» y y 
 
 ^T—^ — r-DfycT 
 
 y y 
 
 ELg 
 
 A A tk A A 
 
 ^m^!i^ssm.<^^^^^^ 

 
 C4 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S 
 A RENT IN A CLOUD 
 
 AND 
 
 ST. PATRICK'S EVE
 
 With my Mother
 
 ,THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES LEVER 
 
 AtlTHOR OF "CHARLES o'mALLEY " 
 
 IV/TN ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 The Broadway, Ludgatc 
 
 NEW YORK : 416 BROOME STREET 
 
 l^
 
 LONDON ; 
 
 PRINTED Br •WOODFALL AND KINDER, 
 
 MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W,C.
 
 DEDICATION TO 
 
 "THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S." 
 
 TO 
 
 BARON EMILE ERLANaER. 
 
 My dear Eelangek, 
 
 Through the many anxieties which beset me while I was 
 
 writing this story, your name was continually recurring, and 
 
 always with some act of kindness, or some proof of affection. 
 
 Let me, then, ia simple gratitude dedicate to you a volume of 
 
 which, in a measure, you stand sponsor, and say to the worlJ 
 
 at large, what I have so often said to my own. 
 
 How sincerely and heartily I am 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 CHAELES LEVER. 
 Trieste, Fehrnayy 2Utli, 1869.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THAT BUY OF NORCOTT'S. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 The Trial 
 
 II. 
 
 With my Mother 
 
 III. 
 
 With mt Father 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Villa MALiBRAif 
 
 V. 
 
 A First Dinner-Pakty 
 
 VI. 
 
 How the Days went Over 
 
 VII. 
 
 A Private Audience 
 
 yiii. 
 
 A Dark-room Picture 
 
 IX. 
 
 Madame Cleremont . 
 
 X. 
 
 Pl.v.nmng Plkasuke 
 
 XI. 
 
 A Birthday Dinger . 
 
 Xll. 
 
 The Ball . 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A Nkxt Morninq 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A Good-Bye 
 
 XV. 
 
 A Terrible Shock 
 
 XVI. 
 
 FlUME 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Hanskrl of the Yard 
 
 XYJII. 
 
 The Sail Across the Bay 
 
 XIX. 
 
 At the FfiXE 
 
 PACK 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 13 
 
 20 
 27 
 32 
 33 
 U 
 50 
 55 
 60 
 €7 
 7'1 
 79 
 86 
 92 
 
 y '• 
 lui 
 110
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XX. Our Inner Life . 
 
 XXI. The Office 
 
 XXII. UnWISHED-FOK PllOilOTION . 
 
 XXIII. The Man who Travelled for Our HoLsii 
 
 XXIV. Mr Instructions 
 XXV. "On the Road" in Croatia 
 
 XXYI. In Hungary 
 
 XXVII. SCHLOSS HUNYADI 
 
 XXVIII. The Salon 
 XXIX. An Unlooked-for JIeetino 
 XXX. Hasty Tidings . . . 
 XXXI. In Sorrow 
 XXXII. The End .... 
 
 VAr.F. 
 
 11!) 
 121 
 129 
 134 
 143 
 148 
 156 
 160 
 107 
 172 
 ISl 
 110 
 196
 
 A llENT IN A OLOdD. 
 
 riiAP. 
 
 I. The White Horse at Coblentz . 
 II. The Passengers on the Steamboat 
 
 III. Fellow-Travellers' Life . 
 
 IV. The "Lago D'Orta " . 
 Y. Old Memories . 
 
 VI. Sophy's Lktter . 
 
 VII. DiSSEKSION .... 
 
 VIII. Growing Darker , 
 
 IX. On the Road . . 
 
 X. A Daybreak Beside the Rhixe 
 
 XI. The Life at the Villa 
 
 XII. Darker and Darker . 
 
 XIII. Again to Milan . 
 
 XIV. The Last Walk in the Garden 
 XV. Sisters' Confidences . 
 
 XVI. A Lovers' Quarrel 
 XVII. Parting Sorrows 
 
 PA<iK 
 
 205 
 211 
 218 
 223 
 228 
 234 
 239 
 253 
 265 
 276 
 281 
 303 
 312 
 317 
 329 
 
 344
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 C'lIAP. 
 
 XVIII. Tidings from Bengal . 
 
 XIX. A Shock . 
 XX. Again at Orta . 
 XXI. The Return 
 XXII. A Letter of Conprssions 
 
 XXIII. A Storm . . . . 
 
 XXIV. The Last and the Shortest 
 
 TAGE 
 
 351 
 357 
 3G0 
 368 
 374 
 380 
 391
 
 ST. PATKICO EYE. 
 
 PACK 
 
 The First Era . . .• 395 
 
 The Second Er.v 418 
 
 The Tiii!;i. Eka 452
 
 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S.
 
 THAT BOY OE NOKCOTT'S. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE TRIAL. 
 
 Some years ago there was a trial in Dublin, which, partly 
 because the parties in the cause were in a well-to-do 
 condition of life, and partly because the case, in some 
 measure, involved the interests of the two conflicting 
 Churches, excited considerable sensation and much 
 comment. 
 
 The contention was the right to the guardianship of a 
 boy whose father and mother had ceased to live togethei*. 
 On their separation they had come to a sort of amicable 
 arrangement that the child — then seven years old — should 
 live alternate years with each ; and though the mother's 
 friends warmly urged her not to consent to a plan so full 
 of danger to her child, and so certain to result in the 
 worst effects on his character, the poor woman, whose 
 rank in life was far inferior to her husband's, yielded, 
 partly from habit of deference to his wishes, and more 
 still because she believed, in refusing these terms, she 
 might have found herself reduced to accept even worse 
 ones. The marriage had been unfortunate in every way. 
 Sir Roger Norcott had accompanied his regiment, the 
 — th Dragoons, to Ireland, where some violent distur- 
 bances in the south had called for an increase of military 
 force. When the riots had been suppressed, the troops, 
 broken up into small detachments, were quartered through 
 the counties, as opportunity and convenience served ; 
 Norcott's troop — for he was a captain — being stationed in 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT S. 
 
 tliat very miserable aud poverty-stricken town called 
 Macroom. Here the dashing soldier, who for years had 
 been a Guardsman, mixing in all the gaieties of a London 
 life, passed days and weeks of dreary despondency. His 
 two subs, who happened to be sons of men in trade, he 
 treated with a cold and distant politeness, but never 
 entered into their projects, nor accepted their companion- 
 ship ; and though they messed together each day, no 
 other intimacy passed between them than the courtesies 
 of the table. 
 
 It chanced that while thus hipped, and out of sorts, 
 sick of the place and the service that had condemned him 
 to it, he made acquaintance with a watchmakei*, when 
 paying for some slight service, and, subsequently, with 
 his daughter, a very pretty, modest-looking, gentle girl of 
 eighteen. The utter vacuity of his life, the tiresome 
 hours of barrack-room solitude, the want of some one to 
 talk to him, but, still more, of some one to listen — for he 
 liked to talk, and talked almost well — led him to pass 
 more than half his days and all his evenings at their 
 house. Nor was the fact that his visits had become a sort 
 of town scandal without its charm for a man who actually 
 pined for a sensation, even though painful ; and there 
 was, too, an impertinence that, while declining the society 
 of the supposed upper classes of the neighboui-hood, he 
 found congenial companionship with these humble people, 
 had a marvellous attraction for a man who had no small 
 share of resentfulness in his nature, and was seldom so 
 near being happy as when flouting some prejudice or out- 
 raging some popular opinion. 
 
 It had been his passion through life to be ever doing or 
 saying something that no one could have anticipated. 
 For the pleasui'o of astonishing the world, no sacrilice was 
 too costly ; and whether he rode, or shot, or played, or 
 yachted, his first thought was notoriety. An ample for- 
 tune lent considerable aid to this tendency ; but ever}'- 
 year's extravagance was now telling on his resources, and 
 ho was forced to draw on his ingenuity where before he 
 needed but to draw on his banker. 
 
 There was nothing that his fViends thought less likely 
 than that he would marry, except that, if he should, his 
 wife would not be a woma,u of f'amilv : to bowl over both
 
 THE TRIAL. 5 
 
 of these beliefs together, he married the watchmaker's 
 daugbtei-, and Mary Owen became a bai'onet's bride. 
 
 Perhaps — I'm not very sure of even that — her marriage 
 gave her one entire day of unbroken happiness — I do not 
 believe it gave her a week, and I know it did not a month. 
 Whether it was that his friends were less shocked than 
 he had hoped for, or that the shock wore out sooner, he 
 was frantic at the failure of his grand coup, and imme- 
 diately set about revenging on his unhappy wife all the 
 disappointment she had caused him. After a series of 
 cruelties — some of which savoured of madness — but which 
 she bore without complaint, or even murmvir, he bethought 
 him that her religious belief offered a groundwork for 
 torment which he had Iiitherto neglected. He accord- 
 ingly determined to make his profession to the Church of 
 Rome, and to call on her to follow. This she stoutly 
 refused ; and he declared that they should separate. The 
 menace had no longer a terror for her. She accepted 
 whatever terms he was pleased to dictate ; she only 
 stipulated as to the child, and for him but to the extent 
 we have already seen. The first year after the separation 
 the boy passed with his father; the second he spent with 
 his mother. At the end of the third year, when her turn 
 again came round, Sir Roger refused to part with him ; 
 and when reminded of his promise, coarsely replied that 
 his boy, above all things, must be "a gentleman ; " and 
 that he was now arrived at an age when association with 
 low and vulgar people would attach a tone to his mind, 
 and a fashion to his thoughts, that all the education in 
 the world would not eradicate ; and that rather than yield 
 to such a desecration, he would litigate the matter to the 
 last shilling of his estate. Such was the cause before the 
 Barons of the Exchequer: the mother pleading that her 
 child should be restored to her; the father opposing the 
 demand, that the mother's habits and associates wei'e not 
 in accordance with the prospects of one who should 
 inherit title and fortune : and, last of all, that the boy was 
 devotedly attached to him, and bore scarcely a trace of 
 affection for his mother. 
 
 So painful were the disclosures that came out during 
 the trial, so subversive of every feeling that pertains to 
 the sanctity of the family, and so certain to work in-
 
 b THAT BOY OF NORCOTT S. 
 
 jnrionsly on the character of the cliild whose interesta 
 were at stake, that the judge made more than one attempt 
 to arrest the proceedings and refer the case to arbitration, 
 but Sir Roger would not agree to this. He was once 
 more in his element, he was before the world — the news- 
 papers were full of him, and better than all, in attack and 
 reprobation. He had demanded to be put on the table as 
 a witneiss, and they who saw, it is said, never forgot the 
 insolent defiance of public opinion that he on that day 
 displayed; how boldly he paraded opinions in opposition 
 to every sense of right and justice, and how openly he 
 avowed his principle of education to be — to strip off from 
 youth every delusion as to the existence of truth and 
 honour in life, and to teach a child, from his earliest 
 years, that trickery and falsehood were the daily weapons 
 of mankind, and that he who would not consent to be the 
 dupe of his fellow-men, must be their despot and their 
 persecutor. If he had the satisfaction of outraging the 
 feelings of all in court, and insulting every sense of 
 propriety and decorum, he paid heavily for the brief 
 triumph. The judge delivered a most stern denunciation 
 of his doctrines, and declared that no case had ever come 
 before the court where so little hesitation existed as to the 
 judgment to be pronounced. The sentence was, that, np 
 to the age of twelve, the child was to be confided to the 
 mother's charge : after which period, the court would, 
 on application, deliberate and determine on the futui'e 
 guardianship. 
 
 " Will you leave me, Digby ?" asked the father, and his 
 lips tremioled, and his cheek blanched as he uttered the 
 words. The boy sprang into hirf arms and kissed him 
 wildly and passionately ; and the two clung to each other 
 in close embrace, and their mingled sobs echoed through 
 the now silent court. "You see, my lord, you see — " 
 cried the father ; but the boy's struggles were choking 
 him, and with his own emotions, would not .suffer him to 
 continue. His sufferings were now real, and a murmur 
 ran through the court that showed how public feeling was 
 trembling in the balance. The bustle of a new cause 
 that was coming on soon closed the scene. The child was 
 handed over to an officer of the court, while the mother's 
 friends concerted together, and all was over.
 
 THE TRIAL. 
 
 Over as regai'cled the first act of a life-long drama ; and 
 ore the curtain rises, it only remains to say that the cause 
 which that day decided was mine, and that I, who write 
 this, was the boy " Digby Norcott." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WITH MY MOTHER. 
 
 Mt mother lived in a little cottage at a place called the 
 Green Lanes, about three miles from Dublin. The name 
 was happily given, for on every side there were narrow 
 roads overshadowed by leafy trees, which met above and 
 gave only glimpses of sky and cloud thi'ough their feathery 
 foliage. The close hedgerows of white or pink thorn 
 limited the view on either side, and impai'ted a something 
 of gloom to a spot whose silence was i-arely broken, for it 
 was not a rich man's neighbourhood. They who fre- 
 quented it were persons of small fortune, retired subalterns 
 in the army, or clerks in public offices, and such like petty 
 respectabilities who preferred to herd together, and make 
 no contrasts of their humble means with larger, greater 
 incomes. 
 
 Amongst the sensations I shall never forget, — and 
 which, while I write, are as fresh as the moment I first 
 felt them — were my feelings when the car stopped opposite 
 a low wicket, and Mr. McBride, the attorney, helped me 
 down and said, " This is your home, Digby ; your mother 
 lives here." The next moment a pale, but very handsome 
 young woman, came rushing down the little path and 
 clasped me in her arms. She had droi^ped on her knees 
 to bring her face to mine, and she kissed me madly and 
 wildly, so that my cap fell off. " See how roy frill is all 
 rumpled," said I, unused as I was to such disconcerting 
 warmth, and caring far moi-e for my smart appearance
 
 8 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 tlian fox' demonstrations of affection. " Oh darling, nevei* 
 mind it," sobbed she. "You shall have another and a 
 nicer. I will make it myself, for my own boy, — for you 
 are mine, Digby. You are mine, dearest, ain't you?" 
 
 "I am papa's boy," said I, doggedly. 
 
 "But you will love mamma too, Digby, won't you? 
 — poor mamma, that has no one to love her, or care for 
 her if you do not ; and who will so love you in return, 
 and do everything for you, — everything to make you 
 happy, — happy and good, Digby." 
 
 " Then let us go back to Earls Court. It's far prettier 
 than this, and there are great lions over the gateway, and 
 wide steps up to the door. I don't like this. It looks 
 so dark and dreary, — it makes me cry." And to prove 
 it, I burst out into a full torrent of weeping, and my 
 mother hung over me and sobbed too ; and long after the 
 car had driven away, we sat there on the grass weeping 
 bitterly together, though there was no concert in our 
 sorrow, nor any soul to our grief. 
 
 That whole afternoon was passed in attempts to comfort 
 and caress me by my mother, and in petulant demands on 
 my part for this or that luxury I had left behind me. I 
 wanted my nice bed with the pink curtains, and my little 
 tool-case. I wanted my little punt, my pony, my fishing- 
 rod. I wanted the obsequious servants, who ran at my 
 bidding, and whose respectful manner was a homage I 
 loved to exact. Not one of these was forthcoming, and 
 how could I believe her who soothingly told me that her 
 love would replace them, and that her heart's affection 
 would soon be dearer to me than all my toys and all the 
 glittering presents that littered my room ? " But I want 
 my pony,'' I cried; "I want my little dog Fan, and I 
 want to sit beside papa, and see him drive four horses, 
 and he lets me whip them too, and you won't." And so I 
 cried hysterically again, and in these fretful paroxysms I 
 passed my evening. 
 
 The first week of my life there was to me — it still is to 
 me — like a dream — a sad, monotonous dream. Eepulsed 
 in every form, my mother still persisted in trying to amuse 
 or interest me, and I either sat in moody silence, refusing 
 all attention, or went off into passionate grief, sobbing as 
 if my heart would break. '• Let him cry his fill," said
 
 WITH MY MOTHER. 9 
 
 old Biddy the maid. " Let him cry his fill, and it will 
 do him good." And I could have killed her on the spot 
 as she said it. 
 
 If Biddy Cassidy really opined that a hearty fit of 
 crying would have been a good alterative for me, she 
 ought not to have expressed the opinion in my presence, 
 for there was that much of my father in me that quickly 
 suggested resistance, and I at once resolved that, no 
 matter what it might cost me, or by what other means I 
 might find a vent for my grief, I'd cry no more. All my poor 
 mother's caresses, all her tenderness, and all her watch- 
 ful care, never acted on my character with half the force 
 or one-tenth of the rapidity that did this old hag's attempt 
 to thwart and oppose me. Her system was, by a continual 
 comparison between ray present life and ray past, to show 
 how much better off I was now than in my former high 
 estate, and by a travestie of all I had been used to, to 
 pretend that anything like complaint from me would be 
 sheer ingratitude. " Here's the pony, darlin', waitiii' for 
 you to ride him," she would say, as she would lay an old 
 walking-stick beside my door ; and though the blood 
 would rush to my head at the insult, and something very 
 nigh choking rise to my throat, I would master mj'' 
 passion and make no reply. This demeanour was set 
 down to sulkiness, and Biddy warmly entreated my mother 
 to suppress the temper it indicated, and, as she mildly 
 suggested, " Cut it out of me when I was young " — a 
 counsel, I must own, she did not follow. 
 
 Too straitened in her means to keep a governess for me, 
 and unwilling to send me to a school, my mother became 
 my teacher hei^self ; and, not having had any but the very 
 commonest education, she was obliged to acquire in 
 advance what she desired to impart. Many a night would 
 she pore over the Latin Grammar, that she might be even 
 one stage before me in the morning. Over and over did 
 she get up the bit of geography that was to test my 
 knowledge the next day ; and in this way, while leading 
 me on, she acquired, almost without being aware of it, a 
 considerable amount of information. Her faculties were 
 above the common, and her zeal could not be surpassed ; so 
 that, while I was stumbling and blundering over "Swaine's 
 Sentences," she had read all Sallust's "Catiline," and
 
 10 THAT BOY or ::orcott's. 
 
 mcst of tlia " Oiles " of Horace ; and longbefore T Imrl mas- 
 tered my German declensions, she was reading " Grim'.s 
 Stories " and Auerbach's " Yillnge Sketches." Year after 
 year went over quietly, uneventful]3\ I had long ceased to 
 remember my former life of splendour, or, if it recurred 
 to me, it came with no more of reality than the events of 
 a dream. One daj-, indeed — I shall never forget it — the 
 past revealed itself before me with the vivid distinctness 
 of a picture, and, I shame to say, rendered me unhappy and 
 discontented for several da.ys after. I was returning one 
 afternoon from a favourite haunt, where I used to spend 
 hours— the old churchyard of Killester, a long-unused 
 cemetery, with a ruined church beside it — when four 
 spanking chestnuts came to the foot of the little rise on 
 which the ruin stood, and the servants jumping down, 
 undid the bearing-reins, to breathe the cattle up the 
 ascent. It was my father was on the box, and as he skil- 
 fully brushed the flies from his horses with his whip, gentiy 
 soothing the hot-mettled creatures with his voice, I 
 bethought me of the proud time when I sat beside him, 
 and when he talked to me of the different tempers of each 
 horse in the team, instilling into me that interest and 
 that love for them, as thinking sentient creatures, which 
 gives the horse a distinct character to all who have learned 
 thus to think of him from childhood. He never looked 
 at me as he passed. How should he recognize the little 
 bo3'^ in the grey linen blouse he Avas wont to see in black 
 velvet with silver buttons ? Perhaps I was not soi-ry he 
 did not know me. Perhaps I felt it easier to fight my 
 own shame alone than if it had been confessed and wit- 
 nessed. At all events, the sight sent me home sad and 
 depressed, no longer able to take pleasure in my usual 
 pursuits, and turning from my toys and books with actual 
 avei'sion. 
 
 Remembering how all mention of my father used to 
 affect my mother long ago, seeing how painfully his mere 
 name acted npon her, I forbore to speak of this incident, 
 and buried it in my heart, to think and ruminate over 
 when alone. 
 
 Time went on and on till I wanted but a few months of 
 twelve, and my lessons were all but dropped, as my 
 mother's mornings were passed either in letter-writing or
 
 V/ITH MY MOTHEH. 11 
 
 hi iiifcei'vIcNYS witli her Itvwyer. It was on tlio conclusion 
 of one of these councils that Mr. McBridc led me into 
 the garden, and seating- nie beside him on a bench, said, 
 " I have something to say to you, Digby; and I don't know 
 that I'd venture to say it, if I had uot seen that you are a 
 thoughtful boy, and an affectionate son of the best mother 
 that ever lived. You are old enough, besides, to have a 
 right to know something about yourself and your future 
 prospects, and it is for that T have come out to-day." And 
 with this brief preface he told me the whole story of ray 
 father's and mother's marriage and separation ; and how 
 it came to pass that I had been taken from one to live 
 with the other ; and how the time was now drawing nigh 
 — it wanted but two months and ten days — when I should 
 be once more under my father's guidance, and totally 
 removed from the influence of that moiher who loved me 
 so deai'ly. 
 
 " We might fight the matter in the courts, it is true," 
 said he. " There are circumstances which might weigh 
 with a judge whether he'd remove you from a position of 
 safety and advantage to one of danger and difficulty ; but 
 it would be the fight of a weak purse against a strong 
 one, not to say that it would also be the struggle of a poor 
 mother's heart against the law of the land ; and I have 
 at last persuaded her it would be wiser and safer not to 
 embitter the relations with your father — to submit to the 
 inevitable ; and not improbably you maj^ be permitted to 
 see her from time to time, and, at all events, to v.-rite. to 
 her." It took a long time for him to go through what I 
 have so briefly set down here ; for there were many pros 
 and cons, and he omitted none of them ; and while he 
 studiously abstained from applying to my father any 
 expression of censure or reprobation, he could not conceal 
 from me that he regarded him as a very cold-hearted, 
 unfeeling man, from whom little kindness could be 
 expected, and to whom entreaty or petition would be lost 
 time. I will not dwell on the impression this revelation 
 produced on me, nor will I linger on the time that followed 
 on it — the very saddest of ray life. Our lessons were 
 stopped — all the occupations that once filled the day 
 ceased — -a mournful silence fell upon us, as thougb there 
 was a death in the house ; and there was, indeed, the
 
 12 
 
 death of that peaccfal existence in which we had glided 
 along for years, and we sat grieving over a time that was 
 to return no more. My mother tried to employ herself 
 in setting my clothes in order, getting my books decently 
 bound, and enabling me in every way to make a respect- 
 able appearance in that new life I was about to enter on ; 
 but her grief usually overcame her in these attempts, and 
 she would hang in tears over the little trunk that recalled 
 every memory she was so soon to regard as the last traces 
 of her child. Biddy, who had long, for years back, 
 ceased to torment or annoy me, came back with an arrear 
 of bitterness to her mockeries and sneers. " I was going 
 to be a lord, and I'd not know the mother that nursed me 
 if I saw her in the street! Fine clothes and fine trate- 
 ment was more to me than love and affection ; signs on 
 it, I was turning my back on my own mother, and going 
 to live with the blackguard " — she didn't mince the word 
 • — " that left her to starve." These nently turned compli- 
 ments met me at eveiy moment, and by good fortune 
 served to arm me with a sort of indignant courage that 
 carried me well through all my perils. 
 
 To spare my poor mother the pain of parting, Mr. 
 McBride — I cannot saj^ how judiciously — contrived that 
 I should be taken out for a drive and put on board the 
 packet bound for Holyhead, under the charge of a 
 coui'ier, whom my father had sent to fetch me, to Brussels, 
 where he was then living. Of how I left Ireland, and 
 journeyed on afterwards, I know nothing; it was all con- 
 fusion and turmoil. The frequent changes from place to 
 place, the noise, the new people, the intense haste that 
 seemed to pervade all that went on, addled me to that 
 degree that I had few collected thoughts at the time, and 
 no memory of them afterwards. 
 
 From certain di'oppings of the courier, however, and 
 his heartily expressed joy as Brussels came in sight, I 
 gathered that I had been a very troublesome charge, and 
 refractory to the very limit of actual rebellion.
 
 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WITH MY FATHER. 
 
 At the time I speak of, my father dwelt in a villa near 
 Brussels, which had been built by or for Madame Malibran. 
 It was a strange, though somewhat incongruous, edifice, 
 uad moi'e resembled a public building than a private gentle- 
 man's residence. It stood in a vast garden, or rather park, 
 where fruit and forest trees abounded, and patches of 
 llowers came suddenly into view in most unexpected places. 
 There were carriage drives, too, so ingeniously managed 
 that the visitor could be led to believe the space ten times 
 greater than it was in reality. The whole inside and out 
 savoured stronsrly of the theatre, and every device of good 
 or bad taste — the latter largely predominating — had its 
 inspiration in the stage. 
 
 As we drove under the arched entrance gate, over which 
 a crowned leopard — the Norcott crest — was proudly ram- 
 pant, I felt a strange throb at my heart that proved the 
 old leaven was still alive within me, and that the feeling of 
 being the son of a man of rank and fortune had a strong 
 root in my heart. 
 
 Prom the deep reverence of the gorgeous porter, who 
 wore an embroidered leather belt over his shoulder, 
 to the trim propriety and order of the noiseless avenue, 
 all bespoke an amount of state and grandeur that 
 appealed very powerfully to me, and I can still recall 
 how the bronze lamps that served to light the approach 
 struck me as something wonderfully fine, as the morning's 
 sun glanced on their crested tops. 
 
 The carriage drew up at the foot of a large flight of 
 marble steps, which led to a terrace covered by a long 
 veranda. Under the shade of this two gentlemen sat at 
 breakfast, both unknown to me. " Whom have we here ? " 
 cfied the elder, a fat, middle-aged man of coarse features 
 and stern expression ; " whom have we here? "
 
 14 THAT BOY OF NOIICOTT's. 
 
 The 3-oungei' — conspicuous by a, dressing-gown and cp.p 
 that glittered with gold embroidery — looked lazily over 
 the top of bis newspaper, and said, " Tbatboy of Norcott'.s, 
 I take it; he was to arrive to-day." 
 
 This was the first time I beard an expression that my 
 ears were soon to be well familiar to, and I cannot tell how 
 bitterly the words insulted me. " Who were they," I 
 asked myself, " wlio, under my father's roof, could dare so 
 to call me ! and why was I not styled Sir Roger Norcott's 
 son, and not thus disparagingly ' that boy of Norcott's ? ' " 
 
 I walked slowly up the steps among these men as de- 
 fiantly as though there was a declared enmity between us, 
 and was proceeding straight towards the door, when the 
 elder called out, " Holloa, youngster, come here and report 
 yourself! You've just come, haven't you ? " 
 
 " I have just come," said I, slowly ; " but when I report 
 myself it shall be to my father, Sir Roger Norcott." 
 
 "You gofc that, Hotham, and I must say you deserved 
 it too," said the younger in a low tone, which my quick 
 hearing however caught. 
 
 " Will you have some breakfast with us ? " said the 
 elder, with a faint laugh, as though he enjoyed the 
 encounter. 
 
 " No, I thank you, sir," said I stiffly, and passed on into 
 the house. 
 
 "Master Digby," said a smart little man in black, who 
 for a moment or two puzzled me whether he was a guest 
 or a servant, *' msy I show you to your room, sir? Sir 
 Roger is not up: he seldom rings for his bath before one 
 o'clock; but he said he would have it earlier to-day." 
 
 " And what is your name, pniy ? " 
 
 " Nixon, sir. Mr. Nixon, Sir Roger is pleased to call 
 me for distinction sake — the lower servants require it." 
 
 "Tell me then, Mr. Nixon, who are the two gentlemen 
 I saw at breakfast outside ? " 
 
 " The stoutish gentleman, sir, is Captain Hotham, of 
 the Royal Navy ; the other, with the Turkish pipe, is 
 Mr. Cleremont, Secretary to the Legation here. Great 
 friends of Sir Roger's, sir. Dine here three or four times 
 a week, and have their rooms always kept for them." 
 
 The appearance of my room, into which Nixon now 
 ushered me, went far to restore me to a condition of
 
 ■WITH MY FATirrR. 15 
 
 satisfaction. Ifc was the most perfect little bedroom it is 
 {)ossible to imagine, and Nixon never wearied in doing 
 the honours of displaying it. 
 
 " Here's your library, sir. You've only to slide this 
 mirror into the wall ; and here are all j-our books. This 
 press is your armoury. Sir Roger gave the order himself 
 i'or that breech-loader at Liege. This small closet has 
 your bath — always ready, as you see, sir — hot and cold ; 
 and that knob yonder commands the shower-bath. It 
 smells fresh of paint here just now, sir, for it was only 
 iinished on Saturdiiy ; and the men are coming to-day to 
 fix a small iron staircase from your balcony down to the 
 garden. Sir Roger said he was sure you would like it." 
 
 I was silent for a moment, a moment of exquisite reverie, 
 and then I asked if there were always people visitors at 
 the Yilla? 
 
 " I may say, sir, indeed, next to always. We haven't 
 dined alone since March last," 
 
 " How many usually come to dinner ? "' 
 
 " Five or seven, sir ; always an odd number. Seldom 
 more than seven, and never above eleven, except a state 
 dinner to ?ome great swell going through." 
 
 " No ladies, of course ? " 
 
 "Pardon me, sir. The Countess Yander Neeve dined 
 here yesterday ; Madam Van Straaten, and Mrs. Cleremont 
 — excuse me, sir, there's Sir Roger's bell. I must go and 
 tell him you've arrived." 
 
 When Nixon left me, I sat for full twenty minutes, 
 like one walking out of a trance, and asking myself, 
 how much was real, and how much fiction, of all around 
 me ? 
 
 My eyes wandered over the room, and from the beauti- 
 ful little Gothic clock on the mantkpiece to the gilded 
 pineapple from which my bed-curtains descended — every- 
 thing seemed of matchless beauty to me. Could I ever 
 Aveary of admiring them ? would they seem to me 
 every morning as I awoke as tusteful and as elegant as 
 now they appeared to me ? Oh, if dear mamma could 
 but see them ! If she but knew with what honour I w^as 
 received, would not the thought go far to assuage the 
 grief our separation cost her? And, last of all, came 
 the thought, if she herself were here to live with me, to
 
 16 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 read with me, to be my companion as she used to be — 
 conld life oflfer anything to compare with such happiness ? 
 And why should not this be ? If papa really should love 
 me, why might I not lead him to see to whom I owed all 
 that made me worthy of his love ? 
 
 " Breakfast is served, sir, in the small breakfast-room," 
 said a servant, resjiectfully. 
 
 " You must show me where that is," said I, rising to 
 follow him. 
 
 And now we walked along a spacious corridor, and 
 descended a splendid stair of white marble, with gilded 
 banisters, and across an octagon hall, with a pyramid of 
 flowering plants in the centre, and into a large gallery 
 with armour on the walls, that I wished greatly to linger 
 over and examine, and then into a billiard-room, and at 
 last into the small breakfast-parlour, where a little table 
 was laid out, and another servant stood in readiness to 
 serve me. 
 
 " Mr. Eccles, sir, will be down in a moment, if you'll 
 be pleased to wait for him," said the man. 
 
 " And who is Mr. Eccles ? " asked I. 
 
 " The gentleman as is to be your tutor, sir, I believe," 
 replied he, timidly; "and he said perhaps you'd maice 
 the tea, sir." 
 
 " All right," said I, opening the caddy, and proceed- 
 ing to make myself at home at once. " AVhat is 
 here?" 
 
 " Devilled kidneys, sir ; and this is fried mackerel. Mr. 
 Eccles takes oysters ; but he won't have them opened till 
 he's down. Here he is, sir." 
 
 The door was now flung open, and a good-looking young 
 man, with a glass stuck in one eye, entered, and with a 
 cheei'y, but somewhat affected voice, called out, — 
 
 " Glad to see you, Digby my boy ; hope I have not 
 starved you out waiting for me ? " 
 
 " I'm very hungry, sir, but not quite starved out," said 
 I, half amazed at the style of man selected to be my 
 guide, and whose age at most could not be above three or 
 four and twenty. 
 
 " You haven't seen your father yet, of course, nor won't 
 these two hours. Yes, Gilbert, let us have the oysters. 
 I always begin with oysters and a glass of sauterne; and,
 
 WITH MY FATHER. 17 
 
 let me tell you, your father's sauterno is excellent. Not 
 that I counsel you, however, to start with wine at break- 
 fast. I haven't told you that I'm to be your tutor," 
 said he filling his glass ; "and here's to our future fellow- 
 ship." 
 
 I smiled and sipped my tea to acknowledge the toast, 
 and he went on, — 
 
 "You musn't be afraid that I'll lean too heavily on you, 
 Digby — at least at first. My system is, never make 
 education a punishment. There's nothing that a gentle- 
 man — mind, I say a gentleman — ought to know that he 
 cannot acquire as easily and as pleasantly as he does field- 
 sports. If a man has to live by his wits, he must drudge ; 
 there's no help for it. And — but here come the oysters. 
 Ain't they magnificent ? Let me give you one piece of 
 instruction while the occasion serves ; let no one ever 
 persuade you that Colchester oysters equal the Ostend. 
 They have neither the plumpness nor the juiciness, and 
 still less have they that fresh odour of the sea that gives 
 such zest to appetite. One of these days I shall ask you 
 what Horace says of oysters, and where. You never 
 heard of Horace — eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir; I was reading the Odes when I came away." 
 
 '' And with whom, pray ? " 
 
 " With mamma, sir." 
 
 " And do you mean to say mamma knew Latin ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir; she learned it to teach me. She worked 
 far harder than I did, and I could never come up with 
 her." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I see ; but all that sort of learning — that 
 iri-egular study — is a thing to be grubbed up. If I were 
 to be frank \'\ith j-ou, Digby, I'd say I'd rather have you 
 in total ignorance than with that smattering of knowledge 
 a mamma's teaching is sure to imply. What had you 
 read before Horace?" 
 
 " ' Ciesar's Commentai-ies,' sir, an 'iEneid ' of Virgil, 
 two plays of Terence " 
 
 " An}' Greek? — an) thing of Euiipides or Aristophanes, 
 eh ? " asked he, mockingly. 
 
 " No, sir ; we were to begin the New Testament after 
 the holidays; for I had just gone over the grammar 
 twice." 
 
 C
 
 18 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 " With mamma, of course ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 He Iielped himself to a cutlet, and as he poured the 
 Harvey's sauce over it, it was phiin to sec that he was not 
 thinkiuiJ^ of what was before him, but employed in another 
 and different direction. After a considerable ymuse lie 
 turned his eyes full upon me, and with atone of far more 
 serious import than he had yet used, said, "We're not 
 very long acquainted, Digby ; but I have a trick of read- 
 ing people through their faces, and I feel I can trust you." 
 He waited for some remark from me, but I made none, 
 and he went on : " With an ordinary boy of your age — 
 indeed, I might go farther and say with any other boy — 
 I'd not venture on the confidence I am now about to 
 make ; but a certain instinct tells me I run no danger in 
 trusting yo?/." 
 
 " Is it a secret, sir ? " 
 
 " Well, in one sense it is a secret ; but why do vou 
 ask?" 
 
 "Because mamma told me to avoid secrets; to have 
 none of my own, and know as little as I could of other 
 people's." 
 
 " An excellent rule in general, but there are cases where 
 it will not apply : this is one of them, for here tlie secret 
 touches your own famil3^ Tou are aware that papa and 
 mamma do not live together? Don't flush up, Digb}- ; 
 I'm not going to say one word thiit could hurt you. It is 
 i'ov your benefit — I might say for your absolute safety — ■ 
 that I speak now. Your father has one of the noblest 
 natures a man ever possessed ; he is a prince in generosity, 
 and the very soul of honour, and, except pride, I don't 
 believe he has a fault. This same pride, however, leads 
 him to fancy he can never do wrong ; indeed, he does not 
 admit that he ever made a mistake in his life, and, conse- 
 quently, he does not readil}' forgive those to whom ho 
 imputes any disasters that befall him. Your mother's 
 family are included in this condemned list — I can't exactly 
 say why ; and for the same reason, or no reason, your 
 mother herself. You must tlierefore take especial care 
 that you never speak of one of these people," 
 
 " And mamma?" 
 
 ^^Her name least of all. There may come a time — 
 
 I
 
 WITH MY FATHER. 19 
 
 indeed, it is sure to come — when this difficulty can be got 
 over ; but any imprudence now — the smallest mistake — 
 would destroy tliis chance. Of course it's very hard on 
 you, my poor fellow, to be debarred fi'om the very theme 
 you'd like best to dwell on ; but when you know the 
 danger — not merely danger, but the positive certainty of 
 mischief — a chance word might bring about, I read you 
 very ill, or you'll profit by my warning." 
 
 I bent my head to mean assent, but I could not speak. 
 
 " Papa will question you whether you have been to 
 school, and what books you are reading, and your answer 
 will be, ' Never at school ; had all my lessons at home.' 
 Not a word more, mind that, Digb}''. Say it now after 
 me, that I may see if you can be exact to a syllable." 
 
 I repeated the words correctly, and he patted me 
 affectionately on the shoulder, and said, 
 
 " You and I ai'e sure to get on well togethei\ When I 
 meet with a boy, who, besides being intelligent, is a born 
 gentleman, I never hesitate about treating him as my 
 equal, save in that knowledge of life I'm quite ready to 
 share with him. I don't; want to be a Pope with my pupil, 
 and say, 'You are not to do this, or think that,' and give 
 no reason why. You'll always find me ready to discuss 
 with you, and talk over, anything that puzzles you. I 
 was not treated in that fashion nij-self, and I know well 
 what the i-epressive system has cost me. You follow me, 
 don't you, in what I say ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; I think I understand it all." 
 
 Whether I looked as if my words had more meaning 
 than they expressed, or that some sort of misgiving was 
 working within him that he had been hasty in his confi- 
 dence, I know not ; but he arose suddenly, and said, 
 " I must go and get a cigarette." And with that he left 
 me. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THAT BOY OE* NORCO'rx'S, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VILLA MALIBRAN, 
 
 Foe some honrs I wandered over tlie house, admiring the 
 pictures, and the bronzes, and the statuettes, and the 
 hundreds of odd nick-nacks of taste or curiosity that iilled 
 the salons. The treasures of art w^ere all new to me, and 
 I thought I could never weary of gazing on some grand 
 landscape by Both, or one of those little interiors of 
 Dutch life by Ostade or Mieris. It seemed to me the very 
 summit of luxury, that all these glorious objects should be 
 there, awaiting, as it were, the eye of him who owned 
 them, patient slaves of his pleasure, to be rewarded by, 
 perhaps, a hurried glance as he passed. The tempered 
 light, the noiseless footsteps, as one trod the triple-piled 
 carpet, the odour of rich flowers everywhere, impai'ted a 
 dreaminess to the sense of enjoyment, that, after long, 
 long years, I can recall and almost revive by an effort of 
 memory. 
 
 I met no one as I loitered through the rooms, for I was 
 in a part of the house only opened on great occasions, or 
 for large receptions ; and so I sti-ayed on, lost in wonder- 
 ment at the extent and splendour of a scene which, to my 
 untutored senses, seemed of an actually royal magnifi- 
 cence. Having reached what I believed to be the limit of 
 the suite of rooms, I was about to retrace my steps, when 
 I saw that a small octagon tower opened from an angle 
 of the room, though no appai'ent doorway led into it. 
 This puzzle interested me at once, and I set about to 
 resolve it, if I might. I opened one of the windows to 
 inspect the tower on the outside, and saw that no stairs 
 led up to it, nor any apparent communication existed 
 with the rest of the house. I bethought me of the sliding 
 mirror which in my own room concealed the book-case, 
 and set to work to see if some similar contrivance had not 
 been employed here ; but I searched in vain. Defeated 
 and disappointed, I was tui'uing away when, passing my
 
 THE VILLA MALIBRAM. 21 
 
 hand along the margin of a massive picture-frame, I 
 touched a small button ; and as I did so, with a faint 
 sound like a wail, the picture moved slowly, like an open- 
 ing door, and disclosed the interior of the tower. I 
 entered at once, my curiosity now raised to a point of 
 intensity to know what had been so carefully and cun- 
 ningly guarded from public view. What a blank dis- 
 appointment was mine ! The little room, about nine or 
 ten feet in diameter, contained but a few straw-bottomed 
 chairs, and a painted table on which a tea-service of 
 common blue-ware stood. A Dutch clock was on a 
 bracket at one side of the window, and a stuffed bird — a 
 grouse, I believe — occupied another. A straight-backed 
 old sofa, covered with a vulgar chintz, stood against the 
 wall ; an open book, with a broken fan in the leaves, to 
 mark the place, lay on the sofa. The book was " Paul and 
 Virginia." A common sheet almanack was nailed against 
 the wall, but over the printed columns of the months a 
 piece of white paper was pasted, on which, in large letters, 
 was written, " June 11, 18 — . Dies infausta." I started. 
 I had read that date once before in my mother's prayer- 
 book, and had learned it was her marri.ige-day. As a 
 ray of sunlight displays in an instant every object within 
 its beam, I at once saw the meaning of every detail 
 around me. These were the humble accessories of that 
 modest home from which my dear mother was taken ; 
 these were the grim reminders of the time my father 
 desired to perpetuate as an undying sorrow. I trembled 
 to think what a nature I should soon be confronted with, 
 and how terrible must be the temper of a man whose 
 resentments asked for such aliment to maintain them ! 
 I stole away abashed at my own intrusiveness, and feeling 
 that I was rightfully punished by the misery that over- 
 whelmed me. How differently now did all the splendour 
 appear to me as I retraced my steps ! how defiantly I 
 gazed on that magnificence which seemed to insult the 
 poverty I had just quitted ! 
 
 What a contrast to the nurtured spitefulness of his 
 conduct was my poor mother's careful preservation of a 
 picture representing my father in his uniform. A badly 
 painted thing it was ; but with enough of likeness to 
 recall him. And as such, in defiance of neglect, and ilU
 
 22 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt'iJ. 
 
 usage, and insult, she preserved it, — a memorial, not of 
 happier days, but of a time when she dreamed of happi- 
 ness to come. While I was thus thinking, seeking in my 
 mind comparisons between them, which certainly re- 
 dounded but little to" his credit, Nixon came up to me, 
 saying, "Oh, Master Digby, we've been looking for you 
 in every direction. Sir Roger has asked over and over 
 why you have not been to see him ; and I'm afraid you'll 
 find him displeased at your delay." 
 
 "I'm ready now," said I, drily, and followed him. 
 
 My father was in his study, lying on a sofa, and cutting 
 the leaves of a new book as I entered ; and he did not 
 interrupt the operation to offer me his hand. 
 
 " So, sir," said he calmly and coldly, "you have taken 
 your time to px'esent yourself to me ? Apparently you 
 preferred making acquaintance with the house and the 
 grounds." 
 
 " I am very sorry, sir," I began ; " but I did not know 
 you had risen. Nixon told me about one or two " 
 
 " Indeed ! I was not aware that you and Mr. Nixon 
 had been discussing my habits. Come nearer ; nearer 
 still. What sort of dress is this ? Is it a smock-frock 
 you have on ?" 
 
 " No, sir. It's a blouse to keep my jacket clean. I 
 have got but one." 
 
 '' And these shoes ; are they of your own making ?" 
 
 " No, sir. I couldn't make even as good as these." 
 
 "You are a very poor-looking object, I must say. 
 What was Autoine about that he didn't at least make 
 you look like a gentleman, eh ? Can you answer me 
 that?" 
 
 "No, sir, I cannot." 
 
 "Nor I either," said he, sighing. "Have you been 
 equally neglected inside as out ? Have you learned to 
 read?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "And to write?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Write my name, then, thcr?, on that piece of paper, 
 and let mo see it," 
 
 I drew nigh, and wrote, in a full, bold hand, Roger 
 Norcott.
 
 THE VILLA MALIBRAN. 23 
 
 "Why not Sir Roger Norcott, boy? Why not give 
 me my name and title too? " 
 
 " You said your name, sir, and I thought " 
 
 " No matter what you thought. This literalism comes 
 of home breeding," muttered he to himself; "they are 
 made truthful at the price of being vulgar. What do you 
 know besides reading and writing ?'* 
 
 "A little Latin, sir, and some French, and some 
 German, and three books of Euclid, and the Greek 
 
 grammar " 
 
 "There, there, that's more than enough. It will tax 
 your tutor's ingenuity to stub up all this rubbish, and 
 prepare the soil for real acquirement. I was hoping I 
 should see you a savage : a fresh, strong-natured impul- 
 sive savage! What I'm to do with you, with your little 
 peddling knowledge of a score of things, I can't imagine. 
 I'd swear you can neither ride, row, nor fence, never 
 handled a cricket-ball or a single-stick ?" 
 
 " Quite true, sir ; but I'd like to do every one of 
 them." 
 
 " Of course you have been taught music ? " 
 " Yes, sir ; the piano and a little singing." 
 "That completes it," cried he, flinging his book from 
 him. " They've been preparing you for a travelling 
 circus, while I wanted to make you a gentleman. Mind 
 rac now, sir, and don't expect that I ever repeat my 
 orders to any one. What I say once I mean to be ob- 
 served. Let your past life be entirely forgotten by you 
 — a thing that had no reality ; begin from this day — from 
 this very room — a new existence, which is to have neither 
 link nor tie to what has gone before it. The persons you 
 will see here, their ways, their manners, their tone, will 
 be examples for your imitation ; copy them, not servile]}-, 
 nor indiscriminately, but as you will find how their traits 
 will blend with your own nature. Never tell an untruth, 
 never accept an insult without redress, be slow about 
 forming friendships, and where you hate, hate thoi'oughly. 
 That's enough for the present. Awk ]\Ir. Eccles to have 
 the kindness to take you to his tailor and order some 
 clothes. You must dine alone till you are suitably 
 dressed. After that you shall come to my table. One 
 thing more and you may go: don't ever approach me
 
 24 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTt's. 
 
 "witli tales or complaints of any one j right yourself 
 where you can, and where you cannot, bear your griev- 
 ance silently. You can change nothing, alter nothing, 
 here ; you are a guest, but a guest over whom I exercise 
 full control. If you please me it will be well for you ; if 
 not, you understand — it v/ill cost me little to tell you so. 
 Go. Go now." He motioned me to leave him, and I 
 went. Straight to my room I went, and sat down at 
 once to write it all to mother. My heart swelled with 
 indignation at the way I had been received, and a 
 hundred times over did I say to myself that there was no 
 poverty, no hardship I would not face rather than buy a 
 life of splendour on such ignominious terms. Oh, if I 
 could but get back again to the little home I had quitted, 
 how I would bless the hour that restoi'ed me to peace of 
 mind and self-respect ! As I wrote, my indignation 
 warmed with every line. I found that my passion was 
 actually mastering my reason. Better to finish this, later 
 on — when I shall be cooler, thought I ; and I walked to 
 my window and opened it. There were voices of people 
 speaking in the paddock below, and I leaned over the 
 balcony and saw the two men I had seen at breakfr.st, 
 seated on rustic chairs, watching a young horse being 
 broken to the saddle. The well-worn ring in the grass 
 showed that this spot was reserved for such purposes, nor 
 was I displeased to know that such a source of interest 
 lay so near to me. 
 
 '' Isn't he one of your Mexicans, George ? " asked 
 Captain Hotham. 
 
 " No, sir, he's a Hungarian-bred 'un. Master calls 
 him a Jucker, whatever that is." 
 
 "Plenty of action, anyhow." 
 
 "A little too much, sir; that's his fault. He's a-comin' 
 now, and it's all they can do to keep him going over the 
 park paling. Take this one back," said he to the groom, 
 who was ringing a heavy-shouldered, ungainly colt in the 
 ring. 
 
 "You'll not gain much credit by that animal, George," 
 said Cleremont, as he lighted a cigar. 
 
 " He ain't a beauty, sir ; he's low before, and he's 
 cow-hocked behind ; but Sir Roger says he's the best 
 blood in Norfolk. Take caz'e, take care, sir! the skittish
 
 THE VILLA ^lALIBRAN. 25 
 
 devil never knows where he'll send his liinil-Iegs. Steady, 
 Tom, don't check him : why, he's sweating as if he had 
 been round the two-mile course." 
 
 The animal that called for this criticism was a dark 
 chestnut, but so bathed in sweat as to appear almost 
 black, lie was one of those cross breeds between tl;e 
 Arab and the western blood, that gain all the beauty of 
 head and crest and straightly-forraed croup, and yet have 
 length of body and depth of rib denied to the pure Arab. 
 To my thinking he was the most perfect creature I had 
 ever seen, and as he bounded and plunged, there was a 
 supple grace and pliancy about him indescribably beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 George now unloosened the long reins which were 
 attached to the heavy surcingle, and after walking the 
 animal two or three times I'ound the circle, suffered him 
 to go free. As if astonished at his liberty, the young 
 creature stood still for a minute or two, and snifled the 
 air, and then gave one wild bound and headlong plunge, 
 as though he were going straight into the earth ; after 
 which he looked timidly about him, and then walked 
 slowly along in the track worn by the others. 
 
 "He's far quieter than the last time I saw him," said 
 Hotham. 
 
 " He's gettin' more sense every day, sir," replied 
 George ; " he don't scratch his head with his hind-leg 
 now sir, and he don't throw hisself down neither." 
 
 " He hasn't given up biting, I see," said Cleremont. 
 
 " No, sir ; and they tell me them breed never does ; 
 but it's only play, sir." 
 
 " I'll give you six months before you can call him fit to 
 ride, George." 
 
 "My name ain't Spunner, sir, if the young gent as 
 come yesterday don't back him in six weeks' time." 
 
 " And is it for the boy Norcott intends him ? " asked 
 Cleremont of Hotham. 
 
 " So he told me yesterday ; and though I warned him 
 that he hadn't another boy if that fellow should come to 
 grief, he only said, ' If he's got my blood in him, he'll 
 keep his saddle ; and if he hasn't, be had better make 
 room for another.' " 
 
 "Ain't he a-going beautiful now?" cried George, as
 
 26 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTT'k. 
 
 the. aniinal swung slowly along afc a gentle trot, every step 
 of which was as measured as clockwork. 
 
 " You'll have to teach the j'oungster also, George," said 
 Hotham. " I'm sure he never backed a horse in his life." 
 
 " Nay, sii% he rode very pretty indeed when he v>'as six 
 years old. I didn't put him on a Shclty, or one of the 
 hard mouthed 'uns, but a nice little lively French, mare, 
 that reared up the moment he bore hard on her bit ; so 
 that he learned to sit on his beast without holdiu' on by 
 the bridle." 
 
 " He's a loutish boy," said Cleremont to the Captain. 
 " I'll wager what you like they'll not make a horseman of 
 him." 
 
 " Eccles says he's a confounded pedant," said the other ; 
 " that he wanted to cap Horace with him at breakfast." 
 
 " Poor Bob! that wasn't exactly his line ; but he'd hold 
 his own in Balzac or Fred Soulie." 
 
 " Oh, now I see what Norcott was driving at when he 
 said, ' I wanted the stuff to make a gentleman, and 
 they've sent me the germ of a school-usher.' I said, 
 ' Send him to sea with me. I shall be afloat in March, 
 and I'll take him.' " 
 
 " Well, what answer did he make you ? " 
 
 " It wasn't a civil one," said the other, gruffly. " He 
 said, 'You misapprehend me, Hotham. A sea captain is 
 only a boatswain in epaulettes. I mean the boy to be a 
 gentleman.'" 
 
 " And you bore that ? " 
 
 "Yes. Just as well as you bore his telling you at 
 dinner on Sunday last that a Legation secretary was a 
 cross between an old lady and a clerk in the Customs." 
 
 " A man who scatters impertinences broadcast is only 
 known for the merits of his cook or his cellar." 
 
 "Both of which are excellent." 
 
 " Shall I send him in, sir?" asked George, as he patted 
 the young horse and caressed him. 
 
 " Well, Eccles," cried Hotham, as the tutor lounged 
 lazily up, " what do you say to the mount they're going 
 to put your pupil on ?" 
 
 "I wish they'd wait a bit. I shall not be ready for 
 orders till next spring, and I'd rather they'd not break bis 
 neck before Fobruarv or March."
 
 THE VILLA MALIEKAN. 2? 
 
 " Has Norcott promised you the presentation, Bob ?" 
 
 "No, He can't make up his mind whether he'll 
 give it to me or to a Plymouth Brother, or to that fellow 
 that was taken up at Salford for blasphemy, and who 
 happens to be in full orders." 
 
 " Witli all his enmity to the Established Church, I 
 think he might be satisfied with you," said Cleremont. 
 
 " Very neat, and very polite, too," said Eccles ; "but 
 that this is the Palace of Truth I might feel nettled." 
 
 " Is it, by Jove ? " cried Hotham. " Then it must be 
 in the summer months, when the house is shut up. Who 
 has got a strong cigar ? these Cubans of ISTorcott's have 
 no flavour. It must be close on luncheon-time." 
 
 " I can't join you, for I've to go into town, and get 
 my young bear trimmed, and his nails cut. 'Make him 
 presentable,' Norcott said, and I've had easier tasks 
 to do." 
 
 So saying, Eccles moved off in one direction, while 
 Hotham and Cleremont strolled away in another ; and I 
 was left to my own reflections, which were nob few. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 
 
 I WAS made ''presentable " in due time, and on the fifth 
 day after my arrival made my appearance at the dinner- 
 table. " Sit there, sir," said my father, " opposite me." 
 And I was not sorry to perceive that an enormous vase 
 with flowers effectually screened me from his sight. 
 The post of honour thus accorded me was a sufiicient 
 intimation to my father's guests how he intended me to 
 be treated by them ; and as they were without an excep- 
 tion all hangers-on and dependants — men who dined 
 badly or not at all when uninvited to his table — they were 
 marvellously quick in understanding that I was to be
 
 28 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 accepted as his heli", and, after himself, the person of most 
 consideration tliere. 
 
 Besides the three individuals I have already mentioned, 
 our party included two foreigners — Baron Steinmetz, an 
 aide-de-camp of the King, and an Italian duke, San 
 Giovanni. The duke sat on ray father's right, the baron 
 on mine. The conversation during dinner was in French, 
 which I followed imperfectly^, and was considerably 
 relieved on discovering that the German spoke Frencla 
 with difficulty, and blundered over his genders as hope- 
 lessly as I should have done had I attempted to talk. 
 " Ach Gott," muttered he to himself in German, " when 
 people were seeking for a common language, why didn't 
 they take one that all humanity could pronounce ? " 
 
 " So meine ich auch, Herr Baron," cried I ; *' I quite 
 agree with you." 
 
 He turned towards me with a look of positive affection, 
 on seeing I knew German, and we both began to talk 
 together at once with freedom. 
 
 "What's the boy saying?" cried my father, as he 
 caught the sounds of some glib speech of mine. "Don't 
 let him bore you with his bad French, Steinmetz." 
 
 "He is charming me with his admirable German," said 
 the Baron. " I can't tell when I have met a more agree- 
 able companion." 
 
 This was of course a double flattery, for my German 
 was very bad, and my knowledge on any subject no 
 better ; but the fact did not diminish the delight the 
 praise afforded me. 
 
 " Do you know Gei'man, Digby ? " asked my father. 
 
 "A little — a veiy little, sir." 
 
 " The fellow would say he knew Sanscrit if you asked 
 him," whispered Hotham to Eccles ; but my sharp ears 
 overheard him. 
 
 " Come, that's better than I looked for," said my 
 father. " What do you say, Eccles ? Is there stutf 
 there?" 
 
 " Plenty, Sir Roger ; enough and to spare. I count on 
 Digby to do me great credit yet." 
 
 " What career do you mean your son to follow ? " asked 
 the Italian, while he nodded to me over his wine-glass in 
 most civil recognition.
 
 A FIRST DINNEE-PART-X. 20 
 
 ** I'll not make a sailor of him, like that sea-wolf 
 yondei' ; nor a diplomatist, like my silent friend in the 
 corner. Neither shall he be a soldier till British armies 
 begin to do something better than hunt out illicit stills 
 and protect process-servers." 
 
 " A politician, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, sir. There's no credit in belonging to 
 a Parliament brought down to the meridian of soap- 
 boilers and bankrupt bill-brokers." 
 
 *' There's the Church, Sir Eoger," chimed in Eccles. 
 
 "There's the Pope's Church, with some good prizes in 
 the wheel ; but your branch, Master Bob, is a small concern, 
 and it is trembling besides. No. I'll make him none of 
 these. It is in our vulgar passion for money-getting we 
 throw our boys into this or that career in life, and we 
 narrow to the stupid formula of some profession abilities 
 that were meant for mankind. I mean Digby to deal 
 with the world ; and to fit him for the task, he shall 
 learn as much of human nature as I can alTord to teach 
 bim." 
 
 " Ah, there's great truth in that, very great truth ; 
 very wise and very original, too," were the comments 
 that ran round the board. 
 
 Excited by this theme, and elated by his success, my 
 father went on : — 
 
 " If you want a boy to ride, you don't limit him to the 
 quiet hackney that neither pulls nor shies, neither bolts 
 nor plunges ; and so, if you wish your son to know his 
 fellow-men, you don't keep him in a charmed circle of 
 deans and archdeacons, but you throw him fearlessly into 
 contact with old debauchees like Ilotham, or abandoned 
 
 scamps of the style of Cleremont "• and here he had 
 
 to wait till the laughter subsided to add, " and, last of 
 all, you take care to provide him with a finishing tutor 
 like Eccles." 
 
 " I knew your turn was coming, Bob," whispered 
 Hotham ; but still all laughed heartily, well satisfied to 
 stand ridicule themselves if others were only pilloried 
 with them. 
 
 When dinner was over, we sat about a quarter of an 
 hour, not more, and then adjourned to coffee in a small 
 room that seemed half boudoir, half conservatory. As
 
 80 THAT BOY OP NOFvCOTt's. 
 
 I loitered about, having no one to speak to, I found myself 
 at last in a little shrubbery, through which a sort of 
 labyrinth meandered. It was a taste of the day revived 
 iVom olden times, and amazed me much by its novelty. 
 While I was puzzling myself to find out the path thut led 
 out of the entanglement, I heard a voice I knew at once 
 to be Hotham's saying — 
 
 " Look at that boy of Norcott's : he's not satisfied 
 with the imbroglio within doors, but he must go out to 
 mystify himself with another." 
 
 "I don't much fancy that young gentleman," said 
 Cleremont. 
 
 " And I only half. Bob Eccles says w^e have all made 
 a precious mistake in advising ISIorcott to bring him 
 back." 
 
 " Yet it vv'as our only chance to prevent it. Had we 
 opposed the plan, he was sure to have determined on it. 
 "jUiere's nothing for it but your notion, Hotham ; let him 
 send the brat to sea with you." 
 
 " Yes, I think that would do it." And now they had 
 walked out of earshot, and I heard no more. 
 
 If I was not much reassured by these droppings, I was 
 far more moved by the way in which I came to hear them. 
 Over and over had my dear mother cautioned me against 
 listening to what was not meant for me : and here, simply 
 because I found myself the topic, I could not resist the 
 temptation to learn how men would speak of me. I 
 remembered well the illustration by which my mother 
 warned me as to the utter uselessness of the sort of know- 
 ledge thus gained. She told me of a theft some visitor 
 had made at Abbotsford — the object stolen being a signet- 
 ring Lord Byron had given to Sir Walter. The man who 
 stole this could never display the treasure without avow- 
 ing himself a tliief. lie had therefore taken what from 
 the very moment of the fraud became valueless. He 
 might gaze on it in secret with such pleasure as his 
 self-accu.sings would permit. He might hug himself with 
 the thought of possession ; but how could that give plea- 
 sure, or liow drown the everlasting shame the mere sight 
 of the object must revive ? So would it be, my mother 
 said, with him who unlawfully possessed himself of ccr. 
 tain intelligcuce which he could not employ without being
 
 A FIEST DIKNEIl-PAnTr. 01 
 
 convicted of the way he gained it. The lepson thns 
 illnstnited had not ceased to be remembered hy me ; 
 and though I tried all my casuistry to prove tliat 1 
 listened without intention, almost witliont being aware nf 
 it, I was shocked and giievcd to find how soon 1 was 
 forgetting the precepts she had laboured so hard to impress 
 upon me. 
 
 She had also said, " By the same rule which would 
 compel you to i-estore to its owner what yon had become 
 possessed of wrongfully, you are bound to let him you 
 have accidentally overheard know to v/hat extent you are 
 aware of his thoughts." 
 
 " This much at least I can do," said I : "I can tell 
 these gentlemen that I heard a part of their conversa- 
 tion." 
 
 I walked about for nigh an hour revolving these things 
 in my head, and at last returned to the house. As I 
 entered the drawing-room I was struck by the silence. 
 My father, Cleremont, and the two foreigners were playing 
 whist at one end of the room, Hotham and Eccles were 
 seated at chess at another. ISTot a word was uttered save 
 some brief demand of the game, or a murmured " check," 
 by the chcss-plaj^ers. Tnkitig my place noiselessly beside 
 these latter, I watched the board eagerlj', to try and acquire 
 the moves. 
 
 " Do you understand the game?" whispered Hotham. 
 
 " No, sir," said I, in the same c;iutious tone. 
 
 " I'll show you the moves, when this party is over." 
 And T muttered my thanks for the courtesy. 
 
 "This is intolerable!" cried out my faflier. "That 
 confounded whispering is far more distracting than any 
 noise. I have lost all count of my game. I say, Eccles, 
 v.'hy is not that boy in- bed ?" 
 
 " I thought you said he might sup, Sir Roger." 
 
 " If I did, it was because I thought he knew how to 
 conduct himself. Take him away at once." 
 
 And Eccles rose, and with more kindness than I had 
 expected from him, said, " Come, Digby, I'll go too, ior 
 we have both to be early risers to-morrow." 
 
 Thus ended my first day in public, and I have no need 
 to say what a strange conflict filled my licad that night as 
 I dropped ofi' to sleep.
 
 82 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 now THE DAYS WENT OVER. 
 
 If I give one day of my life, I give, with very neavly 
 exactness, the unbroken course of my existence. I rose 
 very early — hours ere the rest of the household was stir- 
 ring^ — to work at my lessons which Mr. Eccles apportioned 
 for me with a liberality that showed he had the highest 
 opinion of my abilities, or — as I discovered later on to be 
 the truth — a profound indifference about them. Thus, a 
 hundred lines of Vii'gil, thirty of Xenophon, three pro- 
 positions of Euclid, with a sufficient amount of historj', 
 geography, and logic, would be an ordinary day's work. 
 It is fair I should own that when the time of examination 
 came, I found him usually imbibing seltzer and curf 90a, 
 with a wet towel round his head ; or, in his robuster 
 moments, practising the dumb bells to develop his 
 muscles. So that the interrogatories were general I3- in 
 this wise : — 
 
 " How goes it, Digby ? What of the Homer — eh ? " 
 
 *' It's Xenophon, sir." 
 
 " To be sure it is. I was forgetting, as a man might 
 who had my headache. And, by the way, Digby, why 
 will your fatlier give Burgundy at supper instead of Bor- 
 deaux ? Some one must surely have told him accidentally 
 it was a deadly poison, for he adheres to it with desperate 
 fidelity." 
 
 " I believe I know my Greek, sir," would I say, modestly, 
 to recall him to the theme. 
 
 "Of course you do ; you'd cut a sorry figure here this 
 morning if you did not know it. No, sir : I'm not the man 
 to enjoy your father's confidence and take his money, and 
 betray my (rust. His words to me were, ' Make him a 
 gentleman, Eccles. I could find scores of fellows to cram 
 him with Greek particles and double equations, but I want
 
 HOW THE DAYS WENT OVER. 33 
 
 the man who can turn out the perfect article — the gentle- 
 man.' Come now, what relations subsisted between Cyrus 
 and Xenophon?" 
 
 "Xenophon coached him, sir." 
 
 " So he did. Just strike a light for me. My head is 
 splitting for want of a cigar. You may have a cigarette, 
 too. I don't object. Virgil we'll keep till to-morrow. 
 Virgil was a muff, after all. Virgil was a decentish 
 sort of Martin Tupper, Digby. He had no wit, no i-e- 
 partee, no smartness ; he prosed about ploughs and shep- 
 herds, like a maudlin old squire ; or he told a very shady 
 sort of anecdote about Dido, which I always doubted should 
 be put into the hands of youth. Horace is free, too, a 
 thought too free ; but he couldn't help it. Horace lived 
 the same kind of life we do here, a species of roast-par- 
 tridge and pretty woman sort of life ; but then he was 
 the gentleman always. If old Flaccus had lived now, 
 he'd have been pretty much like Bob Eccles, and putting 
 in his divinity lectures perhaps. By the way, I hope your 
 father won't go and give away that small rectory in Kent. 
 'We who live to preach, must preach to live.' That isn't 
 exactly the line, but it will do. Pulvis et umbra sumus, 
 Digby; and take what care we may of ourselves, we must 
 go back, as the judges say, to the place from whence we 
 came. There, now, you've had classical criticism, sound 
 morality, worldly wisdom, and the rest of ifc ; and, with 
 your permission, we'll pack up the books, and stand pro- 
 rogued till — let me see — Saturday next." 
 
 Of coui-se I moved no amendment, and went my way 
 rejoicing. 
 
 From that hour I was free to follow my own inclina- 
 tions, which usually took a horsey turn, and as the stable 
 offered several mounts, I very often rode six hours a day. 
 Hotham was always to be found in the pistol-gallery about 
 four of an afternoon, and I usually joined him there, and 
 speedily became more than his match. 
 
 " Well, youngster," he would say, when beaten and 
 irritable, " I can beat your head off at billiards, anyhow." 
 
 But I was not long in robbing him of even this boast, 
 and in less than three months I could defy the best player 
 in the house. The fact, was, I had in a remarkable degree 
 that small talent for games of every kind which is a spe- 
 ll
 
 34 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 ciality witli certain persons. I could not only learn a game 
 quickly, but almost always attain considerable skill in it, 
 
 " So, sir," said my father to me one day at dinner — 
 and nothing was more rare than for him to address a word 
 to me, and I was startled as he did so — " So, sir, you are 
 going to turn out an Admirable Ci-ichton on my hands, it 
 seems. I hear of nothing but your billiard-playing, your 
 horsemanship, and your cricketing, while Mr. Eccles tells 
 me that your progress with him is equally remarkable." 
 He stopped and seemed to expect me to make some re- 
 joinder : but I could not utter a word, and felt over- 
 whelmed at the observation and notice his speech had 
 drawn upon me. 
 
 '' It's better I should tell you at once," resumed my 
 father, " that I dislike prodigies. I dislike because I dis- 
 trust them. The fellow who knows at fourteen what he 
 might reasonably have known at thirty is not unlikely 
 to stop short at fifteen and grow no more. I don't wish 
 to be personal, but I have heard it said Cleremont was a 
 very clever boy." 
 
 The impertinence of this speech, and the laughter it at 
 once excited, served to turn attention away from me ; but, 
 through the buzz and murmur around, I overheard Clere- 
 mont say to Hotham, " I shall pull him np short one of 
 these days, and you'll see an end of all this." 
 
 "Now," continued my father, "if Eccles had told me 
 that the boy was a skilful hand at sherrj^-cobbler, or a 
 rare judge of a Cuban cigar, I'd have reposed more 
 faith in the assurance than when he spoke of his 
 classics." 
 
 " He ain't bad at a gin-sling' with bitters, that I must 
 say," said Eccles, Avhose self-control, or good-humour, or 
 mayhap some less worthy trait, always carried him success- 
 fully over a difficulty. 
 
 " So, sir," said my father, turning again on me, " the 
 range of your accomplishments is complete. You might 
 be a tapster or a jockey. When the nobility of France 
 came to ruin in the Revolution the best blood of the 
 kingdom became barbers and dancing-masters : so that 
 when some fine morning that gay gentleman yonder will 
 discover that he is a beggar, he'll have no ditficulty in 
 finding a calling to suit his tastes, and square with his
 
 HOW THE DAYS WENT OVER. 85 
 
 abilities. What's Hotham grumbling about? Will any 
 one interpret him for me ? " 
 
 " Hotham is saying that this claret is corked," said the 
 sea captain, with a hoai'se loud voice. 
 
 " Bottled at home ! " said my father, " and, like your own 
 education, Hotham, spoiled for a beggarly economy." 
 
 " I'm glad you've got it," muttered Cleremont, whose 
 eyes glistened with malignant spite. " I have had enough 
 of this; I'm for coffee," and he arose as he spoke. 
 
 " Has Cleremont left us ? " asked my father. 
 
 *' Yes ; that last bottle has finished him. I told you 
 before, Nixon knows nothing about wine. I saw that 
 hogshead lying bung up for eight weeks before it was 
 drawn off for bottling." 
 
 " Why didn't you speak to him about it, then ?" 
 
 " And be told that I'm not his master, eh ? You don't 
 seem to know, Norcott, that you've got a houseful of the 
 most insolent servants in Christendom. Cleremont's wife 
 wanted the chestnuts yesterday in the phaeton, and George 
 refused her: she might take the cobs, or nothing." 
 
 " Quite true," chimed in Eccles ; " and the fellow said, 
 ' I'm a-taking the young horses out in the break, and 
 if the missis wants to see the chestnuts, she'd better come 
 with me.^ " 
 
 "And as to a late breakfast now, it's quite impossible ; 
 they delay and delay till they run you into luncheon," 
 growled Hotham. 
 
 " They serve me my chocolate pretty regularly," said 
 my father, negligently, and he arose and strolled out of 
 the room. As he went he slipped his arm within mine, 
 and said, in a half- whisper, "I suppose it will come to 
 this — I shall have to change my friends or my household. 
 Which would you advise? " 
 
 " I'd say the friends, sir." 
 
 " So should I, but that they would not easily find 
 another place. There, go and see is the billiard-room 
 lighted. I want to see you pla}' a game with Cleremont." 
 
 Cleremont was evidently sulking under the sarcasm 
 passed on him, and took up his cue to play with a bad 
 grace. 
 
 " Who will have five francs on the party?" said my 
 father. " I'm going to back the boy." 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S. 
 
 " Make it pounds, Norcotfc," said Hotham. 
 
 "I'll give you six to five, in tens," said Cleremont to 
 ray father. " Will you take it ? " 
 
 I was growing white and red by turns all this time. I 
 was terrified at the thought that money was to be staked 
 on my play, and frightened by the mere presence of my 
 father at the table. 
 
 " The youngster is too nervous to play. Don't let him, 
 Norcott," said Hotham, with a kindness I had not given 
 him credit for. 
 
 " Give me the cue, Digby ; I'll take your place," said 
 my father ; and Cleremont and Hotham both drew nigh, 
 and talked to him in a low tone. 
 
 " Eight and the stroke then be it," said my father, 
 " and the bet in fifties." The others nodded, and Clere- 
 mont began the game. 
 
 I could not have believed I could have suffered the 
 amount of intense anxiety that game cost me. Had my 
 life been on the issue I do not think I could have gone 
 through greater alternations of hope and fear than now 
 succeeded in my heart. Cleremont started with eight 
 points odds, and made thirty-two off the balls before my 
 father began to play. He now took his place, and by the 
 first stroke displayed a perfect mastery of the game. 
 There was a sort of languid grace, an indolent elegance 
 about all he did, that when the stroke required vigour 
 or power made me tremble for the result; but somehow 
 he imparted the exact amount of force needed, and the 
 balls moved about here and there as though obedient to 
 some subtle instinct of which the cue gave a mere sign. 
 He scored forty-two points in a few minutes, and then 
 drawing himself up, said : " There's an eight-stroke now 
 on the table. I'll give any one three hundred Naps to 
 two that I do it." 
 
 None spoke. " Or, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take 
 fifty from each of you and draw the game ! " Another 
 as complete silence ensued. " Or, here's a third proposi- 
 tion, Give me fifty between 3'ou, and I'll hand over the 
 cue to the boy ; he shall finish the game." 
 
 "Oh, no, sir! I beg you — I entreat — " I began; but 
 already, " Done," had been loadly uttei-ed by both 
 togethei', and the bet was ratified.
 
 HOW THK DAYS WENl OVER. 37 
 
 " Don't be nervous, boy," said my fatliei', handing me 
 his cue. " You see what's on the balls. You cannon and 
 hold the white, and land the red in the middle pocket. 
 If you can't do the brilliant thing, and finish the game 
 with an eight stroke, do the safe one — the cannon or the 
 liazard. But, above all, don't lose your stroke, sir. Mind 
 that, for I've a pot of money on the game." 
 
 "I don't think you ought to counsel him, Norcott," 
 said Cleremont. " If he's a player, he's fit to devise his 
 own game." 
 
 "Oh, hang it, no," broke in Hotham ; " Norcott has a 
 perfect right to tell him what's on the table." 
 
 " If you object seriously, sir," said my father proudly, 
 " the party is at an end." 
 
 " I put it to yourself," began Cleremont. 
 
 " You shall not appeal to me against myself, sir. You 
 either withdraw your objection, or you maintain it." 
 
 " Of course he withdraws it," said Hotham, whose eyes 
 never wandered from my father's face. 
 
 Cleremont nodded a half-unwilling assent. 
 
 "You will do me the courtesy to speak, perhaps," said 
 my father ; and every word came from him with a tremu- 
 lous roll. 
 
 "Yes, yes, I agree. There was really nothing in my 
 remark," said Cleremont, whose self-control seemed taxed 
 to its last limit. 
 
 "There, go on, boy, and finish this stupid affair," said 
 my father, and he turned to the chimney to light his 
 cigar. 
 
 I leaned over the table, and a mist seemed to rise before 
 me. I saw volumes of cloud rolling swiftly across, and 
 meteors, or billiard-balls, I knew not which, shooting 
 through them. I played and missed ; I did not even 
 strike a ball. A wild roar of laughter, a cry of joy, and 
 a confused blending of several voices in various tones 
 followed, xnd I stood there like one stunned into immo- 
 bility. Meanwhile Cleremont finished the game, and^ 
 clapping me gaily on the shoulder, cried, " I'm more 
 grateful to you than your fixther is, my lad. That shak- 
 ing hand of yours has made a difference of two hundred 
 Naps to me." I turned towards the fire, my father had 
 left the room.
 
 38 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt'S. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A PRIVATE AUDIENCE, 
 
 I HAD but reached my room when Eccles followed me to 
 say my father wished to see me at once. 
 
 " Come, come, Digby," said Eccles, good-naturedly, 
 " don't be frightened. Even if he should be angry with 
 you, his passion passes soon over ; and, if uncontradicted, 
 he is never disposed to bear a grudge long. Go, imme- 
 diately, however, and don't keep him waiting." 
 
 I cannot tell witli what a sense of abasement I entered 
 my father's dressing-room ; for, after all, it was the abject 
 condition of my own mind that weighed me down. 
 
 " So, sir," said he, as I closed the door, " this is some- 
 thing I was not pi^epared for. You might be forty things, 
 but I certainly did not suspect that a son of mine should 
 be a coward." 
 
 Had my father ransacked bis whole vocabulary for a 
 term of insult, he could not have found one to pain me 
 like this. 
 
 " I am not a coward, sir," said I, reddening till I felt 
 my face in a perfect glow. 
 
 "What!" cried he passionately; "are you going to 
 give me a proof of courage by daring to outrage one ? Is 
 it by sending back my words in my teeth you assume to 
 be brave? " 
 
 " I ask pardon, sir,'' said I, humbly, " if I have replied 
 rudely ; but you called me by a name that made me forget 
 myself. I hope you will forgive me." 
 
 "Sit down, there, sir; no, there." And he pointed to 
 a moi-e distant chair. "There are various sorts and 
 shades of cowardice, and I would not have you tarnished 
 with any one of them. The creature whose first thought, 
 and, indeed, only one, in an emergency is his personal 
 safety, and who, till that condition is secured, abstains 
 from all action, is below contempt ; him I will not even
 
 A PRIVATE AUDIENCE. 39 
 
 consider. But next to him — of course with a long inter- 
 val — comes the fellow who is so afraid of a responsibility 
 that the very thought of it unmans him. How did the 
 fact of my wager come to influence you at all, sir ? Why 
 should you have had any thouglit but for the game you 
 were playing, and how it behoved you to play it ? How 
 came I and these gentlemen to stand between you and 
 your real object, if it were not that a craven dread of 
 consequences had got the ascendancy in your mind ? If 
 men were to be beset by these calculations, if every fellow 
 carried about him an armour of sophistry like this, he'd 
 have no hand free to wield a weapon, and the world would 
 see neither men who storm a breach nor board an enemy. 
 Till a man can so isolate and concentrate his faculties on 
 what he has to do that all extraneous conditions cease to 
 affect him, he will never be well served by his own powers; 
 and he who is but half served, is only half brave. There 
 are times when the unreasoners are v/orth all the men of 
 logic, remember that. And now go and sleep over it." 
 
 He motioned me to withdraw, but I could not bear to 
 go till he had withdrawn the slur he had cast on me in 
 the word coward. He looked at me steadfastly, but not 
 hai'shly, for a moment or two, and then said, — 
 
 " You are not to think that it is out of regret for a lost 
 sum of money I have read you this lecture. As to the 
 wager itself, I am as well jileased that it ended as it 
 did. These gentlemen are not rich, either of them. I 
 can afford the loss. What I cannot afford is the way I 
 lost it." 
 
 " But will you not say, sir, that I am no coward ? " said 
 I, faltering. 
 
 " I will withdraw the word," said he, slowly, " the very 
 first time I shall see you deal with a difficulty without a 
 thought for what it may cost you. There ; good-night ; 
 leave me now. I mean to have a ride with you in the 
 morning." 
 
 And he nodded twice, and smiled, and dismissed me. 
 
 There was nothing, certainly, veiy flattering to me in 
 this reception. It cost me dearly while it lasted, and 
 yet — I cannot explain why — I came away with a feeling 
 of affection for my father, and a desire to stand well in 
 his esteem, such as I had not experienced till that moment.
 
 40 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 It was his utter indifference tip to this that had chilled 
 and repelled me. Any show of interest, anything that 
 might evidence that he cared what I was, or what I might 
 become, was so much better than this apathy, that I 
 welcomed the change with delight. Accustomed to the 
 tender solicitude of a loving mother, no niggard of her 
 praise, and more given to sympathize than blame, the 
 stern reserve of my father's manner had been a terrible 
 reverse, and over and over had I asked myself why he 
 took me from where I was loved and cherished, to live 
 this life of ceremonious observance and cold deference. 
 
 To know that he felt even such interest in me as this, 
 was to restore me to self-esteem at once. He would not 
 have his son a coward, he said ; and as I felt in my heart 
 that I was not a coward, as I knew I was ready then and 
 there to confront any peril he could propose to me, all 
 that the speech left in my memory was a sense of self- 
 satisfaction. 
 
 In each of the letters I had received from my mother 
 she impressed on me how important it was that I should 
 win my father's affection, and now a hope flashed across 
 me that I might do this. I sat down to tell her all that 
 had passed between us ; but somehow in recounting the 
 incident of the billiard-room I wandered away into a 
 description of the house, its splendours and luxury,^and of 
 the life of costly pleasure that we were living. "You 
 will ask, dearest mamma," I wrote, "how and when I 
 find time to study amidst all these dissipations ? and I 
 grieve to own that I do very little. Mr. Eccles says he is 
 satisfied with me ; but I fear it is more because I obtrude 
 little on his notice than that I am making any progress. 
 We are still in the same scene of the Adrian that I began 
 with you ; and as to the Grreek, we leave it over for 
 Saturdays, and the Saturdays get skipped. I have become 
 a good shot with the rifle ; and George says I have the 
 finest, lightest hand he knows on a horse, and that he'll 
 make me yet a regular steeple-chase horseman. I have a 
 passion for riding, and sometimes get four mounts on a 
 day. Indeed, papa takes no interest in the stable, and I 
 give all the orders, and can have a team harnessed for 
 me — which I do — when I am tired with the saddle. They 
 have not quite given up calling me ' that boy of Norcott's ;
 
 A PEIVATE AUDIENCE. 41 
 
 only now, when they do so, it is to say how well he rides, 
 and what a taste he shows for driving and shooting. 
 
 " Don't be afraid that I am neglecting my music. I 
 play every day, and take singing lessons with an Italian : 
 they call him the Count Guastalla ; but I believe he is the 
 tenor of the opera here, and only teaches me out of com- 
 pliment to papa. He dines here nearly every day, and 
 plays piquet with papa all the evening, 
 
 " There is a very beautiful lady comes here — Madame 
 Cleremont. She is the wife of the Secretary to the 
 Legation. She is French, and has such pleasing ways, 
 and is so gay, and so good-natured, and so fond of gratify- 
 ing me in every way, that I delight in being with her ; 
 and we ride out together constantly, and I am now 
 teaching her to drive the ponies, and she enjoys it just as 
 I used myself. I don't think papa likes her, for he seldom 
 speaks to her, and never takes her into dinner if there is 
 another lady in the room ; and I suspect she feels this, for 
 she is often very sad. I dislike Mr. Cleremont ; he is 
 always saying snappish things, and is never happy, no 
 matter how merry we are. But papa seems to like him 
 best of all the people here. Old Captain Hotham and I 
 are great friends, though, he's always saying, ' You ought 
 to be at sea, youngster. This sort of life will only make 
 a blackleg of you.' But I can't make out why, because I 
 am very happy and have so much to interest and amuse 
 me, I must become a scamp, Mdme. Cleremont says, 
 too, it is not true ; that papa is bringing me up exactly as 
 he ought, that I will enter life as a gentleman, and not be 
 passing the best years of my existence in learning the 
 habits of the well-bred world. They fight bitterly over 
 this every day ; but she always gets the victory, and then 
 kisses me, and says, ' Mon cher petit Digby, I'll not have 
 you spoiled, to please any vulgar prejudice of a tiresome 
 old sea-captain.' This she whispers, for she would not 
 offend him for anything, Dear mamma, how you would 
 love her if you knew her ! I believe I'm to go to Rugby 
 to school ; but I hope not, for how I shall live like a 
 schoolboy after all this happiness I don't know ; and 
 Mdme. Cleremont says she will never permit it ; but she 
 has no influence over papa, and how could she prevent it? 
 Captain Hotham is always saying, ' If Norcott does not
 
 42 THAT BOY OF NOECOTt's. 
 
 send that boy to Hai'row or Rugby, or some of these 
 places, he'll graduate in the Marshalsea — that's a prison 
 — befoi"e he's twenty.' I am so glad when a day passes 
 without my being brought up for the subject of a dis- 
 cussion, which papa always ends with, 'After all 
 I was neither an Etonian nor Rugbeian, and I sus- 
 pect I can hold my own with most men; and if that 
 boy doesn't belie his breeding, perhaps he may do 
 so too." 
 
 " Nobody likes contradicting papa, especially when he 
 says anything in a certain tone of voice, and whenever 
 he uses this, the conversation turns away to something 
 else. 
 
 " I forgot to say in my last, that your lettei's always 
 come regularly. They arrive with papa's, and be sends 
 them up to me at once, by his valet, Mons. Durand, who 
 is always so nicely dressed, and has a handsomer watch- 
 chain than papa. 
 
 " Mdme. Oleremont said yesterday, ' I'm so sorry not 
 to know your dear mamma, Digby ; but if I dared, I'd 
 send her so many caresses, de ma part.^ I said no- 
 thing at the time, but I send them now, and am your 
 loving son, 
 
 " Digby Norcott." 
 
 This letter was much longer than it appears here. It 
 filled several sides of note-paper, and occupied me till 
 daybreak. Indeed, I heard the bell ringing for the 
 workmen as I closed it, and shortly after a gentle tap 
 came to my door, and George Spunner, our head groom, 
 entered. 
 
 "I saw you at the window. Master Digby," said he, 
 " and I thought I'd step up and tell you not to ride in 
 spurs this morning. Sir Roger wants to see you on ]May 
 Blossom, and you know she's a hot 'un, sir, and don't 
 want the steel. Indeed, it' she feels the boot, she's as 
 much as a man can do to sit." 
 
 " You're a good fellow, George, to think of this," said I. 
 " Do you know where we're going ? " 
 
 " That's what I was going to tell you, sir. AVe are 
 going to the Bois de Canibre, and there's two of our 
 men gone on with hurdles, to set them up in the cross
 
 A PRIVATE AUDIENCE. 43 
 
 alleys of the wood, and we're to come on 'em unawares, 
 you see." 
 
 " Then why don't you give me Father Tom or Hunger- 
 ford ? " 
 
 "The master wouldn't have either. He said, 'A child 
 of five years old could ride the Irish horse ; ' and as for ( 
 Hungerford, he calls him a circus horse." 
 
 " But who knows if Blossom will take a fence ? " 
 
 " I'll warrant she'll go high enough; how she'll come 
 down, and where, is another matter. Only don'b you go 
 a-pullin' at her, ride her in the snafile, and as light as you 
 can. Face her straight at what she's got to go over, and 
 let her choose her own pace." 
 
 " I declare I don't see how this is a fair trial of my 
 riding, George. Do you ? " 
 
 '' Well, it is, and it isn't," said he, scratching his head. 
 " You might have a very tidy hand and a nice seat, and 
 not be able to ride the mare ; but then, sir, you see, if you 
 have the judgment to manage her coolly, and not rouse 
 her temper too far, if you can bring her to a fence, and 
 make her take off at a proper distance, and fly it, never 
 changing her stride nor baulk, why then he'll see you can 
 ride." 
 
 " And if she rushes, or comes with her chest to a bank, 
 or if — as I think she will — she refuses her fence, rears, and 
 falls back, what then ? " 
 
 " Then I think the mornin's sport will be pretty nigh 
 over," growled he ; as though I had suggested something 
 personally offensive to him. 
 
 " What time do we go, George ? " 
 
 " Sir Roger said seven, sir, but that will be eight or 
 half-past. He's to drive over to the wood, and the horses 
 are to meet him there." 
 
 " All right. I'll take a short sleep and be sharp to 
 time." 
 
 As he left the room I tore open my letter, to add a few 
 words. I thought I'd say something that, if mischance 
 befell me, might be a comfort to my dear mother to i-ead 
 over and dwell on, but for the life of me I did not know 
 how to do it, without exciting alarm or awakening her to 
 the dread of some impending calamity. Were I to say, 
 I'm off" for a ride with papa, it meant nothing ; and if I
 
 44 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT*g. 
 
 said, I'm going to show liim how I can manage a very hot 
 horse, it might keep her in an agony of suspense till I 
 wrote again. 
 
 So I merely added, " I intend to write to you very soon 
 again, and hope I may do so within the week." These 
 few commonplace words had a great meaning to my mind, 
 however little they might convey to her I wrote them to ; 
 and as I read them over, I stored them with details sup- 
 plied by imagination — details so full of incident and 
 catastrophe that they made a perfect story. After this I 
 lay down and slept heavily. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A DARK-ROOM PICTURE. 
 
 My next letter to my mother was very short, and ran 
 thus: — 
 
 "Deadest Mamma, — 
 
 " Don't be shocked at my bad writing, for I had a 
 fall on Tuesday last, and hurt my arm a little ; nothing 
 broken, but bruised and sore to move, so that I lie on my 
 bed and read novels. Madame never leaves me, but sits 
 here to put ice on my shoulder and play chess with me. 
 She reads out Balzac for me, and I don't know when I 
 had such a jolly life. It was a rather big hurdle, and the 
 mare took it sideways, and caught her hind leg — at least 
 they say so, — but we came down together, and she rolled 
 over me. Papa cried out well done, for I did not lose my 
 saddle, and he has given me a gold watch and a seal with 
 the Norcott crest. Every one is so kind ; and Captain 
 Hotham comes up after dinner and tells me all the talk 
 of the table, and we smoke and have our coffee very 
 nicely.
 
 A DARK-ROOBI PICTURE. 45 
 
 " Papa conies every night before supper, and is very 
 good to me. He says that Blossom is now my own, but I 
 must teach her to come cooler to her fences. I can't 
 write more, for my paiu comes back when I stir my 
 arm. You shall hear of me constantly, if I cannot write 
 myself. 
 
 " Oh, dearest mamma, when papa is kind there is no 
 one like him, — so gentle, so thoughtful, so soft in manner, 
 and so dignified all the while. I wish you could see liini 
 as he stood here. A thousand loves from your own boy, 
 
 " DiGBY." 
 
 Madame Cleremont wrote by the same post. I did not 
 see her letter : but when mamma's answer came I knew it 
 must have been a serious version of my accident, and told 
 bow, besides a dislocated shoulder, I had got a broken 
 collar-bone, and two ribs fractured. With all this, how- 
 ever, there was no danger to life ; for the doctor said 
 everything had gone luckily, and no internal parts were 
 wounded. 
 
 Poor mamma had added a postscript that puzzled 
 madame greatly, and she came and showed it to me, and 
 asked what I thought she could do about it. It was an 
 entreaty that she might be permitted to come and see me. 
 There was a touching humility in the request that almost 
 choked me with emotion as I read it. " I could come and 
 go unknown and unnoticed," wrote she. " None of Sir 
 Roger's household have ever seen me, and my visit might 
 pass for the devotion of some old follower of the family, 
 and I will promise not to repeat it." She urged her plea 
 in the most beseeching terms, and said that she would 
 submit to any conditions if her prayer were only complied 
 with. 
 
 " I really do not know what to do here," said madame 
 to me. " Without your father's concurrence this cannot 
 be done ; and who is to ask him for permission ? " 
 
 " Shall I ? " 
 
 " No, no, no," cried she, rapidly. " Such a step on 
 your part would be ruin ; a certain refusal, and ruin to 
 yourself." 
 
 " Could Mr. Eccles do it ? "
 
 46 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt'S. 
 
 " He has no influence whatever." 
 
 "Has Captain Hotham ? ". 
 
 "Less, if less be possible." 
 
 "Mr. Cleremout, then ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, he might, and with a better chance of success ; 
 
 but' " she stopped, and though I waited patiently, she 
 
 did not finish her sentence. 
 
 " But what? " asked I at last. 
 
 " Gaston hates doing a hazardous thing," said she ; and 
 I remarked that her expression changed, and her face 
 assumed a hard, stern look as she spoke: " his theory is, 
 do nothing without three to one in your favour. He says 
 you'll always get these odds, if you only wait.'' 
 
 " But you don't believe that," cried I, eagerly. 
 
 " Sometimes — very seldom, that is, I do not whenever 1 
 can help it." There was a long pause now, in which 
 neither of us spoke. At last she said, " I can't aid your 
 mother in this project. She must give it up. There is 
 no saying how your father would resent it." 
 
 " And how will you tell her that ? " faltered I out. 
 
 " I can't tell. I'll try and show her the mischief it 
 might bring upon you ; and that now, standing high, as 
 you do, in your father's favour, she would never forgive 
 herself if she were the cause of a change towards you. 
 This consideration will have more weight with her than 
 any that could touch herself personally." 
 
 " But it shall not," cried I passionately. " N"othing in 
 iny fortune shall stand between my mother and her love 
 for me." 
 
 She bent down and looked at me with an intensity in 
 her stare that I cannot describe ; it was as if, by actual 
 steadfastness, she was able to fix me, and read me in my 
 inmost heart. 
 
 " From which of your parents, Digby," said she, slowly, 
 " do you derive this nature ? " 
 
 " I do not know ; papa always says I am very like 
 him." 
 
 " And do you believe that papa is capable of great self- 
 sacrifice ? I mean, would he let his affections lead him 
 against his interests ? " 
 
 " That he would ! He has told me over and over the 
 head is as often wrong as right, — the heart only errs about
 
 A DARK-ROOBl PICTURE. 47 
 
 once in five times." She fell on my neck and kissed me 
 as I said this, with a sort of rapturous delight. " Youi- 
 heart will be always right, dear boy," said she ; once 
 more she bent down and kissed me, and then hurried 
 away. 
 
 This scene must have worked more powerfully on my 
 nerves than I felt, or was aware of, while it was passing ; 
 at all events, it brought back my fever, and before night 
 I was in wild delirium. Of the seven long weeks that 
 followed, with all their alternations, I know nothing. My 
 first consciousness was to know myself, as very weak and 
 propped by pillows, in a half-darkened room, in which an 
 old nurse-tender sat and mingled her heavy snorings with 
 the ticking of the clock on the chimney. Thus drowsily 
 pondering, with a debilitated brain, I used to fancy that 
 I had passed away into another form of existence, in 
 which no sights or sounds should come but these dreary 
 breathings, and that remorseless ticking that seemed to be 
 spelling out " eternity." 
 
 Sometimes one, sometimes two or three persons would 
 enter the I'oom, approach the bed, and talk together in 
 whispers, and I would languidly lift up ray eyes and look 
 at them, and though I thought they were not altogether 
 unknown to me, the attempt at recognition would have 
 been an effort so full of pain, that I would, rather than 
 make it, fall back again into apathy. The first moment 
 of perfect consciousness, — when I could easily follow all 
 that I heard, and remember it afterwards — was one even- 
 ing, Avhen a faint but delicious air came in through the 
 open window, and the inch fragrance of the garden filled 
 the room. Captain Hotham and the doctor were seated 
 on the balcony smoking and chatting. 
 
 " You're sure the tobacco won't be bad for him?" asked 
 Hotham. 
 
 "IS^othing will be bad or good, now," was the answer. 
 " Effusion has set in." 
 
 " Which means, that it's all over — eh ? " 
 
 "About one in a thousand, perhaps, rub through. My 
 own experience records no instance of recovery." 
 
 "And you certainly did not take such a gloomy view of 
 his case at first. You told me that there were no vital 
 parts touched ? "
 
 48 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 " Neither wei'e there ; the ribs had suffered no displace- 
 ment, and as for a broken clavicle, I've known a fellow 
 get up and finish his race after it. This boy was doing 
 famously. I don't know that I ever saw a case going on 
 better, when some of them here — it's not easy to say 
 whom — sent off for his mother to come and see him. Of 
 course, without Korcott's knowledge. It was a rash thing 
 to do, and not well done eitlier ; for when the woman 
 arrived, there was no preparation made, either with the 
 boy or herself, for their meeting ; and the result was, that 
 when she crossed the threshold and saw him, she fainted 
 away. The youngster tried to get to her and fainted too; 
 a great hubbub and noise followed ; and Norcott himself 
 appeai'ed. The scene that ensued must have been, from 
 what I heard, terrific. He either ordered the woman out 
 of the house, or he dragged her away, — it's not easy to 
 say which, — but it is quite clear that he went absolutely 
 mad with passion : some say that he told them to pack off 
 the boy along with her, but of course this was sheer 
 impossibility; the boy was insensible, and has been so 
 ever since." 
 
 " I was at Namur that day, but tliey told me when I 
 came back that Cleremont's wife had behaved so well ; 
 that she had the courage to face Norcott ; and though I 
 don't believe she did much by her bravery, she drove 
 him off' the field to his own room, and when his wife 
 did leave the house for the railroad, it was in one of 
 Norcott's carriages, and madame herself accompanied her." 
 
 " Is she his wife ? that's the question." 
 
 " There's not a doubt of it. Blenkworth of the Greys 
 was at the wedding. 
 
 " If I were to he examined before a commission of 
 lunacy to-morrow," said the doctor solemnly, " I'd call 
 that man insane." 
 
 " And you'd shut him up ? " 
 
 "I'd shut him up!" 
 
 " Then I'm precious glad you are not called on to give 
 an opinion, for you'd shut up the best house in this quarter 
 of Europe." 
 
 " And what security have you any moment that ho 
 won't make a clean sweep of it, and turn you all into the 
 streets ? "
 
 A DARK-ROOM PICTURE* 49 
 
 " Yes, that's on the cards any day." 
 
 " He must have got through almost everything he had ; 
 besides, I never heard his property called six thousand 
 a year, and I'll swear twelve wouldn't pay his way here." 
 
 " AVhat does he care ! His father and he agreed to cut 
 off the entail ; and seeing the sort of marriage he made, 
 he'll not fret much at leaving the boy a beggar." 
 
 " But he likes him ; if there's anything in the world ho 
 cares for, it's that boy ! " 
 
 The other must have made some gesture of doubt, or 
 dissent, for the doctor quickly added, " No, no, I'm right 
 about that. It was only yesterday morning he said to me 
 with a shake in the voice thei'e's no mistaking, ' If you 
 can come and tell me, doctor, that he's out of danger, I'll 
 give you a thousand pounds.' " 
 
 " Egad, I think I'd have done it, even though I might 
 have made a blunder." 
 
 "Ye 're no a doctor, sir, that's plain;" and in the 
 emotion of the moment he spoke the words with a strong 
 Scotch accent. 
 
 There was a silence of some minutes, and Hothara 
 said, " That little Frenchwoman and I have no love lost 
 between us, but I'm glad she cut up so well." 
 
 " They're strange natures, there's no denying it. 
 They'll do less from duty and more from impulse than 
 any people in the world, and they're never thoroughly 
 proud of themselves except when they're all wrong." 
 
 " That's a neat character for Frenchwomen," said 
 Hotham, laughing. 
 
 " I think Norcott will be looking out for his whist by 
 this time," said the other ; and they both arose, and pass- 
 ing noiselessly through the room, moved away. 
 
 I had enough left me to think over, and I did think 
 over it till I fell asleep.
 
 50 THAT BOY OP NORCOTT'S. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MADAME CLEREMONT. 
 
 ¥rom thai day forth I received no tidings of niy mother. 
 Whether my own letters reached her or not, I could not 
 tell ; and though I entreated Madame Cleremont, who 
 was now my confidant in everything, to aid me in learn- 
 ing where my mother was, she declared that the task was 
 beyond her; and at last, as time went over, my anxieties 
 became blunted and my aftections dulled. The life I was 
 leading grew to have such a hold upon me, and was so 
 full of its own varied interests, that — with shame I say it 
 "—I actually forgot the veiy existence of her to whom I 
 owed any trace of good, or honest, or truthful that Avas 
 m me. 
 
 The house in which I was living was a finishing school 
 for every sort of dissipation, and all who frequented it 
 were people who only lived for pleasure. Play of the 
 highest kind went on unceasingly, and lai^ge sums were 
 bandied about from hand to hand as carelessly as if all 
 were men of fortune and indifferent to heavy losses. 
 
 A splendid mode of living, sumptuous dinners, a great 
 retinue, and perfect liberty to the guests, drew around us 
 that class who, knowing well that they have no other 
 occupation than self-indulgence, throw an air of languid 
 elegance over vice, which your vulgar sinner, who has 
 only intervals of wickedness, knows nothing of; and this, 
 be it said passingly, is, of all sections of society, the 
 most seductive and dangerous to the young : for there 
 arc no outi-ages to taste amongst these people, they violate 
 no decencies, they shock no principles. If they smash 
 the tables of the law, it is in kid-gloves, and with a 
 delicious odour of Ess bouquet about them. The Clere- 
 monts lived at the Villa. Cleremont managed the house- 
 hold, and gave the orders for everything. Madame
 
 MADA:ME CLERE3I0NT. 51 
 
 received the company, and did the honours ; my father 
 lounging about like an unoccupied guest, and actually 
 amused, as it seemed, by his own unimportance. Hotham 
 had gone to sea ; but Eccles remained, in name, as my 
 tutor ; but we I'arely met, save at meal times, and his 
 manner to me was almost slavish in subserviency, and 
 with a habit of flattery that, even young as I was, revolted 
 me. 
 
 "Isn't that your charge, Eccles?" I once heard an 
 old gentleman ask him ; and he replied, " Yes, my lord ; 
 but Madame Cleremont has succeeded me. • It is slie is 
 finishing him." 
 
 And they both laughed heartily at the joke. There 
 was, however, this much of truth in the speech, that I 
 lived almost entirely in her society. We sang together ; 
 she called me Cherubiuo, and taught me all the page's 
 songs in Mozart or Eossini ; and we rode out together, 
 or read or walked in company. ISTor was her influence 
 over me such as might effeminate me. On the contrary, 
 it was ever hei; aim to give me manly tastes and ambi- 
 tions. She laid great stress on my being a perfect swords- 
 man and a pistol-shot, over and over telling me that a 
 conscious skill in arms gives a man immense coolness in 
 every question of diflerence with other men ; and she 
 would add, "Don't fail into that John Bull blunder of 
 believing that duelling is gone out because they dislike 
 the practice in England. The world is happily larger 
 than the British Islands." 
 
 Little sneers like this at England, sarcasms on English 
 prudery, English reserve, or English distrustfulness, 
 were constantly dropping from her, and I grew up to 
 believe that, while genuine sentiment and unselfish 
 devotion lived on one side of the Channel, a decorous 
 hypocrisy had its home on the other. 
 
 Now, she would contrast the women of Balzac's novels 
 with the colder nonentities of English fiction ; and now, 
 she would dwell on traits of fascination in the sex which 
 our writers either did not know of or were afraid to 
 touch on. "It is entirely the fault of your English- 
 women," she would say, " that the men invariably fall 
 victims to foreign seductions. Circe always sings with a 
 bronc'aitis in the North ; " and though I bat dimly saw 
 
 E 2
 
 52 TILVT BOY OF NOECOTt's. 
 
 what she poiuted at then, I lived to perceive her meaning 
 more fully. 
 
 As for my father, I saw little of him, but in that 
 little he was always kind and good-natured with me. He 
 would quiz me about my lessons, as though I were the 
 tutor, and Eccles the pupil ; and ask me how he got on 
 with his Aristophanes or his Homer ? He talked to me 
 freely about the people who came to the house, and 
 treated me almost as an equal. All this time he behaved 
 to madame with a reserve that was perfectly chilling, so 
 that it was the rarest thing in the world for the three of 
 us to be together. 
 
 " I don't think you like papa," said I once to her, in 
 an effusion of confidence. "I am sure you dont like 
 him ! " 
 
 "And wliy do you think so?" asked she, with the 
 faintest imaginable flush on her pale cheek. 
 
 While I was puzzling myself what to answer, she 
 said, — 
 
 " Come now, Cherubino, what you really meant to say 
 was, I don't think papa likes youf^ 
 
 Though I never could have made so a rude speech, its 
 truth and force struck me so palpably that I could not 
 answer. 
 
 "Well," cried she, with a little laugh, "he is very 
 fond of Monsieur Cleremont, and that ought always to be 
 enough for Madame Cleremont. Do you know, Cheru- 
 bino, it's the rarest thing in life for a husband and wife 
 to be liked by the same people? There is in conjugal 
 life some beautiful little ingredient of discord that sets 
 the two partners to the compact at opposite poles, and 
 gives them separate followings. I mustn't distract you 
 with the theory, I only want you to see why liking my 
 husband is sufficient reason for not caring for «;e." 
 
 Now, as I liked her exceedingly, and felt something 
 very near to hatred for Monsieur Cleremont, I accepted 
 all she said as incontestable truth. Still I grieved over 
 the fact that papa was not of my own mind, and did not 
 see her and all her fascinations as I did. 
 
 There is something indescribably touching in the gentle 
 Badness of certain buoyant bright natures. Like the low 
 notes in a treble voice, there is that that seems to vibrate
 
 MADAME CLEREMONT. 53 
 
 in our hearts at a most susceptible moment, and with the 
 force of an unforeseen contrast ; and it was thus that, in 
 her graver times, she won over mo an ascendancy, and 
 inspired an interest which, had I been ;_other than a mere 
 hoy, had certainly been love. 
 
 Perhaps I should not have been even conscious, as I 
 was, of this sentiment, if it were not for the indignation 
 I felt at Cleremont's treatment of her. Over and over 
 again my temper was pushed to its last limit by his 
 brutality and coarseness. His tone was a perpetual 
 sneer, and his wife seldom spoke before him without his 
 directing towards her a sarcasm or an impertinence. 
 This was especially remarkable if she uttered any senti- 
 ment at all elevated, when his banter would be ushered in 
 with a burst of derisive laughter. 
 
 Nothing could be more perfect than the way she bore 
 these trials. There was no assumed martyrdom ; no 
 covei't appeal for sympathy ; no air of suffering asking for 
 protection. No ! whether it came as ridicule or rebuke, 
 she accepted it gently and good-humouredly ; trying, when 
 she could, to turn it off with a laugh, or when too grave 
 for that, bearing it with quiet forbearance. 
 
 I oftened wondered why my father did not check these 
 persecutions, for they were such, and very cruel ones too ; 
 but he scarcely seemed to notice them, or if he did, it 
 would be by a smile, far more like enjoyment of Clere- 
 mont's coarse wit than reprehending or reproving it. 
 
 " I wonder how that woman stands it ? " I once over- 
 heard Hotham say to Eccles ; and the other replied, — 
 
 " I don't think she does stand it. I mistake her much il 
 she is as forgiving as she looks." 
 
 Why do I recall these things ? why do I dwell on in- 
 cidents and passages which had no actual beai'ing on my 
 own destiny ? Only because they serve to show the 
 terrible school in which I was bi'ought up; the mingled 
 dissipation, splendour, indolence, and passion in which my 
 boyhood was passed. Surrounded by men of reckless 
 habits, and women but a mere shade better, life presented 
 itself to me as one series of costly pleasures, dashed only 
 with such disappointments as loss at play inflicted, or 
 some project of intrigue baffled or averted. 
 
 " If that boy of Norcott's isn't a scamp, ht must be a
 
 54 THAT BOY OP NORCOTT's. 
 
 most unteacbable young rascal," said an old colonel once 
 to Eccles on tlie croquet ground. 
 
 " He lias had great opportunities," said Eccles, as he 
 sent off his ball, " and, so far as I see, neglected none of 
 them." 
 
 " Tou were his tutor, I think ? " said the other with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Tes, till Madame Cleremont took my place." 
 
 " I'll not say it was the worst thing could have hap- 
 pened him. I wish it had been a woman had spoiled me. 
 Eh, Eccles, possibly you may have some such misgivings 
 yourself?" 
 
 " I was never corrupted," said the other with a sen- 
 tentious gravity whose hypocrisy was palpable. 
 
 I meditated many and many a time over these few 
 words, and they suggested to me the first attempt I ever 
 made to know something about myself and my own 
 nature. 
 
 Those stories of Balzac's, those wonderful pictures of 
 passionate life, acquired an immense hold upon me, from 
 the very character of my own existence. That terrific 
 game of temper against temper, mind against mind, and 
 heart against heart, of which I read in these novels, I 
 was daily witnessing in what went on around me, and I 
 amused myself by giving the names of the characters in 
 these fictions to the various persons of our society. 
 
 " It is a very naughty little world we live in at this 
 house, Digby," said madame to me one day ; " but you'd 
 be surprised to find what a very vulgar thing is the life 
 of people in general, and that if you want the sensational, 
 or even the pictorial in existence, you'll have to pay for it 
 in some compromise of principle." 
 
 " I know mamma wouldn't like to live hex'e," said I, 
 half sullenly. 
 
 " Oh, mamma ! " cried she, with a laugh, and then 
 suddenly checking herself: " No, Digby, you are quite 
 right. Mamma would be shocked at our doings ; not that 
 they are so very wicked in themselves as that, to one of 
 her quiet ways, they would seem so." 
 
 " Mamma is very good. I never knew any one like 
 lier," stammered I out. 
 
 " That's quite true, my dear boy. She is all that you
 
 MADAME CLEKJliMONT. 55 
 
 Bay, but one may be too good, just as Ijc may be too 
 generous, or too confiding ; and it is well to remember 
 that there are a number of excellent things one would 
 like to be if they could afford them ; but the truth is, 
 Digby, the most costly of all things are virtues." 
 
 " Oh, do not say that ! " cried 1, eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, dear, I must say it. Monsieur Cleremont and I 
 have always been very poor, and we never permitted 
 ourselves these luxuries, any more than we kept a great 
 house, and a fine equipage, and so we economize in our 
 morals, as in our means, doing what rich folk might call 
 little shabbinesses ; but on the whole managing to live, 
 and not unhappily either." 
 
 "And papa?"' 
 
 " Papa has a fine estate, wants for nothing, and can 
 give himself every good quality he has a fancy for." 
 
 " By this theory then, it is only rich people are good?" 
 
 " Not exactly. I would rather state it thus — the rich 
 are as good as they like to be ; the poor are as good as 
 they're able." 
 
 " AYhat do you say then to Mr. Eccles : he's not rich, 
 and I'm sure he's good ? " 
 
 " Poor Mr. Eccles ! " said she with a merry laughter, 
 in which a something scornful mingled, and she hurried 
 away. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PLANNING PLEAStTRE. 
 
 It was my father's pleasure to celebrate my sixteenth 
 birthday with great splendour. The whole house was to 
 be thrown open ; and not only the house, but the con- 
 servatory and the grounds were to be illuminated. The 
 festivities were to comprise a grand dinner and a reception 
 afterwards, which was to become a ball, as if by an 
 impromptu. 
 
 As the society of the Villa habitually was made up of
 
 56 THAT BOY OF NOBCOTt's, 
 
 a certain number of intimates, relieved from time to time 
 by sucli strangers as were presented, and as my father 
 never dined out, or went into the fashionable world of the 
 place, it was somewhat of a bold step at once to invite a 
 number of persons with whom we had no more than 
 bowing acquaintance, and to ask to his table ministers, 
 envoys, court officials, and grand chamberlains for the 
 first time. It was said, I know not how truthfully, that 
 Cleremont did his utmost to dissuade him fi'om the project 
 at first, by disparaging the people for whom he was putting 
 himself to such cost, and finding this line of no avail, by 
 openly saying that what between the refusals of some, the 
 excuses of others, and the actual absence of many whose 
 presence he was led to expect, my father was storing up 
 for himself an amount of disappointment and outrage 
 that would drive him half desperate. It was not, of 
 course, very easy to convey this to my father. It could 
 only be done by a dropping word or a half-expressed 
 doubt. And when the time came to make out the lists 
 and issue the invitations, no real step had been taken to 
 turn him from his plan. 
 
 The same rumour which ascribed to Cleremont the 
 repute of attempting to dissuade my father from his 
 project, attributed to Madame Cleremont a most eager and 
 warm advocacy of the intended fete. From the marked 
 coldness and reserve, however, which subsisted between 
 my father and her, it was too difficult to imagine in what 
 way her influence could be exercised. 
 
 And for my own part, though I heard the list of the 
 company canvassed every day at luncheon, and discussed 
 at dinner, I don't remember an occasion where madame 
 ever uttered a word of remark, or even a suggestion in the 
 matter. Hotham, who had come back on a short leave, 
 was full of the scheme. With all a sailor's love of move- 
 ment and bustle, he mixed himself up with every detail of 
 it. He wrote to Paris and London for all the delicacies 
 of the " comestible " shops. He established " estafettes " 
 on every side to bring in fresh flowers and fruit ; with his 
 own hands he rigged out tents and marquees for the regi- 
 mental bands, which were to be stationed in different 
 parts of the grounds; and all the devices of Bengal 
 lights and fireworks he took into his especial charge.
 
 PLANNING PLEASURE . 57 
 
 Indeed, Nixon told me that his functions did not stop 
 here, but that he had charged himself with the care of 
 Madame Cleremont's toilette, for whom he had ordered 
 the most splendid ball-dress Paris could produce. 
 "Naturally, Master Digby, it is Sir Roger pays," added 
 he ; " and perhaps one of these days he'll be surprised to 
 find that diamond loops and diamond bouquets should 
 figure in a milliner's bill. But as she is to receive the 
 company, of course it's all right." 
 
 " And why does Mr. Clei'emont seem to dislike it all so 
 much ? " asked I. 
 
 " Chiefly, I believe, because slie likes it." And then, as 
 though he had said more than he intended, he added, 
 " Oh, it's easy to see he likes to keep this house as much 
 his own as he can. He doesn't want Sir Koger to have 
 otlier people about him. He's almost the master here 
 now ; but if your father begins to mix with the world, 
 and have strangers here, Cleremont's reign would soon 
 be over," 
 
 Though there was much in this speech to suggest 
 thought and speculation, nothing in it struck me so 
 forcibly as the impertinence of calling Mr. Cleremont, 
 Cleremont, and it was all I could do to suppress the rebuke 
 that was on my lips. 
 
 "If your father comes through for a thousand pounds, 
 sir," continued he, " I'll say he's lucky. If Sir Hoger 
 would leave it to one person to give the orders, — I don't 
 mean myself, — though by right it is my business ; instead 
 of that, there's the captain sending for this, and Cleremont 
 for the other, and you'll see there will be enough for three 
 entertainments when it's all over. Could you just say a 
 word to him, sir ? " 
 
 " Not for the world, Nixon. Papa is very kind to me, 
 and good-natured, but I'll not risk anj^ liberty witli him ; 
 and what's moi'e, I'd be right sorry to call Mr. Cleremont, 
 Cleremont before him, as you have done twice within the 
 last five minutes." 
 
 "Lord bless you. Master Digby! I've known him 
 these fifteen years. I knew him when he came out, just a 
 boy like, to Lord Colthorpe's embassy. He and I is like 
 pals." 
 
 " You have known me also as a boy, Nixon," said I,
 
 58 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 haughtily; "and jet, I promise you, I'll not permit you 
 to speak of me as Norcott, when I am a man." 
 
 " 1^0 fear of that, sir, you may depend on't," said he, 
 "with humility ; but there was a malicious twinkle in his 
 eye, and a firm compression of the lip as he withdrew, 
 that did not leave my mind the whole day after. Indeed, 
 I recognized that his face had assumed the selfsame 
 look of insolent familiarity it wore when he spoke of 
 Cleremont. 
 
 The evening of that day was passed filling up the cards 
 of invitation, — a process which amused me greatly, afford- 
 ing, as it did, a sort of current critique on the persons 
 whose names came up for notice, and certainly, if I were 
 to judge of their eligibility only by what I heard of 
 their characters, I might well feel amazed why they were 
 singled out for attentions. They were marquises and 
 counts, however, chevaliers of various orders, grand, 
 cordons and " hautes charges," so that their trespasses 
 or their shortcomings had all been enacted in the world of 
 good society, and with each other as accomplices or 
 victims. There were a number of contingencies, too, 
 attached to almost every name. There must be high play 
 for the Russian envoy, flirting for the French minister's 
 wife, iced drinks for the Americans, and pcandal and 
 Ostend 03'sters for everybod3\ There was scarcely a good 
 word for any one, and yet the most eager anxiety was 
 expressed that they would all come. Immense precau- 
 tions had been taken to fix a day when there was nothing 
 going on at court or in the court circle. It was difficult 
 to believe that pleasure could be planned with such heart- 
 burning and bitterness. There was scarcely a detail that 
 did not come associated with something that reflected 
 on the morals or the manners of the dear friends we were 
 entreating to honour us ; and for the life of me I did not 
 know why such pains were taken to secure the presence 
 of people for whom none had a good wish nor a single 
 kindly thought. 
 
 My father took very little part in the discussion ; he 
 sat there Avith a sort of proud indiff'erence, as though the 
 matter had little interest for him, and if a doubt were 
 expressed as to the likelihood of this or that person's 
 acceptance, he would superciliously bi^eak in with, "He'll
 
 PLANNING PLEASURE. 59 
 
 come, sir : I'll answer for that. I have never yet played 
 to empty benches." 
 
 This vain and .haughty speech dwelt in my mind for 
 many a day, and showed me how my father deemed that 
 it was not his splendid style of living, his exquisite 
 dinners, and his choice wines that drew guests ai-ound 
 him, but his own especial qualities as host and 
 entertainer. 
 
 " But that it involves the bore of an audience, I'd ask 
 the king ; I could give him some Chateau d'Yquem very 
 unlike his own, and such as, I'll venture to say, he never 
 tasted," said he, affectedly. 
 
 " So you are going to bring out the purple seal ? " 
 cried Cleremont. 
 
 " I might for royalty, sir ; but not for such people as I 
 read of in that list there." 
 
 " Why, here are two dukes with their duchesses, 
 marquises and counts by the score, half-a-dozen ministers 
 plenipotentiary, and a perfect cloud of chamberlains and 
 court swells." 
 
 "They'd cat a great figure, I've no doubt, Hotham, on 
 the quartei'-deck of the Thunder JBomi, where you eke 
 out the defects of a bad band with a salute from your 
 big guns, and give your guests the national anthem when 
 they want champagne. Oh, dear, there's no snob like a 
 sailor ! " 
 
 " Well, if they're not good enough for you, why the 
 devil do you ask them ? " cried Hotham, sturdily. 
 
 " Sir, if I were to put such a question to myself I 
 might shut up ray house to-morrow ! " And with this 
 very uncourteous speech he arose and left the room. 
 
 We continued, howevcT', to fill in the cards of invita- 
 tion and address the envelopes, but with little inclination 
 to converse, and none whatever to refer to what had 
 passed. 
 
 " There," cried Cleremont, as he checked off the list. 
 "That makes very close on seven hundred. I take it I 
 may oi'der supper for six hundred." Then turning half 
 fiercely to me, he added, '' Do you know, youngster, that all 
 this tomfoolery is got up for i/ou ? It is by way of cele- 
 brating your birthday, we're going to turn the house out 
 of the windows ! "
 
 60 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 " I suppose my father has that right, sir." 
 
 " Of course he has, just as he would have the right to 
 make a ruin of the place to-morrow if he liked it ; but I 
 don^t fancy his friends would be the better pleased with 
 him for his amiable eccentricity : your father pushes our 
 regard for him very far sometimes." 
 
 " I'll tell him to be more cautious, sir, in future," said 
 I, moving towards the door. 
 
 " Do so," said he. " Good-night." 
 
 I had scarcely taken my bedroom candle when I felt a 
 hand on my shoulder : I turned and saw Madame Clere- 
 mont standing very pale and in great agitation at ray 
 side. " Oh, Digby," said she, " don't make that man your 
 enemy whatever you do ; he is more tJian a match for 
 you, poor child ! " She was about to say more when ^ve 
 heard voices in the corridor, and she hurried away and 
 left me. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 A BIRTHDAY DINNEB. 
 
 The eventful day arrived at last, and now, as I write, I 
 can bring up before me the whole of that morning, so full 
 of exciting sensations and of pleasurable surprises. I 
 wandered about from room to room, never sated with the 
 splendours around me. Till then I had not seen the 
 gorgeous furniture uncovered, nor had I the faintest idea 
 of the beauty and richness of the silk hangings, or the 
 glittering elegance of those lustres of pure Venetian glass. 
 Perhaps nothing, however, astonished me so much as the 
 ari'ay of gold and silver plate in the dining-room. Our 
 every-day dinners had been laid out with what had seemed 
 to me a most costly elegance ; but what were they to this 
 display of splendid centre-pieces and massive cups and
 
 A BIRTHDAY DINNEH. 61 
 
 salvers large as shields ! Of flowers, the richest and 
 rarest, waggon-loads poured in ; and at last 1 saw the 
 horses taken out, and carts full of carnations and gera- 
 niums left unloaded in the stable-yard. Ice, too, came in 
 the same profusion : those squarely cut blocks, bright as 
 crystal, and hollowed out to serve as wine-coolers, and 
 take their place amidst the costlier splendours of gold and 
 silver. 
 
 It is rare to hear the servant class reprove profusion ; 
 but here I overheard many a comment on the reckless 
 profligacy of outlay which had provided for this occasion 
 enough for a dozen such. It was easy to see, they said, 
 that Mr. Cleremont did not pay, and this sneer sunk 
 deep into my mind, increasing the dislike I already felt 
 for him. 
 
 !N^or was it the house alone was thus splendidly prepared 
 for reception ; but kiosks and tents were scattered through 
 the grounds, in each of which, as if by magic, supper 
 could be served on the instant. Upwards of thirty ad- 
 ditional servants were engaged, all of whom were dressed 
 in our state livery, white, with silver epaulettes, and the 
 Norcott crest embroidered on the arm. These had been 
 duly drilled by Mr. Cleremont, and were not, he said, to 
 be distinguished by the most critical eye from the rest of 
 the household. 
 
 Though there was movement everywhere, and every- 
 where activity, there was little or no confusion. Clere- 
 mont was an adept in organization, and already his skill 
 and cleverness had spread discipline through the mass. 
 He was a despot however, would not permit the slightest 
 interference with his functions, nor accept a suggestion 
 from any one. " Captain Hotham gives no orders here," 
 I heard him say ; and when standing under my window, 
 and I am almost sure seeing me, he said, " Master Digby 
 has nothing to do with the arrangements any more than 
 yourself." 
 
 I had determined that day to let nothing irritate or 
 vex me ; that I would give myself up to unmixed enjoy- 
 ment and make this birthday a memorable spot in life, to 
 look back on with undiluted delight. I could have been 
 more certain to carry out this resolve if I could only have 
 seen and spoken with Madame Cleremont j but she did
 
 62 THAT BOY OF NOrtCOTT'S. 
 
 not leave her room the whole day. A distinguised hair- 
 dresser had arrived -with a mysterious box early in the 
 morning-, and after passing two hours engaged with her, 
 had returned for more toilet requirements. In fact, from 
 the coming and going of maids and dressmakers, it was 
 evident that the preparations of beauty were fully equal 
 to those that were being made by cooks and confectioners. 
 
 My ftither, too, was invisible ; his breakfast was served 
 in his own room ; and when Cleremont wished to com- 
 municate with him, he had to do so in writing : and these 
 little notes passed unceasingly between them till late iu 
 the afternoon. 
 
 " What's up now ? " I heard Hotham say, as Cleremont 
 tore up a note in pieces and flung the fi'agments from him 
 with impatience.- 
 
 "Just like him. I knew exactly how it would be," 
 cried the other. " He sent a card of invitation to the 
 Due de Bredar without first making a visit ; and here 
 comes the Due's chasseur to say that his Excellency has 
 not the honour of knowing the gentleman who has been 
 so gracious as to ask him to dinner." 
 
 " l!^orcotb will have him out for the impertinence," said 
 Hotham. 
 
 " And what will that do ? "Will the shooting him or 
 the being shot make this dinner go off as we meant it, 
 eh ? Is that for me, Nixon ? give it here." He took a 
 note as he spoke, and tore it open. " ' La Marquise de 
 Cai'nac is engaged,' not a word more. The Avorld is cer- 
 tainly progressing in politeness. Three cards came back 
 this day with the words ' Sent by mistake ' written on 
 them. Norcott does not know it 3^et, nor shall he till 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Is it true that the old Countess de Joievillars begged 
 to know who was to receive the ladies invited ?" 
 
 " Yes, it is true ; and I told her a piece of her own 
 early history in return, to assure her that no accident of 
 choice should be any bar to the hope of seeing her." 
 
 "What was the story?" 
 
 " Vd tell it if that boy of Norcott's was not listening 
 there at that window." 
 
 "Yes, sir," cried I; "I have heard every word, and 
 mean to repeat it to my father when I see him."
 
 A BIRTHDAY DINNER. G3 
 
 " Tell him at the same time, then, that his grand 
 dinner of twenty-eight has now come down to seventeen, 
 and I'm not fully sure of three of these." 
 
 I went down into the dining-roora, and saw that places 
 had been laid for twenty-eight, and as yet no altei'ation 
 had been made in the table, so that it at once occurred to 
 me this speech of Clereraont's was a mere impertinence 
 — one of those insolent sallies he was so fond of. Nixon, 
 too, had placed the name of each guest on his napkin, and 
 he, at least, had not heard of any apologies. 
 
 Given in my honour, as this dinner was, I felt a most 
 intense interest in its success, I was standing, as it were, 
 on the threshold of life, and regarded the mode in which 
 I should be received as an augury of good or evil. M}^ 
 father's supremacy at home, the despotism he wielded, 
 and the respect and deference he exacted, led me to infer 
 that he exercised the same influence on the world at 
 large ; and that, as I had often heard, the only complaint 
 against him in society was his exclusiveness. I canvassed 
 these thoughts with myself for hours, as I sat alone in 
 my room waiting till it was time to dress. 
 
 At last eight o'clock struck, and I went down into the 
 drawing-room. Hotham was there, in a window recess, 
 conversing in whispers with an Italian count — one of our 
 intimates, but of whom I knew nothing. They took no 
 notice of me, so that I took up a paper and began to read. 
 Cleremont came in soon after with a bundle of notes in 
 his hand. "Has your father come down?" asked ho, 
 hastily ; and, then, without waiting for my reply, he 
 turned and left the room. Madame next appeared. I 
 have no words for my admiration of her, as, splendidly 
 dressed and glittering with diamonds, she swept proudly 
 in. That her beauty could have been so heightened by 
 mere toilette seemed incredible, and as she read my 
 wonderment in my face she smiled, and said ; — 
 
 " Tes, Digby, I am looking my very best to fete yotir 
 birthday." 
 
 I would have liked to have told her how lovely she 
 appeared to me, but I could only blush and gaze wonder- 
 in gly on her. 
 
 " Button this glove, dear," said she, handing to me her 
 "wrisfc all weighted and jingling with costly bracelets ;
 
 64 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 and while, witli trembling fingers, I was trying to obey 
 her, ray fatlier entered and came towards us. He made 
 her a low but very distant bow, tapped me familiarly on 
 the shoulder, and then moved across to an arm-chair and 
 Bat down. 
 
 Cleremont now came in, and drawing a chair beside my 
 father's, leaned over and said something in a whisper. 
 Not seeming to attend to what he was saying, my father 
 snatched, rather than took, the bundle of letters he held 
 in his hand, ran his eyes eagerly over some of them ; 
 and then, crushing the mass in his grasp, he threw it 
 into the fire. 
 
 " It is forty minutes past eight," said he cahnly, but 
 with a deadly pallor in his face. " Can any one tell me 
 if that clock be right ? " 
 
 " It is eight or ten minutes slow," said Hotham. 
 
 " Whom do we wait for, Cleremont ? " asked my 
 father again. 
 
 " Steinmetz was de service with the king, but would 
 come if he got free ; and there's Rochegude, the French 
 Secretary, was to replace his chief. I'm not quite sure 
 about the Walronds, but Craydon told me positively to 
 expect him." 
 
 " Do me the favour to ring the bell and order dinner," 
 said my father, and he spoke with measured calm. 
 
 " Won't you wait a few minutes ? " whispered 
 Cleremont. " The Duke de Frialmont, I'm sure, will be 
 here." 
 
 " No, sir ; we live in a society that understands and 
 observes punctuality. No breach of it is accidental. 
 Dinner, Nixon ! " added he, as the servant appeared. 
 
 The folding doors were thrown wide almost at once, 
 and dinner announced. My father gave his arm to 
 ]\Iadame Cleremont, who actually tottered as she walked 
 beside him, and as she sat down seemed on the verge of 
 fainting. Just as we took our places three young men, 
 somewhat over-dressed, entered hurriedly, and were 
 proceeding to make their apologies for being late; but 
 my father, with a chilling distance, assured them they 
 were in excellent time, and motioned them to be 
 seated. 
 
 Of the table laid for twenty-eight guests, nine places
 
 A BIETHDAY DINNER. 65 
 
 were occupied ; and these, by some mischance, were 
 scattered here and there with wide intervals. Madame 
 Cleremont sat ou my father's right, and three empty 
 places flanked his left hand. 
 
 I sat opposite my father, with two vacant seats on 
 either side of me ; Hotham nearest to me, and one of the 
 strangers beside him. They conversed in a very low tone, 
 but short snatches and half sentences reached me ; and I 
 heard the stranger say, " It was too bold a step ; women 
 are sure to resent such attempts." Madame Cleremont's 
 name, too, came up three or four times ; and the stranger 
 said, " It's my first dinner here, and the Bredars will not 
 forgive me for coming." 
 
 " Well, there's none of them has such a cook as 
 Norcott," said Hotham. 
 
 " I quite agree with you ; but I'd put up with a worse 
 dinner for better company." 
 
 I looked round at this to show I had heard the remark, 
 and from that time they conversed in a whispei'. 
 
 My father never uttered a word during the dinner. I 
 do not know if he ate, but he helped himself and affected 
 to eat. As for madame, how she sat out those long two 
 hours, weak and fainting as she was, I cannot tell. I 
 saw her once try to lift her glass to her lips but her hand 
 trembled so, she set it down untasted, and lay back in her 
 chair, like one dying out of exhaustion. 
 
 A few words and a faint attempt to laugh once or 
 twice broke the dead silence of the entertainment, which 
 proceeded, however, in all iiG stately detail, course after 
 course, till the dessert was handed round, and Tokay, in 
 small gilt glasses, was served ; then my father rose slowly, 
 and drawing himself up to his full height, looked 
 haughtily around him. " May I ask my illustrious 
 friends," said he, " who have this day so graciously 
 honoured me with their presence, to drink the health of 
 my son, whose birthday we celebrate. There is no 
 happier augury on entering life than to possess the 
 friendship and goodwill of those who stand foremost in 
 the world's honour. It is his great privilege to be 
 surrounded this day by beauty and by distinction. The 
 great in the arts of peace and war, and that loveliness 
 which surpasses in its fascination all other rewards, are 
 
 p
 
 66 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 around me, and X call upon these to drink to the health of 
 Digby Norcott." 
 
 All rose and drank ; Hotham lifted his glass high in air 
 and tried a cheer, but none joined him ; his voice died 
 away, and he sat down ; and for several minutes an 
 unbroked silence prevailed. 
 
 My father at last leaned over towards madame, and I 
 heard the word " coflFee." She arose and took his arm, 
 and we all followed them to the drawing-room. 
 
 " I'm right glad it's over," said Hotham, as he poured 
 his brandy over his coffee. " I've sat out a court-martial 
 that wasn't slower than that dinner." 
 
 " But what's the meaning of it all?" asked another. 
 " Why and how came all these aj^ologies ? " 
 
 "Tou'd better ask Cleremont, or rather his wife," 
 muttered Hotham, and moved away. 
 
 " You ought to get into the open air : that's the best 
 thing for you," I heard Cleremont say to his wife, but 
 there was such a thorough indifference in the tone, it 
 sounded less like a kindness than a sarcasm. She, how- 
 ever, drew a shawl around her and moved down the steps 
 into the garden. My father soon after retired to his own 
 room, and Cleremont, laughingly, said, " There are no 
 v/omen here, and we may have a cigar; " and he threw his 
 case across the table. The Avhole party were soon im- 
 mersed in smoke. 
 
 I saw that my presence imposed some restraint on the 
 conversation, and soon sought my room with a much 
 sadder spirit and a heavier heart than I had left it two 
 hours before.
 
 67 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Musing, and thinkiug, and fretting together, I had fallen 
 asleep on my sofa, and was awakened by Mr. Nixon 
 lighting my candles, and asking me, in a very mild voice, 
 if I felt unwell. 
 
 " No, nothing of the kind." 
 
 " Won't you go down, sir, then ? It's past eleven now, 
 and there's a good many people below." 
 
 " "Who have come? " asked I, eagerly. 
 
 " AV'ell, sir," said he, with a certain degree of hesitation, 
 " they're not much to talk about. There's eight or nine 
 young gentlemen of the embassies — attaches like — and 
 there's fifteen or twenty oiScers of the Guides, and there's 
 some more that look like travellers out of the hotels ; 
 they ain't in evening-dress." 
 
 " Are there no ladies ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I suppose we must call them ladies, sir. There's 
 Madame Rigault and her two daughtex'S." 
 
 " The pastrycook ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and there are the Demoiselles Janson, of the 
 cigar-shop, and stunningly dressed they ai-e, too ! Ambei* 
 satin with black lace, and Spanish veils on their heads. 
 And there's that little Swedish girl — I believe she's a 
 Swede — that sells the iced drinks." 
 
 "But what do you mean? These people have not been 
 invited. How have they come here ? '' 
 
 " Well, sir, I mustn't tell you a lie ; but I hope you'll 
 not betray me if I speak in confidence to you. Here's 
 how it all has happened. The swells all refused : they 
 agreed together that they'd not come to dinner, nor coma 
 in the evening. Mr. Clei'emont knows why ; but it ain't 
 for me to say it." 
 
 "But /don't know, and I desire to know!" cried [ 
 haughtily. 
 
 i' 2
 
 68 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 "Well, indeed, sir, it's more than I can tell you. 
 There's people here not a bit correcter than herself that 
 won't meet her." 
 
 "Meet whom?" 
 
 "Madame, sir — Madame Cleremont," 
 
 "Don't dare to say another word," cried I, passionately. 
 " If you utter a syllable of disrespect to that name I'll 
 fling you out of the window." 
 
 " Don't be afraid, Master Digby, I know my station, 
 and I never forget it, sir. I was only telling you what 
 you asked me, not a word more. The swells sent back 
 your father's cards, and there's more than three hundred 
 of them returned." 
 
 " And where's papa now ? " 
 
 " In bed, sir. He told his valet he wasn't to be dis- 
 turbed, except the house took fire." 
 
 " Is Madame Cleremont below ?" 
 
 " N^o, sir; she's very ill. The doctor has been with 
 her, and he's coming again to-night." 
 
 " And are these people — this rabble that you talk of — 
 received as my papa's guests ? " 
 
 " Only in a sort of a way, sir," said he smiling. " You 
 see, that when Mr. Cleremont perceived that there was 
 nothing but excuses and apologies pouring in, he told me 
 to close the house, and that we'd let all the bourgeois 
 people into the grounds, and give them a jolly supper and 
 plenty of champagne ; and he sent word to a many of the 
 young officers to come up and have a lark ; and certainly, 
 as the supper was there, they might as well eat it. The 
 only puzzle is now, won't there be too many, for he sent 
 round to all Sir Roger's tradespeople, — all at least that 
 has good-looking daughters, — and they're pourin' in by 
 tens and fifteens, and right well dressed and well got up, 
 too." 
 
 " And what will papa say to all this to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Don't you know, sir, that Sir Roger seldom looks 
 back," said he, with a cunning look ; " he'll not be dis- 
 turbed to-night, for the house is shut up, and the bands 
 are playing, one at the lake, the other at the end of 
 the long walk, and the suppers will be served here and 
 there, where they can cheer and drink toasts without 
 annoying anyone."
 
 THE BALL. 69 
 
 " It's a downright infamy !" cried I. 
 
 "It ain't the correct thing, sure enough, sir, there's 
 none of us could say that, but it will be rare fun ; and as 
 Captain Hotbam said, ' the women are a precious sight 
 better looking than the countesses.' " 
 
 " Where is Mr. Eccles ? " 
 
 " I saw him waltzing, sir, or maybe it was the polka, 
 with Madame Robineau just as I was coming up to you." 
 
 " I'll go down and tell Mr. Cleremont to dismiss his 
 friends," cried I, boiling over with anger. " Papa meant 
 this fete to celebrate my birthday. I'll not accept such 
 rabble congratulations. If Mr. Cleremont must have an 
 orgie, let him seek for another place to give it in." 
 
 " Don't go, master, don't, I entreat you," cried he 
 imploringly. " You'll only make a row, sir, and bring 
 down Sir Roger, and then who's to say what will happen ? 
 He'll have a dozen duels on his hands in half as many 
 minutes. The officers won't stand being called to account, 
 and Sir Roger is not the man to be sweet-tempered with 
 them." 
 
 " And am I to see my father's name insulted, and his 
 house dishonoured by such a canaille crew as this ?" 
 
 " Just come down and see them. Master Digby ; prettier, 
 nicer girls you never saw in your life, and pretty behaved 
 too. Ask Mr. Eccles if he ever mixed with a nicer com- 
 pany. There now, sir, slip on your velvet jacket — it looks 
 nicer than that tail-coat — and come down. They'll be all 
 proud and glad to see you, and won't she hold her head 
 high that you ask to take a turn of a waltz with you ! " 
 
 ''And how should I face my father to-morrow?" said I, 
 blushing deeply. 
 
 " Might I tell you a secret, Master Digby ? " said he, 
 leaning over the table, and speaking almost in my ear. 
 
 " Go on," said I drily. 
 
 " I know well, sir, jjou'U never throw me over, and 
 what I'm going to tell you is worth gold to you." 
 
 " Go on," cried I, for he had ceased to speak. 
 
 "Here it is then," said he, with an effort. "The 
 greatest sorrow your father has. Master Digby, is that 
 he thinks you have no spirit in you — that you're a 
 mollycot. As he said one day to Mr. Cleremont, ' You 
 must teach him everything, he has no "go" in himself;
 
 70 THAT BOY. OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 there's nothing in his nature but what somebody elso 
 put into it.' " 
 
 " He never said that ! " 
 
 " I pledge you my oath he did." 
 
 " Well, if he did, he meant it very diflPerently from what 
 you do." 
 
 " There's no two meanings to it. There's a cheer ! " 
 cried he, running over to the window and flinging it 
 wide. " I wonder who's come now ? Oh, it's the fire- 
 works are beginning." 
 
 "I'll go down," said I ; but out of what process of 
 reasoning came that resolve I am unable to tell. 
 
 " Maybe they won't be glad to see you," cried he, as 
 he helped me on with my jacket and arranged the heron's 
 feathers in my velvet cap. I was half faltering in my 
 resolution, when I bethought me of that charge of feeble- 
 ness of character Nixon had reported to me, and I deter- 
 mined, come what might, I would show that I had a will 
 and could follow it. In less than five minutes after, I 
 was standing under the trees in the garden shaking hands 
 with scores of people I never saw before, and receiving 
 the very politest of compliments and good wishes from 
 very pretty lips, aided by very expressive eyes. 
 
 " Here's Mademoiselle Pauline Delorme refuses to dance 
 with me," cried Eccles, " since she has seen the head of 
 the house. Digby, let me present you." And with this 
 he led me up to a very beautiful girl, who, though only 
 the daughter of a celebrated restaurateur of Bi'ussels, 
 might have been a princess, so far as look and breeding 
 and elegance were concerned. 
 
 " This is to be the correct thing," cried Oleremont. 
 " We open with a quadrille ; take your partners, gentle- 
 men, and to your places." 
 
 " Nothing could be more perfectly proper and de- 
 corous than this dance. It is possible, perhaps, that we 
 exceeded a little on the score of reverential observances : 
 we bowed and curtsied at every imaginable opportunity, 
 and with an air of homage that smacked of a court ; and 
 if we did raise our eyes to each other, as we recovered 
 from the obeisance, it was with a look of the softest and 
 most subdued deference. I really began to think that the 
 only hoydenish people I had ever seen were ladies and
 
 THE BALL. 71 
 
 gentlemen. As for Eccles, lie wore an air of almost 
 reverential gravity, and Hothara was sternly composed. 
 At last, however, we came to the finish, and Cleremont, 
 clapping his hands thrice, called out '•'■ grand rond ; " and 
 taking his partner's arm within his own, lead off at a 
 galop ; the music striking up one of Strauss's wildest, 
 quickest strains. Away he went down an alley, and we 
 all after him, stamping and laughing like mad. The 
 sudden revulsion from the quiet of the moment before 
 was electric; no longer arm-in-arm, but with arms close 
 clasped around the waist, away we went over the smooth 
 turf with a wild delight to which the music imparted a 
 thrilling ecstasy. N'ow through the dense shade we broke 
 into a blaze of light, where a great bufiet stood ; and 
 round this we all swarmed at once, and glasses were filled 
 with champagne, and vivas shouted again and again ; and 
 I heard that my health was toaster! , and a very sweet 
 voice — the lips were on my ear — whispered I know not 
 what, but it sounded very like wishing me joy and love, 
 while others were deafening me about long life and happi- 
 ness. 
 
 I do not remember — I do not want to remember — all 
 the nonsense I talked, and with a volubility quite new to 
 me ; my brain felt on fire with a sort of wild ecstasy, and 
 as homage and deference met me at every step, my every 
 wish acceded to, and each fancy that struck me hailed at 
 once as bright inspiration, no wonder was it if I lost 
 myself in a perfect ocean of bliss. I told Pauline she 
 should be the queen of the fete, and ordered a splendid 
 wreath of flowers to be brought, which I placed upon her 
 brow, and saluted her with her title, amidst the cheering 
 shouts of willing toasters. Except to make a tour of a 
 waltz or a polka with some one I knew, I would not permit 
 her to dance with any but myself: and she, I must say, 
 most graciously submitted to the tyranny, and seemed to 
 delight in the extravagant expressions of my admiration 
 for her. 
 
 If I was madly jealous of her, I felt the most over- 
 whelming delight in the praises bestowed upon her beauty 
 and her gracefulness. Perhaps the consciousness that I 
 was a mere boy, and that thus a freedom might be used 
 towards me that would have been reprehensible with one
 
 72 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 older, led her to treat me with a degree of intimacy that 
 was positively captivating ; and before our third waltz 
 was over, I was calling her Pauline, and she calling me 
 Digby, like old friends. 
 
 "Isn't that boy of Norcott's going it to-night?" I 
 heard a man say as I swung past in a polka, and I turned 
 fiercely to catch the speaker's eye, and show him I meant 
 to call him to book. 
 
 "Eh, Eccles, your pupil is a credit to you!" cried 
 another. 
 
 " I'm a Dutchman if that fellow doesn't rival his 
 father." 
 
 " He'll be far and away beyond him," muttered another ; 
 " for he has none of Norcott's crotchets — he's a scamp 
 ' pur et simple.' " 
 
 " Where are 3'ou breaking away from me, Digby ? " 
 said Pauline, as I tried to shake myself free of her. 
 
 " I want to follow those men. I have a word to say to 
 them." 
 
 " You shall do no such thing, dearest," muttered she. 
 " You have just told me, I am to be your little wife, and 
 I'm not going to see my husband rushing into a stupid 
 quarrel." 
 
 " And you are mine, then," cried I, " and you will wear 
 this I'ing as a betrothal ? Come, let me take off your 
 glove." 
 
 " That will do, Digby : that's quite enough for cour- 
 tesy and a little too much for deference," whispered 
 Eccles in my ear ; for I was kissing her hand about a 
 hundred times over, and she laughing at my raptures as 
 an excellent joke. " I think you'd better lead the way to 
 supper." 
 
 Secretly resolving that I would soon make very short 
 work of Mr. Eccles and his admonitions, I gave him a 
 haughty glance and moved on. I remember very little 
 more than that I walked to the head of the table and 
 placed Pauline on my right. I know I made some 
 absurd speech in return Tor their drinking my health, 
 and spoke of us, and what tve — Pauline and myself — 
 felt, and with what pleasure wc should see our friends 
 often around us, and a deal of that tawdry trash that 
 comes into a brain addled with noise and heated with
 
 THE BALL. 73 
 
 wine. I was frequently interrupted; uproarious cheers 
 at one moment would break forth, but still louder 
 laughter would ring out and convulse the whole assembly. 
 Even addled and confused as I was, I could see that 
 some were my partisans and friends, who approved of 
 all I said, and wished me to give a free course to my 
 feelings ; and there were others — two or three — who 
 tried to stop me : and one actually said aloud, " If that 
 boy of Norcott's is not suppressed, we shall have no 
 supper." 
 
 Recalled to my dignity as a host by this impertinence, 
 I believe I put some restraint on my eloquence, and I now 
 addressed myself to do the honours of the table. Alas, 
 my attentions seldom strayed beyond my lovely neighbour, 
 and I firmly believed that none could i*emark the rapture 
 with which I gazed on her, or as much as suspected that 
 I had never quitted the grasp of her hand from the moment 
 Ave sat down. 
 
 " I suspect you'd better let mademoiselle dance the 
 cotillon with the Count Vauglas," whispered Eccles in my 
 ear. 
 
 "And why, sir?" rejoined I, half fiercely. 
 
 " I think you might guess," said he, with a smile ; " at 
 least you could if you were to get up." 
 
 " And would she — would Pauline — I mean, would 
 Mademoiselle Delorme — approve of this arrangement ?" 
 
 "I!^o, Monsieur Digby, not if it did not come from 
 you. "We shall sit in the shade yonder for half an 
 hour or so, and then, when you are rested, we'll join the 
 cotillon." 
 
 " Get that boy oS" to bed, Eccles," said Cleremont, who 
 did not scruple to utter the words aloud. 
 
 I started up to make an indignant rejoinder ; some fierce 
 insult was on my lips ; but passion, and excitement, and 
 wine mastered me, and I sank back on my seat overcome 
 and senseless.
 
 74 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A NEXT MORNING. 
 
 I COULD not awake on the day after the fete. I was con- 
 scious that Nixon was making a considerable noise — that 
 he shut and opened doors and windows, splashed the 
 water into my bath, and threw down my boots with an 
 unwonted energy ; but through all this consciousness of 
 disturbance I slept on, and was determined to sleep, let 
 him make what uproar he pleased. 
 
 " It's nigh two o'clock, sir ! " whispered he in my ear 
 and I replied by a snort. 
 
 " I'm very sorry to be troublesome, sir ; but the master 
 is very impatient : he was getting angry when I went in 
 last time." 
 
 These words served to dispel my drowsiness at once, 
 and the mere thought of my father's displeasure acted on 
 me like a strong stimulant. 
 
 "Does papa want me?" cried I, sitting up in bed; 
 " did you say papa wanted me ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said a deep voice ; and my father entered 
 the room, dressed for the street, and with his hat on, 
 
 " You may leave us," said he to Nixon ; and as the 
 man withdrew my father took a chair and sat down close 
 to my bedside. 
 
 " I have sent three messages to you this morning," said 
 he, gravely, " and am forced at last to come myself." 
 
 I was beginning my apologies, when he stopped me, and 
 said, " That will do ; I have no wish to be told why you 
 overslept yourself : indeed I have already heard more on 
 that score than I care for." 
 
 He paused, and though perhaps he expected me to say 
 something, I was too much terrified to speak. 
 
 " I perceive," said he, " you understand me : you appre- 
 licnd that I know of your doings of last night, and that 
 any attempt at excuse is hopeless. I have not come here
 
 A NEXT MORNING. 75 
 
 to reproacli you for your misconduct ; I reproach myself 
 for a mistaken estimate of you ; I ought to have known — 
 and if you had been a horse I would have known — that 
 your cross-breeding would tell on you. The bad drop 
 was sure to betray itself. I will not dwell on this, nor 
 have I time. Your conduct last night makes my con- 
 tinued residence hei-e impossible. I cannot continue in a 
 city where my tradespeople have become my guests, and 
 where the honours of my house have been extended to my 
 tailor and my butcher. I shall leave this, therefore, as 
 soon as I. can conclude my arrangements to sell this place : 
 you must quit it at once. Eceles will be ready to start 
 with you this evening for the Rhine, and then for the 
 interior of Germany — I suspect Weimar will do. He will 
 be paymaster, and you will conform to his wishes strictly 
 as regards expense. Whether you study or not, whether 
 you employ your time profitably and creditably, or whether 
 you pass it in indolence, is a matter that completely regards 
 yonrself. As for me, my conscience is acquitted when I 
 provide you with the means of acquirement, and I no 
 more engage you to benefit by these advantages, than I do 
 to see you eat the food that is placed before you. The 
 compact that unites us enjoins distinct duties from each. 
 You need not write to me till I desire you to do so ; and 
 when I think it proper we should meet I will tell you." 
 
 If, while he spoke these harsh words to me, the slightest 
 touch of feeling — had one trace of even sorrow crossed 
 his face — my whole heart would have melted at once, and 
 I would have thrown myself at his feet for forgiveness. 
 There was, however, a something so pitiless in his tone, 
 and a look so full of scorn in his steadfast eye, that every 
 sentiment of pride within me — that same pride I inherited 
 from himself — stimulated me to answer him, and I said 
 boldly, — " If the people I saw here last night were not as 
 well born as your habitual guests, sir, I'll venture to say 
 there was nothing in their manner or deportment to be 
 ashamed of." 
 
 " I am told that Mdlle. Pauline Delorme was charming," 
 said he ; and the sarcasm of his glance covered me with 
 shame and confusion. He had no need to say more : I 
 could not utter a word. 
 
 " This is a topic I will not discuss with you, sir," said
 
 76 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT*S. 
 
 he, after a pause. " I intended you to be a gentleman, and 
 to live with gentlemen. Your tastes incline differently, 
 and I make no opposition to them. As I have told you 
 already, I was willing to launch you into life : I'll not 
 engage to be your pilot. Any interest I take, or could 
 take in you, must be the result of your own qualities. 
 These have not impressed me strongly up to this : and 
 were I to judge by what I have seen, 1 should send you 
 back to those you came from." 
 
 " Do so, then, if it will only give me back the nature I 
 brought away with me!" cried I, passionately ; and my 
 throat swelled till I felt almost choked with emotion. 
 
 " That nature," said he, with a sneer on the word, " was 
 costumed, if I remember right, in a linen blouse and a 
 pair of patched shoes ; and I believe they have been pre- 
 served along with some other family relics." 
 
 I bethought me at once of the tower and its humble 
 furniture, and a sense of terror overcame me, that I was 
 in presence of one who could cherish hate with such 
 persistence. 
 
 " The fumes of your last night's debauch are some 
 excuse for your bad manners, sir," said he, rising. "I 
 leave you to sleep them off; only remember that the train 
 starts at eight this evening, and it is my desire you do 
 not miss it." 
 
 With this he left me. I arose at once and began to 
 dress. It was a slow proceeding, for I would often stop, 
 and sit down to think what course would best befit me to 
 take at this moment. At one instant it seemed to me I 
 ought to follow him, and declare that the splendid slavery 
 in which I lived had no charm for me — that the faintest 
 glimmering of self-respect and independence was more 
 my ambition than all the luxuries that surrounded me ; 
 and when I had resolved I would do this, a sudden dread 
 of his pi'esence — his eye that I could never face without 
 shrinking — the tones of his voice that smote me like a 
 lash — so abashed me that I gave up the effort with 
 despair. 
 
 Might he not consent to give me some pittance — 
 enough to save her from the burden of my support — and 
 send me back to my mother ? Oh, if I could summon 
 courage to ask this ! This assistance need be continued
 
 A NEXT MORNING. 77 
 
 only for a few years, for I hoped and believed I should 
 not always have to live as a dependant. What if I were 
 to write him a few Hues to this purport ? I could do this 
 even better than speak it. 
 
 I sat down at once and began : 
 
 " Dear papa," — he would never permit me to use a more 
 endearing word. " Dear papa, I hope 3'ou will forgive me 
 troubling you about myself and my future. I would like 
 to lit myself for some career or calling by which I might 
 become independent. I could work very hard and study 
 very closely if I were back with my mother." 
 
 As I reached this far, the door opened and Eccles 
 appeared. 
 
 " All right ! " cried he ; "I was afraid I should catch 
 you in bed still, and I'm glad you're up and preparing for 
 the road. Are you nearly ready ? " 
 
 " Not quite ; I wanted to write a letter before I go. I 
 was just at it." 
 
 " Write from Verviers or Bonn ; you'll have lots of 
 time on the road." 
 
 " Ay, but my letter might save me from the journey if 
 I sent it off now." 
 
 He looked amazed at this, and I at once told him my 
 plan and showed him what I had written. 
 
 " You don't mean to say you'd have courage to send 
 this to your father ? " 
 
 " And why not ? " 
 
 " Well, all I have to say is, don't do it till I'm off the 
 premises ; for I'd not be hei-e when he reads it for a trifle. 
 My dear Digby," said he, with a changed tone, " you 
 don't know Sir Roger ; you don't know the violence of 
 his temper if he imagines himself what he calls outraged, 
 which sometimes means questioned. Take your hat and 
 stick, and go seek your fortune, in Heaven's name, if you 
 must ; but don't set out on your life's journey with a curse 
 or a kick, or possibly both. If I preach patience, my 
 dear boy, I have had to practise it too. Put up your 
 traps in your portmanteau ; come down and take some 
 dinner : we'll start with the night-train ; and take my 
 word for it, we'll have a jolly ramble and enjoy ourselves 
 heartily. If I know anything of life, it is that there's no 
 such mistake in the world as hunting up annoyances.
 
 78 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 Let ihem find ns if they can, but let us never run after 
 tbeni." 
 
 " My heart is too heavy for such enjoyment as you 
 talk of." 
 
 " It won't be so to-morrow, or at all events the day 
 after. Come, stir yourself now with your packing ; a 
 thought has just struck me that you'll be very grateful to 
 me for, when I tell it you." 
 
 " What is it?" asked I half carelessly. 
 
 " Tou must ask with another guess-look in your eye if 
 you expect me to tell you." 
 
 " You could tell me nothing that would gladden 
 me." 
 
 " l!^or propose anything that you'd like? " asked he. 
 
 " Nor that either," said I, despondingly. 
 
 " Oh, if that be the case, I give up my project ; not 
 that it was mvich of a project after all. What I was 
 going to suggest was, that instead of dining here we 
 should put our traps into a cab, and drive down to 
 Delorme's and have a pleasant little dinner thei'e, in the 
 garden ; it's quite close to the railroad, so that we could 
 start at the last whistle." 
 
 " That does sound pleasantly," said I ; " there's nothing 
 more irksome in its way than hanging about a station 
 waiting for departure." 
 
 "So then you agree?" cried he, with a malicious 
 twinkle in his eye that I affected not to understand. 
 
 " Yes," said 1 indolently ; " I see little against it; and 
 if nothing else, it saves me a leave-taking with Captain 
 Hotham and Cleremont." 
 
 *' By the way, you are not to ask to see madarae ; your 
 father reminded me to tell you this. The doctors say she 
 is not to be disturbed on any account. What a chance 
 that I did not forget this ! " 
 
 Whether it was that I was too much concerned for ray 
 own misfortunes to have a thought that was not selfish, 
 or that another leave-taking that loomed in the distance 
 was uppermost in my thoughts, certain it is I felt this 
 privation far less acutely than I miglit. 
 
 " She's a nice little woman, and dcsexwes a better lot 
 than she has met with." 
 
 " What sort of dinner will Dclorme give us ? " said I,
 
 A NEXT MOENING. 79 
 
 affecting the fiir of a man about town, but in reality 
 throwing out the bait to lead the talk in that direction. 
 
 " First-rate, if we let him ; that is, if we only say, 
 ' Order dinner for us, Monsieur Pierre.' There's no man 
 understands such a mandate more thoroughly." 
 
 " Then that's what I shall say," cried I, " as I cross his 
 threshold." 
 
 " He'll serve you Madeira with your soup, and Stein- 
 berger with your fish, thirty francs a bottle, each of 
 them." 
 
 " Be it so. We shall drink to our pleasant journey," 
 said I ; and I actually thought my voice had caught the 
 tone and cadence of my father's as I spoke. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A GOOD-BYE. 
 
 While I strolled into the garden to select a table for our 
 dinner, Eccles went in search of Mr. Delorme, and though 
 he had affected to say that the important duty of devising 
 the feast should be confided to the host, I could plainly 
 see that my respected tutor accepted his share in that high 
 responsibility. 
 
 1 will only say of the feast in question that, though 
 I was daily accustomed to the admirable dinners of my 
 father's table, I had no conception of what exquisite 
 devices in cookery could be produced by the skill of an 
 accomplished restaurateur, left free to his own fancy, and 
 without limitation as to the bill. 
 
 One thing alone detracted from the perfect enjoyment 
 of the banquet. It was the appearance of Mr. Delorme 
 himself, white-cravatotd and gloved, carrying in the soup. 
 It was an. attention that he usually reserved for great 
 personages, royalties, or high dignitaries of the court ; 
 and I was shocked that he should have selected me for
 
 80 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 the honour, not the less as it was only a few hours before 
 he and I had been drinking champagne with nauch clink- 
 ing of glasses together, and interchanging the most affec- 
 tionate vows of etei'nal friendship. 
 
 I arose from my chair to salute him, but, as he deposited 
 the tureen upon the table, he stepped back and bowed 
 low, and retreated in this fashion, with the same humble 
 reverence at every step, till he was lost in the distance. 
 
 " Sit down," said Eccles, with a peculiar look, as 
 though to warn me that I was forgetting my dignity ; and 
 then, to divert my attention, he added, " That green seal 
 is an attention Delorme offers you — a very rare favour too 
 — a bottle of his own peculiar Johannisberg. Let us 
 drink his health. Now, Digby, I call this something very 
 nigh perfection." 
 
 It was a theme my tutor understood thoroughly, and 
 there was not a dish nor a wine that he did not criticize. 
 
 " I was always begging your father to take this cook, 
 Digby," said he, with a half sigh. " Even with a first- 
 rate artist you need change, otherwise your dinners 
 become manneristic, as ours have become of late." 
 
 He then went on to show me that the domestic cook, 
 always appealing to the small public of the family, gets 
 narrowed in his views and bounded in his resources. He 
 compared them, I remember, to the writers in certain 
 religious newspapers, who must always go on spicing 
 higher and higher as the palates of their clients grow 
 more jaded. How he worked out his theme afterwards 
 I cannot tell, for I was watching the windows of the 
 house, and stealing glances down the alleys in the garden, 
 longing for one look, ever so fleeting, of my lovely partner 
 of the night before. 
 
 " I see, young gentleman," said he, evidently nettled 
 at my inattention, " your thoughts are not with me." 
 
 " How long have we to stay, sir ? " said I, reverting to 
 the respect I tendered him at my lessons. 
 
 " You have thirty-eight minutes," said he, examining 
 his watch : " which 1 purpose to apportion in this wise, — 
 eight for the douceur, five for the cheese, fifteen for the 
 dessert, five for coffee and a glass of cura9oa. The bill 
 and our parting compliments will take the rest, giving 
 us three minutes to walk across to the station." 
 
 J
 
 A GOOD-BYE. 81 
 
 These sort of pedantries were a passion with him, and 
 I did not interpose a word as he spoke. 
 
 "What a pineapple!" cried a young fellow from an 
 adjoining table, as a waiter deposited a magnificent pine 
 in the midst of the bouquet that adorned our table. 
 
 " Monsieur Delorme begs to say, sir, this has just 
 arrived from Laeken." 
 
 "Don't you know who that is? " said a companion, in 
 a low voice ; but my hearing, ever acute, caught the 
 words, — "He's that boy of Norcott's." 
 
 I started as if I had received a blow. It was time to 
 resent these insolences, and make an end of them for ever. 
 
 " You heard what that man yonder has called me ? " 
 said I to Eccles. 
 
 " N'o ; I was not minding him." 
 
 "The old impertinence — ' That boy of Norcott's.' " 
 
 I arose, and took the cane I had laid agairist a chair. 
 What I was about to do I knew not. I felt I should 
 launch some insolent provocation. As for what should 
 follow, the event might decide that. 
 
 "I'd not mind him, Digby," said Eccles, carelessly, as 
 he lit his cigarette, and stretched his legs on a vacant 
 chair. I took no notice of his words, but walked on. 
 Before, however, I had made three steps my eyes caught 
 the flutter of a dress at the end of the alley. It was 
 merely the last folds of some floating muslin, but it was 
 enough to rout all other thoughts from my head, and I 
 flew down the walk with lightning speed. I was right; 
 it was Pauline. In an instant I was beside her. 
 
 " Deai'est, darling Pauline," I cried, seizing her round 
 the waist and kissing her cheek, before she well knew, 
 " how happy it makes me to see you even for a few 
 seconds." 
 
 "Ah, milord, I did not expect to see you here," said 
 she, half distantly. 
 
 " I am not milord ; I am your own Digby — Digby Nor- 
 cott who loves you, and will make you his wife." 
 
 " Ma foi ! children don't marry — at least demoiselles 
 don't marry them," said she, with a saucy laugh. 
 
 "I am no more an 'enfant,' " said I, with a passionate 
 stress on the word, " than I was last night, when you 
 never left my arm except to sit at my side at supper." 
 
 G
 
 82 THAT BOY OF NORCOTTS. 
 
 '' But you are going away," said sue, jDonting, " else 
 Avhy that travelling dress, and that sack strapped at your 
 side?" 
 
 " Only for a few weeks. A short tour up the Rhine, 
 Pauline, to see the world, and complete my education ; 
 and then I will come back and many you, and you shall 
 be mistress of a beautiful house, and have everything you 
 can think of." 
 
 " Vrai ? " asked she, with a little laugh. 
 
 " I swear it by this kiss." 
 
 " Pardie, monsieur! you are very adventurous," said 
 she, repulsing me; "you will make me not regret that 
 you are going so soon." 
 
 " Oh, Pauline ! when you know that I adore you, that 
 I only value wealth to share it with you ; that all I ask 
 of life is to devote it to you." 
 
 " And that you haven't got full thirty seconds left for 
 that admirable object," broke in Eccles. " We must run 
 for it like fury, boy, or we shall be late." 
 
 "I'll not go." 
 
 "Then I'll be shot if I stay here and meet your father," 
 said he, turning away. 
 
 " Ob, Pauline, dearest, dearest of my heart ! " I 
 sobbed out, as I fell upon her neck ; and the vile bell of 
 the railway rang out with its infernal discord as I clasped 
 her to my heart. 
 
 "Come along, and confound you," cried Eccles; and 
 with a porter on one side and Eccles on the other, I was 
 hurried along down the garden, across a road, and along 
 a platform, whei'c the station-master, wild with passion, 
 stamped and swore in a very diflerent mood from that in 
 which he smiled at me across the supper-table the night 
 before. 
 
 " We're waiting for that boy of Norcotts's, I vow," 
 said an old fellow with a grey moustache ; and I marked 
 him out for future recognition. 
 
 Unlike my first joui^ney, where all seemed confusion, 
 trouble, and annoyance, I now saw only pleasant faces, 
 and people bent on enjoyment. We were on the great 
 tourist road of Europe, and it seemed as though every 
 one was bound on some errand of amusement. Eccles, 
 too, was a pleasant contrast to the courier who took
 
 A GOOD-BYE. 83 
 
 claarge of me on my first journey. Nothing could be 
 more genial than his manner. He treated me with a 
 perfect equality, and by that greatest of all flatteries to 
 one of my age, induced me to believe that I was actually 
 companionable to himself. 
 
 I will not pretend that he was an instructive com- 
 panion. He had neither knowledge of history nor feel- 
 ing for art, and rather amused himself with sueering at 
 both, and quizzing such of our fellow-travellers as the 
 practice was safe with. But he was alwaj-s gay, always 
 in excellent spirits, ready to make light of the passing 
 annoyances of the road, and, as he said himself, he always 
 cai'ried a quart-bottle of condensed sunshine with him 
 against a rainy day ; and, of my own knowledge, I can 
 say his supply seemed inexhaustible. 
 
 His cheery manner, his bright good looks, and his 
 invariable good-humour won upon every one, and the 
 sourest and least genial people thawed into some show of 
 warmth under his contagious pleasantry. 
 
 He did not care in what direction we went, and would 
 have left it entirely to me to decide, had I been able to 
 determine. All he stipulated for was : — " Ko bai'barism, 
 no Oberland or glacier humbug. No Saxon Switzei^land 
 abominations. So long as we travel in a crowd, and laeet 
 good cookery every day, you'll find me charming." 
 
 Into this philosophy he inducted me. " Make life 
 pleasant, Digby; never go in search of annoyances. 
 Duns and disagreeables will come of themselves, and it's 
 no bad fun dodging them. It's only a fool ever keeps 
 their company." 
 
 A more shameless immorality might have revolted me, 
 but this peddling sort of wickedness, this half-jesting wiih 
 right and wrong, — giving to morals the aspect of a game 
 in which a certain kind of address was practicable — was 
 very seductive to one of my age and temper. I fancied, 
 too, that I was becoming a consummate man of the 
 world, and his praises of my proficiency were unsparingly 
 bestowed. 
 
 Attaching our?elves to this or that party of travellers, 
 we wonkl go off hei'e or there, in any direction, for four 
 or five days ; and though I usually found myself growing 
 fond of thoFo I became more intimate with, and sorry to 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THAT BOY OF NOHCOTT's. 
 
 part from tliem, Eccles invariably wearied of tbe plea- 
 santest people after a day or two. Incessant change 
 seemed essential to him, and his nature and his spirits 
 flagged when denied it. 
 
 What I least liked about him, however, was a habit he 
 had of " trotting " me out — his own name for it — before 
 strangers. My knowledge of languages, my skill at games, 
 my little musical talents, he would parade in a way that I 
 found positively offensive. Wor was this all, for I found 
 he represented me as the son of a man of immense wealth 
 and of a rank commensurate with his fortune. 
 
 One must have gone through the ordeal of such a 
 representation to understand its vexations, to know all 
 the impertinences it can evoke from some, all the slavish 
 attentions from others. I feel a hot flush of shame on 
 my cheek now, after long years, as I think of the morti- 
 fications I went through, as Eccles would suggest that I 
 should buy some princely chateau that we saw in passing, 
 or some lordly park alongside of which our road was lying. 
 
 As to remonstrating with him on this score, or, indeed, 
 on any other, it was utterly hopeless ; not to say that it 
 was just as likely he would amuse the first group of 
 travellers we rnet by a ludicrous version of my attempt 
 to coerce him into good behaviour. 
 
 One day he pushed my patience beyond all limit, and I 
 grew downright angry with him. I had been indulging 
 in that harmless sort of half-flirtation with a young lady, 
 a fellow-traveller, which, not transgressing the bounds of 
 small attentions, does not even excite remark or rebuke. 
 
 " Don't listen to that young gentleman's blandish- 
 ments," said he, laughing, " for, young as he looks, he is 
 already engaged. Come, come, don't look as though you'd 
 strike me, Digby, but deny it if you can." 
 
 We were, fortunately for me, coming into a station as 
 he spoke. I sprang out, and travelled third-class the rest 
 of the day to avoid him, and when we met at night, I 
 declared that with one such liberty more I'd part company 
 with him for ever. 
 
 The hearty good humour with which he assured me I 
 should not be offended again almost made me ashamed of 
 my complaint. We shook hands over our reconciliation, 
 and vowed we were better friends than ever.
 
 A GOOD-BYE. 85 
 
 What it cost him to abandon this habit of exalting me 
 before strangers, how nearly it touched one of the chief 
 pleasures of his life, I was, as I thought, soon to see in 
 the altered tone of his manner. In fact, it totally destroyed 
 the easy flippancy he used to wield, and a facility with 
 strangers that once seemed like a special gift with him. 
 I tried in vain to rally him out of this half depression, 
 but it was clear he was not a man of many resources, and 
 that I had already sapped a principal one. 
 
 While we thus journeyed, he said to me one day, " I 
 find, Digby, our money is running short ; we must make 
 for Zurich : it is the nearest of the places on our letter of 
 credit." 
 
 I assented, of course, and we bade adieu to a pleasant 
 family with whom we had been travelling, and who were 
 bound for Dresden, assuring them we should meet them 
 on the Elbe. 
 
 Eccles had grown of late more and more sei-ious : not 
 alone had his gaiety deserted him, but he grew absent and 
 forgetful to an absurd extent ; and it was evident some 
 great pre-occupation had hold of him. During the entire 
 of the last day before we reached Zurich he scarcely spoke 
 a word, and as I saw that he had received some letters at 
 Schaffhausen, I attributed his gloom to their tidings. As 
 he had not spoken to me of bad news, I felt ashamed to 
 obtrude myself on his confidence and kept silent, and 
 not a word passed between us as we went. He had 
 telegraphed to the banker, a certain Mr. Heinfetter, to 
 order rooms for us at the hotel ; and as we alighted at the 
 door, the gentleman himself was there to meet us. 
 
 " Herr Eccles ? " said he, eagerly, lifting his hat as 
 we descended; and Eccles moved towards him, and, 
 taking his arm, walked away to some distance, leaving 
 me alone and unnoticed. For several minutes they 
 appeared in closest confab, their heads bent close 
 together, and at last I saw Eccles shake himself free 
 from the other's arm, and throw up both his hands in the 
 air with a gesture of wild despair. I began to suspect 
 some disaster had befallen our remittances, that they 
 were lost or suppressed, and that Eccles was over- 
 whelmed by the misfortune. I own I could not par- 
 ticipate in the full measure of the misery ib seemed to
 
 86 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT S. 
 
 cause him, and I lighted a cigar and sat down on a stone 
 bencii to wait patiently his return. 
 
 " I believe you are right ; it is the best way, after all," 
 said Eccles, hurriedly. " You say you'll look after the 
 boy, and I'll start by the ten o'clock train." 
 
 " Yes, I'll take the boy," said the other ; "■ but you'll 
 have to look sharp and lose no time. They will be 
 sequestering the moment they hear of it, and I half 
 suspect old Engler will be before you." 
 
 " But my personal effects ? I have things of value." 
 
 " Hush, hush ! he'll overhear you. Come, young 
 gentleman," said he to me — " come home and sup with 
 nie. The hotel is so full, they've no quarters for you. 
 I'll try if I can't put you up." 
 
 Eccles stood with his head bent down as we moved 
 away, then lifted his eyes, waved his hand a couple of 
 times, and said, " By-by." 
 
 " Isn't he coming with us ? " asked I. 
 
 "Not just yet: he has some business to detain him," 
 said the banker, and we moved on. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A TERRIBLE SHOOK. 
 
 IIerk Heinfetter was a bachelor, and lived in a very 
 modest fashion over his banking house, and as he was 
 employed from morning to night, I saw next to nothing 
 of him. Eccles, he said, had been called away, and 
 though I eagerly asked where ? by whom ? and for how 
 long ? I got no other answer than " he is called away," 
 in very German English, and with a stolidity of look fully 
 as Teutonic. 
 
 The banker was not talkative : he smoked all the 
 evening, and drank beer, and except an occasional 
 monosyllabic comment on its excellence, said little.
 
 A TEKEIBLE SHOCK. 87 
 
 ** Ach, ja ! " he would say, looking at me fixedly, as 
 tliongh assenting to some not exactly satisfactory con- 
 clusion his mind had come to about me — " Ach, ja ! " 
 And I would have given a good deal at the time to know 
 to what peculiar feature of my fortune or my fate this 
 half-compassionate exclamation extended. 
 
 " Is Eccles never coming back ? " cried I, one day, as 
 the post came in, and no tidings of him appeared; "is 
 he never coming at all? " 
 
 " Never, no more." 
 
 *' l^ot coming back ? " cried I. 
 
 " No ; not come back no more." 
 
 " Then what am I staying here for ? Why do I wait 
 for him ? " 
 
 " Because you have no money to go elsewhere," said 
 he ; and for once he gave way to something he thought 
 was a laugh, 
 
 "I don't understand you, Herr Heinfetter," said I; 
 " our letter of credit, Mr. Eccles told me, was on your 
 house here. Is it exhausted, and must I wait for a 
 remittance ? " 
 
 " It is exhaust ; Mr. Eccles exhaust it." 
 
 " So that I must write for money ; is that so ? " 
 
 "You may write and write, mien lieber, but it won't 
 come." 
 
 Herr Heinfetter drained his tall glass, and, leaning 
 his arms on the table, said : " I will tell you in German, 
 you know it well enough." And forthwith he began a 
 story, which lost nothing of the pain and misery it caused 
 me by the unsympathizing tone and stolid look of the 
 narrator. For my reader's sake, as for my own, I will 
 condense it into the fewest words I can, and omit all that 
 Herr Heinfetter inserted either as comment or censure. 
 My father had eloped with Madame Cleremont ? They 
 had fled to Inuspriick, from which my father returned to 
 the neighbourhood of Belgium, to offer Cleremont a 
 meeting. Cleremont, however, possessed in his hands a 
 reparation he liked better — my father's cheque-book, with 
 a number of signed but unfilled cheques. These he at 
 once filled up to the last shilling of his credit, and drew 
 out the money, so that my father's first draft on Loudon 
 was returned dishonoured. The villa and all its splendid
 
 88 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTt's. 
 
 contents were sequestrated, and an action for divorce, 
 with ten thousand pounds laid as damages, already com- 
 menced. Of three thousand francs, which our letter 
 assured us at Zurich, Eccles had drawn two thousand : 
 he would have taken all, but Heinfetter, who prudently 
 foresaw I must be got rid of some day, retained one 
 thousand to pay my way. Eccles had gone, promising to 
 return when he had saved his own effects, or what he 
 called his own, from the wreck ; but a few lines had 
 come from him to say the smash was complete, the 
 " huissiers " in possession, seals on everything, and " not 
 even the horses watered without a gendarme present in 
 full uniform." 
 
 *' Tell Digby, if we travel together again, he'll not have 
 to complain of my puflBng him off for a man of fortune; 
 and, above all, advise him to avoid Brussels in his 
 journeyings. He'll find his father's creditors, I'm afraid, 
 far more attached to him than Mademoiselle Pauline." 
 
 His letter wound up with a complaint over his own 
 blighted prospects, for, of course, his chance of the pre- 
 sentation was now next to hopeless, and he did not know 
 what line of life he might be driven to. 
 
 And now, shall I own that, ruined and deserted as I 
 was, overwhelmed with soitow and shame, there was no 
 part of all the misery I felt more bitterly than the fate 
 of her who had been so kindly affectionate to me — who 
 had nursed me so tenderly in sickness, and been the 
 charming companion of my happiest hours ? At first, it 
 seemed incredible. My father's manner to her had ever 
 been coldness itself, and I could only lead myself to 
 believe the story by imagining how the continued cruelty 
 of Cleremont had actually driven the unhappy woman to 
 entreat protection against his barbarity. It was as well I 
 should think so, and it served to soften the grief and 
 assuage the intensity of the sorrow the event caused me. 
 I cried over it two entire days and part of a third, and so 
 engrossed was I with this affliction, that not a thought of 
 myself, or of my own destitution, ever crossed me. 
 
 " Do you know where my father is ?" asked I of the 
 batiker. 
 
 "Yes," said he, drily. 
 
 *' May I have his address? I wish to write to him."
 
 A TEKRIBLE SHOCK:. 89 
 
 " This is what he send for message," said he, pro- 
 dacing a telegram, the address of which he had carefully 
 torn off. " It is of you he speak : — ' Do what you like 
 with him except bother me. Let him have whatever 
 money is in your hands to my credit, and let him under- 
 stand he has no more to expect from Roger Korcott.' " 
 
 "May I keep this paper, sir? " asked I, in a humble tone. 
 
 " I see no reason against it. Yes," muttered he. " As 
 to the moneys, Eccles have drawn eighty pound ; there 
 is forty remain to you." 
 
 I sat down and covered my face with my hands. It 
 was a habit with me when I wanted to apply myself 
 fully to thought ; but Herr Heinfetter suspected that I 
 had given way to grief, and began to cheer me up. I at 
 ouce undeceived him, and said, "No, I was not crying, 
 sir ; I was only thinking what I had best do. If you 
 allow me, I will go up to my room, and think it over by 
 myself. I shall be calmer, even if I hit on nothing 
 profitable." 
 
 I passed twelve hours alone, occasionally dropping off 
 to sleep out of sheer weariness, for my brain worked 
 hard, travelling over a wide space, and taking in every 
 contingency and every accident I could think of. I 
 might go back and seek out my mother ; but to what 
 end, if I should only become a dependant on her ? No : 
 far better that I should try and obtain some means of 
 earning a livelihood, ever so humble, abroad, than spread 
 the disgrace of my family at home. Perhaps Herr Hein- 
 fetter might accept my services in some shape ; I coulJ 
 be anything but a servant. 
 
 When I told him I wished to earn my bread, he looked 
 doubtingly at me in silence, shaking his head, and mutter- 
 ing, "Nein, niemals, nein," in every cadence of despair. 
 
 " Could you not try me, sir ?" pleaded I earnestly ; but 
 his head moved sadly in refusal. 
 
 " I will think of it," he said at last, and he left me. 
 
 He was as good as his word : he thought of it for two 
 whole days, and then said that he had a correspondent on 
 the shore of the Adriatic, in a little-visited town, where 
 no news of my father's history was like to reach, and 
 that he would write to him to take me into his counting- 
 house in some capacity : a clei'k, or possibly a messenger,
 
 90 THAT BOY Ox' NORCOTt's. 
 
 till I sliould prove myself worthy of being advanced to 
 the desk. It would be hard work, however, he said ; 
 Herr Oppovich was a Slavac, and they were people who 
 gave themselves few indulgences, and their dependants 
 still fewer. 
 
 He went on to tell me, that the house of Hodnig and 
 Oppovich had been a wealthy firm formerly, but that 
 Hodnig had over-speculated, and died of a broken heart ; 
 that now, after years of patient toil and thrift, Oppovich 
 had restored the credit of the house, and was in good 
 repute in the world of trade. Some time back he had 
 written to Heinfetter to send him a young fellow who 
 knew languages and was willing to work. 
 
 " That's afl," he said ; " shall I venture to tell him that 
 I recommend you for these?" 
 
 "Let me have a trial," said I, gravely. 
 
 " I will write your letter to-night, then, and you shall 
 set out to-morrow for Vienna ; thence you'll take the rail 
 to Trieste, and by sea you'll reach Fiume, where Herr 
 Oppovich lives." 
 
 I thanked him heartily, and went to my room. 
 
 On the morning that followed began my new life. I 
 was no longer to be the pampered and spoiled child of 
 fortune, surrounded with every appliance of luxury, and 
 waited on by obsequious servants. I was now to travel 
 modestly, to fare humbly, and to ponder over the smallest 
 outlay, lest it should limit me in some other quarter of 
 greater need. But of all the changes in my condition, 
 none struck me so painfully at first as the loss of con- 
 sideration from strangers that immediately followed my 
 fallen state. People who had no concern with my well- 
 to-do condition, who could take no possible interest in 
 my prosperity, had been courteous to me hitherto, simply 
 because I was prosperous, and were now become something 
 almost the reverse for no other reason, that I could see, 
 than that I was poor. 
 
 Where before I had met willingness to make my 
 acquaintance, and an almost cordial acceptance, I was 
 now to find distance and reserve. Above all, I discovered 
 that there was a general distrust of the poor man, as 
 though he were one more especially exposed to rash 
 influences, and more likely to yield to them.
 
 A TERRIBLE SHOCK. 91 
 
 I got some sharp lessons iu these things the first few 
 days of my jouniey, but I dropped down at last into the 
 third-class train, and found myself at ease. My fellow- 
 travellers were not veiy polished or very cultivated, but 
 in one respect their good breeding had the superiority over 
 that of finer folk. They never questioned my right to be 
 saving, nor seemed to think the worse of me for being poor. 
 
 Herr Heinfetter had counselled me to stay a few days 
 at Vienna, and provide myself with clothes more suitable 
 to my new condition than those I was wearing. 
 
 " If old Iguaz Oppovich saw a silk-lined coat, he'd soon 
 send you about your business," said he ; "and as to that 
 fine watch-chain and its gay trinkets, you have only to 
 appear with it once to get your dismissal." 
 
 It was not easy, with my little experience of life, to 
 see how these things should enter into an estimate of me, 
 or why Herr Ignaz should concern him with other 
 attributes of mine than such as touched my clerkship ; 
 but as I was entering on a world where all was new, 
 where not only the people, but their prejudices and their 
 likings were all strange to me, I resolved to approach 
 them in an honest spirit, and with a desire to conform to 
 them as well as I was able. 
 
 Lest the name Norcott appearing in the newspapers in 
 my father's case should connect me with his story, Hein- 
 fetter advised me to call myself after my mother's family, 
 which sounded, besides, less highly born ; and I had my 
 passport made out in the name of Digby Owen. 
 
 " Mind, lad," said the banker, as he parted witli me, 
 " give yourself no airs with Ignaz Oppovich; do not turn 
 up your nose at his homely fare, or handle his coarse napkin 
 as if it hurt your skin, as I have seen you do here. From 
 his door to destitution there is only a step, and bethink 
 yourself twice before you take it. I have done all 1 mean 
 to do by you, more than I shall ever be paid for. And 
 now good bye." 
 
 This sort of language grated very harshly on my ears at 
 first ; but I had resolved to bear my lot courageously, and 
 conform, where I could, to the tone of those I had come 
 down to. 
 
 I thanked him, then, respectfully and calmly for his 
 hospitality to me, and went my way.
 
 92 THAT EOY OF NOKCOTT'S. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 *' I SAW a young fellow, so like that boy of Norcott's in a 
 third-class carriage," I overheard a traveller say to his 
 companion, as we stopped to sup at Gratz. 
 
 "He'll have scarcely come to that, I fancy," said the 
 other, " though Norcott must have run through nearly 
 everything by this time." 
 
 It was about the last time I was to hear myself called in 
 this fashion. They who were to know me thenceforward 
 were to know me by another name, and in a rank that 
 had no traditions ; and I own I accepted this humble 
 fortune with a more contented spirit and with less chagrin 
 than it cost me to hear myself spoken of in this half- 
 contemptuous fashion. 
 
 I was now very plainly, simply dressed. I made no 
 display of studs or watch-chain ; I even gave up the ring 
 I used to wear, and took care that my gloves — in which 
 I once was almost puppyish — should be the commonest 
 and the cheapest. 
 
 If there was something that at moments fell very 
 heavily on my heart in the utter destitution of my lot, 
 there was, on the other hand, what nerved my heart and 
 stimulated me in the thought that there was some hei'oism 
 in what I was doing. I was, so to say, about to seek my 
 fortune ; and what to a young mind could be more full of 
 interest and anticipation than such a thought? To be 
 entirely self-dependent; to be thrown into situations oi 
 difficulty, with nothing but one's own resources to rely 
 on ; to be obliged to trust to one's head for counsel, and 
 one's heart for courage ; to see oneself, as it were, alone 
 against the world, is intensely exciting. 
 
 In the days of romance there were personal perils to 
 confront, and appalling dangers to be surmounted ; but 
 now it was a game of life, to be played, not merely with
 
 FIUME. 93 
 
 a stout heart and a ready hand, but with a cool head and 
 a steady eye. Young as I was, I had seen a great deal. 
 In that strange comedy of which my father's guests were 
 the performers, there was great insight into character to 
 be gained, and a marvellous knowledge of that skill by 
 which they who live by their wits cultivate these same 
 wits to live. 
 
 If I was not totally corrupted by the habits and ways 
 of that life, I owe it wholly to those teachings of my 
 dear mother, which, through all the turmoil and confusion 
 of this ill-regulated existence, still held a place in my 
 heart, and led me again and again to ask myself how she 
 would think of this, or what judgment she would pass on 
 that ; and even in this remnant of a conscience there was 
 some safety. I tried to persuade myself that it was well 
 for me that all this was now over, and that an honest 
 existence was now about to open to me — an existence in 
 which my good mother's lessons would avail me more, 
 stimulate me to the right and save me from the wrong, 
 and give to the humblest cares of daily labour a halo that 
 had never shone on my life of splendour. 
 
 It was late at night when I reached Trieste, and I left 
 it at daybreak. The small steamer in which I had taken 
 my passage followed the coast line, calling at even the 
 most insignificant little towns and villages, and winding 
 its track through that myriad of islands which lie scattered 
 along this strange shore. The quiet, old-world look of 
 these quaint towns, the simple articles they dealt in, the 
 strange dress, and the stranger sounds of the language of 
 these people, all told me into what a new life I had just 
 set foot, and how essential it was to leave all my former 
 habits behind me as I entered here. 
 
 The sun had just gone below the sea, as we rounded 
 the great promontory of the north and entered the bay of 
 Fiume. [Scarcely had we passed in, than the channel 
 seemed to close behind us, and we wei'e moving along 
 over what looked like a magnificent lake bounded on every 
 side by lofty mountains — for tb.e islands of the bay are so 
 placed that they conceal the openings to the Adriatic. If 
 the base of the great mountains was steeped in a blue, 
 deep and mellow as the sea itself, their summits glowed 
 in the carbuncle tints of the setting sun, and over these
 
 94 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTT's. 
 
 again long lines of cloud, golden and azure streaks, marked 
 the sky, almost on fire, as it were, with the last parting 
 salute of the glorious orb that was setting. It was not 
 merely that I had never seen, but I could not have 
 imagined such beauty of landscape, and as we swept 
 quietly along nearer the shore, and I could mark the villas 
 shrouded in the deep woods of chestnut and oak, and saw 
 the olive and the cactus, with the orange and the oleander, 
 bending their leafy branches over the blue water, I thought 
 to myself, would not a life there be nearer Paradise than 
 anything wealth and fortune could buy elsewhere ? 
 
 " There, yonder," said the captain, pointing to the orna- 
 mented chimneys of a house surrounded by a deep oak- 
 wood, and the teri^ace of which overhung the sea, " that's 
 the villa of old Ignaz Oppovich. They say the Emperor 
 temjited him with half a million of florins to sell it, but 
 miser as he was and is, the old fellow refused it." 
 
 " Is that Oppovich of the firm of Hodnig and Oppo- 
 vich ? " asked I. 
 
 " Yes ; the house is all Oppovich's noAV, and half Fiumc 
 too, I believe." 
 
 " There are worse fellows than old Ignaz," said another 
 gi'avely. " I wonder what would become of the hospital, 
 or the poor-house, or the asylum for the orphans here, 
 but for him." 
 
 " He's a Jew," said another, spitting out with contempt. 
 
 " A Jew that could teach many a Christian the virtues 
 of his own faith," cried the former. " A Jew that never 
 refused an alms to the poor, no matter of what belief, and 
 that never spoke ill of his neighbour." 
 
 " I never heard as much good of him before, and I have 
 been a member of the town council with him these thirty 
 years." 
 
 The other touched his hat respectfully in recognition of 
 the spcakei^'s rank, and said no more. 
 
 I took my little portmanteau in my hand as we landed, 
 and made for a small hotel which faced the sea. I had 
 determined not to present myself to the Herr Oppovich 
 till morning, and to take that evening to see the town and 
 its neighbourhood. 
 
 As 1 strolled about, gazing with a stranger's curiosity 
 at all that was new and odd to me in this quiet spot, I
 
 FITJME. 95 
 
 felt coming over me that deep depression ■which nlmost 
 invariably falls upon him who, alone and friendless, makes 
 first acquaintance with the scene wherein he is to live. 
 How hard it is for him to believe that the objects he sees 
 can ever become of interest to him ; how impossible it 
 seems that he will live to look on this as home ; that he 
 will walk that narrow street as a familiar spot; giving 
 back the kindly greetings that he gets, and feeling that 
 strange, mysterious sense of brotherhood that grows out 
 of daily intercoui'se with the same people ! 
 
 I was curious to see where the Herr Oppovich lived, 
 and found the place after some search. The public 
 garden of the town, a prettily planted spot, lies between 
 two mountain streams, flanked by tall mountains, and is 
 rather shunned by the inhabitants from its suspicion of 
 damp. Thi'ough this deserted spot — for I saw not one 
 being as I went — I passed on to a dark copse at the 
 extreme end, and beyond which a small wooden bridge 
 led over to a garden wildly overgrown with evergreens 
 and shrubs, and so neglected that it was not easy at first 
 to select the right path amongst the many that led through 
 the tangled brushwood. Following one of these, I came 
 out on a little lawn in front of a long low house of two 
 storeys. The roof was high-pitched, and the windows 
 narrow and defended by strong iron shutters, which lay 
 open on the outside wall, displaying many a bolt and bar, 
 indicative of strength and resistance. No smoke issued 
 from a chimney, not a sound broke the stillness, nor was 
 there a trace of any living thing around, — desolation like 
 it I had never seen. At last, a mean, half-starved dog 
 crept coweriugly across the lawn, and, di-awing- nigh the 
 door, stood and whined plaintively. After a brief pause 
 the door opened, the animal stole in ; the door then closed 
 with a bang, and all was still as befoi'e. I turned back 
 towards the town with a heavy heart ; a gloomy dread of 
 those I was to be associated with on the morrow was over 
 me, and I went to the inn and locked myself into my 
 room, and fell upon my bed with a sense of desolation that 
 found vent at last in a torrent of tears. 
 
 As I look back on the night that followed, it seems to 
 me one of the saddest passages of my life. If I fell asleep, 
 it was to dream of the past, with all its exciting pleasures
 
 96 THAT BOY OP NORCOTT*S. 
 
 and delights, and then, awaking suddenly, I found myself 
 in this wretched, poverty-stricken room, where every 
 object spoke of misery, and recalled me to the thought of 
 a condition as ignoble and as lowly. 
 
 I remember well how I longed for day-dawn, that I 
 might get up and wander along the shore, and taste the 
 fresh breeze, and hear the plash of the sea, and seek in 
 that greater, wider, and more beautiful world of nature a 
 peace that my own despairing thoughts would not suffer 
 me to enjoy. And, at the first gleam of light, I did steal 
 down, and issue forth, to walk for hours along the bay in 
 a sort of enchantment from the beauty of the scene, that 
 filled me at last with a sense of almost happiness. I 
 thought of Pauline, too, and wondered would she partake 
 of the delight this lovely spot imparted to me ? Would 
 she see these leafy woods, that bold mountain, that crystal 
 sea, with its glittering sands many a fathom deep, as I 
 saw them ? And if so, what a stimulus to labour and 
 grow rich was in the thought. 
 
 In pleasant reveries, that dashed the future with much 
 that had delighted me in the past, the hours rolled on till 
 it was time to present myself at Herr Oppovicli's. Armed 
 with ray letter of introduction, I soon found myself at the 
 door of a large warehouse, over which his name stood in 
 big letters. A narrow wooden stair ascended steeply from 
 the entrance to a long low room, in which fully twenty 
 clerks were busily engaged at their desks. At the end of 
 this, in a smaller room, I was told Herr Ignaz — for he was 
 always so called — held his private office. 
 
 Before I was well conscious of it, I was standing in 
 this room before a short, thick-set old man, with heavy 
 eyebrows and beard, and whose long coat of coarse cloth 
 reached to his feet. 
 
 He sat and examined me as he read the note, pausing 
 at times in the reading as if to compare me with the indi- 
 cations before him. 
 
 " Digby Owen — is that the name ? " asked he. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 '' Native of Ireland, and never before employed in com- 
 mercial pursuits ? " 
 
 I nodded to this interrogatory. 
 
 " I am not in love with Ireland, nor do I feel a c:reat
 
 FIUME. 97 
 
 liking for ignorance, Herr Owen," said he, slowly; and 
 there was a deep impressiveness in his tone, though the 
 words came with the thick accentuation of the Jew^ "My 
 old friend and correspondent should have remembered 
 these prejudices of mine. Herr Jacob Heinfetter should 
 not have sent you here." 
 
 I knew not what reply to make to this, and was 
 silent. 
 
 " He should not have sent you hero ; " and he repeated 
 the words with increased solemnity. " What do you 
 want me to do with you ? " said he, sharply, after a brief 
 pause. 
 
 "Anything that will serve to let me eai-n my bread," 
 said I, calmly. 
 
 " But I can get scores like you, young man, for the 
 wages we give servants here ; and would you be content 
 with that ? " 
 
 " I must take what you are pleased to give me.'' 
 
 He rang a little bell beside him, and cried out, " Send 
 Harasch here." And, at the word, a short, beetle-browed, 
 ill-favoured young fellow appeared at the door, pen in 
 hand. 
 
 "Bring me your ledger," said the old man. "Look 
 here now," said he to me, as he turned over the bear.tifully 
 clean and neatly kept volume : this is the work of one 
 who earns six hundred florins a year. You began with 
 four, Harasch ? " 
 
 " Three hundred, Herr Ignaz," said the lad, bowing. 
 
 " Can you live and wear such clothes as these," said the 
 old man, touching my tweed coat, "for three hundred 
 florins a year — paper florins, mind, which in your money 
 would make about twenty-five pounds ? " 
 
 " I will do my best with it," said I, determined he should 
 not deter me by mere words. 
 
 " Take him with you, Harasch ; let him copy into the 
 waste-book. We shall see in a few days what he's fit 
 for." 
 
 At a sign from the youth, I followed him out, and soon 
 found myself in the outer room, where a considerable 
 number of the younger clerks were waiting to acknow- 
 ledge me. 
 
 Nothing could well be less like the manners and habits 
 
 H
 
 98 ITTAT BOY OF I^ORCOTT S. 
 
 I was used to than the coarse familiarity and easy imper- 
 tinence of these young fellows. They questioned me about 
 my birth, my education, my means, what circumstance 
 had driven me to my present step, and why none of my 
 friends had done anything to save me from it. Not con- 
 tent with a number of veiy searching inquiries, they 
 began to assure me that Herr Ignaz would not put up 
 with my incapacity for a week. " He'll send you into the 
 yard," cried one ; and the sentence was chorussed at once. 
 " Ja ! ja ! he'll be sent into the yard." And though I 
 was dying to know what that might mean, my pride 
 restrained my curiosity, and I would not condescend to 
 ask. 
 
 " Won't he be fine in the yard !" I heard one whisper 
 to another, and they both began laughing at the conceit ; 
 and I now sat down on a bench and lost myself in thought. 
 
 " Come ; we are going to dinner, Englauder," said 
 Harasch to me at last; and I arose and followed him. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HAKSKRL OF THE YARD. 
 
 I WAS soon to learn what being " sent into the yard " 
 meant. Within a week that destiny was mine. Being so 
 sent was the phrase for being charged to count the staves 
 as they arrived in waggon-loads fi'om Hungary, oaken 
 staves being the chief " industry " of Fiume, and the 
 principal source of Herr Oppovich's foi'tune. 
 
 My companion, and, indeed, my instructor in this 
 intellectual employment, was a strange-looking, dwarfish 
 creature, who, whatever the season, wore a suit of dark 
 yellow leather, the jerkin being fastened round the waist 
 by a broad belt with a heavy brass buckle. He had been 
 in the yard three-and-forty years, and though his assistants 
 had been uniformly promoted to the office, he had met no
 
 fiANSERii OF THE YARD. 99 
 
 advancement in life, but was still in tbe same walk and 
 the same grade in which he had started. 
 
 Hans Sponer, was, however, a philosopher", an 1 went 
 on his road uncomplainingly. He said that the open air 
 and the freedom were better than the closeness and con- 
 finement within-doors, and if his pay was smaller, his 
 healthier appetite made him able to relish plainer food ; 
 and this mode of reconciling things — striking the balance 
 between good and ill — went through all he said or did, 
 and his favourite phrase, " Es ist fast eiiierley," or " It 
 comes to about the same," comprised his whole system ot 
 worldly knowledge. 
 
 If at first I felt the occupation assigned to me as an 
 insult and a degradation, Hanserl's companionship soon 
 reconciled me to submit to it with patience. It was not 
 merely that he displayed an invariable good-humour and 
 pleasantry, but there was a forbearance aboiit him, and 
 a delicacy in his dealing with me, actually gentlemanlike. 
 Thus he never questioned me as to my former condition, 
 nor asked by what accident I had fallen to my present 
 lot ; and, while showing in many ways that he saw I was 
 unused to hardship, he rather treated my inexperience as 
 a mere fortuitous circumstance than as a thing to comment 
 or dwell on. Hanserl, besides this, taught me how to 
 live on my humble pay of a florin and ten kreutzers — • 
 about two shillings — daily. I had a small room that led 
 out into the yard, and could consequently devote my 
 modest salary to my maintenance. The straitened 
 economy of Hans himself had enabled him to lay by 
 about eight hundred florins, and he strongly advised me 
 to arrange my mode of life on a plan that would admit of 
 such a prudent saving. 
 
 ! Less for this purpose than to give my friend a sti'ong 
 proof of the full confidence I reposed in his judgment 
 
 i and his honour, I confided to his care all my earnings, 
 and only begged he would provide for me as for himself; 
 and thus Hans and I became inseparable. We took our 
 cofl^ee together at daybreak, our little soup and boiled 
 beef at noon, and our potato-salad, with perhaps a sardiue 
 or such like, at night for supper; the " Yiertelwein " — 
 the fourth of a bottle — being equitably divided between 
 us to cheer our hearts and cement good-fellowship on 
 
 n .2
 
 100 THAT BOY OP NORCOTT'S. 
 
 certainly as acrid a liquor as ever served two such excel- 
 lent ends. 
 
 None of the clerks would condescend to know us. 
 Herr Frippei*, the cashier, would nod to us in the street, 
 but the younger men never recognized us at all, save in 
 some expansive moment of freedom by a wink or a jerk 
 of the head. We were iu a most subordinate condition, 
 and they made us feel it. 
 
 From Hans 1 learned that Herr Oppovich was a widower 
 with two children, a son and a daughter. The former 
 was an irreclaimable scamp and vagabond, whose debts 
 had been paid over and over again, and who had been 
 turned out of the array with disgrace, and was now 
 wandering about Europe, living on his father's friends, 
 and trading for small loans on his family name. This 
 was Adolph Oppovich. The gii'l — Sara she was called — • 
 was, in Hanserl's judgment, not much more to be liked 
 than her brother. She was proud and insolent to a degree 
 that would have been remarkable in a princess of a 
 reigning house. From the clerks she exacted a homage 
 that was positively absurd. It was not alone that they 
 should always stand uncovered as she passed, but that if 
 any had occasion to address her he should prelude what 
 he had to say by kissing her hand, an act of vassalage 
 that in Austria is limited to persons of the humblest kind. 
 
 " She regards me as a wild beast, and I am therefore 
 spared this piece of servitude," said Hans ; and he 
 laughed his noiseless uncouth laugh as he thought of his 
 immunity. 
 
 " Is she handsome ?" asked I. 
 
 " How can she be handsome when she Is so over- 
 bearing ? " said he. " Is not beauty gentleness, mildness, 
 softness ? How can it agree with eyes that flash disdain, 
 and a mouth that seems to curl with insolence ? The 
 old proverb says, ' Schonheit ist Sanftheit ; ' and that's 
 why Our Lady is always so lovely." 
 
 Hanserl was a devout Catholic ; and not impossibly 
 this sentiment made his judgment of the young Jewess 
 all the more severe. Of Herr Oppovich himself he would 
 say little. Perhaps he deemed it was not loyal to discuss 
 him whose bread he ate ; perhaps he had not sufficient 
 experience of me to trust me with his opinion : at all
 
 HANSEKL OF THE YARD. 101 
 
 events he went no furtlier than an admission that he was 
 wise and keen in business ; one who made few mistakes 
 himself, nor forgave them easily in another. 
 
 *' N'ever do more than he tells you to do, younker," 
 said Hans to me one day ; " and he'll trust you, if you do 
 that well." And this was not the least valuable hint he 
 gave me. 
 
 Hans had a great deal of small worldly wisdom, the 
 fruit rather of a long experience than of any i"emarkable 
 gift of observation. As he said himself, it took him four 
 years to learn the business of the yard; and as I acquired 
 the knowledge in about a week, he regarded me as a 
 perfect genius. 
 
 We soon became fast and firm fi'iends. The way in 
 which I had surrendered myself to his guidance — giving 
 him up the management of my money, and actually sub- 
 mitting to his authority as though I were his son — had 
 won upon the old man immensely ; while I, on my side — 
 friendless and companionless, save with himself — drew 
 close to the only one who seemed to take an interest in 
 me. At first — I must own it — as we wended our way, 
 at noon, towards the little eating-house where we dined, 
 and I saw the friends with whom Hans exchanged 
 greetings, and felt the class and condition he belonged to 
 reflected in the coarse looks and coarser ways of his 
 associates, I was ashamed to think to what I had fallen. 
 I had, indeed, no respect, nor any liking for the young 
 fellows of the counting-house. They were intensely, 
 offensively vulgar ; but they had the outward semblance, 
 the dress, and the gait of their betters, and they were 
 privileged by appearance to sti'oll into a cafe and sit 
 down, from which I and my companion would speedily 
 have been ejected. I confess I envied them that mere 
 right of admission into the well-dressed world, and 
 sorrowed over my own exclusion as though it had been 
 inflicted on me as a punishment. 
 
 This jealous feeling met no encouragement from Hans. 
 The old man had no rancour of any kind in his nature. 
 He had no sense of discontent with his condition, nor any 
 desire to change it. Counting staves seemed to him a 
 very fitting way to occupy existence ; and he knew of 
 many occupations that were less pleasant and less whole-
 
 102 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 some. Efigs, for instance, for the paper-mill, or hides, 
 in both of which Herr Ignaz dealt, Hans would have 
 seriously disliked; but staves were cleanly and smelt fresh 
 and sweetly of the oak-wood they came from; and there 
 was something noble in their destiny — to form casks and 
 ho2:sheads for the rich wines of France and Spain — 
 wliich he was fond of recalling : and so would he say, 
 "Without you and me, boy, or those like us, they'd have 
 no vats nor barrels for the red grape-juice." 
 
 While he thus talked to me, trying to invest our humble 
 calling with what might elevate it in my eyes, I struggled 
 often with myself whether I should not tell him the 
 story of my life — in what rank I had lived, to what 
 hopes of fortune I had been reared. Would this know- 
 ledge have raised me in the old man's esteem, or would it 
 have estranged him from me ? that was the question. 
 How should I come through the ordeal of his judgment? 
 higher or lower ? A mere chance decided for me what all 
 my pondering could not resolve. Hans came home one 
 night with a little book in his hand, a present for me. It 
 was a French grammar, and, as he told me, the key to all 
 knowledge. 
 
 " The French are the great people of the world," said 
 he, " and till you know their tongue, you can have no real 
 insight into learning." Thei'C was a " younker," once 
 under him in the yard, who, just because he could read 
 and write French, was now a cashier, with six hundred 
 florins salary. " When you have worked hard for three 
 months we'll look out for a master, Owen." 
 
 " But I know it already, Hanserl," said I proudly. " I 
 speak it even better than I speak German, and Italian 
 too ! Ay, stare at me, but it's true. I had masters for 
 these, and for Greek and Latin ; and I was taught to 
 draw, and to sing, and to play the piano, and I learned 
 how to ride and to dance." 
 
 "Just like a born gentleman," broke in Hans. 
 
 " I was, and I am, a born gentleman ; don't shake your 
 head, or wring your hands, Hanserl. I'm not going 
 mad ! These are not ravings ! I'll soon convince you 
 what I say is true." And I hurried to my room, and, 
 opening my trunk, took out my watch, and some 
 trinkets, some studs of value, and a costly chain my father
 
 HANSERL OF THE YAED. 103 
 
 gave me. " These are all mine ! I used to wear tliem 
 once, as commonly as I now wear these bone buttons. 
 There were more servants in my father's house than there 
 are clerks in Herr Oppovich's counting-house. Let me 
 tell you who I was, and how I came to be what I am." 
 
 I told him my whole story, the old man listening with 
 an eagerness quite intense, but never -more deeply in- 
 terested than when I told of the splendours and magnifi- 
 cence of my father's house. He never wearied hearing 
 of costly entertainments and great banquets, where troops 
 of servants waited, and every wish of the guests was at 
 once ministered to. 
 
 " And all this," cried he, at last, " all this, day after 
 day, night after night, and not once a year only, as we 
 see it here, on the FrJiulein Sara's birthday ! " And now 
 the poor old man, as if to compensate himself for listening 
 so long, broke out into a description of the festivities by 
 which Herr Oppovieh celebrated his daughter's birthday : 
 an occasion on which he invited all in his employment to 
 pass the day at his villa, on the side of the bay, and when, 
 by Hanserl's account, a most unbounded hospitality held 
 swa}^ " There are no portions, no measured quantities, 
 but each is free to eat and drink as he likes," cried Hans, 
 who, with this praise, described a banquet of millennial 
 magnificence. " But you will see for yourself," added he ; 
 " for even the ' yard ' is invited." 
 
 I cautioned him strictly not to divulge what I had told 
 him of myself; nor was it necessary, after all, for he well 
 knew how Herr Ignaz i^esented the thought of any one in 
 his service having other pretensions than such as grew 
 out of his own favour towards them. 
 
 " You'd be sent away to-morrow, younker," said he, 
 *' if he but knew what you were. There's an old proverb 
 shows how thoy think of people of quality : — 
 
 * Die Juden nicbt dulJen 
 Den Herrschaft mit ScliulJen. ' 
 
 The Jews cannot abide the great folk, with their in- 
 debtedness ; and to deem these inseparable is a creed." 
 
 " On the 31st of August falls the Fraulein's birthday, 
 lad, and you shall tell me the next morning if your father 
 gave a grander fete than that."
 
 104 THAT BOY OF NOECOTT's, 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE SAIL ACROSS THE BAT. 
 
 The 31st of August dawned at last, and with the promise 
 of a lovel}' autumnal day. It was the one holiday of the 
 year at Herr Oppovich's : for Sunday was only externally 
 observed in deference to the feelings of the Christian 
 world, and clerks sat at their desks inside, and within the 
 bai'red shutters the whole work of life went on as though 
 a week-day. As for us in the yard, it was our day of 
 most rigorous discipline; for Ignaz himself was wont to 
 come down on a tour of inspection, and his quick glances 
 were sure to detect at once the slightest irregularity or 
 neglect. He seldom noticed me on these occasions. A 
 word addressed to Hanserl as to how the " younker " was 
 doing, would be all the recognition vouchsafed me, or, at 
 most, a short nod of the head would convey that he had 
 seen me. Hanserl's repoi'ts were, however, always favour- 
 able ; and I had so for good reason to believe that my 
 master was content with me. 
 
 From Hans, %yho had talked of nothing but this fete 
 for three or four Aveeks, I had learned that a beautiful 
 villa which Horr Ignaz owned on the west side of the bay 
 was always opened. It was considered much too grand 
 a place to live in, being of princely proportions and 
 splendidly furnished ; indeed, it had come into Herr 
 Oppovich's possession on a mortgage, and the thought of 
 using it as a residence never occurred to him. To have 
 kept the grounds alone in order would have cost a moderate 
 fortune ; and as there was no natural supply of water on 
 the spot, a steam-pump was kept in constant use to direct 
 streams in different directions. This, which its former 
 owner freely jiaid for, was an outlay that Herr Oppovich 
 regarded as most wasteful, and reduced at once to the 
 very narrowest limits consistent with the life of the 
 plants and shrubs around. The ornamental fountains
 
 THE SAIL ACROSS THE BAY. 105 
 
 were, of course, left unfed ; jeiS'tVeaux ceased to play ; 
 and the various tanks in "which water-nymphs of white 
 marble disported, were dried up ; ivy and the wild vine 
 draping the statues, and hiding the sculptured urns in 
 leafy embrace. 
 
 Of the rare plants and flowers, hundreds of course died ; 
 indeed, none but those of hardy nature could survive this 
 stinted aliment. Greenhouses and conservatories, too, 
 fell into disrepair and neglect; but such was the marvel- 
 lous wealth of vegetation that, fast as walls would crumble 
 and architraves give way, foliage aud blossom would 
 spread over the ruin, and the rare plants within, mingling 
 with the stronger vegetation without, would form a tangled 
 mass of leafy beauty of surpassing loveliness ; and thus 
 the rarest orchids were seen stretching their delicate 
 tendrils over forest-trees, and the cactus and the mimosa 
 mingled with common field-flowers. If I linger amongst 
 these things, it is because they contrasted so strikingly to 
 me with the trim propriety and fjistidious neatness of the 
 Malibran Villa, where no leaf littered a walk, nor a single 
 tarnished blossom was suffered to remain on its stalk. 
 Yet was the Abazzia Villa a thousand times more beau- 
 tiful. In the one, the uppermost thought was the endless 
 care and skill of the gardeners, and the wealth that had 
 provided them. The clink of gold seemed to rise 
 from the crashed gravel as you walked ; the fountains glit- 
 tered Avith gold ; the conservatories exhaled it. Here, how- 
 ever, it seemed asthough Nature, rich in her own unbounded 
 resources, was showing how little she needed of man or 
 his appliances. It was the very exuberance of growth on 
 every side ; and all this backed by a bold mountain lofty 
 as an Alp, and washed by a sea in front, and that sea the 
 blue Adriatic. 
 
 I had often heard of the thrift and parsimony of Herr 
 Oppovich's household. Even in the humble eating-house 
 I frequented, sneers at its economies were frequent. No 
 trace of such a saving spirit displayed itself on this occa- 
 sion. Not merely were guests largely and freely invited, 
 but cari'iages were stationed at appointed spots to convey 
 them to the villa, and a number of boats awaited at the 
 mole for those who preferred to go by water. This latter 
 mode of conveyance was adonted by the clerks and offi-
 
 106 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 cials of the house, as savouring less of pi'etension ; and so 
 was it that just as the morning was ripening into warmth, 
 I found myself one of a large company in a wide eight- 
 oared boat, calmly skimming along towards Abazzia. By 
 some accident I got separated from Hanserl ; and when I 
 waved my hand to him to join me, he delayed to return 
 my salutation, for, as he said afterwards, I was gar 
 sclioa — quite fine — and he did not recognize me. 
 
 It was true I had dressed myself in the velvet jacket 
 and vest I had worn on the night of our own fete, and wore 
 my velvet cap, without, however, the heron feather, any 
 more that I put on any of my trinkets, or even my watch. 
 
 This studied simplicity on my part was not rewarded as 
 I hoped for ; since scarcely were we under way than my 
 dress and "get-up" became the subject of an animated 
 debate among my companions, who discussed me with a 
 freedom and a candour that showed they regarded me 
 simply as a sort of lay figure for the display of so much 
 drapery. 
 
 " That's how they dress in the yai'd," ci'ied one ; " and 
 we who have three times the pay, can scarcely afford 
 broadcloth. Will any one explain that to me? " 
 
 " Thei'e must be rare perquisites down there," chimed 
 in another ; " for they say that the old dwarf Hanserl has 
 laid by two thousand gulden." 
 
 " They tell me five thousand," said another. 
 
 " Two or twenty-two would make no difference. N"o 
 fellow on his pay could honestly do more than keep life 
 in his body, not to speak of wearing velvet like the 
 younker there." 
 
 A short digression now intervened, one of the party 
 having suggested that in England velvet was the cheapest 
 wear known, that all the labourers on canals and railroads 
 wore it from economy, and that, in fact, it was the badge 
 of a very humble condition. The assertion encountered 
 Rome disbelief, and it was ultimately suggested to refer 
 the matter to me for decision, this being the first evidence 
 they had given of their recognition of me as a sentient 
 being. 
 
 "What would 7^<? know?" broke in an elderly clerk; 
 " he must have come away from England a mere child, 
 seeing how he speaks German now."
 
 THE SAIL ACROSS THE BAY. 107 
 
 " Or if he did know, is it likely he'd tell ? " observed 
 anotlier. 
 
 "At all events let us ask him what it costs. I say, 
 Knabe, come bere and let us see your fine clothes ; we are 
 all proud of having so grand a colleague." 
 
 "You might show your pride, then, more suitably than 
 by insulting him," said I with perfect calm. 
 
 Had I discharged a loaded pistol in the midst of them, 
 the dismay and astonishment could not have been greater. 
 
 That any one " aus dem Hot" — "out of the yard" — 
 should presume to think he had feelings that could bo 
 outraged seemed a degree of arrogance beyond belief, and 
 my word " insult " was repeated from mouth to mouth 
 with amazement. 
 
 '■ Come here, Knabe," said the cashier, in a voice of 
 blended gehtleness and command — " come here, and let 
 us talk to you." 
 
 I arose and made my way from the bow to the stern of 
 of the boat. Short as the distance w.is, it gave me time 
 to bethink me that I must repress all anger or irritation 
 if I desired to keep my secret : so that when I reached 
 my place, my mind was made up. 
 
 "Silk-velvet as I live! " said one who passed his hand 
 along my sleeve as 1 went. 
 
 " No one wishes to otl'end you, youngster," said the 
 cashier to me, as he placed me beside him ; " nor when 
 we talk freely to each other, as is our wont, are any of us 
 offended." 
 
 " But you forget, sir," said I, " that I have no share in 
 these freedoms, and that were I to attempt them, you'd 
 resent the liberty pretty soon." 
 
 "The Knabe is right," "He says what's true," "He 
 speaks sensibly," were muttered all around. 
 
 " Tou have been well educated, I suspect ? " said the 
 cashier, in a gentle voice; and now the thought that by 
 a word, a mere word, I might compromise myself beyond 
 recall Hashed across me, and I answered, " I have learned 
 some things." 
 
 " One of which was caution," broke in another ; and a 
 roar of laughter welcomed his joke. 
 
 Many a severer sarcasm would not have cut so deeply 
 into me. The imputation of a reserve based on cunning
 
 108 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 was too much for my temper, and in a moment I forgot 
 all prudeucej and hotly said, "If I am such an object of 
 interest to you, gentlemen, that you must know even the 
 details of my education, the only way I see to satisfy 
 this curiosity of yours is to say that, if you will question 
 me as to what I know and what I do not, I will do my 
 best to answer you." 
 
 " That's a challenge," cried one ; " he thinks we are too 
 illiterate to examine him." 
 
 " We see that you speak German fluently," said the 
 cashier ; " do you know French ? " 
 
 I nodded assent. 
 
 " And Italian and English ? " 
 
 "Yes; English is my native language." 
 
 *' What about Greek and Latin, boy ?" 
 
 "Very little Greek ; some half-dozen Latin authors." 
 
 "Any Hebrew ?" chimed in one, with a smile of half 
 mockery. 
 
 " Kot a syllable." 
 
 "That's a pity, for you could have chatted with. Hen 
 Ignaz in it." 
 
 " Or the Eraulein," muttered another. " She knows 
 no Hebrew," " She does; she reads it well," " Nothing of 
 the kind," were quickly spoken from many quarters, and 
 a very hot discussion ensued, in which the Friiulein Sara's 
 accomplishments and acquirements took the place of mine 
 in public interest. 
 
 AVhile the debate went on with no small warmth on 
 either side — for it involved a personal question that 
 stimulated each of the combatants, namely, the amount 
 of intimacy they enjoyed in the family and household of 
 their master : a point on which they seemed to feel the 
 most acute sensibility — while this, therefore, continued, 
 the cashier patted mc good-humouredly on the arm, and 
 asked me how I liked Fiume ; if I had made any pleasant 
 acquaintances ; and how I usually passed my evenings ? 
 And while thus chatting pleasantly, we glided into the 
 little bay of the villa, and lauded. 
 
 As boat after boat came alongside the jetty, numbers 
 rushed down to meet and welcome their friends. All 
 seemed half wild with delight ; and the adventures they 
 had had on the road, the loveliness of the villa, and the
 
 THE SAIL ACEOSS THE BAY. 109 
 
 coui'tesy they had been met with, resounded on every side. 
 All had friends, eager to talk or to listen — all but myself. 
 I alone had no companionship ; for in the crowd and con- 
 fusion I could not iind Hanserl, and to ask after him 
 was but to risk the danger of an impertinence. 
 
 I sat myself down on a rustic bench at last, thinking 
 that if I remained fixed in one spot I might have the 
 best chance to discover him. And now I could mark the 
 strange company, which of every age, and almost of every 
 condition, appeared to be present. If the marked features 
 of the Hebrew abounded, there were types of the race 
 that I had never seen before : fair-haired and olive-eyed, 
 with a certain softness of expression, united with great 
 decision about the mouth and chin. The red Jew, too, 
 was there : the fierce-eyed, dark-browed, hollow-cheeked 
 fellow, of piei'cing acuteness in expression, and an almost 
 reckless look of purpose about him. There was greed, 
 craft, determination, at times even violence, to be read in 
 the faces ; but never weakness, never imbecility ; and so 
 sti'iking was this, that the Chinstian physiognomy'seemed 
 actually vulgar when contrasted with those faces so full 
 of vigorous meaning and concenti-ation. 
 
 Nothing could be less like my father's guests than these 
 people. It was not in dress and demeanour and general 
 carriage that they diflTered — in their gestures as they met, 
 in their briefest greetings — but the whole character of 
 their habits, as expressed by their faces, seemed so unlike, 
 that I could not imagine any clue to their sevei'al ranks, 
 and how this one was higher or greater than that. All 
 the nationalities of Eastern Europe were there — Hun- 
 gai'ian, Styrian, Dalmatian, and Albanian. Traders all. 
 This one bond of traflSc and gain blending into a sort of 
 family races and creeds the most discordant, and types 
 whose forefathers had been warring with each other for 
 centuries. Plenty of coarseness there was, unculture 
 and roughness everywhere ; but, strangely enough, little 
 vulgarity and no weakness, no deficient energy anywhere. 
 They were the warriors of commerce ; and they brought 
 to the battle of trade, resolution and boldness and per- 
 sistence and daring not a whit inferior to what their 
 ancestors had carried into personal contlict.
 
 110 InAT i30Y OF NORCOTX'S* 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AT THE FETE. 
 
 If, seated on my rustic bench under a spreading ilex, I 
 was not joining in the pleasures and amusements of those 
 around me, I was tasting an amount of enjoyment to the 
 full as great. It was my first holiday after many months 
 of monotonous labour. It was the first moment in which 
 I felt myself free to look about me without the irksome 
 thought of a teasing duty— that everlasting song of score 
 and tally, which Hans and I sang duet fashion, and which 
 at last seemed to enter into my very veins and circulate 
 with my blood. 
 
 The scene itself was of rare beauty. Seated as I was, 
 the bay appeared a vast lake, for the outlet that led sea- 
 ward was backed by an island, and thus the coast-line 
 seemed unbroken throughout. Over this wide expanse 
 now hundreds of fishing boats were moving in every 
 direction, for the wind was blowing fresh from the land, 
 and permitted them to tack and beat as they pleased. If 
 thus in the crisply curling waves, the flitting boats, and 
 the fast-flying clouds above, there was motion and life, 
 there was, in the high peaked-mountain that frowned 
 above me, and in the dark rocks that lined the shore, a 
 stern, impassive grandeur that became all the more 
 striking from contrast. The plashing water, the fisher- 
 men's cries, the merry laughter of the revellers as they 
 strayed through brake and copse, seemed all but whispering 
 sounds in that vast amphitheatre of mountain, so solemn 
 was the influence of those towering crags that rose towards 
 heaven. 
 
 "Have you been sitting there ever since?" asked the 
 cashier, as he passed me with a string of friends. 
 
 " Ever since." 
 
 " Not had any breakfast ? " 
 
 " None."
 
 AT THE FETfi. Ill 
 
 "Nor paid your compliments to Hen' Ignaz and tlie 
 Fraulein ? " 
 
 I shook my head in dissent. 
 
 " Worst of all," said he, half rebukingly, and passed 
 on. I now bethought me how remiss I had been. It is 
 true it was through a sense of my own insignificant 
 station that I had not presented myself to my host ; but 
 I ought to have remembered that this excuse could have 
 no force outside the limits of my own heart; and so as I 
 despaired of finding Hauserl, whose advice might have 
 aided me, I set out at once to make my respects. 
 
 A long, straight avenue, flanked by tall lime-trees, 
 led from the sea to the house ; and as I passed up this, 
 crowded now like the chief promenade of a city, I heard 
 many comments as I went on my dress and appearance. 
 " What have we here ? " said one. " Is this a prince or a 
 mountebank ?" •' What boy, with a much-braid-bedizened 
 velvet coat is this ? " muttered an old German, as he 
 pointed at me with his pipe-stick. 
 
 One pronounced me a fencing-master ; but public repro- 
 bation found its limit at last by calling me a Frenchman. 
 Shall I own that I heard all these with something much 
 more akin to pride than to shame ? The mere fact that 
 they recognized me as unlike one of themselves — that 
 they saw in me what was not " Fiumano " was in itself a 
 flattery ; and as to the depreciation, it was pore ignorance! 
 I am afraid that I even showed how defiantly I took this 
 criticism — showed it in my look, and showed it in my 
 gait : for as I ascended the steps to the terrace of the 
 villa I heard more than one comment on my pretentious 
 demeanour. Perhaps some rumour of the approach of a 
 distinguished guest had reached Hcrr Oppovich where he 
 sat, at a table with some of the magnates of Fiume, for he 
 hastily arose and came forward to meet me. Just as I 
 gained the last terrace the old man stood bareheaded and 
 bowing before me, a semicircle of wondering guests at 
 either side of him. 
 
 " Whom have I the distinguished honour to receive ? " 
 said Herr Ignaz, with a profound show of deference. 
 
 " Don't you know me, sir? Owen — Digby Owen." 
 
 " What ! — how ? — Eh, — in heaven's name — sure it can't 
 be ! Why, I protest it is," cried he, lavine bis h:ind on
 
 112 THAT BOY OP NORCOTT's. 
 
 my shoulder, as if to test my reality. "This passes all 
 belief. Who ever saw the like ! Come here, Knabe, 
 come here." And slipping his hand within my arm he 
 led me towards the talole he had just quitted. " Sara," 
 cried he, " here is a guest you have not noticed ; a high 
 and well-born stranger, who claims all your attention. 
 Let him have the place of honour at your side. This, 
 ladies and gentlemen, is Herr Digby Owen, the stave- 
 counter of my timber-yard ! " And he burst with this 
 into a roar of laughter, that, long pent up by an effort, now 
 seemed to threaten him with a fit. Nor was the company 
 slow in chorussing him : round after round shook the table, 
 and it seemed as if the joke could never be exhausted. 
 
 All this time I stood with my eyes fixed on the Fraulein, 
 whose glance was directed as steadfastly on me. It was a 
 haughty look she bent on me, but it became her well, and 
 I forgave all the scorn it conveyed in the pleasure her 
 beauty gave me. My face, which at first was in a flame, 
 became suddenly cold, and a faintish sickness was creeping 
 over me, so that, to steady myself, I had to lay my hand 
 on a chair. " Won't you sit down ? " said she, in a voice 
 fully as much command as invitation. She pointed to a 
 chair a little distance from her own, and I obeyed. 
 
 The company appeared now somewhat ashamed of its rude 
 display of merriment, and seeing how quietly and calmly I 
 bore myself — unresentingly too — there seemed something 
 like a reaction in my favour. Foreigners, it must be said, are 
 generally sorry when betrayed into any exhibition of ill- 
 breeding, and hastily seek to make amends for it. Perhaps 
 Herr Oppovich himself was the least ready in this move- 
 ment, for he continued to look on me with a strange 
 blending of displeasure and amusement. 
 
 The business of breakfast was now resumed, and the 
 servants passed round with the dishes, helping me 
 amongst the rest. While I was eating I heard — what of 
 course was not meant for my cars — an explanation given 
 by one of the company of my singular appeai'ance. He 
 had lived in England, and said that the English of every 
 condition had a passion for appearing to belong to some 
 rank above their own ; that to accomplish this there was 
 no sacrifice they would not make, for these assumptions 
 imposed upon those who made f.hcm fully as much as on
 
 AT THE FETE. 113 
 
 the public they were made foi*. "You'll see," added he, 
 " that the youth there, so long as he figures in that fine 
 dress, will act up to it, so far as he knows how." He talked 
 with a degree of assurance and fluency that gained con- 
 viction, and I saw that his hearers went along with him, 
 and there, soon began — very cautiously and very guardedly 
 indeed — a sort of examination of me and my pretensions, 
 for which, fortunately for me, I was so far prepared. 
 
 "And do all English boys of your rank in life speak 
 and read four languages ? " asked Herr Ignaz, after listen- 
 ing some time to my answers. 
 
 " You are assuming to know his rank, papa," whispered 
 Sara, who watched me closely during the whole interro- 
 gatory. 
 
 " Let him answer my question," rejoined the old man, 
 roughly. 
 
 " Perhaps not all," said T, half amused at the puzzle I 
 was becoming to them. 
 
 " Then how came it your fortune to know them — that 
 is, if you do know them ?" 
 
 Slipping out of his question, I replied — " N'othing can 
 be easier than to test that point. There are gentlemen 
 here whose acquirements go far beyond mine." 
 
 " Tour German is very good," said Sara. " Let me hear 
 you speak French." 
 
 " It is too much honour for me," said I, bowing, " to 
 address you at all." 
 
 " Is your Italian as neat in accent as that?" asked a 
 lady near. 
 
 " I believe I am best in Italian — of course, after 
 English — for I always talked it with my music-master, 
 as well as with my teacher." 
 
 " Music-master ! " cried Herr Ignaz ; " what phoenix 
 have we here ?" 
 
 " I don't think we are quite fair to this boy," said a 
 stern-featured, middle-aged man. " He has shown us 
 that there is no imposition in his pretensions, and we 
 have no right to question him further. If Herr Ignaz 
 thinks you too highly gifted for his service, young man, 
 come over to Carl Bettmeyer's counting house to-morrow 
 at noon." 
 
 "I thank you, sir," said I, "and am very grateful; 
 
 I
 
 114 THAT BOY OF NOECOTt's. 
 
 but if Herr Oppovicli will bear with me, I will not leave 
 
 liim." 
 
 kSara's eyes met mine as I spoke, and I cannot tell what 
 a Hood of rapture her look sent into my heart. 
 
 " The boy will do well enough," muttered Herr Tgnaz. 
 " Let us have a ramble through the grounds, and see how 
 the skittle-players go on." 
 
 And thus passed off the little incident of my appear- 
 ance : an incident of no moment to any but myself, as I 
 was soon to feel ; for the company, descending the steps, 
 sti"ayed away in broken twos or threes through the grounds, 
 as caprice or will inclined them. 
 
 If I were going to chronicle the fete itself, I might 
 perhaps say there was a striking contrast between the 
 picturesque beauty of the spot, and the pastime of those 
 who occupied it. The scene recalled nothing so much 
 as a village fair. All the simple out-of-door amusement"> 
 of popular taste were there. There were conjurors and 
 saltinibanques and fortune-tellers, lottery-booths and nine- 
 pin alleys and restaurants, only differing from their proto- 
 types in that there was nothing to pay. If a considerable 
 number of the guests were well pleased with the pleasures 
 provided for them, there were others no less amused as 
 spectators of these enjoyments, and the result was an 
 amount of mirth and good humour almost unbounded. 
 'There were representatives of almost every class and con- 
 dition, from the prosperous merchant or rich banker down 
 to the humblest clerk or even the porter of the warehouse ; 
 and yet a certain tone of equality pervaded all, and I 
 observed that they mixed with each other on terms of 
 friendliness and familiarity that never recalled any differ- 
 ence of condition : and this feature alone was an ample 
 counterpoise to any vulgarity observable in their manners. 
 If there was any " snobbei'y," it was of a species quite 
 unlike what wo have at home, and I could not detect it. 
 
 While I strolled about, amusing myself with the strange 
 sights and scenes around me, I suddenly came upon a sort 
 of merry-go-round, where the performers, seated on small 
 hobby-horses, tilted with a lance at a ring as they spun 
 round, their successes or failures being hailed with cheera 
 or with laughter from the spectators. To my intense 
 astonishment I might almost say shame, Ilauserl was
 
 AT THE FETE. 115 
 
 there ! Mounted on a fiery little gvey. with bloodshofc 
 eyes and a flowing tail, the old iellow seemed to have 
 caught the spirit of his steed, for he stood up in his 
 stirrups, and leaned forward with an eagerness that showed 
 how he enjoyed the sport. AVhy was it that the spec- 
 tacle so shocked me? Why was it that I shrunk back 
 into the crowd, fearful that he might recognize me ? Was 
 it not well if the poor fellow could throw off, even for a 
 passing moment, the weary drudgery of his daily life, and 
 play the fool just for distx-action sake ? All this I could 
 have believed and accepted a short time before, and yet 
 now a strange revulsion of feeling had come over me and 
 I went away, well pleased that Hans had not seen, nor 
 claimed me. "These vulgar games don't amuse you," 
 said a voice at my side ; and I turned and saw the 
 merchant who, at the breakfast-table, invited me to his 
 counting-house. 
 
 " Not that," said I ; "but they seem strange and odd 
 at a private entertainment. I was scarce prepared to see 
 them here." 
 
 " I suspect that is not exactly the reason,'' said he, 
 laughing. " I know something of your English tone of 
 exclusiveness, and how each class of your people has its 
 appropriate pleasures. You scorn to be amused in low 
 company." 
 
 "You seem to forget my own condition, sir." 
 
 " Come, come," said he, with a knowing look, " I am 
 not so easily imposed upon, as I told you a while back. 
 I know England. Your ways and notions are all known 
 to me. It is not in the place you occupy here young lads 
 are found who speak three or four languages, and have 
 hands that show as few signs of labour as yours. Mind," 
 said he, quickly, " I don't want to know your secret." 
 
 " If I had a secret it is scarcely likely I'd tell it to a 
 stranger," said I, haughtily. 
 
 " Just so; you'd know your man before you trusted him. 
 Well, I'm more generous, and I'm going to trust you, 
 whom I never saw till half-an-hour ago." 
 
 " Trust 7ne ! " 
 
 " Trust you," repeated he, slowly. " And first of all, 
 what age would you give that young lady whose birthday 
 we are celebrating ? " 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 " Seventeen — eighteen — perhaps nineteen." 
 
 " I thought you-'d say so ; she looks nineteen. Well, I 
 can tell you her age to an hour. She is fifteen to-day." 
 
 "Fifteen!" 
 
 " Not a day older, and yet she is the most finished 
 coquette in Europe. Having given Fiume to understand 
 that there is not a man here whose pretensions she would 
 listen to, her whole aim and object is to smround herself 
 with admirers — I might say worshippers. Young fellows 
 are fools enough to believe they have a chance of winning 
 her favour, while each sees how contemptuously she treats 
 the other. They do not perceive it is the number of 
 adorers she cares for." 
 
 "But what is all this to me?" 
 
 " Simply that you'll be enlisted in that corps to-mor- 
 row," said he, with a malicious laugh ; " and I thought 
 I'd do you a good turn to warn you as to what is in store 
 for you." 
 
 "Me? / enlisted! Why, just bethink you, sir, who 
 and what I am : the very lowest creature in her father's 
 employment." 
 
 " What does that signify ? There's a mystery about 
 you. You are not — at least you w^ere not — what you 
 seem now. You have as good looks and better manners 
 than the people usually about her. She can amuse her- 
 self with you, and so far harmlessly, that she can dismiss 
 you when she's tii'ed of you, and if she can only persuade 
 you to believe yourself in love with her, and can store up 
 a reasonable share of misery for you in consequence, you'll 
 make her nearer being happy than she has felt this many 
 a day." 
 
 " I don't understand all this," said I, doubtingly. 
 
 " Well, you will one of these days ; that is, unless j-ou 
 have the good sense to take my warning in good part, and 
 avoid her altogether." 
 
 " It will be quite enough for me to bear in mind wlio 
 she is, and what I am ! " said I, calmly. 
 
 "You think so? Well, I don't agree with you. At 
 all events, keep what I have said to yourself, even if 
 you don't mean to profit by it." And with this he left 
 me. 
 
 That strange education of mine, in which M. de Balzac
 
 AT THE FETE. 117 
 
 figured as a cliiof instructor, made me reflect on wliat I 
 had heard in a spirit little like that of an ordinary lad of 
 sixteen years of age. Those wonderful stories, in which 
 passion and emotion represent action, and where the great 
 game of life is played out at a fireside or in a window 
 recess, and where feeling and sentiment war and figlit 
 and win or lose — these same tales supplied me with 
 wherewithal to understand this man's warnings, and at 
 the same time to suspect his motives ; and from that 
 moment my life became invested with new interests and 
 new anxieties, and to my own heart I felt myself a hero of 
 romance. 
 
 As I sauntered on, revolving very pleasant thoughts to 
 myself, I came upon a party who were picnicing under a 
 tree. Some of them graciously made a place for me, and 
 I sat down and ate my dinner with them. They were 
 very humble people all of them, but courteous and civil 
 to my quality of stranger in a remarkable degree. Nor 
 was I less struck by the delicate forbearance tliey showed 
 towards the host : for, wliile the servant pressed them to 
 drink Bordeaux and Champagne, they merely took tlie 
 little wines of the country, perfectly content with simple 
 fare and the courtesy that offered them better. 
 
 When one of them asked me if I had ever seen a fete of 
 such magnificence in m}^ own country, my mind went 
 back to that costly entertainment • of our villa, and 
 Pauline came up before me, with her long dark eye- 
 lashes, and those lustrous eyes beaming with expression, 
 and flashing vrith a light that dazzled while it charmed. 
 Coquetry has no sucli votaries as the young. Its arti- 
 fices, its studied graces, its thousand rogueries, to them 
 seem all that is most natui'al and most " naive : " and 
 thus every toss of her dark curls, every little mock 
 resentment of her beautiful mouth, every bend and motion 
 of her supple figure, rose to my mind, till I pictured her 
 image before me, and tbought I saw her. 
 
 " What a hunt I have had after you, Herr Englander," 
 said a servant, who came up to me all flushed and heated. 
 " I have been over the whole park in search of you." 
 
 " In search of me ? Surely you mistake." 
 
 " No ; it is no mistake. I see no one here in a velvet 
 jacket but yourself; and Herr Ignaz told me to find you
 
 118 THAT BOY OF NOECOTl's. 
 
 and tell you that there is a place kept for you at his table, 
 and they are at dinner now in the large tent before the 
 terrace." 
 
 I took leave of my friends, who rose respectfully to 
 make their adieux to the honoured guest of the host, and 
 I followed the servant to the house. I was not without 
 my misgivings that the scene of the morning, with its 
 unpleasant cross-examination of me, might be repeated, 
 and I even canvassed myself how far I ought to submit 
 to such liberties ; but the event was not to put my dignity 
 to the test. I was received on terms of perfect equality 
 with those about me, and, though the dinner had made 
 some progress before I arrived, it was with much difficulty 
 I could avoid being served with soup and all the earlier 
 delicacies of the entertainment. 
 
 I will not dwell on the day that to recall seems more 
 to me like a page out of a fairy tale than a little incident 
 of daily life. I was, indeed, to all intents the enchanted 
 prince of a story, who went about with the lovely 
 princess on his arm, for I danced the mazurka with the 
 Fiaulein Sara, and was her partner several times during 
 the evening, and finished the fete with her in the 
 cotillon, she declaring, in that calm quiet voice that did 
 not seek to be unheard around, that I alone could dance 
 the waltz a deux temps, and that I slid gently, and did 
 not spring like a Fiumano, or bound like a French 
 bagman — a pi'aise that brought on me some very menac- 
 ing looks from certain commis-voyageurs near me, and 
 which I, confident in my "skill offence," as insolently 
 returned. 
 
 " You are not to return to the Hof, Herr von Owen, 
 to-morrow," said she, as we parted. "You are to wait 
 on papa at his office at eleven o'clock." And there 
 was a staid dignity in her words that spoke command ; 
 but in styling me " vo?}" there was a whole world of 
 recognition, and I kissed her hand as I s:iid good-night 
 with all the deference of her slave, and all the devotion 
 of one who already felt her power and delighted in it.
 
 119 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OUR IKNER LIFE. 
 
 Let me open tliis chapter witli an apology, and I mean it 
 not only to extend to errors of the past, but to whatever 
 similar blunders I may commit hereafter. What I desire 
 to ask pardon for is this : I find in this attempt of mine 
 to jot down a portion of my life, that 1 have laid a most 
 disproportionate stress on some passages the most insig- 
 nificant and unimportant. Thus, in my last chapter, I 
 have dwelt unreasonably on the narrative of one day's 
 pleasure, while it may be that a month, or several months, 
 shall pass over with scarcely mention. For this fault — ■ 
 and I do not attempt to deny it is a fault — I have but one 
 excuse. It is this : my desire has been to place before mv 
 reader the events, small as they might be, that influenced 
 my life and decided my destiny. Had I not gone to this 
 fete, for instance : had I taken my holiday in some quiet 
 ramble into the hills alone; or had I passed it — as I have 
 passed scores of happy hours — in the solitude of my own 
 room, how different might have been my fate ! 
 
 We all of us know how small and apparently insignifi- 
 cant are the events by which the course of our lives is 
 shapen. A look we catch at pax-ting — a word spoken 
 that might have passed unheard — a pressure of the hand 
 that might or might not have been felt, and straightway 
 all our sailing orders are revoked, and instead of north 
 we go south. Bearing this in mind, my reader will 
 perhaps forgive me, and at least bethink him that these 
 things are not done by me through inadvertence, but of 
 intention and with forethought. 
 
 " So we are about to part," said Hanserl to me as I 
 awoke and found my old companion at ray bedside. 
 " You're the twenty-fifth that has left me," said he, 
 mournfully. "But look to it, Knabe, change is not 
 always betterment."
 
 120 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S. 
 
 " It was none of my cloiug, Hanserl ; none of my seek- 
 ing." 
 
 " If you had worn the grey jacket you wear on Sundays 
 there would have been none of this, lad ! I have seen 
 double as many years in the yard as you have been in the 
 world, and none have ever seen me at the master's table 
 or waltzing with the master's daughter." 
 
 I conld not help smiling, in spite of myself, at the 
 thought of such a spectacle. 
 
 " Wor is there need to laugh because I speak of danc- 
 ing," said he, quickly. " They could tell you up in 
 Kleptowitz there are worse performers than Hans Sponer ; 
 and if he is not an Englishman, he is an honest Austrian ! " 
 
 This he said with a sort of defiance, and as if he 
 expected a reply. 
 
 " I have told you already, Hans," said I, soothingly, 
 " that it was none of my seeking if I am to be transferred 
 from the yard. I was very happy there — very happy to 
 be with you. We were good comrades in the past, as I 
 hope we may be good friends in the future." 
 
 " That can scarcely be," said he, sori-owfully. " I can 
 have no friend in the man I must say ' sir ' to. It's Herr 
 Ignaz's order," went he on ; " he sent for me this morning, 
 and said, ' Hansei'l, when you address Herr von Owen,' — 
 aye, he said Herr von Owen, — ' never forget he is your 
 superior ; and though he once worked with you here in 
 the yard, that was his caprice, and he will do so no more.' " 
 
 " But, Hans, my dear old friend." 
 
 " Ja, ja," said he, waving his hand. " Jetz ist aus ! 
 It is all over now. Here's your reckoning," and he laid 
 a slip of paper on the bed : — " Twelve gulden for the 
 dinners, three-fifty for wine and beer, two gulden for the 
 wash. There were four kreutzers for the girl with the 
 guitar ; you bade me give her ten, but four was plenty, — 
 that makes sevcnteen-six-and-sixty : and you've twenty- 
 three gulden and thirty-four kreutzers in that packet, and 
 so Leb wohl." 
 
 And, with a short wave of his hand, he turned away ; 
 and as he left the room, I saw that the other hand had 
 been drawn over his eyes, for Hanserl was crying ; but I 
 buried my face in the clothes, and sobbed bitterly. 
 
 My orders were to present myself at Herr Ignaz's
 
 OUR INNER LIFE. 121 
 
 private office by noon. Careful not to presume on ^vllat 
 seemed at least a bappy turn in my destiny, I dressed in 
 my every-day clothes, studious only that tbey should be 
 clean and well-brushed. 
 
 " I had forgotten you, altogether, boy," said Herr Ignaz, 
 as I entered the office, and he went on closing his desk 
 and his iron safe before leaving for dinner. " What was 
 it I had to say to you? Can you help me to it, lad ?" 
 
 " I'm afraid not, sir ; I only know that you told me to 
 be here at this hour." 
 
 "Let me see," said he, thoughtfully. "There was no 
 complaint against you?" 
 
 " None, sir, that I know of." 
 
 *' Nor have you any to make against old Hanserl ? " 
 
 " Far from it, sir. I have met only kindness from him." 
 
 "Wait, wait, wait," said he. " I believe I am coming 
 to it. It was Sara's doing. Yes, I have it now. Sara 
 said you should not be in the yard ; that you had been 
 well brought up and cared for. A young girl's fancy, 
 perhaps. Tour hands were white. But there is more 
 bad than good in this. Men should be in the station 
 they're fit for ; neither above nor below it. And you did 
 well in the yard ; ay, and you liked it ? " 
 
 " I certainly was very happy there, sir." 
 
 "And that's all one strives for," said he, with a faint 
 sigh ; " to be at rest — to be at rest : and why would you 
 change, boy ? " 
 
 " I am not seeking a change, sir. I am here because 
 you bade me." 
 
 " That's true. Come in and eat your soup with us, and 
 we'll see what the girl says, for I have forgotten all about 
 it." 
 
 He opened a small door which led by a narrow stair 
 into a back street, and, shuffling along, with his hat drawn 
 over his eyes, made for the little garden over the wooden 
 bridge, and to his door. This he unlocked, and then 
 bidding me follow, he ascended the stairs. 
 
 The room into which we entered was furnished in the 
 most plain and simple fashion. A small table, with a 
 coarse cloth and some common ware, stood ready for 
 dinner, and a large loaf on a wooden platter occupied the 
 middle. There were but two places prepared ; but tho
 
 122 THAT BOY OF KOKCOTT's. 
 
 old man speedily arranged a third place, muttering to 
 himself the while, but what I could not catch. 
 
 As he was thus engaged, the Fiaalein entered. She 
 was dressed in a sort of brown serge, which, though of 
 the humblest tissue, showed her figure to great advan- 
 tage, for it fitted to perfection, and designed the graceful 
 lines of her slioulders, and her taper waist to great advan- 
 tage. She saluted me with the faintest possible smile, 
 and said : — "You are come to dine with us?" 
 
 " If there be enough to give him to eat," said the old 
 man, gruffly. " I have brought him here, however, with 
 other thoughts. There was something said last night — • 
 what was it, girl ? — something about this lad — do you 
 remember it?" 
 
 " Here is the soup, father," said she, calmly. " We'll 
 bethink us of these things by-and-by." There was a 
 sti-ange air of half command in what she said, the tone 
 of one who asserted a certain supremacy, as I was soon to 
 see she did in the household. " Sit here, Herr von 
 Owen," said she, pointing to my place, that her words 
 wei'e uttered like an order. 
 
 In perfect silence the meal went on ; a woman-servant 
 entering to replace the soup by a dish of boiled meat, 
 but not otherwise waiting on us, for Sara rose and 
 removed our plates and served us with fresh ones, an 
 office I would gladly have taken from her, and indeed 
 essayed to do, but at a gesture, and a look that thei'e 
 was no mistaking, I sat down again, and unmindful of 
 my presence, they soon began to talk of business matters, 
 in which, to my astonishment, the young girl seemed 
 thoroughly versed. Cargoes of grain for Athens con- 
 signed to one house, were now to be transferred to some 
 other. There were large orders from France for staves, 
 to meet which some one should be promptly despatched 
 into Hungary. Hemp, too, was wanted for England. 
 There was a troublesome litigation with an Insurance 
 Company at Marseilles, which was evidently going 
 against the House of Oppovich. So unlike was all 
 this the tone of dinner conversation I was used to that I 
 listen in wonderment how they could devote the hour of 
 social enjoyment and relaxation to details so perplexing 
 and so vulgar.
 
 OTJR INNER LIFE. 123 
 
 " There is tbat affair of the leakage, too," cried Herr 
 Igaaz, setting down his glass before drinkiug ; " I had 
 nigh forgotten it." 
 
 " I answered the letter this morning," said the girl, 
 gravely. " It is better it should be settled at once, while 
 the exchanges are in our favour." 
 
 " And pay — pay the whole amount," cried he, 
 angrily. 
 
 " Pay it all," replied she calmly. "We must not let 
 them call us litigious, father. You have friends here," 
 and she laid emphasis on the word, " that would not be 
 grieved to see you get the name." 
 
 " Twenty-seven thousand gulden !" exclaimed he, with 
 a quivering lip. " And how am I to save money for your 
 dowry, girl, with losses like these ? " 
 
 " You forget, sir, we are not alone," said she, proudly. 
 " This young Englishman can scarcely feel interested in 
 these details." She arose as she spoke, and placed a few 
 dishes of fruit on the table, and then served us with 
 coffee; the whole done so unobtrusively and in such quiet 
 fashion as to make her services appear a routine that 
 could not call for remark. 
 
 " The Dalinat will not take our freight," said he, 
 suddenly. " There is some combination against us 
 there." 
 
 "I will look to it," said she coldly. "Will you try 
 these figs, Herr von Owen ? Fiume, they say, rivals 
 Smyrna in purple figs." 
 
 " I will have no more to do with figs or olives either," 
 cried out Herr Ignaz. " The English beat you down to 
 the lowest price, and then refuse your cargo for one 
 damaged crete. I have had no luck with England." 
 
 Unconsciously, I know it was, his eyes turned fully 
 on me as he spoke, and there was a defiance in his look 
 that seemed like a personal challenge. 
 
 " He does not mean it for you," said the Friialein 
 gently in my ear, and her voice gained a softness I did 
 not know it possessed. 
 
 Perhaps the old man's thoughts had taken a very 
 gloomy turn, for he leaned his head on his hand, and 
 seemed sunk in reverie. The Fraulein rose quietly, and 
 beckoning me to follow her, moved noiselessly into an
 
 124 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 adjoining I'oom. This cLamber, fui'nislied a little more 
 tastefully, Lad a piano, and some books and prints lay 
 about on the tables. 
 
 " My fatlier likes to be left alone at times," said she, 
 gravely, " and when you know us better, you will leai-n to 
 see what these times are." She took up some needle- 
 work she had been engaged on, and sat down on a sofa. 
 I did not well know whether to take my leave or keep 
 her company, and while I hesitated she appeared to read 
 my difficulty, and said, — " You ai'e free, Herr von Owen, 
 if you have any engagement." 
 
 " I have none," said I ; then remembering that the 
 speech might mean to dismiss me, I added hastily, *' but 
 it is time to go." 
 
 " Good-bye, then," said she, making me a slight bow; 
 and I went. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE OFFICE. 
 
 On the following day the cashier sent for me to say it 
 was Herr Oppovich's wish that I should be attached to 
 some department in the office, till I had fully mastered 
 its details, and then be transferred to another, and so 
 on, till I had gradually acquainted myself with the 
 whole business of the house. " It's an old caprice oi 
 Herr Ignaz's," said he, " whicli repeated failures have 
 not yet discouraged him with. You're the fifth he has 
 tried to make a supervisor of, and you'll follow tho 
 rest." 
 
 " Is it so very difficult to learn ? " asked I, modestly. 
 
 "Perhaps to one of your acquirements it might not," 
 Baid he, with quiet iron}^, " but, for a slight example : here, 
 in this office, we correspond with five countries in Iheir 
 own languages ; yonder, in that room, they talk modern 
 Greek, and Albanian, and Servian ; there's the Hungarian
 
 THE OFFICE. 125 
 
 group, next tbat bow window, and that takes in tlae Lower 
 Danube ; and in v/liat wo call the Expeditions department 
 there ai^e fellows who speak seventeen dialects, and can 
 write ten or twelve. So much for languages. Then what 
 do you say to mastering — since that's the word the}" have 
 for it — the grain trade from Russia, rags from Transyl- 
 vania, staves from Hungary, fruit from the Levant, 
 cotton from Egypt, minerals from Lower Austria, and 
 woollen fabrics from Bohemia ? We do something in 
 all of these, besides a fair share in oak bark and 
 hemp." 
 
 "iStop, for mercy's sake!" I cried out. "It would 
 take a lifetime to gain a mere current knowledge of 
 these," 
 
 " Then, there's the finance department," said he ; 
 " watching the rise and fall of the exchanges, buying 
 and selling gold. Herr Ulrich, in that office with the 
 blue dooi", could tell yon it's not to be picked up of an 
 afternoon. Perhaps you might as well begin with 
 him ; his is not a bad school to take the fine edge off 
 you." 
 
 " I shall do whatever you advise me." 
 
 "I'll speak to Herr Ulrich, then," said he ; and ho left 
 me, to return almost immediately, and conduct me within 
 the precincts of the blue door. 
 
 Herr Uh'ich was a tall, thin, ascetic-looking man, with 
 his hair brushed rigidly back from the narrowest head I 
 ever saw. His whole idea of life was the office, which he 
 arrived at by daybreak, and never left, except to visit the 
 Bourse, till late at night. He disliked, of all things, new 
 faces about him ; and it was a piece of malice on the 
 cashier's part to bring me before him. 
 
 " I believed I had explained to Herr Ignaz already," 
 said he, to the cashier, " that I am not a school- 
 master." 
 
 " Well, well," broke in the other, in a muffled voice, " try 
 the lad. He may not be so incompetent. They tell me 
 he has had some education." 
 
 Herr Ulrich raised his spectacles, and surveyed me 
 from head to foot for some seconds. "Ton have been in 
 the yard ? " said he, in question. 
 
 "Yes, sir."
 
 126 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 *' And is counting oaken staves the first step to learning 
 foreign exchanges, think you ? " 
 
 " I should say not, sir." 
 
 " 1 know whose scheme this is, well enough," mut- 
 tered he. "I see it all. That will do. You may leave 
 us to talk together alone," said he to the cashier. " Sit 
 down there, lad ; thei'e's your own famous newspaper, the 
 Times. Make me a precis of the money article as it 
 tenches Austrian securities and Austrian enterprises ; 
 contrast the report there given with what that French 
 paper contains ; and don't leave till it be finished." He 
 returned to his high stool as he spoke, and resumed his 
 work. On the table before me lay a mass of newspapers 
 in different languages ; and I sat down to examine them 
 with the very vaguest notion of what was expected 
 of me. 
 
 Determined to do something — whatever that something 
 might be — I opened the Times to find out the money 
 article ; but, little versed in joarnalism, I turned from 
 page to page without discovei'ing it. At last I thought 
 I should find it by carefully scanning the columns ; and 
 so I began at the top and read the various headings, 
 which happened to be those of the trials then going on. 
 There was a cause of salvage on the part of the owners 
 of the Lively Jane ; there was a disputed ownership of 
 certain dock warrants for indigo, a breach of promise 
 case, and a suit for damages for injuries incurred on the 
 rail. None of these, certainly, were financial articles. 
 At the head of the next column I read : " Court of 
 Probate and Divorce — Mr. Spanks moved that the 
 decree nisi, in the suit of Cleremont v. Cleremont, be 
 made absolute. Motion allowed. The damages in this 
 suit against Sir Roger Norcott have been fixed at eight 
 thousand five hundred pounds." 
 
 From these lines I could not turn my eyes. They 
 revealed nothing it is true, but what I knew well must 
 happen ; but there is that in a confirmation of a fact 
 brought suddenly before us, that always awakens deep 
 reflection : and now I brought up before my mind, my 
 poor mother, deserted and forsaken, and my father, 
 ruined in character, and, perhaps, in fortune. 
 
 1 had made repeated attempts to find out my mother's
 
 THE OFFICE. 127 
 
 address, but all my letters had failed to reacli her. 
 Could there be any chauce of discovering her thi'ough 
 this suit ? Was it posuble that she might have inter- 
 vened in any way in it ? And, last of all, would this 
 lawyer, whose name appeared in the proceedings, take 
 compassion on my unhappy condition, and aid me to 
 discover where my mother was? I meditated long over 
 all this, and I ended by convincing myself that thei'e are 
 few people in the world who are not well pleased to do a 
 kind thing which costs little in the doing; and so 1 
 resolved I would write to Mr. Spanks, and address him 
 at the court he practised in. I could not help feeling 
 that it was at a mere straw I was grasping ; but nothing 
 more tangible lay within my reach. I wrote thus : — 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I am the son and only child of Sir Roger and 
 Lady Norcott ; and seeing that you have lately conducted 
 a suit against my father, I ask you, as a great favour, to 
 let me know where my. mother is now living, that I 
 may write to her. I know that I am taking a great 
 liberty in obtruding this request upon you ; but I am 
 very friendless, and very little versed in worldly know- 
 ledge. Will you let both these deficiencies plead for me ? 
 and let me sign myself, 
 
 " Your grateful servant, 
 
 "DiGBY Norcott. 
 
 "You can address me at the house of Hodnig and 
 Oppovich, Fiume, Austria, where I am living as a clerk, 
 and under the name of Digby Owen — Owen being the 
 name of my mother's family. 
 
 I was not very well pleased with the composition of 
 this letter; but it had one recommendation, which I 
 chiefly sought fur, it was short, and for this reason I 
 hoped it might be favourably received. I read it over and 
 over, each time seeing some new fault, or some omission 
 to correct ; and then I would turn again to the news- 
 paper, and ponder over the few words that meant so 
 much and yet revealed so little. Hoav my mother's 
 position would be affected — if at all — by this decision I
 
 128 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 could not tell. Indeed, it was the mere accident of 
 hearing divorce discussed at my father's table that 
 cuabled me to know what the terms of the law implied: 
 And thus I turned from my letter to the newspaper, and 
 back again from the newspaper to my letter, so engrossed 
 by the theme that I forgot where I was, and utterly 
 forgot all about that difficult task Herr Ulrich had set 
 me. Intense thought and weariness of mind, aided by 
 the unbroken stillness of the place, made me heavy and 
 drowsy. From poring over the paper, I gradually bent 
 down till my head rested on it, and I fell sound asleep. 
 
 I must have passed hours thus, for it was already 
 evening when I awoke, Herr Ulrich was about to leave 
 the office, and had his hat on, as he aroused me. 
 
 " It is supper time, youngster," said he, laying his hand 
 on my shoulder. "Yes, you may well wonder where you 
 are. What are you looking for ? " 
 
 " I thought, sir, I had written a letter just before I fell 
 asleep. I was writing here." And I turned over the 
 papers and shook them, tossing them wildy about, to 
 discover the letter, but in vain. It was not there. Could 
 it have been that I had merely composed it in my mind, 
 and never have committed it to paper ? but that could 
 scarcely be, seeing how fresh in my memory were all the 
 doubts and hesitations that had beset me. 
 
 "I am sure I wi'ote a letter, here" said I, trying to 
 recall each circumstance to my mind. 
 
 " When you have finished dreaming, lad, I will lock 
 the door," said he, waiting to see me pass out. 
 
 " Forgive me one moment, sir, only one," cried I wildly, 
 scattering the papers over the table. " It is of conse- 
 quence to me — what I have written." 
 
 " That is if you have written anything," said he, 
 drily. 
 
 The grave tone of this doubt determined the conflict in 
 my mind. 
 
 " I suppose you ai'e right," said I, " it was a dream." 
 And I ai'ose and followed him out. 
 
 As I reached the foot of the stairs I came suddenly on 
 Herr Ignaz and his daughter. It was a common thing 
 for her to come and accompany him home at the end of 
 the day's work ; and as latterly he had become much
 
 THE OFFICE. 129 
 
 broken and very feeble, she scarcely missed a day in this 
 attention. " Ob, bere be is," I beard ber say as I came 
 up. Wbat be I'eplied I could not catcb, but it was with 
 some earnestness sbe rejoined : — 
 
 "Herr von Owen, my fatber wisbes to say tbat tbey 
 bave mistaken bis instructions regarding you in tlie office. 
 He never expected you could at once possess yourself of 
 all tbe details of a varied business ; he meant that you 
 should go about and see wbat branch you would like to 
 attach yourself to, and to do this be will give you ample 
 time. Take a week ; take two ; a month, if you like." 
 And sbe made a little gesture of friendly adieu with ber 
 hand, and passed on. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 UNWISHBD-FOR PROMOTION. 
 
 The morning after this brief intimation I attached myself 
 to tbat department of the bouse whose business was to 
 receive and reply to telegraphic messages. I took that 
 group of countries whose languages I knew, and addressed 
 myself to my task in right earnest. An occupation Avhose 
 chief feature is emergency will always possess a certain 
 intei^est, but beyond this there was not anything attractive 
 in my present pursuit. A peremptory message to sell this, 
 or buy that, to push on vigorously with a certain enterprise, 
 or to suspend all action in another, would pei'baps form tbe 
 staple of a day's work. When disasters occurred, too, it 
 was their monetary feature alone was recoixled. The fire 
 that consumed a warehouse was told with reference to tbe 
 amount insured ; tbe shipwreck was related by incidents 
 tbat bore on the lost cargo, and tbe damage incurred. Still 
 it was less monotonous than tbe work of the office, and I 
 had a certain pride in converting tbe messages — some- 
 times partly, sometimes totally unintelligible — into lan- 
 guage that could be understood, tbat imparted a fair share 
 of ambition to my labour. 
 
 E
 
 130 THAT BOY OF KOKCOTx's. 
 
 My duty was to present myself, with my book in Avhicli 
 I had entered the despatches, each evening, at supper- 
 time, at Herr Ignaz's house. He would be at table with 
 his daughter when I arrived, and the interview would pass 
 somewhat in this wise : Herr Oppovich would take the 
 book from my hands without a word or even a look at 
 me, and the Fiaulein, with a gentle bend of the head, but 
 without the faintest show of more intimate greeting, 
 would acknowledge me. 8he would continue to eat as I 
 stood there, as unmindful of nie as though I were a 
 servant. Having scanned the book over, he would hand 
 it across to his daughter, and then would ensue a few 
 words in whisper, after which the Fraulein would write 
 opposite each message some word of reply or of comment 
 such as, "Already provided for," " Further details wanted," 
 " Too late," or such like, but never more than a few words, 
 and these she would write freel}', and only consulting 
 hei'self. The old man — whose memory failed him more 
 and more every day, and whose general debility grew 
 rapidly — did no more than glance at the answers and nod 
 an acceptance of them. In giving the book back to me, 
 she rarely looked up, but if she did so, and if her eyes met 
 mine, their expression was cold and almost defiant; and 
 thus, with a slight bend of the head, I would be 
 dismissed. 
 
 Nor was this reception the less chilling that, bcfoi'e I 
 had well closed the door, they woiild be in full conversa- 
 tion again, showing that my presence it was which had 
 inspired the constraint and reserve. These, it might be 
 thought, were not very proud nor blissful moments to me, 
 and 3'et they formed the happiest incident of my day, and 
 I actually longed for the hour, as might a lover to meet 
 his mistress. To gaze at will upon her pale and beautiful 
 face, to watch the sunlight as it played upon her golden 
 hair, which she wore — in some fashion, perhaps, peculiar 
 to her race — in heavy masses of curls, that fell over her 
 back and shoulders ; her hand, too, a model of symmetry, 
 and with the fingers rose-tipped, like the goddesses of 
 Homer, affected me as a spell ; and I have stood there 
 unconsciously staring at it till warned by a second 
 admonition to retire. 
 
 Pei'haps the solitude in which I lived helped to make
 
 UNWISHED-FOB PROMOTION. 131 
 
 me dwell more thouglitfully on tliis daily-recurring inter- 
 view ; for I went nowhere, I associated with no one, I 
 dined alone, and my one brisk walk for health and 
 exercise I took by myself. When evening came, and the 
 other clei'ks frequented the theatre, I went home to read, 
 or as often to sit and think. 
 
 "Sara tells me," said the old man one day, when some 
 rare chance had brought him to my office, " Sara tells me 
 that you are suffering from over-confinement. She thinks 
 you look pale and worn, and that this constant work is 
 telling on j'ou." 
 
 " Far fi'om it, sir. I am both well and happy ! and if I 
 needed to be made happier, this thoughtful kindness would 
 make me so." 
 
 " Yes ; she is very kind, and very thoughtful, too ; but, 
 as well as these, she is despotic," said he, with a faint 
 laugh ; " and so she has decided that you are to exchange 
 with M. Marsac, who will be here by Saturday, and who 
 will put you up to all the details of his walk. He buys 
 our timber for us in Hungary and Transylvania ; and he, 
 too, will enjoy a little rest from constant travel." 
 
 "I don't speak Hungarian, sir," began I, eager to offer 
 an opposition to the plan. 
 
 " Sara says you are a quick learner, and will soon 
 acquire it — at least, enough for traffic." 
 
 " It is a business, too, that I suspect requires much 
 insight into the people and their ways." 
 
 " You can't learn them younger, hid ; and as all those 
 we deal with are old clients of the house, you will not be 
 much exposed to rogueries." 
 
 "But if I make mistakes, sir? If I involve you in 
 difficulty and in loss ? " 
 
 " You'll repay it by zeal, lad, and by devotion, as wo 
 have seen you do here." 
 
 He waved his hand in adieu, and left me to my own 
 thought;^. Very sad thoughts thoy were, as tliey told me 
 of separation from her that gave the whole charm to my 
 life. Sara's manner to me had been so markedly cold and 
 distant for some time past, so unlike what it had been at 
 first, that I could not help feeling that, by ordering me 
 away, some evidence of displeasure was to be detected. 
 The old man I at once excnlnated, for evcrv dnv sliowcd 
 
 ' K 2
 
 132 THAT BOY OP NORCOTt's. 
 
 him less and less alive to the business of " the House ; " 
 though, from habit, he persisted in coming down every 
 morning to the office, and believed himself the guide and 
 director of all that went on tliere. 
 
 I puzzled myself long to think what I could have done 
 to forfeit her favour. I had never in the slightest degree 
 passed that boundary of deference that I was told she 
 liked to exact from all in the service of the house. I had 
 neglected no duty, nor, having no intimates or associates, 
 had I given opportunity to report of me that I had said 
 this or that of my employers. I scrutinised every act of 
 my daily life, and suggested every possible and impossible 
 cause for this coldness : but without approaching a reason 
 at all probable. While I thus doubted and disputed with 
 myself, the evening despatches arrived, and among them a 
 letter addressed to myself. It bore the post-mark of the 
 town alone, with this superscription, "Digby Owen, Esq., 
 at Messrs. Oppovich's, Piume." I tore it open, and 
 read, — 
 
 " The address you wish for is, ' Lady N'orcott, Sunday's 
 Well, Cork, Ireland.' " 
 
 The writing looked an English hand, and the language 
 was English. There was no date, nor any signature. 
 Could it have been, then, that I had folded, and sealed, 
 and sent on my letter — that letter I believed I had never 
 written — without knowing it, and that the lawyer had 
 sent me this reply, which, though long delayed, might 
 have been postponed till he had obtained the tidings it 
 conveyed ? At all events, I had got my dear mother's 
 address — at least, I hoped so. This point I resolved to 
 ascertain at once, and sat down to write to her. It was a 
 very flurried note I composed, though I did my very best to 
 be collected. I told her how and where I was, and by what 
 accident of fortune I had come here ; that I had reason- 
 able hopes of advancement, and even now, had a salary 
 which was larger than I needed. I was afraid to say 
 much of what I wished to tell her, till I was sure my 
 letter would reach her ; and I entreated her to write to 
 me by return of post, were it but a line. I need not say 
 how many loves I sent her, nor what longings to be again 
 beside her, to hold her hand, and hear her voice, and call 
 her by that dearest of all the names affection cherishes.
 
 TJNWISHED-FOR PROMOTION. 133 
 
 "IJam going from this in a few days into Hungary, "added 
 I ; " but address me here, and it shall be sent after me." 
 
 When I had finished my letter, I again turned my 
 thoughts to this strange communication, so abrupt and so 
 short. How came it to Fiume, too ? Was it enclosed in 
 some other letter, and to whom ? If posted in Fiume, 
 why not written there ? Ay ; but by whom ? Who could 
 know that I had wished for my mother's address? It was 
 a secret buried in my own heart. 
 
 I I suddenly determined I would ask the Fraulein Sara 
 to aid me in unravelling this mystery, which, of course, I 
 could do without disclosing the contents of the note. I 
 hurried off to the house, and asked if she would permit 
 me to speak to her. 
 
 " Yes. The Fraulein was going out; but if my business 
 was brief, she would see me." 
 
 She was in bonnet and shawl as I entered, and stood 
 with one hand on a table, looking very calm, but some- 
 what haughty. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, M.Owen," said she, "if I say 
 that I can only give you a few minutes, and will not ask 
 you even to sit down. If it be a matter of the 
 office " 
 
 " No, mademoiselle ; it is not a matter of the office." 
 
 " Then, if it relate to your change of occupation " 
 
 " No, mademoiselle, not even to that. It is a purely 
 personal question. I have got a letter, with a Fiume post- 
 mark on it, but without the writer's name ; and I am 
 curious to know if you could aid me to discover him. 
 Would you look at the hand and see if it be known to 
 you?" 
 
 " Pray excuse me, M. Owen. I am the stupidest of all 
 people in reading riddles or solving difficulties. All the 
 help I can give you is to say how I treat anonymous letters 
 myself. If they be simply insults, I burn them. If they 
 relate what appear to be matters of fact, I wait and watch, 
 for them." 
 
 Offended by the whole tone of her manner, I bowed, 
 and moved towards the door. 
 
 " Have you seen M. Marsac? I hear he has arrived." 
 
 " No, mademoiselle ; not yet." 
 
 " When you have conferred and consulted with him,
 
 134 THAT BOY OF NOr.COTT's, 
 
 your instructions are all prepared ; and I suppose you 
 are ready to start?" 
 
 " I shall be, mademoiselle, wlien called upon." 
 " I will say good bye, then," said she, advancing one 
 step towards me, evidently intending to ofier me her hand ; 
 but I replied by a low, veiy low, bow, and retired. 
 
 I thought I should choke as I went down the stairs. 
 My throat seemed to swell, and then to close up ; and 
 when I gained the shelter of the thick trees, I threw 
 myself down on my face in the grass, and sobbed as if 
 my heart was breaking. How I vowed and swore that I 
 would tear every recollection of her from my mind, and 
 never think more of her, and how her image ever came 
 back clearer and brighter and more beautiful before me 
 after each oath ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE MAN WHO TRAVELLED FOR OUR HOUSE. 
 
 As I sat brooding over my fire that same evening, my 
 door was suddenly opened, and a large burly man, loom- 
 ing even Ln-ger from an immense fur pelisse that he wore, 
 entered. His first care was to divest himself of a tall 
 Astracan cap, from which he flung off some snow-flakes, 
 and then to throw off his pelisse, stamping the snow from 
 his great boots, which reached halfway up the thigh. 
 
 "You see," cried he, at last, with a jovial air, "you see 
 I come, like a good comrade, and make myself at home at 
 once." 
 
 " I certainly see so much," said I, drily; "but whom 
 have I the honour to receive ? " 
 
 "You have the honour to receive Gustave Maurice do 
 Marsac, young man, a gentleman of Dauphine, who now 
 masquerades in the character of first traveller for tho 
 respectable house of Hodnig and Oppovich." 
 
 " I am proud to make your acquaintance, M. de Marsac," 
 said I, offering my hand. 
 
 ""What age ai*e your "cried he, storing fixedly at mo. 
 " You can't be twenty ? "
 
 THE MAN WHO TRAVELLED FOR OUB HOUSE. 135 
 
 " No, I am not twenty ? " 
 
 " And they purpose to send you down to replace tne ! " 
 cried he ; and he threw himself back in his chair, and 
 shook with laughter. 
 
 " I see all the presumption ; but I can only say it was 
 none of my doing." 
 
 " No, no ; don't say presumption," said he, in a half- 
 coaxing tone. " But I may say it, without vanity, it is 
 not every man's gift to be able to succeed Gustave de 
 jMarsac. May I ask for a cigar? Thanks. A real Cuban, 
 I verily believe. I finished ray tobacco two posts from 
 this, and have been smoking all the samples — pepper and 
 hemp-seed amongst them — since then." 
 
 " May I offer you something to eat ?" 
 
 "You may, if you accompany it with something tc 
 drink. Would you believe it, Oppovich and his daughter 
 were at supper when I arrived to report myself ; and 
 neither of them as much as said, Chevalier — I mean Mon. 
 de Marsac — won't you do us the honour to join us ? No. 
 Old Ignaz went on with his meal — cold veal and a potato 
 salad, I think it was ; and the fair Sara examined my 
 posting-book to see I had made no delay on the road ; 
 but neither offered me even the courtesy of a glass of 
 wine." 
 
 " I don't suspect it was from any want of hospitality,'' 
 I began. 
 
 " An utter want of everything, mon clier. Want of 
 decency; want of delicacy; want of due deference to a 
 man of birth and blood. I see you are sending your 
 servant out. Now, I beg, don't make a stranger — don't 
 make what we call a ' Prince Russe ' of me. A little quiet 
 supper, and something to wash it down ; good fellowship 
 will do the rest. May I give your man the orders ? " 
 
 "You will confer a great favour on me," said I. 
 
 He took my servant apart, and whispered a few minutes 
 with him at the window. " Try Kleptomitz first," said 
 he aloud, as the man was leaving ; " and mind you say 
 M. Marsac sent you. Smart ' bursche ' you've got there. 
 If you don't take him with you, hand him over to me." 
 
 " I will do so," said I ; " and am happy to have secured 
 him a good master." 
 
 *' You'll not know him when you pass through Fiume
 
 136 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTt's. 
 
 again. I believe there's not my equal in Europe to drill 
 a servant. Give me a Chinese, an Esquimaux; give me a 
 Hottentot, and in six months you shall see him announce 
 a visitor, deliver a letter, wait at table, or serve coffee, 
 with the quiet dignity and the impassive steadiness of 
 the most accomplished lacquey. The three servants of 
 Fiume were made by me, and their fortunes also. One 
 has now the chief restaurant at Rome, in the Piazza di 
 Spagna; the other is manager of the ' Iron Crown Hotel,' 
 at Zurich ; he wished to have it called the ' Arms of 
 Marsac,' but I forbade him. I said, ' No, Pierre, no. The 
 de Marsacs are now travelling incog.' Like the Tavannes 
 and the Rohans, we have to wait and bide our time. 
 Louis Kapoleon is not immortal. Do you think he is ? " 
 
 " I have no reason to think so." 
 
 *' Well, well, you are too young to take interest in 
 politics; not but that /did at fourteen: I conspired at 
 fourteen ! I will show you a stiletto Mazzini gave me on 
 my birthday ; and the motto on the blade was, ' Au ser- 
 vice du Roi.' Ah ! you are surprised at what I tell you. 
 I hear you say to yourself, * How the devil did he come to 
 this place ? what led him to Fiume ? ' A long story that ; 
 a story poor old Dumas would give one of his eyes for. 
 There's more adventure, more scrapes by villany, dangers 
 and death-blows generally, in the last twenty-two years of 
 my life — I am now thirty-six — than in all the Monte 
 Christos that ever were written. I will take the liberty 
 to put another log on your fire. What do you say if we 
 lay the cloth ? It will expedite matters a little." 
 
 " With all my heart. Here are all my household goods," 
 said I, opening a little press in the wall. 
 
 '' And not to be despised, by any means. Show me 
 what a man drinks out of, and I'll tell you what he drinks. 
 When a man has got thin glasses like these — a la Mousse- 
 line, as we say, — his tipple is Bordeaux." 
 
 " I confess the weakness," said I, laughing. 
 
 " It is my own infirmity, too," said he, sighing. " My 
 theory is, plurality of wines is as much a mistake as 
 plurality of wives. Coquette, if you will, with fifty, but 
 give your afi'ections to one. If I am anything, I am 
 .•noral. What can keep your fellow so long ? I gave him 
 but two commissions."
 
 THE MAN WHO TRAVELLED FOR OUR HOUSE. 137 
 
 '* Perhaps the shops were closed at this hour." 
 
 *' If they were, sir," said he, pompously, " at the word 
 Marsac they would open. Ha ! what do I see here ? — a 
 piano? Am I at liberty to open it?" And without 
 waiting for a reply, he sat down, and ran his hands over 
 the keys with a masterly facility. As he flew over the 
 octaves, and struck chords of splendid harmony, I could 
 not help feeling an amount of credit in all his boastful 
 declarations just from this one trait of real power about 
 him. 
 
 •* I see you are a rare musician," said I. 
 
 "And it is what I know least," said he; "though 
 Flotow said one day, ' If that rascal de Marsac takes to 
 writing operas, I'll never compose another.' But here 
 comes the supper : " and as he spoke my servant entered, 
 with a small basket, with six bottles in it ; two waiters 
 following him, hearing a good-sized tin box, with a char- 
 coal fire beneath. 
 
 "Well and perfectly done," exclaimed my guest, as he 
 aided them to place the soup on the table, and to dispose 
 some liors cVanivre of anchovies, caviare, ham, and fresh 
 butter on the board. " I am sorry we have no flowers. 
 I love a bouquet. A few camellias for colour, and some 
 violets for odour. They relieve the grossness of the 
 material enjoyments ; they poetize the meal ; and if you 
 have no women at table, moii cJier, be sure to have flowers : 
 not that I object to both together. There, now, is our 
 little bill of fare — a white soup, a devilled mackerel, 
 some truffles, with butter, and a capon with stewed mush- 
 rooms. O^'sters there are none, not even those native 
 shrimps they call scampi ; but the wine will compensate 
 for much : the wine is Rcediger ; champagne, with a faint 
 suspicion of dryness. And as he has brought ice, we'll 
 attack that Bordeaux you spoke of till the other be cool 
 euouo^h for drinking'." 
 
 As he rattled on thus it was not very easy for me to 
 assui'C myself whether I was host or guest ; but as I saw 
 that this consideration did not distress him, I resolved it 
 should not weigh heavily on me. 
 
 " I ordered a compote of peaches with maraschino. 
 Go after them and say it has been forgotten." And now, 
 as he dismissed my servant on this errand, he sat down and
 
 138 THAT EOY OF KOECOTt's. 
 
 served the soup, doing the honours of the board in all 
 form. " You are called " 
 
 " Digby is my Christian name," interrupted I, " and 
 you can call me by it." 
 
 " Digby, I drink to your health ; and if the wine had 
 been only a little warmer, I'd say I could not -wish to do 
 so in a more generous fluid. No fellow of your age knows 
 how to air his Bordeaux ; hot flannels to the caraife before 
 decanting are all that is necessary, and let your glasses 
 filso be slightly warmed. To sip such claret as this, and 
 then turn one's eyes to that champngne yonder in the ice- 
 pail, is like the sensation of a man who in his honeymoon 
 fancies how happy he will be one of these days, en seccnJcs 
 iioccs. Don't you feel a sense of triumphant eijuj-ment 
 at this moment? Is there not something at your heart 
 that says, ' Ilodnig andOppovich, I despise you ! To the 
 regions I soar in you cannot come ! To the blue ether I 
 have risen, your very vision cannot reach!' Eh, boy! 
 tell me this," 
 
 " No ; I don't think you have rightly measured my 
 feelings. On the whole, I rather suspect I bear a very 
 good will to these same people who have enabled me to 
 have these comforts." 
 
 "Tou pretend, then, to what they call gratitude?" 
 
 " I have that weakness." 
 
 " I could as soon believe in the heathen mythology I I 
 like the man who is kind to me while he is doing the kind- 
 ness, and I could, if occasion served, be kind to him in 
 turn ; but to say that I could retain such a memory of the 
 service after years that it would renew in me the first 
 pleasant sensations it created, and witli these sensations 
 the goodwill to requite them, is downright rubbish. You 
 might as well tell me that I could get drunk simply by 
 remembering the orgie I assisted at ten years ago." 
 
 " I protest against your sentiment and your logic 
 too." 
 
 " Then we won't dispute the matter. "We'll talk of 
 something we can agree upon. Let us abuse Sara." 
 
 " If you do, you'll chose some other place to do it." 
 
 " What, do you mean to tell me that you can stand 
 the haughty airs and jn-oud pretensions of the young 
 Jewess ? "
 
 THE MAN WHO TRAVELLED FOE OUR HOUSE. 139 
 
 " I mean to tell you that I know notliing of the 
 Franlein Oppovich but what is amiable and good." 
 
 " What do I care for amiable and good ? I want a 
 girl to be graceful, well-mnnncred, pleasing, lively to 
 talk and eager to listen. There now, don't get purple 
 about the cheeks, and flash at me such fiery looks. 
 Here's the champagne, and we'll drink a bumper to 
 her." 
 
 " Take some other name for your toast, or I'll fling 
 your bottle out of the window." 
 
 " You will, will you ! " said he, setting down his glass, 
 and measuring me from head to foot. 
 
 " I swear it." 
 
 " I like that spirit, Digby ; I'll be shot if I don't," 
 said he, taking my hand, which I did not give very 
 willingly. "You are just what I was some fifteen or 
 twenty years ago — warm, impulsive, and headstrong. 
 It's the world — that vile old mill, the world — grinds 
 that generous nature out of one ! I declare I don't 
 believe that a spark of real trustfulness survives a man's 
 first moustaches — and yours are very faint, very faint 
 indeed ; there's a suspicion of smut on the upper lip, 
 and some small capillary flourishes along your cheek. 
 That wine is too sweet. I'll return to the Bordeaux." 
 
 " I grieve to say I have no more than that bottle of 
 it. It was some I bought when I was ill and threatened 
 with ague." 
 
 " What profanation ! anything would be good enough 
 for ague. It is in a man's days of vigorous health he 
 merits cherishing. Let us console ourselves with Roediger. 
 Now, boy," said he, as he cleared off" a bumper from a 
 large goblet, " I'll give you some hints for your future, 
 far more precious than this wine, good as it is. Gus- 
 tavo de Marsac, like Homer's hero, can give gold for 
 brass, and instead of wine he will give you wisdom. 
 First of all for a word of warning : don't fall in love 
 with Sara. It's the popular error down here to do so, 
 but it's a cruel mistake. That fellow that has the hemp 
 trade here — what's his name — the vulgar dog that wears 
 mutton-chop whiskers, and fancies he's English because 
 he gets his coats from London ? I'll remember his name 
 presently — he has all his life been proposing for Sara,
 
 140 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTT'S. 
 
 and begging off — as matters go ill or well with the 
 House of Oppovicli ; and as lie is a shrewd fellow in 
 business, all the young men here think they ought to 
 * go in ' for Sara too." 
 
 I should say here that, however distasteful to me this 
 talk, and however willingly I would have repressed it, 
 it was totally out of my power to arrest the flow of 
 words which, with the force of a swollen torrent came 
 from him. He drank freely, too, large goblets of cham- 
 pagne as he talked, and to this, I am obliged to own, I 
 looked as my last hope of being rid of him. I placed 
 every bottle I possessed on the table, and lighting my 
 cigar, resigned myself, with what patience I could, to the 
 result. 
 
 " Am I keeping you up, my dear Digby ? " cried he, 
 at last, after a burst of abuse on Fiume and all it con- 
 tained that lasted about half-an-hour. 
 
 " I seldom sit up so late," was my cautious reply ; 
 " but I must own I have seldom such a good excuse." 
 
 " You hit it, boy ; that was well and truly spoken. As 
 a talker of the highest order of talk, I yield to no man 
 in Europe. Do you remember Duvergier saying in the 
 Chambi^e, as an apology for beiug late, ' I dined with 
 de Marsac ? ' " 
 
 " I cannot say I remember that." 
 
 " How could you ? You were an infant at the time." 
 Away he went after this into reminiscences of political 
 life — how deep he Avas in that Spanish marriage question, 
 and how it caused a breach — an irreparable breach between 
 Guizot and himself, when that woman, " you know whom 
 I mean, let out the secret to Bulwer. Of course I ought 
 not to have confided it to her. I know all that as well 
 as you can tell it me, but who is wise, who is guarded, 
 who is self-possessed at all times?" 
 
 Not entirely trustful of what he was telling me, and 
 little interested in it besides, I brought him back to 
 Fiume, and to the business that was now about to be 
 confided to me. 
 
 " Ah, very true ; you want your instructions. You 
 shall have them, not that you'll need them long, o?ion cJier. 
 Six mouths — what am I saying ? — three will see it all up 
 with Hodnig and Oppovicli."
 
 THE MAN WHO TRAVELLED FOR OUR HOUSE. 141 
 
 "What do you mean ?" cried I eagerly. 
 
 " Just simply what I say." 
 
 It was not very easy for me to follow him here, but I 
 could gather, amidst a confused mass of self-glcrification, 
 prediction, and lamentation over warnings disregarded, 
 and such like, that the great Jew house of " Nathan- 
 heimer " of Paris was the real head of the firm of Hodnig 
 and Oppovich. 
 
 " The l!^athanheimers own all Europe and a very con- 
 siderablu share of America," burst he out. "You hear of 
 a great wine-house at Xeres, or a great coi'n-merchant at 
 Odessa, or a great tallow exporter at Riga. It's all 
 Nathanheimer ! If a man prospers and shows that he has 
 skill in business, they'll stand by him, even to millions. 
 If he blunders, they sweep him away, as I brush away 
 that cork. There must be no failures with thevi. That's 
 their creed." 
 
 He proceeded to explain how these great potentates of 
 finance and trade had agencies in every great centre of 
 Europe, who reported to them everything that went 
 on, who flourished, and who foundered ; how, when 
 enterprises that promised well presented themselves, Na- 
 thanheimer would advance any sum, no matter how 
 great, that was wanted. If a country needed a i-ailroad, 
 if a city required a boulevard, if a seaport wanted a 
 dock, they were ready to furnish each and all of them. 
 The conditions too, were never unfair, never ungene- 
 rous, but still they bargained always for something 
 besides money. They desired that this man would aid 
 such a project here, or oppose that other there. Their 
 intei^ests were so various and widespread that they needed 
 political power everywhere, and they had it. 
 
 One offence they never pardoned, never condoned, 
 which was any, the slightest, insubordination amongst 
 those they supported and maintained. Marsac ran over 
 a catalogue of those they had ruined in London, Amster- 
 dam, Paris, Frankfort, and Vienna, simply because they 
 had attempted to emancipate themselves from the serf- 
 dom imposed upon them. Let one of the subordinate 
 firms branch out into an enterprise unauthorized by the 
 great house, and straightway their acceptances become 
 dishonoured, and their credit assailed. In one word, he
 
 142 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 made it appear that from one end of Eui'ope to the other 
 the whole financial system was in the hands of a few 
 crafty men of immense wealth, who unthroned dynasties, 
 and controlled the fate of nations, with a word. 
 
 He went on to sliow that Oppovich had somehow 
 fallen into disgrace with these mighty patrons. " Some 
 say that he is too old and too feeble for business, and 
 hands over to Sara details that she is quite unequal to 
 deal with ; some aver that he has speculated without 
 sanction, and is intriguing with Greek democratt ; others 
 declare that he has been merely unfortunate ; at all events, 
 his hour has struck. Mind my words, three months 
 hence they'll not have Nathanheimer's agency in their 
 house, and I suspect you'll see our friend Bettmeyer will 
 succeed to that rich inheritance." 
 
 Rambling on, now talking with a vagueness that 
 savoui'cd of imbecility, now speaking with a purposelike 
 acuteness and power that brought conviction, he sat till 
 daybreak, drinking freely all the time, and at last so 
 overwhelming me with strange revelations, that I was 
 often at a loss to know whether it was he that was con- 
 founding me, or that I myself had lost all control of right 
 reason and judgment. 
 
 " You're dead beat, my poor fellow," said he at last, 
 " and it's your own fault. You've been drinking nothing 
 but water these last two hours. Go off to bed now, and 
 leave me to finish this bottle. After that I'll have a 
 plunge off the end of the mole, cold enough it will be, 
 but no ice, and you'll find me here at ten o'clock with a 
 breakfast appetite that will astonish you." 
 
 I took him at his word, and said, " Good-niglit."
 
 143 
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 MT IKSTIIUCTIONS. 
 
 My friend did not keep liis self-made appointment with 
 me at breakfast, nor did I Eee him for two days, when 
 we met in the street. 
 
 " I have gone over to the enemy," said he, " I have 
 taken an engagement with Bettmeyer: six thousand 
 florins and all expenses — silver florins, moii clier ; and 
 if you're wise," added he in a whisper, " you'll follow my 
 lead. Shall I say a word for you ? " 
 
 I thanked him coldly, and declined the offer. 
 
 " All right, stick to gi-atitude, and you'll see where it 
 will land you," said he, gaily. " I've sent you half-a-dozen 
 letters to friends of mine up yonder," and he pointed 
 towards the North. " You'll find Hunyadi an excellent 
 fellow, and the countess charming; don't make love to 
 her, though, for Tassilo is a regular Othello. As for 
 the Erdodis, I only wish I was going there, instead of 
 you ; — such pheasants, such women, such Tokay, their 
 own vintage ! Once you're down in Transylvania, write 
 me word whom you'd like to know. They're all dear 
 friends of mine. By the way, don't make any blunder 
 about that Hunyadi contract. The people here will v/ant 
 you to break it — don't on any account. It's the finest 
 bargain ever was made; splendid timber, magnificent 
 bark, and the cuttings alone worth all the money." 
 
 He rattled out this with his own headlong speed, and 
 was gone before I well knew I had seen him. 
 
 That evening I was ordered to Herr Oppovich's house 
 to receive my la.-st instructions. The old man was asleep 
 on a sofa, as I entered, and Sara seated at a table by the 
 fire, deeply engaged in accounts. 
 
 "Sit down, Herr Owen" — she had ceased to call me 
 von Owen — " and I will speak to you in a minute." 
 
 I was not impatient at the delay, for I had time to gazG
 
 144 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S. 
 
 at her silken hair, and her faultless profile, and the beau- 
 tiful outline of her figure, as leaning her head on her 
 hand, she bent over the table. 
 
 " I cannot make this come right — are you clever at 
 figures ? " asked she. 
 
 " I cannot say it is my gift, but I will do ray best to 
 aid you." And now we were seated side by side, poring 
 over the same page, and as she had placed one taper 
 finger next the column of figures, I did so likewise, 
 thinking far less of the arithmetic than of the chance 
 of touching her hand with mine. 
 
 " These figures ai'e somewhat confusing," she said, 
 " Let us begin at the top — fourteen hundred and six 
 hundred, make two thousand, and twelve hundred, three 
 thousand two hundred — now is this a seven or a three ? " 
 
 " I'd say a three." 
 
 "I've called it a seven, because M. Marsac usually 
 writes his sevens in this way." 
 
 " These are de Marsac's, then ? " asked I. 
 
 " And why ' de,' may I ask ? " said she, quickly ; " why 
 not Marsac, as I called him ? " 
 
 " I took liis name as he gave it me." 
 
 " You know him, then ? Oh, I had forgotten — he 
 called on you the night he came. Have you seen him 
 since ? " 
 
 " Only passingly in the street." 
 
 " Had he time to tell you that he has been dismissed ? " 
 
 "Yes, he said he was now in Mr. Bettmeyer's ofiice." 
 
 "Shall I tell you why?" she stopped, and her oheek 
 became crimson, while her eyes sparkled with an angry 
 fire, that actually startled me ; " but let us finish this. 
 Where were we?" she now leaned her head down upon 
 her hands, and seemed overcome by her emotion. When 
 she looked up again her fiice was perfectly pale, and her 
 eyes sad and weariful. "I am afraid we shall wake him," 
 said she, looking towards her father ; " come into this 
 room here. So this man has been talking of us?" cried 
 she, as soon as we had passed into the adjoining room. 
 " Has he told you how he has requited all my father's 
 kindness ? how he has repaid his trustfulness and faitli in 
 him ? Speak freely if you wish me to regard- you as a 
 friend."
 
 MY INSTRUCTIONS. 145 
 
 " I would tliat you might, Fraulein. There is no name 
 I would do so much to win." 
 
 " But you are a gentleman, and with noble blood. Could 
 
 you stoop to be the friend of " here she hesitated, and, 
 
 after an effort, added, " a Jew ? " 
 
 " Try me, prove me," said I, stooping till my lips 
 touched her hand. 
 
 She did not withdraw her hand, but left it in mine, 
 as I pressed it again and again to my lips. 
 
 •' He told you, then," said she, in a half whisper, " that 
 our house was on the brink of ruin ; that in a few weeks, 
 or even less, my father would not face the exchange — did 
 he not say this ? " 
 
 " I will tell you all," said I, " for I know you will forgive 
 me when I repeat what will offend you to hear ; but what 
 is safer you should hear." And, in the fewest words I 
 could, I related what Marsac had told me of the house 
 and its difficulties. When I came to that part which 
 represented Oppovich as the mere agent of the great 
 Parisian banker — whose name I was not quite sure of — 
 I faltered and hesitated. 
 
 " Go on," said she, gently. " He told you that Baron 
 Nathanheimer was about to withdraw his px'otection from 
 us?" 
 
 I slightly bent my head in affirmation. 
 
 " But did he say why ? " 
 
 *' Something there was of rash enterprise, of speculation 
 unauthorized — of " 
 
 " Of an old man with failing faculties," said she, in the 
 same low tone ; " and of a young girl, little versed in 
 business, but self-confident and presumptuous enough to 
 think herself equal to supply his place. I have no doubt 
 he was very frank on this head. He wrote to Baron Elias, 
 who sent me his letter — the letter he wrote of us while 
 eating our bread. Itwas not handsome of him — was it, sir?" 
 
 I can give no idea, not the faintest, of the way she said 
 these few words, nor of the ineffable scorn of her look, 
 while her voice remained calm and gentle as ever. 
 
 " No. It was not handsome." 
 
 She nodded to me to proceed, and I continued, — 
 
 " I have told you nearly everything ; for of himself and 
 his boastfulness " 
 
 L
 
 146 *rHAT BOY OP nokcott's. 
 
 •' Oh ! do not tell me of that. I am in no laughing 
 mood, and I would not like to hear of it. What did he 
 say of the Hunyadi affair ? " 
 
 " Nothing, or next to nothing. He offered me letters 
 of introduction to Count Hunyadi ; but beyond that there 
 was no mention of him." 
 
 She arose as I said this, and walked slowly up and 
 down the room. I saw she was deep in thought, and was 
 careful not to disturb or distract her. At last she opened 
 a writing-desk, and took out a roll of papers fastened by 
 a tape. 
 
 " These," said she, " you will take with you, and care- 
 fully read over. They are the records of a transaction 
 that is now involving us in great trouble, and which may 
 prove more than trouble. M. Marsac has been induced — 
 how, we shall not stop to inquire — to contract for the 
 purchase of an extensive wood belonging to Graf Hunyadi ; 
 the price, half a million of francs. We delayed to ratify 
 an agreement of such moment, until more fully assured 
 of the value of the timber ; and, while we deliberated on 
 the choice of the person to send down to Hungary, we 
 have received from our correspondent at Vienna certain 
 bills for acceptance in payment of this purchase. You 
 follow me, don't you?" 
 
 " Yes. As I understand it, the bargain was assumed 
 to be ratified ?" 
 " Just so." 
 
 She paused ; and, after a slight struggle with herself, 
 ■went on, — 
 
 " The contract, legally drawn up and complete in every 
 way, was signed ; not, however, by my father, but by my 
 brother. You have heard, perhaps, that I have a brother. 
 Bad companionship, and a yielding disposition, have led 
 him into evil, and for some years we have not seen him. 
 Much misfortune has befallen him ; but none greater, 
 perhaps, than his meeting with Mar.'^ac ; for, though 
 Adolf has done many things, he would not have gone 
 thus far without the promptings of this bad man." 
 ** Was it his own name he wrote ? " asked I. 
 " No. It was my father's," and she faltered at the 
 word ; and as she spoke it her head fell heavily forward, 
 and she covered her face with her hands.
 
 MY INSTRUCTIONS* 147 
 
 She rallied, however, quickly, and went on. " "We 
 now know that the timlier is not worrh one-fourth of this 
 large sum. Baron Elias himself has seen it, and declares 
 that we have been duped or — wor-se He insists that we 
 rescind the contract, or accept all its consequences. The 
 one is hopeless — the other ruin. Meanwhile, the Baron 
 suspends farther relations with us, and heavy acceptances 
 of ours will soon press for payment. I must not go into 
 this," said she, hurriedly. " You are very young to 
 charge with such a mission ; but I have great faith in 
 your loyalty. You will nob wrong our trust ? " 
 
 " That I will not." 
 
 *' You will go to Graf Hunyadi, and speak with him. 
 If he be — as many of his countrymen are — a man of high 
 and generous feeling, he will not bring ruin upon us, 
 when our only alternative would be to denounce our own. 
 You are very young ; but you have habits of the world 
 and society. Nay — I am not seeking to learn a secret ; 
 but you know enough to make you companionable and 
 acceptable, where any others in our employ would be 
 inadmisBable. At all events, you will soon see the sort 
 of man we have to deal with, and you will report to me 
 at once." 
 
 " I am not to tell him how this signature has been 
 obtained? " asked I, awaiting the reply. 
 
 " That would be to denounce the contract at once," 
 cried she, as though this thought had for the first time 
 struck her. " You know the penalty of a forgery here. 
 It is the galleys for life. He must be saved at all events. 
 Don't you see," cried she, eagerly, " I can give you no 
 instructions. I have none to give. When I say, I trust 
 you — I have told you all." 
 
 " Has Herr Ignaz not said how lie would wish me 
 to act?" 
 
 *' My father knows nothing of it all ! Nothing. You 
 have seen him, and you know how little he is able now to 
 cope with a difficulty. The very sense that his faculties 
 are not what they were overcomes him, even to tears." 
 
 Up to this she had spoken with a calm firmness that 
 had lent a touch of almost sternness to her manner, but 
 at the mention of her poor father's condition, her courage 
 gave way, and she turned away and hid her face, but her 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THAT EOT OF NORCOTt'S. 
 
 convulsed shoulders showed how her emotion was over- 
 coming her. I went towards her, and took her hand 
 in both my own. She left it to me while I kissed it 
 again and again. 
 
 " Oh, Sara," I whispered rather than spoke, " if you 
 knew how devoted I am to you, if you knew how 
 willingly I would give my very life for you, you would 
 not think yourself friendless at this hour. Your trust in 
 me has made me forget how lonely I am, and how humble 
 — to forget all that separates us, even to telling that I 
 love you. Give me one word — only one — of hope ; or if 
 not that, let your dear hand but close on mine, and I am 
 yours for ever." 
 
 She never spoke, however, and her cold fingers returned 
 no pressure to mine. 
 
 " I love you ; I love you ! " I muttered, as I covered 
 her hand with kisses. 
 
 " There ! Do you not hear ? " cried she, suddenly. 
 " My father is calling me." 
 
 *' Sara, Sara ! Where is Sara ? " cried the old man, in 
 a weak, reedy voice. 
 
 " I am coming, dear father," said she. " Good-bye, 
 Digby ; remember that I trust you ! " 
 
 She waved me a farewell, and, with a faint, sad smile, 
 she moved awajr. As she i-eached the door, however, she 
 turned, and, with a look of kindly meaning, said, " Trust 
 you in all things." 
 
 I sprang forward to clasp her to my heart, but the door 
 closed on her, and I was alone. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 "on the koad" in ckoatia. 
 
 I PASSED half the night that followed in writing to my 
 mother. It was a very long epistle, but, in my fear lest, 
 like so many others, it should not ever reach hei", it was 
 less expansive and candid than 1 could have wished.
 
 **0N THE EOAD" in CEOTIA. 149 
 
 Sara's name did not occur throughout, and yet it was 
 Sara's image was before me as I wrote, and to connect 
 my mother in interest for Sara was my uppermost 
 thought. Without touching on details that might 
 awaken pain, I told how I had been driven to attempt 
 something for my own support, and had not failed. 
 
 " I am still," I wrote, " where I started, but in so far a 
 different position that I am now well looked on and 
 trusted, and at this moment about to set out on a mission 
 of importance. If I should succeed in doing what I am 
 charged with, it will go far to secure my future, and then, 
 dearest mother, I will go over to fetch you, for I will 
 no longer live without you." 
 
 I pictured the place I was living in, and its climate, as 
 attractively as I was able, and said, what I verily believed, 
 that I hoped never to leave it. Of my father I did not 
 venture to speak, but I invited her, if the course of our 
 correspondence should prove assured, to tell me freely 
 all about her present condition, and where and how 
 she was. 
 
 "You will see, dear mother," said I, in conclusion, 
 " that I write in all the coustraint of one who is not sure 
 who may read him. Of the accident by which the address 
 I now give this letter reached me, I will tell when I write 
 again. Meanwhile, though I shall not be here to receive 
 it at once, write to me, to the care of Hodnig and Oppo- 
 vich, and add, ' to be forwarded.' " 
 
 I enclosed a little photograph of the town, as seen from 
 the bay, and though ill done and out of drawing, it still 
 conveyed some notion of the pretty spot with its moun- 
 tain framework. 
 
 I had it in my head to write another letter, and, indeed, 
 made about a dozen attempts to begin it. It was to 
 Pauline. Nothing but very boyishness could have ever 
 conceived such a project, but I thought — it was very 
 simple of me ! — I thought I owed it to her, and to my 
 own loyalty, to declare that my heart had wandered from 
 its first allegiance, and fixed its devotion on another. I 
 believed — I was young enough to believe it — that I had 
 won her affections, and I felt it would be dishonourable in 
 me to deceive her as to my own. I suppose I was essay- 
 ing a task that would have puzzled a more consummate
 
 150 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S. 
 
 tactician than myself, for certainly nothing could be more 
 palpable than my failures ; and though I tried, with all 
 the ingenuity I possessed, to show that, in my altered 
 fortunes, I could no longer presume to retain any hold on 
 her afTections, somehow it would creep out that my heart 
 had opened to a sentiment far deeper and more enthralling 
 than that love which began in a polka, and ended at the 
 railway. 
 
 I must own I am now grateful to my stupidity and 
 ineptness, which saved me from committing this great 
 blunder, though, at the time, I mourned over my inca- 
 pacity, and bewailed the dulness that destroyed every 
 attempt I made to express myself gracefully. I aban- 
 doned the task, at length, in despair, and set to work to 
 pack up for my journey. I was to start at daybreak for 
 Agram, where some business would detain me a couple 
 of days. Thence I was to proceed to a small frontier 
 town in Hungary, called Ostovich, on the Drave, where 
 we owned a forest of oak scrub, and which I was em- 
 powered to sell, if an advantageous offer could be had. 
 If such should not be forthcoming, my instructions were 
 to see what water power existed in the neighbourhood 
 to work saw-mills, and to report fully on the price of 
 labour, and the means of conveyance to the coast. If I 
 mention these details,"even passingly, it is but to show 
 the sort of work that was entrusted to me, and how 
 naturally my pride was touched at feeling how great and 
 important were the interests confided to my judgment. 
 In my own esteem, at least, I was somebody. This 
 sentiment, felt in the freshness of youth, is never 
 equalled by anything one experiences of triumph ia 
 after life, for none of our later successes come upon 
 hearts joyous in the day-spring of existence, hopeful 
 of all things, and, above all, hearts that have not been 
 jarred by envy and made discordant by ungenerous 
 rivalry. 
 
 There was an especial charm, too, in the thought that 
 my life was no every-day common-place existence, but a 
 strange series of ups and downs, changes and vicissitudes 
 calling for continual watchfulness, and no small amount of 
 energy ; in a word, I was a hero to myself, and it is 
 wonderful what a degree of intei-est can be imparted to
 
 " ON THE ROAD " IN CEOATIA. 151 
 
 life simply by that delusion. My business at Agram was 
 soon despatched. No news of the precarious condition 
 of our " house '' had reached this place, and I was treated 
 with all the consideration due to the confidential agent of 
 a great firm. I passed an evening in the society of the 
 town, and was closely questioned whether Carl Bettmeyer 
 had got over his passion for the Fraulein Sai\T, ; or was 
 she showing any disposition to look more favourably on 
 his addresses. What fortune Oppovich could give his 
 daughter, and what sort of marriage he aspired to for her, 
 were all discussed. There was one point, howevei', all 
 were agreed upon, that nothing could be done without the 
 consent of the " Baron," as they distinctively called the 
 great financier of Paris, whose sway, it appeared, extended 
 not only to questions of trade and money, but to every 
 relation of domestic life. 
 
 " They say," cried one, " that the Baron likes Bett- 
 meyer, and has thrown some good things in his way of 
 late." 
 
 '* He gave him a share in that new dock contract at Pola." 
 
 " And he means to give him the directorship of the 
 Viecovar line, if it ever be made." 
 
 " He'll give him Sara Oppovich for a wife," said a third, 
 "and that's a better speculation than them all. Two 
 millions of florins at least." 
 
 *' She's the richest heiress in Croatia." 
 
 ♦' And doesn't she know it ! " exclaimed another. "The 
 last time I was up at Fiume, old Ignaz apologized for not 
 presenting me to her, by saying — ' Yesterday was her 
 reception day, if you are here next "Wednesday I'll intro- 
 duce you.' " 
 
 " I thought it was only the nobles had the custom of 
 reception days ? " 
 
 "Wealth is nobility, now-a-days, and if Ignaz Oppo- 
 vich was not a Jew he might have the best blood of Austria 
 for a son-in-law." 
 
 The discussion soon waxed warm as to whether Jews 
 did or did not aspire to marriage with Christians of rank, 
 the majority opining to believe that they placed title 
 and station above even riches, and that no people had such 
 an intense appreciation of the value of condition as the 
 Hebrew.
 
 152 THAT BOY OP NORCOTT'S. 
 
 " That Frencliman who was here the other day, Marsac, 
 told me that the man who could get the Stephen Cross for 
 old Oppovich, and the title of Chevalier, would be sure of 
 bis daughter's hand in marriage." 
 
 *' And does old Ignaz really care for such a thing ? " 
 
 *' No, but the girl does ; she's the haughtiest and the 
 vainest damsel in the province." 
 
 It may be believed that I found it very hard to listen 
 to such words as these in silence, but it was of the last 
 importance that I should not make what is called an 
 idat, or bring the name of Oppovich needlessly forward 
 for town talk and discussion ; I therefore repressed my 
 indignation and appeared to take little interest in the 
 conversation. 
 
 "You've seen the Fraulein, of course?" asked one 
 of me. 
 
 " To be sure he has, and has been pei-mitted to kneel 
 and kiss her hand on her birthday," broke in another. 
 
 And while some declared that this was mere exaggera- 
 tion and gossip, others averred that they had been present 
 and witnessed this act of homage themselves. 
 
 " What has this young gentleman seen of this hand 
 kissing ? " said a lady of the party, turning to me. 
 
 " That it was always an honour conferred even more 
 than a homage rendered, madam," said I, stepping forward 
 and kissing her hand, and a pleasant laughter greeted this 
 mode of concluding the controversy. 
 
 " I have got a wager about you," said a young man to 
 me, " and you alone can decide it. Are you or are you 
 not from Upper Austria ? " 
 
 " And are you a Jew ? " cried another. 
 
 "If you'll promise to ask me no more questions, 1*11 
 answer both of these — I am neither Jew nor Austrian." 
 
 It was not, however, so easy to escape my questioners, 
 but as their curiosity seemed curbed by no reserves of 
 delicacy, I was left free to defend myself as best I might, 
 and that I had not totally failed, I gathered from hearing 
 an old fellow whisper to another: — 
 
 " You'll get nothing out of him : if he's not a Jew by 
 birth, he has lived long enough with them to keep his mind 
 to himself." 
 
 Having finished all I had to do at Agrara, I started for
 
 " ON THE ROAD " IN CROATIA. 153 
 
 Ostovitz. I could find no purcliaser for our wood, indeed 
 every one had timber to sell, and forests were offered me 
 on all sides. It was just at that period in Austria when 
 the nation was first waking to thoughts of industrial 
 enterprise, and schemes of money-getting were rife 
 everywhere ; but such was the ignorance of the people, 
 so little vei'sed were they in affairs, that they imagined 
 wealth was to pour down upon them for the wishing, and 
 that Fortune asked of her votaries neither industi'y nor 
 thrift. 
 
 Perhaps I should not have been led into these reflec- 
 tions here if it were not that I had embodied them, or 
 something very like them, in a despatch I sent off to Sara, 
 — a despatch on which I had expended all my care to make 
 it a masterpiece of fine writing and acute observation. 
 I remember how I expatiated on the disabilities of race, 
 and how I dwelt upon the vices of those lethargic tempera- 
 ments of Eastern origin which seemed so wanting in all 
 that energy and persistence which form the life of com- 
 merce. 
 
 This laborious essay took me an entire day to write, 
 but when I had posted it at night I felt I had done a very 
 grand thing, not only as an intellectual effort, but as a 
 proof to the Fraulein how well I knew how to restrict 
 myself within the limits of my duties ; for not a sentence, 
 not a syllable, had escaped me throughout to recall 
 thoughts of anything but business. I had asked for 
 certain instructions about Hungary, and on the third day 
 came the following, in Sara's hand : — 
 
 " Here Digby, — 
 
 " There is no mention in your esteemed letter of 
 the 4th November of Kraus's acceptance, nor have you 
 explained to what part of Heydager's contract Hauser 
 now objects. Freights are still rising here, and it would 
 be imprudent to engage in any operations that involve ex- 
 portation. Gold is also rising, and the Bank discount 
 goes daily higher. I am obliged to you for your interest- 
 ing remarks on ethnology, though I am low-minded 
 enough to own, I could have read with more pleasure 
 whether the floods in the Drave have interfered with the
 
 154 THAT BOY OP NOKCOTT's. 
 
 rafts, and also whether these late rains have damaged the 
 newh^-sown crops. 
 
 " If you choose to see Pesth and Buda, you will have 
 time, for Count Hunyadi will not be at his chateau till 
 nigh Christmas ; but it is important you should see him 
 immediately on his arrival, for his intendant writes to say 
 that the Graf has invited a large party of friends to pass 
 the festival with him, and will not attend to any business 
 matters while they remain. Promptitude will be therefore 
 needful. I have nothing to add to your instructions already 
 given. Although I have not been able to consult my father, 
 whose weakness is daily greater, I may say that you are 
 empowered to make a compromise, if such should seem 
 advisable, and your drafts shall be duly honoured, if, time 
 pressing, you are not in a position to acquaint us with 
 details. 
 
 " The weather here is fine now. I passed yesterday at 
 Abazzia, and the place was looking well. I believe the 
 archduke will purchase it, and, though sorry on some 
 accounts, I shall be glad on the whole. 
 
 " For Hodnig and Oppovich, 
 
 " Sara Oppovich. 
 
 " Of course if Count Hunyadi will not transact business 
 on his arrival, you will have to await his convenience. 
 Perhaps the interval could be profitably passed in Transyl- 
 vania, whei-e, it is said, the oak-bark is both cheap and 
 good. See to this, if opportunity serves. Bieli's book 
 and maps are worth consulting." 
 
 If I i^ead this epistle once, I read it fifty times, but I 
 will not pretend to say with what strange emotions. All 
 the dry reference to business I could bear well enough, 
 but the little passing sneer at what she called my 
 ethnology piqued me painfully. Why should she have 
 taken such pains to tell me that nothing that did not lend 
 itself to gain could have any interest for her r or was it 
 to say that these topics alone were what should be dis- 
 cussed between us ? Was it to recall me to my station, 
 to make me remember in what relation I stood to her, she 
 wrote thus ? These were not the natures I had read of 
 in Balzac! the creatures all passion, and soul, and senti-
 
 " ON THE KOAD " IN CBOATIA. 155 
 
 ment; women whose atmosphere was positive enchantment, 
 and whose least glance, or word, or gesture, would inflame 
 the heart to very madness ; and yet, was it not in Sara to 
 become all this ? Were those deep lustrous eyes, that 
 looked away into space longingly, dreamfully, dazingly — 
 were they meant to pore over wearisome columns of dry 
 arithmetic, or not rather to give back in recognition what 
 they had got in rapture, and to look as they were looked 
 into? 
 
 Was it, as a Jewess, that my speculations about race 
 had offended her ? had I expressed myself carelessly or 
 ill ? 1 had often been struck by a smile she would give, 
 not scornful, nor slighting, but something that seemed to 
 say, " These thoughts ai'e not our thoughts, nor are these 
 ways our ways ! " but in her silent fashion she would 
 make no remark, but be satisfied to shadow forth some 
 half dissent by a mere trembling of the lip. 
 
 She had passed a day at Abazzia — of course, alone — 
 wandering about that delicious spot, and, doubtless, 
 recalling memories, for any one of which I had given my 
 life's blood. And would she not bestow a word — one 
 word — on these ? Why not say, she as much as remem- 
 bered me ; that it was there we first met ! Sure, so much 
 might have been said, or, at least, hinted at, in all harm- 
 lessness ? I had done nothing, written nothing, to bring 
 rebuke upon me. I had taken no liberty ; I had tried 
 to make the dry detail of a business letter less wearisome 
 by a little digression ; not wholly out of apropos ; that 
 was all. 
 
 Was then the Hebrew heart bent solely on gain ? And 
 yet what grand things did the love of these wouien 
 inspire in olden times ! and what splendid natures were 
 theirs ! How true and devoted, how self-sacrificing ! Sara's 
 beautiful face, in all its calm loveliness, rose before me as 
 I thought these things, and I felt that I loved her more 
 than ever.
 
 156 THAT BOY OF NOECOTl'S. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 IN HrrNGARY. 
 
 It still wanted several weeks of Christinas, and so I 
 hastened off to Pesth and tried to acquire some little 
 knowledge of Hungarian, and some acquaintance ,with 
 the habits and ways of Hungarian life. I am not sure 
 that I made much progress in anything but the csardas 
 — the national dance — in which I soon became a pro- 
 ficient. Its stately solemnity suddenly changing for a 
 lively movement ; its warlike gestures and attitudes ; its 
 haughty tramp and defiant tone; and, last of all, its 
 whirlwind impetuosity and passion, — all emblems of the 
 people who practise it, — possessed a strange fascination 
 for me ; and I never missed a night of those public balls 
 where it was danced. 
 
 Towards the middle of December, however, I bethought 
 me of my mission, and set out for Gross AYardein, which 
 lay a long distance off, near the Transylvanian frontier. I 
 had provided myself with one of the wicker carriages of 
 the country, and travelled post, usually having three 
 horses harnessed abreast; or, where there was much up- 
 hill, a team of five. 
 
 I mention this, for I own that the exhilai'ation of 
 speeding along at the stretching gallop of these splendid 
 juclcers, tossing their wild manes madly, and ringing 
 out their myriads of bells, was an ecstasy of delight 
 almost maddening. Over and over, as the excited driver 
 would urge his beasts to greater speed by a wild shrill 
 cry, have I yelled out in concert with him, carried away 
 by an intense excitement I could not master. 
 
 On the second day of the journey we left the region of 
 roads, and usually directed our course by some church, 
 spire or tower in the distance, or followed the bank of a 
 river, when not too devious. This headlong swoop across 
 fields and prairies, dashing \nadly on in what seemed
 
 IN HUNGARY. 157 
 
 utter recklessness, was glorious fun : and when we came 
 to cross the small bridges which span the streams, without 
 rail or parapet at either side, and where the deviation of 
 a few inches would have sent us headlong into the torrent 
 beneath, I felt a degree of blended terror and delight such 
 as one experiences in the mad excitement of a fox-hunt. 
 
 On the third morning I discovered on awaking that a 
 heavy fall of snow had occurred during the night, and wo 
 were forced to take off our wheels and place the carriage on 
 sledge-slides. This alone was wanting to make the enjoy- 
 ment perfect, and our pace from this hour became positively 
 steeple-chasing. Lying back in my ample fur mantle, 
 and my hands enclosed in a fur muff, I accepted the salu- 
 tations of the villagers as we swept along, or blandly 
 raised my hand to my cap as some wearied guard would 
 hurriedly turn out to present arms to a supposed 
 *' magnate ; " for we were long out of the beat of usual 
 travel, and rarely any but some high official of the 
 State was seen to come "extra post," as it is called, 
 through these wild regions. 
 
 Up to Izarous the country had been a plain, slightly, 
 but very slightly, undulating. Here, however, we got 
 amongst the mountains, and the charm of scenery was 
 now added to the delight of the pace. On the fifth day 
 I learned, and not without sincere regret, that we were 
 within seven German miles, — something over thirty of 
 ours, — from Gross Wardein, from which the Ilunyadi 
 Schloss only lay about fifty miles. 
 
 Up to this I had been, to myself at least, a grand 
 seigneur travelling for his pleasure, careless of cost, and 
 denying himself nothing ; splendid generosity, trans- 
 mitted from each postillion to his successor, secured mo 
 the utmost speed his beasts could master, and the im- 
 petuous dash with which we spun into the arched door\va3S 
 of the inns, routed the whole household, and not unfie- 
 quently summoned the guests themselves to witness the 
 ihustrious arrival. A few hours more and the grand 
 illusion would dissolve! No more the wild stretchicg 
 gallop, cutting the snowdrift ; no more the clear bells, 
 ringing through the frosty air; no more the eager land- 
 lord bustling to the carriage-side with his flagon of heated 
 wine ; no more that burning delight imparted by speed, a
 
 158 THAT BOY OP NORCOTT'S. 
 
 sense of power that actually intoxicates. Not one of 
 these ! A few hours more and I should be Herr Owen, 
 travelling for the house of Hodnigand Oppovich, banished 
 to the company of bagmen, and reduced to a status where 
 whatever life has of picturesque or graceful is made 
 matter for vulgar sarcasm and ridicule. I know well, ye 
 gentlemen who hold a station fixed and unassailable, will 
 scarcely sympathize with me in all this ; but the castle- 
 builders of this world, and happily they are a large class, 
 will lend me all their pity, — well aware that so long as 
 imagination honours the drafts upon her, the poor man is 
 never bankrupt, and that it is only as illusions dissolve he 
 sees his insolvency. 
 
 I reached Gross Wardein to dinner, and passed the 
 night there, essaying, but with no remarkable success, to 
 learn something of Count Hunyadi, his habits, age, 
 temper, and general demeanour. As my informants were 
 his countrymen, I could only gather that his qualities were 
 such as Hungarians held in esteem. He was proud, 
 brave, costly in his mode of life, splendidly hospitable, 
 and a thorough sportsman. As to what he might prove 
 in matters of business, if he would even stoop to entertain 
 such at all, none could say — the very thought seemed to 
 provoke a laugh. 
 
 " I once attempted a deal with him," said an old farmer- 
 like man at the fireside. " I wanted to buy a team of 
 juckers he drove into the yard here, and was rash enough 
 to offer five hundred florins for [what he asked eight. 
 He did not even vouchsfae me an answer, and almost 
 drove over me the next day as I stood at the side of the 
 gate there." 
 
 ** That was like Tassilo," said a Hungarian, with 
 flashing eyes. 
 
 " Ho served you right," cried another. " None but a 
 German would have olfered him such a rudeness." 
 
 " Not but he's too ready with his heavy whip," muttered 
 an old soldier-like fellow. " He might chance to strike 
 where no words wou"ld efface the welt." 
 
 Stories of Hunyadi's extravagance and eccentricity now 
 poured in on all sides. How he had sold an estate to pay 
 the cost of an imperial visit that lasted a week ; how ho 
 had driven a team of four across the Danube on the second
 
 IN HUNGARY. 159 
 
 <5ay of the frost, when a heavy man could have smashed 
 the ice by a stamp of his foot ; how he had killed a iinar 
 in single combat, thongh it cost him tluee lingers of liis 
 left hand, and an awtul flesh wound in the side ; and 
 numberless other feats of daring and recklessness were 
 recorded by admiring narrators, who finished by a loud 
 JEh/e?i to his health. 
 
 1 am not sure that I went away to my bed feeling much 
 encouraged at the success of my mission, or very hopeful 
 of what I should do with this magnate of Hungary. 
 
 By daybreak I was again on the road. The journey led 
 thi'ough a wild mountain pass, and was eminently interest- 
 ing and picturesque ; but I was no longer so open to 
 enjoyment as before, and serious thoughts of my mission 
 now oppressed me, and I grew more nervous and afraid of 
 failure. If this haughty Graf were the man they repre- 
 sented him, it was just as likely he would refuse to listen 
 to me at all ; nor was the fact a cheering one that my 
 client was a Jew, since nowhere is the race less held in 
 honour than in Hungary. 
 
 As day began to decline, we issued forth upon a vast 
 plain into which a mountain spur projected like a bold 
 promontory beside the sea. At the very extremity of this 
 a large mass, which might be rock, seemed to stand cut 
 against the sky. " There — yonder," — said the postillion, 
 pointing towards it with his whip ; " that is Schloss 
 Hunyadi. There's three hours' good gallop yet before us." 
 
 A cold snowdrift borne on a wind that at times bi'ouglit 
 us to a standstill, or even drove us to seek shelter by the 
 wayside now set in, and I was fain to roll myself in my 
 furs and lie snugly down on the hay in the wagen 
 where I soon fell asleep ; and, though we had a change of 
 horses, and I must have managed somehow to settle with 
 the postillion and hand him his trinJc-geld I was con- 
 scious of nothing till awakened by the clanking sound of 
 a great bell, when I started up and saw we had driven 
 into a spacious courtyard in which, at an immense fire, a 
 number of people were seated, while others bustled about 
 harnessing or unharnessing horses. '' Here we are, Herr 
 Graf! " cried my postillion, who called me Count in recog- 
 nition of the handsome way in which I had treated his 
 predecessor. *' This is Schloss Hunyadi."
 
 160 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 SCHLOSS nUNYADI. 
 
 When I had made known my rank and quality, I was 
 assigned a room — a very comfortable one — in one wing of 
 the castle, and no more notice taken of me than if I had 
 been a guest at an inn. The house was filled with visitors; 
 but the master, with some six or seven others, was away 
 in Transylvania boar-shooting. As it was supposed he 
 would not return for eight or ten days, I had abundant 
 time to look about me, and learn sometliing of the place 
 and the people. 
 
 Schloss Hunyadi dated from the fifteenth century, 
 although now a single square tower was all that remained 
 of the early building. Successive additions had been 
 made in every imaginable taste and style, till the whole 
 presented an enormous incongruous mass, in which for- 
 tress, farmhouse, convent, and palace struggled for the 
 mastery, size alone giving an air of dignity to what 
 numberless foults would have condemned as an outrage 
 on all architecture. 
 
 If there was deformity and ugliness without, there was, 
 however, ample comfort and space within. Above two 
 hundred persons could be accommodated beneath the roof, 
 and half as many more had been occasionally stowed away 
 in the out-buildings. I made many attempts, but all 
 unsuccessfallj'^, to find out what number of servants the 
 household consisted of. Several wore livery, and many — 
 especially such as waited on guests humble as myself — 
 Avere dressed in blouse, with the crest of the house 
 embroidered on the breast; while a little army of retainers 
 in Jager costume, or in the pictm-esqu^ dress of the 
 peasautrj^ lounged about the courtyard, lending a hand 
 to unharness or harness a team, to fetch a bucket of water, 
 or " strap down " a beast, as some weary traveller would 
 ride in, splashed and wayworn. If there seemed no order
 
 SCHLOSS HUNYADI. 161 
 
 or discipline anywhere, there was little confusion, and no 
 ill humour whatever. All seenaed ready to oblige, and 
 the work of life, so far as I could see from my window, 
 went on cheerfully and joyfully, if not very regularly or 
 well. 
 
 If there was none of the trim propriety, or that neat- 
 ness that rises to elegance, which I had seen in my father's 
 household, there was a lavish profusion here, a boundless 
 abundance, that, contrasted with our mode of life, made 
 us seem almost mean and penurious. Guests came and 
 went unceasingly, and, to all seeming, not known to any 
 one. An unbounded hospitality awaited all comers, and 
 of the party who supped and caroused to-night, none 
 remained on the morrow, nor, perhaps, even a name was 
 remembered. 
 
 It took me some days to learn this, and to know that 
 there was nothing singular or strange in the position I 
 occupied, living where none knew why or whence I 
 came, or even so much as cared to inquire my name or 
 country. 
 
 In the great hall, where we dined all together — the dis- 
 tinguished guests at one end of the table, the lesser nota- 
 bilities lower down, and the menials last of all — there was 
 ever a place reserved for sudden arrivals ; and it was rare 
 that the meal went over without some such. A hearty 
 welcome and a cordial greeting were soon over, and the 
 work of festivity went on as before. 
 
 I was soon given to understand that, not only I might 
 dispose of my time how I pleased, but that every ap- 
 pliance to do so agreeably was at my disposal, and that I 
 might ride, or drive, or shoot, or sledge, just as I fancied. 
 And though I was cautious to show that my personal pi'e- 
 tensions were of the very humblest, this fact seemed no 
 barrier whatever to my enjoyment of all these courteous 
 civilities. 
 
 " We're always glad when any one will ride the 
 j tickers," said a Jager to me ; " they are ruined for want 
 of exercise, and, if you like three mounts a day, you shall 
 have them." 
 
 It was a rare piece of good luck for me that I could 
 both ride and shoot. No two accomplishments could have 
 stood me in such request as these, and I rose immensely 
 
 M
 
 162 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 in the esteem of those fimongst whom I sat at table when 
 they saw that I could sit a back-jumper and shoot a wood- 
 pigeon on the wing. 
 
 While I thus won such humble suflFrages, there was a 
 higher applause that my heart craved and longed for. As 
 the company — some five-and-twenty or thirty persons — 
 who dined at the upper table withdrew after dinner, they 
 passed into the drawing-rooms, and we saw them no more. 
 Of the music and dancing, in which they passed the 
 evening, we knew nothing ; and we, in our own way, had 
 our revels, which certainly amply contented those who 
 had no pretensions to higher company ; but this was 
 precisely what I could not, do what I might, divest 
 myself of. Like one of the chai^acters of my old favourite 
 BaJzac, I yearned to be once more in the salon, and 
 amongst ces epaules Handles, where the whole game 
 of life is finer, where the parries are neater, and the 
 thrusts more deadly. 
 
 An accident gave me what all my ingenuity could not 
 have effected. A groom of the chambers came suddenly 
 one evening into the hall where we all sat to ask if any 
 one there could play the new csardas called the " Stephan." 
 It was all the rage at Pesth ; but no copy of it had yet 
 reached the far East. I had learned this while at Pesth, 
 and had the music with me : and, of course, offered my 
 services at once. Scarcely permitted a moment to make 
 some slight change of dress, I found myself in a hand- 
 some salon with a numerous company. In my first con- 
 fusion I could mark little beyond the fact that most of 
 the persons were in the national costume, the ladies 
 wearing the laced bodies, covered with precious stones, 
 and the men in velvet coats, with massive turquoise 
 buttons, the whole effect being something like that of a 
 splendid scene in a theatre. 
 
 " We are going to avail ourselves of your talent at the 
 piano, sir," said the Countess Hunyadi, approaching me 
 withacouvteous smile. "But letmefirst offer you some tea." 
 
 Not knowing if fortune might ever repeat her present 
 favour, I resolved to profit by the opportunity to the 
 utmost ; and while cautiously repressing all display, con- 
 trived to show that I was master of some three or four 
 languages, and a person of education generally.
 
 SCHLOSS HUNYADI. 163 
 
 "We are puzzled about your nationality, sir," said tlie 
 Countess to me. " If not too great a liberty, may I ask 
 your country?" 
 
 When I said England, the effect produced was almost 
 magical. A little murmur of something I might even 
 call applause ran through the room ; for I had mentioned 
 th(! land of all Europe dearest to the Hungarian heart, and 
 I heard, " An Englishman ! an Englishman ! " repeated 
 from mouth to mouth, in accents of kindest meaning. 
 
 " Why had I not presented myself before ? Why had 
 I not sent my name to the Countess ? Why not have 
 made it known that I was here ? " and so on, were asked 
 eagerly of me, as though my mere nationality had invested 
 ine with some special claim to attention and regard. 
 
 I had to own that my visit was a purely business one ; 
 that I had come to see and confer with the Count ; and 
 had not the very slightest pretension to expect the cour- 
 tesies I was then receiving. 
 
 My performance at the piano crowned my success. I 
 played the aardas with such spirit as an impassioned 
 dancer alone can give to the measure he delights in, and 
 two enthusiastic encores rewarded my triumph. " Adolf, 
 you must play now, for I know the Englishman is dying 
 to have a dance," said the gay young Countess Palfi : 
 " and I am quite ready to be his partner." And the next 
 moment we were whirling along in all the mad mazes of 
 the csardas. 
 
 There is that amount of display in the dancing of the 
 csardas that not merely invites criticism, but actually 
 compels an outspoken a.dmiration whenever anything like 
 excellence accompanies the performance. My partner 
 was celebrated for the grace and beauty of her dancing, 
 and for those innumerable interpolations which, fancy or 
 caprice suggesting, she could throw into the measure. 
 To meet and respond to these by appropriate gesture, to 
 catch the spirit of each mood, and be ready for each 
 change, was the task now assigned me; and I need not 
 say with what passionate ardour 1 threw myself into it. 
 At one moment she would advance in proud defiance; 
 and as I fell back in timid homage, she would turn and 
 fly off in the wild transport of a waltz movement. Then 
 it was mine to pursue and overtake her ; and, clasping 
 
 ?i 2
 
 164 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S. 
 
 her, whirl away, till suddenly, with a bound, she would 
 free herself, again to dramatize some passing emotion, 
 some mood of deep dejection, or of mad and exuberant 
 delight. It was clear that she was bent on trying the 
 resoui'ces of my ingenuity to the very last limit ; and the 
 loud plaudits that greeted my successes had evidently put 
 her pride on the mettle. I saw this, and saw, as I thought, 
 that the contest had begun to pique ; so, taking the next 
 opportunity she gave me to touch her hand, I dropped on 
 one knee, and kissing her fingers, declared myself van- 
 quished. 
 
 A deafening cheer greeted this finale, and accompanied 
 us as I led my partner to her seat. 
 
 It is a fortunate thing for young natures that there is 
 no amount of praise, no quantity of flattery, ever palls 
 upon tbem. Their moral digestion is as great as their 
 physical ; and even gluttony does not seem to hurt them. 
 Of all the flattering speeches made me on my performance, 
 none were more cordially uttered than by my beautiful 
 partner, who declared that if I had but the Hungarian 
 costume — where the clink of the spur and the jingle of 
 the hussar equipment blend with the time — my csardas 
 was perfection. 
 
 Over and over again were regrets uttered that the 
 Empress, who had seen the dance at Pesth done by timid 
 and unimpassioned dancers, and who had, in consequence, 
 carried away but a faint idea of its real captivation, could 
 have witnessed our performance ; and some even began to 
 plot how such a representation could be prepared for her 
 Majesty's next visit to Hungary. While they thus talked, 
 supper was announced ; and as the company were marshal- 
 ing themselves into the order to move forward, I took the 
 opportunity to slip away unnoticed to my room, well 
 remembering that my presence there was the result of 
 aceident, and that nothing but a generous courtesy could 
 regard me as a guest. 
 
 I had not been many minutes in my room when I 
 heard a footstep in the corridor. I turned the key in my 
 lock, and put out my light. 
 
 " Herr Englander ! Herr Englauder !" cried a servant's 
 voice, as a sharp knocking shook the door. I made no 
 reply, and ho retreated.
 
 BCHLOSS HUNYADI. 165 
 
 It was clear to me that an invitation had been sent 
 after me ; and this thought filled the measure of my self- 
 gratulation, and I drew nigh my fire, to sit and weave the 
 pleasantest fancies that had crossed my mind for many a 
 long da}-. 
 
 I waited for some time, sitting by the fire-light, and 
 then relit my lamp. I had a long letter to write to 
 Mdlle. Sara ; for up to then I had said nothing of my 
 arrival, nor given any account of the Schloss Hunyadi. 
 
 Had my task been simply to record my life and my 
 impressions of those around me at Hunyadi, nothing 
 could well have been much easier. My few days there 
 had been actually crammed with those small and pleasant 
 incidents which tell well in gossiping correspondence. It 
 was all, too, so strange, so novel, so picturesque, that, to 
 make an effective tableau of such a life, was merely to 
 draw on memory. 
 
 There was a barbai-ic grandeur, on the whole, in the 
 vast building ; its crowds of followers, its hordes of 
 retainers who came and went, apparently at no bidding 
 but their own ; in the ceaseless tide of travellers who, 
 hospited for the night, went their way on the morrow, 
 no more impressed by the hospitality, to all seeming, 
 than by a thing they had their own valid right to. 
 Details there were of neglect and savagery, that even an 
 bumble household might have been ashamed of, but these 
 were lost — submerged as it were — in that ocean of 
 boundless extravagance and cost, and speedilv lost sight 
 of. 
 
 It was now my task to tell Sai'a all this, coloured by 
 the light, a warm light, too, of my own enjoyment of it. 
 I pictured the place as I saw it on the night I came, 
 and told how I could not imagine for a while in what 
 wild region I found myself; I narrated the way in which 
 I was assigned my place in this strange world, with 
 Ober-jagers and Unter-jagers for my friends, who mounted 
 me and often accompanied me in my rides ; how I had 
 seen the vast territories from hill-tops and eminences 
 which pertained to the great Count, boundless plains that 
 in summer would have been waving with yellow corn, and 
 far-stretching woods of oak or pine lost in the long dis- 
 tance : and, last of all, coming down to the very moment
 
 166 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTT's. 
 
 I was writing, I related the incident by which I had been 
 promoted to the society of the castle, and how I had 
 passed my first evening. 
 
 My pen ran rapidly along as I told of the splendours 
 and magnificence of the scene, and of a company whose 
 brilliant costume filled up the measure of the enchant- 
 ment. " They pass and repass before me, in all their 
 gorgeous bravery, as I write ; the air vibrates with the 
 music, and unconsciously my foot keeps time with the 
 measure of that csardas, that spins and whirls before 
 me till my brain I'eels with a mad intoxication." 
 
 It was only when ,1 read over what I had written, 
 that I became aware of the questionable taste of recording 
 these things to one who perhaps was to read them after a 
 day of heavy toil, or a sleepless night of watching. What 
 will she think of me, thought I, if it be thus I seem to 
 discharge the weighty trust confided to me ? Was it to 
 mingle in such revelries I came here, or will she deem 
 that these follies are the fitting prelude to a grave and 
 difficult negotiation? For a moment I had half deter- 
 mined to throw my letter in the fire, and limit myself 
 simply to saying that I had arrived, and was awaiting the 
 Count's return ! but my pride, or leather my vanity, carried 
 the day ; I could not repi'ess the delight I felt to be in a 
 society I clung to by so many interesting ties, and to 
 show that here I was in my true element — here breathing 
 the air that was native to me. 
 
 "I am not to be supposed to forget," I wrote, " that it 
 was not for these pleasures you sent me here, for I bear 
 wel! in mind why I have come, and what I have to do. 
 Count Hunyadi is, however, absent, and will not return 
 before the end of the week, by which time I fully hope 
 that I shall have assured such a position here as will 
 mainly contribute to my ability to serve you. I pray you, 
 therefore, to read this letter by the light of the assurance I 
 now give, and though I may seem to lend myself too 
 easily to pleasure, to believe that no seductions of 
 amusement, no flatteries of my self-love shall turn me 
 from the devotion I owe you, and from the fidelity to 
 which I pledge my life." With this I closed my letter 
 and addressed it.
 
 167 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE SALON. 
 
 The morning after my csardas success, a valet in discreet 
 blaciv brought rae a message from the Countess that she 
 expected to see me at her table at dinner, and from him I 
 learned the names and rank of the persons I had met the 
 night before. They were all of that high noblesse which 
 in Hungary assumes a sort of family prestige, and by 
 frequent intermarriage really possesses many of the close 
 faniiliar interests of the family. Austrians, or indeed 
 Germans from any part, are rarely received in these 
 intimate gatherings, and I learned with some surprise 
 that the only strangers were an English " lord " and his 
 countess — so the man styled them — who wei'e then 
 amongst the guests. " The lord " was with the Count 
 on the shooting excursion ; my lady being confined to her 
 room by a heavy cold she had caught out sledging. 
 
 Shall I be misunderstood if I own that I Avas very 
 sorry to hear that an Englishman and a man of title was 
 amongst the company. Whatever favour foreigners 
 might extend to any small accomplishments I could lay 
 claim to, I well knew would not compensate in my 
 countryman's eyes for my want of station. In my 
 father's house I had often had occasion to remark that 
 while Englishmen freely admitted the advances of a 
 foreigner, and accepted his aquaintance with a courteous 
 readiness, with each other they maintained a cold and 
 studied reserve ; as though no difference of place or 
 circumstance was to obliterate that insular code which 
 defines class, and limits each man to the exact rank he 
 belongs to. 
 
 When they shall see, therefore, thought I, how my 
 titled countryman will treat me — the distance at which 
 he will hold me — and the measured firmness with which 
 he will repel — not my familiarities, for I should not dare 
 them' — but simply the ease of my manner — these foreigners
 
 168 THAT BOY OF NOKCOTt's. 
 
 will be driven to regard me as some ignoble upstart wlio 
 has no pretension whatever to be amongst them. I was 
 very unwilling to encounter this humiliation. It was true 
 I was not sailing under false colours. I had assumed no 
 pretensions from which I was now to retreat. I had nothing 
 to disown or disavow ; but still I was about to be the 
 willing guest of a society, to a place in which, in my own 
 country, I could not have the faintest pretension ; and it 
 was just possible that my countryman might bring this 
 fact before me. 
 
 He might do worse — he might question me as to who 
 and what I was ; nor was I very sure how my tact or my 
 temper might carry me through such an ordeal. 
 
 Would it not be wiser and better for me to avoid this 
 peril ? Should I not spare myself much mortification 
 and much needless pain ? Thus thinking, I resolved to 
 wait on the Countess at once, and explain frankly why I 
 felt obliged to decline the gracious courtesy she had 
 extended to me, and refuse an honour so full of pleasure 
 and of pride. 
 
 She was not alone as I entered — the Countess Palfi was 
 with her — and I scarcely knew how to approach my 
 theme in presence of a third person. With a bold effort, 
 however, I told what I had come for ; not very col- 
 lectedly, indeed, nor perhaps very intelligibly, but in such 
 a way as to convey that I had not courage to face what 
 might look at least like a false position, and was almost 
 sure to entail all the unpleasant relations of such. " In 
 fact, madam," said I, " I am nobody ; and in my country 
 men of rank never associate with nobodies, even by an 
 accident. My lord would not forgive you for throwing 
 him into such acquaintanceship, and I should never for- 
 give myself for having caused you the unpleasantness. I 
 don't imagine I have made my meaning very clear." 
 
 " You have certaialy made me very uncomfortable," 
 broke in Countess Hunyadi, thoughtfully. " I thought 
 that we Hungarians had rather strict notions on these 
 subjects, but these of your country leave them miles 
 behind." 
 
 " And are less reasonable besides," said the Palfi, " since 
 your nobility is being continually recruited from so rich a 
 bourgeoisie."
 
 THE SALON. 169 
 
 "At all events," cried the Countess, suddenly, " we are 
 here at Schloss Hunyadi, and I am its mistress. I invite 
 you to dine with me ; it remains for you to decide how 
 you treat my invitation." 
 
 " Put in that way, madam, I accept with deference," 
 and I bowed deeply and moved towards the door. The 
 ladies acknowledged my salute in silence, and I fancied 
 with coldness, and I retired. 
 
 I was evidently mistaken in attributing coldness io 
 their manner ; the ladies received me when I appeared at 
 dinner with a marked cordiality. I sat next Madame 
 Palfi, who talked to me like an old friend ; told me who 
 the various people at table were; and gave me great 
 pleasure by saying that I was sure to become a favourite 
 with Count Hunyadi, who delighted in gaiety, and 
 cherished all those that promoted it. Seeing what interest 
 I took in the ways of Hungarian life, she explained many 
 of the customs I saw around me, which, deriving from a 
 great antiquity, were doubtless soon destined to give way 
 before the advance of a higher civilization. I asked what 
 she knew of the English guests. It was nothing, or next 
 to nothing — Count Hunyadi had made their acquaintance 
 at Baden that summer, and invited them to pass their 
 Christmas with him. Countess Palfi had herself arrived 
 since they came, and had not seen them, for " my lord," as he 
 was generally called, had left at once to join the shooting 
 party ; and my lady had not appeared since the day after 
 her arrival. " I only know that she is a great beauty, 
 and of most charming manners. The men all rave of 
 her, so that we are half jealous already. We were expect- 
 ing to see her at dinner to-day, but we hear that she is 
 less well than yesterday." 
 
 '• Do you know their name?" 
 
 " 'No ; I believe I heard it — but I am not familiar with 
 English names, and it has escaped me ; but I will present 
 you by-and-by to Count George Szechenj'i, who was at 
 Baden when the Hunyadi met them — he'll tell you more 
 of them." 
 
 I assured her that my curiosity was most amply satisfied 
 already. It was a class in which I could not expect to 
 find an acquaintance, far less a friend. 
 
 *' There is something almost forced in this humility of
 
 170 THAT BOY OF NOECOTt's. 
 
 yours," cried she. " Are we to find out some fine morning 
 that you are a prince in disg'uise?" She laughed so 
 merrily at her own conceit that Madame Hunyadi asked 
 the cause of her mirth. 
 
 " I will tell you later on," said she. We soon after- 
 wards rose to go into the drawing-i-oora, and I saw as 
 they laughed together that she had told her what she said. 
 
 " Do j^ou know," said the Countess Hunyadi, approach- 
 ing rae, " I am half of Madame Palfi's mind, and I shall 
 never rest till you reveal your secret to us?" 
 
 I said something laughingly about ray incogiiifo being 
 the best coat in my wardrobe, and the matter dropped. 
 That night I sang several times, alone, and in duet, with 
 the Palfi, and was overwhelmed with flatteries of my 
 "fresh tenor voice," and my "admirable method." It was 
 something so new and strange to me to find myself the 
 centre of polite attentions, and of those warm praises 
 which consummate good breeding knows how to bestow 
 without outraging taste, that I found it hard to repress 
 the wild delight that possessed me. 
 
 If I had piqued their curiosity to find out who or what 
 I was, I had also stimulated my own ambition to astonish 
 them. 
 
 " He says he will ride out with me to-morrow, and 
 doesn't care if I give him a lively mount," said one, 
 speaking of me. 
 
 "And you mean to gratify him, George?" asked 
 another. 
 
 " He shall have the roan that hoisted you out of the 
 saddle with his hind quarters." 
 
 " Come, come, gentlemen, I'll not have my proie(je 
 injured to gratify your jealousies," said ]\Iadame Hunyadi ; 
 " he shall be my escort." 
 
 " If he rides as he plays billiards, you need not be much 
 alarmed about him. The fellow can do what he likes at 
 the cannon game." 
 
 "I'd give fifty Naps to know his historj'," cried 
 another. 
 
 I was playing chess as he said this, and turning my 
 head quietly around I said, " The secret is not worth half 
 the money, sir; and if it really interests you, you shall 
 have it for the asking."
 
 THE SALON. 171 
 
 He muttered out a mass of apologies and confused 
 excuses, to all the embarrassment of wliicli I left him. 
 most pitilessly, and the incident ended. I saw, however, 
 enough to perceive that if I had won the suffrages of the 
 ladies, the men of the party had conceived an undisguised 
 dislike of me, and openl}'- resented the favour shown me. 
 
 "What can you do with the foils, young gentleman?" 
 whispered Szechenyi to me, as he came near. 
 
 " Pretty much as I did with you at billiards, a while 
 ago," said I, insolently; for my blood was up, and I 
 burned to fix a quarrel somewhere. 
 
 " Shall we try ? " asked he, di^ily. 
 
 ** If you say without the buttons, I agree." 
 
 " Of course, I mean that." 
 
 I nodded, and he went on: 
 
 " Come down to the riding-school by the first light to- 
 morrow then, and I'll have all in readiness." 
 
 I gave another nod of assent, and moved awajr. I had 
 enough on my hands now, for, besides other engagements, 
 I had promised the Countess Palfi to ai'range a little 
 piece for private theatricals, and have it ready by the time 
 of Count Hnnyadi's return. So far from feeling oppi-essed 
 or overwhelmed by the multiplicity of these cares, they 
 stimulated me to a degree of excitement almost madden- 
 ing. Failure somewhere seemed inevitable, and, for the 
 life of me, I could not choose where it should be. As my 
 spirits rose, I threw off all the reserve I had worn before, 
 and talked away with an animation and boldness I 
 felt uncontrollable. I made calembourgs, and dashed off 
 impromptu verses at the piano, and when, culminating in 
 some impertinence by a witty picture of the persons 
 around me, I had convulsed the whole room v/ith laughter, 
 I sprang up, and saying good-night, disappeai"ed. 
 
 The roars of their laugJiter followed me ^ down the 
 corridor, nor did they cease to ring in my ears till I had 
 closed my door.
 
 172 THAT BOY OF NOROOTT'S. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING. 
 
 I COULD more easily record my sensations in the paroxysm 
 of a fever than recall how I passed that night. I am 
 aware that I wrote a long letter to my mother, and a 
 longer to Sara, both to be despatched in ease ill befell me 
 in my encounter. What I said to either, or how I said it, 
 I know not. 
 
 No moi'e can I explain why I put all my papers together 
 in such fashion that they could be thrown into the tire at 
 once, without leaving any, the slightest, clue to trace me 
 by. That secret, which I had aflfected to hold so cheaply, 
 did in reality possess some strange fascination for me, and 
 I desired to be a puzzle and an enigma even after I was 
 gone. 
 
 It wanted one short hour of dawn when I had finished ; 
 but I was still too much excited to sleep. I knew how 
 unfavourably I should come to the encounter before me 
 with jarred nerves and the weariness of a night's watch- 
 ing ; but it was too late now to help that ; too late, 
 besides, to speculate on what men would say of such a 
 causeless duel, brought on, as I could not conceal from 
 myself, by my hot temper. By the time I had taken my 
 cold bath my nerves became more braced, and I scarcely 
 felt a trace of fatigue or exhaustion. The grey morning 
 was just breaking as I stole quietly downstairs and issued 
 forth into the courtyard. A heavy fall of snow had 
 occurred in the night, and an unbroken expanse of billowy 
 whiteness spread out befoi'e me, save where, from a corner 
 of the court, some foot-tracks led towards the I'iding- 
 school. I saw, thei^efore, that I was not the first at the 
 tryst, and I hastened on in all speed. 
 
 Six or eight young men, closely muffled in furs, stood 
 at the door as I came up, and gravely uncovered to me. 
 They made way for me to pass in without speaking, and,
 
 AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING. 173 
 
 ■\vliile stamping the snow from my boots, I said something 
 about the cold of the morning, they muttered what might 
 mean assent or the reverse in a low half-sulky tone, that 
 certainly little invited to further remark. 
 
 For a few seconds they talked together in whispei's, and 
 then a tall ill-favoured fellow, with a deep scar from the 
 cheek-bone to the upper lip, came abruptly up to me. 
 
 "Look here, young fellow," said he. "I am to act as 
 your second, and though, of course, I'd like to know that 
 the man I handled was a gentleman, I do not ask you to 
 tell anything about yourself that you prefer to keep back. 
 I would only say that, if ugly consequences come of this 
 stupid business, the blame must fall upon you. Your 
 temper provoked it, is that not true?" 
 
 I nodded assent, and he went on. 
 
 " So far, all right. The next point is this. We are all 
 on honour that, Avhatever happens, not a word or a syllable 
 shall ever escape us. Do you agree to this ? " 
 
 " I agree," said I, calmly. 
 
 " Give mo your hand on it." 
 
 I gave him my hand, and as he held it in his own he 
 said — "On the faith of a gentleman, I will never reveal 
 to my last day what shall pass here this morning." 
 
 I repeated the words after him, and we moved on into 
 the school. 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 m 
 
 .* 
 
 * 
 
 # 
 
 * 
 
 I had drawn luy sofa in front of the fire, and stretching 
 myself on it, fell into a deep dreamless sleep. A night's 
 wakefulness, and the excitement I had gone through, had 
 so far worked upon me that I did not hear the opening of 
 my door, nor the tread of a heavy man as he came forward 
 and seated himself by the fire. It was only the cold touch 
 of his fingers on the wrist as he felt my pulse that at last 
 ai'oused me. 
 
 "Don't start — don't flurry yourself," said he, calmly, 
 to me. " I am the doctor. I have been to see the other, 
 and I promised to look in on you." 
 
 " How is he ? Is it serious ? " 
 
 "It will be a slow affair. It was an ugly thrust — all
 
 174 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 the dorsal muscles pierced ; but no internal miscliief 
 done." 
 
 "He will certainly recover then ? " 
 
 " There is no reason why he should not. But where is 
 this scratch of yours ? Let me see it." 
 
 " It is a nothing, doctor, — a mere nothing. Pray take 
 no trouble about it." 
 
 " But I must. I have pledged myself to examine your 
 wound ; and I must keep my word." 
 
 " Surely these gentlemen are scai'cely so very anxious 
 about me," said T, in some pique. " Not one of them 
 vouchsafed to see me safe home, though I had lost some 
 blood, and felt very faint." 
 
 " I did not say it was these gentlemen sent me here," 
 said he drily. 
 
 ''Then who else knew anything about this business ? " 
 
 "If you must know, then," said he, "it is the English 
 Countess who is staying here, and whom I have been 
 attending for the last week. How she came to hear of 
 this affair I cannot tell you, for I know it is a secret to the 
 rest of the house ; but she made me promise to come and 
 see you, and if there was nothing in your wound to forbid 
 it, to bring you over to her dressing-room, and present you 
 to her. And now let me look at the injury." 
 
 I took off my coat, and, bainng my arm, displayed a vexy 
 ugly thrust, which, entei'ing above the wrist, came out 
 between the two bones of the arm. 
 
 " Now I call this the worst of the two," said he, ex- 
 amining it. " Does it give you much oain ? " 
 
 " Some uneasiness ; nothing more. When may I soo 
 the Countess ? " asked I ; for an intense curiosity to meet 
 her had now possessed me. 
 
 " If you like, you may go at once ; not that I can 
 accompany you, for I am off for a distant visit ; but litT 
 rooms ai'e at the end of this corridor, and you enter by 
 the conservatory. Meanwhile I must bandage this arm in 
 Bomewhat better fashion than you have done." 
 
 While he was engaged in dressing my wound, he 
 rambled on about the reckless habits thnt made such ren- 
 contres possible. " Wo are in the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century here, with all its barbarisms," said he. 
 " These young fellows were vexed at seeing the notice
 
 AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING. 175 
 
 yon attracted ; and that was to their thinking canse 
 enough to send you off with a damaged lung, or a maimed 
 limb. It's all well, however, as long as Graf Hunyadi 
 does not hear of it. But if he should, he'll turn them out, 
 every man of them, for this treatment of an Englishman." 
 
 " Then we must take care, sir, that he does not hear of 
 it," said I, half fiercely, and as though addressing my 
 speech especially to himself. 
 
 " Not from me, certainly," said he. " My doctor's in- 
 stincts alwa3'S save me from such indiscretions." 
 
 " Is our Countess young, doctor? " asked I, half jocu- 
 larly. 
 
 " Young and pretty, though one might say, too, she has 
 been younger and prettier. If you dine below stairs to- 
 day, drink no wine, and get back to your sofa as soon as 
 you can after dinner." AVith this caution he left me. 
 
 A heavy packet of letters had arrived from Fiume, 
 containing, I surmised, some instructions for which I had 
 had written ; but seeing that the address was in the 
 cashier's handwriting, I felt no impatience to break the 
 seal. 
 
 I dressed myself with unusual care, though the pain of 
 my arm made the process a very slow one ; and at last set 
 out to pay my visit. I passed along the corridor, through 
 the conservatory, and found myself at a door, at which I 
 knocked twice. At last I turned the handle, and entered 
 a small but handsomely furnished drawing-i'oom, about 
 which books and newspapers lay scattered ; and a small 
 embroidery-frame near the fire showed whei'e she, who 
 was engaged with that task, had lately been seated. As 
 I bent down in some curiosity to examine a really clever 
 copy of an altar-piece of Albert Durer, a door gently 
 opened, and I heard the rustle of a silk dress. I had 
 not got time to look round when, with a cry she rushed 
 towards me, and clasped me in her arms. It was Madame 
 CI e rem on t ! 
 
 " My own dear, dear Digby ! " she cried, as she kissed 
 me over face and forehead, smoothing back my hair to 
 look at me, and then falling again on my neck. " I knew 
 it could be no other when I heard of you, darling; and 
 when they told me of your singing, I could have sworn it 
 was yourself."
 
 176 THAT BOY OF NOBCOTT's. 
 
 I tried to disengage myself from lier embrace, and 
 summoned what I could of sternness to repel her caresses. 
 She dropped at my feet, and, clasping my hands, implored 
 me, in accents broken with passion, to forgive her. To 
 see her who had once been all that a mother could have 
 been to me in tenderness and care, who watched the long 
 hours of the night beside my sick bed ; to see her there 
 before me, abject, self-accused, and yet entreating forgive- 
 ness, was more than I could bear. My nerves, besides, 
 had been already too tensely strung ; and I burst into a 
 passion of tears that totally overcame me. She sat with 
 her arm round me, and wept. 
 
 "With a wild hysterical rapidity she poured forth a sort 
 of excuse of her own conduct. She recalled all that I 
 had seen her suffer of insult and shame ; the daily out- 
 rages passed upon her ; the slights which no woman can 
 or ought to pardon. She spoke of her friendlessness, 
 her misery ; but, more than all, her consuming desire 
 to be avenged on the man who had degraded her. 
 " Your father, I knew, was the man to do me this 
 justice," she cried ; " he did not love me, nor did I love 
 him; but we both hated this wretch, and it seemed little 
 to me what became of me, if I could but compass his ruin." 
 
 I scarcely followed her. I bethought me of my poor 
 mother, for whom none had a thought, neither of the 
 wrongs done her, nor of the sufferings to which she was 
 so remorselessly consigned. 
 
 " You do not listen to me. You do not hear me," cried 
 slie, passionately; "and yet who has been your friend as 
 I liave P Who has implored your father to be just to- 
 wards you as I have done ? Who has hazarded her whole 
 future in maintaining your rights — who but I ? " In a 
 Avild rhapsody of mingled passion and appeal she went on 
 to show how Sir Roger insisted on presenting her every- 
 where as his wife. Even at courts she had been so pre- 
 sented, though all the terrible consequences of exposure 
 were sure to ring over the whole of Europe. The 
 personal danger of the step was a temptation too strong 
 to resist ; and the altercation and vindication that 
 must follow were ecstasy to him. He was pitting him- 
 self against the world, and he would back himself on the 
 ifjsue.
 
 AN UNLOOKED-FOK MEETING. 177 
 
 " And, here, where wc are now," cried I, "what is to 
 happen it" to-morrow some stranger should arrive from. 
 England who knows your story, and feels he owes it to 
 his host to proclaim it ? " 
 
 '•Is it not too clear what is to happen ?" shrieked she ; 
 " blood, more blood, — theirs or his, or both ! Just as hi; 
 struck a young prince at Baden with a glove across the 
 face, because he stared at me too rudely, and shot him 
 afterwards ; his dearest tie to me is the peril that attaches 
 to me. Do you not know him, Digby ? Do you not 
 know the insolent disdain with which he refuses to be 
 bound by what other men submit to ; and that when he 
 has said, ' I am ready to stake my life on it,' he believes 
 he has proved his conviction to be a just one ?" 
 
 Of my father's means, or what remained to him of 
 fortune, she knew nothing. They had often been reduced 
 to almost want, and at other times money would flow 
 freely in, to be wasted and lavished with that careless 
 munificence that no expei'iences of privation could ever 
 teach prudence. We now turned to speculate on what 
 would happen when he came back from this shooting'- 
 party ; how he would recognize me. 
 
 "I see," cried I : " you suspect he will disown me ? " 
 
 " ISTot that, dear Digby," said she, in some confusion ; 
 " but he may require — that is — he may wish you to con- 
 foruT to some plan, some procedure of his own." 
 
 " If this should involve the smallest infraction of what is 
 due to my mother, I'll refuse," said I, firmly, " and reject 
 as openly as he dares to make it." 
 
 " And are you ready to face what may follow ? " 
 
 " If you mean as regards myself, I am quite ready. My 
 father threw me off years ago, and lam better able to fight 
 the battle of life now than I was then. I ask nothing of 
 him — not even his name. If you speak of other conse- 
 quences — of what may ensue when his hosts shall learu 
 
 the fraud he has practised on them " It was only as 
 
 the fatal word fell from me that T felt how cruelly I had 
 spoken, and I stopped and took her hand in mine, saying, 
 " Do not be angry with me, dear friend, that I have spoken 
 a bitter word ; bear with me for Jicr sake, who has none to 
 befriend her but myself." 
 
 She made me no ans^yer, but looked out cold nnd stcru
 
 178 THAT BOY OF NOIlCOTx's. 
 
 iuto vacancy, lier pale features motionless, not a lino or 
 lineament betraying what was passing within her. 
 
 " Why remain here then to provoke a catastrophe ? " 
 cined she, suddenly. " If you have come for pleasure, 
 you see enough to he aware there is little more awaiting 
 you." 
 
 " I have not come for pleasure. I am here to confer 
 with Count Hunyadi on a matter of business." 
 
 " And will some paltry success in a little peddling con- 
 tract for the Count's wine, or his olives, or his Indian 
 corn, compensate you for the ruin you may bring on 
 your father ? Will it recompense you if his blood be 
 shed?" 
 
 There was a tone of defiant sarcasm in the way she 
 spoke these words that showed me, if I would not yield 
 to her persuasions, she would not hesitate to emplo}'" 
 other means of coercion. Perhaps she mistook the aston- 
 ishment my face expressed for teiTor ; for she went on : 
 " It would be well that you thought twice over it ere you 
 make your breach with your father irreparable. Remem- 
 ber, it is not a question of a passing sentimentality, or a 
 sympathy, it is the whole story of your life is at issue. If 
 you be anything, or anybody, or a nameless creature, with- 
 out belongings or kindred." 
 
 I sat for some minutes in deep thought. I was not sure 
 whether I understood her words, and that she meant to say 
 it lay entirely with my father to own or disown me, as he 
 pleased. She seemed delighted at my embarrassment, and 
 her voice rung out with its own clear triumpliant cadence, 
 as she said, " You begin at last to see how near the preci- 
 pice you have been straying." 
 
 "One moment, madam," cried I. "If my mother bo 
 Lady Norcott, Sir Roger cannot disown me ; not to say 
 that already, in an open court, he has maintained his right 
 over me and declared me his son." 
 
 "You are opening a question I will not touch, Digby," 
 said she, gravely — "your mother's marriage. I will only 
 say that the ablest lawyers your father has consulted pro- 
 nounce it more than questionable." 
 
 " And my father has then entertained the project of an 
 attempt to .break it." 
 
 ** This is not fair," cried she, eagerly ; " you lead me ou
 
 AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING. 179 
 
 from one admission to another till I find myself revealing 
 confidences to one who at any moment may avow him- 
 self my enemy." 
 
 I raised my eyes to her face, and she met my glance 
 with a look cold, stern, and impassive, as though she 
 would say, " Choose your path now, and accept me as 
 friend or foe." All the winning softness of her manner, 
 all those engaging coquetries of look and gesture, of which 
 none was more mistress, were gone, and another and a 
 very difi"erent nature had replaced them. 
 
 This, then, was one of those women all tenderness, and 
 softness, and fascination, but who behind this mask have 
 the fierce nature of the ^tigress. Could she be the same 
 I had seen so submissive under all the insolence of her 
 brutal husband, bearing his scoffs, and his sarcasms, with- 
 out a word of reply ? Was it that these cruelties had at 
 last evoked this stern spirit, and that another temperament 
 had been generated out of a nature broken down and de- 
 moralized by ill treatment ? 
 
 " Shall I tell you what I think you ought to do ? " asked 
 she, calmly. I nodded assent. " Sit down there, then," 
 continued she ; "and write these few lines to your father, 
 and let him have them before he returns here." 
 
 "First of all, I cannot write just now — I have had a 
 slight accident to my right arm." 
 
 " I know," said she, smiling dubiously. "You hurt it 
 in the riding-school ; but it's a mere nothing, is it not ?" 
 
 I made a gesture of assent, not altogether pleased the 
 while at the little sympathy she vouchsafed me, and the 
 insignificance she ascribed to my wound. 
 
 "Shall I write for you, then; you can sign it after- 
 wards ? " 
 
 " Let me first know what you would have me say." 
 
 " Dear father. — You always addressed him that way ? ** 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Dear father, — I have been here some days, awaiting 
 Count Hunyadi's return to transact some matters of 
 business with him, and have by a mere accident learned 
 that you are amongst his guests. As I do not know how, 
 to what extent, or in what capacity, it may be your 
 pleasure to recognize me, or whether it might not chime 
 better with your convenience to ignore me altogether, I 
 
 N 2,
 
 180 THAT BOY OP NOECOTt's* 
 
 write now to submit myself entirely to your will and 
 guidance, being- in tliis, as in all things, j'our dutiful and 
 obedient sou." 
 
 The words came from her pen as rapidly as her fingers 
 could move across the jaaper ; and, as she finished, she 
 pushed it towards me, saying : 
 
 " There — put ' Digby Norcott ' there, and it is all done ! " 
 
 "This is a matter to think over," said I, gravely. "I 
 may be compi'omising other interests than my own by 
 signing this.'' 
 
 " Those Jews of yours have imbued you well with their 
 cautious spirit, I see," said she scoffingly. 
 
 " They have taught me no lessons I am ashamed of, 
 madam," said I, reddening with angei*. 
 
 " I declare I don't know j-ou as the Digby of long ago ! 
 I fancied I did, when I heard those ladies coming uyjstairs 
 each night, so charmed with all your graceful gifts, and 
 so eloquent over all your fascinations ; and now, as you 
 stand there, word-splitting, and phrase-weighing, canvass- 
 ing what it might cost you to do this, or where it would 
 lead you to say that, I ask myself, is this the boy of 
 whom his father said, — " Above all things he shall be a 
 gentleman ? " 
 
 " To one element of that character, madam, I will try 
 and preserve my claim — no provocation shall drive me to 
 utter a rudeness to a lady." 
 
 " This is less breeding than calculation, young gentle- 
 man. I read such natures as yours as easily as a printed 
 book." 
 
 " I ask nothing better, madam ; my only fear would be 
 that you should mistake me, and imagine that any 
 deference to my father's views would make me forget my 
 mother's rights." 
 
 " So then," cried she with a mocking laugh, "you have 
 got your courage up so far — you dare me! Be advised, 
 however, and do not court such an unequal contest. I 
 have but to choose in whi'-h of a score of ways I could 
 crush you — do you mark me ? crush you ! You will not 
 always be as lucky as you were this morning in the riding- 
 school." 
 
 "Great heaven!" cried I, "was this then of your 
 devifcing ? "
 
 AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING. • 181 
 
 " You begin to have a glimpse of whom you have to 
 deal with ? Go back to your room and reflect on that 
 knowledge, and if it end in persuading you to quit this 
 place at once, and never return to it, it will be a wise 
 resolve." 
 
 I was too much occupied with the terrible fact that she 
 had already conspired against my life to heed her words 
 of counsel, and I stood there stunned and confused. 
 
 In the look of scorn and hate she threw on me, she 
 seemed to exult over my forlorn and bewildered con- 
 dition. 
 
 "I scarcely think there is any need to prolong this 
 interview," said she, at last, with an easy smile ; " each of 
 us is by this time aware of the kindly sentiments of the 
 other ; is it not so ? " 
 
 " I am going, madam," I stammered out ; " good-bye." 
 
 She made a slight movement, as I thought, towards me ; 
 but it was in reality the jorelude to a deep curtsey, while 
 in her sweetest of accents she whispered, " Aio revoir. 
 Monsieur Digby, au revoir.^^ I bowed deeply and with- 
 drew. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 HASTy TIDINGS. 
 
 Of all the revulsions of feeling that can befall the heart, 
 I know of none to compare in poignant agony with the 
 sudden consciousness that you are hated where once you 
 were loved ; that where once you had turned for conso- 
 lation or sympath}^ you have now nothing to expect but 
 coldness and distrust ; that the treasure of atiection on 
 which you have counted against the day of adversity had 
 proved bankrupt, and nothing remained of all its bright 
 hopes and promises but bitter regrets and sorrowful 
 repinings. 
 
 It was in the very last depth of this spirit I now locked 
 myself in my room to determine what I sliould do, by
 
 182 THAT BOY OP NORCOTt's. 
 
 wliat course I should shape my future. I saw the stake 
 for which Madame Cleremont was playing. She had 
 resolved that my mother's marriage should be broken, 
 and she herself declared Lady JSorcott. That my father 
 might be brought to accede to such a plan was by no 
 means improbable. Its extravagance and its enormity 
 would have been great inducements, had he no other 
 interest in the matter. 
 
 I began to canvass with myself how persons poor and 
 friendless could possibly meet the legal battle which this 
 question should originate, and how my mother, in her 
 destitution and poverty, could contend against the force 
 of the wealth that would be opposed to her. It had only 
 been by the united efforts of her relatives and friends, all 
 eager to support her in such a cause, that she had been 
 enabled to face the expenses of the suit my father had 
 brought on the question of my guardianship. How could 
 she again sustain a like charge ? Was it likely that her 
 present condition would enable her to fee leaders on 
 circuit and bar magnates, to pay the costs of witnesses, 
 and all the endless outgoings of the law ? 
 
 So long as I lived, I well knew my poor mother would 
 compromise none of the rights that pertained to me ; but 
 if I could be got rid of — and the event of the morning 
 shot through my mind — some arrangement with her 
 might not be impossible — at least, it was open to them 
 to think so ; and I could well imagine that they would 
 build on such a foundation. It was not easy to imagine 
 a woman like Madame Cleremont, a person of the most 
 attractive manners, beautiful, gifted, and graceful, capable 
 of a great crime; but she herself had shown me more 
 than once in fiction the portraiture of an individual, who, 
 while shrinking with horror from the coarse contact of 
 guilt, would Avillingly set the springs in motion which 
 ultimately conduce to the most appalling disasters. I 
 remember even her saying to me one day, — " It is in 
 watching the terrible explosions their schemes have ignited, 
 that cowards learn to taste what they fancy to be the 
 ecstasy of courage." 
 
 While I thought what a sorry adversary I should prove 
 against such a woman, with all the wiles of her nature, 
 and all the seductions by which she could display them.
 
 HASTY TIDINGS. 183 
 
 my eyos fell upon tlie packet from Fiume, wln'ch still lay 
 Avitli its seal unbroken. I broke it open halt' carelessly. 
 It contained an envelope marked "letters," and the follow- 
 ing note : — 
 
 " Herr Owen, — 
 
 " With this you are infoi'med that the house of 
 Hodnig and Oppovicli has failed, dockets of bankruptcy 
 having been yesterday declared against that firm ; the 
 usual assignees will be duly appointed by the court to 
 liquidate, on such terms as the estate permits. Present 
 liabilities are currently stated as below eight millions of 
 florins. Actual property will not meet half that sum, 
 
 " Further negotiations regarding the Hunyadi contract 
 on your part are consequently unnecessary, seeing that the 
 most favourable conditions you could obtain would in 
 nowise avert or even lessen the blow that has fallen on the 
 house. 
 
 " I am directed to enclose you by bill the sum of two 
 hundred and eighteen florins, twenty-seven kreutzers, 
 which, at the current exchange, will pay your salary to 
 the end of the present quarter, and also to state that, 
 having duly acknowledged the receipt of this sum to me 
 by letter, you are to consider yourself free of all engage- 
 ment to the house. I am also instructed to say that your 
 ZL-al and probity will be duly attested when any reference 
 is addressed to the managers of this estate. 
 
 " I am, with accustomed esteem and respect, 
 
 " Your devoted servant, 
 
 " Jacob Uleich. 
 
 "P.S. — Herr Ignaz is, happily for him, in a condition 
 that renders him unconscious of his calamity. The family 
 has retired for the present to the small cottage near the 
 gate of the Abazzia Villa, called ' Die Hutte,' but desires 
 complete privacy, and declines all condolences. — J. U. 
 
 " 2nd P.S. — The enclosed letters have arrived here 
 during your absence." 
 
 So intensely imbued was my mind with suspicion and 
 distrust, that it was not till after long and careful ex-
 
 184 THAT BOY OF NOLCOTt's. 
 
 amination I satisfied myself that this letter was genuine, 
 and that its contents might be taken as true. The packet 
 it enclosed would, however, have resolved all doubt ; they 
 were three letters from my dear mother. Frequent re- 
 ference was made to other letters which had never reached 
 me, and in which it was clear the mode in which she 
 had learned my address was explained. She also spoke of 
 Sara as of one she knew by correspondence, and gave me 
 to understand how she was following every little humble 
 incident of my daily life with loving interest and affection. 
 She enjoined me by all means to devote myself heartily 
 and wholly to those who had befriended me so generously, 
 and to merit the esteem of that good girl, who, caring 
 nothing for herself, gave her heart and soul to the service 
 of her father. 
 
 " I have told you so much," said she, " of myself in 
 former letters " (these I never saw) " that I shall not 
 weary you with. more. You know why I gave up the 
 school, and through what reasonings I consented to call 
 myself Lady Norcott, though in such poverty as mine 
 the assumption of a title only pi'ovoked ridicule. Mr. 
 McBride, however, persuaded me that a voluntary sur- 
 render of my position might be made terrible use of 
 against me, should — what I cannot believe — the attempt 
 ever be made to question the legality of my marriage with 
 your father. 
 
 " It has been so constantly repeated, however, that Sir 
 Eoger means to marry this lady — some say they are already 
 married — that I have had careful abstracts made of the 
 registry, and every detail duly certified which can establish 
 your legitimacy — not that I can bring myself to believe 
 your father would ever raise that question. Strangely 
 enough, my allowance, left unpaid for several years, was 
 lately resumed, and Foster and AVall received orders to 
 acknowledge my drafts on them, for what, 1 concluded, 
 were meant to cover all the arrears due. As I had already 
 tided over these years of trial and pressure, I refused all 
 save the sum due for the current year, and begged to 
 learn Sir Roger's address that I might write to him. ♦To 
 this they replied * that they had no information to give 
 me on the subject; that their instructions, as regarded 
 payments to me, came to them from the house of Eodiger,
 
 HASTY TIDINGS. 185 
 
 ill Frankfort, and in the manner and terms already com- 
 municated to me,' — all showing me that the whole was a 
 matter of business, into which no sentiment was to enter, 
 or be deemed capable of entering." 
 
 It was about this period my mother came to learn 
 my address, and she avowed that all other thoughts and 
 cares were speedily lost in the whirlpool of joy these 
 tidings swept around her. Her eagerness to see me 
 grew intense, but was tempered by the fear lest her 
 selfish anxiety might prejudice me in that esteem I had 
 already won from my employers, of whom, strangely 
 enough, she spoke freely and familiarly, as though, she 
 had known them. 
 
 The whole tone of these letters — and I read them over 
 and over — calmed and reassured me. Full of personal 
 details, they were never selfish in its unpleasant sense. 
 They often spoke of poverty, but rather as a thing to be 
 baffled by good-humoured contrivance or rendered endur- 
 able by habit than as matter for complaint and bewail- 
 ment. Little dashes of liglit-lieartedness would now 
 and then break the dark sombreness of the picture, and 
 show how her spirit was yet alive to life and its enjoy- 
 ments. Above all, there was no croaking, no fore- 
 boding. She had lived through some years of trial 
 and sorrow, and if the future had others as gloomy in 
 store it was time enough wlien they came to meet their 
 exigencies. 
 
 What a blessing was it to me to get these at such a 
 time ! I no longer felt myself alone and isolated in the 
 world. There was, I now knew, a bank of affection at 
 my disposal at which I could draw at will ; and what an 
 object lor my imitation was that fine courage of hers, 
 that took defeats as mere passing shadows, and was 
 satisfied to fight on to the end, ever hopeful and ever brave. 
 
 How I would have liked to return to j\radame Clcre- 
 mont, and read her some passages of these letters, and 
 said, "And this is the woman you seek to dethrone, 
 and whose place you would fill ! This is she whose 
 rival you aspire to be. What think you of the contest 
 now ? Which of you should prove the winner ? Is it 
 with a nature like this vou would like to measure your- 
 self?"
 
 186 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT's. 
 
 How I would have liked to have dared lier to snch a 
 combat, and boldly declared that I would make my lather 
 himself the umpire as to the worthier. As to her hate 
 or her vengeance she had as much as promised me both, 
 but I defied them ; and I believed I even consulted my 
 safety by open defiance. As 1 thus stimulated myself 
 v/ith passionate counsels, and burned with eagerness for 
 the moment I might avow them, I flung open my 
 window for fresh air, for my excitement had risen to 
 actual fever. 
 
 It was very dark without. ISight had set in about 
 two hours, but no stars had yet shone out, and a thick 
 impenetrable blackness pervaded everywhere. Some 
 peasants were shovelling the snow in the court beneath, 
 making a track from the gate to the house-door, and here 
 and there a dimly burning lanteim attached to a pole 
 would show where the work was being carried out. As it 
 was about the time of the evening when travellers were 
 wont to arrive the labour was pressed briskly forward, 
 and I could hear an overseer's voice urging the men to 
 increased zeal and activity. 
 
 " There has been a snow-mountain fallen at Miklos, 
 they say," cried one, " and none can pass the road for 
 many a day." 
 
 " If they cannot come from Posth, they can come from 
 Hermanstadt, from Temesvar, from Klausenberg. Guests 
 can come from any quarter," cried the overseer. 
 
 I listened with amusement to the discussion that fol- 
 lowed ; the various sentiments they uttered as to whether 
 this system of open hospitality raised the character of a 
 country, or was not a heavy mulct out of the riglits which 
 the local poor possessed on the properties of their rich 
 neighbours. 
 
 " Every flask of Tokayer drunk at the upper table," 
 cried one, " is an eimer of Mediasch lost to the poor 
 man." 
 
 " That is the true way to look at it," cried another, 
 " We want neither Counts nor Tokayer." 
 
 " That was a Saxon dog barked there!" called out 
 the overseer. " No Hungarian ever reviled what his land 
 is most famed for." 
 
 " Here come travellers now," shouted one from the
 
 HASTY TIDINGS. 187 
 
 gate. " I heav horses at full speed on the Klauscnberg 
 road." 
 
 " Lanterns to the gate, and stand free of the road," 
 cried the overseer ; and now the scene became one of 
 striking excitement, as the lights flitted rapidly from 
 place to place : the great ai'ch of the gate being 
 accurately marked in outline, and the deep cleft in the 
 snow lined on either side by lanterns suspended between 
 posts. 
 
 "They're coming at a fui'ious pace," cried one; 
 " they've passed the toll-bridge at full gallop." 
 
 " Then it's the Count himself," chimed in another. 
 " There's none but he could force the toll-bar." 
 
 " It's a country waggon, with four juckers ; and here 
 it comes ;" and as he spoke four sweating horses swung 
 through the gateway, and came full speed into the 
 court, 
 
 "Where is Kitzlach? Call Kitzlach! call the doctor!" 
 screamed a voice from the waggon. " Tell him to come 
 down at once." 
 
 " Out with the juckers, and harness a fresh team," cried 
 the same voice. And now, as he descended from the 
 waggon, he was surrounded with eager figures, all anxious 
 to hear his tidings. As I could gather nothing from 
 where I was, I hastily threw on a fur coat, and made 
 my way down to the court. I soon learned the news. 
 A terrible disaster had befallen the hunting-party. A 
 she-boar, driven frantic by her wounds, had dashed suddenly 
 into the midst of them, slightly wounded the Count and 
 his head Jager, but dangerously one of the guests, who 
 had sustained a single combat with her and killed her ; 
 not, however, without grievous injury to himself, for a 
 large blood-vessel had been severed ; all the efforts to 
 staunch which had been but half successful. 
 
 "Have you your tourniquet, doctor ? " cried the youth 
 from a waggon, as the equipage was turned again to the 
 gate. 
 
 " Everything — everything." 
 
 "You'll want any quantity of lint and bandages: and, 
 remember, nothing can be had down yonder." 
 
 " Make your mind easy ! I've forgotten nothing. Jusfc 
 keep your beasts quiet till I get up."
 
 188 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 I drew nigh as lie was about to mount, and wliispered a 
 word in his ear. 
 
 " I don't know," said he, gruffly. " I can't see why you 
 should ask." 
 
 "Why don't you get up?" cried the youtlt, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " There's a young fellow here importuning me to ask 
 you for a place in the waggon. lie thinks he knows this 
 sti^anger." 
 
 '' Let him get in at once, then ; and let's have no more 
 delays." And scarcely had we scrambled to our places, 
 than the loud whip resounded with the quick, sharp 
 report of pistol-shots, and the beasts sj^iung out at 
 once, rushed through the narrow gateway, and were soon 
 stretching along at their topmost pace through impene- 
 trable blackness. 
 
 Crouching in the straw at the bottom of the waggon, I 
 crept as closely as I could to where the doctor was seated 
 beside the young man who drove. I was eager to hear 
 what I could of the incident that had befallen ; but, 
 to my great disappointment, they spoke in Hungarian, 
 and all I could gather, from certain dropping expressions, 
 was, that both the Count and his English friend had been 
 engaged in some rivalry of personal daring, and that the 
 calamity had come of this insane contest. " They'll never 
 say, 'Mad as a Hunyadi ' any longer up at Lees. They'll 
 say, ' Mad as an Englishman.' " 
 
 The young fellow spoke in wondrous admiration of the 
 Avoundcd man's courage and coolness, and described how he 
 had taught them to pass a light ligature round his thigh, 
 and tighten it further by inserting a stick to act as a 
 screw. "Up to that," said he, "he had been bleeding 
 like a tapped Wein-fass; and then be made them give 
 him hu'ge goblets of strong Bordeaux, to sustain him." 
 
 " He's a bold-hearted fellow then F " said the doctor. 
 
 " The Count declares he has never met his equal. They 
 were alone together when 1 started, for the Englishman 
 said he had something for the Count's own ear and begged 
 the othen; to withdraw," 
 
 " So he thought himself in danger? " 
 
 " That he did. 1 saw him myself take cff a large signet 
 ring and lay it on the table beside his watch, and he
 
 HASTY TlblNGS. 180 
 
 pointed them out to Huiiyadi as he ciirne in and said some- 
 thing in English ; but the Count rcyoined quickly, ' No, 
 no. It's not come to that yet.' " 
 
 While the}'- spoke slowly, 1 was able to gather, at least 
 the meaning of what passed between them, but I lost all 
 clue so soon as they talked eagerly and rapidly, so that, 
 confused by the unmeaning sounds, and made drowsy by 
 the fresh night-air, I at last fell ofi' into a heavy 
 sleep. 
 
 I was awakened by the noise of the wheels over a 
 paved street. I looked up, and saw, by the struggling 
 light of a breaking dawn, that we v.-ere in a village where 
 a number of people were awaiting us. "Have you brought 
 the doctor?" " AVhere is the doctor?" cried several 
 together ; and he was scarcely permitted to descend, so 
 eager were they to seize and carry him off. 
 
 A dense crowd was gathered before the door of a small 
 two-storied house, into which the doctor now disappeared ; 
 and I, mixing with the mass, tried as best I might to ask 
 how the wounded man was doing, and what hopes there 
 were of his life. While I thus went from one to another 
 vainly endeavouring to make my question intelligible, I 
 heard a loud voice cry out in German, " Where is the 
 young fellow who says he knows him ? " 
 
 " Here," cried I, boldly. " I believe I know him — I am 
 almost sure I do." 
 
 " Come to the door then, and look in ; do not utter a 
 word," cried a tall dark man, I soon knew to be Count 
 Hunyadi. "Mind, sir, for your life sake, that you don't 
 disturb him." 
 
 I crept on tiptoe to the slightly opened door, and looked 
 In. There, on a mattress on the floor, a tall man was 
 lying, while the doctor knelt beside him, and seemed to 
 press with all his weight on his thigh. The sick man 
 slowly turned his face to the light, and it was my father ! 
 my knees trembled, my sight grew dim — strength sud- 
 deidy forsook me, and I fell powerless and senseless to the 
 ground. 
 
 They were bathing my face and temples with vinegar 
 and water to rally me when the doctor came to say the 
 sick man desired to see me. In a moment the blood 
 rushed to my head, and I cried out, " I am ready."
 
 190 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 " Be calm, sir. A mere word, a gesture, may prove 
 fatal to him," whispered the doctor to me. "His life 
 hano;s on a thread." 
 
 Count Hun3-adi was kneeling beside my fathei", and 
 evidently trying to catcli some faint words he was saying, 
 as I stole forward and knelt down by the bedside. My 
 father turned his eyes slowly round till they fell upon 
 me — when their expression suddenly changed from the 
 look of weary apathy to a stare of full and steadfast 
 meaning — intense, indeed, in significance ; but I dare 
 not say that this conveyed anything like love or affection 
 for me. 
 
 " Come closer," cried he, in a hoarse whisper. " It 
 is Digby, is it not ? This boy is my son, Huuyadi," he 
 said, with an increased effort. " Give me your hand." 
 He took my trembling fingers in his cold moist hand, and 
 passed the large signet ring over my second finger. "He 
 is my heir. Gentlemen," he cried in a tone at once 
 haughty and broken by debility, " my name, my title, my 
 fortune all pass to hion. By to-morrow you will call him 
 Sir Digby " 
 
 He could not finish — his lips moved without a sound. 
 I was conscious of no more than being drawn heavily 
 across the floor, not utterly bereft of reason, but dulled 
 and stunned as if from the effect of a heavy blow. 
 
 When I was able I crept back to the room. It was 
 now the decline of day. A large white cavalry cloak 
 covered the body. I knelt down beside it, and cried with 
 a bursting heart till late into the night. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 IN SORROW. 
 
 Of what followed that night of mourning I remember 
 but snatches and brief glimpses. There is nothing more 
 positively torturing to the mind in sorrow than the way 
 in which the moro excitement of grief robs the intellect
 
 ""'™%x 
 
 *W„. , I! 
 
 
 
 ^1_
 
 IN SORROW. 191 
 
 of all power of perspective, and gives to the smallest, 
 meanest incidents the promineace and force of great 
 events. It is as though the jar given to the nervous 
 system had untuned us for the entire world, and all 
 things come amiss. I am sure, indeed, I know it would 
 have been impossible to have met more gentle and con- 
 siderate kindness than I now experienced on every hand, 
 and yet I lived in a sort of feverish irritability, as though 
 expecting each moment to have my position questioned, 
 and my right to be there disputed. 
 
 In obedience to the custom of the country, it was 
 necessary that the funeral should take place within forty- 
 eight hours after death, and though all the details had 
 been carefully looked to by the Count's orders, certain 
 questions still should be asked of me, and my leave 
 obtained for certain acts. 
 
 The small church of Hunyadi-Naglos was fixed on for 
 the last resting-place. It contained the graves of eight 
 generations of Hunyadis, and to accord a place amongst 
 them to a stranger and a Protestant was deemed a high 
 honour. Affliction seemed to have developed in me all 
 the pride of my race, for I can recall with what sullen 
 hauteur I heard of this concession, and rather took it as a 
 favour accorded than accepted. An overweening sense of 
 all that my father himself would have thought due to his 
 tnemoi-y was on me, and I tortured my mind to think that 
 no mark of honour he would have desired should be for- 
 gotten. As a soldier, he had a right to a soldier's funeral, 
 and a " Honved " battalion, with their band, received 
 orders to be present. For miles around the landed gentry 
 and nobles poured in, with hosts of followers. Next to a 
 death in battle, there was no such noble death as in the 
 hunting-field, and the splendid prowess of my father's 
 achievement had won him imperishable honour. 
 
 All was conducted as if for the funeral of a mag- 
 nate of Hung•ar3^ The titles and rank of the deceased 
 were proclaimed aloud as we entered the graveyard, and 
 each whose station entitled him to be thought a friend 
 came forward and kissed the pall as the body was borne 
 in. 
 
 One part of the ceremony overcame me altogether. 
 When the third round of musketry had rung out over the
 
 192 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT*S. 
 
 grave, a solemn pause of half a minule or so was to 
 ensue, then the band was to burst out with the first bars 
 of " God preserve the Emperor;" and while a wild 
 cheer arose, I was to spring into the saddle of my fatlier's 
 horse, which had been led close after the coffin, and to 
 join the cheer. This soldier declaration that death was 
 but a passing terror, revolted nie to the heart, and I over 
 and over asserted I could not do this. Thej would not 
 yield, however ; they regarded my reasons as childish 
 sentimentality, and half impugned my courage besides. 
 I do not know why T gave in, nor am I sure 1 ever did 
 yield ; but when the heavy smoke of the last round 
 slowly rose over the bier, I felt myself jerked up into the 
 saddle of a horse that plunged wildly and struck out 
 madly in affright. With a rider's instinct I held my seat, 
 and even managed the bounding animal with the hand of 
 a practised rider. Four fearful bounds I sat unshaken, 
 while the air rang with the hoarse cheer of some thousand 
 voices, and then a sickness like death itself gathered over 
 my heart — a sense of horror, of where I was and why, 
 came over me. My arms fell powerless to my sides, and 
 I rolled from the saddle and fell senseless and stunned to 
 the ground. 
 
 Without having received serious injury, I was too ill to 
 be removed from the little village of Naglos, where I was 
 confined to bed for ten days. The doctor remained with 
 me for some days, and came again and again to visit me 
 afterwards. The chief care of me, however, devolved on 
 my fatlier's valet, a smart young Swiss, whom I had diffi- 
 culty in believing not to be English, so perfectly did he 
 speak our language. 
 
 T soon saw this fellow was thoroughly conversant with 
 all my father's history, and, whether in his confidence or 
 not, knew everything that concerned him, and understood 
 Lis temperament and nature to perfection. There was 
 much adroitness in the way in which he showed me this, 
 without ever shocking my pride or offending my taste by 
 any disjDlay of a supposed influence. Of his consummate 
 tact I need give but one — a very sliglit instance, it is true, 
 but enough to denote the man. He, in addressing me as 
 Sir Digby, I'emarked how the sound of my newly acquired 
 title seemed to recall my father to my mind at once, and
 
 IN SOREOW. 193 
 
 ever after limited himself to saying simply " sir," which 
 attracted no attention from me. 
 
 Another instance of his address I must record also. I 
 had got my writing-desk on the bed, and was writing to 
 my mother, to whom I had already despatched two tele- 
 graphic messages, but as yet received no reply. " I beg 
 pardon, sir," said La Grange, entering in his usual noise- 
 less fashion ; " but I thought you would like to know that 
 my lady has left Schloss Hunyadi. She took her departure 
 last night for Pesth." 
 
 "Tou mean ?" I faltered, not really knowing what 
 
 I would say. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said he, thoroughly aware of what was 
 passing in my mind. " She admitted no one, not even 
 the doctor, and started at last with only a few words of 
 adieu in writing for the Countess." 
 
 " What impression has this left ? How are they speak- 
 ing of her? " asked I, blurting out against my will what 
 was working within me. 
 
 " I believe, sir," said he, with a very faint smile, " they 
 lay it all to English ways and habits. At least I have 
 heard no other comments than such as would apply to 
 these." 
 
 " Be sure that you give rise to no others," said I, 
 sternly. 
 
 " Of course not, sir. It would be highly unbecoming 
 in me to do so." 
 
 " And greatly to your disservice besides," added I, 
 severely. 
 
 He bowed in acquiescence, and said no more. 
 
 *' How long have you served my father, La Grange ? " 
 asked I. 
 
 "About two years, sir. I succeeded Mr. Nixon, sir, 
 who often spoke of you." 
 
 " Ah, I remember Nixon. What became of him ? " 
 
 " He set up the Hotel Victoria at Spa, sir. You know, 
 sir, that he married, and married very well too?" 
 
 " No, I never heard of it," said I, carelessly. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; he married Delorme's daughter, la belle 
 Pauline they used to call her at Brussels." 
 
 " What, Pauline Delorme ? " said I, growing crimson 
 with I know not what feeling. 
 
 O
 
 194 THAT EOY OF NOKCOTt's. 
 
 " Yes, sir, the same ; and she's the size of old Pierre, 
 her father, already ; not but she's handsome still — but such 
 a monster ! " 
 
 I cannot say with what delight I heard of her disfigure- 
 ment. It was a malice that warmed my heart like some 
 good news. 
 
 " It was Sir Roger, sir, that made the match." 
 
 " How could that be ? What could he care about it ?" 
 
 " Well, sir, he certainly gave Nixon five hundred pounds 
 to go and propose for her, and promise old Pierre his 
 patronage, if he agreed to it." 
 
 " Are you sure of this ? " asked I, eagerly. 
 
 "Nixon himself told me, sir. I remember he said, ' I 
 haven't much time to lose about it, for the tutor, Mr. 
 Eccles, is quite ready to take her, on the same terms, and 
 Sir Roger doesn't care which of us it is.' " 
 
 " Nor the lady either, apparently," said I, half angrily. 
 
 " Of course not. Pauline was too well brought up for 
 that." 
 
 I was not going to discuss this point of ethics with Mr. 
 La Grrange, and soon fell off into a vein of reflection over 
 early loves, and what they led to, which took me at last 
 miles away from Pauline Delorme, and her fascinations. 
 
 I would have liked much to learn what sort of a life 
 my father had led of late : whether he had plunged into 
 habits of dissipation and excess ; or whether any feeling 
 of remorse had weighed with him, and that he sorrowed 
 over the misery and the sorrow he had so recklessly shed 
 around him ; but I shrunk from quesliouing a servant ou 
 such matters, and merely asked as to his habitual spirits 
 and temper. 
 
 " Sir Roger was unlike every other gentleman I ever 
 lived with, sir," said he. " He was never in high spirits 
 except when he was hard up for money. Put him down 
 in a little country inn to wait for his remittances, and live 
 on a few francs a day till they arrived, and I never saw 
 his equal for good humour. He'd play Avitli the children ; 
 he'd work in the gax'den. I've seen him harness the 
 donkey, and go off for a load of firewood. There's nothing 
 he would not do to oblige, and with a kind word and a 
 smile for every one all the while ; but if some morning 
 he'd get up with a dark frown on his face, and say, ' La
 
 IN SOBEOW. 195 
 
 Grange, get in your bills here, and pay them; we must 
 get away from this dog-hole ; ' I knew well the banker's 
 letter had come, and that whatever he might want, it 
 would not be money." 
 
 "And had my lady, — madame, I mean, — no influence 
 over him ? " 
 
 " None, sir, or next to none ; he was all cei'emony with 
 her ; took her in to dinner every day with great state, 
 showed her every attention at table, left her at liberty to 
 spend what money she liked. If she fancied an equipage, 
 it was ordex'ed at once. If she liked a bracelet, it was 
 sent home. As to toilette, I believe there are queens have 
 not as many di'esses to change. We had two fourgons of 
 her luggage alone, when we came to the Schloss, and she 
 was always saying there was something she was longing 
 for." 
 
 " Did not this irritate my father ? " 
 
 "No, sir: he would simply say, ' Don't wish, but write 
 for it.' And I verily believe this indifi'erence piqued her — 
 she saw that no sacrifice of money cost him anything, and 
 this thought wounded her pride." 
 
 " So that there was not much happiness between 
 them?" 
 
 " Thei'e was none, sir ! Something there was that Sir 
 Roger would never consent to, but which she never ceased 
 to insist on, and I often wondered how she could go on, to 
 press a man of his dangerous temper, as she did, and at 
 times she would do so to the very verge of a provocation. 
 Do you know sir," said he, after a short silence — " if I was 
 to be on my oath to-morrow, I'd not say that he was not 
 seeking his death when he met it? I never saw a man 
 so sick of life — he was only puzzled how to lay it down 
 without dishonour." 
 
 I motioned him to leave me as he said this, and of my 
 father I never spoke to him more. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THAT BOY OF NORCOTT S, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Two telegrams came from my mother. They were little 
 other than repetitions. She had been ill, and was im- 
 patient to see me. In the last, she added that she would 
 shorten ^the distance between us by coming to Dublin 
 to meet me. I was to enquire for her at " Elridge's 
 Hotel." 
 
 I was no less eager to be with her; but there were 
 many matters of detail which still delayed me. First of 
 all, all my father's papers and eflfects were at Schloss 
 Hunyadi, and some of these were all-essential to me. 
 On arriving at the Castle, a sealed packet addressed Sir 
 Digby Norcott, Bart., in Madame Cleremout's hand, was 
 given me. On opening, I found it contained a bunch of 
 keys, without one word of any kind. It was an unspeak- 
 able relief to me to discover that she had not sent me 
 either her condolences or her threats, and I could scarcely 
 reassure myself that we had parted thus easily. 
 
 My father's personal luggage might have sufficed for 
 half-a-dozen people. Not only did he carry about a 
 quantity of clothes that no ordinary life could have re- 
 quired, but that he journeyed with every imaginable kind 
 of weapon, together with saddlery and horse-gear of all 
 fashions and shapes. Fishing-tackle and hunting-spears 
 abounded; and lassos of Mexican make seemed to show 
 that he had intended to have carried his experiences to the 
 great Savannahs of the West. 
 
 From what I had seen of him, I was in no way prepared 
 for the order and regularity in which I found his papers. 
 All that regarded his money matters was contained in one 
 small oak desk, in which I found a will, a copy of which, 
 it was stated, was deposited with Norton and Temple, 
 Solicitors, Furnival's lun. The document ran thus : — 
 
 *'I leave whatever I may die possessed of in personal or
 
 THE END. 197 
 
 real property to the wife I have long negleeted, in trust 
 for the boy I have done much to corrupt. With time, 
 and in the enjoyment of better fortune, they may learn to 
 forgive me ; but, even if they should not, it will little 
 trouble the rest of Roger Norcott. 
 
 " I desire that each of my servants in my service at the 
 time of my death should receive a quarter's wages ; but 
 no present or gratuity of any kind. It is a class that 
 always served me with fear and dislike, and whose services 
 I ever accepted with distrust and repugnance. 
 
 "I also desire that my retriever, ' Spy,' be shot as soon 
 after my death as may be, and that my other dogs be 
 given away to persons who have never known me, and 
 that my heirs will be particular on this head, so that 
 none shall pretend that they inherit this or that of mine 
 in token of friendship or affectionate remembrance. 
 
 " There are a few objects of furniture in the care of 
 Salter, the house-agent at Brussels, of which I beg my 
 wife's acceptance ; they are intrinsically of little value, 
 but she will know how dearly we have both paid for them. 
 This is all. 
 
 (Signed) " EoGER Norcott, Bart. 
 
 " Witnesses, Joseph Granes, head groom. 
 
 " Paul Lanyon, house-steward." 
 
 This will, which bore for date only four months prior 
 to his death, did not contain any, the slightest, allusion 
 to Madame Cleremont. Was it that by some antecedent 
 arrangement he had taken care to provide for her, 
 omitting, through a sense of delicacy to my mother, all 
 mention of her name ? This I could not guess at the 
 time, nor did I ever discover afterwards. 
 
 In a larger desk I found a mass of letters ; they were 
 tied in packets, each with a ribbon of a different colour ; 
 they were all in women's handwriting. There were 
 several miniatures on ivory, one of which was of my 
 mother, when a girl of about eighteen. It was exceed- 
 ingly beautiful, and wore an expression of girlish 
 innocence and frankness positively charming. On the 
 back, in my father's hand, there was — " Why won't they 
 keep this look ? Is the fault theirs or ours ? ' '
 
 108 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 Of the contents of that box, I committed all to the 
 flames except that picture. A third desk, the key of 
 which was appended to his watch, contained a manuscript 
 in his writing, headed "My Cleremont Episode, how it 
 began, and how it cannot but end." I own it pushed my 
 curiosity sorely to throw this into the fire without reading 
 it ; but I felt it would have been a disloyalty, which, had 
 he lived, he never would have pardoned, and so I 
 restrained myself, and burned it. 
 
 One box, strongly strapped with bands of brass, and 
 opening by a lock of most complicated mechanism, was 
 filled with articles of jewellery, not only such trinkets as 
 men afiect to wear in shirt-studs and watch-pendants, but 
 the costlier objects of women's wear ; there were rings 
 and charms, bracelets of massive make, and necklaces of 
 great value. There was a diamond cross, too, at back of 
 which was a locket, with a braid of very beautiful fair 
 hair. This looked as though it had been worn, and if so, 
 how had it come back to him again ? by what story of 
 sorrow, perhaps of death ? 
 
 If a sentiment of horror and loyalty had made me burn 
 all the letters, I had found there was no restraining the 
 exercise of my imagination as to these relics, every one of 
 which I invested with some story. In a secret drawer of 
 this box, was a considerable sum in gold, and a letter of 
 credit for a large amount on Escheles, of Vienna, by 
 which it appeared that he had won the chief prize of the 
 Frankfort lottery, in the spring drawing ; a piece of 
 fortune, which, by a line in his handwriting, I saw he 
 believed was to cost him dearl}' : — "What ^is to be 
 counterpoise to this luck? An infidelity, or a sudden 
 death ? I can't say that either atlright me, but I think 
 the last would be less of an insult." 
 
 In every relic of him, the same tone of mockery pre- 
 vailed — an insolent contempt for the world — a disdain 
 from which he did not exempt himself — went through 
 all he said or did ; and it was plain to see that, no matter 
 how events went with him, he always sufficed for his own 
 unhappiness. 
 
 What a relief it was to me to turn from this perpetual 
 scorn to some two or three letters of my dear mother's 
 written after their separation indeed, but in a spirit of
 
 THE END. 190 
 
 sncli thorough forgiveness, and with such an honest 
 desire for his welfare, that I only wondered how any 
 heart could have resisted such loving generosity. I really 
 believe nothing so jarred upon him as her humility. 
 Every reference to their inequality of condition seemed 
 to affect him like an insult ; and on the back of one of 
 her letters there was written in pencil, " Does she 
 imagine I ever forget from what I took her ; or that the 
 memory is a pleasant one ? " 
 
 Mr. La Gi'ange's curiosity to learn what amount of 
 money my father had left behind him, and what were the 
 dispositions of his will, pushed my patience very hard 
 indeed. I could not, however, exactly afford to get rid of 
 him, as he had long been entrusted with the payment of 
 tradesmen's bills, and he was in a position to involve me 
 in great difficulty, if so disposed. 
 
 At last, we set out for England ; and never shall I 
 forget the strange effect produced upon me by the 
 deference my new station attracted towards me. It 
 seemed to me but yesterday that I was the companion of 
 poor Hanserl, of the " yard ; " and now I had become, as 
 if by magic, one of the favoured of the earth. The fame 
 of being rich spreads rapidly, and my reputation on that 
 head lost nothing through any reserve or forbearance of 
 my valet. I was an object of interest, too, as the son of 
 that daring Englishman who had lost his life so heroic- 
 ally. Heaven knows how La Grange had related the 
 tragic incident, or with what embellishment he had been 
 pleased to adorn it. I can only say that half my days 
 were passed in assuring eager inquirers that I was 
 neither present at the adventure, nor wounded in the 
 aff'ray ; and all my efforts were directed to proving that 
 I was a most insignificant person, and without the 
 smallest claim to interest on any side. 
 
 Arrived in London, I was once more a " personage ; " 
 at least, to my family solicitors. My father's will had 
 been already proved, and I was recognized in all form as 
 the heir to his title and fortune. They were eager to 
 know would I restore the family seat at Hexham. The 
 Abbey was an architectural gem that all England was 
 proud of, and I was eagerly entreated not to suffer it to 
 drop into decay and ruin. The representation of the
 
 200 THAT BOY OF NORCOTt's. 
 
 borough — long neglected by my family — only needed an 
 effort to secure ; and would I not like the ambition of a 
 parliamentary life ? What glimpses of future greatness 
 were shown me ! what possible chances of this or that 
 attained that would link me with real rank for ever ! 
 And ail this time I was pining to clasp my mother to 
 my arms ; to pour out my whole heart before her, and 
 tell her that I loved a pale Jewish girl, silent and half 
 sad-looking, but whose low soft voice still echoed within 
 my heart ; and whose cold hand had left a thrill after its 
 touch that had never ceased to move me. 
 
 "Oh, Digby, my own, own darling," cried she, as she 
 hugged me in her arms, " what a great tall fellow you 
 have grown, and how like — how like him ! " and she burst 
 into a torrent of tears, renewed every time that she raised 
 her eyes to my face, and saw how I resembled my father. 
 There seemed an ecstacy in this grief of which she never 
 wearied, and day after day she would sit holding my hand, 
 gazing wistfully at me, and only turning away as her tear- 
 ful eyes grew dim with weeping. I will not dwell on the 
 days we passed together : full of sorrow they were, but a 
 sorrow so hallowed by affection that we felt an unspeak- 
 able calm shed over us. 
 
 My great likeness to my father, as she first saw him, made 
 her mind revert to that period, and she never ceased to 
 talk of that time of hope and happiness. Ever ready to 
 ascribe anything unfavourable in his character to the evil 
 influences of others, she maintained that though occasion- 
 ally carried away by hot temper and passion, he was not 
 only the soul of honour but had a heart of tenderness and 
 gentleness. Curious to find out what sudden change of mind 
 had led him after years of neglect and forgetfulness to renew 
 his relations with her, by remitting money to her banker, 
 we examined all that we could of his letters and papers to 
 discover a clue to this myster}'. Baffled in all our endea- 
 vours, we were driven at length to write to the Frankfort 
 banker through whom the letter of credit had come. As we 
 assumed to say that the money should be repaid by us, 
 in this way hoping to trace the history of the incident, we 
 received for answer, that though bound strictly to secrecy 
 at the time, events had since occurred which in a measure 
 removed that obligation. The advance, he declared, came
 
 THE END. 201 
 
 from the house of Hodnig and Oppovich, Fiume, who 
 having failed since that time, there was no longer the 
 same necessity fox' reserve. " It is only this morning," 
 he added, " that we have received news of the death of 
 Herr Ignaz Oppovich, the last of this once opulent firm, 
 now reduced to utter ruin." 
 
 My mother and I gazed on each other in silence as we 
 read these words, when at length she threw her arms 
 around me and said, " Let us go to her, Digby ; let us 
 set out this very day." 
 
 Two days after we were on the Rhine. I was seated 
 with my mother on the deck of a river steamer, when 
 I was startled to hear a voice utter my name. Tht 
 speaker was a burly stout man of middle age, who 
 walked the deck with a companion to whom he talked 
 in a loud tone. 
 
 " I tell you, sir," said he, '' that boy of Norcott's, what 
 between those new coal-fields and the Hexham property, 
 can't have less than ten thousand a year." 
 
 " And he's going to marry a rich Austrian Jewess, they 
 say," replied the other, "as if his own fortune was not 
 enough for him." 
 
 " He'll marry her, and desert her just as his father 
 did." 
 
 I have but to say that I accomplished one part of this 
 prediction, and hope never to fulfil the other.
 
 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
 
 A Rent in a Cloud
 
 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WHITE HOKSE AT OOBLENTZ. 
 
 Opt of a window of the Weissen Ross, at Coblentz, look- 
 ing upon the rapid Rhine, over whose circling eddies a 
 rich sunset shed a golden tint, two young Englishmen 
 lounged and smoked their cigars ; rarely speaking, and, 
 to all seeming, wearing that air of boredom which, 
 strangely enough, would appear peculiar to a very enjoy- 
 able time of life. They were acquaintances of only a few 
 days. They had met on an Antwerp steamer — rejoined 
 each other in a picture-gallery — chanced to be side by side 
 at a table d'hote at Brussels, and, at last, drifted into one 
 of those intimacies which, to very young men, represents 
 friendship. They agreed they would travel together, all 
 the more readily that neither cared very much in what 
 direction. " As for me," said Calvert, "it doesn't much 
 signify where I pass the interval ; but, in October, I must 
 return to India and join my regiment." 
 
 "And I," said Loyd, "about the same time must be in 
 England. I have just been called to the bar." 
 
 " Slow work that must be, I take it." 
 
 "Do you like soldiering?" asked Loyd, in a low quiet 
 voice. 
 
 " Hate it! abhor it! It's all very well when you join 
 firat. You are so glad to be free of Woolwich or Sandhurst, 
 or wherever it is. You are eager to be treated like a 
 man, and so full of Cox and Greenwood, and the army 
 tailor, and your camp furniture, and then comes the depoh 
 and mess. One's first three months at mess seemed to be 
 the cream of existence."
 
 206 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Is it really so jolly ? Are tlie fellows good talkers ?" 
 
 " About the worst in the universe ; but to a young 
 hand, they ai'e enchantment. All their discourse is of 
 something to be enjoyed. It is that foot-race, that game 
 of billiards, that match at cricket, that stunning fine girl 
 to ride out with, those excellent cigars Watkins is sending 
 us ; and so on. All is action, and very pleasant action 
 too. Then duty, though it's the habit to revile and curse 
 it ; duty is associated with a sense of manhood ; a sort of 
 goosestep chivalry to be sure, but still chivalry. One 
 likes to see the sergeant with his orderly book, and to 
 read, ' Ensign Calvert for the main guard.'" 
 
 " And how long does all this last ? " 
 
 " I gave it three months, some have been able to pro- 
 long it to six. Much depends upon where the depot is, 
 and what sort of corps you're in." 
 
 " Now for the reaction ! Tell me of that." 
 
 " I cannot ; it's too dreadful. It's a general detestation 
 of all things military, from the Horse Guards to the mess 
 waiter. You hate drill — parade — inspection — the adjutant 
 — the wine committee — the paymaster — the field-officer 
 of the day — -and the major's wife. You are chafed about 
 everything — 3'ou want leave, you want to exchange, you 
 want to be with the depot, you want to go to Corfu, and 
 you are sent to Canada. Your brother officers are the 
 slowest fellows in the service ; you are quizzed about them 
 at the mess of the Nine Hundred and Ninth — 'Yours' 
 neither give balls nor private theatricals. You wish you 
 Avere in the Cape Coast Fencibles — in fact, you feel that 
 destiny has placed you in the exact position you are least 
 fitted for." 
 
 " So far as I can see, however, all the faults arc in 
 yourself." 
 
 " Not altogether. If you have plenty of money, your 
 soldier life is simply a barrier to the enjoyment of it. You 
 are chained to one spot, to one sot of associates, and to 
 one mode of existence. If you're poor, it's fifty times 
 worse, and all your time is spent in making five-and-six- 
 pence a day equal to a guinea." 
 
 Loyd made no answer, but smoked on. 
 
 " I know," resumed the other, " that this is not what 
 many will tell you, or what, perhaps, would suggest itself
 
 THE WHITE HORSE AT COBLENTZ. 207 
 
 to your own mind from a chance intei'course with us. To 
 the civilian the mess is not without a certain attraction, 
 and there is, I own, something very taking in the aspect 
 of that little democracy where the fair-cheeked boy is on 
 an equality with the old bronzed soldier, and the freshness 
 of Rugby or Eton is confronted with, the stern experiences 
 of the veteran campaigner ; but this wears off very soon, 
 and it is a day to be marked with white chalk when one 
 can escape his mess dinner, with all its good cookery, 
 good wine, and good attendance, and eat a mutton-chop 
 at the Green Man with Simpkius, just because Simpkins 
 wears a black coat, lives down in the country, and never 
 was in a Gazette in his life. And now for your side of 
 the medal — what is it like ? " 
 
 " Nothing very gorgeous or brilliant, I assure you," 
 said Loyd, gently ; for he spoke v.'ith a low quiet tone, 
 and had a student-like submissive manner, in strong con- 
 trast to the other's easy and assured air. " With great 
 abilities, great industry, and great connection, the career 
 is a splendid one, and the rewards the highest. But be- 
 tween such golden fortunes and mine there is a whole 
 realm of space. However, with time and hard work, 
 and oi'dinary luck, I don't despair of securing a fair live- 
 lihood." 
 
 " After — say — thirty years, eh ?" 
 
 "Perhaps so." 
 
 " By the time that I drop out of the army a retired 
 lieutenant-colonel, with three hundred a year, you'll be in 
 fair practice at Westminster, with, let us take it, fifteen 
 hundred, or two thousand — perhaps five." 
 
 " I shall be quite satisfied if I confirm the prediction in 
 the middle of it." 
 
 " Ah," continued the soldier. "There's only one road 
 to success — to marry a charming girl with money. Ashley 
 of ours, who has done the thing himself, says that you can 
 get money — any man can, if he will ; that, in fact, if you 
 will only take a little trouble you may have all the attrac- 
 tions you seek for in a wife, plus fortune." 
 
 " Pleasant theory, but still not unlikely to involve a 
 self-deception, since, even without knowing it, a man 
 may be far more interested by the pecuniary circum- 
 stance."
 
 208 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Don't begin with it ; first fall in love — I mean to your- 
 self, without betraying it — and then look after the settle- 
 ment. If it be beneath your expectation, trip your anchor, 
 and get out of the reach of fire." 
 
 " And you may pass your best years in that unprofit- 
 able fashion, not to say what you may find yourself be- 
 come in the meanwhile." 
 
 The soldier looked at the other askance, and there was 
 in his sidelong glance a sort of irony that seemed to say, 
 " Oh ! you're an enthusiast, are you ?" 
 
 " There you have me, Loyd," said he, hurriedly : *' that 
 is the weak point of my whole system; but I'emember, 
 after all, do what one will, he can't be as fresh at five- 
 and-thirty as five-and -twenty — he will have added ten 
 years of distrusts, doubts, and dodges to his nature in 
 spite of himself." 
 
 " If they must come in spite of himself, there is no 
 help for it ; but let him at least not deliberately lay a plan 
 to acquire them." 
 
 " One thing is quite clear," said the other, boldly ; 
 " the change will come, whether we like it or not, and the 
 wisest philosophy is to plan our lives so that we may con- 
 form to the alterations time will make in us. I don't 
 want to be dissatisfied with my condition at five-and- 
 forty, just for the sake of some caprice that I indulged in 
 at five-and-twenty, and if I find a very charming creature 
 with an angelic temper, deep blue eyes, the prettiest foot 
 in Christendom, and a neat sum in Consols, I'll promise 
 you there will soon be a step in the promotion of her 
 Majesty's service, vice Lieutenant Harry Calvert, sold 
 out." 
 
 The reply of the other was lost in the hoarse noise of 
 the steam which now rushed from the escape-pipe of a 
 vessel that had just arrived beneath the window. She 
 was bound for Mayence, but stopped to permit some few 
 passengers to land at that place. The scene exhibited 
 all that bustle and confusion so perplexing to the actors, 
 but so amusing to those who are mere spectators ; for 
 while some were eagerly pressing forward to gain the 
 gangway with their luggage, the massive machinery of the 
 bridge of boats was already in motion to open a space for 
 the vessel to move up the stream. The young English'.
 
 THE WHITE HOKSE AT COBLENTZ. 209 
 
 men were both interested in watching a very tall, thin 
 old lady, whose efforts to gather together the members of 
 her party, her luggage, and her followers, seemed to have 
 overcome all the ordinary canons of politeness, for she 
 pushed here and drove there, totally regardless of the 
 inconvenience she was occasioning. She was followed 
 by two young ladies, from whose courteous gestures it 
 could be inferred how deeply their companion's insistance 
 pained them, and how ashamed they felt at their position. 
 
 " I am afraid she is English," said Loyd. 
 
 " Can there be a doubt of it ? "Where did you ever see 
 that reckless indifference to all others, that selfish disre- 
 gard of decency, save in a certain class of our people ? 
 Look, she nearly pushed that fat man down the hatch- 
 way; and see, she will not show the steward her tickets, 
 and she will have her change. Poor girls ! what misery 
 and exposure all this is for you ! " 
 
 " But the steamer is beginning to move on. They will be 
 carried off ! See, they are hauling at the gangway already." 
 
 " She's on it ; she doesn't care ; she's over now. Well 
 done, old lady ! That back-hander was neatly given ; and 
 see, she has marshalled her forces cleverly : sent the light 
 division in front, and brings up the rear herself with the 
 luggage and the maids. Now I call that as clever a land- 
 ing on an enemy's shore as ever was done." 
 
 " I must say I pity the girls, and they look as if they 
 felt all the mortification of their position. And yet, 
 they'll come to the same sort of thing themselves one of 
 these days, as naturally as one of us will to wearing very 
 easy boots and loose-fitting waistcoats." 
 
 As he said this, the new arrivals had passed up from 
 the landing-place, and entered the hotel. 
 
 " Let us at least be merciful in our criticisms on 
 foreigners, while we exhibit to their eyes such national 
 specimens as these ! " said Calvert. " For my own part, 
 I believe that from no one source have we as a people 
 derived so much of sneer and shame, as from that which 
 includes within it what is called the unprotected female." 
 
 " What if we were to find out that they were Belgians, 
 or Dutch, or Americans? or, better still, what if they 
 should chance to be remarkably good sort of English ? I 
 conclude we shall meet them at supper." 
 
 P
 
 210 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Yes ; and there goes the bell for that gathering, which 
 on the present occasion will be a thin one. They're all 
 gone off to that fair at Lahnech." And, so saying, Calvert 
 drew nigh a glass, and made one of those extempore 
 toilets which young men with smart moustaches are 
 accustomed to perform before presenting themselves to 
 strangers. Loyd merely took his hat and walked to the 
 door. 
 
 " There ! that ought to be enough, surely, for all reason- 
 able captivation ! " said he, laughingly. 
 
 " Perhaps you are right ; besides, I suspect in the pre- 
 sent case it is a mere waste of ammunition ; " and, with a 
 self-approving smile, he nodded to his image in the glass, 
 and followed his friend. 
 
 One line at this place will serve to record that Calvert 
 was very good looking; blue-eyed, blonde-whiskered, 
 Saxon-looking, withal ; erect carriage and stately air, 
 which are always taken as favourable types of our Eng- 
 lish blood. Perhaps a certain over-consciousness of these 
 personal advantages, pei'haps a certain conviction of the 
 success that had attended these gifts, gave him what, in 
 slang phrase, is called a " tigerish " air: but it was plain 
 to see that he had acquired his ease of manner in good 
 company, and that his pretension was rather the stamp of 
 a class than of an individual. 
 
 Loyd was a pale, delicate-looking youth, with dark eyes 
 set in the deepest of orbits, that imparted sadness to 
 features in themselves sufficiently grave. He seemed 
 what he was, an overworked student, a man who had 
 sacriiiced health to toil, and was only aware of the bad 
 bargain when he felt unequal to continue the contest. 
 His doctors had sent him abroad for rest, for that " dis- 
 traction " which as often sustains its English as its French 
 acceptance, and is only a source of woi^ry and anxiety 
 where rest and peace are required. His means were of 
 the smallest ; he was the only son of a country vicar, 
 who was sorely pinched to afford him a very narrow sup- 
 port, and who had to raise by a loan the hundred pounds 
 that were to give him this last chance of regaining 
 strength and vigour. If travel ilierefore had its pleasures, 
 it had also its pains for him. He, felt, and very bitterly, 
 the heavy load that his present enjoyment was laying
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE AT C'OELENTZ. 211 
 
 upon tliose he loved best in the world, and this it was that, 
 at his happiest moments, threw a gloom over an already 
 moody and depressed temperament. 
 
 The sad thought of those at home, whose privations 
 were the price of his pleasures, tracked him at every 
 step ; and pictures of that humble fireside where sat 
 his father and his mother, rose before him as he gazed 
 at the noble cathedi-al, or stood amazed before the greatest 
 triumphs of art. This sensitive feeling, preying upon 
 one naturally susceptible, certainly tended little to his 
 recovery, and even at times so overbore every other senti- 
 ment, that he regretted he had ever come abroad. Scarcely 
 a day passed that he did not hesitate whether he should 
 not turn his steps homeward to England. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PASSENGERS ON THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 TriE t ihle-iVhote room was empt}' as the two Englishmen 
 entered it at supper-time, and they took their places, 
 moodily enough, at one end of a table laid for nigh thirty 
 guests. "All gone to Lahnech, Franz ?" asked Calvert of 
 the waitei". 
 
 " Tes, sir, but they'll be sorry for it, for there's thunder 
 in the air, and we are sure to have a deluge before 
 nightfall." 
 
 " And the new arrivals, are they gone too?" 
 
 " No, sir. They are upstairs. The old lady would 
 seem to have forgotten a box, or a desk, on board the 
 steamer, and she has been in such a state about it that 
 she couldn't think of supping ; and the young ones appear 
 to sympathise in her anxieties ; for they, too, said, '' Oh, 
 we can't think of eating just now.' " 
 
 " But, of course, she needn't fuss herself. It will be 
 detained at Mayence, and given up to her when she 
 demands it." 
 
 p 2
 
 212 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 A very expressive shrug of the shoulders was the only 
 answer Franz made, and Calvert added, "You don't quite 
 agree with me, perhaps ? " 
 
 " It is an almost daily event, the loss of luggage on 
 those Rhine steamers ; so much so, that one is tempted to 
 believe that stealing luggage is a regular livelihood here." 
 
 Just at this moment the Englishwoman in question 
 entered the room, and in French of a very home manu- 
 facture asked the waiter how she could manage, by means 
 of the telegraph, to reclaim her missing property. 
 
 A most involved and intricate game of cross purposes 
 ensued ; for the waiter's knowledge of French was scarcely 
 more extensive, and embari'assed, besides, by some speci- 
 alities in accent, so that though she questioned and he 
 replied, the discussion gave little hope of an intelligible 
 solution. 
 
 " May I venture to offer my services, madam ?" said 
 Calvert, rising and bowing politely. " If I can be of the 
 least use on this occasion " 
 
 " None whatever, sir. I am perfectly competent to 
 express my own wishes, and have no need of an inter- 
 preter ; " and then, turning to the waiter, added : *^ Montrez- 
 moi le telegraph, gar^on.^' 
 
 The semi-tragic air in which she spoke, not to add the 
 strange accent of her very peculiar French, was almost 
 too much for Calvert's gravity, while Loyd, half pained by 
 the ridicule thus attached to a countrywoman, held down 
 his head and never uttered a word. Meanwhile, the old 
 lady had retired with a haughty toss of her towering 
 bonnet, followed by Franz. 
 
 " The old party is fierce," said Calvert, as he began his 
 supper, "and would not have me at any price." 
 
 " I suspect that this mistrust of each other is very 
 common with us English : not so much from any doubt of 
 our integrity, as from a fear lest we should not be equal 
 in social rank." 
 
 ** Well ; but really, don't you think that our externals 
 might have satisfied that old lady she had nothing to 
 apprehend on that score ? " 
 
 "I can't say how she may have regarded that point," 
 was the cautious answer. 
 
 Calvert pushed his glass impatiently from him, and
 
 THE PASSENGEBS ON THE STEAMBOAT. 213 
 
 said, petulantly, " The woman is evidently a governess, 
 or a companion, or a housekeeper. She writes her name 
 in the book Miss Grainger, and the others are called 
 Walter. Now, after all, a Miss Grainger might, without 
 derogating too far, condescend to know a Fusilier, eh ? 
 Ob, here she comes again." 
 
 The lady thus criticised had now re-entered the room, 
 and was busily engaged in studying the announcement of 
 steamboat departures and arrivals, over the chimney. 
 
 " It is too absurd," said she, pettishly, in French, " to 
 close the telegraph-office at eight, that the clerks may go 
 to a ball." 
 
 " Not to a ball, madam, to the fair at Lahnech," inter- 
 posed Franz. 
 
 " I don't care, sir, whether it be a dance or a junketing. 
 It is the same inconvenience to the public ; and the 
 landlord, and the secretary, as you call him, of this hotel, 
 are all gone, and nothing left here but you." 
 
 Whether it was the shameless effrontery of the contempt 
 she evinced in these words, or the lamentable look of 
 abasement of the waiter, that overcame Calvert, certain 
 is it he made no effort to restrain himself, but leaning 
 back in his chair, laughed heartily and openly. 
 
 " Well, sir," said she, turning fiercely on him, "you force 
 me to say, that I never witnessed a more gross display of 
 ill breeding and bad manners." 
 
 " Had you only added, madam, ' after a very long 
 experience of life,' the remark would have been perfect," 
 said he, still laughing. 
 
 "Oh, Calvert!" broke in Loyd, in a tone of depreca- 
 tion ; but the old lady, white with passion, retired without 
 waiting for that apology which, cex'tainly, there was little 
 prospect of her receiving. 
 
 " I am sorry you should have said that," said Loyd, 
 " for though she was scarcely measured in her remark, 
 your laughter was a gross provocation." 
 
 " How the cant of your profession sticks to you !" said 
 the other. " There was the lawyer in every word of that 
 speech. There was the * case' and the ' set off.' " 
 
 Loyd could not help smiling, though scarcely pleased 
 at this rejoinder. 
 
 "Take my word for it," said Calvert, as he helped him-
 
 214 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 self to the clish before him, " there is nothing in life so 
 ap'gressive as one of our elderly countrywomen when 
 travelling in an independent condition. The theory is 
 attack — attack — attack ! They have a sort of vague 
 impression that the passive are always imposed ou, and 
 certainly they rarely place themselves in that category. 
 As I live, here she comes once more." 
 
 The old lady had now entered the room with a slip of 
 paper in her hand, to which she called the waiter's atten- 
 tion, saying, " You will despatch this message to Mayence, 
 when the office opens in the morning. See that there is 
 no mistake about it." 
 
 "It must be in German, madam," said Franz. " They'll 
 not take it in in any foreign language." 
 
 " Tell her you'll ti'auslate it, Loyd. Gro in, man, and 
 get your knock-down as I did," whispered Calvert. 
 
 Loyd blushed slightly ; but, not heeding the sarcasm of 
 his companion, he arose, and, approaching the stranger, 
 said, " It will give me much pleasm-e to put your message 
 into German, madam, if it will at all convenience you." 
 
 It was not till after a very searching look into his face, 
 and an apparently satisfactory examination of his features, 
 that she replied, " Well, sir, I make no objection ; there 
 can be no great secrecy in what passes through a telegraph- 
 office. You can do it, if you please." 
 
 Now, though the speech was not a very gracious ac- 
 knowledgment of a proffered service, Loyd took the 
 paper and proceeded to read it. It was not without an 
 efibrt, however, that he could constrain himself so far as 
 not to laugh aloud at the contents, which began by an 
 explanation that the present inconvenience Avas entirely 
 owing to the very shameful arrangements made by the 
 steam-packet company for the lauding of passengers at 
 intermediate stations, and through which the complainant, 
 travelling with her nieces, Millicent and Florence Walter, 
 and her maids, Susannah Tucker and Mary Briggs, and 
 Laving for luggage the following articles 
 
 " May I observe, madam," said Loyd, in a mild tone 
 of remonstrance, " that these explanations are too lengthy 
 for the telegraph, not to say very costly, and as your 
 object is simply to reclaim a missing article of your 
 baggage "
 
 THE PASSENGERS ON THE STEAMBOAT. 215 
 
 " I ti'ust, six", that having fully satisfied your curiosity 
 as to who we are, and of what grievance we complain, 
 that you will spare nie your comments as to the mode in 
 which we prefer our demand for redi^ess ; but I ought to 
 have known better, and I deserve it! " and, snatching the 
 paper rudely from his hand, she dashed out of the room in 
 passion. 
 
 "By Jove I you fared worse than myself," said Calvert, 
 as he laughed loud and long. " You got a heavier casti- 
 gation for your polite interference than I did for my 
 impertinence." 
 
 " It is a lesson, at all events," said Loyd, still blushing 
 for his late defeat. " I wonder is she all right up here," 
 and he touched his forehead significantly. 
 
 " Of course she is. Nay, more, I'll wager a Nap. that 
 in her own set, amidst the peculiar horrors who form her 
 daily intimates, she is a strong-minded sensible woman, 
 ' that won't stand humbug,' and so on. These are speci- 
 alities ; they* wear thick shoes, woollen petticoats, and 
 brown veils, quarrel with cabmen, and live at Clapham." 
 
 " But why do they come abroad ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that is the question that would puzzle nineteen 
 out of every twenty of us. With a panorama in Leicester- 
 square, and a guide-book in a chimney corner, we should 
 know more of the Tyrol than we'll ever acquire junketing 
 along in a hired coach, and only eager not to pay too 
 much for one's Kalhshraten or Schweinfleisch, and 
 yet here Ave come in shoals, — to grumble and complain 
 of all our self-imposed miseries, and incessantly lament 
 the comforts of the land that we won't live in." 
 
 " Some of us come for health," said Loyd, sorrow- 
 fully. 
 
 " And was there ever such a blunder ? Why the very 
 vicissitudes of a continental climate are more trying than 
 any severity in our own. Imagine the room we are now 
 sitting in, of a winter's evening, with a stove heated to 
 ninety-five, and the door opening every five minutes to a 
 draught of air eleven degrees below zero ! You pass out 
 of this furnace to your bedroom, by a stair and cori'idor 
 like the Arctic regions, to gain an uncarpeted room, with 
 something like a knife-tray for a bed, and a poultice of 
 feathers for a coverlet ! "
 
 21. G A iiEST lA A CLOUD. 
 
 "And for all tliat we like it, we long for it ; save, pinch, 
 screw, and sacrifice heaven knows what of home enjoy- 
 ment just for six weeks or two months of it." 
 
 " Shall I tell you why ? Just because Simkins has 
 done it. Simkins has been up the Rhine and dined at 
 the Cursaal at Ems, and made his little debut at roulette 
 at Wiesbaden, and spoken his atrocious French at Frank- 
 fort, and we won't consent to be less men of the world 
 than Simkins ; and though Simkins knows that it doesn't 
 ' pay,' and I know that it doesn't pay, we won't ' peach,' 
 either of us, just for the pleasure of seeing you, and a 
 score like you, fall into the same blunder, experience the 
 same disasters, and incur the same disappointments as 
 ourselves." 
 
 " 1^0. I don't agree with you ; or, rather, I won't 
 agree with you, I am determined to enjoy this holiday 
 of mine to the utmost my health will let me, and you shall 
 not poison the pleasure by that false philosophy which, 
 affecting to be deep, is only depreciatory." 
 
 " ' And the honourable gentleman resumed his seat,' as 
 the newspapers say, * amidst loud and vociferous cheers, 
 which lasted for several minutes.' " This Calvert said, as 
 he drummed a noisy applause upon the table, and made 
 Loyd's face glow with a blush of deep shame and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " I told you the second day we travelled together, and 
 I tell you again now, Calvert," said he, falteringly, " that 
 we are nowise suited to each other, and never could make 
 good travelling companions. You know far more of life 
 than I either do or wish to know. You see things with 
 an acute and piercing clearness which I cannot attain to. 
 You have no mind for the sort of humble things which 
 give pleasure to a man simple as myself ; and, lastly, I 
 don't like to say it, but I must, your means are so much 
 more ample than mine, that to associate with you I must 
 live in a style totally above my pretensions. All these are 
 confessions more or less painful to make, but now that I 
 have made them, let me have the result, and say good- 
 bye — good-bye." 
 
 There was an emotion in the last words that more than 
 compensated for what preceded them. It was the genuine 
 sorrow that loneliness ever impresses on certain natures;
 
 THE PASSENGERS ON TIIIJ STEAMBOAT. 217 
 
 but Calvert read the sentiment as a tribute to himself, and 
 hastily said, '* N'o, no, you are all wrong. The very dis- 
 parities you complain of are the bonds b&tween us. The 
 diflPerences in our temperament are the resources by which 
 the sphere of our observation will be widened — my scepti- 
 cism will be the corrector of your I'opefulness — and, as to 
 means, take my word for it, nobody can be harder up than 
 I am, and if you'll only keep tlie bag, and limit the out- 
 goings, I'll submit to any shortcomings when you tell me 
 they are savings." 
 
 " Are you serious — downright in earnest in all this ? '' 
 asked Loyd. 
 
 " So serious, that I propose our bargain should begin 
 fi'om this hour. We shall each of us place ten Napoleons 
 in that bag of yours. You shall administer all outlay, 
 and I bind myself to follow implicitly all your behests, as 
 though I were a ward and you my guardian." 
 
 " I'm not very confident about the success of the 
 scheme. I see many difficulties already, and there may 
 be others that I cannot foresee ; still, I am willing to 
 give it a trial." 
 
 " At last I realise one of my fondest anticipations, 
 which was to travel without the daily recuri-ing miseries 
 of money-reckoning." 
 
 " Don't take those cigars, they are supplied by the 
 waiter, and cost two groschen each, and they sell for three 
 groschen a dozen in the Platz ; " and, so saying, Loyd 
 removed the plate from before him in a quiet business- 
 like way, that promised well for the spirit in which his 
 trust would be exercised. 
 
 Calvert laughed as he laid down the cigar, but his obedi- 
 ence ratified the pact between them. 
 
 " When do we go from this? " asked he, in a quiet and 
 half-submissive tone. 
 
 "Oh, come, this is too much! " said Loyd. " I under- 
 took to be purser, but not pilot." 
 
 " Well, but I insist upon your assuming all the cares of 
 legislation. It is not alone that I want not to think of 
 the cash ; but I want to have no anxieties about the road 
 we go, where we halt, and when we move on. I want, for 
 once in my life, to indulge the glorious enjoyment of perfect 
 indolence — such another chance will scarcely ofTer itself."
 
 218 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Be it so. Whenever you like to rebel, I shall be just 
 as ready to abdicate. I'll go to my room now and study 
 the map, and by the time you have finished your evening's 
 stroll on the bridge, I shall have made the plan of our 
 future wanderings." 
 
 " Agreed ! " said Calvert. " I'm off to search for some 
 of those cheap cigars jon spoke of." 
 
 " vStay ; you forget that you have not got any money. 
 Here are six silver groschen ; take two dozen, and see 
 that they don't give you any of those vile Swiss ones in 
 the number." 
 
 He took the coin with becoming gravity, and set out on 
 bis errand. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PELLOW-TRAVELLEKS' LIFE. 
 
 Paktly to suit Calvert's passion for fishing, partly to meet 
 his own love of a quiet, unbroken, easy existence, 
 Loyd decided for a ramble through the lakes of Northern 
 Italy ; and, in about ten days after the compact had been 
 sealed, they found themselves at the little inn of theTrota, 
 on the Lago d'Orta. The inn, which is little more than a 
 cottage, is beautifully situated on a slender promontory 
 that runs into the lake, and is itself almost hidden by the 
 foliage of orange and oleander trees that cover it. It was 
 very hard to believe it to be an inn, with its trellised vine- 
 walk, its little arched boat-house, and a small shrine beside 
 the lake, where on certain saints' days, a priest said a 
 mass, and blessed the fish and those that caught them. It 
 was still harder, too, to credit the fact when one discovered 
 his daily expenses to be all comprised within the limits 
 of a few francs, and this Avith the services of the host, 
 Signor Onofrio, for boatman. 
 
 To Loyd it was a perfect paradise. The glorious moun- 
 tain range, all rugged and snow-capped — the deep-bosomed 
 chestnut-woods — the mirror-like lake — the soft and
 
 FELLOW-TRAVELLERS' LIFE. 219 
 
 balmy air, ricli in orange odours — the earth teeming with 
 violets — all united to gratify the senses, and wrap the 
 mind iu a dreamy ecstasy and enjoyment. It was equally 
 a spot to relax in or to work, and although now more dis- 
 posed for the former, he planned in himself to come back 
 here, at some future day, and labour with all the zest 
 that a strong resolve to succeed inspires. 
 
 What law would he not read ? What mass of learned 
 lore would he not store up ! What strange and curious 
 knowledge would he not acquire in this calm seclusion ! 
 He parcelled out his day in imagination ; and, by rising 
 early, and by habits of unintei'rupted study, he contem- 
 plated that in one long vacation here he would have 
 amassed an amount of information that no discursive 
 labour could ever attain. And then, to distract him from 
 weightier cares, he would write those light and sketchy 
 things, some of which had already found favour with 
 editors. He had already attained some small literary 
 successes, and was, like a very young man, delighted with 
 the sort of recognition they had procured him ; and, last 
 of all, there was something of romance in this life of 
 mysterious seclusion. He was the hero of a little story 
 to himself, and this thought diffused itself over every spot 
 and every occupation, as is only known to those who like 
 to make poems of their lives, and be to their own hearts 
 their own epic. 
 
 Calvert, too, liked the place ; but scarcely with the same 
 enthusiasm. The fishing was excellent. He had taken a 
 " four pounder," and heard of some double the size. 
 The cookery of the little inn was astonishingly good. 
 Onofrio had once been a courier, and picked up some 
 knowledge of the social chemistry on his travels. Beccafichi 
 abounded, and the small wine of the Podere had a false 
 smack of Rhenish, and then with cream, and fresh eggs, 
 and fresh butter, and delicious figs in profusion, there 
 were, as he phrased it, " far worse places in the hill 
 country ! " 
 
 Besides being the proprietor of the inn, Onofrio owned 
 a little villa, a small cottage-like thing on the opposite 
 shore of the lake, to which he made visits once or twice 
 a week, with a trout, or a capon, or a basket of artichokes, 
 or some fine peaches, luxuries which apparently always
 
 220 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 found ready purcliasers amongst his tenants. He called 
 them English, but his young guests, with true British 
 phlegm, asked him no questions about them, and he rarely, 
 if ever, alluded to them. Indeed, his experience of Eng- 
 lish people had enabled him to see that they ever main- 
 tained a dignified reserve towards each other, even when 
 oli'ering to foreigners all the freedom of an old intimacy ; 
 and then he had an Italian's tact not to touch on a 
 dangerous theme, and thus he contented himself with the 
 despatch of his occasional hamper without attracting 
 more attention to the matter than the laborious process 
 of inscribing the words " lllustrissima Sign"". Grangiari," 
 on the top. 
 
 It was about a month after they had taken up their 
 abode at the Trota that Onofrio was seized with one of 
 those fevers of the country which, though rarely dan- 
 gerous to life, are still so painful and oppressive as to 
 require some days of confinement and care. In this inter- 
 val, Calvert was deprived of his chief companion, for 
 mine host was an enthusiastic fisherman, and an unequalled 
 guide to all parts of the lake. The young soldier, chafed 
 and fretted out of all measure at this interruption to his 
 sport, tried to read ; tried to employ himself in the 
 garden; endeavoured to write a long-promised letter 
 home ; and at last, in utter failure, and in complete dis- 
 content with himself and everything, he walked moodily 
 about, discussing within himself whether he would not 
 frankly declare to Loyd that the whole thing bored him, 
 and that he wanted to be free. 
 
 " This sort of thing suits Loyd well enough," would he 
 say, " It is the life of Brazenose or Christchurch in a 
 purer air and finer scenery. He can read five or six hours 
 at a stretch, and then plunge in the lake for a swim, or 
 pull an oar for half an hour, by way of refreshment. He 
 is as much a man of retlcction and thought as I am of 
 action and energy. Yet, it is your slow, solemn fellow," 
 he would say, " who is bored to death when thrown upon 
 himself;" and now he had, in a measure, to recant this 
 declaration, and own that the solitude was too much for 
 liim. 
 
 While he was yet discussing with himself how to 
 fipproach the subject, the hostess came to tell him that
 
 FELLOTV-TEAVELLERS' LIFE. 32l 
 
 Onofrio's illness would prevent him acting as his boatman, 
 and begged the boat might be spared him on that day, to 
 send over some fruit and fresh flowers he had promised to 
 the family at St. Rosalia ; " that is," added she, " if I'm 
 lucky enough to find a boatman to take them, for at this 
 season all are in full work in the fields.'' 
 
 "What would you say, Donna Marietta, if I were to 
 take charge of the basket myself, and be your messenger 
 to the villa?" 
 
 The hostess was far less astonished at his off'er than he 
 had imagined she would be. With her native ideas on 
 these subjects, she only accepted the proposal as an act of 
 civility, and not as a surprising piece of condescension, 
 and simply said, " Onofrio shall thank you heartily for it 
 when he is up and about again." 
 
 If this was not the exact sort of recognition he looked 
 for, Calvert at all events saw that he was pledged to fulfil 
 his ofi"er ; and so he stood by while she measured out peas, 
 and counted over artichokes, and tied up bundles of mint 
 and thyme, and stored up a pannier full of ruddy apples, 
 surmounting all with a gorgeous bouquet of richly per- 
 fumed flowers, culled in all the careless profusion of that 
 land of plenty. Nor was this all. She impressed upon him 
 how he was to extol the excellence of this, and the beauty 
 of that, to explain that the violets were true Parmesans, 
 and the dates such as only Onofrio knew how to produce. 
 
 Loyd laughed his own little quiet laugh when he heard 
 of his friend's mission, and his amusement was not lessened 
 at seeing the half-awkward and more than half-unwilling 
 preparations Calvert made to fulfil it. 
 
 " Confound the woman ! " said he, losing all patience ; 
 " she wanted to charge me with all the bills and reckon- 
 ings for the last three weeks, on the pretext that her 
 husband is but ill-skilled in figures, and that it was a rare 
 chance to find one like myself to undertake the ofiice. I 
 have half a mind to throw the whole cargo overboard 
 when I reach the middle of the lake. I suppose a Nap. 
 would clear all the cost." 
 
 " Oh, I'll not hear of such extravagance," said Loyd, 
 demurely. 
 
 " I conclude I have a right to an act of personal folly, 
 eh ? " asked Calvert, pettishly.
 
 222 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. I drew up our contract with 
 great care, and especially on this very head, otherwise it 
 Avould have been too offensive a bargain for him who 
 should have observed all the rigid injunctions of its 
 economy." 
 
 " It was a stupid arrangement from the first," said 
 Calvert warmly. " Two men yet never lived, who could 
 say that each could bound his wants by those of another. 
 Not to say that an individual is not himself the same each 
 day of the week. I requii'e this on Tuesday, -which I didn't 
 •want on Monday, and so on." 
 
 " You are talking of caprice as though it were necessity, 
 Calvert." 
 
 " I don't want to discuss the matter like a special 
 pleader, and outside the margin of our conjoint expenses 
 I mean to be as wasteful as I please." 
 
 "As the contract is only during pleasure, it can never 
 be difficult to observe it." 
 
 "Yes, very true. You have arrived at my meai:iing 
 by another road. When was it we last replenished the 
 bao-P" 
 
 " A little more than a week ago." 
 
 " So that there is about a fortnight yet to run ? " 
 
 "About that." 
 
 Calvert stood in thought for a few seconds, and then, 
 as if having changed the purpose he was meditating, 
 turned suddenly away and hastened down to the boat quay. 
 
 Like many bashful and diffident men, Loyd had a false 
 air of coldness and resolution, which impressed others 
 greatly, but reacted grievously on his own heart in 
 moments of afterthought ; and now, no sooner had hia 
 companion gone, than he felt what a mockery it was for 
 him to have assumed a rigid respect for a mere boyish 
 agreement, which lost all its value the moment either ielfc 
 it burdensome. "Z was not of an age to play Mentor to 
 him. It could never become me to assume the part of a 
 guardian. I ought to have said the bargain ceases the 
 instant you repudiate it. A forced companionship is 
 mere slavery. Let us part the good friends we met ; and 
 so on." At last he determined to sit down and write a 
 short note to Calvert, releasing hira from his thraldom, 
 and giving him his full and entire liberty.
 
 fellow-travellers' life. 223 
 
 " As for myself, I will remain here so \on^ as I stay 
 abroad, and if I come to the continent again, I will make 
 for this spot as for a home: and now for the letter." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 'LAGO D OUT A. 
 
 Leaving Loyd to compose his letter, we will follow 
 Calvert, as, with vigorous stroke, he rushed his light boat 
 through the calm water, leaving a long bright line of 
 bubbles in his wake. Dressed in his blue flannel shirt 
 and white trousers, a gay bunch of roses stuck jauntily 
 in the side of his straw hat, there was an air of health, 
 vigour, and dash about him, to which his full bright eye 
 and upturned moustache well contril)uted. And, as from 
 time to time he would rest on his oars, while his thin skiff 
 cleaved her way alone, his bronzed and manly face and 
 carelessly waving hair made up a picture of what we are 
 proud to think is eminently British in its character. 
 That is to say, there was about him much of what indi- 
 cated abundance of courage, no small proportion of 
 personal strength, and a certain sort of recklessness, 
 which in a variety of situations in life is equivalent to 
 power. 
 
 To any eye that watched him, as with scarce an effort 
 he sent his boat forward, while the lazy curl of smoke 
 that rose from his short pipe indicated ease, there would 
 have seemed one who was indulging in the very fullest 
 enjoyment of a scene second to none in Europe. Ton 
 had but to look along the lake itself to see the most 
 gorgeous picture of wooded islands and headlands glow, 
 ing in every tint of colour from the pure white of the 
 oleander to the deep scarlet of the San Giuseppe, with, in 
 the distance, the snow-capped Alps of the St. Bernard, 
 while around and close to the very water's edge peeped 
 forth little villas, half smothered in orange-blossoms. Far
 
 224 A. RENT IN A CLOUI). 
 
 over the lalce came their floating perfumes, as though to 
 lend enchantment to each sense, and steep the very soul 
 in a delicious luxury. 
 
 ~No\v, as Calvert felt the refreshing breath of the gentle 
 air that stirred the virater, he was conscious of a glorious 
 morning, and of something generally grand in the scene 
 about him ; but that "was all. He had little romance — 
 less of the picturesque — in his nature. If his eyes fell on 
 the lake, it was to fancy the enjoyment of cleaving 
 through it as a swimmer ; if he turned towards the Alps, 
 it was to imagine how toilsome would prove the ascent ; 
 how deeply lay the snow on the wheels of the diligence ; 
 how many feet below the surface were buried the poles 
 that once marked out the road. But even these were but 
 fleeting fancies. His thoughts were seriously turned upon 
 his own future, which opened no bright or brilliant pro- 
 spect before him. To go back again to India, to return 
 to the old regimental drudgery, or the still more wearisome 
 existence of life in a remote detachment ; to waste what 
 he felt the best years of life in inglorious indolence, wait- 
 ing for that routine promotion that comes associated with 
 the sense of growing old ; and to trace at last the dim 
 vista of a return to England, when of an age that all 
 places and people and things have grown to be matters 
 of indifference. These were sad reflections. So sad, 
 that not even the bright scene around him could dispel. 
 And then there were others, which needed no speculation 
 to suggest, and which came with the full force of docu- 
 ments to sustain them. He was heavily in debt. He 
 owed money to the army agent, to the paymaster, to the 
 Agra Bank, to the regimental tailor, to the outfitter — to 
 everyone, in short, who would suffer him to be a debtor. 
 Bonds, and I O's, and promissory notes, renewed till they 
 had nigh doubled, pressed on his memory, and confused 
 his powers of calculation. 
 
 An old uncle, a brother of his mother's, who was his 
 guardian, would once on a time have stood by him, but 
 he had forfeited his good esteem by an act of deception 
 with regard to money, which the old man could not for- 
 give. "Be it so," said he ; " I deemed my friendship for 
 you worth more than three hundred pounds. You, it 
 would seem, are diflerentlv minded ; keep the money and
 
 THE " LAGO d'oKTA." 225 
 
 let us part." And they did part, not to meet again. 
 Calvert's affairs were managed by the regimental agent, 
 and he thought little more of an old relative, who ceased 
 to hold a place in his memory when unassociated with, 
 crisp enclosures " payable at sight." 
 
 " I wonder what would come of it if I were to wx'ite to 
 him ; if I were to put it to his humanity to rescue me 
 from a climate where, after all, I might die — scores of 
 fellows die out there. At all events, I detest it. I could 
 say, ' My leave expires in October, if you would like to 
 see me once more before I quit England for ever, for I 
 am going to a pestilential spot — the home of the ague and 
 jungle fever, and Heaven knows what else — your sister's 
 son — poor Sophy's child.' That ought to touch him." 
 And then he went on to think of all the tender and 
 moving things he could write, and to picture to himself 
 the agitation of him who read them ; and, thus speculating, 
 and thus plotting, he swept his light boat along till she 
 came close in to shore, and he saw the little villa peeping 
 through the spray-like branches of a weeping ash that 
 stood beside it. " Higher up," cried a voice, directing 
 him. " Don't you know the landing-place yet ? " And, 
 startled by a voice not altogether strange to him, he 
 looked round and saw the old lady of the Rhine steamer, 
 the same who had snubbed him at Coblentz, the terrible 
 Miss Grainger of the lost writing-case. It was some 
 minutes before he remembered that he was performing 
 the part of boatman, and not appearing in his own 
 character. Eesolved to take all the benefit of his incog- 
 nito, he lifted his hat in what he fancied to be the true 
 Italian style, and, taking a basket in each hand, followed 
 the old lady to the' house. 
 
 " It is three days that we have been expecting you," 
 said she, tartly, as she walked briskly on, turning at times 
 to point a sarcasm with a fierce look. " You were punctual 
 enough on Tuesday last, when you came for your rent. 
 You were to the very minute then, because it suited your- 
 self. But you are like all your countrymen — mean, selfish, 
 and greedy. As to those pears you brought last, I have 
 struck them off the account. You may bring others if 
 
 fou please, but I'll not pay for rotten fruit any more than 
 will for three iourneys to Como for nothing — do you 
 
 Q
 
 226 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 hear me, sir? three journeys to look after my writing- 
 desk, which I lost on the Rhine, but which I know was 
 forwarded here, though I can't get it. Is it worth your 
 while to answer ? Oh, of course, your old excuse — you 
 are forgetting your English— it is so long since you were 
 a courier. You knew quite enough, when I came here, 
 to make me pay more than double the proper rent for this 
 
 miserable place, without a carpet, or " Just as she 
 
 reached thus far, she was joined by one of the young girls, 
 whose looks had vastly changed for the better, and was 
 now a strikingly fine and handsome girl. 
 
 " Milly," said the old lady, " take this man round by the 
 kitchen garden, and get some one to take the fruit from 
 hira, and be sure you count the melons." 
 
 Not sorry for the change of companionship, Calvert 
 followed Milly, who, not condescending to bestow a look 
 on him, moved haughtily on in front. 
 
 "Leave your baskets yonder, my good man," said she, 
 pointing to a bench under a spreading fig-tree ; and 
 Calvert, depositing his burden, drew himself up and 
 removed his hat. "My aunt will pay you," said she, 
 turning to go away. 
 
 '* I'd far rather it had been the niece," said he, in English. 
 
 " What do you mean ? Who are you ? " 
 
 " A stranger, who, rather than suffer you to incur the 
 privation of a breakfast without fruit, rowed across the 
 lake this morning to bring it." 
 
 " Won't he go, Milly ? What is he bargaining about ? ' 
 cried Miss Grainger, coming up. 
 
 But the young girl ran hastily towards her, and for 
 some minutes they spoke in a low tone together. 
 
 " I think it an impertinence — yes, an impertinence, 
 Milly — and I mean to tell him so!" said the old lady, 
 fuming with passion. " Such things ai'e not done in the 
 world. They are unpardonable liberties. What is your 
 name, sir Y " 
 
 " Calvert, madam." 
 
 "Calvert? Calvert! Not Calvert of Rocksley?" said 
 she, with a sneer. 
 
 "No, ma'am, only his nephew." 
 
 " Are you his nephew, really his nephew ? " said she, 
 with a half incredulity.
 
 THE "lago d'orta." 227 
 
 "Yes, madam, I have that very unprofitable honour. 
 If you are acquainted with the family, you will recognize 
 their crest; " and he detached a seal from his watch-chain 
 and handed it to her. 
 
 " Quite true, the portcullis and the old motto, ' Ferme 
 en Tombant.' I know, or rather I knew your relatives 
 once, Mr. Calvert; " this was said with a total change of 
 manner, and a sort of simpering politeness that sat very 
 ill upon her. 
 
 Quick enough to mark this change of manner and profit 
 by it, he said, somewhat coldly, " Have I heard your name, 
 madam ? Will you permit me to know it ? " 
 
 " Miss Grainger, sir. Miss Adelaide Grainger " — 
 reddening as she spoke. 
 
 " Never heard that name before. Will yoa present me 
 to this young lady ? " And thus, with an air of pretension 
 whose impertinence was partly covered by an appearance 
 of complete unconsciousness, he bowed and smiled, and 
 chatted away till the servant announced breakfast. 
 
 To the invitation to join them, he vouchsafed the 
 gentlest bend of the head, and a half smile of acceptance, 
 which the young lady resented by a stare that might have 
 made a less accomplished master of impertinence blush to 
 the vei'y forehead. Calvert was, however, a proficient in 
 his art. 
 
 As they entered the breakfast-room. Miss Grainger 
 presented him to a young and very delicate-looking girl who 
 lay on a sofa propped up by cushions, and shrouded with 
 shawls, though the season was summer. 
 
 " Florence — Mr. Calvert. Miss Florence Walter. An 
 invalid come to beneht by the mild air of Italy, sir, but 
 who feels even these breezes too severe and too bracing 
 for her." 
 
 " -^oyP* is your place," said Calvert ; " one of those nice 
 villas on the sea slope of Alexandretta, with the palm- 
 trees and the cedai's to keep otf the sun;" and, seating 
 himself by her side in an easy familiar way, devoid of all 
 excess of freedom, talked to her about health and sickness 
 m a fashion that is very pleasant to the ears of sufiering. 
 And he really talked pleasantly on the theme. It was one 
 of which he had already some experience. The young 
 wife of a brother officer of his own had gained, iu such a 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 sojourn as he pictured, health enough to go on to India, 
 and was then alive and well, up im the hill country above 
 Simlah. 
 
 " Only fancy, aunt, what Mr. Calvert is promising me — 
 to be rosy-cheeked," said the poor sick girl, whose pale 
 face caught a slight pinkish tint as she spoke. 
 
 " I am not romancing in the least," said Calvert, taking 
 his place next Milly at the table. " The dryness of the 
 air, and the equitable temperature, work, positively, 
 miracles ; " and he went on telling of cures and recoveries. 
 When at last he arose to take leave, it was amidst a shower 
 of invitations to come back, and pledges on his part to bring 
 with him some sketches of the scenery of Lower Egypt, 
 and some notes he had made of his wanderings there. 
 
 " By-the-way," said he, as he gained the door, "have 
 I your permission to present a friend who lives with me — 
 a strange, bashful, shy creature, very good in his way, 
 though that way isn't exactly my way ; but really clever 
 and well read, I believe. May I bring him ? Of course I 
 hope to be duly accredited to you myself, through my 
 uncle." 
 
 " You need not, Mr. Calvert. I recognize you for one 
 of the family in many ways," said Miss Grainger ; " and 
 when your friend accompanies you, he will be most 
 welcome." 
 
 So, truly cordially they parted. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OLD HEMOBIES. 
 
 When Calvert rejoined his friend, he was full of the 
 adventure of the morning — such a glorious discovery as 
 he had made. What a wonderful old woman, and what 
 charming girls ! Milly, however, he owned, rather inclined 
 to the contemptuous. " She was what you Cockneys call 
 ' sarcy,' Loyd ; but the sick girl was positively enchant- 
 ing j so pretty, so gentle, and so confiding withal. JBy-
 
 OLD MEMORIES. 229 
 
 the-way, you must make me three or four sketches of 
 Nile scenery — a dull flat, with a palm-tree, group of 
 camels in the fore, and a pyramid in the background ; 
 and I'll get up the journal part, while you are doing the 
 illustrations. I know nothing of Egypt beyond the over- 
 land route, though I have persuaded them I kept a house 
 in Cairo, and advised them by all means to take Florence 
 there for the winter." 
 
 " But how could you practise such a deception in such 
 a case, Calvert ? " said Loyd, reproachfully. 
 
 " Just as naturally as you have ' got up ' that grand 
 tone of moral remonstrance. What an arrant humbug 
 you are, Loyd. Why not keep all this fine indignation 
 for Westminster, where it will pay ? " 
 
 " Quiz away, if you like ; but you will not pi'event me 
 saying that the case of a poor sick girl is not one for a 
 foolish jest, or a " 
 
 He stopped and grew very red, but the other con- 
 tinued :— 
 
 " Out with it, man. You were going to say, a false- 
 hood. I'm not going to be vexed with you because you 
 happen to have a rather crape-coloured temperament, and 
 like turning things round till you find the dark side of 
 them." He paused for a few seconds, and then went on : 
 " If you had been in my place this morning, I know well 
 enough wlmt you'd have done. You'd have rung the 
 changes over the uncertainty of life, and all its miseries 
 and disappointments. You'd have frightened that poor 
 delicate creature out of her wits, and driven her sister 
 half distracted, to satisfy what you imagine to be your 
 conscience, but which, I know far better, is nothing but 
 a morbid love of excitement — an unhealthy passion for 
 witnessing pain. Now, I left her actually looking better 
 for my visit — she was cheered and gay, and asked when 
 I'd come again, in a voice that betrayed a wish for my 
 return." 
 
 Loyd never liked being drawn into a discussion with 
 his friend, seeing how profitless such encounters are in 
 general, and how likely to embitter intercourse ; so he 
 merely took his hat and moved towards the door. 
 
 " Where are you going ? Not to that odious task of 
 photography, I hope ? " cried Calvert.
 
 230 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 "Yes," said the other, smiling; "I am making a com- 
 plete sei'ies of views of the lake, and some fine day or 
 other I'll make water-colour drawings from them." 
 
 " How I hate all these fine intentions that only point 
 to more work. Tell me of a plan for a holiday, some 
 grand scheme for idleness, and I am with you ; but to sit 
 quietly down and say, ' I'll roll that stone up a hill next 
 summer, or next autumn,' that drives me mad." 
 
 " Well, I'll not drive you mad. I'll say nothing about 
 it," said Loyd, with a good-natured smile. 
 
 " But won't you make me these drawings, these jottings 
 of my tour amongst the Pyramids ?" 
 
 " Not for such an object as you want them to serve." 
 
 " I suppose, when you come to practise at the bar, 
 you'll only defend innocence and protect virtue, eh ? 
 You'll, of course, never take the brief of a knave, or try 
 to get a villain off". With your principles, to do so would 
 be the basest of all crimes." 
 
 " I hope I'll never do that deliberately which my con- 
 science tells me I ought not to do." 
 
 " All right. Conscience is always in one's own keeping 
 — a guest in the house, who is far too well bred to be 
 disagreeable to the family. Oh, you arch hypocrite ! 
 how much worse you are than a reprobate like my- 
 self." 
 
 " I'll not dispute that." 
 
 " More hypoci-isy !" 
 
 " I mean that, without conceding the point, it's a thesis 
 I'll not argue." 
 
 " You ought to have been a Jesuit, Loj^d. You'd have 
 been a grand fellow in a long black soutane, with little 
 buttons down to the feet, and a skull-cap on your head. 
 I think I see some poor devil coming to you about a cas 
 de conscience, and going away sorely puzzled with your 
 reply to him." 
 
 " Don't come to me with one of yours, Calvert, that's 
 all," said Loyd, laughing, as he hurried off". 
 
 Like many men who have a strong spirit of banter in 
 them, Calvert was vexed and mortified when his sarcasm 
 did not wound. " If the stag will not run, there can be 
 no pursuit," and so was it that he now felt angry with 
 Loyd, angry with himself. " I suppose these are the sort
 
 OLD MEMORIES. 231 
 
 of fellows who get on in life. The world likes tlieir quiet 
 subserviency, and their sleek submissiveness. As for me, 
 and the like of me, we are * not placed.' Now for a line 
 to my Cousin Sophy, to know who is the ' Grainger' who 
 says she is so well acquainted with us all. Poor Sophy, 
 it was a love affair ouce between us, and then it came to 
 a quarrel, and out of that we fell into the deeper bitter- 
 ness of what is called ' a friendship.' We never really 
 hated each other till we came to that ! " 
 
 "Dearest, best of friends," he began, "in my broken 
 health, fortunes, and spirits, I came to this place a few 
 weeks ago, and made, by chance, the acquaintance of an 
 atrocious old woman called Grainger — Miss or Mrs., I 
 forget which. Who is she, and why does she know tis, 
 and call us the ' dear Cal verts," and your house ' sweet 
 old Rocksley?' I fancy she must be a begging-letter 
 imposter, and has a design — it will be a very abortive 
 one — upon my spare five-pound notes. Tell me all you 
 know of her, and if you can add a word about her nieces 
 twain — one pretty, the other prettier — do so. 
 
 " Any use in approaching my uncle with a statement of 
 my distresses — mind, body, and estate ? I owe him so 
 much gratitude that, if he doesn't want me to be insol- 
 vent, he must help me a little further. 
 
 " Is it true you are going to be married? The thought 
 of it sends a pang through me of such anguish as I dare 
 not speak of. Oh dear ! oh dear ! what a flood of bygones 
 are rushing upon me, after all my pledges, all my promises ! 
 One of these girls reminded me of your smile ; how like, 
 but how different, Sophy. Do you say there's no truth 
 in the story of the marriage, and believe me — what 
 your heart will tell you I have never ceased to be — your 
 devoted 
 
 Haery Calvert." 
 
 " I think that ought to do," said he, as he read over 
 the letter ; " and there's no peril in it, since her marriage 
 is fixed for the end of the month. It is, after all, a cheajD 
 luxury to bid for the lot that will certainly be knocked 
 down to another. She's a nice girl, too, is Sophy, but, 
 like all of us, with a temper of her own. I'd like to see
 
 232 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 her married to Loyd, they'd make each other perfectly 
 miserable." 
 
 With this charitable reflection to turn over in various 
 ways, tracing all the consequences he could imagine might 
 spi'ing from it, he sauntered out for a walk beside the 
 lake. 
 
 " This box has just come by the mail from Chiasso," 
 said his host, pointing to a small parcel, corded and 
 sealed. " It is the box the signora yonder has been 
 searching for these three weeks ; it was broken when the 
 diligence upset, and they tied it together as well as they 
 could." 
 
 The writing-desk was indeed that which Miss Grainger 
 had lost on her Rhine journey, and was now about to 
 reach her in a lamentable condition — one hinge torn off, 
 the lock strained, and the bottom split from one end to 
 the other. 
 
 " I'll take charge of it. I shall go over to see her in a 
 day or two, perhaps to-morrow;" and with this Calvert 
 carried away the box to his own room. 
 
 As he was laying the desk on his table, the bottom 
 gave way, and the contents fell about the room. They 
 were a mass of papers and letters, and some parchments ; 
 and he proceeded to gather them up as best he might, 
 cursing the misadventure, and very angry with himself 
 for being involved in it. The letters were in little bundles, 
 neatly tied, and docketed with the writers' names. These 
 he replaced in the box, having inverted it, and placing 
 all, as nearly as he could, in due order, till he came to a 
 thick papei'ed document tied with red tape at the corner, 
 and entitled, 'Draft of Jacob Walter's Will, with Remarks 
 of Counsel.' " This we must look at," said Calvert. 
 " What one can see at Doctors' Commons for a shilling is 
 no breach of confidence, even if seen for nothing;" and 
 with this he opened the paper. 
 
 It was very brief, and set forth how the testator had 
 never made, nor would make, any other will ; that he was 
 Bound of mind, and hoped to die so. As to his fortune, 
 it was something under thirty thousand pounds in Bank 
 Stock, and he desired it should be divided equally between, 
 his daughters, the survivor of them to have the wholo, or, 
 in the event of each life lapsing before marriage, that the
 
 bLD MEMORIES. 233 
 
 money slionld be divided amongst a number of charities 
 that he specified. 
 
 "I particularly desire and beg," wrote he, "that my 
 girls be brought up by Adelaide Grainger, my late wife's 
 half-sister, who long has known the hardships of poverty, 
 and the cares of a narrow subsistence, that they may learn 
 in early life the necessity of thrift, and not habituate 
 themselves to luxuries, which a reverse of fortune might 
 take away from them. I wish, besides, that it should be 
 generally believed their fortune was one thousand pounds 
 each, so that they should not become a prey to fortune- 
 hunters, nor the victims of adventurers, insomuch that my 
 last request to each of my dear girls would be not to 
 marry the man who would make inquiry into the amount 
 of their means till twelve calendar months after such 
 inquiry, that time being full short enough to study the 
 character of one thus palpably worldly-minded and 
 selfish." 
 
 A few cautions as to the snares and pitfalls of the world 
 followed, and the document finished with the testator's 
 name, and that of three witnesses in pencil, the words "if 
 they consent," being added in ink, after them. 
 
 " Twice fifteen make thirty — thirty thousand pounds — 
 a very neat sum for a great many things, and yielding, 
 even in its dormant state, about fifteen hundred a year. 
 What can one do for that ? Live, certainly — live 
 pleasantly, jovially, if a man were a bachelor. At Paris, 
 for instance, with one's pleasant little entresol in the Rue 
 Neuve, or the Rue Faubourg St. Honore, and his club, 
 and his saddle-horses, with even ordinary luck at billiards, 
 he could make the two ends meet very satisfactorily. 
 Then, Baden always pays its way, and the sea-side 
 places also do, for the world is an excellent world to the 
 fellow who travels with his courier, and only begs to be 
 plucked a little by the fingers that wear large diamonds. 
 
 " But all these enchantments vanish when it becomes a 
 question of a wife. A wife means regular habits and 
 respectability. The two most costly things I know of. 
 Y"our scampish single-handed valet, who is out all day on 
 his own affairs, and only turns up at all at some noted 
 time in your habits, is not one-tenth as dear as that old 
 creature with the powdered head and the poultice of
 
 234 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 cravat round liis Beck, wlio only bows when tlie dinner 
 is served, and grows apoplectic if he draws a cork. 
 
 " It's the same in everything ! Your house must be 
 taken, not because it is convenient or that you like it, 
 but because your wife can put a pretentious address on 
 her card. It must be something to which you can tag 
 Berkeley Square, or Belgravia. In a word, a wife is a 
 mistake, and, what is worse, a mistake out of which tliere 
 is no issue." 
 
 Thus reasoning and reflecting — now, speculating on 
 what he should feel — now, imagining what " the world " 
 would say — he again sat down, and once more read over 
 Mr. Walter's last will and testament. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Sophy's letter. 
 
 In something over a week the post brought two letters 
 for the fellow-travellei's. Loyd's was from his mother — 
 a very homely affair, full of affection and love, and over- 
 flowing with those little details of domestic matters so 
 dear to those who live in the small world of home and its 
 attachments. 
 
 Calvert's was from his Cousin Sophy, much briefer, and 
 very different in style. It ran thus : 
 
 " Dear Henry " 
 
 " I used to be Harry," muttered he. 
 
 " Dear Henry, — It was not without surprise I saw your 
 handwriting again. A letter from you is indeed an event 
 at Rocksley. 
 
 " The Miss Grainger, if her name be Adelaide (for 
 there were two sisters) was our nursery governess long 
 ago. Gary liked, I hated her. She left us to take charge 
 of some one's children — relatives of her own, I suspect — 
 and though she made some move about coming to see us, 
 and presenting * her charge,' as she called it, there was no
 
 soi'hy's letter. 235 
 
 response to the suggestion, and it dropped. I nevex' heard 
 more of her. 
 
 "As to any hopes of assistance from papa, I can 
 scarcely speak encouragingly. Indeed, he made no inquiry 
 as to the contents of your letter, and only remai'ked 
 afterwards to Gary that he trusted the correspondence was 
 not to continue. 
 
 " Lastly, as to myself, I really am at a loss to see how 
 my marriage can be a subject of joy or grief, of pleasure 
 or pain, to you. We are as much separated from each 
 other in all the relations of life as we shall soon be by 
 long miles of distance. Mr. Wentworth Graham is fully 
 aware of the relations which once subsisted between us, 
 — he has even read your letters — and it is at his instance 
 I request that the tone of our former intimacy shall cease 
 from this day, and that there may not again be any 
 reference to the past between us. I am sure in this I am 
 merely anticipating what your own sense of honourable 
 propinety would dictate, and that I only expi*ess a senti- 
 ment your own judgment has already ratified. 
 
 " Believe me to be, very sincerely yours, 
 
 " Sophia Calvert." 
 
 "Oh dear! When we were Sophy and Harry, the 
 world went very differently from now, when it has come 
 to Henry and Sophia. Not but she is right — right in 
 everything but one. She ought not to have shown the 
 letters. There was no need of it, and it was unfair ! 
 There is a roguei-y in it too, which, if I were Mr. Went- 
 worth Graham, I'd not like. It is only your most ac- 
 complished sharper that ever plays cartes sur table, I'd 
 sorely suspect the woman who would conciliate the new 
 love by a treachery to the old one. However, happily, 
 this is his affair, not mine. Though I could make it mine, 
 too, if I were so disposed, by simply reminding her that 
 Mr. W. G. has only seen one-half, and, by long odds, the 
 least interesting half, of our correspondence, and that for 
 the other he must address himself to me. Husbands have 
 occasionally to learn that a small sealed packet of old 
 letters would be a more acceptable present to the bride 
 on her wedding morning than the prettiest trinket from
 
 236 A RENT m A CLOtJD. 
 
 the Rue de la Paix. Should like to throw this shell into 
 the midst of the orange-flowers and the wedding favours, 
 and I'd do it too, only that I could never accurately hear 
 of the tumult and dismay it caused. I should be left to 
 mere imagination for the mischief, and imagination no 
 longer satisfies me." 
 
 While he thus mused, he saw Loyd prepai'ing for one 
 of his daily excursions with the photographic apparatus, 
 and could not help a contemptuous pity for a fellow so 
 easily amused and interested, and so easily diverted from 
 the great business of life — which he deemed "getting 
 on " — to a pastime which cost labour and returned no 
 profit. 
 
 " Come and see ' I Grangeri ' (the name by which the 
 Italians designated the English family at the villa), it's 
 far better fun than hunting out rocky bits, or ruined 
 fi^agments of masonry. Come, and I'll promise you some- 
 thing prettier to look at than all your feathery ferns or 
 drooping foxgloves." 
 
 Loyd tried to excuse himself. He was always shy and 
 timid with strangers. His bashfulness repelled intimacy, 
 and so he frankly owned that he would only be a bar to his 
 friend's happiness, and throw a cloud over this pleasant 
 intercourse. 
 
 "How do you know but I'd like that ?" said Calvert, 
 ■with a mocking laugh. "How do you know but I want 
 the very force of a contrast to bring my own merits more 
 conspicuously forward ? " 
 
 " And make them declare when we went away, that it 
 is inconceivable why Mr. Calvert should have made a 
 companion of that tiresome Mr. Loyd — so low-spirited 
 and so dreary, and so uninteresting in every way ?" 
 
 " Just so ! And that the whole thing has but one ex- 
 planation — in Calvert's kindness and generosity ; who, 
 seeing the helplessness of this poor depressed creature, 
 has actually sacrificed himself to vivify and cheer him. 
 As we hear of the healthy people suffering themselves to 
 be bled that tbey might impart their vigorous heart's 
 blood to a poor wretch in the cholera." 
 
 " But I'm not blue yet," said Loyd, laughing. ** I 
 almost think I could get on with my own resources." 
 
 " Of course you. might, in the fashion you do at
 
 Sophy's letter 237 
 
 present ; but tJiat is not life — or at least it is only the 
 life of a vegetable. Mere existence and growth are not 
 enough for a man who has hopes to fulfil, and passions to 
 exercise, and desires to expand into accomplishments, not 
 to speak of the influence that every one likes to wield over 
 his fellows. But, come along, jump into the boat, and 
 see these girls ! I want you ; for there is one of them I 
 scarcely understand as yet, and as I am always taken up 
 with her sick sister, I've had no time to learn more about 
 her." 
 
 " Well," said Loyd, " not to offer opposition to the 
 notion of the tie that binds us, I consent." And, sendiug 
 back to the cottage all the details of his pursuit, he 
 accompanied Calvert to the lake. 
 
 " The invalid girl I shall leave to your attention, 
 Loyd," said the other, as he pulled across the water. " I 
 like her the best ; but I am in no fear of rivalry in that 
 quarter, and I want to see what sort of stuff the other is 
 made of. So, you understand, you are to devote your- 
 self especially to Florence, taking care, when opportunity 
 serves, to say all imaginable fine things about me — my 
 talents, my energy, my good spirits, and so forth. I'm 
 serious, old fellow, for I will own to you I mean to marry 
 one of them, though which, I have not yet decided on." 
 
 Loyd laughed heartily — far more heartily than in his 
 quiet habit was his wont — and said, '* Since when has 
 this bright idea occurred to you?" 
 
 "I'll tell you," said the other, gi-avely. "I have for 
 years had a sort of hankering kind of half attachment to 
 a cousin of mine. We used to quarrel, and make up, 
 and quarrel again ; but, somehow, just as careless spend- 
 thrifts forget to destroy the old bill when they give a 
 renewal, and at last find a swingeing sum hanging over 
 them they had never dreamed of, Sophy and I never 
 entirely cancelled our old scores, but kept them back to 
 be demanded at some future time. And the end has been 
 a regular rupture between us, and she is going to be 
 married at the end of this month, and, not to be out- 
 done on the score of indifference, I should like to an- 
 nounce my own happiness, since that's the word for it, 
 first." 
 
 " But have you means to mai'ry ?"
 
 238 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Not a shilling." 
 
 " Nor prospects ? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Then I don't understand " 
 
 " Of course you don't understand. Nor could I make 
 you understand how fellows like myself play the game of 
 life. But let me try by an illustration to enlighten you. 
 When there's no wind on a boat, and her sails flap lazily 
 against the mast, she can have no guidance, for there is 
 no steerage way on her. She may drift with a current, 
 or rot in a calm, or wait to be crushed by some heavier 
 craft surging against her. Any wind — a squall, a hurri- 
 cane — would be better than that. Such is my case. 
 Marriage without means is a hurricane ; but I'd rather 
 face a hurricane than be water-logged between two 
 winds." 
 
 " But the girl you marry " 
 
 "The girl I marry — or rather the girl who marries 
 one — will soon learn that she's on board a privateer, and 
 that on the wide ocean called life there's plenty of booty 
 to be had for a little dash and a little danger to grasp 
 it." 
 
 " And is it to a condition like this you'd bring the girl 
 you love, Calvert? " 
 
 " Not if I had five thousand a year. If I owned that, 
 or even four, I'd be as decorous as yourself; and I'd send 
 my sons to Rugby, and act as poor-law guardian, and 
 give my twenty pounds to the county hospital, and be a 
 model Enti'lishman, to your heart's content. But I haven't 
 five thousand a year, no, nor five hundred a year ; and as 
 for the poor-house and the hospital, I'm far more likely 
 to claim the benefit than aid the funds. Don't you see, 
 my wise-headed friend, that the whole is a question of 
 money ? Morality is just now one of the very dearest 
 things going, and even the rich cannot always afford it. 
 As for me, a poor sub in an Indian regiment, I no 
 more afl'ect it than I presume to keep a yacht, or stand 
 for a county." 
 
 " But what right have you to reduce another to such 
 straits as these ? Why bring a young girl into such a 
 conflict?" 
 
 " If ever you read Louis Blanc, my good fellow, you'd
 
 Sophy's letter. 239 
 
 have seen tbat the right of all rights is that of * associated 
 labour.' But come, let us not grow too deep in the 
 theme, or we shall have very serious faces to meet our 
 friends with, and yonder, where you see the drooping ash 
 trees, is the villa. Brush yourself up, therefore, for the 
 coming interview ; think of your bits of Shelley and 
 Tennyson, and who knows but you'll acquit yourself with 
 honour to your introducer." 
 
 " Let my introducer not be too confident," said Loyd, 
 smiling ; "but here come the ladies." 
 
 As he spoke, two girls drew nigh the landing-place, one 
 leaning on the arm of the other, and in her attitude show- 
 ing how dependent she was for support. 
 
 " My bashful friend, ladies ! " said Calvert, presenting 
 Loyd. And with this they landed. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DISSENSION. 
 
 The knowledge Calvert now possessed of the humble 
 relations which had subsisted between Miss Grainger and 
 his uncle's family, had rendered him more confident in his 
 manner, and given him even a sort of air of protection 
 towards them. Certain it is, each day made him less and 
 less a favourite at the villa, while Loyd, on the other 
 hand, grew in esteem and liking with every one of them. 
 A preference which, with whatever tact shrouded, showed 
 itself in various shapes. 
 
 " I pei'ceive," said Calvert one morning, as they sat at 
 breakfast together, " my application for an extension of 
 leave is rejected. I am ordered to hold myself in readi- 
 ness to sail with drafts for some regiments in Upper 
 India ! " He paused for a few seconds, and then continued, 
 "I'd like any one to tell me what great difiereuce there is 
 in real condition between an Indian officer and a trans- 
 ported felon. In point of daily drudgery there is little, 
 and, as for climate, the felon has the best of it."
 
 240 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " I think you take too dreary a view of your fortune. 
 It is not the sort of career I would choose, nor would it 
 suit me, but if my lot had fallen that way, I suspect I'd 
 not have found it so unendurable." 
 
 " No. It would not suit you. There's no scope in a 
 soldier's life for those little sly practices, those small 
 artifices of tact and ingenuity, by which subtlety does its 
 work in this world. In such a career, all this adroitness 
 vrould be clean thrown away." 
 
 "I hope," said Loyd, with a faint smile, "that you do 
 not imagine that these are the gifts to achieve success in 
 any calling." 
 
 " I don't know — I am not sure, but I rather suspect 
 they find their place at the Bar." 
 
 " Take my word for it, then, you are totally mistaken. 
 It is an error just as unworthy of your good sense as it is 
 of your good feeling ! " And he spoke with warmth and 
 energy. 
 
 " Hurrah! hurrah ! " cried Calvert. "For three months 
 I have been exploring to find one spot in your whole 
 nature that would respond fiercely to attack, and at last I 
 have it." 
 
 " You put the matter somewhat offensively to me, or 
 I'd not have replied in this fashion — but let us change the 
 topic, it is an unpleasant one." 
 
 "I don't think so. When a man nurtures what his 
 friend believes to be a delusion, and a dangerous delusion, 
 •what better theme can there be than its discussion ? " 
 
 " I'll not discuss it," said Loyd, with determination. 
 
 " Tou'll not discuss it ? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " "What if I force you ? What if I place the question 
 on grounds so direct and so personal that you can't help 
 it?" 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " You shall presently. For some time back I have been 
 thinking of asking an explanation from you — an explan- 
 ation of your conduct at the villa. Before you had estab- 
 lished an intimacy there, I stood well with everyone. The 
 old woman, with all her respect for my family and con- 
 nections, was profuse in her attentions. Of the girls, as 
 I somewhat rashlv confided to you, I had only to make ray
 
 DISSENSION. 241 
 
 choice. I presented you to them, never anticipating that I 
 was doing anything very dangerous to them or to myself, 
 but I find I was wrong. I don't want to descend to 
 details, nor inquire how aud by what arts you gained your 
 influence; my case is simply with the fact that, since you 
 have been in favour, / have been out of it. My whole 
 position with them is changed. I can only suggest now 
 what I used to order, and I have the pleasure, besides, of 
 seeing that even my suggestion must be submitted to you 
 and await your approval." 
 
 " Have you finished ? " said Loyd, calmly. 
 
 " No, far from it ! I could make my charge extend 
 over hours long. In fact, I have only to review our lives 
 here for the last six or seven weeks, to establish all I 
 have been saying, and show you that you owe me 
 an explanation, and something more than an explana- 
 tion." 
 
 " Have you done now ? " 
 
 " If you mean, have I said all that I could say on this 
 subject, no — far from it. You have not heard a fiftieth 
 part of what I might say about it." 
 
 " Well, I have heard quite enough. My answer is this, 
 you are totally mistaken ; I never, directly or indirectly, 
 prejudiced your position. I seldom spoke of you, never 
 slightingly. I have thought, it is true, that you assumed 
 towards these ladies a tone of superiority which could 
 not fail to be felt by them, and that the habit grew on 
 you to an extent you perhaps were not aware of; as, 
 however, they neither complained of, nor resented it, and 
 as, besides, you were far more a man of the world than 
 myself, and consequently knew better what the usages of 
 society permitted, I refrained from any remark, nor, but 
 for your present charge, would I say one word now on the 
 subject." 
 
 " So, then, you have been suffering in secret all this 
 time over my domineering and insolent temper, pitying 
 the damsels in distress, but not able to get up enough of 
 Quixotism to avenge them ? " 
 
 " Do you want to quarrel with me, Calvert ?" said the 
 other calmly. 
 
 " If I knew what issue it would take, perhaps I could 
 answer you." 
 
 B
 
 242 A RENT IN A CLOrD. 
 
 " I'll (ell you, then, at least so far as I am concerned, I 
 liave never injured, never wronged you. I have therefore 
 nothing to recall, nothing to redress, upon any part of my 
 conduct. In what you conceive you are personally in- 
 terested, I am ready to give a full explanation, and this 
 done, all is done between us." 
 
 " I thought so, I suspected as much," said Calvei't, 
 contemptuously. " I was a fool to suppose you'd have 
 taken the matter differently, and now nothing remains 
 for me but to treat my aunt's nursery governess with 
 greater deference, and be more respectful in the presence 
 — the august presence — of a lawyer's clerk." 
 
 " Good-bye, sir," said Loyd, as he left the room. 
 
 Calvert sat down and took up a book, but though he 
 read three full pages, he knew nothing of what they con- 
 tained. He opened his desk, and began a letter to Loyd — 
 a farewell letter — a justification of himself, but done more 
 temperately than he had spoken ; but he tore it up, and 
 so with a second and a third. As his passion mounted, 
 he bethought him of his cousin and her approaching 
 marriage. " I can spoil some fun there," cried he, and 
 wrote as follows : 
 
 "Lago d'Orta, August 12. 
 
 "Dear Sir, — In the prospect of the nearer relations 
 which a few days more will establish between us, I ven- 
 ture to address you thus familiarly. My cousin, Miss 
 Sophia Calvert, has informed me by a letter I have just 
 received that she deemed it her duty to place before you 
 a number of letters written by me to her at a time when 
 there subsisted between us a very close attachment. 
 With my knowledge of my cousin's frankness, her can- 
 dour, and her courage — for it would also require some 
 courage — I am fully persuaded that she has informed you 
 thoroughly on all that has passed. We were both very 
 young, very thoughtless, and, worse than either, left 
 totally to our own guidance, none to watch, none to look 
 after us. There is no indiscretion in my .«aying that we 
 were both very much in love, and with that sort of con- 
 fidence in each other that renders distrust a crime to one's 
 own conscience. Although, tlierefore, slic may have told 
 you much, her womanly dignity would not let her dwell
 
 WSSENSlON. 243 
 
 on these circumstances, explanatory of much, and pallia- 
 tive of all that passed between us. To you, a man of the 
 world, I owe this part declaration, less, however, for your 
 sake or for mine, than for her, for whom either of us 
 ought to make any sacrifice in our power. 
 
 " The letters she wrote me are still in ray possession. 
 I own they are very dear tome; they are all that remain 
 of a past, to which nothing in my future life can recall 
 the equal. I feel, however, that your right to them is 
 greater than my own, but I do not know how to part 
 with them. I pray you advise me in this. Say how you 
 would act in a like circumstance, knowing all that has 
 occurred, and be assured that your voice will be a com- 
 mand to your vcrv devoted servant, 
 
 " H. C, 
 
 "P.S. — When I began this letter, I was minded to say 
 my cousin should see it: on second thoughts, I incline to 
 say not — decidedly not." 
 
 When this base writer had finished writing he flung 
 down the pen, and said to himself, half aloud, " I'd give 
 something to see him I'ead this ! " 
 
 With a restless impatience to do something — anj-thing, 
 he left the house, walking with hurried steps to the little 
 jetty where the boats lay. " Where's my boat, Onofrio ? " 
 said he, asking for the skiff he generally selected. 
 
 "The other signer has taken her across the lake." 
 
 " This is too much," muttered he. " The fellow fancies 
 that because he skulks a satisfaction he is free to practise 
 an impertinence. He knew I preferred this boat, and 
 thei'efore he took her," 
 
 " Jump in, and row me across to La Rocca," said he to 
 the boatman. As they skimmed across the lake, his mind 
 dwelt only on vengeance, and fifty different ways of exact- 
 ing it passed and repassed before him. All, however, 
 concentrating on the one idea — that to pass some insuln 
 upon Loyd in presence of the ladies would be the most 
 fatal injury he could inflict, but how to do this without a 
 compromise of himself was the difficulty. 
 
 " Though no woman will ever forgive a coward," thought 
 he, " I must take care that the provocation I oiler be such 
 
 K 2
 
 244 A nENT IN A OLOUD. 
 
 as will not exclude myself from sympathy." And, with 
 all his craft and all his cunning, he could not hit upon a 
 way to this. He fancied, too, that Loyd had gone over 
 to prejudice the ladies against him by his own version of 
 what had occurred in the morning. He knew well how, 
 of late, he himself had not occupied the highest place in 
 their esteem — it was not alone the insolent and overbear- 
 ing tone he assumed, but a levity in talking of things 
 which others treated with deference, alike offensive to 
 morals and manners — these had greatly lowered him in 
 their esteem, especially of the girls, for old Miss Grain ircr, 
 with a traditional respect for his name and family, held to 
 him far more than the others. 
 
 "What a fool I was ever to have brought the fellow 
 here ! What downright folly it was in me to have let 
 them ever know him. Is it too late, however, to remedy 
 this ? Can I not yet undo some of this mischief ? " This 
 was a new thought, and it filled his mind till he landed. 
 As he drew quite close to the shore he saw that tlie little 
 awning-covered boat, in which the ladies occasionally made 
 excursions on the lake, was now anchored under a large 
 drooping ash, and that Loyd and the girls were on board 
 of her. Loyd was reading to them ; at least so the con- 
 tinuous and equable tone of his voice indicated, as it rose 
 in the thin and silent air. Miss Grainger was not there — 
 and this was a fortunate thing — for now he should have 
 his opportunity to talk with her alone, and probably 
 ascertain to what extent Loyd's representations had 
 damaged him. 
 
 He walked up to the villa, and entered the drawing- 
 room, as he was wont, by one of the windows that opened 
 on the green sward without. There was no one in the 
 room ; but a half-written letter, on which the ink was still 
 fresh, showed tliatthe writer had only left it at the instant. 
 His eye caught the words, " Dear and Reverend Sir," and 
 in the line beneath the name " Loyd." The temptation was 
 too strong, and he read on : 
 
 " Dear and Reverend Sir, — I hasten to express my entire 
 satisfaction with the contents of your letter. Your son, 
 Mr. Loyd, has most faithfully represented his position and 
 his prospects, and, although my niece might possibly have
 
 DISSENSION. 245 
 
 placed her chances of happiness iu the hands of a wealthier 
 suitor, I am fally assured she never could have met with 
 one whose tastes, pursuits, and general disposition " 
 
 A sound of coming feet startled him, and he had but time 
 to throw himself on a sofa, when Miss Grainger entered. 
 Her manner was cordial — fully as cordial as usual — per- 
 haps a little more so, since, in the absence of her nieces, 
 she was free to express the instinctive regard she felt 
 towards all that bore his name. 
 
 " How was it that you did not come with Loyd ? " 
 asked she. 
 
 " I was busy, writing letters I believe — congratulations 
 on Sophy's approaching marriage; but what did Loyd 
 say — was that the reason he gave ? " 
 
 " He gave none. He said he took a wliim into his head 
 to row himself across the lake ; and indeed I half suspect 
 the exertion was too much for him. He has been cough- 
 ing again, and the pain in his side has returned." 
 
 " He's a wretched creature — I mean as regards health 
 and strength. Of course he always must have been so : 
 but the lives these fellows lead in London would breach 
 the constitution of a really strong man." 
 
 "Not Loyd, however; he never kept late hours, nor 
 had habits of dissipation." 
 
 " I don't suppose he ever told you that he had," said 
 he, laughing. " I conclude that he has never shown you 
 his diary of town life." 
 
 " But do you tell me, seriously, that he is a man of 
 dissipated habits ? " 
 
 " Not more so than eight out of every ten, perhaps, in 
 his class of life. The student is everywhere more given 
 to the excitements of vice than the sportsman. It is the 
 compensation for the wearisome monotony of brain labour, 
 and they give themselves up to excesses from which the 
 healthier nature of a man with country tastes would revolt 
 at once. But what have I to do with his habits ? I am 
 not his guardian nor his confessor." 
 
 " But they have a very serious interest for we." 
 
 '* Then you must look for another counsellor. I am 
 not so immaculate that I can arraign others ; and, if I 
 were, I fancy I might find some pleasanter occupation.''
 
 246 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " But if 1 tell you a secret, a great secret " 
 
 " I'd not listen to a secret. I detest secrets, just as I'd 
 bate to have the charge of another man's money. So, I 
 warn you, tell me uothicg that you don't want to hear 
 talked of at dinner, and before the servants." 
 
 " Yes ; but this a case in which I really need your 
 advice." 
 
 "You can't have it at the price you propose. Not to 
 add, that I have a stronger sentiment to sway me in this 
 case, which you will understand at once, when I tell you 
 that he is a man of whom I would like to speak with 
 great reserve, for the simple reason that I don't like 
 him." 
 
 " Don't like him ! You don't like him ! " 
 
 " It does seem very incredible to. you ; but I must 
 repeat it, I don't like him.'' 
 
 " But will you tell me why ? What are the grounds of 
 your dislike ? " 
 
 " Is it not this very moment I have explained to you 
 that my personal feeling towards him inspires a degree of 
 deference which forbids me to discuss his character ? He 
 may be the best fellow in Europe, the bravest, the boldest, 
 the frankest, the fairest. All I have to say is, that if I 
 had a sister, and he proposed to marry her, I'd leather 
 see her a corpse than his wife ; and now you have led 
 me into a confession that I told you I'd not enter upon. 
 Say another word about it, and I'll go and ask Loyd to 
 come up here and listen to the discussion, for I detest 
 secrets and secrecy, and I'll have nothing to say to 
 either." 
 
 " You'd not do anything so rash and inconsiderate ? " 
 
 "Don't provoke me, that's all. You are always telling 
 me you know the Calvcrts, their hot-headedness, their 
 passionate warmth, and so on. I leave it to yourself, is it 
 wise to push me further ? " 
 
 "May I show you a letter I received yesterday morning, 
 in reply to one of mine ? " 
 
 " Not if it refers to Loyd." 
 
 " It does refer to him." 
 
 " Then I'll not read it. 1 tell you for the last time, I'll 
 not be cheated into this discussion. I don't desire to have 
 it said of me some fine morning, * You talked of the man
 
 DISSENSION. 247 
 
 tbat you lived with on terms of intimacy. You chummed 
 with him, and yet you told stories of him.' " 
 
 " If you but knew the difficulty of the position in which 
 you have placed me " 
 
 " I know at least the difficulty in which you have placed 
 me, and I am resolved not to incur it. Have I given to 
 you Sophy's letter to read?" said he with a changed 
 voice. " I must fetch it out to 3'ou and let you see all 
 that she says of her future happiness." And thus, by a 
 sudden turn, he artfully engaged her in recollections of 
 Rocksley, and all the persons and incidents of a remote 
 long ago! 
 
 When Loyd returned with the girls to the house, Calvert 
 soon saw that he had not spoken to them on the alter- 
 cation of the morning — a reserve which he ungenerously 
 attributed to the part Loyd himself filled in the controversy. 
 The two met with a certain reserve ; but which, however, 
 felt and understood by each, was not easily marked by a 
 spectator. Florence, however, saw it, with the traditional 
 clearness of an invalid. She read what healthier eyes 
 never detect. She saw that the men had either quarrelled, 
 or were on the brink of a quarrel, and she watched them 
 closely and narrowly. This was the easier for her, as at 
 meal times she never came to table, but lay on the sofa, 
 and joined in the conversation at intervals. 
 
 Oppressed by the consciousness of what had occurred 
 in the morning, and far less able to conceal his emotions 
 or master them than his companion, Loyd was discon- 
 certed and ill at ease : now answering at cross purposes, 
 now totally absorbed in his own reflections. As Calvert 
 saw this, it encouraged him to greater efforts to be agree- 
 able. He could, when he pleased, be a most pleasing 
 guest. He had that sort of knowledge of people and life 
 which seasons talk so well, and suits so many listeners. 
 He was curious to find out to which of the sisters Loyd 
 was engaged, but all his shrewdness could not fix the 
 point decisively. He talked on incessantly, referring, 
 occasionally, to Loyd to confirm what he knew well the 
 other's experience could never have embraced, and asking 
 frankly, as it were, for his opinion on people he was fully 
 aware the other had never met with. 
 
 Millicent (or IMilly, as she was familiarly called) Walter
 
 248 A KENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 showed impatience more than once at these sallies, which 
 always made Loyd confused and uncomfortable, so that 
 Calvert leaned to the impression that it was she herself 
 was the chosen one. As for Florence, she rather enjoyed, 
 he thought, the awkward figure Loyd presented, and she 
 even laughed outright at his bashful embarrassment. 
 
 " Yes," said Calvert to himself, " Florence is with me. 
 She is my ally. I'm sure of her." 
 
 "What spirits he has," said Miss Grainger, as she 
 brought the sick girl her coffee. " I never saw him in a 
 gayer mood. He's bent on tormenting Loyd, though, for 
 he has just proposed a row on the lake, and that he should 
 take one boat and Loyd the other, and have a race. He 
 well knows who'll win." 
 
 " That would be delightful, aunt. Let us have it by all 
 means. Mr. Calvert, I engage you. You are to take me. 
 Milly will go with Mr. Loyd." 
 
 " And I'll stand at the point and be the judge," said 
 Miss Grainger. 
 
 Calvert never waited for more, but, springing up, 
 hastened down to the shore to prepare the boat. He was 
 soon followed by Miss Grainger, with Florence leaning 
 on her arm, and looking brighter and fairer than he 
 thought he had ever seen her. 
 
 "Let us be off at once," whispered Calvert, "for I'd 
 like a few hundred yards' practice — a sort of trial gallop 
 — before I begin ; " and, placing the sick girl tenderly in 
 the stern, he pulled vigorously out into the lake. " What 
 a glorious evening ! " said he. " Is there anything in the 
 world can equal one of these sunsets on an Italian lake, 
 with all the tints of the high Alps blending softly on the 
 calm water? " 
 
 She made no answer ; and he went on enthusiastically 
 about the scene, the hour, the stillness, and the noble 
 sublimity of the gigantic mountains which arose around 
 them. 
 
 Scarcely, however, had Calvert placed her in the boat, 
 and pulled out vigorously from the shore, than he saw a 
 marked change come over the girl's face. All the laugh- 
 ing gaiety of a moment back was gone, and an expression 
 of anxiety had taken its place. 
 
 * You are not ill 'i " asked ho, eagerly.
 
 DISSENSION. 249 
 
 " No. Why do you ask me ? " 
 
 '* I was afraid — I fancied you looked paler. You seem 
 changed." 
 
 " So I am," said she, seriously. "Answer me what I 
 shall ask, but tell me frankly." 
 
 " That I will ; what is it ? " 
 
 " You and Loyd have quarrelled — what was it about?" 
 
 " What a notion ! Do you imagine that the silly 
 quizzing that passes between young men implies a 
 quarrel ? " 
 
 '* No matter what I fancy ; tell me as candidly as you said 
 you would. What was the subject of your disagreement ? " 
 
 " How peremptory you are," said he, laughing. " Are 
 you aware that to give your orders in this fashion implies 
 one of two things — a strong interest in me, or in my 
 adversary ? " 
 
 " Well, I accept the charge ; now for the confession." 
 
 " Am I right, then, dearest Florence ? " said he, ceas- 
 ing to row, and leaning down to look the nearer at her. 
 " Am I right, then, that jour claim to this knowledge is 
 the best and most indisputable ? " 
 
 " Tell me what it is ! " said she, and her pale face sud- 
 denly glowed with a deep flash. 
 
 " You guessed aright, Florence ; we did quarrel ; that 
 is, we exchanged very angry words, though it is not very 
 easy to say how the difference began, or how far it went. 
 I was dissatisfied with him. I attributed to his influence, 
 in some shape or other, that I stood less well here — in 
 your esteem, I mean — than formerly ; and he somewhat 
 cavalierly told me if there were a change I owed it to 
 myself, that I took airs upon me, that I was haughty, 
 presuming, and fifty other things of the same sort ; and 
 so, with, an interchange of such courtesies, we grew at last 
 to feel very warm, and finally reached that point where 
 men — of the world, at least — understand discussion ceases, 
 and something else succeeds." 
 
 " Well, go on," cried she, eagerly. 
 
 " All is told ; there is no more to say. The lawyer did 
 not see the thing, perhaps, in the same vulgar light that I 
 did ; he took his hat, and came over here. I followed 
 him, and there's the whole of it." 
 
 " I think he was wrong to comment upon your manner,
 
 250 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 if not done from a sense of friendsliip, and led on to it by 
 some admission on your part." 
 
 " Of course he was ; and I am charmed to hear you 
 say so." 
 
 She was silent for some time, leaning her head on her 
 hand, and appearing deep in thought. 
 
 " Now that I have made my confession, will yoa let me 
 have one of yours?" said he, in a low, soft voice. 
 
 " I'm not sure; what's it to be about ? " 
 
 " It's about myself I want to question you." 
 
 " About j^ourself ! Surely you could not have hit upon 
 a sorrier adviser, or a less experienced counsellor than I am." 
 
 " I don't want advice, Florence, I only want a fact ; 
 and from all I have seen of you, I believe you will deal 
 fairly with me." 
 
 She nodded assent, and he went on : 
 
 " In a few weeks more I shall be obliged to return to 
 India ; to a land I dislike, and a service I detest : to live 
 amongst companions distasteful to me, and amidst habits 
 and associations that, however endurable when I knew no 
 better, are now become positively odious in mj' eyes. Tins 
 is my road to rank, station, and honour. There is, how- 
 ever, another path ; and, if I relinquish this career, and 
 give up all thought of ambition, I might remain in Europe 
 — here, perhaps, on this very lake side — and lead a life of 
 humble but i;nbroken happiness — one of those peaceful 
 existences which poets dream of but never realize, because 
 it is no use in disparaging the cup of life till one has 
 tasted and known its bitterness ; and these men have 
 not reached such experience — I have." 
 
 He waited for her to speak — he looked eagerly at her 
 for a word — but she was silent. 
 
 "The confession I want from you, Florence, is this: 
 could you agree to share this life with me ? " 
 
 She shook her head and muttered, but what he could 
 not catch. 
 
 " It would be too dreary, too sad-coloured, you think?" 
 
 "No," said she, "not that." 
 
 " You fear, perhaps, that these schemes of isolation 
 liavo never succeeded : that weariness will come when 
 there are no longer new objects to suggest interest or 
 employment ? "
 
 DISSENSION. 251 
 
 *' Not that," said she, more faintly. 
 
 " Then the objection must be myself. Florence, is it 
 that you would not, that you could not, trust me with your 
 happiness?" 
 
 " You ask for frankness, and you shall have it. I 
 cannot accept your oiler. My heart is no longer mine to 
 give." 
 
 " And this — this engagement, has been for some time 
 back?" asked he, almost sternly. 
 
 " Yes, for some time," said she, faintly. 
 
 "Am I acquainted with the object of it? Perhaps I 
 have no right to ask this. But there is a question I have a 
 full and perfect right to ask. How, consistently with 
 such an engagement, have you encouraged the attentions 
 I have paid you P " 
 
 " Attentions ! and to me ! Why, your attentions have 
 been directed I'ather to my sister — at least, she always 
 thought so — and even these Ave deemed the mere passing 
 flirtations of one who made no seci'et of saying that he 
 regarded marriage as an intolerable slavery, or rather, the 
 heavy price that one paid for the pleasure of courtship." 
 
 " Are the mere levities with which I amused an hour 
 to be recorded against me as principles ?" 
 
 " Only when such levities fitted into each other so 
 accurately as to show plan and contrivance." 
 
 " It was Loyd said that. That speech was his. I'd lay 
 my life on it." 
 
 " I think not. At least, if the thought were his, he'd 
 have expressed it far better." 
 
 "You admire him, then?" asked he, peering closely 
 at her. 
 
 " I wonder why they are not here," said she, turning 
 her head away. " This same race ought to come off by 
 this time." 
 
 " Why don't you answer my question ? " 
 
 " There he goes ! Kowing away all alone, too, and ray 
 aunt is waving her handkerchief in farewell. See how 
 fast he sends the boat through the water. I wonder why 
 he gave up the race ? " 
 
 " Shall I tell you ? He dislikes whatever he is chal- 
 lenged to do. He is one of those fellows who will never 
 dare to measure himself ajjainst another."
 
 252 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " My aunt is beckoning to us to come back, Mr. 
 Calvert." 
 
 " And my taste is for going forward," muttered he, 
 while at the same time he sent the boat's head suddenly 
 round, and pulled vigorously towards the shore. 
 
 " May I trust that what has passed between us is a 
 secret, and not to be divulged to another — not even to 
 your sister ? " 
 
 " If you desii'e — if you exact." 
 
 " I do, most decidedly. It is shame enough to be I'e- 
 jected. I don't see why my disgrace is to be paraded 
 either for pity or ridicule." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Calvert " 
 
 " Or triumphed over," said he sternly, as he sent the 
 boat up to the side of the little jetty, where Miss Grainger 
 and her niece awaited them. 
 
 " Poor Loyd has just got bad news from home," said 
 Miss Grainger, " and he has hastened back to ask, by 
 telegraph, if they wish him to return." 
 
 " Any one ill, or dying? " asked Calvert carelessly. 
 
 " No, it's some question of law about his father's 
 vicarage. There would seem to be a doubt as to his 
 presentation — whether the appointment lay with the 
 patron or the bishop." 
 
 Calvert turned to mark how the girls received these 
 tidings, but they had walked on, and with heads bent 
 down, and close together, were deep in conversation. 
 
 " I thought it was only in my profession," said Calvert 
 sneeringly, " where corrupt patronage was practised. It 
 is almost a comfort to think how much the good people 
 resemble the wicked ones." 
 
 Miss Grainger, who usually smiled at his levities, looked 
 grave at this one, and no more was said, as they moved 
 on towards the cottage.
 
 253 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GROWING DARKER. 
 
 It was late at night when Calvert left the villa, but, 
 instead of rowing directly back to the little inn, he left 
 his boat to drift slowly in the scarce perceptible current 
 of the lake, and wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down 
 to muse or to sleep. 
 
 It was just as day broke that he awoke, and saw that 
 he had drifted within a few yards of his quarters, and, in 
 a moment after, he was on shore. 
 
 As he gained his room, he found a letter for him in 
 Loyd's hand. It ran thus : — 
 
 ** I waited up all night to see you before I started, for 
 I have been suddenly summoned home by family circum- 
 stances. I was loth to part in an angry spirit, or even 
 in coldness, with one in whose companionship I have 
 passed so many happy hours, and for whom I feel, not- 
 withstanding what has passed between us, a sincere 
 interest. I wanted to speak to you of much which I 
 cannot write — that is to say, I would have endeavoured 
 to gain a hearing for what I dai'e not venture to set down 
 in the deliberate calm of a letter. When I own that it 
 was of yourself, your temper, your habits, your nature, in 
 short, that I wished to have spoken, you will, perhaps, 
 say that it was as well time was not given me for such 
 temerity. But bear in mind, Calvert, that though I am 
 free to admit all your superiority over myself, and never 
 would presume to compare my faculties or my abilities 
 with yours — though I know well there is not a single gift 
 or grace in which you are not my master, there is one 
 point in which I have an advantage over you — I had a 
 mother ! You, you have often told me, never remember 
 to have seen yours. To that mother's trainings I owe 
 anything of good, however humble it be, in my nature, 
 and, though the soil in which the seed has fallen be poor
 
 254 A RENT IN A CLOl'D. 
 
 raid barren, so mncli of frnit 1ms it borne tliafc I at least 
 respect tlie good wliich I do not practise, and I reverence 
 tliat virtue to wliich I am a rebel. The lesson, above all 
 others, that she instilled into nie, was to avoid the tone of 
 a scoffer, to rescue myself from the cheap distinction 
 which is open to every one who sets himself to see only 
 ridicule iu what others respect, and to mock the themes 
 that others regard with reverence. I stop, for I am 
 afraid to weai-y you — I dread that, in your impatience, 
 j'ou will throw this down and read no more — I will only 
 su}', and I say it in all the sincerity of truth, that if you 
 would endeavour to be morally as great as what your 
 faculties can make you intellectually, there is no eminence 
 you might not attain, nor any you would not adorn. 
 
 " If our intimacy had not cooled down of late, from 
 what causes I am unable to tell, to a point in which the 
 first disagreement must be a breach between us, I would 
 have told you that I had formed an attachment to Florence 
 Walter, and obtained her aunt's consent to our marriage ; 
 I mean, of course, at some future which I cannot define, 
 for I have my way to make in the world, and, up to 
 the present, have only been a burden on others. We are 
 engaged, however, and we live on hope. Perhaps I pre- 
 sume too far on any interest you could feel for me when I 
 make you this communication. It may be that you will 
 say, ' What is all this to me?' At all events, I have 
 told you what, had I kept back, would have seemed to 
 myself an uncandid reservation. Deal with it how you 
 may. 
 
 " There is, however, another reason why I should tell 
 you this. If you were unaware of the relations which 
 exist between our friends and myself, you might uncon- 
 sciously speak of me in terms which this knowledge 
 would, perhaps, modify — at least, you would speak with- 
 out the consciousness that you were addressing unwilling 
 hearers. You now know the ties that bind us, and your 
 words will have that significance which you intend they 
 should bear, 
 
 " Remember, and remember distinctly, I disclaim all 
 pretension, as I do all wish, to conciliate your favour as 
 regards this matter ; first, because I believe I do not 
 need it ; and secondly, that if I asked for it, I should be
 
 Gr.OWIKG DARKER. 'ZoD 
 
 nnwortliy of it. I scarcely know how, after our last 
 meeting, I stand in your estimation, but I am ready to 
 own that if you would only suffer yourself to be half as 
 good as your nature had intended you and your faculties 
 might make you, 3-ou would be conferring a great honour 
 on being the friend of yours truly, 
 
 " Joseph Lotd." 
 
 " What a cant these fellows acquire ! " said Calvert as 
 he read the letter and threw it from him. " What mock 
 humanity! what dowm'ight and palpable pretension to 
 superiority through every line of it! The sum of it all 
 being, I can't deny that you are cleverer, stronger, more 
 active, and more manly than me ; but, somehow, I don't 
 exactly see why or hoAv, but I'm your better! Well, I'll 
 write an answer to this one of these days, and such an 
 answer as I flatter myself he'll not read aloud to the com- 
 pany who sit round the fire at the vicarage. And so, 
 Mademoiselle Florence, this was your anxiety, aiid this 
 the reason for all that interest about our quarrel which I 
 was silly enough to ascribe to a feeling for myself. How 
 invariably it is so ! How certain it is that a woman, the 
 weakest, the least experienced, the most commonplace, 
 is more than a match in astuteness for a man, in a ques- 
 tion where her affections are concerned. The feminine 
 nature has strange contradictions. They can summon 
 the courage of a tigress to defend their young, and the 
 spirit of a Machiavelli to protect a lover. She must 
 have had some misgiving, however, that to prefer a'fellow 
 like this to me would be felt by me as an outrage. 
 And then the cunning stroke of implying that her sister 
 was not indisposed to listen to me. The perfidy oi 
 that!" 
 
 Several days after Loyd's departure, Calvert was loung- 
 ing near the lake, when he jumped up, exclaiming, " Here 
 comes the postman ! I see he makes a sign to me. What 
 can this be about ? Surely, my attached friend has not 
 written to me again. 'No, this is a hand that I do not 
 recognize. Let us see what it contains." He opened and 
 read as follows : 
 
 " Sir, — I have received your letter. None but a scoun-
 
 256 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 drel could have written it ! As all prospect of connection 
 with your family is now over, you cannot have a pi-etext 
 for not affording me such a satisfaction as, had you been 
 a gentleman in feeling as you are in station, it would 
 never have been necessary for me to demand from you. 
 I leave this, to-morrow, for the continent, and will be at 
 Basle by Monday next. I will remain there for a week at 
 your orders, and hope that there may be no diliiculty to 
 their speedy fulfilment. 
 
 " T am, your obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 " Wentworth Gordon Graham." 
 
 "The style is better than yours. Master Loyd, just 
 because it means something. The man is in an honest 
 passion and wants a fight. The other fellow was angry, 
 and begged me not to notice it. And so, Sophy, I have 
 spoiled the wedding favours, and scattered the brides- 
 maids ! What a heavy lesson for an impertinent note. 
 Poor thing ! why did she trust herself with a pen ? Why 
 did she not know that the most fatal of all bottles is the 
 ink bottle ? Precious rage old Uncle Geoff'rey must be 
 in. I'd like to have one peep at the general discomfiture 
 — the deserted dinner-table, and the empty drawing-room. 
 They deserve it all ! they banished one, and much good 
 have they got of it. Well, Mr. Wentworth Gordon 
 Graham must have his wicked way. The only difficulty 
 will be to find what is so absurdly misnamed as a friend. 
 I must have a friend ; I'll run up to Milan and search the 
 hotels : I'll surely find some one who will like [the cheap 
 heroism of seeing another man shot at. This is the season 
 when all the fellows who have no money for Baden come 
 across the Alps. I'm certain to chance upon one to suit 
 me." 
 
 Having despatched a short note, very politely worded, 
 to Mr. Graham, to the post office, Basle, he ordered a 
 carriage, and set out for Milan. 
 
 The city was in full festivity when he arrived, over- 
 joyed at its new-born independence, and proud of the 
 presence of its king. The streets were crowded with a 
 holiday population, and from all the balconies and win- 
 dows hung costly tapestries, or gay-coloured carpets.
 
 GROWING DARKER. 257 
 
 Military music resounded on all sides, and so dense was 
 the throng of people and carriages, that Calvert could 
 only proceed at a walking pace, none feeling any especial 
 care to make way for a dusty traveller, seated in one of 
 the commonest of country conveyances. 
 
 As he moved slowly and with difficulty forwards, he 
 suddenly heard his name called ; he looked up, and saw 
 a well-known face, that of a brother officer who had left 
 India on a sick leave along with himself. 
 
 " I say, old fellow ! " cried Barnard, " this is your 
 ground ; draw into that large gate to your right, and come 
 up here." 
 
 In a few seconds, Calvert, escorted by a waiter, was 
 shown to his friend's apartment. 
 
 " I never dreamed of meeting you here, Calvert." 
 
 " Nor I of finding you lodged so sumptuously," said 
 Calvert, as his eyes ranged over the splendid room, 
 whose massive hangings of silk, and richly gilt ceiling, 
 gave that air of a palace one so often sees in Italian 
 hotels. 
 
 *' Luck, sir, luck. I'm married, and got a pot of money 
 with my wife." He dropped his voice to a whisper, 
 while, with a gesture of his thumb towards an adjoining 
 room, he motioned his friend to be cautious. 
 
 "Who was she?" 
 
 " Nobody ; that is, not any one you ever heard of. 
 Stockport people, called Eeppingham. The father, a 
 great railway contractor, vulgar old dog — began as a 
 navvy — with one daughter, who is to inherit, they say, a 
 quarter of a million ; but, up to this, we've only an allow- 
 ance — two thousand a year. The old fellow, howevei', 
 lives with us — a horrible nuisance." This speech, given 
 in short, abrupt whispers, was uttered with many signs 
 to indicate that the respected father-in-law was in the 
 vicinity. " Now, of yourself, what's your news ? What 
 have you done last, eh ? " 
 
 " Nothing very remarkable. I have been vegetating on 
 a lake in the north of Italy, trying to live for five shillings 
 a day, and spending three more in brandy, to give me 
 courage to do it." 
 
 "But your leave is up; or perhaps you have got a 
 renewal."
 
 258 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " No; my leave goes to the fifteenth of October." 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; we got our leave on the same day, 
 passed the Board on the same day, and for exactly the 
 same time. My leave expired on the tenth of August. 
 I'll show you the paper ; I have it here." 
 
 "■ Do so. Let me see it." 
 
 Barnard opened his desk, and quiclily found the paper 
 he sought for. It was precisely as Barnard said. The 
 Board of Calcutta had confirmtd the regimental recom- 
 mendation, and gi-anted a two-years' leave, which ended on 
 the teuth of August. 
 
 "Never mind, man," said Barnard; "get back to 
 London as hard as you can, furbish up some sick certifi- 
 cate to say that you were unahle to quit your bed " 
 
 " That is not so easy as you imagine ; I have a little 
 affair in hand which may end in more publicity than I 
 have any fancy for." And he told him of his approach- 
 ing meeting with Graham, and asked him to be his 
 frien'i. 
 
 " What was the quarrel about ? '' asked Barnard. 
 
 "A jealousy; he was going to marry a little cousin I 
 iised to flirt with, find we got to words about it. In fact, 
 it is what Sir Lucius would call a vei'y pretty quarrel, 
 and there's nothing to be done but finish it. You'll stand 
 by me, won't you ? " 
 
 " 1 don't see how I can. Old Rep, our governor, never 
 leaves me. I'm obliged to report myself about four times 
 a day." 
 
 " But you know that can never go on. You needn't be 
 told by me that no man can continue such a system of 
 slavery, nor is there anything could recompense it. You'll 
 have to teach her better one of these days ; begin at 
 once. My being here gives you a pretext to bes^in. St.irt 
 at once — to-day. Just say, 'I'll have to show C.-ilvcrt 
 tlie lions ; he'll want to hunt up galleiies,' and such- 
 like." 
 
 " Hush ! here comes my wife. Fanny, let me present 
 to you one of my oldest friends, Calvert. It's a name you 
 have often heard from me." 
 
 The young lady — she was not more than twenty — was 
 pleasing-looking and well-mannered. Indeed, Calvert was 
 amazed to see her so unlike what he expectpd : she was
 
 GROWING DARKER. 259 
 
 neither pretentious nor shy ; and, had his friend not 
 gone into the question of pedigree, was there anything to 
 mark a class in life other than his own. While they 
 talked together they were joined by her father, who, 
 however, more than realized the sketch drawn by Bar- 
 nai'd. 
 
 He was a morose, down-looking old fellow, with a 
 furtive expression, and a manner of distrust about him 
 that showed itself in various ways. From the first, though 
 Calvert set vigorously to work to wm his favour, he 
 looked with a sort of misgiving at him. He spoke very 
 little, but in that little there were no courtesies wasted ; 
 aud when Barnax'd whispered, " You had better ask him 
 to dine with us, the invitation will come better fiora 
 you!" the reply was, "I won't; do you hear that ? I 
 won't." 
 
 " But he's an old brother-officer of mine, sir; we served 
 several years together." 
 
 " The worse company youi-s, then.'' 
 
 " I say, Calvert," cried Barnard, aloud, " I must give 
 you a peep at our gay doings here. I'll take you a drive 
 round the town, and out of the Porta Orientale, and if 
 we should not be back at dinner-time, Fanny " 
 
 " We'll dine without you, that's all ! " said the old man ; 
 while, taking his daughter's hand, he led her out of the 
 room. 
 
 " I say. Bob, I'd not change with you, even for the 
 difference," said Calvert. 
 
 "I never saw him so bad before," said the other, 
 sheepishly. 
 
 '' Because you never tried hira ! Hitherto you have 
 been a spaniel, getting kicked and cuffed, and rather liking 
 it; but now that the sight of an old friend has rallied you 
 to a faint semblance of your former self, you are shocked 
 and horrified. You made a bad start, Bob ; that was the 
 mistake. You ought to ha.ve begun by making him feel 
 the immeasurable distance there lay between him and a 
 gentleman ; not only in dress, language, aud behaviour, but 
 in every sentiment and feeling. Having done this, he 
 would have tacitly submitted to ways that were not his 
 own, by conceding that they might be those of a class 
 he had never belo.nged to. You might, in short, have 
 
 s 2
 
 260 A SENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 ruled him quietlj* and constitutionally. Now you have 
 nothing for it but one thing." 
 
 " Which is " 
 
 " A revolution ! Yes, you must overthrow the whole . 
 government, and build up another out of the smash. 
 Begin to-day. We'll dine together wherever you like. 
 We'll go to the Scala if it's open. We'll sup ' 
 
 " But Fanny ? " 
 
 " She'll stand by her husband. Though, piobably, 
 she'll have you ' up * for a little private discipline after- 
 wards. Come, don't lose time. I want to do my cathe- 
 dral, and my gallery, and my other curiosities in one 
 day, for I have some matters to settle at Orto before I 
 start for Basle. Have they a club, a casino, or anything 
 of the sort here, where they play ? " 
 
 " There is a place they call the Gettone, but I've never 
 been there but once." 
 
 " Well, we'll finish there this evening ; for I want to win 
 a little money, to pay my journey." 
 
 " If I can help you " 
 
 "No, no. Not to bethought of. I've got some fifty 
 Naps by me — tame elephants — that are sure to entrap 
 others. You must come with me to Basle, Bob. You 
 can't desert me in such a crisis," said Calvert, as they 
 left the inn together. 
 
 "We'll see. I'll think over it. The difficulty will 
 be " 
 
 "The impossibility is worse than a difficulty; and that 
 is what I shall have to face if you abandon me. Why, 
 only think of it for a moment. Here I am, jilted, out of 
 the army — for I know I shall lose my commission — with- 
 out a guinea ; you'd not surely wish me to say, without a 
 friend ! If it were not that it would be so selfish, I'd say 
 the step will be the making of you. You'll have that old 
 bear so civilized on your return you'll not know him." 
 
 " Do you really tiiink so ? " 
 
 " I know it. He'll see at once that you'll not stand 
 this sort of bullying. That if you did, your friends 
 would not stand it. Wo shan't be away above four days, 
 and those four days will give him a fright he'll never 
 forget." 
 
 " I'll think over it."
 
 GROWING DARKER. 261 
 
 "No. You'll do it — that's better; and I'll promise 
 you — if Mr. Graham does not enter a fatal objection — 
 to come back with you and stand to you through your 
 troubles." 
 
 Calvert had that about him in his strong will, his reso- 
 lution, and his readiness at reply, which exercised no mean 
 despotism over the fellows of his own age. And it was 
 only tbey who disliked and avoided him who ever resisted 
 him. Barnard was an easy victim, and, before the day 
 drew to its close, he had got to believe that it was by a 
 rare stroke of fortune Calvert had come to Milan — come 
 to rescue him from the " most degrading sort of bondage 
 a good fellow could possibly fall into." 
 
 They dined splendidly, and sent to engage a box at the 
 Opera ; but the hours passed so pleasantly over their 
 dinner that they forgot all about it, and only reached the 
 theatre a few minutes before it closed. 
 
 "Now for the — what do you call the place?" cried 
 Calvert. 
 
 " The Gettone." 
 
 " That's it. I'm eager to measure "my luck against 
 these Milanais. They say, besides, no fellow has such a 
 vein as when his life is threatened ; and I remember 
 myself, when I had tlie yellow fever at Galle, I passed 
 twenty-one times at ecarte, all because I was given over!" 
 
 " What a fellow you are, Calvert ! " said the other, with 
 a weak man's admiration for whatever was great, even in 
 infamy. 
 
 "You'll see how I'll clear them out. But what have I 
 done with my purse? Left it on my dressing-table. I 
 suppose they are honest in the hotel? " 
 
 " Of course they are. It's all safe ; and I've moro 
 money about me than you want. Old Rep handed mv 
 thx-ee thousand francs this morning to pay the bill, and 
 when I saw you, I forgot all about it." 
 
 " Another element of luck," cried Calvert, joyously. 
 "The money that does not belong to a man always wins. 
 Why, there's five thousand francs here," said Calvert, as 
 he counted over the notes. 
 
 " Two of them are Fanny's. She got her quarter's 
 allowance yesterday. Stingy, isn't it ? Only three hun- 
 dred a year,"
 
 262 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " It's downright disgraceful. She ought to have eight 
 at the very least ; but wait till we come back from Basle. 
 You'll not believe what a change I'll work in that old 
 fellow, when I take him in hand." 
 
 By this time they had reached the Gettone, and, after a 
 brief colloquy, were suflPered to pass upstairs and enter 
 the rooms. 
 
 " Oh, it's faro they play ; my own game," whispered 
 Calvert. " I was afraid the fellows might have indulged 
 in s^me of their own confounded things, which no foreigner 
 ca«i compete in. At faro I fear none." 
 
 While Barnard joined a group of persons round a 
 roulette-table, where fashionably-dressed women adven- 
 tured their franc-pieces along with men clad in the most 
 humble mode, Calvert took his place among the faro 
 players. The boldness of his play, and the reckless way 
 he adventured his money, could not conceal from their 
 practised acuteness that he was master of the game, and 
 they watched him attentively. 
 
 "I think I have nearly cleaned thorn out. Bob," cried 
 he to his friend, as he pointed to a heap of gold and 
 silver which lay promiscuously piled up before him. 
 
 " I ruppose you must give them their revenge ? " 
 whispered the other, " if they wish for it." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. At a public table, a winner 
 rises when he pleases. If I continue to sit hei'e now, it 
 is because that old fellow yonder has got a rouleau in his 
 pocket which he cannot persuade himself to break. See, 
 he has taken it out — for the fourth time, this is, I \\ onder 
 can he screw up his courage to I'isk it. Yes ! he has ! 
 There go ten pieces on the queen. Go back to your 
 flirtation with the blonde ringlets, and don't distui'b my 
 game. I must have that fellow's rouleau before I leave. 
 Go back, and I'll not tell your wife." 
 
 It was in something less thnn an hour after this that 
 Barnard felt a hand laid on his shoulder, and, looking up, 
 saw Calvert standing over him. " Well, it took you some 
 time to finish that old fellow, Calvert !" 
 
 "He finished me, which was worse. Have you got a 
 cigar '? " 
 
 " Do you mean that you lost all your winnings ? " 
 
 " Yes, and your five thousand francs besides, not to
 
 GROWING DARKER. 263 
 
 speak of a borrowed thousand from some one I have given 
 my card to. A bore, isn't it ? " 
 
 " It's more than a bore — it's a bad business. I don't 
 know how I'll settle it with the landlord." 
 
 "Give him a bill, he'll never be ti'oublesome : and, as 
 to your wife's money, tell her frankly you lost it at play. 
 Isn't that the best way, Madame ? " said he, addressing a 
 young and pretty woman at his side. " I am advising 
 my friend to be honest with his wife, and confess that he 
 spent his money in very pleasant company. Come along 
 out of this stuffy place. Let us have a walk in the fresh 
 cool ail', and a cigar if you have one. I often wond.r," 
 said he, as they gained the street, " how the fellows who 
 write books and want to get up sensation scenes, don't 
 come and do something of this sort. There's a marvel- 
 lous degree of stimulant in being cleaned out, not only of 
 one's own cash, but of oue's credit; and by credit I mean 
 it in the French sense, which says, ' Le credit est I'argent 
 des autres.'" 
 
 " I wish you had not lost that money," muttered the 
 other. 
 
 " So do I. I have corabativeness very strong, and I 
 hate being beaten by any one in anything." 
 
 " Tvi thinking of the mono}- ! " said the other, doggedly'. 
 
 " J^Taturally, for it was j'ours. ' 'Tvvas mine, 'tis his,' 
 as Hamlet has it. Great fellow, Hamlet! I don't sup- 
 pose that any one ever drew a cliaracter wherein Gentle- 
 man was so distinctly pninted as Hamlet. He combined 
 all the grandest ideas of his class with a certain ' disin- 
 voltura ' — a sort of high bred levity — that relieved his 
 sternness, and made him much better company than such 
 fellows as Laertes and Horatio." 
 
 " When you saw luck turning, why didn't you leave 
 off?" 
 
 " Why not ask why the luck turned before I left off P 
 That would be the really philosophic inquiry. Isn't it 
 chilly?" 
 
 '' I'm not cold, but I'm greatly provoked." 
 
 " So am I fur I/O II ; for I haven't got enough to repay 
 you, but trust me to arrange the matter in the mornuig. 
 The landlord will see the thing with the eyes of his call- 
 ing: he'll soon perceive that the son-in-law of a man who
 
 264 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 travels with two carriages, and can't speak one word of 
 French, is one to be trusted. I mean him to cash a bill 
 for us before I leave. Old Rep's white hat and brown 
 spencer are guarantees for fifty thousand francs in any- 
 city of Europe. There's a solvent vulgarity in the very 
 creak of his shoes." 
 
 " Oh ! he's not a very distinguished-looking person, cer- 
 tainly," said Barnard, who now resented the liberty he 
 had himself led the way to. 
 
 " There I differ with you ; J call him eminently distin- 
 guished, and I'd rather be able to * come ' that cravat tie, 
 and have the pattern of the dark-green waistcoat with the 
 red spots, than I'd have — what shall I say? — all the crisp 
 bank paper I lost awhile ago. You are not going in, 
 surely?" cried he, as the other rang violently at the 
 hotel. 
 
 " Yes ; I am very tired of this fooling. I wish you 
 hadn't lost that money." 
 
 " Do you remember how it goes, Bob ? 
 
 " His weary song, 
 The whole day long, 
 Was still I'argent, I'argent, I'argent ! 
 
 She is complaining that though the linnet is singing in 
 
 the trees, and the trout leaping in the river, her tiresome 
 
 husband could only liken them to the clink of the gold as 
 
 ifell on the counter? Why, man, you'll wake the dead 
 
 ryou ring in that fashion !" 
 
 " I want to get in." 
 
 " Here comes the fellow at last ; how disgusted he'll be 
 to find there's not a five-franc piece between us." 
 
 Scarcely was the door opened than Barnard passed in, 
 and lett him without even a good-night.
 
 265 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON THE ROAD. 
 
 Caltert's first care as he entered his room was to ascer- 
 tain if his purse was there. It was all safe and untouched. 
 He next lit a cigar, and opening his window, leaned out 
 to smoke. It was a glorious autumn night, still, starry 
 and cloudless. Had anj'one from the street beneath seen 
 him there, he miglit have said, " There is some wearied 
 man of brain-labour, taking his hour of tranquil thought 
 before he betakes himself to rest ; or he is one of those 
 contemplative natures who loves to be free to commune 
 with his own heart in the silence of a calm night." He 
 looked like this, and perhaps — who knows if he were not 
 nearer it than we wot of ? 
 
 It was nigh daybreak before he lay down to sleep. 
 Nor had he been fully an hour in slurjnber when he was 
 awoke, and found Bai'nard, dressed in a morning gown 
 and slippers, standing beside bis bed. 
 
 " 1 say, Calvert, rub your eyes and listen to me. Are 
 you awake ?" 
 
 "Not vei-y perfectly ; but quite enough for anything 
 you can have to say. What is it ? " 
 
 " I am so fretted about that money." 
 
 "Why you told me that last night," said Calvert, ad- 
 dressing himself, as it were, again to sleep. 
 
 " Oh, it's all very fine and very philosophic to be in- 
 different about another man's ' tin' ; but I tell you I don't 
 know what to do, what to say about it. I'm not six 
 weeks married, and it's rather early to come to rows and 
 altei'cations with a father-in-law." 
 
 "Address him to me. Say 'Go to Calvert— he'll talk 
 to you.' Do that like a good fellow and go to bed. Good 
 night." 
 
 "I'll not stand this sort of thing, Calvert. I'm not 
 going to lu.-e my money nnd be laujjhed at too ',"
 
 266 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 "You'll not stand what?" cried Calvert, sitting up in 
 bed, and looking now thoroughly awake. 
 
 "I mean," said the other, doggedly, "you have got me 
 into a confounded scrape, and you are bound to get me out 
 of it." 
 
 " That is speaking like a man of sense. It is what I 
 intend to do ; but can't we sleep over it first ? I want 
 what the old ladies call my ' natural rest.' " 
 
 " There's no time for that. The old governor is always 
 pottering about by six o'clock, and it's jnst as likely, as 
 the landlord talks English, he'll be down by way of 
 gossiping with him, and ask if the bill is settled." 
 
 " What an old beast he must be. I wonder you could 
 have married into such a vulgar set." 
 
 " If you have nothing to say but abuse of my connec- 
 tions, I am not going to waste any more time here." 
 
 " There, that's a dear fellow ; go to bed now, and call 
 me somewhere towards four in the afternoon." 
 
 " This is rather more than a joke." 
 
 " To be sui*e it is, man ; it is dead sleepiness. Good- 
 night." 
 
 " I see you have found your purse — how much had 
 you in it ? " 
 
 " Count it, if you're curious," said Calvert, drowsily. 
 
 " Fifty-four Napoleons and a half," said the other, 
 slowly. " Look ye, Calvert, I'm going to impound this. 
 It's a sorry instalment, but, as far as it goes- " 
 
 " Take it, old fellow, and leave me quiet." 
 
 " One word more, Calvert," said Barnai'd, seriously. 
 *' I cannot muster courage to meet old Hep this morning, 
 and if you like to start at once and settle this affair you have 
 in Switzerland, I'm ready, but it must be done instanter." 
 
 "All right; I shall be ready within an hour. Tell the 
 porter to send my bath up at once, and order coffee by 
 the time you'll be dressed." 
 
 There was very little trace of sleep about Calvert's face 
 now, as, springing from his bed, he prepared for the road. 
 With such despatch, indeed, did he proceed, that he 
 was already in the coH'ee-room before his friend had 
 descended. 
 
 "■ Shall we .say anything to the landlord before we start, 
 Calvert?" whispered he.
 
 ON THE ROAD. 267 
 
 " Of course : send Signor Angelo, or Antonio, or what- 
 ever his name, here. The padrone, I mean," said he to 
 the waiter. 
 
 "He is called Luigi Filippo, sir," said the man, in- 
 dignantly. 
 
 " A capital name for a rogue. Let us have him here." 
 
 A very burly consequential sort of man, marvellously 
 got up as to beard, moustaches, and watch-chain, entered 
 and bowed. 
 
 " Signor Luigi Filippo," said Calvert, " my friend here 
 • — the son of that immensely wealthy mi Lordo up stairs 
 — is in a bit of scrape ; he had au altercation last night 
 with a fellow we take to be an Austrian spy." 
 
 The host spat out, and frowned, ferociously. 
 
 " Just so ; a dog of a Croat, I suspect," went on 
 Calvert; "at all events, he must put a bullet in him, and 
 to do so, must get over the frontier beyond Como ; we 
 want therefore a little money from you, and your secrecy, 
 till this blows over." 
 
 The host bowed, and pursed up his lips like one who 
 would like a little time for reflection, and at last said, 
 "How much money, Signor?" 
 
 " What do you say, Bob? will a hundred N^aps do, or 
 eighty ?" 
 
 " Fifty : fifty are quite enough," cried Barnard. 
 
 " On a circular note, of course, Signor ? " asked the 
 host. 
 
 "No, a draft at six days on my friend's father; mi 
 Lordo means to pass a month here." 
 
 " I don't think I'll do that, Calvert," whispered Bar- 
 nard ; but the other stopped him at once with " Be quiet ; 
 leave this to me." 
 
 " Though payable at sight, Signor Luigi, we shall ask 
 you to hold it over for five or six days, because we hope 
 possibly to be back here before Saturday, and if so, we'll 
 settle this ourselves." 
 
 " It shall be done, gentlemen," said the host. " I'll go 
 and draw out the bills, and you shall have the money 
 immediately." 
 
 " How I touched the fellow's patriotism. Bob. It was 
 the Austrian dodge stood us in stead, there. I know that 
 I have jeopardised your esteem for me by the loss of that
 
 268 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 money last niglii ; but do confess that this was a clever 
 hit of mine." 
 
 " It's a bad business from beginning to end ! " was, 
 however, all that he could obtain from Barnard. 
 
 *' Narrow-minded dog ! he won't see any genius in a 
 man that owes him five shillings." 
 
 "T wish it was only five shillings." 
 
 "What an ignoble confession! It means this, that 
 your friendship depends on the rate of exchanges, and 
 
 that when gold rises But here comes Luigi Filippo. 
 
 Now, no squeamishness, but write your name firmly. 
 'Cut boldly,' said the auger, 'and he cut it through.' 
 Don't you remember that classic anecdote in your Roman 
 history ?" 
 
 It is a strange fact that the spirit of raillery, which to a 
 dull man is, at first, but a source of irritation and fretful- 
 ness, will, when persevered in, become at last one of the 
 most complete despotisms. He dreads it as a weapon 
 which he cannot defend himself against; and he comes to 
 regard it as an evidence of superiority and power. Bar- 
 nai'd saw the domihion that the other exercised over him, 
 but could not resist it. 
 
 "Where to now?" asked he, as they whirled rapidfiy 
 along the road towards Monza. 
 
 " First of all, to Orta. There is an English family I 
 want to see. Two prettier girls you can't imagine — not 
 that the news has any interest for you, poor caged mouse 
 that you are — but I am in love with one of them. I 
 forget which, but I believe it's the one that won't have 
 me." 
 
 " She's right," said Barnard, with a half smile. 
 
 " Well, 1 half suspect she is. I could be a charming 
 lover, but I fear I'd make only a sorry husband. My 
 qualities are too brilliant for every-day use. It is your 
 dreary fellows, with a tiresome monotony of nature, do 
 best in that melancholy mill they cfill marriage. You, for 
 instance, ought to be a model 'mari.' " 
 
 "You are not disposed to give me the chance, I think," 
 said Barnard, peevishly. 
 
 *' On the contrary, I am prepai'ing you most carefully 
 for your career. Conjugal life is a reformatory. You 
 must come to it as a penitent, Now I'll teach you the
 
 Oit THE ROAD. 269 
 
 first part of your lesson ; your wife shall supply the 
 second." 
 
 " I'd relish this much better if " 
 
 " I had not lost that money, you were going to say. 
 Out with it, man. When a fellow chances upon a witty 
 thing, he has a right to repeat it ; besides, you have reason 
 on your side. A loser is always wrong. But after all. Bob, 
 whether the game be war, or marriage, or a horse-race, 
 one's skill has very little to say to it. Make the wisest 
 combinations that ever were fashioned, and you'll lose 
 sometimes. Draw your card at hazard, and you'll win. 
 If you only saw the fellow that beat me t'other day in a 
 girl's affections — as dreary a dog as ever you met in your 
 life, without manliness, without 'go ' in him — and yet he 
 wasn't a curate. I know you suspect he was a cui'ate." 
 
 " If you come through this affair all right, what do you 
 intend to turn to, Calvert ? " said the other, who really 
 felt a sort of interest in his fortunes. 
 
 " I have thought of several things : the Church — the 
 Colonies — Patent Fuel — Marriage — Turkish Baths, and a 
 Sympathy Society for Suffering Nationalities, with a 
 limited liability to all who subscribe fifty pounds and 
 upwards." 
 
 " But, seriously, have you any plans ? " 
 
 " Ten thousand plans ! I have plans enough to ruin 
 all Threadneedle Street; but what use are plans? What's 
 the good of an architect in a land where there are no 
 bricks, no mortar, and no timber? When I've shot 
 Grahani, I've a plan how to make my escape out of 
 Switzerland; but, beyond that, nothing ; not one step, I 
 promise you. See, yonder is Monte Rosa ; how grand he 
 looks in the still calm air of the morning. What a gentle- 
 man a mountain is ! bow independent of the changeful 
 fortunes of the plains, where grass succeeds tillage, and 
 what is barley to-day, may be a brick-field to-morrow ; 
 but the mountain is ever the same — proud and cold if you 
 will, but standing above all the accidents of condition, 
 and asserting itself by qualities which are not money- 
 getting. I'd like to live in a land of mountains, if it were 
 not for the snobs that come to climb them." 
 
 " But why should they be snobs ? " 
 
 " I don't know ; perhaps the mountains like it. There,
 
 270 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 look yonder, our road leads along that ledge till we reach 
 Chiasso, about twelve miles off ; do you think you can 
 last that long without breakfast ? There, there, don't 
 make that pitiful face; you shall have your beefsteak, and 
 your chocolate, and your eggs, and all the other claims of 
 your Anglo-Saxon nature, whose birthright it is to growl 
 for eveiy twenty-four hours, and 'grub' every two." 
 
 They gained the little inn at Orta by the evening, and 
 learned, as Calvert expected, that nothing had changed in 
 his absence — indeed what was there to change — so long 
 as the family at the villa remained in the cottage ? All 
 Avas to Calvert as h ' left it. 
 
 Apologising to his friend for a brief absence, he took 
 boat and crossed the lake. It was just as they had sat 
 down to tea that he entered the drawing-room. 
 
 If there was some constraint in the reception of him, 
 there was that amount of surjorise at his appearance that 
 half masked it. "You have been away, Mr. Calvert? " 
 asked Miss Grainger. 
 
 " Yes," said he, carelessly, '' I got a rambling fit on me, 
 and finding that Loyd had started for England, I grew 
 fidgetty at being alone, so I went up to Milan, saw 
 churches and galleries, and the last act of a ballet ; but, 
 like a country mouse, got home-sick for the haa'd peas and 
 the hollow tree, and hurried back again." 
 
 After some careless talk of commonplaces he managed 
 at last to secure the chair beside Florence's sofa, and 
 affected to take an interest in some work she was engaged 
 at. " I have been anxious to see you and to speak to you, 
 Florry," said he, in a low tone, not audible by the others. 
 " I had a letter from Loyd, written just before he left. 
 He has told me everything," 
 
 She only bent down her head more deeply over her 
 work, but did not .speak. 
 
 "Yes; he was more candid than you," continued he. 
 " He said you were engaged — that is, that you had 
 owned to him that you liked him, and that when the 
 consent he hoped for would be obtained, you would be 
 married." 
 
 " llow came he to write this to you ? " said she, with a 
 slight tremor in her voice. 
 
 " In this wise," said he, calmly. *' He felt that he
 
 ON I'HE KOAD. 271 
 
 owed me an apology for something that had occurred 
 between us on that morning ; and, when making his 
 excuses, he deemed he could give no better proof ot 
 frankness than by this avowal. It was, besides, an act of 
 fairness towards one who, trusting to his own false light, 
 might have been lured to delusive hopes." 
 
 " Perhaps so," said she, coldly. 
 
 " It was very right of him, very proper." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " It was more — it was generous." 
 
 " tie is generous," said she, warmly. 
 
 " He had need be." 
 
 " How do you mean, that he had need be ? " asked she, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " I mean this — that he will require every gift he has, 
 and every grace, to outbalance the affection which I bear 
 you — which I shall never cease to bear you. Tou prefer 
 him. Now, you may regard me how you will^I will not 
 consent to believe myself beaten. Yes, Florence, I know 
 not only that I love you more than he does, but I love you 
 with a love he is incapable of feeling. I do not wish to 
 say one word in his dispraise, least of all to you, in whoso 
 favour I want to stand well ; but I wish you — and it is 
 no unfair request — to prove the afiectiou of the two men 
 who solicit your love." 
 
 " I am satisfied with his." 
 
 " Tou may be satisfied with the version your own 
 imagination renders of it. You may be satisfied with the 
 picture you have coloured for yourself; but I want you 
 to be just to yourself, and just to me. Now if I can 
 show you in his own handwriting — the ink only dried on 
 the paper a day ago — a letter from him to me, in which 
 he asks my pardon in terms so abject as never were 
 wrung from any man, except under the pressure of a 
 personal fear ? " 
 
 " You say this to outrage me. Aunt Grainger," cried 
 she, in a voice almost a scream, " listen to what this 
 gentleman has had the temerity to tell me. Repeat it 
 now, sir, if you dare." 
 
 " What is this, Mr. Calvert ? You have not surely 
 presumed- ' ' 
 
 " I have simply presumed, madam, to place my pre-
 
 272 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 tensions in rivalry with Mr. Loyd's. I have been offering 
 to your niece the half of a very humble fortune, with a 
 name not altoo:ether ignoble." 
 
 " Oh dear, Mr. Calvert ; " cried the old lady, *' I never 
 suspected this. I'm sure my niece is aware of the great 
 honour we all feel — at least I do most sensibly — that, if 
 
 she was not already engaged Are you ill, dearest ? 
 
 Oh, she has fainted. Leave us, Mr. Calvert. Send Maria 
 here. Milly, some water immediately." 
 
 For more than an hour Calvert walked the little grass- 
 plot before the door, and no tidings came to him from 
 those within. To a momentary bustle and confusion, a 
 calm succeeded — lights flitted here and there through the 
 cottage. He fancied he heard something like sobbing, 
 and then all was still and silent. 
 
 " Are you there, Mr. Calvert ? " cried Milly, at last, as 
 she moved out into the dark night air. "She is better 
 now — much better. She seems inclined to sleep, and we 
 have left her." 
 
 " You know how it came on ? " asked he, in a whisper. 
 " You know what brought it about ? " 
 
 "No; nothing of it." 
 
 "It was a letter that I showed her — a letter of Loyd's 
 to myself — conceived in such terms as no man of, I will 
 not say of spirit, but a common pretension to the sense of 
 gentleman, could write. Wait a moment, don't be angry 
 with me till you hear me out. We had quarrelled in the 
 morning. It was a serious quarrel, on a very serious 
 question. I thought, of course, that all young men, at 
 least, regard these things in the same way. Well, he did 
 not. I have no need to say more ; lie did not, and con- 
 sequently nothing could come of it. At all events, I 
 deemed that the man who could not face an adversary 
 had no right to brave a rival, and so I intimated to him. 
 For the second time he differed with me, and dared in my 
 own presence to prosecute attentions which I had ordered 
 him to abandon. This was bad enough, but there was 
 worse to come, for, on my return home from this, I found 
 a letter from him in the most abject terms ; asking my par- 
 don — for what ? — for my having insulted him, and begging 
 me, in words of shameful humility, to let him follow up 
 his courtship, and, if he could, secure the hand of your
 
 ON THE ROAD. 273 
 
 sister. Now she might, or might not, accept my offer. I 
 am not coxcomb enough to suppose I must succeed simply 
 because I wish success ; but putting myself completely 
 out of the question, could I suffer a girl I deemed worthy 
 of my love, and whom I desired to make ray wife, to fall 
 to the lot of one so base as this ? I ask you, was there 
 any other course open to me than to show her the letter? 
 Perhaps it was rash ; perhaps I ought to have shown it 
 first of all to Miss Grainger. I can't decide this point. 
 It is too subtle for me. I only know that what I did I 
 should do again, no matter what the consequences might 
 be." 
 
 "And this letter, has she got it still ? " asked Milly. 
 
 " N^o, neither she nor any other will ever read it now. 
 I have torn it to atoms. The wind has carried the last 
 fragment at this moment over the lake." 
 
 " Oh dear ; what misery all this is," cried the girl in 
 an accent of deep afBiction. " If you knew how she is 
 attached " Then suddenly checking the harsh in- 
 discretion of her words, she added, " I am sure you did 
 all for the best, Mr. Calvert. I must go back now. You'll 
 come and see us, or perhaps you'll let me write to you, 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " I have to say good bye, now," said he, sadly. "I may 
 see you all again within a week. It may be this is a 
 good bye for ever." 
 
 He kissed her hand as he spoke, and turned to the lake, 
 where his boat was lying. 
 
 " How amazed she'll be to hear that she saw a letter — 
 read it — held it in her hands," muttered he, " but I'll 
 stake my life she'll never doubt the fact when it is told to 
 her by those who believe it." 
 
 "You seem to be in rare spirits," said Barnard when 
 Calvert returned to the inn. " Have you proposed and 
 been accepted ? " 
 
 " Not exactly," said the other, smiling, " but I have 
 had a charming evening ; one of those fleeting moments 
 of that ' vie de famille ' Balzac tells us are worth all our 
 wild and youthful excesses." 
 
 " Yes ! " replied Barnard, scoffingly ; " domesticity 
 would seem to be your forte. Heaven help your wife, 
 say I, if you ever have one." 
 
 T
 
 274 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " You don't seem to be aware how you disparage con- 
 jus^al life, my good friend, when you speak of it as a thing 
 in which men of yoiir stamp are the ornaments. It would 
 be a sorry institution if its best requirements were a 
 dreary temperament and a disposition that mistakes 
 moodiness for morality." 
 
 " Good-night; I have had enough," said the other, and 
 left the room. 
 
 " What a pity to leave such a glorious spot on such a 
 morning'," said Calvert, as he stood waitmg while the 
 post-hoi'ses were being harnessed. " If we had but been 
 good boys, as we might have been — that is, \? yoii, had not 
 fallen into matrimony, and I into a quarrel — wo should 
 have such a day's fishing here ! Yonder, where you see 
 the lemon-trees hanging over the rock, in the pool under- 
 neath there are some twelve and fourteen ' pounders,' as 
 strong as a good-size pike ; and then we'd have grilled 
 them under the chestnut-trees, and talked away, as we've 
 done scores of times, of the great figure we were to make 
 — I don't know when or how, but some time and in some 
 wise — in the world ; astonishing all our relations, and 
 putting to utter shame and confusion that private tutor at 
 Dorking who loould persist in auguring the very worst 
 of us." 
 
 " Is that the bill that you are tearing up ? Let me see 
 it. What does he charge for that Grignolino wine and 
 those bad cigars ?" broke in Barnard. 
 
 "What do I know or care?" said Calvert, with a 
 saucy laugh. " If you possessed a schoolboy's money-box 
 with a slit in it to hold your savings, there would be 
 some sense in looking after the five-franc pieces you 
 could rescue from a cheating landlord, and add to your 
 store ; but when you know in your heart that you are 
 never the richer nor the better of the small economies 
 that are only realised at the risk of an apoplexy and some 
 very profane expressions, my notion is, never mind them 
 — never fret about them." 
 
 "You talk like a millionaire," said the other con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 " It is all the resemblance that exists between us, Bob ; 
 not, however, that I believe Baron Rothschild himself
 
 ON THE ROAD. 275 
 
 could moi'alise over the insufficiency of wealth to happi- 
 ness as I could. Here comes our team, and I must say ;i 
 sorrier set of screws never tugged in a rope harness. 
 Get in tirst. I like to show all respect to the man who 
 pays. I say, my good fellow," cried he to the postillion, 
 " drive your very best, for mi Lordo here is immenselj 
 rich, and would just as soon give you five gold Marengos 
 as five francs." 
 
 " What was it you said to him ? " asked Barnard, as 
 they started at a gallop. 
 
 " I said he must not spare his cattle, for we were 
 running away from our creditors." 
 
 " How could you " 
 
 " How could I ? What nonsense, man ! besides, I 
 wanted the fellow to take an interest in us, and, you see, 
 so he has. Old Johnson was right ; there are few 
 pleasures more exhilarating than being whirled along a 
 good road at the top speed of post-horses." 
 
 " I suppose you saw that girl you are in love with? " 
 said Barnard after a pause. 
 
 "Yes; two of them. Each of the syrens has got a 
 lien upon my heart, and I really can't say which of them 
 holds ' the preference shares.' " 
 
 " Is there money ? " 
 
 "Not what a great Croesus like yourself would call 
 money, but still enough tor u grand 'operation ' at Hom- 
 burg, or a sheep-farmiug exploit, in QiieLUslaud." 
 
 " You're more ' up ' to tht- first than the last." 
 
 "All wrong! Gauies of chance are to fellows like you, 
 who must acce[)t Fortune as they find her. Men of my 
 stamp mould destiny. ' 
 
 " Well, I don't know. So long as I have known you, 
 you've never been out of one scrape without being half 
 way into another." 
 
 " And yet there are fellows who pay dearer for their 
 successes than ever I have done for my failures." 
 
 "How so? What do they oo?" 
 
 " They marry ! Ay, Bob, the}' marry rich wives, but 
 without any power to touch the money, just as a child 
 gets a sovereign at Christmas under the condition he is 
 never to change it." 
 
 " I must say you are a pleasant fellow to travel with." 
 
 X 2
 
 276 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " So I am generally reputed, and you're a lucky dog to 
 catch me ' in the vein,' for I don't know when I was iu 
 better spirits than this morning." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A BAYBKBAK. BESIDE THE RHINE, 
 
 The day was just breaking over that wide flat beside the 
 Rhine at Basle, as two men, descending from a carriage 
 on the high road, took one of the narrow paths which lead 
 through the fields, walking slowly, and talking to each 
 other in the careless tone of easy converse. 
 
 " We are early, Barnard, I should say ; fully half an 
 hour before our time," said Calvert, as he walked on first, 
 for the path did not admit of two abreast. "What grand 
 things these great plains are, traversed by a fine river, and 
 spreading away to a far distant horizon. What a sense of 
 freedom thay inspire ; how suggestive they are of liberty ; 
 don't you feel that? " 
 
 " I think I see them coming," said the other. "I saw 
 a can-iage descend the hill yonder. Is there nothing else 
 you have to say — nothing that you think of, Harry ? " 
 
 " Nothing. If it should be a question of a funeral, 
 Bob, my funds will show how economically it must be 
 done ; but even if I had been richer, it is not an occasion 
 I should like to make costly." 
 
 " It was not of that I was thinking. It was of friends 
 or relations." 
 
 " My dear fellow, I have few relatives and no friends. 
 No man's executorship will ever entail less trouble than 
 mine. I have nothing to leave, nor any to leave it to." 
 
 " But those letters — the cause of the present meeting — • 
 don't you intend that in case of — in the event of—- — " 
 
 " My being killed. Goon." 
 
 ** That they should be given up to your cousin ? " 
 
 " r^^othing of the kind ever occurred to me. In the 
 first place, I don't mean to be shot ; and in the second, I
 
 A DAYSBEAK BEStD£ tHE l^l!lN]g. 277 
 
 liare not the very remotest intention of releasing the dear 
 Sophy from those regrets and sorrows which she ought to 
 feel for my death. Nay, I mean her to mourn me with a 
 degree of aflQiction to which anxiety will add the poig^ 
 nancy." 
 
 " This is not generous, Calvert." 
 
 " I'm sure it's not. AV'hy, my dear friend, were I to 
 detect any such weakness in my character, I'd begin to 
 fancy I might end by becoming a poltroon." 
 
 " Is that your man — he in the cloak — or the tall one 
 behind him P " said Barnard, as he pointed to a group who 
 came slowly along through a vineyai'd. 
 
 " I cannot say. I never saw Mr. Graham to my know- 
 ledge. Don't let them be long about the prelirainarie.s, 
 Bob ; the morning is fresh and the ground here somewhat 
 damp. Agree to all they ask, distance and everything, 
 only secure that the word be given by you. Remember 
 that, in the way I've told you." 
 
 As Calvert strolled listlessly along towards the river, 
 Barnard advanced to meet the otc.ers, who, to the number 
 of five, came now forward. Colonel Rochefort, j\lr. 
 Graham's friend, and Barnard were slightly acquainted, 
 andturued aside to talk to each other in contidence. 
 
 " It is scarcely the moment to hope for it, Mr. Barnard," 
 said the other, " but I cannot go on without asking, at 
 least, if there is any peaceful settlement possible ?" 
 
 "I fear not. You told me last night that all retrac- 
 tion by your friend of his offensive letter was impossible." 
 
 " Utterly so." 
 
 " What, then, would you suggest ? " 
 
 " Could not Mr. Calvert be brought to see that it was he 
 who gave the first offence ? That, in writing, as he did, 
 to a man in my friend's position " 
 
 •'Mere waste of time, colonel, to discuss this; besides, 
 I think we have each of us already said all that we could 
 on this question, and Calvert is very far from being 
 satisfied with me for having allowed myself to entertain it. 
 There is i-eally nothing for it but a shot." 
 
 *' Yes, sir; but you seem to forget, if we proceed to this 
 arbitrament, it is not a mere exchange of fire will satisfy 
 my friend." 
 
 " "We are, as regar.ls that, completely at his service ;
 
 278 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 and if your supply of ammunition be only in proportion 
 to the number of your followers, you can scarcely be 
 disappointed." 
 
 The colonel reddened deeply, and in a certain irritation 
 replied: "One of these gentlemen is a travelling com- 
 panion of my friend, whose health is too delicate to permit 
 him to act for him ; the other is a French officer of rank, 
 who dined with us yesterday ; the third is a surgeon." 
 
 " To us it is a matter of perfect indifi'erence if you. come 
 accompanied by fifty, or five hundred, but let us lose no 
 more time. 1 see how I am trying my friend's patience 
 ah-ead^^ Ten paces, short paces, too," began Bai'nard as 
 he took his friend's arm. 
 
 " And the word ?" 
 
 " I am to give it." 
 
 "All right; and you remember how ? " 
 
 " Yes ! the word is, One — two ; at the second you are 
 to fire." 
 
 " Let me hear you say them." 
 
 " One— two." 
 
 " No, no ; that's not it. One-two — sharp; don't dwell 
 on the interval ; make them like syllables of one word." 
 
 " One-two." 
 
 "Yes, that's it; and remember that you couga once 
 before you begin. There, don't let them see us talking 
 together. Give me a shake hands, and leave me." 
 
 " That man is nervous, or I am much mistaken," said 
 Graham's invalid friend to the colonel ; and tliey both 
 looked towards Calvert, who with his hat drawn down 
 over his brows, walked lazily to his ground. 
 
 " It is not the reputation he has," whispered the colonel. 
 " Be calm, Graham ; be as cool as the other fellow." 
 
 The principals were now placed, and the others fell back 
 on either side, and almost instantaneously, so instantane- 
 ously, indeed, that Colonel Rochefort had not yet ceased 
 to walk, two shots I'ung out, one distinctly before the 
 other, and Graham fell. 
 
 All ran towards him but Calvert^ who, tlirowing his 
 pistol at his leet, stood calm and erect. For a few seconds 
 they bent down over the wounded man, and then Barnard, 
 hastening back to his friend, whispered, "Through the 
 clicst: it is all over."
 
 A DAYBREAK BESIDE THE RHINE. 279 
 
 "Dead? " said the other. 
 
 He nodded, and taking his ai^m, said, "Don't lose a 
 moment ; the Frenchman says you have not an instant to 
 spare." 
 
 For a moment Calvert moved as if going towards the 
 others, then, as if with a changed purpose, he turned 
 sharply round and walked towards the high road. 
 
 As Calvert was just about to gain the road, Barnard 
 ran after him, and cried out, " Stop, Calvert, hear what 
 these men say ; they are crying out unfair against us. 
 They declare " 
 
 " Are you an ass, Bob ? " said the other, angrily. 
 " Who minds the stupid speech, of fellows whose friend is 
 knocked over ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I'll hear this out," cried Barnard. 
 
 " You'll do so without me, theu, and a cursed fool you 
 are for your pains. Drive across to the Bavarian frontier, 
 my man," said he, giving the postillion aNapoleon, " and 
 you shall have a couple more if you get there within two 
 hours." 
 
 With all the speed that whip and spur could summon, 
 the beasts sped along the level road, and Calvert, though 
 occasionally looking through the small pane in the back 
 of the carriage to assure himself he was not pursued, 
 smoked on uuceasingly. He might have been a shade 
 graver than his wont, and preoccupied, too, for he took no 
 notice of the objects on the road, nor replied to the 
 speeches of the postilion, who, in his self-praise, seemed to 
 call for some expi'ession of approval. 
 
 " You are a precious fool. Master Barnard, and you 
 have paid for your folly, or you had been here before 
 this." 
 
 Such were his uttered thoughts, but it cost him little 
 regret as he spoke theai. 
 
 The steam-boat th?it left Constance for LIndau was just 
 getting under weigh as he reached the lake, and he imme- 
 diately embarked in her, and, on the same evening, gained 
 Austrian territory at Bregenz, to pass the night. For a 
 day or two, the quietness of this lone and little-visited 
 spot suited him, and it was near enough to the Swiss 
 frontier, at the Rhine, to get news from Switzerland. On 
 the third day, a paragraph in the Basle Zeitung told him
 
 280 A KENT IN A CLOtD* 
 
 everything. It was, as such things usually are, totally 
 misrepresented, but there was enough revealed for him to 
 guess what had occurred. It was headed *' Terrible 
 Event," and ran thus : 
 
 " At a meeting which took place with pistols, this morn- 
 ing, between two English lords at the White Meadows, 
 one fell so fatally wounded that his death ensued in a few 
 minutes. An instantaneous cry of foul play amongst his 
 friends led to a fierce and angry altercation, which ended 
 in a second encounter between the first principal and the 
 second of the deceased. In this the former was shot 
 through the throat, the bullet injuring several large 
 vessels, and lodging, it is supposed, in the spine. He has 
 been conveyed to the Hotel Royal, but no hopes of his 
 recovery are entertained." 
 
 " I suspected what would come of your discussion, 
 Bob. Had you only beeu minded to slip away with me, 
 you'd have been in the enjoyment of a whole skin by this 
 time. I wonder which of them shot him. I'd take the 
 odds it was the Frenchman; he handled the pistols like a 
 fellow who envied us our pleasant chances. I suppose 
 I ought to write to Barnai-d, or to his people ; but it's 
 not an agreeable task, and I'll think over it." 
 
 He thought over it, and wrote as follows : 
 
 " Dear Bob, — I suspect, from a very confused paragraph 
 in a stupid newspaper, that you have fought somebody 
 and got wounded. Write and say if this be so, what it 
 was all about,^who did it, and what more can be done for 
 
 you, 
 
 " By yours truly, 
 
 "H. C. 
 
 " Address, Como." 
 
 To this he received no answer when he called at the 
 post-office, and turned his steps next to Orta. He did not 
 really know why, but it was, perhaps, with some of that I 
 strange instinct that makes the criminal haunt the homes 
 of those he has once injured, and means to injure more. 
 There was, however, one motive which he recognised him- 
 self ; he wished to know something of those at the villa; 
 when they had heard from Loyd, and what ? whether, too 
 they had heard of his own doings, and in what way ? A
 
 A DAYBREAK BESIDE THE RHINE 281 
 
 fatal duel, followed by another that was like to prove fatal, 
 was an event sure to provoke newspaper notice. The 
 names could not escape publicity, and he was eager to see 
 in what terms they mentioned his own. He trusted much 
 to the difficulty of getting at any true version of the affair, 
 and he doubted gi-eatly if anyone but Graham and liimself 
 could have told why they were to meet at all. Gruham's 
 second, Rochefort, evidently knew very little of the affair. 
 At all events, Graham was no longer there to give his 
 version, while for the incidents of the duel, who was to 
 speak i* All, save Barnard, who was dying, if not dead, 
 must have taken flight. The Swiss authorities would soon 
 have arrested them if within reach. He might therefore 
 reassure himself that no statement that he could not at 
 least impugn could get currency just yet. " 1 will row 
 over to the old Grainger " — so he called her — " and see 
 what she has heard of it all." 
 
 It was nightfall as he reached the shore, and walked 
 slowly and anxiously to the house. He had learned at 
 Orta that they were to leave that part of the world in 
 another fortnight, but whither for none knew. As he 
 drew nigh, he determined to have a peep at the interior 
 before he presented himself. He accordingly opened the 
 little wicket noiselessly, and passed round through the 
 flower-garden till he reached the windows of the drawing 
 room. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 
 
 The curtains were undrawn, and the candles were lighted. 
 All within looked just as he had so often seen it. The 
 sick girl lay on her sofa, with her small spaniel at her 
 feet. Miss Grainger was working at a table, and Milly 
 sat near her sister, bending over the end of the sofa, and 
 talking to her. " Let me see that letter again, Florry," 
 she said, taking a letter from the passive lingers of the 
 sick girl. '* Yes, he is sure it must have teen Calvert.
 
 282 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 He sajs, that though the Swiss papers give the name 
 Colnart, he is sure it was Calvert, and you rememher his 
 last words here as he went away that evening ? " 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Florence, " I am sure I have no 
 right to bear him good will, but I am sorry for him— 
 really sorry. I suppose, by this time, it is all over?" 
 
 " The Avound was through the throat, it is said," said 
 Miss Grainger. " But how confused the whole story is. 
 Who is Barnard, and why did Calvert fight to save Bar- 
 nard's honour?" 
 
 " No, aunt. It was to rescue Mr. Graham's, the man 
 who was about to marry Sophia Calvert." 
 
 " Not at all, Milly. It was Graham who shot Barnard; 
 and then poor Calvert, horrified at his friend's fate " 
 
 Calvert never waited for more. He saw that there was 
 that amount of mistake and misunderstanding which re- 
 quired no aid on his part, and now nothing remained but 
 to present himself suddenly before them as a fugitive from 
 justice seeking shelter and protection. The rest he was 
 content to leave to hazard. 
 
 A sharp ring at the door-bell was scarcely answered by 
 the servant, when the man came to the drawing-room 
 door, find make a sign to Miss Grainger. 
 
 "What is it, Giacomo? What do you mean?" she 
 cried. 
 
 " Just one moment, signora ; half a minute hei-e," he 
 said. 
 
 Well accustomed to the tone of secrecy assumed by 
 Italians on occasions the least important, Miss Grainger 
 followed him outside, and there, under the glare of the 
 hall-lamp, stood Calvert, pale, his hair dishevelled, his 
 cravat loosened, and his coat-sleeve torn. " Save me ! 
 hide me ! " said he, in a low whisper. " Can you — will 
 you save me ?" 
 
 She was one not unfitted to meet a sudden change; and, 
 although secretly shocked, she rallied quickl}', and led him 
 into a room beside the hall. " I know all," said she. 
 " AVe all knew it was your name." 
 
 " Can you conceal me here for a day — two dajs at 
 furthest ? " 
 
 "A week, if you need it." 
 
 "And the servant — can he be trusted?"
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 283 
 
 " To tbe death. I'll answer for him." 
 " How can you keep the secret from the girls ? " 
 "I need not; they must know everything." 
 " But Florence ; can she — has she forgiven me ?" 
 *' Yes, thoroughly. She scarcely knows about what she 
 quarrelled with you. She sometimes fears that she 
 wronged you; and Milly defends you always." 
 
 " You have heard — you know what has happened to 
 me?" 
 
 " In a fashion : thut is, we only knovv there has been 
 a duel. We feared you had been wounded ; and, indeed, 
 we heai'd severely wounded." 
 
 " The stoi-y is too long to tell you now ; enough, if I 
 say it was all about Sophy. You remember Sophy, and a 
 fellow who was to have married her, and who jilted her, 
 and not only this but boasted of tbe injury he had done 
 her, and the insult he had thrown on us. A friend of 
 mine, Barnard, a brother officer, heard him — but why go 
 on with this detail P — there was a quarrel and a challenge, 
 and it was by merest accident I heard of it, and reached 
 Basle in time. Of course, I was not going to leave to 
 Barnard what of right belonged to me. There were, as 
 you can imagine, innumerable complications in the 
 matter. Rochefort, the other man's friend, and a French 
 fellow, insisted on having a finger in the pie. The end 
 of it was, I shot Graham, and somebody else — I believe 
 Rochefort — put a bullet into Barnard. The Swiss laws 
 in some cantons ai'e severe, and we only learned too late 
 that we had fought in the very worst of them ; so I ran, 
 I don't know how, or in what direction. I lost my head 
 for a while, and wandered about the Vorarlbei'g and the 
 Splugen for a week or two. How I find myself now here 
 is quite a mystery to me." 
 
 There was a haggard wildness in his look that fully 
 accorded with all be said, and the old lady felt the most 
 honest pity for his sufferings. 
 
 "I don't know if I'm perfectly safe here," said lie, 
 looking fearfully around him. " Are you sure you can 
 conceal me, if need be?" 
 
 " Quite sure ; have no fear about that. I'll tell the 
 girls that your safety requires the greatest caution and 
 secrecy, and you'll see how careful they will be."
 
 284 A EENT IN A CLOUD* 
 
 *• Girls tl}iU talk, though," said he, doubtingly* 
 
 " There is the double security hei'e— they have no DUO 
 to talk to," she said, with a faint smilei 
 
 " Very true. I was forgetting how retii^ed your life 
 was here. Now for the next point. What are you to 
 tell them — I mean, how much are they to know ?" 
 
 The old lady looked puzzled; she felt she might easily 
 have replied, " If they only know no more than I can tell 
 them, your secret will certainly be safe ; " but, as sho 
 looked at his haggard cheek and feverish eye, she shrunk 
 from renewing a theme full of distress and suft'ering. 
 " Leave it to me to say something — anything which shall 
 show them that you are in a serious trouble, and require 
 all their secrecy and sympathy." 
 
 " Yes, that may do — at least for the present. It will 
 do at least with Milly, who bears me no ill will." 
 
 " You wrong Florence if you imagine that she does. 
 It was only the other day, when, in a letter from Loyd, 
 she read that you had left the army, she said how sorry 
 she was you had quitted the career so suited to your 
 abilities." 
 
 " Indeed ! I scarce hoped for so much of interest in 
 me. 
 
 " Oh, she talks continually about you ; and always as of 
 one who only needs the guidance of some true friend to 
 be a man of mark and distinction yet." 
 
 " It is very good, very kind of her," he said ; and, for 
 an instant, seemed lost in thought. 
 
 '• ril go back now," said Miss Grainger, "and prepare 
 them for your coming. They'll wonder what has detained 
 me all this while. Wait one moment for me here. 
 
 Calvert, apparently, was too much engaged with his 
 own thoughts to hear ber, and suffered her to go without 
 a word. !She was quickly back again, and beckoning him 
 to follow her, led the way to the drawing-room. 
 
 Scarcely had Calvert passed the doorway, when the 
 two girls met him, and each taking a hand, conducted 
 him without a word to a sofa. Indeed, his sickly look, 
 and the air of downright misery in his countenance, 
 called for all their sympathy and kindness. 
 
 " I have scarcely strength to thank j^ou ! " he said to 
 thcni, in a faint voice. Though the words were addressed
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA 285 
 
 to boll), tbe glance he gave towards Florence sent the 
 blood to her pale cheeks, and made her turn away in 
 some confusion. 
 
 "You'll have some tea and rest yourself, and when you 
 feel once quiet and undisturbed here you'll soon regain 
 your strength," said Milly, as she turned towards the 
 tea-table, while Florence, after a few moments' hesita- 
 tion, seated herself on the sofa beside him. 
 
 " Has she told you what has befallen me ? " whispered 
 he to her. 
 
 " Tn part — that is, something of it. As much as she 
 could in a word or two ; but do not speak of it now." 
 
 " If I do not now, Florence, I can never have the 
 courage again." 
 
 " Then be it so," she said eagerly. " I am more anxious 
 to see you strong and well again than to hear how you 
 became wretched and unhappj'." 
 
 " But if you do not hear the story from myself, Flor- 
 ence, and if you should hear the tale that others may tell 
 of me — if you never know how I have been tried and 
 tempted " 
 
 "There, there — don't agitate yourself, or I must leave 
 you ; and, see, Milly is remarking our whispering 
 together." 
 
 " Does she grudge me this much of your kind- 
 ness ? " 
 
 " No : but — there — here she comes with your tea." 
 She drew a little table in front of him, and tried to per* 
 euade him to eat. 
 
 "Your sister has just made me a very generous 
 promise, Milly," said he. " She has pledged herself — 
 even without hearing ray exculpation — to believe me 
 innocent ; and although I have told her that the charges 
 that others will make against me may need some refuta- 
 tion on my part, she says she'll not listen to them. Is 
 not that very noble — is it not truly generous ? " 
 
 " It is what I should expect from Florence." 
 
 " And what of Florence's sister ? " said he, with a half 
 furtive glance towards her. 
 
 " I hope, nothing less generous." 
 
 "Then I am content," said he, with a faint sigh. 
 *' When a man is as thoroughly ruined as I am, it might
 
 286 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 be thought he would be indifferent to opinion in every 
 shape — and so I am, beyond the four walls of this room ; 
 but here," and he looked at each in turn, " are the arbiters 
 of my fate ; if you will but be to me dear sisters — kind, 
 compassionate, forgiving sisters — you will do more for this 
 crushed and wounded heart than all the sympathy of the 
 whole world beside." 
 
 " We only ask to be such to you," cried Floi-ence, 
 eagerly; "and we feel how proud we could be of such a 
 brother; but, above all, do not distress yourself now by 
 a theme so painful to touch on. Let the unhappy events 
 of the last few weeks lie, if not forgotten, at least nnmen- 
 tioned, till you are calm and quiet enough to talk of them 
 as old memories." 
 
 "Yes! but how can I bear the thought of what others 
 may say of me — meanwhile ? " 
 
 " Who are these others — we see no one, we go into no 
 society ? " 
 
 " Have you not scores of dear friends, writing by every 
 post to ask if this atrocious duellist be ' your ' Mr. Calvert, 
 and giving such a narrative, besides, of his doings, that a 
 galley-slave would .shi-ink from contact witli such a man ? 
 Do I not know well how tenderly people deal with the vices 
 that are not their own ? How severe the miser can be 
 on the spendthrift, and how mercilessly the coward con- 
 demns the hot blood that resents an injur)^ and how 
 gladly they would involve in shame the character that 
 would not brook dishonour? " 
 
 " Believe me, we have very few ' dear friends ' at all," 
 said Florence, smiling, " and not one, no, not a single 
 one of the stamp you speak of." 
 
 " If you were only to read our humdrum letters," 
 chimed in Milly, "you'd see how they never treat of 
 anything but little domestic details of people who live 
 as obscurely as our.';olves. How Uncle Tom's boy has 
 got into the Charterhouse ; or Mary's baby taken the 
 chicken-pox." 
 
 " But Loyd writes to you — and not in this strain ? " 
 
 "I suspect Joseph cares little to fill his pages with 
 what is called news," said i\Iilly, with a laughing glance 
 at her sister, who had turned away her head in some 
 confusion.
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 287 
 
 " Nor would he be one likely to judg'e you harshly," 
 said Florence, recovering herself. " I believe you have 
 few friends who rate you more highly than he does." 
 
 " It is very generous of him ! " said Calvert, haughtily ; 
 and then, catching in the proud glance of Florry's eyes a 
 daring challenge of his words, he added, in a quieter tone, 
 "1 mean, it is generous of him to overlook how unjust I 
 have been to him. It is not easy for men so ditierent 
 to measure each other, and I cei'tainly formed an unfair 
 estimate of him." 
 
 " Oh ! may I tell him that you said so ! " cried she, 
 taking his hand with warmth. 
 
 " I mean to do it for myself, dearest sister. It is a 
 debt I cannot permit another to acquit for me." 
 
 •' Don't you think you are forgetting our guest's late 
 fatigues, and what need he has of rest and quietness, 
 girls?" said Miss Grainger, coming over to where they 
 sat. 
 
 " I was forgetting everything in my joy, aunt," cried 
 Florence. " He is going to write to Joseph like a dear, 
 dear brother as he is, and we shall all be so happy, and 
 so united." 
 
 "A brother? Mr. Calvert a brother ?" said the old 
 lady, in consternation at such a liberty with one of that 
 mighty house, in which she had once lived as an humble 
 dependant. 
 
 "Tes," cried he. " It is a fovour I have begged, and 
 they have not denied me." 
 
 The old lady's face flushed, and pride and shnme 
 glowed together on her cheeks. 
 
 "So we must say good-night," said Calvert, rising; 
 " but we shall have a long day's talk together, to-morrow. 
 Who is it that defines an aunt as a creature that alwavs 
 sends one to bed ? " whispered he to Florence. 
 
 " What made you laugh, dear ? " said her sister, after 
 Calvert had left the room. 
 
 " I forget — I didn't know I laughed — he is a strange 
 incomprehensible fellow — sometimes I like him greatly, 
 and sometimes I feel a sort of dread of hira that amounts 
 to terror." 
 
 " If I were Joseph, I should not be quite unconcerned 
 about that jumbled estimation."
 
 288 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 *' He lias no need to be. They are unlike in every way," 
 said she, gravely ; and then, taking up her book, went on, 
 or affected to go on reading. 
 
 " I wish Aunt Grainger would not make so much of 
 him. It is a sort of adulation that makes our position 
 regarding hira perfectly false," said Milly. " Don't you 
 think so, dear ? " 
 
 Florence, however, made no reply, and no more passed 
 that evening between them. , 
 
 Few of us have not had occasion to remark the won- 
 drous change produced in some quiet household, where the 
 work of domesticity goes on in routine fashion, by the 
 presence of an agreeable and accomplished guest. It is 
 not alone that he contributes by qualities of his own to 
 the common stock of amusement, but that he excites those 
 around him to efforts, which develop resources they had 
 not, perhaps, felt conscious of possessing. The necessity, 
 too, of wearing one's company face, which the presence 
 of a stranger exacts, has more advantages than many wot 
 of. The small details whose discussion forms the staple of 
 daily talk — the little household cares and worries — have 
 to be shelved. One can scarcely entertain their friends 
 with stories of the cook's impertinence, or the coachman's 
 neglect, and one has to see, as they do see, that the 
 restraint of a guest does not in reality affect the discipline 
 of a household, though it suppress the debates and arrest 
 the discussion. 
 
 It has been often remarked that the custom of appear- 
 ing in Parliament — as it was once observed — in court-dress, 
 imposed a degree of courtesy aud deference in debate, of 
 which men in wide-awake hats and paletots are not always 
 observant ; and, unquestionably, in the little cei'emonial 
 observances imposed by the stranger's presence, may be 
 seen the social benefits of a good breeding not marred by 
 over-familiarity. It was thus Calvert made his presence 
 felt at the villa. It was true he had many companionable 
 qualities, and he'had, or at least affected to have, very wide 
 sympathies. He wasever ready to read aloud, to row, to walk, 
 to work in the flowci'-garden, to sketch, or to copy music, as 
 though each was an especial pleasure to him. If he was 
 not as high spirited and light hearted as they once had 
 seen hira, it did not detract from, but rather added to the 
 
 I
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 289 
 
 interest he excited. He was in misfortune — a calamity 
 not the less to be compassionated that none could accu- 
 rately define it ; some dreadful event had occurred, some 
 terrible consequence impended, and each felt the necessity 
 of lightening the load of his sorrow, and helping him to 
 bear his affliction. Ti'cy were so glad when they could 
 cheer him up, and so happy when they saw him take even 
 a passing pleasure in the pursuits their own days were 
 spent in. 
 
 They had now been long enough in Italy not to feel 
 depressed by its dreamy and monotonous quietude, bat to 
 feel the inexpressible charm of that soft existence, beii'ot- 
 ten of air, and climate, and scenery. They had ai rived at 
 that stage — and it is a stage — in which the olive is nob 
 dusky, nor the mountain arid : when the dry course of the 
 torrent suggests no wish I'or water. Life — mere life — has 
 a sense of luxury about it, unfelt in northern lands. Wilh 
 an eager joy, therefore, did they perceive that Calvert 
 seemed to have arrived at the same sentiment, and the 
 same appreciation as themselves. He seemed to ask for 
 nothing better than to stroll through orange groves, or lie 
 under some spreading fig-tree, drowsily soothed by the 
 song of the vine-dresser, or the unwearied chirp of the 
 cicala. How much of good there must be surely in a nature 
 pleased with such tranquil simple pleasures! thought they. 
 See how he likes to watch the children at their play, and 
 with what courtesy he talked to that old priest. It is 
 clear dissipation may have damaged, but has not destroyed 
 that fine temperament — his heart has not lost its power 
 to feel. It was thus that each thought of him, thougli 
 there was less of confidence between the sisters than 
 heretofore. 
 
 A very few words will suffice to explain this : When 
 Florence recovered from the shock Calvert had occaiioned 
 her on the memorable night of his visit, she had nothing 
 but the very vaguest recolleotion of what had occurred. 
 That some terrible tidings had been told her — some 
 disastrous news in which 'Loyd and Calvert were mixed 
 up : that she had blamed Calvert for rashness or indis- 
 cretion ; that he had either shown a letter he ought never 
 to have shown, or not produced one which might have 
 averted a misfortune j and, last of all, that she herself 
 
 U
 
 290 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 had done or said something which a calmer judgment could 
 not justify — all these were in some vague and shadowy 
 shape before her, and all rendered her anxious and uneasy. 
 On the other hand, Milly, seeing with some satisfaction that 
 her sister never recurred to the events of that unhappy 
 night, gladly availed herself of this silence to let them sleep 
 undisturbed. She was greatly shocked, it is true, by the 
 picture Calvert's representation presented of Loyd. He 
 had never been a great favourite of her own ; she recog- 
 nised many good and amiable traits in his nature, but she 
 deeiiicd hira gloomy, depressed, and a dreamer — and a 
 dreamer, above all, she regarded as unfit to be the husband 
 of Florence, whose ill health had only tended to exagger- 
 ate a painful and imaginative disposition. She saw, or 
 fancied she saw, that Loyd's temperament, calm and 
 gentle though it was, seemed to depress her sister. His 
 views of life were very sombre, and no effort ever enabled 
 him to look forward in a sanguine or hopeful spirit. If, 
 however, to these feelings an absolute fault of character 
 were to be added — the want of personal courage — her 
 feelings for him could no longer be even the qualified 
 esteem she had hitherto experienced. She also knew that 
 nothing could be such a shock to Florence, as to believe 
 that the man she loved was a coward; nor could any 
 stntiun, or charm, or ability, howe^ver great, compensate 
 for such a detect. As a matter, therefore, for grave after- 
 thought, but not thoroughly " proven," she retained this 
 chitrge in her mind, nor did she by any acrident drop a hint 
 or a word that could revive the memory of that evening. 
 
 As for Miss Grainger, only too happy to see that Flor- 
 ence seemed to retain no trace of that distressing scene, 
 she never went back to it, and thus every event of the 
 night was consigned to silence, if not oblivion. Still, 
 thci-e grew out of that reserve a degree of estrangement 
 between the sisters, which each, unconscious of in herself, 
 could detect in the other. " I think Milly has grown 
 colder to me of late, aunt. She is not less kind or 
 attentive, but there is a something of constraint about her 
 1 cannot fathom,'' would Florence say to her aunt. AVhile 
 the other whispered, "I wonder why Florry is so silent 
 when we are alone together? She that used to tell me 
 fill her thoughts, and speak for hours of what she hoped
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 291 
 
 and wisted, now only alludes to some commonplace topic 
 — the book she has just read, or the walk we took 
 yesterday." 
 
 The distance between them was not the less wide that 
 each had secretly confided to Calvert her msigivings about 
 the other. Indeed, it would have been, for girls so 
 young and inexperienced in life, strange not to have accorded 
 him their confidence. He possessed a large share of that 
 quality which very young people regard as sagacity. I 
 am not sure that the gift has got a special name, but we 
 have all of us heard of some one " with such a good 
 head," " so safe an adviser," "such a I'are counsellor in a 
 difficulty," " knowing life and mankind so well," and 
 "such an aptitude to take the right road in a moment of 
 embarrassment." The phoenix is not usually a man of 
 bright or showy qualities ; he is, on the contrary, one that 
 the world at large has failed to recognise. If, however, 
 by any chance he should prove to be smart, ready-witted, 
 and a successful talker, his sway is a perfect despotism. 
 Such was Calvert ; at least such was he to the eyes of 
 these sisters. Now Milly had confided to him that she 
 thought Loyd totally unworthy of Florence. His good 
 qualities were undeniable, but he had few attractive or 
 graceful ones ; and then there was a despondent, depressed 
 tone about him that must prove deeply injurious to one 
 whose nature required bright and cheery companionship. 
 Calvert agreed with every word of this. 
 
 Florence, on her side, was meanwhile, imparting to him 
 that Loyd was not fairly appreciated by her aunt or her 
 sistei'. They deemed him very honourable, very truthful, 
 and very moral, but they did not think highly of his 
 abilities, nor reckon much on his succcess in life. In fact, 
 though the words themselves were spared her, they told 
 her in a hundred modes that " she was throwing herself 
 away ;" and, strange as it may read, she liked to be told 
 so, and heard with a sort of triumphant pride that she 
 was going to make a sacrifice of herself and all her pros- 
 pects — all for " poor Joseph," To become the auditor of 
 this reckoning required more adroitness than the other 
 case ; but Calvert was equal to it. He saw where to 
 differ, where to agree with her. It was a contingency 
 which admitted of a very dexterous flattery, I'ather insinu- 
 
 u 2
 
 292 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 ated, however, than openly declared ; and it was thus ho 
 conveyed to her that he took the same view as the others. 
 He knew Loyd was an excellent fellow, far too good and 
 too moral for a mere scamp like himself to estimate. He 
 was certain he would tarn out respectable, esteemed, and 
 all that. He would be sure to be a chui-ch warden, and 
 might be a poor-law guardian : and his wife would be 
 certain to shine in the same brightness attained by 
 him. Then stopping, he would heave a low, faint sigh, 
 and turn the conversation to something about her own 
 attractions or graceful gifts. How enthusiastically the 
 world of " society " would one day welcome them — and 
 what a " success " awaited her whenever she was well 
 enough to endure its fatigue. Now, though all these 
 were only as so many faggots to the pile of her martyrdom, 
 she delighted to listen to them, and never wearied of 
 he iring Calvert exalt all the greatness of the sacrifice she 
 was about to make, and how immeasurably she was above 
 the lot to which she was going to consign herself. 
 
 It is the drip, drip, that eats away the rock, and itera- 
 tion, ever so faint, will cleave its way at last : so Florry, 
 without in the slightest degree disparaging Loyd, grew 
 at length to believe, as Calvert assured her, that "Master 
 Joseph " was the luckiest dog that ever lived, and had 
 carried off a prize immeasurably above his pretensions. 
 
 Miss Grainger, too, found a confessor in their guest : 
 but it will spare the reader some time if I place before 
 him a letter which Calvert wrote to one of his most inti- 
 mate friends a short time after he had taken up his abode 
 at the villa. The letter will also serve to connect some 
 past events with the present now before us. 
 
 The epistle was addressed Algernon Drayton, Esq., 
 Army and Navy Club, London, and ran thus : 
 
 " My Dear Algy, — You are the prince of * our own 
 correspondents,' and I thank you, ' imo coi'de,' if that be 
 L:itin for it, for all you have done for me. I defy the 
 whole Bar to make out, from your narrative, who killed 
 who, in that affair at Basle. I know, after the third read- 
 ing of it, I fancied that I had been shot through the heart, 
 and then took post-horses for Zurich. It was and is a 
 master-piece of the bewildering imbroglio style. Cultivate
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 293 
 
 youl' great gifts, then, my friend. You will be a treasure 
 to the court of Cresswell, and the most injured of men 
 or the basest of seducers will not be able at the end of a 
 suit to say which must kneel down and ask pardon of the 
 other. I suppose I ought to say I'm sorry for Barnard, 
 but I can't. No, Algy, I cannot. He was an arrant snob, 
 and, if he had lived, he'd have gone about telling the 
 most absurd stories and getting people to believe them, 
 just on the faith of his stupidity. If there is a ridiculous 
 charge in the world, it is that of ' firing before one's time,' 
 which, to make the most of it, must be a matter of 
 seconds, and involves, besides, a question as to the higlier 
 inflammability of one's powder. I don't cai'e who made 
 mine, but I know it did its work well. I'm glad, however, 
 that you did not deign to notice that contemptible alle- 
 gation, and merely limited yourself to what resulted. 
 Your initials and the stars showered over the pai-agraph, 
 are in the highest walk of legerdemain, and I can no more 
 trace relatives to antecedents, than I can tell what has 
 become of the egg I saw Houdin smash in my hat. 
 
 " I know, however, I mustn't come back just yet. There 
 is that shake-of-the-headiness abroad that makes one 
 uncomfortable. Fortunately, this is no sacrifice to me. 
 My debts keep me out of London, just as efl'ectually as my 
 morals. Besides this, my dear Algy, I'm living in the 
 very deepest of clover, domesticated with a maiden aunt 
 and two lovely nieces, in a villa on an Italian lake, my life 
 and comforts being the especial care of the triad. Imagine 
 an infant-school occupied in the care of a young tiger of 
 the spotted species, and you may, as the Yankees say, 
 realise the situation. But they seem to enjoy the peril of 
 what they are doing, or, they don't see it, I can't tell which. 
 
 " Gazetted out,' you say ; ' Meno male,^ as they say here. 
 I might have been promoted, and so tempted to go back 
 to that land of bores, bearers, and bungalows, and I am 
 grateful to the stumble that saves me from a fall. But 
 you ask what do I mean to do ? and I own T do not see 
 my way to anything. Time was when gentleman-ridi g, 
 coach-driving, or billiards, were on a par with the learned 
 professions; but, my dear Drayton, we have fallen upon a 
 painfully enlightened age, and every fellow can do a little 
 of everything.
 
 294 A KENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " You talk of my friends ? You might as well talk of 
 my three-per-cents. If I had friends it would be natural 
 enough they should help me to emigrate as a means of 
 seeing the last of me ; but I rather suspect that my rela- 
 tives, who by a figure of speech represent the friends 
 aforesaid, have a lively faith that some day or other the 
 government will be at the expense of my passage — that it 
 would be quite superfluous in them to provide for it. 
 
 " You hint that 1 might marry, meaning thereby marry 
 with money ; and to be sure, there's Barnard's widow with 
 plenty of tin, and exactly in that stage of affliction that 
 solicits consolation ; for when the heart is open to sorrow, 
 love occasionally steps in before the door closes. Then, 
 a moi'e practical case. One of these girls here— the 
 fortune is only fifteen thousand — I think over the matter 
 day and night, and I verily believe I see it in the light of 
 whatever may be the weather at the time : very darkly on 
 the rainy days ; not so gloomy when the sky is blue and 
 the air balmy. 
 
 " Do you remember that fellow that I stayed behind 
 for at the Cape, and thereby lost my passage, just to 
 quarrel with — Headsworth ? Well, a feeling of the same 
 sort is tempting me sorely at this time. There is one of 
 these girls, a poor delicate thing, very pretty and coquettish 
 in lier way, has taken it into her wise head to prefer a 
 stupid loutish sort of young sucking barrister to me, and 
 treats me with an ingenious blending of small compas- 
 sion and soft pity to console my defeat. If you could 
 ensure my being an afflicted widower within a year, I'd 
 marry her, just to show her the sort of edged tool she 
 has been playing with. I'm often half driven to distrac- 
 tion by her impertinent commiseration. I tried to get 
 into a row with the man, but he would not have it. Don't 
 you hate the fellow that won't quarrel with you, worse 
 even than the odious wretch who won't give you credit ? 
 
 " I might marry the sister, I suppose, to-morrow ; but 
 that alone is a reason against it. Besides, she is terribly 
 healthy ; and though I have lost much faith in consump- 
 tion, from cases 1 have watched in my own family, bad 
 air and bad treatment will occasionally aid its march. 
 Could you, from such meagre data as these, help me with 
 a word of advice ? for I do like the advice of an un-
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 295 
 
 scrupulous dog like yourself — so sure to be practical. 
 Then there is no cant between men like us — we play 
 'cartes sur table.' 
 
 " The old maid who repi'esents the head of this house 
 has been confidentially sounding me as to an eligible in- 
 vestment for some thousands which have fallen in from a 
 redeemed mortgage. I could have said, ' Send them to 
 me, and you shall name the interest yourself;' but I was 
 modest, and did not. I bethought me, however, of a, 
 good friend, one Algy Drayton, a man of large landed 
 property, but who always wants money for drainage. 
 Eh, Algy ! Are your lips watering at the prospect ? If 
 so, let your ingenuity say what is to be the security. 
 
 " Before 1 forget it, ask Pearson if he has any more 
 of that light Amontillado. It is the only thing ever sets 
 me right, and I have been poorly of late. I know I must 
 be out of sorts, because all day yesterday I was wretched 
 and miserable at my misspent life and squandered abili- 
 ties. Now, in my healthier moments, such thoughts 
 never cross me. I'd have been honest if Nature had dealt 
 fairly with me ; but the younger son of a younger bi'otlier 
 starts too heavily weighted to win by anything but a ' foul.' 
 You understand this well, for we are in the same book. 
 We each of us pawned our morality very early in life, 
 and never were rich enough to redeem it. Apropos of 
 pic lues, is your wife alive? I lost a befc about it some 
 tin.e ayo, but 1 forget on which side. I backed my 
 opinion. 
 
 "JSow, to sum up. Let me hear from you about all I 
 have been asking ; and, though I don't opine it lies very 
 much in your way, send me any tidings you can pick up 
 — to his disadvantage, of course — of Joseph Loj-d, 
 Middle Temple. You know scores of attorneys who 
 could trace him. Your hint about letter writing for the 
 papers is not a bad one. I suppose I could learn the 
 trie-k, and do it at least as well as some of the fellows 
 whose lucubrations I read. A political surmise, a spicy 
 bit of scandal, a sensation trial, wound up with a few 
 moral reflections upon how much better we do the same 
 sort of things at home. Isn't that the bone of it ? Send 
 me — don't forget it — send me some news of Rocksley. 
 I want to hear how they take all that I have been doing
 
 296 A EENT IN A CLOUf). 
 
 of late for their happiness. I have half of a letter written 
 to Soph — a sort of mild condolence, blended with what 
 the serious people call profitable reflections and sugges- 
 tive hints that her old affection will finds its way back to 
 me one of these days, and that when the event occurs, her 
 best course will be to declare it. I have I'eminded her, 
 too, that I laid up a little love in her heart when we 
 parted, just as shrewd people leave a small balance at 
 their bankers' as a title to reopen their account at a future 
 day. 
 
 •' Give Guy's people a hint that it's only wasting post- 
 age stamps to torment me with bills. I never break the 
 envelope of a dun's letter, and I know them as instinc- 
 tively as a detective does a swell-mobsman. What an 
 iiiiHginative race these duns must be. I know of no 
 fellow, for the high flights of fancy, to equal one's tailor 
 or bootmaker. As to the search for the elixir vitse, it's a 
 dull realism after the attempts I have witnessed for years 
 to get money out of myself. 
 
 " But I must close this ; here is Milly, whose taper 
 fingers have been making cigarettes for me all the morn- 
 ing, come to propose a sail on the lake ! — fact Algy ! — ■ 
 and the wolf is going out with the lambs, just as prettily 
 and as decorously as though his mother had been a ewe 
 and cast ' sheep's eyes' at his father. Address me, Orta, 
 simply, for I don't wish it to be thought here that my stay 
 is more than a day by day matter. I have all my letters 
 directed to the post-office. 
 
 " Yours, very cordially, 
 
 " Harry Calvert." 
 
 The pleasant project thus passingly alluded to was not 
 destined to ful Iment; for as Calvert with the two sisters 
 were on their way to the lake, they were overtaken by 
 Miss Grainger, who insisted on carrying away Calvert, to 
 give her his advice upon a letter she had just received. 
 Obeying with the best grace he could, and which really 
 did not err on the score of extravagance, he accompanied 
 the (jld lady back to the house, somewhat relieved, indeed, 
 in mind, to learn that the letter she was about to show 
 him in no way related to lum nor his affairs. 
 
 " I have my scruples, Mr. Calvert, about asking your
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 297 
 
 opinion in a case where I Avell know your sympathies are 
 not in unison with our own ; but your wise judgment and 
 great knowledge of life are advantages I cannot bring 
 myself to relinquish. I am well aware that whatever 
 your feelings or your prejudices, they will not interfere 
 with that good judgment." 
 
 *' Madam, you do me honour ; but, I hope, no moro 
 than justice." 
 
 " Tou know of Florry's engagement to Mr. Loyd ? " 
 s^he asked, abruptly, as though eager to begin her recital ; 
 and he bowed. " Well, he left this so hurriedly about his 
 father's affairs, that he had no time to settle anything, or, 
 indeed, explain anything. We knew nothing of his 
 prospects or his means, and he just as little about my 
 niece's fortune. He had written, it is true, to his father, 
 and got a most kind and affectionate answer, sanctioning 
 the match, and expressing fervent wishes for his happi- 
 ness—— Why do you smile, Mr, Calvert ? " 
 
 " I was only thinking of the beauty of that benevolence 
 that costs nothing ; few things are more graceful than a 
 benediction — nothing so cheap." 
 
 " That may be so. I have nothing to say to it," she 
 rejoined, in some irritation. "But old Mr. Loyd's letter 
 was very beautiful, and very touching. He reminded 
 Joseph that he himself had married on the very scantiest 
 of means, and that though his life had never been above 
 the condition of a very poor vicar, the narrowness of his 
 fortune had not barred his happiness. I'd like to read 
 you a passage " 
 
 " Pray do not. You have given me the key-note, and I 
 feel as if I could score down the whole symphony." 
 
 " You don't believe him then ?" 
 
 " Heaven forfend ! All I would say is, that between a 
 man of his temperament and one of mine discussion is 
 impossible; and if this be the letter on which you want 
 my opinion, I frankly tell you I have none to give." 
 
 " No, no ! this is not the letter ; here is the letter I 
 wish you to read. It has only come by this morning's 
 post, and I want to have your judgment on it before I 
 speak of it to the girls." 
 
 Calvert drew the letter slowly from its envelope, and 
 with a sort of languid resignation, proceeded to read it.
 
 298 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 As he reached the end of the first page, he said, " Why, 
 it would need a lawyer of the Ecclesiastical Court to 
 ■understand this. What's all this entangled story about 
 irregular induction, and the last incumbent, and the lay 
 impropriator ? " 
 
 " Oh, you needn't have read that ! It's the poor old 
 gentleman's account of his calamity ; how he has lost his 
 vicarage, and is going down to a cui-acy in Cornwall. 
 Here," said she, pointing to another page, " here is where 
 you are to begin ; ' I might have borne ' " 
 
 "Ah, yes!" said he, reading aloud; "'I might have 
 borne up better under this misfortune if it had not occurred 
 at such a critical moment of my poor boy's fate, for I am 
 still uncertain what effect these tidings will have produced 
 on you. I shall no longer have a home to offer the 
 young people, when from reasons of health, or economv, 
 or relaxation, they would like to have left the town and 
 come down to rusticate with us. Neither will it be in my 
 power to contribute — even in the humble shape I had 
 once hoped — to their means of living. I am, in short, 
 reduced to the very narrowest fortune, nor have I the 
 most distant prospect of any better : so much for myself. 
 As for Joseph, he has been offered, through the friendly 
 intervention of an old college companion, an appointment 
 at the Calcutta Bar. It is not a lucrative nor an impor- 
 tant post, but one which they say will certainly lead to 
 advancement and future fortune. Hnd it not been for 
 his hopes — hopes which had l.itterly constituted the 
 very spring of his existence — such an opening as this 
 would have been welcomed with all his heart; but now 
 the offer comes clouded with all the doubts as to how 
 you may be disposed to regard it. Will you consent to 
 separate from the dear girl you have watched over with 
 such loving solicitude for years? Will she herself con- 
 sent to expatriation and the parting from her sister and 
 yourself? These are the questions which torture his 
 mind, and leave him no rest day or night ! The poor 
 fellow has tried to plead his cause in a letter — he has 
 essayed a dozen times — but all in vain. " My own selfish- 
 ness shocks me," he says, " when I read over what I have 
 written, and sec how completely I have forgotten every- 
 thing but my own interests." If he remain at home,
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 299 
 
 by industry and attention he may hope, in some six or 
 seven years, to be in a position to marry ; but six or seven 
 years are a long period of life, and sure to have their 
 share of vicissitudes and casualties. Whereas, by accept- 
 ing this appointment, which will be nearly seven hundred 
 a year, he could afford at once to support a wife, of course 
 supposing her to submit willingly to the privations and 
 wants of such straitened fortunes. I have ottered to 
 tell his story for him — that story he has no strength to 
 tell himself — but I have not pledged to be his advocate ; 
 for, while I would lay down my life to secure his happi- 
 ness, I cannot bring myself to urge, for his sake, what 
 might be unfair or ungenerous to exact from another. 
 
 " ' Though my son's account of your niece leaves us 
 nothing more to ask or wish for in a daughter, I am 
 writing in ignorance of many things I would like to 
 know. Has she, for instance, the energy of character 
 that would face a new life in a new and far-away land ? 
 Has she courage — has she health for it ? My wife is not 
 pleased at my stating all these reasous for doubt ; but I 
 am determined you shall know the worst of our case from 
 ourselves, and discover no blot we have not prepared you 
 for.' " Calvert muttered something here, but too inau- 
 dibly to be heard, and went on reading : " ' When I 
 think that poor Joe's whole happiness will depend on 
 what decision your next letter will bring, I have only to 
 pray that it may be such as will conduce to the welfare of 
 those we both love so dearly. I cannot ask you to make 
 what are called " sacrifices " for us : but I entreat you let 
 the consideration of affection weigh with you, not less 
 than that o^ worldly interests, and also to believe that 
 when one has to take a decision which is to influence a 
 lifetime, it is as safe to take counsel from the heart as 
 from the head — from the nature that is to feel, as from the 
 intellect that is to plan.' 
 
 " I think I have read enough of this," said Calvert, 
 impatiently. " I know the old gent's brief perfectlj'. 
 It's the old story : first gain a girl's affections, and let her 
 friends squabble, if they dare, about the settlements. 
 He's an artful old boy, that vicar ! but I like him, on 
 the whole, better than his son, for though he does plead 
 in forma pauperis, he has the fairness to say so."
 
 300 A TiENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " You are very severe, Mr. Calvert. I hope you are too 
 severe," said the old lady, in some agitation. 
 
 " And what answer are you going to give him ? " asked 
 he, curtly. 
 
 " That is exactly the point on which I want your advice ; 
 for though 1 know well you are no friend to young Loyd, 
 I believe you to be our sincere well-wisher, and that your 
 judgment will be guided by the honest feelings of regard 
 for us." 
 
 Without deigning to notice this speech, he arose and 
 walked up and down the room apparently deep in thought. 
 He stopped at last, and said abruptly, "I don't presume 
 to dictate to you in this business ; but if I were the young 
 lady's guardian, and got such a letter as this, my reply 
 would be a very brief one." 
 
 "You'd refuse yoiar consent?" 
 
 " Of course I w^ould ! Must your niece turn adven- 
 turess, aiid go off to Heaven knows where, with God 
 knows whom ? Must she link her fortunes to a man who 
 confessedly cannot face the world at home, but must go 
 to the end of the earth for a bare subsistence ? What is 
 there in this man himself, in his character, station, abili- 
 ties, and promise, that are to recompense such devotion 
 as this ? And what will your own conscience say to the 
 first letter from India, full of depression and sorrow, 
 regrets shadowed forth, if not avowed openly, for the 
 happy days when you were all together, and contrasts of 
 that time, with the dreary dulness of an uncheered exis- 
 tence ? /know something of India, and I can tell you it 
 is a country where life is only endurable by splendour. 
 Poverty in such a land is not merely privation, it is to 
 live in derision and contempt. Everyone knows how 
 many rupees you have per month, and you are measured 
 by your means in everything. That seven hundred a 
 year, which sounds plausibly enough, is something like 
 two hundred at home, if so much. Of course you can 
 override all these considerations, and, as the vicar says, 
 ' Let the heart take precedence of the head.' 3Iy cold 
 and worldly counsels will not- stand comparison with his 
 fine and generous sentiments, no more than I could 
 make as good a figure in the pulpit as he could. But, 
 perhaps, as a laero man of the world, I am his equal ;
 
 THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 301 
 
 though there are little significant hints in that very letter 
 that show the old parson is very wide awake." 
 
 " I never detected them," said she, curtly. 
 
 " Perhaps not, bub rely upon one thing. It was not 
 such a letter as he would have addressed to a man. If I, 
 for instance, had been the guardian instead of you, the 
 whole tone of the epistle would have been very ditierent." 
 
 " Do yon think so ?" 
 
 " Think so ! I know it. I had not read ten lines till I 
 said to myself, * This was meant for very different eyes 
 from mine.' " 
 
 " If I thought that " 
 
 " Go on," said he ; "finish, and let me hear what you 
 would say or do, when arrived at the conclusion I have 
 come to." 
 
 So far, however, from having come to any decision, she 
 really did not see in the remotest distance anything to 
 guide her to one. 
 
 " What would you advise me to do, Mr. Calvert ?" said 
 she, at last, and after a pause of some time. 
 
 " Refer him to me ; say the point is too difficult for you; 
 that while your feelings for your niece might overbear all 
 other considerations, those very feelings might be the 
 sources of error to you. You might, for instance, concede 
 too much to the claim of aflection ; or, on the other hand, 
 be too regardful of the mere worldly consideration. Not 
 that, on second thoughts, I'd enter upon this to him. I'd 
 simply say a friend in whom I repose the fullest confidence, 
 hfis consented to represent me in this difficult matter. 
 Not swayed as I am by the claims of affection, he will be 
 able to give a calmer and more dispassionate judgment 
 than I could. Write to Mr. Calvert, therefore, who is 
 now here, and say what the mere business aspect of the 
 niatter suggests to you to urge. Write to him frankly, as 
 to one who already is known to your son, and has lived 
 on terms of intimacy with him. His reply will be mine." 
 
 "Is not that a very cold and repelling answer to the 
 good vicar's letter?" 
 
 " [ think not, and I suspect it will have one good effect. 
 The parson's style will become natural at once, and you'll 
 see what a very different fashion he'll write when the letter 
 is addressed to me."
 
 802 A. RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " What will Florence say ? " 
 
 "Nothing, if she knows nothing. And, of coui'se, if 
 yon intend to take her into your counsels, you must please 
 to omit me. I'm not going to legislate for a young lady's 
 future with herself to vote in the division !" 
 
 " But what's to become of me if you go away in the 
 middle of the negotiation, and leave me to finish it ? " 
 
 " I'll not do so. I'll pledge my word to see you 
 through it. It will be far shorter than you suspect. The 
 vicar will not play out his hand when he sees his ad- 
 versary. You have nothing to do but write as I have told 
 you ; leave the rest to me." 
 
 " Florence is sure to ask me what the vicar has written; 
 she knows that I have had his letter." 
 
 " Tell her it is a purely business letter ; that his son 
 having been offered a colonial appointment, he wishes to 
 ascertain what your fortune is, and how circumstanced, 
 before pledging himself further. Shock her a little about 
 their worldliness, and leave the remainder to time." 
 
 " But Joseph will write to her in the meanwhile and 
 disabuse her of this." 
 
 " Not completely. She'll be annoyed that the news of 
 the colonial place did not come first from himself ; she'll 
 be piqued into something not very far from distrust ; she'll 
 show some vexation when she writes ; but don't play the 
 game before the cards are dealt. Wait, as I say — wait and 
 see. Meanwhile, give me the vicar's note, for I dread 
 your showing it to Florry, and as if she asks for it, say you 
 sent it to Henderson — isn't that your lawyer's name ? — 
 in London, and told him to supply you with the means of 
 replying to it." 
 
 Like a fly in a cobweb, Miss Grainger saw herself en- 
 tangled wherever she turned, and though perhaps in her 
 secret heart she regretted having ever called Calvert to 
 her counsels, the thing was now done and could not be 
 undone
 
 803 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DARKER AND DARKER. 
 
 TiiFRF wfis an unusual depression at the villa ; each had 
 liiN (ir lier own load of anxiety, and each felt that an 
 Hi iiiu^phere of gloom was thickening around, and, with- 
 out bein able to say why or wherefore, that dark days 
 wt re coining. 
 
 " Amony- \ our letters this morning was there none from 
 the viia . Mr. Calvtrt? " asked Miss Grainger, as he sat 
 smoking his morning cigar under the poi'cli of the cottage. 
 
 " No," said he, carelessly. " The post brought me 
 nothing of any interest. A few reproaches from my 
 friends about not writing, and relieving their anxieties 
 about this unhappy business. They had it that I was 
 killed — beyond that, nothing." 
 
 ' But we ought to have heard from old Mr. Loyd 
 before this. Strange, too, Joseph has not written." 
 
 " Stranger if he had ! The very mention of my name 
 as a referee in his affairs will make him very cautious with 
 his pen." 
 
 " She is so fretted," sighed the old lady. 
 
 " I see she is, and I see she suspects, also, that you 
 have taken me in your counsels. We are not as good 
 friends as we were some time back." 
 
 " She really likes you, though — I assure you she does, 
 Mr. Calvert. It was but t'other day she said, ' What 
 would have become of us all this time loaek if Mad Harry 
 — you know your nickname — if Mad Harry had not been 
 here ? " 
 
 " That's not liking ! That is merely the expression of 
 a weak gratitude towards the person who helps to tide 
 over a dreary interval. You might feel it for the old priest 
 who played piquet with you, or the Spitz terrier that 
 accompanied you in your walks." 
 
 " Oh, it's far more than that. She is constantly talking
 
 304 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 of your great abilities — how you might be this, that and 
 t'other. That, with scarcely an effort, you can master any 
 subject, and without any effort at all always make yourself 
 more agreeable than anyone else." 
 
 "Joseph excepted ?" 
 
 " No, she didn't even except him ; on the contrary, she 
 said, • It was unfortunate for him to be exposed to such a 
 dazzling rivalry — that your animal spirits alone would 
 always beat him out of the field.' " 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! If I wasn't as much his superior 
 in talent as in temperament, I'd fling myself over that 
 rock yonder, and make an end of it!" After a few 
 seconds' pause he went on : " She may think what she 
 likes of me, but one thing is plain enough — she does not 
 love Mm. It is the sort of compassionating, commiserat- 
 ing estimate imaginative girls occasionally get up for dreary 
 depressed fellows, constituting themselves discoverers of 
 intellect that no one ever suspected — revealers of wealth 
 that none had ever dreamed of Don't I know scores of 
 such who have poetised the most commonplace of men into 
 heroes, and never found out their mistake till they married 
 them!" 
 
 " You always terrify me when you take to predicting, 
 Mr. Calvert." 
 
 " Heaven knows, it's not my ordinary mood. One who 
 looks so little into the future for himself has few tempta- 
 tions to do so for his friends." 
 
 " Why do you feel so depressed ? " 
 
 "I'm not sure that I do feel depressed. I'm irritable, 
 out of sorts, annoyed, if you will ; but not low or melan- 
 choly. Is it not enough to make one angry to see such a 
 
 girl as Florry bestow her affections on that Well, I'll 
 
 not abuse him, but you know he is a ' cad ' — that's exactly 
 Ihe word that fits him." 
 
 " It was no choice of mine," she sighed. 
 
 " That may be ; but you ought to have been more than 
 passive in the matter. Your fears would have prevented 
 you letting your niece stop for a night in an unhealthy 
 locality. You'd not have suffered her to halt in the Pon- 
 tine Marshes ; but you can see no danger in linking her 
 whole future life to influences five thousand times more 
 depressing. I tell you, and I tell you deliberately, that
 
 dAeker and darken. S05 
 
 fehe'd have a far better chance of happiness with a scamp 
 like myself." 
 
 " Ah, I need not tell you my own sentiments on that 
 point," said she, with a deep sigh. 
 
 Calvert apparently set little store by such sympathy, for 
 he rose, and throwing away the end of his cigar, stood 
 looking out over the lake. " Here comes Onofrio, flourish- 
 ing some letters in his hand. The idiot fancies the post 
 never brings any but pleasant tidings." 
 
 ■' Let us go down and meet him," said Miss Grainger ; 
 and he walked along at her side in silence. 
 
 " Three for the Signor Capitano," said the boatman, 
 " and one for the signorina," handing the letters as he 
 landed. 
 
 " Drayton," muttered Calvert; "the others are strange 
 to me." 
 
 " This is from Joseph. How glad poor Florry will be 
 to get it." 
 
 " Don't defer her happiness, then," said he, half stei-nly ; 
 " I'll sit down on the rocks here and con over my less 
 pleasant correspondence." One was from his lawyer, to 
 state that outlawrv could no louger be resisted, and that 
 if his friends would not come forward at once with some 
 satisfactory promise of arrangement, the law must take its 
 course. " My friends," said he, with a bitter laugh, 
 " which be they ? " The next he opened was from the 
 army agents, dryly setting forth that as he had left the 
 service it was necessary he should take some immediate 
 steps to liquidate some regimental claims against him, of 
 which they begged to enclose the particulars. He 
 laughed bitterly and scornfully as he tore the letter 
 to fragments and threw the pieces into the water. " How 
 well they know the man they threaten ! " cried he, 
 defiantly. "I'd like to know how uiuch a drowning 
 man cares for his duns ? " He laughed again. " Now 
 for Drayton. I hope this will be pleasanter than its 
 predecessors." It was not very long, and it was as 
 follows : — 
 
 "TheEag, Tuesday. 
 
 "Dear Harey, — Your grateful compliments on the dex- 
 terity of my correspondence in, the Meteor arrived at an
 
 306 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 unlucky moment, for some fellow had just written to the 
 editor a real statement of the whole atfair, and the next 
 day came a protest, part French, part English, signed by 
 Edward Rochefort, Lieutenant-Colonel ; Gustavus Brooke, 
 J3. L. ; George Law, M. D. ; Alberic de Raymond, Vicomte, 
 and Jules de Lassagnac. They sent for me to the office 
 to see the document, and I threw all imaginable discredit 
 on its authenticity, but without success. The upshot is, 
 JThave lost my place as ' own correspondent,' and jou are 
 in a very bad way. The whole will appear in print to- 
 morrow, and be read from Hudson's Bay to the Hima- 
 laya. I have done my best to get the other papers to 
 disparage the statement, and have written all the usual 
 bosh about condemning a man in his absence, and entreat- 
 ing the public to withhold its judgment, &c. &c. ; but 
 they all seem to feel that the tide of popular sentiment is 
 too strong to resist, and you must be pilloried ; prepare 
 yourself, then, for a pitiless pelting, which, as Parliament 
 is not sitting, will probably have a run of three or four 
 weeks. 
 
 " In any other sort of sci'ape, the fellows at the club here 
 would have stood by you, but they shrink from the danger 
 of this business, which I now see was worse than you told 
 rae. Many, too, are more angry with you for deserting 
 B. than for shooting the other fellow; and though B. was 
 an arrant snob, now that he is no moi-e you wouldn't 
 believe what shoals of good qualities they have discovered 
 he possessed, and he is ' poor Bob ' in the mouth of twenty 
 fellows who would not have been seen in his company a 
 month ago. There is, however, worse than all this : a 
 certain Reppingham, or Reppengham, the father of B.'s 
 wife, has either already instituted, or is about to institute, 
 proceedings against you criminally. He uses ugly words, 
 calls it a murder, and has demanded a warrant for your 
 extradition and arrest at once. There is a story of some 
 note you are said to have written to B., but which ai'rived 
 when he was insensible, and was read by the people about 
 him, who were shocked by its lieartless levity. What is 
 the truth as to this ? At all events. Rep has got a vendetta 
 fit on him, and raves like a Corsican for vengeance. Your 
 present place of concealment, safe enough for duns, will- 
 ofl'er no security against detectives. The bland blackguards
 
 DARKER AND DARKER. 307 
 
 witb black whiskers know the geography of Europe as 
 well as they kuow the blind alleys about Houudsditch. 
 You must decamp, therefore; get across the Adriatic into 
 Dalmatia, or into Greece. Don't delay, whatever you do, 
 for I see plainly that in the present state of public opinion, 
 the fellow who captures you will come back here with a 
 fame like that of Gerard the lion-killer. Be sure of ono 
 thing, if you were just as clean-handed iu this business as 
 I know you are not, there is no time now for a vindication. 
 You must get out of the way, and wait. The clubs, the 
 press, the swells at the Horse Guards, and the snobs at 
 the War-office, are all against yon, and there's no squaring 
 your book against such long odds. I am well aware that 
 no one gets either into or out of a scrape more easily than 
 yourself; but don't treat this as a light one: don't fancy, 
 above all, that I am giving you the darkest side of it, for, 
 with all our frankness and free speech together, I couldn't 
 tell you the language people hold here about it. There's 
 not a man j-ou ever bullied at mess, or beat at billiards, 
 that is not paying off his scores to you now ! And though 
 you may take all this easily', don't undervalue its import- 
 ance. 
 
 " I haven't got — and I don't suppose you care much 
 now to get — any information about Loyd, beyond his 
 being appointed something, Attorney-General's 'devil,' I 
 believe, at Calcutta. I'd not have heard even so much, 
 but he was trying to get a loan, to make out his outtit, 
 from Joel, and old Isaac told me who he was, and what 
 he wanted. Joel thinks, from the state of the fellow's 
 health, that no one will like to advance the cash, and if 
 so, he'll be obliged to relinquish the place. You have not 
 told me whether you wish this, or the opposite. 
 
 " I wish I could book up to you at such a moment as 
 this, but I haven't got it. I send you all that I can 
 scrape together, seventy odd ; it is a post bill and easily 
 castied anywhere. In case I hear of anything that may 
 be imminently needed for your guid;iuce, I'll telegraph to 
 you the morrow alter your receipt of this, addressing the 
 message to the name Grainger, to prevent accidents. 
 You must try and keep your triends from seeing the Lon- 
 don papers so long as you stay with them. I suppose, 
 when you leave, you'll not fret about the reputation that 
 
 X 2
 
 308 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 follows you. For the last time, let me warn you to get 
 away to some place of safety, for if they can push matters 
 to an arrest, things may take an ugly turn. 
 
 " They are getting really frightened here about India at 
 last. Harris has brought some awful news home with 
 him, and they'd give their right hands to have those 
 regiments they sent off to China to despatch now to 
 Calcutta. I know this will be all ' nuts ' to you, and 
 it is the only bit of pleasant tidings I have for you. 
 Your old prediction about England being a third-rate 
 power, like Holland, may not be so far from fulfilment as 
 I used to think it. I wonder shall we ever have a fire- 
 side gossip over all these things again ? At present, all 
 looks too dark to get a peep into the future. Write to me 
 at once, say what you mean to do, and believe me as ever, 
 yours, 
 
 " A. Drayton. 
 
 " I have just heard that the lawyers are in doubt as to 
 the legality of extradition, and Braddon declares dead 
 against it. In the case they relied on, the man had come 
 to England after being tried in France, thinking himself 
 safe, as ' autrefois acquit ; ' but they found him guilty at 
 
 the Old Bailey, and him. There's delicacy for you, 
 
 after your own heart." 
 
 Calvert smiled grimly at his friend's pleasantry. "Here 
 is enough trouble for any man to deal with. Duns, out- 
 lawry, and a criminal prosecution ! " said he, as he 
 replaced his letter in its envelope, and lighted his cigar. 
 He had not been many minutes in the enjoyment of his 
 weed, when he saw Miss Grainger coming hastily towards 
 him. " I wish that old woman would let me alone, just 
 now ! " muttered he. " I have need of all my brains for 
 my own misfortunes." 
 
 "It has turned out just as I predicted, Mr. Calvert," 
 said she, pettishly. " Young Loyd is furious at having 
 Lis pretensions referred to you, and will not hear of it. 
 His letter to Florence is all but reproachful, and she has 
 gone home with her e^-es full of teai'S. This note for you 
 came as an enclosure." 
 
 Calvert took the note from her hands, and laying it 
 beside him on the rock, smoked ou without speaking.
 
 DARKER AND DARKER. 309 
 
 " T knew everything that would happen ! " said Miss 
 Grainger. * The old man gave the letter you wrote to 
 his son, who immediately sat down and wrote to Florry. 
 I have not seen the letter myself, but Milly declares that 
 it goes so far as to say, that if Florry admits of any advice 
 or interference on your part, it is tantamount to a desire 
 to break off the engagement. He declares, however, that 
 he neither can nor will believe such a thing to be possible. 
 That he knows she is ignorant of the whole intrigue. 
 Milly assures me that was the word, intrigue ; and she 
 read it twice over to be certain. He also says something, 
 which I do not quite understand, about my being led 
 beyond the bounds of judgment by what he calls a tra- 
 ditional reverence for the name you bear — but one thing 
 is plain enough, he utterly rejects the reference to you, or 
 indeed, to any one now but Florence herself, and says, 
 ' This is certainly a case for your own decision, and I will 
 accept of none other than yours.' " 
 
 " is there anything more about me than you have 
 said? " asked Calvert, calmly. 
 
 " No, I believe not. He begs, in the postscript, that 
 the enclosed note may be given to you, that's all." 
 
 Calvert took a long breath ; he felt as if a weight had 
 been removed from his heart, and he smoked on in 
 silence. 
 
 " Won't you read it ? " cried she, eagerly. " I am burn- 
 ing to hear what he says. 
 
 " I can tell you just as well without breaking the seal," 
 said he, with a half scornful smile. " I know the very 
 tone and style of it, and I recognize the pluck with which 
 such a man, when a thousand miles off, dares to address 
 one like myself." 
 
 "Read it, though; let me hear his own words! " cried 
 she. 
 
 " I'm not impatient for it," said he ; "I have had a 
 sufficient dose of bitters this morning, and I'd just as 
 soon spare myself the acrid petulance of this poor 
 creature " 
 
 " You are very provoking, I must say," said she, angrily, 
 and turned away towards the house, Calvert watched her 
 till she disappeared behind a copse, and then hastily broke 
 open the letter,
 
 310 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Middle Temple, Saturday, 
 
 " Sir — My father has forwarded to me a letter which, 
 with very questionable good taste, you addressed to him. 
 The very relations which subsisted between us when we 
 parted, might have suggested a more delicate course on 
 your part. Whatever objections I might then, however, 
 have made to your interference in matters personal to 
 myself, have now become something more than mere 
 objections, and I flatly declare that I will not listen to 
 one word from a man whose name is now a shame and 
 a disgrace throughout Europe. That you may quit the 
 roof which has sheltered you hitherto without the misery 
 of exposure, I have forborne in my letter to narrate the 
 story which is on every tongue here : but, as the price of 
 this forbearance, I desire and I exact that you leave the 
 villa on the day you receive this, and cease from that day 
 forth to hold any intercourse with the family who reside 
 in it. If I do not, therefore, receive a despatch by tele- 
 graph, informing me that you accede to these conditions, 
 I will forward by the next post the full details which the 
 press of England is now giving of your infamous conduct 
 and of the legal steps which are to be instituted against 
 you. 
 
 " Remember distinctly, sir, that I am only in this 
 pledging myself for that short interval of time which will 
 sutler you to leave the house of those who offered you a 
 refuge against calamity — not crime — and whose shame 
 "would be overwheming if they but knew the character i)f 
 him they sheltered. You are to leave before nightfall 
 of the day this reaches, and never to return. You are to 
 abstain Irom all correspondence. 1 make no conditions 
 atj to future acquaintanceship, because I know that were 
 I even so minded, no etlorts of mine could save you from 
 that notoriety which a few days more will attach to you, 
 never to leave you. 
 
 " I am, your obedient servant, 
 
 " Joseph Loyd." 
 
 Calvert tried to laugh as he finished the reading of this 
 note, but the attempt was a failure, and a sickly pallor 
 spread over his face, and his lips trembled. " Let me
 
 DARKER AND DARKER. Sll 
 
 only meet you, I don't care in what presence, or in what 
 place," muttered he, " and you shall pay dearly for this. 
 Bat now to think of myself. This is just the sort of 
 fellow to put his threat into execution, the more since he 
 will naturally be anxious to get me away from this. What 
 is to be done ? With one week more I could almost 
 answer for my success. Ay, Mademoiselle Florry, you 
 were deeper in the toils than you suspected. The dread 
 of me that once inspired a painful feeling had grown into 
 a sort of self-pride that elevated her in her own esteem. 
 She was so proud of her familiarity with a wild animal, 
 and so vain of her influence over him ! So pleasant to 
 say, ' See, savage as he is, he'll not turn upon me ! ' And 
 now to rise from the table, when the game is all but won ! 
 Confound the fellow, how he has wrecked my fortunes ! 
 As if I had not enough, too, on my hands without this !" 
 And he walked impatiently to and fro, like a caged 
 animal in fretfulness. " I wanted to think over Drayton's 
 letter calmly and deliberately, and here comes this order, 
 this command, to be up and away — away from the only 
 spot in which I can say I enjoyed an home's peace for years 
 and years, and from the two or three left to me, of all the 
 world, who think it no shame to bestow on me a word 
 or a look of kindness. The fellow is peremptory — he 
 declares I must leave to-day." For some time he con- 
 tinued to walk, muttering to himself or moodily silent. 
 At last he cried out, "Yes; I have it! I'll go up to 
 Milan, and cash this bill of Drayton's. When there I'll 
 telegraph to Loyd, which will show I have left the villa. 
 That done, I'll return here, if it be but for a day ; and wlio 
 knows what a day will bring forth ? " 
 
 "Who has commands for Milan?" said he, gaily 
 entering the drawing-room, where Miss Grainy-er sat, 
 holding a half-whispering conversation with Milly. 
 
 " Milan ! are you going to Milan ?" 
 
 " Yes ; only for a day. A friend has charged me with 
 a commission that does not admit of delay, and I mean 
 to rnn up this afternoon and be down by dinner-time to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " I'll go and see if Florry wants anything from the 
 city," said Miss Grainger, as she arose and left the room. 
 
 " Poor Florry ! she is so distressed by that letter she
 
 812 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 received this morning. Joseph has taken it in such ill 
 part that you should have been consulted by Aunt 
 Grainger, and reproaches her for having permitted what 
 she really never heard of. Not that, as she herself says, 
 she admits of any right on his part to limit her source of 
 advice. She thinks that it is somewhat despotic in him 
 to say ' You shall not take counsel except with leave from 
 me^ She knows that this is the old vicar's doing, and 
 that Joseph never would have assumed that tone without 
 being put up to it." 
 
 " That is clear enough ; but I am surprised that your 
 sister saw it." 
 
 " Oh, she is not so deplorably in love as to be blinded." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AGAIN TO MILAN. 
 
 " Poor Bob ! You were standing on that balcony with a 
 very jaunty air, smoking your cuba the last time I passed 
 here," said Calverfc, as he looked up at the windows of the 
 Hotel Royale at Milan, while he drove on to another and 
 less distinguished hotel. He would have liked greatly to 
 put up at the Royale, and had a chat with its gorgeous 
 landlord over the Reppinghams, how long they stayed and 
 whither they went, and how the young widow bore up 
 under the blow, and what shape old Rep's grief assumed. 
 No squeamishness as to the terms that might have been 
 used towards himself would have prevented his gratifying 
 this wish. The obstacle was purely financial. He had 
 told the host, on leaving, to pay a thousand francs for 
 him that he had lost at play, and it was by no means con- 
 venient now to reimburse him. The bank had just closed 
 as he arrived, so there was nothing for it but to await its 
 opening the next morning. His steps were then turned 
 to the Tflegraph-office. The jnessage to Loyd was iy
 
 iGAIN TO MILAN. 313 
 
 tliese words : " Your letter received. I am here and leave 
 to-morrojv." 
 
 " Of course tbe fellow will understand that I have 
 obeyed his high behest, and I shall be back at Orta in 
 time to catch the post on its arrival, and see whether he 
 has kept faith with me or not. If there be no newspapers 
 there for the villa, I may conclude it is all right." This 
 bi'ief matter of business over, he felt like one who had no 
 further occasion for care. When he laid down his burden 
 he could straighten his back, no sense of the late pi^essure 
 remaining to remind him of the load that had pressed so 
 heavily. He knew this quality in himself, and prized it 
 highly. It formed part of what he used boastfully to call 
 his "Philosophy," and he contrasted it proudly with the 
 condition of those fellows, who, instead of rebounding 
 under pressure, collapsed, and sunk never to rise more. 
 The vanity with which he regarded himself supplied him 
 with a vindictive dislike to the world, who could suffer a 
 fellow endowed and gifted as he was to be always in. 
 straits and difficulties. He mistook — a very common 
 mistake by-the-way — a capacity to enjoy, for a nature 
 deservant of enjoyment, and he thought it the greatest 
 injustice to see scores of well-off people who possessed 
 neither his own good constitution nor his capacity to 
 endure dissipation uninjured. " Wretches not fit to live," 
 as he said, and assuredly most unfit to live the life which 
 he alone prized or cared for. He dined somewhat sump- 
 tuously at one of the great restaurants. " He owed it 
 to himself," he said, after all that dreary cookeiy of the 
 villa, to refresh his memory of the pleasures of the table, 
 and he ordered a flask of Mai'co-brunner that cost a 
 Napoleon. 
 
 He was the caiTssed of the waiters, and escorted to the 
 door by the host. There is no supremacy so soon re- 
 cognised as that of wealth, and Calvert for a few hours 
 gave himself up to the illusion that he was rich. As the 
 opera was closed, he went to one of the smaller theatres, 
 and sat out for a while one of those dreariest of all 
 dreai'y things, a comedy by the "immortal Goldoni ! " 
 Immortal, indeed, so long as sleep remains an endowment 
 of humanity ! He tried to interest himself in a plot 
 wherein tbe indecency was only veiled by the dulness, an(i
 
 314 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 wliere the language of the drawing-room never rose above 
 the tone of the servants'-hall, and left the place in dis- 
 gust, to seek anywhere, or anyhow, something more 
 amusing than this. 
 
 Without well knowing how, he found himself at the 
 door of the Gettone, the hell he had visited when he was 
 last at Milan. 
 
 " They shall sup mc, at all events," said he, as he de- 
 posited his hat and cane in the ante-chamber. The rooms 
 were crowded, and it was some time before Calvert could 
 approach the play-table, and gain a view of the company. 
 He recognized many of the former visitors. There sat 
 the pretty woman with the blonde ringlets, her diamond- 
 studded fingers carelessly playing with the gold pieces 
 before her ; there was the pale student-like boy — he 
 seemed a mere boy — with his dress-cravat disordered, and 
 his hair dishevelled, just as he had seen him last ; and 
 there was the old man, whose rouleau had cost Calvert 
 all his v/innings. He looked fatigued and exhausted, 
 and seemed as if dropping asleep over his game, and yet 
 the noise was deafening — the clamour of the players, the 
 cries of the croupier, the clink of glasses, and the clink of 
 gold ! 
 
 "Now to test the adage that says when a man is pelted 
 by all other ill luck, that he'll win at play," said Calvert, 
 as he threw, without counting them, several Napoleons 
 on the table. His venture was successful, and so was 
 another and another after it. 
 
 " This is yours, sir," said she of the blonde ringlets, 
 handing him a hundred franc-piece that had rolled 
 amongst her own. 
 
 " Wasit not to suggest apartnership that it went there<? " 
 said he, smiling courteously. 
 
 "Who knows?" said she, half carelessly, half in- 
 vitingl}^ 
 
 "Let us see what our united fortunes will do. This 
 old man is dozing and does not care for the game. 
 Would you favour me with your place, sir, and take your 
 rest with so much more comfort on one of those 
 luxurious sofas yonder?" 
 
 " No ! " said the old man sternly. " I have as much 
 right to be here as you."
 
 AGAIN TO MILAN. 315 
 
 " The legal right I am not going to dispute. It is 
 simply a matter of expediency." 
 
 " Do you mean to stake all that gold, sir ? " interrupted 
 the croupier, addressing Calvert, who, during this brief 
 discussion, had suffered his money to remain till it had 
 been doubled twice over. 
 
 " Ay, let it stay there," said he, carelessly. 
 
 " What have you done that makes you so lucky ? " 
 whispered the blonde ringlets. "See, j'ou have broken 
 the bank! " 
 
 " What have I done, do you mean in the way of 
 wickedness ? " said he, laughing as the croupiei's gathered 
 in a knot to count over the sum to be paid to him. 
 "Nearly everything. I give you leave to question me — 
 so far as your knowledge of the Decalogue goes — what 
 have I not done?" And so they sauntered down the 
 room side by side and sat down on a sofa, chatting and 
 laughing pleasantly together, till the croupier came loaded 
 with gold and notes to pay all Calvei't's winnings. 
 
 " What was it the old fellow muttered as he passed ? " 
 said Calvert ; " he spoke in German, and I didn't under- 
 stand him." 
 
 " It was something about a line in your forehead that 
 will bring you bad luck yet." 
 
 " I have heard that before," cried he, springing hastily 
 up. " I wish I could get him to tell me more ; " and he 
 hastened down the stairs after the old man, but when he 
 gained the street he missed him ; he hurried in vain on 
 this side and that ; no ti'ace of him remained. " If I were 
 given to the credulous, I'd say that was the fiend in 
 person," muttered Cahxrt, as he slowly turned towards 
 his inn. 
 
 He tried in many ways to forget the speech that 
 troubled him ; he counted over his winnings ; they were 
 nigh fourteen thousand francs ; he speculated on all he 
 might do with them ; he plotted and planned a dozen 
 roads to take, but do what he might, the old man's 
 sinister look and dark words were before him, and he 
 could only lie awake thinking over them till day broke. 
 
 Determined to return to Orta in time to meet the post, 
 he drove to the bank, just as it was open for business, 
 and presented his bill for payment.
 
 316 A BENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " You have to sign your name here," said a voice he 
 thought he remembered, and, looking up, saw the old 
 man of the play-table. 
 
 " Did we not meet last night?" whispered Calvert, in 
 alow voice. 
 
 The other shook his head in dissent. 
 
 " Yes, I cannot be mistaken ; you muttered a pre- 
 diction in German as you passed me, and I know what it 
 meant." 
 
 Another shake of the head was all his reply. 
 
 " Come, come, be frank with me ; your seci^et, if it he 
 one to visit that place, is safe with me. What leads you 
 to believe I am destined to evil fortune ? " 
 
 " I know nothing of you ! I want to know nothing," 
 said the old man, rudely, and turned to his books. 
 
 " AVell, if your skill in prophecy be not greater than in 
 politeness, I need not fret about you," said Calvert laugh- 
 ing ; and he went his way. 
 
 With that superstitious terror that tyrannises over the 
 minds of incredulous men weighing heavily on his heart, 
 he drove back to Orta. All his winninsfs of the night 
 before could not erase from his memory the dark words 
 of the old man's prediction. He tried to forget, and then 
 he tried to ridicule it. " So easy," thought he, " for that 
 old withered mummy to cast a shadow on the path of a 
 fellow full of life, vigour, and enei^gy, like myself. He 
 has but to stand one second in my sunshine ! It is, 
 besides, the compensation that age and decrepitude exact 
 for being no longer available for the triumphs and plea- 
 sures of life. Such were the sort of reasonings by which 
 he sought to console himself, and then he set to plan out 
 a future — all the things that he could, or might, or could 
 not do. 
 
 Just as he drove into Orta tbe post arrived at the 
 office, and he got out and entered, as was his wont, to 
 obtain his letters before the public distributipji had com* 
 rneticed,
 
 317 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LASI WALK IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 The only letter Calvert found at the post-office for the 
 villa was one in the vicar's hand, addressed to Miss 
 Grainger. Nothing from Loyd himself, nor any news- 
 paper. So far, then, Loyd had kept his pledge. He 
 awaited to see if Calvert would obey his injunctions 
 before he pi'oceeded to unmask him to his friends. 
 
 Calvert did not regard this reserve as anything generous 
 — he set it down simply to fear. He said to himself, 
 " The fellow dreads me ; he knows that it is never safe to 
 push men of my stamp to the wall ; and he is wise 
 enough to apply the old adage, about leaving a bridge to 
 the retreating enemy. I shall have more difficulty in 
 silencing the women, however. It will be a hard task to 
 muzzle their curiosity ; but I must try some plan to effect 
 it. Is that telegram for me ? " cried he, as a messenger 
 hastened hither and thither in search for some one. 
 
 " II Signor Grainger ? " 
 
 " Yes, all right," said he, taking it. It was in these 
 few words. 
 
 " They find it can be done — make tracks. 
 
 " Deayton." 
 
 "They find it can be done," muttered he. "Which 
 means it is legal to apprehend me. Well, I supposed as 
 much. I never reckoned on immunity; and as to getting 
 away, I'm readier for it, and better provided too, than 
 you think for. Master Algernon. Indeed, I can't well say 
 what infatuation binds me to this spot, apart from the 
 peril that attends it. I don't know that I am very much 
 what is called in love with Florence, though I'd certainly 
 marry her if she'd have me; but for that there are, what 
 the lady novelists call, ' mixed motives,' and I rather 
 suspect it is not with any special or exclusive regard for
 
 318 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 her happiness that I'd enter into the holy bonds. I should 
 like to consult some competent authority on the physiology 
 of hatred — why it is that, though scores of fellows have 
 injured me deeply in life, I never bore any, no, nor the 
 whole of them collectively, the ill will that I feel for that 
 man. He has taken towards me a tone that none have 
 ever dared to take. He menaces me ! Fifty have 
 wronged, none have ever threatened me. Ho who 
 threatens, assumes to be your master, to dictate the terms 
 of his forbearance, and to declare under what conditions 
 he will spare you. Now, Master Loyd, I can't say if this 
 be a part to suit your powers, but I know well, the other 
 is one which in no way is adapted to mine. Nature has 
 endowed me with a variety of excellent qualities, but, 
 somehow, in the hurry of her benevolence, she forgot 
 patience ! I suppose one can't have everything ! " 
 
 While he thus mused and speculated, the boat swept 
 smoothly over the lake, and Onofrio, not remarking the 
 little attention Calvert vouchsafed to him, went on talking 
 of "I Grangeri" as the most interesting subject he could 
 think of. At last Calvert's notice was drawn to his words 
 by hearing how the old lady had agreed to take the villa 
 for a year, with the power of continuing to reside there 
 longer if she were so minded. 
 
 The compact had been made only the day before, 
 after Calvert had started for Milan, evidently — to his 
 thmkiug — showing that it had been done with reference 
 to something in Loyd's last letter. " Strange that she 
 did not consult me upon it," thought he; "I who have 
 been her chief counsellor on everything. Perhaps the 
 lease of my confidence has expired. Bat how does it 
 matter ? A few hours more, and all these people shall be 
 no more to me than the lazy cloud that is hanging about 
 the mountain-top. Thej' may live or die, or marry or mourn, 
 and all be as nothing to me — as if I had never met them. 
 And what shall / be to tlicm^ I wonder? " cried he, with 
 a bitter laugh; "a very dreadful dream, I suppose; 
 something like the memory of a shipwreck, or a fire from 
 which they escaped without any consciousness of the 
 means that rescued them ! A horrid nightmare whose 
 terrors always come back in days of depression and 
 illness. At all events, I shall not be * poor Calvert/ ' that
 
 THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 319 
 
 much to be pitied creature, who really had some good in 
 him.' No, I shall certainly be spared all commiseration 
 of that kind, and they'll no more recur willingly to my 
 memory than they'll celebrate the anniversary of some 
 day that brought them shame and misfortune. 
 
 "Now then, for my positively last appearance in my 
 present line of character ! And yonder I see the old dame 
 on the look-out for me ; she certainly has some object in 
 meeting me before her nieces shall know it. Land me in 
 that nook thei-e, Onofrio, and wait for me." 
 
 "I have been very impatient for your coming," said 
 she, as he stepped on shoi^e ; " I have so much to say to 
 you ; but, first of all, read this. It is from the vicar." 
 
 The letter was not more than a few lines, and to this 
 purport: he was about to quit the home he had lived in 
 for more than thirty years, and was so overwhelmed with 
 sorrow and distress that he really could not address his 
 thout^^hts to any case but the sad one before him. '"All 
 these calamities have fallen upon us together; for although,' 
 he wrote, ' Joe's departure is the first step on the road to 
 future fortune, it is still separation, and at our age who 
 is to say if we shall ever see him again ?.' " 
 
 " Skip the pathetic bit, and come to this. What have 
 we here about the P. and 0. steamers ?" cried Calvert. 
 
 " ' Through the great kindness of the Secretary of 
 State, Joe has obtained a free passage out — a favour as I 
 hear very rarely granted — and he means to pay you a fly- 
 ing visit; leaving this on Tuesday, to be with you on 
 S iturday, and, by repairing to Leghorn on the following 
 Wednesday, to catch the packet at Malta, This will 
 give him three entire days with you, which, though they 
 be st(jlcn from us, neither his mother nor myself have the 
 heart to refuse him. Poor fellow, he tries to believe — 
 perhaps he does believe — that we are all to meet again in 
 hnppmess and comfort, and I do my best not to discour- 
 age h'ni ; but I am now verging on seventy-^ ' " 
 
 " How tiresome he is about his old age ; is there any 
 more about his son?" asked Calvert impatiently. 
 
 " Yes, he says here : ' Joe is, as you may imagine, full 
 of business, and what between his interviews with official 
 people, and his personal cares for his long journey, has 
 not a moiuent to spare. He will however, write to-
 
 320 A rekt in a cloud* 
 
 morrow, detailing all that lie has done and means to do. 
 Of that late suggestion that came from you about refer- 
 ring us to a third party, neither Joseph nor myself desire 
 to go back ; indeed, it is not at a moment like the present 
 we would open a question that could imperil the affec- 
 tions that unite us. It is enough to know that we 
 trust each other, and need neither guarantees nor guid- 
 ance.' " 
 
 " The old knave !" cried Calvert. " A priest is always 
 a Jesuit, no matter what church he belongs to." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Calvert." 
 
 " But he's quite right after all. I am f;ir too worldly- 
 minded in my notions to negotiate with men of such 
 exalted ideas as he and his son possess. Besides, I am 
 suddenly called away. I shall have to leave this imme- 
 diately. They are making a fuss about that unfortunate 
 affair at Basle, and want to catch me as a witness ; and as 
 my evidence would damage a fellow I really pity, though 
 I condemn, I must keep out of the way." 
 
 " Well, you are certain to find us here whenever you 
 feel disposed to have your own room again. I have taken 
 the villa for another year." 
 
 Not paying the slightest attention to this speech he 
 Avent on : " There is one point on which I shall be abso- 
 lute. No one speaks of me when I leave this. Not alone 
 that you abstain yourself from any allusion to my having 
 been here, and what you know of me, but that you will 
 not suffer any other to make me his topic. It is enough 
 to say that a question of my life is involved in this 
 request. Barnard's fate has involved me in a web of 
 calumny and libel, which I am resolved to bear too, to 
 cover the poor fellow's memory. If, however, by any 
 indiscretion of my friends — and remember, it can only be 
 of my friends under this roof — I am driven -to defend 
 myself, there is no saying how much more blood will 
 have to flow in this quarrel. Do you understand me?" 
 
 " Partly," said she, trembling all over. 
 
 " This much you cannot mistake," said he, sternly , 
 *' that my name is not to be uttered, nor written, mind 
 that. If, in his short visit, Loyd should speak of me, 
 stop him at once. Say, ' Mr. Loyd, there are reasons 
 why I will not discuss that person j and I desire that my
 
 THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 321 
 
 •wish be understood as a command.' You will imjii-ess 
 j'our nieces with the same reserve. I suppose, if they 
 hear that it is a matter which involves the life of more 
 than one; that they will not need to be twice cautioned. 
 Bear in mind this is no caprice of mine ; it is no caprice 
 of that Calvert eccentricity, to which, fairly enough some- 
 times, you ascribe many of my actions. I am in a position 
 of no common peril ; T have incurred it to save the fair 
 fame of a fellow I have known and liked for years. I 
 mean, too, to go through with it ; that is, I mean up to a 
 certain point to sacrifice myself Up to a certain point, 
 I say, for if I am pushed beyond that, then I shall declare 
 to the world : Upon you and your slanderous tongues 
 be the blame, not mine the fault for what is to happen 
 now." 
 
 He uttered these words with a rapidity and vehemence 
 that made her tremble from head to foot. This was not, 
 besides, the first time she had witnessed one of those pas- 
 sionate outbursts for which his race was celebrated, and 
 it needed no oath to confirm the menace his speech 
 shadowed forth. 
 
 " This is a pledge, then," said he, grasping her hand. 
 *' And now to talk of something pleasanter. That old 
 uncle of mine has behaved very handsomely ; has sent me 
 some kind messages, and, what is as much to the purpose, 
 some money ;" and, as he spoke, he carelessly drew from 
 his pocket a roll of the bank-notes he had so lately won at 
 play. " ' Before making any attempt to re-enter the ser- 
 vice,' he says, ' you must keep out of the way for a while.' 
 And he is right there ; the advice is excellent, and I mean 
 to follow it. In his postscript he adds : ' Thank Grainger ' 
 — he means Miss Grainger, but you know how blunder- 
 ingly he writes — ' for all her kindness to you, and say 
 how glad we should all be to see her at Rocksley when- 
 ever she comes next to England.'" 
 
 The old lady's face grew crimson ; shame at first, and 
 pride afterwards, overwhelming her. To be called Grainger 
 was to bring her back at once to the old days of servitude 
 — that dreary life of nursery governess — which had left 
 its dark shadow on all her latter years ; while to be the 
 guest at Rocksley was a triumph she had never imagined 
 in her vainest moments. 
 
 T
 
 322 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Oh, will you tell liim how proud I am of his kind 
 remembrance of me, and what an honour I should feel it 
 to pay my respects to him ?" 
 
 " They'll make much of you, I promise you," said 
 Calvert, " when they catch you at Rocksley, and you'll 
 not get away in a hurry. Now let us go our separate 
 ways, lest the girls suspect we have been plotting. I'll 
 take the boat and row down to the steps. Don't forget 
 all I have been saying," were his last words as the boat 
 moved away. 
 
 " I hope I have bound that old fool in heavy recog- 
 nizances to keep her tongue quiet ; and now for the more 
 difficult task of the young ones," said he, as he stretched 
 himself full length in the boat, like one wearied by some 
 effort that taxed his strength. "I begin to believe it will 
 be a relief to me to get away from this place," he 
 muttered to himself; " though I'd give my right hand to 
 pass the next week here, and spoil the happiness of those 
 fond lovers. Could I not do it ? " Here was a problem 
 that occupied him till he reached the landing at the 
 villa, but as he stepped on shore, he cried, " ISTo, this must 
 be the last time I shall ever mount these steps !" 
 
 Calvert passed the day in his room ; he had much to 
 think over, and several letters to write. . Though the next 
 step he was to take in life in all probability involved his 
 whole future career, his mind was diverted from it by the 
 thought that this was to be his last night at the villa — the 
 last time he should ever see Florence. "Ay," thought 
 he, " Loyd will be the occupant of this room in a day or 
 two more. I can fancy the playful tap at this dooi", as 
 Milly goes down to breakfjist— I can picture the lazy fool 
 leaning out of that window, gazing at those small snow- 
 peaks, while Florence is waiting for him in the garden — 
 I know well all the little graceful attentions that will be 
 prepared for him, vulgar dog as he is, who will not even 
 recognise the special courtesies that have been designed 
 for him ; well, if I be not sorely mistaken, I have dropped 
 some poison in his cup. I have taught Florence to feel 
 that courage is the first of manly attributes, and what is 
 more to the purpose, to have a sort of half dread that 
 it is not amongst her lover's gifts. I have left her as my 
 ]ast legacy that rankling doubt, and I defy her to tear it
 
 THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 323 
 
 oat of her heart ! What a sovereign antidote to all 
 romance it is, to have the conviction, or, if not the con- 
 viction the impression, the mere suspicion, that he who 
 spouts the fine sentiments of the poet with such heartfelt 
 ardour, is a poltroon, ready to run from danger and hide 
 himself at the approach of peril. I have made Milly 
 believe this ; she has no doubt of it ; so that if sistei'ly 
 confidences broach the theme, Florence will find all her 
 worst fears confirmed. The thoughts of this fellow as my 
 rival maddens me!" cried he, as he started up and paced 
 the room impatiently. " Is not that Florence I see in the 
 garden? Alone, too! What a chance ! " In a moment 
 he hastened noiselessly down the stairs, opened the draw- 
 iug-room window and was beside her. 
 
 " I hope the bad news they tell me is not true," she 
 said, as they walked along side by side. 
 
 '• What is the bad news ? " 
 
 '' That you are going to leave us." 
 
 " And are j'ou such a hypocrite, Florry, as to call this 
 bad news, when you and 1 both know how little I shall be 
 needed here in a day or two ? We are not to have many 
 more moments together ; these are probably the very lrti3t 
 of them ; let us be frank and honest. I'm not surely ask- 
 ing too much in that ! For many a day you have sealed 
 up my lips hy the threat of not speaking to me on the 
 morrow. Tour menace has been, if you repeat this lan- 
 guage, I will not walk with you again. Now, Florry, this 
 threat has lost its terror, for to-morrow I shall be goue, 
 gone for ever, and so to-day, here now, I say once more I 
 love you ! How useless to tell me that it is all in vain ; 
 that vou do not, cannot return my affection. I tell you 
 that I can no more despair than I can cease to love you ! 
 In the force of that love I bear you is my confidence. I 
 have the same trust in it that I would have in my 
 courage." 
 
 " If you but knew the pain you gave me by such words 
 as these " 
 
 " If you knew the pain they cost me to utter them ! " 
 cried he. " It is bringing a proud heart very low to sue 
 as humbly as I do. And for what? Simply for time — 
 only time. All I ask is, do not utterly reject one who 
 onlv needs your love to be worthy of it. When I think of 
 
 T 2
 
 324 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 what I was when I met you first — you ! — and feel the 
 change you have wrought in my whole nature ; how you 
 have planted truthfulness where there was once but'doubt, 
 how you have made hope succeed a dark and listless in- 
 difference — when I know and feel that in my struggle to 
 be better it is you, and you alone, are the prize before me, 
 and that if that be withdrawn, life has no longer a bribe to 
 my ambition — when I think of these, Florry, can you 
 wonder if I want to carry away with me some small spark 
 that may keep the embers alive in mv heart ?" 
 
 " It is not generous to urge me thus," said she in a 
 faint voice. 
 
 '■ The grasp of the drowning man has little time for 
 generosity. You may not care to rescue me, but you ma}' 
 have pity for my fate." 
 
 " Oh, if you but knew how sorry I am " 
 
 " Go on, dearest. Sorry for what?" 
 
 "I don't know what I was going to say; you have 
 agitated and confused me so, that I feel bewildered. I 
 shrink from saying what would pain you, and yet I want 
 to be honest and straightforward." 
 
 " If you mean that to be like the warning of the surgeon 
 — I must cut deep to cure you — I can't say I have courage 
 for it." 
 
 For some minutes they walked on side by side without 
 a word. At length he said, in a grave and serious tone, 
 " I have asked your aunt, and she has promised me that, 
 except strictly amongst yourselves, my name is not to be 
 mentioned when I leave this. She will, if you care for 
 them, give you my reasons ; and I only advert to it now 
 amongst other last request?. This is a promise, is it not P" 
 
 She pressed his hand and nodded. 
 
 " Will you now grant me one favour P Wear this ring 
 for my sake ; a token of mere memory, no more ! N;iy, I 
 mean to ask Milly to wear another. Don't refuse me." 
 He drew her hand towards him as he spoke, and slipped a 
 rich turquoise ring upon her finger. Although her hand 
 trembled, and she averted her head, she had no courage to 
 say him no. 
 
 " You have not told us where you are going to, nor when 
 we arc; to hear from you ! " said she, after a moment. 
 
 " I don't think I know either!" said he in his usual
 
 THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDElS. 325 
 
 reckless way. *' I have half a mind to join Schamyl — I 
 know him — or take turn with the Arabs against the 
 French. I suppose," added he with a bitter smile, "itU 
 my fate always to be on the beaten side, and I'd not know 
 how to comport myself as a winner." 
 
 "There's Milly making a signal to us. Is it dinner- 
 time already? " said she. 
 
 "Ay, my last dinner here! " he muttered. She turned 
 her head away and did not speak. 
 
 On that last evening at the villa nothing very eventful 
 occurred. All that need be recorded will be found in the 
 the following letter, which Calvert wrote to his friend 
 Drayton, after he had wished his hosts a good-night, and 
 gained his room, retiring, as he did, early, to be up 
 betimes in the morning and catch the first train for 
 Milan. 
 
 " Dear Drayton, — I got your telegram, and though I 
 suspect you are astray in your ' law,' and don't believe 
 these fellows can touch me, I don't intend to open the 
 question, or reserve the point for the twelve judges, but 
 mean to evacuate Flanders at once ; indeed, my chief dif- 
 ficulty was to decide which way to turn, for having the 
 whole world before me where to choose, left me in that 
 indecision which the poet pronounces national when he 
 says, 
 
 I am an Englisliman, and naked I stand here, 
 Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear! 
 
 Chance, however, has done, for me what my judgment 
 could not. 1 have been up to Milan and had a look 
 through the newspapers, and I see what I have often 
 predicted lias happened. The Rajahs of Bengal have got 
 sick of their benefactors, and are bent on getting rid of 
 what we love to call the blessings of the English rule in 
 India. Next to a society for the suppression of creditors, 
 I know of no movement which could more thoroughly 
 secure my sympathy. The brown skin is right. What 
 has he to do with those covenanted and uncovenauted 
 Scotchmen who want to enrich themselves by bullying 
 him ? What need has he of govei'norsgeneral, political 
 residents, collectors and commander,s-in-chief ? Could be
 
 326 ' A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 not raise bis indigo, water his rice-fields, and burn bis 
 widow, without any help of ours ? particularly as our 
 help takes the shape of taxation and vexatious intei'fer- 
 ence. 
 
 " I suppose all these are very unpatriotic sentiments ; 
 but in the same proportion that Britons never will be 
 slaves, they certainly have no objection to make others 
 sucb, and I shudder in the very marrow of my morality to 
 think that but for the accident of an accident I might at 
 this very moment have been employed to assist in repress- 
 ing the noble aspirations of niggerhood, and helping to 
 stifle theory of freedom that now resounds from the Sutlej 
 to the Ganges. Is not that a twang from your own lyre, 
 Master D. ? Could our Own Correspondent have come it 
 stronger ? 
 
 " Happily, her Majesty has no further occasion for my 
 services, and I can take a brief on the other side Expect 
 to hear, therefore, in some mysterious paragraph, ' That 
 the mode in which the cavah-y were led, or the guns 
 pointed, plainly indicated that a Eurapean soldier held 
 command on this occasion; and, indeed, some assert that 
 an English officer was seen directing the movements on 
 
 our flank.' To which let me add the hope that the 
 
 Fusiliers may be there to see ; and if I do not give the 
 major a lesson in battalion drill, call me a Dutchman! 
 There is every reason why the revolt should succeed. I 
 put aside all the bosh about an enslaved i^ace and a just 
 cause, and come to the fact of the numerical odds 
 opposed. The climate, intolerable to one, and easily 
 borne by the other; the distance from which reinfurce- 
 ments must come ; and, last of all, the certainty that if 
 the struggle only last long enough to figure in two 
 budgets, John Bull will vote it a bore, and refuse to pay 
 for it. But here am I getting political when I only meant 
 to be personal ; and now to come back, I own that my 
 resolve to go out to India has been aided by hearing that 
 Loyd, of whom I spoke in my last, is to leave by the next 
 mail, and will take passage on board the P. and O. steajner 
 Leander, due at Malta on the 22nd. My intention is to 
 be his fellow-traveller, and with this resolve 1 shall take 
 the Austrian steamer to Corfu, and come up with my 
 friend at Alexandria. You will perhaps be puzzled to
 
 THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 327 
 
 know why the claims of frieudsliip are so strong upon me 
 at such a moment, and I satisfy your most natui-al 
 curiosity by stating that this is a mission of torture. I 
 travel with this man to insult and to outrage him ; to 
 expose him iu public places, and to confront him at all 
 times. I mean that this overland journey should be to 
 him for hia life long the reminiscence of a pilgrimage of 
 such martyrdom as few have passed through, and I have 
 the vanity to believe that not many men have higher or 
 more varied gifts for such a mission than myself. 
 My first task on reaching Calcutta shall be to report 
 progress to you. 
 
 " I don't mind exposing a weakness to an old friend, 
 and so 1 own to you I fell in love here. The girl had the 
 obduracy and wrong headedness not to yield to my suit, 
 and so I had no choice left to me but to persist in it. I 
 know, however, that if I could only remain here a 
 fortnight longer I should secure the inestimable triumph 
 of rendering both of us miserable for life ! Yes, Drayton, 
 that pale girl and her paltry fifteen thousand pounds 
 might have spoiled one of the gi'andest careers that ever 
 adorned history ! and lost the world the marvellous 
 origin, rise, progress, and completion of the dynasty of 
 the great English Begum Calvert in Bengal. Count upon 
 me for high office whenever penny-a-lining fails you, and, 
 if my realm be taxable, you shall be my Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer ! 
 
 " You are right about that business at Basle; to keep 
 up a controvers}' would be to invest it with more interest 
 for public gossip. Drop it, therefore, and the world will 
 drop it ; and take uiy word for it, I'll give them some- 
 thing more to say of me, one of these days, than that my 
 hair trigger was too sensitive ! i'm v/riting this in the 
 most romantic of spots. The moonlight is sleeping — 
 isn't that the conventional ? — over the olive plain, and the 
 small silvery leaves are glittering in its pale light. Up 
 the great Alps, amongst the deep crevasses, a fitful flash- 
 ing of lightning promises heat for the morrow ; a night- 
 ingale sings close to my window ; and through the muslin 
 curtain of another casement I can see a figure pass and 
 repass, and even distinguish that her long hair has fallen 
 down, and floats loosely over neck and shoulders. How
 
 328 A RENT IN A CLOUi). 
 
 pleasantly I might linger on here, ' My duns forgetting, 
 by my duns forgot.' How smoothly I might float down 
 the stream of life, without even having to pull an oar ! 
 How delightfully domestic and innocent and inglorious the 
 whole thing ! Isn't it tempting, you dog ? Does it not 
 touch even yoi(,r temperament though its thick hide of 
 worldliness ? And I believe in my heart it is all feasible, 
 all to be done. 
 
 "I have just tossed up for it. Head for India, and 
 head it is ! So that Loyd is booked for a pleasant journey, 
 and I start to-morrow, to ensure him all the happiness in 
 my power to confer. For the present, it would be as well 
 to tell all anxious and inquiring friends, into which 
 category come tailors, bootmakers, jewellers, &c., that it 
 will be a postal economy not to address Mr. Harry Calvert 
 in any European capital, and to let the 'bills lie on the 
 table,' and be read this day six years, but add that if 
 properly treated by fortune, I mean to acquit my debts to 
 them one of these days. 
 
 " That I ' wish they may get it' is, therefore, no scorn- 
 ful or derisive hope of your friend, 
 
 " H. Calvert. 
 
 " If — not a likely matter — anything occurs worth men- 
 tion, you shall have a line from me from Venice." 
 
 When he had concluded his letter, he extinguished his 
 candles, and sat down at the open window. The moon 
 had gone down, and, though star-lit, the night was dark. 
 The window in the other wing of the villa, at which he 
 had seen the figure through the curtain, was now thrown 
 open, and he could see that Florence, with a shawl wrapped 
 round her, was leaning out, and talking to some one in 
 the garden underneath. 
 
 " It is the first time," said a voice he knew to be 
 Milly's, " that I ever made a bouquet in the dark." 
 
 " Come up, Milly dearest ; the dew is falling heavily. 
 I feel it even here." 
 
 "I'll just fasten this rose I have here in his hat; he 
 saw it in my hair to-night, and he'll remember it." 
 
 She left the garden, the window was closed. The light 
 was put out, and all was silent.
 
 329 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SISTER s' CONFIDENCES. 
 
 The day of Calvert's departure was a very sad one at the 
 villa ; so was the next and the next ! It is impossible to 
 repeat the routine of a quiet life when we have lost one 
 whose pleasant companionship imparted to the hours a 
 something of his own identity, without feeling the dreary 
 blank his absence leaves, and, together with this, comes 
 the not very flattering conviction of how little of our 
 enjoyment we owed to our own efforts, and how much to 
 his. 
 
 " I never thought we should have missed him so 
 much," said Milly, as she sat with her sister beside the 
 lake, where the oars lay along the boat unused, and the 
 fishing-net hung to dry from the branches of the mulberry- 
 ti'ee. 
 
 " Of course we miss him," said Florence, peevishly. 
 "You don't live in daily, hourly intercourse with a person 
 without feeling his absence ; but I almost think it is a 
 relief," said she, slightly flushing. 
 
 " A relief, Florry ! And in what way ?" 
 
 " I don't know ; that is, I'm not disposed to go into a 
 nice analysis ' of Mr. Calvert's mind, and the effect 
 produced upon my own, by the mere iteration of things 
 I never agreed with. Besides, I don't want in the least 
 to limit your I'egrets for him. He was one of your 
 favourites." 
 
 " I always thought him more a favourite of yours than 
 mine, Florry." 
 
 " Then I suspect you made a great mistake ; but, 
 really, I think we might talk of something else. What 
 about those hyacinths ; didn't you tell me they ought to 
 be moved ? " 
 
 " Yes, Hai'ry said they had too much sun there, and 
 ■were losing colour in consequence."
 
 330 A KENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " I can't imagine him a great authority in gardening." 
 
 " Well, but he really knew a great deal about it, and 
 had an exquisite taste in the landscape part of it ; witness 
 that little plant under your window." 
 
 " The fuchsias ai'e pretty," said she, with a saucy air. 
 " Isn't the post late to-day ? " 
 
 " It came two hours ago. Don't you remember my 
 saying there were no letters, except two for Harry? " 
 
 " And where are you to forward them to him ? Has he 
 been confidential enough to tell you ? " 
 
 "No; he said, if anything comes for me, keep it till 
 you hear of me." 
 
 " He affected mystery. I think he imagined it gave 
 something of romance to him, though a more prosaic, 
 worldly character, never existed." 
 
 " I don't agree with you, Florry. I think it was the 
 worldliness was the affectation." 
 
 Florence coloured deeply, but made no reply. 
 
 " And I'll tell you why I am convinced of it. In the 
 mention of anything heroic or daring, or in allusion to 
 any trait of deep devotion or pathetic tenderness, his lip 
 would tremble and his voice falter, and then, catching 
 himself, and evidently ashamed of his weakness, he 
 would come out with some silly, or even heartless remark, 
 as though to mask his confusion and give him time to 
 recover himself." 
 
 "I never noticed this," said Florence, coldly. "In- 
 deed, I must confess to a much less critical study of his 
 character than you have bestowed on him." 
 
 " You are unjust to yourself Itwas you first pointed 
 out this trait in him to me.". 
 
 " I forget it, then, that's all," said she, captiously. 
 
 " Oh, I knew he was ashamed of being thought 
 romantic." 
 
 " I thought I had asked you to talk of something or 
 somebody else, Milly. Let us, at least, select a topic 
 we can think and speak on witli some approach to 
 agreement." 
 
 Accustomed to bear with Florence's imjiatience and her 
 capricious humours as those of an invalid, Milly made no 
 answer, but drew out her work from a basket and 
 prepared to begin.
 
 sisters' confidences. 831 
 
 "You needn't hope to make much pi'ogress with your 
 embroidery, INI illy. You'll have no one to read out the 
 Faust or the Winter Nighfi Tale to-da}^" 
 
 " Ah, that's true, and Joseph won't be here till 
 Saturday," said she sighing; " not to say that I don't 
 suspect he'll have much time to bestow on reading 
 aloud." 
 
 " I thought 3'ou were going to say that he-reads badlv," 
 said Florry, with a forced laugh. 
 
 " Oh no, Florry, I like his reading very much indeed ; 
 particularly of Tennyson and Browing." 
 
 " It is not so melodramatic as your friend Mr. Cal- 
 vert's ; but, in my poor estimation, it is in much truer 
 taste." 
 
 "What a strange girl you are! Do you forget the 
 evening you said, ' I'll not let Josepii read aloud any 
 more ; I detest to see him in any rivalry of which he has 
 the worst?'" 
 
 " I must have said it in mockery, then, JNIilly, for I 
 know of nothing in which Mr. Calvert could claim supe- 
 riority over him. I am aware this is not your opinion, 
 !^Iilly ; indeed, poor Joseph has not many allies in this 
 house, for even Aunt Grainger was one of the fascinated 
 by our captivating guest." 
 
 " "Well, but you know, dearest Florr}', what a magic 
 there is in the name Calvert to my aunt." 
 
 " Yes, I know and deplore it. I believe, too, from 
 chance expressions she has let drop, that her relations 
 with those very people suggest anything rather than 
 proud or pleasant memories ; but she is determined, to 
 think of them as friends, and is quite vain at having the 
 permission to do so." 
 
 "Even Harry used to smile at her reverence for 
 'dear Old Rocksley.'" 
 
 " The worse taste in him," said Florence, haughtily. 
 
 " How bitter you are to the poor fellow," said the 
 other, plaintively. 
 
 " I am not bitter to him. I think him a very acco'.n- 
 plished, clever, amusing person, good-looking, manly, and 
 so forth ; and probably, if he hadn't persecuted me with 
 attentions that I did not like or encourage, I might have 
 felt very corJially towards him."
 
 332 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Conld he lielp being in love with you, Florry ? '* 
 
 " In love ! " repeated she, in n, voice of mockeiy and 
 scorn. 
 
 " Ay Plorry, I never saw a man more thoroughly, 
 devotedly in love. I could tell, as I entered the breakfast 
 room, whether you had spoken to him in coldness or the 
 reverse. His voice, as he read aloud, would betray 
 whether j'ou were listening with pleasure or inditference. 
 You had not a mood of gay or grave that was not 
 reflected in his face; and one day I remember, when I 
 remarked on the capricious changes of his spirits, lie 
 said, 'Don't blame me; I am what she makes me: the 
 happiest or the most miserable fellow breathing.' 'Well,' 
 replied I, ' I fancied from your good spirits it was some 
 pleasant tidings the post had brought you.' ' No,' said 
 he, ' it was this ; ' and he drew a violet from his pocket, 
 and showed it to me. I suppose you had given it to 
 him." 
 
 "I dropped it, and he wouldn't give it back. I remem- 
 ber the day." And, as she spoke, she turned her head 
 aside, but her sister saw that her cheek was crimson. 
 Then suddenly she said, "How was it that you had such 
 confidences together? I'm sure that, knowing my engage- 
 ment, you must have seen how improper it was to listen 
 to such nonsense on his part." 
 
 "I couldn't help it, Florry ; the poor fellow would come 
 to me with his lierert almost breaking. I declare, there were 
 times when his despair actually terrified me; and having 
 heard from Aunt Grainger what dreadful passions these 
 Calverts give way to — how reckless of consequences " 
 
 " There, there, dear, spare me that physiology of the 
 race of Calverts, of which I have gone through, I hope, 
 every imaginable feature. To poor Aunt Graniger's eyes 
 the dragon of the Drachenfels is a mild domestic creature 
 in comparison with one of them." Tliere was a jarring 
 vibration in her sister's tone that told it were safer not to 
 prolong the discussion, and little more was said as they 
 walked towards the house. At last Florence stopped 
 short, and, pointing to the window of the loom lately 
 occupied by Calvert, said, "Joseph will dislike all those 
 clitnbing creepers there, Milly ; he hates that sort of 
 thing. Let them be cut away."
 
 sisters' confidences. 333 
 
 "If you wish it, dearest; but is it not a pity? Only 
 lliink of all the time and pains it cost to train that 
 jessamine " 
 
 " Oh, if they have such tender memories for you, let 
 them remain by all means ; but I think it will be quite as 
 well not to tell Joseph the reasons for which they were 
 spared." 
 
 Though the speech was uttered in irritation, Milly 
 affected to hear it without emotion, and said, " It was 
 Harry's own desire that we should not speak of Lira to 
 Joseph, and I mean to obey it." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A LOVER S' QUARREL. 
 
 In course of time, Loyd ai^rived at the villa. He came 
 tired and woi-n out by a fatiguing journey. Tiiere had 
 been floods, broken bridges, and bad roads in Savoy, and 
 the St. Gothard was almost impas.sable from a heavy 
 snow-storm. The ditiiculties of the road had lost him a 
 daj", one of the very few he was to have with them, and he 
 came, wearied and somewhat irritated, to his journey's 
 end. 
 
 Lovers ought, perhaps, to be more tlioughtlul about 
 " effect " than they are in real life. They might take a 
 lesson in this respect with good }3rofit from the drama, 
 where they enter with all the aids that situation and 
 costume can give them. At all events, Calvert would 
 Bcai'cely have presented himself in the jaded and disor- 
 dered condition in which Loyd now appeared. 
 
 " How ill he looks, poor fellow," said Milly, as the two 
 sisters left him to dress for dinner, 
 
 " I should think he may look ill. Fancy his travelling 
 on, night and day, through rain and sleet and snow, and 
 always feeling that his few hours here were to be shortened 
 by all these disasters. And, besides all this, he is sorry
 
 334 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 now for the step he has taken ; he begins to suspect he 
 ought not to have left England ; that this separation — it 
 must be for at least two years — bodes ill to us. That it 
 need not have been longer had he stayed at the home bar, 
 and had, besides, the opportunity of coming out to see us 
 in Vacation. That it was his friends who over-persuaded 
 him; and now that he has had a little time for calm reflec- 
 tion, away from them, he really sees no obstacles to his 
 success at Westminster that he will not have to encounter 
 at Calcutta." 
 
 " And will he persist, in face of this conviction ? " 
 
 " Of course he will ! He cannot exhibit himself to the 
 world as a creature who does not know his own mind for 
 two days together." 
 
 "Is that of more consequence than what would really 
 serve his interests, Plorry ? " 
 
 " I am no casuist, Milly, but I think that the impression 
 a man makes by his character for resolution is always of 
 consequence." 
 
 Milly very soon saw that her sister spoke with an 
 unusual degree of irritation. The arrival of her lover 
 had not overjoyed her ; it had scarcely cheered her. He 
 came, too, not full of high hopes and animated by the 
 pi'ospect of a bx-ight futui'e, speculating on the happy 
 days that were before them, and even fixing the time 
 they were to meet again, but depressed and dispirited, 
 darkly hinting at all the dangers of absence, and gloomily 
 telling over the long miles of ocean that were so soon to 
 roll between them. 
 
 N^ow Florence was scarcely prepared for all this. She 
 had expected to be comforted, and supported, and encour- 
 aged ; and yet from herself, now, all the encouragement 
 and all the support v/as to be derived ! She was to infuse 
 hope, to supply courage, and inspire determination. He 
 was only there to be sustained and supported. It is true 
 she iinew nothing of the trials and dilheulties which were 
 before him, and she could neither discuss nor lighten 
 them ; but she could talk of India as a mere neighbouring 
 country, the " overland " a rather pleasant tour, and two 
 years — what signified two years, when it was to be their 
 first and last separation ? For, if he could not obtain the 
 leave he was all but promised, it was arranged that she
 
 A LOVEr.s' QUAllREL. 335 
 
 should go out to Calcutta, and their marriage take place 
 there. 
 
 He rallied at last under all these cheering suggestions, 
 and gradually dropped into that talk so fascinating to Pro- 
 messi Sposi in which affection and worldliness are blended 
 togetber, and where the feelings of the heart and the 
 furniture of the drawing-room divide the interest between 
 them. Tliere was a dash of romance, too, in the notion 
 of life in the far East — some far away home in the Neil- 
 gherries, some lone bungalow on the Sutlej — that helped, 
 them to jjaint their distant landscape with more effect, and 
 tliey sat, in imagination, under a spreading plantain on the 
 Hiaialuya, aud watched the blood-red sunsets over the 
 plains of Hindostan. 
 
 Time passed very rapidly in this fashion. Love is 
 the very sublime of egotism, and people never weary of 
 themselves. The last evening — sad things these last 
 evenings — came, and they strolled out to take a last 
 look on the lake and the snow-white Alps beyond it. 
 The painful feeling of having so short a time to say so 
 much was over each of them, and made them more silent 
 than usual. As they thus loitered along, they reached a 
 spot where a large evergreen oak stood alone, spreading 
 its gigantic arms over the water, and from which the view 
 of tiie lake extended for miles in each direction. 
 
 "This is the spot to have a summer-house, Florry," 
 said Lloyd ; " and when I come back I'll build one here." 
 
 " You see thei'c is a rustic bench here already. Harry 
 made it." 
 
 Scarcely were the words uttered than she felt her 
 cheek burning, and the tingling rush of her blood to her 
 temples. 
 
 " Harry means Mr. Calvert, I conclude ? " said he, 
 coldly. 
 
 " Yes," said she, faintly. 
 
 " It was a name I have never uttered since I passed this 
 threshold, Florry, and I vowed to myself that I would not 
 be the first to allude to it. My pledge, however, went no 
 further, aud I am now released from its obligation. Let 
 us talk of him freely." 
 
 " No, Joseph, I had rather not. When he was leaving 
 this, it was his last wish that his name was not to be
 
 836 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 uttered here. We gave him our solemn promise, and I 
 feel sure yoa will not ask me to forget it." 
 
 " I have no means of knowing by what right he could 
 pi-etend to exact such a promise, which, to say the least, 
 is a very unusual one." 
 
 " There was no question of a right in the matter. Mr. 
 Calvert was here as our friend, associating with us in close 
 intimacy, enjoying our friendship and our confidence, and 
 if he had reasons of his own for the request, they were 
 enoncjh for us." 
 
 "That does not satisfy me, Florence," said he, gravely. 
 
 " I am sorry for it. I have no other explanation to 
 give you." 
 
 '' Well ; I mean to be more explicit. Has he told you 
 of a correspondence that passed between us ? " 
 
 " Once for all, Joseph, I will not be drawn into this 
 discussion. Rightfully, or the reverse, I have given my 
 word, and I will keep it." 
 
 " Do you mean to say that to any mention of this man's 
 name, or to any incident in which it will occur, you will 
 turn a deaf ear, and not reply ?" 
 
 " I will not speak of him." 
 
 " Be it so. But you will listen to me when I speak of 
 him, and you will give my words the same credence you 
 accord to them on other things. This is surely not asking 
 too much ? " 
 
 " It is more, however, than I am willing to gi'ant." 
 
 " This becomes serious, Florence, and cannot be dis- 
 missed lightly. Our relations towards each other are all 
 but the closest that can bind two destinies. They are 
 such as ■ reject all secrecy — all mystery at all events. 
 Now, if Mr. Calvert's request were the merest caprice, 
 the veriest whim, it matters not. The moment it be- 
 comes a matter of peace of mind to me it is no longer a 
 trifle." 
 
 " You are making a very serious matter of very little,'' 
 said she, partly ofl'ended. 
 
 " The unlimited confidence I have placed, and desire 
 still to place, in you, is not a little matter. I insist upon 
 having a full explanation." 
 
 " You insist ?" 
 
 " Yes, I insist. Remember, Florence, that what I claim
 
 k lovers' quarrel. 337 
 
 is not more my due, fov my sake than for your own. N'o 
 name in the world should stand between j-ours and mine, 
 least of all that of one whom neither of us can look on with 
 respect or esteem." 
 
 " If this be the remains of some old jealousy " 
 
 " Jealousy ! Jealousy ! Why, what do you mean ?" 
 
 " Simply that there was a time when he thought i/ou his 
 rival, and it was just possible you might have reciprocated 
 the sentiment." 
 
 " This is intolerable, " cried he. Then, hastily checking 
 hii5 angry outburst, he added. " Why should we grow 
 warm, Florence, dearest, over a matter which can have 
 but one aspect for us both ? It is of you, not of myself, 
 I have been thinking all this time. I simply begged you 
 to let me know what sort of relations existed between you 
 and Mr. Calvert that should prevent you speaking of him 
 to me." 
 
 " You said something about insisting. Now insisting is 
 an ngly word. There is an air of menace ai)Out it." 
 
 " 1 am not disposed to recall it," said he, sternly. 
 
 " So much the better ; at least it will save us a world 
 of very unpleasant recrimination, for I refuse to comply." 
 
 " You refuse ! !N^ow let me understand you, for this is 
 too vital a point for me at least to make any mistake about 
 — what is it that you refuse ? " 
 
 " Don't you think the tone of our present discussion is 
 tin." best possible reason for not prolonging it ?" 
 
 '■ No ! If we have each of us lost temper, I think 
 the wisest course would be to recover ourselves, and see 
 if we cannot talk the matter over in a better spirit." 
 
 " Begin tiieu by unsaying that odious word." 
 
 " What is the word ? " 
 
 " ' Insist ! ' You must not insist upon anything." 
 
 " I'll take back the word if you so earnestly desire it, 
 Florence," said he, gravely ; " but I hope ' request ' will be 
 read in its place." 
 
 " Now, then, what is it you I'equest ? for I frankly 
 declare that all this time I don't rightly understand what 
 you ask of me." 
 
 " This is worse than I suspected," said he, angrily, 
 *' for now I see that it is in the mere spirit of defiance that 
 you rejected my demand." 
 
 Z
 
 338 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " Upon my Avoi-d, sir, I believe it will turn out that 
 neither of us knew very inuch of the other." 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 "Yes; don't you?" 
 
 He grew very pale, and made no answer, though he 
 twice seemed as if about to speak. 
 
 " I declare," cried she, and her heightened colour and 
 flashing eye showed the temper that stirred her — " I 
 declare I think we shall have employed all our lately 
 displayed candour to very little advantage if it does not 
 carry us a little further." 
 
 " I scarcely catch your meaning," said he, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " What I meant v/as, that by a little further effort of 
 our frankness we might come to convey to each other 
 that scenes like these are not pleasant, nor need they 
 ever occur again." 
 
 " I believe at last I apprehend you," said lie, in a 
 bi'oken accent. "You desire that our engagement should 
 be broken off." 
 
 She made no answer, but averted her head. 
 
 " I will do my best to be calm, Florence," continued 
 he, " and I will ask as much of you. Let neither of us 
 sacrifice the prospect of a whole life's happiness for the 
 sake of a petty victory in a very petty dispute. If, how- 
 ever, yon are of opinion " he stopped, he was 
 
 about to say more than he had intended, more than ho 
 knew how to say, and he stopped, confused and em- 
 barrassed. 
 
 " Why don't you continue ? " said she, with a cold 
 smile. 
 
 " Because 1 don't know what I was about to say." 
 
 " Then shall I say it for you ? " 
 
 "Yes, do so." 
 
 " It was this, then, or at least to this purport : If you, 
 Miss Florence Walter, are of opinion that two people who 
 have not succeeded in inspiring each other with that 
 degree of confidence that rejects all distrust, are scarcely 
 wise in entering into a contract of which truthfulness is 
 the very soul and essence, and that, though not very 
 gallant on mi/ part, as the man to suggest it, yet in all 
 .;and()ur, which here must take the place of courtesy,
 
 A LOVERS* QUARREL. 339 
 
 the sooner tlie persons so placed escaped from such a false 
 position the better." 
 
 " And part? " said he, in a hollow feeble voice. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders slightly, as though to say 
 that, or any similar word, will convey my meaning. 
 
 " Oh, Florence, is it come to this ? Is this to be a last 
 evening in its saddest, bitterest sense ? " 
 
 " When gentlemen declare that they ' insist,' I take it 
 they mean to have their way," said she, with a careless 
 toss of her head. 
 
 " Good Heavens !" cried he in a passion, "have you 
 never cared for me at all ? or is your love so little 
 rooted that you can tear it from your heart without a 
 pang ? " 
 
 " All this going back on the past is very unprofitable," 
 said she, coldly. 
 
 He was stung by the contemptuous tone even more 
 than by the words she used. It seemed as though she 
 held his love so lightly she would not condescend to 
 the slightest trouble to retain it, and this too at a moment 
 of parting. 
 
 " Florence ! " said he, in a tone of deep melancholy, 
 "if I am to call you by that name for the last time — tell 
 me, frankly, is this a sudden capi'ice of yours, or has it 
 lain rankling in your mind, as a thing you would conquer 
 if you could, or submit to, if you must ?" 
 
 " I suspect it is neither one nor the other," said she 
 with a levity that almost seemed gaiety. " I don't think 
 I am capricious, and I know I never harbour a long- 
 standing grievance. I really believe that it is to your 
 own heart you must look for the reasons of what has 
 occurred between us. I have often heard that men are 
 so ashamed of being jealous, that they'll never forgive 
 anyone who sees them in the fit." 
 
 "Enough, more than enough," said he, trembling from 
 head to foot. " Let us part." 
 
 " Eemember, the proposal comes from you." 
 
 " Yes, yes, it comes from me. It matters little whence 
 it comes." 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, it matters a gi'eat deal, at 
 least to me. I am not to bear the reproaches of my 
 aunt and my sister for a supposed cruelty towards a man 
 
 Z 2
 
 840 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 who has himself repudiated our engagement It would 
 be leather hard that I was to be deserted and condemned 
 too." 
 
 " Deserted, Florry ! " cried he, as the tears stood in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Well, I don't mean deserted. There is no desei'tion 
 on either side. It is a perfectly amicable arrangement 
 of two people who are not disposed to travel the same 
 road. I don't want to imply that any more blame 
 attaches to you than to mey 
 
 " How can any attach to me at all ?" cried he. 
 
 " Oh, then, if you wish it, I take the whole of it." 
 
 " Shall I speak to 3'our aunt, Miss Waltei% or will 
 you?" 
 
 " It does not signify much which of us is the first to 
 acquaint her. Perhaps, however, it Avould come with 
 more propriety from you. I think I see her yonder near 
 the cypress-trees, and I'm sure you'll be glad to have it 
 
 over. Wait one moment, this ring " As she endea- 
 
 voui'ed to draw a small ruby ring from her finger, Loyd 
 saw the turquoise which she wore on the other hand — 
 "this ring," said she, in some confusion, "is yours." 
 
 "Not this one," said he, sternly, as he pointed to the 
 other. 
 
 " No, the ruby," said she, with an easy smile. " It was 
 getting to hurt my finger." 
 
 " I hope you may wear the other more easily," said he, 
 •with a bitter laugh. 
 
 " Thank you," said she, with a curtsey, and then turned 
 away, and walked towards the house. 
 
 After Loyd had proceeded a few steps to overtake Miss 
 Grainger, he stopped and hastened back to the villa. Such 
 an explanation as he must make could, he felt, be only 
 done by a letter. He could not, besides, face the ques- 
 tioning and cross-questioning the old lady would submit 
 him to, nor endure the misery of recalling, at her bidding, 
 each stage of their sad quarrel. A letter, therefore, he 
 would write, and then leave the villa for ever, and without 
 a farewell to any. He knew this was not a gracious way 
 to treat those who had been uniformly affectionate and 
 kind — who had been to him like dear sisters — but he 
 dreaded a possible meeting. He could not answer for
 
 A lovers' quarrel. 341 
 
 himself, eitber, as to what charges he might be led to 
 make against Florence, or what weakness of character he 
 might exhibit in the midst of his affliction. " I will 
 simply narrate so much as will show that we have agreed 
 to separate, and are never to meet more," muttered he. 
 " Florence may tell as much more as she likes, and give 
 what version of me she pleases. It matters little now 
 how or what they think of one whose heart is already in 
 the grave." And thus saying, he gained his room, and, 
 locking the door, began to write. Deeply occupied in 
 his task, which he found so difficult that several half- 
 scrawled sheets already littered the table before him, he 
 never felt the time as it passed. It was already midnight 
 before he was aware of it, and still his letter was not 
 finished. It was so hard to say enough and not too 
 much ; so hard to justify himself in any degree and yet 
 spare her, against whom he would not use one word of 
 reproach ; so hard to confess the misery that he felt, and 
 yet not seem abject in the very avowal. 
 
 ISTot one of his attempts had satisfied him. Some were 
 too lengthy, some too curt and brief, some read cold, stern, 
 and forbidding ; others seemed like half entreaties for a 
 more merciful judgment; in fact he was but writing down 
 each passing emotion of his mind, and recording the 
 varying passions that swayed him. 
 
 As he sat thus, puzzled and embarrassed, he sprung up 
 from his chair with terror at a cry that seemed to fill the 
 room, and make the very air vibrate around him. It was 
 a shriek as of one in the maddest agony, and lasted for 
 some seconds. He thought it came from the lake, and he 
 flung open his window and listened, but all was calm and 
 still, the very faintest night air was astir, and not even 
 the leaves moved. He then opened his door, and crept 
 stealthily out upon the corridor : but all was quiet within 
 the house. Noiselessly he walked to the head of the 
 stairs, and listened ; but not a sound nor a stir was to 
 be heard. He went back to his room, agitated and 
 excited. He had read of those conditions of cerebral 
 excitement when the nerves of sense present impressions 
 which have no existence in fact, and the su2"erers fancy 
 that they have seen sights, or heard sounds, which have 
 no reality.
 
 342 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 He thought he could measure the agitation that dis- 
 tressed him by this disturbance of the brain, and he 
 bathed his temples with cold water, and sat down at the 
 open window to try to regain calm and self-possession. 
 For a while the speculation on this strange problem occu- 
 pied him, and he wandered on in thought to ask himself 
 which of the events of life should be assumed as real, and 
 which mere self-delusions. " If, for instance," thought 
 he, " I could believe that this dreadful scene with Florence 
 never occurred, that it was a mere vision conjured up by 
 my own gloomy forebodings, and my sorrow at our 
 npproaching separation — what ecstasy would be mine. 
 What is there," asked he of himself aloud, " to show or 
 prove that we have parted ? What evidence have I of 
 one word that may or may not have passed between us, 
 that would not apply to that wild scream that so lately 
 chilled my very blood, and which I now know was a mere 
 trick of imagination ? " As he spoke, he turned to tlie 
 table, and there lay the proof that he challenged before 
 him. There, beside his half-written letter, stood the ring 
 he had given her, and which she had just given back to 
 him. The revulsion was very painful, and the tears, 
 which had not come before, now rolled heavily down his 
 cheeks. He took up the ring and raised it to his lips, 
 but laid it down without kissing it. These sent-back gifts 
 are very sad things ; they do not bury the memory of the 
 loved one who wore them. Like the flower that fell from 
 her hair, they bear other memories. They tell of blighted 
 hopes, of broken vows, of a whole life's plan torn, 
 scattered, and given to the winds. Their odour is not of 
 love ; they smell of the rank grave, whither our hearts 
 are hastening. He sat gazing moodily at this ring — it 
 was the story of his life. He remembered the hour and 
 the place he gave it to her ; the words he spoke, her 
 blush, her trembling hand as he drew it on her finger, the 
 pledge he uttered, and which he made her repeat to him 
 again. He started. What was that noise ? Was that 
 his name he heard uttered? Yes, some one was calling 
 him. He hastened to the door, and opened it, and there 
 stood Milly. She was leaning against the architrave, like 
 one unable for further effort ; her face bloodless, and her 
 hair in disorder. She staggered forward, and fell upon
 
 A lovers' quarrel. 343 
 
 bis slionlder. " Whit is it, Milly, my own dear sister ? " 
 cried he ; " what is the matter? " 
 
 " Oh, Joseph," cried she, in a voice of anguish, " what 
 have yoa done ? I could never have believed this of 
 you ! " 
 
 " What do you mean — what is it you charge mo 
 with ? " 
 
 " You, who knew how she loved you — how her whole 
 heart was 3'our own ! " 
 
 " But what do you impute to me, Milly dearest ? " 
 
 " How cruel ! How cruel ! " cried she, wringing her 
 hands. 
 
 " I swear to you I do not know of what j^ou accuse 
 me." 
 
 " Tou have broken her heart," cried she vehemently. 
 " She will not survive this cruel desertion." 
 
 "But who accuses me of this?" asked he, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 " She, herself, does — she did, at least, so long as reason 
 remained to her ; but now, poor darling, her mind is wan- 
 dering, and she is not conscious of what she says, and yet 
 her cry is, ' Oh, Joseph, do not leave me. Go to him, 
 Milly; on your knees beseech him not to desert me. That 
 I am in fault I know, but I will never again offend him.' 
 I cannot, I will not, tell you all the dreadful — all the 
 Imniiliatiug things she says ; but through all we can read 
 the terrible trials she must have sustained at your hands, 
 and how severely you have used lier. Come to her, at 
 least," cried she, taking his arm. " I do not ask or want 
 to know what has led to this sad scene between you ; but 
 come to her before it be too late." 
 
 " Let me first of all tell you, Milly " He stopped. 
 
 He meant to have revealed the truth ; but it seemed so 
 ungenerous to be the accuser, that he stopped, and was 
 silent. 
 
 "I don't care to hear anything. You may be as blame- 
 less as you like. What I want is to save her. Come at 
 once." 
 
 Without a word he followed her down the stairs, and 
 across the hall, and up another small stair. " Wait a 
 moment," said she, opening the door, and then as quickly 
 she turned and beckoned him to enter.
 
 344 A r.ENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 Still dressed, but with her hair falling loose about her, 
 and her dress disordered, Florence lay on her bed as in a 
 trance — so light her breathing you could see no motion 
 of the chest. Her eyes were partly opened, and lips 
 parted : but even these gave to her face a greater look of 
 death. 
 
 " She is sleeping at last," whispered Miss Grainger. 
 •' She has not spoken since you were here." 
 
 Loyd knelt down beside the bed, and pressed his cheek 
 against her cold hand ; and the day dawn, as it streamed 
 in between the shutters, saw him still there. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PARTING SORROWS. 
 
 Hour after hour Loyd knelt beside the bed where Florence 
 lay, motionless and unconscious. Her aunt and sister 
 glided noiselessly about, passed in and out of the room, 
 rarely speaking, and then but in a whisper. At last a 
 servant whispered in Loyd's ear a messnge. He stiirted 
 and said, "Yes, let him wait;" and then, in a moment 
 after, added, "No, say no. I'll not want the boat — the 
 luggage may be taken back to my room." 
 
 It was a few minutes aRer this that Milly came behind 
 him, and, bending down so as to speak in his ear, said, 
 " How I thank you, my dear brother, for this ! I know 
 the price of your devotion — none of us will ever lor- 
 get it." 
 
 He made no answer, but pressed the cold damp hand 
 he held to his lips. 
 
 " Does he know that it is nigh seven o'clock, Milly, and 
 that he must bo at Como a quarter before eight, or he'il 
 lose the train ? " said Miss Granger to her niece. 
 
 " He knows it all, aunt ; he has sent away the boat ; ho 
 will not desert us."
 
 PAETING SORROWS. 345 
 
 " Rctv.cniber, child, what it is he is sacrificing. It may 
 chance to be his whole future fortune." 
 
 " He'll stay, let it cost what it may," said Milly. 
 
 " I declare I think I will speak to him. It is my duty 
 to speak to him," said the old lady, in her own fussy, 
 officious tone. " I will not expose myself to the reproaches 
 of his family — very just reproaches, too, if they imagined 
 we had detained him. He will lose, not only his passage 
 out to India, but, not impossibly, his appointment too. 
 Joseph, Joseph, I have a word to say to you." 
 
 "Dearest aunt, I implore you not to say it," cried 
 Milly. 
 
 ■'Nonsense, child. Is it for a mere tiff, and a fit of 
 hysterics a man is to lose his livelihood ? Joseph Loyd, 
 come into the next room for a moment." 
 
 " I cannot leave this," said he, in a low, faint voice : 
 " say what you have to say to me here." 
 
 " It is on the stroke of seven." 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " The train leaves a quarter before eight, and if you 
 don't start by this one you can't reach Leghorn by 
 Tuesday." 
 
 " I know it ; I'm not going." 
 
 " Do you mean to give up your appointment ? " asked 
 she, in a voice of almost scornful reproach. 
 
 " I mean, that I'll not go." 
 
 " What will your friends say to this ? " said she, angrily. 
 
 " I have not thought, nor can I think, of that now : my 
 place is here." 
 
 " Then I must protest; and I beg you to remember that 
 I have protested against this resolve on your part. Your 
 family are not to say, hcreaiter, that it was through any 
 interference or influence of ours that you took this 
 unhappy determinatio)i. I'll write, this very day, to your 
 fatlier, and say so. Tliere, it is striking seven now ! " 
 
 He made no reply ; indeed, it seemed as if he had not 
 heard her. 
 
 "You might still be in time, if you were to exert your- 
 self," whispered she, with more earnestness. 
 
 "I tell you again," said he, raising his voice to a 
 louder pitch, " that my place is here, and I will not leave 
 her."
 
 346 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 A low, faint sigli was breathed by the sick girl, and 
 gently moving her hand, she laid it on his head. 
 
 "You know me then, dearest? " whispered he. "You 
 know who it is kneels beside you ? " 
 
 She made no answer, but her feeble fingers tried to play 
 with his hair, and strayed, unguided, over his head. 
 
 What shape of reproach, remonstrance, or protest, Miss 
 Grainger's mutterings took, is not recorded ; but she 
 bustled out of the room, evidently displeased with all in it. 
 
 " She knows you, Joseph. She is trying to thank 
 you," said Milly. 
 
 " Her lips are moving : can you hear what she says. 
 Milly ? " 
 
 The girl bent over the bed, till her ear almost touched 
 her sister's mouth. "Yes, darling, from his heart he 
 does. He never loved you with such devotion as now. 
 She asks if you can forgive her, Joseph. She remembers 
 everything." 
 
 " And not leave me," sighed Florence, in a voice bai'ely 
 audible. 
 
 " IS"o, my own dearest, I will not leave you," was all 
 that he could utter in the conflict of joy and sorrow he 
 felt. A weak attempt to thank him she made by an 
 effort to press his hand, but it sent a thrill of delight 
 tlirough his heart, more than a recompense for all he had 
 suifered. 
 
 If Milly, v/ith a generous delicac}', retired towards the 
 window and took up her work, not very profitably perhaps, 
 seeing how little light came through the nearly closed 
 shutters, let us not show ourselves less discreet, and leave 
 the lovers to themselves. Be assured, dear reader, that 
 in our reserve on this point we are not less mindful of 
 your benefit than of theirs. The charming things, so 
 delightful to say and so ecstatic to hear, are wonderfully 
 tame to tell. Perhaps their very charm is in the fact 
 that their spell was only powerful to those who uttered 
 thorn. At all events, we are determined on discretion, 
 and shall only own that, though Aunt Grainger made 
 periodical visits to the sick-room, with frequent references 
 to the hour of the day, and the departures and arrival of 
 various rail trains, thoy never heard her, or indeed, knew 
 that she was present.
 
 PARTING SOEROWS. 347 
 
 A.nd thongli she was mistress of those " asides " and 
 that grand innuendo style which is so deadly round a 
 corner, they never paid the slightest heed to her fire. All 
 the adroit references to the weather, and the " glorious 
 day for travelling," went for naught. As well as the 
 more subtle compliments she made Florence on the 
 appetite she displayed for her chocolate, and which were 
 intended to convey that a young lady who enjoj^ed. her 
 breakfast so heartily need never have lost a man a passage 
 to Calcutta for the pleasure of seeing her eat it. Truth 
 was. Aunt Grainger was not in love, and consequently, 
 no more fit to legislate for those who were than a peasant 
 in rude health is to sympathise with the nervous irrita- 
 bility of a fine lady ! iScither was Milly in love, you will 
 perhaps say, and she felt for them. True, but Milly might 
 be — Milly was constitutionally exposed to the malady, and 
 the very vicinity of the disease was what the faculty call 
 a predisposing causo. It made her very happy to see 
 Joseph so fond, and Florence so contented. 
 
 Far too happy to think of the price he paid for his 
 happiness, Loyd passed the day beside her. Never before 
 was he so much in love ! Indeed, it was not till the 
 thought of losing her for ever presented itself, that he 
 knew or felt what a blank life would hereafter become to 
 him. Some quaint German writer has it that these little 
 quarrels which lovers occasionally get up as a sort of trial 
 of their own powers of independence, are like the attempts 
 people make to remain a long time under water, and which 
 only end in a profound conviction that their organization 
 was unequal to the test. But there is another form these 
 passing differences occasionally take. Each of the erring 
 parties is sure to nourish in his or her heart the feeling of 
 being most intensely beloved by the other ! It is a 
 strange form for selfishness to take, but selfishness is the 
 most Protasan of all failings, and there never was seen the 
 mask it could not fit to its fiice. 
 
 " And so you imagined you could cast me off", Florence!" 
 " And you, Master Joseph, had the presumption to think 
 you could leave me," formed the sum and substance of 
 that long day's whispering. My dear, kind reader, do not 
 despise the sermon from the seeming simplicity of the text. 
 There is a deal to be said on it, and very pleasantly said,
 
 348 A KENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 too. It is, besides, a sort of litigation in which charge 
 and cross charge recur incessantly, and, as in all amicable 
 suits, each party pays his own costs. 
 
 It was fortunate, most fortunate, that their reconciliation 
 took this form. It enabled each to do that which was 
 most imminent to be done — to ignore Calvert altogether, 
 and never recur to any mention of his name. Lloyd saw- 
 that the turquoise ring was no longer worn by her, and 
 she, with a woman's quickness, noted his observation of 
 the fact. I am not sure that in her eyes a recognition of 
 his joy did not glisten, but she certainly never uttered a 
 word that could bring up his name. 
 
 " So I am your guest, madam, for ten days more!" 
 said Loyd to Miss Grainger, as they sat at tea that night. 
 
 " Oh, we are only too happy. It is a very great plea- 
 sure to us, if — if we could feel that your delay may not 
 prove injurious to you." 
 
 "It will be very enjoyable, at all events," said he, with 
 an easy smile, and as though to evade the discussion of 
 the other " count." 
 
 " I was thinking of what your friends would say about 
 it." 
 
 "It is a very limited public, I assure you," said he, 
 laughing, " and one which so implicitly trusts me, that I 
 have only to say I have done what I believed to be right 
 to be confirmed in their good esteem." 
 
 The old lady was not to be put off by generalities, and 
 she questioned him closely as to whether an overland pas- 
 saj^e did not cost a hundred pounds and upwards, and all 
 but asked whether it was quite convenient to him to dis- 
 burse that amount. Slie hinted somctliing about an adage 
 of people who " paid for their whistle,'' but suggested some 
 grave doubts if they ever felt themselves recompensed 
 in after time by i-ecollecting the music that had cost so 
 dearly ; in a word, she made herself supremely disagree- 
 able while he drank his tea, and only too glad to make his 
 escnpe to go and sit beside Flori-y, and talk over again all 
 they had said in the mprning. 
 
 "Only think, Milly," said she, poutingly, as her sister 
 entered, " how Aunt Grainger is worrying poor Joseph, 
 and won't let him enjoy in peace the few days wc arc to 
 have together."
 
 PARTING SORROWS 4 S-40 
 
 But he did enjoy them, and to the utmost. Florence 
 very soon threw off all trace of her late indisposition, and 
 sought, in many ways, to make her lover forget all the paiii 
 she had cost him. The first week was one of almost un- 
 alloyed happiness ; the second opened with the thought 
 that the days were numbered. After Monday came Tues- 
 day, then Wednesday, which preceded Thursday, when he 
 was to leave. 
 
 How was it, they asked themselves, that a whole week 
 had gone over ? It was surely impossible! Impossible it 
 must be, for now they remembered the mass of things 
 they had to talk over together, not one of which had been 
 touched on. 
 
 " Why, Joseph dearest, you have told me nothing about 
 youi'self. Whether you are to be in Calcutta, or up the 
 country ? Where, and how I am to write ? When I am 
 to hear from you ? What of papa — I was going to say, 
 our papa — would he like to hear from me, and may I write 
 to him ? Dare I speak to him as a daughter ? Will he 
 think me forward or indelicate for it ? May I tell him of 
 all our plans ? Surely you ought to have told me some 
 of these things ! What could we have been saying to each 
 other all this while ? " 
 
 Joseph looked at her, and she turned away her head 
 pettishly, and murmured something about his being too 
 absurd. Perhaps he was ; I certainly hold no brief to 
 defend him in the case : convict or acquit him, dear reader, 
 as you please. 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding this appeal, the next three 
 days passed over just as forgetfully as their predecessors, 
 and then came the sad Wednesday evening, and the sadder 
 Thursday morning, when, wearied out and exhausted, for 
 they had sat up all night — his last night — to say good- 
 bye. 
 
 " I declare he will be late again ; this is the third time 
 he has come back from the boat," exclaimed Miss Grainger, 
 as Florence sank, half fainting, into Milly's arms. 
 
 "Yes, yes, dear Joseph," muttered Milly, " go now, go 
 at once, before she recovers again." 
 
 " If I do not, I never can," cried he, as the tears coursed 
 down his face, while he hurried away. 
 
 The monotonous beat of the oars suddenly startled the
 
 350 A HENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 halt-conscious girl ; she looked up, and lifted hei' hand to 
 wave an adieu, and then sank back into her sister's arms, 
 and fainted. 
 
 Three days after, a few hurried lines fi'om Loyd told 
 Florence that he had sailed for Malta— this time irrevo- 
 cably off. They were as sad lines to read as to have 
 written. He had begun by an attempt at jocularity ; a 
 sketch of his fellow-travellers coming on board ; their 
 national traits, and the sti'ange babble of tongues about 
 them ; but, as the bell rang, he dropped this, and scrawled 
 out, as best he could, his last and blotted good-byes. They 
 were shaky, ill-written words, and might, who knows, 
 have been blurred with a tear or two. One thing is cer- 
 tain, she who read shed many over them, and kissed 
 them, with her last waking breath, as she fell asleep. 
 
 About the same day that this letter reached Florence, 
 came another, and very different epistle, to the hands of 
 Algernon Drayton, from his friend Calvert. It was not 
 above a dozen lines, and dated from Alexandria : 
 
 " The Leander has just steamed in, crowded with snobs, 
 civil and military, but no Loyd. The fellow must have 
 given up his appointment or gone ' long sea.' In any 
 case, he has escaped me. I am frantic. A whole month's 
 plottings of vengeance scattered to the winds and lost ! 
 I'd return to England, if I were only cei'tain to meet with 
 him: but a Faquir, whom I have just consulted, says, ' Go 
 east, and the worst will come of it! ' and so I start in two 
 hours for Suez. There are two here who know me, but I 
 mean to caution them how they show it ; they are old 
 enough to take a hint. 
 
 "Yours, H. C. 
 
 " I hear my old regiment has mutinied, and sabred 
 eight of the ofHi;crs. I wish they'd have waited a little 
 longer, and neither S. nor W. would have got off so 
 easily. From all I can learn, and from the infernal fright 
 the fellows who arc going back exhibit, I suspect that the 
 work goes bravely on."
 
 851 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TIDINGS FROM BENGAL. 
 
 I AM not about to chronicle how time now I'olled ovci" tho 
 characterg of our story. As for the life of those at the 
 villa, nothino- could be less eventful. All existences that 
 have any claim to be called happj^ are of this type, and if 
 there be nothing brilliant or triumphant in their joys, 
 neither is there much poignanc}' in their sorrows. 
 
 Loyd wrote almost by every mail, and with a tameness 
 that shado-wed forth the uniform tenor of his own life. It 
 "was pretty nio^h the same story, garnished by the same 
 reflections. He had been named a district judge " up 
 country," and passed his days deciding the disputed 
 claims of indigo planters against the ryots, and the ryots 
 against the planters. Craft, subtlety, and a dash of per- 
 jury, ran through all these suits, and rendered them 
 rather puzzles for a quick intelligence to resolve, than 
 questions of right or legality. He told, too, how dreaiy 
 and uncompanionable his life was ; how unsolaced by 
 friendship, or even companionship ; that the climate was 
 enervating, the scenery monotonous, and the ther- 
 mometer at a hundred and twenty or a hundred and 
 thirty degrees. 
 
 Yet Loyd could speak with some encouragement about 
 his prospects. He was receiving eight hundred rupees a 
 month, and hoped to be promoted to some place, ending 
 in Ghar or Bad, with an advance of two hundred more. 
 He darkly hinted that the mutinous spirit of certain regi- 
 ments was said to be extending, but he wrote this with 
 all the reserve of an official, and the fear that Aunt 
 Grainger might misquote him. Of course there were 
 other features in these letters — those hopes and fears, 
 and prayers and wishes, which lovers like to write, almost as 
 ■well as read, poetising to themselves their own existence,
 
 352 A hekt iK a cloud. 
 
 and throwing a rose-tint of romance over lives as lea(5- 
 colonrecl as may be. Of these I am not going to say 
 anything. It is a theme both too delicate and too dull to 
 touch on. I respect and I dread it. 
 
 I have less reserve with the correspondence of another 
 character of our tale, though certainl}', when written, it 
 was not meant for publicity. The letter of which I am 
 about t,o make an extract, and it can be but an extract, 
 was written about ten months after the departure of 
 Calvert for India, and, like his former ones, addressed to 
 his friend Di^ayton : — 
 
 "At the hazard of repeating myself, if by chance my 
 former letters have reached you, I state that I am in the 
 service of the Meer Morad, of Ghurtpore, of whose 
 doings the Times correspondent will have told you some- 
 thing. I have eight squadrons of cavalry and a halt' 
 battery of field-pieces — brass ten pounders — with an 
 English crown on their breech. We are well armed, 
 admirably mounted, and perfect devils to fight. You 
 saw what we did with the detachment of the — th, and 
 their sick convoy, coming out of Allehbad. The only 
 fellow that escaped was the doctor, and I saved his life 
 to attach him to my own staff. He is an Irish fellow, 
 named Tobin, and comes from Tralee — if there be such 
 a place — and begs his friends there not to say masses tor 
 him, for he is alive, and drunk every evening. Do this, 
 if not a bore. 
 
 " By good luck the Meer, my chief, quarrelled with the 
 king's party in Delhi, and we came away in time to save 
 being caught by Wilson, who would have recognized me 
 at once. By-the-way, Baxter of the 30th was stupid 
 enough to say, ' Eh, Calvert, what the devil are you doing 
 amongst these niggers ? ' He was a prisoner at the 
 lime, and, of course, I had to order him to be shot for his 
 imprudence. IIow he knew me I cannot guess ; my 
 beard is down to my breast, and I am turbaned and 
 shawled in the most approved fashion. We are now 
 simply marauding, cutting off supplies, falling on weak 
 detachments, and doing a small retail business in murder 
 wherever we chance upon a station of civil servants. I 
 narrowly escaped being caught by a troop of the 9th
 
 TIDINGS FROM BENGAL. 353 
 
 Lancers, every man of whom knows me. I went over 
 with six trusty fellows, to Astraghan, where I learned 
 that a certain Lcycl was stationed as Government receiver. 
 AVe got there by night, burned his bungalow, shot him, 
 and then discovered he "was not our man, but another 
 Loyd. Bradshaw came up with his troop. He gave us 
 an eight mile chase across country, and, knowing how 
 the Ninth ride, I took them over some sharp nullahs, and 
 the croppers they got you'll scarcely see mentioned in the 
 government despatches. I fired three barrels of my 
 Yankee six-shooter at Brad, and I heard the old beggar 
 offer a thousand rupees for my head. When he found he 
 could not overtake us, and sounded a halt, I screamed 
 out, ' Threes about, Bradshaw.' I'd give fifty pounds to 
 hear him tell the story at mess : ' Yes, sir, begad, sir, in as 
 good English, sir, as youi's or mine, sir : a fellow who had 
 served the Queen, I'll swear.' 
 
 " For the moment, it is a mere mutiny, but it will soon 
 be a rebellion, and I don't conceal from myself the danger 
 of what I am doing, as you, in all likelihood, will suspect. 
 Not dangers from the Queen's fellows — for they shall never 
 take me alive — but the dangers I run from my present 
 
 associates, and who, of course, only half trust me 
 
 Do you remember old Commissary- General Yates — 
 J.C.V.R. Yates, the old ass used to write himself? Well, 
 amongst the other events of the time, was the sack and 
 ' loot ' of his house at Cawnpore, and the capture of his 
 pretty wife, whom they brought in here a prisoner. I 
 expected to find the poor young creature terrified almost 
 out of her reason. Not a bit of it ! She was very angry 
 with the fellows who robbed her, and rated them roundly 
 in choice Hindostanee, telling one of the chiefs that his 
 grandfather was a scorched pig. Like a woman, and a 
 clever woman, too, though she recognised me — I can 
 almost swear that she did — she never showed it, and we 
 talked away all the evening, and smoked our hookahs 
 together in Oriental guise. I gave her a pass next morn- 
 ing to Calcutta, and saw her safe to the great trunk road, 
 giving her bearers as far as Behdarah. She expressed 
 herself as very grateful for my attentions, and hoped at 
 some future time — this with a malicinus twinkle of her 
 gray eyes — to show the * Bahadoor ' that she had not 
 
 A A
 
 354 A KENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 forgotten them. So you see thei'e are lights as well as 
 shadows in the life of a rebel." 
 
 I omit a portion here, and come to the conclusion, which 
 was evidently added in haste. 
 
 '' ' Up and away! ' is the order. We are off to Bithoor. 
 The I^ana there — a staunch friend, as it was thought, of 
 British rule — has declared for independence, and as there 
 is plenty of go inhitn, look out for something sensational. 
 You wouldn't believe hosv, amidst all these stiring scenes, 
 I long for news — from what people call home — of Rocks- 
 ley and Uncle Gr., and the dear Soph ; but more from that 
 villa beside the Italian lake. I'd give a canvas bag that 
 I carry at my girdle with a goodly stock of pearls, sap- 
 phires, and rubies, for one evening's diaiy of that cottage ! 
 " If all go on as well and prosperously as I hope for, I have 
 not the least objection, but rather a wish that you would 
 tell the world where I am, and what I am doing. Linked 
 with failure, I'd rather keep dark ; but as a sharer in a 
 great success, I burn to make it known through the 
 length and breadth of the land that I am alive and well, 
 and ready to acquit a number of personal obligations, if 
 not to the very fellows who injured me, to their friends, 
 relatives, and cousins to the third generation. Tell 
 them, Algy, ' A chiel's amang ye, cutting throats,' and 
 add, if you like, that he writes himself your attached 
 friend, 
 
 " Haert Calvert." 
 
 This letter, delivered in some mysterious manner to the 
 bankers at Calcutta, was duly forwarded, and in time 
 reached the hands of Alfred Drayton, who confided its 
 contents to a few " friends " of Calvert's — men who felt 
 neither astonished nor shocked at the intelligence — shifty, 
 fellows, with costly tastes, who would live on society 
 somehow, reputably, if they could — dishonourably if they 
 must ; and who all agreed that " Old Calvert," as they 
 called him — he was younger than most of them — had 
 struck out a very clever line, and a far more remunerative 
 one than "rooking young Griffins at billiards " — such being, 
 in their estimation, the one other alternative which fate 
 had to offer him. This was all the publicity, however, 
 Drayton gave to his friend's achievements. Somehow or
 
 riDINGS FROM BENGAL. 355 
 
 other, paragraphs did appear, not naming Calvert, but 
 intimating that an officer, who had formerly served her 
 Majesty, had been seen in the ranks of the insurgents of 
 Upper Bengal. Yet Calvert was not suspected, and he 
 dropped out of people's minds as thoroughly as if he had 
 dropped out of life. 
 
 To this oblivion, for a while, we must leave him ; for 
 even if we had in our hands, which we have not, any 
 records of his campaigning life, we might scruple to occupy 
 our readers with details which have no direct bearing 
 upon our story. That Loyd never heard of him is clear 
 enough. The name of Calvert never occurred in any 
 letter from his hand. It was one no more to be spoken 
 of by Florence or himself. One letter from him however, 
 mentioned an incident which, to a suspicious mind, might 
 have opened a strange vein of speculation, though it is 
 right to add that neither the writer nor the reader ever 
 hie upon a clue to the mystery indicated. It was during 
 his second year of absence that he was sent to ]Mulnath, 
 from which he writes : 
 
 " The mutiny has not touched this spot ; but we hear 
 every day the low rumbling of the distant storm, and we 
 are told that our servants, and the native battalion that 
 are our garrison, are only waiting for the signal to rise. 
 I doubt this greatly. I have nothing to excite my distrust 
 of the people, but much to recommend them to my 
 favour. It is only two days back that I received secret 
 intelligence of an intended attack upon my bungalow by 
 a party of Bithoor cavalry, whose doings have struck 
 terror far and near. Two companies of the — th, that I 
 sent for, arrived this morning, and I now feel very eiisy 
 about the reception the enemy will meet. The strangest 
 part of all is, however, to come. Captain Rolt, who com- 
 mands the detachment, said in a laughing jocular way, 
 ' I declare, judge, if I were you I would change my 
 name, at least till this row was over. * I asked him 'Why':" 
 in some surprise ; and he replied, 'There's rather a run 
 against judges of your name lately. They shot one at 
 Astraghau last Novembei". Six weeks back, they came 
 down near Agra, where Craven Loyd had just arrived, 
 district judge and assessor ; they burnt his bungalow, and 
 massacred himself and his household ; and now, it seems, 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 A hent m A cLorc< 
 
 they are after you. I take it that some one of your name 
 ]ias been rather sharp on these fellows, and that this is the 
 pursuit of a long meditated vengeance. At all events 
 I'd call myself Smith or Brown till this prejudice blows 
 over.' " 
 
 The letter soon turned to a pleasanter theme— his 
 application for a leave had been favourably entertained. 
 By October — it was then July — he might hope to take 
 his passage for England. Not that he was, he said, at all 
 sick of India. He had now adapted himself to its ways 
 and habits, his health was good, and the solitude — the one 
 sole cause of complaint — he trusted would ere long give 
 way to the happiest and most blissful of all companionship. 
 "Indeed, I must trj^ to make you all emigrate with me. 
 Aunt Grainger can have her flowers and her vegetables 
 here in all seasons, one of my retainers in an excellent 
 gardener, and Milly's passion for riding can be indulged 
 upon the prettiest Arab horses I ever saw." 
 
 Though the dangers which this letter spoke of as im- 
 pending were enough to make Florence anxious and eager 
 for the next mail from India, his letter never again alluded 
 to them. He wi'ote full of the delight of having got his 
 leave, and overjoyed at all the happiness that he pictured 
 as before him. 
 
 So in the same strain and spirit was the next, and then 
 came September, and he wrote : " This day month, 
 dearest — this day month, I am to sail. Already when 
 these lines are before you, the interval, which to me now 
 seems an age, will have gone over, and you can think of 
 me as hastening towards you." 
 
 " Oh, aunt, dearest, listen to this. Is not this happy 
 news ? " cried Florence, as she pressed the loved letter 
 to her lips. " Joseph says that on the ISth^ — to-day is — 
 what day is to-day ? But you are not minding me, aunt. 
 What can there be in that letter of yours so interesting as 
 this ? " 
 
 This remonstrance was not very unreasonable, seeing 
 that Miss Grainger was standing with her eyes fixed 
 steadfastly at a letter, whose few lines could not have 
 taken a moment to read, and which must have had some 
 other claim thus to arrest her attention. 
 
 " This is wonderful ! " cried she, at last.
 
 TIDINGS FROM BENGAL. 357 
 
 " What is wonderful, aunt ? Do pray gratify oui 
 curiosity ! " 
 
 But the old lady hurried away without a word, and the 
 door of her room, as it sharply banged, showed that she 
 desired to be alone. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 No sooner did Miss Grainger find herself safely locked 
 in her room, than she re-opened the letter the post had 
 just brought her. It was exceedingly brief, and seemed 
 hastily written : 
 
 ' ' Strictly and imperatively private. 
 
 " Trieste, Tuesday morning. 
 
 " My dear Miss Grainger, — I have just arrived here 
 from India, with important despatches for the Govern- 
 ment. The fatigues of a long journey have re-opened an 
 old wound, and laid me up for a day ; but as my papers 
 are of such a nature as will require my presence to ex- 
 plain, there is no use in my forwarding them by another ; 
 I wait, therefore, and write this hurried note, to say that 
 I will make you a flying visit on Saturday next. I say 
 you, because I wish to see yourself and alone. Manage 
 iliis in the best way you can. I hope to arrive by the 
 morning train, and be at the villa by eleven or twelve a 
 latest. Whether you receive me or not, say nothing of 
 this note to your nieces; but I trust and pray you will 
 not refuse half an hour to your attached and faithful 
 friend, 
 
 " Harry Calvert." 
 
 It was a name to bring up many memories, and Miss 
 Grainger sat gazing a,t the lines before her in a state of
 
 358 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 wondeimient blended with terror. Once only, had she 
 read of him since his departure : it was, when agitated 
 and distressed to know what had become of him, she 
 ventured on a step of, for her, daring boldness, and to 
 whose temerity she would not make her nieces the 
 witnesses. She wrote a letter to Miss Sophia Calvert, 
 begging to have some tidings of her cousin, and some 
 clue to his whereabouts. The answer came by return of 
 post ; it ran thus : 
 
 " Miss Calvert has to acknowledge the receipt of Miss 
 Grainger's note of the 8th inst. 
 
 " Miss Calvert is not aware of any claim Miss Grainger 
 can prefer to address her by letter, still less, of any right 
 to bring under her notice the name of the person she has 
 dared to inquire after. Any further correspondence from 
 Miss Grainger will be sent back unopened." 
 
 The reading of this epistle made the old lady keep her 
 bed for three days, her sufferings being all the more 
 aggravated, since they imposed secrecy. From that day 
 forth she had never heard Calvert's name ; and though for 
 hours long she would think and ponder over him, the 
 mention of him was so strictly interdicted that the very 
 faintest allusion to him was even avoided. 
 
 And now, like one risen from the grave, he was come 
 back again ! Come back to renew. Heaven could tell 
 what sorrows of the past, and refresh the memory of 
 days that had always been dashed with troubles. 
 
 It was already Friday. Where and how could a 
 message reach him ? She dreaded him, it is true : but 
 why she dreaded him she knew not. It was a sort of 
 vague terror, such as some persons feel at the sound of 
 the sea, or the deep-voiced moaning of the wind through 
 trees. It conveyed a sense of peril through a sense of 
 sadness — no more. She had grown to dislike him from 
 the impertinent rebuke Aliss Calvert had administered to 
 her on his account. The mention of Calvert was coupled 
 with a darkened room, leeches, and ice on the head, and 
 worse than all, a torturing dread that her mind might 
 wander, and the whole secret history of the correspondence 
 leak out in her ramblings. 
 
 Were not these reasons enough to make her tremble
 
 A SHOCK. 359 
 
 at fclie return of the mau who had occasioned so much 
 misery? Yet, if she could even find a pretext, could she 
 be sure that she could summon courage to say, " I'll not 
 see you ? " There ai-e men to whom a cruelly cold reply 
 is a repulse ; but Calvert was not one of these, and this 
 she knew well. Besides, were she to decline to receive 
 him, might it not drive him to come and ask to see the 
 girls, who now, by acceding to his request, need never 
 hear or know of his visit ? 
 
 After long and mature deliberation, she determined on 
 her line of action. She would pretend to the girls that 
 her letter was from her lawyer, who, accidentally finding 
 himself in her neighbourhood, begged an interview as he 
 passed through Orta on his way to Milan, and for this 
 purpose she could go over in the boat alone, and meet 
 Calvert on his arrival. In this way she could see him 
 without the risk of her nieces' knowledge, and avoid the 
 unpleasantness of not asking him to remain when he had 
 once passed her thT'Cshold. 
 
 " I can at least show him," she thought, " that our old 
 relations are not to be revived, though I do not altogether 
 break off all acquaintanceship. ITo man has a finer sense 
 of tact, and he will understand the distinction I intend, 
 and respect it." She also bethought her it smacked some- 
 what of a vengeance — though she knew not precisely 
 how or why — that she'd take Sophia Calvert's note along 
 with her, and show him how her inquiry for him was 
 treated by his family. She had a copy of her own, a 
 most polite and respectful epistle it was, and in no way 
 calculated to evoke the rebuke it met with. " He'll be 
 perhaps able to explain the mystery," thought she, " and 
 whatever Miss Calvert's misconception, he can eradicate 
 it when he sees her." 
 
 " How fussy and important aunt is this morning ! " 
 said Florence, as the old lady stepped into the boat. " If 
 the interview were to be with the Lord Chancellor instead 
 of a London solicitor, she could not look more profoundly 
 impressed with its solemnity." 
 
 " She'll be dreadful when she comes back," said Milly, 
 laughing ; *' so full of all the law jargon that she couldn't 
 understand, but will feel a right to repeat, because she 
 has paid for it."
 
 360 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 It was thus they criticised her. Just as many auntg 
 and uncles, aud some papas and mammas, too, are occa- 
 sionally criticised by those younger members of the 
 family who are prone to be very caustic as to the mode 
 certain burdens are borne, the weight of which has never 
 distressed their own shoulders. Aud this, not from any 
 deficiency of affection, but simply through a habit which, 
 in the levity of our day, has become popular, and taught 
 us to think little of the ties of parentage, and call a father 
 a Governor. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 AGAIN AT ORTA. 
 
 " There is a stranger arrived, Signora, who has been ask- 
 ing for you," said the landlord of the little inn at Orta, 
 as Miss Grainger reached the door. " He has oi'dered a 
 boat, but feeling poorly, has lain down on a bed till it is 
 ready. This is his servant," and he pointed as he spoke 
 to a dark-visaged and very handsome man, who wore a 
 turban of white and gold, and who made a deep gesture 
 ot obeisance as she turned towards him. Ere she had 
 time to question him as to his knowledge of English, a 
 bell rung sharply, and the man hurried away to return 
 very speedily, and, at the same instant, a door opened, 
 and Calvert came towards her, and, with an air of deep 
 emotion, took her hand and pressed it to his lips. 
 
 " This is too kind, far too kind and considerate of you," 
 said he, as he led her forward to a room. 
 
 " When I got your note," she began, in a voice a good 
 deal shaken, for there was much in the aspect of the man 
 before her to move her, " I really did not know what to 
 do. If you desired to see me alone, it would be impos- 
 sible to do this at the villa, and so I bethought me that 
 the best way was to come over here at once." 
 
 " Do you find me much changed ? " he asked, in a low, 
 sad voice.
 
 AGAIN AT OUT A. 361 
 
 "Yes, I think you are a good deal changed. You are 
 browner, and you look larger, even taller, than you did, 
 and perhaps the beard makes you seem older." 
 
 This was all true, but not the whole truth, which, had 
 she spoken it, would have said, that he was far hand- 
 somer than before. The features had gained an expres- 
 sion of dignity and elevation from habits of command, 
 and there was a lofty pride in his look which became him 
 well, the more as it was now tempered with a gentle 
 courtesy of manner which showed itself in every word 
 and every gesture towards her. A slight, scarcely per- 
 ceptible baldness, at the very top of the forehead, served 
 to give height to his head, and add to the thoughtful 
 character of his look. His dress, too, was peculiar, and 
 probably set off to advantage his striking features and 
 handsome figure. He wore a richly embroidered pelisse, 
 fastened by a shawl at the waist, and on his head, rather 
 jauntily set, a scarlet fez stitched in gold, and ornamented 
 with a star of diamonds and emeralds. 
 
 "You are right," said he, with a winning but very 
 melancholy smile. " These last two years have aged me 
 greatly. I have gone through a great deal in them. 
 Come," added he, as he seated himself at her side, and 
 took her hand in his, " come, tell me what have you 
 heard of me ? Be frank, tell me everything." 
 
 " Nothing — absolutely nothing," said she. 
 
 " Do you mean that no one mentioned me ? " 
 
 " We saw no one. Our life has been one of complete 
 unbroken solitude." 
 
 "Well, but your letters; people surely wrote about 
 me ? " 
 
 " No," said she, in some awkwardness, for she felt as 
 though there was something offensive in this oblivion, 
 and was eager to lay it to the charge of their isolation. 
 " Remember what I have told you about our mode of life." 
 
 " You read the newspapers, though ! You might have 
 come upon my name in them ! " 
 
 " We read none. We ceased to take them. We gave 
 ourselves up to the little cares and occupations of our 
 home, and we really grew to forget that there was a world 
 outside us." 
 
 Had she been a shrewd reader of expression, she could
 
 362 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 not fail io have noticed the intense relief her words gave 
 him. He looked like one avIio hears the blessed words 
 Kot Guilty! after hours of dread anxiety for his fate. 
 "And am I to believe," asked he, in a voice tremulous 
 with joy, " that from the hour I said farewell, to this day, 
 that I have been to you as one dead and buried and for- 
 gotten ? " 
 
 " I don't think we forgot you ; but we rigidly observed 
 our pledge to you, and never spoke of you." 
 
 "What is there on earth so precious as the trustfulness 
 of true friendship ? " burst he in, with a marked enthu- 
 siasm. " I have had what the world calls great successes, 
 and I swear to you I'd give them all, and all their rewards 
 twice told, for this proof of affection ; and the dear girls, 
 and Floi'ence — how is she ? " 
 
 " Far better than when you saw her. Indeed, I should 
 say perfectly restored to health. She walks long walks, 
 and takes rides on a mountain pony, and looks like ono 
 who had never known illness." 
 
 " Not married yet ? " said he with a faint smile. 
 
 " No : he is coming back next month, and they will 
 probabl}' be married before Christmas." 
 
 " And as much in love as ever — he, I mean?" 
 
 " Fully; and she too." 
 
 " Pshaw ! She never cared for him ; she never could 
 care for him. She tried it — did her very utmost. I saw 
 the struggle, and I saw its failure, and I told her so ! " 
 
 "You told her so ! " 
 
 " Why not ? It was well for the poor girl that one 
 human being in all the world should understand and feel 
 for her. And she is determined to marry him ?" 
 
 "Tes ; he is coming back solely with that object." 
 
 " How was it that none of his letters spoke of me ? 
 Are you quite sure they did not? " 
 
 " I am perfectly sure, for she always gave them to me 
 to I'ead." 
 
 " Well ! " cried he, boldl}', as he stood up, and threw 
 his head haughtily back, " the fellow who led Calvert's 
 Horse — that was the name my irregulars were known by 
 — might have won distinction enough to be quoted by a 
 petty Bengal civil servant. The Queen will possibly 
 make ame:;ds for this gentleman's forgetfulncss."
 
 AGAIN AT ORTA. 363 
 
 " You were in all tliis dreadful campaign, then ? " asked 
 she, eagerly. 
 
 " Through the whole of it. Held an independent com- 
 mand ; got four times wounded : this was the last." And 
 he laid bare a fearful cicati-ice that almost surrounded his 
 right arm above the wrist. "Refused the Bath." 
 
 "Refused it?" 
 
 " Why not ? What object is it to me to be Sir Harry ? 
 Besides, a man who holds opinions such as mine, should 
 accept no court favours. Colonel Calvert is a sufficient 
 title." 
 
 " And you are a colonel already ? " 
 
 " I was a mnjor-general a month ago — local rank, of 
 course. But why am I led to talk of these things ? May 
 I see the girls ? AVill they like to see me ? " 
 
 " For that I can answer. But are your minutes not 
 counted? These despatches ? " 
 
 '' I have thought of all that. This sword-cut has left a 
 terrible 'tic' behind it, and travelling disposes to it, so 
 that I have telegraphed for leave to send my despatches 
 forward by Hassan, my Persian fellow, and rest myself 
 here for a day or two. I know j-ou'll not let me die 
 unwatched, uncared for. I have not forgotten all the 
 tender care you once bestowed upon me." 
 
 She knew not what to reply. Was she to tell him that 
 the old green chamber, with its little stair into the garden, 
 was still at his service? Was she to say, "Your old 
 Avelcome awaits you there," or did she dread his presence 
 amongst them, and even fear what reception the girls 
 would extend to him ? 
 
 '■ jS^ot," added he, hastil}^ " that I am to inflict you 
 with a sick man's company again. I only beg for leave 
 to come out of a morning when I feel well enough. This 
 inn here is very comfortable, and though I am glad to 
 see Onofrio does not recognise me, he will soon learn my 
 ways enough to suit me. Meanwhile, may I go back with 
 you, or do you think you ought to prepare them for the 
 visit of so formidable a personage ? " 
 
 " Oh, I think you may come at once," said she, 
 laughingly, but very far from feeling assured at the same 
 time. 
 
 " All the better. I have some baubles here that I want
 
 364 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 to deposit in more suitable hands than mine. You know 
 that we irregulars had more looting than our comrades, 
 and I believe that I was more fortunate in this way than 
 many others." As he spoke, he hastily opened and shut 
 again several jewel eases, but giving her time to glance — 
 no more than glance — at the glittering objects they con- 
 tained. " By-tbe-way," said he, taking from one of them 
 a costly brooch of pearls, "this is the sort of thing they 
 fasten a shawl with," and he gallantly placed it in her 
 shawl as he spoke. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Colonel Calvert ! " 
 
 " Pray do not call me colonel. I am Harry Calvert 
 for you just as I used to be. Besides, I wish for nothing 
 that may remind me of my late life and all its terrible 
 excitements. I am a soldier tired, very tired of war's 
 alarms, and very eager for peace in its best of all signi- 
 fications. Shall we go?" 
 
 " By all means. I was only thinking that you must 
 reconcile yourself not to return to-night, and rough it how 
 best you can at the villa." 
 
 " Let me once see my portmanteau in the corner of my 
 old green room, and my pipe where it used to hang beside 
 my watch over the chimney, and I'll not believe that I 
 have passed the last two terrible years but in a dream. 
 You could not fancy how I attach myself to that spot, but 
 I'll give you a proof I have given orders to my agent to 
 buy the villa. Yes; you'll wake some tine morning and 
 find me to be your landlord." 
 
 It was thus they talked away, rambling from one theme 
 to the other, till they had gone a considerable way across 
 the lake, when once more Calvert recurred to the strange 
 circumstance that his name should never have come before 
 them in any shape since his departure. 
 
 " I ought to tell you," said she, in some confusion, 
 " that I once did make an effort to obtain tidings of you. 
 I wrote to your cousin, Miss Sophia." 
 
 " You wrote to her! " burst he in, sternly, "and what 
 answer did you get? " 
 
 " There it is,'' said she, drawing forth the letter, and 
 giving it to him. 
 
 "* No claim ! no right!' murmured he, as he re-read 
 the lines ; " ' the name of the person she had dared to
 
 AGAIN AT ORTA. 865 
 
 inquire after ; ' and you never suspected the secret of all 
 this indignant anger ? " 
 
 " How could I ? What was it ? " 
 
 " One of the oldest and vulgarest of all passions — 
 jealousy ! Sophy had heard that I was attached to your 
 niece. Some good-natured gossip went so far as to say 
 "we were privately married. My old uncle, who only about 
 once in a quarter of a century cares what his family are 
 doing, wrote me a very insulting letter, reminding me of 
 the year-long benefits he had bestowed upon me, and, at 
 the close, categorically demanded, 'Are you married to 
 her? ' I wrote back four words, ' I wish I was,' and thete 
 ended all our intercourse. Since I have won certain 
 distinctions, however, I have heard that he wants to make 
 submission, and has even hinted to my lawyer a hope that 
 the name of Calvert is not to be severed from the old 
 estate of Rocksley Manor ; but there will be time enough 
 to tell you about all these things. What did your nieces 
 say to that note of Sophy's ? " 
 
 " Nothing. They never saw it. Never knew I wrote 
 to her." 
 
 "Most discreetly done on your part. I cannot say 
 how much I value the judgment you exercised on this 
 occasion." 
 
 The old lady set much store by such praise, and grew 
 rather prolix about all the considerations which led her to 
 adopt the wise course she had taken. 
 
 He was glad to have launched her upon a sea where 
 she could beat, and tack, and wear at will, and leave him 
 to go back to his own thoughts. 
 
 " And so," said he, at last, " they are to be married 
 before Christmas ? " 
 
 " Yes ; that is the plan." 
 
 " And then she will return with him to India, I take 
 it." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Poor girl ! And has she not one friend in all the 
 ■world to tell her what a life is before her as the wife of a 
 third — no, but tenth-rate official — in that dreary land of 
 splendour and misery, where nothing but immense wealth 
 can serve to gloss over the dull uniformity of existence, 
 and where the income of a year is often devoted to dispel
 
 3CG A RENT IN A C'LOUt). 
 
 the ennui of a single day ? India, with poverty, is iliO 
 direst of all penal settlements. lu the bush, in the wilds 
 of New Zealand, in the far-away islands of the Pacific, 
 you have the free air and healthful breezes of heaven. 
 Yon can bathe without having an alligator for your com- 
 panion, !in(! lie down on the grass without a cobra on 
 your carotid; but, in India, life stands always face to face 
 with death, and death in some hideous form." 
 
 " How you terrify me ! " cried she, in a voice of intense 
 emotion. 
 
 "I don't want to terrifj^ I want to warn. If it were 
 ever my fate to have a marriageable daughter, and some 
 petty magistrate — some small district judge of Bengal — • 
 asked her for a wife, I'd say to my girl, ' Go and be a 
 farm servant in New Caledonia. Milk cows, rear lambs, 
 wash, scrub, toil for your daily bread in some land 
 where poverty is not deemed the 'plague;' but don't 
 encounter life in a society where to be poor is to be 
 despicable — where narrow means are a stigma of dis- 
 grace.' " 
 
 " Joseph says nothing of all this. He writes like one 
 well contented with his lot, and very hopeful lor the 
 future." 
 
 " Hasn't your niece some ten or twelve thousand 
 pounds r " 
 
 "Fifteen." 
 
 "Well, he presses the investment, on which he asks a 
 loan, just as any other roguish speculator would, that's 
 all." 
 
 " Oh, don't say that, Mr. Calvert. Joseph is not a 
 rogue." 
 
 " Men are rogues according to their capacity. The 
 clever fellows do not need roguery, and achieve success 
 just because they are stronger and better than their 
 neighbours ; but I don't want to talk of Loyd ; every 
 consideration of the present case can be entertained 
 without him." 
 
 " How can that be, if he is to be her husband?" 
 
 "Ah! If — if. My dear old friend, when an if comes 
 into any question, the wisest way is not to debate it, for 
 the simple reason that applying our logic to what is 
 merely imaginary is very like putting a superstructure of
 
 AGAIN AT ORTA. 867 
 
 masonry over a house of cards. Besides, if we must 
 talk with a hypothesis, I'll put mine, ' Must she of neces- 
 sity mari'y this man, if he insists on it ?" 
 
 " Of course ; and the more, that she loves him ?" 
 
 " Loves him I Have I not told you that you are mis- 
 taken there? He entrapped her at first into a half admis- 
 sion of caring for him, and, partly from a sense of 
 h.ouour, and partly from obstinacy, slie adheres to it. But 
 she does so just the way people cling to a religion, because 
 nobody has ever taken the trouble to convert them to 
 another faith. 
 
 "I wish you would not say these things to me," cried 
 she with much emotion. "You have a way of throwing 
 doubts upon everything and everybody, that always 
 makes me miserable, and I ask myself afterwards, ' Is 
 there nothing to be believed ? Is no one to be 
 trusted?'" 
 
 "Not a great man}-, I am sorry to say," sighed he. 
 " It's no bright testimony to the goodness of the world 
 that the longer a man lives the worse he thinks of it. I 
 surely saw the flutter of white muslin through the trees 
 yonder. Oh dear, how much softer my heart is than I 
 knew of! I feel a sort of choking in the thi'oat as I 
 draw near this dear old place. Yes, there she is — 
 riorence herself. I remember her way of Avaviug a 
 handkerchief. I'll answer it as I used to do." And he 
 stood up in the boat and waved his handkerchief over 
 his head with a wide and circling motion. " Look! She 
 sees it, and she's away to the house at speed. How she 
 runs ! She could not have mustered such speed as that 
 when I last saw her." 
 
 '' She has gone to tell Mill}', I'm certain." 
 
 He made no reply, but covered his face with his 
 hands, and sat silent and motionless. Meanwhile the 
 boat glided up to the landing-place, and they disem- 
 barked. 
 
 " I thought the girls would have been here to meet 
 us," said Miss Gi'ainger, with a pique she could not 
 repress; but Calvert walked along at her side, and made 
 no answer. 
 
 " I think you know your way here," said she with a 
 smile, as she motioned him towards the dr.awiug-room.
 
 )G8 A KENT IN A CLOUD* 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE RETURN. 
 
 When Calvert found himself alone in tlie clrawing-room 
 he felt as if he had never been away. Everything was so 
 exactl}' as he left it. There was the sofa drawn close to 
 the window of the flower-garden where Florence used to 
 recline ; there the little work-table, with the tall glass that 
 held her hyacinths, the flowers she was so fond of; there 
 the rug for her terrier to lie on. Yonder, under the lig-tree 
 hung the cage with her favourite canary ; and here were 
 the very books she used to read long ago — Petrarch and 
 Tennyson and Uhland. There was a flower to mark a 
 place in the volume of Uhland, and it was at a little poem 
 they had once read together. How full of memories are 
 these old rooms, where we have dreamed awaj' some 
 weeks of life, if not in love, in something akin to it, and 
 thus more alive to the influences of externals than if further 
 gone in the passion ! There was not a spot, not a chair, 
 nor a window-seat that did not remind Calvert of some 
 incident of the past. He missed his favourite song, " A 
 place in thy memory, dearest," from the piano, and ho 
 sought for it and put it back where it used to be ; and he 
 then went over to her table to arrange the books as they 
 •were wont to be long ago, and came suddenly upon a 
 small morocco case. He opened it. It was a miniature 
 of Loyd, the man he hated the most on earth. It was an 
 ill done portiait, and gave an afl'ected thoughtfulness and 
 elevation to his calm features which imparted insufferable 
 pretension to them ; Calvert held out the picture at arm's 
 length, and laughed scornfully as he looked at it. He 
 had but time to lay it down on the table when Milly 
 entered the room. She approached him hurriedly, and 
 
 with an agitated manner. " Oh, Colonel Calvert " 
 
 she began. 
 
 " Why not Harry, brother Harry, as I used to be, Milly
 
 THE RETURN. 3(^9 
 
 dearest," said he, as he caught her hand in both his own. 
 " What has happened to foi'feit for me my old place in 
 your esteem ? " 
 
 " Nothing, nothing, but all is so changed ; you have 
 grown to be such a great man, and we have become lost 
 to all that goes on in the world." 
 
 " And where is your sister, will she not come to see me?" 
 
 "You startled her, you gave her such a shock, when 
 you stood up in the boat and returned her salute, that 
 she was quite overcome, and has gone to her room. Aunt 
 Grainger is with her, and told me to say — that is, she 
 hoped, if you would not take it ill, or deem it un- 
 kind " 
 
 " Go on, dearest ; nothing that comes from your lips 
 can possibly seem unkind; go on." 
 
 " But I cannot go on," she cried, and burst into tears 
 and covered her face with her hands. 
 
 '' I never thought — so little forethought has selfishness 
 — that I was to bring sorrow and trouble under this roof. 
 Go back, and tell your aunt that I hope she will favour 
 me with five minutes of her company ; that I see what I 
 greatly blame myself for not seeing before, how full of 
 sad memories my presence here must prove. Go, darling, 
 say this, and bid me good-bye before you go." 
 
 " Oh, Harry, do not say this. I see you are angry 
 with us. I see yon think us all unkind ; but it was the 
 suddenness of your coming ; and Florence has grown so 
 nervous of late, so disposed to give way to all manner of 
 fancies." 
 
 "She imagines, in fact," said he, haughtil}^ "that I 
 have come back to persecute her with attentions which 
 she has already rejected. Isn't that so ? " 
 
 " No. I don't think — I mean Florence could never 
 think that when you knew of her engagement — knew that 
 within a few months at furthest " 
 
 "Pardon me, if I stop you. Tell your sister from me 
 that she has nothing to apprehend from any pretensions 
 of mine. I can see that you think me changed, ]\Iill\^ ; 
 grown very old and very worn. Well, go back, and tell 
 her that the inward change is far greater than the outward 
 one. Mad Harry has become as tame and quiet and 
 commonplace as that gentleman in the morocco case 
 
 B B
 
 370 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 yonder; and if she will condescend to see me, she may 
 satisfy herself that neither of us in future need be deemed 
 dangerous to the other." 
 
 There was an insolent pride in the manner of his 
 delivei'y of these words that made Milly's cheek burn as 
 she listened, and all that her aunt had often told lier of 
 " Calvert insolence " now came fully to her mind. 
 
 " I will go and speak to my aunt," she said at last. 
 
 " Do so," said he, carelessly, as he threw himself into 
 a chair, and took up the book that lay nearest to him. 
 He had not turned over many pages — he had read none — 
 when Miss Grainger entered. She was flushed and 
 flurried in manner ; but tried to conceal it. 
 
 " We are giving you a very strange welcome, Colonel 
 — Mr. Calvert ; but you know us all of old, and you know 
 that dear Florry is so easily agitated and overcome. She 
 is better now, and if j'ou will come upstairs to the little 
 drawing-room, she'll see you." 
 
 " I am all gi-atitude," said he, with a low bow : " but I 
 think it is, perhaps, better not to inconvenience her. A 
 visit of constraint would be, to me at least, very painful. 
 I'd rather leave the old memories of my happiness here 
 un dashed by such a shadow. Go back, thei-efore, and say 
 that I think I understand the reason of her reserve ; that 
 I am sincerely grateful for the thoughtful kindness she has 
 been minded to observe towards me. You need not add," 
 said he with a faint smile, " that the consideration in the 
 present case was unnecessary. I am not so impressionable 
 as I used to be ; but assure her that I am very sorry for 
 it, rijul that Colonel Calvert, with all his successes is not 
 half so happy a fellow as Mad Harry used to be without 
 a guinea." 
 
 " But you'll not leave us ? You'll stay here to-night ? " 
 
 " Pray excuse me. One of my objects — my chief one 
 — in coming over here, was to ask your nieces' acceptance 
 of some trinkets I had brought for them. Perhaps this 
 would not be a happy moment to ask a favour at their 
 hands, so pray keep them over and make birthday presents 
 of them in my name. This is for Florence — this, I hope 
 Milly will not refuse." 
 
 "But do not go. I entreat you not to go. I feel so 
 certain that if you stay we shall all be so happy together.
 
 THE RETURN. 371 
 
 Tlieie is SO much, besides to talk over; and as to those 
 beautiful things, for I know they must be beautiful " 
 
 "They are curious in their way," said he, carelessly 
 opening the clasp of one of the cases, and displaying 
 before her amazed eyes a necklace of pearls and brilliants 
 that a queen might wear. 
 
 " Oh, Colonel Calvert, it would be imp)0ssible for my 
 niece to accept such a costly gift as this. I never beheld 
 anything so splendid in mj^ life." 
 
 " These ear-drops," he continued, " are considered fine. 
 They were said to belong to one of the wives of the King 
 of Delhi, and were reputed the largest pearls in India." 
 
 " The girls must see them ; though I protest and declare 
 beforehand nothing on earth should induce us to accept 
 them." 
 
 " Let them look well at them, then," said he, " for when 
 you place them in my hands again, none shall ever behold 
 them after." 
 
 " What do yon mean ? " 
 
 "I mean that I'll throw them into the lake yonder. A 
 rejected gift is too odious a memory to be clogged with." 
 
 " You couldn't be guilty of such rash folly ?" 
 
 " Don't you know well that I could ? Is it to-day or 
 yesterday that the Calvert nature is known to you ? If 
 you wish me to swear it, I will do so ; and what is more, 
 I will make you stand by and see the water close over 
 them." 
 
 '' Oh, you are not changed — not in the least changed," 
 she cried, in a voice of real emotion. 
 
 " Only in some things, perhaps," said he, carelessly. 
 " By-the-way, this is a miniature of me — was taken in 
 India. It is a locket on this side. Ask Milly to wear it 
 occasionally for my sake." 
 
 " How like ! and what a splendid costume !" 
 
 " That was my dress in full state ! but I prefer my 
 service uniform, and think it became me better." 
 
 " Nothing could become you better than this," said she, 
 admiringly ; and truly there was good warrant for the 
 admiration; " but even this is covered with diamonds!" 
 
 " Only a circlet and my initials. It is of small value. 
 These are the baubles. Do what you will with them ; and 
 jiow good-bve. Tanti salutl, as we used to say long ago 
 
 B c 2
 
 872 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 to the ladies — Tanii saluil de la parte mia. Tell Milly 
 she is very naughty not to have given me her hand to kiss 
 before we parted ; but if she will condescend to wear this 
 Jocket now and then, I'll forgive her. Good-bye." 
 
 And, before Miss Granger could reply, he had opened 
 the v/indow and was gone. 
 
 "When Calvert reached the jetty the boatman was not 
 there ; but the boat, with her oars, lay close to the steps ; 
 the chain that attached her to an iron ring was, however, 
 padlocked, and Calvert turned impatiently back to seek 
 the man. After he had gone, however, a few paces, he 
 seemed to change his mind, and turned once more towards 
 the lake. Taking up a heavy stone, he proceeded to smash 
 the lock on the chain. It was stronger than he looked 
 for, and occupied some minutes ; but he succeeded at last. 
 Just as he threw into the boat the loose end of the broken 
 chain, he heard steps behind him ; he turned ; it was 
 ]\Iilly running towards him at fall speed. " Oh Harry, 
 dear Harry ! " she cried, " don't go; don't leave us; 
 Florence is quite well again, and as far as strength will let 
 her, trying to come and meet you. See, yonder she is, 
 leaning on aunt's arm." True enough, at some hundred 
 yards off, the young girl was seen slowly dragging her 
 limbs forward in the direction where they stood. 
 
 "I have come some thousand leagues to see 7ier," said 
 he, sternly, " through greater fatigues, and, perhaps, as 
 many perils as she is encountering." 
 
 "Go to her; go towards her," cried Milly, reproachfully. 
 
 " Not one step ; not the breadth of a hair, Milly," said 
 he. " There is a limit to the indignity a woman may put 
 upon a man, and yowv sister has passed it. If she likes 
 to come and say farewell to me here, be it so ; if not, I 
 must go without it." 
 
 " Then I can tell you one thing. Colonel Calvert, if my 
 piNter Florence only knew of the words you have jnst 
 spoken, she'd not move one other step towards you if, 
 if " 
 
 " If it wei'e to save my life, you would say. That is nob 
 so unreasonable," said he, with a saucy laugh. 
 
 " Here is Florence come, weak and tottering as she is, 
 to ask you to stay with us. You'll not have the heart tc) 
 say 'No ' to her," said Miss Grainger. 
 
 \
 
 THE KETtJR^f. B73 
 
 " I don't think we — any of us — know muck about Mr. 
 Calvert's heart, or what it would prompt him to do," said 
 Milly, half indignantly, as she tui^ned away. And for- 
 tunate it was she did turn away, since, had she met the 
 fierce look of Calvert's eyes at the moment, it would have 
 chilled her very blood with fear. 
 
 " But you'll not refuse me," said Florence, laying her 
 hand on his arm. "You know well how seldom I ask 
 favours, and how unused I am to be denied when I do 
 ask." 
 
 " I was always your slave — I ask nothing better than to 
 be so still," he whispered in her ear. 
 
 "And you will stay?" 
 
 "Yes, till you bid me go," he whispered again; "but 
 remember, too, that when I ask a favour I can just as 
 little brook refusal." 
 
 "We'll talk of that another time. Give me your arm 
 now, and help me back to the house, for I feel very weak 
 and faint. Is Milly angry with you ? " she asked, as they 
 walked along, side by side. 
 
 " I don't know ; perhaps so," said he, carelessly. 
 
 " You used to be such good friends. I hope you have 
 not fallen out ? " 
 
 " I hope not," said he, in his former easy tone ; " or 
 that if we have, we may make it up again. Bear in mind, 
 Florence," added he with more gravity of manner, " that 
 I am a good deal changed from what you knew me. I 
 have less pride, cherish fewer resentments, scarcely any 
 hopes, and no affections — I mean, strong affections. Tne 
 heart you refused is now cold ; the only sentiment left 
 me, is a sense of gratitude. I can be very grateful ; I 
 am already so." She made no answer to this speech, and 
 they re-entered the house in silence.
 
 0/4 A r.ENT m A CLOUD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A LETTER OP CONFESSIONS. 
 
 The following letter from Calvert to Drayton was written 
 about three weeks after the event of our last chapter : 
 
 "TheVUla. 
 
 *' My dear Algernon, — I knew my black fellow would 
 run you to earth, though he had not a word of English in 
 his vocabulary, nor any clue to you except your name and 
 a map of England. It must have, however, been his 
 near kinsman — the other ' bhick gentleman ' — suggested 
 Scarborough to him; and, to this hour, I cannot conceive 
 how he found you. I am overjoyed to hear that you 
 could muster enough Hiudostanee to talk with him, and 
 hear some of those adventures which my natural 
 modesty might have scrupled to tell you. It would seem 
 from your note, that he has been candour itself, and 
 confessed much that a man of a paler and thinner skin 
 might prefer to have shrouded or evaded. All true, D. ; 
 we have done our brigandage on a grand scale, and 
 divided our prize money without the aid of a prize- 
 court. Keep those trinkets with an easy conscience, and 
 if they leave your own hands for any less worthy still, 
 remember the adage, ' 111 got, ill gone,' and be comforted. 
 1 suppose you are right — you are generally right on a 
 question of worldly craft and prudence — it is better not 
 to attempt the sale of the larger gems in England. St. 
 Petersburg and Vienna are as good markets, and safer. 
 
 " El. J. has already told you of our escape into Cash- 
 mere : make him narrate the capture of Mansergh, and 
 how he found the Keyserbagh necklace under his saddle. 
 A Queen's officer looting ! Only think of the enormity ! 
 Did it not justify those proceedings in which instinct 
 anticipated the finding of a court-martial ? The East, 
 and its adventures — a very bulky roll, I assure you —
 
 A LETTER OP CONFEfSSIONS. 875 
 
 innst wait till we meet ; and in mj next I shall say 
 where, and how, and when : for there is much that I 
 shall tell that I could not wi'ite even to you, Algernon. 
 Respect my delicacy, and be patient. 
 
 " I know you are impatient to hear why I am not 
 nearer England — even at Paris — and I am just as im- 
 patient to tell you. The address of this will show you 
 where I am. AH the writing in the world could not tell 
 you why. No, Drayton ; I lie awake at night, question- 
 ing, questioning, and in vain. I have gone to the nicest 
 anatomy of my motives, dissecting fibre by fibre, and may 
 I be — a Queen's officei' — if I can hit upon an explanation 
 of the mystery. The nearest I can come is, that I feel 
 the place dangerous to me, and, therefore, I cling to it. 
 I know well the feeling that would draw a man back to 
 the spot where he had committed a great crime. Blood 
 is a very glutinous fluid, and has most cohesive properties ; 
 but here, in this place, I have done no enormities, and 
 why I hug this coast, except that it be a lee-shore, where 
 shipwreck is very possible, I really cannot make out. 
 Not a bit in love ? No Algy. It is not easy for a man 
 like me to fall in love. Love demands a variety of 
 qualities, which have long left me, if I ever had them. 
 I have little trustfulness, no credulity ; I very seldom look 
 back, never look forward ; I neither believe in another, 
 nor ask belief in myself. I have seen too much of life to 
 be a dreamer — reality with me denies all place to mere 
 romance. Last of all, I cannot argue from the existence 
 of certain qualities in a woman to the certainty of her 
 possessing fifty others that 1 wish her to have. I only 
 believe what I see, and my moral eyes are afi^ected with 
 cataract ; and yet, with all this, there's a girl here — the 
 same, ay, the same, 1 told j'ou of long ago — that I'd 
 rather marry than I'd be King of Agra, with a British 
 governor-general for my water-cam'ier I The most mad- 
 dening of all jealousy is for a woman that one is not in 
 love with ! I am not mad, most noble Drayton, though I 
 am occasionally as near it as is safe for the surrounders. 
 With the same determination that this girl says she'll not 
 have me, have I sworn to myself she shall be mine. It 
 is a fair open game, and I leave you, who love a wager, 
 to name the winner. I have seen many prettier women —
 
 376 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 scores of cleverer ones. I am not quite sure that in the 
 matter of those social captivations into which manner 
 enters, she has any especial gifts. She is not a horse- 
 woman, in the real sense of the word, which, once on a 
 time, was a sine qua non of mine ; nor, in fact, has she a 
 peculiar excellence in anything, and yet she gives you the 
 impression of being able to be anything she likes. She 
 has great quickness and great adaptiveness, but she pos- 
 sesses one trait of attraction above all ; she utterly 
 rejects w?^, and sets all my arts at defiance. I saw, very 
 soon after I came back here, that she was prepared for a 
 regular siege, and expected a fierce love-suit on my part. 
 I accordingly spiked my heavy artillery, and assumed an 
 attitude of peace-like indolence. I lounged about, chiefly 
 alone ; neither avoided nor sought her, and, if I did 
 nothing more, I sorely puzzled her as to what I could 
 mean by my conduct. This was so far a success that it 
 excited her interest, and I saw that she watched and was 
 studying me. She even made faint attempts at little con- 
 fidences : ' Saw I was unhappy — had something on my 
 mind : ' and, for the matter of that, I had plenty — plenty 
 on my conscience, too, if nature had been cruel enough 
 to have inflicted me with one. I, of course, said ' No ' to 
 all these insinuations. I was not happy nor unhappy. 
 If I sat at the table of life, and did not eat it, was 
 because I had no gi-eat appetite. The entertainment did 
 not amuse me much, but I had nowhere particularly to 
 go to. She went one day so far as to hint whether I was 
 not crossed in love ? But I assured her not, and I saw her 
 grow very pale as I said it. I even suggested that, though 
 one might have two attacks of the malady, like the 
 measles, the second one was always mild, and never hurt 
 the constitution. Having thus piqued her a little about 
 myself, I gradually unsettled her opinion on other things, 
 frightened her by how the geologists contradict Genesis, 
 and gave her to choose between Monsieur Cuvier and 
 Moses. As for India I made her believe that we were all 
 heartily ashamed of what we were doing there, spoke of 
 the Hindoo as the model native, and said that if the story 
 of our atrocities were written, Europe would I'ise up and 
 exterminate us. Hence I had not taken the C.B., nor the 
 V.C., nor any other alphabetical glories. In a word,
 
 A LETTEK OF CONFESSIONS. 377 
 
 Drayton, I got her into that frame of restlessness and 
 fever in which all belief smacks of foolish credulity, 
 and the commonest exercise of trust seems like the 
 indulgence of a superstition. 
 
 " All this time no mention of Loyd, not a hint of his 
 existence. Yesterday, however, came a fellow here, a 
 certain Mr. Stockwell, with a note of introduction from 
 Loyd, calling him, ' my intimate friend S., whom you 
 have doubtless heard of as a most successful photographer. 
 He is going to India with a commission from the Queen,* 
 &c. We had him to dinner, and made him talk, as all 
 such fellows are ready to talk, about themselves and the 
 fine people who employ them. In the evening we had his 
 portfolio and the peerage, and so delighted was the vulgar 
 dog to have got into the land of coronets and strawberry- 
 leaves, that he would have ignored Loyd if I had not 
 artfully brought him to his recollection ; but he came to 
 the memory of ' poor Joe,' as he called him, with such a 
 compassionating pity, that I actually grew to like him. 
 He had been at the vicarage, too, and saw its little homely 
 ways and small economies ; and I laughed so heartily at 
 his stupid descriptions and vapid jokes, that I made the 
 ass think he was witty, and actually repeat them. All 
 this time imagine Florry, pale as a corpse, or scarlet, either 
 half fainting or in a fever, dying to burst in with an angry 
 indignation, and yet restrained by maiden bashfulness. 
 She could bear no more by eleven o'clock, and went oif 
 to bed under pretence of a racking headache. 
 
 " It is a great blow at any man's favour in a woman's 
 esteem, when you show up his particular friend, his near 
 intimate ; and certes, I did not spare Stockwell. You 
 have seen me in this part, and you can give me credit for 
 some powers in playing it. 
 
 " ' Could that creature ever have been the dear friend 
 of Joseph ? ' said Milly, as he said good-night. 
 
 "'AVhynot?'! asked. 'They seem made for each 
 other.' 
 
 " Florry was to have come out for a sail this morning 
 with me, but she is not well — I suspect sulky — and has 
 not appeared. I therefore give you the morning that I 
 meant for her. Her excuses have amazed me ; because, 
 after my last night's success, and the sorry figure I had
 
 378 A P.ENT m A CLOUD. 
 
 succeeded in presenting L. to her, I half hoped my own 
 chances might be looking up. In fact, though I have 
 been playing a waiting game so patiently, to all appear- 
 ance, I am driven half mad by self-restraint. Come what 
 may, I must end this ; besides, to day is the fourth : on 
 the tenth the steamer from Alexandria will touch at 
 Malta ; L. will therefore be at Leghorn by the fourteenth, 
 and here two days after — that is to say, in twelve days 
 more my siege must be raised. If I were heavily ironed 
 in a felon's cell with the day of my execution fixed, I 
 could not look to the time with one-half the heart-sinking 
 I now feel. 
 
 "I'd give — what would I not give ? — to have you near 
 me, though in raj^ soul I know all that you'd say ; how 
 you'd preach never minding, letting be, and the rest of it, 
 just as if I could cut out some other work for myself to- 
 morrow, and think no more of her. But I cannot. I^o 
 Drayton, I cannot. Is it not too hard for the fellow Avho 
 cut his way through Lahore with sixteen followers, and 
 made a lane through her Majesty's light cavalry, to be 
 worsted, defeated, and disgraced by a young girl, who has 
 neither rank, riches, nor any remarkable beauty to her 
 share, but is simply sustained by the resolve that she'd 
 not have me ? Mind D., I have given her no opportunity 
 of saying this since I came last here : on the contrary, 
 she would, if questioned, be ready — I'd swear to it she 
 would — to say, ' Calvert paid me no attentions, nor made 
 any court to me.' She is very truthful in everything, but 
 who is to say that her woman's instinct may not have 
 revealed to her of my love? Has not the woman a man 
 loves always a private key to his heart, and doesn't she go 
 and tumble its contents about, just out of curio>ity, ten 
 times a day ? Not that she'd ever find a great deal either 
 in or on mine. Neither the indictuients for murder or 
 ma:iJ:!fVi;g)iter, nor that other heavier charge for H. T., 
 have 'e(l flioir traces within my pericardium, and I coulil 
 ^i.aiul U) back myself not to rave in a compromising 
 fasliion if I had a fever to-morrow. But how hollow all 
 this boasting, when that girl within the closed window- 
 shutter yonder defies me — ay, defies me ! Is she to go 
 off to her wedding with the inner consciousness of this 
 victory? There's the thought that is driving me mad,
 
 A LETTER OF CONFESRlOXS. 379 
 
 and will, I am certain, end by producing some dire mis- 
 chief — what the doctors call a lesion — in tliis unhappy 
 brain of mine. And now, as I sit here in listless idleness, 
 that other fellow is hastening across Egypt, or ploughing 
 his way througFthe Red Sea, to come and marry her ! I 
 ask you, D., what amount of philosophy is required to 
 bear up under this ? 
 
 " I conclude I shall leave this some time next week — 
 not to come near England, though — for I forsee that it 
 will soon be out where, how, and with whom I have been 
 spending my holidays. Fifty fellows must suspect, and 
 some half-dozen must know all about it. America, I take 
 it, must be my ground — as well there as anywhere else — 
 but I can't endure a plan, so enough of this. Don't 
 write to me till you hear again, for I shall leave this cer- 
 tainly, though where for, not so certain. 
 
 " What a deal of trouble and uncertainty that girl 
 might spare me if she'd only consent to say ' Yes.' If I 
 see her alone this evening, I half think I shall ask her. 
 
 " Farewell for a while, and believe me, 
 " Yours ever, 
 
 " Haery C. 
 
 "P.S. Nine o'clock, evening. Came down to dinner 
 looking exceedingly pretty, and dressed to perfection. 
 All spite and malice, I'm certain. Asked me to take her 
 out to sail to-morrow. We are to go off on an exploring 
 expedition to an island — que sais-je ? 
 
 " The old Grainger looks on me with aunt-like eyes. 
 She has seen a bracelet of carbuncles in dull gold, the 
 like of which Loyd could not give her were he to sell 
 justice for twenty year's to come. I have hinted that I 
 mean them for my mothei'-in-lavv whenever I marry, and 
 she understands that the parentage admits of a represen- 
 tative. All this is very ignoble on my part ; but if I 
 knew of anything meaner that would ensure me success, 
 I'd do it also. 
 
 " What a stunning vendetta on this girl, if she were at 
 last to consent, to find out whom she had married, and 
 what. Think of the winter nights' tales, of the charges 
 that hang over me, and their penalties. Imagine the 
 Hue and Cry as light reading for the honeymoon !"
 
 380 A REKT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 He added one line on the envelope, to say he would 
 write again on the morrow ; but his promise he did not 
 keep. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The boat eKcursion mentioned in Calvert's letter was not 
 the only pleasure project of that day. It was settled 
 that Mr. Stockwell should come out and give Milly a 
 lesson in photography, in which, under Loyd's former 
 guidance, she had already made some progress. He was 
 also to give Miss Grainger some flower-seeds of a vei'y 
 rare kind, of which he was carrying a store to the Paslia 
 of Egypt, and which required some peculiar skill in the 
 sowing. They were to dine, too, at a little rustic house 
 beside the lake ; and, in fact, the day was to be one of 
 festivity and enjoyment. 
 
 The morning broke splendidly ; and though a few 
 clouds lingered about the Alpine valleys, the sky over the 
 lake was cloudless, and the water was streaked and 
 marbled with those parti-coloured lines which Italian 
 lakes wear in the hot days of midsummer. It was one 
 of those autumnal mornings in which the mellow colour- 
 ing of the mature season blends with the soft air and 
 gentle breath of spi-ing, and all the features of landscape 
 are displayed in their fullest beauty. Calvert and 
 Florence were to visit the Isola de San Giulio, and bring 
 back great clusters of the flowers of the " San Giuseppe" 
 trees, to deck the dinner-table. They were also to go on 
 as far as Pella for ice or snow to cool their wine, the 
 voyage being, as Calvert said, a blending of the pictur- 
 esque with the profitable. 
 
 I3efore breakfast was over the sky grew sMghtly over- 
 cast, and a large mass of dark cloud stood motionless 
 over the summit of Monterone.
 
 A STOEM. 381 
 
 "What will the weather do, Carlo? " asked Calvert of 
 the old boatman of the villa, as he came to say that all 
 was in readiness. 
 
 " Who knows, 'cellenza ? " said he, with a native shrug 
 of the shoulders. " Monterone is a big traitor of a moun- 
 tain, and there's no believing him. Tf that cloud scatters, 
 the day will be fine ; if the wind brings down fresh clouds 
 from the Alps it will come on a ' burrasca.' " 
 
 " Always a burrasca ; how I am sick of your burrasca," 
 said he, contemptuously. " If you were only once in your 
 life to see a real storm, how you'd, despise those petty 
 jobblcs, in which rain and sleet play the loudest 
 part." 
 
 " What does he say of the weather ? " asked Florence, 
 who saw that Calvert had walked on to a little point 
 with the old man, to take a freer view of the lake. 
 
 " He says, that if it neither blows hard nor rains, it 
 will probably be fine. Just what he has told us every 
 day since I came here." 
 
 "What about this fine trout that you spoke of, 
 Carlo?" 
 
 " It is at Gozzano, 'cellenza ; we can take it as we 
 
 "But we are going exactly in the opposite direction, 
 my worthy friend ; we are going to the island, and to 
 Pella." 
 
 " That is different," said the old man, with another 
 shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 " 13i(ln't you hear thunder ? I'm sure I did," cried. 
 Miss Gi'ainger. 
 
 " Up yonder it's always growling," said Calvert, point- 
 ing towards the Simplon. " It is the first welcome 
 travellers get when they pass the summit." 
 
 " Have you spoken to him, Milly, about Mr. Stockwell ? 
 Will he take him up at Orta, and land him here ? " asked 
 Miss Grainger, in a whisper. 
 
 " No, aunt ; he hates Stockwell, he says. Carlo can 
 take the blue boat and fetch him. They don't want 
 Carlo, it seems." 
 
 "And are you going without a boatman, Florry ? " 
 asked her aunt. 
 
 " Of course we are. Two are quite cargo enough in
 
 882 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 that small skiff, and I trust I am as skilful a pilot as any 
 Ortese fisherman," broke in Calvert. 
 
 " Oh, I never disputed your skill, Mr. Calvert." 
 
 "What, then, do you scruple to confide your niece to 
 me ? " said he, with a low whisper, in which the tone was 
 more menace than mei"e inquiry. " Is this the first time 
 we have ever gone out in a boat together ? " 
 
 She muttered some assurance of her trustfulness, but 
 so confusedlv, and with such embarrassment as to be 
 scarcely intelligible. " There ! that was certainly thunder ! " 
 she cried. 
 
 " There are not three days in three months in this place 
 without thunder. It is the Italian privilege, I take it, to 
 make always more noise than mischief." 
 
 " But will you go if it threatens so much ? " said Miss 
 Grainger. 
 
 " Ask Florry. For mi/ part, I think the daj' will be a 
 glorious one." 
 
 " I'm certain it will," said Florence, gaily; "and I 
 quite agree with what Harry said last night. Disputing 
 about the weather has the same effect as firing great guns : 
 it always brings down the rain." 
 
 Calvert smiled graciously at hearing himself quoted. 
 It was the one sort of flattery he liked the best, and it 
 rallied him out of his dark humour. "Are you ready ? " 
 — he had almost added " dearest," and only caught him- 
 self in time — perhaps, indeed, not completely in time — 
 for she blushed, as she said, " Eccomi." 
 
 The sisters affectionately' embraced each other. Milly 
 even ran after Florence to kiss her once again, after part- 
 ing, and then Florry took Calvert's arm, and hastened 
 away to the jett}-. "I declare," said she, as she stepjjed 
 into the boat, " this leave-taking habit, when one is going- 
 out to ride, or to row, or to walk for an hour, is about the 
 stupidest thing I know of." 
 
 '• I always said so. It's like making one's will every 
 day before going down to dinnei*. It is quite true you 
 may chance to die before the dessert, but the mere possi- 
 bility should not interfere with your asking for soup. No, 
 no, Florr}', you are to steer; the tiller is yours for to-day ; 
 my post is here ; " and he stretched himself at the bottom 
 of the boat, and took out liis cigar. Tlic light breeze was
 
 A STORM. 383 
 
 jnst enough to move the little lateen sail, and gradually it 
 tilled out, and the skiff stole quietly away from shore, 
 ■\vitl]Out even a ripple on the water. 
 
 " What's the line, Florry ? ' Hope at the helm, pleasure 
 at the prow,' or is it love at the helm ? " 
 
 " A bad steersman, I should say ; far too capricious," 
 cried she, laughing. 
 
 " I don't know. I think he has one wonderful attribute ; 
 he bas got wings to fly away with whenever the boat is in 
 danger, and I believe it is pretty much what love does 
 always." 
 
 "Can't say," said she, carelessly. "Isn't that a net 
 yonder ? Oughtn't we to steer clear of it ? " 
 
 '' Yes. Let ber fall off — so — that's enough. What a 
 nice light hand you have." 
 
 " On a horse they tell me my hand is very light." 
 
 " How I'd like to see you on my Arab ' Said.' Such a 
 creature ! so large-eyed, and with such a full nostril, the 
 face so concave iu front, the true Arab type, and the jaw a 
 complete semicircle. How proud he'd look under you, 
 with that haughty snort he gives, as he bends his knee. 
 He was the present of a great Rajah to me — one of those 
 native fellows we are graciously pleased to call rebels, 
 because they don't fancy to be slaves. Two years ago he 
 owned a territory about the size of half Spain, and he is 
 now something like a brigand chief, with a few hundred 
 followers." 
 
 " Dear Harry, do not talk of India — at least not of the 
 mutiny." 
 
 " Mutiny ! Why call it mutiny, Florry ? Well, love, I 
 have done," he muttered, for the word escaped him, and 
 he feared how she might resent it. 
 
 " Come back to my lightness of hand." 
 
 " Or of heartj for I sorely suspect, Florence, the quality 
 is not merely a manual one." 
 
 "Am I steerino- ^Yell ? " 
 
 " Perfectly. Would that I could sail on and on for ever 
 thus : 
 
 Over an ocean just like this, 
 
 A life of such untroubled bliss." 
 
 Calvert threw in a sentimental glance with this quotation.
 
 384 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 " In other words, an existence of nothing to do," said 
 she, laughing, " with an Excellent cigar to beguile it." 
 
 " Well, but ' ladye faire,' remember that I have earned 
 some repose. I have not been altogether a carpet knight. 
 I have had ray share of lanoe and spear, and amongst 
 fellows who handle their weapons neatly." 
 
 "You are dying to get back to Ghoorkas and Sikhs; 
 but I won't have it. I'd rather hear Metastasio or 
 Petrarch, just now." 
 
 " What if I were to quote something apposite, though 
 it were only prose — something out of the Promessi 
 Sposi ? " 
 
 iShe made no answer, and turned away her head. 
 
 " Put up yonr helm a little : let the sails draw freely. 
 This is very enjoyable ; it is a right royal luxury. I'm not 
 sure Antony ever had his galley steered by Cleopatra ; 
 had he ? " 
 
 " I don't know ; but I do know that I am not Cleopatra 
 nor you Antony." 
 
 " How readily you take one np for a foolish speech, as 
 if these rambling indiscretions were not the soul of such 
 converse as ours. They are like the squalls, that only 
 serve to increase our speed and never risk our safety, 
 and, somehow, I feel to-day as if my temper was all of 
 that fitful and capricious kind. I suppose it is the over- 
 happiness. Are you happy, Florry ? " asked he, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " If you mean, do I enjoy this glorious day and our 
 sail, yes, intensely. Now, what am I to do ? The sail is 
 flapping in spite of me." 
 
 " Because the wind has chopped round, and is coming 
 from the eastward. Down your helm, and let her find 
 her own way. We have the noble privilege of not caring 
 whither. How she spins through it now." 
 
 " It is immensely exciting," said she, and her colour 
 heightened as she spoke. 
 
 "Have yon superstitions about dates ? " he asked, after 
 another pause. 
 
 " No ; I don't think so. My life has been so unevent- 
 ful. Few days record anything memorable. But why 
 did you ask ? " 
 
 " I am — I am a devout believer in lucky and unlucky
 
 A STOElt. 385 
 
 days, and had I anly bethought me this was a Friday, 
 I'd have put off our sail till to-morrow." 
 
 " It is strange to see a man like you attach importance 
 to these things." 
 
 " And yet it is exactly men like me who do so. Super- 
 stitions belong to hardy, stern, rugged races, like the 
 northmen, even more than the natives of southern climes. 
 Too haughty and too self-dependent to ask counsel from 
 others like themselves, they seek advice in the occult 
 signs and faint whispers of the natural world. Would 
 you believe it, that I cast a horoscope last night to know 
 if I should succeed in the nest project I undertook? " 
 
 " And what was the answer ? " 
 
 " An enigma to this purpose: that if what I undertook 
 corresponded with the entrance of Orion into the seventh 
 house Why are you laughing?" 
 
 " Is it not too absurd to hear such nonsense from 
 you?" 
 
 " Was it not the grotesque homage of the witch made 
 Macbeth a murderer? What are you doing, child ? Lutf 
 — luff up ; the wind is freshening." 
 
 " I begin to think there should be a more skilful hand 
 on the tiller. It blows freshly now." 
 
 "In three days more, Florence," said he gravely, "it 
 will be exactly two years since we sailed here all alone. 
 Those two years have been to me like a long, long life, so 
 much of danger and trouble and suffering have been cora- 
 passed in them. Were I to tell you all, you'd own that 
 few men could have borne my burden without being- 
 crushed by it. It was not death in an}^ common shape 
 that I confronted ; but I must not speak of this. What 
 I would say is, that through all the perils I passed, one 
 image floated before me — one voice was in my ear. It 
 was yours." 
 
 " Dear Harry, let me implore you not to go back to 
 these things." 
 
 "I must, Florence — I must," said he, still more sadl}'. 
 " If I pain you, it is only your fair share of suffering." 
 
 " My fair share ! And why ? " 
 
 " For this reason. When I knew you first, I was a 
 worn-out, weary, heart-sick man of the world. Young as 
 I was, T was weary of it all ; I thought I had tasted of 
 
 C C
 
 886 A IIENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 whatever it had of sweet or bitter. I had no wish to 
 renew my experiences. I felt there was a road to go, 
 and I began my life-journey without interest, or anxiety 
 or hope. You taught me otherwise, Florence ; you re- 
 vived the heart that was all but cold, and brought it back 
 to life and energy ; you inspired me with high ambitions 
 and noble desires ; you gave confidence where there had 
 been distrust, and hope where there had been, indif- 
 ference." 
 
 "There, thei^e ! " cried she, eagerly; "there comes 
 another squall. You must take the helm ; I am getting 
 frightened." 
 
 "You are calmer than I am, Florence, dearest. Hear 
 me out. Why, I ask you — why call me back to an exis- 
 tence which you intended to make valueless to me ? Why 
 ask me to go a road where you refuse to journey ? " 
 
 "Do come here! I know not what I am doing. And 
 see, it grows darker and dai-ker over yonder I " 
 
 " You steered me into stormier waters, and had few 
 compunctions for it. Hear me out, Florence. For you 
 I came back to a life that I ceased to care for ; for you I 
 took on me cares, and dangers, and crosses, and con- 
 quered them all ; for you I won honours, high rewards, 
 and riches, and now I come to lay them at your feet, and 
 say, ' Weigh all these against the proofs of that other 
 man's affection. Put into one scale these successes, won 
 alone for yoxi ; these trials, these wounds — and into the 
 other some humdrum letters of that good-enough creature, 
 who is no more worthy of you than he has the courage to 
 declare it.' " 
 
 As he spoke a clap of thunder, sharp as a cannon-shot, 
 broke above their heads, and a squall struck the boat aloft, 
 bending her over till she half filled with water, throwing 
 at llie same time the young girl from her place to the lee- 
 side of the boat. 
 
 Lifting her up, Calvei^t placed her on the seat, while 
 he supported her with one arm, and with the other hand 
 grasped the tiller. 
 
 "Is there danger?" whispered she faintly. 
 
 "N^o, dearest, none. I'll bale out the water when the 
 wind lulls a little. Sit close up here, and all will be 
 well."
 
 A STORM. 387 
 
 The boat, however, deeply laden, no longei" rose over 
 the waves, but dipped her bow and took in more water 
 at every plunge. 
 
 " Tell me this hand is mine, my own dearest Florence 
 — mine for ever, and see how it will nerve my arm. I 
 am powerless if I am hopeless. Tell me that I have 
 something to live for, and I live." 
 
 " Oh, Harry, is it when my heart is dying with fear 
 that you ask me this ? Is it generous — is it fair? There! 
 the sail is gone! the ropes are torn across." 
 
 " It is only the jib, darling, and we shall be better 
 without it. Speak, Florence ! say it is my own wife I 
 am saving — not the bride of that man, who, if he were 
 here, would be at your feet in craven terror this instant." 
 
 " There goes the mast I " 
 
 At the word the spar snapped close to the thwart and 
 fell over the side, carrying the sail with it. The boat 
 now lay with one gunwale completely under water, help- 
 less and water-logged. A wild shriek burst from the girl, 
 who thought all was lost. 
 
 "Courage, dearest — courage! she'll float still. Hold 
 close to me and fear nothing. It is not Loyd's arm that 
 you have to trust to, but that of one who never knew 
 terror!" 
 
 The waves surged up now with every heaving of the 
 boat, so as to reach their breasts, and, sometimes stinking 
 on the weather-side, broke in p-reat sheets of water over 
 them. 
 
 " Oh, can you save us, Hamy — can you save us ? " 
 cried she. 
 
 "Yes, if there's aught worth saving," said he, sternly. 
 " It is not safety that I am thinking of; it is what is to 
 come after. Have I your pi-omise ? Are you mine? " 
 
 " Oh ! do not ask me this ; have pity on me." 
 
 " Where is your pity for me? Be quick, or it will be 
 too late. Answer mo — mine or his?" 
 
 " His to the last ! " cried she, with a wild shriek ; and 
 clasping both her hands above her head, she would have 
 fallen had he not held her. 
 
 '• One chance more. Refuse me, and I leave you to 
 your fate ! " cried he, sternly. 
 
 She could not speak, but in the agony of her terror she 
 
 C C 2
 
 388 A EENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 threw lier arms around and clasped him wildly. The 
 dark dense cloud that rested on the lake was rent 
 asunder by a flash of lightning at the instant, and a 
 sound like a thousand great guns shook the air. Tlie 
 wind skimming the sea, carried sheets of water along 
 and almost submerged the boat as they passed. 
 
 "Yes or no!" shouted Calvert, madly, as he struggled 
 to disengage himself from her grasp. 
 
 " No !" she cried, with a wild yell that rung above all 
 the din of the storm and as she said it he threw her 
 arms wide and flung her from him. Then, tearing ofi" his 
 coat, plunged into the lake. 
 
 The thick clouds as they rolled down from the Alps to 
 meet the wind, settled over the lake, making a blackness 
 almost like night, and only broken by the white flashes 
 of the lightning. The thunder rolled out as it alone 
 does in these mountain regions, where the echoes keep 
 on repeating till they fill the very air with their deafening 
 clamour. Scarcely was Calvert a few yards from the 
 boat than he turned to swim back to her, but already was 
 she hid from his view. The waves ran high, and the 
 drift foam blinded him at every instant. He shouted out 
 at the top of his voice ; he screamed " Florence I 
 Florence! " but the din arouud drowned his weak efforts, 
 and he could not even hear his own words. With his 
 brain mad by excitement, he fancied every instant that 
 he heard his name called, and turned, now hither, now 
 thither, in wild confusion. Meanwhile, the storm 
 deepened, and the wind smote the sea with frequent 
 claps, sharp and sudden as the rush of steam from some 
 great steam-pipe. Whether his head reeled with the ter- 
 rible uproar around, or that his mind gave way between 
 agony and doubt, who can tell ? He swam madly on 
 and on, breasting the waves with his strong chest, and 
 lost to almost all consciousness, save of the muscular 
 effort he was making — none saw him more ! 
 
 The evening was approaching, the storm had subsided, 
 and the tall Alps shone out in all the varied colours of 
 rock, or herbage, or snow-peak ; and the blue lake at the 
 foot, in its waveless surface, repeated all their grand out- 
 lines and all their gflorious tints. The water was covered
 
 A STORM. 389 
 
 with row-boats in every dii^ection, sent out to seek for 
 Florence and her companion. They were soon perceived 
 to cluster round one spot, where a dismasted boat lay 
 half-filled with water, and a figure, as of a girl sleeping, 
 lay in the stern, her head resting on the gunwale. It was 
 Florence, still breathing, still living, but terror-stricken, 
 lost to all consciousnet^s, her limbs stiffened with cold. 
 She was lifted into a boat and carried on shore. 
 
 Happier for her the long death-like sleep — that lasted 
 for days — than the first vague dawn of consciousness, 
 when her senses returning, brought up the terrible 
 memory of the storm, and the last scene with Calvert. 
 With a heart-rending cry for mercy she would start up in 
 bed, and, before her cry had well subsided, would come 
 the consciousness that the peril was past, and then, with a 
 mournful sigh, would she sink back again to try and re- 
 gain sufficient self-control to betray nothing ; not even of 
 him who had deserted her. 
 
 Week after week I'olled by, and she made but slow pro- 
 gress towards recovery. There was not, it is true, what 
 the doctors could pronounce to be malady — her heightened 
 pulse alone was feverish — but a great shock had shaken 
 her, and its effects remained in an utter apathy and in- 
 difference to everything around her. 
 
 She wished to be alone — to be left in complete solitude, 
 and the room darkened. The merest stir or movement 
 in the house jarred on her nerves and irritated her, and 
 with this came back paroxysms of excitement that recalled 
 the storm and the wreck. Sad, therefore, and sorrowful 
 to see as were the long hours of her dreary apathy, they 
 were less painful than these intervals of acute sensibility ; 
 and between the two her mind vibrated. 
 
 One evening, about a month after the wreck, Milly 
 came down to her aunt's room to say that she had been 
 speaking about Joseph to Fforry. " I was telling her 
 how he was detained at Calcutta, and could not be here 
 before the second mail from India ; and her reply was, 
 ' It is quite as well. He will be less shocked when he 
 sees me.'" 
 
 " Has she never asked about Calvert ? " asked the old 
 lady. 
 
 " Never. Not once. I half suspect, however, that she
 
 890 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 overheard us that evening when we were talking of him, 
 and wondering that he had never been seen again. For 
 she said afterwards, ' Do not say before me what you 
 desire me not to hear, for I hear frequently when I am 
 unable to speak, or even make a sign in reply.'" 
 
 " But it is strange that nothing should ever be known of 
 him." 
 
 "No, aunt. Carlo says several have been drowned in 
 this lake whose bodies have never been found. He has 
 some sort of explanation, about deep currents that set in 
 amongst the rocks at the bottom, which I could not 
 understand." 
 
 The days dragged on as before. Miss Grainger, after 
 some struggles about how to accomplish the task, took 
 courage, and wrote to Miss Sophia Calvert, to inform her 
 of the disastrous event which had occurred and the loss 
 of her cousin. The letter was, however, left without any 
 acknowledgment whatever, and save in some chance 
 whisperings between Milly and her aunt, the name of 
 Calvert was never spoken of again. 
 
 Only a few days before Christmas a telegram told them 
 that Loyd had reached Trieste, and would be with them 
 in a few days. By this time Florence had recovered much 
 of her strength and some of her looks. She was glad, 
 very glad to hear that Joseph was coming; but her joy 
 was not excessive. Her whole nature seemed to have 
 been toned down by that terrible incident to a state of 
 calm resignation to accept whatever came with little of 
 joy or sorrow ; to submit to, rather than partake of, the 
 changeful fortunes of life. It was tlius Loyd found her 
 when he came, and, to his thinking, she was more charm- 
 ing, more lovable tlian ever. The sudden capi-ices, wliicli 
 so often had worried him, were gone, and in their place 
 there was a gentle tranquillity of character which suited 
 every trait of his own nature, and rendered her more 
 than ever companionable to him. Warned by her aunt 
 and sister to avoid the topic of the storm, he never 
 alluded to it in any shape to Florence ; but one evening, 
 as, after a long walk to<5ether, she lay down to rest before 
 tea-time, he took Milly 's arm and led her into the garden. 
 
 " She has told me all, Mill^s" said he, with some emo- 
 tion ; "at least, all that she can remember of that terrible 
 day."
 
 391 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE LAST AND THE SHORTEST. 
 
 LoYD was married to Florence ; and they went to India, 
 and in due time — even earlier than due time — he was 
 promoted from rank to rank till he reached the dignity of 
 chief judge of a district, a position which he filled with 
 dignity and credit. 
 
 Few were more prosperous in all the relations of their 
 lives. They were fortunate in almost evei'ything, even 
 to their residence near Simlah, on the slope of the Him- 
 alaya : they seemed to have all the goods of fortune at 
 their feet. In India, where hospitality is less a virtue 
 than a custom, Loyd's house was much frequented, his 
 own agreeable manners, and the charming qualities of 
 his wife, liad given them a wide-spread notoriety, and few 
 journeyed through their district without seeking their 
 acquaintance. 
 
 " You don't know who is coming here to dinner, to-day, 
 Florry," said Loyd, one morning at breakfast ; '' some one 
 vou will be glad to see, even for a memory of Europe — 
 Stockwell." 
 
 " Stockwell ? I don't remember Stockv/cll." 
 
 " Not remember him ? And he so full of the charm- 
 ing reception you gave him at Orta, where he photo- 
 graphed the villa, and you and Milly in the porch, and 
 Aunt Grainger v/ashing her poodle in the flower-garden ? " 
 
 " Oh, to be sure I do, but he would never let us have a 
 copy of it, he was so afraid Aunt Grainger would take it 
 ill ; and then he went awny very suddenly ; if I mistake 
 not, he was called off by telegram on the very day he was 
 to dine Avith us." 
 
 " Perhaps he'll have less compunctions now that your 
 aunt is so unlikely to see herself so immortalised. I'm to 
 go over to Behasana to fetch him, and I'll ask if he has a 
 copy."
 
 392 A RENT IN A CLOUD. 
 
 His day's duties over, Loyd went across to the camp 
 where his friend Stock well was staying. He brought him 
 back, and the photographs were soon produced. 
 
 " My wife," said Loyd, " wishes to see some of her old 
 Italian scenes. Have you any of those you took in 
 Italy ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have some half-dozen yonder. There they are, 
 with their names on the back of them. This was the little 
 inn you recommended me to stop at, with the vine terrace 
 at the back of it. Here, you see the clump of cypress- 
 trees next the boat-house." 
 
 " Ay, but she wants a little domestic scene at the villa, 
 with her aunt making the morning toilet of her poodle. 
 Have you got that?" 
 
 " To be sure I have ; and — not exactly as a pendant 
 to it, for it is terrific rather than droll — I have got a 
 storm-scene that I took the morning I came away. The 
 horses were just being harnessed, for I received a telegram 
 informing me I must be at Ancona two da^'s eai'lier than I 
 looked for to catch the Indian mail, and I was taking the 
 last view before I started. I was in a tremendous hurry, 
 and the whole thing is smudged and scarce distinguishable. 
 It was the grandest storm I ever witnessed. The whole 
 sky grew black, and seemed to descend to meet the lake, 
 as it was lashed to fury by the wind. I had to get a 
 peasant to hold the instrument for me as I caught one 
 effect — merely one. The moment was happy, it was just 
 when a great glare of lightning burst through the black 
 mass of cloud, and lit up the centre of the lake, at the 
 very moment that a dismasted boat was being drifted 
 along to, I suppose, certain destruction. Here it is, and 
 here are, as well as I can make out, two figures. They 
 are certainly figures, blurred as they are, and that is clearly 
 a woman clinging to a man who is throwing her oflP: the 
 action is plainly that. I have called it a Rent in a 
 Cloud." 
 
 " Don't bring this to-day, Stockwell," said Loyd, as the 
 cold sweat burst over his face and forehead; " and when 
 you talk of Orta to my wife, say nothing of the Rent in a 
 Cloud."
 
 ST. PATRICK'S EVE.
 
 ST. PATEICK'S EVE 
 
 THE FIRST ERA 
 
 It was on tbe 16th of March, the eve of St. Patrick, not: 
 quite twenty years ago, that a little village on the bank of 
 LoLigh Corrib was celebrating in its annual fair " the holy 
 times," devoting one clay to every species of enjoyment 
 and pleasure, and on the next, by practising prayers and 
 penance of various kinds, as it were to prepare their minds 
 to resume their worldly duties in a frame of thought more 
 seemly and becoming. 
 
 If a great and wealthy man might smile at the humble 
 preparations for pleasure displayed on this occasion, he 
 could scarcely scotf at the scene which surrounded them. 
 The wide valley, encircled by lofty mountains, whose 
 swelling outlines were tracked against the blue sky, or 
 mingled gracefully with clouds, whose forms were little 
 less fantastic and wild. The broad lake, stretching away 
 into the distance, and either lost among the mountain 
 passes, or contracting as it approached the ancient city of 
 Galway : a few, and but very few, islands marked its 
 surface, and these rugged and rocky ; on one alone a 
 human trace was seen — the ruins of an ancient church ; it 
 was a mere gable now, but you could still track out the 
 humble limits it had occupied — scarce space sufficient 
 for twenty persons ; such were once, doubtless, the full 
 number of converts to the faitli who frequented there. 
 There was a wild and savage grandeur in the whole : the
 
 398 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 very aspect of the mountains pi-oclaimecl desolation, f.nd 
 seemed to frown defiance at the efibrts of man to subdue 
 them to his use ; and even the herds of wild cattle seemed 
 to stray with caution among the cliffs and precipices of 
 this dreary region. Lower down, however, and as if in 
 compensation of the infertile tract above, the valley was 
 marked by patches of tillage and grassland, and studded 
 with cottages ; which, if presenting at a nearer inspection 
 indubitable signs of poverty, yet to the distant eye be- 
 spoke something of rural comfort, nestling as they often 
 did beneath some large rock, and sheltered by the great 
 turf-stack, which even the poorest possessed. Many 
 streams wound their course through this valley ; along 
 whose boi'ders, amid a pasture brighter than the emei'ald, 
 the cattle grazed, and there, from time to time, some 
 peasant child sat fishing as he watched the herd. 
 
 Shut in by lake and mountain, this seemed a little spot 
 apart from all the woi'ld ; and so, indeed, its inhabitants 
 found it. They were a poor but not unhappy race of 
 people, whose humble lives had taught them nothing of 
 the comforts and pleasures of richer communities. Poverty 
 had, from habit, no terrors for them ; short of actual want, 
 they never felt its pressure heavily. 
 
 Such were they who now were assembled to celebrate 
 the festival of their patron saint. It was drawing towards 
 evening ; the sun was already low, and the red glare that 
 shone i'rom behind the mountains showed that he was 
 near his setting. The business of the fair was almost con- 
 cluded ; the little traffic so remote a region could supply, 
 the barter of a few sheep, the sale of a heifer, a mountain 
 pony, or a flock of goats, had all passed off, and now the 
 pleasures of the occasion were about to succeed. The 
 votaries to amusement, as if annoyed at the protracted 
 dealings of the more worldly-minded, were somewhat 
 rudely driving away the cattle that still continued to 
 linger about : and pigs and poultry Avere beginning to 
 discover that they were merely intruders. The canvas 
 booths, erected as shelter against the night-air, were 
 becoming crowded with visitors; and from more than one 
 of the number the pleasant sounds of the bagpipe might 
 now be heard, accompanied by the dull shuffling tramp of 
 heavily-shod feet.
 
 1?HE FIRST ERA. S97 
 
 Various shows and exhibitions Avere also in prepara- 
 tion, and singular announcements were made by gentle- 
 men in a mingled costume of Turk and Thimble-rigger, 
 of " wonderful calves with two heads ; " " six-legged 
 pigs ; " and an " infant of two years old that could drink 
 a quart of spirits at a draught, if a respectable company 
 were assembled to witness it;" — a feat which, for the 
 honour of young Ireland, it should be added, was ever 
 postponed from a deficiency in the annexed condition. 
 Then there were " restaurants " on a scale of the most 
 primitive simplicity, where boiled beef, or " spoleen," was 
 sold from a huge pot, suspended over a fire in the open 
 air, and which was invariably suiTounded by a gourmand 
 party of both sexes ; gingerbread and cakes of every 
 fashion and every degree of indigestion also abounded ; 
 while jugs and kegs flanked the entrance to each tent, 
 reeking with a most unmistakable odour of that prime 
 promoter of native drollery and fun — poteen. All was 
 stir, movement, and bustle ; old friends, separated since 
 the last occasion of a similar festivity, were embracing 
 cordially, the men kissing with an affectionate warmth 
 no German ever equalled ; pledges of love and friendship 
 were taken in brimming glasses by many, who were 
 perhaps to renew the opportunity for such testimonies 
 hereafter, by a fight that very evening ; contracts ratified 
 by whisky, until that moment not deemed binding; and 
 courtships, prosecuted with hopes, which the whole year 
 previous had never suggested ; kind speeches and words 
 of welcome went round ; while here and there some 
 closely-gathered heads and scowling glances gave token, 
 that other scores were to be acquitted on that night than 
 li'erely those of commerce ; and in the firmly knitted 
 brow, and more firmly grasped blackthorn, a practised 
 observer could foresee, that some heads were to carry 
 away deeper marks of that meeting, than simple memory 
 can impress ; — and thus, in this wild sequestered spot, 
 human passions were as rife as in the most busy com- 
 munities of pampered civilisation. Love, hate, and hope, 
 charitj'', fear, foi'giveness, and malice ; long-smouldering 
 revenge, long-subdued affection ; hearts pining beneath 
 daily drudgery, suddenly awakened to a burst of pleasure 
 and a renewal of happiness in the sight of old friends,
 
 898 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 for many a day lost sight of ; words of good cheer ; half 
 mutterings of menace ; the whispered syllables of love ; 
 the deeply-uttered tones of vengeance ; and amid all, the 
 careless reckless glee of those who appeai'ed to feel the 
 hour one snatched from the grasp of misery and devoted 
 to the very abandonment of pleasm'e. It seemed in vain 
 that want and poverty had shed their chilling influence 
 over hearts like these. The snow-drift and the storm 
 might penetrate their frail dwellings ; the winter might 
 blast, the hurricane might scatter their humble hoard- 
 ings ; but still tl^e bold high-beating spirit that lived 
 within beamed on throughout every trial; and now, in 
 the hour of long-sought enjoyment, blazed forth in a 
 flame of joy that was all but frantic. 
 
 The step that but yesterday fell wearily upon the 
 ground, now smote the earth with a proud beat, that told 
 of manhood's daring; the voices were high, the eyes were 
 flashing; long pent-up emotions of every shade and com- 
 plexion were there ; and it seemed a season where none 
 should wear disguise, but stand forth in all the fearless-, 
 ness of avowed resolve ; and in the heart-home looks of 
 love, as well as in the fiery glances of hatred, none prac- 
 tised concealment. Here, went one with his arm round 
 his sweetheart's waist — an evidence of accepted affection 
 none dared even to stare at ; there, went another, the skirt 
 of his long loose coat thrown over his arm, in whose 
 hand a stick was brandished — his gesture, even without 
 his wild hurroo ! an open declaration of battle, a challenge 
 to all who liked it. Mothers were met in close conclave, 
 interchanging family seci-ets and cares ; and daughters, 
 half conscious of the parts they themselves were playing 
 in the converse, passed looks of sly intelligence to each 
 other. And beggars were there too — beggars of a class 
 which even the eastern Dervish can scarcely vie with : 
 cripples brought many a mile away from their mountain- 
 homes to extort charity by exhibitions of dreadful de- 
 formity ; the halt, the blind, the muttering idiot, the 
 moping melancholy mad, mixed up with strange and 
 motley figures in patched uniforms and I'ags — some, 
 amusing the crowd by their drolleries, some, singing a 
 popular ballad of the time — while through all, at every 
 turn and every corner, one huge fellow, without legs,
 
 THB FIRST ERA. 899 
 
 rode upon an ass, Lis wide cliest ornamented by a picture 
 of liimself, and a paragrapli setting forth his infirmities. 
 He, with a voice deeper tlian a bassoon, bellowed forth his 
 prayer for alms, and seemed to monopolise far more than 
 his proportion of charity, doubtless owing to the more 
 artistic development to which he had brought his profes- 
 sion. " De prayers of de holy Joseph be an yez, and 
 relieve de maimed ; de prayers and bles-ins of all de saints 
 on dem that assists de suflTerin' ! " And there were pil- 
 grims, some with heads venerable enough for the canvas 
 of an old master, with flowing beards, and relics hung 
 round their necks, objects of worship which failed not to 
 create sentiments of devotion in the passers-by. Bat 
 among these many sights and sounds, each calculated to 
 appeal to different classes and ages of the motley mass, 
 one object appeared to engross a more than ordinary share 
 of attention ; and although certainly not of a nature to 
 draw marked notice elsewhere, was hei'e sufficiently 
 strange and uncommon to become actually a spectacle. 
 This was neither moi-e nor less than an English groom, 
 who, mounted upon a thoroughbred horse, led another by 
 the bridle, and slowlj- paraded backwards and forwards, 
 in attendance on liis master. 
 
 " Tliem's the iligant bastes, Darby," said one of the 
 bystanders, as the horses moved past. "A finer pair than 
 that I never seen." 
 
 " They're beauties, and no denying it," said the other ; 
 "and they've skins like a looking-glass." 
 
 " Arrah, botheration t' yez ! what are ye saying about 
 their skins ? " cried a third, whose dress and manner 
 betokened one of the rank of a small farmer. " 'Tis the 
 breeding that's in 'em ; that's the raal beauty. Only look 
 at their pastcnis ; and see how fine they run oflp over the 
 quarter." 
 
 " Which is the best now, Phil ? " said another, address- 
 ing the last speaker with a tone of some deference. 
 
 "The gray horse is worth two of the dark chestnut," 
 replied Phil oracularly. 
 
 " Is he, then ? " cried two or three in a breath. " Why 
 is that, Phil?" 
 
 " Can't you perceive the signs of blood about the ears? 
 They're long, and coming to a point "
 
 400 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 " you're wrong this time, my friend," said a sharp 
 voice, with an accent which in Ireland would be called 
 English. " You may be an excellent judge of an ass, but 
 the horse you speak of, as the best, is not worth a fourth 
 part of the value of the other." And so saying, a young 
 and handsome man, attii'ed in a riding costume, brushed 
 somewhat rudely through the crowd, and seizing the rein 
 of the led horse, vaulted lightly into the saddle and rode 
 off, leaving Phil to the mockery and laughter of the crowd, 
 whose reverence for the opinion of a gentleman was only 
 beneath that they accorded to the priest himself. 
 
 " Faix, ye got it there, Phil ! " " 'Tis down on ye lie 
 was that time!" "Musha, butye may well get red in 
 the face ! " 
 
 Such and such-like were the comments on one who but 
 a moment before was rather a popular candidate for 
 public honours. 
 
 " Who is he, then, at all ?" said one among the rest, and 
 who had come up too late to witness the scene. 
 
 " 'Tis the young Mr. Leslie, the landlord's son, that's 
 come over to fish the lakes," replied an old man rever- 
 entially. 
 
 " Begorra, he's no landlord of mine, anyhow," said 
 Phil, now speaking for the first time. " I hould under 
 Mister Martin, and his family was here before the Leslies 
 was heard of." These words were said with a certain air 
 of defiance, and a turn of the head around him, as though 
 to imply that if any one would gainsay the opinion, he 
 was ready to stand by and maintain it. Happily for the 
 peace of the particular moment, the crowd were nearly 
 all Martins, and so, a simple buzz of approbation followed 
 this announcement. Nor did their attention dwell much 
 longer on the matter, as most were already occupied in 
 watching the progress of the young man, who, at a fast 
 swinging gallop, had taken to the fields beside the lake, 
 and was now seen flying in succession over each dyke and 
 wall before him, followed by his groom. The Irish 
 passion for feats of horsemanship made this the most 
 fascinating attraction of the fair ; and already, opinions 
 ran high among the crowd, that it was a race between the 
 two horses, and more than one maintained, that " the 
 little chap with the belt" was the better horseman of the
 
 THE FIRST ERA. 401 
 
 two. At last, having' made a wide circuit of tlie village 
 and the green, the riders were seen slowly moving down, 
 as if returning to the fair. 
 
 There is no country where manly sports and daring 
 exercises are held in higher repute than Ireland. The 
 chivalry that has died out in richer lands still reigns 
 there ; and the full mead of approbation will ever be his, 
 who can combine address and courage before an Irish 
 crowd. It is needless to say, then, that many a word of 
 praise and commendation was bestowed on young Leslie. 
 His handsome features, his slight but well-formed figure, 
 every particular of his dress and gesture, had found an 
 advocate and an admirer ; and while some were lavish in 
 their epithets on the perfection of his horsemanship, 
 others, who had seen him on foot, asserted, '* that it was 
 then he looked well entirely." There is a kind of epi- 
 demic character pertaining to praise. The snow-ball 
 gathers not faster by rolling than do the words of eulogy 
 and approbation ; and so now, many recited little anec- 
 dotes of the youth's father, to show that he was a very 
 pattern of landlords and country gentlemen, and had only 
 one fault in life, — that he never lived among his tenantry. 
 
 "'Tis the first time I ever set eyes on him," cried one, 
 " and I hould my little place under him twenty-three years 
 come Michaelmas." 
 
 " See now then, Barney," cried another, " I'd rather 
 have a hard man that would stay here among us, than the 
 finest landlord ever was seen that would be away from us. 
 And what's the use of compassion and pity when the 
 say would be between us ? 'Tis the agent we have to 
 look to." 
 
 "Agent! 'Tis wishing them, I am, the same agents! 
 Them's the boys has no marcy for a poor man ; I'm tould 
 now" — and here the speaker assumed a tone of oracular 
 seriousness that drew several listeners towards him — ■ 
 *' I'm tould now, the agents get a guinea for every man, 
 woman, and child they turn out of a houldin." A low 
 murmur of indignant anger ran through the group, not 
 one of whom ventured to disbelieve a testimony thus 
 accredited. 
 
 " And sure when the landlords does come, divil a bit 
 they know about us — no more nor if we were in 
 
 D D
 
 402 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 Swayden ; clifln't I hear the ould gentleman down there 
 last summer, pitying the people for the distress. ' Ah,* 
 says he, ' it's a hard sayson ye have, and obliged to tear 
 the flax out of the ground, and it not long enough to 
 cut!'" 
 
 A ready burst of laughter followed this anecdote, and 
 many similar stories were recounted in corroboration of 
 the opinion. 
 
 " That's the girl takes the shine out of the fair," said 
 one of the younger men of the party, touching another 
 by the arm, and pointing to a tall young girl, who, with 
 features as straight and regular as a classic model, moved 
 slowly past. She did not wear the scarlet cloak of the 
 peasantry, but a large one of dark blue, lined with silk 
 of the same colour ; a profusion of brown hair, dark and 
 glossy, was braided on each side of her face, and turned 
 up at the back of the head with the gi'ace of an antique 
 cameo. She seemed not more than nineteen years of age, 
 and in the gaze of astonishment and pleasure she threw 
 around her, it might be seen how new such scenes and 
 sights were to her. 
 
 " That's Phil Joyce's sister, and a crooked disciple of a 
 brother she has," said the other; " sorra bit if he'd ever 
 let her come to the ' pattern ' afore to-day ; and she's the 
 raal ornament of the place now she's in it." 
 
 " Just mind Phil, will yc ! watch him now ; see the 
 frown he's giving the boys as they go by, for looking at 
 his sister. I wouldn't coort a girl that I couldn't look in 
 the face and see what was in it, av she owned Ballina- 
 hinch Castle," said the former. 
 
 " There now ; what is he at now ? " whispered the other ; 
 " he's left her in the tent there : and look at him, the way 
 he's talking to ould Bill ; he's telling him something 
 about a fight; never mind me agin, but there'll be 'wigs 
 on the green ' this night." 
 
 " I don't know where the Lynches and the Connors is 
 to-day," said the other, casting a suspicious look around 
 him, as if anxious to calculate the forces available in the 
 event of a row. " They gave the Joyces their own in 
 Ballinrobe last fair. 1 hope they're not afeard to come 
 down here." 
 
 " Sorra bit, ma bouchal," said a voice from behind his
 
 THE FIEST EKA. 403 
 
 sliouldor; and at the same moment the speaker clapped 
 his hands over the other's eyes : "who am I, now ? " 
 
 "Arrah! Owen Connor; I know ye well," said the 
 other ; " and 'tis yourself ought not to be here to-day. 
 The ould father of ye has nobody but yourself to look 
 after him." 
 
 " I'd like to see ye call him ould to his face," said 
 Owen, laughing : " there he is now, in Poll Dawley's tent, 
 dancing." 
 
 " Dancing ! " cried the other two in a breath. 
 
 "Aye, fais, dancing 'The little bould fox;' and may 
 I never die in sin, if he hasn't a step that looks for all the 
 world as if he made a hook and eye of his legs." 
 
 The young man who spoke these words was in mould 
 and gesture the very ideal of an Irish peasant of the west ; 
 somewhat above the middle size, rather slightly made, but 
 with the light and neatly turned proportion that betokens 
 activity, more than great strength, endurance, rather than 
 the power of any single efibrt. His face well became the 
 character of his figure ; it was a handsome and an open 
 one, where the expressions changed and crossed each 
 other with lightning speed — now, beaming with good 
 nature ; now, flashing in anger ; now, sparkling with some 
 witty conception, or frowning a bold defiance as it met 
 the glance of some member of a rival faction. He looked 
 as he was, one ready and willing to accept either part from 
 fortune, and to exchange friendship and hard knocks with 
 equal satisfaction. Although in dress and appearance he 
 was both cleanly and well clad, it was evident that he 
 belonged to a very humble class among the peasantry. 
 Neither his hat nor his great coat, those uneri-ing signs of 
 competence, had been new for many a day before ; and his 
 shoes, in their patched and mended condition, betrayed 
 the pains it had cost him to make even so respectable au 
 appearance as he then presented. 
 
 " She didn't even give you a look to-day, Owen," said 
 one of the former speakers ; " she turned her head the 
 other way as she went by." 
 
 "Faix, I'm afeard ye've a bad chance," said the other, 
 slily. 
 
 " Joke away, boys, and welcome," said Owen, reddening 
 to the eyes as he spoke, and showing that his inditfcrence 
 
 D D 2
 
 404 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 to their banterings was very far from being real ; " 'tis 
 little I mind what ye say — as little as she herself would 
 mind «?e," added he to himself. 
 
 " She's the purtiest girl in the town-land, and no second 
 word to it, — and even if she hadn't a fortune " 
 
 •' Bad luck to the fortune ! — that's what I say," med 
 Owen, suddenly ; " 'tis that same that breaks my rest night 
 •nnd day; sure if it wasn't for the money, there's many a 
 dacent boy wouldn't be ashamed nor afeard to go up and 
 coort her." 
 
 " She'll have two liundred, divil a less, I'm tould," 
 interposed the other ; " the ould man made a deal of money 
 in the war-time." 
 
 " I wish he had it with him now," said Owen, bitterly. 
 
 " By all accounts he wouldn't mislike it himself. AVhen 
 Father John was giving him the rites, he says, *Phil,' 
 says he, * how ould are ye now ? ' and the other didn't 
 hear him, but went on muttering to himself; and the 
 priest says agin, ' 'Tis how ould you are, I'm axing.' ' A 
 hundred and forty-three,' says Phil, looking up at him. 
 ' The saints be good to us,' says Father John, ' sure you're 
 not that ould — a hundred and forty-three ? ' * A hundred 
 and forty-seven.' ' Phew ! he's more of it — a hiindred 
 and forty-seven ! ' 'A hundred and fifty,' cries Phil, and 
 he gave the foot of the bed a little kick, this way — sorra 
 more — and he died ; and what was it but the guineas he 
 was countin' in a stocking under the clothes all the 
 while? Oh, musha! how the sowl was in the money, 
 and he going to leave it all ! I heerd father John say, 
 ' it was well they found it out, for there'd be a curse on 
 them guineas, and every hand that would touch one of 
 them in sccla secloruin ;'' and they wer' all tuck away in a 
 bag that night, and buried by the priest in a saycrot place, 
 whei-e they'll never be found till the Day of .Judgment." 
 
 Just as the story came to its end, tlie attention of the 
 group was drawn ofi'by seeing numbers of people running 
 in a particular direction, while the sound of voices and 
 the general excitement showed something new was going 
 forward. The noise increased, and now, loud shouts 
 were heard, mingled with the rattling of sticks and the 
 utterance of those party cries so popular in an Irish fair. 
 The young men stood still as if the affair was a mere
 
 THE FIEST ERA. 405 
 
 momentary ebullition not deserving of attention, nor 
 sufficiently important to merit the taking any farther 
 interest in it ; nor did they swerve from the resolve thus 
 tacitly formed, as from time to time some three or four 
 would emerge from the crowd, leading forth one, whose 
 bleeding temples, or smashed head, made retreat no longer 
 dishonourable. 
 
 " They're at it early," was the cool commentary of 
 Owen Connor, as with a smile of superciliousness he 
 looked towards the scene of strife. 
 
 " The Joyces is always the first to begin," remarked 
 one of his companions. 
 
 " And the first to lave off, too," said Owen ; "two to one 
 is what they call fair play." 
 
 "That's Phil's voice! — there now, do you hear him 
 shouting? " 
 
 " 'Tis that he's best at," said Owen, whose love for the 
 pretty Mary Joyce was scarcely equalled by his dislike of 
 her ill-tempered brothei'. 
 
 At this moment the shouts became louder and wilder, 
 the screams of the women mingling with the uproar, 
 which no longer seemed a mei-e x'>assing skirmish, but a 
 down-right severe engagement. 
 
 "What is it all about, Christy?" said Owen, to a 
 young fellow led past between two friends, while the 
 track of blood marked every step he went. 
 
 " 'Tis well it becomes yez to ax," muttered the other, 
 with his swollen and pallid lips, " when the Martins is 
 beating your landlord's eldest son to smithereens." 
 
 " Mr. Leslie — young Mr. Leslie ? " cried the three 
 together ; but a wild war-whoop from the crowd gave the 
 answer back. " Hurroo ! Martin for ever ! Down with 
 ilie Leslies ! Ballinashough ! Hurroo ! Don't leave one 
 of them livin'! Beat their sowles out ! " 
 
 " Leslie for ever ! " yelled out Owen, with a voice heard 
 over every part of the field ; and with a spring into the 
 air, and a wild flourish of his stick, he dashed into the 
 crowd. 
 
 "Here's Owen Connor, make way for Owen;" cried 
 the non-combatants, as they jostled and parted each other, 
 to leave a free pas&age for one whose prowess was well 
 known.
 
 106 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 "He'll lave liis mark on some of yez yet! " "That's 
 the boy will give you music to dance to ! " " Take that, 
 Barney ! " *' Ha ! Tarry, that made your nob ring like a 
 rort3'-shilliug pot ! " Such and such-like were the comments 
 on him who now, reckless of his own safety, rushed madly 
 into the very midst of the combatants, and fought his way 
 onwards to where some seven or eight were desperately 
 engaged over the fallen figure of a man. With a shrill 
 yell no Indian could surpass, and a bound like a tiger, 
 Owen came down in the midst of them, every stroke of his 
 powerful blackthorn telling on his man as unerringly as 
 though it were wielded by the hand of a giant. 
 
 " Save the young master Owen ! Shelter him ! Stand 
 over him, Owen Connor!" were now the cries from all 
 sides ; and the stout-hearted peasant, striding over the 
 body of young Leslie, cleared a space around him, and, as 
 he glanced defiance on all sides, called out, " Is that your 
 courage, to beat a young gentleman that never handled a 
 stick in his life ? Oh, you cowardly set ! Come and face 
 the men of your own barony if you dare ! Come out on 
 the green and do it!' — Pull him array — pull him away 
 quick," whispered he to his own party eagerly. " Tear- 
 an-ages ! get him out of this before they're down 
 on me." 
 
 As he spoke, the Joyces rushed forward with a cheer, 
 their party now trebly as strong as the enemy. They 
 bore down with a force that nothing could resist. Poor 
 Owen — the mark for every weapon — fell almost the first, 
 his head and face one indistinguishable mass of blood 
 and bruises, but not before some three or four of his 
 friends had rescued young Leslie from his danger, and 
 carried him to the outskirts of the fair. The fray now 
 became general, neutralit}^ was impossible, and self-defence 
 almost suggested some participation in the battle. The 
 victory was, however, with the Joyces. They were on 
 their own territory ; they mustered every moment stronger ; 
 and in less than half-an-hour they had swept the enemy 
 from the field, save where a lingering wounded man 
 remained, whose maimed and crippled condition had 
 already removed him from all the animosities of combat. 
 
 *' Whei'e's the young master ? " were the first words 
 Owen Connor spoke, as his friends carried him on the
 
 THE FIRST EEA. 407 
 
 door of a cabin, hastily unhinged for the purpose, towards 
 his home. 
 
 " Erra ! he's safe enough, Owen," said one of his 
 bearers, who was by no means pleased that Mr. Leslie 
 had made the best of his Avay out of the fair, instead of 
 remaining to see the fight out. 
 
 "God be praised for that same, anyhow!" said Owen 
 piously. " His life was not worth a ' trawneen ' when I 
 seen him first." 
 
 It may be supposed from this speech, and the previous 
 conduct of him who uttered it, that Owen Connor was 
 an old and devoted adherent to the Leslie family, from 
 whom he had received many benefits, and to whom he 
 was linked by long acquaintance. Far from it. He 
 neither knew Mr. Leslie nor his father. The former he 
 saw for the first time as he stood over him in the fair ; 
 the latter he had never so much as set eyes upon, at any 
 tiine ; neither had he or his been favoured by them. The 
 sole tie that subsisted between them — the one link that 
 bound the poor man to the rich one — was that of the 
 tenant to his landlord. Owen's father and grandfather 
 before him had been cottiers on the estate ; but being 
 very poor and humble men, and the little farm they 
 rented, a half-tilled half-reclaimed mountain tract, exempt 
 from all prospect of improvement, and situated in a 
 remote and unfrequented place, they were merely known 
 by their names on the rent-roll. Except for this, their 
 existence had been as totally forgotten, as though they 
 had made part of the wild heath upon the mountain. 
 
 While Mr. Leslie lived in ignorance that such people 
 existed on his property, they looked up to him with a 
 degree of reverence almost devotional. The owner of the 
 soil was a character actually sacred in their eyes ; for what 
 respect and what submission were enough for one who 
 held in his hands the destinies of so many ; who could 
 raise them to afiluence, or depress them to want, and by 
 his mere word control the agent himself, the most dreaded 
 of all those who exerted an influence on their fortunes ? 
 
 There was a feudalism, too, in this sentiment that gave 
 the reverence a feeling of strong allegiance. The land- 
 lord w'as the head of a clan, as it were : he was the 
 culminating point of that pyramid of which they formed
 
 408 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 the base ; and ilicy were proud of every display of his 
 wealth and his power, which they deemed as ever reflecting 
 credit upon themselves. And then, his position in the 
 county — his rank — his titles — the amount of his property 
 — his house — his retinue — his very equipage, were all 
 subjects on whicli they descanted with eager delight, and 
 proudly exalted in contrast with less favoured proprietors. 
 At the time we speak of absenteeism had only begun to 
 impair the wai-mth of this affection ; the traditions of a 
 resident landlord wei*e yet fresh in the memory of the 
 young ; and a hundred traits of kindness and good-nature 
 were mingled in their minds with stories of grandeur and 
 extravagance, which, to the Irish peasant's ear, are 
 themes as grateful as ever the goi'geous pictures of Eastern 
 splendour were to the heightened imagination and burning 
 fancies of Oriental listeners. 
 
 Owen Connor was a firm disciple of this creed. Perhaps 
 his lone sequestered life among the mountains, with no 
 companionship save that of his old father, had made 
 hira longer retain these convictions in all their foi'ce, than 
 if, by admixtui'e with his equals, and greater intercourse 
 with the world, he had conformed his opinions to the 
 gradually changed tone of the country. It was of little 
 moment to him what might be the temper or the habits 
 of his landlord. Tlie monarchy — and not the monarch of 
 the soil — was the object of his loyalty ; and he would 
 have deemed himself disgraced and dishonoured had he 
 shown the slightest backwardness in his fealty. He 
 would as soon have expected that the tall fern that grew 
 wild in the valley should have changed into a blooming 
 crop of wheat, as that the performance of such a service 
 could have met with any requital. It was, to his thinking, 
 a simple act of duty, and required not any prompting of 
 high principle, still less any suggestion of self-interest. 
 Poor Owen, therefore, had not even a sentiment of heroism 
 to cheer him, as thej^ bore him slowly along, every 
 inequality of the ground sending a pang through his 
 aching head that was actually torture. 
 
 " That's a mark you'll carry to your dying day, Owen, 
 my boy," said one of the bearers, as they stopjjed for a 
 moment to take breath. " I can see the bone there shining 
 this minute."
 
 THE FIRST ERA. 409 
 
 "It must be good stuff anyways the same head," said 
 Owen, with a sickly attempt to smile. "They never put 
 a star in it yet; and faix I seen the sticks cracking like 
 dry wood in the frost." 
 
 " It's well it didn't come lower down," said another, 
 examining the deep cut which gashed his forehead from 
 the hair down to the eyebrow. " You know what the 
 \Yidow Glynn said at Peter Henessey's wake, when she 
 saw the stroke of the scythe that laid his head open — it 
 just come, like yer own, down to that — ' Ayeh I ' says she, 
 ' but he's the fine coi'pse ; and wasn't it the Lord spared his 
 eye!'" 
 
 " Stop, and good luck to you, Freney, and don't be 
 making me laugh : the pain goes through my brain like 
 the stick of a knife," said Owen, as he lilted his trembling 
 hands and pressed them on either side of his head. 
 
 They wetted his lips with water, and resumed their 
 way, not speaking aloud as before, but in a low under- 
 tone, only audible to Owen at intervals ; for he had sunk 
 into a half-stupid state, they believed to be sleep. The 
 path each moment grew steeper ; for leaving the wild 
 " boreen " road, which led to a large bog on the mountain- 
 side, it wound now upwards, zigzagging between masses 
 of granite rock and deep tufts of heather, where some- 
 times the foot sunk to the instep. The wet and spongy 
 soil increased the difficulty greatly ; and although all 
 strong and powerful men, they were often obliged to halt 
 and rest themselves. 
 
 " It's an iligant view, sure enough," said one, wiping 
 his dripping forehead with the tail of his coat. " See 
 there ! look down where the fair is, now ! it isn't the size 
 of a good griddle, the whole of it. How purty the lights 
 look shining in the water. 
 
 " And the boats, too ! Musha ! they're coming up more 
 of them. Thei-e'll be good divarshin there, this night." 
 These last words, uttered with a half sigh, showed with 
 what a heavy heart the speaker saw himself debarred from 
 participating in the festivity. 
 
 " 'Twas a dhroll place to build a house, then, up 
 there," said another, pointing to the dark speck, far, far 
 away on the mountain, whore Owen Connor's cabia 
 stood.
 
 410 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 " Ovveu says yez can see Galway of a fine day, and the 
 boats going out from the Claddagh ; and of an evening, 
 when the sun is going down, you'll see across the bay, 
 over to Clare, the big cliffs of Mogher." 
 
 " Now, then ! are ye in earnest ? I don't wonder he's 
 so fond of the place, after all. It's an iligant thing to see 
 the whole world, and fine company besides. Look at 
 Lough Mask ! Now, boys, isn't that beautiful with the 
 sun on it ? " 
 
 •' Come, it's getting late, Freney, and the poor boy 
 ought to be at home before night." And once more they 
 lifted their burden and moved forward. 
 
 For a considerable time they continued to ascend with- 
 out speaking, when one of the party in a low cautious 
 voice remarked, " Poor Owen will think worse of it, when 
 he hears the reason of the fight, than for the cut on the 
 head — bad as it is." 
 
 " Musha ; then he needn't," replied another ; " for if 
 ye mane about Mary Joyce, he never had a chance of 
 her." 
 
 " I'm not saying that he had," said the first speaker ; 
 " but he's just as fond of her : do you mind the way he 
 never gave back one of Phil's blovv'S, but let him hammer 
 away as fast as he plazed ? " 
 
 "What was it at all, that Mr. Leslie did ? " asked an- 
 other ; " I didn't hear how it begad yet." 
 
 "Nor I, either, rightly ; but I believe Mary was standing 
 looking at the dance, for she never foots a step herself — 
 maybe she's too ginteel — and the young gentleman comes 
 up and axes her for a partner; and something she said; 
 but what does he do, but put his arm round her waist 
 and gives her a kiss; and, ye see, the other girls laughed 
 hearty, because they say Mary's so proud and high, and 
 thinking herself above them all. Phil wasn't there at 
 the time ; but he heerd it afterwards, and come up to 
 the tent as young Mr. Leslie was laving it, and stood 
 befoi'e him, and wouldn't let him pass. * I've a word to 
 say to ye,' says Phil, and he scarce able to spake with 
 passion; 'that was my sister ye had the impudence to 
 take a liberty with.' 'Out of the way, ye bogtrotter,' 
 says Leslie ; them's the very words he said ; ' out of the 
 way, ye hcgtrottcr, or I'll lay my wliip across your
 
 THE FIEST ERA. 411 
 
 SQOulders.' ' Take that first,' says Phil ; aud he put his 
 fist between his two eyes, neat and clean. Down went 
 the squire as if he was shot. You know the rest your- 
 selves. The boys didn't lose any time, and if 'twas only 
 two hours later, maybe the Joyces would have got as good 
 as they gave." 
 
 A heavy groan from poor Owen now stopped the con- 
 versation, and they halted to ascertain if he were worse — 
 but no ; he seemed still sunk in the same heavy sleep as 
 before, and apparently unconscious of all about him. 
 Such, however, was not really the case ; by some strange 
 phenomenon of sickness, the ear had taken in each low 
 and whispered word, at the time it would have been deaf 
 to louder sounds ; and every syllable they had spoken had 
 already sunk deeply into his heart ; happily for him, this 
 was but a momentary pang ; the grief stunned him at 
 once, and he became insensible. 
 
 It was dark night as they reached the lonely cabin where 
 Owen lived, miles away from any other dwelling, and 
 standing at an elevation of more than a thousand feet 
 above the plain. The short, shai^p barking of a sheep-dog 
 was the only sound that welcomed them ; for the old man 
 had not heard of his son's misfortune until long after they 
 quitted the fail'. The door was hasped and fastened with 
 a stick ; precaution enough in such a place, and for all 
 that it contained, too. Opening this, they carried the 
 young man in, and laid him upon the bed ; and, while 
 some busied themselves in kindling a fire upon the hearth, 
 the others endeavoured, with such skill as they possessed, 
 to dress his wounds, an operation which, if not strictly 
 surgical in all its details, had at least the recommendation 
 of tolerable experience in such matters. 
 
 "It's a nate little place when you're at it, then," said 
 one of them, as with a piece of lighted bog-pine he took 
 a very leisurely and accurate view of the interior. 
 
 The opinion, however, must be taken by the reader, as 
 rather reflecting on the judgment of him who pronounced 
 it, than in absolute praise of the object itself. The cabin 
 consisted of a single room, and which, though remai-kably 
 clean in comparison with similar ones, had no evidence 
 of anything above very narrow circumstances. A little 
 dresser occupied the wall in front of the door, with its
 
 412 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 usual complement of crockery, cracked and whole ; an old 
 chest of drawers, the pride of the house, flanked this on 
 one side ; a low settle bed on the other ; various prints in 
 very florid colouring decorated the walls, all religious sub- 
 jects, where the apostles figured in garments like bathing- 
 di-esses ; these were intermixed with ballads, dying 
 speeches, and such-like ghostly literatiire as forms the 
 most interesting reading of an Irish peasant ; a few seats 
 of unpainted deal, and a large straw chair for the old 
 man, were the principal articles of furniture. There was 
 a gun, minus the lock, suspended over the fireplace, and 
 two fishing-rods, with a gafi" and landing-net, were 
 stretched upon wooden pegs ; while over the bed was an 
 earthenware crucifix, with its little cup beneath for 
 holy water ; the whole surmounted by a picture of St. 
 Francis Xavier in the act of blessing somebody : though, 
 if the gesture were to be understood without the explana- 
 tory letter-press, he rather looked like a swimmer pre- 
 paring for a dive. The oars, mast, and spritsail of a 
 boat were lashed to the rafters overhead ; for, strange 
 as it may seen), there was a lake at that elevation of 
 the mountain, and one which abounded in trout and 
 perch, aS'ording many a day's sport to both Owen and his 
 father. 
 
 Such were the details which, sheltered beneath a warm 
 roof of mountain-fern, called forth the praise we have 
 mentioned ; and, poor as they may seem to the reader, 
 they were many degrees in comfort beyond the majority 
 of Irish cabins. 
 
 The boys — for so the unmarried men of whatever age 
 are called — having left one of the party to watch over 
 Owen, now quitted the house, and began their return 
 homeward. It was past midnight when the old man 
 returned ; and although endeavouring to master any 
 appearance of emotion before the " strange boy," he could 
 with difficulty control his feelings on beholding his son. 
 The shirt matted with blood, contrasting with the livid 
 colourless cheek — the heavy irregular breathing — the 
 frequent startings as he slept — were all sore trials to 
 the old man's nerve ; but he managed to seem calm 
 and collected, and to treat the occun-euce as an ordi- 
 nary one.
 
 THE FIRST ERA* 413 
 
 " Hai'ry Joyce and his brother Luke — big Luke as they 
 call him — has sore bones to-niglit; they tell me that Owen 
 didn't lave bi-eath in their bodies," said he, with a grim 
 smile, as he took his place by the fire. 
 
 " I heerd the ribs of them smashing like an ould turf 
 creel," replied the other. 
 
 " 'Tis himself can do it," said the old fellow, with eyes 
 glistening with delight ; "fair play and good ground, and 
 I'd back him agin the Glen." 
 
 " And so you might, and farther too ; he has the speret 
 in him — that's better nor strength, any day." 
 
 And thus consoled by the recollection of Owen's 
 prowess, and gratified by the hearty concurrence of his 
 guest, the old father smoked and chatted away till day- 
 break. It was not that he felt any want of aSection for 
 his son, or that his heart was untouched by the sad 
 spectacle he presented — far from this ; the poor old man 
 had no other tie to life — no other object of hope or love 
 than Owen ; but years of a solitary life had taught him 
 rather to conceal his emotions within his own bosom, than 
 seek for consolation beyond it ; besides that, even in his 
 grief the old sentiment of faction-hatred was strong, and 
 vengeance had its share in his thoughts also. 
 
 It would form no part of our object in this story, to 
 dwell longer either on this theme or the subject of Owen's 
 illness ; it will be enough to say that he soon got better, 
 far sooner perhaps than if all the appliances of luxury had 
 ministered to his recovery ; most certainly sooner than if 
 his brain had been ordinarily occupied by thoughts and 
 cares of a higher order than his were. The conflict, how- 
 ever, had left a deeper scar behind than the ghastly wound 
 that marked his brow. The poor fellow dwelt upon the 
 portions of the conversation he overheard as they carried 
 him up the mountain ; and whatever might have been his 
 fears before, now he was convinced that all prospect of 
 gaining Mary's love was lost to him for ever. 
 
 This depression, natural to one after so severe an injury, 
 excited little remark from the old man ; and although he 
 wished Owen might make some effort to exert himself, or 
 even move about in the air, he left him to himself and his 
 own time, well knowing that he never was disposed to 
 yield an hour to sickness, beyond what he felt unavoidable.
 
 414 ST. patpjck's eve. 
 
 It was about eight or nine da^^s after tlie fair, tliat tlio 
 father was sitting mending a fishing-net at the door of his 
 cabin, to catch the last light of the fading day. Owen 
 was seated near him, sometimes watching the progress of 
 the work, sometimes patting the old sheep-dog that 
 nestled close by, when the sound of voices attracted them ; 
 they listened, and could distinctly hear persons talking at 
 the opposite side of the cliff, along which the pathway 
 led ; and before they could even hazard a guess as to who 
 they were, the strangers appeared at the angle of the rock. 
 The party consisted of two persons ; one, a gentleman 
 somewhat advanced in life, mounted on a stout but rough- 
 looking pony — the other was a countr^anan, who held the 
 beast by the bridle, and seemed to take the greatest pre- 
 caution for the rider's safety. 
 
 The very few visitors Owen and his father met with 
 were for the most part people coming to fish the mountain- 
 lake, who usually hired ponies in the valley for the ascent; 
 so that when they perceived the animal coming slowly 
 along, they scarce bestowed a second glance upon them, 
 the old man merely remarking, " They're three weeks too 
 early for this water, any how ; " a sentiment concurred in 
 by his son. In less than five minutes after the rider and 
 his guide stood before the door. 
 
 " Is this where Owen Connor lives ? " asked the gentle- 
 man. 
 
 " That same, yer honour," said old Owen, uncovering 
 his head, as he rose respectfully from his low stool. 
 
 "And where is Owen Connor himself?" 
 
 " 'Tis me, sir," replied he ; "that's my name." 
 
 " Yes, but it can scarcely be you that I am looking for ; 
 have you a son of that name ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, I'm young Owen," said the young man, 
 rising, but not without difficulty ; while he steadied him- 
 self by holding the door-post. 
 
 " So then I am all right : Tracy, lead the pony about, 
 till I call you ; " and so saying, he dismounted and entered 
 the cabin. 
 
 " Sit down, Owen ; yes, yes — I insist upon it, and do yoa 
 also. I have come up here to-day to have a few moments' 
 talk witli you about an occurrence that took place last 
 week at the fair. There was a young gentleman, Mr.
 
 THE FIRST ERA. 415 
 
 Leslie, got roughly treated by some of the people : let me 
 hear your account of it." 
 
 Owen and his father exchanged glances ; the same idea 
 flashed across the minds of both, that the visitor was a 
 magisti'ate come to take information against the Joyces 
 for an assault ; and however gladly they would have 
 embraced any coui^se that promised retaliation for their 
 injuries, the notion of recurring to the law was a degree 
 of baseness they would have scorned to adopt. 
 
 " I'll take the ' vestment' I never seen it at all," said 
 the old man, eagerly, and evidently delighted that no 
 manner of cross-questioning or badgering could convert 
 him into an informer. 
 
 " And the little I saw," said Owen, "they knocked out 
 of my memory with this ; " and he pointed to the half- 
 healed gash on his foi'ehead. 
 
 " But you know something of how the row begun ? " 
 
 " No, yer honour, I was at the other side of the 
 fair." 
 
 "Was young Mr. Leslie in fault — did you hear that? " 
 
 "I never hecrd that he did anything — iinagreeable," 
 said Owen, after hesitating for a few seconds in his choice 
 of a word. 
 
 " So, then, I'm not likely to obtain any information 
 from either of you ? " 
 
 They made no reply, but their looks gave as palpable 
 a concurrence to this speech as though they swore to its 
 truth. 
 
 "Well, I have another question to ask. It was you 
 saved this young gentleman, I understand ; what was 
 your motive for doing so, when, as by your own confes- 
 sion, you were at a distance when the fight begun P " 
 
 " He was my landlord's son," said Owen, half roughly; 
 " I hope there is no law agin that." 
 
 " I sincerely trust not," ejaculated the gentleman ; 
 " have you been long on the estate ? " 
 
 "Three generations of us now, yer honour," said the 
 old man. 
 
 " And what rent do you pay ? " 
 
 " Oh, musha, we pay enough! we pay fifteen shillings 
 an acre for the bit of callows below, near the lake, and 
 we give ten pounds a year for the mountain — and bad
 
 416 Sf. Patrick's eve. 
 
 luck to it for a raountain — it's breaking my heart trying 
 to make something out of it." 
 
 " Then I suppose you'd be well pleased to exchange 
 your farm, and take one in a better and more profitable 
 part of the country ? " 
 
 Another suspicion here shot across the old man's 
 mind ; and turning to Owen he said in Irish ; " Ho 
 wants to get the mountain for sporting over ; but I'll 
 not lave it." 
 
 The gentleman repeated his question. 
 
 " Troth, no then, yer honour ; we've lived here so long 
 we'll just stay our time in it." 
 
 " But the rent is heavy, you say." 
 
 " Well, we'll pay it, plaze God'." 
 
 " And I'm sure it's a strange wild place in winter." 
 
 " It's wholesome, any how," was the short reply. 
 
 " I believe I must go back again as wise as I came," 
 muttered the gentleman. " Come, my good old man, — 
 and you, Owen ; I want to know how 1 can best serve 
 you, for what you've done for me : it was my son you 
 rescued in the fair " 
 
 "Are you the landlord — is yer honour Mr. Leslie?" 
 exclaimed both as they rose from their scats as horrified 
 as if they had taken such a liberty before royalty. 
 
 " Yes, Owen ; and I grieve to say, that I should cause 
 so much surprise to any tenant, at seeing me. I ought 
 to be better known on my property ; and I hope to 
 become so : but it grows late, and I must reach the valley 
 before night. Tell me, are you really [attached to this 
 farm, or have I any other, out of lease at this time, you 
 like better?" 
 
 " I would not leave the ould spot, with yer honour's 
 permission, to get a demense and a brick house ; nor 
 Owen neither." 
 
 " Well, then, be it so ; I can only say, if you ever 
 change your mind, you'll find me both ready and willing 
 to serve you ; meanwhile you must pay no more rent 
 here." 
 
 *' No more rent ! " 
 
 " Not a farthing ; I'm sorry the favour is so slight a 
 one, for indeed the mountain seems a bleak and profitless 
 tract."
 
 THE FIRST EP.A. 417 
 
 *' There is not its equal for mutton " 
 
 " I'm glad of it, Owen ; and it only remains for me to 
 make the shepherd something more comfortable ; well, 
 take this ; and when I next come up here, which I intend 
 to do, to fish the lake, I hope to find you in a better 
 house ; " and he pressed a pocket-book into the old man's 
 hand as he said this, and left the cabin: wliile both Owen 
 and his father were barely able to mutter a blessing 
 upon him, so overwhelming and unexpected was the whole 
 occurrence. 
 
 E E
 
 418 ST. Patrick's eye. 
 
 THE SECOI^D ERA. 
 
 Fkom no man's life, perhaps, is hope more rigidly excluded 
 than from that of the Irish peasant of a poor district. 
 The shipwrecked mariner upon his raft, the convict in his 
 cell, the lingering sufferer on a sick bed, may hope ; but 
 he must not. 
 
 Daily labour, barely sufficient to produce the commonest 
 necessaries of life, points to no period of rest or repose ; 
 year succeeds year in the same dull routine of toil and 
 privation : nor can he look around him and see one who 
 has risen from that life of misery to a position of even 
 comparative comfort. 
 
 The whole study of his existence, the whole philosophy of 
 his life, is, how to endure ; to struggle on under poverty 
 and sickness ; in seasons of famine, in times of national 
 calamity, to hoard up the little pittance for his landlord 
 and the payment for his piiest, and he has nothing more 
 to seek for. Were it our object here, it would not be 
 difficult to pursue this theme furthei-, and examine if 
 much of the imputed slothfulness and indolence of the 
 people was not in reality due to that very hopelessness. 
 How little energy would be left to life if you take away 
 its ambitious ; how few would enter upon the race, if 
 thei'e were no goal before them ! Our present aim, how- 
 ever, is rather with the fortunes of those we have so 
 lately left. To these poor men, now, a new existence 
 opened. Not the sun of spring could more suddenly 
 illumine the landscape where winter so late had tlirov>-u 
 its shadows, than did prosperity fall brightly on their 
 hearts, endowing life with pleasures and enjoyments, of 
 which tbey had not dared to dream befoi^e. 
 
 In pieferi'ing this mountain tract to some rich lowland 
 farm, they were rather guided by thiit spirit of attachment 
 to the home of their fathers — so characteristic a trait in 
 the Irish peasant — than by the promptings of self-interest.
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 419 
 
 The mountain was indeed a wild and bleak expanse, scarce 
 aBbi'ding herbage for a few sheep and goats ; the callows 
 at its foot, deeply flooded in winter, and even by the rains 
 of autumn, made tillage precarious and uucertain ; yet 
 the fact that these were i-eut-free, that of its labour and 
 its fruits all was now their own, inspired hope and sweet- 
 ened toil. They no longer felt the dreary monotony of 
 daily exertion, by which hour was linked to hour, and 
 year to year, in one unbroken succession ; — no ; they now 
 could look forward, they could lift up their hearts and 
 strain their eyes to a future, where honest industry had 
 laid up its store for the decline of life ; they could already 
 fancy the enjoyments of the summer season, when they 
 should look down upon their own crops and herds, or 
 think of the winter nights, and the howling of the storm 
 without, reminding them of the blessings of a home. 
 
 How little to the mind teeming with its bright and 
 ambitious aspii-ings would seem the history of their 
 humble hopes ! How insignificant and how narrow might 
 appear the little plans and plots they laid for that new 
 road in life, in which they were now to travel ! The 
 great man might scoff at these, the moralist might frown 
 at their worldliness ; but there is nothing sordid or mean 
 in the spirit of manly independence ; and they who know 
 the Irish people, will never accuse them of receiving worldly 
 benefits with any forgetfulness of their true and only 
 soui'ce. And now to our story. 
 
 The little cabin upon the mountain was speedily added 
 to, and fashioned into a comfortable-looking farm-house 
 of the humbler class. Both father and son would 
 willingly have left it as it was ; but the landlord's wish 
 had laid a command upon them, and they felt it would 
 have been a misapplication of his bounty had they not 
 done as he had desired. So closely, indeed, did they 
 adhere to his injunctions, that a little room was added 
 specially for his use and accommodation, whenever he came 
 on that px'omised excursion he hinted at. Every detail of 
 this little chamber interested them deeply ; and many a 
 riig'ht, as they sat over theii- fire, did they eagerly discuss 
 the habits and tastes of the "quality," anxious to be 
 wanting in nothing which should make it suitable for one 
 like him. Sailicieut money remained above all this 
 
 E u 2
 
 420 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 expenditure to purchase some sheep, and even a cow, 
 and ah-eady their changed fortunes had excited the 
 interest and curiosity of the little world in which they 
 lived. 
 
 There is one blessing, and it is a great one, attendant 
 on humble life. The amelioration of condition requires 
 not that a man should leave the friends and companions 
 he has so long sojourned with, and seek, in a new order, 
 others to supply their place ; the spirit of class does not 
 descend to him, or rather, he is far above it ; his altered 
 state suggests comparatively few enjoyments or comforts 
 in which his old associates cannot participate ; and thus 
 the Connors' cabin was each Sunday thronged by the 
 counti'y people, who came to see with their own eyes, and 
 hear with their own ears, the wonderful good fortune that 
 befell them. 
 
 Had the landlord been an angel of light, the blessings 
 invoked upon him could not have been more frequent or 
 fervent ; each measured the munificence of the act by his 
 own short standard of worldly possessions ; and individual 
 murmurings for real or fancied wrongs were hushed in 
 the presence of one such deed of benevolence. 
 
 This is no exaggerated picture. Such was peasant 
 gratitude once ; and such, landlords of Ireland ! it 
 might still have been, if you had not deserted the people. 
 The meanest of your favours, the poorest show of your 
 good-feeling, were acts of grace for which nothing was 
 deemed requital. Your presence in the poor man's cabin 
 — your kind word to him upon the highway — your aid in 
 sickness — your counsel in trouble, were ties which bound 
 him more closely to your interest, and made him more 
 surely youi-s, than all the parchments of your attorney, or 
 all the papers of your agent. He knew you then as some- 
 thing more than the recipient of his earnings. That was 
 a time, when neither the hireling patriot nor the calum- 
 nious press could sow discord between you. If it bo 
 otherwise now, ask yourselves, are you all blameless? 
 Did you ever liope that atf'cction could be transmitted 
 through your agent, like the proceeds of your property ? 
 Did you expect that the attachments of a people were to 
 leach you by the post ? Or was it not natural, that, in 
 their desertion by you, they should seek succour else-
 
 THE SECO^"D EIIA. 421 
 
 where? that in their difliculties and their trials they 
 should turn to any who might feel or feign compassion 
 for them ? Nor is it Avonderful that, amid the benefits 
 thus bestowed, they should imbibe principles and opinions 
 fatally in contrast with intei'ests like yours. 
 
 There were few on whom good fortune could have 
 fallen, without exciting more envious and jealous feelings 
 on the part of others, than on the Connoi-s. The rugged 
 independent character of the father — the gay, light- 
 hearted nature of the son, had given them few enemies 
 and many friends. The whole neighbourhood flocked 
 about them to offer their good wishes and congratulations 
 on their bettered condition, and with an honesty of 
 purpose and a sincerity that might have shamed a more 
 elevated sphere. The Joyces alone showed no participa- 
 tion in this sentiment, or rather, that small fraction of 
 them more immediately linked with Phil Joyce. At first, 
 they affected to sneer at the stories of the Connors' good 
 fortune; and when denial became absurd, they half-hinted 
 that it was a new custom in Ireland for men " to fight for 
 money." These mocking speeches were not slow to reach 
 the ears of the old man and his son ; and many thought 
 that the next fair-day would bring with it a heavy retri- 
 bution for the calamities of the last. In this, however, 
 they were mistaken. Neither Owen nor his father 
 appeared that day ; the mustering of their faction was 
 strong and powerful, but they, whose wrongs were the 
 cause of the gathering, never came forward to head 
 them. 
 
 This was an indignity not to be passed over in silence ; 
 and the murmurs, at first low and subdued, grew louder 
 and louder, until denunciations heavy and deep fell upon 
 the two who " wouldn't come out and right themselves 
 like men." The faction, discomfited and angered, soon 
 broke up ; and returning homeward in their several 
 directions, they left the field to the enemy without even 
 a blow. On the succeeding day, when the observances 
 of religion had taken place of the riotous and disorderly 
 proceedings of the fair, it was not customary for the 
 younger men to remain. The frequenters of the place 
 were mostly women ; the few of the other sex were either 
 old and feeble men, or such objects of compassion as
 
 422 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 traded on the pious feelings of the votaries so opportunely 
 evoked. It was with great difficulty the worthy priest of 
 the parish had succeeded in dividing the secular from the 
 holy customs of the time, and thus allowing the pilgrims, 
 as all were called on that day, an uninterrupted period for 
 their devotions. He was firm and resolute, however, in 
 his purpose, and spared no pains to effect it : menacing 
 this one — persuading that ; suiting the measure of his 
 arguments to the comprehension of each, he either 
 cajoled or coerced, as the circumstance might warrant. 
 His first care was to remove all the temptations to dis- 
 sipation and excess ; and for this purpose, he banished 
 every show and exhibition, and every tent where gambling 
 and drinking went forward ; — his next, a more difficult 
 task, was the exclusion of all those doubtful characters, 
 who, in every walk of life, are suggestive of even more 
 vice than they embody in themselves. These, however, 
 abandoned the place, of their own accord, so soon as they 
 discovered how few were the inducements to remain ; until 
 at length, by a tacit understanding, it seemed arranged, 
 that the day of penance and mortification should suffer 
 neither molestation nor interruption from those indisposed 
 to partake of its benefits. So rigid was the priest in 
 exacting compliance in this matter, that he compelled the 
 tents to be struck by daybreak, except by those few, 
 trusted and privileged individuals, whose ministerings to 
 human wants were permitted during the day of sanctity. 
 And thus the whole picture was suddenly changed. 
 The wild and riotous uproar of the fair, the tumult of 
 voices and music, dancing, drinking, and fighting, were 
 gone ; and the low monotonous sound of the pilgrims' 
 prayers was heard, as they moved along upon their knees 
 to some holy well or shrine, to offer up a prayer, or return 
 a thanksgiving for blessings bestowed. The scene was a 
 strange and picturesque one ; the long lines of kneeling 
 figures, where the rich scarlet cloak of the women pre- 
 dominated, crossed and recrossed each other as they 
 wended their way to the destined altar ; their muttered 
 words blending with the louder and more boisterous 
 appeals of the mendicants, — who, stationed at every con- 
 venient angle or turning, besieged each devotee with 
 unremitting entreaty, — deep and heartfelt devotion in
 
 THE SECOND EKA. 423 
 
 every face, every lineament and feature impressed with 
 religious zeal and piety ; but still, as group met group 
 going and returning, they interchanged their greetings 
 between their prayers, and mingled the worldly saluta- 
 tions with aspirations heavenward ; and their "Paters," 
 and " Aves," and " Credos," were blended with enquiries 
 for the " childer," or questions about the " crops." 
 
 " Isn't that Owen Connor, avich, that's going there, 
 towards the Yallow-well ? " said an old crone, as she ceased 
 to count her beads. 
 
 "You're right enough, Biddy; 'tis himself, and no 
 other ; it's a turn he took to devotion since he grew 
 rich." 
 
 " Ayeh ! ayeh ! the Lord be good to us ! how fond we 
 all be of life, when we've the bit of bacon to the fore !" 
 And with that she resumed her pious avocations with 
 redoubled energy, to make up for lost time. 
 
 The old ladies were as sharp-sighted as such function- 
 aries usually are in any sphere of society. It was Owen 
 Connor himself, performing his first pilgrimage. The 
 commands of his landlord had expressly forbidden him to 
 engage in any disturbance at the fair ; the only mode of 
 complying with which, he rightly judged, was by absent- 
 ing himself altogether. How this conduct was construed 
 by others, we have briefly hinted at. As for himself, 
 poor fellow, if a day of mortification could have availed 
 him anything, he needn't have appeared among the 
 pilgrims ; — a period of such sorrow and suflPering he had 
 never undergone before. But in justice it must be con- 
 fessed it was devotion of a very questionable character 
 that brought him there that morning. Since the fair-day, 
 Mary Joyce had never deigned to notice him ; and though 
 he had been several times at mass, she eithei* affected not 
 to be aware of his presence, or designedly looked in 
 another direction. The few words of greeting she once 
 gave him on eveiy Sunday morning — the smile she 
 bestowed — dwelt the whole week in his heart, and made 
 him long for the return of the time when, even for a 
 second or two, she would be near, and speak to him. He 
 was not slow in supposing how the circumstances under 
 which he rescued the landlord's son might be used against 
 him by his enemies ; and he well knew that she was not
 
 424 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 suvrounded by any others tlian such. It was, then, with 
 a heavy heart poor Owen witnessed how fatally hia 
 improved fortune had dashed hopes far dearer than all 
 worldly advantage. Not only did the new comforts about 
 him become distasteful, but he even accused them to him- 
 self as the source of all his present calamity ; and half 
 suspected that it was a judgment on him for receiving a 
 reward in such a cause. To see her — to speak to her if 
 possible — was now his wish, morn and night ; to tell her 
 that he cared more for one look, one glance, than for all 
 the favours fortune did or could bestow ; this, and to unde- 
 ceive her as to any knowledge of young Leslie's rudeness 
 to herself, was the sole aim of his thoughts. Stationing 
 himself therefore in an angle of the ruined church, which 
 formed one of the resting-places for prayer, he waited for 
 hours for Mary's coming, and at last, with a heart half 
 sickened with deferred hope, he saw her pale but 
 beautiful features, shaded by the large blue hood of 
 her cloak, as with downcast eyes she followed in the 
 train. 
 
 " Give me your place, acushla; God will reward you 
 for it ; I'm late at the station," said he, to an old ill- 
 favoured hag tliat followed next to Mary ; and at the 
 same time, to aid his request, slipped half-a-crown into 
 her hand. 
 
 The wi'inkled face brightened into a kind of wicked 
 intelligence as she muttered in Irish : " 'Tis a goukl 
 guinea the same place is worth ; but I'll give it to yoa 
 for the sake of yer people;" and at the same time 
 pocketing the coin in a canvas pouch, among relics 
 and holy clay, she moved off, to admit him in the 
 line. 
 
 Owen's heart beat almost to bursting, as he found 
 himself so close to Mary ; and all his former impatience 
 tojustify himself, and to speak to her, fled in the happi- 
 ness he now enjoyed. ISTo devotee ever regarded the 
 relic of a saint with more trembling ecstasy than did he 
 the folds of that heavy mantle that fell at his knees ; 
 he touched it as men would do a sacred thing. The 
 live-long day he followed her, visiting in turn each shrine 
 and holy spot; and ever, as he was ready to speak to 
 her, some fear that, by a word, he might dispel the
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 425 
 
 dream of bliss he revelled in, stopped him, and he was 
 silent. 
 
 It was as the evening drew near, and the pilgrims wei"e 
 turning towards the lake, beside which, at a small thorn- 
 tree, the last " station " of all was pei'formed, that an old 
 beggar, whose importunity suffered none to escape, 
 blocked up the path and prevented Mary from proceeding 
 until she had given him something. All her money had 
 been long since bestowed ; and she said so, hurriedly, and 
 endeavoured to move forward. 
 
 " Let Owen Connor behind you, give it, acushla ! He's 
 rich now, aud can well afford it," said the cripple. 
 
 She turned round at the words; the action was involun- 
 tary, and their eyes met. There are glances which revenl 
 the whole secret of a lifetime ; there are looks which 
 dwell in the heart longer and deeper than words. Their 
 eyes met for merely a few seconds ; and while in her 
 face offended pride was depicted, poor Owen's sorrow- 
 struck and broken aspect spoke of long suffering and 
 grief so powerfully, that, ere she turned away, her heart 
 had half forgiven him. 
 
 " You wrong me hardly, Mary," said he, in a low, 
 broken voice, as the train moved on. " The Lord, he 
 knows my heart this blessed day ! loafer noster qui es in 
 coelis ! " added he, louder, as he perceived that his imme- 
 diate follower had ceased his prayers to listen to him. 
 " He knows that I'd rather live and died the poorest — 
 IBeneficat tuum nomen!^^ cried he, louder. And then, 
 turning abruptly, said, — 
 
 " Av it's plazing to you, sir, don't be trampin' on my 
 heels. I can't mind my devotions, an' one so near me." 
 
 " It's not so unconvaynient, maybe, when they're afore 
 you," muttered the old fellow, with a grin of sly malice. 
 And though Owen overheard the taunt, he felt no inclina- 
 tion to notice it. 
 
 " Four long years I've loved ye, Mary Joyce ; and the 
 sorra more encouragement I ever got nor the smile ye 
 used to give me. And if ye take that from me, now — 
 Are ye listening to me, Mary ? do ye hear me, asthore ? 
 — Bad scran to ye, ye old varmint ! why don't ye keep 
 behind ? How is a man to save his sowl, an' you making 
 him blasphame every minit ? "
 
 426 ST. PATraciv's eve. 
 
 " I was only listenin' to that iligant prayer ye were 
 saying," said the old fellow, dryly. 
 
 " "lis betther you'd mind your own, then," said Owen, 
 fiercely ; " or, by the blessed day, I'll teach ye a new 
 penance ye never heerd of afore !" 
 
 The man dropped back, frightened at the sudden deter- 
 mination these words were uttered in ; and Owen resumed 
 his place. 
 
 " I may never see ye again, Mary. 'Tis the last time 
 you'll hear me spake to you. I'll lave the ould man. 
 God look to him ! I'll lave him now, and go be a sodger. 
 Here we are now, coming to this holy well ; and I'll swear 
 an oath before the Queen of Heaven, that before this time 
 to-morrow " 
 
 " How is one to mind their prayers at all, Owen Connor, 
 if ye be talking to yourself, so loud?" said Mary, in a 
 whisper, but one which lost not a syllable, as it fell on 
 Owen's ear. 
 
 " My own sweet darling, the light of my eyes, ye are ! " 
 cried he, as with clasped hands he muttered blessings 
 upon her head ; and with such vehemence of gesture, and 
 such unfeigned signs of rapture, as to evoke remarks from 
 some beggars near, highly laudatory of his zeal. 
 
 " Look at the fine young man there, prayin' wid all his 
 might. Ayeh, the saints give ye the benefit of your pil- 
 grimage ! " 
 
 " Musha ! but ye'r a credit to the station ; ye put ycr 
 sowl in it, anyhow!" said an old Jezebel, whose hard 
 features seemed to defy emotion. 
 
 Owen looked up ; and directly in front of him, with his 
 back against a tree, and his arms crossed on his breast, 
 stood Phil Joyce ; his brow was dark with passion, and 
 his eyes glai-ed like those of a maniac. A cold thrill ran 
 through Owen's heart, lest the anger thus displayed should 
 fall on Maiy ; for he well knew with what tyranny the 
 poor girl was ti^eated. He therefore took the moment of 
 the pilgrims' approach to the holy tree, to move from his 
 place, and, by a slightly circuitous path, came up to where 
 Joyce was standing. 
 
 " I've a word for you, Phil Joyce," said he, in a low 
 voice, where eveiy trace of emotion was carefully subdued. 
 " Can I spake to you here ?"
 
 THE SECOND ERA, 427 
 
 Owen's wan and sickly aspect, if ifc did not shock, it at 
 least astonished Joyce, for he looked at him for some 
 seconds without speaking ; then said, half rudely, — 
 
 "Ay, here will do as well as anywhere, since ye didn't 
 like to say it yesterday." 
 
 Thei"e was no mistaking this taunt ; the sneer on 
 Owen's want of courage was too plain to be miscon- 
 strued ; and although for a moment he looked as if disposed 
 to resent it, he merely shook his head mournfully, and 
 replied : '' It is not about that I came to speak ; it's about 
 your sister, Mary Joyce." 
 
 Phil turned upon him a stare of amazement, as quickly 
 followed by a laugh, whose insulting mockery made Owen's 
 cheek crimson with shame. 
 
 "True enough, Phil Joyce; I know your meanin' 
 well," said he, with an immense effort to subdue his 
 passion. " I'm a poor cottier, wid a bit of mountau land 
 — sorra more — and has no right to look up to one like her. 
 But listen to me, Phil," and here he grasped his arm, and 
 spoke with a thick guttui-al accent : " Listen to me ! Av 
 the girl wasn't what she is, but only your sister, I'd scorn 
 her as I do yourself;" and, with that, he pushed him from 
 him with a force that made him stagger. Before he had 
 well recovered, Owen was again at his side, and con- 
 tinued : — " And now, one word more, and all's ended 
 between us. For you, and your likings or mislikings, I 
 never cared a rush ; but 'tis Mary herself refused me, so 
 there's no more about it ; only don't be wreaking your 
 temper on her, for she has no fault in it !" 
 
 " Av a sister of mine ever bestowed a thought on the 
 likes o' ye, I'd give her the outside of the door this night," 
 said Joyce, whose courage now rose from seeing sevei*al 
 of his faction attracted to the spot, by observing that he 
 and Connor were conversing. "'Tis a disgrace — divil a 
 less than a disgrace to spake of it ! " 
 
 "Well, we won't do so any more, plaze God!" said 
 Owen, with a smile of very fearful meaning. " It will be 
 another little matter we'll have to settle when we meet 
 next. Tbei'e's a score there not paid off j-et ;" and at the 
 word he lifted his hat, and disclosed the deep mark of the 
 scarce-closed gash on his forehead : " and so, good-bye 
 to ye."
 
 428 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 A rude nod from Phil Joyce was all the reply, and Owen 
 turned homewards. 
 
 If prosperity could suggest the frame of mind to enjoy 
 it, the rich would always be happy ; but such is not the 
 dispensation of Providence. Acquisition is but a stage on 
 the I'oad of ambition ; it lightens the way, but brings the 
 goal no nearer. Owen never returned to his mountain- 
 home with a sadder heart. He passed without regarding 
 them, the little fields, now green with the coming spring; 
 he bestowed no look nor thought upon the herds that 
 already speckled the mountain-side ; disappointment had 
 embittered his spirit ; and even love itself now gave 
 way to faction hate, the old and cherished animosity of 
 party. 
 
 If the war of rival factions did not originally spring 
 from the personal quarrels of men of rank and station, 
 who stimulated their followers and adherents to acts of 
 aggression and reprisal, it assuredly was perpetuated, if 
 not with their concurrence, at least permission; and many 
 were not ashamed to avow, that in these savage encounters 
 the " bad blood " of the country was " let out " at less cost 
 and trouble than by any other means. When legal pro- 
 ceedings were recurred to, the landlord, in his capacity 
 of magistrate, maintained the cause of his tenants ; and, 
 however disposed to lean heavily on them himself, in the 
 true spirit of tyranny he opposed pressure from any other 
 hand than his own. The people were grateful for this 
 advocacy — far more, indeed than they often proved for 
 less questionable kindness. They regarded the law with 
 so much dread — they awaited its decisions with such un- 
 certainty — that he who would conduct them through its 
 mazes was indeed a friend. But was the administration 
 of justice, some forty or fifty years back in Ireland, such 
 as to excite or justify other sentiments ? Was it not this 
 tampering with right and wrong, this recurrence to patron- 
 age, that made legal redress seem an act of meanness and 
 cowardice among the people ? No cause was decided upon 
 its own merits. The influence of the great man — the 
 interest he was disposed to take in the case — the momen- 
 tary condition of county politics — with the general char- 
 acter of the individuals at issue, usually determined the 
 matter ; and it could scarcely be expected that a triumph
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 429 
 
 tlius obtained should have exercised any peaceful sway 
 among the people. 
 
 "He wouldn't be so bould to-day, a v his landlord wasn't 
 to the fore," was Owen Connor's oft-repeated reflection, 
 as he ascended the narrow pathway towards his cabin ; 
 " 'tis the good backing makes us brave, God help us !" 
 From that hour forward the gay light-hearted peasant 
 became dark, moody, and depressed ; the veiy circum- 
 stances which might be supposed calculated to have 
 suggested a happier frame of mind, only increased and 
 embittered his gloom. His prosperity made daily labour 
 no longer a necessity. Industry, it is true, would have 
 brought more comforts about him, and surrounded him 
 with more appliances of enjoyment ; but long habits of 
 endurance had made him easily satisfied on this score, 
 and there were no examples for his imitation which should 
 make him strive for better. So far, then, from the land- 
 lord's benevolence working for good, its operation was 
 directly the reverse ; his leniency had indeed taken away 
 the hardship of a difficult and onei'ous payment, but the 
 relief suggested no desire for an equivalent amelioration 
 of condition. The first pleasurable emotions of grati- 
 tude over, they soon recurred to the old customs in 
 everything, and gradually fell back into all the ob- 
 servances of their former state, the only difference 
 being, that less exertion on their parts was now called 
 for than before. 
 
 Had the landlord been a resident on his property — 
 acquainting himself daily and hourly with the condition 
 of his tenants — holding up examples for their imitation — 
 rewarding the deserving — discountenancing the unworthy 
 — extending the benefits of education among the young, 
 and fostei'ing habits of order and good conduct among all, 
 Owen would have striven among the first for a place of 
 credit and honour, and speedily have distinguished him- 
 self above his equals. But, alas ! no ; Mi% Leslie, when 
 not abroad, lived in England. Of his Irish estates he 
 knew nothing, save through the half-yearly accounts of 
 his agent. He was conscious of excellent intentions ; he 
 was a kind, even a benevolent man ; and in the society 
 of his set, remarkable for more than ordinary sympathies 
 with the poor. To have ventured on any retiectiou on a
 
 430 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 landlord before him, would have beeu deemed a down- 
 right absurdity. 
 
 He was a living refutation of all such calumnies ; yet 
 how was it that, in the district he owned, the misery of 
 the people was a thing to shudder at? Ihat there were 
 hovels excavated in the bogs, within which human beings 
 lingered on between life and death, their existence like 
 some terrible passage in a dream ? that beneatli these 
 frail roofs famine and fever dwelt, until suffering, and 
 starvation itself, had ceased to prey upon minds on which 
 no ray of hope ever shone? Simply, he did not know 
 of these things ; he saw them not ; he never heard of 
 them. He was aware that seasons of unusual distress 
 occurred, and that a more than ordinary degree of v/ant 
 was experienced by a failure of the potato crop ; but on 
 these occasions he read his name, with a subsci'iption of a 
 hundred pounds annexed, and was not that a receipt in 
 full for all the claims of conscience ? He ran his eyes 
 over a list in which royal and princely titles figured, and 
 he expressed himself grateful for so much sympathy with 
 Ireland ! But did he ask himself the question, whether 
 if he had resided among his people, such necessities for 
 alms-giving had ever arisen ? Did he inquire how far his 
 own desertion of his tenantry — his ignorance of their 
 state — his indifference to their condition — had fostered 
 these growing evils ? Could he acquit himself of the 
 guilt of deriving all the appliances of his ease and enjoy- 
 ment, from those whose struggles to supply them were 
 made under the pressure of disease and hunger ? Was 
 unconsciousness of all this an excuse sufficient to stifle 
 remorse ? Oh, it is not the moneyed wealth dispensed by 
 the resident great man; it is not the stream of affluence, 
 flowing in its thousand tiny rills, and fertilising as it goes, 
 we want. It is far more the kindly influence of those 
 virtues which find their congenial soil in easy circum- 
 stances ; benevolence, sympathy, succour in sickness, 
 friendly counsel in distress, timely aid in trouble, 
 encouragement to the faint-hearted, caution to the over- 
 eager : these ai*e gilts, which, giving, make the bestovver 
 richer ; and these are the benefits which, better than gold, 
 ibster the charities of life among a people, and bind \ip 
 the human family in a holy and iudisssuluble league. No
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 431 
 
 benevolence from afar, no well -svisbiugs from distant 
 lands, compensate for the want of them. To neglect such 
 duties is to fail in the gTcat social compact by which the 
 rich and poor are united, and, what some may deem of 
 more moment still, to resign the rightful influence of 
 property into the hands of dangerous and designing men. 
 
 It is in vain to suppose that traditionary deservings will 
 elicit gratitude when the present generation are neglect- 
 ful. On the contrary, the comparison of the once 
 resident, now absent landlord, excites very different feel- 
 ings ; the murmurings of discontent swell into the louder 
 language of menace ; and evils, over which no protective 
 power of human origin could avail, are ascribed to that 
 class, who. forgetful of one great duty, are now accused 
 of causing every calamity. If not present to exercise the 
 duties their position demands, their absence exaggerates 
 every accusation against them ; and from the very men, 
 too, who have, by the fact of their desertion, succeeded in 
 obtaining the influence that should be theirs. 
 
 Owen felt this desertion sorely. Had Mr. Leslie been 
 at home, he would at once have had recourse to him. 
 Mr. French, the agent, lived on the property — but Mr. 
 French was " a hard man," and never liked the Connors ; 
 indeed, he never forgave them for not relinquishing the 
 mountain-farm they held, in exchange for another he 
 offered them, as he was anxious to preserve the mountain 
 for his own shooting. At the time we speak of, intem- 
 perance was an Irish vice, and one which prevailed largely. 
 Whisky entered into every circumstance and relation of 
 life. It cemented friendships and ratified contracts ; ifc 
 celebrated the birth of the newly-born ; it consoled the 
 weeping relatives over the grave of the departed ; it Avas 
 a welcome and a bond of kindness, and as the stirruj?- 
 cup, was the last pledge at parting. Men commemorated 
 their prosperity by drink, and none dared to face gloomy 
 fortune without it. Owen Connor had recourse to it, as 
 to a friend that never betrayed. The easy circumstances, 
 in comparison with many ofcherc, he enjoyed, left him 
 both means and leisure for such a course ; and few days 
 passed without his paying a visit to the " shebeen-house" 
 of the village. If the old man noticed tliis new liabit, 
 his old prejudices were too strong to make him prompt
 
 432 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 in coiiLlemiiing ifc. Indeed, he rather regarded it ns a 
 natural consequence of their bettered fortune, that Owen 
 should frequent these places ; and as he never returned 
 actually drunk, and always brought back with him the 
 current rumours of the day, as gathered from news- 
 papers and passing gossip, his father relied on such 
 scraps of information for his evening's amusement over 
 the fire. 
 
 It was somewhat later than usual that Owen was re- 
 turning home one night, and the old man, anxious and 
 uneasy at his absence, had wandered part of the way to 
 meet him, when he saw him coming slowly forward, with 
 that heavy weariness of step deep grief and pre-occupa- 
 tion inspire. When the young man had come within 
 speaking distance of his father, he halted suddenly, and 
 looking up at him, exclaimed, " There's sorrowful news 
 for ye to-night, father! " 
 
 " I knew it! I knew it well ! " said the old man, as he 
 clasped his hands before him, and seemed preparing him- 
 self to bear the shock with courage. " I had a dhrame of 
 it last night ; and 'tis death, wherever it is." 
 
 " You're i-ight there. The master's dead ! " 
 
 Not another word was spoken by neither, as side by side 
 they slowly ascended the mountain-path. It was only 
 when seated at the fireside that Owen regained sufficient 
 collectedness to detail the particulars he had learned in 
 the village. Mr. Leslie had died of the cholera at Paris. 
 The malady had just broken out in that city, and he was 
 among its earliest victims. The terrors which that dread- 
 ful pestilence inspired, reached every remote part of 
 Europe, and at last, with all the aggravated horrors of its 
 devastating career, swept across Ireland. The same letter 
 which brought the tidings of Mr. Leslie's death, was the 
 first intelligence of the plague. A scourge so awful 
 needed not the fears of the ignorant to exaggerate its 
 terrors ; yet men seemed to vie with each other in their 
 dreadful conjectures regarding it. 
 
 All the sad interest the landlord's sudden death would 
 hav^e occasioned under other circumstances was merged in 
 the fearful malady of which he died. Men heard with 
 almost apathy of the events that were announced as likely 
 to succeed in the management of the property; and only
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 433 
 
 listened witli eagerness if the pestilence were mentioned. 
 Already its arrival in England was declared; and the last 
 lingering hope of the devotee was, that the holy island of 
 St. Pati-ick might escape its ravages. Few cared to hear 
 what a few weeks back had been welcome news — that the 
 old agent was to be dismissed, and a new one appointed. 
 The speculations which once would have been rife enough, 
 were now silent. There was but one terrible topic in 
 every heart and on every tongue — the cholera. 
 
 The inhabitants of great cities, with wide sources of 
 infonnation available, and free conversation with each 
 other, can scarcely estimate the additional degree of terror 
 the prospect of a dreadful epidemic inspires among the 
 dwellers in unfrequented rural districts. The cloud, not 
 bigofer than a man's hand at first, gradually expands itself, 
 until the whole surface of earth is darkened by its shadow. 
 The business of life stands still ; the care for the morrow 
 is lost; the pi'oneness to indulge in the gloomiest antici- 
 pations common calamity invariably suggests, heightens 
 the real evil, and disease finds its victims more than 
 doomed at its first approach. In this state of agonizing 
 suspense, when rumours arose to be contradicted, reas- 
 serted, and again disproved, came the tidings that the 
 cholera was in Dublin. The same week it had broken out 
 in many other places ; at last the report went, that a poor 
 man, who had gone into the market of Galway to sell his 
 turf, was found dead on the steps of the chapel. Then, 
 followed the whole array of precautionary measures, and 
 advices, and boards of health. Then, it was announced 
 the plague was raging fearfully — the hospitals crowded — 
 death in every street. 
 
 Terrible and appalling as these tidings were, the fearful 
 fact never realized itself in the little district we speak of, 
 until a death occui'red in the town close by. He was a 
 shopkeeper in Oughterarde, and known to the whole 
 neighbourhood. This solitary instance brought with it 
 more of dreadful meaning than all the shock of distant 
 calamity. The heart-rending wail of those Avho listened 
 to the news smote many more with the cold tremor of 
 coming death. Another case soon iollovi'ed, a third, and 
 a fourth succeeded, all fatal ; and the disease was among 
 them, 
 
 F F
 
 434 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 It is only when a malady, generally fatal, is associated 
 with the terrors of contagion, that the measure of horror 
 and dread flows over. When the sympathy which suffer- 
 ing sickness calls for is yielded in a spirit of almost 
 despair, and the ministerings to the dying are but the 
 prelude to the same state, then iudeed death is armed 
 with all his terrors. No people are more remarkable for 
 the charities of the sick-bed than the poor Irish. It is 
 with them less a sentiment than a religious instinct; and 
 though they watched the course of the pestilence, and 
 saw few, if any, escape death who took it, their devotion 
 never failed them. They practised with such skill as they 
 possessed, every remedy in turn. They, who trembled 
 but an hour before at the word when spoken, faced the 
 danger itself with a bold heart; and while the insidious 
 signs of the disease were already upon them — while their 
 wearied limbs and clammy hands bespoke that their own 
 hour was come, they did not desist from their good ofiices, 
 until past the power to render them. 
 
 It was spring-time, the season more than usually mild, 
 the prospects of the year were already favourable, and all 
 the signs of abundance rife in the land. What a contrast 
 the scene without to that presented by the interior oi 
 each dwelling ! There, death and dismay were met with 
 at every step. The old man and the infant prostrated by 
 the same stroke ; the strong and vigorous youth who 
 went forth to labour in the morning — at noon, a feeble, 
 broken-spirited creature — at sunset, a corpse. 
 
 As the minds and temperaments of men were fashioned, 
 so did fear operate upon them. Some, it made reckless 
 and desperate, careless of what should happen, and 
 indifferent to every measure of precaution ; some, became 
 paralysed Avith fear, and seemed unable to make an effort 
 for safety, were it even attainable ; others, cxaggor-ating 
 every care and caution, lived a life of unceasing terror 
 and anxiety ; while a few — they were unfortunately a very 
 few — summoned courage to meet the danger in a spirit 
 of calm and resolute determination ; while in their 
 reformed liabits it might be seen how thoroughly they 
 felt that their own hour might be a brief one. Among 
 these was Owen Connor. From the day the malady 
 appeared in the neighbourhood, he never entered tho
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 435 
 
 public-tiouse of the village, but devoting himself to the 
 work of kindness the emergency called for, went from 
 cabin to cabin rendering every service in his power. The 
 poorest depended on hira for the supply of such little 
 comforts as they possessed, for at every market-day he 
 sold a sheep or a lamb to provide them ; the better-off 
 looked to him for advice and counsel, following his direc- 
 tions as implicitly as though he were a physician of great 
 skill. All recognized his devotedness in their cause, 
 and his very name was a talisman for courage in every 
 humble cabin around. His little ass-cart, the only wheeled 
 vehicle that ever ascended the mountain where he lived, 
 was seen each morning- moving from door to door, while 
 Owen brought either some small purchase he was com- 
 missioned to make at Oughterarde, or left with the more 
 humble some offering of his own benevolence, 
 
 " There's the salt ye bid me buy, Mary Cooney ; and 
 here's fourpence out of it — do ye all be well, still?" 
 "We are, and thank ye, Owen." 
 " The Lord keep ye so ! How's Ned Daly ? " 
 " He's off, Owen dear ; his brother James is making the 
 coffin ; poor boy, he looks very weak himself this morning." 
 The cart moved on, and at length stopped at a small 
 hovel built against the side of a clay ditch. It was a 
 mere assemblage of wet sods with, the grass still growing, 
 and covered by some branches of trees and loose straw 
 over them. Owen halted the ass at the opening of the 
 miserable den, through which the smoke now issued, and 
 at the same moment a man, stooping double to permit 
 him to pass out into the open air, came forward : he was 
 apparently about fifty years of age — his real age was not 
 thii-ty; originally a well-formed and stout-built fellow, 
 starvation and want had made him a mere skeleton. His 
 clothes were, a raf^ged coat, which he wore next his skin, 
 for shirt he had none, and a pair of worn corduroy trousers ; 
 he had neither hat, shoes, nor stockings ; but still, all 
 these signs of destitution were nothing in comparison 
 with the misery displayed in his countenance. Except 
 that his lip trembled with a convulsive shiver, not a feature 
 moved — the cheeks were livid and flattened — the dull 
 gray eyes had lost all the light of intelligence, and stared 
 vacantly before him. 
 
 F F 2
 
 436 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 " Well, Martin, how is she?" 
 
 "I don't know, Owen, dear," said he, in a faltering 
 voice ; " maybe 'tis sleeping she is." 
 
 Owen followed him within the hut, and stooping down 
 to the fire, lighted a piece of bogwood to enable him to 
 see. On the ground, covered only by a ragged frieze 
 coat, lay a young woman quite dead : her arm, emaciated 
 and livid, was wrapped round a little child of about 
 three years old, still sleeping on the cold bosom of ita 
 mother. 
 
 " You must take little Patsy away," said Owen in a 
 whisper, as he lifted the boy in his arms; "s/ze's happy 
 now." 
 
 The young man fell upon his knees and kissed the 
 corpse, but spoke not a word ; grief had stupified hia 
 senses, and he was like one but half awake. " Come with 
 me, Martin; come with me, and I'll settle everything for 
 you." He obeyed mechanically, and before quitting the 
 cabin, placed some turf upon the fire, as he was wont to 
 do. The action was a simple one, but it brought the 
 tears into Owen's eyes. " I'll take care of Patsy for you 
 till you want him. He's fond of me of ould, and won't be 
 lonesome with me ; " and Owen wrapped the child in his 
 greatcoat, and moved forwards. 
 
 When they had advanced a few paces, Martin stopped 
 suddenly and muttered, " She has nothing to drink ! " 
 and then, as if remembering vaguely what had happened, 
 added, " It's a long sleep, Ellen dear ! " 
 
 Owen gave the directions for the funeral, and leaving 
 poor Mai'tin in the house of one of the cottiers near, 
 where he sat down beside the hearth, and never uttered 
 a word ; he went on his way, with little Patsy still asleep 
 within his arms. 
 
 "Where are you going, Peggy? " asked Owen, as an 
 old lame woman moved past as rapidly as her infirmity 
 would permit: " you're in a hurry this morning." 
 
 " So I am, Owen Connor — these is the busy times wid 
 mo — I streaked five to-day, early as it is, and I'm going 
 now over to Phil Joyce's. What's the matter wid your- 
 self, Owen ? sit down, avich, and taste this." 
 
 " What's wrong at Phil's ? " asked Owen, with a chok- 
 ing fulness in his throat.
 
 THE SECO^D ERA. 437 
 
 "It's the little brother he has; Billy's got it, they 
 say." 
 
 " Is Mary Joyce well — did ye hear ? " 
 
 "Errah! she's "well enough now, bat she may be low 
 before night," muttered the crone ; while she added, with. 
 a fiendish laugh, " her purty faytures won't save her now, 
 no more nor the rest of us." 
 
 " There's a bottle of port wine, Peggy ; take it with 
 ye, dear. 'Tis the finest thing at all, I'm tould, for 
 keeping it off" — get Mary to take a glass of it ; but mind 
 now, for the love o' ye, never say it was me gav it. 
 There's bad blood between the Joyces and me, ye under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Ay, ay, I know well enough," said the hag, clutching 
 the bottle eagerly, while opening a gate on the roadside, 
 she hobbled on her way towards Phil Joyce's cabin. 
 
 It was near evening as Owen was enabled to turn 
 homewards ; for besides having a great many places to 
 visit, he was obliged to stop twice to get poor Patsy 
 something to eat, the little fellow being almost in a 
 state of starvation. At length he faced towards the 
 mountain, and with a sad heart and weary step plodded 
 along. 
 
 " Is poor Ellen buried ? " said he, as he passed the 
 carpenter's door, where the coffin had been ordered. 
 
 " She's just laid in the mould — awhile ago." 
 
 " I hope Martin bears up better ; — did you see him 
 lately?" 
 
 " This is for him," said the carpenter, striking a board 
 with his hammer ; " he's at peace now." 
 
 " Martin ! sure he's not dead ? — Martin Neale, I 
 mean." 
 
 " So do I too ; he had it on him since morning, they 
 say; but he just slipped away without a word or a 
 moan." 
 
 " God, be good to us, but the times is dreadful ! " 
 ejaculated Owen. 
 
 " Some says it's the ind of the world's comin'," said 
 an old man, that sat moving his stick listlessly among 
 the shavings ; " and 'twould be well for most of us it 
 was, too." 
 
 " Thrue for you, Billy ; there's no help for the poor."
 
 438 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 No sentiment could meet more genei'al acceptance 
 than this — none less likely to provoke denial. Thrown 
 upon each other for acts of kindness and benevolence, 
 they felt from how narrow a store each contributed to 
 another's wants, and knew w^ell all the privations that 
 charity like this necessitated, at the same time that they 
 felt themselves deserted by those whose generosity might 
 have been exercised without sacrificing a single enjoyment, 
 or interfering with the pursuit of any accustomed pleasure. 
 
 There is no more common theme than the ingratitude 
 of the poor — their selfishness and hard-heartedness ; and 
 unquestionably a life of poverty is but an indiff'erent 
 teacher of fine feelings or gentle emotions. The dreary 
 monotony of their daily lives, the unvarying sameness of 
 the life-long struggle between labour and want, are little 
 suggestive of any other spirit than a dark and brooding 
 melancholy : and it were well, besides, to ask, if they 
 ■who call themselves benefactors have been really generous, 
 and not merely just ? We speak more particularly of the 
 relations which exist between the owner of the land and 
 those who till it ; and where benevolence is a duty, and 
 not a virtue depending on the will : not that they in 
 v^hose behalf it is ever exercised, regard it in this light — 
 very far from it ! Their thankfulness for benefits is 
 generally most disproportioned to their extent ; but we 
 are dissatisfied because our charity has not changed the 
 whole current of their fortunes, and that the favours 
 which cost us so little to bestow, should not become the 
 ruling principle of their lives. 
 
 Owen reflected deeply on these things as he ascended 
 the mountain-road. The orphan child he carried in his 
 ai'ms pressed such thoughts upon him, and he wondered 
 why rich men denied themselves the pleasures of benevo- 
 lence. He did not know that many great men enjoyed 
 the happiness, but that it was made conformable to their 
 high estate by institutions and establishments ; by boards, 
 and committees, and guardians ; by all the pomp and 
 circumstance of stuccoed buildings and liveried atten- 
 dants. That to save themselves the burden of memory, 
 their good deeds were chronicled in lists of " founders " 
 and " life-subscribers," and their names set forth in news- 
 papers J while, to protect their finer natures from the 
 
 \
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 439 
 
 rude assaults of actual misery, they deputed others to be 
 the stewards of then' bounty, 
 
 Owen did not know all this, or he had doubtless been 
 less unjust regarding such persons. Ho never so much 
 as heard of the pains that are taken to ward off the very 
 sight of poverty, and all the appliances employed to ex- 
 clude suffering from the gaze of the wealthy. All his 
 little experience told him was, how much of good miglit 
 be done within the sphere ai'ound him by one possessed 
 of affluence. There was not a cabin around where he 
 could not point to some object claiming aid or assistance. 
 Even in seasons of comparative comfort and abundance, 
 what a deal of misery still existed ; and what a blessing 
 it would bring on him wlio sought it out, to compassionate 
 and relieve it ! So Owen thought, and so he felt too ; 
 not the less strongly that another heai-t then beat against 
 his own, the little pulses sending a gush of wild delight 
 through his bosom as he revelled in the ecstasy of bene- 
 volence. The child awoke, and looked wildly about him ; 
 but when he recognized in whose arms he was, he smiled 
 happily, and cried, " Nony, Nony," the name by which 
 Owen was known among all the children of the village 
 and its neighbourhood. 
 
 "Yes, Patsy," said Owen, kissing him, "your own 
 K^ony ! you're coming home with him to see what a nice 
 house he has upon the mountain for you, and the purty 
 lake near it, and the fish swimming in it." 
 
 The little fellow clapped his hands with glee, and 
 seemed delighted at all he heard. 
 
 " Poor darlin'," muttered Owen sorrowfully ; " he 
 doesn't know 'tis the sad day for him ; " and as he spoke, 
 the wind from the valley bore on it the mournful cadence 
 of a death-cry, as a funeral moved along- the road. '' His 
 father's berrin' ! " added he. "God help us! how fast 
 misfortune does be overtaking us at the time our heart's 
 happiest ! It will be many a day before he knows all 
 this morning cost him." 
 
 The little child meanwhile caught the sounds, and 
 starting up in Owen's arms, he strained his eyes to watch 
 the funeral procession as it slowly passed on. Owen 
 held him up for a few seconds to see it, and wiped the 
 large tears that started to his own eyes. " Maybe Martin
 
 440 ST» Patrick's eve. 
 
 and poor Ellen's looking down on us now ! " and wlili that 
 he laid the little boy back in his arms and plodded forward. 
 
 It was but seldom that Owen Connor ascended tliafc 
 steep way without halting to look down on the wide 
 valley, and the lake, and the distant mountains beyond 
 it. The scene was one of which he never wearied ; in- 
 deed, its familiarity had charms for him greater and 
 higher than mere picturesque beauty can bestow. Each 
 humble cabin with its little family was known to him ; 
 he was well read in the story of their lives ; he had 
 mingled in all their hopes and fears from childhood to 
 old age : and, as the lights trembled through the dark 
 night and sjiangled the broad expanse, he could bi'ing 
 before his mind's eye the humble hearths round Avhich 
 they sat, and think he almost heard their voices. Now, 
 he heeded not these things, but steadily bent his steps 
 towards home. 
 
 At last, the twinkle of a star-like light showed that he 
 was near his journey's end. It shone from the deep 
 shadow of a little glen, in which his cabin stood. The 
 seclusion of the spot was in Owen's eyes its greatest 
 charm. Like all men who have lived much alone, he 
 set no common store by the pleasures of solitude, and 
 fancied that most if not all of his happiness was derived 
 from this source. At this moment his gratitude was 
 more than usual, as he muttered to himself, "Thank God 
 for it ! we've a snug little place away from the sickness, 
 and no house near us at all ; " and with this comforting 
 reflection he drew near the cabin. The door, contrary 
 to custom at nightl'all, lay open ; and Owen, painfully 
 alive to any suspicious sign, from the state of anxiety his 
 mind had suffered, entered hastily. 
 
 "Father! where arc you?" said he quickly, not seeing 
 the old man in his accustomed place beside the fire ; but 
 there was no answer. Laying the child down, Owen 
 passed into the little chamber which served as the old 
 man's bed-room, and where now he lay stretched upon 
 the bed in his clothes, "Are ye sick, father? What ails 
 ye, father dear ? " asked the young man, as he took his hand 
 in his own. 
 
 " I'm glad ye've come at last, Owen," replied his father, 
 feebly. "I've got the sickness, and am going fast."
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 441 
 
 *' 1^0 — no, father ! don't be down-heavtecl ! " cried 
 Owen, with a desperate effort to suggest the courage ho 
 did not feel; for the touch of the cold wet hand had 
 already told him the sad secret. 'Tis a turn ye have." 
 
 " Well, maybe so," said he, with a sigh ; " but there's 
 a cowld feeling about my heart I never knew afore. Get 
 me a warm drink, anyway.'* 
 
 While Owen prepared some cordial from the little 
 store he usually dispensed among the people, his father 
 told him that a boy from a sick house had called at the 
 cabin that morning to seek for Owen, and from him, in 
 all likelihood, he must have caught the malady. "I 
 remember," said the old man, " that he was quite dark 
 in the skin, and was weak in his limbs as he walked." 
 
 " Ayeh ! " muttered Owen, " av it was the ' disease ' he 
 had, sorra bit of this mountain he'd ever get up. The 
 strongest men can't lift a cup of wather to their lips, 
 when it's on them ; but there's a gi'eat scarcity in the 
 glen, and maybe the boy ate nothing before he set out." 
 
 Although Owen's explanation was the correct one, it 
 did not satisfy the old man's mind, who, besides feeling 
 convinced of his having the malady, could not credit his 
 taking it by other means than contagion. Owen never 
 quitted his side, and multiplied cares and attentions of 
 every kind ; but it was plain the disease was gaining 
 ground, for ere midnight the old man's strength was 
 greatly gone, and his voice sunk to a mere whisper. Yet 
 the malady was characterized by none of the symptoms 
 of the prevailing epidemic, save slight cramps, of which 
 from time to time he complained. His case seemed one 
 of utter exhaustion. His mind was clear and calm ; and 
 although unable to speak, except in short and broken sen- 
 tences, no trait of wandering intellect appeared. His 
 malady was a common one among those whose fears, 
 greatly excited by the disease, usually induced symptoms 
 of prostration and debility as great, if not as rapid, as 
 those of actual cholera. Meanwhile, his thoughts were 
 alternately turning from his own condition to that of the 
 people in the glen, for whom he felt the deepest compas- 
 sion. " God help them ! " was his constant expression. 
 "Sickness is the soi^e thing; but starvation makes it 
 dreadful. And so Luke Clancy's dead ! Poor ould Luke
 
 442 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 lie was seventy-one in Michaelmas. And Martin, too ! lie 
 was a fine man." 
 
 The old man slept, or seemed to sleep, for some hours, 
 and on waking it was clear daylight. " Owen, dear ! I 
 wish," said he, "I could see the priest; but you mustn't 
 lave me; I couldn't bear that now." 
 
 Poor Owen's thoughts were that moment occupied on 
 the same subject, and be was torturing himself to think 
 of any means of obtaining Father John's assistance, 
 without being obliged to go for him himself." 
 
 " I'll go, and be back here in an hour — ay, or less," 
 said he, eagerly ; for terrible as death was to him, the 
 thought of seeing his father die unanointed, was still 
 more so. 
 
 " In an hour — where'll I be in an hour, Owen dear ? 
 the blessed Virgin knows well, it wasn't my fault — I'd 
 have the priest av I could — and sure, Owen, you'll not 
 begrudge me masses, when I'm gone. What's that ? 
 It's like a child crying out there ? " 
 
 " 'Tis poor Martin's little boy I took home with me — 
 he's lost father and mother this day ; " and so saying, 
 Owen hastened to see what ailed the child. " Yer sarvent, 
 sir," said Owen, as he perceived a stout-built, coarse- 
 looking man, with a bull-terrier at his heels, standing in 
 the middle of the floor. " Ter sarvent, sir. Who do ye 
 want hei'e ? " 
 
 " Are you Owen Connor ? " said the man, gruffly. 
 
 " That same," replied Owen, as sturdily. 
 
 " Then this is notice for you to come up to Mr. Lucas's 
 office in Gahvay before the twenty-fifth, with your rent, or 
 the receipt for it, whichever you like best." 
 
 "And who is Mr. Lucas when he's at home?" said 
 Owen, half-sneeringly. 
 
 " You'll know him when you see him," rejoined the 
 other, turning to leave the cabin, as he threw a printed 
 paper on the dresser; and then, as if thinking he had 
 not been formal enough in his mission, added, " Mr. Lucas 
 is agent to your landlord, Mr. Leslie ; and I'll give you a 
 bit of advice : keep a civil tongue in your head with him, 
 and it will do you no harm." 
 
 This counsel, delivered much more in a tone of menace 
 than of friendly advice, concluded the interview, for,
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 443 
 
 Laving spoken, the fellow left the cabin, and began to 
 descend the mountain. 
 
 Owen's heart swelled fiei'cely — a flood of conflicting 
 emotions were warring within it ; and as he turned to 
 throw the paper into the fire, his eye caught the date, 
 16th March. " St. Patrick's Eve, the very day I saved 
 his life," said he bitterly. " Sure I knew well enough 
 how it would be when the landlord died ! Well, well, if 
 my poor ould father doesn't know it, it's no matter. 
 Well, Patsy, acushla, what are ye crying for? There, my 
 boy, don't be afeard, 'tie Nony's with ye." 
 
 The accents so kindly uttered quieted the little fellow 
 in a moment, and in a few minutes after he was again 
 asleep in the old straw chair beside the fire. Brief as 
 Owen's absence had been, the old man seemed much 
 worse as he entered the room. " God forgive me, Owen 
 darling," said ho, " but it wasn't my poor sowl I was 
 thinking of that minit. I was thinking that you must 
 get a letter wrote to the young landlord about this little 
 place — I'm sure he'll never say a word about rent, no 
 more nor his father ; and as the times wasn't good 
 lately " 
 
 " There, there, father," interrupted Owen, who felt 
 shocked at the old man's not turning his thoughts in 
 another direction ; " never mind those things," said he ; 
 " who knows which of us will be left ? the sickness doesn't 
 spare the young, no more than the ould." 
 
 ''Nor the rich, no more nor the poor," chimed in the 
 old man, with a kind of bitter satisfaction, as he thought 
 on the landlord's death ; for of such incongruous motives 
 is man made up, that calamities come lighter when they 
 involve the fall of those in station above our own. " 'Tis 
 a fine day, seemingly," said he, suddenly changing the 
 current of his thoughts ; " and iligant weather for the 
 country ; we'll have to turn in the sheep over that wheat ; 
 it will be too rank : ayeh," cried he, with a deep sigh, 
 "I'll not be here to see it:" and for once, the emotions 
 no dread of futurity could awaken, were realized by 
 worldly considerations, and the old man wept like a 
 child. 
 
 "What time of the month is it?" asked he, after a 
 long interval in which neither spoke ; for Owen was not
 
 444 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 really sorry that even thus painfully the old man's thoughts 
 fchould be turned towards eternity. 
 
 " 'Tis the seventeenth, father, a holy-day all over Ire- 
 land ! " 
 
 "Is there many at the * station ?' — look out at the door 
 and see." 
 
 Owen ascended a little rising ground in front of the 
 cabin, from which the whole valley was visible ; but, 
 except a group that followed a funeral upon the road, he 
 could see no human thing around. The green where the 
 " stations " were celebrated was totally deserted. There 
 were neither tents nor people ; the panic of the plague 
 had driven all ideas of revelry from the minds of the 
 most reckless ; and, even to observe the duties of religion, 
 men feared to assemble in numbers. So long as the 
 misfortune was at a distance, they could mingle their 
 prayers in common, and entreat for mei cy ; but when death 
 knocked at every door, the terror became almost despair. 
 
 " Is the ' stations ' going on ? " asked the old man 
 eagerly, as Owen re-entered the room. "Is the people 
 at the holy well ? " 
 
 " I don't see many stirring at all, to-day," was the 
 cautious answer ; for Owen scrupled to inflict any avoid- 
 able pain upon his mind. 
 
 " Lift me up, then ! " cried he suddenly, and with a 
 voice sti'onger, from a violent effort of his will. " Lift 
 me up to the window, till I see the blessed cross ; and 
 maybe I'd get a prayer among them. Come, be quick, 
 Owen ! " 
 
 Owen hastened to comply with his request ; but already 
 the old man's eyes were glazed and filmy. The effort had 
 but hastened the moment of his doom ; and with a low 
 faint sigh, he lay back, and died. 
 
 To the Irish peasantry, who, more than any other people 
 of Europe, are accustomed to bestow care and attention 
 on the funerals of their friends and relatives, the cholera, 
 in its necessity for speedy interment, was increased in 
 terrors tenfold. The honours which they were wont to 
 lavish on the dead — the ceremonial of the wake — the 
 mingled merriment and sorrow — the profusion with which 
 they spent the hoarded gains of hard-working labour — 
 and lastly, the long train to the churchyard, evidencing
 
 THE SECOND EKA. 445 
 
 the respect entertained for the departed, should all be 
 foregone; for had not prudence forbid their assembling in 
 numbers, and thus incurring the chances of contagion, 
 which, whether real or not, they firmly believed in, the 
 work of death was too widely disseminated to make such 
 gatherings possible. Each had some one to lament within 
 the limits of his own family, and private sorrow left little 
 room for public sympathy. No longer then was the road 
 filled by people on horseback and foot, as the funeral 
 procession moved forth. The death-wail sounded no 
 more. To chant the requiem of the departed, a few — a 
 very few — immediate friends followed the body to the 
 grave, in silence unbroken. Sad hearts, indeed, they 
 brought, and broken spirits ; for in this season of pesti- 
 lence few dared to hope. 
 
 By noon, Owen was seen descending the mountain to 
 the village, to make the last preparations for the old 
 man's funeral. He carried little Patsy in his arms ; for 
 he could not leave the poor child alone, and in the house 
 of death. The claims of infancy would seem never 
 stronger than in the heart sorrowing over death. The 
 grief that carries the sufferer in his mind's eye over the 
 limits of this world, is arrested by the tender ties which 
 bind him to life in the young. There is, besides, a hope- 
 fulness in early life — it is, perhaps, its chief characteristic 
 — that combats sorrow, better than all the caresses of 
 friendship, and all the consolations of age. Owen felt 
 this now — he never knew it before. But yesterday, and 
 his father's death had left him without one in the world 
 on whom to fix a hope ; and already, from his misery, 
 there arose that one gleam, that now twinkled like a star 
 in the sky of midnight. The little child he had taken 
 for his own was a woj-ld to him ; and as he went, he 
 prayed fervently that Poor Patsy might be spared to hira 
 through this terrible pestilence. 
 
 When Owen reached the carpenter's, there were several 
 peojjle there ; some, standing moodily brooding over 
 recent bex-eavements ; others spoke in low whispers, aa 
 if fearful of disturbing the silence ; but all were sorrow- 
 struck and sad. 
 
 " How is the ould man, Owen ? " said one of the group, 
 as he came forward.
 
 446 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 " He's better off than us, I trust in God ! " said Owen, 
 ■with a quivering lip. " He went to rest this morning." 
 
 A muttered prayer from all around showed how 
 general was the feeling of kindness entertained towards 
 the Connors 
 
 " When did he take it, Owen ?" 
 
 " I don't know that he tuk it at all; but when I came 
 home last night he was lying on the bed, weak and power- 
 less, and he slept away, with scarce a pain, till daybi-eak ; 
 then " 
 
 "He's in glory now, I pray God! " muttered an old 
 man with a white beard. " We were born in the same 
 year, and I knew him since I was a child, like that iu 
 yoiir arms ; and a good man he was." 
 
 "Whose is the child, Owen?" said another in the 
 cx'owd. 
 
 ** Martin Neal's," whispered Owen; for he feared that 
 the little fellow might catch the words. " What's the 
 matter with Miles ? he looks very low this morning." 
 
 This question referred to a large powerful-looking man, 
 who, with a smith's apron twisted round his waist, sat 
 without speaking in a corner of the shop. 
 
 "I'm afeard he's in a bad way," whispered the man 
 to whom he spoke. " There was a process-server, or a 
 bailiff, or something of the kind, serving notices through 
 the townland yesterday, and he lost a shoe off his baste, 
 and would have Miles out, to put it on, tho' we all tould 
 him that he buried his daughter — a fine grown girl — that 
 mornin'. And what does the fellow do, but goes and 
 knocks at the forge till !Miles comes out. You know 
 Miles Regan, so I needn't say there wasn't many words 
 passed between them. In less nor two minutes — whatever 
 the bailiff said — Miles tuck him by the throat, and pulled 
 him down from the horse, and dragged him along to tho 
 lake, and flung him in. 'Twas the Lord's marcy he knew 
 how to swim ; but we don't know what'll be done to 
 Miles yet, for he was the new agent's man." 
 
 "Was he a big fellow, with a bull-dog following him?" 
 asked Owen. 
 
 " No ; that's another ; sure there's three or four of them 
 goin' about. We lieai', that bad as ould French was, the 
 new cue is worse."
 
 THE SECOND EEA. 447 
 
 « Well— well, it's the will of God ! " said Owen, in that 
 tone of voice which bespoke a willingness for all endur- 
 ance, so long as the consolation remained that the ill was 
 not unrecorded above ; while he felt that all the evils of 
 poverty were little in comparison with the loss of those 
 nearest and dearest, " Come, Patsy, my boy ! " said he 
 at last, as he placed the coffin in the ass-cart, and turned 
 towards the mountain; and, leading the little fellow by 
 the hand, he set out on his way — " Come home." 
 
 It was not until he arrived at that part of the road from 
 which the cabin was visible, that Owen knew the whole 
 extent of his bereavement ; then, when he looked up and 
 saw the door hasped on the outside, and the chimney 
 from which no smoke ascended, the full measure of his 
 lone condition came at once before him, and he bent over 
 the coffin and wept bitterly. All the old man's affection 
 for him, his kind indulgence and forbearance, his happy 
 nature, his simple-heartedness, gushed forth from his 
 memory, and he wondered why he had not loved his 
 father, in life, a thousand times more, so deeply was he 
 now penetrated by his loss. If this theme did not assuage 
 his sorrows, it at least so moulded his heart as to bear 
 them in a better spirit ; and when, having placed the body 
 in the coffin, he knelt down beside it to pray, it was in a 
 calmer and more submissive frame of mind than he had 
 yet known. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon ere Owen was once more on 
 the road down the mountain ; for it was necessary — or at 
 least believed so — that interment should take place on the 
 day of death. 
 
 " I never thought it would be this way yoa'd go to your 
 last home, father dear," said Owen aloud, and in a voice 
 almost stifled with sobs ; for the absence of all his friends 
 and relatives at such a m.oment now smote on the poor 
 fellow's heai't, as he walked beside the little cart on which 
 the coffin was laid. It was indeed a sight to move a 
 sterner nature than his ; the coffin, not reverently carried 
 by bearers, and followed by its long train of mourners, 
 but laid slant-wise in the cart, the spade and shovel to dig 
 the grave beside it, and Patsy seated on the back of the 
 ass, watching with infant glee the motion of the animal, 
 fts with careful foot he descended the rugged mountain.
 
 448 ST. PATRICK S EYE. 
 
 Poor child ! how your guileless laughter shook that strong 
 man's heart -with agony ! 
 
 It was a long and weary way to the old churchyard. 
 The narrow road, too, was deeply rutted and worn by 
 wheel-tracks ; for, alas ! it had been trodden by many, of 
 late. The gray daylight was fast fading as Owen pushed 
 wide the old gate and entered. What a change to his 
 eyes did the aspect of the place present ! The green 
 mounds of earth which marked the resting-place of village 
 patriarchs, were gone ; and heaps of fresh-turned clay 
 were seen on every side, no longer decorated, as of old, 
 with little emblems of affectionate sorrow ; no tree, nor 
 stone, not even a wild flower, spoke of the regrets of 
 those who remained. The graves were rudely fashioned, 
 as if in haste — for so it was — few dared to linger there ! 
 
 Seeking out a lone spot near the ruins, Owen began to 
 dig the grave, while the little child, in mute astonishment 
 at all he saw, looked on. 
 
 *' Why wouldn't you stay out in the road. Patsy, and 
 play there, till I come to you ? This is a cowld damp 
 place for you, my boy." 
 
 " ISTony ! 'Nonj ! " cried the child, looking at him with 
 an affectionate smile, as though to say he'd rather be near 
 him. 
 
 " Well, well, who knows but you're right ? if it's the 
 will of God to take me, maybe you might as well go too. 
 It's a sore thing to be alone in the world, like me now ! " 
 
 And as he muttered the last few words he ceased 
 digging, and rested his head on the cross of the spade. 
 
 "Was that you. Patsy ? I heard a voice somewhere." 
 
 The child shook his head in token of dissent. 
 
 " Ayeh ! it was only the wind through the old walls ; 
 but sure it might be nat'ral enough for sighs and sobs 
 to be here : there's many a one has floated over this damp 
 clay." 
 
 He resumed his work once more. The night was 
 falling fast as Owen stopped from the deep grave, and 
 knelt down to say a prayer ere he committed the body to 
 the earth. 
 
 " Kneel down, darlin', hero by my side," said he, 
 placing his arm round the little fellow's waist; " 'tis the 
 likes of you God loves best j" and joining the tiny hands
 
 THE SECOND ERA. 449 
 
 ■with his own, he uttered a deep and fervent prayer for 
 the soul of the departed. " There, father ! " said he, as 
 he arose at last, and in a voice as if addressing a living 
 person at his side ; " there, father : the Lord, he knows 
 my heart inside me ; and if walking the world barefoot 
 ■would give ye peace or ease, I'd do it, for you were a 
 kind man and a good father to me.'' He kissed the 
 coffin as he spoke, and stood silently gazing on it. 
 
 Arousing himself with a kind of struggle, he untied 
 the cords, and lifted the coffin from the cart. For some 
 seconds he busied himself in arranging the ropes beneath 
 it, and then ceased suddenly, on remembering that he 
 could not lower it into the grave unassisted. 
 
 " I'll have to go down the road for some one," mut- 
 tered he to himself; but as he said this, he perceived at 
 some distance off in the churchyard the figure of a man, 
 as if kneeling over a grave. " The Lord help him, he 
 has his grief too ! " ejaculated Owen, as he moved 
 towards him. On coming nearer he perceived that the 
 grave was newly made, and from its size evidently that 
 of a child. 
 
 " I ax your pardon," said Owen, in a timid voice, 
 after waiting for several minutes in the vain expectation 
 that the man would look up ; "I ax your pardon for dis- 
 turbing you, but maybe you'll be kind enough to help 
 me to lay this coffin in the ground. I have nobody with 
 me but a child." 
 
 The man started and looked round. Their eyes met ; 
 it was Phil Joyce and Owen who now confronted each 
 other. But how unlike were both to what they were at 
 their last parting ! Then, vindictive passion, outraged 
 pride, and vengeance, swelled every feature and tingled 
 in every fibre of their frames. Now, each stood pale, 
 care-worn, and dispirited, wearied out by sorrow, and 
 almost broken-hearted. Owen was the first to speak. 
 
 " I axed your pardon before I saw you, Phil Joyce, 
 and I ax it again now, for disturbing you ; but I didn't 
 know you, and I wanted to put my poor father's body in 
 the grave." 
 
 "I didn't know he was dead," said Phil, in a hollow 
 voice, like one speaking to himself. " This is poor little 
 Billy here," and he pointed to the mound at his feet. 
 
 G Q
 
 450 
 
 "The lieavcns be his bed this night!" said Owen, 
 piously ; *' G ood-night ! " and he turned to go away ; then 
 stopping suddenly, he added, " Maybe, after all, you'll 
 not refuse me, and the Lord might be more merciful to 
 us both, than if we were to part like enemies.*' 
 
 " Owen Connor, I ask your forgiveness," said Phil, 
 stretching forth his hand, while his voice trembled like a 
 sick child's. " I didn't think the day would come I'd 
 ever do it ; but my heart is humble enough now, and 
 maybe 'twill be lower soon. Will you take my hand?" 
 
 " Will I, Phil ? will I, is it? ay, and however ye may 
 change to me after this night, I'll never foi-get this." And 
 he grasped the cold fingers in both hands, and pressed 
 them ardently, and the two men fell into each other's 
 arms and wept. 
 
 Is it a proud or a humiliating confession for humnnify 
 — assuredly it is a true one — that the finest and best traits 
 of our nature are elicited in our troubles, and not in our 
 joys ? that we come out purer through trials than pros- 
 perity ? Does the chastisement of Heaven teach us better 
 than the blessings lavished upon us ? or are these gifts 
 the compensation sent us for our afilictions, that when 
 poorest before man we should be richest before God ? 
 Few hearts there are which sorrow makes not wiser — 
 none which are not better for it. So it was here. These 
 men, in the continuance of good fortune, had been enemies 
 for life ; mutual hatred had grown up between them, so 
 that each yearned for vengeance on the other ; and now 
 they walked like brothers, only seeking forgiveness of 
 each other, and asking pardon for the past. 
 
 The old man was laid in his gi'ave, and they turned to 
 leave the churchyard. 
 
 " Won't ye come home with me, Owen ?" said Phil, as 
 they came to where their roads separated ; " won't ye 
 come and eat your supper with us ?" 
 
 Owen's throat filled up : he could only mutter, *' I^ot 
 to-night, Phil — another time, plaze God." He had not 
 ventured even to ask for Mary, nor did he know whether 
 Phil Joyce in his reconciliation might wish a renewal of 
 any intimacy with his .sister. Such was the reason of 
 Owen's refusal ; for, however strange it may seem to some, 
 there is a delicacy of the heart as well as of good breed- 
 
 I
 
 tHE SECOND ERA. 451 
 
 ing, and one advantage it possesses — it is of all lands, 
 and the fashion never changes. 
 
 Poor Owen would have shed his best blood to be able 
 to ask after Mary — to leai*n how she was, and how she 
 bore up under the disasters of the time ; but he never 
 mentioned her name : and as for Phil Joyce, his gloomy 
 thoughts had left no room for others, and he parted from 
 Owen without a single allusion to her. " Good night, 
 Owen," said he, " and don't forget your promise to come 
 and see us soon." 
 
 " Good night, Phil," was the answer ; '* and I pray a 
 blessing on you and yours." A slight quivering of the 
 voice at the last word was all he suffered to escape him ; 
 and they parted. 
 
 G 2
 
 452 St. patkick's eve. 
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 
 
 From tbat day, the pestilence began to abate in violence. 
 The cases of disease became fewer and less fatal, and at 
 last, like a spent bolt, the malady ceased to work its 
 mischief. Men were slow enough to recognize this 
 bettered aspect of their fortune. Calamity had weighed 
 too heavily on them to make them rally at once. They 
 still walked like those who felt the shadow of death upon 
 them, and were fearful lest any imprudent act or word 
 might bring back the plague among them. 
 
 With time, however, these featui-es passed off: people 
 gradually resumed their wonted habits; and, except 
 where the woi'k of death had been more than ordinarily 
 destructive, the malady was now treated as " a thing that 
 had been." 
 
 If Owen Connor had not escaped the common misfor- 
 tune of the land, he could at least date one happy event 
 from that sad period — his reconciliation wit'i Phil Joyce. 
 This was no passing friendshi^J. The dreadful scenes he 
 had witnessed about him had made Phil an altered 
 character. The devotion of Owen — his manly indifference 
 to personal risk whenever his services were wanted by 
 another — his unsparing benevolence — all these traits, the 
 mention of which at first only irritated and vexed his soul, 
 were now remembered in the day of reconciliation ; and 
 none felt prouder to acknowledge his friendship than his 
 former enemy. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, Owen did not dare to found a 
 hope upon his change of fortune ; for Mary was even more 
 distant and cold to him than ever, as though to show tliat, 
 whatever expectations he might conceive from her brother's 
 friendship, he should not reckon too confidently on her 
 feelings. Owen knew not how far he had himself to 
 blame for this ; he was not aware that his own constrained 
 manner, his overacted reserve, had offended Mary to the 
 quick ; and thus, both mutually retreated in misconcep-
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 453 
 
 tion and distrust. The game of love is the same, whether 
 the pkiyers be clad in velvet or in hodden gray. Beneath 
 the gikled ceilings of a palace, or the lowly rafters of 
 a cabin, there are the same hopes and fears, the same 
 jealousies, and distrusts, and despondings ; the wiles 
 and stratagems are all alike ; for, after all, the stake is 
 human happiness, whether he who risks it be a peer or a 
 peasant ! 
 
 While Owen vacillated between hope and fear, now, 
 resolving to hazard an avowal of his love and take his 
 stand on the result, now, deeming it better to trust to 
 time and longer intimacy, other events were happening 
 around which could not fail to interest him deeply. 
 The new agent had commenced his campaign with an 
 activity before unknown. Arrears of rent were 
 demanded to be peremptorily paid up ; leases, whose 
 exact conditions had not been fulfilled, were declared 
 void ; tenants occupying sub-let land were noticed to 
 quit ; and all the threatening signs of that rigid manage- 
 ment displayed, by which an estate is assumed to be 
 " admirably regulated," and the agent's duty most credit- 
 ably discharged. 
 
 Many of the ari'ears were concessions made by the 
 landloi'd in seasons of hardship and distress, but were 
 unrecorded as such in the rent-roll or the tenant's receipt. 
 There had been no intention of ever re-demanding them; 
 and both parties had lost sight of the transaction until 
 the sharp glance of a "new agent" discovered their exist- 
 ence. So of the leases ; covenants to build, or plant, or 
 drain, were inserted rather as contingencies, which pros- 
 penty might empower, than as actual conditions essential 
 to be fulfilled ; and as for sub-letting, it was simply the 
 act by which a Sion or a daughter was portioned in the 
 world, and enabled to commence the work of self-main- 
 tenance. 
 
 This slovenly system inflicted many evils. The demand 
 of an extravagant rent rendered an abatement not a boon, 
 but an act of imperative necessity ; and while the over- 
 hanging debt supplied the landlord with a means of 
 tyranny, it deprived the tenant of all desire to improve 
 his condition. "Why should I labour," said he, " when 
 the benefit never can be mine ? " The landlord then
 
 454 ST. PATRICK*S EVE. 
 
 declaimed against ingratitude, at the time that the peasant 
 spoke against oppression. Could they both be right ? 
 The impossibility of ever bscoming independent soon 
 suggested that dogged indifference, too often confounded 
 with indolent habits. Sustenance was enough for him, 
 Avho, if he earned more, should surrender it ; hence the 
 poor man became chained to his poverty. It was a 
 weight which grew with his strength ; privations might 
 as well be incurred with little labour as with great ; and 
 he sunk down to the condition of a mere drudge, careless 
 and despondent. " He can only take all I have ! " 
 was the cottier's philosophy ; and the maxim suggested 
 a corollary, that the " all " should be as little as might be. 
 
 But there were other grievances flowing from this 
 source. The extent of these abatements usually depended 
 on the representation of the tenants themselves, and such 
 evidences as they could produce of their poverty and 
 destitution. Hence a whole world of falsehood and 
 dissimulation was fostered. Cabins were suflTered to stand 
 half-roofed ; children left to shiver in rags and nakedness; 
 age and infirmity exhibited in attitudes of afflicting priva- 
 tions ; habits of mendicity encouraged — all, that they 
 might impose upon the proprietor, and make him believe 
 that any sum wrung from such as these must be an act 
 of cruelty. If these schemes were sometimes successful, 
 so in their failure they fell as heavy penalties upon the 
 really destitute, for whose privations no pity was felt. 
 Their misery, confounded in the general mass of dissimu- 
 lation, was neglected ; and for one who prospered in his 
 falsehood, many were visited in their affliction. 
 
 That men in such circumstances as these should listen 
 with greedy ears to any representation which reflected 
 heavily on their wealthier neighbours, is little to be won- 
 dered at. The triumph of knavery and falsehood is a 
 bad lesson for any people ; but the Iruitlessness of honest 
 industry is, if possible, a worse one. Both were well 
 taught by this system. And these things took place, not, 
 be it observed, when the landlord or his agent were cruel 
 and exacting — very far from it. They were the instances 
 so popularly expatiated on by newspapers and journals ; 
 they were the cases headed — " Example for Landlords ! " 
 " Timely Benevolence ! " and paragraphed thus : — " We
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 455 
 
 leai'n, witli the greatest pleasure, that Mr. Muldrennin, of 
 Kilball3"-dreuiiin, has, in consideration of the failure 
 the potato-crop, and the severe pressure of the season, 
 kindly abated five per cent, of all- his rents. Lot this 
 admirable example be generally followed, and we shall 
 once more see," &c. &c. There was no explanatory note 
 to state the actual condition of that tenantry, or the 
 amount of that rent from which the deduction was made. 
 Mr. Muldrennin was then free to run his career of active 
 puffery throughout the kingdom, and his tenantry to starve 
 on as before. 
 
 Of all worldly judgments there is one that never fails. 
 No man was ever instrumental, either actively or through 
 neglect, to another's demoralization, that hcAvas not made 
 to feel the recoil of his conduct on himself. Such had 
 been palpably the result here. The confidence of the 
 people lost, they had taken to themselves the only advisei^s 
 in their power, and taught themselves to suppose that 
 relief can only be effected by legislative enactments, or 
 their own efforts. This lesson once learned, and they were 
 politicians for life. The consequence has been, isolation 
 from him to whom once all respect and attachment were 
 rendered ; distrust and dislike follow — would that the 
 catalogue went no further ! 
 
 And again to our story. Owen was at last reminded, 
 by the conversation of those about, that he too liad received 
 a summons from the new agent to attend at his office in 
 Galvvay — a visit which, somehow or other, he had at first 
 totally neglected ; and, as the summons was not repeated, 
 he finally supposed had been withdrawn by the agent, on 
 learning the condition of his holding. As September 
 drew to a close, however, he accompanied Phil Joyce on 
 his way to Galway, prepared, if need be, to pay the half- 
 year's rent, but ardently hoping the while it might never 
 be demanded. It was a happy morning for poor Owen — 
 the happiest of his whole life. He had gone over early to 
 breakfast at Joyce's, and on reaching the house found 
 Mary alone, getting ready the meal. Their usual distance 
 in manner continued for some time ; each talked of what 
 their thoughts were least occupied on ; and at last, 
 after many a look from the window to see if Phil was 
 coming, and wondering why he did not arrive, Owen drew
 
 456 BT. Patrick's eve. 
 
 a heavy sigh and said, " It's no use, Mai'j ; divil a longer 
 can I be suffering this way ; take me or refuse me you 
 must this morning ! I know well enough you don't cai-e 
 for me ; but if ye don't like any one else better, who 
 knows but in time, and with God's blessin', but ye'U be as 
 fond of me as I am of yon ? " 
 
 " And Avho told ye 1 didn't like some one else? " said 
 Mary, with a sly glance ; and her handsome features 
 brightened up with a more than common bi'illiancy. 
 
 " The heavens make him good enough to desarve ye. I 
 pray this day! " said Owen, with a trembling lip. " I'll 
 go now ! that's enough! '' 
 
 " Won't ye wait for yer breakfast, Owen Connor ? 
 Won't ye stay a bit for my brother ? " 
 
 " No, thank ye, ma'am, I'll not go into Galway to-day." 
 
 " Well, but don't go without your breakfast. Take a 
 cup of tay anyhow, Owen dear! " 
 
 " ' Owen dear! ' Mary, jewel ! don't say them words, 
 and I laving you for ever." 
 
 The young girl blushed deeply and turned away her 
 head, but her crimson neck showed that her shame was 
 not departed. At the moment, Phil burst into the room, 
 and standing for a second with his eyes fixed on each in 
 turn, he said, " Bad scran to ye, for women ; but there's 
 nothing but decate and wickedness in ye ; divil a pace or 
 ease I ever got when I quarrelled with Owen, and now 
 that we're friends, ye're as cross and discontented as ever. 
 Try what you can do with her yourself, Owen, my boy; 
 for I give her up." 
 
 " "lis not for me to thry it," said Owen, despondingly ; 
 " 'tis another has the betther luck." 
 
 " That's not true, anyhow," cried Phil ; " for she told 
 mc so herself" 
 
 "AVhat! Mary, did ye say that?'' said Owen, with 
 a spring across the room ; " did ye tell him that, 
 darling ? " 
 
 " Sure if I did, ye wouldn't believe me," said Mary, 
 with a side-look ; " women is nothing but deceit and 
 wickedness." 
 
 " Sorra else," cried Owen, throwing his arm round 
 her neck and kissing her ; " and I'll never believe ye again, 
 when ye say ye don't love me."
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 457 
 
 " 'Tis a nice way to boil the eggs hard," said Phil, 
 testily ; " arrah, come over here and eat your breakfast, 
 man ; you'll have time enough for courting when we come 
 back." 
 
 There needed not many words to a bargain which was 
 already ratified ; and before they left the house, the day 
 of the wedding was actually fixed. 
 
 It was not without reason, then, that I said it was a 
 happy day for Owen. Never did the long miles of the 
 road seem so short as now ; while, with many a plan for 
 the future, and many a day-dream of happiness to come, 
 he went at Phil's side scarce crediting his good fortune to 
 be real. 
 
 AVhen they arrived at the agent's office in the square 
 at Galway, they found a great many of their neighbours 
 and friends already there ; some, moody and depressed, 
 yet lingered about the door, though they had apparently 
 finished the business which brought them ; others, anxious- 
 looking and troubled, were waiting for their turn to enter. 
 They were all gathered into little groups and parties, 
 conversing eagerly together in Irish ; and as each came 
 out of the office he was speedily surrounded by several 
 others, questioning him as to how he had fared, and what 
 success he met with. 
 
 Few came forth satisfied — not one happy-looking. 
 Some, who wei'e deficient a few shillings, were sent back 
 again, and appeared with the money still in their hands, 
 which they counted over and over, as if hoping to make it 
 more. Others, trusting to promptitude in their payments, 
 were seeking renewal of their tenures at the same rent, 
 and found their requests coldly received, and no pledge 
 returned. Others, again, met with severe reproaches as 
 to the condition of their dwellings and the neglected 
 fippearance of their farms, with significant hints that 
 slovenly tenants would meet with little favour, and, al- 
 though pleading sickness and distress, found the apology 
 but slightly regarded. 
 
 " We thought the ould agent bad enough ; but, fiiix, 
 this one bates him out, entirely." Such was the comment 
 of each and all at the treatment met with, and such the 
 general testimony of the crowd. 
 
 "Owen Connor! Owen Connor!" called out a voice,
 
 458 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 ■which Owen in a moment recognized as that of the fellow 
 who had visited his cabin ; and passing through the 
 densely crowded hall, Owen forced his way into the small 
 front pai-lour, where two clerks were seated at a table, 
 writing. 
 
 '' Over here; this waj^, if you please," said one of them, 
 pointing with his pen to the place he should stand in. 
 " What's your name ? " 
 
 " Owen Connor, sir." 
 
 " What's the name of your holding?" 
 
 " Ballydorery, Knockshaughlin, and Cushaglin is the 
 townlands, and the mountain is Slieve-na-vick, sir." 
 
 " Owen Connor, Owen Connor?" said the clerk, re- 
 peating the name three or four times over. " Oh, I re- 
 member ; there has been no rent paid on your farm for 
 some years." 
 
 " You're right there, sir," said Owen; "the landlord, 
 God be good to him ! tould my poor father " 
 
 " Well, well, I have nothing to do with that — step 
 inside — Mr, Lucas will speak to you himself ; — show this 
 man inside, LufFey ; " and the grim bailiff led the way 
 into the back parlour, where two gentlemen were standing 
 with their backs to the fire, chatting ; they were both 
 young and good-looking, and, to Owen's eyes, as unlike 
 agents as could be. 
 
 "Well, what does this honest fellow want? — no abate- 
 ment, I hope ; a fellow with as good a coat as you have, 
 can't be very ill off." 
 
 " True for you, yer honour, and I am not," said Owen, 
 in reply to the speaker, who seemed a few years younger 
 than the other. " I was bid spake to yer honour about 
 the little place I have up the mountains, and that Mr. 
 Leslie gave my father rent-free " 
 
 " Oh, you are the man from Maam, ain't you ?" 
 
 " The same, sir ; Owen Connor." 
 
 " That's the mountain I told you of, major," said Lucas, 
 in a whisper ; then turning to Owen, resumed : " Well, 1 
 wished to see you very much, and speak to you. ' I've 
 heard the story about your getting the land rent-free, and 
 all that ; but I find no mention of the matter in the books 
 of the estate ; there is not the slightest note nor memo- 
 randum, that I .can see, on the subject; and except your
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 459 
 
 own word — which of course, as far as it goes, is all very- 
 well — I have nothing in your favour." 
 
 While these words were being spoken, Owen went 
 through a thousand tortures ; and many a deep conflicting 
 passion warred within him. " Well, sir," said he at last, 
 with a heavily-drawn sigh, " well, sir, with God's blessin*, 
 I'll do my best; and whatever your honour says is fair, 
 I'll thry and pay it : I suppose I'm. uudher rent since 
 March last?" 
 
 " March ! why, my good fellow, there's six years due 
 last twenty-fifth ; what are you thinking of?" 
 
 " Sure you don't mean I'm to pay for what was given 
 to me and my father ? " said Owen, with a wild look that 
 almost startled the agent. 
 
 "I mean precisely what I say," said Lucas, reddening 
 with anger at the tone Owen assumed. " I mean that you 
 owe six years and a half of rent ; for which, if you neither 
 produce receipt nor money, you'll never owe another half- 
 year for the same holding." 
 
 "And that's flat !" said the major, laughing. 
 
 "And that's flat!" echoed Lucas, joining in the 
 mirth. 
 
 Owen looked from one to the other of the speakers, and 
 although never indisposed to enjoy a jest, he could not, for 
 the life of him, conceive what possible occasion for merri- 
 ment existed at the present moment. 
 
 " Plenty of grouse on that mountain, ain't there ? " said 
 the major, tapping his boot with his cane. 
 
 But, although the question was addressed to Owen, he 
 was too deeply sunk in his own sad musings to pay it any 
 attention. 
 
 "Don't you hear, my good fellow? Major Lynedock 
 asks, if there are not plenty of grouse on the mountain." 
 
 " Did the present landlord say that I was to pay this 
 liackrent?" said Owen deliberately, after a moment of 
 deep thought. 
 
 " Mr. Leslie never gave me any particular insti'uctions 
 on your account," said Lucas, smiling ; " nor do I suppose 
 that his intentions regarding you are different from those 
 respecting other tenants." 
 
 "I saved his life, then!" said Owen; and his eyes 
 flashed with indignation as he spoke.
 
 460 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 "And you saved a devilish good fellow, I can tell .you," 
 said the Major, smiling complacently, as though to hint 
 that the act was a very suflBcient reward for its own per- 
 formance. 
 
 " The sorra much chance he had of coming to the pro- 
 perty that day, anyhow, till I came up," said Owen, in a 
 half soliloquy. 
 
 "What! were the savages about to scalp him? Eh!" 
 asked the Major. 
 
 Owen turned a scowl towards him that stopped the 
 ah'eady -begun laugh ; while Lucas, amazed at the peasant's 
 effrontery, said, " You needn't wait any longer, my good 
 fellow ; I have nothing more to say." 
 
 "I Avas going to ask yer honour, sir," said Owen, 
 civilly, " if I paid the last half-year — I have it with me 
 — if ye'll let me stay in the place till ye'Il ask Mr. 
 Leslie " 
 
 " But you forget, my friend, that a receipt for the 
 last half-year is a receipt in full," said Lucas, interrupt- 
 ing- 
 
 " Sure, I don't want the receipt ! " said Owen hurriedly ; 
 " keep it yourself. It isn't mistrusting the word of a 
 gentleman I'd be." 
 
 " Eh, Lucas ! blarney ! I say, blarney, and no mis- 
 take!" cried the Major, half-suffocated with his own 
 drollery. 
 
 "By my sowl ! it's little blarney I'd give you, av I 
 had ye at the side of Slieve-na-vich," said Owen ; and 
 the look he threw towards him left little doubt of his 
 sincerity. 
 
 "Leave the room, sir! leave the room!" said Lucas, 
 ■with a gesture towards the door. 
 
 "Dare I ax you where Mr. Leslie is now, sir ? " said 
 Owen calmly. 
 
 " He';j in London : No. 18, Belgrave Square." 
 
 " Would 3'er honour be so kind as to write it on a bit 
 of paper for me?" said Owen, almost obsequiously. 
 
 Lucas sat down and wrote the address upon a card, 
 handing it to Owen without a word. 
 
 " 1 humbly ax yer pai'dou, gentlemen, if I v.'as rude to 
 either of ye," said Osven, with a bow, as he moved 
 towards the door ; " but distress of mind doesn't improve
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 4G1 
 
 a man's manners, if even he had move nor I have ; but 
 if I get the little place yet, and that ye care for a day's 
 sport " 
 
 "Eh, damme, you're not so bad, after all," said the 
 Major : " I say, Lucas — is he, now ?" 
 
 "Your servant, gentlemen," said Owen, who felt too 
 indignant at the cool insolence with which his generous 
 proposal was accepted, to trust himself with more ; and 
 with that, he left the room. 
 
 " Well, Owen, my boy," said Phil, who long since 
 having paid his own rent, was becoming impatient at his 
 friend's absence ; " well, Owen, ye might have settled 
 about the whole estate by this time. Why did they keep 
 you so long ? " 
 
 In a voice tremulous with agitation, Owen repeated the 
 result of his interview, adding, as he concluded, " And 
 now, there's nothing for it, Phil, but to see the landlord 
 himself, and spake to him. I've got the name of the 
 place he's in, here — it's somewhere in London ; and I'll 
 never turn my steps to home before I get a sight of 
 him. I've the half-year's rent here in my pocket, so that 
 I'll have money enough, and to spare ; and I only ax ye, 
 Phil, to tell Mary how the whole case is, and to take care 
 of little Patsy for me till I come back — he's at your house 
 now." 
 
 "Never fear, we'll take care of him, Owen; and I 
 believe you're doing the best thing, after all." 
 
 The two friends passed the evening together, at least 
 until the time arrived, when Owen took his departure by 
 the mail. It was a sad termination to a day which opened 
 so joyfully, and not all Phil's endeavours to rally and 
 encourage his friend could dispossess Owen's mind of a 
 gloomy foreboding that it was but the beginning of mis- 
 fortune. " I have it over me," was his constant expres- 
 sion as they talked ; " I have it over me, that something 
 bad will come out of this ; " and although his fears were 
 vague and indescribable, they darkened his thoughts as 
 eflectually as real evils. 
 
 The last moment came, and Phil, with a hearty " God 
 speed you," shook his friend's hand, and he was gone. 
 
 It would but protract my story, without fulfilling any 
 of its objects, to speak of Owen's journey to England and
 
 462 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 on to London. It was a season ot' great distress in the 
 manufacturing districts ; several large failures had occurred 
 — great stagnation of trade existed, and a general depres- 
 sion was observable over the population of the great trad- 
 ing cities. There were daily meetings to consider the con- 
 dition of the working classes, and the newspapers were 
 crammed with speeches and resolutions in their favour. 
 Placards were carried about the streets, with terrible 
 announcements of distress and privation, and proces- 
 sions of wretched-looking men were met with on every 
 side. 
 
 Owen, who, from motives of economy, prosecuted his 
 journey on foot, had frequent opportunities of entering 
 the dwellings of the poor, and observing their habits and 
 modes of life. The everlasting complaints of suffering 
 and want rung in his ears from morning till night ; and 
 yet to his unaccustomed eyes the evidences betrayed few, 
 if any, of the evils of great poverty. The majority were 
 not without bread — the veiy poorest had a sufficiency of 
 potatoes. Their dwellings were neat-looking and com- 
 fortable, and, in comparision with what he was used to, 
 actually luxurious. Neither were their clothes like the 
 ragged and tattered coverings Owen had seen at home. 
 The fustian jackets of the men were generally whole and 
 well cared for ; but the children more than all struck him. 
 In Ireland the young are usually the first to feel the pres- 
 sure of hardship — their scanty clothing rather the 
 requirement of decency than a protection against 
 weather ; here, the children were cleanly and comfort- 
 ably dressed — none were in rags, few without shoes and 
 stockings. 
 
 What such people could mean by talking of distress, 
 Owen could by no means comprehend. " I wish we had 
 a little of this kind of poverty in ould Ireland ! " was th& 
 constant theme of his thoughts. " 'Tis little they know 
 what distress is. Faix, I wondher what they'd say if 
 they saw Connemara?" And yet, the privations they 
 endured were such as had not been known for many yeai-s 
 previous. Their sufferings were really great, and the 
 interval between their ordinary habits as wide as ever 
 presented itself in the fortunes of the poor Irishman's 
 life. But poverty, after all, ia merely relative ; and they
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 463 
 
 felt that as " starvation " which Paddy would hail as a 
 season of blessing and abundance. 
 
 " "With a fine slated house over them, and plenty of 
 furniture inside, and warm clothes, and enough to eat, — 
 that's what they call distress ! Musha ! I'd like to see 
 them when they think they're comfortable," thought Owen, 
 who at last lost all patience with such undeserved com- 
 plainings, and could with difficulty restrain himself from 
 an open attack on their injustice. 
 
 He arrived in London at last, and the same evening 
 hastened to Belgvave Square ; for his thoughts were now 
 as his journey drew to a close, painfully excited at the 
 near prospect of seeing his landlord. He found the 
 house without difficulty ; it was a splendid town-mansion, 
 well befitting a man of large fortune ; and Owen expe- 
 rienced an Irishman's gratification in the spacious and 
 handsome building he saw before him. He knocked, at 
 first timidly, and then, as no answer was returned, more 
 boldly ; but it was not before a third summons that the 
 door was opened ; and an old mean-looking woman asked 
 him what he wanted. 
 
 "I want to see the masther, ma'am, av it's plazing to 
 ye ! " said Owen, leaning against the door-jamb as he 
 spoke. 
 
 " The master ? What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Mr. Leslie himself, the landlord." 
 
 " Mr. Leslie is abroad — in Italy." 
 
 "Abroad! abroad! " echoed Owen, while a sickly faint- 
 ness spread itself through his frame. " He's not out of 
 England, is he ? " 
 
 " I've told you he's in Italy, ray good man." 
 
 " Erra I where's that at all ? " cried Owen, despair- 
 ingly; 
 
 •' I'm sure I don't know ; but I can give you the address, 
 if you want it." 
 
 "jSTo, thank ye, ma'am — it's too late for that, now," 
 said he. The old woman closed the door, and the poor 
 fellow sat down upon the steps, overcome by this sad and 
 unlooked-for result. 
 
 It was evening. The streets were crowded with people 
 — some on foot, some on horseback and in carriages. The 
 glare of splendid equipages, the glittering of wealth — the
 
 464 STk Patrick's eve. 
 
 great human tide rolled past, unnoticed by Owen, for his 
 own sorrows filled his whole heart. 
 
 Men in all their worldliness — some on errands of plea- 
 sure, some care-worn and thoughtful, some brimful of 
 expectation, and, others downcast and dejected — moved 
 past : scarcely one remarked that poor peasant, whose 
 travelled and tired look, equally with his humble dress, 
 bespoke one who came from afar. 
 
 "Well, God help me, what's best for me to do now ?" 
 said Owen Connor, as he sat ruminating on his fortune; 
 and, unable to find any answer to his own question, lie 
 arose and walked slowly along, not knowing nor caring 
 whither. 
 
 There is no such desolation as that of a large and 
 crowded city to him who, friendless and alone, finds him- 
 self a wanderer within its walls. The man of education 
 and taste looks around him for objects of interest or 
 amusement, yet saddened by the thought that he is cut 
 off from all intercourse with his fellow-men ; but to the 
 poor unlettered stranger how doubly depressing are all 
 these things ! Far from speculating on the wealth and 
 prosperity ai'ound him, he feels crushed and humiliated 
 in its presence. His own humble condition appears even 
 moi"e lowly in contrast with such evidences of splendour; 
 and instinctively he retreats from the regions where 
 fashion, and rank, and riches abound, to the gloomy 
 abodes of less-favoured fortunes. 
 
 When Owen awoke the following morning, and looked 
 about him in the humble lodging he had selected, he 
 could scarcely believe that already the end of his long 
 journey had been met by failure. Again and again he 
 endeavoured to remember if he had seen his landlord, and 
 what reply he had received ; but except a vague sense of 
 disappointment, he could fix on nothing. It was only as 
 he drew near the great mansion once more that he could 
 thoroughly recollect all that had happened ; and then the 
 truth flashed on his mind, and he felt all the bitterness 
 of his misfortune. I need not dwell on this theme. The 
 poor man turned again homeward; why, he could not 
 well have answered, had any been cruel enough to ask 
 him. The hope that buoyed him up before, now spent and 
 exhausted, his step was slow and his heart heavy, while his
 
 THE THIRD EBA. 465 
 
 mind, racked with anxieties and dreads, increased his 
 bodily debility, and made each mile of the way seem ten. 
 
 On the fourth day of his journey — wet through from 
 morning till late in the evening — he was seized with a 
 shivering-fit, followed soon after by symptoms of fever. 
 The people in whose house he had taken shelter for the 
 night had him at once conveyed to the infirmary, where 
 for eight weeks he lay dangerously ill ; a relapse of his 
 malady, on the day before he was to be pronounced con- 
 valescent, occurred, and the third month was nigh its 
 close ere Owen left the hospital. 
 
 It was more than a week ere he could proceed on his 
 journey, which lie did at last, moving only a few miles 
 each day, and halting before nightfall. Thus wearily 
 plodding on, he reached Liverpool at last, and about the 
 middle of January arrived in his native country once 
 more. 
 
 His strength regained, his bodily vigour restored, he 
 had made a long day's journey to reach home, and it was 
 about ten o'clock of a bright and starry night that he 
 crossed the mountains that lie between Ballinrobe and 
 Maam. To Owen, the separation from his home seemed 
 like a thing of years long ; and his heart was full to 
 bursting as each well-remembered spot appeared, bringing 
 back a thousand associations of his former life. As he 
 strode along, he stopped frequently to look down towai'ds 
 the village, where, in each light that twinkled, he could 
 mark the different cabins of his old friends. At length, 
 the long low farm-house of the Joyces came into view — 
 he could trace it by the line of light that glittered from 
 every window — and from this Owen could not easily tear 
 himself away. Muttering a heartfelt prayer for those 
 beneath that roof, he at last moved on, and near midnight 
 gained the little glen where his cabin stood. Scarcely, 
 however, had he reached the spot, when the fierce chal- 
 lenge of a dog attracted him. It was not his own poor 
 colley — he knew his voice well — and Owen's blood ran 
 chilly at the sound of that strange bark. He walked on, 
 however, resolutely grasping his stick in his hand, and 
 suddenly, as he turned the angle of the cliff', there 
 stood his cabin, with a light gleaming from the little 
 window. 
 
 H H
 
 466 ST. rATRTCK's EVE. 
 
 " 'Tis Phil Joyce maybe lias put somebody in to take 
 care of the place," said he ; but his fears gave no credence 
 to the surmise. 
 
 Again the dog challenged, and at the same moment the 
 door was opened, and a man's voice called out, " Who comes 
 there ? " Tlie glare of the fire at his back showed that he 
 held a musket in his hand. 
 
 " 'Tis me, Owen Connor," answered Owen, half sulkily, 
 for he felt that indescribable annoyance a man will experi- 
 ence at any question as to his approaching his own dwell- 
 ing, even though in incognito. 
 
 "Stay back, then," cried the other; "if you advance 
 another step, I'll send a bullet through you." 
 
 " Send a bullet through me!" cried Owen, scornfully, 
 yet even more astonished than indignant. " Why, isn't 
 a man to be let go to his own house, without being fired 
 at ? " 
 
 "I'll be as good as my word," said the fellow; and as 
 he spoke, Owen saw him lift the gun to his shoulder and 
 steadily hold it there. " Move one step now, and you'll 
 see if I'm not." 
 
 Owen's first impulse was to rush forward at any 
 hazard, and if not wounded to grapple with his advei'- 
 sary; but he reflected for a second that some great change 
 must have occurred in his iabsence, which j in all likeli- 
 hood, no fict of daring on his part could avert or alter. 
 " I'll wait for morning, anyhow," thought he ; and with- 
 out another word, or deigning any answer to the other, 
 he slowly tui'ned and retraced his steps down the moun- 
 tain. 
 
 There was a small mud hovel at the foot of the moun- 
 tain, where Owen determined to pass the night. The old 
 man who lived there had been a herd formerly, but ago 
 and rheumatism had left him a cripple, and he now lived 
 on the charity of his neighbours. 
 
 "Poor Larry! I don't half like disturbing ye," said 
 Owen as he arrived at the miserable contrivance of wattles 
 that served for a door ; but the chill night air, and his 
 weary feet decided the difficulty, and he called out, " Larry 
 — Larry Daly! open the door for me — Owen Connor. 
 'Tis me ! " 
 
 The old man slept with tlio light .shunbcr of age, and
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 467 
 
 despite tlie cousequeuces of his malady, managed to bobble 
 to the door in a few seconds. " Oh ! wirra, wirra ! Owen, 
 my son! " cried he, in Irish ; "I hoped I'd never see ye 
 here again — my own darlin'." 
 
 " That's a dhroll welcome, anyhow, Larry, for a man 
 coming back among his own people." 
 
 " 'Tis a thrue one, as sure as I live in sin. The Lord 
 help us, this is bad fortune." 
 
 " What do you mean, Larry ? Vv^hat did I ever do to 
 disgrace my name, that I wouldn't come back here ? " 
 
 " 'Tisn't what ye done, honey, but what's done upon 
 ye. Oh, wirra, wirra ; 'tis a black day that led ye home 
 here." 
 
 It was some time before Owen could induce the old 
 man to moderate his sjrrows, and relate the events which 
 had occurred in his absence. I will not weaiy my reader 
 by retailing the old man's prolixity, but tell them in the 
 fewest words I am able, premising that I must accom- 
 pany the narrative by such explanations as I may feel 
 necessary. 
 
 Soon after Owen's departure for England, certain dis- 
 turbances occurred through the counti-y. The houses of 
 the gentry were broken open at night and searched for 
 arms by men with blackened faces and in various disguises 
 to escape recognition. Threatening notices were served 
 on many of the resident families, menacing them with the 
 worst if they did not speedily comply with certain con- 
 ditions, either in the discharge of some obnoxious indivi- 
 duals from their employment, or the restoration of somo 
 plot of ground to its former holdei\ Awful denunciations 
 were uttered against any who should dare to occupy land 
 from which a former tenant was ejected ; and so terrible 
 was the vengeance exacted, and so sudden its execution, 
 that few dared to transgress the orders of these savage 
 denunciators. The law of the laud seemed to stand still ; 
 justice appeared appalled and affrighted by acts which 
 bespoke "deep and widespread conspiracy. The magis- 
 ti'ates assembled to deliberate on what was to be done ; 
 and the only one who ventured to propose a bold and 
 vigorous course of acting was murdered on his way home- 
 ward. Meanwhile, Mr. Lucas, whose stern exactions had 
 given great discontent, seemed determined to carry through 
 
 n II 2
 
 4G8 ST. rATRicii's eve. 
 
 his measures at any insk. By influence with the Govern- 
 ment he succeeded in obtaining a considerable police-force, 
 and, under cover of these, he issued his distress-Avarrants 
 and executions, distrained and sold, probably with a sever- 
 ity increased by the very opposition he met with. 
 
 The measures undertaken by Government to suppress 
 outrage failed most signally. The difficulty of arresting 
 a suspected individual was great in a country where a 
 large foi'ce was always necessary. The difficulty of pro- 
 curing evidence against him was still greater; for even 
 such as were not banded in the conspiracy had a greater 
 dread of the reproach of informer than of any other 
 imputation ; and when these two conditions were over- 
 come, the last and greatest of all difficulties remained 
 behind — no jury could he found to convict, when their 
 own lives might pay the penalty of their honesty. While 
 thus, on one side, went the agent, with his cumbrous 
 accompaniments of law-officers and parchments, police- 
 constables and bailiffs, to effect a distress or an ejectment, 
 the midnight party with arms patrolled the country, fii'ing 
 the haggards and the farmhouses, setting all law at defi- 
 ance, and asserting in their own bloody vengeance the 
 supremacy of massacre. 
 
 Not a day went over without its chronicle of crime; the 
 very calendar was red with murder. Friends parted with 
 a fervour of feeling that showed none knew if they would 
 meet on the morrow ; and a dark, gloomy suspicion pre- 
 vailed through the land, each dreading his neighbour, and 
 deeming his isolation inore secure than all the ties of 
 friendsliip. All the bonds of former love, all the relations 
 of kindred and affection, were severed by this terrible 
 league. Brothers, fathers, and sons were arrayed against 
 each other. A despotism was thus set up which even 
 they who detested dared not oppose. The very defiance 
 it hurled at superior power, awed and terrified themselves. 
 Nor was this feeling lessened when they saw that these 
 (h'cadful acts — acts so horrible as to make men' shudder 
 at the name of Ireland when heard in the farthest corner 
 of Europe — that these had their apologists in the press, 
 that even a designation was invented for them, and 
 raui'der could be spoken of patriotically as the " Wild 
 Justice " of the people.
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 409 
 
 There is a terrible contagion in crime. Tlie man wliose 
 pure heart had never liarboured a bad thought cannot live 
 untainted where wickedness is rife. The really base and 
 depraved were probably not many ; but there Avere hard- 
 ships and sufferings everywhere ; misery abounded in the 
 land — misery too dreadful to contemplate. It was not 
 difficult to connect such sufferings with the oppressions, 
 real or supposed, of the wealthier classes. Some believed 
 the theory with all the avidity of men who grasp at straws 
 when drowning ; others, felt a savage pleasure at the bare 
 thought of reversing the game of sufferance ; while many, 
 mixed up their own wrongs with what they regarded as 
 national grievances, and converted their private ven- 
 geance into a patriotic daring. Few stood utterly aloof, 
 and even of these, none would betray the rest. 
 
 The temporary success of murder, too, became a hor- 
 rible incentive to its commission. The agent shot, the 
 law he had set in motion stood still, the process fell 
 powerless; the "Wild Justice" superseded the slower 
 footsteps of common law, and the murderer saw himself 
 installed in safety when he ratified his bond in the blood 
 of his victim. 
 
 Habitual poverty involves so much of degradation, that 
 recklessness of life is its ahnost invariable accompani- 
 ment ; and thus, many of these men ceased to speculate 
 on the future, and followed the dictates of their leaders in 
 blind and dogged submission. There were many, too, 
 who felt a kind of savage enthusiasm in the career of 
 danger, and actually loved the very hazard of the game. 
 Many more had private wrongs — old debts of injury to 
 wipe out — and grasped at the occasion to acquit them ; 
 but even when no direct motives existed, the terror of 
 evil consequences induced great numbers to ally them- 
 selves with this terrible conspiracy, and when not active 
 partisans, at least to be faithful and secret confidants. 
 
 Among the many dispossessed by the agent was O^en 
 Connor. Scarcely had he left the neighbourhood than 
 an ejectment was served against him ; and the bailitf, by 
 whose representations Owen was made to appear a man 
 of dangerous character, installed in his mountain-farm. 
 This fellow was one of those bold, devil-may-care ruffians, 
 who survive in every contest longer than men of more
 
 470 ST. paitjok's eve. 
 
 circumspect courage ; and Lucas was not sorry to find 
 that he could establish such an outpost in this wild and 
 dreary region. AVell armed, and provided with a suffi- 
 ciency of ammunition, he promised to maintain his 
 stronghold against any force — a boast not so unreason- 
 able, as there was only one approach to the cabin, and 
 that, a narrow path on the very verge of a precipice. 
 Owen's unexpected appearance was, in his eyes, therefore, 
 a signal for battle; he supposed that he was come back 
 to assert his ancient right, and in this spirit it was ho 
 menaced him with instant death if he advanced another 
 step. Indeed, he had been more than once threatened 
 that Owen's return would be a " dark day " for him, and 
 prepared himself for a meeting with him, as an occasion 
 which might prove fatal to either. These threats, not 
 sparingly bandied by those who felt little inclination to 
 do battle on their own account, had become so frequent, 
 that many looked for Owen's reappearance as for an event 
 of some moment. 
 
 Old Larry often heard these reports, and well knowing 
 Owen's ardent disposition and passionate temper, and 
 how easily he became the tool of others, when any deed 
 of more than ordinary hazard was presented to him, 
 grieved deeply over the consequences such promptings 
 might lead to ; and thus it was that he received him with 
 that outburst of sorrow for which Owen was little pre- 
 pared. 
 
 If Owen was shocked as he listened first to the tale 
 of anarchy and bloodshed the old man revealed, a savage 
 pleasure came over him afterwards, to think what terror 
 these midnight maraudings were making in the hearts of 
 those who lived in great houses, and had wealth and in- 
 fluence. His own wrongs rankled too deeply in his breast 
 to make him an impartial hearer ; and already, many of 
 his sympathies were with the insurgents. 
 
 It was almost daybreak ere he could close his eyes ; 
 for, although tired and worn out, the exciting themes he 
 was revolving banished evei'y thought of sleep, and made 
 him restless and fretful. His last words to Larry, as he 
 lay down to rest, were a desire that he might remain for 
 a day or two concealed in his cabin, and that none of the 
 neighbours should learn anything of his arrival. The
 
 THE TIIIIID ERA. 471 
 
 truth was, lio had not courage to face his foi'mer friends, 
 nor could he bear to meet the Joyces : what step he pur- 
 posed to take in the meanwhile, and how to fashion his 
 future course, it is hard to say : for the present, he only 
 asked time. 
 
 The whole of the following day he remained within the 
 little hut ; and when night came, at last ventured forth to 
 breathe the fresh air and move his cramped limbs. His 
 first object, then, was to go over to Joyce's house, with 
 no intention of visiting its inmates — far from it. The 
 jjoor fellow had conceived a shi'inking horror of the 
 avowal he should be compelled to make of his own failure, 
 and did not dare to expose himself to such a test. 
 
 The night was dark and starless : that heavy, clouded 
 darkness which follows a day of rain in our western cli- 
 mate, and makes the atmosphere seem loaded and 
 weighty. To one less accustomed than was Owen, the 
 pathway would have been difficult to discover; but he 
 knew it well in every turning and winding, every dip of 
 the ground, and every rock and streamlet in the course. 
 There was the stillness of death on every side ; and al- 
 though Owen stopped more than once to listen, not the 
 slightest sound could be heard. The gloom and dreari- 
 ness suited well the "habit of his soul." His own 
 thoughts were not of the brightest, and his step was slow 
 and his head downcast as he went. 
 
 At last the glimmering of light, hazy and indistinct 
 from the foggy atmosphere, came into view, and a few 
 minutes after, he entered the little enclosure of the small 
 garden which flanked one side of the cabin. The quick 
 bark of a dog gave token of his approach, and Owen 
 found some difficulty in making himself recognized by 
 the animal, although an old acquaintance. This done, ho 
 crept stealthily to the window from which the gleam of 
 light issued. The shutters were closed, but between their 
 joinings he obtained a view of all within. 
 
 At one side of the fire was Mary — his own jMary, when 
 last he parted with hei*. She was seated at a spinning- 
 wheel, but seemed less occupied with the work, than bent 
 on listening to some noise without. Phil also stood in 
 the attitude of one inclining his ear to catch a sound, and 
 held a musket in his hand like one readv to resist attack.
 
 472 ST. tATEICK's EVE. 
 
 A farm-servant, a lad of some eighteen, stood at his side, 
 armed with a horse-pistol, his features betraj-iug no very- 
 equivocal expression of fear and anxiety. Little Patsy 
 nestled at Mary's side, and v?ith his tiny hands had 
 grasped her arm closely. 
 
 They stood there, as if spell-bound. It was evident 
 they were afraid, by the slightest stir, to lose the chance 
 of hearing any noise without; and when Mary at last 
 lifted up her head, as if to speak, a quick motion of her 
 brother's hand warned her to be silent. "What a history 
 did that group reveal to Owen, as, with a heart throbbing 
 fiercely, he gazed upon it ! But a few short months back, 
 and the inmates of that happy home knew not if at night 
 the door was even latched ; the thought of attack or 
 danger never crossed their minds. The lordly dwellers 
 in a castle felt less security in their slumbers than did 
 these peasants ; now, each night brought a renewal of 
 their terrors. It came no longer the season of mutual 
 greeting around the wintry hearth, the hour of rest and 
 repose ; but a time of anxiety and dread, a gloomy period 
 of doubt, harassed by every breeze that stirred, and every 
 branch that moved. 
 
 " 'Tis nothing tliis time,'' said Phil, at last. " Thank 
 God for that same ! " and he replaced his gun above the 
 chimney, while Mary blessed herself devoutly, and seemed 
 to repeat a prayer to herself. Owen gave one parting 
 look, and retired as noiselessly as he came. 
 
 To creep forth with the dark hours, and stand at this 
 window, became with Owen, now, the whole business of 
 life. The weary hours of the day were passed in the 
 expectancy of that brief season — the only respite he en- 
 jo^-ed from the corroding cares of his own hard fortune. 
 The dog, recognizing him, no longer bai'ked as he ap- 
 proachcd : and he could stand unmolested and look at 
 that hearth, beside which he was wont once to sit and 
 feel at homo. 
 
 Thus was it, as the third week was drawing to a close, 
 when old Larry, who had ventured down to the village to 
 make some little purchase, brought back the news that 
 information had been sworn by the bailiff against Owen 
 Connor, for threatening him with death, on pain of his 
 not abandoning his farm. The people would none of
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 473 
 
 them give any credit to the oath, as none knew of 
 Owen's return ; and the allegation was only regarded as 
 another instance of the perjury resorted to by their 
 opponents to crush and oppress them. 
 
 " They'll have the police out to-morrow, I hear, to 
 search after ye ; and sure the way ye've kept hid will be 
 a bad job, if they find ye after all." 
 
 "7/" they do, Larry!" said Owen, laughing; "but I 
 think it will puzzle tbem to do so." And the veiy spirit 
 of defiance prevented Owen at once surrendering himself 
 to the charge against him. He knew every cave and 
 hiding-place of the mountain, from childhood upwards, 
 and felt proud to think how he could baffle all pursuit, 
 no matter how persevering his enemies. It was essential, 
 however, that he should leave his present hiding-place 
 at once : and no sooner was it dark than Owen took 
 leave of old Larry and issued forth. The rain was falling 
 in torrents, accompanied by a perfect hurricane, as he 
 left the cabin ; fierce gusty blasts swept down the bleak 
 mountain-side, and with wild and melancholy cadence 
 poured along the valley ; the waters of the lake plashed 
 and beat upon the rocky shore : the rushing torrents, as 
 they forced their way down the mountain, swelled the 
 uproar, in which the sound of crashing branches and 
 even rocks were mingled. 
 
 " 'Tis a dreary time to take to the cowld mountain 
 for a home," said Owen, as he drew his thick frieze coat 
 around him, and turned his shoulder to the storm. " I 
 hardly think the police, or the king's throops either, will 
 try a chase after me this night." 
 
 There was moi"e of gratified pride in this muttered re- 
 flection than at first sight might appear; for Owen felt 
 a kind of heroism in his own daring at that moment, 
 that supported and actually encouraged him in his course. 
 The old spirit of bold defiance, which for ages has 
 characterized the people ; the resolute resistance to 
 authority, or to tyranny, which centuries have not erased, 
 was strong in his hai-dy nature ; and he asked for nothing 
 better than to pit his own skill, ingenuity, and endurance 
 against his opponents for the mere pleasure of the en- 
 counter. 
 
 As there was little question on Owen's mind that no
 
 474 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 pursuit of him would take place on sucli a night, he re- 
 solved to pass the time till daybreak within the walls of 
 the old churchyard, the only spot he could think of which 
 promised any shelter. There was a little cell or crypt 
 there, where he could safely remain till morning. An 
 hour's walking brought him to the little gate, the last 
 time be had entered which was at his poor father's 
 funeral. 
 
 His reflection, now, was rather on his own altered 
 condition since that day ; but even on that thought 
 he suffered himself not to dwell. In fact, a hardy 
 determination to face the future, in utter forgetfuluess of 
 the past, was the part he proposed to himself; and he 
 did his utmost to bend his mind to the effort. 
 
 As he drew near the little crypt 1 have mentioned, he 
 was amazed to see the faint flickering of a fire within in it. 
 At first a superstitious fear held him back, and he 
 rapidly repeated some prayers to himself; but the emo- 
 tion v/as soon over, and he advanced boldly toward it. 
 "Who's there? stand! or give the word!" said a gruff 
 voice from within. Owen stood still, but spoke not. The 
 challenge was like that of a sentry, and he half-feared he 
 had unwittingly strayed within the precincts of a patrol. 
 " Give the word at once ! or you'll never spake another," 
 was the savage speech which, accompanied by a deep 
 curse, now met his ears, while the click of a gun-cock 
 was distinctly audible. 
 
 " I'm a poor man, without a home or a shelter," said 
 Owen, calmly ; " and what's worse, I'm without arras, or 
 maybe you wouldn't talk so brave." 
 
 " What's yer name ? where are ye from ? " 
 
 "I'm Owen Connor; that's enough for ye, whoever ye 
 are," replied he, resolutely : " it's a name I'm not ashamed 
 or afraid to say, anywhere." 
 
 The man within the cell threw a handful of dry fm'ze 
 upon the smouldering flame, and while he remained con- 
 cealed himself, took a deliberate survey of Owen as he 
 stood close to the doorway. " You're welcome, Owen," 
 said he, in an altered voice, and one which Owen imme- 
 diately recognised as that of the old blacksmith, Miles 
 Regan ; " you're welcome, my ])oy ! better late than never, 
 anyhow ! "
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 475 
 
 " What do you mean, Miles ? 'Tisn't expecting me 
 liere ye were, 1 suppose ? " 
 
 " 'Tis just tiie same then, I was expecting this many a 
 day," said Miles, as with a rugged grasp of both hands he 
 drew Owen within the narrow cell. "And faint me only 
 was expecting it, but -everyone else. Here, avich, taste 
 this — ye're wet and cowld both; that will put life in ye — 
 and it never ped the king sixpence." 
 
 And he banded Owen a quart bottle as he spoke, the 
 odour of which was unmistakable enough to bear testi- 
 mony to his words, 
 
 " And what brings you here, Miles, in the name of God? " 
 said Owen, for his surprise at the meeting increased every 
 moment. 
 
 " 'Tis your own case, only worse," said the other, with 
 a drunken laugh, for the poteen had already affected his 
 head. 
 
 " And what's that, if I might make bould ? " said Owen, 
 rather angrily. 
 
 " Just that I got the turn-out, my boy. That new chap 
 they have over the property, sould me out, root and branch; 
 and as I didn't go quiet, ye see, they brought the polls 
 down, and there was a bit of a fight, to take the two cows 
 away ; and somehow " — here he snatched the bottle rudely 
 from Owen's hand, and swallowed a copious draft of it — 
 " and, somehow, the corporal was killed, and I thought it 
 better to be away for awhile — for, at the inquest, though 
 the boys would take ' the vestment ' they seen him shot 
 by one of his comrades, there was a bit of a smash in 
 his skull, ye see " — here he gave a low fearful laugh — 
 " that fitted neatly to the tojj of my eleven-pound hammer ; 
 ye comprehend ? " 
 
 Owen's blood ran cold as he said, " Ye don't mean it 
 was you that killed him ? " 
 
 "I do then," replied the other, with a savage grin, as 
 he placed his face within a few inches of Owen's. 
 "There's a hundred pounds blood-money for ye, now, if 
 ye give the information ! A hundred pounds," muttered 
 he to himself : " mushu, I never thought they'd give ten 
 shillings for my own four bones before ! " 
 
 Owen scorned to reply to the insinuation of his turning 
 informer, and sat moodily thinking over the event.
 
 476 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 " Well, I'll be going, auyhow," said he, rising, for bis 
 nbhorrence of his companion made him feel the storm and 
 the hurricane a far preferable alternative. 
 
 " The devil a one foot ye'll leave this, my boy," said Miles, 
 grasping him with the grip of his gigantic hand ; " no, 
 no, ma bouchal, 'tisn't so easy aimed as ye think ; a hun- 
 dred pounds, naboclish ! " 
 
 " Leave me free ! let go my arm ! " said Owen, whose 
 anger now rose at the insolence of this taunt. 
 
 " I'll break it aci'oss my knee, first," said the infuriated 
 ruffian, as he half imitated by a gesture his horrid 
 threat. 
 
 There was no comparison in point of bodily strength 
 between them ; for although Owen was not half the other's 
 age, and had the advantage of being perfectly sober, the 
 smith was a man of enormous power, and held him as 
 though he were a child in his grasp. 
 
 "So that's what you'd be at, my boy, is it ? " said 
 Miles, scoffing ; " it's the fine thrade you choose ! but 
 maybe it's not so pleasant, after all. Stay still there — 
 
 be quiet, I say — by " and here he uttered a most 
 
 awful oath — " if you rouse me, I'll paste your brains 
 against that wall : " and as he spoke, he dashed his 
 closed fist against the rude and crumbling masonry, with 
 a force that shook several large stones from theii places, 
 and left his knuckles one indistinguishable mass of blood 
 and goi'e. 
 
 " That's brave, anyhow," said Owen, with a bitter 
 mockery, for his own danger, at the moment, could 
 not repress his contempt for the savage conduct of the 
 other. 
 
 Fortunately, the besotted intellect of the smith made 
 him accept the speech in a very diff"erent sense, and he 
 said, " There never was the man yet, I wouldn't give 
 him two blows at me, for one at him, and mine to be the 
 last." 
 
 " I often heard of that before," said Owen, who saw 
 that any attempt to escape by main force was completely 
 out of the question, and that stratagem alone could pre- 
 sent a chance. 
 
 " Did ye ever hear of Dan Lenahan ? " said Miles, with 
 a prrin : " what I did to Dan : I was to fight him wid one
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 4?? 
 
 hand, aucl the other tied behind my back ; and when he 
 came up to shake hands wid me before the fight, I just 
 put my thumb in my hand, that way, and I smashed his 
 four fingers over it." 
 
 " There was no fight that day, anyhow, IMiles." 
 
 " Thrue for ye, boy ; the sport was soon over — raich 
 me over the bottle," and with that, Miles finished the 
 poteen at a draught, and then lay back against the wall 
 as if to sleep. Still, he never relinquished his grasp, 
 but, as he fell oflf asleep, held him as in a vice. 
 
 As Owen sat thus a prisoner, turning over in his mind 
 every possible chance of escape, he heard the sound of 
 feet and men's voices rapidly approaching : and, in a few 
 moments, several men turned into the churchyard, and 
 came towards the crypt. They were conversing in a low 
 but hurried voice, which was quickly hushed as they 
 came nearer. 
 
 " What's this ! " cried one, as he entered the cell ; 
 " Miles has a prisoner here ! " 
 
 " Faix, he has so, Mickey ; " ansv/ered Owen, for he 
 recognized in the speaker an old friend and schoolfellow. 
 The rest came hurriedly forward at the words, and soon 
 Owen found himself among a number of his former com- 
 panions. Two or three of the party were namesakes and 
 relations. 
 
 The explanation of his capture was speedily given, and 
 they all laughed heai'tily at Owen's account of his inge- 
 nious efforts at flattery. 
 
 " Av the poteen held out, Owen dear, ye wouldn't have 
 had much trouble ; but he can drink two quarts before he 
 loses his strength." 
 
 In return for his narrative, they freely and frankly told 
 their own story. They had been out arms-hunting — un- 
 successfully, however — their only exploit being the burn- 
 ing of a haggard belonging to a farmer who refused to 
 join the " rising." 
 
 Owen felt greatly relieved to discover that his old 
 friends regarded the smith with a horror fully as great as 
 his own. But they excused themselves for the companion- 
 ship by saying, "What are we to do with the crayture ? 
 Ye wouldn't have us let him bo taken ? " And thus they 
 were compelled to practise every measure for the security
 
 478 ST. Patrick's eye. 
 
 of oue they had no love for, and whose own excesses 
 increased the hazard tenfold. 
 
 The maraudiog exploits they told of, were, to Owen's 
 ears, not devoid of a strange interest, the danger alone 
 had its fascination for him ; and, artfully interwoven as 
 their stories were with sentiments of affected patriotism 
 and noble aspirations for the cause of their country, they 
 affected him strongly. 
 
 For, strange as it may seem, a devotion to country — a 
 mistaken sense of national honour — prompted many to 
 these lawless courses. Vague notions of confiscated lands 
 to be restoi'ed to their rightful possessors ; ancient privi- 
 leges reconferred ; their Church once more endowed with its 
 long-lost wealth and power : such were the motives of the 
 more high-spirited and independent. Others sought 
 redress for jDersonal grievances ; some real or imaginary 
 hardship they laboured under; or, perhaps, as was not 
 unfrequent, they bore the memory of some old grudge or 
 malice, which they hoped now to have an opportunity of 
 requiting. Many were there, who, like the weak-minded 
 in all popular commotions, float with the strong tide, 
 whichever way it may run. They knew not the objects 
 aimed at; they were ignorant of the intentions of their 
 leaders ; but would not lie under the stain of cowardice 
 among their companions, nor shrink from any cause 
 where there was danger, if only for that very reason. Thus 
 was the mass made up, of men differing in various ways ; 
 but all held together by the common tie of a Church and a 
 country. It might be supposed that the leaders in such a 
 movement would be those Avho, having suffered some 
 grievous wrong, were reckless enough to adventure on 
 any course that promised vengeance — very far from this. 
 The principal pronaoters of the insurrection were of the 
 class of farmers — men well to do, and reputed, in many 
 cases, wealthy. The instruments by which they worked 
 were indeed of the very poorer class — the cottiei', whose 
 want and misery had eat into his nature, and who had as 
 little room for fear as for hope in his chilled heart. 
 Some injury sustained by one of these, some piece of 
 justice denied him; his ejection from his tenement; a 
 chance word, perhaps, spoken to him in anger by his land- 
 lord or the agent, wore the springs which moved a man
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 479 
 
 like this, aud brought him into confederacy with those 
 who promised him a speedy repaj-meut of his wrongs, 
 and flattered him into the belief that his individual case 
 had all the weight and importance of a national question. 
 Many insurrectionary movetnents have grown into the 
 magnitude of systematic rebellion from the mere assump- 
 tion on the part of others that they were prearranged 
 and predetermined. The self-importance suggested by 
 a bold opposition to the law is a strong agent in arming 
 men against its terrors. The mock-martyrdom of 
 Ireland is in this way, perhaps; her greatest and least 
 curable evil. 
 
 Owen was, of all others, the man they most wished for 
 amongst them. Independent of his personal courage and 
 daring, he was regarded as one fruitful in expedients, and 
 never deterred by difBculties. This mingled character of 
 cool determination and headlong impulse made him 
 exactly suited to become a leader ; and many a plot was 
 thought of to draw him into their snares, when the 
 circumstances of his fortune thus anticipated their 
 intentions. 
 
 It would not forward the object of my little tale to 
 dwell upon the lite he now led. It was indeed an exis- 
 tence full of misery and suffering. To exaggerate the 
 danger of his position, his companions asserted that the 
 greatest efforts were making for his capture, rewards 
 offei'ed, and spies scattered far aud wide through the 
 country ; and while they agreed v.ith him that nothing- 
 could be laid to his charge, they still insisted that were 
 he once taken, false-swearing and perjiuy would bring him 
 to the gallows, " as it did many a brave boy before him." 
 
 Half-starved, and hai'assed by incessant change of 
 place ; tortured by the fevered agony of a mind halting 
 between a deep purpose of vengeance and a conscious 
 sense of innocence, his own daily sufferings soon brouglit 
 down his mind to that sluggish state of gloomy despera- 
 tion in which the very instincts of our better nature 
 seem dulled and blunted. " I cannot be worse! " was his 
 constant expression, as he wandered alone by some unfre- 
 quented mountain-path, or along the verge of some lonel}' 
 ravine. " I cannot be Averse ! " It is an evil moment 
 tliat suggests a thought like this !
 
 480 ST, Patrick's eve. 
 
 Each night he was accustomed to repair to the old 
 churchyard, where some of the " boys," as they ^called 
 themselves, assembled to delibei^ate on future measures, 
 or talk over the past. It was less in sympathy with their 
 plans that Owen came, than for the very want of human 
 companionship. His utter solitude gave him a longing to 
 hear their voices, and see their faces ; while in their 
 recitals of outrage, he felt that strange pleasure the 
 sense of injur}^ supplies at any tale of sorrow and 
 suffering. 
 
 At these meetings the whisky-bottle was never for- 
 gotten ; and while some were under a pledge not to take 
 more than a certain quantity — a vow they kept most 
 religiously — others drank deeply. Among these was 
 Owen. The few moments of reckless forgetfulness he 
 then enjoyed were the coveted minutes of his long dreary 
 day, and he wished for night to come as the last solace 
 that was left him. 
 
 His companions knew him too well to endeavour by 
 any active influence to implicate him in their proceedings. 
 They cunningly left the work to time and his own gloomy 
 thoughts ; watching, however, with eager anxiety, how, 
 gradually, he became more and more interested in all 
 their doings ; how, by degrees, he ceased even the half- 
 remonstrance against some deed of unnecessary cruelty ; 
 and listened with animation where before he but heard 
 with apathy, if not repugnance. The weeds of evil grow 
 rankest in the rich soil of a heart whose nature, once 
 noble, has been perverted and debased. Ere many weeks 
 passed ovei", Owen, so far from disliking the theme of 
 violence and outrage, became half-angry with his com- 
 rades that they neither proposed any undertaking to him, 
 nor even asked his assistance amongst them. 
 
 This spirit grew hourly stronger in him ; offended 
 jn-ide worked within his heart during the tedious days he 
 spent alone, and he could scarcely refrain from demanding 
 what lack of courage and daring they saw in him, that he 
 should be thus forgotten and neglected. 
 
 In this frame of mind, irresolute as to whether he 
 should not propose himself for some hazardous scheme, 
 or still remain a mere spectator of others, he arrived one 
 evening in the old churchyard. Of late, " the boys," from
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 481 
 
 preconcerted arrangements among themselves, had rather 
 made a sliow of cold and careless indifference in their 
 manner to Owen — conduct which deeply wounded him. 
 
 As he approached now the little crypt, he perceived that 
 a greater number than usual were assembled through the 
 churchyard, and many were gathered in little knots and 
 groups, talking eagerly together ; a half-nod, a scarcely 
 muttered " Good-even," was all the salutation he met, as 
 he moved towards the little cell, where, by the blaze of a 
 piece of bog-pine, a party were regaling themselves — the 
 custom and privilege of those who had been last out on 
 any marauding expedition. A smoking pot of potatoes 
 and some bottles of whisky formed the entertainment, at 
 which Owen stood a longing and famished spectator, 
 
 "Will yez never be done there eatin' and crammin' 
 yei'selves ? " said a gruff voice from the crowd to the party 
 within ; " and ye know well enough there's business to 
 be done to-night." 
 
 " And aint we doing it?" answered one of the feasters. 
 " Hei-e's your health, Peter!" and so saying, he took a 
 very lengthened draught from the " poteen " bottle. 
 
 " 'Tis the thrade ye like best, anyhow," retorted the 
 other. " Come, boys ; be quick now ! " 
 
 The party did not wait a second bidding, but arose 
 from the place, and removing the big pot to make more 
 room, they prepared the little cell for the reception of 
 some other visitors. 
 
 "That's it now! We'll not be long about it. Larry, 
 have yez the ' deck,' my boy ?" 
 
 " There's the book, darlint," said a short, little, decrepid 
 creature, speaking with an asthmatic effort, as he produced 
 a pack of cai-ds, which, if one were to judge from the dirt, 
 made the skill of the game consist as much in deciphering 
 as playing them. 
 
 "Where's Sam M'Guire ? " called out the first speaker, 
 in a voice loud enough to be heard over the whole space 
 around ; and the name was repeated from voice to voice, 
 till it was I'eplied to by one who cried — 
 
 " Here, sir ; am I wanted ? " 
 
 "You are, Sam; and 'tis yourself's always to the fore 
 when we need yez." 
 
 "I hope so indeed," said Sam, as he came forward, a 
 
 I I
 
 482 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 flush of gratified pride on bis liardy cheek. He was a 
 young, athletic fellow, with a fine manly countenance, 
 expressive of frankness and candour. 
 
 "Luke HeSernan! where's Luke ? " said the other. 
 
 " I'm hei'e beside ye," answered a dark-visaged, middle- 
 aged man, with the collar of bis frieze coat buttoned high 
 on bis face ; " ye needn't be shouting my name that way 
 — there may be more bad than good among uz." 
 
 " There's not an informer, any way — if that's what ye 
 mean," said the other, quickly. " Gavan Daly ! Call 
 Gavan Daly, will ye, out there." And the words were 
 passed from mouth to mouth in a minute, but no one 
 replied to the summons. 
 
 " He's not here — Gavan's not here ! " was the murmured 
 answer of the crowd, given in a tone that boded very 
 little in favour of its absent owner. 
 
 " Not here ! " said the leader, as he crushed the piece of 
 papei', from which he read, in his hand; "not here! 
 Where is he, then ? Does any of yez know where's Gavan 
 Daly ? " 
 
 But there was no answer. 
 
 " Can no body tell ? — is he sick ? — or is any belonging 
 to him sick and dying, that he isn't here this night, as he 
 swore to be ?" 
 
 " I saw him wid a new coat on him this morning early 
 in Oughterarde, and he said he was going to see a cousin 
 of his down below Oranmore," said a young lad from the 
 outside of the crowd, and the speaker was in a moment 
 surrounded by several, anxious to find out some other 
 particulars of the absent man. It was evident that the 
 boy's story was far from being satisfactory, and the circnm- 
 stance of Daly's wearing a new coat, was one freely 
 commented on by those who well knew how thoroughly 
 they were in the power of any who should betray them. 
 
 " He's in the black list this niuht," said the leader, as 
 he motioned the rest to be silent ; " that's where I put 
 him now; and see, all of yez — mind my words — if any of 
 uz comes to harm, it will go hard but some will be spured ; 
 and if there w^as only one remaining, he wouldn't be the 
 cowardly villain not to see vengeance on Gavan Daly, for 
 what he's done." 
 
 A murmur of indignation at the imputed treachery of
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 4S3 
 
 tlie absent man buzzed through the crowd ; while one 
 fellow, with a face tlushed by drink, and eyes bleared and 
 bloodshot, cried out: 
 
 " And are ye to stop here all night, calling for the boy 
 that's gone down to bethray yez ? Is there none of yez 
 will take his place ? " 
 
 " I will ! I will ! I'm ready and willin' ! " were uttered 
 by full twenty, in a breath. 
 
 " Who will ye have with yez? take your own choice !" 
 said the leader, turning towards M'Guire and Heffernan, 
 who stood whispering eagerly together. 
 
 " There's the boy I'd take out of five hundred, av he 
 was the same I knew once," said M'Gaire, laying his hand 
 on Owen's shoulder. 
 
 " Begorra then, I wondher what ye seen in him lately 
 to give you a consate out of him," cried Heffernan, with 
 a rude laugh. " 'Tisn't all he's done for the cause any- 
 way." 
 
 Owen started, and fixed his ej-es first on one, then on 
 the other of the speakers ; but his look was rather the 
 vacant stare of one awakening from a lieavy sleep, than 
 the expression of any angry passion — for want and priva- 
 tion had gone far to sap his spirit, as well as his bodily 
 strength. 
 
 " There, avich, taste that," said a man beside him, w'ho 
 was struck by his pale and wasted cheek, and miserable 
 appearance. 
 
 Owen almost mechanically took the bottle, and drank 
 freely, though the contents was strong poteen. 
 
 " Are ye any betther now ? " said Heffernan, with a 
 sneering accent. 
 
 " I am," said Owen, calmly, for he was unconscious of 
 the insolence passed off" on him ; " I'm a deal better." 
 
 "Come along, ma bouchal ! " cried M'Guire; "come 
 into the little place with us, here " 
 
 " What do ye want with me, boys?" asked Owen, look- 
 ing about him through the ci'owd. 
 
 '• 'Tis to take a hand at the cards, divil a more," said 
 an old fellow near, and the speech sent a savage laugh 
 among the rest. 
 
 "I'm ready and willin'," said Owen; "but sorra far- 
 then I've left me to play ; and if the stakes is high " 
 
 I I 2
 
 484 ST. Patrick's evE. 
 
 " Faix, that's what they're not," said Heffernan ; "they're 
 the lowest ever ye played for." 
 
 " Tell me what it is, anyway," cried Owen, 
 
 " Just the meanest thing at all — the life of the blaguard 
 that turned yerself out of yer houldin' — Lucas the agent." 
 
 " To kill Lucas?" 
 
 " That same : and if ye don't like the game, turn away 
 and make room for a boy that has more spirit in him." 
 
 " Who says I ever was afeard ?" said Owen, on whom 
 now the whisky was working. " Is it Luke Heffernan 
 dares to face me down ? — come out here, fair, and see will 
 ye say it again." 
 
 "If you won't join the cause, you mustn't be bringing 
 bad blood among us," cried the leader, in a determined 
 tone ; " there's many a brave boy here to-night would give 
 his right hand to get the offer you did." 
 
 "I'm ready — here I am, ready now," shouted Owen, 
 wildly ; " tell me what you want me to do, and see 
 whether I will or no." 
 
 A cheer broke from the crowd at these words, and all 
 within his reach stretched out their hands to grasp 
 Owen's ; and commendations were poured on him from 
 every side. 
 
 Meanwhile Heffernan and his companion had cleai'ed 
 the little crypt of its former occupants and having heaped 
 fresh wood upon the fire, sat down before the blaze, and 
 called out for Owen to join them. Owen took another 
 draught from one of the many bottles offered by the by- 
 standers, and hastened to obey the summons. 
 
 " Stand back now, and don't speak a word," cried the 
 leader, keeping off the anxious crowd that pressed eagerly 
 forward to witness the game ; the hushed murmuring of 
 the voices showing how deeply interested they felt. 
 
 The three players bent their heads forward as they sat, 
 while Heffernan spoke some words in a low whisper, to 
 which the others responded by a muttered assent. " Well, 
 here's success to the undhertakin', anyhow," cried he 
 aloud, and filling out a glass of whisky, drank it off; 
 then passing the liquor to the two others, they followed 
 his example. 
 
 "Will ye like to deal, Owen?" said M'Guire ; "you're 
 the new-comer, and we'll give ye the choice."
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 485 
 
 "No, thank ye, boys," said Owen; "do it yerselves, 
 one of ye ; I'm sure of fair play." 
 
 Heffernan then took the cards, and wetting' his thumb 
 for the convenience of better distributing them, slowly 
 laid five cards before each player; he paused for a second 
 before he turned the trump, and in a low voice said : " If 
 any man's faint-hearted, let him say it now " 
 
 " Turn the card round, and don't be bothering us," cried 
 j^I'Guire ; " one 'ud think we never played a game before." 
 
 " Come, be alive," said Owen, in whom the liquor had 
 stimulated the pMSsion for play. 
 
 " What's the thrump — is it a diamond ? look over and 
 tell us," murmured the crowd nearest the entrance. 
 
 " 'Tis a spade ! — I lay fourpenco 'tis a spade ! " 
 
 "Why wouldn't it be?" said another; " it's the same 
 spade will dig Lucas's grave this night! " 
 
 " Look ! see ! " whispered another, " Owen Connor's 
 ■won the first thrick ! Watch him now ! Mind the way he 
 lays the card down, with a stroke of his fist ! " 
 
 " I wish he wouldn't be drinking so fast! " said another. 
 
 " Who won that ? Who took that thrick ? " 
 
 " Ould Heffernan, divil fear him ! I never see him lose 
 
 yet." 
 
 " There's another ; that's Owen's !" 
 
 " No ; by Jonas ! 'tis Luke again has it." 
 
 " That's Sam M'Guire's ! See how aisy he takes them 
 up." 
 
 "Now for it, boys! w^iisht ! here s the last round!" 
 and at this moment, a breathless silence prevailed among 
 the crowd ; for while such as were neai'est were eagerly 
 bent on observing the progress of the game, the more 
 distant bent their heads to catch every sound that might 
 indicate its fortune. 
 
 " See how Luke grins! watch his face!" whispered a 
 low voice. " He doesn't care how it goes, now, he's out 
 of it !" and so it was. Heffernan had already won two of 
 the five tricks, and was safe whatever the result of the 
 last one. The trial lay between M'Guire and Owen. 
 
 " Come, Owen, my hearty ! " said M'Guire, as he held 
 a card ready to play, "you or I for it now ; we'll soon see 
 which the devil's fondest of. There's the two of clubs 
 for ye!"
 
 486 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 " There's the three, then !" said Owen with a crash of 
 his hand, as he placed the card over the other. 
 
 "And there's the four!" said Heffernan, "and the 
 thrick is Sam M'Gaire's." 
 
 " Owen Connor's lost ! " " Owen's lost ! " murmured the 
 crowd ; and, whether in half-compassion for his defeat, or 
 grief that so hazardous a deed should be entrusted to a 
 doubtful hand, tlie sensation created Avas evidently of 
 gloom and dissatisfaction. 
 
 "You've a right to take either of us wid ye, Owen," 
 said M'Guire, slapping him on the shoulder. "Luke or 
 myself must go, if ye want us." 
 
 "No; I'll do it myself," said Owen, in a low hollow 
 voice. 
 
 "There's the tool, then!" said Heffernan, pi'oducing 
 from the breast of his frieze coat a long horse-pistol, the 
 stock of which was mended by a clasp of iron belted 
 round it; "and if it doesn't do its work, 'tis the first time 
 it ever failed. Ould Miles Cregan, of Gartane, was the 
 last that heai'd it spake." 
 
 Owen took the weapon, and examined it leisurely, 
 opening the pan and settling the priming, with a finger 
 that never trembled. As he drew forth the ramrod to 
 try the barrel, Hefternan said, with a half-grin, "There's 
 two bullets in it, avich ! — enough's as good as a feast." 
 
 Owen sat still and spoke not, while the leader and 
 Heffernan explained to him the circumstances of the plot 
 against the life of Mr. Lucas. Information had been 
 obtained by some of the party that the agent would leave 
 Galway on the following evening, on his way to Westport, 
 passing through Oughtei'arde and their own village, about 
 midnight. He usually travelled in his gig, with relays of 
 horses ready at different stations of the way, one of which 
 was about two miles distant from the old ruiu, on the edge 
 of the lake — a wild and dreary spot, where stood a solitary- 
 cabin, inhabited by a poor man who earned his livelihood 
 by fishing. No other house was within a mile of this; 
 and here, it was determined, while in the act of changing 
 horses, the murder should be effected. The bleak common 
 beside the lake was studded with fui-ze and brambles, 
 beneath which it was easy to obtain shelter, though 
 pursuit was i;ot to l)e npprehonded — at least they jndgcMl
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 487 
 
 thai the servant would not venture to leave his master at 
 such a moment ; and as for the fisherman, although not a 
 sworn 'member of their party, they well knew he would 
 not dare to inform against the meanest amongst them. 
 
 Owen listened attentively to all these details, and the 
 accurate directions by which they instructed him on every 
 step he should take. From the moment he should set 
 foot within the cover to the very instant of firing, each 
 little event had its warning. 
 
 " Mind ! " repeated Heffernan, with a slow, distinct 
 whisper, " he never goes into the house at all ; but if the 
 night's cowld — as it's sure to be tliis sayson — he'll be 
 moving up and down, to keep his feet warm. Cover him 
 as he turns round ; but don't fire the first cover, but wait 
 till he conies back to the same place again, and then blaze. 
 Don't stir then, till ye see if he falls : if he does, be off 
 down the common ; but if he's only wounded — but sure 
 ye'll do better than that ! " 
 
 " I'll go bail be will ! " said M'Guire. " Sorra fear 
 that Owen Connor's heart would fail him ! and sure if 
 lie likes me to be wid him " 
 
 " No, no ! " said Owen, in the same hollow voice as 
 before, "I'll do it all by myself; I want nobody." 
 
 " 'Tis the very words I said when I shot Lambert of 
 Kilclunah ; " said M'Guire. " I didn't know him by 
 looks, and the boys wanted me to take some one to point 
 him out. ' Sorra bit ! ' says I, " leave that to me ; * and 
 so I waited in the gripe of the ditch all day, till, about 
 four in the evening, I seen a stout man wid a white hat 
 coming across the Gelds, to where the men was planting 
 potatoes. So I ups to him wid a letter in my hand, this 
 way, and my hat ofi" — ' Is yer houner Mr. Lambert ? ' 
 says I. 'Yes,' says he; 'what do ye want with me?' 
 ' 'Tis a bit of a note I've for yer honner,' says I ; and I 
 gav him the paper. He tuck it and opened it ; but troth 
 it was little matter there was no writin' in it, for he 
 wouldn't have lived to read it through. I sent the ball 
 through his heart, as near as I stand to ye ; the wadding 
 was burning his waistcoat when I left him. ' God save 
 you ! ' says the men, as I went across the potato-field. 
 ' Save you kindly ! ' says I. ' Was that a shot we heard ? " 
 says another, ' Tcs,' says I ; 'I was fright'ning the
 
 488 ST. pateick's eve. 
 
 crows ; ' and sorra bit, but that's a saying tliey have 
 against me ever since." These last few words were said 
 in a simper of modesty, which, whether real or affected, 
 was a strange sentiment at the conclusion of such a 
 tale. 
 
 The party soon after separated, not to meet again for 
 several nights ; for the news of Lucas's death would of 
 course be the signal for a general search through the 
 country, and the most active measures to trace the mur- 
 derer. It behoved them, then, to be more than usually 
 careful not to be absent from their homes and their daily 
 duties for some days at least : after which they could 
 assemble in safety as before. 
 
 Grief has been known to change the hair to gray in a 
 single night ; the announcement of a sudden misfortune 
 has palsied the hand that held the ill-omened letter; but I 
 question if the houi\s that are passed before the commis- 
 sion of a great crime, planned and meditated beforehand, 
 do not work more feartul devastation on the human heart, 
 than all the sorrows that ever crushed humanity. Ere 
 night came, Owen Connor seemed to have grown years 
 older. In the tortured doubtings of his harassed mind 
 he appeared to have spent almost a lifetime since the sun 
 last rose. He had passed in review before him each 
 phase of his former existence, from childhood — free, care- 
 less, and happy childhood — to days of boyish sport and 
 revelry ; then came the period of his first manhood, with 
 its new ambitions and hopes. He thought of these, and 
 how, amid the humble circumstances of his lowly fortune, 
 he was happy. What would he have thought of him 
 who should predict such a future as this for him ? How 
 could he have believed it? And yet the worst of all 
 remained to come. He tried to rally his courage and 
 steel his heart, by repeating over the phrases so frequent 
 among his companions. " Sure, ain't I driven to it? is 
 it my fault if I take to this, or theii's that compelled 
 me?" and such like. But these words came with no 
 persuasive force in the still hour of conscience : they 
 were only effectual amid the excitement and tumult of a 
 multitude, when men's passions were high, and their reso- 
 lutions daring. "It is too late to go back," muttered he, 
 as he arose from the spot, where, awaiting nightfall, he
 
 THE THIRD EEA. 489 
 
 had lain hid for several hours; " the}' mustn't call me a 
 coward, any way." 
 
 As Owen reached the valley the darkness spread far 
 and near ; not a star could be seen ; great masses of cloud 
 covered the skj', and hung down heavily, midway upon 
 the mountains. There was no rain ; but on the wind 
 came from time to time a drifted mist, which showed that 
 the air was charged with moisture. The gx'ound was still 
 wet and plashy from recent heavy rain. It was indeed a 
 cheerless night and a cheerless hour ; but not more so than 
 the heart of him who now, bent upon his deadly purpose, 
 moved slowly on towards the common. 
 
 On descending towards the lake-side, he caught a passing 
 view of the little village, where a few lights yet twinkled, 
 and flickering stars that shone within some humble home. 
 "What would he not have given to be but the meanest 
 peasant there, the poorest creature that toiled and 
 sickened on his dreary way ! He turned away hurriedly, 
 and with his hand pressed heavily on his swelling heart 
 walked rapidly on. " It will soon be over now," said 
 Owen ; he was about to add, with the accustomed piety 
 of his class, " thank God for it," but the words stopped 
 in his throat, and the dreadful thought flashed on him, 
 " Is it when I am about to shed His creature's blood, I 
 should say this ? " 
 
 He sat down upon a large stone beside the lake, at a 
 spot where the road came down to the water's edge, and 
 where none could pass unobserved by him. He had often 
 fished from that very rock when a boy, and eaten his little 
 dinner of potatoes beneath its shelter. Here he sat once 
 more, saying to himself, as he did so, " 'Tis an ould 
 friend, any way, and I'll just spend my last night with 
 him ; " for so in his mind he already regarded his con- 
 dition. The murder effected, he determined to make no 
 effort to escape. Life was of no value to him. The 
 snares of the conspiracy had entangled him, but his heart 
 was not in it. 
 
 As the night wore on, the clouds lifted, and the wind, 
 increasing to a storm, bore them hurriedly through the 
 air ; the waters of the lake, lashed into waves, beat heavily 
 on the low shore ; while the howling blast swept through 
 the mountain-passes, and over the blenk wide plain, with
 
 490 ST. Patrick's eve. 
 
 a rushing sound. The thin crescent of a new moon could 
 be seen from time to time as the clouds rolled past : too 
 faint to shed any light upon the earth, it merely gave form 
 to the dark masses that moved before it. 
 
 " I will do it here," said Owen, as he stood and looked 
 upon the dark water that beat against the foot of the 
 rock ; "here, on this spot." 
 
 He sat for some moments with his ear bent to listen, 
 but the storm was loud enough to make all other sounds 
 inaudible ; yet, in every noise he thought he heard the 
 sound of wheels, and the rapid tramp of a horse's feet. 
 The motionless attitude, the cold of the night, but more 
 than either, the debility brought on by long fasting and 
 hunger, benumbed his limbs, so that he felt almost unable 
 to make the least exertion, should any such be called for. 
 
 He therefore descended from the rock and moved along 
 the road ; at first, only thinking of restoring lost anima- 
 tion to his frame, but, at length, in a half unconscious- 
 ness, he had wandered upwards of two miles beyond the 
 little hovel where the change of horses was to take place. 
 Just as he was on the point of returning, he perceived at 
 a little distance, in front, the walls of a now I'uiued cabin, 
 once the home of the old smith. Part of the I'oof had 
 fallen in, the doors and windows were gone, the fragment 
 of an old shutter alone remained, and this banged heavily 
 back and forwards as the storm rushed through the 
 wretched hut. 
 
 Almost without knowing it, Owen entered the cabin, 
 and sat down beside the spot where once the forge-fire 
 used to burn. He had been there, too, when a boy many 
 a time — many a story had he listened to in that same 
 corner ; but why think of this now ? The cold blast 
 seemed to freeze his very blood — he felt his heart as if 
 congealed within him. He sat cowering from the piercing 
 blast for some time ; and at last, unable to bear the sensa- 
 tion longei", determined to kindle a fire with the fragments 
 of the old shutter. For this purpose he drew the charge 
 of the pistol, in which there were three bullets, and not 
 merely two, as Helfernan had told him. Laying these 
 carefully down in his handkerchief, he kindled a light 
 with some powder, and with the dexterity of one not un- 
 accustomed to such operations, soon saw the dry sticks
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 491 
 
 blaziug on the hearth. On looking about he discovered a 
 few sods of turf and some dry furze, with which he re- 
 plenished his fire, till it gradually became a warm and 
 cheering blaze. Owen now reloaded the pistol, just as 
 he had found it. There was a sense of duty in his mind 
 to follow out every instruction he received, and deviate 
 in nothing. This done, he held his numbed fingers over 
 the blaze, and bared his chest to the warm glow of the fire. 
 
 The sudden change from the cold night-air to the 
 warmth of the cabin soon made him drowsy. Fatigue 
 and watching aiding the inclination to sleep, he was 
 obliged to move about the hut, and even expose himself 
 to the chill blast, to resist its influence. The very purpose 
 on which he was bent, so far from dispelling sleep, I'ather 
 induced its approach ; for, strange as it may seem, the 
 concentration with which the mind brings its power to 
 bear on any object will overcome all the interest and 
 anxiety of our natures, and bring on sleep from very weari- 
 ness. 
 
 He slept, at first, calmly and peacefully — exhaustion 
 would have its debt acquitted — and he breathed as softly 
 as an infant. At last, when the extreme of fatigue wa^^ 
 passed, his brain began to busy itself with flitting thoughts 
 and fancies — some long- forgotten day of boyhood, some 
 little scene of childish gaiety, flashed across him, and he 
 dreamed of the old mountain-lake, where so often hu 
 watched the wide circles of the leaping trout, or tracked 
 with his eye the foamy path of the wild water-hen,' as she 
 skimmed the surface. Then suddenly his chest heaved 
 and fell with a strong motion, for with lightning's speed 
 the current of his thoughts was changed ; his heart was 
 in the mad tumult of a faction-fight, loud shouts werj 
 ringing in his ears, the crash of sticks, the cries of pain, 
 entreaties for mercy, execrations and threats, rung arouml 
 him, when one figure moved slowly before his astonished 
 gaze, with a sweet smile upon her lips, and love in her 
 long-lashed eyes. She murmured his name ; and now 
 he slept with a low-drawn breath, his quivering lips 
 repeating, " Mary ! " 
 
 Another and a sadder change was coming. He was on 
 the mountains, in the midst of a large assemblage of wild- 
 looking and hagirard men, whose violent speech and
 
 492 ST. Patrick's^ eve. 
 
 savage gestures well suited their reckless air, A loud 
 shout welcomed him as he came amongst them, and a cry 
 of " Here's Owen Connor — Owen at last !" and a hundred 
 hands were stretched out to grasp his, but as suddenly 
 withdrawn, on seeing that bis hands were not bloodstained 
 nor gory. 
 
 He shuddered as he looked upon their dripping fingers ; 
 but he shuddered still more as they called him " Coward !" 
 What he said he knew not ; but in a moment they were 
 gathered round him, and clasping him in their arms ; and 
 now, his hands, his cheeks, his clothes, were streaked with 
 blood ; he tried to wipe the foul-stains out, but his fingers 
 grew clotted, and his feet seemed to plash in the I'ed stream, 
 and his savage comrades laughed fiercely at his eff'orts, and 
 mocked him, 
 
 " What am I, that you should clasp me thus ? " he 
 cried ; and a voice from his inmost heart replied, " A 
 murderer!" The cold sweat rolled in great drops down 
 his brow, while the foam of agony dewed his pallid lips, 
 and his frame trembled in a teri'ible convulsion. Con- 
 fused and fearful images of bloodshed and its penalty, the 
 crime and the scafi^old, commingled, worked in his mad- 
 dened brain. He heard the rush of feet, as if thousands 
 Avere hurrying on, to see him die, and voices that swelled 
 like the sea at midnight. jS"or was the vision all uni'eal : 
 lor already two men had entered the hut. 
 
 The dreadful torture of his thoughts had now reached 
 its climax, and with a bound Owen sprang from his sleep, 
 and cried in a shriek of heart-wrung anguish, " No, never 
 — I am not a murderer. Owen Connor can meet his death 
 like a man, but not with blood upon him." 
 
 " Owen Connor! Owen Connor, did you say ?" repeated 
 one of the two who stood before him ; " are you, then, 
 Owen Connor?" 
 
 " I am," replied Owen, whose dreams were still the last 
 impression on his mind. " I give myself up ; — do what 
 ye will with me; — hang, imprison, or transport mo ; I'll 
 never gainsay you." 
 
 " Owen, do you not know me?" said the othei', remov- 
 ing his travelling cap, and brushing back the hair from 
 his forehead. 
 
 " No, 1 know nothing of you," said he, fiercely.
 
 *aE THIED EEA. 493 
 
 '' !N"ot remember your old friend — vour landlord's son, 
 Owen?" 
 
 Owen stared at him -without speaking ; his parted lips 
 and fixed gaze evidencing tlie amazement which came over 
 him. 
 
 " You saved my life, Owen," said the young man, 
 horror-struck by the withered and wasted form of the 
 peasant. 
 
 " And you have made me this," muttered Owen, as he 
 let fall the pistol from his bosom. '• Yes," cried he, 
 "with an energy very different from before, " I came out 
 this night, sworn to murder that man beside you — your 
 agent, Lucas ; my soul is perjured if my hands are not 
 bloody." 
 
 Lucas instantly took a pistol from the breast of his 
 coat, and cocked it; while the ghastly whiteness of his 
 cheek showed he did not think the danger was yet over. 
 
 "Put up your weapon," said Owen, contemptuously. 
 " What would I care for it, if I wanted to take your life ? 
 Do you think the likes of me has any hould on the world ?'' 
 and he laughed a scornful and bitter laugh. 
 
 " How is this, then ? " cried Leslie ; " is murder so light 
 a crime that a man like this does not shrink from it ?" 
 
 " The country," whispered Lucas, "is indeed in a fearful 
 state. The rights of property no longer exist among us 
 That fellow — because he lost his farm " 
 
 " Stop, sir ?" cried Owen, fiercely ; " I will deny nothing 
 of my guilt — but lay not more to my charge than is 
 true. Want and misery have brought me low — destitu- 
 tion and recklessness still lowei' — but if I swore to have 
 your life this night, it was not for an)^ vengeance of my 
 own." 
 
 " Ha ! then there is a conspiracy !" cried Lucas, hastily. 
 " We must have it out of you — every word of it — or it will 
 go harder with yourself." 
 
 Owen's only reply was a bitter laugh ; and from that 
 moment he never uttered another word. All Lucas's 
 threats, all Leslie's entreaties, were powerless and vain. 
 The very allusion to becoming an informer was too 
 revolting to be forgiven, and he firmly resolved to brave 
 any and everything rather than endure the mere pi'o- 
 pcsal.
 
 494 BT. fateick's eve. 
 
 They returned to Galway as soon as the post-boJ^s had 
 succeeded in repairing the accidental breakage of the 
 harness, which led to the opj)ortune appearance of the 
 landlord and his agent in the hut; Owen accompanying 
 them without a word or a gesture. 
 
 So long as Lucas was present, Owen never opened his 
 lips ; the di'ead of committing himself, or in any way im- 
 plicating one amongst his companions, deterred him ; but 
 when Leslie sent for him, alone, and asked him the cir- 
 cumstances which led him to the eve of so great a crime, 
 he confessed all — omitting nothing, save such passages as 
 might involve others — and even to Leslie he was guarded 
 on this topic. 
 
 The young landlord listened with astonishment and 
 sorrow to the peasant's story. Never till now did he 
 conceive the mischiefs neglect and abandonment can pro- 
 pagate, nor of how many sins mere poverty can be the 
 parent. He knew not before that the very endurance of 
 want can teach another endurance, and niake men hardened 
 against the terrors of the law and its inflictions. He was 
 not aware of the condition of his tenantry ; he wished them 
 all well off and happy ; he had no self-accusings of a grudg- 
 ing nature, nor an oppressive disposition, and he absolved 
 himself of any hardships that originated with " the 
 agent." 
 
 The cases brought before his notice rather disposed him 
 to regard the people as wily and treacherous, false in their 
 pledges and unmindful of favours ; and many, doubtless, 
 were so ; but he never enquired how far their experience 
 had taught them that dishonesty was the best policy, and 
 that trick and subtlety are the only aids to the poor man. 
 He forgot, above all, that they had neither examples to look 
 up to nor imitate, and that when once a people have become 
 sunk in misery, they are the ready tools of any wicked 
 enough to use them for violence, and false enough to per- 
 suade them that outrage can be their welfare; and, lastlj^, 
 he overlooked the great fact, that in a corrupt and debased 
 social condition, the evils which, under other circumstances, 
 would be borne with a patient trust in future relief, are 
 resented in a spirit of recklessness ; and that men soon 
 cease to shudder at a crime when frequency has accus- 
 tomed thera to discuss its details.
 
 'rnE THIRD ERA. 495 
 
 I must not — I dare not dwell longer on this tliemc. 
 Leslie felt all the accusations of an awakened conscience. 
 He saw himself the origin of many misfortunes — of evils 
 of whose very existence he never heard before. Ere Owen 
 concluded his sad story, his mind was opened to some of 
 the miseries of Ireland ; and when he had ended he cried, 
 " I will live at home with ye, amongst ye all, Owen ! I 
 will try if Irishmen cannot learn to know who is their 
 true friend ; and while repairing some of my own faults, 
 mayhap I may remedy some of theirs." 
 
 " Oh ! why did you not do this before I came to my 
 ruin?" cried Owen, in a passionate burst of grief ; for the 
 poor fellow all along had given himself up for lost, and 
 imagined that his own plea of guilt must bring him to the 
 gallows. Nor was it till after much persuasion and great 
 trouble that Leslie could reconcile him to himself, and 
 assure him that his own fortunate I'epentance had saved 
 him from destruction. 
 
 "You shall go back to your mountain-cabin, Owen: 
 you shall have your own farm again, and be as happy as 
 ever," said the young man. " The law must deal with 
 those who break it, and no one will go farther than 
 myself to vindicate the law ; but I will also try if kind- 
 ness and fair-dealing will not save many from the prompt- 
 ings of their own hearts, and teach men that, even hei'e, 
 the breach of God's commandments can bring neither 
 peace nor happiness." 
 
 j\'Iy object in this little story being to trace the career 
 of one humble man through the trials and temptations 
 incident to his lot in life, I must not dwell upon the 
 wider theme of national disturbance. I have endeavoured 
 — how weakly, I am well aware — to show, that social 
 disorganization, rather than political grievances, are the 
 source of Irish outrnge: that neglect and abandonment of 
 the people on the part of those who stood in the position 
 of friends and advisers towards them, have disseminated 
 evils deeper and greater than even a tyranny could have 
 engendei'ed. But for this desertion of their duties, there 
 had been no loss of their rightful influence, nor would 
 the foul crime of assassination now stain the name of our 
 land. With an educated and resident proprietary, Ireland 
 could never have become what she now is ; personal
 
 496 s*. Patrick's eve. 
 
 comfort, if no higher motive could be appealed to, would 
 have necessitated a watchful observance of the habits of 
 the people — the tares would have been weeded from the 
 wheat; the evil influence of bad men would not have 
 been suffered to spread its contagion through the land. 
 
 Let me not be supposed for a moment as joining in 
 the popular cry against the landlords of Ireland. As 
 regards the management of their estates, and the liberality 
 of their dealings with their tenantry, they are, of course, 
 with the exceptions which every country exhibits, a class 
 as blameless and irreproachable as can be found anywhere 
 — their real dereliction being, in my mind, their desertion 
 of the people. To this cause, I believe, can be traced 
 every one of the long catalogue of disasters to which 
 Ireland is a prey ; the despairing poverty, reckless habits, 
 indifference to the mandates of the law, have their source 
 here. The impassioned pursuit of any political privilege, 
 which they are given to suppose will alleviate the evils of 
 their state, has thrown them into the hands of the 
 demagogue, and banded them in a league which they 
 assume to be national. You left them to rlrilt on the 
 waters, and you may now be shipwrecked among the 
 floating fragments ! 
 
 My tale is ended. I have only one record more to add. 
 The exercise of the law, assisted by the energy and 
 determination of a feai'less and resident landlord, at 
 length suppressed outrage and banished those who had 
 been its originators. Through the evidence of Gavan 
 Daly, whose treachery had been already suspected, several 
 of the leaders were found guilty, and met the dreadful 
 penalty of their crimes. The fact of an informer having 
 been found amongst them, did, however, far more to 
 break up this unholy league than all the terrors of the law, 
 unassisted by such aid ; but it was long before either 
 peace or happiness shed their true blessings on that land : 
 mutual distrust, the memory of some lost friend, and tlui 
 sad conviction of their own iniquity, darkened many a day, 
 and made even a gloomier depth than they had ever 
 known in their poverty. 
 
 There came, however, a reverse for this. It was a fine 
 day in spring — the mountain and the lake were bright in 
 the sunshine — the valley, rich in the promise of the
 
 THE THIRD ERA. 497 
 
 coming year, was already greeu with the young wheat — 
 the pleasant sounds of happy labour rose from the fields 
 fresh-turned by the plough — the blue smoke curled into 
 thiu air from many a cabin, no longer mean-looking and 
 miserable as before, but with signs of comfort around, in 
 the trim hedge of the little garden and the white walls 
 that glistened in the sun. 
 
 Towards the great mountain above the lake, however, 
 many an eye was turned from afar, and many a peasant 
 lingered to gaze upon the scene which now marked its 
 rugged face. 
 
 Along the winding path which traced its zigzag course 
 from the lake-side to the little glen where Owen's cabin 
 stood, a vast procession could be seen moving on foot 
 and on horseback. Some in country cars, assisted up the 
 steep ascent by men's strong shoulders ; others mounted 
 in twos and threes upon some slow-footed beast ; but the 
 greater number walking or rather clambering their way — 
 for in their eagerness to get forward, they, each moment, 
 deserted the path to breast the ferny mountain side. The 
 scarlet cloaks of the women, as they fluttered in the 
 wind, and their white caps, gave a brilliancy to the 
 picture, which, as the masses emerged from the depth of 
 some little dell and disappeared again, had all the sem- 
 blance of some gorgeous panorama. Nor was eye the 
 only sense gladdened by the spectacle — for even in the 
 valley could be heard the clear ringing laughter as they 
 went along, and the wild cheer of merriment that ever 
 and anon burst forth from happy hearts, while, high above 
 all, the pleasant sounds of the bagpipe rose, as, seated 
 upon an ass, and entrusted to the guidance of a boy, the 
 musician moved along : his inspii'iting strains taken 
 advantage of at every, spot of level ground by some 
 merry souls, who would not "lose so much good music." 
 
 As the head of the dense column wound its way up- 
 ward, one little group could be seen by those below, and 
 were saluted by many a cheer and the waving of hand- 
 kerchiefs. These were a party, whose horses and gear 
 seemed far better than the rest ; and among them rode a 
 gentleman mounted on a strong pony — his chief care was 
 bestowed less on his own beast, than in guiding that of a 
 young country girl, who rode beside him. She was 
 
 ic K
 
 498 ST. tatiiick's eve. 
 
 enveloped in a long blue cloak of dark clotb, beneath 
 which she wore a white dress ; a white ribbon floated 
 through her dark hair, too; but in her features and the 
 happy smile upon her lip, the bride was written more 
 palpably than in all these. 
 
 High above her head, upon a pinnacle of rock, a man 
 stood gazing at the scene ; at his side a little child of 
 some four or five years old, whose frantic glee seemed 
 perilous in such a place, while his wild accents drew 
 many an upward glance from those below, as he 
 cried : — 
 
 " See, Nouy, see ! Mary is coming to us at last ! " 
 This, too, was a " St. Patrick's Eve," and a happy one. 
 May Ireland see many such ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Woodfall & KiiKlcr, Priutora, Milfovd Lane, Sti iii.l, T.oiuloii, W.C.
 
 Uniform with tJie " Harry Lorrequer " Edition of Lever's 
 Novels. 
 
 LORD LYTTON'S NOVELS. 
 
 KNEBWORTH EDITION. 
 
 In Crown 8vo, cloth, with frontispiece, price y. 6if. each vohnne. 
 
 Eugene Aram. 
 Night and Morning. 
 Pelham. 
 
 My Novel. Vol. I. 
 „ Vol. II. 
 Ernest Maltravers. 
 Alice. 
 
 The Last Days of Pompeii. 
 Harold. 
 
 The Coming Race. 
 Zanoni. 
 Paul Clifford. 
 Rienzi. 
 
 The Last of the Barons. 
 Lucretia. 
 
 The Caxtons. 
 
 Devereux. 
 
 The Disowned. 
 
 Godolphin. 
 
 A Strange Story. 
 
 What will He do with 
 
 It ? Vol. I. 
 V7hat will He do with 
 
 It ? Vol. II. 
 Leila; and the Pilgrims 
 
 of the Rhine. 
 Kenelm Chillingly. 
 The Parisians. Vol. I. 
 Vol. II. 
 Falkland; and Zicci. 
 
 Also, iinifortn with the abovty 
 
 LORD LYTTON'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
 
 KNEBWORTH EDITION. 
 
 England and the English. 
 Athens : Its Rise and Fall. 
 The Student; and Asmo- 
 
 deus at Large, 
 Caxtoniana. 
 Quarterly Essays. 
 Pamphlets and Sketches. 
 Schiller and Horace. 
 
 King Arthur. 
 
 The New Timon, St. Ste- 
 phens, and the Lost 
 Tales of Miletus. 
 
 Dramatic Works. Vol. I. 
 „ Vol. II. 
 
 Miscellaneous Poems. 
 
 London and New York: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE and SONS.
 
 Uniform with the " Harry Lor.requer " Edition of Lever's 
 
 Noveh. 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 A NEW EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. 
 
 Piinted in crown 8vo, uniform with the Knebworth Edition o/ 
 Lord Lytton's Novels, containing the Author's Notes, and 
 illustrated with Steel Plates from designs by GEORGE Cruik 
 SHANK, Turner, Maclise, and other celebrated Artists, 
 
 Price 3^-. bd. each, cloth gilt. 
 
 WAVERLEY. 
 
 GUY MANNERING. 
 
 OLD MORTALITY. 
 
 THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. 
 
 ROB ROY. 
 
 THE ANTIQUARY. 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 THE BLACK DWARF, AND A LEGEND 
 
 OF MONTROSE. 
 IVAN HOE. 
 THE MONASTERY. 
 THE ABBOT. 
 KENILWORTH. 
 THE PIRATE. 
 
 THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. 
 PEVERIL OF THE PEAK. 
 QUENTIN DURWARD. 
 ST. RONAN'S WELL. 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 THE BETROTHED, AND THE HIGHLAND 
 
 WIDOW. 
 THE TALISMAN. 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER, AND CASTLE 
 
 DANGEROUS. 
 COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS. 
 THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH. 
 ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN. 
 
 London and Nev/ Yokk : GEORGE ROUTLEDGE and SONS.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW.
 
 
 3 1205 00474 6374 
 
 n^i'^ 
 
 i^i^ir:r' ',^^!^am 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 001 424 206 9 
 
 •>r ■> 
 
 
 -?nV 
 
 '■• ."ii *■>! 
 
 ^■'K- 
 
 '^i^ 
 
 ?sn; 
 
 
 
 ■5.^