From this time that fierce and fearful bully, the 
 Honourable Edward Hornby, publicly devoted himself to 
 the especial task of riding down this bushranger and shooting 
 him. 
 
 " A task well-suited to him," dreamed Lionel, one wet 
 night, over his lonely fire. " He has done little good in the 
 world as yet, though as much as I, perhaps. God utilises all 
 His creatures, sooner or later." 
 
 But the " sensation " in the colony about the death of
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 273 
 
 Captain Thompson was mild to the sensation which fol- 
 lowed the capture of Inspector the Honourable Edward 
 Hornby, J. P., by the bushrangers. There was no doubt 
 of the fact : the Honourable Edward had ridden too far, 
 and had been too bold ; and they had got him, and, what is 
 more, meant to keep him. They let their intentions be 
 known to Government by sending into the Goulburn police- 
 station a wicked-looking little old shepherd, with one eye, and 
 lame, who stated their terms as these : " 500/. down, and a 
 free pardon for all, or we'll do all to him as we meant to do 
 to O ,* if we had caught him before he was dead." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 r f^S^S^'iHERE was a general cackle and shriek through- 
 out the colony. The Sentinel, in its leader, 
 pointed out that here was an active police 
 magistrate, a scion of the British aristocracy, in 
 the full possession of health and strength, set on 
 by a gang of ruffians in broad daylight, and held to ransom. 
 It demanded whether or no one had not better live in Spain 
 or the south of Italy, than in a country like theirs, nominally 
 free, and with all the vast power of the British empire at its 
 back ; and then clearly traced the whole accident to the 
 levelling tendencies of the party who wished for cheap land. 
 The Mohawk replied by saying that he agreed with the 
 Sentinel that Spain, Italy, or even South Carolina was a 
 better country to live in than Australia as long as eight 
 
 * A most unpopular officer among the convicts. What is said to 
 have happened after his death is of course untellable here. It is, on the 
 whole, as well that the laws of modern literature make it possible to for 
 get the extent to which human ferocity and brutality can go. 
 
 T
 
 274 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 hundred men were allowed to keep a million acres desolate 
 for their own selfish purposes, and that the thing never would 
 have happened had the lands been unlocked before, and a 
 population of British hearts and hands been allowed to form 
 themselves into self-defensive communities, at every point 
 where soil and communication offered an opportunity. The 
 Mohawk, after an intense and almost frantic manifesto of 
 loyalty to the British crown, — and I do not think that any 
 one is more intensely loyal to the present dynasty than your 
 thorough-going colonial radical,— went on to say that he 
 could not see that the fact of this individual inspector being 
 a scion of the British aristocracy made much difference in 
 the case. The British aristocracy had a good notion of 
 taking care of themselves. Let this man's aristocratic friends 
 ransom him. The Mohawk was never inclined to come down 
 hard on a man who had got in a mess ; but he could not 
 help saying that, considering what the Honourable Edward 
 Hornby had done for the colony, and looking at his private 
 character, the figure set on his head by the bushrangers was 
 considerably over the market price. 
 
 So the Sentinel and Mohawk made political capital out of 
 this accident. But the government were dreadfully puzzled. 
 Lionel, who, in spite of oblivion, strongly disliked his cousin, 
 rode to town and urged action on the colonial secretary and 
 the governor. He told them at once that they need never ask 
 the council for the money ; that he would pay the sum five 
 times over out of his own pocket to release his cousin. He 
 urged them to action on that basis, but the governor and the 
 colonial secretary "hung in the wind," and showed a great 
 hesitation in "going about." " He is perfectly safe," said his 
 excellency; " you yourself, my dear Lionel, would never play 
 out a solitary trump without a single court card in your 
 hand. The bushrangers have got a poor hand and one
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 275 
 
 trump ; they will never play it until they are forced." And 
 the secretary said in the ante-room, " We will try to deal 
 with them for you, only the free-pardon business must be 
 dropped. I know how fond you are of your cousin, and how 
 deeply attached your cousin is to you. I have heard him 
 speak of you. I perfectly well know the relations between 
 you, and see how generously and high-mindedly you are 
 acting. But 1 wish your cousin was a more respectable man. 
 We may get him back, but the devil himself will never put 
 his accounts right. You really must wait." 
 
 "Are his accounts seriously wrong?" asked Lionel. 
 
 " Over four hundred pounds," answered the secretary, 
 sadly. " He is a maicvais sujet. He will lose his appoint- 
 ment, I fear ; and he is so brutal, so wild, and so fierce, that 
 he is getting unfit for decent society. My dear Lionel, I am 
 sorry to say so to you, but your cousin is a ruffian." 
 
 " Now, I'll tell you what I will do with you," said Lionel to 
 the colonial secretary (prime minister), " if you will get him 
 back I will pay his ransom and set his accounts right. Will 
 you do the other half for me, and give these pardons?" 
 
 " I honestly don't think that we will. You heard the 
 governor say that he was quite safe. Can his excellency 
 err? Go along ! go along !" 
 
 So they hesitated in action, and meanwhile noises and 
 rumours went on full swing. The Sentinel, " shut up " by 
 the unanswerable Mohawk, was daily pathetic about the 
 scion of the oldest and most respectable aristocracy in 
 Europe. The Mohawk aired the British aristocracy also, 
 denying, however, both their antiquity and their respect- 
 ability, and attributing the whole accident to the want of 
 cheap land (by no means a bad argument, mind), and to the 
 refusal of that universal suffrage, which they got a few years 
 after, and which, leaving them nothing to fight for, reduced 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 the sale of their paper by one-half. On one point over this 
 singular accident they had, what their younger gentlemen 
 would have called "a mutual field of generous rivalry ; " that 
 is to say, in " sensation " paragraphs. When the Sentinel 
 was informed, by one of our greatest stock-dealers, whom it 
 was superfluous to name, just arrived in the course of busi- 
 ness from the Edwards (meaning, I believe, little Goby), that 
 "our missing inspector" had been tied naked, hand and 
 foot, and alive, on an ants' nest, and had been then and there 
 bitten and stung to death by those ferocious crustaceans, 
 with which we are all familiar on our domestic hearths ; 
 when the Sentinel came out with this piece of blague the 
 Mohawk was promptly down on them with another. "The 
 old lady of Castlereagh Street (we need not say that we allude 
 to our respected contemporary the Sentinel) is, as usual, 
 entirely in error about the sad fate of 'our missing inspector.' 
 An intelligent native king (King Tapto, of Shepherd's Cross- 
 ing,, has just come into our office, after having witnessed the 
 expiring agonies of the scion of British aristocracy. His 
 majesty was attired in his usual court costume of a blue coat 
 and brass buttons, and, with the exception of the Government 
 brass plate on the pit of his stomach, had no other clothing 
 of any sort or kind whatever. He says that he saw Inspector 
 Hornby burnt alive with iron bark chips on the fifth of last 
 month ; in which case the pismire story of the Sentinel falls 
 to the ground utterly. And, although we will not yield in 
 loyalty to our dear old lady the Sentinel, yet he is hardly in 
 a position to deny all due respect to royal utterances. His 
 majesty King Tapto's demand for tobacco was promptly 
 answered by one of our young gentlemen. His demand for 
 brandy was referred to our editor, now out of town.'' 
 
 Before all this "chaff" had died away, Edward Hornby 
 came back to town, ragged and footsore, in a red shirt and
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 277 
 
 moleskin trousers, and resumed his position as police-in- 
 spector. His cousin Lionel, through the instrumentality of 
 the colonial secretary, had his affairs put right, and in such 
 a way that Edward never knew who had done it. All that 
 Edward ever said about the matter was that the bushrangers 
 were kind to him, and that he had escaped, but he was never 
 safe until he got near town. 
 
 Lionel went back to his station. His people were glad to 
 see him again, and there seemed to be no arriere-pensee 
 about any of them, save one — the man he called the murderer ; 
 the man who had tried to shoot his colonel at Gibraltar. This 
 man was reserved. This man knew something. He would 
 meet Lionel's eye freely enough, but in a very inquiring way. 
 Lionel saw that this man's expression was interrogatory, 
 and that the interrogation was, " How much do you know ? " 
 
 I am sorry to say that he liked this ruffian. If you have 
 ever tried the lonely bush for yourself for a few years, and 
 would afterwards honestly confess to us all about the un- 
 commonly queer people whom you have to like in that beau- 
 tiful but unutterably melancholy solitude, you would tell us 
 a most interesting story. I remember, for instance, a man 
 called Wills— originally, I believe, from Pentonville on his 
 good behaviour — who was a very pleasant companion, and 
 taught me first how to crack a stock-whip. He was a very 
 pleasant companion. That gentleman has now, I am given 
 to understand, produced such an additional complication in 
 his dealings with civilised society that the only view he can 
 get of one of our noble colonial prisons is from the inside. 
 But he was not bad company. Lionel's friend, the would-be 
 murderer, was, I am sorry to say, the most trustworthy man 
 about the place. The others all lied ; this man, ruffian as 
 he was, never did that. 
 
 I should hesitate to say this if I did not know that I was
 
 278 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 speaking the truth. If I was generalising I would not say 
 what I have said ; but having my man and my facts before 
 me I am safe. This man watched Lionel about everywhere, 
 in the wool-shed, in the sheep-yards, in the stable, and his 
 look always said one thing — " How much do you know?" 
 
 At last they spoke. Some sheep were lost in the scrubby 
 ranges, the hunting-grounds of Lionel, after a gale from the 
 south-west, and Lionel took this man with him. on horse- 
 back. When they were alone together, Lionel said : — 
 
 "You have something to say to me, Jordan. I have seen 
 it in your eyes for days." 
 
 And Jordan said — " I have nothing to ask of you save one 
 thing — how much do you know ? " 
 
 " About what ? " 
 
 " Well, you are a gentleman, and would not have me mur- 
 dered ; and there is no one to hear us but the parrots, and 
 they won't peach, though they can talk. About this bush- 
 ranger captain ? " 
 
 " He is alive and well. Beyond that I know nothing of him." 
 
 "That will do. Don't say a word more. But mind this, 
 governor. I am the only real old hand you have round you ; 
 and I went near death for a girl once, and I would go near 
 death for you. If you know anything more than you have 
 chose to tell me, don't let it out among those twopenny 
 clyfakers and prigs up at home. There is orders among 
 convicts, I tell you. The bigger the sentence the higher the 
 station. You haven't got more than a seven-year man among 
 the lot up except me, and I'm a lifer. A man who has his 
 seven penn'orth, or his fourteen penn'orth, unless he accu- 
 mulates in the colony, is only used by such men as me as a 
 ticket porter. We make 'em fetch and we make 'em carry, 
 but in a business like this we never trust 'em — don't you." 
 
 "Inabusincsslikethis?" said Lionel. "What do you mean?"
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 279 
 
 "That is no odds of yours. Only if you know anything, 
 don't you talk. J/ V know. And you are free from us. So 
 Marks is alive and well, is he ? " 
 
 "As far as I know," said Lionel. " I wish you would speak out." 
 
 " Do you see that there ants' nest ? " said the convict. 
 
 " I see it." 
 
 " The day I want to be tied naked on that ants' nest, is the 
 day I'll speak out," said the convict. " Not before. But if 
 Marks comes near us, I'll follow you. You are a queer lot, 
 you swells. You are queerer than us. What the dickens 
 would become of you with our temptations, I don't know." 
 
 It appeared, however, that the bushranger was either dead 
 or most suddenly and unaccountably quiescent. For five 
 months no outrage of any kind was reported from any 
 quarter. At the end of that time Inspector Hornby received 
 intelligence of Marks being in hiding in the mountains in 
 the South ; and getting leave, started immediately in pursuit. 
 
 He was not, however, quick enough to catch him. He 
 made the vermin bolt, however ; for two days after his arrival 
 in those parts Marks reappeared, fifty miles to the south of 
 him, and sacked a station. Inspector Hornby was almost 
 immediately seen on the spot, but Marks was again too quick 
 for him. A very few days after, another station was sacked 
 (" stuck up " as they called it), twenty miles further to the 
 south, and within fifteen miles of Lionel's. 
 
 He had no women about the place, and could easily have 
 ridden to town and let Jordan the convict make terms for 
 him, but he would not. He determined to stick to his post 
 as a magistrate, and do his duty firmly. 
 
 He rode always armed with his carbine, on his well-trained 
 young horse, and when armed and mounted thus he was a 
 very formidable adversary for any two or three men. Jordan 
 always rode with him now, also armed.
 
 280 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 A week passed, and nothing more was heard. Inspector 
 Hornby arrived one night at his cousin's station. He was 
 shaved perfectly smooth, and showed every line in his power- 
 ful, coarse, and violent face most unpleasantly. Not an 
 agreeable-looking man at all. They had not met since his 
 captivity, and he thanked Lionel in a manly, straightforward 
 way for his exertions towards his release ; of other obliga- 
 tions to him he knew nothing. He went away smooth shorn 
 in the morning, in spite of Lionel's remonstrances on his 
 clanger, entirely alone, and rode off into the bush towards the 
 mountain. 
 
 At mid-day there came a young mounted policeman, a 
 stranger to that part of the country, asking to be guided in a 
 certain direction. The way lay through some very abrupt, 
 remote, and densely-timbered gullies, on the old hunting- 
 ground, which had struck Lionel as a very likely place for 
 the haunt of the bushrangers. He communicated this to the 
 trooper, and, having dined him, set out with, him on horse- 
 back, accompanied by Jordan. Lionel had of course his 
 carbine — Jordan pistols. 
 
 The ranges in which these gullies were situated were 
 densely wooded, except in one or two places, where, on a 
 spur which flanked one of the little glens, there would be an 
 open, lofty place, of a few acres, free from timber, and just 
 now blazing with flowers. With these exceptions, the forest 
 was dense. 
 
 Coming to the most suspicious gully, and feeling them- 
 selves tolerably strong, they determined to give it some sort 
 of a cursory examination. The trooper was to go on one 
 side and they two on the other. There was no sign of the 
 enemy whatever. The trooper rode round the upper end of 
 the gully, with his sword dangling and his carbine on his 
 knee, and very soon was pushing on through the dense
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 281 
 
 scrub, on the opposite ridge, about three hundred yards from 
 them. 
 
 They had gone about a quarter of a mile in this order, 
 when something terrible, sudden, and unforeseen occurred. 
 From among some dense acacia bushes there came a little 
 flame of fire, and a puff of smoke. By the time the report 
 reached them, even at that short distance, the poor trooper 
 was lying motionless on the ground, and his horse had started 
 madly off homeward with an empty saddle. 
 
 They were well concealed, and Lionel felt Jordan's hand 
 on his arm. 
 
 " Be perfectly still," he whispered, "and watch." 
 
 There appeared from behind the bushes the murderer of 
 the trooper. A very tall man with a great black beard, 
 dressed in a red shirt, a cabbage-tree hat (like a sailor's straw 
 hat), breeched and booted, most beautifully mounted, and 
 carrying a pistol ready for use in his hands. 
 
 " That is Marks," whispered Jordan, in an excited manner. 
 " Can't you cut him over? " 
 
 " Not from here," said Lionel, in a whisper. " It is three 
 hundred yards off, and my carbine is not rifled." 
 
 "Watch him for a moment," said the convict, "and then 
 follow me." 
 
 The bushranger came out into the sunlight, and pulled up 
 his horse to look for one instant at the body of the murdered 
 trooper ; then he turned his horse to the right, down the glen, 
 and rode on at a foot pace, through the aromatic shrubbery, 
 which brushed as high as his knees, looking around him 
 defiantly yet cautiously. 
 
 The other two turned their horses' heads the same way as 
 his, and kept parallel to him on the opposite ridge, but 
 behind it, out of sight, and trotting. At a particular point, 
 among some thick green scrub, Jordan laid his hand on
 
 282 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 Lionel's arm and turned his horse's head. Lionel saw that 
 this was the place to wait for their man, now coming down 
 the gully on the opposite ridge. The gully narrowed here, 
 and it was evident from the rocks that the bushranger must 
 come into the bottom, or even cross towards them ; and on 
 the opposite side was one of those bald, heathy, flowery 
 spaces which I have noticed before. Up all around the 
 forest rose sombre and silent. 
 
 They waited but a few minutes when he emerged from the 
 denser forest, riding at a foot pace and loading a pistol ; 
 little dreaming, poor wretch, of the fate before him. Lionel 
 was determined to arrest this man in one way or another. 
 Five minutes before, just after he had seen him murder the 
 trooper, he would have shot him down like a dog. But his 
 temper had a little cooled, even in that short time, and he 
 was no assassin. He got his carbine ready, his reins over 
 his left arm, and waited. 
 
 The bushranger came slowly on among the flowers, which 
 reached to his knee, gaudy with his red shirt under the 
 blazing sun in the open. His horse turned down a cattle 
 track under the rocks towards them. A vivid, gaudy figure, 
 even among the gaudy flowers — a figure never forgotten by 
 Lionel to the day of his death. 
 
 "He is near enough now," said the convict, in a fierce 
 whisper. " Fire." 
 
 " I cannot fire without challenging," said Lionel, quietly. 
 
 " Fool ! " hissed out the convict ; but Lionel did not 
 mind. He rode quietly into the open, and, with his 
 reins over his left arm, and his carbine at the " present," 
 said, in a voice which rung through the peaceful summer 
 forest, — 
 
 " Stand, in the king's name ! " 
 
 The answer was only an ill-aimed pistol-shot. The bush-
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 283 
 
 ranger hurriedly spurred his horse onwards ; but Lionel had 
 covered him with his inexorable unerring carbine. Under 
 these circumstances he felt it his duty to society to take 
 human life ; and, keeping his foresight moving to correspond 
 with the undulations of the horse, he fired, and raised a 
 ghost which was never to be laid again. 
 
 The bushranger pitched heavily forward on his horse's 
 neck, and then fell off on the left side, the side nearest to 
 Lionel, the right leg hanging on the saddle for one moment, 
 until the last spasm had kicked the foot clear of the right 
 stirrup : then the man toppled headlong over, and lay per- 
 fectly still, as still as his innocent victim had laid not ten 
 minutes before, and was lying even now. 
 
 Lionel's practice with turkeys and kangaroos had served 
 him in good stead. He had ridded the earth of a foul and 
 cruel fiend. It was mighty well. But the old unutterable 
 horror which he had felt after killing poor Cornet Brabazon 
 in his unfortunate duel was strong upon him now, and he 
 shivered as though in an ague fit. 
 
 •' By G — ! " he said, turning to his companion, " / have 
 killed another man? 
 
 " You meant to, didn't you ? " said his convict friend. 
 
 " No ! no ! no ! a hundred thousand times ' No.' I call 
 God to witness that I would give my own life twenty times, 
 and fifty years of purgatory, to bring that poor corpse lying 
 there to life again. It was the hunting instinct. I never 
 meant it. I will swear " 
 
 " Swear at me, if you want to swear," said the convict ; 
 " but stop that particular kind of noise just now. You have 
 just clone your duty to society and to law as a magistrate in 
 a most honourable manner. The law is with you, equity is 
 with you, and as for public opinion, that will crown you with 
 roses. But you have lost your nerve, and it is necessary that
 
 284 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 you should keep it. You have done a thing a thousand times 
 more awful than you think it to be. If you lose your nerve 
 now, you are done for. Shake yourself together. You have 
 shot Marks, the bushranger, haven't you, and earned the 
 thanks of both houses of the legislature ? " 
 
 With white, dry lips, Lionel said, " Yes." 
 
 " Is your nerve sufficiently good to go and look at him? " 
 
 " I am not afraid of corpses," said Lionel. " I only fear 
 the ghosts which their memories raise around one." 
 
 " I ought to see plenty of ghosts, then," said the convict, 
 " if the memory of all that I have seen, and all that I have 
 heard, is to return in the form of ghosts. But it don't." 
 
 " I speak of what you have done," said Lionel. " Have 
 you ever killed a man ? " 
 
 " Why, no. But stop this talk. We are in awful trouble. 
 Perhaps I am to blame. Confound you, you know you have 
 done right. What are you afraid of ? You will find it neces- 
 sary to keep this business dark, for your own sake, for your 
 own entirely. I wish to point out to you that you want at 
 this moment ever)' bit of intelligence and nerve of which you 
 are possessed. Leave the horses to graze, and follow me." 
 
 Ncc coram, &c. — a good old rule. I had meant to describe 
 the scene which followed, but find that I am getting too close 
 to the edge of the unwritten canons which, very properly, 
 confine the licence of modern fictitious literature. Worse 
 accidents than this present one have happened ; but little is 
 gained by speaking of them. I have only to say this : — 
 When the convict had removed the artificial black beard 
 from the head of the corpse, the face which Lionel saw 
 staring with open eyes out from among the orchids and Ken- 
 uydas, was the face of his cousin Edward ! My art might do 
 more for you, but my muse holds up her fingers, as though 
 she were already angry at my licence.
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 285 
 
 There followed a long watch in the silent summer forest, 
 by one who strode up and down among the flowers, mad- 
 dened with remorse, interrupted only by the flapping of fierce 
 foul eagles, who perched on the trees near by, disappointed 
 of their feast by a wild man, who walked to and fro, making 
 hideous, foolish, and vain imprecations on his own head. 
 Then, when his faithful convict returned from the station 
 with a spade, there followed a burial ; and the eagles, harshly 
 screaming, wheeled aloft, disappointed, into the higher 
 regions of summer twilight, to seek for other prey, and 
 Edward Hornby was buried, and his memory among human 
 folks with him. 
 
 Then followed an interview at dead of night between Jor- 
 dan the convict and Lionel. 
 
 "There is no need for you to say nothing at all," said Jor- 
 dan. " It is done, and it can't be undone. If I'd known 
 how you were going to take on about the doing of it, I'd 
 have had it done by some one else. I thought you had a 
 grudge against the man. But it is better kept quiet, and is 
 easy enough kept quiet. Say nothing whatsoever of any 
 sort or kind to any human creature. Lord bless you, things 
 are so easily hushed up in this colony ! Your report is, that 
 you and me saw a man with a big black beard shoot down a 
 trooper without provocation, and that you afterwards, be- 
 lieving him to be the bushranger Marks, with whom you 
 were not personally acquainted, shot him down. Don't say 
 a word more than that. Remember the honour of your 
 family, you know." 
 
 ''Then you knew it was my cousin disguised ?" asked Lionel. 
 
 " Bless the man, of course I did ! " answered Jordan. 
 " Your cousin was always a bushranger at heart. When he 
 was took by them he see, for the first time, the fun of it, and 
 he and Marks fell out, and he shot Marks down. Then he
 
 286 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 got the gang with him, and then he came sneaking into 
 town, promising to come back and lead them. And they 
 wasn't likely to refuse the leadership of a man who sat both 
 sides of the hedge. And / couldn't give you the office ; / 
 only thought that you swells were as free among one another 
 as we were. When I found you knew nothing, and thought 
 that you had a grudge against the man, why then, seeing 
 things handy, I put you on the job, and you've done it. But 
 you needn't ride rusty with me, for all that." 
 
 " I wish I was dead. I wish I had never been born," was 
 Lionel's answer. 
 
 The dear old Mohawk, originally started with the pro- 
 gramme of putting a spoke in every wheel, of whatever 
 colour, which they saw turning, put their spoke in here. [The 
 Sentinel was so vague and feeble over the matter that I only 
 notice it in brackets. It never knew anything more about 
 the business than the Mohawk, which was nothing ; but 
 it made a washy attempt to generalise from the utterly 
 false facts of the Mohawk, which was offensive.] The 
 Mohawk's account of the business was this : that a foolish 
 but perfectly harmless scion of the British aristocracy had 
 been thrown accidentally against the poor bushranger, Marks, 
 and had shot him dead. The Mohawk had nothing to say 
 against the personal character of the Honourable Lionel 
 Horton, but had only to remind him that private assassina- 
 tion was not exactly the same thing as public justice. If the 
 lands had been unlocked, the Mohawk went on to say, such 
 an event could never have occurred, and went on to prove it, 
 which the Mohawk did, in a most satisfactory manner to all 
 those who allowed the Mohawk's postulates, and so the story 
 evaporated itself into politics. At another place in the 
 Mohawk's columns was this paragraph : — 
 
 " Inspector Hornby has made a smash of it at last. His
 
 •I HE TWO CADETS. • 287 
 
 latest dodge was bushranger hunting ; and now, thank 
 heaven, he seems to have bolted for good, owing the govern- 
 ment a sum which is stated at from 500Z. to 5000/. We have 
 got rid of him cheaply on the whole. We only hope that 
 
 Inspectors .and and [names stated in full, if you 
 
 please ; we don't mince matters in Australia], may go as 
 cheap as our precious scion of British nobility, Inspector 
 Hornby. The sooner they bolt the better." 
 
 So the whole thing went past. Only leaving a fresh horror 
 and a fresh remorse in the heart of a very noble and good 
 man. Young still, but getting grey. 
 
 Meanwhile, " Cousin Alice " had perfectly played her role 
 as Lady Granton. One supposes that in a marriage of 
 arrangement like hers, the woman is not always over head 
 and ears in love with the man. In her case it was certainly 
 so. She had been very lately fond of Lionel, and with all 
 the assistance of a strong will and a very careful training, 
 could not always forget him even when she had changed her 
 name. Not that she loved him still, she only kept a memory 
 of him which grew dimmer day by day, and preserved a 
 feeling of tender kindness for him to the end. 
 
 Lord Granton probably knew that their marriage was one 
 of arrangement, and that it was dimly possible that there 
 might possibly be some one else who, under other circum- 
 stances, might have been preferred to himself. He deter- 
 mined that his imaginary rival, if such a person existed, 
 should have no chance against him. He was clever, hand- 
 some, and wealthy, even for England, and he gave all these 
 things to her, and to the task of winning her wholly to him- 
 self. There was no resisting the frank, noble generosity of 
 the man. She got to love him better than all the world 
 besides. 
 
 She was one of the first leaders of society, and had been
 
 283 • THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 so for some ten years — was in fact twenty-nine, in the full 
 radiance of her splendid beauty : caressed in England, courted 
 and flattered by the highest in Europe as wife of the English 
 Extraneous minister — when she gave a party more select 
 and exclusive than she had ever done before, a gold-plate* 
 dinner party ; and when everything was ready she sat in 
 the drawing-room with her husband looking a little anxious. 
 
 " It is a strange story," said he ; " you should certainly let 
 him know the truth. But why did you ask him to-night, of 
 all nights? He will be the only person not in office in the 
 room." 
 
 '* He was in the Colonial government. He is an Australian 
 statesman say. The Secretary for the Colonies will know 
 him. And, another thing, I wished to be very ostentatious 
 and grand before him." 
 
 " I see." 
 
 Never having dined with a select party of cabinet minis- 
 ters and ambassadors, I am unable to say what the thing is 
 like. Lady Granton, however, was a little uneasy at every 
 announcement. 
 
 At last. " Mr. Horton ! " 
 
 Tall, as handsome as ever, very brown in complexion, and 
 slightly grey in hair, though in age only thirty-three ; a re- 
 markable man even among the remarkable men present. 
 Such was Lionel as she saw him again after so long. 
 
 Of course every one knew him, and knew who he was. He 
 was only, after all, in his own order again. He was very 
 charming. Australians were more so in those days than 
 now, and he was a little of a lion even there. 
 
 It was late in the evening before Lady Granton got him to 
 herself. She began thus : 
 
 * There are, however, only three sets of gold plate in England.
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 289 
 
 " Come and sit near me, we are quite alone here. Lord 
 Granton and myself have been talking over a very old matter 
 to-day, and he is of opinion that I should speak to you 
 frankly and honestly about it. We are older than we were, 
 and possiblv wiser. Do you remember a certain painful 
 parting which we had, Cousin Lionel ? " 
 
 He bowed his handsome grizzled head in reply. 
 
 " Also a letter, which I gave you as an excuse for a very 
 rude dismissal ? " 
 
 Another bow. 
 
 " So far, then. Do you remember the writer of that letter, 
 Clara Brabazon ? " 
 
 " I remember her well." 
 
 "Forgive me forgiving you pain, dear, cousin. Believe 
 me that comfort got from believing untruths is not worth 
 having. Do you know what became of Clara Brabazon ? " 
 
 " No, cousin." 
 
 " Must I tell the whole sad story, then? After — after " 
 
 " After I murdered her brother, — yes." 
 
 " After that unhappy duel, the truth about which ivas care- 
 fully concealed from me by my parents, she got into a state 
 of morbid despair, and soon went into a decline. She sent 
 for me when she was dying, and I went to her. She had a 
 confession to make. She told me she was her brother's mur- 
 derer. She had loved our mutual cousin Edward with all 
 the fierceness of her nature and her race, and he had dis- 
 covered it, at the same time that she discovered, or thought 
 she had discovered, that his heart was set in another quarter. 
 You understand me, Cousin Lionel ? " 
 
 " I do, perfectly." 
 
 " These two unhappy people maddened themselves, and 
 one another against you and me ; she against me, he against 
 you. He set my parents to watch us ; she, at his instigation, 
 
 U
 
 29 o THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 wrote that letter about your use of my name in a mess-room, 
 and she confessed to me on her death-bed that it was a false- 
 hood from beginning to end." 
 
 " That was the letter which led to the duel," said Lionel, 
 calmly. 
 
 " It was. Edward, our cousin, was the cause of the death 
 of poor young Brabazon by his influence over that very 
 foolish and unfortunate woman. According to the wicked 
 laws of society as they now exist, you had no other choice. 
 I hold you blameless. Edward, with his wicked machina- 
 tions, was the cause of poor Brabazon's death." 
 
 How little did she dream that the hand which had shot 
 down poor Brabazon had also so terribly avenged his death. 
 Lionel saw it now for the first time ; but he sat perfectly 
 mute. 
 
 " Here is Lord Granton," said she. " We need not drop 
 our conversation ; he has perhaps a moment to join us. No ; 
 that Neapolitan ambassador has caught him. My dear 
 cousin, I gave you an answer on that unhappy morning, I 
 fear, curtly and in anger. I wish you to understand that 
 under any circumstances that answer could have been no 
 other than it was. We, you know, are not free agents. I 
 knew that before I was fifteen. I never could have given you 
 any other answer but the one I did give you ; only I gave it 
 roughly and rudely, under the impression that you had been 
 playing with my name. Do you forgive me ? " 
 
 " What I have to forgive, my dear cousin, has been forgiven 
 years ago. If it were otherwise, it is not for a man like me, 
 with the mark of Cain upon my face, shut out from the pale 
 of humanity, and I dread the hope of mercy, to forgive. If 
 I could accept Rome and her doctrines, and buy masses for 
 the dead, I might be happy ; but then I cannot, and then, as 
 Carlyle says, ' Thou fool, who told thee that thou wert to be
 
 THE TWO CADETS. 291 
 
 happy ? ' I'll drag along my chain, cousin : I will try to get 
 nearer to God." 
 
 Lady Granton was inexpressibly distressed. Her innocent 
 hand was red with this dreadful business about young Bra- 
 bazon, for it was she who had shown Lionel the letter, and 
 she knew it. Hers was a rare and fine nature, and time, 
 training, and the world had never deadened her conscience 
 to the fact that the laws of that society which was her atmo- 
 sphere, almost her religion, were, on the subject of duelling, 
 brutal, barbarous, and unchristian. With the deadly remorse 
 of a very noble nature, shown suddenly to her, she felt it more 
 keenly than ever. But what could she say? It is not de 
 rigueur to show emotion in society, more particularly in a 
 room full of ambassadors. 
 
 " I am so sorry for you, cousin," was all that she allowed 
 herself to say. " God has been so good to me. I am so 
 happy with my husband and my children, and my wealth 
 and influence, that I can only pray, as I do, dear Lionel, that 
 I may be worthy of them." 
 
 "I pray much also," said Lionel, quietly ; " sometimes for 
 death." 
 
 " We must change this conversation," said Lady Granton ; 
 and if you please we will never resume it. Go to God, Lionel, 
 go to God." 
 
 " I have been ; but He has not heard me." 
 
 " Not answered you yet, I suppose you mean. Who are 
 you that you should be answered immediately? Go again, and 
 ao-ain, and again. Now this conversation must be changed 
 once more. Let us talk of our mutual cousin, Edward. 
 He is in Australia, is he not ? How is he getting on ? " 
 
 " He is dead." 
 
 " Dead ! How did he die ? " 
 
 "He was killed." 
 
 U 2
 
 292 THE TWO CADETS. 
 
 " Killed ! How dreadful. How was he killed ? " 
 
 " He was shot." 
 
 " Shot ! Who shot him ? " 
 
 " I— — " said Lionel, calmly ; but the French ambassador 
 was bearing down on them, and there was a sudden boule- 
 versement in his judgment, so he went on with a sentence 
 which he had never thought of uttering, — " am not prepared 
 to say who shot him, but I have the very best reasons for 
 believing that he was shot." 
 
 And he carried the terrible secret, so nearly let slip, to his 
 grave with him. 
 
 Lady Granton was calmly smiling the next moment. 
 
 " My cousin Mr. Lionel Horton, Monsieur G . My 
 
 cousin is an Australian statesman, Monsieur G . They 
 
 are beginning already, these audacious Australians, to talk 
 of a state down there, under our feet, more powerful than the 
 original unexpandible mother country. Will you take this 
 Australian in hand and convert him from his audacity ? " 
 
 And looking at the Australian statesman, M. G found 
 
 himself wondering what had caused that statesman to expa- 
 triate himself in the first instance, and whether that expatria- 
 tion was voluntary or involuntary. For Lionel looked so 
 old, so worn, and so strange, that he puzzled good, honest 
 M. G completely. 
 
 Lionel's father died at last, and he came into such barren 
 honours as were left to that battered and worn-out old line. 
 He clung to his father, and his father to him, to the very last. 
 His magnificent and always accumulating Australian property 
 put the old house on its legs again for a time. He never 
 married nor will marry, and the title dies with him. Lord 
 Poole will die with the deep regrets of the poor, and of all 
 his friends, but he will die with his dread secret close locked 
 in his heart, as mute as a fox.
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER.
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 I' RING the many wanderings and voyages 
 which my brother Edmund and myself have 
 made up and down the earth in search of 
 wealth, we have become tolerably average 
 judges of many things. Furs, slop clothing, 
 tallow, drosky horses, inns, wine, bad money, are but a tithe 
 of the things on which we should be competent to give some 
 sort of opinion ; but there are two things of which it is ab- 
 solutely necessary that one should have a good judgment — 
 ships and ships' captains, and we consider that there are very 
 few landsmen in a position to give us advice on either of 
 these two subjects. 
 
 Therefore when it became necessary to choose a ship to 
 make what we determined to be our last voyage, the different 
 ships which were honoured with our notice underwent a very 
 severe scrutiny indeed. One or two of the ships would have 
 done, but then the skippers were not up to my brother Ed- 
 mund's standard ; and in cases where he passed the captain 
 I got fanciful about the ship. We rejected them all save one 
 we had yet to see, and I was constrained to say, after an 
 afternoon spent among the shipping —
 
 296 OL'R BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 " My dear Ned, at this rate we shall not get to England at 
 all. We really must try to be less particular with the Ty- 
 phoon. When I come to think of the awfully queer craft we 
 have sailed in, I think we are carrying criticism a little too 
 far." 
 
 " Not a bit, Thomas — not a bit ;" and he wagged his great 
 yellow beard. " I mean to be more particular with her than 
 any other. I have no idea of gaining experience and not 
 using it. To the Typhoon, " he said, as he tumbled into a 
 boat ; " where is she ?" 
 
 " Off the battery;" and away we scudded down the har- 
 bour, past the lighthouse, and past the berths of the men-of- 
 war, just in time to see a stream of fire shoot suddenly from 
 the side of H.M.S. Styx, and hear the dull heavy boom of 
 the sunset gun go rattling away among the quarries. 
 
 I sat looking at the infinitely peaceful sunlight dying out 
 upon the lonely, happy hills, whose summits I could see 
 above the dark quarries ; and at the black quarries close on 
 the shore in the foreground, which were beginning to send 
 forth in strings, lines, groups, or solitary figures, swarm after 
 swarm of grey convicts, dim, unearthly-looking under the 
 growing gloom, crowding down to their boats like souls to 
 Charon's bark. It struck me that it was like looking across 
 hell to heaven, and the sight held me so long that I was only 
 aroused by Edmund's saying, " Here she is," and my turn- 
 ing round and after a minute's contemplation saying, " By 
 Jove ! " 
 
 We were under the bows of a large ship, which lay the last 
 of all seaward, beyond the battery, quite alone. The sun 
 had set upon the water, but her vast tall masts penetrated 
 into the lighter air above, till her truck almost seemed to 
 pierce the fading sunlight, and showed us that her spars 
 were very nearly as large and as heavy as those of that tre-
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 297 
 
 mendous engine of war, the Styx frigate, which was her 
 nearest neighbour. Her bows were like those of a yacht, 
 and ran up, not into a figure-head, but into a delicate golden 
 scroll. Such bows I have seldom seen on any ship, and I 
 noticed them closely. The rest of the long black hull was 
 equally satisfactory, and we were both aware that we were 
 looking on one of the noblest clipper ships we had ever set 
 eyes on. 
 
 " Now for the captain," I thought. " I wonder if he 
 will do ? " 
 
 Though the vast mass of the ship lay perfectly dead and 
 motionless on the water, our little boat was leaping in so 
 lively a manner that it required a jump to get on the ladder; 
 but we were soon on deck and looked around us. It was one 
 of the finest decks we had ever been on, flush, save one house 
 aft, which took the place of a poop, but which had a broad 
 gangway round, and a large elliptical monkey-poop astern. 
 So that, do you see, reader, you could walk from the fore- 
 castle, past it, to the wheel, and so round it back again ; 
 might walk, in short, when at sea, twenty miles without 
 turning. This struck us as being very charming, and we 
 had every opportunity of seeing it at its best, for not a soul 
 was in sight but one lanky, good-natured looking midship- 
 man, to whom we addressed ourselves. 
 
 " Can you tell us where the first officer is, sir, if you 
 please?" I asked. 
 
 "He is ashore, drunk. At least he was half an hour 
 ago." 
 
 " Can you tell us where the steward is, sir, if you please?" 
 
 " Well. I am afraid it won't be much good to tell you, for 
 I am afraid Yorky is drunk too." 
 
 This was very nice indeed. "Are the crew on board?" I 
 asked.
 
 298 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 " No. They are in the hulk, doing their six weeks for 
 running. The police barge will bring them on board the 
 night before we sail." 
 
 I looked at Edmund, and saw that, like an inconsistent 
 fellow as he was, he had fallen so deeply in love with the 
 ship's bows, that nothing would turn him, if the captain 
 looked anything like business. I thought he was going to 
 look for the captain, but he did not. He said, — 
 
 " Can you kindly inform me, sir, if the stewardess is 
 drunk ? " 
 
 " No," said the midshipman, indignantly. " She is not. 
 Polly drunk, indeed ! She'd sue the man who dared say it. 
 Perhaps you would like to ask if the skipper is drunk ? 
 Here he comes to answer for himself." So our midshipman 
 hitched himself off the capstan and went away growling at 
 Edmund's offensive inquiry about the stewardess. 
 
 We turned and saw before us one of the finest, most sailor- 
 like, most gentleman-like, young fellows we had ever met in 
 our wanderings. Scarcely thirty, we guessed, with a clear 
 brown face, a bright eye, and as pleasant a smile, showing 
 as fine a range of teeth as you would wish to see. An up- 
 standing fellow too — a man every inch of him, whose crisp 
 curly hair seemed expressly made to keep on his head, with- 
 out derangement in any cyclone or typhoon which ever blew. 
 He would do, we said at once, in spite of a drunken first 
 officer and steward, and a crew from the hulk. When he 
 came to us and said pleasantly, "Are you going to sail with 
 me, gentlemen? " we answered, like a pair of Siamese twins, 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " You are a sailor, sir?" he said to my brother, which was 
 so far not complimentary to me. 
 
 "Why, no," said Edmund ; "but I know a sailor when I 
 see one. I am not long married, and am going to entrust a
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 299 
 
 delicate wife and a baby to your keeping for 14,000 miles. 
 Can you conscientiously undertake the job ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the skipper, " I think I can. I am not fortu- 
 nate in my ship's company. I have come round from San 
 Francisco, and have picked the main of them up there ; a 
 queer lot, with all the turbulence of American sailors, and 
 not one of their good qualities. They ran, and are in the 
 hulk; they are as good as any I shall pick up just now. I 
 have four good officers, a carpenter, steward, stewardess, and 
 one midshipman ; and I have a noble lot of passengers, 
 thank God. I'll pull you through." 
 
 " The steward is drunk, is he not ? " said I. 
 " Well, yes," said the skipper, laughing, " but only on prin- 
 ciple. It ain't habitual. We have been three weeks in the 
 bay in ballast, trying to get cargo, and have got a little wool 
 and gold ; but he has not been ashore more than three hours. 
 Last night he told his wife and me that it was unsailorlike 
 and unlucky to go to sea without a burst, and so he has gone 
 on shore to get drunk. He is an excellent fellow, I assure 
 you, and so is the carpenter." 
 
 We went into the saloon, and the stewardess, a hard- 
 headed, hard-handed Scotch woman, showed us the vacant 
 berths. There were now, she told us, near 100 passengers, 
 but most of them in the second cabin, between decks. The 
 voyage would pay, she said, entirely through the passengers. 
 It would pay well, and she was glad of that, for the skipper 
 had brought the ship round from San Francisco on specula- 
 tion, on his own responsibility, and she wished him to stand 
 well with the owners, as he, the skipper, was going home to 
 be married. She seemed a dear old body, and made us more 
 than ever in love with the ship. When she understood that 
 she was to be plagued to death all the voyage by a delicate 
 young wife and a baby, her satisfaction knew no bounds.
 
 300 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 She immediately asked my brother's Christian name, and 
 has never called him by any other since. Me she tolerated, 
 and I thanked her. 
 
 But as we looked round at the cabins (opening out of the 
 saloon, and on deck, please to understand) a hitch occurred. 
 We came to a cabin door on which there was a card, and on 
 it was written in a large hand, " Mrs. Dishmore." And 
 Edmund said, in the most peremptory manner, — 
 
 " I am not going to sail in the same ship with that woman. 
 She is intolerable enough on shore, but to sea with that 
 woman I don't go." 
 
 " Nonsense, Ned," I said ; " you need not speak to her." 
 
 " She was the woman, as you know, that tried her hardest 
 to prevent Maria from marrying me, and I hate the sight of 
 her." 
 
 " She probably only repeated what she had heard," I said. 
 " You don't know anything against the woman except what 
 we all know, that she is the most tiresome, backbiting, 
 meddlesome Matty in the three republics. Don't be a 
 fool." 
 
 " I'll not sail with that woman," he repeated, as we went 
 over the side. But he did nevertheless. 
 
 That evening, after having tea with his wife, we went away 
 on a little expedition. Certain custom-house officers had 
 become endeared to us in the way of business, and we went 
 to wish them good-by. The custom-house men used, in 
 those pre-railway times, an inn on the shores of the bay, be- 
 fore you come to the lighthouse. We knew that we should 
 catch some of them there that night, more particularly one ; 
 so we took the last steamboat from the pier, and went across, 
 telling his wife that we should sleep there, and that she must 
 get ready to go on board in three days. 
 
 I suppose that that quaint little inn is levelled to the
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 301 
 
 ground now, or turned into a limited hotel. In those times 
 it was a queer little characteristic place. It was close, closer 
 than any other inn, to the place where the shipping lies, and at 
 that time thirteen millions was annually passing outwards 
 and eleven millions inwards, it was a busy little inn, indeed. 
 One room was almost entirely used by the skippers of ships 
 and custom-house officers, and to this room we repaired. It 
 was as full as usual, but there was some cause for silence ; 
 something had occurred to stop the conversation, and when 
 we had called for what we wanted, and had sat down, we 
 looked round for the cause. 
 
 It was evidently a tall man who was standing with his back 
 to the fire. We had noticed that he had scowled insolently 
 at us as we came in, but we were too eager to look round and 
 see who of our acquaintances were there, to take much notice 
 of him ; but when we were settled, my brother Edmund 
 looked at him again, and to my great surprise his look be- 
 came fixed ; he seemed to be partly interested and partly 
 surprised at the man's appearance. I, who am short-sighted, 
 could not see the man's face, and thought my brother had 
 recognised him, so I very naturally asked him in a whisper 
 if he knew the man. 
 
 " No," he said, "and don't want to. But did you ever in 
 your experience see such an evil, truculent face before ? 
 Coward and bully in every line of it. He has been bully- 
 ing these good folks. I must have a word with him. Halloa, 
 you sir ! " 
 
 The man was aware in a moment that my brother was 
 addressing him. My brother had what may be called a • 
 forcible delivery. When he addressed anyone, they were 
 instantly aware of the fact. This man was. He turned to 
 my brother with a scowl, and said nothing. Edmund 
 continued :
 
 302 OUR BROWN" PASSENGER. 
 
 " And how do you get along, sir ?" 
 
 And in merely saying those words, and in merely wagging 
 his great beard, Edmund said, plain for all the folks to hear, 
 " You are a bully, my good gentleman, and I know it. Would 
 you be so exceedingly kind as to try to bull)- me ? " The 
 spell was broken, and the conversation of the different groups 
 was resumed all round the room. The bully growled some- 
 thing inaudible, and in a very few minutes sat down. 
 
 A greater contrast to this fellow could scarcely be con- 
 ceived, than such as appeared in the person of our friend who 
 now appeared. A handsome young Highlander, in a pretty 
 neat blue uniform, young enough to be nearly beardless, and 
 with the titles of " gentleman " and " good fellow " written in 
 every dimple of his handsome face, and every twinkle of his 
 laughing hazel eyes. His eyes grew brighter when he saw 
 us, and he came towards us somewhat eagerly. 
 
 " I have heard that you two renegades were come here 'to 
 look me up, and were going to secede from the sucking 
 republic, and were going back to the hag-riddeh old step- 
 mother Britain. Kiss the sacred ground when you land for 
 me ; and tell the dear old mother that I will come back some 
 day, if it is only to lay my bones in her dear old bosom. 
 Ah, happy men ! and oh, most unhappy me ! If I had not 
 unluckily been born a gentleman, I might at this moment 
 have been a gillie of Lord Breadalbane, to be a keeper in 
 time ; and might have even now been bathing my bare legs 
 in the silver mists of divine Schehallion. But luck is against 
 me. I am no Lowland man that I can trade ; so I must 
 even sit here with my four hundred a year, biding my time. 
 ' This way lies madness,' as our great Cockney poet says. 
 My dear old boys, what ship are you going by ? " 
 
 " The Typhoon." 
 
 " Ah ! you don't happen to remember the name of the ship 

 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 303 
 
 n which Jonah took passage from Joppa to Tarshish, do 
 
 you ? " 
 
 " Do you ? " I said. " Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " It was not the Typhoon, for instance, was it ? " our friend 
 answered. " No, by the bye, it wasn't. In fact, now I come 
 to remember, neither the name, the register, nor even the 
 name of the master of that ship, are recorded in holy writ. 
 Ah, well ! So you are going by the Typhoon ? " 
 
 My brother answered decidedly, "Yes. We have sailed 
 in queerer craft than she is. Is there anything against 
 her ?" 
 
 " The finest ship which ever came into the bay," our friend 
 answered. " But she has a queer crew." 
 
 " We know all about that," said Edmund. " We have sailed 
 with Lascars before now. How about the captain ? " 
 
 "A gentleman and a sailor, every inch of him. God send 
 him always as good a ship, and always a better crew." 
 
 " Well," said Edmund, " we will chance the crew ; how 
 about the officers ? " 
 
 " Let me introduce you to the first mate," said our friend, 
 and forthwith took us across the room, and presented us to 
 the man we had noticed on entering. Now I got near to 
 him, I was obliged to confess to myself that he was one of 
 the most ill-looking dogs I had ever seen. We shall see more 
 of him directly. 
 
 As for the rest, we could only gather that the ship was a 
 splendid ship, and that the captain was a jewel. That con- 
 tented us on the whole. On the third day from that, we were 
 on board, waiting for the mail bag. I was standing on the 
 house on deck by the captain, watching for the last time the 
 swarms of. grey convicts in the black quarries, and the 
 pleasant, sunny, peaceful hills which lay beyond, thinking 
 that, after all, it was a very dear old country, and getting
 
 3 c 4 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 pathetic about leaving it, when I heard a quiet voice behind 
 us say, — 
 
 " Are you going to take steam, sir ? " 
 
 The captain turned immediately. " I think this suck from 
 the north will do, sir, if it holds." 
 
 I turned when the skipper turned, and saw for the first time 
 our Brown Passenger. 
 
 He was very brown indeed. A scrupulously dressed, 
 middle-sized man, with a very brown face, and iron-grey 
 close- cropped hair. No appearance of beard or whiskers. 
 Say an old man, if you like ; yet so singularly handsome, 
 with such intelligence, vitality, and determination in his face, 
 that one felt glad that he was not a suitor for the hand of any 
 young lady whom one proposed to make one's own. I liked 
 the looks of him exceedingly. But unfortunately, he, at first, 
 could not admire the looks, even the presence, of either my 
 brother or myself. I found out afterwards the reason of this. 
 It was our beards. He told Mrs. Dishmore, during an interval 
 of squabbling, that he despised any man who was too lazy 
 to shave himself, and of course Mrs. Dishmore, who sparred 
 with us (or to speak more properly me) worse than she did 
 with him, told us. 1 was never anything but very civil to 
 the man, even before this, and always tried to make peace 
 between him and my brother, who never submitted to him 
 for one instant. But through it all I think he liked Edmund 
 better than he did me. 
 
 On this occasion, when the captain had walked forward, I 
 was gushingly polite to him. 1 said, to open the conversation, 
 " This wind will take us through the Heads in ten hours, sir. 
 Our crew are a rough lot, but they seem smart." 
 
 " I don't profess to know much of this sort of business, 
 sir," he growled ; "but if I may be allowed an opinion, I 
 should say that a more turbulent, drunken set of vagabonds
 
 OUR BROWN* PASSENGER, 305 
 
 never had charge of a ship before." And then he walked 
 aft, as if I was utterly below contempt. 
 
 I said to myself, " You are a cool hand, and somewhat 
 impertinent. You have been living in Queer Street, and 
 have got a history. I should like to know it. But you must 
 not be impertinent to me, young gentleman. I have lived 
 in Queer Street, too, though I don't know your number. 
 Folks who have once lived in Queer Street are never 
 impertinent to me. You must be won over. You are 
 worth it." 
 
 But meanwhile our rascally crew, Lascars, whitewashed 
 Americans, and " sundry," had got the anchor up and some 
 sails spread, and we began to travel down the harbour before 
 the north wind. Our skipper knew the harbour well enough 
 to drop his pilot and take her out though the heads on his 
 own responsibility. All down the long harbour the ship was 
 as steady as a rock, but when we had passed those Heads, 
 and came on the great swell of the Indian Ocean, the yards 
 were braced up, the great ship seemed to give a sigh, and 
 bent over to her sixteen thousand miles' battle with the 
 elements. My last recollection of the beautiful melancholy 
 country which we shall never see again is this : as our ship 
 made her first sickening plunge in the ocean, and showed us 
 that she was not a mere inert mass of iron, but a glorious, 
 almost living, creation of the human brain, I, standing on 
 the quarter-deck, and feeling as if the bottom of my stomach 
 was coming out at each mad dive (I am never sea-sick, this 
 is quite another thing), noticed that we were passing H.M.S. 
 Styx, which was thundering on in the teeth of the wind, at 
 one moment showing us, in beautiful contrast, her gleaming 
 bright deck, at another her long black hull, in which the 
 volcano slept. Sixty-four pounders are but pop guns in these 
 days, of course, but nevertheless she looked about as i II- 
 
 X
 
 3 u6 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 tempered and dangerous a bit of goods as ever floated on 
 the high seas. 
 
 Meanwhile we had got the westerly wind, and with it the 
 great westerly swell. The ship began to roll heavily as she 
 flew before it, burying her lee bulwarks continually. For a 
 few days I stayed much on deck enjoying the wild scene, but 
 it soon got too cold. The ship's head was southward, and 
 the days grew shorter, and the whirling snow-storms more 
 frequent as she went howling down towards the weltering 
 seas of the Antarctic Ocean. 
 
 So now I had leisure to examine our fellow-passengers 
 more closely. The first one I naturally studied was the one 
 who gives a title to this little story, — the man known to us 
 on the first half of the voyage as " the Brown Passenger." 
 
 I liked him, but he was very queer and reserved ; and he 
 for the first few days did not seem to like me. His great 
 objection, as he told me after, was my beard ; but even after 
 he passed that over, and we became more familiar, I could 
 not find out who he was, what was his rank in life, where he 
 had been, or what his opinions were. He was the closest 
 man I ever met. He agreed with me in a qualified manner, 
 till, like the late Mrs. Shandy, he nearly drove one mad. He 
 was so exasperatingly negative and reticent, and what made 
 the matter more exasperating was, that there was force and 
 decision on every line of his brown face. He was a man of 
 action, and a man of strong convictions, yet I never could 
 strike a spark out of him. I used to try. I felt sure that the 
 man had corns somewhere on his feet, and I used to stamp 
 about vaguely to try and punch one of them. I never got 
 any acknowledgment of feeling out of him, however, but a 
 slow amused smile. I saw that he liked me the better for 
 my efforts to irritate him into some expression of opinion, 
 but the only visible result was that same quiet bright smile,
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 307 
 
 — and that only appeared when I had contradicted myself in 
 trying to irritate him, and he had in a few clear words showed 
 that I was contradicting myself. I gave him up after a 
 week, for I made the not very flattering discovery that he 
 was amusing himself with me. He was Somebody, I said to 
 myself; a man who had been knocked about the world a 
 good deal, had heard many opinions expressed, and would 
 not commit himself. The captain, on inquiry, told me that 
 he had been knocked about the world considerably, and that 
 his name was Hatterton ; that was all I ever got out of the 
 skipper. 
 
 I said that his qualities were entirely negative. Why, 
 no ; for one thing, he smoked more Bengal cheroots than I 
 ever remember another man doing ; and for another, his ex- 
 treme dislike and opposition to Mrs. Dishmore was by no 
 means negative, but positive. This naturally leads us to 
 Mrs. Dishmore. 
 
 Mrs. Dishmore was originally a Miss Polk. She first 
 burst on the gaze of a somewhat startled world as a most 
 advanced lecturer upon the rights of women. That she ever 
 was a Bloomer is entirely untrue ; but she went further in her 
 notions even in dress tha/i her friends chose to follow her. 
 Age, however, brought experience. She receded from her 
 extremer views, and contented herself with contradicting and 
 setting right every one with whom she came in contact, with- 
 out any regard to age, sex, or degree of experience. Hearing 
 that an excellent Roman Catholic lady was doing some ex- 
 cellent work among homeless girls in the city we had just 
 left, she thought — knowing nothing about the matter, and 
 having nothing to do — that she could go out and show Mrs. 
 
 the proper way of doing her work. Now began our 
 
 acquaintance with her, and my brother's intense dislike 
 to her. She came in the same ship with my sister-in-law. 
 
 x 2
 
 3 o8 OUR BROWN' PASSENGER. 
 
 who was coming out to be married to my brother ; and poor 
 Maria poured her pretty little secret into the unsyinpathising 
 and flinty bosom of Miss Polk, who devoted the whole voy- 
 age to trying to persuade my sister-in-law to break off the 
 match, and to join her in the joys and independence of a 
 single life, bonded together against the tyranny of man. 
 What with Edmund's wife insisting on marrying Edmund, 
 
 and what with Mrs. affirming that she knew her own 
 
 business best, and refusing to be assisted on any terms, Miss 
 Polk grew disgusted with things in general, some of her own 
 opinions included, and in a mood of lofty and self-denying 
 scorn, proposed to Dishmore, a meek but wealthy little iron- 
 monger, who was flattered by her notice of him, and accepted 
 her proposal with great pleasure. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Dishmore was, I must allow, a terribly contra- 
 dictory and bumptious woman, always setting her hands to 
 do man's work instead of woman's ; but there was something 
 more than that merely, which made our Brown Passenger, 
 Hatterton, take such an intense dislike to her. The fact was, 
 that she offended him, and jarred upon his senses by every 
 word and gesture ; he hated her way of going on, and she, of 
 a far coarser texture of nerve, was utterly unable to see that 
 she repelled him. She took a great fancy to him, and fol- 
 lowed him everywhere, until he was driven to the forecastle, 
 and sometimes even to the masthead. 
 
 I never shall forget his face the first day at noon, when 
 Mrs. Dishmore took out her sextant and took her observation- 
 at noon. She had a chart of her own, and always markeid 
 the ship's place on it, never making her reckoning the same 
 as the skipper's, and always maintaining she was right. 
 However, as I once marked the place from her reckoning, 
 and made the discovery that the ship was in the centre of 
 the Brazils, forty miles north of the city of Goyaz, I was less
 
 OL'R BROWN PASSENGER. 309 
 
 anxious about the captain's incompetency than I should have 
 been. 
 
 The first and almost the only piece of confidence I ever 
 got from Mr. Hatterton was late one wild night, when I met 
 him coming into the saloon, with an expression of face, which 
 was partly astonishment, and partly exasperation. He had 
 never spoken familiarly to me before, but he must speak to 
 some one, and he spoke to me. " Sir," he said, " I am 
 blessed if that woman aint on deck in the steward's macin- 
 tosh, taking a lunar." 
 
 The captain turned out to be a most charming and gallant 
 sailor, and the first officer did not belie his character either. 
 He was a headlong, ill-conditioned ruffian. He never for- 
 gave my brother's hoity-toity treatment of him in the coffee- 
 room of the tavern, but he was afraid of my brother, and 
 tried whether or no he could avenge himself on me by a 
 variety of petty insults. I had to stop it. 
 
 The crew were a great study. I wish there was room in 
 this story for a full description of them. Such few of them 
 as had not been picked up at San Francisco, had been got, 
 drunk, out of the crimp-houses in the port from which we had 
 sailed. I should say there were twenty-five of them ; one or 
 two lascars, one or two Portuguese, one American (U.S.), 
 and one Baltic German. All the rest called themselves citi- 
 zens of the United States, and were of the class commonly 
 called whitewashed Yankees, and who seem to be as cor- 
 dially detested by the real American sailors, as they are by 
 British captains. I have carefully separated the one real 
 American sailor, as fine a fellow as ever stepped [" run "] 
 from a Pacific whaler, from them, as you see. We disliked 
 the slangy, turbulent, quarrelsome rowdies enough,*but his 
 unutterable contempt for them was too deep for words. He 
 was a great, blond, handsome giant, with a beard : hailing
 
 3 io OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 from Nantucket, as he said. He used to put all the rest of 
 the crew out of his way like dirt, and I expected to see a 
 knife in his ribs every day ; but he ruled them like a lord, 
 nevertheless, and they looked up to him as a demi-god. He 
 was one of the great new race, and their dog-instinct told 
 them so. They were always brutally fighting among one 
 another, but no one, though some of them were as big as he, 
 ever dared to offer to fight him. He was familiar with no 
 one except my brother, and our Brown Passenger, Hatterton, 
 who seemed- to appreciate him. He, although with a deep 
 belief in the glory of the United States, wanted to see Eng- 
 land. And it is strange, but perfectly true, that the place of 
 all others he wanted to see in England was — what ? — Strat- 
 ford-on-Avon ! He didn't know his Shakspeare to any degree 
 worth mentioning, but he was very angry with me because I 
 laughed at him about this whim of his. But a whim it was, 
 and he gratified it. 
 
 Hatterton, my brother, the good-natured and solitary mid- 
 shipman, the American sailor, and myself, were one night 
 smoking together in the waist, in the interval of a snow 
 storm, when he said this : — 
 
 " I suppose, squire," addressing himself to Mr. Hatterton, 
 " ever since Noah's ark sailed from the port of Babylon, 
 crew, eight souls, all told, and an amount of live stock, which 
 could only be excused under the circumstances, that a 
 queerer lot neve/ put to sea than this present ship's com- 
 pany." 
 
 " We are a devilish queer lot," answered Hatterton. " I 
 have seen some queer things myself, and some queer crews, 
 but never anything like this. What the deuce prevents the 
 crew, headed by the mate, from walking aft some fine night, 
 cutting our throats, and taking the ship northward and run- 
 ning her on shore on the coast of Peru, to spend the eight
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 311 
 
 thousand ounces of gold on board, is past my compre- 
 hension." 
 
 " The passengers, squire !— the passengers ! " 
 " The passengers ! " said our Brown Passenger, with the 
 deepest contempt ; ' : the passengers ! " 
 
 " Ay, squire ; there's passengers, and there's passengers. 
 As for emigrants, you might slaughter a shipful of 'em like 
 sheep ; but such fellows as this one, and this one (he pointed 
 to my brother and to me) have had their lives in their hands 
 before now. They would fight ; and there are fifty more men 
 aboard like them, or better. THEY know it. They'll never 
 come aft. If they do, God help 'em." 
 
 They never did, and they never will. The passengers dis- 
 trusted the crew, and the crew knew it, and insulted the pas- 
 sengers. There was no communication, and no collision be- 
 tween us, until the very last. There were six people berthed 
 aft who dared go forward, and these were, — the first mate 
 (the worst ruffian of the lot), the carpenter, the steward and 
 his wife, and, strange to say, Hatterton, the Brown Pas- 
 senger, who went forward, and sent them right and left like 
 unruly dogs ; and, stranger still, Eliza Dishmore. She, as 
 they would say in their barbarous slang, "slewed" them. 
 They could not make her out at all. Whether she was a 
 woman, or a man in disguise ; whether she was sailing the 
 ship, or whether the captain was {she had a deal more to say 
 about it than ever he had), they could not make out ; but she 
 cleared them out of her way in a royal matter-of-fact style, 
 which had the proper effect. She was on the forecastle once, 
 in half a gale, when the ship was going about three-quarters 
 free (I must mind being too nautical), when the man at the 
 wheel drove the ship's nose into it ; that is to say, shortly, 
 laid the ship under water. Eliza Dishmore, having rescued 
 herself from the lee scuppers, walked aft, and gave it to that
 
 3 i2 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 man. What she said to him, how she contrived to hurt his 
 feelings to the extent she did, we shall never know. But he 
 and the rest of our very piratical crew fought very shy of her 
 afterwards. I am glad / was not the man at the wheel, 
 however. 
 
 You have gone with me so far. It seems to me that I have 
 nothing more to tell you about the ship, and the different 
 relations of those who were sailing in her. Now comes an 
 incident which altered the most of those relations, and which 
 makes this little story worth telling. 
 
 When you get lower down than 53 south, a great westerly 
 wind, always strong, and sometimes, nay, more than some- 
 times, breezing up into a gale, blows round the world : the 
 wind against which Lord Anson fought, and in his noble 
 ignorance did almost the noblest deed of British seamanship. 
 We were going before that wind now, but southing on it, to 
 make, as near as is possible, the great circle of the Rebel 
 Maury. Sometimes this wind has a few degrees north in it, 
 sometimes a few degrees south. One evening it was so 
 nearly north-west, that the ship, still heading southward, was 
 laid over, with the water tearing in cascades over her lee 
 bulwarks. 
 
 That day we had had champagne. Three days before it 
 had blown up into a gale, and the skipper had put the ship 
 before it, and we had run a thousand miles in ninety-six 
 hours, — a most splendid run for any ship in such a heavy 
 sea ; that was the reason of the champagne. 
 
 That same evening the skipper, the Brown Passenger, and 
 myself, were smoking on the quarter-deck. The gale had 
 moderated, but the sea was getting heavier and heavier. The 
 wind, as I said, was north-west, and very warm (please to 
 remember that we were in the southern hemisphere, and that 
 the wind was from the equator), but as the evening dropped,
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 313 
 
 it grew colder and colder, until it got deadly chill. Then, as 
 darkness settled down on the face of the wild heaving waters, 
 a snow-storm came drifting on the wind, and made the ship 
 look, to us on the quarter-deck, like the ghost of a ship 
 driving through a sea of pitch. 
 
 Our good skipper had been talking to our Brown Passenger, 
 Hatterton, and they both seemed dissatisfied with something. 
 I heard the skipper say, " I must turn in. I cannot stand 
 five-and-twenty hours of it. Keep on deck as long as you 
 can. Here he is." And then the first officer came up to 
 relieve him. 
 
 "Mr. Hicks," were his last words, " if it comes on any 
 thicker, lay the ship to immediately. Be sure of this. I 
 must turn in." 
 
 Hatterton and I staid on deck a little while, and the 
 weather seemed mending ; the intervals between the snow- 
 storms were longer, and we thought the night would lift, so 
 we went and turned in too, and I tried to sleep. 
 
 But I could not. Three thousand miles from land, in those 
 awful, desolate latitudes, a ghastly danger all around, un- 
 seen, and yet near enough to lay its hand upon one's heart, 
 and freeze one's blood, and the ship dashing along under the 
 charge of a reckless drunken villain. Sleep — not I ! I 
 once more got out of my warm bed (it was freezing cold, 
 now, and I shook with fear as well), and went on deck. My 
 worst fears were realised ; we were in the midst of a blinding 
 snow-storm, and the ship was flying through it at her best 
 pace. To remonstrate with the drunken madman, Hicks, 
 was' to be told to mind my own business. I turned to arouse 
 the captain. 
 
 Oh, that ghastly yell ! — that hideous cry of despair and 
 terror which went to my heart like a dagger, and told me 
 the end had come. It was the horrified shriek of the watch
 
 3 i 4 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 forward. It was inarticulate, but if the words for which that 
 cry was intended had been spoken never so slowly or so 
 loudly, they could not have told the disaster more plainly. 
 We were lost. 
 
 Almost at the bowsprit end the snow seemed to thicken 
 and to solidify, forming a white wall across her course. I 
 doubt if there was time to put the helm down. I had time 
 to see one hideous white ice crystal, just to the right of the 
 fore-royal yard, and then I crouched against the bulwarks, 
 expecting the shock. For we had run at full speed on an 
 iceberg. 
 
 It came in an instant. The ship stopped so suddenly that 
 I was thrown along the deck, bruised and hurt ; and then 
 one heard the crash. There was a ripping, tearing, and 
 cracking of wood all around, and last of all the sound of 
 heavy bodies falling through the air, as the masts came 
 headlong down, one on deck and two partly overboard. 
 Then ruin and confusion unutterable, indescribable. 
 
 I suppose my courage is about the same as that of 
 common-place people, but it would be worse than absurd 
 to conceal the fact that I was dazed and stunned by the 
 hideous disaster, and did not, for a certain, very short time, 
 know what to do. This may partly have arisen from the 
 fact that I instinctively knew, or thought I knew, that 
 nothing could be done— that death was a matter of minutes. 
 But this was not the case with the crew. Their sailor in- 
 stincts taught them better. The first thing I became aware 
 of, the first thing with any kind, of arrangement in it which 
 happened after the ruin was this : the crew was crowding 
 into the two larboard boats, which still hung in the davits 
 (the starboard boats had been crushed to atoms by the fall 
 of the foremast), and were leaving the ship. 
 
 The first boat, lowered with Clifford's apparatus, was in
 
 OUR HROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 j'j 
 
 the water in a moment, and in another was stove, and sunk 
 among the floating wreck. Not a soul in her came on 
 board again. The other hung in the davits longer ; their 
 complement was made up all but two — the carpenter, 
 and the American sailor, who stood before me. The car- 
 penter was not to be found, and the American stood looking 
 at them. 
 
 A young man had forced his way up from the second 
 cabin, and came to them. I heard what he said. 
 
 '■ There's room for a dozen more souls in that boat, 
 mates. Take my wife with you ; for the love of God, take 
 her." 
 
 Xo answer to him but curses. 
 
 "Where is the carpenter? We must have Chips. We 
 •want Chips," they cried. "Jump in, Yankee. Come on, or 
 you'll be too late." 
 
 I cannot give the American's answer. It was too rough. 
 The words in which he expressed his unutterable contempt for 
 them would not do to reproduce here. Yet, coarse as they 
 were, they were so wondrous witty that even while I am 
 dwelling on the horrors of that night, I cannot forbear to 
 laugh while I recall them. 
 
 The first mate, who commanded this boat, gave the word 
 to lower away, and they went down the ship's side into night 
 and darkness, never to be heard of again. It is impossible 
 to guess at their fate. They may have been swamped soon, 
 or they may have been tossed on that bitter, weltering sea till 
 they ate one another. Who can tell? May God forgive 
 them ! Xo one ever heard of them again. 
 
 It was a full moon, and the night was light. I saw that the 
 ship was settling down by the head, and moreover had 
 swung clear of the iceberg, and was going to settle herself 
 down decently, without any more breakage. There was a
 
 316 OUR BROWN* PASSENGER. 
 
 great deal of noise and confusion. The second-cabin pas- 
 passengers had broken up from below, preferring, for some 
 reason, the having a wild, desperate struggle for life, to being 
 drowned en masse. So there were some five-and-twenty 
 tragedies taking place around me, which I hardly noticed, for 
 between you and I, reader, life happened to be very precious 
 to me just at that time, and I was selfish and loth to die. But 
 some one laid a hand on my shoulder, and I looked round 
 and saw who it was. 
 
 Eliza Dishmorc. She said, " The ship is sinking, is it 
 not ? " 
 
 I said yes. " Have you seen my brother ? I should like 
 to see him again." 
 
 "He is with his wife and child. Better leave them 
 alone. Even a brother would be de trap. Stay, and die 
 with me." 
 
 " I will heartily consent to die with so brave a wo- 
 man." 
 
 " I always liked you," she said. " You never belic7wd in 
 me, but you were always good-natured when you laughed at 
 me. You will tell me, I know, when the time comes to say 
 good-by." 
 
 " It will not be long," I said. " Look at the angle of the 
 deck now." 
 
 " It has been like that this ten minutes," she said. "There 
 must be some hitch in the performance." 
 
 I might have thought she was taking things rather cooly. 
 and I do now. But at this moment I was nearly knocked 
 down by the carpenter, who appeared at full speed from for- 
 ward, and who seemed to be mad. The American sailor 
 turned round and joined us at this moment ; and we either 
 did say something, or were going to say something, to one 
 another, when we were interrupted by a voice — a voice from
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 317 
 
 the quarter-deck, which seemed to divide the dark night of 
 death like a flame of fire, and send despair like a howling 
 ghost to wander over the desolate ice-ridden sea, which was 
 ready to engulf us. A voice loud, shrill, and clear, audible 
 in every syllable, even in expression, though so loud that 
 everyone heard it plainly above the wash of the waves, and 
 the beating of the floating wreck upon the iron sides of the 
 ship. It was heard by every man and woman upon that 
 deck ; for at the hearing of it, the parting, wailing groups 
 broke up, and the men came staggering aft toward the 
 quarter-deck, pushing one another aside in their contest to 
 get nearer to it. 
 
 The voice shrilled out this upon the night and ruin, 
 " The ship is not sinking ; the fore compartment has 
 been stove, but the next is perfectly dry. Men ! if you 
 ever want to see England again, get to work and cut away 
 the wreck of the masts." 
 
 Whose voice was it? I had never heard it before. I 
 looked up at a light which was burning at the binnacle, on 
 the fore part of the quarter-deck, and saw the face of our 
 Brown Passenger. Hatterton, peering down into the dark- 
 ness. The voice was his. The American sailor, Eliza 
 Dishmorc, and myself immediately adjourned to that same 
 binnacle for orders ; and I well remember that the American 
 sailor bowed precedence to both of us, as we went up the 
 ladder. 
 
 " Carpenter," he said, as we approached him, " go for- 
 ward and give the young men their orders. Have the 
 wreck of the foremast and mizenmast cut away ; that will 
 do till daylight. The mainmast must lie on deck at present ; 
 that will do for to-night. Be sharp, now, or we shall have 
 another hole knocked in the ship's side. We are to the 
 leeward of ice now, but we shall drift into the swell again
 
 3 i8 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 directly, and then I wouldn't give twopence-halfpenny for us 
 with that wreck hanging overboard." 
 
 I went towards him, and I said, " What shall I do> 
 sir ? "' 
 
 "You ! Let me see? Who the devil is it? Ah ! I see. 
 You are a very popular fellow, with a gift of the gab. A 
 very good gift, mind you ; I wish I had it. You ; let me 
 see : you go and animate them. Tell them I am going to 
 take the ship to Valparaiso, and that there is not the least 
 fear of my not doing so. Have you seen the skipper ? " 
 Ao, sir 
 
 " Did he go off in one of the boats ? " 
 
 " Of course he did not," I said, indignantly. 
 
 " Of course not," answered the Brown Passenger. " Now, 
 sir?" 
 
 This was to the American sailor: who replied that he 
 wished to be " told off" to something special. 
 
 " Go to the helm, sir, for the present. I shall want yoit 
 when we rig a jury mast. You are a noble fellow, and the 
 only seaman I have left ; go forward, sir." 
 
 He went forward. There remained Eliza Dishmore, who 
 said : 
 
 " And what am I to do, sir ? " 
 
 " Go to your berth, madam, and thank God for your 
 safety." 
 
 " I can do more than that. Come, use me fairly, sir, or 
 you and I shall quarrel. Tell me off for something." 
 
 " Can you keep those women quiet ? Can you organise a 
 hospital ? For when day dawns we shall find a long list of 
 killed and wounded, I fear. There were many on deck." 
 
 " There were very few," she answered. " But I can do 
 what you want. If I could not, who could ? " 
 
 '■ Were you on deck, madam, when this happened?"
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 319 
 
 " I was." 
 
 " Did you see the skipper — the master, madam ? " 
 
 " I did not. But I saw the boats put off, and he was in 
 neither of them. He is lying dead somewhere ; under the 
 wreck of the mainmast. How utterly mean you must be to 
 suspect that man ! " 
 
 " Mean, madam?" 
 
 "Yes, mean. And why do you suspect and dislike me so, 
 that your gentle breeding hardly keeps you civil ? You are 
 a gentleman, but you have gone near the edge of your gen- 
 tility in your treatment of me. What have I done that you 
 should treat me as you have done? " 
 
 " Madam, I humbly beg your pardon. May I beg that 
 you would be kind enough to proceed about what you under- 
 took ? " 
 
 I believe that this was the only explanation ever entered 
 into by this queer pair. But the next time I saw them toge- 
 ther they seemed perfectly devoted to one another, and 
 remained so for the whole voyage. He not only had got 
 really to respect her, from seeing all her noble qualities shine 
 out, in spite of her fantastic appearance and odd manners, 
 but his delicate conscience told him he had been more brusque 
 with her on some occasions than he should have been. He 
 made the most perfect amends. 
 
 Meanwhile day crept up over the busy scene, and the snow- 
 storm ceased, giving way to a glorious, clear, sparkling morn. 
 Engaged as I was, I could not help looking round with the 
 most eager curiosity to catch sight of the iceberg — that 
 hideous grey mass on which we had struck in the dead of the 
 wild night. It was close to us still, scarce five miles off at 
 sunrise, and of all the beautiful objects I have ever seen I 
 think that was the most beautiful. It lay floating upon a 
 bright blue sea, flecked with flying purple shadows, and every
 
 3=o OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 crystal and pinnacle was blazing like the brightest silver 
 against an intensely blue sky, while the shadows on the berg 
 itself were of the palest, most delicate green. It was the 
 only one near us, but to the south we could see a long line of 
 them, stretching across the horizon, much like another Ber- 
 nese Oberland. 
 
 We found the poor captain, struck down on deck, with 
 both his legs broken, entirely helpless. But we had no need 
 of his services, poor fellow, for our brown friend turned out 
 to be the finest sailor we had ever sailed with ;' a master of his 
 profession in every branch, apparently knowing as much of 
 details as the carpenter. A surgeon too, and no bad one, for 
 he set the captain's legs, and the Scotch stewardess and 
 Edmund's wife nursed him into convalescence. A man of 
 resource, for he and the carpenter got a sail over the bows, 
 and so far stopped the leak as to get the fore compartment 
 pumped out, which made her sail better. A man perfectly 
 accustomed to command, and before we had been four days 
 on our new voyage we saw that we should have been lost 
 after all without him. 
 
 To say that Mrs. Dishmore turned out a thorough trump 
 may be familiar, but it is certainly true. She discovered 
 next day that the cook was drowned, so she instantly esta- 
 blished herself at the coppers, and worked there and among 
 the wounded like a slave. The instant it was possible to do 
 so, she suggested the propriety of offering up a thanksgiving. 
 And this led me to the conclusion, judging from his splendid 
 intonation, that our wonderful brown friend had been accus- 
 tomed to read prayers in public. Another person who 
 turned out a real hero was the solitary young midshipman 
 whom we had first seen. His fortune is made. He has a 
 ship of his own now. 
 
 We were two long months getting to Valparaiso, and the
 
 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 321 
 
 perfect accord there was among us all, the perfect good 
 temper and mutual kindness which was shown by every one 
 in the ship, made it the happiest voyage I ever made. Out 
 of the hundred people assembled in that ship, there are no 
 two, I am certain, who would not meet now as friends. 
 
 It was only when I was passing in a boat, with my brother 
 and sister, under the bows of the ship at Valparaiso, that I 
 fully understood what had happened. Those beautiful, deli- 
 cate bows were ripped and bulged into a hideous, shapeless 
 mass, half veiled by a puckered sail, which hid from our view 
 the still more awful gaps it shrouded. The injuries had been 
 mainly above water, and thus had helped to save us. 
 
 Thebrown gentleman had left the ship in care of the captain, 
 who was now well enough to attend to duty, that very morn- 
 ing. We learnt from the shore boats that her Majesty's 
 frigate Uiana was in the harbour, and would sail for England 
 that day. As we passed up the harbour we saw her get 
 under weigh : the six hundred men were still swarming on 
 her rigging as she passed us : on the quarter-deck we saw 
 Hatterton. 
 
 Yes, he indeed, for he saw us, and cried out to us, " God 
 bless you ! God bless you ! Good-by !" and we answered in 
 a similar manner, and then all sat silent, having found out, 
 now we had lost him, how well we had got to love him. 
 
 We found at the hotel on shore a packet directed to my 
 brother in his handwriting. It was an address to the pas- 
 sengers, and ran as follows : — 
 
 " Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Hatterton presents his com- 
 pliments to the passengers of the ship Typhoon, and con- 
 gratulates them on the successful termination of a very 
 perilous voyage. 
 
 " During his long experience in arctic discovery, he has 
 never seen more courage, more patience, and more good- 
 
 Y
 
 322 OUR BROWN PASSENGER. 
 
 humour displayed than he has lately witnessed among the 
 passengers of the Typhoon, the whole of whom, with four 
 exceptions, were landsmen. 
 
 '"With the heartiest good wishes to every one of them, he- 
 bids them heartily farewell."'
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 Y 2
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 gpu HE Scotch habitually seek their fortunes, and 
 f-rwK E^vl nearly always, most deservedly, find them. 
 Englishmen generally wait for their fortunes to 
 be brought to them, and somehow or another 
 their expectations are generally fulfilled, which 
 is very lucky for the Englishman, because he is by far the 
 worst fortune-hunter of the three united nations. The Scotch- 
 man hunts his fortune in a cool, masterful way, which com- 
 mands success. The world takes a man generally (so they 
 say) at his own valuation. The Scotchman's valuation of 
 himself is very high, and, moreover, it is a correct valuation. 
 Englishmen who have to get things done in strange countries, 
 sleep sound when they have got a cool Scotchman as their 
 subordinate or coadjutor. You are perfectly certain of him. 
 He knows his own immense value, and makes you and the 
 world also know it. The Irishman hunts fortune in a very 
 different way. He is not cosmopolitan, like the Scotchman. 
 He can, like him, be all things to all men, but in a very dif- 
 ferent way. The Scotchman has the genius to be actually 
 one of the community in which he is thrown. The Irishman 
 has not. He only learns in a superficial manner the talk of
 
 326 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 the community, and offends that community continually by 
 showing it that it is all skin deep, and that he is an Irishman 
 still. The Scotchman will actually become and be, in Eng- 
 land, a most admirable factor, manager, or gamekeeper ; in 
 China, a most excellent blue-bottoned mandarin. Scotch- 
 men, where Scotchmen are few, are a little apt to be jealous 
 of one another, not liking a divided empire. Irishmen herd 
 together like sheep, and form a community utterly apart 
 from all the other nations of the world, and win their way to 
 salaried places by sheer dint of " log rolling," and holding 
 by his own countrymen. In new countries an Irishman 
 seldom goes long without a situation. It is very rare to find 
 a Scotchman in the receipt of a salary for long. He soon 
 exchanges a salary for a share in the business. Your Irish- 
 man will be contented with wages to the day of his death. 
 Of course there are exceptions. There are many Irishmen 
 who are as shrewd, as keen, and as independent as any 
 Scotchman ; yet the rule is, I think, as I have stated it. 
 
 The young men of these two nations succeed, in their dif- 
 ferent ways, in the battle of life : the Scotch in England, in 
 Europe, and in the colonies ; the Irish, in the United States, 
 and the Southern colonies. Now of the English. 
 
 The average well-educated young Englishman possesses 
 the good qualities of both the sister nations in the highest 
 degree. He is as well made, as well educated, as well trained 
 morally (perhaps better). As for physical training, he is 
 ridiculously overdone in that matter. He is truthful, kindly, 
 brave, and only too generous ; yet when this fellow-country- 
 man of mine is put on his own legs, without interest or help> 
 to find his own fortunes, he turns out to be the most ridicu- 
 lously helpless animal on the face of the globe. Put the work 
 ready to his hand, and he will do it, as few besides French- 
 men and Prussians can do it. Set him to find the work,
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 327 
 
 ami lie will miss it. An Englishman must have the work 
 brought to him in a spoon, and put to his mouth. Then 
 
 Enough of generalizing. Let me tell my story. Draw 
 nearer the fire, for I mean to make you feel cold before we 
 part 
 
 In times, very old now, in the times when our fathers were 
 very young, there was a certain Captain Blackeston, of the 
 1 1 2th regiment of the British line, who was very highly dis- 
 tinguished in the service. 
 
 He was a very well-known man indeed, deeply respected 
 and liked by his wild comrades of those times, though they 
 pretended to laugh at him as a bookworm and a Methodist. 
 The more intelligent generals of those times were beginning 
 to get used to his name. The Duke of Wellington, in 
 alluding to some pamphlets of his, had said that to all 
 appearance he had more knowledge of military history than 
 any man of his day. He was a man marked for promotion. 
 
 His regiment was ordered to America in 1815, but General 
 Oakfield begged him, as a personal favour, to accept the 
 .appointment of aide-de-camp. Oakfield was one of the few 
 men who saw that there would certainly be another struggle, 
 and that Napoleon must be sent further than Elba before 
 Europe would be quiet. He put such reasons before Black- 
 eston as made him stay, to the wonder of his regiment. He 
 got leave to accept the appointment, and took the oppor- 
 tunity of the pause to marry a beautiful young wife. 
 
 Oakfield was a splendid soldier and a brave man, but he 
 was very rude and wild in his life. I must only say that 
 Oakfield, considering Blackeston to be under obligations to 
 him, almost patronised Mrs. Blackeston. It is to be said in 
 excuse for Oakfield that he took quite as much to drink as 
 was allowable in those liberal old times, and that when the 
 scandal took place he was half drunk.
 
 3 2S SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 He, so the story goes, came to Mrs. Blackeston's apart- 
 ments in the Rue St. Hubert later than he should have done, 
 having ascertained, so said Blackeston's defence on the 
 court-martial, that Captain Blackeston was out. He offered 
 some verbal rudeness to her, which made her raise her 
 voice and scold him. Blackeston can e in from the next 
 room, and seized General Oakfield by the throat. In the 
 scandalous struggle which followed, the general fell down- 
 stairs. 
 
 Not one word was said on either side. Had it not been 
 that General Oakfield did not appear at the Duchess of 
 Richmond's ball, and that he took his regiment into action 
 at Ouatre Bras with a black eye, nothing would ever have 
 been said. But people will cackle and gossip as long as the 
 world lasts. 
 
 I believe that the thing might have been finished between 
 these two men, had it not been for the cackling of their com- 
 rades. The porter of the house had told the truth to every 
 one he met. So General Oakfield's friends taunted him with 
 having been beaten, and Blackeston's friends sneered at him 
 for not having called the general out. Blackeston, a studious 
 and sensitive man, felt the taunts of his friends as only a 
 student can. 
 
 Yet this quarrel between the two men would have died 
 into stillness if it had been left alone. Blackeston thought 
 that OakficM was drunk, and did not know what he was 
 about ; and Oakfield confessed to himself that he was half 
 drunk, had made a fool of himself, and had been properly 
 served. The two men went into action together at Waterloo ; 
 and in that ghastly pushing crush up the hill at half-past six, 
 with the world at stake, when Oakfield's horse, killed by a 
 cannon shot, came headlong down dead, and cast Oakfield 
 prone on the ground among the legs of his men, Blackeston
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 329 
 
 " set him on his own beast," and said, " Heavens ! general, 
 I feared you were hit yourself." 
 
 But they would not leave them alone to settle their quarrel, 
 lilackeston's friends sneered him into madness— sneered him 
 into the miserable folly of sending a challenge to General 
 Oakfield. 
 
 Oakfield very properly did not wish to fight. Since his 
 half-tipsy escapade he had been very near the gates of death, 
 and had seen very serious things : Ouatre Bras and Mont St. 
 Jean, for instance. I think that the man behaved well. He 
 consulted his friend General Lennox. He confessed himself 
 in the wrong entirely ; pointed out that, after his conduct at 
 Waterloo, his courage was beyond suspicion ; and asked his 
 brother general whether he might not be allowed to apolo- 
 gise and refuse to fight. His brother general agreed with 
 him", but unfortunately allowed the matter to reach the ears 
 of the Duke. 
 
 The Duke's heart was hot and furious within him. They 
 were advancing on the country of the French, one of the 
 most irritable, valiant, and sensitive people in the world. The 
 Prussians were showing already signs of Vandalism. His 
 own personal prestige was sufficiently great to keep all things 
 in order, and to prevent a quarrel with the French which time 
 could never heal — a quarrel which would make the name of 
 Englishman loathed in France for ever. The first necessary 
 thing was to keep his own raw troops, few of whom had ever 
 seen war, in order. The prestige which he had acquired by 
 beating the starved French out of Spain, with command of 
 the sea, and the lines of Torres Yedras for a basis of opera- 
 tions, would avail him to keep Blucher in order, who had 
 nothing to show per contra but Jena and Ligny. But he 
 must keep his own army in order. If he allowed one officer 
 to fight one duel, where would he be? After an enmity of
 
 330 SEEKING YOLK FORTUNE. 
 
 twenty-five years, there were twenty thousand high-spirited 
 officers in France, who would shoot an Englishman as they 
 would shoot a dog. This habit of duelling must be checked 
 in one way or another. An example must be made : and the 
 example was Blackcston. He was brought to court-martial 
 for challenging his superior officer — was cashiered, disgraced, 
 and ruined. 
 
 Blackeston was a rare man in the British army in these 
 days, but the type of man is getting commoner now, as the 
 Staff College can witness. He was a student soldier — a man 
 of the Havelock type, of whom let our enemies beware. But 
 he was a man of extreme sensibility ; he thought himself 
 disgraced, and went away to hide himself from the ken of 
 man. He hid his head in Wales, at a place called Plas 
 Gwynant, under Snowdon, as you go from Capel Curig to 
 Bethgelert, fronting the lake which is called Llyn y Dinas. 
 Here his poor bride, worried nearly to death by the details 
 of the court-martial, and killed by the verdict of it, gave 
 birth to a son, and died. 
 
 I cannot in this space go in a business-like manner into 
 Blackeston's difficulties. They grew greater, and at last 
 irremediable. But he declined to be ruined, to beg, and to 
 whine. He was never in debt. The time came when even 
 the rent of Plas Gwynant was beyond his means. He passed 
 out of that house a free man, with some fifty pounds a year, 
 and went into a cottage, in that narrow gorge under Snowdon, 
 which they call, I think, or ought to call, Glyn y Ilan. But 
 he took with him his boy and his books. 
 
 His books. He refused to part with them. I am at this 
 moment puzzled to say whether or not the books make the 
 boy. 
 
 It would be wearisome were it even possible to give an 
 account of these books. They comprised the best scientific
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 33i 
 
 and mathematical books, and a sufficiency of history ; but the 
 speciality of the library was that it contained probably the 
 finest collection of military books in any one private hand in 
 England. Blackcston, ageing rapidly, hearing only dim 
 rumours of the world, was left alone with his books, his boy, 
 and his God, under the solemn shadows of the soaring 
 Wydffa. 
 
 To shape the human soul which was in his keeping as near 
 to perfection as he might, was now his care, his pleasure, and 
 his labour. As for the boy's prosperity in life, for his profes- 
 sion, for his friends, Blackeston was profoundly indifferent. 
 " I will make the boy fit," he said, " and God will find the 
 work." His mind was getting unhealthy in his disappoint- 
 ment, and this fatalism went near to ruining the youth, in 
 spite of all his excellences. 
 
 There was scarcely enough to eat in this little cottage of 
 theirs, and yet he gave the lad the education of a German 
 prince. As the son grew up, the father was astonished at his 
 own handy-work. Lionel Blackeston at eighteen was not 
 only a well-grown and finely-framed youth, but also was a 
 highly-informed man, a splendid theoretical soldier, and a 
 perfect gentleman ; a gentleman, however, who had scarcely 
 twice in his life interchanged words with one of his own 
 order. 
 
 In those days there were a considerable number of grouse 
 on the hills to the south of Llyn y Dinas. Shooting was one 
 of the accomplishments which Captain Blackeston had given 
 to Lionel ; and the moor being free, he used to ramble 
 many miles, the contributions which his gun brought to 
 their limited larder being extremely welcome. His father' 
 now rapidly ageing, ceased to accompany him in these 
 rambles. 
 
 One August clay, when getting good sport among that in-
 
 332 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 numerable maze of tiny lakes which lie under and around 
 the pretty, needle-like peak, Cnicht, he heard the double 
 report of a gun, and instantly afterwards three birds came 
 over the slight knoll in front of him, of which he knocked 
 down two, one of which fell in the little lake, or rather pond, 
 on the shore of which he stood. The next minute another 
 sportsman, attended by a gamekeeper and a brace of dogs, 
 came over the hill and approached him. 
 
 He watched the new comer. He was a splendid-looking 
 young man, with a very refined face, dressed very beautifully, 
 in black velvet, with yellowish cord trousers ; a dandy, with a 
 watch-chain and rings, the first dandy Lionel Blackeston had 
 ever seen in his life. The young dandy also looked at Lionel 
 — a strange contrast to himself, for he was clothed all in grey 
 Welsh flannel, wearing breeches, common grey stockings, and 
 very thick boots ; yet a fine figure notwithstanding, and the 
 word " gentleman " so plainly written in his handsome face, 
 and bold upstanding carriage, that the young dandy came 
 straight towards him with a smile and a bow. 
 
 " One of us is, I think, trespassing, and I greatly fear that 
 I am the culprit. My father, Lord Hawkestone, has only 
 lately bought this property, and we are not at all sure of our 
 marches, nor indeed of whom we march with ; and this keeper 
 is a stranger and a Scotchman. I have been principally used 
 to shooting in Scotland. Allow me to introduce myself. I 
 am Lord Overbury." 
 
 " You are certainly over your march, my lord ; but all the 
 moor is as free as air. I should decidedly advise you to shoot 
 among these bracken fells as often as possible. You will find 
 that the grouse lie here thicker than on any part of your 
 father's estate, except Glyn Edno. Now we are on the sub- 
 ject, allow me to say that I have to apologise for having 
 frequently trespassed across your marches. I was unaware
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 333 
 
 that you were going to preserve, although I heard that you 
 were going to purchase Glyn Edno." 
 
 " I hope that you will repeat your trespass as often as you 
 wish," said Lord Overbury. " I sec that your bird has fallen 
 into the loch. Allow me to send my dog after him." 
 
 This little civility paved the way for others. Lord Over- 
 bury said, — 
 
 " You mentioned just now a part of our estate in which 
 the grouse lie as thick as they do here. \Yc are utterly un- 
 acquainted with our new estate, and are ignorant of its 
 capacities for game. If you would kindly consent to walk 
 with me to the part you speak of, you would confer a great 
 favour on me ; a favour which will not be half repaid by 
 my requesting you to shoot our moor whenever you feel 
 inclined." 
 
 The invitation was too tempting to be resisted, and Lionel 
 went south with him, pointed out his march, shot over the 
 best part of the moor with him, and ended by accepting an 
 invitation to enter Lord Hawkestone's house. 
 
 There w as a little discussion before he accepted this invita- 
 tion. The two young men had been walking for five hours 
 together among the mountains, with no one but a sedate 
 Scotch gamekeeper for company, and felt as if they had 
 known one another for at least five years. The} - were perfectly 
 confident and perfectly familiar with one another. Lord 
 Overbury said, " You must come and spend the evening with 
 us." Lionel said, " My father is at home alone." Lord Over- 
 bury said, " You have confessed to me that you often lie 
 out on the hill-side, and so that goes for nothing." Lionel 
 said, " I have never been into society." Lord Overbury said, 
 "It is time, then, that you begun.'' " I have no clothes," 
 said Lionel. "Once in a way you can wear mine," said Lord 
 Overbury.
 
 334 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 It was done, and he was saved. 
 
 At eight o'clock that evening Lord Hawkestone, getting 
 petulant for his dinner, had rung up the butler for the third 
 time, and had said — 
 
 " I shall wait for Lord Overbury no longer." 
 
 " His lordship is dressing, sir," said the butler. 
 
 " It matters nothing to me. If Overbury chooses cold soup, 
 he must choose it." 
 
 The very next moment he came face to face with a young 
 man, whom he took for Lord Overbury, but who was, of 
 course, our friend Lionel. He did not see his mistake at first, 
 but merely said, " George, you are incorrigibly unpunctual 
 about dinner. Give me your arm. When you have done as 
 I have done, when you have lived out politics, love, military 
 glory, and friendship, as I have done, and have nothing left 
 to look forward to but your dinner and your death, you will 
 be more punctual about your dinner. Your death will keep." 
 
 Lord Hawkestone, who put his hand on Lionel's arm, not 
 recognising him, never dreamed that he was speaking to 
 anyone but his own son until they were seated at dinner. 
 Then Lord Overbury said to his father, " You seem to have 
 taken to my new friend, father." 
 
 Lord Hawkestone, who was eating his fish, looked up, and 
 his eyes got fixed on Lionel. " I thought it was you, George," 
 he said ; " why did you bring him of all men here ? " 
 
 " I met him on the moors," said Lord Overbury. 
 
 " But you need not have brought him home," said Lord 
 Hawkestone. " Take away this fish, it is stale. Is your father 
 dead?" 
 
 Lionel said, " No, that his father was alive." 
 
 " I was not to blame. I really was not in any way to 
 blame. It was merely a parcel of quidnuncs and idiots who 
 were to blame ; and I was not so very wrong in the first in-
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 335 
 
 stance. I was only tipsy. Take warning by the faults of your 
 fathers, you young men, and avoid drink. What I said to 
 her was quite harmless. Still he was right." 
 
 Lord Overbury interposed. 
 
 " Father, you are wandering. You are really confusing 
 matters. This young gentleman is merely an acquaintance 
 I have picked up on the moors. I do not even know his 
 
 name." 
 
 " I can tell it you, then," said Lord Hawkestone, "though 
 I have never set eyes on him before : his name is Blacke- 
 
 ston." 
 
 Both the young men stared with astonishment as the old 
 man went on, " What need to ask his name ? is it not written 
 on his face? Young gentleman, ask your father if he re- 
 members and forgives General Oakfield, who has since 
 become Lord Hawkestone." 
 
 Nothing very particular passed further on this occasion. 
 Lionel went home, and reported what had passed to his father, 
 who only said, — 
 
 " Yes, yes ! that is all very well. So you acted ghost at his 
 dinner, eh? Forgive him? I forgave him at Waterloo." 
 
 Neither of the young men ever received one word of ex- 
 planation from cither of their fathers. Lord Hawkestone died 
 soon after, and Lionel heard of his friend afar off, in all the 
 splendour of his new inheritance. He was to come into his 
 own heritage soon. 
 
 He spoke to his father about Lord Hawkestone once, and 
 once only, after the first time, because he saw that there was 
 some painful remembrance. " I think it fine in Lord Hawke- 
 stone," he said, " sticking to the army after having come into 
 such a fine fortune." And his father said, " It is creditable. 
 His father was not a bad man, and his mother came of a 
 good stock."
 
 336 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 It was wild early winter, and the mountain lowered over- 
 head like a vast and dim white ghost ; day was falling, night 
 approaching, when he turned into their glen, after a long 
 day's walk, looking forward eagerly to the firelight in his 
 father's mean window, and anticipating one more evening of 
 happy study and happy conversation with his beloved one 
 over the fire. Alas ! never, never more ! There was no light 
 in the house, and it was silent and empty. 
 
 Uneasiness gave way to alarm, alarm to terror, terror to 
 despair, for the night was wild and terrible — a night in which 
 nature was so fierce and fell, that it would take the strongest 
 young body, and the bravest young heart, to contend with her. 
 Certainly the enfeebled frame of his father would succumb. 
 Unknowing where to go, he spent a maddening night among 
 the winds and the waters, which grew madder as the night 
 went on. When the winter's sun rose, and smote upon the 
 peak of Snowdon, the land was loud with the roar of raging 
 waters ; and above all the sound and confusion, arose the 
 mountain — solitary, calm, cruel, with his secret folded in its 
 bosom. 
 
 That secret never was read, for the mountain kept it to 
 himself. When the snow went they searched, but much had 
 come and gone with the snow. Whether the poor gentleman 
 had fallen from some dizzy height, or whether he was 
 whelmed in an avalanche, or drowned in a torrent, they 
 never knew. The debris from the winter's ruin on the moun- 
 tain was the only burial he ever had. 
 
 ye had trusted the mountain, and loved it. It had been a 
 familiar thing to him, and he had been warned more than 
 once by neighbours that he was too rash with it. This was 
 the end. 
 
 Not only the end of him, but the end of much more. 
 Lionel's situation was an almost inconceivable one. He had
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 337 
 
 never had the handling of any money, but now he found 
 himself utterly penniless. 
 
 I do not suppose that he had ever had more than a shilling 
 or two at one time ; but here now, in the midst of this 
 ghastly affliction, he found himself without any shillings at 
 all. If he had ever wanted a shilling, which was seldom, — 
 for what could he have done with it among the mountains?— 
 his father had given it to him, warning him that there were 
 not many. Suddenly the mountain, which they both had 
 loved, had devoured his father, and was holding aloft its 
 silver crystal in silent triumph over its victim ; — and there 
 was no more money. 
 
 He knew absolutely nothing of his father's affairs, save 
 that they were very poor. When the necessity was forced 
 upon him, he hunted in places into which he had never 
 thought of looking in the old times, for money. But he found 
 none. He found in his father's bureau, and elsewhere, a lock 
 of hair (only one, done up with a blue riband), a pair of spurs, 
 a sword or two, and a French eagle; but of money none, and 
 of jewelry none. Of manuscripts many ; but merely, as Lionel 
 saw, the cast-aside rubbish of a man who had been so long 
 dissociated from the world that he had run into foolish, sense- 
 less dreams. Lionel looked into the titles of one or two of 
 them, and saw that they were all rubbish. "An Inquiry 
 into the powers of Flotation, addressed to my Lords of the 
 Admiralty : inquiring as to whether or no my Lords are 
 prepared to build a frigate — 1st, which carries a scantling of 
 six inches of iron, backed by eleven inches of teak or oak ; 
 2nd, which is sufficiently short for naval manoeuvring ; 3rd, 
 which possesses a speed of not under eleven knots. With 
 other considerations, calling their Lordships' attention to the 
 fact that there is nothing, in the present state of science, to 
 prevent their Lordships, under better advice, building a gun 
 
 z
 
 338 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 ■which will throw a rifled shot of 600 lbs. weight, and smash 
 the whole of the above arrangement into the middle of next 
 week." Lionel found such manuscripts as these, and re- 
 membered his father's admiration for Defoe's titles ; but he 
 found no money. 
 
 Few people were ever harder put about than this poor 
 Lionel. He had never asked for money, and never wanted 
 for money, until now. Others began to ask him for money, 
 the very neighbours who had been searching for his father's 
 body. He had actually none. There was no discoverable 
 property, except the books, and his own watch. His books 
 were not convertible, but the watch was. He walked to 
 Bangor, and sold the watch, leaving the books and manu- 
 scripts alone. 
 
 It became absolutely necessary that he should do some- 
 thing. The money he had raised on the watch was soon 
 gone, with the exception of a very few pounds : absolute 
 want was staring him in the face. His father's affairs did 
 not seem to be in disorder ; his father seemed to have had 
 no affairs whatever. He had no lawyer, no banker, and 
 seemed to have no creditors. The man's affairs, such as 
 they were, appeared to have come to an end with the man 
 himself. Lionel knew absolutely nothing about them. He 
 only knew this, that he, with an education, which in those 
 times would have cost two thousand pounds or so, was in 
 close and imminent danger of turning groom or working 
 on the roads. He had not sufficient knowledge to take a 
 place as under gardener ; and even if he applied for a 
 groom's place, class prejudices would prevent his getting 
 it. His father had made him a finished horseman on one of 
 their tough Welsh ponies ; but who knew this, save himself? 
 and who was likely to take a highly-educated and very 
 handsome young man for their groom without a character ?
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 339 
 
 With the grief and horror of his father's death still 
 strongly on him, he found himself at the bottom of the well 
 of despair, without one single friend in the world. He knew 
 nobody, except Welsh lads below him in rank, whose lan- 
 guage he could certainly speak, but which language his 
 father had taught him to despise. His education had been 
 scientifically military. There was the making of a great 
 soldier about him, he knew that ; but how was he to become 
 a soldier? 
 
 " I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground ; 
 When the ranks are rolled in vapour, and the winds are layed in 
 sound." 
 
 Sitting desperate and penniless before the desolate hearth, 
 he sometimes thought, young, strong, clever as he was, that 
 that would be the best solution. And as the devil is always 
 ready, the devil came to him ; and night after night he saw 
 the recruiting sergeant rise out of the black ashes and 
 stand with his gaudy ribands in his shako on the now deso- 
 late hearth. 
 
 But he said, sturdily, " No. God could not have meant 
 that. If I enlist I can never get my commission." 
 
 But in spite of his saying, " Apage, Satanas ! " to the re- 
 cruiting sergeant day by day, the devil in that singular form 
 continued to tempt him. And then he began to say, " After 
 all one gets a certain prestige ; one would soon be sergeant- 
 major ; and at times they give commissions." So the re- 
 cruiting sergeant grew more prominent day by day, until he 
 looked upon enlisting — until he became a possibility, nay, a 
 probability in the dark. 
 
 In daylight it was different. The sheeted mountain over 
 his head would give up his father's corpse to rebuke and 
 revile him if he ventured on such a sacrilege. He a common 
 soldier ! He who could point out the weak points in the
 
 3(o SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 lines of Torres Vedras, to herd with ploughmen ! It was abso- 
 lutely intolerable. But he had only four pounds in the world, 
 and no friend. 
 
 Lord Overbury, now Lord Hawkestone — it flashed across 
 him like lightning. He was all alone before the cold fire- 
 place when he thought of it, and it was midnight, and the 
 snow was falling fast, and was being hurled into deep drifts 
 by the westerly wind. The thought of Lord Hawkestone 
 was very sudden, but he saw in one second of time that it 
 was his only hope. He opened the door and passed out, 
 shutting it behind him ; and in the next instant was up to his 
 waist in a snow-drift. 
 
 How one wonders at the fierce health of one's youth ! at 
 the things one used to do ! To a middle-aged reader this 
 frantic expedition of Lionel must appear almost incredible. 
 Yet let that reader remember what things he could do, on 
 river and alp, at eighteen. This young man, with his fancy 
 strong upon him, amidst drifting snow, on a furious winter's 
 night, crossed the half-frozen stream below Llyn y Dinas, 
 climbed the hill beyond, passed through the labyrinth of the 
 half-frozen little lakes, among which he had first met Lord 
 Hawkestone, crossed the Shoulder of Cnicht in the darkness, 
 and by nine o'clock in the morning was before the door of Lord 
 Hawkestone's house, having had only two guides, and those 
 phantoms, Lord Hawkestone, his friend, and the recruiting 
 sergeant. 
 
 The old, well-studied English order was here still, although 
 the soul which moved the machine was far away. A butler 
 opened the door to him, and, wild as he looked, recognised 
 him as his lord's friend. Lionel asked for Lord Hawke- 
 stone. Lord Hawkestone was, the butler said, at South- 
 ampton, helping to see his regiment aboard for India. " It 
 was a strange resolution," said the butler, " for his lordship,
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 341 
 
 with his great wealth, to stick to the army; but his lordship 
 was strange. Perfectly mad about the dratted soldiering," 
 said the old man. " But, however, there it was. Lords must 
 do as they chose, and the ship sailed from Southampton to- 
 morrow, at Jatest." 
 
 Despair upon despair. Lionel saw in one instant that 
 unless he acted this man would be lost to him, and that he 
 was the only person who stood between him and the recruit- 
 in- sergeant. He left the butler at the door, and started 
 madly for Southampton. 
 
 When a man is in utter despair it is difficult for him to do 
 anything foolish. When a man has got so low as Lionel 
 iilackeston, it seems utterly impossible for him to get any 
 lower. Yet it was quite possible. I have seen high-spirited 
 men in Australia brought lower than you would fancy ; but 
 there is a certain kind of man whom you cannot beat. Lionel 
 Blackeston was one. He got on his fantastic journey as far 
 as Shrewsbury, when his shoes were gone, and his money 
 well-nigh spent. He saw now that he was desperate, and 
 that it was all over with him, and he turned — turned back to 
 utter desperation. 
 
 Why did he turn back ? Was it because his shoes were 
 gone and his money spent ? Was it because he went into a 
 tavern, and the recruiting sergeant followed him, and tempted 
 him? Not at all. It was because he read the newspaper 
 while the sergeant was talking to him ; saw that he was 
 ruined ; and so quietly said to himself, like a true general 
 — " I am now entirely desperate, and consequently not in a 
 fit state to judge of my own affairs. I shall go back into 
 contemplation." To the sergeant he said— " There is news 
 here which concerns me, and prevents my enlisting. You 
 need not kick my dog " — for the sergeant had done so in his 
 anger at losing such a splendid recruit.
 
 342 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 The paragraph in the newspaper which turned him back 
 home was this : — 
 
 " Southampton. — The Orontes, for India, sailed yester- 
 day, carrying the first company of the second battalion of 
 the Welsh Fusileers, under command of Captain the Earl of 
 Hawkestone. She passed the Needles at i P.M., and was 
 spoken off Portland by pilot-boat No. 65, at 6 p.m. Wind 
 fresh, from the east." 
 
 Lord Hawkestone, his only hope, was bowling down Chan- 
 nel before the easterly wind. Now it came to be a question 
 between working on the roads and enlisting. It required, 
 he thought, a little consideration ; and there were his father's 
 books, and his father's swords, and what not, which would 
 bring money, if he could only get them to market, and so 
 avoid the evil day. 
 
 But there was no chance of getting them to market at all. 
 He had no money. His father's books--a splendid collec- 
 tion — would have to be sold in London. They were worth 
 money, but were not worth twopence apiece in Wales ; and 
 he had absolutely no money whatever. 
 
 The snow was deep on the morning he got home. He got 
 the key of his house from the old Welshwoman at the chapel, 
 who had so long acted as his father's housekeeper. He had 
 a few shillings left, and as there was no shop nearer than 
 Bethgelert, he got her, in defiance of the excise duty, to sell 
 him some oatmeal. She let him have it unwillingly, and he 
 thought that she was ungrateful. 
 
 With this he made porridge, and ate it all up himself. 
 When he had satisfied his own hunger he noticed that his 
 dog was whining for some, and he had none to give the poor 
 brute, who had followed him so faithfully and so trustingly,
 
 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 343 
 
 but had eaten it all himself. So he had got as low as this, 
 that he could not feed his own dog ! 
 
 This was the very worst thing of all. It would have driven 
 one sort of high-spirited man into furious imprecation ; 
 another sort of high-spirited man into tears. In the case of 
 Lionel Blackeston it did neither : it set his brain to work to 
 see how he was to get himself out of his position. He felt 
 as much for his dumb, starving dog as the most outre of 
 sentimentalist ; but the man was a born general, and utilised 
 his very sentimentalism. He said, " This won't do. If a 
 man has got so low as to eat his dog's share of the dinner, 
 it won't do, and must be mended. I will get over to Car- 
 narvon to-morrow and enlist." 
 
 All his dreams of rising in the world were gone hopelessly 
 now. He gave it all up ; he would be a common soldier, 
 and herd with the vanmen and ploughboys. All done. A 
 life ended at nineteen. He lit some fire again, and sat pon- 
 dering over it ; and in the warmth of the fire, the dog forgot 
 his hunger and left whining. 
 
 But only for a time — for a very short time. Soon after he 
 had left whining, he began to growl — but feebly, and with 
 very little energy. 
 
 Lionel said once or twice, "Lie down, Rover, my poor dog ; 
 lie down." But the dog still growled, though he wagged his 
 tail the while. 
 
 Lionel had left noticing him for a very short time, thinking 
 only that the dog heard a prowling fox, when he growled 
 louder, just turning himself towards the door. The door was 
 opened suddenly, and a clear, sharp voice said, " Heavens, 
 Blackeston ! what on earth is all this ?" 
 
 Lionel turned and saw Lord Hawkestone before him. 
 Then he broke down utterly. He had not the slightest 
 business to do anything of the kind ; but he did it not-
 
 344 SEEKING YOUR FORTUNE. 
 
 withstanding. He had stood ill-fortune well enough ; but 
 this wonderful piece of providence sent him a little off his 
 balance. 
 
 When he got his voice he said, " I thought you were half 
 way to India." 
 
 " My company is," said Lord Hawkestone. " / am going 
 overland, with this splendid Waghorn, and shall be there 
 long before them. He has particularly asked me, in my ca- 
 pacity as Earl, to do so, and give the new route a prestige. 
 I am, of course, delighted. But about yourself. You are 
 rather a solemn subject with me. I fell in love with you the 
 very first time I saw you, and I am sure I would do anything 
 in the world to serve you. But my poor father left you as a 
 sort of legacy to me, saying that he had ruined your father 
 unintentionally, and that it was left to me to make amends. 
 I cannot venture to offer money directly to a gentleman like 
 you ; but I think there is no harm in this arrangement : Will 
 you mortgage your father's books to me for the price of your 
 commission ? " 
 
 Why go on? Is not the story told! Do you want to 
 know the future of Lionel Blackeston before he -developed 
 into General Blackeston ? Ask the Affghans; ask the Sikhs ; 
 ask the glorious Russians who came swarming up the hill- 
 side at Inkermann ; ask the rebel Sepoys ; nay, ask the 
 House of Commons, to whom they appeal in case of diffi- 
 culty, when there is no question of party. Their answer will 
 be " Blackeston." 
 
 The ladies want to know what became of the dog. I 
 don't know what became of the dog. I suppose that he 
 died. 
 
 IiRADHUKY, EVANS, AND CO., 1'RINTERS, WHITErKIARS.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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