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 LESCAR, 
 
 THE UNIVERSALIST. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 " Only so can life be truly represented — life which is not all 
 real, strange though the words may seem — which finds much 
 of its sweetness in illusion, which takes its rare draughts of joy 
 oftenest in dreams — dreams truer than facts, more real than 
 flesh and blood." — Blackwood, March, 1873.
 
 LESCAR, 
 
 THE UNIVEESALIST 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 ARTISTE," "BRIGHT MORNING," etc. 
 
 ' Enough ! to speed a parting friend 
 'Tis vain alike to speak and listen ; 
 Yet stay — these feeble accents blend 
 With rays of light from eyes that glisten. 
 Good-bye ! once more ; and kindly tell, 
 In words of peace, ' the young world's story.' 
 And say, besides, he loved too well 
 His mother's soil, his father's glory." 
 
 Oliver W. Holmes. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY, 
 
 1874. 
 
 \_All rights reserved.]
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., 
 
 CITY KOAD. 
 
 L I E) R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVER5ITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 813 ^ 
 
 v.l
 
 ?A3 
 
 q LESCAR, 
 
 THE UNIVEESALIST. 
 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 ^% A CHAPTER OF YEARS AGO. ANNO DOMINI 1854. 
 
 " Civitas generis humani." 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 I' There is a fashion come much into vogue, among 
 
 *^those who possess miniatures of their ancestors. 
 
 XA fashion, of mounting them in rows, upon a 
 
 Jjback-ground of crimson velvet, and of hanging 
 
 ^* fhem in collective array against the wall. 
 
 f< They are curious, these ancestral groupings, 
 
 ^ in their contrasts, in their links of likeness : 
 
 viancient dames, with frizzled perukes and pow- 
 
 ^ dered cheek ; fair faces of the family beauties, 
 
 in the bright blossom of their youth ; withered 
 
 pofcbuntenances of old men, and blooming portraits 
 
 ^-^of their sons and grandsons. 
 
 r\S Often, as I have contemplated these collections, 
 
 : VOL. I. B
 
 Z LESCAR. 
 
 I have wondered over tlie hidden threads of their 
 varied histories. Over their links of union, their 
 currents of influence, and all the twinings and 
 intertwinings, that made up the tale of their 
 chequered lives. 
 
 My book is the velvet background in which 
 my portraits are sunk ; the portraits I bring one 
 by one before you ; the hidden current of mutual 
 influence is that subtle thread with which fate 
 weaves the story of uniting through varied lives. 
 
 The mutual influence of life over life, is in our 
 day, wide-spread and far reaching. 
 
 It is a characteristic of our age. 
 
 Sentiments and opinions, national and indivi- 
 dual, bear now with influence on the histories of 
 men, the nurseries of whose existence have been 
 far apart. In widely distant countries, under 
 strongly contrasted circumstance, are often nur- 
 tured, characters destined to draw closely together, 
 and to touch in the course of their dife's journey, 
 with a mutual impress, that stands out a telling 
 fact in the backward vista of each career. 
 
 So life reflects on life, and mind on mind. 
 
 The nursery of Victor Lescar was Le Grand 
 St. Marteau, a suburb of Paris. 
 
 Pass by the fountains of the Chateau d'Eau,
 
 LESCAR. 6 
 
 by the new Boulevard du Prince Eugene, where 
 sits the bronze statue of Yoltaire. Look at the 
 haggard old yisage, curled in a perpetual smile, 
 grim and cynical, over his own Parisian triumphs, 
 past and to come. 
 
 Pass on by the Place du Trone, along by the 
 Cours de Vincennes, and as the air grows fresh 
 and cool, as the sweet scent of the lilac and 
 jasmine comes floating on the evening breeze, from 
 every porch door, and from behind every garden 
 wall, as the buzz and hum of Paris dies away in 
 the distance, the tower of the old Chapelle of Le 
 Grand St. Marteau will come suddenly into view, 
 and the full soft notes from the belfry will fill 
 the air. It is evening in Le Grand St. Marteau ; 
 it is Sunday, and a fete-day as well. 
 
 It is early summer, and the sun has been hot 
 and radiant all day; but it is setting now, and 
 the rich warm light falls aslant the tall houses, 
 and leaves broad shadows under the projecting 
 eaves. 
 
 The streets are gay, full of people in bright 
 holiday attire trooping hither and thither. The 
 marble tables at the cafe doors are in great 
 request, and groups of idlers sit round them, 
 wreathed in the smoke-clouds of innumerable 
 cigars. The air is laden with odours of Ha-
 
 4 LESCAR. 
 
 vannali, with tlie fragrance of roasting coffee, 
 with suggestions of cogniac, and with a sweet whiff 
 blowing here and there from some rich flowering 
 jasmine or orange-tree nestling in a sheltered 
 nook. 
 
 The country people have trooped into the 
 suburb, for at sunset there will be a great " spec- 
 tacle " — a grand procession to the church. And 
 it is a rustic fete, for to-night the green blades of 
 sprouting corn, will be made safe from all blights 
 and mildew by the touch and blessing of thrice- 
 holy hands. 
 
 So the people have crowded in, bearing 
 green sheaves of long feathery grass — the hope 
 of the coming season. The gay kerchiefs, the 
 blue smocks, the pretty varied colouring of the 
 women's dresses, made a bright and fanciful 
 scene, as they sauntered backwards and forwards, 
 waving their green trophies, now under the 
 shadow, now in the hot glare of the sunset ray — 
 a motley multitude, in full enjoyment of the 
 beauty, the repose, and the evening idleness of 
 life. 
 
 Suddenly the bell tolls. Hark ! the grave 
 business of the fete will begin. A thrill runs 
 through the multitude — a murmur — a turning of 
 all faces westward.
 
 LESCAR. 
 
 " All ! hold— they come ! " 
 
 First, a distant chanting, echoing up the 
 narrow street in the still sweet air, then the long 
 slow procession winding into sight — ^priests, white- 
 capped sisters, cowl- covered brethren of many 
 orders, scarlet-robed fathers to officiate, and 
 snowy-frocked cherubs to sing the "Ave," to 
 swing silver censers, and to carry banners in the 
 van and in the rear. 
 
 And then the crowd, rushing round them, 
 hurrying after, waving their green sheaves, bow- 
 ing their uncovered heads, and pressing close 
 behind the pageant into the church. 
 
 " A great spectacle ! The first fete of the 
 agricultural year." 
 
 Before the procession came in view, and before 
 every eye was strained and every mind excited 
 in one direction, a great many glances had been 
 turned upwards towards a lattice window oppo- 
 site the chapel door in the principal street. 
 
 There was a face at that lattice, difficult to 
 pass without notice, even in that gay throng. A 
 very beautiful face — of a type dark, warm, and 
 southern. Yery young — the soft outKne of the 
 rounded cheek, fuU and childlike — but already 
 striking and remarkable. Shadowed by folds of 
 glossy hair, worn t\Y^isted round the forehead, and
 
 6 LESCAR. 
 
 falling in straight plaits, like a Roman peasant, 
 over the shoulders, — it seemed at once, rich and 
 dark, yet luminous and glowing, for the black 
 shades of the hair were relieved by a bunch of 
 scarlet anemones nestling on one side, and the 
 olive tints of the cheek and brow threw up in 
 brilliant contrast the crimson of the lips, and the 
 flash of the dark restless eyes. 
 
 The lips were curling with something of con- 
 tempt and cynical amusement as she looked on 
 the crowd — an expression that sat strangely on 
 the young countenance. 
 
 She was kneeling on the floor, her elbows rest- 
 ing on the window-sill ; and over her shoulder, 
 above her coils of black hair and the scarlet 
 anemones, appeared from time to time another 
 face, bright, fair, and boyish, a great contrast to 
 her own. 
 
 He looked out evidently, when she called him, 
 to witness something more than ordinarily attrac- 
 tive in the scene below, and then, he leant over 
 her, rested his hand by hers on the window- 
 ledge, put out his head, with its fair curling hair, 
 into the sunshine, and looked up and down the 
 street with a happy light dancing in his blue eyes. 
 
 The window was on the second story, but they 
 laughed so merrily, and talked so loud, that
 
 LESCAR. 7 
 
 everybody looked up at them ; and as tliey had 
 many friends among the crowd, they often ex- 
 changed greetings with one, and with another, 
 and bonbons, bunches of violets, and sprigs of 
 lilac blossom were flung up to the lattice, with 
 shouts of — 
 
 "Ha, Victor!" 
 
 "Ha, Faustine!" 
 
 But the procession trooped into the church, 
 and both boy and girl turned from the window. 
 There was more now to interest them within the 
 room. 
 
 Turning from the glow of sunshine, and from 
 the gay street- scene below, it seemed a dark and 
 dingy room. It was poorly furnished ; the walls 
 were grey, marled and plastered. The great 
 empty fire-place made a deep shadowy crevice on 
 one side, and on the other were broad rows of 
 shelves, bearing books, curious bits of machinery, 
 and some vessels of red earthenware. 
 
 There were two windows — one wide open to the 
 evening air, at which Faustine had knelt, the 
 other closed and barricaded by a wooden table 
 pushed close against it. 
 
 This table was covered with a profusion and 
 litter of curious tools — watches and watch-cases, 
 springs, broken bits of fine machine- work, pincers,
 
 8 LESCAR. 
 
 and strange-looking instruments of unaccountable 
 use. 
 
 Close to it sat an old man, wrinkled and grey- 
 locked, his head bending eagerly over his tools, 
 and his fingers playing nervously among them, 
 with a quick but curiously delicate and certain 
 touch. 
 
 Pincers, screw, wires, and watch-springs were 
 picked up, and again rejected, by a worn white 
 hand, that seemed empowered to select among 
 the countless tools, with a subtle intuition quite 
 independent of any optical aid. 
 
 One eye, quick and eager still, despite work 
 and age, ghttered over the table, and shot glances 
 sometimes about the room ; the other was hidden 
 away, behind a long tube magnifying-glass, stuck 
 in under the brow, and fastened with a green 
 cord over the grey locks. 
 
 Auber Dax — the watch-mender of Le Grrand 
 St. Marteau — a name well known in Paris from 
 Charonne to Auteuil. 
 
 He had not gone down to join the followers of 
 the holy procession to St. Olive ; he had not 
 stopped the click of his tools, nor taken the glass 
 from his eye, as the priests trooped past his 
 lattice. He had little heeded the jests and 
 laughter, as the rustic crowd went to and fro.
 
 LESCAR. 9 
 
 But he raised his head now, and his one bright 
 imcoYered eye, as he turned to join a discussion 
 that (all regardless of festive sights and eccle- 
 siastical array) was growing hot and stormy 
 round the square table in the centre of the 
 room. 
 
 For Auber Dax had visitors ; and, indeed, at 
 this hour of the evening, he was never without 
 them. 
 
 His room, with its simple furnishing and its 
 dull grey walls, with the frail figure bending at 
 one window, and the rich dark beauty of Faustine 
 at the other, presented the same aspect, evening 
 after evening, fete-day or fast, as the sun set 
 over Le Grrand St. Marteau, and men stayed from 
 the labour of their handicraft, and had time 
 instead for the free wild workings of their un- 
 tutored brains. Auber Dax's room, above the 
 estaminets an hillarcl in the Kue St. Clive, was a 
 resort at such times to which many repaired. 
 And Dax made them welcome. 
 
 Five men sat there now, each with his portion 
 of refreshing beverage before him, brought up by 
 his own choosing from the restaurant below. 
 They were first, an artisan, in clean blouse and 
 fine fustian, pale and dark-browed, with eyes 
 earnest and thoughtful, often cast sadly down ;
 
 10 LESCAR. 
 
 with that delicate and subtle look about bim, 
 seen in tbe skilled workmen of curious crafts, 
 dwellers in great cities ; in tbe men wbo weave 
 tbe Gobelins tapestry, or put tbe last artistic 
 toucbes to bits of fine marqueterie or porcelain ; 
 " cunning workmen," sucb as wove tbe blue and 
 silver tbread in tbe curtain of tbe Tabernacle, 
 and were cbosen to cast tbe sacred and precious 
 vessels of cbased and molten gold. 
 
 A silent man tbis, wbo spoke little in discus- 
 sion, but wbo managed, wben be did speak, to 
 make otbers bear ; — a man wbo spoke witb tbe 
 slow kindling energy of suppressed excitement, 
 witb tbe bated breatb and struggling fervour of 
 many tbougbts too strong for words ; a man 
 wbose rare speecb, came fortb from tbe veiled 
 deptbs of a ricb and earnest soul. 
 
 Wbat be said was often wortb tbe bearing, and 
 old Dax called " Silence " in bis council- room, if 
 be saw tbat young Henri Tolberg was glancing 
 up, in bis sby nervous manner, and bad a word 
 to say. 
 
 It was necessary to sbout " Silence '^ in tbat 
 room before any one could be beard ; for tbe otber 
 inmates spoke as loud as possible, and tbey all 
 spoke at once. 
 
 Henri Tolberg sat facing tbe window, leaning
 
 LESCAR. 11 
 
 back Kstlessly in his chair, his long fingers play- 
 ing with an empty wine-glass, which he twirled 
 swiftly between them, with a skilful dexterity 
 that evinced their lithe obedience to his nncon- 
 scions will. 
 
 On his left hand, sat an officer in uniform, a 
 handsome fellow, burnt brown with many African 
 suns. Cogniac and coffee stood before him, and he 
 often tossed off a "snack" of inspiring alcohol, 
 and rang down his glass with noisy gusto on the 
 table, as he poured out a fiery and incessant 
 stream of words. 
 
 Whatever the theme of his arguments, violent 
 ejaculation and fierce gesticulation seemed the 
 strength of them, and they were evidently very 
 convincing to himself. 
 
 He had been haranguing for a long time ; and 
 his opposite neighbour, in a style quite as lucid, 
 was assisting him to the full extent of his own 
 less luxuriant vocabulary, and more feeble ora- 
 torical powers. 
 
 This third man was a German. He harangued 
 in French, but — even when the rough roll of his 
 guttural accent was drowned by the soldier's 
 superior organ and nimbler loquacity — his broad 
 brows, his dull eye, and his invincible aspect of 
 solidity announced his Fatherland, while, the
 
 12 LESCAR. 
 
 hock of brown beer be raised often to bis lips 
 confirmed tbe fact. 
 
 Tbe otber two, were men of a certain low type 
 of countenance, witb wbicb Frencb bistory bas 
 made us lately familiar. 
 
 Small-eyed, wide-moutbed men, witb forebeads 
 low, beavy, and receding. Faces darkened by 
 dark feeling, fierce, cruel, and excitable, witbout 
 a spark of spirituality in tbe excitement tbey por- 
 trayed. Yicious and cunning faces, eager witb tbe 
 borrid eagerness of a cruel evil-intentioned tbing. 
 
 Tbese four bad been wrangling noisily for a 
 long time, wbile Henri Tolberg meditated, wbile 
 Dax worked at bis watcb- springs, and tbe two 
 cbildren excbanged greetings witb tbeir country 
 friends below. 
 
 But now, tbe procession was quite gone by, and 
 Victor bad looked at it, witb silence and balf- 
 reverent awe, and Faustine witb cynical contempt, 
 tbey bad turned to listen, and Auber bad turned 
 to join, in wbat Alpbonse de Lescar and Friedricb 
 Hanker called a " discussion " on tbe events of 
 tbe day. 
 
 By " tbe day," tbey meant, not tbis Sunday 
 fete at Le Grrand St. Marteau, but tbe era in 
 national bistory — tbe state of tbings as tbey were. 
 
 It was tbe year '54.
 
 LESCAR. 13 
 
 Nicholas \yas stretclimg just then a covetous 
 grasp with persistency towards the Ottoman 
 Empire. 
 
 France and England alike were thrilling with 
 military ardour. A current of genial sympathy 
 was flowing warmly between them, and together 
 they were hurrying eastward, to uphold the just 
 balance of national European power. 
 
 It was a time of intense excitement, and, 'mid 
 the glow of universal enthusiasm, the grievances 
 of '48 seemed quite forgotten by all republican 
 disturbers of French rule. 
 
 This was among Frenchmen ; but in Paris 
 the thinking leaders of the red-hot factions were 
 not always French. 
 
 Friedrich Hanker smiled in grim indifierence 
 at this outburst of patriotic sentiments. His soul 
 was cosmopolitan, and he cared little for the con- 
 test of kings. 
 
 And even among Frenchmen there were ex- 
 ceptions. 
 
 Auber Dax said little. He had seen fighting 
 of different kinds, and many a time he had wit- 
 nessed Paris barricaded, and her fair streets stained 
 with blood. 
 
 Henri Tolberg felt that this Eastern campaign 
 failed to touch with any nearness of interest the
 
 14 LESCAR. 
 
 subjects that filled his brain ; and as for Jules 
 YarHn and Eex Dupres, if there was to be fight- 
 ing, they would have liked it nearer home. 
 *-AwaT," they thought, ''with a few obstacles 
 and restricting powers ; and then, where a 
 fairer %hting-field than the Champs Elysees, and 
 where a better foe than Frenchmen make for 
 themselves.'' — Poniards and pistols among the 
 free rights of man, was their dream of a millen- 
 nium, in which de-sire, was but the length of one 
 hand's grasp from possession ! 
 
 Alphonse de Lescar, fierce revolutionist in time 
 of peace, hot patriot in the day of war, was the 
 one true enthusiast of the moment. His heart 
 beat wildly under his green frock, as he tossed 
 down his cogniac to the victories of the Tricolour, 
 and shot furious glances across the table at 
 Hanker, who had dared to speak contemptuously 
 of the glory of the Imperial Eagle and of the 
 soldier of France. 
 
 '' Hein ! '' Friedrich Hanker had said stub- 
 bornly, "it is but yesterday since '48, and it 
 was just before then, that / came to Paris ; and 
 well I remember, mon Capitaine, that Frenchmen 
 of that day, glowing with republican ardour, hated 
 a Xapoleon or a Bourbon as the direst enemies 
 of man ; and a French soldier would have
 
 LESCAE. 15 
 
 emptied his firelock in the dust, before he raised 
 it to salute a crown. And now, bah ! every soldier 
 in France is ready to follow the Emperor- general 
 to the battle-field. He has dazzled your weak 
 sight with the pageantry of war. Marshals' 
 plumes floating in the wind, pennants flying, 
 the brazen trumpet's sound, and away you go, 
 liberty forgotten, principles resigned, — France 
 led forth in chains again, flattered, fancying 
 herself free ! '' 
 
 "Sacre ! '' shouted the soldier, *' no man shall 
 call me a turncoat ! I love liberty, Friedrich 
 Hanker, with a deeper passion than the strongest 
 pulse that has ever throbbed through your dull 
 veins. But, heavens ! I love France still better, 
 — I love her glory, and her arms, — and I follow 
 the man who best leads her to victory. When 
 her flag is unfurled, it shall never be said that I, 
 Alphonse de Lescar, lagged behind. Dieu ! this 
 is no time for petty street- conspiracies, when the 
 honour of France is in the scales." 
 
 " Yes," persisted Hanker, " shake the child's 
 rattle in the face of the army, — victory ! sweet 
 flattery, vain feast of frothing words, and they 
 are won ! Hein ! Lescar, you are but a child of 
 your nation, — but a soldier of France ! " 
 
 " And what can a man be o^reater ? " cried the
 
 16 LESCAR. 
 
 soldier. " France ! France ! and iter yictorles, 
 I toast them, be they under Imperial or Republi- 
 can rule ! " 
 
 " Led in chains/' said Hanker persistently, and 
 Varlin and Dupres echoed his contemptuous 
 growl. 
 
 Lescar grew dark and angry. 
 
 " Diable ! '' he shouted. " Cursed German, you 
 dare to sneer at France ? — my France ! She 
 never knew an hour of slavery. France, I tell 
 you, was ever victorious, ever free ! " 
 
 " It is but a little time, my friend, since you 
 have learnt your freedom," said the other. " But 
 a month ago, and who so chafed under the yoke 
 and whipcord of '48 ; who so hated a stern execu- 
 tive, a suspicious surveillance, a draining tax ? 
 Who saw the glory of a Commune, the greatness 
 of a Republic, more clearly than Captain Alphonse 
 de Lescar ? — and now ! Bah ! shake the child's 
 rattle of a campaign, I tell you, before the eyes of 
 a soldier, and he is gone. Hein ! I thought we 
 had greater work to do. You might have led 
 the van of our army in Paris, Lescar, while you 
 will faU a miserable item, a mere number, on the 
 fields of Turkey now ! At our best chance, our 
 best men are gone." 
 
 "Yes, I am gone! " cried the soldier; ''fight
 
 LESCAR. 17 
 
 your puny street battles at home, Friedricli. The 
 broad front of the enemy of France for me ! " 
 
 " Great infant ! '' growled Hanker with bitter 
 contempt. " And we had a mighty, an everlastiag 
 work to do ! " 
 
 " No work can be great beside the glory of our 
 flag and country," shouted Lescar, dashing his 
 empty glass, in his excitement, upon the ground. 
 " Yours is the child's play, Friedrich Hanker ; 
 yours the punj^ plotting, the mad folly. Your 
 schemes are playthings for a time of peace ; 
 they sink as nothing by the great realities of 
 war." 
 
 "Notwithstanding," said Henri Tolberg, rais- 
 ing his eyes slowly, and speaking for the first 
 time, "the schemes of the peacemaker are 
 greater than the victories of the warrior ; for 
 they fight against flesh and blood, and with 
 earthly weapons, — he fights the mystic evil of the 
 things unseen." 
 
 "Bah ! Tolberg, your ravings are not for me," 
 cried Lescar : "you are a well-intentioned dreamer, 
 boy. But I say what I mean, comrades, and I 
 mean what I say, that the great national call to 
 all France, to defend French honour against a 
 foreign foe, is a greater theme than these petty 
 squabbles as to whether a Louis, a Bourbon, or a 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 LESCAR. 
 
 President of Republic fills the throne. France ! 
 I cry — La France ! '' 
 
 He turned from them in angry conclusion, and 
 Hanker smiled sardonically in reply. 
 
 *' Great child ! " he growled again. 
 
 " Pere Dax/' said Tolberg, presently, " will 
 you say nothing in the talk to-day ? See, even 
 the children are waiting for your verdict. Where 
 is glory ? Eh ? — tell us. Is it under the red 
 pennant of the revolution, or 'mid the fires of 
 national war ? Or do ive know of another glory,'' 
 he continued, with kindling eye — " a glory, beside 
 the quiet broad waters of eternal peace-pacts, in 
 a bloodless warfare for universal, for all human 
 good?" 
 
 The one unhidden orb of Auber Dax met his 
 with a gleam of sympathy and quick assent ; but, 
 before he could answer, Lescar burst forth again. 
 
 " The children ! Hold," he cried, and he 
 turned once more to the wine- flasks on the table 
 — "■ hold ; let them speak for themselves. Here, 
 Yictor, drink — from your heart bring it out, boy 
 — a toast for your father. Wish success to your 
 country's arms." 
 
 He held up a brimming glass of rosy bordeaux, 
 and turned to the two where they waited by the 
 lattice, side by side.
 
 LESCAR. 19 
 
 Victor, with folded arms, leaning back against 
 tlie stone wall, his eyes wandering from his 
 father's, to Henri Tolberg's face; Faustine still 
 kneeling on the floor beside him, her glance 
 darting from speaker to speaker, with a curious 
 fervour of excited feeling in her eyes. 
 
 "Here, boy," cried Lescar, " your toast ! " 
 
 Victor took the glass from his hand, and raised 
 his head, a bright smile dancing over his face as 
 he looked up at his father. 
 
 " The Army ! '^ he cried, with a ring of tender 
 enthusiasm in his boyish voice. '' La Patrie ! — la 
 France ! — la Gloire ! " 
 
 He touched the red wine to his lips, and rang 
 the glass with gusto upon the table, as his father 
 had done. 
 
 " My son ! " exclaimed Lescar proudly, and he 
 turned well satisfied away. 
 
 " But the girl ! " cried Hanker, before any 
 one could speak ; " she must drink her toast as 
 well." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " came from Varlin and Dupres in 
 quick assent. 
 
 " I'll back her ! " cried Varlin. 
 
 " Good daughter ! " echoed Eex ; " despite 
 you, Auber, good daughter of an old red house. 
 Hold ; the ruby wine for the rosy lips. Faus-
 
 20 LESCAR. 
 
 tine, pretty little one, drink. Your toast ! — ^your 
 turn." 
 
 The girl came forward unhesitatingly. She took 
 the little cogniac glass, filled with claret, from 
 Dupres' hand. She held it aloft a moment, and 
 the men laughed loud as they watched her ; then, 
 " Vive la Republique ! " she cried at the height 
 of her full, fresh, musical voice ; and she drained 
 her glass, and set it on the table again. 
 
 She looked round on them, the crimson colour 
 rushing over her face. 
 
 " Bravo ! " they shouted — all save Dax and Tol- 
 berg ; and she turned away from them — bright, 
 beautiful young creature — with that flush of a 
 strange passion upon her cheek. 
 
 " Hein ! my little grandchild,'' said old Dax. 
 ** But blood will show. Her mother was a Mar- 
 seillaise, comrades ; her father fell in the struggles 
 of '48 ; and hold," he added grimly, " her great- 
 grand-dame was a 'tricoteuse' in the Place de 
 la Concorde, through many a day when Paris 
 streamed with blood. Strange things those, 
 my friends, but I have lived through many of 
 them, I have lived," he added, brightening up 
 suddenly, and gleaming on them with his one 
 visible eye — " I have lived long enough, to have 
 lost all faith in political changes, and to see that
 
 LESCAR. 21 
 
 the true redemption of the one great Goddess lies 
 in deeper and in higher things." 
 
 The old man was rousing into warmth and 
 speech. With quick, nervous fingers, he undid 
 the green ribbon that bound the magnifying- 
 glass, and released his imprisoned eye. 
 
 Henri Tolberg rose now and came over to him, 
 and leant afiectionately on the back of his high 
 antique chair. Victor looked towards him also, 
 expectant; and Dax, catching the boy's bright 
 face, still flushed with his military enthusiasm, 
 said suddenly to Lescar — 
 
 " And is this young twig of the old tree, 
 Alphonse, to go to the * Polytechnique ' and be- 
 come a red firebrand, like his sire ?" 
 
 " I do not know about that,'' said Lescar. ** The 
 boy has many fancies, though he has spirit and 
 pluck enough to win himself laurels in any field. 
 But he is his mother's one lamb, Auber, and she 
 is a good one, and I must humour her whims. 
 Learning is her hobby, you know, so you and 
 she should suit." 
 
 " Ah, good ! " cried Auber ; and he looked up 
 into the young handsome face. " Educate is the 
 word now. Knowledge, Lescar, knowledge will 
 be the sword of the nations." 
 
 "A sorry sword," laughed Lescar. "Give me
 
 22 LESCAR. 
 
 a good rapier, Auber, and in war-time I'd let your 
 books and ink-borns go to the winds." 
 
 " Give every man bis rigbts/' cried Jules 
 Varlin, "and to tbe devil witb tbe learning of 
 tbe priests." 
 
 " Give every man bis freedom," sbouted Eex 
 Dupres, witb a draugbt at tbe red wine. " Down 
 witb kings and emperors, and deatb to tbe proud 
 aristocrat wbo eats tbe bread of tbe poor ! " 
 
 " Deatb to tbem ! " ecboed Jules again, glad to 
 bave silenced Hanker and Lescar. " Up witb tbe 
 red flag ! Hurra ! Tbe soil for tbe labourer — tbe 
 bread for tbe bread-winner ! A la lanterne witb 
 tbe idler, tbe eartb-cumberer, and tbe devourer 
 of men ! " 
 
 " Hold, my cbildren ! " cried Dax, looking 
 eagerly round on tbe difierent speakers, " bold ! 
 You squabble over life and its tangled mesbes, 
 and eacb man of you screams like an angry infant 
 on bis own wild pipe. Wiseacres are ye, all of 
 you ! Your babblings reacb me witb a strange 
 confusion as I sit working bere." 
 
 "Ha!" cried Hanker, "you may mock, Pere 
 Dax, if tbat is your mood to-day; but I know 
 well, you are on my side in this quarrel. You 
 tbink witb me, tbat war is a barbarous retro- 
 grade in buman progress ; war between nations.
 
 LESCAR. 23 
 
 I mean. What we want now, is a great world- 
 vdde war of classes, and a siege laid to the vile 
 fabrics of society that are grinding and oppressing 
 man." 
 
 "Friedrich Hanker, there is soul in you," said 
 Auber loftily ; " but you love high-sounding 
 words. Fighting is what you want — sword and 
 cannon and bloodshed — even as Lescar, whose 
 trade is to make war. Your thought of human 
 liberty is a shallow one : your speech is flatulent. 
 Go, comrade, learn to reflect." 
 
 " Pest ! I have reflected, Pere Auber, and I 
 see as clear as you see, that there is no liberty in 
 France while a crowned head dazzles the people, 
 and no war against the foes of humanity, while 
 society exists as it is to-day." 
 
 "The foes of man — what are they, friend?" 
 cried Auber. " Ignorance, vice, poverty, and 
 pain. These have settled like a flight of evil 
 birds on the fair harvest-fields of human pro- 
 gress, crushing man down with misery and 
 despair. And you go forth, you say, against 
 them — you would-be thinkers, you revolution- 
 ists ; and lo ! — one so-called tvise among you, 
 really one madder than the rest, erects a false foe 
 in the way. You call it ' Eoyalty ' — a ^ Crown ; * 
 and all your eyes are dazed, and out you cry,
 
 24 LESCAR. 
 
 * Behold tlie enemy ! * and on you rusli, expend 
 your strength, destroy him haply, but as well 
 yourselves ! And then you look round, and lo ! 
 the black vultures brood o'er society still. And 
 you — you were deceived. They still stood en 
 queue at the bakers' doors, friend Hanker, though 
 the head of King Louis rolled low in the dust. 
 Ha ! foolish children. Woo the fair goddess, 
 you stupid Friedrich : go, learn wisdom, reflect. 
 Society is a most intricate and tangled thing, I 
 tell you, and it is little that you know about it. 
 Knowledge is the best chance. Let the boy have 
 knowledge, Lescar : it is the strength of a man in 
 these times ; and for a woman, it is a fair wreath 
 to wear. Faustine shall have knowledge of many 
 things — things it is good to know." 
 
 He turned away a liLtle from them as he ceased 
 speaking, and bent over his curious tools. 
 
 An open watch lay on the table before him, 
 and he peered into its intricate works. 
 
 " Pest ! I do not care," said the soldier, rising. 
 " So he is a plucky one. Victor may know any- 
 thing he or his mother please. He may go to 
 Heidelberg, to his Uncle Kandelshardt, while I 
 am in Turkey, and learn enough to fill a pro- 
 fessor's chair." 
 
 "Good," said Dax — ''very good;" and he
 
 LESCAR. 25 
 
 peered into Hs watch still, while Victor looked 
 brightly at his father, and smiled. 
 
 "Pere Dax," said Tolberg presently, leaning 
 over the bent shoulder and grey head, " it strikes 
 me that you see many a secret of these hidden 
 windings of our human history, as you peer into 
 your broken watch-works there. These queer 
 machineries reveal to you, surely, mysteries we 
 fain would know." 
 
 Dax glanced up at him, and raised the watch- 
 case in his hand. 
 
 "Boy," he said, " you quote an ancient simile 
 in those words. Is it but now it strikes you ? The 
 great Nature * time-piece,' that we call the world. 
 Stay, Henri, see — wheels within wheels, in 
 nature everywhere, through all, the mainspring, 
 action — electric life. And here — the key fits ; 
 but ah ! there is our need, — it is gone. We've 
 lost the key, and all the works are striking 
 falsely, and the harmony's no more. Alas ! boy, 
 where is the key, and where is the Mender ? He 
 who made it knows. And He — or She, fair Wis- 
 dom, Keason — she veils her face, and hides her 
 secret. For she has the key. There is many a 
 false one ; and men try them often, in fierce 
 agony, with revolt and blood, forcing the watch, 
 in the wild thought that their mad wrong can
 
 26 LESCAR. 
 
 e'er work right, and they all find it wrong. 
 There's one right key, and Wisdom hides it. Seek 
 it, my children — reflect." 
 
 " I believe you have seen the secret, Auber," 
 cried Tolberg, wistfully ; " seen it in the depths of 
 that mignon Greneva, whose workings are nigh 
 invisible to me." 
 
 " I have caught a faint ray," said Auber. " I 
 have seen the hidden thing ; and I seek it yet 
 again, in thought and yearning, till it be quite 
 revealed. Ha ! listen. Mnhett, you call it, 
 Frederick — Unions broad and universal — nations 
 merged in a brotherhood of man. Ha ! my 
 comrades, that is a great thought, I tell you. Go, 
 get wisdom, and strive to understand. Begone, 
 begone ! " 
 
 " I must be gone for one, at all events," cried 
 Alphonse de Lescar, shrugging his broad shoul- 
 ders, and donning his shako with a good-humoured 
 smile. " Grood night, Pere Dax, and thank you 
 for your homily. Your words are as jewels of 
 wisdom ; but, like all such treasures, they are 
 kernels of a nut that is hard to crack. Come, 
 Victor, your mother will think me lagging ; and 
 if I march to-morrow, it is little courtesy to 
 leave her so long to-day. Good night, Pere 
 Auber ; and, my comrades, adieu."
 
 LESCAR. 27 
 
 He clattered do-^Ti the wooden stairs, and the 
 boy turned to follow him. 
 
 "I will go with you, Victor," said Faustine, 
 "just a Kttle way — to the fountain. The fooKsh 
 people, with their green-stuff, have all gone home ; 
 the streets are quiet." 
 
 " Take my cruche then, Faustine," Auber called 
 to her, descending to more practical and diurnal 
 things. " It is empty : take and fill it with fresh 
 drinking-water, if you go to the fount." 
 
 " Good," said Faustine ; and she shouldered the 
 red earthen jar that stood by his table, and 
 followed Victor from the room. 
 
 Auber Dax's grim old room ! where these 
 excited tongues wagged nightly, pouring out 
 their wild sentiments and their dreamy rhapso- 
 dies. Grim old room ! it was one of the nurseries 
 of Victor Lescar. 
 
 It was a beautiful night as the two children, 
 following the soldier, went down the street. The 
 sun had long set ; the country folk had come out 
 of the chapel, and had aU wended their many 
 pathways home. 
 
 Behind the church-tower now, the summer sky 
 was soft and cloudless, tender tints of lilac and
 
 28 LESCAR. 
 
 rose melting Into misty grey. And tlie niglit 
 breeze met them, cool and fragrant, as they ran 
 down tlie little street towards the fountain in the 
 market square. 
 
 At the church they paused a moment. The 
 door was still open, and they stood together and 
 looked in curiously, from the foot of the broad 
 flight of steps. 
 
 In the soft dusky twilight, the church stood 
 out solemnly, speaking (as it always spoke for 
 them when they paused and peered in) a strange 
 awsome language of its own. 
 
 The interior was unknown to them. Beyond 
 its threshold lay a forbidden, undiscovered land ; 
 and as such they now paused before it, and they 
 did so every day. They looked up at the arched 
 doorway, at the Kings of France in a sculptured 
 row, on the facade above their heads, at the 
 painted window, catching a reflection of the fading 
 light, and high over all, the tower, in its silent 
 dignity, piercing the soft summer sky. 
 
 ^'They are all gone, the silly people," said 
 Faustine, with a sublime air of superiority, as 
 she pouted her red lip. 
 
 "Yes," said Victor; "they have done their 
 worshipping in there. Strange, is it not, Faus- 
 tine?"
 
 LESCAR. 29 
 
 " What ? *' she asked brusquely. 
 
 " It seems like praying, does it not, what they 
 do?" 
 
 " It is silly nonsense, Victor ; and grand-pere 
 says so,^' she firmly replied. 
 
 " Still,'' he said, "it is odd. I am sure they 
 are praying ; and if they do pray, it must be to 
 God, Faustine ; and if there is only one God, as 
 mtj mother's Bible says, then they must pray to 
 Him, — and yet she says " 
 
 *'One God!" cried Faustine. "Why, there 
 are many — ever so many, Victor, that even T 
 know, and I dare say I don't know all. Theru 
 is yours, there is theirs, and there is grand-pere's 
 and mine ; but she is a Goddess." 
 
 " Well," said the boy, " I do not understand 
 it ; but I say it is strange. Come on, Faustine, 
 there, father is out of sight ! Let us run to the 
 fountain." 
 
 So on they ran. How fresh and cool the 
 water rippled at the fountain, dancing up in little 
 sparkling rain-drops, as it fell with soft gurgling 
 sound from the stone tiger's wide-gaping mouth. 
 
 A few peasant women still grouped round it, 
 in white caps, and clean, bright cotton gowns. 
 They stood in a little knot, chattering together 
 for a few moments, exchanging the evening's
 
 30 ^ LESCAR. 
 
 gossip ; then eacli filled her jar at tlie foun- 
 tain, and carried it slowly away. 
 
 Only Victor and Faustine idled, plunging their 
 hands into the cool water, catching the sparkling 
 drops as they fell. And Faustine splashed up a 
 torrent into Victor's face, and ran away laughing 
 with delight, while he pursued her round the 
 stone tiger, with hands brimful of water, bent 
 on revenge. 
 
 Their bright voices rang through the old market 
 square, echoing a chorus of happiness and childish 
 glee. 
 
 The goddess Reason was forgotten ; and all wars, 
 communes, religions, and revolutions, this sweet 
 May evening, were non-existent for them. But, 
 " Come, Victor, come along," Lescar's voice 
 shouted back to them at length ; and the boy, 
 recalled to himself, picked up Faustine's dis- 
 carded water-cruche, and plunged it into the 
 basin. 
 
 "Here, Faustine, we must be gone. I have 
 filled it : come along." 
 
 He rested it on the stone edge, and again called 
 to her. But Faustine's quick ear had caught 
 another sound, — drums, bugles, and the tramp 
 of soldiers coming in the distance — coming this 
 way.
 
 LESCAR. 31 
 
 She had rushed to the street-comer, and stood 
 gazing, eager and absorbed. 
 
 " Eh, Yictor, come, — come and see," she 
 called to him. " They march, they march, they 
 come this way, — the soldiers ! the soldiers ! " 
 
 The cruche was thrust aside and forgotten ; he 
 rushed forward in an instant, and stood gazing by 
 her side. 
 
 " Here they come ! *' he shouted, and he waved 
 hivS little cap ; " they come ! '' and he danced 
 with enthusiasm as the roll of the drums and the 
 clanging of the bugles drew nearer and nearer, 
 and the regiment came marching through the 
 square. 
 
 Neat, trim, in straight rank and file, some com- 
 panies of foot- guard, — their bright uniforms and 
 their glittering hilts all cap-a-pie, all in marching 
 order. 
 
 They were passing through the suburb on the 
 road to Paris. To-morrow they would be on the 
 transport, on their way Eastward. For they were 
 under orders, marching to " honour, to their 
 nation's glory," Alphonse de Lescar would have 
 said : marching, ah, how many of them, to — death ! 
 
 " Hurrah ! " shouted Victor as the last company 
 filed past them. " Ah ! how grand, how glorious, 
 Faustine, it would be ! "
 
 32 LESCAR. 
 
 " What ? ** said the girl, looking up at him. 
 
 They were both flushed with excitement still, 
 as they had been during all the evening's discus- 
 sion. 
 
 "To be what, Victor ? What would you be ? 
 I know what / would, grand Dieu ! " she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " You — what ? " said the boy turning to 
 her. 
 
 " // " she cried with rising colour and glitter- 
 ing eyes — " I would be a citoyenne of a French 
 Republic." 
 
 " And I," he answered, " would be a soldier of 
 victorious France ! '' 
 
 Faustine shrugged her shoulders and turned 
 from him ; — her teachings were of a different 
 school. She ran again to the fountain, swung the 
 water-cruche on to her head, and nodding "Au 
 revoir,yictor,'* she strode proudly away with it, a 
 dark-eyed young Hagar as she was. 
 
 Alphonse de Lescar had already reached the 
 little village, quite out from the town, where 
 Victor and his mother were to live until the war 
 was over, and had brought them its fortune or its 
 fate. 
 
 And there, a sweet-faced little woman was 
 already presiding over the evening meal, when
 
 LESCAR. 33 
 
 Victor, hot and ruddy with his quick run from the 
 fountain, burst into the room. 
 
 " Ah ! my son," she said. 
 
 " My little mother ! '* and the boy sat down, 
 threw his cap aside, and ran his fingers through 
 his bright tangled hair. " I stayed to fill Faus- 
 tine's water-cruche," he said. "Pere Dax bade 
 her stop at the fountain as she came." 
 
 "Alphonse," said the little woman, "do you 
 come from Dax ? That does not please me, and 
 you know it. It is Sunday, and I like little that 
 my son should have the teachings of Auber Dax 
 and his comrades as the lessons to be remembered 
 from a Sabbath eve.'* 
 
 '* Bah ! the lad must live and learn, Marie. No 
 fear for him : there's good soldier's blood in him, 
 and plenty of soldier's fire." 
 
 " God forbid ! Alphonse. I give my husband 
 for my country, and murmur not. Heaven help 
 me. Surely I may keep my son." 
 
 " For to-day, yes, Marie, — for to-day. But 
 who knows? Victor, boy, eat your soup." 
 
 They sat down together ; and the little mother, 
 who had long since supped, sat near them and 
 drew a round table towards her, on which lay a 
 large Bible, open and well used. 
 
 J^o crucifix, no shrine, no pictures or holy 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 LESCAR. 
 
 image decorated her chamber, more than that of 
 Auber Dax, but from a different reason. 
 
 Marie de Lescar was a Protestant, a descendant 
 of heroic old Puritan blood — a quiet demure little 
 Scotch woman, rich in deep simple thought, and 
 full of warm religious feeling. She was an ardent 
 Protestant, and the pageantries of Eome, that sur- 
 rounded her, vexed sorely her pure soul. 
 
 " It is hard," she said now, as she turned gently 
 the pages of her Scotch Bible, and her eyes lit on 
 the old Jewish wail — " it is hard enough, Al- 
 phonse, to learn the songs of Zion here by the 
 Babylon streams, and you take the boy where 
 the poisoned waters flow deepest and most 
 dark.'' 
 
 "Pest ! Marie ! " said Alphonse, as he ate his 
 soup ; but he spoke kindly, and he looked tenderly 
 on his little wife. He was a professed Atheist and 
 free-thinker himself, but he felt truly that it little 
 became him to interfere with her. Religion was 
 harmless, while it made her the best wife in Le 
 Grand St. Marteau ; and (which was all he de- 
 manded) her religion never called a priest into 
 the house. 
 
 Somehow, too, he had a feeling that she did 
 religion for both of them — for him as well as her- 
 self. It is a common feeling. " Grace a Dieu,"
 
 LESCAR. 35 
 
 tKinks many a Frencliman devoutly, "j'ai ma 
 femme qui fait tout cela ! " 
 
 '' Do not make a soft coddle of the boy while 
 I^m away, Marie ; that's all I ask,'' lie exclaimed. 
 
 '* There is not much danger of that, is there, 
 Alphonse? " she replied; and her eyes rested with 
 fond admiration on the athletic young form. Then 
 she turned to her book again. 
 
 " I teach him as a soldier's son, Alphonse, I 
 promise you ; and I try to point to the true foe, — 
 that as Jacob went forth and found prosperity at 
 the Lord's hand, so he may go in like guiding, 
 and be safe. As Joshua fought, and Caleb, and 
 David, and many others, so may he fight some 
 day, and prevail. And I teach, too, that as Moses, 
 before all the treasures of Egypt, loved the wel- 
 fare of his brethren, so he, if he come to high 
 place one day, and have power, may beyond all 
 things love the crushed children of the poor. So 
 I teach our son, Alphonse, and so with Divine 
 help I will teach in faithfulness, till the good God, 
 in loving mercy, brings you home to us again." 
 
 " Well, well, make a soldier of him, whatever 
 happens," said the father, a tear glistening on his 
 rough cheek. For who knew what anight happen ? 
 To-morrow he was to leave them ; so he watched 
 them fondly now.
 
 36 
 
 LESCAR. 
 
 He had often watched them thus in silence, and 
 when far away on the weary battle-field he could 
 recall them — just so. 
 
 The little fire-place, the bright crackKng wood, 
 the neat white cap, and the quiet sweet face he 
 loved within. And then Victor, his slight grace- 
 ful figure and his fair head, bending with his 
 mother's above the great Book. 
 
 Many an ancient lesson the boy often gleaned 
 there ; many a light on life's labyrinth had shone 
 from it for these two ; and many a thought of 
 higher things, and deeper things, than the loftiest 
 or profoundest philosophies of Auber or the 
 wildest dreams of Tolberg. 
 
 This was the other nursery of Victor Lescar.
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 THE bandit's wife. 
 
 " Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees, 
 Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze, 
 That casement arched with ivy's brownest shade, 
 First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed." 
 
 Samuel Rogers. 
 
 A VERY different scene. 
 
 The rocky ledge of a wide meadowy park, that 
 sloped down towards a loch side, from a sunny 
 bit of garden, surrounding an old grey Scotch 
 house. 
 
 A picturesque old house, with square towers 
 and turrets, and queer chimneys from which the 
 blue smoke curled up in long columns. It looked 
 cosy, habitable, and warm. Big hills reared their 
 rough bouldered heads close round it ; a great 
 yawning glen stretched far behind ; and from 
 every window, on the front side, might be seen the 
 loch, away beyond the rocks and the park and 
 the garden, lying peaceful and glistening in the
 
 38 LESCAR. 
 
 summer sunsliine, or dashing itself, on tlie dark 
 winter days, in angry waves upon the shore. 
 
 The Old Towers was a glorious place to live in, 
 all the long summer and autumn through. Such a 
 deer-forest stretched over the rocky brae- sides, — 
 such moors for grouse, — such fishing in the 
 broad lake, or in the deep mountain torrent that 
 rushed down the glen. There was sport enough 
 to make the life of man one long delight, from 
 the hour when he cast his fly for the first 
 time over the river in the soft days of early 
 spring, till the last ptarmigan or white hare was 
 shot on the highest promontory of Benearnen in 
 the blinding mists and drifting snow-storm of 
 Christmas- day. 
 
 Beautifid Old Towers, — it stood in time- 
 honoured dignity, hoary and grey. 
 
 We all — at least all Scotchmen — know some 
 such place, — some old grey house, round which 
 the hills stand, silent and everlasting sentinels, 
 the clouds rolling over them, the water glistening 
 below, — a house to which the heart turns with 
 love and yearning from earth's distant places, 
 from weary and foreign lands, — a house that 
 stands, the blue smoke curling up from its tall 
 chimneys — stands still unaltered, while man 
 sweeps on. Generations, and generations, chil-
 
 LESCAR. 39 
 
 dren, and children's children, call it in turns, 
 " My home." And solemnly the thought comes, 
 as we contemplate these stern mountains, these 
 old grey towers, the waters that have smiled 
 under the sunshine of centuries and seen the 
 shifting generations of men, " Ah, unchanging 
 mountains ! beautiful majestic land ! — surely we 
 are but strangers and sojourners with thee, as all 
 our fathers were." 
 
 JSTo such sober thoughts had ever troubled the 
 heads of the two young people visible in the 
 neighbourhood of the Old Towers this afternoon. 
 
 It was September ; the air was soft and heav}% 
 laden with the ftdl richness of nature, ripe and 
 ready to fall away. The woods still wore their 
 green tint, but looked dark and dusky, as if 
 nearly faded, and quite ready to be changed for 
 hues of rich amber and gold. 
 
 The day was sunless, the sky sombre and 
 sultry, and the one bit of bright colour in the 
 whole landscape was the scarlet cloak of a little 
 girl, who sat on the grey lichen-covered stones 
 by the rocky ledge, where the park and garden 
 broke into a precipice, descending rough and 
 rugged to the lake. 
 
 The cloak fell carelessly back from her 
 shoulders, and showed a grey tweed frock, fitting
 
 40 LESCAR. 
 
 close to her neck and wrists, and gathered with a 
 leather belt and buckle round her waist. 
 
 It was a fair young countenance, with features 
 delicate and regular ; a quantity of brown hair, of 
 a dark soft shade, rough and tangled, fell over her 
 shoulders, and long dark lashes shadowed the 
 clear grey eyes. It was a proud, thoughtful face, 
 full at once of sensitive feeling, of firm independ- 
 ence, and quiet self-control. 
 
 A big basket of flowers and a rough terrier 
 lay close beside her ; but she has forgotten both, 
 for her eyes were raised, and fixed upon the coun- 
 tenance of her companion, who sat mending a 
 fishing-rod, on a bit of broken stile, just above 
 her head. 
 
 He was a boy about twelve years old, clad in a 
 rough suit of tweed, dust-coloured and much 
 begrimed. He was broad shouldered and strongly 
 built. He had brown hair, falling heavily over 
 his eyebrows and under his shooting-cap. 
 
 He had evidently been the talker, for her atti- 
 tude was listening and eager; and now, as he 
 paused over some intricacy in his mending opera- 
 tion, she exclaimed — 
 
 " Go on, Piers, do, tell me more." 
 
 His aspect was shy, awkward, and full of 
 would-be indifierence, as he answered, turning
 
 LESCAR. 41 
 
 his grave dark eyes upon her for a moment, then 
 dropping them to his fishing-rod again — 
 
 " I think I have told you nearly everything, 
 Donna. Let me see, — I told you yesterday 
 about Aunt Theo, didn't I ? — how I lived with 
 her all alone, there at PoUingworth, before I 
 went to school ? " 
 
 " Yes. How strange it must have been, Piers, 
 — nobody but her. And had you no boys and 
 girls to play with, — nobody ever ? not at Christ- 
 mas, or any time ? '* 
 
 " No ; but I did not mind that : it was not bad 
 at Pollingworth. It is such a big old place, with 
 such numbers and numbers of farms, and hun- 
 dreds of cattle and deer ; not like yours on the 
 hills, but close under the windows in the park. 
 And it is a very queer house, too, — so rambling, 
 and full of courts and passages. And I liked my 
 room. I keep my eggs there, — wild birds' eggs, 
 you know, — and all my specimens, bones, and 
 feathers, and beasts' skins — lots of them, that 
 Gill shoots for me. He is the keeper's son. Did 
 I tell you about him ? I Kke him better than 
 anybody at school. Donna ; and when I am big, 
 I will give him lots of money." 
 
 " Money, Piers ! — why, not your money ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course, mine. I know I shall have
 
 42 LESCAR. 
 
 some, and I do not think lie will liave any ; and 
 I do not see that it is fair tliat I should have 
 quantities and he is to have none. I like Gill." 
 
 " Then will you have quantities, Piers, and all 
 the cattle and the big house at Pollingworth ? " 
 
 He became grave. 
 
 "I do not know," he said, solemnly. "Gill 
 and lots of people say so ; but, I asked Aunt 
 Theo once, and she told me not to talk nonsense. 
 But," he added, " Donna, I'll tell you something : 
 it's very queer, — I did not think of it when I 
 was a little fellow ; but every day, when all the 
 servants are there in a row, you know, and we 
 are all at prayers, she prays for him (she 
 always says the same) — 'him who is to have all 
 the great responsibility of the possession of this 
 vast estate,' and always on my birthday, she says 
 besides, ' he who has this day reached his tenth, 
 or eleventh, or twelfth year ; ' and it is always 
 just the age I am, and that is what first made me 
 think Gill must be right. I do not much mind, 
 though," he went on, "it will not make much 
 difference to me, in what I am going to be ; for 
 if Pollingworth is mine when I am old, Aunt 
 Theo must just go on living there, and take care 
 of it. I think that is the only thing I have not 
 told you, Donna, — what I am going to be."
 
 LESCAR. 43 
 
 " No, Piers ; do tell me. What ?• 
 
 " How odd to be a girl ! " was his answer. 
 " They have never anything they are going to be." 
 
 "No, neither they have," Donna answered, 
 rather sadly. " I wish I could be something." 
 
 " Oh, girls never can : you couldn't," he con- 
 tinued contemptuously. '^I don't suppose girls 
 could be soldiers, sailors, or anything, if they 
 tried ; and then, they would not be allowed." 
 
 "No," said Donna, with melancholy resigna- 
 tion, " I suppose not. What are you going to be. 
 Piers?" 
 
 "A bandit, of course," he replied. "I have 
 been thinking a great deal more about it since I 
 came here : this is just the kind of place ; " and 
 he raised his head suddenly, and pointed up to- 
 wards the distant glen. " Look, Donna, away, 
 far up there among the hills, that. is the sort of 
 place I'm going to live in — I and a lot of wild, 
 brave fellows, in a big, huge, rocky cave. We'll 
 live together, and I'll be the bandit chief; and 
 we'll make raids down upon this country, and 
 perhaps kill everybody, and steal all the cattle 
 and the horses. Oh, it will be a grand life. 
 Donna ! That's what I am going to be." 
 
 " But, Piers, won't you have any house ? " 
 
 "No, not one — only a big cave, and a great
 
 44 LESCAR. 
 
 fire in the middle ; and tlie men shall fight and 
 scour the country every day/' 
 
 " But what will all the women do ? " 
 
 "Women^? We won't have any women," he 
 answered. 
 
 " Piers, what a funny way to live ! And who 
 will take care of the sick and the wounded ones ? 
 for, if you fight, lots of you will get wounds." 
 
 This was a grave thought. He jumped off the 
 stile, and examined his fishing-rod silently for a 
 moment ; the splice was nearly accomplished, and 
 the two broken bits firmly bound in one. He 
 looked carefully at his workmanship, and then up 
 at Donna again. 
 
 The soft autumn light falling upon his dark 
 countenance showed fully, for the first time in the 
 conversation, its strong outline, its sombre shades, 
 its earnest melancholy, combined so strangely 
 with the look of warm, healthful life on a face so 
 young. 
 
 He bit his lip, and thought a moment : " The 
 sick and wounded " — a puzzle indeed in his com- 
 munity of adventurous life. 
 
 ^' I do not know," he answered at last. " What 
 could we do with them ? for we could not stop 
 our fighting, and we would be away all day. 
 They would be very useless. Do you think we
 
 LESCAR. 45 
 
 could kill them, Donna ? Tli ere would not be any 
 harm." 
 
 " Piers, how shocking ! " 
 
 " Ah, well, they would be only a misery to 
 themselves and a trouble to us. But, after all, 
 Donna," he added, brightening up, "perhaps 
 there would not be any, and we should not need 
 to have women just for that." 
 
 It seemed a satisfying conclusion; and he poised 
 his fishing-rod, let out the line, and turned long- 
 ingly, with a brightened face, to the loch far 
 below. 
 
 But Donna was not satisfied. The picture of 
 the community of the bandits' cave was conjured 
 all vivid in her imagination, and she was carefully 
 pursuing, with precise logic, its requirements and 
 aspects ; and she began again — 
 
 *'But, Piers, who would take care of the 
 children ? " 
 
 This was a thought quite beyond him. He 
 flung out his line far over the long grass and 
 drew it in again, poising the rod above his head 
 to test the strength of its repair, and he answered 
 impatiently — 
 
 " Oh, I do not know. Donna ; it is not half 
 made up in my head yet. I've all sorts of bits 
 to think out. Besides, girls cannot understand
 
 46 LESCAR. 
 
 things. Look at my rod ; is it not capital ? — it 
 is stronger than ever. I say, I must go down on 
 the shore and just have one cast. Will you come, 
 Donna? You are not afraid to scramble down 
 the rocks ? " 
 
 Afraid, no ! There was not much of fear 
 about her. She sprang up and walked beside 
 him, a little straight, erect figure, with well- 
 poised head and firm footstep. 
 
 They crossed the bit of long grass meadow 
 together, and began scrambling down the rocks. 
 There was a pathway at a little distance ; but 
 they despised it, and went straight down the steep 
 towards the shore, Piers scrambling first, carry- 
 ing the fishing-rod in one hand, clinging to lichen 
 and rocky ledge with the other ; Donna descend- 
 ing close above him, planting her foot, with firm 
 courage, in each lower and lower crevice, as he 
 told her. 
 
 "Here, Donna — no, lower — a little higher — 
 that's it. Let go above, your foot is all safe 
 — now, again." And so they scrambled down 
 together. 
 
 Near the shore, however, a little catastrophe 
 befell them. A stone gave way under Donna's 
 foot : she clung with both hands to the hanging 
 lichen, but in vain, — she could not save herself ;
 
 LESCAR. 47 
 
 she slipped, slie missed lier struggling footing, 
 she clung helpless for a moment, and, but for 
 Piers^ strong arm thrown round her, she would 
 have rolled a dozen feet to the sand below. 
 
 " Piers, I am falling ! " she had just time to 
 cry ; and he had flung his fishing-rod from him^ 
 grasped firmly at a clump of mossy grass with 
 one hand, and caught her safe with the other. 
 
 "Steady, Donna, that's it — all right, do not 
 struggle, let go above; " for Donna was still cKng- 
 ing eagerly. " There ! we are all safe ; " and 
 bearing her with him, he scrambled down off the 
 rock, on to the shingly beach, where the water of 
 the loch was breaking in little quiet waves of grey 
 silvery foam. 
 
 He dropped her then unceremoniously, on the 
 stones. 
 
 " My gracious ! " he exclaimed, " that was 
 nearly being a business ! Why, Donna, what a 
 tumble you would have had ! " 
 
 She had sat down on the shingle where he had 
 dropped her, and she looked up into his flushed 
 face, her own a little pale and clouded. 
 
 " Piers, I think I would have been dead," she 
 said quietly, — so quietly that he looked down at 
 her with no small admiration as he nodded his 
 head in grave assent.
 
 48 LESCAR. 
 
 " What would uncle liave said ? " he added 
 presently. 
 
 "I will tell him you saved me, Piers;" and 
 she held up her arm a little, and busied herself to 
 undo her cuff. The grey tweed sleeve was stained 
 through with blood. She turned it back, and, with 
 an exclamation of horror, Piers threw himself upon 
 his knees by her side. 
 
 " Donna, Donna, what have you done ? You are 
 all bleeding ! " 
 
 "It is not much," she answered demurely. 
 ** It is only a little scratch. Piers, never mind." 
 
 He took the small wrist into his brown fingers 
 and held it tenderly, fierce bandit as he was. 
 
 "Donna, Donna, poor Donna, — it is all cut ! " 
 
 " Oh, it is nothing," she persisted. But still the 
 wrist streamed with blood : the rock had cut it 
 cruelly, as she had clung in her fall. 
 
 "Oh, Donna," continued the boy in despair. 
 It seemed such a fragile little wrist. As he held it 
 in his sun-burnt hands, he scarcely knew what to 
 do with it ; but he did his best. He had bound up 
 wounded retriever limbs before now ; and he had 
 a favourite jackdaw at PoUingworth, whose broken 
 leg had been for weeks his care. 
 
 It was only, after all, in ideal communes of 
 bandits that he thought the sick and wounded had
 
 LESCAR. 49 
 
 best be killed. In real life be acted differently, 
 on warm, tender impulse, as he acted now. 
 
 Out came bis pocket-bandkercbief, crumpled, 
 grimy, smelling strongly of fisb, and witb tbis be 
 bound up Donna's arm witb gentle toucb and 
 eager care, wbile sbe beld it suspended witb 
 Spartan and unflincbing endurance. It was very 
 painful, and sbe grew deadly pale ; but no tear 
 came rolling over ber cbeek, and sbe did not utter 
 one shrinking word. 
 
 Piers looked up admiringly at ber, wben it was 
 over. 
 
 " Is tbat better, Donna ? My goodness, bow it 
 bas bled ! — it's a regular wound, a regular fighting 
 wound," and then be paused. His mind was full 
 of some thought, very earnest, very important, 
 as be fixed bis eyes upon ber and paused. Then 
 be went on — 
 
 '' Do you know you'd make a splendid bandit's 
 wife. Donna. And there might be sick and 
 wounded. I think you would like it. You would 
 light the fires, and cook, and keep things nice, and 
 we would be very good to you. Do, Donna, — will 
 you promise me ? When we have the cave and 
 everything ready, ?/ou will be ^the Bandit's wife.' " 
 
 Donna's answer remains unrecorded. At that 
 moment a disturbing voice reached their ears. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 LESCAR. 
 
 " Piers, — Donna, — Gaie ! " rang in clear strong 
 tones through the autumn air. 
 
 " Papa ! " Donna exclaimed; and then she called 
 aloud in answer to his voice, " Here, papa, here 
 by the loch- side.'* 
 
 Piers sprang to his feet, and walked away from 
 her ; he scrambled upon a projecting stone, and 
 cast his line over the water. 
 
 Donna drew her cloak hurriedly over her 
 wounded arm. 
 
 " Piers,'* she said, " do not tell papa of my 
 hurt ; it will only vex him, and he will not let me 
 come down the rocks with you again. Do not 
 tell, Piers.'* 
 
 ^' All right " the boy answered ; and before he 
 could say more Donna's father came in sight, 
 walking leisurely along the beach towards them. 
 
 " Ha ! " he cried, " here you are ! Well, 
 Donna." He came close up to her, and looked 
 down and smiled on her as she sat curled up on 
 the grey stones. 
 
 " Well, papa, we have had such a nice day. 
 We've been far up the hills, and then we came down 
 here again ; and Piers broke his fishing-rod and 
 then he mended it, and now he is going to fish." 
 
 " It is near your tea-time, is it not ? " said her 
 father. He drew his watch out and glanced at it
 
 LESCAR. 51 
 
 " Five o'clock ; it is quite time you were going 
 home. Where is Gaie?" 
 
 He looked round as he spoke, with an eager 
 gaze, for some one missing in the little group. 
 
 '* She is with Fraulein somewhere," said Donna. 
 " We lost them, papa. Piers and I : they came 
 down the hill before us, and we have not seen 
 them since. We all went up there after dinner, 
 you know, and Piers and I stayed to gather these 
 quantities of moss and ferns. Look, papa, all for 
 Gaie's baby-garden.'* 
 
 " But where is the child ? " he persisted. " Gaie, 
 Gaie ! " he called again in a loud far-reaching voice. 
 
 ''Here they come ! " said Piers, suddenly. "I 
 see them, away along the beach there. Gaie is 
 running this way. Ha, ha ! '' he laughed, " Frau- 
 lein cannot keep up a bit." 
 
 '' That is all right," said Sir John. " It is time 
 you were going home, every one of you. Got 
 any fish. Piers, my boy ? " 
 
 "No," said Piers, "not one to-day. I broke 
 my rod in the Hazelwood, and I have been 
 mending it all the afternoon." 
 
 He spoke in a shy rough voice now as he 
 answered, and he bent over his fishing-reel, and 
 cast his line again with an effort at self-possession 
 and indifference. ^* 
 
 a Of ILL. UB.
 
 52 LESCAR. 
 
 The little rippling waves came washing in at 
 his feet, eddying round the stone, and throwing up 
 wreaths of silvery foam as they broke with soft 
 murmur on the shingle. 
 
 The rich crimson sunset of September burst in 
 broad rays from the heavy clouds, and fell in a 
 glow of warm colour over the foliage, the rippling 
 loch, and the little group on its shore. Piers, as 
 he stood on his rocky pinnacle, his dark face full 
 in the ruddy light ; Donna, with her scarlet cloak 
 making a bit of colour in the scene, looking up 
 at her father, her soft grey eyes bright with a 
 reflection of the rich sunset ; and Sir John's tall 
 form as he loitered by her and looked eagerly 
 along the beach. 
 
 A few minutes, and a little figure appeared 
 there, another and much smaller edition of 
 Donna's scarlet and grey — a tiny thing, running 
 and scrambling over rocks, stones, and shingle, 
 with little outstretched arms and flowing locks of 
 tangled sunny hair. Behind her came Fraulein, 
 struggling hopelessly along, trying in vain to 
 catch the little figure, who had rushed frantically 
 from her protection, at the first glimpse of the far- 
 ofi" vision of her father. 
 
 He laughed brightly as she came near him, 
 then he hid behind Donna, dodged round the
 
 LESCAR. 53 
 
 stones to escape her for two joyous minutes, and 
 then he came forward eagerly, and caught up the 
 child in his arms. 
 
 "My darling — my treasure, where have you 
 been?'' 
 
 " Oh, such a pretty walk, papa ! Naughty 
 papa, why did you not come out before ?" 
 
 " I had work, my Graie." 
 
 The little arms were tight round his neck, the 
 long fair hair falling in beautiful masses over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Papa," said Donna, " you said, when you left 
 London, that this was to be everybody's holiday. 
 Why do you not have a holiday, too ?" 
 
 ''Everybody cannot have whole holidays like 
 you. Donna ; there is no escape from the post- 
 hour, even in this corner of the world. Come, 
 children, it is your tea-time. "We must all go 
 home.'' 
 
 And he turned along the beach towards the 
 pathway that led round the rocks, and wound up 
 their steep crevices into the meadow-land above. 
 
 Piers shouldered his fishing-rod, and Donna 
 scrambled up from her seat upon the stone; and 
 they all walked slowly homewards together. Sir 
 John still carrying Gaie in his arms, Fraulein 
 dragging far behind, and Piers and Donna coming
 
 54 LESCAR. 
 
 along in sober conversation. He trudging with 
 shoulders slouched, and head bent shyly down; 
 she walking beside him with erect carriage, firm 
 springy step, and with a glance, full and com- 
 posed, but bright and rapid, as the glance of a 
 young mountain deer. 
 
 Sir John Graeme was a Scotch landowner, and 
 a British statesman, and people said he looked 
 what he was. 
 
 He was tall and well-made ; he gave the im- 
 pression of being moulded, and well moulded, in 
 some native British iron, for he looked strong 
 and unassailable : he carried himself proudly, 
 and looked every man in the face ; he had hand- 
 some features ; he was dark complexioned, and 
 wore no whisker or moustache ; his clean-shaven 
 chin rested upon a stiff and spotless stock. He 
 wore grey tweed shooting-clothes up here in 
 Scotland, but they were trim and well-fitting, and 
 bore a trace of the wonted precision of his frock- 
 coat. 
 
 His habitual expression was grave and some- 
 what imposing ; and people who only knew one 
 side of his character were apt to be afraid of 
 him, for he had a very emphatic way of announc- 
 ing his opinions and commands. 
 
 But I do not think that any one who had
 
 LESCAR. 55 
 
 once seen the expression of his eyes as he bent 
 over Gaie, could ever have been afraid of him 
 again. Under a stern exterior, and a crust of 
 British reserve, there lay the sweetest nature, 
 gentle, playful, almost childlike in its tender- 
 ness towards every human creature whose simple 
 humanity touched his warm, deep heart. 
 
 Men soon found this out, and children knew 
 it instinctively. Men learned, with very little 
 experience, the strength of his nature, its kind- 
 liness, its trustworthiness, and its breadth ; and 
 men who knew Sir John, somehow got into the 
 way of binding up their troubles into burdens, 
 and laying them on his broad shoulders. 
 
 Every one brought their a£fairs to him, and 
 looked to him for advice ; and people who went 
 out of this world, leaving widows and orphans, 
 invariably made them over in toto to his care. 
 
 And he took all the burdens, grumbling gently 
 when they crowded upon him. ''Duties'^ he 
 called them, and that was enough for him. 
 
 "Comes of being an honest man, Graeme — comes 
 of being an honest man ; " and that was all the 
 consolation he got out of his dearest friend, as he 
 grumbled a little more than usual one afternoon 
 in Boodle's window over an open letter he held in 
 his hand.
 
 56 LESCAR. 
 
 "Nonsense !" Sir John had answered impa- 
 tiently ; *' there are honest men in this world 
 after all, Baird, and yet I am sure there are not 
 many, who get the charges thrown upon them 
 that come on me. This is really too much ! and 
 yet, poor Ashton, it is just one of those cases one 
 cannot refuse." 
 
 Sir Harry Baird laughed loud and merrily. 
 
 ^' My dear fellow," he answered, " that is what 
 you say of every care that cotues upon your 
 shoulders — of every single case that turns up. 
 Go on, Graeme, God speed you ! You will no 
 doubt have your reward. But what is this busi- 
 ness now, eh? An estimable parent deceased, 
 no doubt, and a trifling intimation left behind 
 him, that he not having found it convenient to 
 make any contingent provisions. Sir John Graeme 
 will obligingly provide for his widow and nine ! 
 Eh, is that it?" 
 
 "No," said Sir John; "a very different busi- 
 ness, but not the less troublesome. Here is poor 
 Ashton of PoUingworth dead, knocked down 
 with fever in some hole abroad. He was an 
 eccentric fellow, always wandering about, nobody 
 knew where ; and here is this letter found among 
 his effects." 
 
 "Ashton of PoUingworth! What! the man
 
 LESCAR. 57 
 
 to whom tliat beautiful old place down in War- 
 wickshire belongs ?*' 
 
 '* The same. He was an old friend of mine, 
 poor fellow, and, it seems, bad not forgotten Eton 
 days." 
 
 " Gad ! and bas be made you bis beir ?" cried 
 Sir Harry, " eb, Graeme ? " 
 
 "No, tbat is tbe point. Asbton married, some 
 seven or eigbt years ago ; be bad a son, and soon 
 afterwards bis wife died. He lived on, as you 
 know, in bis odd nomadic waj^s ; but be sent tbe 
 child home to PoUingwortb, where be bas been 
 living in tbe charge of Asbton's sister ever 
 since. Now, of course, the boy comes in for 
 everything — an estate, mind you, of some twelve 
 thousand a year. And here am I, with the 
 whole concern thrown upon my bands — guardian, 
 trustee, and executor in one. Bless me, Baird, 
 it is enough to make a man wash his bands of all 
 notions of friendship for ever." 
 
 ''Gad! a business indeed!" said Sir Harry, 
 " but not an unpleasant one. How old is the 
 boy ?" 
 
 " Not more than seven, I fancy. God bless 
 me ! what am I to do with the whole con- 
 
 cern: 
 
 " Ob, you'll manage it capitally, never fear.
 
 58 LESCAR. 
 
 It will not bother you mucli ; and as for tlie boy, 
 bring him up a good Liberal, and send him into 
 Parliament for Warwickshire when he is twenty- 
 one. It will be a new interest to you, Graeme — 
 a great interest.*' 
 
 " Yes,'' said Sir John, a little sadly. " I have 
 no son of my own." 
 
 " But you have daughters, man ! My dear 
 Graeme, that's the very thing. Why, how old 
 is my little friend Sunshine, or your demure 
 Donna, eh ? What — capital ! you must look 
 ahead, you know. Your little ladies will give 
 you some work at chaperoning one of these days, 
 and you will beat all the matrons in Belgravia, if 
 you produce a ' parti ' like this all ready made." 
 
 "Nonsense, nonsense, Baird; how you run 
 away with a notion ! Poor children ! — making up 
 their future for them already. Why, the boy 
 at PoUingworth is merely a child, and my poor 
 little motherless girls are still babies." 
 
 And Sir John sighed as he thought of the 
 long future before him, and that home-responsi- 
 bility so precious and so near his heart, his two 
 little daughters, bereft of their fair young mother 
 so soon. 
 
 "Never mind," said Sir Harry again, with 
 another burst of his hearty laughter, " you will
 
 LESCAR. 59 
 
 see I am right. "We'll have the boy engaged to 
 your Donna, and heading a Liberal poll, under 
 
 your dictatorship, by the time he is twenty-one." 
 
 ***** 
 
 This was about three years ago, and Piers had 
 already fulfilled the first of these prognostica- 
 tions, by proposing to Donna, in his character of 
 Bandit, that very afternoon.
 
 CHAPTEH III. 
 
 " By dreamers, I do not mean empty dreamers ; I mean the 
 dealers with ideas, those who go digging deep down the 
 mine, or soar on daring wings beyond the sky. Those, however 
 poor their condition or outward man, we hold to be true sages, 
 deep poets ; in fact, it is just they, who take the world in tow." 
 
 Madame De Gasparin. 
 
 The terrible events that since eighteen hundred 
 and seventy have associated the name of Paris 
 with the darkest page of modern history, at the 
 same time unveiled to the public eye a vast 
 association of thought and enterprise, that had 
 been underlying the substratum of society for 
 years. 
 
 The " Universal '' — a hated word, fraught with 
 horror, and associated for ever with acts of mad- 
 ness and diabolic rage. The " Universal " — the 
 power, we are told, and the mainspring of the 
 Paris Commune. 
 
 But the " Universal " has a history, and some 
 have seen in that history glimpses of another 
 aspect of humanity, not to be found in the Paris'
 
 LESCAR. 61 
 
 Commune. Tlie Universal lias friends as well as 
 enemies. 
 
 " You, and societies like you, have burnt down 
 Paris ! " cry tlie latter. " You have stained the 
 annals of this century with deeds barbarous and 
 dark; the whole civilized world shuddered at 
 your doings with horror and repulsion ; you have 
 disgraced your age." 
 
 " We have been the sigh of nations," say the 
 friends of the Universal, " the sigh that betokened 
 life — life in mind and soul, through that vast 
 concourse of the people, who have lain long 
 torpid, stagnant, hungering, like the brute crea- 
 tion, for the bread of the body — all spirit- 
 dead." 
 
 Which of these is the true light in which to 
 view the Universal, or how much of truth may 
 lie in both, is a question, well worth the study of 
 the highest councils of the lands. 
 
 The Paris Commune has unveiled the Universal 
 as it now exists — an association of world-wide 
 extension, numbering some five millions of men. 
 The Paris Commune made public the vile passions, 
 the false aims, the horrid cruelty of men whose 
 names stood high as leaders on the Universal 
 roll. 
 
 But it is only now, when the Commune, flash-
 
 62 LESCAR. 
 
 ing like a meteor across tlie horror-struck eyes of 
 civilisation, has gone out of sight, that its flames 
 are extinguished, that even in the fair streets of 
 Paris there are traces of its existence no more, — 
 only now, that men can look back, and trace that 
 Universal, which gave it life, to its origin, and 
 strive to separate, from the horrid evil, the hidden 
 good. 
 
 We have had a great and good Prince among 
 us — taken, alas ! too soon away. One, whose 
 mind, in its wide range, in its far-reaching and 
 forecasting powers of thought, is more and more 
 fully understood, as we read his words with the 
 strongly increasing light of passing years and 
 successive events upon them. 
 
 His deep interest on the side of all human 
 good, his large and loving gaze that took heed of 
 all men, his universal and intense sympathy with 
 the strife, and the toil, and the yearnings that 
 describe all human work, all human efibrt, be it 
 of brain or hand, of statesman or of artisan. He 
 seemed to have had the thought of a possible mil- 
 lennium, when a universal sympathy of interests 
 might unite in one vast brotherhood the nations 
 of men, — when war, with all its horrid attributes, 
 would be extinguished, — when men would be 
 united, through the simple recognition of the
 
 LESCAR. 63 
 
 great fact, tliat their foes are superhuman, and 
 that their interests are one. 
 
 " All history points," were his own words, '* to 
 the realisation of the unity of mankind." 
 
 Towards the accomplishment of that beautiful 
 idea, surely his noble efforts were directed. 
 He instituted Exhibitions, international, world- 
 embracing, at which the sympathies of men, from 
 nation to nation, might be called into life, as 
 they examined together the result of each other's 
 toil. Surely he meant more than — a big bazaar ? 
 
 Thought travels quickly in these days. Like a 
 subtle current of electric life, a thought some- 
 thing similar to that which our lamented Prince 
 spoke in these words, at the Lord Mayor's banquet 
 of the Eoyal Commissioners of 1851, was born in 
 the brain of xluber Dax, the " Universalist," as 
 he called himself, watchmaker (once of the Le 
 Grand St. Marteau), now of the Eue des Cordon- 
 niers, Paris. 
 
 He, too, had a dream : he had been dreaming 
 for years. His dream found voice : he talked 
 unwearingly, and as his speech was rich and often 
 poetic, and struck home pleasantly to the quick 
 imaginations of the people to whom he appealed, 
 he found listeners. 
 
 Gradually he found converts. He worked his
 
 64 LESCAR. 
 
 nimble fingers upon Ms watcli-springs, as well as 
 his brain upon society and man. He made in the 
 first branch of study, valuable and notorious dis- 
 coveries, which altered rapidly and materially the 
 conditions of his life. 
 
 Whether in the last branch, the result of his 
 cogitations was of any value, or fraught with 
 any teachings of benefit to humanity, the future 
 must show. 
 
 It was the spring-time of 1862. 
 
 It is evening ; and the guest-room of Auber 
 Dax's house, in the Eue des Cordonniers, is full, 
 just as it used to be in Le Grand St. Marteau ; 
 and besides the old figure at the deal table in the 
 window, there are several people there whom we 
 have seen before. 
 
 Time has been at work among all these dwellers 
 in Le Grrand St. Marteau, and changes have taken 
 place. 
 
 The noisy soldier, Alphonse de Lescar, went 
 out in that year '54 to the campaign in Turkey, 
 with his famous artillery corps. Every battle 
 enrolled on the lists of the allies' victories, found 
 him somewhere in the front. Men fell round 
 him like mown grass ; but, " Dieu sait," as he 
 often ejaculated later, *' what it was — perhaps 
 Marie's prayers were a shield to him " — but so it
 
 LESCAR. 6'5 
 
 was, lie came back unscathed, leaving most of 
 the regiment behind him, with a colonel's epau- 
 lets on his green coat, — a proud, and, as Auber 
 Dax said, "a tenfold more vain-glorious man." 
 He got the legion of honour ; he went off con- 
 tented, and had been grilling in Africa ever 
 since. 
 
 His little wife had just seen him return, had 
 rejoiced and thanked God for him, and then — she 
 had been taken away. 
 
 The little home in Le Grand St. Marteau had 
 been broken up, and Yictor sent by his father to 
 the learned uncle in Heidelberg. 
 
 He had stayed there for years ; he had been 
 educated even beyond the highest pitch to which 
 Auber's dreams had aspired ; and now, in 1862, 
 he had just returned to Paris, his life and its 
 career before him. 
 
 His first thought was Le Grand St. Marteau, — 
 the green mound below the cypress, in the Pro- 
 testant corner of the cimetiere, — and then, the 
 knot of dear old friends opposite L'Eglise St. 
 Clive. 
 
 He found the green mound fresh and fragrant, 
 the violets and lilies his boyish hands had placed 
 there, coming into bloom. Dax, the centre of his 
 knot of friends, was gone from Le Grand St. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 LESCAll. 
 
 Marteau, and establislied in mucli altered circum- 
 stances in tlie Rue des Cordonniers in Paris. 
 
 There lie had to hunt him out, and to-night he 
 had found him. 
 
 Auher's room was crowded with a much larger 
 assembly than ever gathered in the old days in 
 Le Grand St. Marteau, — the uproar of violent 
 voices vociferating was much louder here. A 
 group of varied faces surrounded the table, all 
 dark and bronzed, many weary and pale. There 
 were men pensive and silent, like Henri Tolberg, 
 cynical and irreverent, like Frederick Hanker, 
 and simply boisterous and brutal, like Yarlin and 
 Rex Dupres. 
 
 Henri Tolberg was there — older by eight 
 years, graver and more dreamy than ever, and 
 with a brighter glitter in his dark eyes. He had 
 got a worn look in those years, and there was 
 something saddening in his aspect, a new ex- 
 pression, the consuming fire of fanaticism burnt 
 and smouldered now in his absent gaze. 
 
 Friedrich Hanker was missing, and so was Faus- 
 tine. He was pursuing a secret course of meta- 
 physical revolution with Becker in Germany. 
 Her restless spirit had carried her to England, 
 where, at this moment, she was teaching the 
 wisdom of the one great goddess, the glories of a
 
 LESCAR. 67 
 
 Frencli Republic, and the heroism of Eoland and 
 Corday, in a British family, as respectable as they 
 were unsuspecting. 
 
 She was absent from the Rue des Cordonniers, 
 where the smoke curled thick this evening from 
 some twenty cigars. 
 
 It was difficult to distinguish, in the misty 
 vapours, old friends, such as Henri, Jules, Rex, 
 or Auber ; and still more difficult to recognize in 
 the graceful, well-grown youth of twenty, who 
 leant on the mantelshelf, the fair-haired boy, 
 Victor Lescar. 
 
 His slight moustache, his wavy curls, and his 
 complexion were still fair and youthful ; his face 
 was handsome, and, though delicate, was full of 
 intellect and force. The expression of his eyes 
 was thoughtful, but bright as a sunbeam, quick 
 and eager as a hawk ; and his slight, well-knit 
 figure had a look of spring, energy, and athletic 
 vigour. 
 
 He leant back on the mantelshelf, and 
 watched in silence the knot of men who crowded 
 eagerly round the centre table. An outstretched 
 newspaper lay open here, and one of the number, 
 a black- bearded artisan, rested his open palm upon 
 the page, and in a pause in the general uproar 
 read in a loud voice from its contents.
 
 68 LESCAR. 
 
 It was the report of the French correspondent 
 of the Ouvrier, on the opening of the Exhibition 
 in Cromwell Head. 
 
 " It must be a great sight," said Henri Tol- 
 berg, as the reader ceased. 
 
 " Great ! " cried a pale-faced man, in eager 
 tones. " Think of it ! — crowds gathered from 
 all corners of the earth, — kings and emperors, 
 ministers from every court, people high and low, 
 of every nation, gathered to see the wealth of the 
 lands." 
 
 " Yes, the wealth, the pomp, and the treasures 
 of the nations," cried Tolberg ; " and what is it 
 all, but the produce of the toil, and the fruits of 
 the weariness, of the working-man ? " 
 
 '* Produce of the hands of one class, — -of the 
 brains of another," said Auber. " What one 
 man executes, another man conceives ; not aU the 
 honour for the workman, boy. Credit to whom 
 credit is due, Henri. There is a sweat of the brow 
 from the labour of the brain, that is wearying too. " 
 
 " True, Pere Dax, but all the clever heads in 
 Europe could not have produced such a sight as 
 that is now in London, without the skilled hands 
 of the artisan." 
 
 " And the artisan, Henri, could not have pro- 
 duced a single item of that great collection, with-
 
 LESCAR. 60 
 
 out the struggling thought, the subtle brain, the 
 earnest and often weary effort of the man of 
 culture, of intellect, of the higher powers, — the 
 man who thinks, who theorises, and who, through 
 force of science, can invent. You are falling into 
 error — error born of vanity and thoughtlessness, 
 you working-men, — you take all credit to your- 
 selves, and you fancy all labour in life is done by 
 you." 
 
 ^'I see the working-man," cried Henri, pas- 
 sionately, " build up the universe, Dax : without 
 him the soil is untilled, cities unfounded, the 
 world a wilderness. With him come the culture 
 of smiling lands — the forest cleared, and habita- 
 tions built everywhere. He carries civilisation 
 on his shoulders. He brings beauty and perfec- 
 tion ; for he paints, and chases, and decorates the 
 common things of life. He makes the pomp 
 and wealth of nations, and, 'mid all the glory that 
 he builds up for them, the one thing forgotten is 
 .—himself." 
 
 " Ah, it shall not long be so ! " cried a man 
 who stood near him. " Things go fast in these 
 days. Courage, my friends ; the time is near at 
 hand. "We hasten to the regeneration ; we are 
 on the eve of the end of all things. Society will 
 soon be no more ! "
 
 70 LESCAR. 
 
 " Husli ! empty-pated disciple of a mad mas- 
 ter," cried Dax. " The times go on, indeed, but 
 not as you would drive them. Henri Tolberg, there 
 was truth, but much folly likewise, in i/our words.'' 
 
 " But truth, Pere Dax : the work is received, 
 and the workman forgotten. The work is ad- 
 mired, and nations crowd there to look on it. 
 They wander idly to and fro, they gape at the 
 results of our hands' toil, and do they cast one 
 thought, think you, to the workman? — to the 
 man of the pale sweat-worn brow, who toils to 
 and fro day by day, labouring hour by hour ? '* 
 
 "The workmen, if they are convinced of the 
 necessity," said Auber, " should learn to think for 
 themselves ; not in hot-headed vanity, not calling 
 themselves high-sounding names, such as you 
 love, Henri, but with right understanding of their 
 true place among the ranks of men.'' 
 
 " Their true place ! They are the makers, and 
 they should be possessors of all," cried Dupres. 
 
 '' Wrong, Dupres, wrong," said Dax ; and he 
 rose and came forward to the table, and the man 
 of the newspaper made way for him, and he stood 
 looking on them a moment, and then down on the 
 open page. 
 
 His eyes gleamed as he raised his head and 
 held his hand up for a moment, with a gesture
 
 LESCAR. 71 
 
 that silenced every tongue, and drew every eye 
 upon his face. Pere Dax was going to speak. 
 
 " Mes enfants," he said, " many days we have 
 gathered together here, in this little chamber, to 
 exchange thought and sift words on the subject 
 of the working-man. Brethren and artisans, we 
 are all of us men who live by wages, and not by 
 interest of any capital of our own." 
 
 " No ; but we should, if we had our rights,'' 
 cried one. 
 
 '' Hush ! hush ! " ran the murmur round the 
 room, with angry energy. 
 
 " Jules," said Dax, turning on the interrupter, 
 " when you drink no more absinthe and cogniac, 
 and when you save your wages and have acquired 
 capital, then doubtless you will live on it; till 
 then, hear me, as I speak to the artisan — to 
 the wage-paid men. Brethren, artisans, we may 
 well feel proud, our hearts may indeed throb with 
 pleasure, as we read this page, — as we conceive 
 the array, magnificent and never rivalled, on which 
 the eyes of admiring nations rest at this hour, and 
 when we realise it is our own fruits from genera- 
 tions of toil. When we know the place France 
 holds in that assembly, we feel proud to be French 
 artisans. When we think, as Henri has said, of 
 the chased and deKcate trophies of our skilled
 
 72 LESCAR. 
 
 handiwork, we may say truly to one another, 
 'We have helped to beautify the world.' And 
 again, when we turn to ourselves, we may say, as 
 he has said, that alas ! too truly, our homes and 
 our lives are unbeauteous — a contrast strange and 
 saddening to the works we do. We are printers, 
 and print books in which we have no part or 
 understanding ; we are engravers, and engrave 
 pictures for which we have no taste or soul ; we 
 chase vases, and trace tapestry, and cast sculp- 
 ture, all for a life of beauty and refinement in 
 which we have no place or part. Ours is a life of 
 toil and monotony ; and while our labour has 
 results that gladden the eyes of nations, our life 
 is hard and bitter, and our lot is unadorned. And 
 with these thoughts you fire each other's blood." 
 
 " And no wonder, Dax ! " cried another. *' Is 
 all the labour to be ours for ever, and all the 
 results for other men ? " 
 
 " Your help is in yourselves," he answered. 
 " You are satisfied to grovel ; you drug your 
 brains with absinthe, and you waste your means, 
 while all power lies vested in you for your own 
 redemption, and lies unused." 
 
 ''What power can we have, ground down with 
 Capital on the one hand, and by Government on 
 the other ? "
 
 LESCAR. 73 
 
 " Let Government go its way, my cliildren. 
 Have you not learnt the lesson yet ? Will the 
 French artisan go on for ever, boiling up his 
 blood, and outpouring it in mad fights on poKtical 
 questions that do not touch his interests, that bring 
 him (if accomplished to the fullest) not one whit 
 of good? Let Government alone, I tell you. 
 Turn your thoughts to your own cause^ my 
 brethren : none can help you, but you can help 
 yourselves." 
 
 " What can we do, Dax, bound hand and foot 
 by Capital ? Slaves, we are sold to obey or starve ; 
 not the power of a little finger's strength have we 
 with the masters. We strike ; foreign workmen 
 are brought in, and we are done.'* 
 
 " These things are understood better elsewhere 
 than here," sighed Dax. 
 
 " Yes, in England," said Tolberg ; " men can 
 get their will there. Trades-unions and strikes 
 have got some power in that country ; but there 
 is not much good trying the kind of thing, Dax, 
 here." 
 
 '' Brothers," exclaimed Dax, suddenly, " I have 
 a thought. Henri, I spoke often that thought to 
 you ; and, in your quiet moods, you understood 
 me ; but you are easily excited, boy. It is time 
 we were redeemed, my brothers — time that the
 
 74" LESCAR. 
 
 labouring man had. sometlimg other in his life, 
 save work and toil — time he had thought, and 
 hours to think in — time he were raised, and all 
 his children with him, from the state of ignorance, 
 the brutal life, in which he eats, works, sleeps, 
 then works again, then — dies. Time he were 
 raised, to feel his humanity, and know his own 
 mind and soul. And these things we could do. We 
 could raise ourselves, we could appeal with force 
 and strength to masters and governments, and 
 form within ourselves a power quite irresistible, 
 if only we could understand the grand principle 
 of the Universal — if only we could unite. Look 
 at the union of our produce at Kensington ; look 
 at the vast array it makes of substance, wealth. 
 Think of the human strength, in hand and will 
 and effort, that achieved those things, and then 
 conceive that power — united. It would over- 
 spread the earth. And, children, not with 
 anarchy and bloodshed, not by men maddened 
 with false theories and wild notions to subvert 
 the world, but with a vast all-embracing army of 
 human energies, calm and determined in their 
 strong appeal for the redemption of their children 
 and of themselves. For their redemption from 
 ignorance, from superstition, from degradation in 
 all spiritual and mental life — for their redemption
 
 LESCAR. 75 
 
 from a state In which vice and the wine-shop are 
 the only recreations in their life of toil — for tim 
 could we appeal with power, if we were of one mind, 
 if we could — combine. Of these things, of such 
 a time, of such conditions among my brother- 
 labourers in our beloved France, I have dreamt, 
 my friends, sweet dreams, in which peace and 
 union, plenty and contentment, flowed through 
 the lands. These things are studied in all nations 
 — only France lags behind. These things fill men's 
 minds everywhere. Shall France pour out her 
 blood in vain political struggles, in foolish in- 
 ternal broils? Can the French workman not 
 separate himself from politics, from questions of 
 government, and turn grave and earnest to his 
 own concerns." 
 
 "What can we do, Dax? — what can we 
 do?" 
 
 " Let us study — ^let us think ; look round and 
 see what men of other nations do : something 
 we'll learn from them." 
 
 " But we cannot observe other countries, chained 
 down here in Paris." 
 
 "We should do as others do — send delegates 
 to see ; men fit and thoughtful, to observe the 
 turning of social things as they regard the work- 
 man. Nations are assembled now — men from
 
 76 LESCAR. 
 
 every country ; only France, poor, foolisli, ever- 
 intoxicated France, has sent no delegates. France 
 is too busy with her broils at home." 
 
 Victor, during all this, had listened, silent and 
 eager, drinking in every word ; and now, as Auber 
 ceased, he sprang forward, leant with both arms 
 on the table, and looking earnestly up into the 
 old man's face, "Pere Dax, Pere Dax," he ex- 
 claimed, " why do not ive go ? " 
 
 Dax glanced at him, and drew encouragement 
 from the bright, young, eager face. 
 
 ''It is a glorious dream ?" continued the boy, 
 passionately. "A people's united protest would 
 set any people free." 
 
 "They have learned much of these things in 
 England," said Dax. "Among the treasures of 
 that Kensington Hall are hidden secrets we pine 
 to know. Men search them. Shall we lag behind, 
 or shall we go forth, my brethren ?" he continued, 
 raising his head, and speaking with renewed 
 energy. " Shall France have a representative 
 from her forges and from her w^orkshops, like 
 the other great nations of men ? I had a dream ; 
 perhaps there I may see a shadow of its realisa- 
 tion. Shall we go, Henri ? Shall we go — you 
 and I?" 
 
 Henri's dark eyes lit up, eager and excited.
 
 LESCAR. 77 
 
 ** I will go with you, Pere Dax, over tlie world, 
 if you like." 
 
 *'We will go, then," continued the old man, 
 with tremulous eagerness. " Take courage, my 
 brethren, take courage — ^patience ! My dream is 
 of your redemption ; my vision has been the 
 regeneration of man." 
 
 They understood little of his words, but *'Dax ! 
 Pere Dax ! " they shouted, one and all of them, 
 "may fortune speed you on the way. Pere 
 Dax ! the friend of his brethren, the teacher and 
 the father of the working-man." 
 
 They drained their glasses of red wine to the 
 fortune of his journey, and then they scattered 
 with words of good-fellowship and farewell. 
 
 Only Victor and Henri lingered. The latter 
 dropped into his seat again, while Victor leant 
 against the table, and continued gazing into 
 Auber's face. 
 
 Dax looked straight before him, a wrapt and 
 absent expression in his eyes ; his fingers played 
 nervously upon the table, as if searching for some 
 familiar tool. 
 
 " Pere Dax," said Victor presently, " will you 
 tell me clearly your thought? Is it only now 
 the wish comes to you, to go to England ? Is it
 
 78 LESCAR. 
 
 a sudden idea ? Explain to me, mon pere. I 
 liave heard sucli words as you speak often since I 
 left you. I liave heard my Uncle Handelhardt 
 say just such things. I often told him he echoed 
 your old teachings, and now I come back to find 
 you, still saying the same." 
 
 " Ah," cried Dax, eagerly, " is it so indeed ? 
 It is true then, boy ; it is not a dream, not only a 
 vision of my brain — it is true. The souls of all 
 men, in every country, vibrate, Victor, as with 
 one chord ; the longings of men are verging to 
 one centre. Let us go ; let us see the reaUty, there." 
 
 " Pere Dax," said Victor, gently, " let me go 
 with you." 
 
 " You, boy, you are not an artisan ; you are to 
 be a soldier, Victor — an enemy, in every sense, to 
 the spirit of my dream." 
 
 " I am not a soldier yet, mon pere. I care not 
 to be a soldier in these days of idle peace, when 
 a soldier's life is nought but play. I would rather 
 fight your battles, than join the others' game. / 
 want to see the minds of men in many countries ; 
 it is my dream, Pere Dax, as it is yours." 
 
 " My schemes would not include you," said 
 Dax, dreamily. " How can you be the friend 
 of the Proletaire ? How can you cast in your 
 lot with the working-man ? There is blue blood
 
 LESCAR. 79 
 
 flowing in your veins, boy — the blood of tbe 
 aristocrat and tbe soldier, of sucb. men as your 
 father, Alpbonse de Lescar, men who toy with the 
 excitement and tumult of revolutionary thought 
 in the time of peace and idleness, but have no 
 real interest in any cause of the people, and so 
 cast it behind them at the first sound of war. 
 You are an aristocrat and a soldier : we have no 
 place in our schemes for you." 
 
 " But I am not a soldier yet, and I am no 
 aristocrat. I have no *de' in my name now, 
 Pere Dax; I laid that aside in Germany years 
 ago, when Uncle Handelhardt taught me the 
 things he loved and knew. I am * Victor Lescar,' 
 citizen of the world, and friend of the people. 
 Let me go ; do let me go with you. I have money 
 enough," he added, impetuously ; " my uncle left 
 me all he had. And I have written to my father, 
 saying I must travel more, and study more, before 
 I go out to him ; and I know he will not object. 
 I want to go to an EngKsh college, and I will 
 some day ; but now," he persisted, with gentle 
 tenderness, " let me stay with you ; let me go to 
 London with Henri and you." 
 
 " Well, my son, let us start together. Ah ! is it 
 coming at last ? " and he wandered off again. " At 
 last realisation ! My dream, my dream, at last ! "
 
 80 LESCAR. 
 
 " Mon pere," continued Victor, in a low tone, 
 and with, that tender reverence with which the 
 young in that country are taught to treat the old 
 they love, ''will you tell me your dream ?" 
 
 "Not now; no, no, not now. I will tell no 
 one till realisation comes ; no one, till I stand in 
 the council of the nations, and cast in my handful 
 of seed — precious eternal seed — to reach to the 
 world's width, to last the world's time." 
 
 " A handful of corn on the tops of the moun- 
 tains, shaking unto the ends of the earth," mur- 
 mured Victor. 
 
 *' Henri knows my dream," the old man con- 
 tinued. " I told him once, Victor, in a quiet 
 time ; for I am old, boy, and I might die. If so, 
 lie has the seed — the sowing will he for him. 
 But if I live ! — ah, if I live to realise ! " 
 ""When shall we start, mon pere ? " 
 " Henri, are you ready?" asked Auber. 
 " Ready when you will," he replied. 
 *' Then, my sons, let us go. Ah ! may we be 
 successfal ! — may we gain, indeed, the ear of the 
 nations ; may we cast in with power the words of 
 life. Let us go." 
 
 There had been many such discussions in that 
 room of Auber's, and the result was, at last, that 
 indeed they did go — these three.
 
 LESCAR. 81 
 
 They arrived, one still and foggy evening, in 
 the river below London Bridge. 
 
 Victor saw the great city for the first time, 
 walked its streets with eyes eager and observant, 
 and with rapid steps, from end to end. Henri 
 walking with him, and Dax often between them, 
 the three paced the busy thoroughfares, and saw 
 the haunts of that traffic, vast beyond their ideas, 
 Henri looking about him with excitable gaze, 
 ready at every moment to fire into rhapsodies of 
 eloquence, as he saw the hosts of workmen of the 
 city crowd these dark, narrow streets, as he saw 
 the wealth of the west of London, and poverty 
 struggling bitterly in the east : evidently the 
 balance of life was not perfect, not even here. 
 
 They were strangers at first, the three, and 
 quite alone. They found London in a ferment of 
 excitement and crowded confusion, full to over- 
 flowing. 
 
 The Great Exhibition had brought thousands 
 to crowd the city, from far and near. But they 
 found, too, a cloud — the shadow of a great sorrow, 
 the gloom of a deep grief, still hanging low 
 over the city, and saddening the nation's heart. 
 
 The Exhibition buildings rose at Kensington, 
 and were filled with treasures, brilliant and in- 
 numerable ; but He, who had conceived this grand 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 ■-82 LESCAR. 
 
 scheme for the refinement, the instruction, and 
 the union of universal man, lived not to see it 
 completed. He was gone ; and the deep thought 
 that inspired his schemes and actions lacks for 
 ever the interpretation of the Master-mind. 
 
 London was still mourning their national loss. 
 But the Exhibition was open; and crowd, con- 
 fusion, and excitement reigned everywhere. 
 
 Amidst it all these three wayfarers trod the 
 streets unnoticed. No one, in the vast multitudes, 
 observed amidst the myriads of strange visitors 
 the fair-haired French boy,, the dark-faced artisan, 
 the frail old man. And yet, when' this time was 
 looked back upon, and results traced "to their life- 
 spring, then it was remembered that they had 
 been there — just these three. 
 
 Dax said they would look about them, and 
 judge all things for themselves, before they ap- 
 proached their countrymen in Leicester Square or 
 Soho, or told their mission there. They had 
 come to judge of English work, and to see the 
 Great Exhibition of the Universal artisan. They 
 went there; they stood under the dome by the 
 Minton fountain, looked down the nave upon the 
 myriads of every nation trooping below, and 
 looked up, with beating hearts and eyes glisten- 
 ing with strong emotion, to the motto encircling,
 
 LESCAR . 83 
 
 in great golden letters, tke towering dome, 
 "Glory to God in the liigliest,' and '^'oh : earth 
 peace." ^' ' ' 
 
 " On earth peace ! " Dax • repeated' dreamily. 
 " Can we reach it ? On earth— peace." 
 
 Then they used their letters of introduction to 
 the bands of the Soho exiles — Germans, Swiss, 
 Russian, Polish, French ; and by them they were 
 introduced further, until at length Dax stood, 
 where 'his heart had longed to stand, in an assem- 
 bly of English workmen, all studying, intent on 
 the same social problems as were agitating France. 
 The day had come ; Dax had got his hearing. 
 At length he stood among men, earnest and 
 practical ; at length he had listeners, who could 
 reach the kernel of his theories, and receive them 
 with understanding minds.- With men before 
 him, whose names stand 'as leaders on the list of 
 English radical reform; with- men of many nations 
 surrounding him, and Henri and Victor near at 
 hand, to give him friendly support, the tongue of 
 Auber Dax was at length loosed utterly, and he 
 found strength to speak his dream. 
 
 " England had what France wanted — freedom 
 " for the workmen to protest and to unite. England 
 '' could help France, and Germany could teach both 
 " of them ; and all could give light to the darkness
 
 84 LESCAR. 
 
 " of Italy and Spain. Men were brethren, — they 
 "should not be antagonists. Men lived and died 
 "together, subject to the same dangers, creatures 
 " of the same sphere. Why should not all men of 
 " their class, all labourers and artisans of every 
 " nation and clime, unite in one vast union of sym- 
 " pathetic brotherhood, bound to mutual assistance 
 " and support ? Why should they not study their 
 "mutual interests together? Why should they 
 " not obtain their requirements by uniting in an 
 " irresistible force ? They might carry the world 
 " with them, sweeping down the currents of society 
 " in a huge overwhelming stream. Love uniting, 
 "reason guiding, justice the aim, goodness and 
 " helpful brotherhood the condition of all ? " A 
 golden dream, — a generous noble thought em- 
 bracing all mankind. 
 
 And then Dax went oflP into a vapour of enthu- 
 siasm and rhapsody, and with the best efforts at 
 interpretation, the Englishmen understood him 
 no more. 
 
 But they caught his idea, calmly and with 
 practical energy their leaders grasped it. True, 
 all the help of the workmen lay in themselves ; 
 true, the union of strength was the keystone of 
 power ; true, the strength of united nations would
 
 LESCAR. 85 
 
 make one class irresistibly strong. It was a good 
 thought, they said, — a good thought : in time and 
 with reflection, it might come to be. 
 
 So Dax's dream was made public, and the seed 
 was sown. 
 
 The seed was cast upon the soil — the soil of the 
 hearts and the heated brains of men, and it bore 
 fruit. Such fruit ! Results so difierent indeed 
 from the thought from which they sprang, fruits 
 so opposed to every principle, every aim, of Auber's 
 soul, that truly we are forced to think, though 
 figs will not grow on thistles, thorns may spring 
 Irom the fair blossoms that promise the generous 
 vine. For truly the thing seemed good. Had 
 there been one man in these days of clear intellect, 
 high motive, of calm and critical judgment, of 
 kindly sympathy, and warm genial interest, ca- 
 pable and willing to unravel its meaning, to sepa- 
 rate the unpractical rhapsody from the real and 
 beautiful thought, Auber's dream might have 
 fallen upon men like a rain from heaven, with 
 gentle influence all beneficent and good. 
 
 But there was no such man, — no man capable 
 who had leisure, no man capable who cared. So 
 men seized it who were quite incapable in charac- 
 ter and in mind — ^men whose motives were low
 
 86 LESCAR. 
 
 and selfish, as their intellects were inferior. They 
 seized and used it for their own base ends. The 
 results are in the future still ! 
 
 Happily all unconscious of the future or of 
 results, Auber returned contented with Henri to 
 Paris ; but they left Victor behind them. 
 
 He was captivated with England and with 
 Englishmen. The soberer style of thought, the 
 slow careful expression, suited better with his 
 German training, than the fiery logic of the Bue 
 des Cordonniers. He *must see more of it, he said. 
 Already he had studied the English language ; he 
 must stay and study the English people and 
 mind ; he must see, too, Scotland, the people of his 
 mother, and their home. 
 
 He must stay in England, and carry his French 
 blood, his soldier's spirit, his German training, 
 his already varied phases of mind, to the fresh in- 
 fluences of an English collegiate town ; so they 
 went back to Paris without him. 
 
 Then he was quite alone ; a stranger in the 
 Great City, and alone. Far away were all who 
 cared for him, or felt interest in his career. His 
 uncle was dead ; his friends (queer, strange-think- 
 ing people) were in Paris, theorizing and talking
 
 LESCAR. 87 
 
 vague rhapsody in Parisian workshops and Paris 
 clubs ; and he was quite alone here, friendless, and 
 with the w^orld before him. 
 
 He felt very solitary at first, as he wandered 
 through the London streets, after they left hini ; 
 and as he looked at the passing crowds, his brain 
 whirled often with the excitement of strong young 
 thought; for he brooded much over life in his 
 solitude, over its depths and mystery, its problems 
 and its end. 
 
 He had money, and was independent of all 
 men. He was a " child of the people," he said ; 
 and yet his father carried a gold epaulet in the 
 ranks of the French army, and a commission was 
 ready for him there. He belonged to the class 
 " gentleman," and yet in thought, and in soul, and 
 in the strong deep interest of his young heart he 
 was a child of the French people and of the 
 French labourer still. From his boyhood he had 
 seen the sweat-drops ghsten on their brow ; from 
 his boyhood he had heard the earnest expression 
 of the yearning of their lives and souls. From 
 his heart he loved them — France and her children, 
 France and her labouring men. 
 
 As he wandered, during these days, in the 
 eastern depths of the Great City, and in the gay 
 haunts of the west, as he watched the crowds, he
 
 88 LESCAR. 
 
 felt his own life a strange one, himself an anomaly 
 among men. 
 
 He was full of life, young, fresh, ardent and 
 eager ; full of sentiment, soaring and enthusiastic, 
 coloured with the early teaching of Le Grand St. 
 Marteau, and with the later and more cultured 
 teachings of Heidelberg. He was eager for the 
 contest, longing for the struggle, he was searching 
 for the battle-field of life. Where shall he find 
 it ? How shall he mould his life ? Where shall 
 he turn his steps towards his high excelsiors — 
 towards the beautiful and true ? He was strong 
 and eager for action, and life was to him such a 
 mystery — so tangled, and yet so beautiful — so 
 alluring, and yet so strange. Goodness seemed 
 glory ; beauty seemed heaven-born ; love was a 
 mystic and a tender dream. 
 
 Bright, genial-hearted boy, strong in spirit, 
 and brave for the fight. Fresh, young, beauteous 
 soul I — full of confidence, full of hope, full of 
 heaven-born purpose. What lies before him in 
 his own life, and in the chequered history of the 
 lives he loves ? 
 
 Ah ! Heaven guide and guard thee, brave- 
 hearted boy !
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 " The unknown is life — to love, religion, poetry." 
 
 When Donna Graeme was eighteen, and could 
 look back upon the history of her education, it 
 seemed to her that three forces had been at work 
 in the formation of herself. 
 
 Life had surrounded her, and formed her, 
 reaching her character from three distinct sources, 
 — a centre of control, a centre of influence, and 
 a centre of afiection. 
 
 The controlling element condensed itself into 
 one individual, a certain " Fraulein Hippogram," 
 who held despotic sway, during these years, over 
 all the external organisation of her life. 
 
 She had dawned upon the Old Towers when 
 Donna was about twelve ; and since then she 
 had remained there, directing her energies to the 
 object, and devoting all her educational skill to 
 the efibrt, to reduce Donna, in character and con- 
 duct, to the orthodox standard of a young lady of
 
 90 LESCAR. 
 
 the nineteentli century, calculated to fill witli 
 grace and dignity a responsible position in a 
 London drawing-room. 
 
 Sir John Graeme had directed most things, in 
 the order of his children's actions, for himself. 
 He had ideas of his own, and he generally carried 
 them out ; and he had neither asked nor accepted 
 much counsel in the arrangement of their lives. 
 
 Indeed, their education would have been con- 
 ducted probably on a singular and exclusively 
 masculine method, had there not existed one 
 personage, whose near relationship to their late 
 mother forced Sir John to allow her some autho- 
 rity. 
 
 This important personage. Lady Curzon Kellam, 
 was the sister of the late Lady Graeme. 
 
 Sir John knew that her influence, if exercised 
 unrestrained, would be very opposite in its ten- 
 dency to anything that his lost wife would have 
 desired. And perhaps it was this impression, 
 as much as any other, that caused him to decree 
 that his girls should grow up at the Old Towers, 
 form their characters, and develop their indivi- 
 dual forces, before they were brought to London 
 and exposed to the inevitable influence of their 
 aunt. 
 
 But when, seven years ago, it became necessary
 
 LESCAR. 91 
 
 to supply the place of intellectual instructor in 
 tlie school-room at the Old Towers with some 
 more cultured and accomplished authority than 
 the country towns in that northern latitude could 
 produce, poor Sir John had found himself non- 
 plused. 
 
 He spent several dismal mornings in vague 
 and conscientious gropings for himself at the 
 Harley Street Institution, and at other authorised 
 sources of intellectual instruction; but at last in 
 despair he was obliged to apply to Lady Kellam, 
 and the result was — Fraulein Hippogram. 
 
 There is not much to be said against this 
 Fraiilein, except that she adored grammars 
 and dictionaries, and that very nearly her whole 
 soul was centred in the art of knitting white 
 cotton stockings, and of darning them, with a 
 wooden ball stuflPed into the heel or toe. 
 
 But there are two distinct classes of women in 
 Germany, — one, destined and fitted by Providence 
 for the routine regulation of the external circum- 
 stances of a household, and another, imbued with 
 intellect, appreciation, and discriminating taste, 
 more fitted perhaps than any class of women in 
 the world for the conduct of an education and 
 for the deep real formation of a character. 
 
 It was not Fraulein Hippogram^s fault,
 
 92 LESCAR. 
 
 althougli it was Donna's misfortune, that tlie 
 worthy German belonged to the first of these two 
 classes — exclusively to the first, and not at all to 
 the second. 
 
 She led Donna, through many weary years, a 
 weary routine life. She conducted her through 
 histories ancient and modern, through gram- 
 mars and geographies ad infinitum, through all 
 orthodox school-room literature, at so many lines 
 per day. 
 
 She fenced in, she shaped out, she organised 
 through these years, every external proceeding in 
 the girl's life ; and, through all, she never once 
 sought to penetrate the workings of the young 
 spirit, or the lonely th robbings of the young 
 passionate heart. 
 
 Donna's face never lost, to her, its one calm 
 aspect of resigned submission ; her voice never 
 lost its cold clear ring ; and Fraulein Hippo- 
 gram led her through all these years of her 
 schoolroom life, utterly unconscious that there 
 was anything more in the character than spoke 
 in the cold voice as she heard it, or in the brown 
 eyes as they met her own. 
 
 The dewy mists that gathered often over the 
 girl's eyes, as some passage, coming in the dreary 
 routine of her daily elocution lesson, touched
 
 LESCAR. 93 
 
 suddenly the sensitive chords of her young heart, 
 carried no revelation to Fraulein, any more than 
 the quiver of the voice and the heavy sigh, that 
 would break forth sometimes, as Donna recited to 
 these utterly unsjTnpathetic and unappreciative 
 ears the '' Abschied'' of the Jungfrau on the part- 
 ing of Egmont and Clar. The idea in a passage 
 was immaterial to Fraulein, — her soul never soared 
 above or penetrated beyond its — grammar ! 
 
 As time slipped on, and Donna gradually 
 emancipated herself from the control of routine 
 and schoolroom dogma, and took the guidance of 
 her young life into her own hands, she could turn 
 and feel a certain kindliness and affection for the 
 old Fraulein, grown up through the association 
 of years. But there was never any sympathy 
 between them, none of the tenderness that would 
 have sprung naturally from a different treatment 
 in early days. 
 
 The external control of a life is not, however, 
 the chief element in that which forms a character. 
 Character is a creation more of influence than of 
 control. Control may reduce existence to the 
 level of machinery, and, all the while, influence 
 may be flowing inward, and creating a glowing 
 life. Control touches action ; influence creates 
 intellect, gives food and wealth to imagination.
 
 94 LESCAR. 
 
 and moulds into existence tlie individual and 
 inner being. 
 
 Such an influence had reached Donna's lonely 
 little heart years ago in that bright summer-time, 
 when the new experience of companionship first 
 came to her, when her interest woke up all 
 suddenly in a mind that answered her mind, and 
 in the pictures of another imagination, that 
 seemed to reflect so much in her own. 
 
 Long ago in that summer-time, when she had 
 promised to be '' the Bandit's wife," this influ- 
 ence had taken possession of her ; and the strange 
 fantastic imagination of Piers Ashton had as- 
 sumed a powerful sway over her own. 
 
 His coming — a wild, shy, dreamy boy — had 
 brought into her character, as with the flashing 
 together of flint and steel, the light by which 
 things became clear — the key by which beauty 
 was unlocked and understood. His companion- 
 ship gave new life to her being, and her whole 
 mind and character were redeemed from bitterness 
 and misanthropy. From the hours when they 
 had wandered over the hills together, and had 
 talked and schemed in their wild visionary way, 
 she had brought back to her books and to her 
 dreary studies, a quickened susceptibility that 
 gave them power.
 
 LESCAK. 95 
 
 They were sadly fantastic and unreal, all these 
 dreams of theirs — Utopian pictures of island 
 kingdoms, of free bandit lives, of vague glorious 
 communities, whose existence was untutored and 
 untrammelled, where life was all beautiful and 
 free. Fairy tales all of them, dreams of young 
 heated imaginations, springing up of loneliness, 
 of keen sensibilities all untaught and untrained. 
 Making external life an unconscious machinery to 
 them, making the life of imagination feel a real 
 and ever-present thing. 
 
 How beautifid that vague existence seemed to 
 her — that mystic, dreamy atmosphere of unreality 
 — how different from the cold routine of outer 
 life. Beautiful, but dangerous. Utopia is a frail 
 glass palace ; the spirit enshrined therein perils 
 its just balance and its nice perception of the 
 truth of things. 
 
 Perhaps fortunately, when she was about 
 fifteen, Sir John Graeme ordained that Piers's 
 holidays should be spent at the Old Towers no 
 more, 
 
 Kow Donna was eighteen ; and it was three 
 years since she had seen him, her wild Bandit, 
 her Boy-chief, her Utopian Island King, — and 
 during these three years she had, all by herself, 
 been unlocking, one by one, those gateways of
 
 96 LESCAR. 
 
 knowledge, tliat seemed each to lead deeper and 
 deeper into tlie experience of Iter being. The 
 life of imagination which Piers Ash ton had given 
 her, influenced to an immense degree the forma- 
 tion of her character. The removal of his in- 
 fluence, after a time, leaving the character to 
 develope with individuality, had also its results. 
 
 For then imagination, after leading the young 
 spirit through a period dangerous and exciting, 
 fraught with enjoyment, but also with every peril 
 with which overstrained susceptibility threatens a 
 young life — after reducing the opening mind to 
 a sadly subjective and over- sensitive condition — 
 imagination, left quite to itself, rolled gradually 
 away, swept back from the clear radiance of the 
 mental horizon as the mists of a lingering dark- 
 ness float away before the struggling dawn, and 
 the higher powers of the mind strengthened into 
 exercise. 
 
 Judgment and a critical testing faculty, by 
 which the mind weighed gradually the tinsels of 
 fair falsehood and the gold of truth ; a delicate 
 perception that detected and eschew^ed error ; and, 
 above all, a love of truth for its o^ti sake, that 
 spoke a sound heart's core within. 
 
 Piers' s influence had awakened her poetic fancy 
 and her mental life : the absence of his influence
 
 LESCAR. y / 
 
 had left it to develope into something very dif- 
 ferent from any form or inner colouring that was 
 caught from him. 
 
 Donna, at eighteen, looked back on the boy- 
 friend of her early days, as the companion of a 
 strange dream-land, whose mystic atmosphere had 
 given beauty but unreality to her early life. She 
 looked forward to seeing him again with a won- 
 dering curiosity, as to what all that wild dreaming 
 had produced in him ; as to the nature of the 
 spirit-land in which he now dwelt, seeing that, 
 like her, he too, with maturing years, must have 
 floated from visions and from Utopias, into reality 
 and truth. 
 
 The most potent influence operating in the 
 formation of Donna's character was still the third 
 — most potent because overruling. Stronger than 
 the bitterness that sprang up under tyranny, — 
 stronger than the subtle cords of dangerous 
 romance and alluring fantasy that threatened to 
 draw her heart and soul away from reality of 
 life, — stronger than all, was the warm simple 
 afiection with which she regarded her father, and 
 the tender, unalterable love which knit her heart 
 to the Kttle sister growing up side by side with 
 herself. 
 
 In the earlier days under Fraulein's tyranny, 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 LESCAR. 
 
 the tenderdess in Donna's heart could never die 
 while those baby-arms were round her neck, 
 those baby-lips pressed to her cheek warm and 
 caressing. After a bitter scene with Fraulein, 
 nothing but Gaie's baby-words of consolation 
 seemed to do her good, and in the loneliness 
 of her proud, reserved, young heart, only Gaie 
 seemed in the least to fill up that hungry void 
 within. 
 
 Poor little Donna ! she was quite unconscious 
 what her heart really missed so bitterly. Poor 
 child ! something in the far-away past, she could 
 scarcely remember. It was but a faint shadow to 
 her, and now she did not know that her eyes 
 ached with the longing, and her heart broke often 
 with the utter need, for that gentle tenderness, 
 that loving gaze, with which a mother watches 
 the beautiful glory of young life opening in the 
 countenance of her child. 
 
 She held her little sister closely to her through 
 many a bitter hour of her school-days, her chin 
 resting on the curly head, her hard dry eyes 
 looking straight before her, striving to stifle, with 
 the intensity almost painful of her love, the utter 
 longing in her little weary soul. 
 
 The two were everything to each other. 
 
 When Donna was eighteen, Gaie was still
 
 LESCAR. 99 
 
 under Fraulein's dominion in the school-room for 
 three years to come. 
 
 But the school-room, with its tyranny, its 
 routine, its boredom, its dreariness, and its 
 dogmas, had never been to Gaie the experience it 
 had been to Donna. 
 
 Tyranny glided off Graie's shoulders, and never 
 enveloped her for a moment with its sense of chill 
 or gloom. Gfaie's brightness illumiaed irresistibly 
 every countenance that met hers, Gale's smile 
 reflected itself even in the grimness of Fraulein's 
 frown. It was impossible to scold her, impossible 
 to silence her, impossible to be angry with her 
 for more than a second at a time. Gale's bright 
 curly hair carried its own sunshine ; her eyes 
 reflected in their violet Kght a summer that no 
 cloud could darken. Her face was bright and 
 beautiful as one of Raphael's child- angels ; she 
 was a lovely undeveloped thing, like a half- 
 opened flower-bud, full of unfolded possibilities, 
 and depths of character, all unsounded and un- 
 revealed. 
 
 Such were Donna and Gaie Graeme when, at 
 one Easter recess. Sir John came back as usual 
 to spend a quiet fortnight in his Scotch home 
 with his two girls. The interests of Sir John's 
 active life lay much in London. He had been
 
 100 LESCAR. 
 
 born a younger son ; his succession had been un- 
 expected, and wben be became possessor of the 
 Old Towers bis mind was already engrossed 
 with all the strong interests of public life. He 
 was rapidly rising towards honour and distinction, 
 and he. could not then resign it, and sink into the 
 comparatively insignificant position of a northern 
 landlord. He determined to do both. 
 
 The Old Towers became the beautiful haven to 
 which he was ever returning, and London re- 
 mained for him the busy eager battle-field of life 
 — an existence distant and mysterious to Donna 
 and Gaie as they grew up in their retirement at 
 home. 
 
 Among all the other varied interests of his 
 busy life. Sir John Graeme had had the care of 
 Piers Ashton on his hands. He had said to Sir 
 Harry Baird that he would do his duty by his 
 friend's boy, and to the utmost of his power he 
 had done it. 
 
 Piers Ashton's schools were chosen with care 
 for him, his tutors selected with much judgment 
 and consideration ; and even each holiday-time, as 
 they came round, was used to set some fresh mark 
 on the educational history of his life. His early 
 ones he spent at home at PoUingworth, with 
 Aunt Theo, then several at the Old Towers, and — 
 the rest were utilised. ^
 
 LESCAR. 101 
 
 Sir Jolm had been a very busy man himself ; 
 his vacations in boyhood had never been thrown 
 away. He ordained for Piers now, as others had 
 ordained for him. During these years Piers had 
 not been in Scotland at all ; but, now, he was 
 coming. 
 
 It was the Easter recess — the fresh bright 
 days of a beautiful and very early spring. The 
 boy was just leaving his last tutor, had just 
 finished an intermediate state between school and 
 college, and in six months more would be of age. 
 Sir John felt he ought to see him — talk a good 
 deal with him — find out the real bearings of his 
 character, and impart to him a safe foundation 
 of sound views on political and social things. 
 
 So he asked him to the Old Towers, and to- 
 night he would arrive. 
 
 The drawing-room in that comfortable old 
 house looked warm and cosy in the twilight, as 
 Sir John stood on the rug. Donna sat working 
 near him, and Gaie curled on the carpet by his 
 side. Sir John had only arrived the evening 
 before. He was glad to be with his children 
 again ; and as he stood between them, he looked 
 from one to the other, enjoying the sense of com- 
 placency and satisfaction with which they might 
 well be regarded.
 
 102 LESCAR. 
 
 "Nobody/' he often said to himself, "had a 
 pair of sweeter or bonnier ^ girlies/" as he called 
 them, " than his own." 
 
 Donna, as he knew her, was a demure little 
 maiden, helpful and considerate, always ready at 
 his hand — a little silent, perhaps, but sympathetic. 
 He talked a great deal to her, and always felt 
 that she Kstened and understood. In appearance 
 he thought her just what she ought to be — slight 
 and straight as an arrow, with handsome little 
 features that reflected all the Grraemes that had 
 been, whose portraits decorated the staircase and 
 hall. 
 
 Gaie was still his pet and plaything — a dainty 
 round little figure, in muslins and ribbons, with 
 a delicate mignon face. Donna was as the soft 
 shadowy hues, quiet and refreshing in his home- 
 garden, and Gaie was the burst of summer roses, 
 full of beauty, full of brightness and of glad 
 young life. 
 
 He was very proud of his two daughters, 
 and devoted to them : he thought they did his 
 care and training credit, and they did. He often 
 told Lady Kellam so, when they met in London, 
 pluming himself greatly on his superior method, 
 and on the salubrious and beautifying influence 
 of native mountains and northern air.
 
 LESCAE. 103 
 
 " Donna, how long is it since Piers has been 
 here ?" he said to-night, as he stood in the fire 
 glow on the rug between them, his glance wander- 
 ing from their faces towards the window where 
 the twilight shadows were beginning to fall. 
 
 " Three years last Easter, papa," she answered. 
 
 " Ah, so much ! Well, I shall be glad to see 
 the boy among us again. He ought to be arriving 
 now.'* 
 
 And Sir John pulled out his watch, stirred up 
 the fire, made a cheerful blaze, and then stood 
 upright on the rug again. 
 
 " 'Tis half-past six. Donna ; the phaeton should 
 be here." 
 
 Donna glanced towards the window. She could 
 see down the avenue from where she sat, and a 
 soft expectant look crept into her quiet eyes. 
 
 " There is no sign of the carriage yet, papa. 
 Perhaps Piers was late of starting from Inver- 
 earn." 
 
 " Perhaps — perhaps. Gaie, what are you doing ? 
 Shut your book, my love ; it is very wrong to read 
 in this fading twilight. Shut up your book, and 
 talk to me." 
 
 Gaie looked up from her corner and smiled : 
 she could still read perfectly well ; but she shut 
 her book, and nestled close to him.
 
 104 LESCAR. 
 
 " I am glad I came up for Easter/' lie con- 
 tinued, " and I am glad we are going to have 
 Piers again. I wished to have a good chance of 
 some quiet talk with him, so I have not asked 
 anyone else here. He will be changed a good 
 deal since you have seen him, Donna.'' 
 
 *' Oh yes, papa : he was only in the fourth 
 form when he was last here. Gaie was scarcely 
 in the schoolroom yet." 
 
 " Ah ! yes, to be sure. How the time goes ! 
 Hallo ! there's the carriage ! I shall go down 
 and meet the lad." 
 
 And away he went from the room as the sound 
 of the carriage- wheels crunched the gravel below 
 the drawing-room windows. 
 
 Donna rose and stood before the fire a moment, 
 her eyes wandering absently to the red flames, 
 her hands clasped unconsciously together, as she 
 listened. And Gaie sprang to her feet too, and 
 stood looking into Donna's face. 
 
 '' There ! the carriage has stopped ! " she ex- 
 claimed. " What fun, Donna ! — are you not glad 
 to see Piers again ?" 
 
 '' Yes, I am, Gaie ; but " 
 
 -What?" 
 
 *' I do not know — I am just wondering. It is so 
 long ago, you know."
 
 LESCAR. 105 
 
 She stopped — tliere was a buzz of voices in the 
 hall below — her father's loud, hearty, and full of 
 cordial greeting, and the other answering him in 
 full manly tones, changed from the boyish ring of 
 Piers's voice of old, and yet his. She recognised 
 it, as she listened eagerly — low, as his used to be, 
 with the same shy tones of hesitation with which 
 he brought out the words. It came up to her ear 
 with the recollection of those first long holidays, 
 years ago, when he had come, and brought novelty 
 and poetry into her young life. 
 
 She clasped her hands tight as she listened, 
 while Gaie's eyes danced with eagerness and 
 expectation. She scarcely noticed Gaie's merry, 
 rejoicing words, the low deep voice brought such a 
 rush of memory ; but there was no time to analyze 
 the feeling — the door opened, and there he was. 
 
 Sir John entered first, and behind him the 
 tall broad-shouldered figure, the same sunburnt 
 face, the same shy, downcast eyes, the same brown 
 wavy hair — an overgrown-looking fellow, a school- 
 boy still, in the unfinished make of his figure, 
 in the shyness and want of ease in his gait. 
 
 " Here you are. Piers, at last ! How do you do ? " 
 
 He took Donna's hand for a moment, while 
 Gaie got hold of his other one between both 
 of hers.
 
 106 LESCAR. 
 
 "Piers, I am so glad! How do you do? 
 
 — tow do you do?" And Gaie, intensely de- 
 liglited, kept hold of his hand, and shook it 
 vigorously. 
 
 " How are you. Donna ? " he said ; and then he 
 dropped her hand, and looked at Graie, as if her 
 exuberant welcome tried him a good deal. 
 
 "We thought you were never coming," said 
 Sir John. " "We have been expecting the sound 
 of the carriage for an hour and more." 
 
 " The roads are heavy ; I walked up all the 
 hills," said Piers. 
 
 " Ah ! There has been a good deal of rain 
 lately. I dare say the burns are down. How 
 d'ye think the old place looks ? Glad to see it 
 again, eh ?" 
 
 " It was almost dark as I came near the 
 house," he answered. " I think the trees a good 
 deal grown ; but it looks much as it used. Yes, 
 I am very glad to see it again." 
 
 " And the girls, eh ! — find them changed ? " 
 
 Piers looked at Gaie first. 
 
 " Gaie was quite a little thing," he said, " when 
 
 I was last here. And Donna " his eyes were 
 
 raised, for the first time, for a moment to Donna's 
 face. 
 
 She met the shy kindling look in them she
 
 LESCAR. 107 
 
 remembered in tlie eyes of the boy. Tbey rested 
 full on her for a moment, and tben were dropped 
 again. He did not say if be found ber changed. 
 
 " I do not know that there will be much to 
 amuse you, just now, up here," Sir John con- 
 tinued ; "no shooting, except pigeons and rab- 
 bits, you know. But the river is in good order, 
 and the keeper brought up a beautiful salmon 
 to-day. You fish, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I like any kind of sport," said Piers. 
 
 **Ah, that's capital!" Then we shall get on. 
 What would you like to do now?" pursued Sir 
 John in a bustle, while Piers stood silent upon 
 the hearth-rug, and seemed satisfied to look about 
 him and feel at home. ** What would you like 
 to do ? To go and smoke in my room, and read 
 the newspapers ; or would you like a game of 
 billiards, or shall Donna give us a cup of tea?" 
 
 " Here is the tea, papa," said the girl, as the 
 door opened and the servants with the tray and 
 fizzing urn came in. 
 
 *'I do not mind — whichever you like, sir," 
 said Piers ; but at the same time he left the rug 
 slowly, and sat down not far from Donna's chair. 
 
 "Ah, well, suppose we make ourselves snug 
 here. Gaie, you little mischief, my chair ; yes, 
 that's it, and that footstool is enough for you.
 
 108 LESCAR. 
 
 Now, how many lumps of sugar have you put in 
 this cup ? " ' 
 
 " Three, I assure you, papa. Stir it up : it is 
 quite sweet enough, I know." 
 
 And so they had tea together. Sir John 
 talked, and Piers answered at intervals in his 
 shy, quiet way ; and Donna and Gaie said little, 
 as, for two good little girls, was right. 
 
 Donna seldom said very much ; and when Gaie 
 talked, she, on the contrary, liked all the con- 
 versation for herself, on her own little subjects 
 and in her own little way. And Sir John often 
 indulged her, delighting in the childish gabbling 
 voice and the merry smiles dancing in the blue 
 eyes. But on occasions like this, when he held 
 forth in discussion, little girls, who would not be 
 grown up for many a day yet, were not expected 
 to join or understand. 
 
 So Donna's glossy brown head was bent 
 silently over her work for the next hour, while 
 Piers' s eyes often rested curiously upon her. Sir 
 John talked, Gaie idled, and Piers contemplated 
 this novel aspect of life presented to him. 
 
 Till dressing-time. Sir John sedulously enter- 
 tained his young guest, asking questions about 
 his studies, and interchanging with him reminis- 
 cences of different places where he had also spent
 
 LESCAR. 109 
 
 vacations when lie was a yoimg man. Then 
 they all went off to dress. Gaie disappeared into 
 the schoolroom, to the charge of the old Fraulein, 
 and Donna passed on to her own room.
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 "It seemed as though I wandered back 
 Among the ruins of my youth, 
 Along a wild night-haunted track, 
 To seek the fount of Truth." 
 
 R. M. MiLNES. 
 
 Donna had finislied lier toilet, and was standing 
 a moment, looking idly from tlie window, linger- 
 ing before site went down- stairs, wlien the door 
 was pushed open, and in came Gaie. 
 
 " Donna, are you ready ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I am just going down." 
 
 " How nice you look ! I like that soft grey 
 gown. Look here ! I've brought you some 
 flowers ; put them in — that's it, they just match 
 your ribbon. Stop a minute. Donna ; let me put 
 just this one and a bit of fern in your hair, — 
 there ! You do look nice, darling. I do like 
 your face. Donna I" 
 
 " Why, Gaie, you ought to know it by this
 
 LESCAR. Ill 
 
 " Yes, I do ; but every time I see it — every, 
 every day — I love it better. I should like every- 
 body to have soft dark hair and eyes like yours, 
 and a quiet sort of face, just like you have, 
 Donna." 
 
 " Some people must have yellow locks, too, little 
 one," said Donna, twining the bright golden curl 
 round her finger with a tender touch. 
 
 '* Yes, but it is not half so nice. Donna, stop ; 
 do not go yet, — it is not time : and I shall not see 
 you again, for Friiulein has a headache, and that 
 horrid Aunt Kellam has persuaded papa that I 
 must not go down now without her. Stop, Donna." 
 She had her arms round her sister, and her head 
 on her shoulder, and she dropped her voice into 
 a whisper as she spoke. " Donna, is not Piers 
 dreadfully changed ? " 
 
 " Do you think so, Gaie ? I do not know : is 
 he ? It did not strike me. He is grown, of 
 course." 
 
 " Grown ! I should think he has. It is to be 
 hoped he is going to stop now. What a big, 
 big fellow he is ! " 
 
 " Yes, he is tall." 
 
 " He does not seem in the least the same per- 
 son to me. Do you think him handsome. Donna ? 
 I think I do."
 
 1 12 LESCAR. 
 
 ^' Yes, perliaps lie is in his own way/' 
 " Yes, I've been telling Fraulein I like his 
 face, it is so dark ; and then his eyes light it up 
 so, when he does look up and smile. And Fraulein 
 has set down among the list of things I am never 
 to do, 'Notice the Aiissicht of any young man.' 
 But of course one could not help, as I told her, 
 remarking everything about Piers. Why, he is 
 a kind of brother, and one wants to know every 
 little thing about his being changed ; do we not, 
 Donna?" 
 
 "Yes," said Donna, a little absently, "I sup- 
 pose we do." 
 
 " I will tell you one thing. Donna ; I am 
 dreadfully afraid of him. You know, years ago," 
 said Gaie, as if she already had the retrospect of 
 a lifetime, " when Piers came here, I never gave 
 him a moment's peace, unless you and he were 
 talking and made me. But when he sulked about 
 in the corners with a book, or sat silent all the 
 evening when he came in from shooting, I used 
 to throw cushions at him, and set on Bijou to 
 bark at him, and get him roused up for a romp. 
 I should be afraid to do it now. Donna ; should 
 not you ? I do think he rather frightens me. I 
 wonder if he has any fun left in him. I believe 
 papa has just educated and educated him, till it
 
 LESCAR. 113 
 
 is all gone. Just what Fraulein would do to me if 
 she could. Donna, I do not approve of education." 
 
 " You silly child ! have you done your lessons 
 to-day ? or does all this mean that you have still 
 some to do ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course, all the time you are being 
 pleasant to one another at dinner, I shall be prac- 
 tising a horrid old sonato on the drawing-room 
 piano : you will hear me. Oh, I think education 
 consumes the best years of our life ! Good-by, 
 Donna ; there is the gong ! " 
 
 '' Good-night, my darling ;" and the elder sister 
 held the little one to her tenderly for a moment, 
 and kissed the sunny hair and the smooth cloud- 
 less forehead. " Never mind, Gaie ; a year or 
 two more, and then you will be emancipated. 
 Good-night.'^ 
 
 *' Good-night, Donna. How nice you look, 
 darling ! Good-night." 
 
 Piers was standing alone at the fire-place as 
 Donna entered. He looked certainly handsome 
 now, in his evening dress. So Donna thought as 
 she came in, and stood by him and looked up. 
 The flames were dancing brightly, and the ruddy 
 light suited Piers, throwing up the colouring of 
 his shadowy face, and making his dark deep eyes 
 glisten softly. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LESCAR. 
 
 It was a strong face, full of capacity for deep 
 feeling, and weighted witli thought, each shadowy 
 line full of expression varied and intense. A fine 
 earnest face, in which the only want was just the 
 thing one would naturally expect to find there — 
 a look of brightness and youth : it seemed gone 
 already. 
 
 He looked at Donna for a moment, and perhaps 
 thought, like Graie, that she looked nice — a soft, 
 pleasant combination of colour and harmonious 
 lines, in figure and face. 
 
 " Have you been waiting long?" she asked. 
 '' No, I have just come down." 
 *' Papa is late. Ah, here he comes !" 
 And in bustled Sir John, and marched ofi" 
 his daughter to dinner, leaving Piers to follow 
 behind. 
 
 " Good-looking fellow enough," thought Sir 
 John as he ate his soup, and contemplated Piers 
 at his right hand. ''Shy, I think. Odd thing 
 in these days, but I like it. Piers, a glass of 
 wine?" he continued aloud. "You went to 
 Pollingworth as you came north." 
 " Yes, but only for a day." 
 " A fine old place — beautiful country about, is 
 it not ? Splendid agricultural land. I wish we 
 had some of it up here."
 
 LESCAR. 115 
 
 " The land is good enough, sir/' said Piers. 
 
 " I should think so — magnificent. Large farm- 
 ing population, I imagine, all around ? " 
 
 '' There is,'' said Piers. 
 
 " Political interest Liberal, I fancy ?" 
 
 " To express it mildly, I do not know that 
 your ideas of Liberalism would by any means 
 embrace the current opinions about Pollingworth." 
 
 "Eh, what? — not veered round since they 
 returned your father on our side twenty- two 
 years ago ? He never sat, however ; threw up 
 the seat, and went abroad again. But people have 
 not changed much about there since these times." 
 
 " It strikes me people are changing a good deal 
 everywhere," said Piers. '' About Pollingworth 
 they think in a way of their own." 
 
 "Ah! what?" 
 
 "I suppose you would call it Eadical," he 
 answered. 
 
 " You don't say so ! What is it all coming 
 to ? Is the country going to the devil, I wonder, 
 or is it not ? " 
 
 " Impossible to say, I should think, sir," was 
 Piers' s laconic reply. 
 
 "Well, all any man can do is to stand well to 
 his own flag," said Sir John ; and then he changed 
 the subject, for he felt politics must be discussed
 
 116 LESCAR. 
 
 with Piers at an undisturbed after^ not during, 
 dinner-hour. 
 
 So conversation turned to lighter matters, and 
 Donna joined ; and then, just as she left them, 
 the late post came in, and Sir John had letters, 
 and cut conversation short. He proposed ad- 
 journment to the drawing-room, where he was 
 soon buried in the recesses of an arm-chair, first 
 reading his letters, then sound asleep. 
 
 Donna had recourse to her work again; and 
 Piers stood so silent, first at the little bookshelf, 
 then before the fire, that she thought, except for 
 a consciousness of his presence, that the evening 
 promised to be quite as quiet as many she had 
 spent before. 
 
 The friendly tea-tray came in, however, and, 
 as she rose to carry a cup to the little table by 
 her father's side. Piers came forward. 
 
 "Allow me," he said. 
 
 " Thank you," and she sat down again. 
 
 "What a bore it is," Donna found herself 
 thinking, " that people grow up, and become 
 polite to each other, and shy with one another, 
 and have to make each other's acquaintance all 
 over again." 
 
 "Piers, will you have some tea ?" 
 
 He looked distressed.
 
 LESCAR. 117 
 
 " Yes — at least, no ; oh, very well, thank 
 you;" and he found himself taking the cup from 
 her hand, and then, very hesitatingly, as if he 
 did not like it, he sat down near her. 
 
 Donna took refuge in the tea-things, and wished 
 he did not look as if he hated it all so much. 
 
 " It is yery pleasant to see you here again,'* 
 she said at last. ** It is so many Easters since 
 you came/' 
 
 " Yes,'* he answered ; " it is." 
 
 " And you have been spending your Easters in 
 all kinds of places, while we have been so sta- 
 tionary here ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have," Piers replied, as if reciting a 
 lesson. " Easter of '60 I spent at the Lakes, '61 
 in Wales, and '62 I was in Edinburgh." 
 
 "And this is '64," said the girl. 
 
 "Yes, '64." 
 
 " Three years since you have been here." 
 
 "Yes. I thought Uncle Graeme was never 
 going to have me again." 
 
 " I am so glad you have come." 
 
 " Yes— but " 
 
 It was up-hill work still — the conversation. He 
 gazed into his teacup, and never got beyond the 
 " but." Donna's feminine instinct came quickly 
 to the rescue.
 
 118 LESCAR. 
 
 "Is there a ^ huV V^ she said, with a playful- 
 ness unusual to her — " a * but ' in the pleasant- 
 ness of coming here ?" 
 
 " Yes/' he answered, " and a very large 
 one/' 
 
 She looked up at him with surprise, he uttered 
 the words with such energy ; but he spoke more 
 like his old boy-self, and she felt the black wall was 
 melting a little between them. She laughed. 
 
 "Piers, what can you mean ?" 
 
 "Shall I tell you?'' he answered, raising his 
 eyes suddenly with an indignant expression. In 
 his energy and eagerness for the moment, he had 
 almost forgotten his shyness and himself. 
 
 "Do." 
 
 "Well," he went on, his voice sinking to a 
 confidential tone, " you know, if there is any 
 one thing I dislike more than another, it is meet- 
 ing new people — strangers ; and I am disgusted 
 beyond everything. Of course, I've been looking 
 forward to seeing Gaie and you again ; and here 
 I come back, and find — neither of you." 
 
 She could not help laughing, although she 
 blushed under his eyes fixed so indignantly upon 
 her face ; and a feeling of irresistible distress 
 came over her at finding that she was the cause 
 of his discomfiture.
 
 LESCAR. 
 
 119 
 
 ""What did you expect to find, Piers?" slie 
 said, hiding her crimson cheek over her work. 
 
 His voice became dreamy, and he looked 
 straight before him, in an abstracted way, as if 
 trying to recall a past impression. 
 
 " A little active thing," he said, " about twelve 
 or fourteen ; were you not ? " (He seemed to 
 have forgotten Gaie in the retrospect.) "A red 
 cloak and a grey dress made of tweed stufi', like 
 
 my shooting-jacket ; and now " 
 
 " I do not think you will find the real person 
 much changed when you know her again, Piers." 
 '' I do not feel as if I ever could," he said ; 
 *' it is aU so different." 
 
 '' But you forget, everybody changes. You are 
 altered yourself." 
 
 "Yes, I know," he said; "I know I am not 
 the same fellow. I was a bit of a boy then, and 
 we used to fish and scramble about together : and 
 no^ — oh, it seems ages since then to me." 
 
 "You have done so much, and seen so much," 
 she replied. "Did you like being at Mr. 
 Bowen's?" 
 
 "I like the place well enough. The other 
 fellows — pupils, you know — often bored me dread- 
 fully. I should have liked it, I dare say, if I had 
 been alone."
 
 120 LESCAR. 
 
 " Do you like best doing things quite alone, 
 Piers?" 
 
 " Better than with men who do not suit me," 
 he answered ; " and these are the sort, Donna, I 
 do not often find." 
 
 " I should think you must have met many at 
 school who were really nice. Did you not like 
 any of them ? " 
 
 " "Well, I am not a fellow who likes men in a 
 general way, you see ; and they do not like me. 
 A man suits you, perhaps, here and there; just 
 one phase of him suits one of you. I liked some 
 fellows at cricket for a while, when I took to it 
 for a year or two, but I have not been lucky in 
 making friends. Men look at life through such 
 difierent eyes." 
 
 She raised hers to him for a moment. It 
 struck her that at his age men did not generally 
 look at life at all, but took it as it came, and got 
 all the fun they could out of it. 
 
 "It is dreadful how soon one's youth passes 
 away ; is it not, Donna ? I could not help 
 wishing, as I drove up here, that one could be 
 young and fresh to everything again, just as I 
 was when I last came here at seventeen, — that 
 sport, and all the glorious old life of the hills and 
 the country could come new to me as it did then.
 
 LESCAR. 121 
 
 — and that I could be a boy again — and just 
 know nothing/' 
 
 " You are not mucb more than a boy now, 
 Piers." 
 
 "Ah! but it is gone/' he said, "the glory of 
 things, the harmony of it all. Perhaps these 
 grand hills may bring it back again for a day. I 
 almost felt as I drove along above the loch to- 
 night, that if I were to scramble up to the very 
 top of the crag there, and feel the air blowing as 
 it used to do, over the heights, that I could feel 
 young and jolly and thoughtless again, if only 
 for a moment, and forget everything but the 
 physical delight of that mountain life." 
 
 "I believe you have been overworking. Piers," 
 Donna said, " and have knocked yourself up. 
 You will be all right and feel quite happy about 
 things when you have been here a little while." 
 
 "I do not see my way to anything," he an- 
 swered ; and as she did not understand the drift of 
 his thought, and was silent, presently he went 
 on. " Do you remember the old feeling one used 
 to have, as one went up those hills — a sort of 
 panting delight in getting higher — higher — 
 higher, until the whole grand landscape had 
 broken upon the view ? " 
 
 " You will feel it still," she said.
 
 122 LESCAR. 
 
 " No ; for tlie idea has gone from me. I will 
 tell you what I mean. A year or two ago, life 
 seemed just like that — higher — higher — a strug- 
 gling up, an eagerness to understand, and see, 
 and know." 
 
 " And now ? " she answered. 
 
 " One seems to have been up, and it is all dis- 
 appointment. The horizon is so bounded, so 
 narrow and small, and not glorious as one thought 
 it — but all disturbed, tangled, horrid, and con- 
 fused. I wish one could live without thinking." 
 
 " Oh, Piers, to me, the difference between 
 people in the world, is just whether they think 
 or — not." 
 
 " Lots of people do not," he said, " and they 
 are much pleasanter, and much jollier fellows 
 than we who do. Thinking only makes one 
 gloomy, and does no good in the end. But some 
 people cannot stop, you see.'' 
 
 "It must depend on what one thinks about, 
 surely," said Donna. 
 
 " Well, a fellow may think of his own amuse- 
 ments, and about making his life as jolly as he 
 can, and, perhaps, will not be much the sadder 
 for it ; but if he once thinks of other things — of 
 truth as it is, of men as they are," he continued, 
 raising his eyes, and lighting up as he spoke —
 
 LESCAR. 123 
 
 "if he once thinks of life and all its lies and 
 shadows and delusions, of its suffering and its 
 poverty and — its end, he can never be happy 
 again — never. It is horrid to think." 
 
 " But, Piers, who gave you your thoughts ? I 
 mean, how did they all come into your head ? 
 Of themselves alone; or did any one tell you 
 these things, and make you think them ? " 
 
 " I have been a great deal alone, you see, when 
 I have been at Pollingworth ; and there are things 
 there that forced me to think. And then the 
 one friend I ever had. Donna, gives his whole life 
 to these things." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 " Frederick Thessullson : he is at Cambridge, 
 and that is why I am going there. He cares 
 for nothing ; not even for sport, or anything, but 
 just, the people. And yet I do not see my way 
 quite as he does. He mil live among the poorest 
 he can find of them, and be always doing them 
 good. But that is not my idea, either. I could 
 not go routing out cottages; and if I had the 
 pluck to stand up and preach to people, I should 
 not know what to say." 
 
 " It would not be difiicult to know what to 
 say, I should think," said Donna, " if one could 
 only say it."
 
 124 LESCAR. 
 
 '* Of course, you say so. You are a woman : 
 you have never thought in your life ; and it is all 
 easy for you. But I do not think a person should 
 teach anything, until they have made up their 
 minds upon it, themselves." 
 
 "But, Piers " 
 
 " Yes, of course it is easy for you. Ignorance 
 is bliss. Women never know anything — so much 
 the better for them ; and they never think, and so 
 they can afford to be the butterflies they are. I 
 should not grudge them their happiness, only 
 they do a great deal of mischief in the world, and 
 make men butterflies too." 
 
 *'I should not like a man," she exclaimed, 
 looking up indignantly at him, " I should hate a 
 man, whom / could make a butterfly." 
 
 " You need not take the trouble of making 
 them, if you want them," he said contemptuously; 
 *' unfortunately, they abound." 
 
 "Piers," said Donna, suddenly, after a mo- 
 ment's silence — she bent forward, and looked 
 earnestly into his face — " I do not think it will 
 give you much trouble to know me again just as 
 well as ever. But I think it will take me some 
 time to re-make acquaintance with you. I wish 
 I could quite understand you. Piers."
 
 LESCAR. 125 
 
 " I wisL. I could understand myself," he said, 
 rising. " I was a fool to talk so mucli ;" and he 
 walked away to the fire. 
 
 Sir John woke up. 
 
 " Ha ! Eh, what ? Bed-time ?— of course it 
 is. Donna, my darling, are you ofi"? Good 
 night, my dear child — good night.'' 
 
 He got up, shook himself, and bustled after 
 her candle. 
 
 " And now. Piers, what will you do to-morrow, 
 eh?— fish?'' 
 
 " Whatever you like, sir. I have got to see 
 all the old place again, you know." 
 
 " So you have. Perhaps you would like a 
 walk over the tops of the hills, and a look at the 
 young grouse, to see what prospects there is for 
 August, when you will have to come back and 
 shoot them." 
 
 ^' Thank you, sir." 
 
 " Ah, then we shall leave it an open question 
 for to-morrow, till breakfast-time. Going to 
 smoke ? — exactly. I do not smoke myself ; but 
 you will find all snug for you doTVTistairs. I 
 have letters to write, though, now I am well 
 awoke: post goes ofi* early. Good night, my 
 boy, good night."
 
 126 LESCAR. 
 
 When Donna readied her room, she sat down, 
 and clasped her hands together in a favourite 
 attitude of hers. It was a habit. She liked this 
 moment of perfect solitude, before lying down to 
 rest, and she often sat, "thinking" — although 
 she was a woman — the only sound, reaching her 
 ear, being the soft, regular breathing of the sleep- 
 ing Gaie, who had, all her life long, a tiny bed in 
 the corner of her sister's room. 
 
 Donna's thoughts must have been illogical to- 
 night, for she could never remember them.. She 
 only knew that something in the evening's con- 
 versation brought suddenly an idea to her mind ; 
 and she rose, walked to her little hanging book- 
 shelf, and took down an old-fashioned book — one 
 of those quaint old-date volumes which she often 
 lit upon in the library downstairs, and, finding 
 sympathetic, had conveyed up to her own room, 
 to make a part of her little mental store. 
 
 She rustled over the pages, and found at last the 
 one she sought. She read, — 
 
 " To earnest minds — often minds of the highest 
 *' type — a period comes, perhaps in early life, when 
 " the truth of things as they are, possesses them 
 " with a strange melancholy, and depresses their 
 "mental vision. — A time when the conditions of 
 " temporal and eternal life meet them, convincing
 
 LESCAR. 127 
 
 **them irresistibly of the ephemeral nature of all 
 " they see, and of the possible futility of all they 
 "do. Life wears for them a pall of dark dis- 
 " couragement, and they feel that man is born but 
 "to suffer and to die. The noblest souls are often 
 "those who must traverse this wilderness ; must 
 "face the rocks, breast the tempest, and must 
 " endure the darkness, till light comes to them, 
 " and they recognise the healthiness of action, the 
 " eternity of good, and that immortal day which 
 " has arisen on the inevitable of our mortal night." 
 
 She closed the book, and her glance was bright 
 and hopeful as she put it on the shelf again. She 
 turned, and bent over Graie's sweet childish face. 
 
 "How different people are ! '' she murmured. 
 " How serious it has always all seemed to me ; 
 and to her — God bless her, my sunny darling ; 
 may life be earnest indeed for her, but may it 
 never touch her heart with its saddening chill. 
 Little bright one, what would become of us if 
 our sunshine became clouded? Dear Gaie ! — 
 I cannot conceive her with a trouble in life.'' 
 
 Ah ! Gaie had life to live through, like the rest 
 of them. Who knows ? — there may be strength 
 and courage in sunshine as in shade.
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 " It may well be doubted whether some degree of fanaticism, 
 i.e, wrong appreciation of the relative value of things, is not 
 necessary to prompt the higher efforts of self-sacrifice." 
 
 Isaac Taylor. 
 
 " La reunion de toutes les forces particuliferes," dit tres-bien 
 Gravina, *' forme ce qu'on appelle I'Etat Politique." 
 
 Piers stayed a fortnight at tlie Old Towers, and, 
 somehow, he always looked back upon it as a 
 very happy time. He did not define it to him- 
 self as such ; but when anything, in all future 
 life, recalled the time to him, it came back with a 
 sense of pleasure in the memory, with a glow as 
 of sunshine and summer, and with a soft happi- 
 ness whispering in some shady corner of his heart. 
 He never analyzed it, but it was pleasant. 
 
 First of all, the country was in such a glory of 
 bloom ; no heather yet, but broom and gorse 
 clothing the hill- sides with gold ; the purple 
 orchids and the forget-me-nots, the wild anemones
 
 LESCAR. 129 
 
 and tlie violets, the vetch and scented wood- 
 ruff blooming, a carpet of rich beauty, in the 
 woods. 
 
 Early summer in Scotland is a lovely time ; 
 the country is clothed with a soft beauty, quite 
 different from the purple and russet of the autumn. 
 
 It is delicious by the burn or the loch- side, 
 where the long grass is rich and luxuriant, and 
 the delicate fern-leaves are sprouting 'mid the 
 grey mossy stones, where the hazel and the silvery 
 birchjthe dark pine-tree, and the yellow leaves of 
 the budding oak, blend their varieties of shade and 
 hue, all tender and delicate in their freshness and 
 youth. 
 
 And it is glorious on the uplands, on the dark- 
 brown moor, where the eyes wander over wide 
 tracts of sombre colour, lit up here and there by 
 bits of yellow gorse, where the air comes blowing 
 fresh and sweet from the distant mountains, and 
 where the moor-fowl rise all round you, hover 
 over their hidden nests, utter their wild, harsh 
 cries, and float heavily away. 
 
 Piers spent many an hour scouring the high 
 moorlands, visiting the young grouse in their 
 mossy nests, and breathiag the keen moimtain 
 air. 
 
 It was the season, too, for fishing in the solitary 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 LESCAR. 
 
 hill lochs, and lie spent many long afternoons, 
 rowing late into the evening, in the softly dying 
 light, gliding slowly under the hill's broad 
 shadow, among the tiny islands, where the gull 
 and the northern diver had built their countless 
 nests. 
 
 This particularly suited him just then, and he 
 would sit for hours in his boat rowing slowly 
 along, his line dragging far behind him, while he 
 looked up dreamily at the rocky sides of the 
 mountains, across the still surface of the loch, up 
 towards the horizon, and into the grey-blue sky. 
 
 And as he rowed indolently along, and gazed 
 and enjoyed, it seemed to him often, at these 
 moments, that the world was, after all, fair and 
 beautiful ; full of poetry, and of bright, joyous 
 life. He brightened under the sense of enjoy- 
 ment, like a dark rocky crevice, where the sun 
 will force its rays, and light up with gladness the 
 flowers that hide sadly their drooping because 
 shadowed heads. 
 
 Gaie found her fear of him disappearing. 
 Gradually she teased him into many things. 
 He took to strolling with them by the river- 
 side, to visiting old haunts and well-remembered 
 corners ; caves where they had played at gipsy- 
 ing ; the precipice over which Donna had fallen
 
 LESCAR. 131 
 
 but for him ; the deep ravine where they had 
 hidden one afternoon, while Fraulein had searched 
 for them in anguish of spirit, and in vain. He 
 rowed them on the loch ; he took them fishinor to 
 the little mountain tarns ; and finally, one lovely 
 evening, they left dinner altogether out of the 
 question, and scrambled to see the sunset from 
 the summit of Benearn. 
 
 Gaie was enraptured with the state of things. 
 Piers was to be entertained : she and Donna must 
 entertain him. Donna could not do it alone, so Gaie 
 had a delicious time of it ; for education was at a 
 discount, and one long summer holiday reigned 
 at the Old Towers. 
 
 Gaie absorbed Piers often during these days, 
 making a boy of him again ; and he would race 
 with her, or scramble up perilous rocky precipices 
 to bring down fern or deer's grass whenever she 
 pleased ; but, somehow, he always came back 
 again, having done all that good-nature required 
 — back to Donna's side, where he would loiter, 
 often very silent, sometimes in eager converse, 
 through long rambles under the birch and hazel, or 
 during the slow ascent of the steep, rugged hills. 
 
 So it went on. Many talks had Piers and 
 Donna, and only Sir John's intended homilies on 
 position and politics did not come off. There
 
 132 LESCAR. 
 
 never seemed to be any time for them, tlie young 
 people flying from dawn to sunset in every 
 direction, and Sir John busy with many distant 
 and home concerns. So it went on, and they had 
 a very happy fortnight. 
 
 But — these intended conversations and counsels 
 weighed on Sir John's mind. For the purpose, 
 indeed, of giving them, he had invited his young 
 ward to The Towers, and they remained still 
 undelivered. 
 
 The end of the Easter recess came. Parliament 
 would meet again immediately, and Sir John must 
 go back to town. Piers was to accompany him, and 
 to go to Cambridge. 
 
 And now, at length, the very last day's fishing 
 had arrived. Such a fresh lovely morning ! The 
 wind rippL'ng gently on the loch, the clouds soft 
 and feathery, tossing on the light breeze to and fro ; 
 and this morning — as Piers stood lingering, drying 
 his fishing-line on the rails at the garden-door — 
 Sir John came out at last to him, with a grim, 
 would-be stern expression on his countenance, 
 that threatened defiance to all sunshine, and to that 
 ripple which the west wind blew so temptingly 
 across the loch. 
 
 ** Perfect morning for fishing," said Piers, as 
 Sir John drew near.
 
 LESCAR. 133 
 
 " Eather a breeze/* Sir Jolin answered, clasping 
 one hand over his head ; for the wind raised the 
 locks of his grey hair, and the sun beat rather 
 fiercely on his uncovered head. He stood with 
 the other plunged in his grey shooting- coat 
 pocket, and turned his back on the loch and the 
 breeze. He contemplated Piers's face, bent with 
 interest over his wet, tangled line. 
 
 " You have come out without your hat, sir,'* 
 Piers said presently. 
 
 "Yes, I have," repKed Sir John, and he 
 puckered his face to look stern again. '^I have 
 come to call you. Piers : I want you this morn- 
 ing. This has been a dreadful waste of time, all 
 this fishing and boating ; and now the Cambridge 
 term has come on, and to-morrow you will be 
 ofi".'* 
 
 " Yes," said Piers, looking up a little surprised, 
 " it has been very nice here. I am so glad to see it 
 all again. Pollingworth is very well for sport, 
 but it is not like Scotland. I have enjoyed 
 myself," he added, with a bright soft gleam on 
 his face. 
 
 " Yes, yes, that's all very well — I am glad you 
 have ; but there are other things, very important 
 things ; and your position^ you know. Piers, ought 
 to be considered."
 
 134 LESCAR. 
 
 The line dropped from the lad's hand. He 
 looked grave immediately. 
 
 " Yes?" he answered interrogatively. 
 
 " Well, you know, it's just this," said Sir John. 
 " I have some boxes of PoUingworth papers here, 
 — some leases, polling- lists, and that sort of thing, 
 and I should like to talk them over with you." 
 
 *' Yes," said Piers ; but the gleam was quite 
 gone from his face, and he looked intensely grave. 
 
 " Well, you know — 'gad ! I cannot get hold of 
 you. What with these late expeditions in the 
 evening, there is no after-dinner time ; and then 
 you are off like this in the morning before I have 
 swallowed my breakfast. I tell you wliat it is. 
 Piers, you must just give it up for to-day. Let 
 that line hang and dry there^ and come away for 
 an hour or so into my room." 
 
 " Yery well, sir," he said, profound melancholy 
 taking possession of his voice. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Sir John with compunction, 
 " if you are disappointed, my boy." 
 
 " Oh, no, it is not that," Piers answered. *' We 
 were only going on the loch ; we can do so in the 
 afternoon quite as well." 
 
 ** Yes, just so — -that's all right. I do not want 
 to bore you ; but years are going on, and in your 
 position "
 
 LESCAR. 135 
 
 " Yes, yes, my position — I know," said Piers ; 
 and, witli a heavy sigh, he followed Sir John out 
 of the sunshine, and the sweet, thoughtless holi- 
 day, into the grave atmosphere of the business- 
 room. 
 
 " You know," said Sir John, when they had sat 
 down, " I have had you here this Easter with the 
 special purpose of sounding, to a certain extent, 
 your opinions, and of finding out your intention 
 towards Kfe — of pointing out to you. Piers, the 
 position in which you stand, and the particular 
 post, political and social, that is awaiting for you 
 to fill it." 
 
 "Yes," responded Piers, the shadow deepening 
 on his face, and a curious sullen expression coming 
 over it. 
 
 Sir John paused, and eyed him a moment in 
 silence. 
 
 *'That is not altogether satisfactory, yoimg 
 man," was the thought that rose within him, as 
 he watched the lad oddly for a moment ; then he 
 went on — 
 
 ** You see, my boy, in the present state of our 
 country, it is desirable that every young man, 
 above all a landholder, and the centre of a large 
 constituency, such as you are, should go on to the 
 battle-field of life fully prepared, fully convinced
 
 136 LESCAR. 
 
 of your duties, fully instructed in tlie principles 
 and opinions it behoves you, as bearing your 
 name, and standing at the bead of your family, 
 to bold." 
 
 " That is just it,'' said Piers. 
 
 " Yes, exactly,'' continued Sir Jobn. " Now, 
 my duty, as your guardian, is to see tbat your 
 opinions are well formed ; to place before you, at 
 the same time as I resign my oversigbt in your 
 affairs, tbe particular views wbicb your family 
 bave always adopted, and to instruct you as to tbe 
 side you will take, and tbe aspects in wbicb you 
 will be obliged to view tbe various questions of 
 tbe day. I sbould like you to leave my guar- 
 dianship witb your mind fully made up, on all 
 important points at issue in tbe State." 
 
 Piers laugbed a little sarcastically. 
 
 " Some men are born, I tbink, sir, witb tbeir 
 minds made up," be answered. 
 
 " Yes — well, to a certain sense tbey are ; tbat is, 
 tbey inherit, witb tbeir property, certain fixed 
 opinions on broad subjects of politics, tbat belong 
 to them by inherent right, and that can no more 
 be divorced, witb dignity, from the lands and 
 family than the coat of arms or the titles by 
 which the inheritance is theirs. Such, my dear 
 Piers, is your position, and it was mine. Naturally,
 
 LESCAR. 137 
 
 in tlie changing course of national events, the 
 conditions of many things have changed with 
 them — venerable party opinions and prejudices 
 have been modified and enlarged ; but, in a broad 
 sense, the fixed central resolution with which a 
 politician and a landowner should start, is to 
 embrace warmly, and with the keenest enthu- 
 siasm of which he is capable, the opinions of his 
 party, and to stand by them." 
 
 *' I have only one fixed resolution, of which I 
 am clearly conscious," said Piers, " and that is, 
 that I will embrace no preconceived prejudices 
 of any school, nor will I commit myself to the 
 opinions of any party, until I have formed my 
 own." 
 
 "But, my dear boy," exclaimed Sir John 
 warmly, roused at once to a sense of unexpected 
 alarm, '' you strike there at the very root of 
 political strength. By all means, reflect for your- 
 seK : but, before all things, avoid the fatal senti- 
 ment that individual opinion can exist in a subject 
 such as politics, where the requirement is a union 
 of energies, to support one class of opinion, 
 adopted by one party as theirSj and supported 
 against the opposing energy of a united party on 
 the other side." 
 
 " If I could find any party," said Piers wearily.
 
 138 LESCAR. 
 
 ''whose opinions seemed to me tlie least worth 
 supporting, I would throw myself gladly into 
 political life, as you understand it, adopting a 
 class of fixed opinions, and standing by them. 
 But I cannot find that : all parties seem equally 
 at sea, sir. I cannot adopt the views of any 
 political body, that you woidd approve : I think 
 it is all wrong together." 
 
 t< "Wrong ! what do you mean ? You are dis- 
 inclined to adopt the Liberal side, your family 
 have always supported?'' 
 
 "I decline to adopt the opinions of my an- 
 cestors in any way. I do not see that the fact 
 of their having formed them, under narrow cir- 
 cumstances, in a benighted age, perhaps with 
 impressionable and subjective temperaments, is 
 any reason why I should be bound to recognise 
 their views as mine. My opinions must spring 
 out of my own experience, must be formed by 
 my own mental capacities, must be recognised as 
 mine by myself, before I can announce to myself or 
 to my fellow-creatures that I have any principles 
 or opinions at all. At present, sir, I do not see 
 to the end of anything." 
 
 " Not a satisfactory young man," repeated Sir 
 John inwardly. Aloud he said, " It seems to me, 
 my dear boy, that any effort to impart opinions to
 
 LESCAR. 139 
 
 you would be thrown away indeed. Apparently 
 your views, such as they are, are pretty firmly 
 established already." 
 
 " Yes," said Piers, " I am quite fixed in my 
 resolve to adopt no opinions, but to frame 
 patiently my own. I will accept nothing from 
 the views formed by other men ; such views, I 
 mean, as are simply handed down to me through 
 the accident of my inheritance and my birth." 
 
 " Have you adopted any views, then, from any 
 source whatever yet," asked Sir John, "from 
 your studies, from your observation, limited as 
 it has been, of life and men ?" 
 
 " I have come to the conclusion that every- 
 thing in this country is wrong, at all events," 
 said Piers doggedly. " I think the whole fabric 
 of society is false and wrong founded. I 
 think that theory of government, party spirit, 
 wrangling about trivial details, while the world 
 wants reorganization, is a despicable and ignoble 
 thing. I think the division of riches and 
 poverty, happiness and misery, is all an injustice 
 together. I do not see anything right in the world 
 at all; and I think what we want, sir, in our 
 country, is not more men to come forward and 
 swell the ranks on some one side of a trivial 
 poHtical party question or another, but some
 
 140 LESCAR. 
 
 man, some body of men, who will face all the 
 real evils in humanity, seize them with an iron 
 determined hand, and right them with one 
 struggle. I do not see the way now to it ; but 
 it surely might be done. That would be a poli- 
 tical life worth living ; that would be a line of 
 action I should like to adopt." 
 
 Sir John smiled a little sadly. 
 
 "My dear boy," he said, ''many a young 
 mind has been wrecked on that shore ; many a 
 young life has been flung away in such a 
 visionary cause. There will be young and old, 
 rich and poor, sad and merry, in this world, long 
 after you I have done our part in it, and are 
 forgotten among men." 
 
 " I should not like to be forgotten ! " exclaimed 
 Piers. " If I ever became a politician, I should 
 like to leave such a stamp on the history of my 
 nation, that I should be remembered through 
 generations to come. If I embraced any cause, I 
 should like to enter as its leader, its originator, 
 giving it life and name." 
 
 Sir John shook his head. 
 
 "Piers, Piers,'' he said, "you are not out of 
 the infancy of your imagination yet, it seems to 
 me." 
 
 " These views are not imagination," said Piers.
 
 LESCAR. 141 
 
 "They are the only theories of life I feel con- 
 vinced to be true." 
 
 Sir John shook his head again. " Well, well," 
 he said, " we'll bide a while. Let all these fine 
 visions bloom into their fruitless blossom, and 
 then scatter their idle seed to the wind. You 
 are younger than I thought you," he con- 
 tinued, as he closed the " Constitutional History," 
 from which he had meant to illustrate his lecture, 
 and laid it aside with a reluctant hand. "All 
 that must blow itself away. But, my boy," he 
 went on, bending forward and looking into the 
 dark face with a kind and earnest gaze, " be care- 
 ful as you go. Mature well your own opinions 
 before you cast them abroad. It is a bitter thing 
 to remember, in our old age. Piers, that when we 
 gave forth our young thoughts to the world, we 
 gave them crude, full of error and imperfections. 
 Be careful. You are strong and obstinate, you 
 are impressionable and enthusiastic. I resign the 
 efibrt to present, simply for your adoption, the old 
 family politics of Pollingworth, and your father's 
 and grandfather's views. But I cannot do so 
 without reminding you, that these views are the 
 ripened fruit of generations, struggling to reach 
 the truths which you fancy may be grasped so 
 easily, all striving towards the building up of
 
 142 LESCAR. 
 
 the opinions you are so ready to resign. E-e- 
 member tlie first folly of a reformer, and the 
 first temptation of a young thinking mind, is 
 the love of new thoughts and new theories, not 
 because they are better than the old ones, but 
 simply because they are new. Avoid these 
 snares. Think out your problems patiently and 
 sincerely for yourself, but think with reverence — 
 think soberly. Try to avoid confusion between 
 rhapsody or imagination, and fact. You must 
 sooner or later stand in a position, marked and 
 leading, among a certain number of men. Ee- 
 member this, it is a trust ; let it be one, sacred 
 and always honoured. Prepare yourself for it; 
 educate yourself towards it. Strive sincerely to 
 see how you may discharge it aright. I will say 
 no more now, my boy. Go to your studies at 
 Cambridge. I send you there, with a full con- 
 fidence in the integrity of your aims and motives, 
 and feeling sure that you will ere long recognise 
 the line of action which in your position would be 
 rational and right."
 
 CHAPTER YII, 
 
 ** The bursts of thought with which his soul's perplexed 
 Are bred one moment, and are gone the next ; 
 Yet still the heart will kindling sparks retain, 
 And thoughts will rise and fancy strive again." 
 
 John Clare, 
 
 " An educated individual is one who is able to make hia 
 thoughts clear to himself, and to express them correctly and in- 
 telligibly to others." Gbote. 
 
 Perhaps Sir John was a little prosy, but it 
 would be difficult to estimate how much was 
 saved to Piers Ashton, in the future of his 
 career, by the spirit of kindliness with which 
 these words were spoken. The boy left his pre- 
 sence with a feeling of reverence in his dis- 
 cordant spirit, a sense of harmony existing some- 
 where, although still very absent from his own 
 disjointed views. 
 
 " Your father spoke very kindly to me," he 
 told Donna in the evening, as they sat for the 
 last time in the twilight by the fire. " I told
 
 144 LESCAR. 
 
 him I could not be a Tory, or a Liberal, or 
 anything just now, and he did not mind. I 
 told him they were all wrong, and he did not 
 contradict me. Do you know. Donna, I think if 
 one was allowed to speak out one's views, and 
 hear them expressed, one would begin to see more 
 clearly what they were." 
 
 " I am sure my father's views are very clear," 
 said Donna. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " his mind is made up, 
 you see ; mine is not. But he quite understood me 
 when I said I could not adopt opinions simply 
 from him. You see. Donna, this is a new genera- 
 tion; his is an old one, and he takes all his 
 political ideas from the fixed opinions of his 
 party. I have been reading all kinds of books of 
 which he has not an idea — Owen, Fourier, St. 
 Simon, and Bastiat — the ' Economic Harmonies,' 
 I mean. I think the great idea given us there is 
 the central point of everything — ' equalization, 
 the key-note of the general good.' I have 
 gained a sort of glinmiering idea of how things 
 might be from him. I dare say your father 
 has never thought anything about the harmonies 
 of humanity, as Bastiat puts it ; and therefore, of 
 course, you know, his ideas must be quite dif- 
 ferent from mine."
 
 LESCAR. 145 
 
 " I wonder," said Donna, " if lie has read about 
 it aU." 
 
 " No ; I fancy, from all I liave heard him say, 
 he is what I would call quite an old-day thinker. 
 I am sure he would consider me mad if I were to 
 expoimd to him half what seems so real and so 
 beautiful to me. The whole thing wants to be 
 reorganized from beginning to end, you see. 
 Donna," he went on confidentially ; " the whole 
 world, I mean ; just as Bastiat says, ' We want a 
 reorganized community, vast and comprehensivej 
 embracing the whole human race, in which the 
 laws of nature, of supply and demand, may act in 
 their plenitude, untroubled by the counter- 
 acting power of human institutions.' But, of 
 course, you never read anything of that kind." 
 
 " No, but I will. Piers. Tell me lots of books to 
 read ; tell me before you go, and I wiU study all 
 about it, and then we can talk more when you 
 come back again." 
 
 " You see, I do not know yet what I mean 
 myself : I only have a faint idea. , I want more 
 balance, more harmony. I want men more ear- 
 nest; I want men more equal. I want wrong 
 righted, and right to rule. I want the inherit- 
 ances of humanity for all the human race. I want 
 plenty, beauty, goodness, universal among men. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 LESCAR. 
 
 I do not see my way quite to it, but I have some 
 ideas. I got a good deal from Adam Smith, and 
 from Bacon's *Opus Magnum,' too. Of course, 
 these sort of books have taught me some things, 
 and then Fourier and St. Simon, as I said. They 
 tried to carry out the ideas," he went on dreamily, 
 " but they all of them had a screw loose somewhere, 
 for they every one of them failed." 
 
 The fire-light was dancing up over his face as 
 he talked on to her, and his eyes were fixed upon 
 the flames. And Donna leaned forward, and 
 watched the dreaming, sombre expression, and 
 traced oddly to herself the maturity and strong 
 development of all she could remember latent in 
 the Bandit and the Island Boy -king. 
 
 The sunny, beautiful Easter recess was over 
 for all of them. This little time of renewed com- 
 panionship was goiug to pass into memory like 
 the rest ; and as she clasped her slight fingers 
 together, and leaned forward, it seemed to Donna 
 that it had been just the same as ever again, — 
 that he had brought new life from his companion- 
 ship, a new flood of thoughts from his strange 
 vagaries, a whole new beginning of mental exist- 
 ence to work upon, a new tangled mesh of truth 
 and fancy to be untwined, to be separated for 
 herself, and by herself, when he was gone.
 
 XESCAR. 147 
 
 And slie could not help thinking, as she 
 watched him, how little she had heen in his 
 mental life, what a great ever-present influence 
 he had beerf'in hers. 
 
 '' I shaU not forget our talks. Piers," she said 
 presently. "I shall often wonder and long to 
 hear how you work out all your ideas." 
 
 *' Yes," he answered, a little indifferently, for 
 he was quite engrossed — '^yes, I shall hear lots 
 of new views of every kind at Cambridge, but I 
 expect to find them all pretty similar and rou- 
 tine. I shall like to hear them, however, as long 
 as the fellows let me alone." 
 
 " But, Piers, do you intend to go through life 
 by yourself? Do you intend never to make 
 friendships, or " 
 
 "Or to fall in love. Piers ! " chimed in 
 Graie. " Do you mean to go on making great 
 reformations, and never do anything like other 
 people ? *' 
 
 *' I think," he answered, " that is just it. If a 
 few men could be found who would sacrifice their 
 individual existence, their own trifling interests, 
 their position, their money, and everything they 
 have, to a real universal reformation of every- 
 thing, well, then I think the world might be 
 put to rights. But if men go on just making up
 
 148 LESCAR. 
 
 their own lives, and thinking about their own 
 friendships and loves and amusements, it will all 
 go on as it is now, and nobody need try to do 
 anything. No, I will not form any friendships 
 till I find some fellows who think like me ; and 
 falling in love is all nonsense and waste of time." 
 
 He looked straight into the fire as he said this, 
 and Donna could still watch the flames dancing 
 on his face. 
 
 " If women would only think in the same 
 way," he went on, " there would be some chance ; 
 there would not be so much mischief then done 
 in the world." 
 
 " But then they cannot help it, perhaps," said 
 Gaie, left to support the argument, for Donna 
 said nothing. 
 
 " They ought," replied Piers severely. " If 
 women could only see what high and great careers 
 might open for them and for everybody, if they 
 were only properly educated, and if they would 
 only give up being selfish and frivolous and 
 foolish.'' 
 
 Donna's eyes met his, fixed on her in his un- 
 conscious enthusiasm, and she answered — 
 
 " I wonder. Piers, what conclusions you will 
 come to when you have thought it all out." 
 
 " I do not know," he answered. " But that is
 
 LESCAR. 149 
 
 what I begin at. "We have to clear nonsense out of 
 our lives, and think of great and real and earnest 
 things/' 
 
 " Life au grand serieux ! as Fraulein would 
 say/' exclaimed Gaie. 
 
 '' Life is serious and great/' persisted Piers, 
 " if people would only see it to be so : that is the 
 evil of the whole business. Everybody simply 
 lives it out in the way that is most fun for them- 
 selves — at least all our class of people do, and the 
 rest are forgotten. But there must be a career 
 for a man ; there must be a work of reformation 
 to do, if one could arrive at it." 
 
 '' I cannot think," said Gaie again, " why you 
 worry yourself. It seems to me as if it were all 
 arranged so very easily for you. If you want to 
 do good to people, why do you not go home to 
 PoUingworth, and see that everybody has plent}^ 
 to eat, and that the schools are nice and pretty, 
 and you might have porches to all the cottages, 
 and honeysuckle growing all about." 
 
 " Yes, that is just what everybody would say," 
 exclaimed Piers indignantly. "There is just 
 where everybody is wrong : that is the evil 
 again. People go on working away, doing things 
 among their own few people, and forgetting all 
 the other parts of the world, while the question
 
 150 LESCAR. 
 
 of wealth and poverty are the kinds of things 
 that should he put to rights, just in one business 
 — all at once. They should not exist: they 
 should be put to rights." 
 
 " But then, if you attended to your own people 
 and put them all right, it would he something, 
 Piers," said Donna, reflectively ; for she seemed to 
 see a flaw in his line of thought somewhere, and 
 her clear, truthful mind caught eagerly at this 
 one idea that was positive, definite, and pene- 
 trable. 
 
 " If you put everything right at Pollingworth, 
 and made one whole set of people quite happy 
 and quite good, it would be a great deal done," 
 she persisted decidedly. 
 
 " There again ! " he exclaimed. " What a 
 woman's way of looking at it ! It is not a ques- 
 tion of philanthropy and of making a handful of 
 people, as you say, happy and good ; it is the 
 great political question I want to arrive at, and 
 the real harmony of nature, by which no such 
 thing as poverty ought to exist, and no such 
 thing as you call philanthropy should be re- 
 quired." 
 
 Donna shook her head. 
 
 " Will you write and tell us when you do see 
 through it all ? " said Gaie.
 
 LESCAR. 151 
 
 *' Do not laugh, Gaie ; I am perfectly in 
 earnest," lie went on. " Of course you see 
 nothing in it ; of course you and every other 
 woman in the world who wants to do what she 
 calls * good ' in her generation — my aunt, for 
 instance, — you will all go on with your cans of 
 soup, and your charities and flannels, and Sunday 
 schools, and you will never see that the whole 
 thing is a political question, and that all such 
 necessities should be got rid of altogether." 
 
 "Well, Piers, you have turned out a funny 
 fellow," continued Gaie, "compared with what 
 you were years ago. I wonder what you wiU be 
 like when next we see you." 
 
 " I hope I shall have got a good start in some 
 one direction or another, and seen my way to the 
 beginning of something." 
 
 "I hope you will have made some friends. 
 Piers," said Donna, looking round at him again 
 with something of anxious thought in her eyes. 
 "It is not good to go on puzzling out everything 
 in one's head for oneself, and quite alone." 
 
 "I never met any one yet who cared for the 
 kind of thing," he answered. " Besides friend- 
 ship keeps one back, I think, and takes up 
 one's thoughts, just like poetry and amusing 
 books keep one from caring for solid and serious
 
 J 52 LESCAR. 
 
 reading. I am going to choose tlie tough things 
 in life for my part, and leave the rest to those 
 who like it.'* 
 
 " Do you think, then, that we can choose our 
 part in that way ? " said Donna. 
 
 " We can choose what we will he interested in, 
 and what we will care for, and what we will feel 
 ahout people and things. Of course, we can," he 
 continued. " I will, I know ; I shall always 
 choose what I shall do, and what I shall like.'' 
 
 " I wonder if we always can ? " she repeated. 
 
 " A man can ; I do not know about a woman," 
 he answered, with a little quiet contempt ; and 
 Donna said nothing more. 
 
 Next morning the fortnight was over, and 
 Piers went away much happier for having aired 
 his views. In giving them expression they had 
 assumed a more solid and important aspect, and 
 in the effort to convey them to others they had 
 gained some small degree of clearness to himself. 
 
 He was still, I fear, however, a long way from 
 Grote's estimate of a mind really educated, for he 
 certainly was not to be described as "a man 
 who could make his own thoughts clear to him- 
 self, or express them correctly and intelligibly to 
 others."
 
 LESCAR. 153 
 
 The seed lie left scattered in tlie soil of the 
 thougMful young mind at the Old Towers, lay- 
 germinating in silence through many an undis- 
 turbed hour. 
 
 Donna took to new lines of study and reflec- 
 tion, and very soon had discovered a dusty, ob- 
 scure row in the book-shelves of the library ; and 
 she there pursued, with more or less understand- 
 ing, certain ancient editions of Utopian works — 
 old forgotten books that had, years ago, fed Sir 
 John's own youthful imagination as he lived 
 through, in his turn, the days of political dream- 
 land, and had indulged in visions of communes of 
 perfection, and of governments whose councils 
 could never err. 
 
 This little visit of Piers, just coming midway 
 in their journey from dreamy childhood to the 
 ripe vigour of their mental prime, brought new 
 prospects into Donna's future, gave birth to new 
 Excelsiors, new training, and new culture of her- 
 self ; and it left behind a strange new something 
 too, quite incomprehensible within her heart — 
 a silent, unsuspected germ of sentiment, a subtle 
 current of sympathy, that seemed to unite her 
 thoughts inseparably with his sentiments, with his 
 interests, with his history, and the out- working of 
 his schemes and ideas.
 
 154 LESCAR. 
 
 ''Love/' it has been said, " is but a chapter in 
 a man's life, and the whole volume in a woman's." 
 If this be true, then certainly. Piers had not even 
 read the prologue of that chapter yet ; while, for 
 Donna, in the solitude of her mind and spirit, the 
 volume had begun. 
 
 This consciousness did not break upon her at 
 once, but as time went on ; and with too much 
 time, perhaps, for self-analysis and contemplation, 
 the fact, once recognised, did not lose strength, 
 but grew, — till Donna, as she looked deep into 
 that reserved, close-veiled heart of hers, knew 
 that she had learnt there a lesson, more real, more 
 earnest, and more vital than all the visionary or 
 intellectual lessons that Piers had ever taught 
 her before, — a lesson this time, old as it was new, 
 sweet as it was bitter, strong and individual as it 
 was thrilling and deep^the one heart's lesson 
 (although he eschewed it) that was really human, 
 world-wide, and universal — a lesson that would 
 last her, her life.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Eperche sono di tre generazioni cervelli : L' uno intende 
 per se ; 1' altro discemo quelli che altri intende ; e il terzo non 
 intende per se, ne per demontrazione di altri; Quel primo h 
 eccellentissimo, il secondo eccellente, il terzo inutile." 
 
 II Frincipe, Maghiavelli. 
 
 If a man is ever to do anything, I fancy lie must 
 begin with that vehement, visionary enthusiasm 
 ^— less what has been called an "enthusiasm of 
 humanity " than — an enthusiasm of himself. 
 
 Nearly every man who has done great things 
 in riper years — devoted, useful things — done 
 rationally and well — ^has begun in these cloud- 
 lands of Utopian vagary, has wept a world's 
 wrongs that need righting, has seen a world's 
 champion in himself. 
 
 To excuse the hopeless confusion in the visions 
 of Piers Ashton's mind, it must be remembered 
 that he was young at this time ; and, to under- 
 stand the contradictions in his character, his 
 curious training must not be forgotten.
 
 156 LESCAR. 
 
 The control that had hedged in Donna's de- 
 velopment had been equally persistent in his. 
 The influence he had been to her reached him 
 through his books, studied in solitude, and 
 thought out into theory by the unaided workings 
 of his own imaginative brain. 
 
 The central power of love, tenderness, and 
 affection, that had kept her spirit safe from mis- 
 anthropical bitterness, and her heart feminine 
 and sweet, had been missing in his life ; and the 
 bitterness, the hardness, the individual self-con- 
 centration were all there. 
 
 His motives were high ; his ideals were in- 
 tended to be unselfish ; but at present they stopped 
 short at a fixed concentration of his mental 
 energies upon his own visions and theories, and 
 practically upon himself. A sense of power gave 
 him confidence and complete dependence upon 
 his own forces, as being all-sufficient for his 
 intended life. A certain morbidity of disposition, 
 his want of genial ease in mixing with indifferent 
 or non-sympathetic society, had separated him 
 through boyhood from his companions ; and now 
 he dignified this feeling in his own mind, calling 
 it " righteous disapproval," and — cherishing what 
 he liked to consider a proper contempt for the 
 frivolity and foolishness of his kind — he formed
 
 LESCAR. 157 
 
 the resolutions that were really congenial to his 
 nature, and determined to stand aloof and alone. 
 
 He knew little of the world ; he knew less about 
 himself. He thought he saw ways of govern- 
 ment, methods of reform, theories of perfection, 
 by which the whole family of humanity might 
 be reorganized into happiness and well-being. In 
 reality, he was quite ignorant of what constituted 
 humanity ; ignorant of human nature — beginning 
 with his own. 
 
 He thought the world might be put to rights, 
 and that he could do it. He thought he would 
 stand aside all through his life, and look on at 
 the human drama, learn more and more to under- 
 stand it, and so become daily wiser in its re- 
 form. 
 
 Friendship, amusement, love, all these lay at 
 his feet he thought — far below him ; they be- 
 longed to the sphere of feeling, and he would live 
 above this. Action, thought, intellectual effort, 
 would constitute the history of his career. Feel- 
 ings are transitory, he told himself; they count 
 for nothing in the history of an age ; they die 
 when the man dies ; they float away forgotten on 
 the current of time. Nothing is permanent but 
 the achievements of intellect ; nothing is abiding 
 but the results of what we do.
 
 158 LESCAR. 
 
 So he reflected, as lie sat in tlie afternoon sun- 
 eliine, at an open window in a small square room, 
 about two days after his last evening's talk with 
 Donna in the firelight in the drawing-room at 
 the Old Towers. The window looked out upon a 
 quadrangle of buildings, old, grey, and pic- 
 turesque, where the sunshine fell in broad lines 
 of golden light, and the shadows darkened in the 
 corners under the old eaves. 
 
 He had arrived there that morning. He was 
 rather uncomfortable, rather solitary, and really 
 (though he would not recognise the fact) very 
 desolate and depressed. For as he looked back 
 on the twilight talk at the Old Towers, the walks 
 over the hills, the bloom of the gorse, and the 
 pools in the river, where, only last week, he spent 
 those sunny afternoons, he missed, somewhere 
 deep down in his heart, the companionship, sooth- 
 ing and sympathetic, he had enjoyed all that 
 time ; and he missed, now he turned to face his 
 old self, that buoyant, natural feeling of youth 
 and joyousness that had sprung up irrepressibly 
 within him at the Old Towers. 
 
 Now he was at Cambridge, however, and the 
 Old Towers — with the brown river, the shadowy 
 mountains, and the fire-lit drawing-room — was far 
 away. Here he was by himself again, gathering
 
 LESCAR. 159 
 
 his ideas together, and trying, as he had often 
 done, to make up his mind about his life. 
 
 He wanted to sit still and think about it all, 
 in the midst of his unpacked books, and he was 
 truly disgusted when a cheery, hearty voice broke 
 in upon his meditations, and at the open door 
 appeared an old school-acquaintance, who had 
 just found his name among the new-comers for 
 the term. 
 
 '' Hallo, Ashton, you here ! How d'ye do ?" 
 
 He got up rather ungraciously. 
 
 " How are you, Sedley ? I did not know you 
 were at Cambridge." 
 
 "Yes, here I am. IVe been here all the last 
 term. So you've turned up ! Well, it's not a 
 bad sort of Kfe ; there is plenty of fun : better 
 than old Bowen's, at all events." 
 
 ''You like it?" said Piers. 
 
 *'I do; I find it suits my taste wonderfully. 
 What will you go in for — hunting or the 
 ' sports ' ? There are lots to choose from. Let 
 me see ; I forget what your line was." 
 
 '' I do not think I have come up to Cambridge 
 for anything of that sort," said Piers, still more 
 ungraciously than before. 
 
 Sedley was a youth he had often snubbed 
 without mercy at old Bowen's, thinking him
 
 160 LESOAR. 
 
 one of tlie most hopeless fools of his acquaint- 
 ance, and it nettled him to have to receive his 
 patronage as to a young freshman now. 
 
 ''What! not going in for work, are you? or 
 the hoats ? What is it to be, eh ? I am up to 
 all the dodges of the place, you see ; and I can 
 put you quite au fait. Let's have a chat over it. 
 Got any cigars ? Never mind ; I have a light, 
 thank you. Now I am comfortable ; '' and he 
 ensconced himself in Piers's huge arm-chair, and 
 stuck his heels up on the bars of the empty fire- 
 place. 
 
 Mr. Sedley was a smooth, plump-faced youth 
 of twenty, and in his gown and broad college 
 cap, with his cheeks puffed out behind the curling 
 smoke of his cigar, with his fat shoulders pushed 
 up to his ears, as he reclined cosily in the big 
 leather chair, he looked the picture of good- 
 humour and content. 
 
 Piers eyed him with much disgust. 
 
 " You see," he went on, " when a fellow comes 
 first up to college, there are heaps of things he 
 ought to learn ; and it is an immense pull to have 
 a chap, like me, all ready to put you up to every- 
 thing. It is a good life when you once get into 
 it, and know all the dodges ; but you have to be 
 up to them, or they let you in for all sorts of
 
 LESCAR. 161 
 
 bothers — cLapels, and lectures, and every kind of 
 nuisance — no end of things. You have to be 
 put up to them; .but when you're once in the 
 swing of it, there's no end of fun." 
 
 " You seem to have thriven on it, Sedley, at all 
 events." 
 
 " Yes, I puU through. You see, I never bother 
 over books, and that is a great thing. You 
 never catch me * sporting the oak,' or going in for 
 honours or wrangling, as they call it ; and I do 
 not take it out of myself in the boats either, 
 though I have to do a little of that, just to keep 
 the weight down, or Hartopp would not be able to 
 mount me by next term ; by Jove ! he wouldn't. 
 I have to go into training, now and then. You 
 haven't got a bad room, Ashton. Will you keep 
 a dog in that coal-hole ? Capital place ! — every 
 fellow does ; and I know a first-rate man, down 
 at the corner of Trinity Street, has got a tip-top 
 one for sale. WiU you have him, eh ? Shall we 
 stroll down and have a look ? He is a friend of 
 mine, the fellow who has the dog, and I beHeve 
 he'd let it go for a * tenner ' for me. Shall I look 
 him up for you?" 
 
 " Thanks, no ; I think not," Piers answered. 
 ** If I want a dog, I'll have one up from PoUing- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LESCAR. 
 
 worth. I do not think your friend could beat 
 two or three I have down there/* 
 
 " What ! bulls, eh ? Fighters ?" 
 
 " The best I have is a bloodhound. I think he 
 would fight any man or dog that might set on 
 him ; and I have a fox terrier, I would back to 
 thrash your best bull." 
 
 " By Jove ! I wish you'd have him up. I 
 don't think there's a more amusing bit of life to 
 be seen in all Cambridge than you find in the 
 dog-fancying line — if you go in for it, that's to 
 say, and so that's your taste ! " 
 
 *' I do not think I said it was," Piers answered, 
 with a laugh ; " did I ? No ; I do not think I'll 
 have the * fox ' up here." 
 
 ** Won't you ? That's a pity ; you might make 
 a pot of money in no time, if he is a real first- 
 rater, and you backed him well. However, every 
 man manages his own concerns, as they say, 
 Ashton. For my part, I go in for pretty nearly 
 everything : nothing like seeing lots of life, you 
 know. I keep my eyes open, and go slap in for 
 all that's going, right and left." 
 
 "Are there any other men here from old 
 Bowen's? Have you seen ThessuUson ? " said 
 Piers. 
 
 " Well, I've just, what you might call, caught
 
 LESCAR. 1 63 
 
 sight of him ; but he is not my sort. A regular 
 'pedagogue' is Thessullson ; would not suit me 
 at aU." 
 
 " He is a Trinity man, is he not ?" 
 
 " No, St. John's. He is one of ours, as far as 
 that goes ; and I do not come across him often. You 
 never see him at a jolly wine, or at any breakfasts 
 that I go to. He speechifies, you know, and does 
 the Diagnostics, — what d'ye call it. Society ; holds 
 forth. They all do, the fellows that go in for that 
 line — spend the live-long night making speeches 
 to each other. Awful nuisance, I should think ; 
 beats me hollow. I say, you've a nice view over 
 the square from this window." 
 
 And Sedley rose as he spoke, and crossed the 
 room with a leisurely tread, leant his arm upon 
 the broad old-fashioned window-sill, and puffed 
 his cigar smoke into the air. 
 
 " There goes Orton ; a funny fellow, that," he 
 began again, continuing his one-sided colloquy, 
 as he watched the men who passed to and fro in 
 the Quadrangle below ; " and there is Adderley, 
 he is a viscount ; and there is Frere, of course, 
 following the golden tuft at a respectful distance ; 
 and here comes Liddell ; and that's a lot of All 
 Saints' fellows ; and there's little Billy Boulder, 
 he's a first-rate jumper, he walks under the rail,
 
 164 LESCAR. 
 
 and turns and vaults over it ; and, by Jove ! that 
 is Eldon Eivers, too; lie is awfully rich, and 
 conies from our country ; he will be a baronet one 
 of these days : he is the best fellow out for the 
 long-pole jump, and ran second in the three- 
 miles at Lilliebridge last year. I say, where are 
 all the fellows going ? Here are more of them ; 
 and Eldon Eivers is carrying his sporting toggery. 
 Look, he has got his cap on, and that is his racing 
 shirt hanging over his shoulder. "Where are they 
 all off to ? I declare, I forgot ! it is the day of 
 the ' trial-go ' between Eldon Eivers and the 
 French chap ; so it is. Will you come, Ashton ? 
 Couldn't have a better chance of seeing the sport- 
 ing men turn out — the athletes, that is to say. 
 Be a capital sight ; shouldn't wonder if you found 
 Thessullson there. I am quite sure he has arrived. 
 Will you come?" 
 
 " I do not mind — yes," Piers answered ; for 
 though dog-fighting and life according to Sedley, 
 Avas not much to his mind, his ears pricked up at 
 the sound of an athletic contest. 
 
 Sedley was a bore, undoubtedly ; but yet why 
 should he not go ? So they set off together.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " After all it is right to give every possible form to the soul. 
 It is a flame which God has intrusted to us ; we are bound to 
 feed it with all we find most precious. We should introduce 
 into our existence all imaginable modes, and open every door 
 to all sorts of knowledge and all sorts of feelings. There is 
 plenty of room for all." 
 
 Voltaire io Cideville. 
 
 "Not a bad old place, is it?" was Sedley's com- 
 ment, as they passed tlirougli the courtyard, and 
 turned towards the levels by the sluggish Cam, 
 where the sports were to be held. " The race is 
 not to be at Tenners to-day," he continued, " not 
 at the ordinary sporting-ground, but down there 
 in a field by the river, beyond Backs." 
 
 Groups of men were hurrying on before them 
 as they sauntered along. 
 
 " You will be late," shouted one man as he ran 
 past them. " The two-mile race will be on before 
 you are there." 
 
 " Can't help it," was Sedley's answer, shrugging 
 his shoulders and replacing his cigar. "How
 
 166 LESCAR. 
 
 some fellows do fuss themselves, to be sure, and 
 on a warm afternoon too like this. There is the 
 field." 
 
 And he pointed to a low-lying flat by the 
 river, where, as they approached, they could 
 now see a crowd of men standing together near 
 one end, the white dresses of the athletes and 
 the bright colours of their caps mingling here 
 and there with the mass of black college 
 gowns. 
 
 The sunset fell in a glow of rich warm colour 
 over the scene, on the Cam, brown and sluggish, 
 lighting it with a dull silvery gleam. On the 
 soft green of the hedges and meadows, on the 
 snowy hawthorn flowering in the distance in 
 ''Backs," on the dark crowd of gowns and caps, 
 on the gay bits of colour standing among them, 
 and on the curious and infinite variety of young 
 faces, all turned in the same direction, all eager, 
 all concentrated for the moment on the same 
 exciting idea. 
 
 It was a great race to-day. 
 
 " Rummy thing a Frenchman going in for 
 English sports," said Sedley, as they strolled 
 towards the field. 
 
 " Ridiculous ! " said Piers. " I never heard of 
 such a thing ! How comes he here ? He does
 
 LESCAR. 167 
 
 not take any place, does lie ? I never heard of 
 an athletic Frenchman in my life." 
 
 " Oh, doesn't he ! " cried Sedley. " Why, he's 
 to run against Eldon Rivers to-day, and he is 
 well backed too. He is no end of a fellow. You 
 will have to know him. I am not sure he is not 
 about the crack man of Trinity just now ; not 
 in my line, you Ilqow : he speechifies, and that 
 kind of thing ; a little of ThessuUson's sort in the 
 schools, and no end of a worker. But he is a 
 good one to jump and run ; and if the college 
 keeps the colours, I don't care who carries them, 
 for my part." 
 
 *'I hate a Frenchman," growled Piers, ex- 
 pressing in the ejaculation one of the deepest and 
 most cherished prejudices of his soul. "Curly, 
 pale,'scented fellows, I hate them," he continued : 
 " they think of nothing under heaven but kid 
 gloves and cigars." 
 
 " Well, may be. I am not fond of the lot 
 myself, and I do not know this one here. 
 Halloo ! they have begun." 
 
 And so they had. At that moment, clear up 
 into the cool summer air, echoing far away 
 across the river and the levels, went the ringing 
 sound of scores of strong young voices, shouting 
 from side to side the names of the racers, and
 
 168 LESCAR. 
 
 cheering them on, now one, now tlie other — now 
 England, now France ; louder, louder, echoed the 
 roar, wilder the excitement, fiercer the enthu- 
 siasm, shout following shout into the still air ; 
 and Piers could stand it no longer. 
 
 " Come on ! '' he cried, ** what a lazy dufier 
 you are ! Why, they will be in before we reach 
 the post. Come on ! " 
 
 And away he sped, tearing over the grass and 
 brushwood, leaving Sedley and his cigar far 
 behind him, and in two minutes he had cleared 
 the ring-cord of the enclosure and stood, shouting 
 like the rest of them, among the group of eager 
 excited men, just where the winning-place was 
 marked by two white posts ; there floated gaily 
 from one the French tricolour, from the other the 
 British flag. 
 
 It was no less than a contest of nations. 
 
 " Hurra ! hurra ! " shouted everybody, and 
 " Hurra ! " shouted Piers like the rest. 
 
 He stood among them and quite forgot he was 
 a stranger. His face lit up with excitement, as 
 he waved his cap and shouted again and again 
 with enjoyment and enthusiasm. 
 
 Here they come, nearing the winning-post, 
 but only in the first round ; they must do it three 
 times. Here they come. First, Eldon Eivers. He
 
 LESCAR. 169 
 
 was rtmning splendidly, his huge frame scarcely- 
 strained, his long easy stride clearing yard after 
 yard of the sward with no apparent effort, and 
 with extraordinary speed. A grave expression 
 settled on his fine face, as he passed the posts — an 
 expression of determined confidence, as if he had 
 a work on hand, and was set to do it. His eyelids 
 never quivered ; the expression did not alter in 
 the slightest degree, even when he passed the 
 shouting crowds at the winning-post, and the 
 air rang with his name in countless tones of en- 
 couragement and enthusiasm — 
 
 ** Go it, Eivers ! Eldon Eivers wins !'* 
 
 He never seemed to hear them ; on he sped with 
 that great easy swing of his, clearing the ground 
 with the cool indifferent strength of a camel, as it 
 strides over its desert plains. On he sped. 
 
 Then the shouts rose again, louder, more eager, 
 more prolonged than ever, as the other came. 
 
 " Hurra, Lescar ! Go it. Trinity ! Back 
 Trinity ! Hurra for the Tricolour ! Go it ! 
 Lescar wins ! '' 
 
 On he came ; and a shout of intense delight 
 broke from Piers as he met the keen glance 
 turned upon him for one second. For, as the 
 young racer shot past the posts, he saw the 
 quivering eager face turned upward, and he
 
 170 LESCAR. 
 
 seemed to catcli from it an excitement, an en- 
 thusiasm, an intensity of eagerness scarcely 
 second to its own. 
 
 Round they went, and on they came again ; and 
 Piers scarcely noticed this time Eldon Rivers, as 
 he watched for the Frenchman coming swiftly 
 behind, and he shouted longer and more lustily 
 than ever. 
 
 The Frenchman had gained some yards. On 
 he sped, the red sunset flooding with a ruby 
 light the lithe young frame. He seemed to skim 
 over the turf with a spring and elasticity of 
 action peculiar to himself. His hair, fair and 
 wavy, floated behind him on the soft breeze, his 
 shoulders thrown back, his face radiant with keen 
 excitement, with intensity of efibrt, and with 
 brilliant, eager, young life. 
 
 It was wonderful to see him. As he neared 
 the third time, Piers thought less of the race at 
 last than of him — the runner. He almost stopped 
 his shouting, and watched delighted as the light 
 figure sped along, graceful as Adonais ! " -4 
 pard-like spirit ^ beautiful and swift" A young 
 Mercury, lithe and agile as a Grecian athlete." 
 
 Though the British flag was lowered in igno- 
 miny, the shout of triumph, and greeting of de- 
 light, still rent the air, as the three rounds were
 
 LESCAR. 171 
 
 completed and in he came. With one last 
 effort, painful and intense, with one bound, and 
 with one glad ringing " hurrah ! " he shot past 
 the tricolour, and came in victorious, the winner 
 of the day. 
 
 Eldon Eivers shook his great frame together, 
 and turned on his Yanquisher to hold out his 
 hand and smile. 
 
 " Well run. Frenchman," he said. 
 
 " Hurrah for Trinity ! Well done, Lescar," 
 rose the shouts on all sides still, and Piers stood 
 unnoticed, his eyes fixed on the winner's face. 
 It was so bright, so irresistibly attractive, so full 
 of keen intellect, and still quivering with in- 
 tense excitement, as he turned to Eldon E-ivers to 
 respond to his friendly words. 
 
 He raised his tricolour cap with one hand, with 
 foreign grace, as he held out the other to his 
 defeated adversary. 
 
 " I can afford to take it," said Eivers gravely ; 
 " I do not often come in second. You will run 
 the heat again, Lescar ? " 
 
 " By all means," said the other, in a fresh clear 
 voice, and with a scarcely perceptible French 
 accent ; " any day you Kke." 
 
 " We must have it then," laughed Eldon Eivers 
 in his good-humoured way. " I cannot leave the
 
 172 LESCAR. 
 
 college colours on a French soil, you know. We'll 
 run it again on Wednesday.'' 
 
 " Yery well, when you like." 
 
 And then Lescar was seized upon by one and 
 by another, all of them crowding round him 
 with questions, with friendly claps on the back, 
 with many praises and congratulations, as he 
 leisurely drew on his jacket above his racing 
 dress, and took off his cap to toss back the hair 
 from his flushed forehead. 
 
 " He is not a bit like a Frenchman," said Piers, 
 with incredulity truly British, as he turned to a 
 man standing near him. " He cannot be a French- 
 man, — impossible ! " 
 
 " Can any good thing come out of — et cetera! " 
 laughed the young fellow he addressed. " He 
 is, though, — that's to say, half a Frenchman. 
 I believe his mother was English or Scotch, 
 or something, — Irish, for all I know. He is a 
 good one to run, is he not ? " 
 
 The speaker was a freshman of the Sedley type, 
 and puffed at a huge cigar as he watched the 
 sports. 
 
 " Now for the pole-jumps ! " he continued. " I 
 should think Lescar is too pumped to go in for 
 that to-day. No, by Jove ! he is entering too. 
 Let me see, have I backed him ? yes, with Tip
 
 LESCAR. 173 
 
 Sedley, for a fiver, as I live ! Were you not 
 coming along with Tip when I passed you just now, 
 ' stranger,' as they say 't other side the water ? " 
 
 " With Sedley ? — yes. There he is." 
 " Ah, so ! " and the freshman turned away to 
 where Sedley stood in the background, his cigar 
 still between his lips, his cheeks distended as 
 usual, his hands stufied deep into his trouser 
 pockets, his eyes staring round and open at the 
 scene, and the long jumping in the distance. 
 Sedley was probably studying life ! 
 
 Piers studied him, and his friend who joined 
 him, for a moment with no small disgust, and 
 then, he was wandering away into a labyrinth 
 of perplexing and solitary reflections, as he stood 
 alone among the eager crowd ; when a hand was 
 laid upon his shoulder, and a well-known voice, 
 exclaiming his name, fell upon his ear. 
 
 " Ashton, my dear fellow, how are you ?" He 
 turned instantly — 
 
 " Thessullson ! I am so glad to see you at last." 
 
 " My dear boy, I am delighted to see pou. I 
 did not know you were coming up this term. 
 When did you arrive ? " 
 
 " Only yesterday," said Piers. '' Sedley, you 
 remember him at Bowen's, — Tip Sedley, he 
 brought me here."
 
 174 LESCAR. 
 
 " Sedley — ah, yes, I remember him. But why 
 did you not find me out ?" 
 
 " I did not know where to look for you," said 
 Piers shyly, and hesitating as he spoke. He did 
 not like to give his true reason, which was this — 
 that with a reserve and backwardness character- 
 istic of him, he had shrunk from calling on 
 Frederick ThessuUson until they had met acci- 
 dentally in this way ; until he felt sure, the elder 
 man had not forgotten the shy boy in whom he 
 took an interest, to whom he showed kindness, 
 and had left three forms below him at old Bowen's 
 years ago. There could be no doubt about it now, 
 however. 
 
 " I knew you, Ashton, at once ; and you knew 
 me ? " 
 
 "Yes, directly; you are not a bit changed, 
 only " 
 
 " Not so brown, I dare say, as when I used to 
 do this sort of thing,'' ThessuUson continued, 
 nodding towards the race-course. 
 
 " Yes, you are much thinner and paler, I see, 
 now, but " 
 
 " Life is a thing that wears one, boy," said the 
 other lightly. " It does not matter, however, so 
 long as one has strength to go on, and work out a 
 good day."
 
 LESCAR. 175 
 
 *' I dare say you over-work immensely,'* con- 
 tinued Piers. 
 
 " No. What can be over- work, dear fellow, 
 while there is so much to be done ? A man's 
 whole strength, and a man's whole lifetime, after 
 all, would leave so little mark. So much to be 
 done, so short the time to do it, so small the results. 
 Still we must not mind that either ; nothing for 
 it, but to go on. * / work my work — all its results 
 are— Thine.' " 
 
 His face Kt up as he spoke, a sweet eager smile 
 playing over his delicate features, and shining in 
 his soft clear eyes, making the spare dark counte- 
 nance beautiful for a moment. 
 
 There was nothing of the athlete about him; 
 quite the contrary — the thinker, the student ; 
 something perhaps, too, of the enthusiast was 
 expressed in his pale face, his soft smile, his slight 
 bending figure, and the thin delicate hand he 
 laid on Piers's shoulder. 
 
 It was easy to see that the strength of Frederick 
 Thessullson lay neither in the swiftness of his 
 stride, nor in the vigour of his arm. Yet — no 
 one could know Cambridge in these years and not 
 know Frederick Thessullson ; and the boldest 
 spirits among them were fain to confess that 
 there were spheres, other than the boats or the
 
 176 LESCAR. 
 
 sporting-field, in which they bent their heads 
 before him, and knew him to be strong. 
 
 "But, my dear fellow," he said, as with his 
 hand on Piers's shoulder they turned together 
 towards the field again, "we have got into the 
 depths already. That was a pretty bit of running, 
 was it not, that brought down our flag ? " 
 
 "It was: wonderful for a Frenchman. I've 
 seen Eldon Eivers run before, but I never expected 
 to see him beaten.'' 
 
 " No ; but he has found his match : that boy runs 
 like a young antelope. A fine fellow, is he not ? ' 
 
 " Yes, he is wonderfully well made,- ' said Piers 
 admiringly: "not an ounce of superfluous weight. 
 Look at him now, vaulting, every muscle in play, 
 every bit of efibrt telling fair. Capital ! and a 
 Frenchman, too ! " he added half discontentedly. 
 
 " Oh, he is only part French," said Thessullson. 
 " His mother was a Scotchwoman. I fancy that 
 yellow hair of his, and those blue eyes, have more 
 Campbell in them than Lescar. But he is an ac- 
 complished, charming fellow; you must know 
 him. What is your coUege — Trinity ? To be 
 sure ; then he is one of yours. I am St. John's, but 
 I meet him every week at the society ; and faith ! 
 he is as strong there, in his own line, as he is on 
 the field. He gave us a lecture, last night, that
 
 LESCAR. 177 
 
 will live after him here. It was capital — a 
 critical retrospect of the history of Yoltaire, with 
 an account of his visit to England, and a summary 
 of the tone of science -and philosophy he found 
 flourishing there under Queen Anne — the mighty 
 new teachings of Locke, of Newton, and Samuel 
 Clark. He went into the spirit of the English 
 philosophies marvellously ; then he took us to 
 France, into Condorcet's account of the influence 
 of England upon French philosophies, into Rene 
 Descartes, Fontenelle, and Montesquieu; the in- 
 fluence of that English visit upon Voltaire ; his 
 influence upon Rousseau, the influence of both 
 upon French history, and the influence of France 
 upon the world. It was a splendid lecture. The 
 boy does honour to his college. The Frenchman 
 came out a little, you know ; the national vanity, 
 the self-confidence, the hot enthusiasm for French 
 glory, and the well-founded impression that France 
 gives the key-note to the world. But even that 
 lit up the lecture, which would otherwise have 
 been necessarily dry; and it was beautiful to 
 see him fire up with that wonderful ' amour de 
 la patrie.* It was like two men speaking, to hear 
 the contrast : the dry logical reasoning of the first 
 part, the philosophical discourse ; then away went 
 reason, logic, philosophy, to the winds, and out 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 178 LESCAR. 
 
 came a flood of passionate eloquence, and tlie 
 philosopher lost himself in the soldier of France. 
 His father is colonel of an artillery regiment in 
 Algiers." 
 
 " I should like to hear him speak." 
 
 '* Of course you must do so. You will join the 
 Society ? I will propose you, Ashton, and it will 
 just suit you. You must join at once." 
 
 *' Thank you, I should like it immensely," 
 said Piers. This promised to be more in his line 
 than Sedley and his bull-dogs. 
 
 " Let me see : to-night — yes, Fellows speaks 
 on the classics, and next Friday I am to hold 
 forth." 
 
 "You? I am so glad. What do you take 
 up?" 
 
 " I speak that night on ' Liberty,' said Thes- 
 sullson, with a sparkle in his soft eyes. " There 
 are some few things I wish to say. There has 
 been much inflated rubbish talked here lately on 
 that subject, and — well, they have asked me to 
 give some of my views, and I have not refused to 
 do it. I will pass you in immediately, so you 
 will have the pleasure of hearing me descant. 
 Then, at the beginning of the week, we shall have 
 Lescar again. He is going to speak on Heinrich 
 Heine, a poet, of whom he knows all that is to be
 
 LESCAR. 179 
 
 known, and of wliom we here know next to 
 nothing at all. It is an immense pull for a man, 
 having lived in different countries as he has. I 
 think they shut us up too much to our ' Euclid ' 
 and ' Lexicon ' in our young days, Ashton, in 
 our country. It would help us a good deal more, 
 if they would let us go out of the routine a little, 
 and see something, while we are school-hoys, of 
 the real world. You see the advantage directly 
 when you come in contact with an enlightened, 
 accomplished young fellow, like Victor Lescar : 
 acquirements like his give a grace to a man's life. 
 I do not see why we should leave all the beauti- 
 fying elements in education to our sisters. I would 
 have every man taught to play and sing, for my 
 part. I think everything is good that helps to 
 make beautiful, if only the idle moments of a life." 
 
 '' Can he play and sing ? " exclaimed Piers 
 with no little disgust. 
 
 " Y6s, charmingly ; but that does not prevent 
 him, as you see, from vaulting the nine-foot rail, 
 and discoursing upon la patrie and Voltaire. Ah ! 
 here he comes : let me introduce you to him." 
 
 Piers had no time to remember that he hated 
 strangers, and was shy and sulky with them, and 
 that he hated a Frenchman worst of all ; for in 
 another moment the introduction was effected.
 
 180 LESCAR. 
 
 He had raised his cap with reluctant British bash- 
 fulness in answer to the foreigner's polite salute, 
 and then • — he did not laiow hou\ he never 
 could tell from which side came first the electric 
 current of sympathy, whose glance first brightened 
 as it met the other's, who was the first to relax 
 into a friendly smile, but he found himself clasp- 
 ing Lescar's hand with a warm and eager cor- 
 diality, and looking at him with a soft glow in 
 his own dark shaded eyes. It was so utterly irre- 
 sistible, the brightness of that energetic face. 
 
 Piers' s first question was characteristic. 
 
 " How did you learn to vault so well, — in 
 France?" he said, with a beautifully contemptuous 
 emphasis upon the obnoxious name. 
 
 Victor laughed. 
 
 "I learnt in Germany," he added. "I was 
 brought up there." 
 
 " Oh ! " Perhaps that explained it, but Piers 
 had a true British schoolboy's ignorance of the 
 habits also of a German school. 
 
 "We had a gymnasium, and a regular pro- 
 fessor at Heidelberg ; but I did not know I could 
 run till I came here." 
 
 "You have found it out now, at all events. 
 Eldon Rivers does not often meet his match." 
 
 " Ah, a chance thing : he will probably beat me
 
 LESCAR. 181 
 
 on "Wednesday. How splendidly he goes, does he 
 not ? — and he is much surer than I am." 
 
 " You ran very steady throughout." 
 
 "Yes, to-day; but it is a case of fits and starts 
 with me," he answered, taking his cap off again, 
 and tossing back his hair from his forehead. " I 
 cannot always get my steam up, and Rivers never 
 seems to go down." 
 
 " He is a man of a central idea," remarked 
 Thessullson. " He has a fine powerful soul, has 
 Eldon Rivers, and he has given it all, at present, 
 to the cause of athletic success. As our old 
 trainer used to say, * books does throw out the 
 muscular balance terrible.' " 
 
 " Yes, it is so," said Lescar. " I cannot run 
 anything like so steadily, when I have been 
 studying up something very hard the night 
 before. I suppose the muscular force does work 
 off, more or less, in the brain-effort." 
 
 " A versatile genius cannot give its powers to 
 everything at once," laughed Thessullson, " and 
 we should not like all of you to run itself out in 
 the long jump or the two-mile race, Lescar. I 
 have been telling Ashton of your lecture, the 
 other night : from what I remember of him in 
 old days, I think he would have been an appre- 
 ciative auditor of all your ideas."
 
 182 LESCA.R. 
 
 Victor turned to Piers again, and looked up 
 at him with a questioning glance. 
 
 ''Are you going to join the Society?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " I hope so/' said Piers, '' if you will all have 
 me." 
 
 "Of course we will. There is a vacancy, is 
 there not, ThessuUson? Bonar does not come 
 back this term ; we are only eleven." 
 
 " Yes, just what I recollected," said Thes- 
 suUson. 
 
 "And you of course have the first vote as 
 President," said Victor. 
 
 " I have ; and it shall be Ashton's, if after a 
 night's hearing of us, he chooses to take it." 
 
 "I do not think there is much doubt about 
 that," said Piers, cordially ; for his shyness seemed 
 melting from him under Victor's bright sympa- 
 thetic eyes and Frederick Thessullson's kindly 
 voice. 
 
 " Here come a lot of us," exclaimed Victor, 
 pausing as he turned to go. " Here are Hilford, 
 and Stoneleigh, and Henry Vere. Ashton can 
 be introduced to the mystic circle at once." 
 
 "Yes, that is famous," said ThessuUson ; "come 
 along." 
 
 And Piers had no time to hang back and feel
 
 LESCAR. 183 
 
 miserable, for Thessullson's hand was passed 
 witiiin his arm, and Yictor sauntered on his other 
 side, and together they drew him towards a group 
 of men, who had paused as they came along the 
 river bank to watch the last vaulting match that 
 was going on in the distance across the field. 
 
 There was every variety of men on that ground 
 that evening ; for Cambridge produced, then — as 
 ever, men of every type, men of every kind of 
 promise. Men, whose infinite contrasts of history 
 in the future lay evident, though undeveloped, 
 as you watched the traces of taste and character 
 already strongly marked ; and they grouped to- 
 gether, making this sporting-field a fair example 
 of Cambridge as a whole. 
 
 Athletic men, boating-men, reading-men, 
 hunting-men, and men, like Sedley, of wine- 
 parties and bull-dogs crowded the ground, and 
 fell naturally into groups together, as the sports 
 were concluded, and sjTnpathetic conversational 
 tastes drew each man towards the fellow of his 
 mind. 
 
 The currents of taste were so seldom mingled 
 or confused, that each stood out in clear com- 
 parison : a versatile, combining nature, like 
 Yictor's, was rare. 
 
 True, boating- men are often reading-men, and
 
 184 
 
 LESCAR. 
 
 athletic champions frequently take fair honours 
 in the schools ; but, the enthusiasm of character 
 generally expends itself in one direction or the 
 other, and it is the natural taste and enthusiasm 
 of a man that governs the instinctive actions, 
 leading to the circle of his associates and the real 
 companions of his career. 
 
 Thus, while the active vigour of Yictor Lescar's 
 young buoyant life led him to join with success 
 and heartiness in athletic combats, and to run in 
 the two-mile race, his deeper and intellectual 
 instincts ordained the plane of his mental ex- 
 ertions, and his real standing-ground among 
 men. 
 
 So now, as he lingered with Piers and Thes- 
 sullson, he seemed gradually to forget the vaulting 
 and the racing — to lose all conscious interest in 
 his own success, and his eyes lit up with a new 
 keen ardour, a look of refined intellectuality 
 coming into his mobile face, as one of the group, a 
 sharp- featured, sallow-cheeked man, attacked him 
 on some point of dubious authority in his state- 
 ments of the night before. 
 
 " I do not believe what you asserted, Lescar," 
 he exclaimed, " about any followers of the Vol- 
 tairean school. You cannot surely hold, that 
 reverence for the supernatural and mystical
 
 LESCAR. 185 
 
 can be co-existent with the thorough reception 
 of pure inductive philosophy/' 
 
 *' I do emphatically," he replied, " provided 
 always, philosophy be not pushed beyond its 
 limits, and religion upheld in the purely spiritual 
 sphere of dominion it is destined to control." 
 
 "According to Callicles in the 'Greorgics,' philo- 
 sophy is a most charming accomplishment, you 
 think, for a man to follow at the right age ; but 
 to carry philosophy too far is the undoing of 
 mankind, — eh, Lescar ? That was about the 
 spirit of your argument, I think." 
 
 The speaker this time was a dreamy-faced lad, 
 with an absent, weary expression in his eyes. 
 
 Victor answered him with playful piquancy, 
 in the same tone in which he spoke ; and one after 
 another joining in, they argued on. Meanwhile, 
 Piers, with Thessullson's hand still leaning on his 
 arm, was presented successively to the whole 
 group, and quite forgot his own idiosyncrasies 
 as he met, one after another, each keen intel- 
 lectual face turned to him with the kindly greeting 
 of fellowship insured for him by Thessullson's 
 guarantee. 
 
 "Ashton to be one of them>" seemed an 
 accepted fact. 
 
 *' Chapel on in two minutes," shouted some
 
 186 LESCAR. 
 
 one suddenly, as the beautiful peal of evening 
 bells burst from chapel and college and belfry in 
 every corner of the old town. 
 
 " We must disperse ; " and they turned, — the 
 whole party together. 
 
 Men were hurrying back now, the sports were 
 over ; moving in crowds, or loitering in knots of 
 twos and threes, as the bells called them, — some 
 to chapel, some to — many another thing.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " Qui ne cherchait le vrai que pour faire le bien." 
 
 Bit. de Turgot, 1776. 
 
 Piers, as tlieir groups moved onwards, found 
 himself by Victor Lescar's side. Some other 
 man had claimed Frederick's attention, and 
 Piers was left solitary. He turned with a quick 
 spontaneous feeling of pleasure towards Victor, 
 whose countenance had now quite lost the eager 
 brightness of the victorious racer. It wore an 
 expression of gravity, his eyes full of thought : 
 the trace of the last, the intellectual combat was 
 still upon him. 
 
 He smiled as Piers turned. 
 
 *' A curious experience, one's first day at 
 college, is it not ? Do you think you will like 
 it?" 
 
 *' I am sure I shall," said Piers, the musical 
 voice seeming to draw him out from his re- 
 serve.
 
 188 LESCAR. 
 
 " It seems to me," lie continued, " to be tlie 
 very thing for which I have longed for ages — 
 ever since I knew Frederick ThessuUson at 
 B Owen's ; the sort of place, I mean, where people 
 think about the things I like." 
 
 *' Men think of every kind of thing here," said 
 Victor ; '^ and nearly every man in his own way, 
 though a certain number, of course, do not think 
 at all." 
 
 " I am sure all of you do," continued Piers, 
 hesitating, as he indicated the group preceding 
 them. 
 
 *' Yes ; we of the Society are all expected to 
 have views on something : odd and varied enough 
 some of them are. I scarcely expected, coming 
 as I did from the depth — as one may call it — of 
 German reflection at Konigstadt, and from a nest 
 of curious thinkers in Paris too, to find such a 
 concentration of strong thought, such a nucleus 
 of germinating idea, as there is here at this 
 moment." 
 
 "Ideas you follow and go with?" asked Piers. 
 
 " I can see into them, if you mean that. Yes ; 
 I can follow their workings better than many of 
 them can follow me. I look here into the vortex 
 of strong eddying currents of contending thought 
 — a nucleus, as I say, of powerful and very vital
 
 LESCAR. 189 
 
 idea. I look from a vantage-ground of -wider 
 experience than most men about me. I have 
 heard voices of a new life that have never reached 
 their ears. I have lived 'midst the energy, some- 
 times practical, sometimes so mystical, of German 
 thought ; and I have been familiar from my 
 youngest days with that feverish mental life of 
 Paris. I have lived long among her restless 
 children, who weary themselves now as ever in 
 that struggle, ever wearying and, as it seems /or 
 them, ever vain, to grasp, in some tangible 
 form, an ideal of Liberty and Truth. Such 
 memories give a colour to much I learn here ; 
 and, following out a train of thought quite un- 
 known to most of them, I can see traces of the 
 new life springing around me, — I can note 
 symptoms in the tendency of thoughts here, 
 that men, not having the light of the one true 
 idea, scarcely understand even in themselves." 
 '' You mean ideas political or scientific ? " 
 " Neither, and both. I mean human ideas. 
 Why should men be parcelled ofi" into systems of 
 thought in that way, each concentrating his mind 
 on his own small branch ; as if science, art, or 
 politics, as you would interpret the words, were 
 any of them to regenerate the w^orld ? Any one 
 of them : and yet — the man of science feels his
 
 190 LESCAR. 
 
 hypothesis of obscure possibilities to be all- 
 sufficient ; the man of art talks to you of the 
 influence of beauty ; the politician finds the key- 
 note in the fact of your being, as it happens, a 
 Tory or a "Whig. Do you not find it so ? And 
 what we want is the secret that will embrace and 
 concentrate all knowledge, all beauty, and the 
 power of national organization we call politics, 
 towards the highest and most universal human 
 good/' 
 
 *' Ah ! '' exclaimed Piers, with a gasp of 
 delighted excitement, " that is just how it 
 always comes to me. I did not think another 
 man existed in the world who had those sorts of 
 ideas but myself. Universal, — that is what I 
 want : all else seems so puerile, so small.'' 
 
 " What ? The efibrts of philanthropy and 
 government, you mean. Yes, the new life is but 
 just born : men have not learnt to stand upright 
 yet ; very few have got above their individual 
 selves." 
 
 "So few ! — none, none ! " exclaimed Piers. 
 
 " Here, yes — perhaps only one or two ; but 
 elsewhere there is a grand life breathing feebly, 
 whose infant sighs I have just faintly heard, but 
 they know little of it here yet. It was born in 
 Paris, but still, its nursery must be London ; its
 
 LESCAR. 191 
 
 school will be, as always, Germany : and I fancy 
 many of its champions are liereT 
 
 " Here — at Cambridge ? '* 
 
 " Yes ; and, more than at Cambridge, over Eng- 
 land. I have seen it many times since I came. 
 There are prophets of the new human creed 
 universal, springing up over the length and 
 breadth of this land ; but they have not learnt 
 their new tongue yet, — they talk often, I tell you, 
 in language they cannot interpret for themselves." 
 
 ''And you?" 
 
 " By the light of some things I know, I can 
 often interpret ; but you shall hear us all. Ha ! 
 I have gone off somehow on my topics, and have 
 bored you already with what most of the fellows 
 call, when they hear me, * the unknown tongues.' " 
 
 " I think I follow what you mean." 
 
 " I wonder how we came to talk about it. 
 What is it ? I think we could understand each 
 other. Will you come in ? Here we are. This 
 is my room. Where are you — in the corridor 
 above? Come in, do." 
 
 They had sauntered into the quadrangle as they 
 talked, and, eager and engrossed in their discus- 
 sion and in each other, they had 'separated from 
 the rest, and walked side by side up the stone 
 staircase. Piers scarce noticing where they went,
 
 192 LESCAR. 
 
 while Victor led him instinctively to the door of 
 his own room. 
 
 " Come in," he repeated, and Piers entered. 
 
 It was one of those apartments that revealed 
 immediately, infinite little traits of the versatile 
 character of its owner. It announced his artistic 
 tastes. There in the corner was the piano, so 
 obnoxious (though he had almost forgotten it) in 
 Piers's eyes ; over the mantelpiece, a French sword, 
 a mask, and fencing- foils ; on one side a buffet, 
 bearing racing-cups, silver boats, and sundry 
 athletic's trophies; on the walls some beautiful 
 prints, historical, poetical, and patriotic ; among 
 them, above Victor's own writing-table, a photo- 
 graph of Le Grand St. Marteau, and the little 
 chapel there, in the Protestant cemetery, where 
 the best part of the boy's heart still lay. 
 
 On marble pedestals stood choice models of 
 characteristic bits of Grecian statuary — " The 
 Athlete," "The Quoit-players," "The Wrestlers;" 
 and in a conspicuous place, a beautiful bust of 
 Mazzini. 
 
 Piers pointed to this immediately. 
 
 "That tells a political tale," he said. 
 
 " You mean, reveals a poKtical bias. VTell, partly 
 so. I sympathise with him in many points ; I 
 admire him in more."
 
 LESCAR. 193 
 
 " And combined sympathy and admiration for 
 Mazzini constitute " 
 
 "A revolutionist, you were going" to say. No, 
 not necessarily. There is so much to call forth 
 sympathy for himself : that passionate tenderness 
 for his beautiful country ; the grandeur, so un- 
 selfish and so high-strung, of his idealism ; the 
 disappointment with men and motives that met 
 him, repeated again and again, from the hour of 
 his first patriotic action, when he joined the 
 Carbonari, to the last efibrt he made for Italy on 
 Italian soil. The instruments were always so 
 unworthy of the master's hand ; the highest goal 
 of their aspirations so far below his sublime 
 thought. And now, there is a composure and 
 grand simplicity about him that could never be 
 sympathetic with the sanguinary excitement of 
 the common revolutionist." 
 
 " Now ? " repeated Piers ; " have you seen 
 him?" 
 
 " Yes : in the course of a mission I undertook 
 lately for a cause I serve, I was introduced to his 
 presence. And since he let me talk to him, and 
 since I heard him speak, I have admired and 
 reverenced him as one of the men who most 
 embody my ideal of a champion of humanity — 
 one who can look beyond himself and his own 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 LESCAR. 
 
 career, beyond the trivial reflection of conse- 
 quence upon his own life, towards the hereafter 
 — the universal. Every subtle thought, every 
 well-weighed word, every habit of life, speak, in 
 all their humility and their simplicity, the great 
 Conspirator. Only great, because conspiring for 
 right against wrong, and for light against dark- 
 ness, — the man whose obscure existence, there in 
 London, is setting living and indelible marks upon 
 his age. You learn to appreciate the real thing — 
 the true, giant thing — the more you see of the 
 smaller ones. The great conspirators are a rare 
 species ; the small ones abound." 
 
 " Is he in London now ? " 
 
 " Yes, living in Brompton. I beHeve he goes 
 to Italy, however, immediately, under a feigned 
 name of course. I hope he will be left in peace to 
 stay there, by these blue waves that wash his 
 beloved land." 
 
 "Fancy having seen him," continued Piers, 
 thoughtfully. " And, after all, you do not call 
 yourself a revolutionist." 
 
 " Perhaps you would call me one ; but there are 
 so many questions involved in that name. I am a 
 revolutionist in one sense, and the cause I serve 
 aims certainly at revolution, but one to reach 
 other things than the words ' Crown ' and
 
 LESCAR. 195 
 
 * Government * describe, Ashton, and concerns 
 itself with more widely human interests than 
 the mere subversion of the reigning powers in 
 a single State. Do you care much for these 
 questions ? Do you concern yourself deeply with 
 the condition of men ? '' 
 
 " There is nothing else I do care for much," 
 Piers answered. " I never think of anything 
 but poHtics in that sort of light — how things 
 are to be put to rights ; but I do not arrive at 
 much theory in the matter yet.*' 
 
 " Ah ! I see we shall have many a talk," ex- 
 claimed Victor. " Can we not tell each other our 
 ideas ? Cannot you tell me how the dream has 
 come to you ? And I will tell you (but quietly, 
 ' dans I'oreille,' as we say) a dream of — France. 
 I suppose I may tell you ; at least, I will write and 
 ask if I may. I wonder what makes me talk to 
 you now, Ashton : I wonder what has brought 
 us together to-night. What is it ? I like to 
 talk to you. Are you going ? " he went on im- 
 pulsively. 
 
 " Yes, I must be off. It is late, surely.'' 
 
 " Come again, then, will you not ? " continued 
 Victor, with that winning voice and manner of 
 his, so singularly un-English, and so curiously 
 in contrast with Piers's undemonstrative ways.
 
 196 LESCAR. 
 
 " Come back ; and, ah ! we shall meet this 
 evening. ThessuUson takes you to the conver- 
 sazione, does he not ? " 
 
 ** Yes, I believe I am to go." 
 *' Adieu then — or rather, au revoir." 
 Thus these two met. This was the first even- 
 ing, and the first of many long confabulations 
 they had together on ideas — on men — on things. 
 Thus Piers broke his resolution against friend- 
 ship ; thus, he began the experience of his college 
 life, — an experience intended to be lengthy, 
 destined to be very short ; but of which the 
 influence on his history and character was con- 
 siderable. 
 
 His friendship (springing from that first even- 
 ing's conversation) with Victor Lescar accounted 
 for part of this ; while the curious and varied 
 circle of associates in which they both spent their 
 college-term accounted for more.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " Wir aber, wollen kampfen, wie da e3 vorgethan 
 In Hofifnung und in Liebe, mit Glaube angethan 
 Die Ewigkeit vor Augen, Wahrschaftigkeit im Sinn, 
 Und geben fiir die Wahrbeit das Leben willig bin ! " 
 
 BuNSEN TO Arnold. 
 
 When Victor described tiie circle in which he 
 lived at Cambridge, as a nucleus of strong, new, 
 though embryonic thought, he was echoing the 
 enthusiastic sentiments with which minds, now 
 fully matured and high in the ranks of literary 
 and political distinction, look back to the in- 
 fluence, at once delightful in experience, life-long 
 in its endurance, which had its spring in the 
 centre of the Conversazione Society of the Cam- 
 bridge apostles. 
 
 Like Balzac's ^'Conseil de Douze," a union 
 for mutual encouragement, mutual criticism — 
 perhaps, by the force of youth and ardent enthu- 
 siasm, Kke Balzac's, for " mutual admiration " as 
 well, — intellect reflecting intellect, flint striking
 
 198 LESCAR. 
 
 with, steel, — it was often a wonderful coterie of 
 brilliant young minds. 
 
 In searching back through the mental history 
 of any period, it is striking, again and again, in 
 a nation or an age, to recognise, by the light 
 of succeeding events, the unsuspected nucleus 
 from which the currents of certain influences first 
 sprang. 
 
 These nuclei of fruitful thought are especially 
 to be found, buried in the annals of the sister 
 Universities : and undoubtedly, if their internal 
 history could be unravelled, the sources would be 
 discovered of nearly all the contending streams 
 of thought that from time to time have flooded 
 the channels of opinion. 
 
 Again in the history of the Universities, as 
 we read them through the telescope of biography, 
 we select here and there telling and important 
 epochs, when this existing nucleus contained 
 latent germs of thought destined to declare 
 themselves vital and world-wide. 
 
 Such a period, among many, was perhaps the year 
 '42, when Chevalier Christian de Bunsen found 
 a conclave of young thinkers at Oxford, whose 
 names are now famous and familiar as leaders 
 each of their own particular school — men who 
 have given existence to the terms High Church,
 
 LESCAR. 199 
 
 Low Cliurcli, and Broad Cliurcli — men wlio 
 have since become the parents of opinions 
 widely received, vigorously maintained, and all 
 mutually and strongly in opposition. 
 
 Such periods, looking back through centuries 
 of a country's history, through generations of 
 thinking men, recur again and again ; and one 
 of them was perhaps dawning into life, at that 
 very time when Piers Ashton first took his place 
 among the " Conseil de Douze/' 
 
 Ten years ago, there were opinions, latent, 
 suspected, sometimes whispered, that have become 
 common and familiar now. There were political 
 views fermenting, unleavened, in hidden corners — 
 views that have since become a "fashion." And 
 in those days there were men, dimly unsatisfied, 
 wistfully searching, threatened with suspicions 
 solemn and awing to themselves ; — men who 
 faced with reverence deep questions, on which 
 every shallow-minded babbler in our days is 
 ready to announce himself convinced ; — men who 
 saw rocky dangers looming in the stormy spiritual 
 seas, and who gave birth to deep thoughts that 
 other men, vain-glorious and irreverent, have 
 since grasped and appropriated — not understood — 
 have distorted to their own advantage, and have 
 degraded to fit their own selfish lives.
 
 200 LESCAR. 
 
 There are would-be thinkers abounding now. 
 who mistake the lack of veneration within their 
 own unbalanced brains for the power of a clear 
 sight, and for the courage that can profess 
 "free thought." Often, as we hear them an- 
 nounce around us their liberty of opinion, their 
 easily formed convictions on the state of things, 
 our minds revert to those glowing lines that 
 Bunsen wrote, in memoriam of his friend Arthur 
 Arnold, and we feel convinced that these loud- 
 talking opinionists can have no real knowledge, no 
 experience in their own souls, of that battle of 
 which he speaks, as the struggle towards the 
 dawn of new aspects of truth : — 
 
 "Da liast mit uns gekampfet das Glaubens heil'gen Kampf, 
 Fiir alle tief empftinden der bittren Leiden Krampf ; 
 Du salist der Mensclilieit nahen, Gericht tind bl&tgen Streit 
 Klar stand vor deinen Augen der jammer dieser Zeit." 
 
 "Free-thought" is touching closely to "no- 
 thought " in this our day. 
 
 Ten years ago, in the " Conseil de Douze '' at 
 Cambridge there was thought enough. 
 
 "When Piers first took his place among them, 
 he had been a week at college. He had got into 
 the swing of his work ; he was settling steadily 
 into harness ; he was beginning thoroughly to 
 enjoy the life.
 
 LESCAR. 201 
 
 For it was " life " almost for the first time to him 
 — S}Tnpathetically and intellectually satisfying. 
 
 It was very delightful : young vigorous minds, 
 hungering daily for new mental food, and rich 
 plenitude to meet them, then companionship 
 winning upon him in spite of himself. They 
 were all so kind and hearty : Frederick Thes- 
 suUson full of brotherly interest, always gentle 
 and grave ; and, Victor Lescar, with him morn- 
 ing, noon, and far into every night, charming 
 that reserved and silent nature, like a constant 
 and fresh -springing current of sweet water to a 
 thirsty man. 
 
 Piers grew, in spite himself, eager, interested, 
 and happy. 
 
 One evening stood out especially clear in his 
 recollection of that Cambridge time. Partly 
 because it was the proud moment when he found 
 himself seated in the mystic circle, a duly elected 
 member of the Conversazione Society. And still 
 more because words were spoken in the Society 
 rooms that evening, the memory of which, for 
 him and for Victor, never seemed to die. 
 
 It was the night of Frederick Thessullson's 
 lecture, and men were excited and expectant. 
 There had been much said lately in this council- 
 chamber on the subject of "Liberty;" it had
 
 202 
 
 LESCAR. 
 
 been treated from many points of view, spiritual 
 and political, and mucli curiosity was felt as to 
 the views that would be adopted to-night. 
 
 Thessullson was known to have strong well- 
 formed opinions, and some peculiar to himself, and 
 it was moreover suspected that he had listened 
 with little sympathy to much that had been 
 spoken of late. To get him to lecture at all, was 
 a great thing. He was a thinker, a writer, an 
 active worker in his own line ; but, although pre- 
 sident of the Society, his speech was rare. He 
 had no oratorical talent, though he could express 
 his own views with energy and force. 
 
 As they stood together, and talked in eager 
 and earnest tones, his waiting audience presented 
 a curious group. There was Henry Yere, the 
 dark- eyed poet, the dreamy-faced boy who had 
 argued with Victor on the field the other day. 
 He had been to America, had caught the breeze 
 of a new fervent life flowing hot and strongly 
 there. His verse has gone ringing through the 
 world since then, and is making its voice heard 
 far and near — the accents of a strange tongue, 
 speaking in language beautiful and luxuriant, 
 hard to understand. Edgar Poe, Walt Whit- 
 man, and many others are teachers in his school ; 
 they all sing the accents of that mysterious Hfe,
 
 LESCAR. 203 
 
 struggling into existence, striving to make itself 
 intelligibly heard ; but tbey sing in accents wild 
 and strange. Time, the interpreter — time, the 
 true test — time, tbe great critic — bas yet to unyeil 
 tbeir meaning, to decide tbeir soundness, tbeir 
 value, and tbeir trutb. Meanwbile, Henry Yere 
 was tbe Poet of tbe Apostles when Piers took 
 bis place in tbe Society's room. 
 
 Tbere were otber types of men — men with 
 keen, subtle intellects, young pbilosopbers, incre- 
 dulous and Epicurean, wbo studied and preacbed 
 tbe ingenious self -pleasing doctrines of "Eat, 
 drink, for to-morrow we die.'* Tbere were pbilo- 
 sopbers materialistic, men wbo bad decided and 
 were content to regard tbemselves as electrified 
 bodies, destined to evaporate into gaseous matter 
 as tbe ultimate result of tbeir being. " Dust we 
 are, and imto dust we sball return." Yirtually, 
 tbougb tbey did not quote nor adopt tbe motto, 
 tbis was tbeir creed. 
 
 Tbere were men wbo bad political opinions 
 avowedly republican — men of tbe revolutionary 
 communistic class — men of visionary Utopian 
 Socialism ; and tbere were many men of intel- 
 lects, brigbt and beautiful and bigb strung as 
 Frederick TbessuUson or Yictor Lescar. A curious 
 variety : no wonder Yictor found among tbem
 
 204 LESCAR. 
 
 food, exercise, and excitement for his versatile 
 mind ; no wonder that Frederick ThessuUson sat 
 there, at their head, grave and absorbed. 
 
 At last, with a quiet sparkle in his dark, soft 
 eye, and amid a murmur of greeting, ThessuUson 
 rose. There was silence for a moment, as the 
 applause died; the circle of faces, keen and ex- 
 pectant, was turned upon him ; every eye looked 
 up to him. The hush of an awaiting moment ; 
 then, without hesitation, he began : — 
 
 " When Leonidas led those three hundred of 
 Sparta in that glorious rally, for their country's 
 cause, the war-cry that rang throughout Greece, 
 inspiring his little band with the superhuman 
 valour that won their immortal names, was the 
 word — Liberty — Liberty ! — the shout rose from 
 shore to shore of ancient Hellas ; the soldiers 
 of Thermopylae answered with their life's blood ; 
 the heroes of Salamis and Platsea caught up the 
 echo ; the mighty conqueror was driven back to 
 his Lydian city on the Pactolus ; the Persian 
 perished, and Greece remained free. 
 
 "When the pavement of the Roman senate- 
 house was stained with a crimson stream from a 
 Csesar's bosom, and the great Dictator fell beneath 
 the assassin's blow, the shout that rose unbidden 
 from the hearts of the Roman populace, pene-
 
 LESCAR. 205 
 
 trating the walls of the senate-house, drowning 
 the wary accents of Mark Anthony's voice, was 
 again — Liberty ! 
 
 " From age to age, from nation to nation, the 
 cry is echoed, caught up and tossed back again, 
 Liberty I liberty ! — the passionate necessity of the 
 human heart. 
 
 *' In Greece the flag floated, often brave and 
 beautiful, cheering into a transient flicker the 
 pure national life that was doomed to die. In 
 Rome it was unfurled in many a vain protest 
 against the crushing power of national decadence 
 and enervation that came rolHng irresistibly on. 
 
 " In northern latitudes, among rugged and 
 simpler nations, it Kved earlier, lived stronger, 
 lived with a vitality and energy all-animating and 
 irrepressible. The standard was firmly planted 
 in Britain centuries ago ; it has waved over 
 America ; it has been the watchword of Switzer- 
 land ; it is the hope of Italy, it is the bitter need 
 of Spain ; it is the word of life unto the people ; 
 it is the spirit and power, it is the keynote of 
 nobility and regeneration, through aU the infinite 
 forms in which national decadence has overtaken 
 man. 
 
 "Liberty! the old, beautiful word. To be 
 noble, to be pure, to develop or achieve his high 
 destiny, man must be free.
 
 206 LESCAR. 
 
 " The patriots — tlie memory of whose names 
 and deeds fill our hearts, again and again, 
 with enthusiasm, all won their undying glory in 
 contest against the worst enemies of man. You 
 know well the long list of heroes ; their names, 
 as the champions of freedom, adorn the histories 
 of every nation and every age. I need not pause 
 to describe them, to recount their achievements, 
 or to paint their characters : from the patriots of 
 Greece to the last liberator of Italy, you are 
 familiar with every name on that glorious roll ; 
 and again and again your hearts have responded 
 vibrations of enthusiasm and sympathy with the 
 sentiments that inspired them, and the cause for 
 which they bled. 
 
 *' Libert}^ ! The echo of that ancient cry of the 
 patriot has not died among us yet, individually, or, 
 among the nations. Italy is in bondage, and is 
 struggling now, deep sympathy watching eagerly 
 for her success. Spain is in heavy chains; but 
 she, too, is moving, restless and murmuring, the 
 foreshadowing symptoms of the struggle upon her, 
 like a mighty creature who awakens slowly, but 
 will rise up, when her hour conies, and shake her- 
 self free. 
 
 *'And all over the world, wherever tyranny 
 holds its dark empire still, we can watch, with
 
 LESCAR. 207 
 
 glad eyes, tlie spirit of freedom moving, strong 
 and vital ; and we recognise the truth that Liberty- 
 has been planted deep and firm-rooted over the 
 world's wide surface, and that the age has come 
 when all men will be free. 
 
 " A universal spirit, enthusiastic and humane, 
 reaches from shore to shore. Tyranny lies, a 
 dying monster, and will soon be remembered as a 
 thing of history — an ancient and obsolete power. 
 
 " The work seems nearly over, the results 
 accomplished ; on all the world's surface, nations 
 will, ere long, be free. The patriot's office be- 
 comes a sinecure : there are no more chains to 
 strike from tired human wrists, no more slaves 
 to release, no more rods to break in cruel tyrants' 
 hands. And yet the spirit seems in us still, strong 
 and vital as ever ; and in all the light and large- 
 ness of our perfect freedom, in this our country 
 and in this our age. Liberty is still the passionate 
 heart's sigh — the word Liberty fires our enthu- 
 siasm — the word Liberty excites us to vague de- 
 sire, to eager efi'ort, to feverish struggle, just as 
 strongly as if we still were slaves. 
 
 " Can we account for this — this restless, un- 
 dying passion we still see swaying men? Can 
 we see the origin, the intention, the destiny, of 
 this life in our hearts, that would struggle on
 
 208 LESCAR. 
 
 towards a further acMevement, when there is 
 nothing further to be done ? — that would urge us 
 towards fresh struggle and agitation, when the 
 only result would be freedom pushed to anarchy, 
 and tranquillity and reason resigned for turmoil 
 and dismay ? 
 
 *' We would be champions still of a new liberty. 
 We pine for the patriot's sword ; we would enlist 
 under a patriot's flag. We cannot let it die, that 
 old, glorious enthusiasm; we cannot admit that 
 an age has come when there is no further scope 
 for this, the highest passion of our hearts : it is 
 vital, fervent, strong and eager still. 
 
 " My friends, pure and unselfish patriotism is 
 truly the highest passion left in the soul of man. 
 A hatred of tyranny, a loathing of darkness, an 
 enthusiasm for freedom, a hunger for light, are 
 the best sentiments to cherish in a man as in a 
 nation. Eeadiness for self-sacrifice, noble and 
 heroic, fervent desire for a soldier's part in some 
 great crusade, a pulse throbbing, eager for im- 
 mortal and patriotic deeds, describe the heart of 
 a man or a people, in conditions sufficiently 
 sublime and high strung to ensure against 
 enervation and decay. 
 
 " Must these sentiments die, then, with accom- 
 plishment, with civilisation ? Must a country's
 
 LESCAR. 209 
 
 tranquillity be bought by tbe annibilation of the 
 strongest sentiments of its noblest hearts ? Are 
 the days gone for ever when battles may be 
 fought with patriotic fervour for human freedom ; 
 and have we reached so perfect and complete a 
 state that there is no more use for the soldiers 
 of liberty among men ? Is there no army, no 
 leaders, no liberty-struggle, no national redemp- 
 tion, to be accomplished still ? " 
 
 *' All crusades have had their leader, and I am 
 not speaking metaphorically, but from my own 
 convictions, the words of practical historic fact, 
 when I tell you that there has been a Leader 
 among men whose crusade is still imaccom- 
 plished, whose enemies are still unconquered, 
 whose glorious dream of liberty is still un- 
 achieved. And I am not speaking in language 
 of poetic figure, when I assert that He is still 
 sounding his war-call in every heart among us, 
 and that these passionate feverish yearnings of 
 our spirits are our hearts' unconscious answer to 
 his message and his call. 
 
 " He came to a nation in bonds ; He came 
 under a rule of tyranny as dark and cruel as the 
 world has ever known. He spoke the words of a 
 freedom that would be world-wide and undying ; 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 • LESCAR. 
 
 He pointed to victories destined to regenerate 
 man. 
 
 " I will speak of him here but in one sense. I 
 will not soar to the sublime heights where the 
 mysteries of his existence are veiled among 
 things spiritual and divine : I will not strive to 
 penetrate the depths which He sounded in the 
 hidden secrets of the destiny of our race. 
 
 " Here, among men of diverse professions, of 
 opposite opinions, of infinite grades of thought, I 
 will point to Him only as a Leader and Com- 
 mander among the people, — the greatest philo- 
 sophic Teacher, the purest Patriot, that has ever 
 appeared among men. 
 
 " A glorious Leader, with weapons of a novel 
 kind. ' Put up thy sword into its sheath ; ' * ye 
 shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
 you free ; ' * redeemed from bondage into a 
 glorious liberty,' Other champions of their 
 nations' freedom drew forth their swords for 
 bloodshed,— sent the fiery cross flashing 
 ominously over the lands. He drew no sword, 
 He unfurled no conspicuous banner. He had no 
 far-sounding war-cry ; but He left his words — 
 words simple and easy to be understood, — and 
 they have filtered down through generations, they 
 have flowed gently but irresistibly from shore to
 
 LESCAE. 211 
 
 shore, and they have gathered together a vast 
 army of patriots, nerved with love, heroism, and 
 humanity, ready to die. 
 
 " I will say little more : you recognise my 
 Leader ; you know now the liberty of which I 
 would speak. I have said He had no war-cry ; 
 but, as I close, the memory comes to me of one 
 day in the history of Imperial Rome, when a 
 foreigner, an enfranchised slave, pronounced in 
 the public theatre the well-known line, ' Homo 
 sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto,' and was 
 answered by outbursts of applause from despotic 
 slave-holders, from exclusive patricians, assembled 
 there. "What Tacitus calls ' the conscience of 
 humanity ' had been touched suddenly by that 
 exclamation, and found expression in these ap- 
 plauding cries. 
 
 " My Leader's appeal is like this to the heart 
 and sleeping conscience of man. His war-call 
 may be condensed into the language of thiit 
 Roman slave ; for his battle-field embraces every 
 habitation of humanity, his foes are found in 
 every enemy of our race. Suffering, poverty, 
 ignorance, and sin, — these are his foes : in the 
 war against them He calls his soldiers to be ready 
 to outpour their blood as He did, and to lay down 
 all the sweetness of their lives.
 
 212 LESCAR. 
 
 " My friends, we are still in this slavery ; we 
 are still panting to be free. Our brethren lie still 
 in darkness ; lieavy chains of bitter suffering still 
 bruise the limbs of the children of men. This 
 liondage lies even upon this, our own nation, that 
 in one sense we justly boast so free. Free we 
 are ; liberty we have, full and sufficient in all that 
 regards forms of government and systems of 
 control : but ignorance crowds around us, still 
 crying for light ; poverty and pauperism still 
 vshame our opulence ; sickness and crime still 
 wring from our people many a needless tear ; 
 and sin remains unconquered, — it wastes and 
 consumes us still. 
 
 " See to these things : let idle questions die. 
 Look into that glorious liberty our true Leader 
 has announced to us, and think deeply what it 
 may mean. Enter his lists, join in his struggle, 
 and let it be seen that the old patriotism, the old 
 glorious enthusiastic fire, has not died out, is not 
 wasting itself in excitement of selfish folly, is 
 not expending its power in theories dangerous 
 and false, but is living still, full, as of old, of high 
 aims, of sublime aspirations and deep humanity, 
 ready to rush into the battle for liberty, for light, 
 keen as ever to conquer, or willing as of old to 
 lay down, in the weariness of a daily combat, or
 
 LESCAR. 21'i 
 
 'neath some sudden mortal blow, the life that has 
 been wholly devoted to the great cause that is 
 true liberty indeed." 
 
 " ThessuUson's the only fellow in the Society 
 whom one could stand to have preaching like that," 
 said one man, as later in the evening, after some 
 further discussion, they all sauntered together 
 from the room. 
 
 " Yes, he airs his own views ; but there is 
 something one does not mind about him," said 
 another. '' I like to see his quiet face lighting 
 up, and I like to listen to him, too, just now and 
 then." 
 
 " Perhaps ; but if the philosophic discourses of 
 the Society were not more profound or more 
 unorthodox than his, we might throw open the 
 room for the Sunday-school children to learn the 
 way they should go. He starts from all the old 
 ground of non-proven hypothesis. There is not 
 much research or power of logic needed to follow 
 his ideas." 
 
 " He'll do nobody any harm in his genera- 
 tion," said another man lightly ; and then with a 
 few more remarks and some curt good-nights, 
 they separated to their respective rooms.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "And conscious that to find in martyrdom 
 The stamp and signet of most perfect life, 
 Is all the science that mankind can reach, 
 Kejoicing fight, and, still rejoicing — fall." 
 
 E. M. MiLNES. 
 
 *' Come back with me to my room, will you ? " 
 said Yictor to Piers. " Come, will you not ? " 
 
 " I thought of going to Frederick," said Piers. 
 
 " No, do not do that ; he is tired. I know he 
 wants to be alone now ; he always does after one 
 of those inspirations of his. Besides, come with 
 me, I want you," he added, impulsively putting 
 his hand within the other's arm. "I want to 
 talk to you, mon cher. I feel I must talk to some 
 one to-night, and you are the only man I care to 
 have. Come, do." 
 
 And Piers went with him. 
 
 It was impossible for him, in the least, to 
 explain to himself the wonderful fascination with
 
 LESCAR. 215 
 
 whicli tliis Frencli boy was winning upon him 
 day by day. The tender grace,, the naive sim- 
 plicity and bo\ishness, that distinguished Victor 
 in 80 pecuKar a degree, seemed to come over Piers 
 with a force of influence that astonished him. 
 The current of sympathetic and devoted friend- 
 ship had certainly sprung up between the two, 
 with that enthusiasm, rapid and enduring, which 
 is a gift only granted to — our youth. 
 
 Those who will have friendships, must make 
 them young ! then it is that they spring up, 
 strong, bright, and very beautiful, second only 
 in their power and sweetness to the spring of 
 love. 
 
 ''Come with me," went on Victor; and he 
 drew Piers, forgetful of the night's work still 
 before him, into his room. 
 
 " Sit down," he said. " There ! " as Piers 
 threw himself into the big chair ; '' now, talk to 
 me." He turned away to the open window, 
 however, and continued talking himself. '' How 
 splendid the stars are over the dull old Cam 
 there ! And, look out ; can you see Luna rising 
 over the tower of St. Saviour's ? Splendid, is it 
 not ? But you never have a sky here like we 
 have in France. Do not get up : sit still, will 
 you not ? Do you mind if I play to you ? "
 
 216 LESCAR. 
 
 And he disappeared behind the piano. 
 
 " I never arrive at understanding how a man 
 can play," Piers exclaimed. This playing was 
 the one thing he never could get over in his 
 friend ; "1 never arrive at understanding it." 
 
 " I am afraid you arrive at hearing it pretty 
 often," answered Victor, as he struck a few 
 chords. " I fear I often penetrate my own ceiling, 
 and, by consequence, your floor." 
 
 " I do not mind it," said Piers ; and he would 
 have been as great a bear as he liked to think 
 himself, if he had. 
 
 These chords, soft and beautiful, struck with a 
 touch clear, vigorous, and delicate, must have 
 influenced any soul irresistibly, as they did his, 
 with a soothed and delicious sense of their com- 
 pleteness and harmony. 
 
 They were both silent for a moment, as Victor 
 struck chord after chord ; and then suddenly he 
 began to sing, in German, with a ringing, vigor- 
 ous voice. He sang, from La Motte-Fouque, 
 Ewald's song on the grave of Aslauga's knight. 
 The translation would be something in this way : — 
 
 " Listening to celestial lays, 
 Bending thine unclouded gaze 
 On the pure and living Light, 
 Thou art blest, Aslauga's knight.
 
 LESCAR. 217 
 
 " Send us from thy bower on high 
 Many an angel melody, 
 Many a vision soft and bright, 
 Aslauga's dear and faithful knight." 
 
 He paused a moment, then struck vigorously 
 the chords of another theme, and began again. 
 This time Piers understood the language as well 
 as the spirit of the song : — 
 
 "The minstrel boy to the wars is gone, 
 
 In the ranks of death you'll find him ; 
 His father's sword he has girded on, 
 
 And his wild harp slung behind him. 
 * Land of song,' said the warrior bard, 
 
 * Though all the world betray thee, 
 One sword at least thy rights shall guard, 
 
 One faithful heart shall praise thee.' 
 
 "The minstrel fell ; but the foeman's chain 
 
 Could not bring that proud soul under ! 
 The harp he loved ne'er spoke again, 
 
 For he tore its cords asunder. 
 And said, * No chains shall sully thee, 
 
 Thou soul of love and bravery ; 
 Thy tones were made for the pure and free. 
 
 And shall never sound in slavery.' " 
 
 Victor rose from the piano instantly, as he 
 finished the last line, and came forward to where 
 Piers was sitting. 
 
 " I can understand that so well," he said ; 
 '* cannot you ? The maddening sense of ignominy 
 imder defeat, the frenzy that tore the harp-strings
 
 218 
 
 LESCAR. 
 
 and rushed into the battle to die. I could not 
 fight in a losing cause ; could you, Piers ? " 
 
 ^'I do not know. I suppose a man would 
 rather die in the moment of humiliation, than 
 live to know himself defeated." 
 
 *' That is it. I am fond of that song ; I used 
 to sing it often when I first came. But the men 
 took to calling me the ' minstrel boy ; ' and one 
 earns a name here easier than one loses it. But it 
 expresses something in me to myself; something 
 in the unsounded caverns of possibility within 
 me. No, I could not live to lose : I would lose, 
 and die. I can imagine sooner crushing out one's 
 own life, breaking one's weapons, wrenching the 
 sweet harp-strings asunder, and flinging them 
 away in despair, far sooner than I could confess 
 my cause a lost one, and myself a defeated man." 
 
 *' You look more a man to conquer than to be 
 conquered," said Piers. "You always succeed 
 in everything you try to do. I should call you 
 eminently a winning man." 
 
 "Ah ! there are so many sides to me, and so 
 many possibilities in the vagaries of my life. 
 But I like these sweet stirring ballads : I always 
 think what it must have been, the first time 
 when men heard them sung by the composers 
 themselves. Imagine some Cambridge wine-
 
 LESCAR. 219 
 
 party, when Ben Jonson would break out with 
 his ' Drink to me only ; ' or Tom Moore, with his 
 'Minstrel Boy/ coming fresh upon everybody. 
 I do not know why I should sing that song to- 
 night. Do not think it frivolous of me, Ashton, 
 to sit down to troll a ballad, after listening to 
 such words as Thessullson has spoken to us. In 
 reality, the song was inspired, at the moment, by 
 something in Thessullson himself." 
 
 " There is something wonderfully — what shall 
 I call it ? — effective about him when he speaks, 
 certainly." 
 
 " Yes," continued Yictor eagerly, putting into 
 more poetic words the idea Piers was puzzling 
 to convey, " there is the old ardour of the spot- 
 less knight in those quiet brown eyes of his ; 
 there is winning music in his voice, sweet per- 
 suasion in his manner ; all the gentle weapons of 
 the warfare he has chosen for his own." 
 
 ''And he will fight pluckily, I do not doubt," 
 said Ashton. 
 
 " Yes ; he will fight till he dies. That is just 
 it : he will be valiant to the very end ; and it is 
 such a hard, dreary battle-field he is going to 
 enter. I do not know why the ' Minstrel Boy ' 
 came into my head at his warm chivalrous words ,* 
 but I thought without ceasing, during the last
 
 220 LESCAR. 
 
 moments he was speaking, of his chosen warfare 
 to come. How jarred the sweet harmonies of his 
 gentle spirit will often be, how broken the harp's 
 very life- strings, ere he will cease to struggle ; 
 and how little he may meet, as he rushes to fling 
 himself into the breach, but defeat, bitterness, 
 and despair." 
 
 " He is not a man to despair." 
 
 " No ; but he is a man to — die." 
 
 *' Perhaps," said Piers. *' He is a fine fellow." 
 
 And they were silent again ; Victor humming, 
 in a low tone, his favourite song. 
 
 Long after, when years had passed, and events 
 had hurried on. Piers recalled often that evening, 
 remembering at once the singer, his words, the 
 subject of his friendly enthusiasm, and his song. 
 The song may be sung by " other lips: " all else 
 how changed ! 
 
 "How often," said Victor, suddenly, "I have 
 heard the very words he spoke to-night, again 
 and again, in such different scenes, from such 
 different men." 
 
 "Abroad ?" said Piers. 
 
 " Yes ; long ago, in my early youth, I first 
 heard them in Paris; then in Germany again, 
 the same thing taken from a less spiritual, a more 
 philosophical point of view ; and now, lately.
 
 LESCAR. 221 
 
 It is wonderful ! it is tlie same language, the 
 utterance of the same inner life." 
 
 "I do not understand you yet, Victor," Piers 
 answered. " You often puzzle me, and still I 
 seem to have instinctive sympathy with every 
 word you say. What is it you talk of? What 
 is the language of the new life ? Cannot you 
 show it to me ? — cannot you let me know it too ?" 
 
 " Shall I take you back with me a convert ?" 
 said the other, with a smile — " a convert to the 
 great new faith that is to unite and to regenerate 
 men ? Thessullson preached it to-night : many 
 preach it every day ; but they do not understand 
 themselves, because they have not entered the 
 great bond of fellowship — they have not em- 
 braced the new faith." 
 
 " But what ? Explain to me, Victor." 
 
 " It is what Frederick spoke of — the love that 
 is to bind nation to nation, strength to strength, 
 hand to hand, and man to man, — the life-currents 
 of a new sympathy, that is to unite the world, — 
 the victories of a bloodless war, that are to win 
 happiness for all." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "It would take long to tell you," he said. 
 " And, as yet, I scarce know if I may. But it is 
 a glorious dream. Piers, when you think how
 
 222 LESCAR. 
 
 men have suffered, and have wept : it is a 
 splendid thought to think that it may all be, one 
 day, no more.'^ 
 
 " Tell me, Victor, tell me,'* Piers urged him 
 still ; but Victor would not continue. 
 
 He went to the piano, and played in versatile 
 strains, and then came back and conversed again, 
 but lightly now, and of changed topics — of their 
 studies and their favourite books, and of many 
 things ; and so they talked, and played, and dis- 
 coursed together far into the night. 
 
 It was only just as they were parting, that 
 Lescar again referred to his former words. He 
 had taken Piers 's hand in his with the impulsive 
 tenderness of his nature, and he put one hand 
 upon his friend's shoulder and looked into his 
 face. 
 
 ^' I do not like not to tell you everything," he 
 said, " I do not like to keep anything from you, 
 my friend ; but I have written, and, when leave 
 comes to me to do so, I will speak to you of all 
 that lies in my prospects, of all that lives in my 
 hopes and in my heart. Adieu, mon cher."
 
 CHAPTER XIII, 
 
 " Irene, I have loved you, as men love flowers, 
 Light, music, sunshine, beauty — love itself." 
 
 " Have faith in friendship, worship love; but forget not that 
 neither friendship nor love is happiness. They are two wings 
 bestowed by God upon your soul. Not that you should stag- 
 nate in mere enjoyment, but that you should soar thereon in 
 longings and aspirations to worthier heights." 
 
 George Sand. 
 
 It was a happy and deliglitful time that these 
 two enjoyed together, as their friendship grew 
 strong and matured, as months went on, and 
 they drank at the same springs of thought, ex- 
 plored the same rich treasure-mines, mingled the 
 currents of their intellects, or flashed their keen 
 wits in sharp mental skirmish. 
 
 How that gay, versatile temperament lit up 
 Piers's sombre spirits ! How those sunny smiles 
 seemed to sweeten his shadowy heart ! How 
 forgotten were his old austere, misanthropical 
 schemes of self-isolation. 
 
 Indeed, it was impossible to know Victor
 
 224 LESCAR. 
 
 Lescar, and not to love him ; impossible to watch 
 his graceful ways, to meet the sweet glance 
 of his bright blue eyes, to hear his boyish 
 voice discourse with gravity on solemn and deep- 
 searching themes, — impossible to apprehend his 
 nature, with all its versatile charms of heart 
 and intellect, without admiring and remember- 
 ing him as a noble young creature, gifted and 
 bright. 
 
 That versatile element in his character often 
 puzzled Piers. He seemed constantly to come 
 upon something unexpected and new ; each time 
 more different from himself, and each time 
 drawing out, or creating afresh, some new sensi- 
 bility, some new range of appreciation, in his own 
 self-concentrated being. 
 
 Now and then Yictor irritated him by starting 
 some vagary of sentiment or opinion, running 
 directly against some strong prejudice which 
 Piers thought they shared. 
 
 He never tcov.Id take life, for instance, as a 
 habit, "au grand serieux," in the solemn and 
 somewhat ponderous way that was Piers' s habit to 
 view it. 
 
 '' There is beauty and brightness and music," 
 he would say, "in this world of ours, though 
 there be sorrow and sadness as well. But
 
 LESCAR. 225 
 
 the sun shines, and the spirit reflects it bright 
 and sparkling : let us be thankful and re- 
 joice." 
 
 Music always came to him, when any stirring 
 thought woke up the sensibility of his being. It 
 flowed forth in music varied as himself; and 
 Piers had to listen, often discontented, though 
 half resigned. 
 
 But it did irritate him sometimes, for Victor 
 had a way of answering with music, or responding 
 with a song, when Piers wanted solemn argument 
 and a logical deduction from facts. 
 
 One evening, for instance, he came down to his 
 friend's room, with his " Plato " under his arm. 
 He had been hard at work over the " Crito '' all the 
 afternoon, and now he wanted Victor to hear his 
 translation of the dialogue in prison. He wanted 
 him to peruse some dry notes he had made on the 
 argument of " Crito ; " so down he rushed, the 
 bulky volume under his arm, a lexicon in one hand, 
 and his papers in the other. 
 
 There was Victor at the obnoxious piano. 
 
 *' What ! '^ he said, as Piers came up to him ; 
 ' Crito,' is it, my friend ? Yes : I did it once, 
 but I never got beyond the dream in my trans- 
 lation. I stopped there, I remember, and sat 
 down to harmonise on it. Listen I I set it to a 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 LESCAR. 
 
 sort of recitative ; " and lie played a little mur- 
 muring accompaniment and chanted — 
 
 " ' On the third day, Socrates, Phithia, the 
 fertile, thou wilt surely reach ' 
 
 '' It comes in with such pathos and poetry just 
 there — all that about the dream, in the middle of 
 their dry discourse.'* 
 
 ^^Do stop that nonsense, and listen to my 
 translation, Yic. Look here : I cannot get the 
 rendering of this passage right." 
 
 '' Oh, my dear companion," continued Victor 
 chanting on, a poetic parody of Crito's rhythm 
 — " As the Corybantes, under the inspiration 
 of the goddess Ceres, heard the sacred flutes 
 ever flowing sweet, ever lingering in their ears, 
 excluding all other sound, so, certain sweet things 
 ring in my brain this evening ; and I pray thee 
 to lay aside, Piers, both ' Crito ' and ^ So- 
 crates,' and listen to me instead. I have just set 
 this to music. Do not be angry, my friend ; I can- 
 not tyrannise over my spirit sufficiently to-night 
 to bend it to * Plato ' in any phase, or to come to 
 any rational conclusion whether Socrates ought or 
 ought not to have died. Listen, Piers ; it is from 
 the Tannhauser — the translation by Julian Yane : 
 
 " ' Love is my theme : sing her awake, 
 My harp ; for she has tamely slept 
 My whole life long, a stagnant lake. 
 O'er which a shivering star has crept.
 
 LESCAK. 227 
 
 Awake, dull waters, from your sleep ; 
 
 Rise, Love, from thy delicious well — 
 A fountain, yes — but flowing deep 
 
 With nectar and with hydromeL' 
 
 " ' With tender murmurs sweet/ '^ lie was going 
 on again, but Piers's indignation arrested him. 
 
 " Well, I never expected to hear ijou take to 
 sentimental stuff of that kind," he exclaimed, as 
 he flung down his " Plato " in despair. 
 
 Victor paused, and looked up at him with a 
 little quizzical smile ; then, with provoking per- 
 sistency, he began again — 
 
 " Love among the saints of God, 
 
 Love among the hearts of men, 
 Love in every kindly sod 
 
 That breeds a violet in the glen ;" 
 Love in heaven, and love on earth, 
 
 Love in all the amorous air. 
 
 Whence comes Love ?—ah ! tell me where." 
 
 Piers looked supremely disgusted, by this time ; 
 and Victor laughed merrily, as he swept his 
 fingers softly over the notes. 
 
 " Piers," he said, " if you look so furious, you 
 will provoke me into going on. Smile on your 
 David, my stern Saul, though he will not frown 
 appropriately over your 'Crito.' Listen; these 
 are songs of sweeter themes, and themes as true. 
 If you wish to know, here is my inspiration. I 
 found it on a shop-counter to-day. I came home
 
 228 LESCAR. 
 
 and set it to music, and have been going on 
 sentimentalising ever since/' 
 
 And, regardless of Piers' s indignation, he sang 
 again — 
 
 " * Where and how shall I earliest meet her ? 
 
 What are the words she first shall say ? 
 By what name shall I learn to greet her ? 
 
 I know not now — it will come some day. 
 With the self-same sunlight shining upon her, 
 
 Shining down on her ringlets' sheen, 
 She is standing somewhere, she whom I honour, 
 
 She that I wait for — my queen, my queen.' 
 
 "I do not think yon could stand any more, 
 Piers ; but there are three verses. I hope she 
 will not wear ringlets, though ; don't you ? " 
 
 " How you find room in your head for such 
 nonsense, Victor, with all the other things you 
 have got in it besides, is more than I can con- 
 ceive," said the other. 
 
 " My dear friend," said Victor, coming over to 
 the window where Piers sat, and leaning against 
 the wall by his side, " I cannot call anything 
 nonsense that I find existing, and responsive, in 
 that type of the rest of humanity with which I 
 am best acquainted, — namely, myself." 
 
 " But, Victor, I thought you were above senti- 
 mentality. I have known you sing all kinds of 
 songs, but you have never afflicted me in that 
 vein before."
 
 LESCAR. 229 
 
 " Because, I tell you, it is latent ; it needs 
 something to rouse it : anything does — a flower, 
 a bar of music, a passing face, a line of poetry, a 
 bit of sunset. It is there. Piers." 
 
 Piers looked from the window and frowned. 
 
 " I cannot bear sentimentality," he said. " I 
 should not have thought that you were a fellow, 
 Victor, to knock under, as men do every day, to 
 eyes and eyebrows, and rosebuds, and all the rest 
 of it." 
 
 " You thought me a man without the vein of 
 the romantic in me, did you, — a piano without 
 the soft pedal — a harmony without the dulcet 
 chords ? Well, you are mistaken, Piers, in me ; 
 and, if I mistake not, in yourself as well." 
 
 "I have planned my life, as we have often 
 said, towards a certain direction — in a certain 
 way that leaves no room for waste of time over 
 nonsense," said Piers. " People do not do much 
 in this world who give themselves up to — that 
 kind of thing," he added, taking refuge in this 
 general term, with which he so often expressed 
 undefined ideas he found difficult to clothe in 
 words. 
 
 " I will tell you what I think," Victor answered. 
 " I long ago made up my mind that it was useless 
 to map out one's future without taking the whole
 
 230 LESCAR. 
 
 of one's nature into account ; useless to appoint 
 actions in one's life, making it all up according to 
 just the frame one is in now, while the heart is 
 conscious of sweet musical unsounded depths, of 
 whose strength and beauty and overruling nature 
 little glimmers of experience convince us." 
 
 " But a man, even if conscious of all that, may 
 get over it," said Piers. '^Resolve and a fixed 
 intention as to his line of life would have to assert 
 itself." 
 
 " But why should it ? To me beauty, poetry, 
 music, art of every kind, seems to condense itself 
 into that one sentiment — love, Piers ; and I am 
 convinced it ought to be a very saving thing." 
 
 "But it makes a fool of a man, these senti- 
 mental moonings, like those songs of yours. One 
 ought not to have time for sentiment in a strong 
 sort of life." 
 
 '' But I feel that my life will never be complete 
 without it," said Victor. " I have never found 
 it yet, but I know it will come — the embodiment 
 of all I feel when I enjoy art or beauty — the 
 reality of what I play — the translation, I know it 
 will be to me at last, of the sweet phantom that 
 floats past me in fair visions when I sing. I try 
 to grasp it often. Piers. I try to imagine it with 
 some fancied appearance and form, but I cannot ;
 
 LESCAR. 231 
 
 it is all cloudy and vague, but very beautiful. I 
 could not sing, or play, or have any real happi- 
 ness in my life without it." 
 
 " "What a dreamer you are, Victor ! " 
 " No, that is not dreaming ; it is but a con- 
 scious T^'aiting for a reality. I know I shall see 
 her some day ; " and he continued chanting the 
 words in a murmuring voice — 
 
 "I will give my heart to my lady's keeping, 
 And ever her strength on mine shall lean ; 
 And the stars may fall, and the angels be weeping, 
 Ere I cease to love her — my queen, my queen." 
 
 " Victor, there's no end to you," was all Piers 
 could say in the acme of his disapproval and 
 disgust. 
 
 " "Well, we shall see. There is a queen for you, 
 too, somewhere. Piers ; do not doubt it. I won- 
 der if you will be the first to succumb." 
 
 " Not I," said Piers roughly. " I dislike the 
 whole sex, you know, except — well, of course," 
 he continued, remembering two kind young faces' 
 he had found sympathetic not long ago. *' People 
 one has known all one's life are diflPerent : one 
 can stand them. That is not the kind of thing 
 you mean." 
 
 " No, not mere kindly feeling and friendship — 
 that one. has met, I have, I am sure," said Victor ;
 
 232 LESCAR. 
 
 *'but I mean tlie real thing — the utter, complete 
 subjugation of oneself, that I know is awaiting me^ 
 and you, too, I have no doubt, some day. Piers. 
 I shall enjoy seeing you take off the crown of that 
 sturdy independence and fling it at somebody's 
 feet." 
 
 '' Never ! " said the other. 
 
 *' Well, I expect it. Perhaps," he continued, 
 with a sudden grave sweetness of voice — *' perhaps 
 I have seen already what you have not. I know 
 what a beautiful influence one little gentle woman 
 may be in a whole bevy of wild lives. And perhaps 
 it is from that I have got the idea, of what a woman 
 might do for one, whose influence was all pure, 
 noble, and exalting, and who had the complete 
 rule, a woman can gain, over all the strongest 
 impulses of one's being — over one's ambition, and 
 over one's power of effort and one's standard of 
 life." 
 
 " You impute a great power to the sex, truly," 
 said Piers ; " and you make a man out a weak, 
 impressionable being." 
 
 " Not more power than they possess, if they 
 only were great enough to care to use it," said 
 Victor. " I have seen one old gentle woman who 
 had such a power ; and I know a young one who, 
 I think, will have it — the 'poicer, at least. The
 
 LESCAR. 233 
 
 tendency of the influence I may not always 
 admire." 
 
 " But a man can rule himself, surely ; and lie 
 has the choice of influence in his own hands. I 
 do not see how any fellow could have a great 
 career of any kind who began by giving himself 
 up to somebody else's rule." 
 
 "I do not suppose he does so consciously. 
 Something we call ' fate ' does it for him. But 
 we shall see. All I mean is, that it is a mistake, 
 Piers, to trample on amj of oneself, and not to 
 take our whole nature into account. I acknow- 
 ledge myself impressionable, though I have never 
 been, any more than you, impressed. And I 
 know I am enthusiastic, and I know you are also. 
 I expect we shall both learn, before life is over, 
 that love is a real and powerful, as well as it 
 should be a very beautiful and heavenly thing." 
 
 '* After that," said Piers conclusively, '^ will 
 you come back to Crito ?" 
 
 " Be tout mon cceur,'" said the other, with a 
 light laugh ; and in another moment he was deep 
 in the formation of hexameters, and in the ren- 
 dering of those subtle Socratic thoughts.
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 " The thought of God is immortal ; and though both the 
 direction and the interpretation of the apostles' mission may- 
 be transformed, the mission itself cannot cease throughout the 
 evolution of the centuries till earth's latest day. The decay of 
 a form of authority is nought other than its transmission, and 
 the death of a form of faith is nought other than its trans- 
 formation." Feligite Lammenais. 
 
 So it went on. The friendship between Piers 
 and Victor strengthened and deepened daily, and 
 many such conversations they enjoyed. We 
 pause to describe but one more evening they 
 passed together, and to chronicle but one more 
 confabulation on their mutual sentiments and 
 ideas. Then we must hurry onward to other and 
 far different scenes. 
 
 It was a lovely summer afternoon, and the 
 two stood lingering together a moment by the 
 river edge, when the sports were finished and 
 the hard day's work was done, and Victor had 
 flung himself on the sward and signed to his 
 friend to do the same. The other men had all 
 sauntered away from them, and they had just
 
 LESCAR. 235 
 
 plunged into one of their energetic talks, when a 
 childish voice just near them began to sing, and 
 they realised that, low down on the grass bank, 
 close by the river's edge, with the sluggish water 
 almost washing her tiny feet, sat a little girl with 
 a basket of daisies and cowslips she had just 
 picked on the bank lying by her, resting, before 
 she went homewards, counting her basket of 
 treasures, arranging them in little bunches in 
 her hand, and singing softly to herself the while, 
 a simple "Gloria Deus," learnt at the Sunday- 
 school. Sweet and solemn the words rose through 
 the summer air — 
 
 " Glory to the Father be ; and to the Son, the Prince of 
 Peace; and glory, Holy Spirit, to Thee," — 
 
 and so on. 
 
 The two young men were silent ; and Victor's 
 face became full of thought as he glanced up with 
 brightened eyes towards the soft-tinted summer 
 skies, and raised his cap with quiet reverence 
 from his head. 
 
 Piers watched him with his usual surprise. 
 Open demonstration of any feeling was so unlike 
 himself, that Victor's quick spontaneous ex- 
 pression of sentiment, directly it was stirred, 
 always perplexed him.
 
 236 LESCAR. 
 
 "Yictor/' lie said, as the song ceased and 
 Victor replaced his cap, " are you what they 
 would call — a religious fellow ? " 
 
 " There are so many interpretations of the 
 word," said Victor, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Yes. You are not just Thessullson's kind, 
 and yet you are not what Lawler would call 
 * emancipated.' " 
 
 " Lawler and his set would make of life and 
 its hopes and prospects a very dreary and 
 unheauteous thing," said Victor. 
 
 "I do not suppose they think any individual 
 prospects affect the question," Piers replied. 
 
 " Yes, exactly ; and thus they leave no scope for 
 the ideal. And this world is not enough for our 
 inner requirements : we must have something to 
 hope for beyond what our material eyes can see." 
 
 *' But the Society supposes itself free- thinking, 
 does it not ? Excepting Thessullson, I fancy 
 there is not a single member could venture to go 
 into the sphere of the abstract or the mystical." 
 
 " The Society professes itself ' inquiring ' cer- 
 tainly, and is supposed to resist all theory 
 founded on preconceived prejudice, or intuitive 
 perception, and to conduct all inquiry by subject- 
 ing questions to the tests of reason and proof. 
 Whether any man does do this practically within
 
 LESCAR. 237 
 
 himself, I doubt ; but, at all events, in the Society 
 we agree to do so in our inquiries together." 
 
 "But individually you doubt it." 
 
 " WeU, to tell the truth, my own feeling on 
 that subject is this. Piers : — I think it is all an 
 individual question. I think that, let men profess 
 themselves together in societies or churches, or 
 under any other name, it continues an individual 
 thing. The first moment a man sounds his own 
 spiritual necessity, and touches the sense of his own 
 mortality, the subject comes to him with force, 
 and not till then." 
 
 "But there are so many interpretations, it seems 
 to me, and it all is so thoroughly unsatisfactory." 
 
 " At the starting-point on that line of thought, 
 the difFerence of interpretation meets us as a first 
 difficulty," replied Victor. "When we come to 
 look into the question as one positively relating to 
 ourselves, we find a mingled tissue of facts and 
 metaphors so closely entwined, that we realise 
 the opposition in many creeds to have sprung up 
 simply from the impossibility of deciding what is 
 metaphor and what is historic fact." 
 
 " That is just it. What is a fellow to believe ? 
 One takes refuge naturally in the clear emphatic 
 assertions of pure reason." 
 
 " Even though we acknowledge them to be in
 
 238 LESCAR. 
 
 contradiction to our entire nature. No ; we react 
 from that. I like inquiry ; I like everything 
 that belongs to intellectual analysis intrepid and 
 free. But as I come back to myself I want more. 
 There is a faculty for the ideal that wants food for 
 hope and aspiration ; there is a need of immortality 
 that leans eagerly on promise ; there is a solitude 
 of soul that finds rest only in the inner vision, 
 and listening to the soundless voice. That is all 
 according to my nature, perhaps you will say. 
 Well, just so ; according to his own powers and 
 his own nature every man practically interprets 
 what we call religion for himself. Thus it is that 
 so many varieties of flower and fruit, by which I 
 mean differences of form and oppositions of dogma, 
 have sprung up from what is evidently the same 
 root of truth. The root was always there ; but so 
 many temperaments, national and individual, have 
 been at work upon it. Follow that thought out, 
 and it will explain a good deal. It has to me ; and 
 I have come back upon my positive requirements, 
 my own spiritual need, and I find only what is 
 comprehended in the term ' religion ' can supply 
 them. Indeed, on the fundamental points of 
 revealed religion, / feel I must say with 
 Hortense de Beauharnais, ' be assured they are 
 too necessary not to be true.' "
 
 LESCAR. 239 
 
 " But you must presuppose these susceptibilities 
 and spiritual demands awakened in a man." 
 
 "I fancy, life, death, experience, or observation of 
 both of these, do that, or are the agents in doing it." 
 
 " Yes ; a man often changes who begins with a 
 thorough unbelief." 
 
 " Men have a way of announcing their beliefs 
 sometimes before, instead of after, they have had 
 experience of either life or death ; but then men's 
 early history is so varied." 
 
 "Yes, that is true. Every fellow has not 
 had much in his youthful visions of religion 
 to make him see in it anything beautiful or 
 ideal." 
 
 '*No," said Victor, with a soft intonation in 
 his voice ; " I dare say that is the case. I suppose 
 men have very varied memories clinging round 
 them of their early days." 
 
 "I should think they have. My religious 
 recollections," said Piers sullenly, "were long 
 lectures that were abhorrent to my soul ; a grim 
 voice delivering them — the sort of voice that, if it 
 was always with him, I do not wonder drove my 
 father from home. The long spells of Church 
 Catechism ! — certainly in my early days religion 
 was a thing I detested with most sincere warmth ; 
 that I did ! "
 
 240 LESCAR. 
 
 "Ah!" said Victor, dreamily; and he was 
 silent for a moment, an absent, de^y look in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " I have not got over it, I fancy, and never 
 will," said Piers. '' And you, Yic. ? " he added, 
 in a questioning tone. 
 
 "It is a subject I hardly like to speak of, 
 because " he hesitated, " — if there is one rela- 
 tionship on earth my countrymen have succeeded 
 in making more ridiculous than another, it is a 
 man's feeling for his mother. Piers. You know 
 the ecstatic childishness with which you hear a 
 Frenchman ejaculate * ma mere ! ' I suppose it 
 is the Scotchman in me that makes me see it in 
 its absurd light ; but still if I talk to you of my 
 early days, of any teaching I ever had, I must 
 speak of her. You know. Piers, she was a Scotch- 
 woman — a Campbell. How she came to marry a 
 wild French soldier, such as my father is, I 
 cannot tell ; but that old home, and the Sunday 
 evenings, and the pretty pale face bending over 
 the huge Scotch Bible, I shall never forget, — never, 
 never. We used to read together ; and then it 
 was, I fancy, that I first caught the vein of the 
 poetic there is somewhere in me, and was 
 fascinated by the beauty of the spiritual ideal, 
 the exquisite rhythm of those grand old words,
 
 LESCAR. 241 
 
 the vivid pictures of human sentiment in its 
 strongest and most vital elements, that are 
 expressed there. I came to recognise, the older 
 I grew, Piers, I assure you I recognise it, that, as 
 it takes the whole history of man to interpret the 
 metaphor of the Bible, so without the Bible we 
 cannot interpret the allegory of man." 
 
 "You mean, his raimn d^etre .^" 
 
 "Exactly. The Bible, and only the Bible, 
 satisfies the craving to answer that question. 
 Even it leaves the answer in the region of the 
 mystical. It melts in your hands if you try to 
 dogmatize or translate materially ; but it satisfies 
 the hunger, and there is a faculty in our spirits 
 that can accept and receive the mystical and ideal." 
 
 " That is all so allegorical ; practically, it is 
 difficult to grasp anything." 
 
 " Materially it is ; not in spiritual fact, so to 
 speak. Allegory, to some minds, carries a won- 
 derful force : it carries illustration to all. To me 
 it is as strong spiritual food. My teachings have 
 come mostly in allegory, and I think even the 
 most practical opinions of my life take their 
 colour from these inner visions of the ideal. For 
 one instance, in poKtics, Piers, I suppose I would 
 be called an extreme Radical — a Communist, 
 perhaps — because I want the largest possible good 
 
 VOL. I. B.
 
 242 . LESCAR. 
 
 for the largest possible number, a more equal 
 division of tbe blessings of tbis life ; and probably 
 a Republican, because I think that, as man is con- 
 stituted, it may be that a President chosen for 
 his merits, and standing on his merits alone, 
 would fill the post of Centre and Head of the 
 people, with more earnestness, than a man who 
 assumes the position through the circumstance 
 of his birth. But still, did I ever see it my duty 
 to assist in displacing an unworthy sovereign from 
 his throne, I should do so mourning that we could 
 no longer have among us a king. I should do so 
 only because I acknowledged him individually 
 unlit to be the centre of his people's affection, or 
 to be any longer their type of the glorious Unseen. 
 * Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty : ' I 
 can never forget how the poetic idealism of those 
 words once captivated my heart ; and I can never 
 forget the thrill of excitement, as I recognised, in 
 the flush and rise of that enthusiastic feeling we 
 call ' loyalty,' the interpretation to myself of what 
 that one day may mean. I think indeed. Piers, 
 that that nation is happy where man can con- 
 scientiously love and honour their king." 
 
 ''You hold the divine right of kings?" said 
 Piers. 
 
 "To a certain extent, yes," said the other.
 
 LESCAR. 243 
 
 " And yet, and yet, when the man is unworthy, 
 if his example becomes pernicious, it is right that 
 the king should fall. But that does not alter my 
 con\action that the sentment of loyalty is a good 
 one. All our feelings in human relationships are 
 shadows to teach us spiritual things, and so I am 
 certain that the feeling of loyalty interprets and 
 typifies one of the loftiest sentiments possible to 
 our being : something above affection, something 
 apart from reverence, from anything that can be 
 substituted, or that, if loyalty were no more extant 
 among us, could be given any other name. It is 
 an enthusiasm of delight, in the vision of a Pre- 
 sence, that is indicated in that verse, apart from 
 all material benefit that might accrue to ourselves. 
 Without kings or loyalty, there would be no in- 
 terpretation found within us of these words. It 
 points a long way, that enthusiasm, to Thessull- 
 son's great Leader, — to a day, somewhere on the 
 outmost verge of our ideal, when a ' coming ' will 
 take place — when * kings shall see Him and 
 arise,' all recognising in that glorious Presence of 
 which no shadow has yet reached our hearts, 
 the Royalty of which they have been the types to 
 men." 
 
 "You are very visionary in your politics as in 
 your theology, Yic."
 
 244 LESCAR. 
 
 " I cannot help it : it all comes to me so ; and 
 tlie idea inspired in me — in contradiction to much 
 that surrounded my early days — a reverence for 
 loyalty, which I hold, against all opposition, to be 
 a deep-rooted and most ennobling sentiment in 
 man.'* 
 
 " ThessuUson's Leader," began Piers shyly. 
 " I think, Victor, from what you have often said, 
 that with all your philosophic theories, you are 
 simply a follower of his. Really you take all 
 your precepts much as Frederick does, from Him. 
 Would you call yourself a ' believer,' Vic. ? " 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Lescar, earnest^, 
 ''there are so many questions at this moment 
 circling round that Name, that a man feels 
 a great deal must remain unknown. The less 
 people dogmatize in the Athanasian line the 
 better. But if we were even to lose the sense of 
 all that is so beautiful, so ideal, and so mystical 
 in that wonderful history ; and if there were not 
 one reflecting corner in all our inner being on 
 which a shadowy vision could fall of that nature 
 described as Divine and Human ; if even it ivere 
 proved that we can accept Him solely (as many 
 here around us do) as a man of Judea, who lived 
 and died as ourselves, — He would still be my 
 Leader and my King; for He was the first
 
 LESCAR. 245 
 
 Reformer and tlie greatest Philantliropist that 
 has trod this earth ; and if we ever establish 
 among men the brotherhood, vast and universal, 
 of which we dream, it must be built up on his 
 teachings, if it is to endure. I wish all our 
 people could see this," he added in an absent 
 tone. '' That Example, standing out strong and 
 clear against the horizon of Heathen and Jewish 
 darkness, is the One Light that could guide us 
 to anything practical or real." 
 
 " Not that / see," said Piers, " how that 
 Example can be followed without upsetting all 
 the institutions of modern and social life." 
 
 '' Followed," said Victor. " Yes, it could be 
 — not in mere servile and irrational imitation, 
 perhaps. I mean, that it must be followed in all 
 the principles it involves. That is the real way 
 we have got to look at it. Search out the truths 
 it teaches — grasp the ideal it presents, and strive 
 to apply them to modern institutions, modern 
 society, and modern life. That is what we have 
 got to do, Piers ; and I am not afraid but that 
 the way wiU become clear. Hark ! there are the 
 evening bells ringing. How we have talked ! 
 and how the time has slipped away ! "
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 "Time will distinguish what we thought from what we said." 
 
 D'Alembert. 
 
 Thus again and again, througli many months, 
 they discoursed together, that pure, beautiful, 
 dreamy nature mingling with the darker cur- 
 rents and in the gloomy misanthropy of his 
 friend, — sometimes of their books, often of art, 
 of music, of philosophy, of religion, of love. 
 Victor often rallied Piers's British gravity and 
 the depressing tendency of his views ; but 
 still he reverenced his high standards and his 
 lofty though unpractical aims, and he admired 
 his friend in all his stern sombre contrast to 
 himself. 
 
 Some one had christened Victor "Adonais." 
 He in his turn called Piers *' Prince Athanase ; '* 
 and he used to sing of him, to music of his own 
 composing, in tones of comical amusement, the 
 description in Shelley's words —
 
 LESCAR. 247 
 
 " I know a youth that, as with toil and travel, 
 Has grown quite grave and grey hefore his time, 
 Nor any could his restless grief unravel. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 For nought of ill his heart could understand, 
 But pity and wild sorrow for the same." 
 
 Piers used to try to be angry, but he never 
 could succeed. 
 
 At last, after many montlis, the day came 
 when Victor bad letters from Paris, and in tbem 
 answers to the request be bad made for permis- 
 sion to enrol Piers Asbton in tbe secret Associa- 
 tion to wbicb be bimself bad vowed bis life. And 
 he told bim at length of Auber Dax, of Faustine, 
 of Henri Tolberg, of Hanker, Yarlin, Dupres, and 
 of many others. He unveiled for bim the bidden 
 background in bis history and position — the 
 background which had coloured so much in his 
 own sentiments and words. He described to bim 
 the whole scheme of tbe " Universal.*' 
 
 He told Piers how the vision bad arisen in the 
 dreamy brain of old Auber Dax. He described 
 how it bad gradually been made known to that 
 cluster of. excitable men, who murmured night and 
 day in the workshops of the Faubourg St. Gervais ; 
 how tbe dream had been received and hailed with 
 enthusiastic joy. He described to Piers tbe fer- 
 vour of life among these workmen — the thirsting
 
 248 LESCAR. 
 
 desire among the best of tliem for improvement, 
 the eagerness with which they sought for guidance 
 and light. He painted in bright colours the 
 beauty of that dream of Auber's — the new philan- 
 thropy that was to animate and unite the divided 
 children of men. He told him of the journey to 
 London ; how he, and Dax and Tolberg, had trod 
 the crowded streets friendless and solitary ; of their 
 earnest thoughts, and Auber's soaring aspiration 
 as they stood in the Exhibition and looked down 
 on the people from under the great dome. He 
 told of their visit to the Golden Ball in Percy Street, 
 of Dax's speech, of the reception with which he 
 met among the English agitators and the foreign 
 exiles hidden there. 
 
 He described to him how they had studied 
 English methods of protest and reform — the co- 
 operative stores, the experiment at Rochdale, 
 socialism as by the heads of English agitation it 
 was understood. And then, as he went on, he 
 told Piers how he himself had been fascinated 
 with England ; how the northern blood speaking 
 up in him had proclaimed its sympathy with the 
 sober thoughts, the clearer logic, the harmony of 
 political and domestic life he foimd, spite all 
 counter influences, so complete in England ; 
 how the longing had come over him to remain,
 
 LESCAR. 249 
 
 and pass tHrougli the terms of an English univer- 
 sity, and to win, as an Englishman, university 
 honours. 
 
 He had done it ; but he was pledged to the As- 
 sociation by his promise and his heart. He told 
 Piers further how these two or three years had 
 passed, since they first brought their scheme to 
 England. How it had extended widely, had deve- 
 loped fast, and was now far-spreading and strong. 
 
 He described, moreover, sharp skirmishes which 
 had taken place between the Centre in Paris and 
 the cosmopolitan branch in Percy Street, Soho. 
 There had been many of these, and — more impor- 
 tant still — they had been promoted to have serious 
 tussles with the French government, and some of 
 the noisier members had seen the inner walls of 
 St. Pelagie more times than one. They had had a 
 Congress at Geneva, another at Brussels, and a 
 third at Lausanne. It was spreading, spreading, 
 that great society, like a vast and shoreless sea : it 
 would flood 'ere long the whole inhabited world. 
 
 Lescar had seen little of its inner working for 
 the last few years. He was going in for high 
 honours at Cambridge, and meant to win them ; so 
 terms and vacations alike had been devoted to his 
 philosophy and mathematics, and he had let politics 
 wait. He was true to the heart's core, however, ready
 
 250 LESCAR. 
 
 and alert to join them with mind and soul directly 
 this present stage in his career was over. 
 
 "What his future would be, he told Piers, he was 
 quite uncertain. His uncle had left him money, 
 but he might be called on to devote it all. He 
 had tastes for a learned profession, but the Associa- 
 tion might claim him as a leader of the " Prole- 
 taire ; " in which case he would become a soi- 
 disant workman. His father wrote from Algeria, 
 inviting him to join him there, take a commission 
 in his own regiment, and serve his country with 
 his sword. 
 
 But how could he, he said, when he reaKsed 
 with a conviction so strong, that his country^s 
 greatest battles must be fought at home ? — the 
 great human battle, to win a time of rest and 
 plenty, a golden age for men. 
 
 His whole heart was with these schemes. The 
 old teachings that had rung in his ears since he 
 had heard them as a mere boy in Le Grand St. 
 Marteau years ago. The cause of the poor and 
 the suffering, the cause of the weary and oppressed, 
 — the thought glowed in his heart, and all his 
 diverse teachings on this one earnest theme 
 mingled themselves in a dazzling confusion in his 
 brain. The teachings of the revolutionists of 
 Paris, of the dreamy Utopian thoughts of Auber,
 
 LESCAR. 251 
 
 flowing from the memory of the same time as the 
 soul-stirring lessons of his mother in the little 
 villa in the suburbs of the town, — all had com- 
 bined to feed his imagination, to nerve him to 
 heroism and philanthropy, in that particular 
 form in which these sentiments had been clothed 
 for him. He gave himself utterly to what seemed 
 in his eyes the greatest cause he knew. 
 
 All this he told to Piers ; and they glowed with 
 young enthusiasm together, as the pictures of the 
 Utopian future flowed with poetic colour from the 
 lips of the one, to feed and fan into flame the 
 latent vague sentiments of the other. 
 
 It seemed beautiful to Piers, as Yictor described 
 it ! It was large and world-wide in its vastness, 
 this glorious scheme. It embraced the whole 
 human race ! This then was the realization of 
 the great career for which he had darkly pined. 
 Here was a cause worthy of a life's devotion ; here 
 was a path of glory along which he too, surely, 
 might be a leader of men. While others would 
 incite him to small and puerile efibrts to reform a 
 handful of people, such as the tenants of his own 
 estates, here was a scheme that would embrace 
 them also in its grand ubiquity — would gather 
 them as a handful of sand among the vast deserts 
 that would blossom through their Cause !
 
 252 LESCAR. 
 
 It was the true realisation at length, Victor 
 told him, of the teachings of the great King ! this 
 was the army of Thessullson's Leader ; this was 
 the warfare of which he had spoken — this vast 
 bloodless crusade in the cause of good. 
 
 Thessullson would not join in it himself Victor 
 complained, although long ago he had obtained 
 permission to try to make a convert of him. But 
 Thessullson had his own views, and would be 
 leader of his own school. Thessullson was going 
 into the depth of the city in London, and was 
 going to live there, and devote himself and his 
 fortune, just in the old way of doing here and 
 there an atom of good. What was that to the 
 vast terrible need ? Surely nothing ! 
 
 Theirs of the "Universal'' was the one true 
 way. Hand would join hand, heart to heart, 
 nation to nation, all over the inhabited globe ; all 
 blended in vast fellowship, all quickened with a 
 mutual enthusiasm of humanity, all joining to 
 assist. A great brotherhood, a vast society would 
 ere long clasp round the earth, cover every land, 
 unite all the people in one. And, then — what 
 then ? That Victor could not tell what then — 
 for he did not know. Did any one know ? Did the 
 Universalists know themselves ? No matter : they 
 would he now ; what they would do was hereafter !
 
 CHAPTEH XVI. 
 
 «' Thou too sail on, Ship of State ! 
 Humanity, with all its fears, 
 With all the hope of future years, 
 Is hanging hreathless on thy fate. 
 In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
 In spite of false lights on the shore, 
 Sail on, nor fear to hreast the sea. 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ; 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears 
 Are all with thee — are all with thee." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 It is impossible to dwell longer on this part of the 
 history of Piers Ashton and Yictor Lescar. Space 
 has already necessarily been occupied in reporting 
 the nature of their intercourse and the spring of 
 their friendship, and in conveying, through dis- 
 jointed scenes and conversations, some idea of 
 the varied influences that bore at that time upon 
 both their minds. 
 
 Piers stayed on through all that term at Cam- 
 bridge. He studied, and did well. He attended 
 the Society, and spoke there. His topic was Sir
 
 254 LESCAR. 
 
 Thomas Moore's " Utopia," and Godwin's " Poli- 
 tical Justice/' and I fear his speech was still 
 rather vague. He listened to much speaking, and 
 joined in much argumentative discourse. 
 
 He heard Victor Lescar lecture on Heinrich 
 Heine ; heard him interpret that wild spirit 
 which, forty years ago, sounded his strange blast, 
 quickening the life of central Europe with a 
 fervent and restless powder. Heinrich Heine ! — 
 that sweet singer of Germany, poet, revolutionist, 
 lover, philosopher, all in one. Victor held the 
 Society in silent ecstasy over the " Reisebilder " 
 and the " Lieder Buch " for one long debating 
 night ; and nobody could irritate him by counter- 
 argument, for no one knew much of Heinrich 
 Heine there. 
 
 Then Piers heard Lawler speak on ^' Material- 
 ism " with subtle and dangerous power. He heard 
 Vere speak on " Poetry " and the " Ideal ; " he 
 heard Edwards on " Epicurism *' and " the 
 Spiritual Emancipation of Man." He heard Stone- 
 leigh on the ''Woman Question;" Hartopp on 
 " Pauperization ; " one man on a " British 
 Pepublic ;" another on a '' Commune ; " a third 
 on "Socialism;" a fourth on the ''Abolition of 
 all social Law ; " one on " Taxation ; " and 
 another on the "House of Lords;" many on
 
 LESCAR. 255 
 
 pMlosophies of eveiy conceivable school. In 
 fixct, on all possible topics be imbibed views, 
 strong and forcibly conveyed, always one-sided, 
 often eminently false. And in converse witb 
 Victor on each different lecture, tbey distilled, by 
 comj^arison and free criticism, theories from every 
 one of tbem, to fit those particular views which 
 were their own. 
 
 Altogether the frame of mind may be conceived 
 at which Piers Ashton had arrived, when, towards 
 the end of the term, he received the following 
 letter from Sir John Graeme. They had, of 
 course, maintained an occasional correspondence 
 throughout the term ; but this was an epistle of 
 an especial nature. It is given as it stood — and 
 Piers's peculiar fitness at that period may be 
 imagined, to respond, with acquiescence, to the 
 advice and requests therein contained. 
 
 "The Old Towers, July 21. 
 
 " My dear Piers, 
 
 " Your first term of college life is now 
 drawing to a close, and I think, therefore, that 
 the time has come, when I may with discretion 
 write to you a few pages in reference to our last 
 conversation in this place. You may readily cod- 
 ceive, remembering what passed between us on
 
 256 LESCAR. 
 
 that occasion, that you have since been much in 
 my mind. 
 
 " I am at this crisis of your history deeply con- 
 cerned on your account. I recognise in you the 
 goodness of heart, the warmth of disposition, and 
 the real nobility of sentiment from which your 
 opinions spring. I at the same time regret to 
 recognise a tendency towards certain unfortunate 
 hallucinations that are by no means neic. Your 
 tone of opinion when you conversed with me, 
 evinced a strong bias towards a visionary and 
 Utopian philanthropy. 
 
 " I entirely agree with you, that philanthropy, 
 properly understood, is the highest career to 
 which any man could devote his life and powers ; 
 but — I see that you have failed to recognise the 
 important point that philanthropy moulds itself 
 in different forms, according to the position of 
 the person whose career is in question. To a 
 man, and to a woman, philanthropy assumes 
 varied aspects : to a clergyman it has one inter- 
 pretation ; to a layman, another : to a poor and 
 a rich man it must bear a different meaning, 
 laying different degrees of responsibility upon 
 each life. 
 
 " The man of property, when his duties as 
 steward of his own store have been discharged,
 
 LESCAR. 257 
 
 has not yet completed his philanthropic destiny, 
 in what you fitly call * the organization of the 
 harmony of this world.' Philanthropy for him 
 must not stop there ; for he — above all men — 
 is bound to devote his intellectual powers to 
 the study of, and devoted service in, that most 
 important branch of philanthropy, — political 
 economy. The government of his country I 
 imagine, tlm is the field of efibrt on which you 
 fully recognise your destiny to lie. 
 
 "I am now anxiously concerned to know 
 that my hopes have been realised ; that a few 
 months of further observation, a term passed 
 among enlightened and cultivated men, and 
 the gradual maturing of your own powers have 
 sufficed to establish your appreciation of a sound 
 and well-founded practical policy in the organi- 
 zation of a national government. I trust that 
 all Utopian phantoms have evaporated from your 
 mind. I am the more sanguine of this happy 
 result from my experience that many men, 
 warm, impressionable, and deeply enthusiastic, 
 such as you are, are very generally liable, in the 
 heat of youth, to this restless dissatisfaction with 
 the inevitable and proscribed in the state of 
 things ; especially so when they have fed their 
 minds, as you have done, on the works of men 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 LESCAR. 
 
 whose visions are on record, but whose failures 
 are undescribed — ^men who left poison floating in 
 the mental atmosphere behind them, and who, 
 for the most part, have omitted to unveil the 
 miserable fatality with which their phantom 
 theories proved poison to themselves. 
 
 " You referred to the poetical Utopianism of 
 Coleridge and Southey ; to the theories of 
 dreamers, such as Fourier and St. Simon ; to 
 the social philosophies of Proudhon and Bastiat. 
 You spoke of a new political life, of a possible 
 future of accomplished perfection in this world, 
 and you seemed to think this idea was a novel 
 one to entertain for man. 
 
 " You would be surprised were I to reveal to 
 you how darkly like visions obscured clearness of 
 perception in my own young life, and you may be 
 spared any further delusion as to the novelti/ of the 
 views, by my assuring you that /was myself cured 
 by the intervention of my respected father, who 
 noted my tendency, dissipated its folly, and 
 destroyed my faith in its originality, by de- 
 scribing to me the outbreak of these very 
 opinions, which took place so long ago as in 
 his own youth. He described the subversion 
 threatened to society at that period by the pub- 
 lication of Godwin's 'Political Justice.' He could^
 
 LESCAR. . 259 
 
 remember the hot controversies in whioh these 
 theories were counter- argued by other writers 
 of an opposite school. He could tell me of the 
 failure of the St. Simonians, the Owenists, and all 
 other dreamers springing from their stock ; and 
 he saw the decay and death of this school of 
 thought in England — a country always happy in 
 that healthful energy of political life which re- 
 acts from theories morbid, visionary, or extreme. 
 '' The call at that period from our own party, 
 for active effort on my part, soon dissipated for 
 me the visionary politics that threatened to be 
 so enervating and fatal to my career. I rest 
 assured it will be so with you also. I await the 
 assurance with eagerness. I feel certain that the 
 rectitude of your character will rebound safely 
 from fallacy and self-deceit. Before now, you 
 have doubtless recognised the truth, that neither 
 Bastiat nor any one of your favourite writers can 
 represent a higher condition of harmony, in our 
 human state, than might be gained by every man 
 doing his duty with firmness and energy exactly 
 in the position for which he is destined. I feel 
 no doubt that your political principles have 
 become established ; that a sound liberal and 
 moderate judgment has come to your assistance, 
 and has decided you to enter the list on our side.
 
 260 LESCAR. 
 
 We badly want to see moderation and sound 
 judgment springing up among the young minds 
 of the day. We see symptoms of opinions that 
 are not moderate, of brains that are neither sound 
 nor cool, and we feel some alarm that our country 
 may be doomed to suffer. 
 
 "It would do so certainly, if fanatics were found 
 among the men in power. It would do so, if the 
 ruthless and misguided hands of men of crude 
 opinions and small experience are allowed to 
 hold the reins ; and, above all, it uill do so, if the 
 young of our generation decide to cast away all 
 reverence for the Constitution. 
 
 "I do not say our Constitution is perfect. I 
 am aware that alterations, further improve- 
 ments, and development will proceed still, and 
 doubtless with the rapidity that characterizes 
 the age. But with all the advance and change 
 which we expect, and for which we are ready, 
 our beloved and venerable Constitution will 
 stand firm, will still live, as an example to the 
 world, if tve will only remember that it is im- 
 provement we still want, and not subversion of 
 the state of things. The tendency, and the 
 right tendency, of this age, is that the source of 
 power should widen in the country ; the tendency 
 of former ages was its concentration in one
 
 LESCAR. 261 
 
 central source. The tendency is, moreover, that 
 it should filter downwards, accompanying hand 
 in hand education as it penetrates with its benefi- 
 cent influence all classes of men. The tendency 
 of other times was its conservation among the 
 aristocratic and moneyed classes. 
 
 "As power spreads, new questions will daily 
 be embraced in the politician's range. But all 
 wdll flow on, in a safe steady advance ; and con- 
 tinuous improvement will take place in all the 
 relations, and in all the individual conditions 
 of high and low. And not one of the many 
 questions that may be raised — not a single 
 point that any reformer can ever moot, icith 
 the sincere object before him of benefitting the 
 conditions of man — will for one moment touch 
 the warmth of our loyalty, our reverence for 
 our Constitution, or our fidelity to the time- 
 honoured policies of our State. Of this I am 
 convinced. 
 
 "You remember the immortal lines in King 
 John — 
 
 " ' For England never did, and never shall 
 Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror ; 
 But when it first does help to wound herself. 
 Come the three corners of the world in arms, 
 And we shall shock them : naught shall make us rue, 
 If England to herself do rest but true.'
 
 262 LESCAR. 
 
 " I trust, my dear boy, that you have by this 
 time calmly and dispassionately undertaken the 
 review of the salient and critical points in your 
 position. I trust to the soundness of your heart's 
 true principles to lead you to do this ; and, 
 having done it, I have no doubt you will see 
 clearly the indications of your duty, that you will 
 resolve to accept the influential position, political 
 and social, to which the destinies of inheritance 
 have appointed you, and that all your self-culture 
 and self-development will be pursued towards 
 this object. 
 
 "We have had a Conservative sitting for 
 
 shire too long : I look forward with delight 
 
 to your sitting in his place. I have nursed the 
 county carefully for you. Your landed interest 
 and the influence of your central position, em- 
 bracing as it does so large a range, will secure 
 
 through you our success : shire will be once 
 
 more represented by an Ashton of Pollingworth 
 on the Liberal side. Would your dear father 
 had lived to see it ! 
 
 " I regret the celebration of your majority has 
 been deferred by the Cambridge Term beyond 
 the proper day ; but of course this is inevitable. 
 We must fix an early date as soon as you are 
 returned from college.
 
 LESCAR. 263 
 
 "I inclose a letter from tlie girls; doubtless 
 good wishes for many happy returns of the 
 auspicious day. I add mine to theirs ; and 
 remain, my dear Piers, your affectionate friend 
 (guardian no longer), 
 
 "John Essingworth Graeme," 
 
 " My dear Piers," wrote Graie, " Donna will 
 not write, so I must ; but she says I may send 
 you her best wishes for many, many happy birth- 
 days. I send my love : between old friends like 
 you and me, a privilege of not being out yet 
 (Donna is). And we both send you a cigar-case, 
 embroidered with your crest, and a letter-sachet, 
 with a cypher, to carry in your pocket ; it smells 
 nice, and makes your pocket-handkerchief and 
 everything in your pocket smell delicious too ; 
 and then it is very convenient. Donna made it, 
 and she gave me one ; and I always use it to keep 
 letters and any kind of thing. I made the cigar- 
 case. Do you like the gold and red, or the silver 
 and blue, best ? That is one subject of my letter. 
 The second is this : — Have you found out ^ all 
 about it yet* ? — about everything I mean — the 
 poverty and all the troubles in the world ? And 
 have you discovered the way to put all to rights? 
 Mind, you promised to write and tell us when
 
 264 LESCAR. 
 
 you did. And please, while you are about it, 
 you might include the defects of nature, by which 
 we are born ignorant of music and German, and 
 are doomed to lessons till we are quite old. Do 
 rectify this, while you are doing a few other 
 minor things. Donna says this letter is ungram- 
 matical and flippant ; so please. Piers, do not 
 subject it to any austere criticism from what 
 Donna calls * cultured and critical judgments.' 
 
 " And, believe me, always your affectionate, 
 
 "Grace Isabel Graeme, alia8 'Gaie.'"
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 " There is a profound danger of the collapse of that highest 
 personal life, the glory of which has been shown to us, before 
 the confusion of the half-lights and half-shadows of the new 
 era. Complexity of every kind in the condition of the young 
 life ; shades of thought too complex to yield definite opinions ; 
 shades of moral obligation too complex to yield up definite 
 axioms of duty ; shades of principle too various to yield up 
 definite foundations of judgment." — Spectator ^ Oct. 19, 1867- 
 
 When Piers betook himself to Victor's room, with 
 his letters in one hand and his cigar and card-case 
 in the other, he found his friend, not, as usual at 
 that hour, improvising behind the piano, but 
 seated at his writing-table, very earnestly con- 
 sidering an assortment of letters that the 
 evening's post had brought also for him. 
 
 He looked up as Piers entered, passed his hand 
 over his brow, as if to call back his thoughts, 
 and laid aside his letters. He saw by the eager 
 expression of Piers's face that he had come for 
 friendly conference, perhaps consultation. 
 
 The cigar and card case first attracted Victor's
 
 266 LESCAR. 
 
 notice, and led to the instant betrayal of Gaie's 
 confidence. Her flippant and un grammatical 
 epistle was submitted to bis eyes. 
 
 "What a dear little letter!" be said. "And 
 wbat pretty presents for your ^jour de fete V " 
 
 He took up one after tbe otber, admired tbem 
 witb a Frenchman's love of pretty things, and 
 fully appreciated tbe sweet odours on which Gaie 
 bad particularly dwelt. He laughed and chat- 
 tered over them, and tbe warm little letter for 
 some time, with his usual boyish merriment, quite 
 forgetting for the moment all graver themes. 
 
 "They are just like sisters," said Piers, in 
 explanation of their little trophies of afiection 
 and remembrance. 
 
 Then Victor read Sir John's letter ; and upon 
 it, he said, he scarcely liked to say much to his 
 friend. 
 
 "I do not like to influence your life strongly 
 one way or another. Piers," he persisted. 
 
 "It is not your influence entirely, Victor : I 
 have made the choice for myself.'* 
 
 " Well, dear fellow, I hope all the benefit may 
 be for your own people, along with others, and 
 on your own career. Your guardian is a liberal- 
 minded man ; but we cannot expect people who 
 have gone on all their life in old orthodox ways,
 
 LESCAR. 267 
 
 to understand the outpourings of tlie grand new 
 Hfe." 
 
 " Of course not ; tliat is what I must tell 
 him/' 
 
 " Yes," said Yictor ; " and it behoves us now 
 to be strong in our purpose, and that they who 
 have put their shoulder to the wheel be decided 
 and do not look back. Some of the tests of our 
 faith and devotion are coming upon us, I fancy, 
 from what I hear to-day." 
 
 " Have you letters from Paris ?" 
 
 "Yes; from Pere Dax, and from my *just 
 like a sister,' as you would say — my old playmate 
 of the days of my youth, Faustine. She is his 
 grand-daughter. There has been trouble in the 
 Rue des Cordonniers," he continued, taking up 
 Dax's long, close-written letter. "Tolberg and 
 Yarlin and a lot of our people have been in St. 
 Pelagic, for insisting on the secret meetings. 
 Rouher's doing, of course. That blindfold govern- 
 ment will not see the difference between men who 
 mean well or ill, and the consequence has always 
 been, just what it is now. In St. Pelagic they 
 have fraternised with a man called ^ Chauserette,' 
 a red-revolutionary sort of fellow, shut up there 
 for all kinds of dark deeds. He must be a 
 clever man, for he has managed to sow some very
 
 268 LESCAR. 
 
 poisoned seed among our poor fellows, and they 
 have come out talking of doctrines that would, if 
 admitted among us, ruin the cause. Astonishing 
 how soon a little persecution, a few weeks of bad 
 company, especially in a prison, rears a fine crop 
 of revolutionary principles in the tropical climate 
 of a Frenchman's brain. Certainly nature must 
 have meant us for a normal condition of bar- 
 ricades." 
 
 " But are they getting up a revolution," cried 
 Piers, '' against the Empire?" 
 
 " No ; nonsense ! — not getting up, but ' talking 
 out ' rather, and as noisily as they can ; and the 
 mischief will be simply to us and to themselves. 
 The Empire is not destined to be immortal, that 
 is sure enough ; but it will take a greater boul- 
 versement of affairs to shake its foundations than 
 anything that Yarlin, Boucher, or poor dear 
 Henri Tolberg are likely to achieve. I shall be 
 glad for you to know Tolberg some day. Piers ; 
 he is a wonderful fellow — a curious specimen of 
 his class." 
 
 "I hope I shall know him." 
 
 " No doubt you will. I wish they had let the 
 fellows alone," he continued again. '' They were 
 doing no harm to any one, and now they have 
 come back to us changed men. Pere Dax is
 
 LESCAR. 269 
 
 terribly vexed about it. Henri will come right 
 again ; but I do not know about the rest. Then 
 they have all been making a sensation, and a sort 
 of revolutionary spectacle of the funeral of David 
 Manin, the Venetian patriot, that has excited 
 notice and provoked suppression ; and, worse 
 than all, it seems we are in all sorts of trouble 
 among ourselves. The co-operation between Paris 
 and London is not running smooth, and I have 
 got a commission from Pere Dax to meet Hanker 
 and Paoul Pegnau in London, and be present 
 with them at a conference in Percy Street. This 
 Begnau strikes me as being a man of original 
 and somewhat extravagant ideas. I do not know 
 him. Combatz, a patriot, who was shot at Men- 
 tana, introduced him to Hanker and Dax, since I 
 came over here ; but he is to meet me in London, 
 not to speak, Kke Hanker and me, as representa- 
 tives, but just that he and I may know each 
 other and exchange our ideas." 
 
 "And shall you go up to town at once, Vie. ?" 
 "I must telegraph to-night that I cannot 
 meet them till I have done my examination. I 
 must leave a wrangler, Piers. I could not dis- 
 appear on the very eve of the great event ; the 
 fellows here would say I had called off. I must 
 telegraph to Paris and London, and no doubt
 
 270 LESCAR. 
 
 they will defer tlie conference for a week or so. 
 Then, I am their man." 
 
 Piers stood thinking a moment ; and, turning 
 Sir John's letter thoughtfully in his hand, Victor 
 glanced towards his correspondence again. 
 
 " Do you know, Piers," he said, " I hope it is 
 not the Frenchman in me that will not amalga- 
 mate ; but I do not pull with that conclaye in 
 Percy Street. There are men there I do not 
 trust or understand, and men who, I do not think, 
 understand us rightly ; or, at all events, tvill not, 
 even if they can, interpret us as we mean." 
 
 " Why, what do you suspect, Tie. ?" 
 
 " I do not know ; but I think they are jealous; 
 and they are deep, some of them — far too deep 
 for the childlike simplicity of Father Dax ; and 
 there are restless, discontented men there, quite 
 as excitable too as some of the fellows we have 
 to deal with in Paris." 
 
 ''Englishmen?" 
 
 " No ; they are not all English. The English 
 are mostly sound and sober- thinking enough ; but 
 they are a motley crew. Few of those who take 
 their soup and smoke their nightly cheroots at 
 Monsieur Jacques', in Percy Street, are of your 
 cool clime : mostly all exiles — French, Polish, 
 Greek, Corsican — anything ; a curious lot ! And
 
 LESCAR. 271 
 
 there are one or two among them, not of the 
 commoner kind ; Karl Franx, for instance, the 
 man who wrote 'Das Kapital,' that wonderful 
 answer to Proudhon's ' Philosophy of Misery.' 
 He is a Jew, a cold, grave-mannered, unfathom- 
 able man. I first saw hwiy I remember, on the 
 eventful night in '64, on Dax's second visit to 
 England, when we had the meeting in St. Martin's 
 Hall, Long Acre, Professor Bardley in the chair ; 
 and Dax had his projects, written out in due 
 form by Tolberg and me, laid on the board. We 
 formed our first committee that night, and Franx 
 was there. The next evening there was a great 
 flare-up after all our solemnity ; high spirits got 
 the better of some of them, and they danced and 
 sang the * Marseillaise,' and had a brilliant refec- 
 tion. I remember Karl Franx, that night, look- 
 ing grimly on. Some people think him the 
 Caesar of the cause ; but I doubt if his thoughts 
 and the dreams of Auber Dax are one. Then 
 Bakouin, the Russian, and Philippe Becker are 
 pushing themselves in among us, and their in- 
 fidel revolutionary doctrines will not help us 
 much ; in fact, Pere Dax is in trouble," continued 
 Victor gravely, *' and, from Faustine's letter, it 
 must be a deeper- felt trouble than he will allow." 
 He laid aside the old man's letter, and took up
 
 272 LESCAR. 
 
 the other, written in a delicate foreign feminine 
 hand. 
 
 *' Faustine says she is anxious about him, and 
 fears he will harass himself until he is ill. Pauvre 
 vieillard ! I am sure, I trust not. He had taken 
 a heavy burden on his hands, and one of which 
 the responsibility will weigh upon him. Ha ! 
 little scelemte,''^ he went on, balf laughing, *' I 
 wonder if these black eyes of hers will do harm 
 or good? She is a regular hot-blooded young 
 revolutionist, is Faustine ; it is only reverence for 
 Dax that keeps her fiery tongue for one moment 
 still. I believe she likes all the prospects of a 
 row. But she wants me over, Piers : she says, 
 Pere Dax is longing for me. You see, Henri and 
 I have always been the two sons of his spirit to 
 him. I must go," he added, folding up his 
 letters, and looking with an expression of fixed 
 resolution into his friend's face. " Mon cher^^^ he 
 said, ^' you stay here ; we shall part." 
 
 " Yictor, I cannot ! " exclaimed Piers at last. 
 " I cannot stay here without you. Have / not 
 cast my lot, too, with the IJniversalists ? — with the 
 cause of the people, with the cause of Liberty, 
 just as you have cast in yours? What is the 
 difference between us ? Why should there be 
 division in the pathway of our lives ?"
 
 LESCAR. 273 
 
 There was a moment's silence ; ttie colour rushed 
 over Piers's forehead, and a tender sweet expres- 
 sion crept into Victor's blue eyes. 
 
 " Why are you to go forth to action and ser- 
 vice," Piers exclaimed again, "and I to remain 
 behind ? " 
 
 Victor's lip trembled; he seemed unable to 
 answer. They looked into each other's face with 
 eyes sparkling with enthusiasm ; they joined hand 
 in hand in a tight and eager grasp ; the glow in 
 their young faces spoke the silent interchange of 
 vows of friendship and mutual fealty, indelible 
 and undying ; and this was the answer that Piers 
 wrote to Sir John : — 
 
 " My dear Uncle " (so he always had called 
 him), — 
 
 " I thank you very much for your letter, 
 which has reached me to-day ; I thank you for all 
 the advice it contains, and for the interest in 
 my future which it expresses. I am afraid my 
 answer will disappoint you ; but I regret this less 
 than I might otherwise have done, feeling con- 
 vinced that before very long you will see that my 
 choice of a career is a wise one, and that, in 
 acting as I am about to do, I join the strong 
 and advancing party of our age — the party be- 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 LESCAR. 
 
 side which all others will soon become insignifi- 
 cant. 
 
 " I agree with much in your letter ; and I am 
 glad to feel that your mind is of that liberal 
 and unprejudiced tj'pe that easily accommodates 
 itself to the course of events. The wisdom of 
 your judgment will induce j'Ou quickly to accept 
 the inevitable advance of new political theories ; 
 and I do not fear that, when all is clear and 
 developed, we shall stand on opposite political 
 sides. 
 
 " At present, however, I cannot expect you to 
 «ee things as I do. You still look at life from old 
 accepted points of view, while I look from the 
 vantage-ground of information on topics of which 
 you can form little idea. I base my political 
 and social theories on the knowledge of certain 
 fjicts of which you are in ignorance. I propose to 
 myself a career devoted to a cause whose existence 
 lies still concealed — a cause affecting humanity to 
 a degree wide-spreading beyond every former 
 conception, for the well-being of our race — a 
 cause affecting alike all nations, all classes of men, 
 all differences of creed and language — a cause, of 
 which the grandeur and magnitude can only be 
 appreciated by a thorough knowledge of the sub- 
 lime and noble nature of its motives and designs
 
 IxESCAR. 275 
 
 — a cause, at last, that I consider worthy the de- 
 votion of a man's life. My life, my powers, and, 
 if they require it, my fortune I will lay down at 
 its disposal ; and my only regret in doing so is, 
 that, for the time being, it leads me entirely out 
 of the groove that you propose, and forces me to 
 decline compliance with your requests. Unfortu- 
 nately, I -cannot in any way fall in with your 
 plans ; mine being, for the present, as follows : — 
 
 " I leave Cambridge at the end of this term ; 
 mj' coming back again must remain uncertain, 
 depending on the working of, not alone national, 
 but international events. I proceed to Paris with 
 my friend, Lescar ; when there, will devote my- 
 self to the study of the cause which I embrace, 
 and to the effort to understand how I, as an 
 Englishman of property and some influence, can 
 best serve its interests. I may then, probably, 
 make a series of journeys to visit the centres of our 
 Society in different parts of the world, on this side 
 the Atlantic and on the other. Beyond that, my 
 future is unknown ; it will be allied to the future 
 of a great Cause, and will advance or fall with it. 
 
 " A certain reticence, that is still maintained 
 among the members of this great Society, as to 
 their existence and their workings, forbids me to 
 enter, at present, into details as to its nature or
 
 276 LESCAR. 
 
 its name. You and all tlie world will soon learn 
 it ; and I will write you fuller information as soon 
 as I am allowed. 
 
 " Meantime, if you wish to hear of me at any 
 time, Darbeau, Banker, Eue Planchette, Paris, 
 will always find me, whether in Europe or further 
 abroad. I think it may not be in accordance 
 with honourable confidence towards my party to 
 give you a more definite address. I do not know 
 what may be before me, or before any of us ; and 
 I cannot tell what sacrifices the true interests of 
 our glorious Cause may require ; but I am ready. 
 
 " On referring to your letter, I see I have 
 overlooked some details. 
 
 " First, I entirely agree with you as to the 
 unpractical, visionary nature of the theories of 
 such writers as St. Simon, Fourier, Owen, and 
 others. I am glad to be able to tell you that our 
 grand scheme of Reformation eschews all of them 
 — the commimism of Baboeuf, the atheism of 
 Yoltaire, the socialistic Utopias of St. Simon, and 
 the pernicious theories of Fourier's individuahsm. 
 A new and brilliant light has flashed across the 
 future of mankind, and ice live in it — a vision, 
 sublime and glorious, has been conceived indeed ; 
 it will be ours to make it reality. 
 
 '* I do not think I need say more, except
 
 LESCAR. 277 
 
 affectionate regards and farewell to Donna and 
 Gaie. I would nm down to see them and you 
 before going abroad, but circumstances wbicb are 
 beyond my control forbid me. I go with those 
 who are called elsewhere. 
 
 " "With many grateful thanks for your past 
 kindness, and with the hope that you will still 
 allow me to regard you with the same filial 
 confidence and respect, I am, dear uncle, 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 "Piers Axnerley Ashton. 
 
 P.S. — I enclose a reply to Gaie's note, and 
 he kind congratulations si 
 Donna and herself. — P. A. A." 
 
 to the kind congratulations she sends me from
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 *' Je pense done qu'il faut toujours placer quelque part un 
 pouvoir social superieur a tous les autres ; mais je crois la 
 liberie en peril lorsque ce pouvoir ne trouve devant lui aucun 
 obstacle qui puisse retenir sa marche, et lui donner le temps de 
 se moderer lui-meme.'^ — De Tocqueville. 
 
 Sir John received this letter one morning at the 
 breakfast-table, where he and his girls sat in the 
 pretty dining-room at the Old Towers. 
 
 The autumn sun streamed in upon them and 
 their dainty breakfast -table, touching Donna's 
 brown hair with bits of golden light, and warm- 
 ing Gaie's rich colouring to the radiance and 
 freshness of a morning rose. 
 
 Donna watched her father earnestly at first, 
 as he read the long letter; but her eyes were 
 presently turned eagerly upon Gaie, who was 
 exclaiming with excitement over hers — 
 
 " I do declare it is too bad ! Piers not coming 
 down this autumn — going abroad ! Listen, Donna ! 
 It is too absurd. May I, papa ? — shall I read it 
 aloud ? '* she added, glancing towards him.
 
 LESCAR. 279 
 
 Sir John looked up from his letter, which he 
 was perusing with severe gravity, leaving his 
 breakfast untouched. He laid it down for a 
 moment, and paused. 
 
 " Yes," he said, *' let me hear yours." 
 
 " My dear Gaie," she read, — " Many thanks 
 to both Donna and you for your pretty presents 
 and for your good wishes on my birthday. I 
 should like very much to have gone north, and 
 to have kept it with you ; but I cannot do so, as I 
 am going away — abroad, perhaps for a long time. 
 So I will write to say good-by to both of yoii. 
 Tell Donna I often remember how we used to 
 talk over everything ; and tell her I have found 
 out * all about it ' at last. It makes me very happy, 
 now that I have made up my mind ; and tell her 
 I see clearly through and through to the end of it 
 all. When I am qaite certain that I may, and 
 when I quite see into all the details, tell her I 
 will write her a long letter, and describe all 
 about the Cause and its schemes to her ; for I 
 know she is just one who would be interested. 
 Tell her women can have lots to do with it, 
 although she knows that is not according to my 
 ideas. / cannot see that they can do much good. 
 But I know of one who is quite a chief person in
 
 280 LESCAR. 
 
 the management, at tlie head of the Cause in 
 Paris, and quite a young one too. I cannot 
 imagine it ; but I know it is so. I have seen a 
 letter of hers, and in fact, except the hand- 
 writing, which is thin and small, it was not in 
 the least like a woman's letter at all. I think I 
 have written everything to your father, so I need 
 not say more. How is the old greyhound and 
 the coUey ? and is old * Scottie * alive still ? I 
 wonder what bag uncle will make on the 12th 
 this year. I wish — no, I do not wish, at least I 
 do not intend to wish to be with him. 
 
 " Yours, &c., &c., 
 
 "P. A. A.'' 
 
 " A woman's letter ! " exclaimed Gaie, indig- 
 nantly. " I wonder what woman's letter he has 
 ever seen except mine and his old Aunt Ashton's. 
 You Avould not write to him since he grew up, 
 Donna. What can he have seen ? " 
 « "I told you yours was flippant and ungram- 
 matical, Gaie," said Donna, smiling. 
 
 Then she looked across at her father, whose 
 bacon and toast were still growing cold. With a 
 dry exclamation, as Gaie concluded, he returned 
 to his own letter again.
 
 LESCAR. 281 
 
 He finished it slowly, then handed it down to 
 Donna, and with a smile of much perplexity and 
 vexation, and a shake of his head, he turned to 
 the energetic stirring of his cup of tea. While 
 she perused it, the expression of concern in his 
 countenance reflected itself quickly on hers. 
 
 " That is not altogether a satisfactory young 
 man," said Sir John, emphatically, as she looked 
 up at him, when she had finished, with astonish- 
 ment and consternation in her face. 
 
 " What can he mean, papa ?" 
 
 " He means, my dear, that his judgment has 
 gone crooked for the time being, and that he has 
 set himself to go through the fiery education of 
 experience, and that no one shall hold him back. 
 That is, most distinctly, what he means." 
 
 *' But where is he going ? What is he going 
 to do? To w^hat society has he joined himself? 
 What does it all mean ? " 
 
 " My dear, his heart is in the right place ; but 
 he has got his head full of maggots, as we say up 
 here." 
 
 " But the Cause, papa — what does he mean ? " 
 
 "I have a very strong suspicion what he 
 means," said Sir John, holding out his hand for 
 the letter again. '' I am not quite so ignorant of 
 his sublime Society as he imagines. And I see
 
 282 LESCAR. 
 
 good reason to conclude that he intends entering 
 the Universal League, a set of visionaries, relics, 
 as far as I can see, of an almost obsolete school of 
 thought. Of their extent and designs I have 
 no knowledge ; but that, I have no doubt in 
 my own mind, is the body of people he has 
 joined." 
 
 And Sir John pushed his plate back, lowered 
 his spectacles, and returned to Piers's letter 
 again. 
 
 '* The boy is not half a bad fellow," he went on, 
 ** but he has got into some bad hands. He is an 
 obstinate fellow, with a huge respect for his own 
 judgment and a mistaken idea that that judg- 
 ment is unassailable. He thinks himself cool, 
 dispassionate, and unalterable in his views ; he is, 
 in reality, impressionable and enthusiastic. He 
 must go his own way : he must commit his own 
 blunders, poor boy, and bear his own stripes. 
 But I have a confidence in his pulling through : 
 he has a good heart. Donna — a good heart, has 
 he not?" 
 
 " I think he has," answered Donna ; and she 
 turned her face away ; old Dart, the greyhound, 
 for whom Piers had inquired, claiming her atten- 
 tion with convenient persistency just then. She 
 bent over him. " Quiet, Dart, good dog !
 
 LESCAR. 283 
 
 Papa," she continued, '' do you tlimk he has 
 quite gone away, for years ? Will he not come 
 back?" 
 
 " It is impossible to say. He can draw as 
 he likes on his own banker's account now ; I 
 have no control over him. But I will tell you 
 what we can do. I will write to my old friend, 
 Count Arle De Hauton, and tell him to find 
 out the lad in Paris, and let us know a little of 
 his goings on. Your Aunt Kellam knows the 
 De Hautons, and often stays with them over there ; 
 and — that reminds me — here is a letter from her, 
 this morning." 
 
 He opened it, and Donna bent again to pat the 
 greyhound with an absent and saddened expres- 
 sion on her face. 
 
 Gaie continued her breakfast philosophically, 
 and on her piquant countenance sat indignation 
 and disapproval of no ordinary degree. She 
 could by no means forgive Piers 's desertion at 
 this bright autumn time. No arm could rival 
 his for strength and endurance on the river or 
 on the loch, in calm or in stoi*m. She was most 
 indignant. 
 
 " My dears," said Sir John presently, " here is 
 your aunt wants both of you, or at all events one, to 
 go down to her, to be taken through a round
 
 284 LESCAR. 
 
 of autumn visits. What do you say ? Donna, it 
 must be you." 
 
 " No, no ; please, papa, no. I could not leave 
 you : you have only just come down." 
 
 " Then, Gaie, you must expand your rose-leaves 
 and be a full-blown flower for a month or two ; 
 while Fraulein takes her holidays. Eh, my 
 sunbeam ? 
 
 ** /, papa ! " exclaimed Gaie with indignation : 
 " I leave you and Donna, and the dogs and 
 Maisie, just when the heather is out, and Maisie's 
 foot is well and she can trot again, and Frisk has 
 just had those lovely puppies ! Why, papa, I 
 should be worse than Piers. No ; my compliments 
 to Aunt Kellam, please, and — merci hien ! " 
 
 ^' What ! neither of you will go ? " said their 
 father, with an asumed and delighted twinkle in 
 his eyes. *^ What am I to say to your aunt ? " 
 
 " Merci bien," repeated Gaie, with a demure 
 little bow. 
 
 " What ! that my two little girls prefer their 
 own hills and their old father and this wild life, 
 as she calls it, up here, to all the smart houses she 
 speaks of, and all the gay doings she describes. 
 Ah, well, the old story ! " he continued, with 
 an expression of pretended despair. " Young 
 people will have their own way in these days, and
 
 LESCAR. 285 
 
 I find I have not a morsel of authority with mine. 
 That is what I shall have to write back ! " 
 
 " Write what you like ; only we will not go ! " 
 repeated Graie, with determined emphasis. 
 
 " Well, well," he answered. " But, look here, 
 that is not all the letter.' ' 
 
 " My dear John,'' he read out in an amused 
 tone, " are you giving, or have you given, any 
 " proper consideration to the great injustice you are 
 " doing Donna, my poor sister's child, in keeping 
 "her mewed up in your northern wilds, instead of 
 " having her properly introduced in town ? Donna 
 ''must be eighteen, and she is not yet presented. 
 " I urge upon you the sacred duty while there is yet 
 " time. Take a house in London, be prepared for 
 " next season, and let her be then presented at the 
 " first drawing-room, and brought out in a manner 
 " befitting her position. Her future, &c., &c.," said 
 Sir John, folding up the letter ; for he had views 
 of his own, and he did not choose to read aloud to 
 his children these views on their future, with all 
 the important matrimonial projects the word 
 " future," to Aunt Kellam, implied. 
 
 " So, Donna ; you see what is in store for 
 
 you." 
 
 Donna looked at him again, the gravity and 
 the wistful sadness round her lips quarrelling
 
 286 LESCAR. 
 
 with tlie briglit answering smile slie tried to 
 return to him from her brown eyes. 
 
 "Please, papa, not till Gaie comes too.'* 
 
 "Ah! ha! is that it? — two cherries on one 
 stalk, two roses on one stem. I am to tell Aunt 
 Kellam, she cannot have one of my birds until 
 she unlocks the school-case upstairs, and lets out 
 the other. You are imprisoned until you are 
 seventeen, did she not say, Gaie ? '* 
 
 " Yes, papa, alack-a-day ! " responded Gaie 
 disconsolately. 
 
 " And now you are ? " 
 
 " Fifteen," she answered again — " only fifteen : 
 two whole years more. Oh, if Donna could only 
 put her head on my shoulders for that time, and 
 let mine get on hers, she would not mind lessons 
 a bit ! She never did." 
 
 "I minded other things, though, Gaie." 
 
 " Yes ; you did not get Frau-frau so early into 
 subjection as I did," she went on. " Oh, poor 
 old Frau, she really is not bad to live with, now 
 that she knows we ivill be obeyed." 
 
 " Heyday ! monkey ; you obeyed, indeed ! " said 
 her father with a laugh. " But, Donna, two years, 
 will it do, my darling ? Do you really not wish 
 to be * introduced,' to quote Aunt Kellam, before 
 then?''
 
 LESCAR. 287 
 
 " I do not think I do, papa. I should not 
 like to go out, and have to leave Gaie at home." 
 
 ''But the balls, operas, soirees, my dear, and 
 all the rest of it ; do you not wish for some of 
 these?" 
 
 "I do not think I want anything, papa," she 
 answered, looking away from him again. She 
 bent over her dog. It was a splendid old grey- 
 hound that Piers had brought from Pollingworth 
 in one of his visits, and had left it with her when 
 he went away again. She stooped to caress his 
 rough head, and to hide the expression of sadness 
 and disappointment she felt gathering on her 
 face. 
 
 " Well, my dear, you must please yourself," 
 said Sir John. " And," he continued with a proud 
 and pleased smile, '' I must write to Aunt 
 Kellam and tell her that, if my bonnie Madonna 
 is superior in her tastes to the sort of young ladies 
 she is accustomed to, it is not her fault nor mine. 
 And now I must go and write to De Hauton 
 about that wrong-headed boy." 
 
 Sir John gathered up his letters, and went off to 
 his writing-room. 
 
 "It is all very extraordinary," said Gaie 
 solemnly, as Donna rose too. " I cannot under- 
 stand anything of all this about Piers ; can you,
 
 288 LESCAR. 
 
 Donna ? " she continued, as her sister passed 
 from the room. 
 
 They went along the corridor together, and 
 Donna turned into a room at the end, and Gaie 
 entered with her. It was a prettily furnished, 
 cheerful room, with a window looking over the 
 loch and the garden, and fitted with book- shelves, 
 a writing-table, large cupboards, and various 
 other symptoms of the pursuits of its owner. It 
 was Donna's sitting-room. 
 
 The book- shelves contained a library, collected 
 and chosen by her father and herself, — results, 
 many of them, of long discussion with Piers, and 
 of intellectual undertakings, springing from in- 
 spirations from him. The writing-table was 
 covered with manuscript notes, with a half- 
 finished translation from Lessing's " ^N'athan der 
 Weise," and with numerous other trophies of 
 intellectual industry and effort. The cupboard?, 
 and a large table near them, gave evidence of 
 another phase of Donna's self. The cupboards 
 were full of comforts and cordials, which she and 
 Gaie, notwithstanding Piers's enlightened views 
 on the fatal influence of private charity, still 
 continued to distribute to ailing and needy for 
 miles round the Old Towers. 
 
 She came in now, and sat down at the writing-
 
 LESCAR. 289 
 
 table ; but it was not to resume ber translation, 
 or ber notes on La Place. She put ber bands 
 up to ber forebead and leaned ber bead upon 
 tbem, wbile ber eyes wandered away over tbe 
 view of tbe locb and garden, and literature and 
 science alike seemed to bave lost all interest for 
 her to-day. 
 
 Gaie came and stood by ber side. 
 
 " Do you understand it. Donna ? " 
 
 "No, I do not,'' sbe said witb a sigb. "I 
 understand notbing but tbat be is going away. 
 If I could understand it, I sbould not mind." 
 
 " Not mind bis not coming down ? Ob, Donna, 
 I sbould ! Wby, we bad sucb fun in spring, 
 and we were going to do all kinds of tbings now 
 in tbe autumn. Ob, I do not care bow mucb be 
 takes up witb ' Causes ' at college-time, if be only 
 goes on coming down bere for bis holidays. But 
 can you make it out about tbe * Cause,' Donna ?" 
 
 " No," sbe answered sadly, speaking more to 
 herself than to Gaie; *'tbat is it." And sbe 
 raised ber bead, and clasped ber bands together 
 on the desk before her, and looked thoughtfully 
 from the window. "It is all so vague and 
 incoherent. Papa seems to know a little of tbe 
 Society, but evidently he does not think well of 
 what he does know. Ah ! I fear — I fear it is 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 LESCAR. 
 
 some wild vision tliat has seized Mm, and lie will 
 rush off with vehemence, and perhaps spend all 
 his life and his power in pursuing some ignis 
 fatuus to a useless end." 
 
 " And all the time he will not come here ! '* said 
 Gaie indignantly. 
 
 "No, Gaie, he will not come here," Donna 
 answered ; and then her voice faltered, the firm 
 clear-cut eyelids trembled and drooped over her 
 eyes, then a tear came and dropped on the table 
 before her. Her lip shook, and she clasped her 
 fingers tightly in the strong effort to control her- 
 self, but in vain. A heaving sob came, and then 
 another and another, and she leaned back her 
 head with weary gesture against Gaie's shoulders 
 and burst into uncontrollable tears. 
 
 " Donna ! " exclaimed Gaie astonished, " are 
 you so sorry, too ? " 
 
 "Oh, Gaie," she said, "it might have been 
 such a grand life — it ought to be. He is so good, 
 as papa says, and his aims are so high, and his 
 powers so strong and willing ; and now, if he is 
 throwing it all away, and if he makes a failure of 
 his whole life by giving himself up to some fear- 
 ful mistake, some false, false vision that has 
 captivated his eyes ! Oh, Gaie, it is so sad ! and 
 his life might have been so grand, so true ! "
 
 LESCAR. 291 
 
 " Yes, lie is so grave over everything : I often 
 used to think he must be a hero some way or 
 other, and would do differently with his life from 
 other people. And now, perhaps he is going to 
 do it ; perhaps it is all right, Donna." 
 
 "No, no," she exclaimed, "it cannot be; it 
 must be all wrong, vague, unpractical, and inco- 
 herent. Oh, Gaie, it is so sad ! " She raised her 
 head now — the little outburst had relieved her — 
 and brushed away her tears. 
 
 "And then he will not come here all this 
 autumn," sighed Gaie disconsolately again ; " and 
 we did so surely think he would come, did we 
 not. Donna ? " 
 
 "Yes, we did," said his sister. "But it is 
 no good, Gaie. Go, dear : do not let us talk 
 about him ; it is no good. I must begin my 
 work." 
 
 She drew her writing-book towards her with 
 an energetic effort at self-control. 
 
 " Very well," said Gaie, " then I'll go away. 
 I am going to the garden, Donna ; do come soon ; " 
 and Gaie disappeared. " What a funny girl 
 Donna is ! " she soliloquised as she went down 
 the passage. " You never can make out if she is 
 sorry for anything for ever so long ; then, all of 
 a sudden, out it comes, and you find she has been
 
 292 LESCAE. 
 
 sorrier than any one else after all. I really do 
 think she wishes Piers had come down too.'' 
 
 Ah ! that autumn had little brightness for 
 Donna; for indeed her heart was many a day 
 sore, sad, and weary with the vain, vain wishing 
 of — just that very wish. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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