LI E> RARY OF THE U N I VLRSITY Of ILLINOIS D376e. V.I CENTRAL CIRCULATION BOOKSTACKS The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its renewal or its return to the library from which it was borrowed on or before the Latest Date stamped below. The Minimum Fee for each Lost Book is $50.00. Theft/ mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. TO RENEW CALL TELEPHONE CENTER, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN NOV 2 8 ?Q^ , ^ -^ -- r" When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous due date. LI 62 ^ //' '¥^ z: y^ ^: 'y^ / c ^^-^ z^ :^. EUGENIE, THE YOFNG LAUNDRESS OF THE BASTILLE. EUGENIE, THE YOUNG LAUNDRESS THE BASTILLE. BY MAEIN DE LA VOYE. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HOPE AND CO. 16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH. STR EET. 1851. MARCHANT SINGER AND CO., PRINTERS, INGRAM-COURT, FENCHURCn-STREET. JOHN SHAKESPEAR, AS AN ORIENTAL SCHOLAR AND A LEARNED MAN, BY NONE EXCELLED, THIS EOMANCE $6 inscriijctr BY HIS ADMIRING AND SINCERELY ATTACHED 4' OLD FRIEND, *1 n 1 THE AUTHOR 4 NoTTiNG Hill, 1851. APOLOGETIC INTEODUCTION. The writer may be imagined sitting in a state of extraordinary excitement in his study — That book - crowning dissyllable ' Finis ' has just been triumphantly in- scribed on the last page of a manu- script lying before him — Overcome by mental exertions; satisfied with his mo- tives, but painfully agitated by rising fears, relative to the problematical ' suc- cess' of his labors, Eugenie's panegyrist falls asleep — A Phantom, arrayed in a motley garb, which partakes equally of Vlil INTRODUCTION. royal and republican insignia, stands be- fore him — The sleeper dreams that, he him- self, mentally and bodily cloven in twain, each a duumvir complete, addresses himself. Phantom, pointing to the manuscript: — C'est un bel exploit que tu viens dViccomplir ! Je t'en fais mon compliment, beau sire. Et ou crois-tu que tout ce galimatias-la va te mener? .... The Writer, seemingly not at his ease : — Where honest endeavours to do well generally lead those who make them. Phantom, laughing immoderately: — Sot que tu es, avec tes bons motifs! Ne sais-tu pas que tons les jours le monde dit una infinite d'inepties, et fait des sottises plus nombreuses encore, tout en desirant bien dire et bien faire As-tu cette verve qu'il faut pour ecrire? — T'es-tu suffisamment prete INTRODUCTION. IX a Tapp^tit devorant qu'ont les Anglais pour tout ce qui fait de leur pays un chef-d'oeuvre de perfection nationale ? — Leur as-tu dit, sans cesse, que le plus grand peuple de la terre, c'est le peuple britannique; riiomme le plus digne d'etre envie, tant pour ses qualites intellectuelles que pour sa bravoure et sa force prodigieuse, c'est 1' Anglais? — Tremble, ^crivain t^m^raire, si tu t'es permis de r^- voquer en doute par la plus faible remarque, le moindre persiflage, ce degre de superiorite que reclament ^galement la soutane, la robe, la lancette, et le comptoir anglais: tremble, te le dirai-je en un mot, malheureux, si tu n'es pas Anglomane. The Writer, still sleeping^ yet evidently striving to assume an indigiiant attitude: — You malign, insolent French ghost, a noble character, with whom you appear to be totally unacquainted Well-educated X INTRODUCTION. Englishmen, in every rank of society, are ever ready to acknowledge merit, wherever it exists: there is not, in fact, a country where foreign talent meets with greater en- couragement; not a state on the wide earth where real genius is so munificently re- warded; where genuine virtue is more applauded and fostered. But I recognize thee, prejudiced intruder; thou art my former self, nurtured and tutored in the fair land of France; thou speakest word for word as once I should have spoken, but that was before England had become my adopted, most hospitable home: experi- ence has since taught me that, between a good and talented Frenchman and a Briton, equally good and gifted, there is scarcely any difference but that w^hich arises from the physical effects of vins ordinaires, ome- lettes, and fricandeaux, opposed to roast- INTRODUCTION. XI beef, plum-pudding, and ale ... . Therefore I tell thee, self of other days, without dread- ing an imaginary malevolence, which thou art anticipating on the part of readers and critics against me, I have written, tant bien que mal, what I thought might amuse, duly mixed up with what I hoped would instruct, correct, and improve : impartiality, my rule ; public approbation, the guerdon I humbly seek to obtain. Phantom, gradually vanishing: — Comme tu y vas, pauvre imbc^cille: Tapprobation publique ! ! Mais c'est une fortune ; c'est une couronne; c'est ce que des mil- liers de grands hommes n'ont obtenu que long-temps apres leur mort — et toi, tu as I'audace de t'attendre a en jouir, m^me de ton vivant scarcely visible^ and his voice becoming fainter : — Tout le monde va se moquer de toi . . . . La presse. XU INTRODUCTION. toiite la gent litt(^raire anglaise, indignde de ce que tii oses te servir d'une langue qui lui appartient en propre, et que tu assassines, sans doute, effroyablement, va te ddchirer en lambeaux. Tlie Phantom hy this time has entirely disappeared^ hut a whisper is heard hissing the last words : — Tu peins trop d'apres nature . . . . tu te laisses trop aller au gre de tes impressions . . . . tu fais trop peu de cas de Gare ! gare ! . . . . Gare a . . . . The Writer, suddenly awaking, and dread- fully alarmed, seizes the manuscript, and is in the very act of committing it to the flames, when, — ^reader, forgive him! — pre- vailed upon by an insurmountable impulse, he recklessly sends it off for publication. EUGENIE, CHAPTER I. The young Lord of Harecourt Knoll— Proper estimate of a tutor— A word of advice to fathers — Portrait of a good clergyman— A banquet at ' the Knoll'— Rational plan of tuition— Naval men, connaisseurs of vf'ine — Capt. Topaway — The Rev. Mr. Lindsay's opinion respecting the priestly character— Lady d'Harecourt. Count Hubert, as a boy, (the hero of this story, by-the-bye, as well as his sister, bore various titles, by right of inheritance from uncles and aunts who had left them vast possessions in foreign lands,) — Count Hubert, as a boy, was perhaps the most en- gaging and the handsomest little sprig of nobility who ever graced a titled mamma's drawing-room, gambolled over the lawn in the front of any man- sion, or rode by the side of any aristocratic sire in Great Britain. His was not the deUcate beauty of so many children, who fret away their existence within the halls of luxury, pampered and spoiled VOL. I. B 2 EUGENIE. by weak-minded parents : he stood with all his youthful strength about him ; his undaunted ener- gies; his masculine comeliness; a vigorous, spirited, healthy English boy, such as Marlboroughs, Nel- sons, and Wellingtons are made of. His father. Lord Alfred d'Harecourt, of Hare- court Knoll, was a man whose principles had been formed by the unsullied examples of a long line of illustrious ancestry. He had imbibed the solid notions of the old school : his motto, a most appropriate Latin dictum, ran thus — " Be your words and deeds unimpeachable proofs of your hioh birth." — " Verba et facta de Q;enere nobili insignia certissima." In his boyhood, which had chiefly been spent at home, under the judicious guidance of a pains- takino' and well-informed tutor. Lord d'Harecourt the elder had acquired a taste for literature and the fine arts. His worthy parents both patronized warmly the learned men of their times. Hare- court Knoll was consequently a well-frequented rendezvous for all the most scientific, the pro- foundest, and the best characters of those days. With such an excellent early training, it is easy to imagine that Count Hubert's sire would endeavour to lead his son through the self-same path which he had himself so advantageously followed. And so he did, and with all the care EUGENIE. 3 and perseverance which paternal love and pride could bestow. The young lord never transgressed in a single instance without being instantly repri- manded : he never failed also to receive proper rebuke, whenever it was observed that his respect and deference for his tutor was not of the most unbounded kind. Fathers cannot impress too forcibly on their children's minds the necessity of being submissive and respectful in the presence of their instructors. Young people who feel the slightest dislike or con- tempt for those who have the responsible charge of educating them, will never profit by their teach- ing. A tutor, therefore, to be really useful and influential, should have the art of making himself beloved as well as admired. It has been proved that the greatest talents of a master are insuffi- cient, when the pupil discovers the slightest mental imperfection or physical blemish which rendeis his person or his manners either ridiculous or offensive. No one could be said to possess in a higher degree than Lord d'Harecourt the sense of what is due to a well-bred scholar; he was always the first to show marked attention to the dignified clergyman who presided over the young count's studies, treating him on all occasions perfectly in the light of an equal. Indeed, it would have B 2 4 EUG^NIF. been very difficult, away from Harecourt Knoll, to discover which of the two felt the greater deference for the other. Lady d'Harecourt, on her side, never allowed an opportunity to escape her in which she could make, not only her beloved Hubert, but her darling Alice, feel how much she valued the virtues and intellectual acquirements of the Rev. Mr. Lindsay, the much esteemed tutor of her dear children. Amongst the many well-qualified University men who had solicited the honor of being entrusted with the instruction of the young d'Harecourts, none had appeared so truly deserving the pre- ference as the Rev. Henry Lindsay, of Brazen- nose. Modest, although far excelling all his competitors; gentle in his manners, notwithstand- ing a certain sternness of physiognomy, which was, however, far from repulsive ; of a prepos- sessing exterior, being fairly tall and becomingly commanding ; he had all the good qualities which should constitute the important character of a Men- tor. His religious principles were high church, but high church in every good sense of the word, that is, not permitting himself the slightest devia- tion from the sacred duties which pure-minded and conscientious priests, of whatever persuasion they may be, should observe. On the day in which he was received as an EUGENIE. 5 inmate in the d'Harecourt family, Count Hubert*s father thought it necessary to invite his relatives and the neighbouring gentry to a splendid banquet at the Knoll, in order, said he facetiously, to introduce in a suitable manner the new partner he had admitted in his firm. The Rev. Mr. Lindsay proved himself on this trying occasion in every respect worthy of the confidence of his noble patron. He made no ostentatious exhibition of his learning; in his replies to questions regarding various systems oF education, you could not have detected any of those bombastic details of " infallible methods " for arriving at knowledge with the least possible amount of labor. Progressive instruction; well grounded rudimental teaching ; constant practical, combined with theoretical information, was the firm basis on which this truly wise instructor founded his hopes of future success. The dinner had been removed, and dessert was enlivening the guests with its inviting and lively display of fruit, flowers, and cunningly wrought sweet-meats of every color and shape, when a red-nosed gentleman, somewhat corpulent, some- what rough, and certainly not a little familiar and noisy, addressed himself loudly to the newly- elected tutor, his vis-a-vis : — " Excellent port ! Mr. Lindsay. I was present 6 EUGENIE. at the purchase of that wine — his lordship is a connaisseur in his way ; but I beheve he knuckles to me in this important matter, for I could tell at any time the age and quality of any sherry or port that ever was imported into this country, from vintages out of date to the last year's, which latter, by-the-bye, was supremely good. You, no doubt, are a first-rate judge of what classical men call Vinum Bonum." " Excuse me. Sir ; my knowledge on such sub- jects, I must confess it, is very limited indeed." " What ! my good friend, you, a parson, and pretend to be unacquainted with that omnipotent cheerer of our hearts, * the talismanic juice of the grape ! ' You certainly must be joking. Why, Sir, I have never known in my life any clergyman who did not do honor to the bottle, and that in right good earnest too. Shiver my timbers ! not a few of them, good fellows to the back-bone, have I carried well soaked to their hammocks." " I sincerely pity you, Sir, for having had the misfortune of becoming intimate with individuals so unworthy of their office, so mindless of their great responsibility." This reply was made with an expression of disgust which could not be misunderstood. Cap- tain Topaway, the red-nosed judge aforesaid, for he had the honor of belonging to His Gracious euge:nie. 7 Majesty's navy, you must know, eyeing, therefore, his opposite neighbour through the vacuum he had occasioned in his glass, tossed off the rest of his bee's wing and turned to the right-hand guest, evidently meaning, though he did not speak it, " That tutor of the d'Harecourts is a sorry sort of a chap ; how they'd laugh at him on board !" Captain Topaway was one of the many cousins, proudly claiming consanguinity with the d'Hare- court family. He was a good-hearted, honest sailor, full of bravery and carelessness, fond of every kind of jollity and merriment, and conse- quently forming an acquaintance only with those who, like himself, loved fighting, revelling, and wine. It happened, by a mere chance, that the rol- licking harum-scarum Captain was at the Knoll, for he very seldom indulged in " land-cruises," as he called them, being the veriest sea-faring son of the sea that ever existed : tossed on the foaming billows he had been from January to December every year of his life. Lady d'Harecourt having overheard the un- guarded remarks of her scapegrace cousin, and fearful lest her son, catching, unprepared, the injurious signification of such dangerous speeches, should remain under a false impression, turned to her darhng Hubert, who was fortunately sitting 8 EUGENIE. between her and Mr. Lindsay, observing that her friend Topaway's boon-companions were not characters who could with propriety be set up as clerical models of piety, temperance, or any other Christian virtue. " Indeed they are very far from it, my lady," observed Mr. Lindsay ; " at the same time, al- though it very frequently happens that the chap- lains of ships are intemperate at their mess, I have had the happiness of knowing a few who were the very reverse of those whom Captain Topaway so much admires ; men, I may add, considerably superior to their brethren on land, for this reason, that they have insuperable diffi- culties to surmount, jeers and scorns often to endure, and a most lamentable want of occu- pation constantly to wrestle with. Woe to that unfortunate ecclesiastic, after all, who, be the temptation what it may, succumbs in one single instance, and, regardless of the sacred laws which it is his duty to promulgate, sets the example of excess or immorahty ! His communion with God having been, by the very nature of his profession, more intimate than that of all other men, what will be the account expected from him on the great day of universal reckoning ?" Who can doubt that, with such a guide as this, the young lord of Harecourt and his sister, the EUGENIE. 9 Lady Alice, reached a degree of perfection in moral rectitude, as well as sound knowledge of every kind, which is very seldom attained; and so they did, for both were held up as examples of correctness and proficiency by the admiring parents of all the young aristocracy about the Court. B 3 ]0 EUGENIE. CHAPTER II. The Lady Alice — Great modesty of the writer — The pride of an affectionate brother — Portrait of a " Love," not over-drawn — Profitable style of education — Lady Alice's singing-master — Italian canzonettas, &c. — Use of variations — JMusic and crackers and sky-rockets sometimes equally euphonious — When varia- tions are worth hearing — Mr. Lindsay's system of instruction with respect to drawing— School recommended to Lady d'Hare- court — Lady Alice's governess — Proper treatment of such a governess — A little slap at some high ladies and gentlemen — Who was like a rose-bud. Reference has been made once or twice already to Lady Alice d'Harecourt; it becomes, therefore, necessary to introduce the reader to this young lady in the way which is usually adopted by historians and story-writers who have sincerely at heart a wish to please their friends ; not only the fair ones, but those also of the other sex, who have of course no possible pretension to beauty, i. e. when they are neither fops nor fools. EUGENIE. 11 " By the Lord Harry ! be patient, young gen- tlemen," shouted the proprietor of a ' show ' at a fair somewhere near town : he had told the bystanders that, for sixpence each — only six- pence — they should see the most fascinating little Eve that ever was created; with flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and alabaster skin, and this and that, and everything in the world that's pretty and rare. We promise no such exhibition of loveliness; but, observing an eagerness rather unseemly in our present peruser to know what sweet Lady Alice looks like, we would warn the curious inquirer that our graphic powers, at all times very humble, are not here about to treat any- body with a portrait in any respect worthy of that body's unbounded admiration ; and a very excellent reason we can mve for it. Havins^ another Love in this story far more beautiful than this, we spare our powers of description to lavish them all on One whom you shall be made acquainted with in due time. It is always prudent, besides, in matters of this kind to remember that what seems beauty to one, to another may look vastly the contrary ; to wit: an African maiden, whose lips, like — egad ! there's no simile for such — whose skin, copper- like, shines better than the brightest copper, would not succeed in rivetting our own, much 12 EUGENIE. less any young European's adoring eyes ; and yet, to her black gallant, she is what Venus was to Adonis; Psyche to Cupid; Nell Gwyn to Charles ' the Connaisseur.' Count Hubert could never be said to seem really proud ; to appear wholly wrapped up in his own self-importance; to be outwardly contemptuous; difficult, in short, of access, before the best of com- pany, but when his darling, beautiful sister Ahce hung on his arm or stood by his side. You might see him then, with head erect; consciousness of superiority in his whole bearing; a challenge in his large dark eyes, boldly flung at each youth of his own age who happened to meet him, saying, clearly enough not to need audible words, " I defy thee to show me one half so fair !'* It certainly must be confessed that the young daughter of Lord d'Harecourt was a rare and convincing proof that nothing can ever have been said in praise of woman's beauty, — of the excel- lence and endearing qualities of her mind and heart, — too commendatory or too much approach- ing to a picture of perfection. Her education, like that of Count Hubert, had been most carefully attended; it might be said, indeed, that her attainments were those of a per- son who had reached the middle period of life, so profoundly she seemed versed in every thing she EUGENIE. 13 had learned. It was also remarked that, through the judicious guidance of her fond parents, the beautiful child was far from devoid of female ac- compHshments ; but hers were accomplishments of a cast more modest than brilliant, more heart- stirring than fraught with startling and surprising powers. " How can you think of bringing my daughter such senseless compositions as these?" said one day Lady d'Harecourt to a great teacher of the metropolis who superintended the Lady Alice's studies in vocal music ; " would you kindly oblige me by explaining the words of that song ?" " Indeed, Miladi, it would be impossible," re- plied the gentleman whom her ladyship addressed. '* The words of canzonettas, burlettas, and sub- jects of that kind, are very seldom intended to mean any thing : they are in fact simply strung together to suit the notes." " Well, Sir,'' proceeded Lady d'Harecourt, " you will greatly oblige me, for the future, by avoiding to select any of those rhapsodies for the instruc- tion of Lady Alice. I particularly request that the words she sings may invariably contain, if not the soundest morality, at any rate, sentiments in which delicacy of feehng and good taste prevail. You are, of course, not in the least to blame, Signor," added her ladyship, fearing lest she 14 EUGENIE. should have wounded the Itahan vocalist's pride. " Gentlemen in your profession are obliged to follow the fashion ; and, as every thing is sacri- ficed to music in these days of ours, you natur- ally care very little about the language or the sense." Another day, both Lord d'Harecourt and his Lady being present, a celebrated peiformer was playing before a young audience, convened ex- pressly at their friend's, the Baroness Dasliville's mansion, in Grosvenor-square, a number of bril- Hant pieces ; they were considered chefs-d'-oeuvre of their sort; so they were rapturously denomi- nated, at least, by the ladies and gentlemen of the party. The bravoes and encores had been the loudest which were ever heard at any concert ; every one appeared enraptured with the astonish- ing feats of the player. Now, it so chanced that Lord and Lady d'Harecourt's darhng children were in the saloon at this entertainment; and being always anxious to destroy the least false impression that Count Hubert or his sister might form on such occasions as these, they beckoned the young people to come and sit by their side. " How do you like this music, my dear ? " ob- served Lady d'Harecourt to her daughter. " Not over much, my dear mamma ; it seems wonderfully grand, but I cannot single out one EUGENIE. 15 little passage that contains any thing which I could call pure harmony." " You are right, my darhng," remarked Lord d'Harecourt ; " there is no symphony in such music as that; but you must know, ni)'^ Alice, that it is now the custom to disfigure, to annihi- late, as it were, all the beautiful compositions of the old masters with what they term ' variations;' and those are all old airs with variations which have just been played. No sooner does any musical character get patronised for having done fair justice during a few years of his professional career to the soul-stirring creations of Handel, Mozart, and such Napoleons of real harmony, than he sets about festooning with crotchets and quavers every thing of the kind that comes in his way. I cannot compare the music of the present day to objects more similar than suns, crackers, Roman candles, and sky-rockets : it is an endless and lavish scattering of noisy projectiles, which serve only to show the author's want of real taste, and above all, his total inability to create." Sweeping assertions, such as those which have just been emitted, however well meant, require certain restrictions. When variations are judiciously brought in, as light ringlets and garlanded flowers encircling a fair one's brow, to adorn, but not to overpower. 16 EUGENIE. the symphonious tout-ensemble of a celebrated morceau, then indeed they may be received as agreeable accessions : repetitions, however, of the most euphonic embellishments ever composed, too frequently recurring, seldom fail to pall even the most enthusiastic of amateurs. " I hate variations ! " cried a fashionable belle, one evening at a musical reunion. " Why so, my sweet friend?" whispered her neighbour. " Because I hate them," the pouting one re- phed. " That is scarcely an answer befitting a per- former, so much an adept as you are, ma chere : try again; for I cannot consider my enquiry fitly replied to. Come; tell me goodnaturedly when you particularly dislike music with variations?" . . . " You tiresome man ! . . . I dislike all varia- tions, but more especially when their crashing notes, for example, their rumbhng shakes, their handsful, as it were, of chords, are so ceaseless that nothing else can be heard .... Then, Sir, it is that I hate and abhor them most. And I am sure that, were Beethoven, Handel, or any such cognoscenti as those, to hear the noisy trash, they would infallibly stop their ears, run out, or go mad." " Bravo! bravissimo! la bella Donna ..." EUGENIE. 17 Both the Lady Alice and her brother were ac- quainted with the art of drawing and painting from nature ; aye, from nature ! is the word ; for Mr. Lindsay, who was a master-hand in that most delectable of intellectual recreations, had con- stantly habituated his pupils to make their selec- tions of subjects exclusively from things which had a tangible body and a visible shape. He objected very pertinaciously to the practice of those teachers who never set any other models for their pupils to copy but their own, or prints of landscapes and figures, which it always more or less cramps a beginner's hand to imitate, every stroke having been necessarily reversed in the process of printing. Lady d'Harecourt had once been persuaded by an intimate friend, for whom she entertained a high degree of deference, to send her daughter to a first-rate boarding-school. " It would serve," remarked this friend, " to develop many of Lady Alice's good qualities, inasmuch as the advance- ment of her school companions would naturally create a vast degree of emulation in her breast, without which neither the mind nor heart can thoroughly evince what they contain.'' Her ladyship, fully persuaded that her friend, who had two of her daughters at that school, must have been well acquainted with the happy results of such an education, made arrangements 18 EUGENIE. for the purpose ; and for the first time, and much aojainst her indination as a tender-hearted mother, she permitted the darhng child to hve for a short time out of her sight. Nothing could apparently answer better than did this trial for the first month or two. It happened, however, that Lady d'Hare- court's daughter, though still very young, had anticipated the age of clear discrimination ; added to which, she had already deeply and largely im- bibed the rigid moral principles, the refined taste and sound sense of her tutor : this had rendered her not an incompetent judge of what was going on in that boasted establishment. She consequently soon found that every thing was secondary which had not display; hollow show for motive. Languages were taught by ' natives,' it is true, but natives who, themselves, had never received the least particle of good instruction ; no learned professor to direct ; no superintending examiner to answer for the compe- tence of teachers and the progress and proficience of the learners. The mistress of the school was herself a most talented, lady-like, and upright woman. She provided, as she thought, but who is omniscient? all the best means of information that could be procured. Her own rearing up, seemingly very good, having been in a young ladies' seminary of somewhat the same description EUGilNIE. 19 as that which she had herself estabhshed, she could not conceive that any thing was neglected in the training up of her charge, scrupulously mo- delled as it was on so excellent a foretype. Astronomy, geography, moral philosophy, some portions of which every young lady should be made acquainted with ; the grammatical know- ledge of their own native tongue, of which school- misses and school-boys, in general, are so lamen- tably ignorant ; with other important branches of useful tuition, were in that school, as they are, alas ! in the great majority of schools, matters of small moment, compared with dancing, singing, and instrumental music. Many precious hours were also spent in embroidery, knitting and netting, riding, and dressing becomingly, accom- plishments, all of them, which most certainly deserve some share of attention, but which all sensible parents, who have sincerely the permanent welfare of their offspring at heart, would seriously condemn as occupations unnecessarily absorbing three-fourths at least of their children's time. The consequence of these observations, made within herself by Lady Ahce, was, that she did not leave home after the ensuing vacation. Some readers may urge that strictures like these on the schooling and teaching of young people are far from interesting to grown-up persons who 20 EUGlfcNIE. purchase or hire books of this kind merely with a view to be entertained. To those it will be re- plied, without any form whatever of ceremony, that, if such inuendoes do not please them ; if subjects connected with the improvement of the rising generation, interesting as they should be to those who sincerely wish the happiness of posterity, seem out of place in works which should be, according to their notions, exclusively devoted to amusement ; they must give up the perusal of our present pages; for wherever an opportunity has offered itself to furnish remarks arising from prac- tical experience or from thought, they have scarcely ever been overlooked. The object of these volumes is mainly that of removing, if possible, all erroneous notions which may perchance fall in our vvay; of exposing abuses ; and in short, of endeavouring to enlighten the old for the advantage of the young. Lady Alice d'Harecourt had her governess, just like all other young ladies in similar stations ; the only difference was that Miss Fielding, the lady who had assumed that responsible task, was not expected, for a comparatively insufficient yearly stipend, to know and to teach every science and art required in fashionable society. Her province was simply, proficient though she was in most branches of education as an accomplished and EUGEINIE. 21 talented young person of good family, to assist in the study of lessons usually appointed by the Rev. Mr. Lindsay. She often too lent her aid to Count Hubert, when he appeared occasionally arrested by some insuperable difficulty in the translation of his classical authors, or in the English essays he had to compose on subjects connected with ancient or modern history. This proves beyond a doubt how competent she was to do justice to the various duties she had to perform ; and this accounts moreover for the kind and con- siderate treatment she received at the hands of Lord d'Harecourt and his most affable lady. Miss Fielding was in short on an equal footing with Mr. Lindsay, which is to say, living as an intimate friend of the d'Harecourt family. Ladies and gentlemen in high hfe will marvel at such intimacy. A scornful shrug of the shoulder, or a disdainful curl of the hp will indicate how far they are from thinking that the teachers of their children deserve such consideration and respect. Fie upon ye, selfish parents, whenever you can set a value on the baubles of life higher than that which you attach to the training up of those who should be the greatest treasures this earth can give you ! If you find you cannot associate with the person you have selected, as an inmate under your roof, in the honorable capacity of a governess or a tutor, do your utmost to discover another 22 EUGENIE. worthier of such an honor. Let the remuneration be adequate to the service expected : sacrifice your box at the opera ; put down your carriage if it be necessary, but be generous ; especially, be grateful, if you wish to be served conscientiously, with zeal, — indeed, with affection. Let it not be supposed for a moment, from the foreo'oing kind of homily, that the family at the Knoll neglected one single iota of the line of con- duct just recommended. The happiness of both parents entirely consisted in securing, as far as they were able, the future well-being of their darhng Hubert and Alice. Nothing therefore that could tend to that one single end was ever overlooked : all, on the contrary, that might be done to infuse sound knowledge, high principles, good breeding, orthodoxical notions of Christian duties, into the minds and hearts of their dear ones, was done liberally, devotedly, and con- sequently done well by those amiable and fond parents. The young Lord of Harecourt had now reached the interesting and promising age of eighteen ; his sister, one year and a half younger, had attained that period of female loveliness, which, like the rose budding by the parental stem, tells of forth- coming charms, so close at hand, that reality seems almost to be their better name : they were both, Hubert and Alice, a matchless pair. EUGENIE. 23 CHAPTER III. Country seats in England — Well-founded pride of patrician families— Origin of Harecourt Knoll—Description of the man- sion and grounds — flow retired tradesmen sometimes build up country houses— Cleopatra's kiosk — Interesting particulars on a nondescript style of architecture — Eccentric way of laying out a park — Miss Cleopatra Snobgold's supreme delight — Education according to the notions of Miss Seraphina Longshanks — The Seraphinarace not long to last — English maids turned into Indian bayaderes by a very simple process — Master William Snobgold as superintendent — Mighty and potent Squire Portopipe : a model — Sir Nicholas Highbred, a violent upholder of the trans- migration of souls— Holy Writ, the foundation stone of the doctrine of Metempsychosis— Adam, first example of transmi- gration—Farther proofs of the existence of Metempsychosis — Reasons given in support of the foregoing doctrine. It seems wasting one's time to attempt a de- scription of what is so well known ; aye, wasting one's good ink and paper too, to describe objects which have been so well described before, and that, moreover, by so many master-hands ; for, who is it that does not know, at once, what is 24 EUGjfeNIE. meant by an English nobleman's country seat ? One of those baronial dwellings which, if we have travelled ever so sparingly, we have seen spread over the fair face of Britain in every county ? It would be a waste of time most assuredly, were all country seats precisely similar, and were it not necessary sometimes to point out a few peculiarities in the exterior or interior of buildings, to assist in various necessary details which are usually con- nected with narratives of the present description. And now that we are adverting to this subject — the patrimonial residences of the aristocracy of England, we may as well indulge in a friendly chit-chat regarding the real value of such heredi- tary property. Friendly, this chit-chat shall, however, positively be, for otherwise we might with ease, feeling mon- strously inclined to do so, ride our great horse and thunder anathemas against all the degenerate nobles who have found within their craven hearts the courage to part with their manorial inherit- ance, a sacred legacy that should have been, in their secret estimation, the best and the dearest part of their wealth Oh ! how such unhappy beings must have wept over the reck- less foHies, which were the causes of heart-rending sacrifices such as those ! Rest in peace, fond parents, whose praiseworthy family-pride made it EUGENIE. 25 a matter of the primest importance to preserve your ancestral domains unincumbered, for the future possession of your sons and daughters — Rest in peace ! your grief shall not be renewed, by any uncalled-for reference of ours to the evil deeds of heartless heirs who have entailed regret and shame on their own latter years, and a life of com- parative nothingness on their dispossessed off- spring: — we shall dwell alone on the laudable vene- ration which good sons entertain so reverently for the last requests of their honored fathers. The Lord of Harecourt, at the time we speak of, was the tenth proprietor in uninterrupted succession who had called that mao^nificent estate his own. The first master of the mansion, a powerful and opu- lent noble of the earlier periods of the English monarchy, had purchased the land from the crown : it was an old monastery, then occupied by a fra- ternity of Knight-Templars who had received peremptory commands to return into Palestine. He had pulled down all those parts of the priory which appeared to be in too dilapidated a state to be repaired. The cloisters, the garden walls, and most of the out-buildings fell, in this necessary destruction, under the mason's hammer : the only parts left were a Gothic sanctuary, still to be seen, and the monks' refectory, long since overgrown with ivy, and disfigured by the ravages of time. VOL. I. c 26 EUGiJNIE. With the stone collected from the ruins, the present well designed and vast superstructure was raised: an oblong quadrangle, with turretted wings ; the whole perforated with narrow deep- sunk windows, lancet-fbrnied, and massively par- titioned with oaken frames. The wings contained, on one side, the library and picture hall ; on the other, the banquet- room, the armoury, and the chapel. Large turrets, or round towers, with em- brasures and loopholes, and projecting superior works, were seen at each angle of the principal and central building, answering to smaller turrets, of a similar construction, which crowned every projecting portion of the castle-like pile. There were stone balconies to each window, and a broad, handsome, double semicircular flight of steps, in granite, led to the richly sculptured portico. A balustrade, or open parapet, breast-high, ran from end to end of the roof, front and back, with here and there architectural devices tastefully grouped, and corresponding in size with the bold proportions of the wide-spreading fabric. Precisely over the chief entrance, a lion rampant on the right, and a leopard couchant on the left, supported a huge marble escutcheon containing the chivalric arms of the renowned barons of Hare- court. Many other details might be added to give EUGENIE. 27 an idea of the reigning taste of those days, were they at all necessary to the relation of our story : suffice it to say that solidity with elegance, seve- rity of style, with correct relative dimensions and symmetry, combined to render the ^tout ensemble* a princely habitation, bespeaking at once the high rank and pedigree of the noble owners. A great part of the beauty of this unrivalled country-seat arose from its being erected on the summit of a sort of mound, called " The Knoll," studded all over with the finest elms, oaks, ches- nut trees, and cedars ever seen. A kind of grove had luxuriantly grown at the back of the mansion : it had spread out right and left in lavish profusion, similar to two gigantic moles of impervious verdure, opposing their mighty barrier to the warring elements, that the cherished descendants of those who had originally given them a honfe and shelter, might themselves rest in security under the grate- ful protection of their boughs. Fields beyond fields, meadows and meandering streams, with clumps of venerable leafy denizens, almost as old as the oldest masonry standing there ; herds of deer roving in perfect security ; mares with their bound- ing foals ; cattle and sheep, peaceably grazing the luxuriant pastures abounding on all sides, com- pleted the extensive picturesque beauties of this magnificent estate. c 2 28 EUGENIE. A mile or two further, on the same road, tra- vellers were somewhat startled, after having seen the really beautiful and aristocratic pile just de- scribed, to observe on their left, and in the most exposed part of an extensive ground, purposely cleared of every bush, tree, or hedge, or irregu- larity of soil that might intercept the view, a shapeless mass of would-be Corinthian and Com- posite architecture. They had before them the truly gorgeous with the really useless, industri- ously heaped together, to produce what every man of taste, what you or we, could not have helped calling Ignorance and Vulgarity's conceit. It was indeed the most ridiculous motley com- pound which ever bore the name of dwelling-place. Cleopatra's Kiosky the thing had been denominated by the Snobgold circle, in close conclave met ; and good Widow Snob, were she still alive, would even now, as ever she did, make mention of * the Kiosk ' as of one of the mighty wonders of her little world. This strange medley, for a few words of description may be amusing, albeit far from instructive, consisted of innumerable buttresses in the shape of bending Atlases, stooping mum- mies, wrestling satyrs, monkeys riding on each other's backs, dolphins with their tails upwards, and a thousand other as incongruous effigies, all EUGENIE. 29 chiselled out of stone blocks, and all helping to support the great corps de logis. So that, in this respect, like the celebrated residence of Sesostris, the foundation of this heterogeneous palace was, as it were, supported by a labyrinth of columns, and seemingly upheld by magic; that is, by hideous gnomes and hob- goblins in fantastical moods, standing, recUning, and crouching. We shall spare our readers any further details ; for a description of the interior, which contained a complete hodge-podge of the most discordant arti- cles of furniture and ornaments, might induce them to believe that it is all an invention of ours, simply got up to make people stare, whereas it was truly and, bona fide, what they might still find, every day in the houses of the opulent retired tradesmen of the good city of London. It would be endless to describe the various contrivances used to embelhsh, as the designers imagined, this wonderful residence. There were Chinese bridges over excavated grottoes, osten- tatiously called catacombs; ruins covered with jessamine and climatis instead of ivy ; hermits' cells painted blue, yellow, and red, with plate glass in the casements. But that which was Miss Snobgold's supreme delight could only be seen at a considerable distance ; it peeped over 30 EUGENIE. an artificial mound, which might fairly have been taken for one of those long hillocks used in Ireland for the preservation of potatoes, so regular and tumulus -like it appeared, and so perfectly free of all kind of vegetation. The young lady had read of Indian temples and baths situated on the banks of the Ganges ; the famed city of Benares came into her mind just at the time that her tasty brother, equally classical with herself, was giving directions for the improvement of the park. In this, however, justice must be done to Miss Seraphina Longshanks, who had the care of Miss Snobgold's education ; for she it was indeed who had suggested many of the singularities of this place. It was she who, one day after dinner, sipping her souchong with the family in the conservatory, had said that a Brah- minical temple would help very much to give an elegant tournure to the estate. " Vous vois Men/' she said, " people who will come here, after having wondered at the recherche of your mag- nificent chateau,' (Miss Seraphina always used as many French words as she could, right or wrong, to astonish her dear patroness, the worthy Widow Snobgold,) " will be transfixed with amaze, when they suddenly discover, commepar enchantement, an oriental sacrt bain whilst they are carried round the park; for, in order to make the effect more EUGENIE. 31 impressive, I would recommend half a dozen palanquins to be used on such occasions. You might have them borne on the shoulders of some of your servants, besmeared v^ith soot and tallow.'* " O, how beautiful, mamma! do have palanquins. We might get my maids too besmeared all over, and they would make excellent Hindoo bayaderes, dancing before us as we went." " What ! " observed William Snobgold, her brother, with a broad grin, " without anything on ? " " Why not, Willy?" the young lady replied most innocently ; " as they would be black all over, no one would be the wiser; but pray go on, my dearest Miss Seraphina, your ideas are always so refined, depend upon it, mamma will order the palan- quins.'* Miss Seraphina resumed : '* TravelHng on the banks of the Indian rivers is always a very pompous affair ; what do you say to having a few of those fat teamers from the farm saddled as elephants with castles on their backs ? Trunks might easily be made out of the leggings of Mr. Snobgold's left-off buck-skin inexpressibles filled with straw." '' Good, good," cried Mrs. Snob, '* you are a droll girl, my sweet Phina ; we shall see about it all." It was in this way and by such remarks, dur- ing the dessert and tea, every day after dinner. 32 EUGENIE. that the ornamental works of each following morning were decided. Mr. William Snobgold had the entire management of every thing, in consequence of the vast experience he had ac- quired in the firm of Messrs. Plummet and Trowell, during an apprenticeship of some length which he had passed, before his father had realized the enormous fortune which he left behind him when he died. But it is time that the reader should be better introduced to these opulent and distinguished Snobgolds. Commercial pursuits of every description are honorable ; trade in all its multitudinous branches, down to knife-grinding and chimney-sweeping, reflects credit on those who exercise it with in- dustry, perseverance, and honesty. The rich man who, having retired from busy hfe, enjoys the fruits of his labor in modest independence, neither seeking to ape those above him, to surpass his equals, nor to lord it over people in humbler stations, is a worthy and truly respectable and respected member of society. Neither the gentry, nor the nobility, nor men of talent, will think it necessary to shun such a man. Unassuming as he is, ren- dering honor where honor is due, kind-hearted towards those whom he can serve ; what can so- ciety deny him ? Nothing, Far, very far from it. Members of every class look upon that man as one eug]e:nie. 33 whose virtues are his titles, whose good actions and fine principles are the quarterings of his family crest : he is entertained by dukes ; visited by literati ; beloved by all. Take an opposite view of the subject: See the enriched merchant or retailer, just emerged from the circumscribed circle of his peculiar business, whatever he may have been ; his speech still redundant with market phrases ; his looks im- portant as on 'Change ; the question, the reply ever bordering on cash — cash, that all-absorbing motive of his thoughts, words, and actions — cash, the only idol which he venerates and adores ; see that man settling in independent life. Nothing is good enough for him ; no one is company suitable to his ambitious views : he must have men about him who roll in gold, speak of gold, dream of gold ; and those men must fall prostrate, forsooth, before him, their golden calf. A Mr. Portopipe, quondam crony of the worthy Squire Snobgold, the defunct sire of those Snob- golds who were residing at the Kiosk, was just such 2l grand monarque of the realms of pounds, shillings, and pence. " Does he keep his carriage ? " was he heard to reply one day to a friend who was wishing to introduce an acquaintance : " I have made up my mind to open the doors of my hall to none but carriage-folks." Bear in mind at the c 3 34 EUGlfcNIE. same time that the earUest recorded progenitor of this bombastic Croesus was no other than an itinerant fiddler, conveyed over to this kingdom by some unhicky ship from the tenor and soprano land of Signors and Signoras. He had abandoned the comparatively unprofitable occupation of scrap- ing cat-gut for the entertainment of one of the Royal Georges, that he might the better devote himself to the profitable functions of one of the foreign purveyors of drink patronised by His Ma- jesty. Such are, for the most part, the men who, during the period of their jobbing days, rail mightily at the great, scoff at family pride, sneer at titles : they toil and they hoard, they bow and they cringe ; and finally, as much through fraud as through usury and extortion, mixed with the smallest particle of real and honorable industry, they become opulent themselves, perhaps knighted too, and trample on those who served them, spurn at those whom they once fawned upon. This however is human life : there are good and bad, more or less good and more or less bad, in every rank of that motley mass called society. Circumstances warp their moral faculties ; a kind of predestination rules over the fates of all ; these must be crushed by those ; and those in their turn by these; so, at least, was the frequent observation of Sir Nicholas Highbred, the much respected EUGENIE. 35 uncle of the young d'Harecourts. A conscientious supporter of the singular doctrine of Metem- psychosis, he believed in its positive presence amongst the fallen sons of man as firmly as that great philosopher, yclept Pythagoras, who, kind- hearted creature, would never eat mutton or beef for fear it might be a leg or shoulder of a departed mother, father, or friend. " I am persuaded, my dear sister," observed Sir Nicholas one day to Lady d'Harecourt, "that the little spaniel you have there, and which you pet, no doubt, beyond all conception, was once one of the great Barons of Harecourt Knoll, a good soul, no doubt, according to the notions of the world at that period, but necessarily punished for some peccadilloes he could not help committing, like so many of us, by undergoing the present state of probation. " And you must not imagine, my good Bertha, that your little. . . . Mutty, I think you call it, as well as all these speechless creatures which sur- round us, are unwittingly undergoing their purga- torial chastisement. I am perfectly persuaded, on the contrary, that dogs, horses, quadrupeds, bipeds, flying and creeping things of every kind, each possesses a conscience incessantly apprising the sufferer of the real object of his sufferings. They cannot tell you what mental pains they endure. 36 EUGENIE. because they are not permitted, from inscrutable but just motives, to communicate them. But you might just as well declare that deaf and dumb persons are devoid of moral faculties, because the physical anguish in w^hich they writhe, is the only visible sign of pain which they exhibit, as say that, because a poor donkey, whose leg has just been broken by an unmerciful blow from his master, does not bray out the full amount of his tor- tures, he does not consequently feel the pain, and that therefore there is no necessity for any latent reason to account for his tribulations." " My dear Nicholas, how can you, a man in all other respects so sensible and highly gifted, entertain ideas of so ridiculous a nature I Pray be careful never to mention your eccentric opinions on this subject before dear Alice and Hubert ; I would not have them hear you for the world." " Nonsense, nonsense. Bertha ; if I have not as yet, perhaps, given the young people an insight into their sapient uncle's favorite creed, it is that an opportunity has not offered itself. But, de- pend upon it, no mortal man, woman or child, would become worse by believing in the trans- migration of souls." " You will kindly allow me, Nicholas, to differ widely irom you in my appreciation of that dan- gerous doctrine.*' EUGtNII5. 37 ** Sister, I do most kindly allow you to enter- tain opinions not similar to my own, but I cannot find it in my heart, for your own sake, to permit you to tell me that any thing is dangerous without giving me a satisfactory reason for saying so. Why is the doctrine of metempsychosis dan- gerous ? " " Because in young minds, my dear, ideas of this kind are likely to create doubts and premature reflections, not at all sanctioned by the pages of Holy Writ." " Holy Writ, Holy Writ! Why, Bertha, that is the very corner-stone of my theory. Now, be patient for a moment or two, you shall hear briefly how I prove it. '* In the book of Genesis it is said that the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, and further on, that the Lord God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man. Now, my dearest Bertha, the Spirit of God breathing hfe into the nostrils of man is, to my mind, a two-fold first example of the transmigration of souls ; for, the Spirit of God was, in this instance, the soul of the Omnipotent making a temporary abode in the body of an angel, for the purpose of transfusing another soul into the body of man. The Almighty's voice was heard in the garden as he walked, it is further said, in the cool of the day, saying to Adam : ' Where 38 EUGENIE. art thou?' A Being, you must confess, who walks and speaks, and from whose presence our first parents hid themselves amongst the trees, must wear some visible shape. Now a Spirit within a form, material or not, is decidedly a soul in a transmigrated state. Besides this, as souls are considered by many of our learned divines to be portions of the essence of our Maker, each human being must be an evidence of the positive presence of metempsychosis. But follow me : in that self- same garden in which walked the Lord God, a serpent crawled, and having tempted Eve, said unto her, ' Ye shall not surely die.' What is this serpent, my dear sister, but the arch-fiend and enemy of mankind transmigrating through the loathsome body of a reptile to tempt our first mother ? That serpent spoke, it was heard and understood, and its own Creator said unto it, 'Thou art cursed above all cattle.' Depend upon it, my dear, Adam and Eve, and all the living creatures that were brought forth by the earth in Eden at the word of God, were tabernacles more or less worthy, prepared expressly for the reception of those rebellious angels whom the Omnipotent had driven from heaven." " O brother, brother, how you can rhapsodise in this way, I cannot imagine ! Are you not afraid of offending your Maker ? " EUGilNIE. 39 '* Why, Bertha, were I not, on the contrary, to fancy that 1 am adding vastly to his great and merciful attributes, I would not indulge in this theory: it is because I am proving, by the as- sistance of such a doctrine, that God is good and just, and that there is a reasonable motive and an object in all his wondrous works, that I glory in this creed." " But how so, Nicholas ? " " In this way : animals, birds, fish, insects evidently suffer bodily pain, and, in many instances, mental, or, if you prefer it, instinctive affliction ; for the elephant, the horse, and dog, besides many other living things, have often most un- deniably proved it. This first datum granted, I infer that Providence, who is all love and justice, would never have permitted creatures to writhe under tortures, such as those which are so fre- quently inflicted on them by man, their heartless tormentor, were it not that those creatures are undergoing a purgatorial existence subsequent to a former state of sinfulness and crime. But let me go on showing how Holy Writ materially sanctions the idea of transmigration. '* Redemption, that all-sufficient and Love- fraught act of atonement, is in itself a most beautiful, and, in my own mind, most convincing result of metempsychosis : A child is born of a 40 EUGENIE. virgin; prophets and magi declare that child to be God, made man for the salvation of the human race. In shape like unto ourselves, undergoing the various vicissitudes of a life such as our own, dying in submissive agony on the Cross, that merciful Saviour was the Almighty sojourning on earth in a temporary state of metempsychosis, for, the terms transubstantiation, transformation!, trans- figuration, are all as many words synonymising with transmigration of souls, such as Pythagoras understood them, such as I take them to be. '* You have the Spirit of God descending like a dove ; an angel addressing Balaam in the shape of an ass; legions of fallen spirits rushing into a herd of swine. However, as I am writing a book on this subject, and you look still, my good Bertha, the very picture of resigned incredulity, I shall conclude my present evidences with many thanks for your patient hearing." " Book or no book, dear Nicholas, nothing on earth could induce me, I believe, to encourage such extravagant notions as yours in my own mind. They appear to me utterly useless, leading only to long arguments, without any apparent profitable object." " There again, sister, permit me to say that 1 have you : the object is most decidedly profitable, for it would be likely, if it secured no other ad- EUGENIE. 41 vantage, to prevent cruelty to animals. By-the-bye, the only thing that makes me tolerate that bom- bastic Snobgold is the kindness which he always manifests towards his dogs and horses." Here we shall presume to lead the reader back to the part of our chapter in which we promised a descriptive account of the various members of the Snobgold family. 42 EUGENIE. CHAPTER IV. Why old Snobgold was like nobody you know — Vulgar way which Mr. Snobgold had of being good — Business and charity widely different in a moral point of view — Fine trait of compassion — Straightforward way of saving people from starvation — A letter you would monstrously like to receive — What may sometimes be got out of repentance — An old gentleman who weeps : thou- sands would have wept for less — Why Mrs. Snobgold preferred sunflowers, peonies, and cabbage-roses — Small garden-chairs objectionable, because . . . . — Mrs. Gracepot's lawnyet — Mr. Snobgold hated all huge things but one — Wise remarks on married couples. It is easier to make a fortune than to turn it to good account when it is made. — Mad. de Puisieux. Reader, be pleased to make much of the wise aphorism we have, for your edification, borrowed from the French lady whose name you see so learnedly decking the first lines of this interesting chapter. Be sure to ponder over it well, over the EUGENIE. 43 quotation of course, not over the chapter, if you please, unless you prefer pondering over that also ; apply it to whomsoever you think proper, the cap will fit many; give it the due consideration that a whole history of facts would probably receive from your acute judgment, as it is all you are ever likely to know respecting the former trade through the profitable medium of which good Mr. Snobgold, the defunct father of the opulent inhabitants of the Kiosk, enriched himself and his incomparable successors. A better man, however, there could not be than old Peter Snob, as the people called him round about the Seven Dials, a part of the metropolis, we fancy, you may never have frequented, and which probably you will never see, unless it is some night in some short cut sapiently taken by your coachman driving in haste to the theatres. We repeat : more than this, touching the pecu- liar nature of his traffic, our cherished principles of philanthropy and a strong tendency we have to optimism will not permit us to reveal. The fact is, that there would be so many of those sancti- monious self-styled good-natured and charitable persons who would instantly cry out, " O dear me, it is Mr. This, or Mr. That, or perhaps it is Mr. So-and-so, whom the writer means," that we have scrupulously avoided any approach to fac- 44 EUGENIE. simile portraits. It so happens, indeed, that the worthy progenitor of the Snobgolds was a quiet, unassuming individual, known to nobody like you, and to nobody you know. Nevertheless old Snob, the kind soul, had his virtues, had some of those solid good qualities, forsooth, which are very fre- quently strangers in the breasts of men of much higher standing. He could not, for example, see a poor creature begging at his door, half naked, half starved, without running into his back shop to get the wretched being a hunch of bread or a few pence. " Well, well," he used often to an- swer on such occasions to those who laughed at him for being so soft; " well, well, if I am taken in now and then, I have, at any rate, the pleasure of knowing that I am far more likely to reheve here and there a really helpless and deserving ob- ject than those who, for fear of being deceived, never relieve any one at all." And thereupon, old Master Snob, with shocking great holes in his coat-sleeves, and nethers woefully damaged, would triumphantly toss his hoary head, and endeavour to take in the first customer whom he thought in a fair condition to pay : that was business, he often remarked, and it helped him to be charitable in cases of need. One day a dishonest tenant of his, and tenants he had by the score, besides having robbed him EUGlfcNIE. 45 to a considerable amount, by using his name and credit in sundry fraudulent transactions for his own profit, the scoundrel! had accused him of usury and of receiving stolen goods. This man was a kind of clerk and traveller in his establish- ment; Snobgold, charitable as usual, had taken him from a wretched state of destitution in the hopes of making him useful in the business ; he had been told by some neighbours that the fellow had seen better days ; that he had in fact formerly held a distinguished rank in society, and, what seemed harder still, that the man had a wife and young family literally starving. A grocer, indeed, whom he very much respected, went so far as to declare as certain, that the unfortunate woman had been once a lady moving in affluent circum- stances. This was more than the good heart of old Snob could bear; he had seized his greasy cap, turned up the corner of his apron, flung into his capacious pockets a handful of coppers, and gone, without further ceremony, to see ' the poor devils,* as he said, not without a certain degree of emotion, visible only in the tremulous working of his eyes and lips. Good Mrs. Snob, for she was a kind creature too in her way, wondered what could possess her dear Peter, to make him start off at such a rate, after having merely spoken a few words at the door with that chatterbox, Mr. Treacle. 4S EUGilNlE. " Well, well, my good friends, what's the mat- ter with you ? " said the old gentleman, wiping his face, as he entered the kind of cellar where the whole family huddled together, on a cold day of December it was, without fire or a single ])iece of furniture worth bearing the name ; " well, well ! what's the matter V Mr. Snobgold, of * * * *, in the vicinity of the Seven Dials, as above-men- tioned, had, like many other men, some even be- longing to the legislature and the aristocracy, a few favorite expressions : all his apostrophes, for example, whenever he was the first to speak espe- cially, began invariably by " well, well ! " a far better ejaculation, we presume to remark, than the various oaths so profusely scattered by gents of the turf and swells. " Misfortunes, sir, bad health, and hard-hearted relations have driven us into the sad condition you see : we have not had a bit of bread or any thing to eat since yesterday morning." " Here, my lad, run to the baker and cook- shop," said Mr. Snobgold, giving the poor boy the whole contents of the aforesaid capacious pocket. " Well, well, that'll soon be mended. Poor woman ! you look very ill; are you in pain? " addressing himself to the mother. " No, sir, not absolutely in bodily pain, unless you call by that term a dreadful weight I con- EUGENIE. 47 stantly feel here," pointing to her heart. " My dear baby and those poor httle creatures are the innocent cause of all my sufferings: how can I see them dying of hunger, sir, without experienc- ing the pangs of the most excruciating torments?" " We are indeed much to be pitied, good sir, we who ought by rights to be enjoying all the blessings of hfe," added the hypocrite who had been the real origin of all the losses and hardships sustained by the w^retched family. " Can you do any thing? can you write, in short, and keep accounts?" compassionately ob- served the kind visitor, looking at the speaker. " I am perfectly able to do both, sir, for I have received a first-rate education." " Well, well, wipe your tears, poor creature," nodding good-naturedly to the mother as he left her; "and you, Mr. What's-your-name, just come along with me ;" and from that hour Mr. Snobgold never ceased to show kindness to the family. Imagine what was the good man's asto- nishment on finding himself robbed, and his grief, when he was told that the wretch whom he had so benevolently and so perseveringly assisted, had lodged against him the accusation which has been stated. Notwithstanding this instance of his ungrate- ful clerk's perversity, the forgiving sire of the 48 EUGfjNIE. Snobgolds, after having proved how unjustly he had been accused by him, paid the wicked man's passage in a vessel that was sailing for the colo- nies, and having given the mother a sufficient sum for settling there with her family, kindly recom- mended the poor creature to an influential friend residing in the place. Good actions seldom remain unrewarded ; years elapsed, circumstances had occurred to reduce poor Snobgold's immense property to a state of embarrassment bordering on ruin ; enormous spe- culations in which he had vested the two-thirds of his capital had failed ; several of his houses had been burnt ; in short, fortune, after having smiled on him for a long time, on a sudden had begun to frown, and the good man every day perceived that his hard-earned wealth was dwindling into the mere shadow even of a competency. What was the amazement that seized him, when he received the intimation that a London banker had effects in his possession to the amount of fifty thousand pounds, with orders to pay the same to one Joseph Snobgold, of so-and-so, so-and-so by trade, &c. &c. The remittance was accompanied by a letter, from which the subsequent extract has been taken : " Dear Sir, " The generosity with which you treated EUGENIE. 49 a man who had deserved the severest retahations which the indignation of a kind benefactor could use against an unprincipled and ungrateful wretch, has remained deeply impressed on his heart; its first and most providential effects were to bring about an entire reform in his wicked conduct. I have the heartfelt pleasure of assuring you, that from the self-same hour on which we parted, my nature as well as my sentiments and feelings un- derwent a total change. I reached the place of our destination at the end of a prosperous voyage, and your friend, from whom you had so charitably concealed the disgraceful cause of our emigration, seconding my efforts by his judicious counsels and useful cooperation, has been the means of my re- alising a fortune beyond my most sanguine expec- tations. The sum which I feel bound to forward to you, as a very inadequate restitution for the mischief which my guilty aspersions must have produced in a greater or less degree, is just half the amount of my present property ; I entreat you to accept it, in order to help removing from a now prosperous and upright man's mind the only re- flection which makes him unhappy. " We have heard, with tears of unfeigned sym- pathy, of the great losses which you have sustained. Pray command me for any further sum you may find necessary to ask, and may God grant that our VOL. I. D 50 EUGENIE. prayers for your future prosperity be mercifully answered." The letter went on stating how the young family had improved in health and strength ; how his wife, restored to the affection of her friends, through their knowledge of his altered character and his success, had been again appointed by her parents as heiress to their fortune. It informed the good old man of every circumstance that had contributed to the happiness of his former pro- teges, and it ended by a solemn acknowledgment that all those blessings had originated in the mag- nanimity with which he had requited crime with forgiveness, ingratitude with further acts of mercy. Kind old Snobgold! he wept, he laughed; he capered, he shouted hurrah ! loud enough to call the grocer in, and to make all the neighbours stare. From that moment fortune smiled again ; prosperity attended all his undertakings, and, as if to reward him for this particular act of pure charity, the kind- hearted inhabitant of the Seven Dials became three times richer than he was before. Mr. Snobgold's family consisted at that time of his wife, a son, and a daughter. He had a small country-house somewhere in the environs of Cam- berwell, a neat httle box, with a pretty garden all round. This garden, by-the-bye, pretty as it looked, EUGENIE. 51 and small as it seemed also, was, nevertheless, the source of not a few little skirmishes between the worthy squire and his lady, whenever seed time and horticultural occupations returned. Mrs. Snobgold, kind lady, had a violent affection for sun-flowers and marigolds; she also vastly prized peonies, cabbage-roses, and hollyhocks ; deni- zens of the parterre which suited her taste all the more for being of portly growth, she herself weighing somewhat more than sixteen stone. Her gravel walks were wide; her garden chairs capacious; the shrubs she selected invariably of a species closely related to the tree tribe. " What's the use of having such tiny little plants about one," she often remarked on seeing other people's neater flower beds, " that one's rake grubs them up like weeds: I like to see what is in my garden, without being obliged, like Mrs. Gracepot, to hold up that peeping thingumbob which she calls a ' lawnyet.' " Such a spade, such a hoe, such a watering-pot, such labels on such sticks were never seen in any lady's hands but those of good Mrs. Snobgold. Now it so turned out that the master of that house, where sohdity, magnitude, and capacity formed the principal feature of each object, with a very few exceptions, had a strong penchant for articles of a more modest proportion. The only d2 imm UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 52 EUGENIE. thing he sincerely loved which was bulky, and that thing he had constantly loved for upwards of twelve or fifteen years, was huge Mrs. Snob. " No mountain in labour," he used facetiously to say at the St. George tavern, when he sometimes alluded to his better half in the coffee-room, " no mountain in labour is she, for all she does is well done, and my boy and girl are right down fine chubs." A sensible man who sincerely loves his wife cares very little about her various imperfections ; he is aware that nothing is perfect here below; his own nature proves it beyond a doubt; the ble- mishes he therefore discovers serve only to establish a kind of equality between himself and the object of his affection. Would that married folks always thought so! Many divorces, many acts of sepa- ration had never taken place. Nine cases out of ten, it is for expecting too much from each other that couples, happily brought together, and with every other quality considered necessary for the permanence of domestic peace, ultimately fall out and separate. Foolish mothers are there, who, with hearts brimful of maternal affection, unfor- tunately mixed, like punch, with four other ingre- dients — inexperience, vanity, grandmother's lore, and a deal of meddlesomeness, — counsel their daughters to be even with their lords. " An eye EUGENIE. 53 for an eye, a tooth for a tooth/' they are heard constantly to say whenever they are apphed to for advice in the conjugal squalls, which now and then occur between the fondest of husbands and wives. Mrs. Gracepot, the lawnyet lady referred to by Mrs. Snobgold, was a mother of that description: she had two horrid faults, that of being everlast- ingly pick , . . . pick .... picking her nose, saving your presence, and that of teUing her darling girl, whatever her husband did, never to fail in giving him tit for tat. Miss Gracepot consequently made a very bad wife, resenting the least possible act of marital insubordination ; storming when the poor man stormed, flirting violently when he permitted himself the least show of attention to the fair sex; in short, recapitulating, with numerous addenda, each fault her disappointed and provoked lord committed ; rehearsing every faux pas which he recklessly perpetrated, and which her morose and revengeful temper had baited as it were with tenfold temptation: it ended of course in their living apart. So much for Gracepotish government. 54 EUGENIE. CHAPTER V. The Snobgolds at school — Mr. Totlogan — Derivation of Professor Totlogan's name — The St. George's Inn, St. Giles — A novel- writer's duty — Laws necessary for the advantage of education — Powers granted to compel fathers of every rank to give a fair amount of general instruction to their children- -Real cause of the existence of bad men — Baneful effects of superficial know- ledge — IIovv some books have become cheap, and good for nothing. As soon as the young Snobgolds had reached the proper age for instruction, young Billy, as the father called him, was sent to school, and Miss Cleopatra was duly placed under the care of a governess. The school to which Master William was sent, like a majority of the academies of those days, and of later days too, was conducted by a magni- loquent, empty-pated pedant, whose chief know- ledge consisted in surrounding himself with a vast number of books, quartos and folios in particular; with terrestrial and celestial globes, geological EUGENIE. 55 specimens, an electrical apparatus, and a pneu- matic machine, the commonest uses of which he scarcely could have explained : but then, this Magister kept "a good table for the boys." Some one in the Seven Dials, Mr. Treacle no doubt, had often spoken very highly of that learned quidam, in consequence of various sapient orations he had delivered at sundry times before the dons assembled at the St. George tavern. He was a bombastic speechifier, by-the-bye, that pedagogue; full of big words which he could not have spelt, seizing every opportunity of referring whatever he stated before his dear friends to the Greeks and Romans, as incontestible authorities. This manner of argument exactly suited his audience ; the more so, as there was not a man in the room whose classical knowledge extended beyond a slight acquaintance with the rudiments of his English grammar, although possessing a pretty good recollection of those rules of arith- metic which more particularly related to pounds, shillings, and pence. Mr. Totlogan, for that was his name, had an infalhble way of astounding his hearers in the coffee-room of the above-mentioned house of accommodation, by entering into a learned description of the plates, pots, bottles, chairs, and tables, used by the descendants of the great Romulus. Having made himself master, by dint 56 EUGENIE. of incalculable labour, of manifold Latin words- representing the names of the aforesaid domestic commodities, you might have heard him bestow them upon trenches, goblets, ewers, benches, and slabs, with an importance and dignity equal to that which pervaded the speech of Marc Antony de- livered over the prostrate body of Csesar. How could Messieurs Snobgold, Treacle, Porto- pipe, and company, withstand the natural effect of Mr. Totlogan's eloquence? They were profoundly struck with the extent of his talents; they saw in him, not Minerva in the form of Mentor, for they had never heard of that omniscient lady ; not Plato, either, of the Athenian groves; their Plato was a large Newfoundland dog belonging to the landlord, and their groves flourished at Chelsea; no, they simply saw in him, and that was not seeing much, a person far superior to themselves, which was sufficient to induce them all to recom- mend him as a fit instructor for the heir of the Snobgolds. " My name," declared Mr. Totlogan, " is an undeniable proof of the classical origin of our family. Logos, do you see, gentlemen, is a Greek noun, signifying 'knowledge;' 7b^, which precedes it, is a Latin adjective, which means ' all;' and as our forefathers had a curious way of always giving their names an English twang, by the addition of EUGENIE. 57 some familiar sound, such as ish, ing, ith, they changed gos into gan, and our name became logan, totlogan, which is, ' all knowledge.' " With this golden dust, a la Macphail, our friend the schoolmaster blinded twice a year, during the vacations, the good tradespeople whom he had the luck to meet in his rambles through St. Giles. His establishment was situated a little way out of London, which prevented his daily visits to their favourite rendezvous ; but he never failed, at Christmas and Midsummer, to take a room at the St. George for the laudable purpose of scraping up new acquaintances and of preserving his old friends. His system of education, precisely that pursued in an incredible number of academies now to be found in and about the metropohs, was of the superficial order, all display, without a particle of sound learning. His assistants were chosen from a class of individuals who offered information at the lowest possible price, information therefore equal in value to the salary received. The boys were made to recite endless scraps of unmeaning poetry, to spout long speeches, to write fair copies, to spoil good paper and cardboard with frightful daubs, sent home for drawings: of Latin they learnt a httle; of Greek a little less; of their own native tongue nothing at all. A lad then, having finished his studies at Mr. Totlogan's school, was d3 68 ElJGlfcNlE. the very reverse of what a well-educated youth should be : a full-blown bubble, crammed with useless words, but barren of ideas; so was, alas! William Snobgold at the death of his worthy father. The rising generation deserves a few pages in the book of every man who writes for the instruc- tion and improvement of his fellow-creatures. Every novel, every fictitious narrative, being under the writer's control, as it regards his exposition of abuses, erroneous customs, prejudicial notions, and the like, should be interspersed, wherever it is feasible, with remarks on the follies of society, the reprehensible neglect of individuals, and the proper and fit rearing of youth. We consider that education in England is most deplorably neglected. Liberty, which is so che- rished of all Her Gracious Majesty's subjects; liberty, which every true-born Briton would die to preserve, a prize worthy of deaths ten thousand times more numerous than it has already cost ; liberty is most shamefully misapplied in everything that relates to the preparation of young minds and hearts for their future duties in life. Parents should not be permitted in any civilized country to sacrifice the welfare of their children's forthcoming years to sordid views of parsimony. No father should have it in his power to obtain instruction EUGENIE. 59 for his offspring, without being compelled, by some regulation or other, to grant a fair remunera- tion for that instruction; no instructor should be permitted in the land without having previously been subjected to the impartial examination of competent judges, appointed by Government. Then, when it happened that a man was not in circumstances equal to defray the expenses of his child's education, it would be known; * Boards of national tutelage,' evidently founded for the people's best interest, would take upon themselves the protection and assistance of such a man ; his child would be reared at the public charge, become an honor to the community, repay his benefac- tors, the nation, with consequent good conduct, which is most frequently the effect of sound early instruction, and be an able, honorable, and exemplary man amongst his fellow men. When fathers wickedly refused to apply for assistance to those boards, their guilty selfishness would be detected ; men would point at them with abhorrence and contempt; their poor offspring, hapless victims of unnatural ill usage, unavoidably reaping, alas ! the fruit of ignorance, would be the necessary drudg-es of mankind, and althoug^h serviceable still and deserving of kindness, a shame to their fathers by the very performance of their menial offices. 60 EUGENIE. Why have we bad men in every rank of human Hfe? Not simply because, the flesh being weak, and the heart desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, some one or other of us must fall a prey to temptation, be his station amongst men what it may; but also because a considerable majority of men of every degree, robbed during their youth of time which they might have spent in acquiring available and edifying talents, have been cast into the world deplorably ill-fitted for the career which they had to furnish. What can be expected from a deluded being who has been taught by precept and example, from his tenderest infancy, that superficial know- ledge is sufficient for all the purposes of life ? He rushes into the throng who seek for elevated posi- tions, fortune, or celebrity; he gathers importance through the assistance of friends; high patronage procures for him an honorable and lucrative ap- pointment. Watch him: vitiated within, through false notions acquired in his early days, paralysed in a great measure by a total inability to perform the few duties incumbent upon him, he feels com- pelled at last in self defence to deceive his em- ployers; consequent idleness leads to irregularity of conduct; a violent distaste for creditable occu- pation invades his breast; one step more: a prone- ness to dissipation and dissolute habits seizes him. EUGENIE. 61 and that man, for the want of conscientious and able teachers, scrupulously sought for him in his years of boyhood, has fallen as myriads fall; doomed by the incapacity, apathy, or avarice of their parents to be the victims of academic impo- sition, professional charlatanism and delusion. You may see now generally placed in the hands of the growing generation books as decep- tive as the florid promises of the masters who use them. Be not, however, over-amazed on hearing this lamentable truism; it is the effect of necessity. Extravagance of habits compels people in our days to cut a figure so much above their means and sta- tion that, in order to meet the exigences of luxury and ostentation, every one finds it necessary to retrench in some subordinate expense or other : that expense, in the eyes of too many, is the education of their innocent offspring. Money is begrudged for books, for scientific and sound instruction, which is lavished on showy furniture, gorgeous banquets, balls, and dresses. Thence arise publishers of cheap books ; itinerant preceptors and preceptresses, who, tired of being valets and ladies' maids, take upon themselves the easier task of educating the young by deceiv- ing the old. 62 EUGENIE. CHAPTER VI. A breakfast at the Knoll— Sir Nicholas advocates locomotion — Miss Fielding's observation on travelling tutorships — Sir Nicholas objects to Miss Fielding's views on the subject — Why the Baronet would not marry — Clergymen not considered as fit guides for youth — Mr. Lindsay's description of what a priest should be — Count Hubert's allusion to the doctrine of trans- migration — Why ladies require a van-full of auxiliaries when they are on the move — Heart-breaking separation, felt in the very kitchens— Lozenges, admirable travelling companions — Why clergymen should never sit by ladies in night coaches — Count Hubert's first travelling adventure. It is now a fit opportunity to resume our biograpical accounts of Count Hubert's earlier steps in life. Lord and Lady d'Harecourt were seated at their breakfast table as usual one fine spring morning, the glass doors flung back so as to admit the balmy breezes sweeping sweetly over the lawn at that matutinal hour of the day, for it was not eight o'clock, and the guests were about to rise from their refreshment. EUGENIE. 63 *' My dear brother/' observed Lord d'Harecourt to the Baronet, for Sir Nicholas, just returned from abroad, was staying a week at the Knoll, " don't you think it is time that Hubert should begin his long projected tour on the continent ? You know that we have made up our minds, Bertha and I, that our boy shall visit a few of the capitals of Europe, before either settUng in parlia- mentary life, or entering into His Majesty's service. We shall cruelly feel the temporary bereavement, but, in my humble opinion, a gentleman who has not travelled, is a man without experience, circum- scribed in his ideas, bigoted in all his views." " Your Lordship knows very well how strongly I recommend locomotion for young people of the age of my good nephew," replied Sir Nicholas ; " they find out wherever they go that Englishmen are not the only sagacious and formidable people in the world. Hubert, besides that, will have the double advantage of daily turning into some experience every thing he will see, for, of course, you will send him under the care of our excellent friend Lindsay there ; the best pilot perhaps that could be found in the United Kingdom to sit at the helm of so hopeful and precious a craft." " Sir Nicholas, your opinion of me far outruns my humble merits," inclining, said Mr. Lindsay ; " should his lordship consider me worthy of being 64 ei'gAnie. entrusted with the tutorship of Count Hubert in his travels, he may be sure that I shall endeavour to deserve his confidence." " Why, my dear Mr. Lindsay," hurriedly re- marked Lady d'Harecourt, " you speak as if you thought it possible that Lord d'Harecourt could for a moment entertain a wish to place our darling boy under the care of any other person than your- self. Your kindness to your pupil, the astonishing proficiency he has attained under your guidance, would prove us to be more than ungrateful, were we not to entreat you to confer upon him the further blessings of your superintendence." " Would that Lady Alice had also a compe- tent cicerone to chaperone her over the world ! " goodnaturedly broke in Miss Fielding, looking affectionately at her young charge, and then sighing by way of pleasantry ; " but you gentle- men in orders," kindly addressing Mr. Lindsay, ** monopolize parental confidence everywhere." ** Pray permit me, my dear Miss Fielding, to interrupt you at this moment," smiling said the ba- ronet; " for you have stated an opinion as your own, which, though generally received, cannot be and is not universally patronized. * Gentlemen in orders,' I believe you said, * monopolize every- where the confidence of parents.' Now, with due deference to the Reverend Mr. Lindsay, and very EUGENIE. 65 humbly also to all the good men, who like him have embraced the sacred profession of priest- hood, I widely differ from you in the sentiment just emitted. For, were I a father, and Lady d'Harecourt well knows why I will not run the chance of being one," — '^ Yes, yes, you strange oddity, another crotchet of yours respecting metempsychosis ; he declares, would you believe it," addressing herself to the company, "that as our sons and daughters may have been our grandfathers and grandmothers, he cannot bear the idea of having some day or other occasion to pull his ancestors' ears, or to put his granny in the corner." " Well, well. Bertha, every one has his hobby- horse ; that is mine Were I a father, let me repeat it. Miss Fielding, clergymen would not be the exemplary men whom I should select, pre- ferably to all others, for the monitors and preceptors of my sons. " I have on this subject a singular notion of my own. Young people, as you all very well know, are strict observers of the weak points so fre- quently discernible in their elders; they con- sequently watch most narrowly those whose sole duty of hfe should be to approach as much as possible to moral and religious perfection. A clergyman, therefore, who is constantly heard to 66 EUGENIE. read the divine service with apparent self-convic- tion ; who occasionally also enforces from the pulpit religious observances and Christian obliga- tions which he appears to consider as strictly indispensable in the conduct of every good man, must inevitably do an incalculable amount of mis- chief to his amazed pupil, whenever he swerves in the least degree from such a line of holy rectitude. Let, on the other hand, a man of talent and great experience, without ecclesiastical dignity, but with an unimpeachable character for honesty and sound morahty, be chosen : the youth whose education he directs, not expecting any superior display of sanctity, discovers daily with increasing admiration, traits of self-possession, humanity, temperance, and virtue which he cannot help feehng disposed to imitate. The comparison he establishes in his young mind between his lay tutor and the generahty of the men whom he meets is mostly to the advantage of his instructor. Rare indeed, my dear Miss Fielding, are the cases which would induce me to unsay that a clergyman, as a tutor, is an unfit guide for an inteUigent youth." " Sir Nicholas," here interposed Lord d'Hare- court, " you forget the obligations we are under to our worthy friend Mr. Lindsay." ** Indeed, Nicholas, you are very rude this morning," said his sister to the baronet. " Where EUGENIE. 67 have you been in your trip to bring home such extravagant reasonings ? " " Pardon me, my dear Lady d'Harecourt," quietly and good-humouredly remarked Mr. Lind- say, " my friend Sir Nicholas is perfectly right ; I shall go further, for I shall declare that I coincide entirely with him. A man of my caUing should never cease to act according to what he strives to inculcate. Uncharitable, intemperate, proud, or sensual priests are, in my eyes, immeasurably more dangerous than the wickedest of men. They bring their order into disrepute, expose the Church to irrelevant censures, turn into derision, in short, all those truths which it is our bounden duty to uphold, not only by our ministering, but, above all, by the most scrupulous and persevering practice." " Just like you, my much respected friend," cried the baronet; " you must have been well aware that, had I looked upon our priesthood as a community of men such as you, I should have said that it was indeed a blessing to have them as helpmates for the rearing of our offspring. A conscientious pastor, fulfilling himself all the duties which he recommends to others, is a being far more estimable than all the potentates and geniuses of this earth. But here comes Hubert with a brace of partridges ; he has been early at 68 EUGENIE. sport this morning. We were alluding to his continental tour: the sooner it is undertaken, I say, the better." " Here, Alice, my own darling, see how lucky I have been, whilst you were still fast asleep, no doubt; two plump little birds for your lunch and sweet mamma's,'' joyfully called out Hubert as he entered the breakfast-room, holding out his game and running to kiss his beloved mother and sister. " Good morning, gentlemen," bowing respectfully to his father and Mr. Lindsay, and shaking hands with them ; " good morning, too, my dear uncle, I assure you these are no relations of ours. It is impossible for any d'Harecourts to be such bad flyers and stupid things as partridges : depend upon it, any of our family must have been turned into eagles or herons, if their unlucky lot have been to transmigrate into birds." The preparations for the travelling apparel and concomitants of a tutor and his pupil, seldom require more than half the time which is necessary for the getting up and packing up of the merely decent requisites in a lady's portmanteau, valises, band-boxes, reticules, baskets, and other sundries. We men folks are the real causes of all this ado ; for it is simply to appear before us, wherever they are, in a becoming array, that our fair friends are always so sedulously attentive to their toilette. EUGENIE. 69 And they are perfectly right; for what is a pearl despoiled of its ornaments of gold ? — a rose de- prived of its stems and leaves? A pearl most chaste and pure ; a rose most fragrant and lovely ; but as taste and modesty are revealed in the form and material of a w^ell-bred woman's dress, by all means, ladies, never neglect having a sufficiency of luggage in every trip you take, whatever your husbands or brothers may urge to the contrary. Tears there were plenty at the Knoll on the day chosen for the young Count's departure. From his Lordship down to the lowest menial in the mansion, every one felt a pang on parting with dear Hubert. He was such a general favo- rite ; the cowherd loved him as much for his kind unassuming benevolence, as the young nobles and squires in the neighbourhood admired and cherished him for his frank, sociable, and generous dispo- sition. This was the fruit of good Mr. Lindsay's private instructions. Count Hubert was also greatly indebted to Lord d'Harecourt for the va- luable examples of urbanity and real philanthropy which he had so frequently given him. To none, indeed, was the owner of the lordly domain of Harecourt Knoll either haughty or cold : he had a warm heart for all — ever ready to assist, to con- sole, to forgive those who appealed to his liberality, his sympathy, or mercy. 70 EUGENIE. For a considerable time after the sad farewell bestowed by the d'Harecourt family on the much regretted travellers, the Knoll appeared the very temple of mourning: each one seemed to be bereft of a part of his usual share of existence ; they all moved about listlessly as vacant things, until a letter from Calais seemed at once to relieve the grief and apprehensions of all. In that welcome little emissary Count Hubert, full of buoyancy and merriment, sent details of his progress, and amusing enough they certainly were, the few adventures he had already to relate. A fat lady in the stage-coach from London to Dover, taking kind Mr. Lindsay for a widower, had set her cap at him in the most desperate man- ner. Her shawls, her cushions, her muff were constantly thrust on his knees, over his shoulders, at his feet, with, " My good Sir, pray let me keep those horrid draughts from you : you will catch a violent cold Here, my dear friend, do be per- suaded, take a few of these lozenges : my doctor declares that no one should travel without them." During the night, for it required in those days above thirty-six hours to perform the aforesaid journey, poor dear Mr. Lindsay, too timid to protect him- self, had gradually permitted his compassionate neighbour to lean against him in her dozing, and to lean so affectionately, too, that the buxom dame EUGENIE. 71 had at last contrived to fall across our patient friend's lap, with her arms stretched round his waist. " Figure to yourself, dear mother," the letter went on, " your excellent friend supporting on his over-burdened knees a person of the size and tournure^ a peu pres, of your new acquaintance Mrs. Snobgold ; a few years younger to be sure, but most assuredly as plump and quite as red in the face. For five hours at least did this most amusing comedy last ; dear Mr. Lindsay now and then nodding too, for we were both beginning to be most exceedingly fatigued. I had, I must tell you, several times been interrupted in my slumbers by sudden starts proceeding from my tutor ; these, I learned since, were occasioned by most unaccountable contractions in the recumbent lady's arms, whereby poor Mr. Lindsay's sides, he told me, had been horridly compressed. The last of these singular paroxysms happened early in the morning, just at dawn. In this particular case, 1 must confess that I was dreadfully frightened; for sound asleep as I was at that moment, I received across the face the most unscrupulous blow I had ever felt. Awaking suddenly, as you may sup- pose, I as suddenly looked round, when to my utmost astonishment I discovered Mrs. Somebody clasping dear Lindsay's neck, and hps to hps. 72 EUGENIE. cheek to cheek, saluting most gratefully her asto- nished, though still half slumbering protector^ as the lady repeatedly and fondly called our friend. The awful blow which I had received proceeded from the extension of Mr. Lindsay's arms right and left, on feehng himself so unexpectedly and sin- gularly assaulted. We both hastened to pick up the fair culprit, who had rolled to the bottom of the coach in the affray ; and explanations having followed of course, and apologies been accepted on both sides, our wayfaring terminated amicably, although somewhat more reservedly than usual on the part of the offended gentleman." It was then furthermore stated, by way of particulars, that no other passengers occupied the seats ; for the philanthropic lady in question had carefully engaged four places, one for herself facing the horses, and the three others for various members of her household, without which she positively declared that she could not find it in her heart ever to leave home ; those inseparable com- panions were a fine Angola cat in a carpetbag; two parrots, and a pug. " We think, Mr. Lindsay and I, that the lady's ridiculous mistake arose," continued Count Hubert, " from some courteous observations which had been made by us both, but more particularly by her immediate neighbour, respecting the beauty EUGENIE. 73 and various good qualities of her pets. What might not have occurred, tell me, sweet mamma, had my dear uncle been this grateful lady's admirer instead of Mr. Lindsay ? I say admirer, because it is evident that she took to herself every scrap of praise which we bestowed on her beasts ; and uncle, you know, goes far beyond praise when once he takes upon himself to eulo- gize the quadrupeds or bipeds of this earth." Peal after peal of laughter followed the perusal of this letter ; Sir Nicholas laughing louder and longer than the rest. As to that ingenuous, innocent girl, the Lady Alice, not excepting Miss Fielding, who enjoyed the burlesque quite as much as her pupil, they were amused beyond all des- cription. From that hour all kind of gloom had entirely vanished from Harecourt Knoll. Lady Alice had told her maid; the maid had told the servants, and soon, very soon, not a soul in the mansion was ignorant of the dear young Count's first adventures in foreign lands. There were many more haps and mishaps in that first letter, for it was a very long one, partly written during the time which Mr. Lindsay had de- voted to the necessary operations of a French barber, just after their landing. This very circumstance, by-the-bye, furnished an additional source of mer- VOL. I, E 74 EUGENIE. riment at the Knoll. It so fell out that the said barber, being what the French call a fripon, chose the very moment when he had half removed the superabundance of Mr. Lindsay's beard to mention a most exorbitant demand as a remu- neration for his performance. The worthy tutor was holding out a handful of change to the man, for him to take what he should consider to be a fair charge. " Judge what his amazement must have been when the shameless gueux selected no less a sum than a six-franc piece, a cjros tcu, which he instantly slipped into his pocket. Good Mr. Lindsay as quickly sprang up with the intention of expostulating, but the cunning fellow, finding that he had caught a tartar instead of a dupe, set off at full speed across the court into the street. There was your friend, at the hotel gate, half shaved, with a towel round his neck, telling his story to Monsieur Dessein and all the smiling sniggering by-standers. I own, my dear mother, that I dreadfully longed to turn up my coat-sleeves and to thrash some half dozen of those pitiless idlers who appeared the most to enjoy my dear tutor's plight." Here, however, we must take the liberty of cut- ting short any further accounts of this interesting correspondence, in order to ascertain what has EUGENIE. 75 become of those opulent Snobgolds, and what are their present occupations ; but more particularly to get acquainted with a relation of theirs who has not yet been spoken of. This digression, gentle reader, is indispensable to the gradual progress of our narrative. 76 EUGlfeNIE. CHAPTER VII. Who, now and then, spent a few days at the Kiosk— Some ac- counts of a mad-headed captain— A shrewd and calculating papa, with a mamma not less so— Dismal fate of the elder Fairlocks — Casualties which considerably increase the warmth of conjugal affection — Commercial notions of real happiness — Repentance of a runaway: reflections thereon — Evil conse- quences of injudicious early training. Objectionable as might be the family circle at the Kiosk, on account of their vulgarity, dis- gusting arrogance, aye, it may unfortunately be added, on account of the merciless tyranny which they exercised of late over all those who, in a subordinate station, did not administer profusely to their pride, there dwelt under that roof, at various times, a young man deserving a far better fate than the one which he shared — Lieutenant Stanley de Craufurd, a son of Mrs. Snobgold*s former husband; for the good lady, unknown to honest Mr. Snobgold of the Seven Dials, had mar- ried very early in life a mad-headed captain, who, EUG:i:NiE. 77 captivated by her youthful charms, had run off with her from school. This hare-brained selfish adventurer, for no one knew then who he was, after a few months' residence with his young bride, informed her that he was a widower, that he had a son some five or six years old; that he wished, in short, to leave the boy under her care, and that, being imperatively called abroad touching an important and mysterious affair, he should absent himself for a couple of years at the most, and return to her without fail, . The boy was accordingly sent for from a remote part of England, entrusted to the disconsolate wife, and the captain, who appeared to be very well off, having settled a handsome income on the weeping young creature, bid her an affectionate farewell and departed to return no more. A year after or thereabout she received a letter apprising her of the death of this singular being in an unavoidable duel fought somewhere in Spain. The document went on stating that some day or other young Stanley de Craufurd would inherit considerable estates, and very likely become a peer of the realm. Until then Mrs. de Craufurd was legally appointed sole administratrix of the property settled upon her by her husband before his departure. It may appear singular to many of our readers 78 EUGENIE. that Mrs. Snobgold should have made a secret of hex previous marriage to her kind-hearted husband at the time of his courtship. But it vs^ill cease to be a matter of wonder to them as soon as they know that Mr. Snobgold's aversion to widows was so great that he was frequently heard to declare that the wisest country he was acquainted with, regarding matrimonial matters, was far-famed Hindostan, where the lords of the land require that their wives shall be burnt on their funeral piles as a last proof of conjugal affection. He could not bear the idea of being continually told that dear Mr. So-and-so was this or that or anything better than himself. " Besides,*' would he remark not very delicately and with a wry face, which in the mind of Miss Mary Fairlock and in that of her shrewd parents, the Fairlocks of Whitechapel, was anything but pleasant, " besides, I never did relish the leavings of anybody ; that is why I hate second-hand shops of every des- cription." This weak point in the character of young Snobgold, who was even at that time considered to be enormously rich, having fortunately attracted the attention of the Fairlock family, they kept the sad occurrence of their deluded Mary's elopement from school in the profoundest secrecy, for it had occurred to them that the whole affair, heart- EUGENIE. 79 rending for them as it was, with dexterity and pru- dence on their part might still end well, and that, provided nothing was heard of the circumstance in Seven Dials, the long wished-for union of their daughter with this young man could not yet be looked upon as an improbable event. The Fairlocks of Whitechapel, butchers by trade, were themselves anything but poor ; they had several houses of their own ; a most flourish- ing business, numerous relations, all very well off'; the Fairlocks, in short, were, all duly con- sidered, a family with whom the Snobgolds felt no objection whatever to form an alliance. Young Peter, the only child of the latter, had for some time past been allowed to pay his addresses to the young lady, and the young lady, an only child also, had been pleased to accept the well under- stood homage. Fancy to yourself, good reader, how provoking the dreadful mishap just mentioned must have been, especially to the people at Whitechapel, for it so happened that the young folks were to have been married on Mary's next return from school. However, with a clever head or two, combined with a passable amount of cunning and necessary coolness, grocers, haberdashers, ironmongers, as well as butchers, have carried points much more 80 EUGENIE. seemingly unattainable than that of putting an extino;uisher on a young lady's first faux pas. The numerous wealthy relations spoken of were, on this particular occasion, made excellent use of by the Fairlocks. There was Maiy's aunt in Cumberland, who had positively declared that unless her niece consented to spend a few months with her before her marriage, she should not " finger a stiver of her monies" ; then came a rich old uncle in Scotland, some first cousins in Wales, &c. &c., all urging very nearly the same requests, with very nearly the same consequences, in case of refusals or postponements. So Mary Fairlock travelled about for two years from Peter to Paul in this way until the captain's death. Her father had been several times to see her, and she had, by his advice, several times written to young Snobgold, in order to keep his spirits up, each time signing herself ' Mary,' without ever adding * de Craufurd,' which would, of course, have infaUibly ruined all. Fortune is often propitious to the daring, and not seldom also to the dishonest ; the elder Fair- locks were, iu this case, of the latter class ; their plan succeeded to their hearts' content. Mary returned home, as blooming as ever ; her trusting and innocent admirer seemed but too happy to EUGEINIE. 81 renew the liaison ; and, finally, without a single adventure to embeUish or to mar the ceremony, the wedding; was celebrated. Mr. and Mrs. Peter Snobgold, jun., spent a week at Gravesend, joined in several trips to Margate and Broadstairs, mere fishermen's sheds at that period, and, weary of honey-moon and sea-breezes, returned well satis- fied with each other to the Snobgolds' back parlor in Seven Dials to talk of business, and to make arrangements for the immediate retirement of the rich older folks. Mrs. Snobgold, the young one we mean, once well settled in her house, observing that Mr. Snobgold, now fully immersed in business, might be successfully induced to part with her for a few days or so, humbly asked for a short leave of absence, alleging the dangerous illness of her Scotch uncle as a reason for her temporary sepa- ration. The permission was kindly and instantly granted, as one may suppose ; not, however, with- out begging of her very affectionately to return as speedily as possible. " T don't know what I shall do without you, my dear," cried good Mr. Snobgold, really cried, as he parted with his darling Mary at the ' Bull and Mouth' on the morning of her departure ; " you know that I am no scholar, and our books will be sadly kept," E 3 82 EUGjfeNIE. taking a sip of rum and milk, into which he shed a tear, " whilst you are away." This Scotch uncle, after all, was no other than the young boy de Craufurd, who, being old enough to be removed from an old nurse who had had the care of him for the last year or two, he being now eight or ten years old, required to be put to school ; in short, to be provided for in such a way as never again if possible to cross the path of the Snobgolds of the Seven Dials, or the Fairlocks in Whitechapel. This was very easily managed. A respectable academy was quickly found ; several years of school- ing were paid in advance at the bank of the next market town; and no particulars being given, either to the school proprietor or to the parties who were entrusted with the quarterly payments, young de Craufurd, handsomely, very Uberally, supphed with every thing, and perfectly ignorant of his parentage, began his mysterious career at New- bury, then a small town of Berkshire, under the formidable outworks and close to the glacis of Donnington Castle. The money paid at the above mentioned bank was sufficient to defray young de Craufurd 's expenses until he should have reached his one-and- twentieth year, when Mrs. Snobgold intimated that she should, God willing, be heard EUGENIE. 83 of again. The junior partners of the bank, you must further know, were invested with the power of removing the boy from one academy to another, according to their best judgment and for the best advantage of the youth. He was, moreover, during the last four years to be educated as a private pupil under a tutor, a member of the esta- blished church : nothing was to be spared which was necessary to bring him up as a good scholar and a gentleman. The remainder of the fortune left to Mrs. de Craufurd by this boy's father, quite enough to make him independent through life, was placed in a banking-house in London, in young de Craufurd's name, at accumulated interest. When Mrs. Snobgold returned home, her hus- band informed her that her father, the poor man, had died of a fit of indigestion, caused by eating too freely some black puddings which had been sent to him from one of his farms in Surrey. The mother did not long survive her husband. Good Mrs. Fairlock had passed her seventieth year, being then something hke twenty years older than the defunct. Severe bereavements at that age seldom fail to produce serious mental affliction : she fretted a few months, and just as she was on the eve of retiring from business, according to the advice of her friends, she died, leaving Mary Snobgold sole legatee to her property, which, though far from 84 EUGENIE. equal to that of the Snobgolds, was very respect- able and well worth having. Young Peter's attachment to his Mary had always been very great; but somehow or other the people about the Seven Dials declared that he was monstrously more attentive to his wife, and apparently fonder of her since her positive accession to comparative wealth, than he had ever been observed to be before that period. A short time after that Mrs. Snobgold presented her proud partner with a fine boy, the subsequent owner of the Kiosk. This circumstance entirely settled the domestic movements of the younger branch of the Snobgolds. For a few moments, it must be confessed, young Peter had made up his mind to give up all connection with business, much against the will of his parents. But this resolution instantly vanished when he heard that a son and heir was now claiming his parental solicitude. " He shall be the richest tradesman in the metropolis," he was heard to exclaim, " or I shall know why!" Thus year succeeded year during this devoted father's exertions to make his boy the '* warmest," and, consequently, " the luckiest and the happiest dog" in the world. For where is the commercial man of high or low degree who does not firmly believe that by leaving thousands to his heir he leaves him EUGENIE. 85 every thing that a human creature can wish for or enjoy ? To William Snobgold, the beloved son of Peter, succeeded in family order a fine fat cherub of a girl, to which a hlue of the Seven Dials, for there are blues in all ranks of female society, stood god- mother, and gave the classical name of Cleopatra. In both instances the parents had objected to have their own Christian names borne by the children, urging that it never sounded well in their ears to have * old this or that' constantly distinguished from ' young this or that,' as it would everlastingly remind them of their increasing years. When thoughtless Mary Fairlock committed the selfish folly of running away with Captain de Craufurd, it was not owing to an overflow of fondness for him that that mad -headed officer had obtained her consent to be united to him by a clandestine marriage. No, it was simply from vanity that the pretty young thing, for she was very pretty then, had sacrificed all her feel- ings of fiUal duty, as well as her scruples of honor with regard to young Snobgold, to become the fine lady of a great gentleman in uniform. She never really loved him with the same honest love which she felt for her dear Peter, but something that seemed for a while to gain an insuperable mastery over her mind and heart, had made her forgetful of 86 EUGENIE. her own best interests, ungrateful as a beloved daughter, false as one who had sacredly promised to be faithful, where her promise was prized beyond all measure. Meanwhile weeks and months of intense dis- appointment and consequent misery will atone for many of the follies committed by the frail portion of our species. The weal or woe of woman cannot be fairly appreciated by man. There are causes of suffering which will harrow up the soul of a wife, a mother, or a daughter, which no husband, father, or son can adequately com- prehend. In love affairs especially we shall always deny that the intensity and purity are equal on both sides. Love as he may, man never loves half so devotedly as a fond and modest girl can love. Mary Fairlock, who was an excellent creature in her heart, misplacing her affections as she did, wept long and bitterly for this her first error. A time soon came, fortunately for her, at which she had it in her power to retrieve her folly, and retrieve it she certainly did, with all her best qualities brought into play, filial, con- jugal, and maternal. We therefore have nothing more to say respecting her early days ; let us rather dwell with indulgence and praise on the excel- lencies of her later life. O that the young, when they have unguardedly plunged into the EUGENIE. 87 abyss of vice, could have the opportunities of repenting in time ! — that the still voice within them would but whisper, " It is never too late to mend ; " and that hearing it, and being edified by it, the myriads who are just now on the eve of being irretrievably lost, would rally their better energies, and under the mercies of Providence, strike off courageously and perseveringly into the path of the just! This earnest wish of ours, which springs from the inmost recess of our sympathizing heart, we, who, hke the rest of mankind, have had our days of culpability and weakness, this earnest wish of ours, we repeat, reminds us of a pitiable tale, des- criptive of the fate of one of the characters introduced in this book, that of Arabella, the misguided daughter of Mrs. Gracepot, our lawnyet lady of the fourth or fifth chapter. She, poor thing, separated from her husband, through various reasons more or less vahd, which it is not our intention at present to divulge, went to hve no one knew where, with no one knew whom, until it was found out in the most singular manner pos- sible that, whilst she was believed to be dying of consumption in some back garret of one of the suburbs, according to a report which she had most industriously circulated some time before the 88 EUGl&NIE. expected event, she was in fact suffering from the natural results of a third or fourth criminal intimacy which she could have no earthly moral motive to form. Fairly supplied with means proportionate to the wants of any reasonable creature; gifted with talent sufficient to double those means through moderate exertions ; and better still than all that, surrounded with compassionate friends and relatives who were ready to assist her with their good counsel and disinterested protection, the miserable being, revengeful and obstinate, pre- ferred evil to good courses, running headlong into ruin ; as she boasted, to entail disgrace and misery on the heads of those whom she had driven to discard her. Tainted, alas ! to the very core through the coarse instructions early instilled into her mind by a vulgar parent ; spoiled in her very childhood by the pernicious reading of immoral works ; a toy in the lascivious hands of licentious wretches ; a greedy listener, as all young people are by their nature, to disgusting talk and ribaldry, what in the name of peace could be expected from Mrs. Gracepot's hapless daughter ? And yet this child, when still she was a child, had some of those amiable, and many of those brilliant quahties that experienced and judicious mothers so well know how to ripen into exemplary virtues ; her bane KUG^NIE. 89 was bad advice ; her end will be awful. , . , unless that Omnipotent Power who can arrest the stars in their course, should, through another effort of his immeasurable Mercy, timely arrest her also in her fall. Close, close the book on this dismal story, and let us see what has become of Stanley de Craufurd. 90 EUGENIE. CHAPTER VIII. Stanley de Craufurd's wild oats — Singular effect produced by a young man's voice — Berkshire, a beautiful county; family seat ofthede Craufurds — Origin of the de Craufurds — How Captain de Craufurd became an unprincipled rake — Sporting men and women, seldom good parents. Newbury rang far and near with the boyish freaks of Stanley de Craufurd ; his, however, were always the high-minded frolicks of a youth, who, though mightily fond of good fun, always feels averse to anything in the least degree savouring of vulgarity, meanness, or buUyism. The boldest amongst the most spirited pupils under Mr. Legge's roof, he was nevertheless the kindest hearted, whenever a case of misery called his attention ; the gentlest, the readiest to oifer pro- tection, whenever a defenceless creature appeared imposed upon or cruelly treated. Handsome, athletic, and healthy, without being aware of those great advantages ; talented beyond the reach EUGlfcNIE. 91 of all his school-fellows, and generous to a fault, Stanley, '* that primest of good chaps," as his cronies called him, was admired and loved every- where. Some farmers in the neighbourhood, it is true, had promised Craufurd a sound hiding if ever they could lay hold of the arrant knave, as they called him, but, as it was simply for knocking down a few fences in pursuit of rabbits, or for being merely seen in the adjoining fields kissing, mischievously enough, some of their daughters or favorite maids, people laughed about the matter, and only wished him further good luck. Besides, it was not every farmer, notwithstanding his threats, that would have liked to attempt the chastisement of such a poacher. None knew better than he did how to play at single stick ; none had better proved his prowess in pugilism and wrestUng. Stanley de Craufurd having, by this time, attained his seventeenth year, was duly removed from the academy where Mrs. Snobgold had herself placed him, no better being known for miles round, to the house of a clergyman, residing near Wallingford. It was here that young Stanley received his best lessons of moral rectitude and sound Christianity. Not that the reverend gentleman who now presided over his education was ascetically strict in all mat- ters of religious observance; but that, conscientious 92 EUGENIE. and well-tried in the fulfilment of his duty, he wished to induce his young friend, rather than to compel him, to become as pre-eminent in virtue ashe was already remarkable for talent and proficiency. One evening when young de Craufurd was pen- sively strolling along a meadow path, with the rich roseate beams of the setting sun shining full in his face, a cavalcade of jaded huntsmen went by. Some dogs, seemingly as tired as their masters, followed, and then a single horseman was seen advancing more slowly than the rest, as if impeded by his own bodily pain, or by that of the horse which he was riding. Several times had that horseman been observed by Stanley to apply his left hand to his side, when, suddenly stopping, the rider slid gradually down, and finally fell to the ground. The intervening distance between Stanley and this stranger in such evident pain was flown over rather than run by the benevolent youth. He carefully raised the sufferer, gently propped him against a tree, and, bending close to his ear, asked him earnestly what was the cause of his present helplessness. Severely as the horseman appeared to suffer, the sound of Stanley's voice roused him, and as if he had been awakened through some supernatural agency, he quickly raised his wondering eyes and stared in the young man's face. EUGENIE. 93 Those who know the beautiful county of Berks are aware that numerous mansions are still to be seen there bearing the stamp of the Gothic archi- tecture of former days. Many indeed of those mansions, without sur- passing Harecourt Knoll in splendour or aristocratic importance, vied with that noble pile in taste, extent, and princely appearance. Those palmy days of the EngUsh nobility, palmy days which England is probably doomed never to witness any more, furnished numerous instances of un- incumbered landed and funded hereditary wealth. The nobles and opulent gentry of the kingdom could boast then of fair and formidable castles, like that of Warwick, of palaces more mag- nificent than that of Hampton, in almost every picturesque county of Great Britain, because, proud of ancient ancestry, laudably proud also of improved and increasing patrimonial estates, every man of rank at that period took a delight in setting a good example to his successor, by keeping intact the broad domains which he had inherited from his own venerated predecessor. Berkshire was sprinkled then, above many of the adjacent provinces, with habitations in which resided the courtly followers of royalty. There were then, in those parts especially, mighty dukes, haughty barons, and lordly cardinals, be- 94 EUGENIE. sides a vast number of rich commoners with pedigrees, less sonorous certainly, but quite as ancient as the best of the titled men around them. Belonging to the latter class of this high gentry, Sir Hugh de Craufurd, of Craufurd Hall or Keep, held a conspicuous, to which may be added a somewhat perilous position. The Craufurds had owned for upwards of four centuries vast possessions in that division of the kingdom: their affluent tenantry were numerous, well-conducted, and sincerely attached to their ruling seigneurs. It was during the holy wars that one de Craufurd, having signalized himself in the service of the renowned and royal Richard of the Lion-heart, had received from that monarch hberal grants of land situated on the northern side of that part of England which is now well known as the county of Berks. De Craufurd, the individual here alluded to, was a Frank by birth; he had resided a long time in Gaul, even accepted rank in Phillipe- Augustus' army, on its way to Palestine, when finally, in- spired by the daring spirit of the valiant and chivalresque Richard, he had solicited and ob- tained admission under English banners. Here his indomitable courage was remarked by' the most intrepid of all princely leaders. One feat of headlong bravery after another obtained for EUGENIE. 95 de Craufurd the admiration of all the nobles, and knights of every order were soon emulous in their prayer before the king to have him knighted and added to their number. Such was the first origin of that hare-brained de Craufurd who, winning the heart of the child Mary Fairlock, left her to rush forth in quest of martial enterprize, still too restless to lead a quiet life, and too bold to consent ever to die in peace. His former wife, an amiable young creature, whom he had married against her parents' consent, was highly connected, but without fortune; she had died of grief, caused by the most cruel dis- appointmentSj when she discovered, alas! too late, the inconstant and reckless habits of her husband. A child had been the welcome fruit of this unfortunate union; a boy, the very image of his father, with the kind and benevolent disposi- tion of the mother. That boy bid fair for a short time to give the fond father a love of home which he had never enjoyed ; but soon again his wander- ing spirit prevailed, and once more he abandoned the domestic roof under which he was spending such happy and tranquil hours to roam no one knew whither. This was a death-blow to the dis- consolate young wife ; she perceived that her fate was sealed : to lead a forlorn and joyless existence, or to die in the prime of youth and beauty; she 96 KUGENIE. chose the latter. No farther efforts were made by her to prolong a life which had ceased to create an interest in de Craufurd's breast. She gradually sank, simply keeping ahve until her still beloved one's return, to have at least, she said, the consola- tion of dying in his arms. And de Craufurd did return, and poor JuHa did, as she had hoped, expire in his arms; and that man wept; he sin- cerely wept; shed tears of sorrow and regret, sacredly promising to wander no more. Peacefulness was not in the heart of such a man. Like many others whose parents, absorbed in the vortex of pleasure, forget the duties which the birth of each child imposes upon them, he had been left from his earliest infancy to the care of menials. No pains had been taken to correct growing bad habits; no moral advice had ever been used to control his evil propensities. Sir Hugh de Craufurd, a good-hearted man in his way, was one of those enthusiastic votaries of the chase, who worship Diana above all supernatural beings, and recognize Nimrod as their only monarch. Lady de Craufurd, unfortunately par- taking too much of her admired lord's favourite predilection, had very soon after her marriage cast off the modest vestments of her maiden days to don the masculine livery of an amazon. So that, when her son de Craufurd, the father of EUGENIE. 97 that interesting youth at Wallingford, who had been left under the care of worthy Mrs. Snobgold, was most in want of maternal sohcitude and paternal authority, he was permitted to run wild amongst individuals whose ignorance and low birth were naturally the source of improper, if not alto- gether immoral, conduct and pursuits. With no pilot at the helm, where is the bark, under the inexperienced guidance of a thoughtless captain, that will reach its destination in safety? After having spent his childhood in idleness and his youth in reckless follies. Sir Hugh de Craufurd's heir, tired of the sameness of home, ambitious of renown, devoted, moreover, to the career of arms, entreated his father to obtain for him some grade or other in a regiment that happened to be actively employed any where. The baronet, who had failed in making a first-rate huntsman of his son, thought it very advisable, — in short, considered it highly necessary to grant the boy a boon, which would infallibly give him something of an acknowledged reputable nature to do, and something which also would have the advantage of teaching him disciphne, a portion of the boy's behaviour which Sir Hugh was beginning to find most lamentably needed . We are all of us pretty well acquainted with the life of a young officer of the character and educa- VOL. I. F 98 EUGENIE. tion of the worthy baronet's scapegrace offspring. He fought well, he drank hard, he gambled deep, ran away with all the senseless girls who were degenerate enough to follow him, and died most probably, as he was said to have died in a duel, from the effects of a pistol-shot received at the hands of an exasperated father, an infuriated husband, or an indignant brother. May such be the lot of every unprincipled scoundrel, military or not, who, misleading a too credulous and weak- minded daughter, sister, or wife, selfishly entails dishonor in the bosom of a respectable and virtuous family ! We therefore must bear in mind, at this part of our narrative, that Stanley de Craufurd's mother, and, it may fairly be surmised, his father too, are dead ; that he himself is ignorant of his real pa- rentage; that Mrs. Snobgold, having acted her part as an honest foster-mother, ceases all further agency in the destinies of the youth ; and that we leave here the young man himself charitably em- ployed in rendering assistance to a stranger in distress, to run after Count Hubert, who, by this time, has very likely reached the great capital of France. EUGENIE. 99 CHAPTER IX. An accident— What a French diligence was like — A tar on a trip — The conducteurs — A singular race — Swearing condemned — How a farmer recognizes his wife's leg — It's never too late in life to be modest — Sanctity and erudition, not the best of travel- ling companions— Captain Topaway at the Messageries Royales — What companions he met on the road. The huge diligence running between Amiens and Beauvais, in its way to Paris, shaken to shreds by the ceaseless concussions, experienced through a succession of noisy rumbUng journeys, seemed at last, like some gigantic fainting mammoth, to founder from sheer exhaustion. Down the shape- less monster rolled ; and panniers, and trunks, and passengers, roughly shot from the prostrate impe- riale, found themselves huddled most inconveni- ently together across the muddy way. " Odds boddikins ! in the name of Davy Jones ! what the devil are you all about?" vociferated F 2 100 EUGENIE. from the top of his lungs a square-built ruddy- faced fellow, who in a trice had succeeded in reco- vering his perpendicular position, notwithstanding the numberless, nameless objects that surrounded him. " So ho! my httle darhngs," seizing the reins of some six or eight small Normandy cobs who were starting in a great fright; " don't be after sailing off at such a rate : can't you see that we have all cast anchor here ? " This was no other person than our friend Captain Topaway upon one of his cruizes. His ship was repairing at Deal, and he took it into his head to go and see what those " French land-lubbers," as he called them, were doing on the other side of the water. The next poor fellow who extricated himself from that chaotic mass was very luckily the con- ducteuTf a man of some experience on the road, who knew perfectly what were the remedies to be resorted to in such disasters. He had witnessed many ; some far more appalling than the present, in which lives had been lost, and property de- stroyed to a considerable amount. " Dieu merci! " cried he, "Je ne suis pas mort!" then rubbing and feeling himself from head to foot, without paying the slightest attention to the cries and moans of those about him who might be dying, he added with an apparent air of triumph, " et, EUGE)NIE. 101 sacre mille tonnerres! je ne suis pas blesse, non plus!'' " I say, you swearing mounseer there, with your infernal sacres ; I wish you would leave off swearing, which is such a wicked thing, and come here to help me, that we may get out this poor girl from under that damn'd great trunk, which is flattening her like a pancake." The conducteur was very soon by Topaway's side, for he was an excellent-hearted creature, that conducteur, whenever his own interest did not in- terfere. They relieved the sufferer, and were rewarded by finding that her bruises were of a very trivial nature, the great trunk alluded to having fortunately rested at each end on two other boxes, which had broken the blow. Had it been otherwise, the wretched girl must have been killed on the spot. An old farmer was discovered further off saying his paternoster under half-a-dozen hampers of kan turkeys and fowls, which he was escorting to the great metropolis for sale : he had not sustained the least injury. But on being liberated, he set about crying in the most piteous manner, " I^an- chorij ma Fanchon, oil es-tu ? Au nom de JDieu, mes bons amisy aidez-moi a retrouver ma Fanchon ! " A minute search was instantly made, and with the help of the postilion and one or two more of the 102 EUGENIE. male passengers who regained their senses with their legs, being scarcely hurt, they removed a heap of baskets and travelling bags which had been cast on one side of the road, close to the fosse. " Je la voisjje la vols ! tenez, cest sajarre- ti^re que vous pouvez dtcouvrir d'ici, sous cetie hotte de paille. Ma pauvre Fanchon; comme elle secoue lajamhepour vous encourager /" The good farmer's wife was not long in durance vile ; her well- rounded leg led to her goodly waist, and from the latter to her plump shoulders and good-natured head, the space was speedily cleared. Fanchon smiled kindly on her dehverei'S, and running to her dear Nicholas, declared that she had only been pressed un peu trap ckaudement. All this while, you must know, gentle reader, that our young friend. Count Hubert, and that good man, Mr. Lindsay, in company with a French officer and a marchande de modes, stunned by the sudden subversion of their vehicle, for they hap- pened also, by a mere chance, to be in that ill- fated diligence, were slowly and noiselessly endea- vouring to make their respective lots as comfort- able as the situation would admit. " My dear Hubert, is not that the voice of Captain Topaway?" cried the good tutor to his pupil, as soon as he was able to distinguish how matters were in the inttrieur : no one being seri- EUGENIE. 103 ously injured. " It sounds very much like that of your good cousin/' " Most assuredly, Sir, that is the Captain's well-known * zounds,' and ' shiver my timbers ! ' . . . Topaway, Topaway ! " suddenly shouted Hubert. " Topaway !".... " Who sings out my name there so like a prisoner half stifled in the hold ? Pve heard you before, my young one. Who are you, by the Lord Harry, there, at the bottom of that confounded worn- out tank ? Why ! if it isn't my boy Hubert, of Harecourt Knoll, and you too, my dear Mr. Lind- say ! . . . Here, here," opening the coach-door, " give us your fist ; never mind ! clamber up, my friend, no matter whose bonnet or epaulet gets smashed in such a plight. Here, Mr. Captain or Major, I'll pull you out too." And in this humo- rous way did kind Topaway heave out one after the other all the tenants of the shaky machine. The one who gave the greatest trouble to remove was the blushing, hesitating marchande^ who re- mained the last ; a very plain lady who had passed her fortieth year, and who, nevertheless, for mo- desty's sake, had taken a full quarter of an hour in confining securely the lower parts of her dress. No one but such as have witnessed it before could imagine what an incredibly short space of time it required to set up again and to reload the wag- gon-like vehicle. Wet ropes and thongs, used 104 EUGlfeNIE. in abundance, poles and staves and planks, brought by the neighbouring villagers, with chains of every dimension, and sundry other materials, were soon rivetted and fastened, and the royal stage was once more rattling on the route royale. It is always a great oversight in parents, be they ever so wise and praiseworthy in other re- spects, entirely to intrust the tutorship of their sons on a tour to men, in holy orders or not, who have never themselves previously travelled through the countries which they are about to visit. A good man, and to boot the most learned of his profes- sion, who, after having left the University, has con- stantly dwelt at home, or within the boundaries of his native land, without having ever, on any single instance, ventured abroad, is, notwithstanding his profound erudition, his Christian sanctity, his moral rectitude, a perfect bore in fashionable circles, a guest most dreaded by a large majority of the young, the hearty, the convivial, and the merry members of good society. Receive him as a morning visitor, an idle character which the studi- ous gentleman seldom assumes, you must either bear with him in his prolix definitions of Christian purity; wade with him through some new Latin or Greek passage of a favorite classical author, in which he complacently points out to you some transcendant phraseological beauties, or, politely EUGl&NIE. 105 taking your hat, declare that, having some urgent business to transact you find yourself very reluc- tantly compelled to wish him good morning. Sit by the side of that exemplary person at the cheerful table of a mutual friend. There is com- pany we'll say; the ladies enliven the scene with their animated presence. Good fare and good wine very soon help to increase the general mirth. Not so with your neighbour; he is too abstemious from principle to permit either the viands or the beverage which is offered to him, to alter in the least possible degree the usual tenor of his conduct : he remains imperturbably sedate ; thoughtful and collected all through the day. It is true that you enjoy the advantage of a monitory check at the very moment, perhaps, when you are raising to your lips a splendid glass of Burgundy, by a sententious allusion to the intoxication of Lot ; or when, voluptuously masticating the breast of a partridge, you hear of the forty days' fasting in the Wilderness. Once more, a very pious and a very learned friend is anything but welcome in most of the occurrences of social life : he is un- doubtedly an invaluable domestic instructor, an example worthy of close imitation in the sanctuary and oratory ; an excellent itinerant reference-book for libraries, studies, sick-rooms, and death-beds, F 3 106 EUGENIE. but certainly a very useless and burthensome guide or companion in continental trips. Dear, deeply read, and virtuous Mr. Lindsay was precisely a living vade mecum such as the last gentleman alluded to. He possessed all the useful and amiable qualities necessary to complete the character of an instructive and edifying tutor at home, and not one of the indispensable requi- sites which should form a temporary part of a travelling dare-devirs nature abroad. Whereas Captain Topaway, merry to a fault, careless beyond a fault, with ail his imperfections about him, was perhaps the better Mentor of the two, when the object in view was merely to escort a youth during a few months* peregrination through countries where young travellers, who have the good luck not to be ruined in their morals, may be sure of being handsomely fleeced in another way. With your leave, we shall now link the trio together for a short while as inseparable friends, the captain having declared that he should spend two months of his time at least with his dear cousin and good Mr. Lindsay, and deposit them, boxes, trunks, portmanteaux and all, at the Messageries RoyaleSy in the Rue St. Honort. There, after having taken a bath, shaved and dressed them- EUGENIE. 107 selves, we shall furthermore leave them seated at a French dinner of those days, hungry, and conse- quently impatient; the captain storming a la maniere des commodores. Count Hubert vehe- mently hurrying the gar^on, and Mr. Lindsay endeavouring to impress the necessity of being calm and temperate in all the occurrences of life. ]08 EUGENIE. CHAPTER X. The trunk most cared for by Captain Topaway — When people have a right to send ceremony to Jericho — Where it is highly impolitic to look after one's own property — What learned men would find more difficult to understand than Greek and Hebrew — The best government in the world — An omelette souffl^e — The Pont Neuf — Boat-full of blanchisseuses — A vivat worth being shouted by all honest men. People may discourse as much as they please about the comforts of their domestic fire-sides and the snugness of their own homely fare, however homely that fare may be, we say with Topaway, the shrewd fellow, that now and then a little of hotel and tavern life is a very pleasant change. We care not if those who prefer the humdrum regularity of periodical meals, punctually served, shrug up their sapient shoulders at our want of good taste : we love now and then, we repeat it, the bustle of an inn, and that's enough. " No, that I won't, and be hanged to you ! '' EUGENIE. 109 cried out the captain, at that very moment be- ginning 2ifricandeau aux epinards, to a long-faced sort of a miUtary official in a cocked hat who was desiring him to come and preside over the Custom- house inspection of his luggage, which was about to take place. " Let me fill this trunk of mine first," slapping energetically both his sides, " with a Httle of that tempting prog, to make up for that which your crazy rolling tub there has been shaking into spray : I shall not stir from here until your Monsieur with his cotton night-cap has managed to make me cry, enough ! Why, man alive, do you take us for a set of thieves, that you want to see what our travelling-bags contain ? Here," throw- ing his keys, " go and see what an EngHshman carries about with him. I'd advise you, however, to take care of my barkers, for they are loaded with slugs, a httle compHment which I keep for any French shark who takes the liberty of making too free with my person or my wherewithal. Do you hear?" The douanier bowed low and retired ; he fortu- nately knew nothing of the language so roughly applied by our worthy tar. Mr. Lindsay had risen, and with the keys of his pupil in his hands as well as his own, had followed the officer. " What a nice way of cooking veal this is," observed Hubert, " and I like this omelette aux 110 EUGENIE. fines herbes very much also, don't you ?" " Aye, aye, good enough, youngster ! but I'll make you taste dishes far better than that Here, Gar9on ! bring us the bill of fare. I thank ye. Here, get us this, this, and that," marking them all with his pencil, " I cannot pronounce those confounded crack-jaw words of yours, a dinde aux iruffes ; a kek-shoze here, sauce a la crapaudine ; two or three cotelettes a la Maintenon ; a thing-a-bob en papillotte; this gim-crack, saute a la glace ; that concern, a la vinaigrette; and here again — pay attention, you sniggering raggamufEn — this, this, this, and that ; with your much-ado-about-nothing which you call an omelette soufflee. * Blown,' indeed, as for that, blow me tight! if it isn't ! I beg your pardon, Hubert, but you see we sailors have such queer terms ; I'm very glad Mr. Lindsay is not here. Come, Mr. Gargon, be quick about it, and send us some more wine." When Mr. Lindsay returned he found the table covered with dishes of every description, and the two guests discussing most emulously a very sa- vory stew which they had between them. " Ah, Mr. Lindsay, we sincerely beg your pardon," said Topaway, " but I made sure that you would not be displeased at finding that two poor hungry mortals had not had the power of withstanding one or two tempting morsels which were within EUGENIE. Ill our reach and getting cold : I am the only one, however, to blame, for Hubert, our young friend, persisted in politely waiting for your return, until J succeeded in overcoming his scruples." " My dear Hubert is ever ready to show marks of respect and affection to his tutor ; but in this case, gentlemen, your urbanity would have been, I assure you, a source of pain to me," observed the person addressed. ** In travelling, ceremony, you know, on our side of the channel is quite out of the question ;" then sitting down to a warm plate of vermicelle au gras, " I wish we both had fol- lowed your example, Captain, by giving up our keys at once to the man, for I should then have done my duty here with some degree of pleasure, and saved myself a great deal of unnecessary trouble yonder. It seems that the public func- tionaries of this country cannot bear to find people looking after their own property ; for, after having simply opened and locked up again your malle and valise, they set about throwing here and there every individual article which they found in the Count's trunks and my own, grumbling all the while and appearing very much offended. I begged of the men to be careful, particularly requesting them not to unfold the shirts and linen, upon which I was very roughly told that the duty of 112 EUGENIE. those men was to fouiller severement tout voyageur suspecte" " I wish to goodness, my dear sir/' cried Topaway, laughing most immoderately, " that my appetite had not been so intolerable, and the fricandeau I was in the act of devouring so monstrously inviting, I could have given you a leaf out of my book ; for, having often landed on the French coast, I was well aware that nothing irritates more those impudent ferrets of the jichue French Custom-House, than to stand by watching them. They either suspect you to have something which you wish to screen from their sight, or that you doubt their honesty ; and in either case they always study to be su- premely disagreeable, more so by far, however, in the latter than the former case. It must be confessed, at the same time, to their credit, that it very seldom, if ever, happens that any- thing is lost whenever their integrity is un- conditionally relied on." A great deal of mirth was elicited from the various details which Mr. Lindsay innocently related during their subsequent repasts. He had seen women performing the offices of men, and lords of the creation sweeping the stairs. Everything, of course, had been a matter of EUGENIE. 113 wonder to him. It was neither Hebrew nor Greek, which he would readily have understood ; it was not a problem in Euchd, which would have been solved in an instant by our learned English pundit; it was mere human nature exhibited under new forms, with energies and faculties applied in unheard-of ways through the most singular means. The French nation has always been, and will ever be a most heterogeneous mass of contradic- tory principles of human action. Every thing that is most valuable in the shape of magnani- mity and virtue, may be discovered in the character of that people, mixed up with an incredible amount of what is unsound, immoral, and vicious. They are as willingly kindhearted, generous, and brave, as they become, on the slightest provocation, violent, revengeful, and cruel. We side, nevertheless, with those who think that noble and praiseworthy qualities predominate in the heart of all true - born Frenchmen. Our days furnish us with wonderful examples of political versatility ,* but nations would not be so unmercifully turning into ridicule the appa- rently strange inconstance of the present patriotic and devoted Republicans of France, had a man or men of undoubted energy and transcend ant 114 EUGENIE. genius seized the helm of government at the opportune moment. Zealous but inexperienced leaders, by numberless faults, pusillanimous measures, want of Napoleonism in short, have damped the nation's courage. The fruits of the late struggles are lost ; they have not been gathered in their proper time ; another season must now be waited for, and that future harvest, come when it may, must be reaped, not by mere theorists, but by consummate adepts in the practical as well as logical profundities of government, the most difficult, most perilous, and thankless task that legislative genius can venture to undertake. Supremely ridiculous, nevertheless, is the notion entertained by myriads of ignorant individuals, who imagine that equality and fraternity could be established as a perma- nent state of things. Let some supernatural power level all conditions of men to one single uniform and fraternal state of society, before six months are elapsed, physical power will assume a dictatorial sway ; the bold will rule over the pusillanimous; the cunning over the bold ; and genius over all. No equahty can possibly exist long amongst intelligent civiHzed human beings ; there must always be, soon or late, a first and last man or boy, from the infant school-room to the king's or the president's court ; EUGENIE. 115 from the commercial committee to the Chamber of Deputies. No, no ! although we have not had the good fortune of being born in free and fair Albion, we most readily acknowledge that there is no form of government that seems to us better adapted to make all classes happy, than that of Her Ma- jesty's present administration. Abuses have crept in here and there, where order and economy should have reigned paramount ; subsequent mis- management has spoiled a few originally well contrived measures ; extravagant remunerations have been granted for labors which were not entitled to one-tenth of the salary ; aye, most onerous taxes and rates, half consumed in the processes of collection and appropriation, have been kept up and even increased, almost beyond endurance, when an impartial and severe cen- sureship might have gradually swept off the crying evil. And yet, abuses, mismanagements, frightful taxes and rates, all fairly taken into consideration, the laws of England, civil, mili- tary, and commercial, are the best laws in the world. " Thank Heaven ! " cried Topaway one evening before some Parisians, with whom he was smok- ing and drinking in a cafe, " Thank Heaven ! 116 EUGjfeNIE. Great Britain is the Queen of the Waves, and our tars the bravest of the brave/' Had he lived in our days, the gallant captain, for 'gallant' as well as gallant was he, would right loyally have added, " Long life to our own Victoria, the most powerful, most constitutional, and best beloved of European monarchs ! " " What in the name of peace can this be ? " cried Count Hubert towards the end of their repast, pointing to a huge dish of something which had just been set down by the gargon. " I really cannot undertake to consume my share of this huge kind of batter pudding, such as it seems to be; how could you fancy, my dear Captain, that after eating of twenty different, nay, thirty or forty different kickshaws which, in your kind catering, you have induced us to dis- cuss, hungry and curious Britons as we were, we should still be capacious enough to absorb this monster pie, enough to sate any half-dozen reasonable British subjects ? " '* Indeed," quietly remarked Mr. Lindsay, addressing the would-be roaring but self-com- manding Captain, and eyeing with something approaching to a look of dismay the yellow and brown pastry mountain, " indeed, sir, you might, with the slightest reflection, have anticipated that EUGENIE. 117 nine-tenths of this colossal pound cake, which I take it to be, would simply serve to swell the landlord's account, and — " " And to swell, you think, no doubt, my good friend," interrupted Topaway, with one of those peals of laughter that neither the wind nor the waves could ever succeed to render inaudible, whenever he indulged in merriment on deck, " to swell — ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha-a-a ! the lean and lanky sides of the cuisinier below and his famishing marmitons. Bombs and furies ! my dear friends, I'll wager to eat that preposterous bombast alone in a trice now before you, for look here what a ' much-ado-about-nothing ' it is." Thrusting thereupon a silver spoon and fork into the omelette soujffieL Both Count Hubert and his tutor were amazed, of course, beyond all concep- tion, and soon after having settled la note, they set off in quest of apartments. Paris of that rough-cast age, compared to Paris of this highly refined era, may be faithfully por- trayed by a description of the back settlements of RatclifFe Highway, contrasted with the regal and superb modern thoroughfare extending from Wa- terloo Place to Regent's Park ; a part of which, by-the-bye, has lately been most horridly muti- lated by the removal of some countless tons of iron and loads of bricks, which no transformation 118 EUGENIE. on earth will ever turn to such good account again. Paris with its steeple-high dwelling houses, narrow streets, insufficient sewers, scarcity of water, and superabundance of filth, was then, at first sight, anything but attractive to an English tourist; he, however, very soon discovered, that the fascinations of the French capital were not exclusively to be found out of doorsj for, with the exception of a few fashionable drives through the Champs ElystSy occasional promenades on the Boulevards, and periodical lounges in the Tuil- levies and Luxembourg gardens, the whole of the Parisian amusements consisted at that time in magnificent reunions, soupers, and balls under the brilliant lustres and gorgeous hangings of the vast and hospitable salons of the great. A single introduction to one evening party, was the fore- runner of scores of unavoidable further eno-ao^e- ments. There were, besides the grand galas of the court and nobility, a variety of other soirees, some of them well worthy of being frequented ; the savants\ the reigning Belle's, the rich ban- quiers\ the more opulent government contractors', the parvenus,' To all these festival meetings, not excepting one of them. Count Hubert, the Rev. Mr. EUGEINIE. 119 Lindsay, and Captain Hector Topaway, were sure to be most cordially and pressingly invited. But where are they ?. . . . By leaving the Messageries Royales, if you take a street almost fronting the church of SL Eustache, you reach the far-famed Pont Neuf, a bridge which had, even at that period, attained to a very respectable age \ here on either side swiftly run the turgid waters of the sometimes almost waterless river Seine, A very excellent central spot is this bridge for catching a good character- istic glance of la grande ville and les Francais. Notre Dame with its twin gigantic towers, like a watchful and still seemingly fostering great grand ancestor, overlooks the whole. On the left, la Cite ; on the right, along the opposite quays, the Palais des Quatre Nations ; and up and down the stream, as far as eye can see, church steeples, cupolas, dark porticoes, and houses — houses more than you or we could reckon or describe. A few eccentric features in this survey of central Paris are, la Ste, Maritaine, the semi- circular shops, projecting outside the parapet walls of the bridge, the sellettes of the decrot- teursj the tondeurs de chiens and petits dtbitants of pommes de terre, and marrons rotis, spread from end to end of the most populous thorough- fare in the metropolis. 120 EUGENIE. It is well worth our while to stop here for a few seconds, leaving that sagacious Topaway to escort his friends over to the Pays Latin, as they call a good part of the Faubourg St. Germain, and to note a few things in this curious spot. What is that dreadful noise about? We should rather say : what was that dreadful noise about ? for both the sources of the noise in question are removed, the one altogether away, the other, considerably lower down the river. We mean by the former, the chiming bells of la Ste. Maritaine ; and by the latter, a squadron, nay, a fleet of wash- er-women's boats, on which, about breakfast time, some thousands of female arms were usually observed flourishing up and down the well-known bang, bang, banging wooden kind of short- handled battledoor, with which those noisy, singing, squalling, laughing, and fighting hlan^ chisseuses drive out the crasse and salete of their customers' Imen. A washerwoman's boat on the Seine could furnish by itself enough matter for the composition of fifty most interesting, pathetic, as well as burlesque stories founded on truth. There is the very proprietor of the barge, a pains- taking batelier of some twenty years' service, who, after having lived on bread and garlic half his life with simply la petite gouttc now and then, by way of tonic to qualify the pints of eau claire which EUGENIE. 121 his scrupulous economy daily prescribed, has con- trived to gather together a sum sufficient for the purchase of the long wished-for property. A square-built fellow, brimful of benevolence and humanity, who, with the exception of those par- ticular qualities which are necessary to avoid becoming a gaspilleuTy possesses all the virtues which a generous heart exercises in behalf of his fellow-creatures. Fie ! upon those who, satisfied with simply skimming the surface of things, during some short excursions abroad, return home to spread far and wide judgments ; which they impudently presume to form on the character and manners of the various classes of a population, with whom they are as well acquainted as with the inhabitants of Lapland or Kamtschatka ! We have ourselves repeatedly heard la classe ouvri^re et houtiquiere of poor France spoken of with contumely, turned into ridicule, and unjustly reviled by egotistical indi- viduals, whose sole claim to attention was a month or two's visit to Calais, Havre, or Boulogne. Do you know, reader, who the said classe ouvriere et houtiquiere really are ? A set of respectable small shopkeepers and workmen, such as those who, in this fair and favored land, apply daily their shoulders to the great wheel, without which the mighty engine of the State would VOL. I. G 122 EUGEINIE. infallibly stand still : a large majority of toiling subordinates, (not the less worthy of respect for that,) who by the sweat of their brows, the pro- verbial honesty of their dealings, the exemplary abstemiousness of their life, enable their em- ployers to pay those contributions directes and indirectes, indispensable to the maintenance of the government of every country. Wherever large communities congregate, there are infallibly some few turbulent spirits, who will, now and then, stir up the quiescent passions of their too credulous hearers; and, the more sensitive are those who listen to such firebrands, the more headlong and violent is the mental effervescence produced. Frenchmen of every rank have their praiseworthy dispositions, as well as the best of Englishmen : one fact has certainly been often proved, it is the cheerful readiness with which natives of France show kindness and hospitality to the strangers who visit their shores. Depend upon this : to have risen to such a pinnacle of superiority in the arts and sciences; to have reached such a high degree of national importance; the soil which gave birth to such illustrious, learned, and elegant writers; such profound philosophers; such ener- getic and soul-stirring orators ; such good men as Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue; such monarchs as Louis XIV- and Napoleon; such ministers EUGENIE. 123 as Richelieu, Mazarin, Sully, and Guizot ; such a soil, we repeat, does not deserve to be maligned and railed at by ignorant, bigoted, and prejudiced individuals: rather let us all join the fraternal Vivat, loudly and cordially shouted very lately by the Lord Mayor in the loyal, rational, and patriotic City of London, on the reception of the Garde NationaUy " Hurrah ! for England and France united, and long live the Queen ! " G 2 124 EUGENIE. CHAPTER XL Evil effects of digressions — Singular circumstance, described by a little French gossip— English captain, hugged and kissed by a boatful of French washerwomen — Laundress such as was never ieen before — Beauty under a new aspect — Eugenie introduced to the reader — The muslin gown — How a very plain man may look handsome — Staircases in Paris, not over scrubbed — IMoral drawn from the state of those staircases — Madame Bonamie's rooms- Why so clean — Count Hubert's gallantry — Scene which ulti- mately leads to a serious consequence — Smiles worth diadems. Were we not chatting about the Pont-Neuf, built a Httle before or after the year 1604, and begun, we are almost sure of it, in 1578 or 79, under the direction of Androuet du Cerceau ? Yes ; we were alluding to the washerwomen's barge on the river, close to that bridge ; but, our would-be political digressions, most uninteresting twaddle, very likely, to many, will occasionally intrude themselves into our writings : we then take up the gauntlet, and, entering most rancorously into otfensive or defensive arguments, as chance directs, EUGENIE. 125 against unknown antagonists, we frequently end by forgetting altogether the thread of our narra- tive. . , . Pardon, lecteur ? That bridge was, and will probably ever be, the best stage wherefrom to witness the melo- dramatic representation of Parisian life. There, you had the patrician carriage, too often, full of duplicity and treason ; hurrying, from the vicinity of the Luxembourg palace, to the Carousel or the Louvre ; humbler vehicles sometimes following, in pitiable condition, and conveying, bon gre malgr6 the sad condition of the jaded horses, this or that bourgeois to this or that friend or foe, whom he was visiting on matters of pleasure or business ; pleasure, mind you ! always claiming the pre- cedence, in Paris especially, and more or less so throughout the whole of France. There ; on the Pont Neuf, you might observe a variety of singular meetings ; stranger casualties ; the oddest occurrences ; comic and serious, ani- mate and inanimate items of all kinds, fit, most egregiously, to excite the risible propensities even of good Master Punch, as well as to draw tears of real sympathy, from the visual orbs of those callous, past-sympathising governors of mendicity societies and workhouse-masters, before whom an endless tragedy of human existence is constantly being performed. 126 EUGENIE. " Good gracious ! " squeaked out in provincial French a little bonne m^re, just able to look over the parapet-wall, as she stared at the other side of the stream. " What, in the name of Sainte Marie ! is that great fellow yonder stripping himself for, in the sight of all those men and women: and they appear all, foi d'honnete femme ! to encourage him with all their might and main : don't you see him ? '' she said to a tall gendarme by her side. " There! he has this moment jumped into the- water ! " We shall, for a while, fancy that we are there with the rest, the better to tell you what was taking place. It was our friend Topaway; there- fore, see us, if you please, setting off at full speed to ascertain what it was all about; what the meaning, in short, could possibly be of the worthy captain's unexpected immersion. By the time we had reached the opposite side of the bridge, Topaway, the ever-merry soul,^ triumphantly waving a white object, which he appeared to have rescued from the torrent, was exultingly regaining the shore, along which a whole crew of washerwomen of every size, and age, and color, and physical mien, were awaiting his landing. Judge how amazed all the bystan- ders must have been ; those, we would have you to understand, who, like ourselves, were not in the euge:nie. 127 secret, upon seeing Master Hector Topaway re- ceived a bras ouverts and embrasse'd in the most rapturous style, just as he was, by all those ladies of the soap and battoir tribe. Some, the elder ones, were busy wiping him dry ; others held up, each a separate article of his dress, ready for him to put on ; one, a matronly dame about fifty, was literally preparing to shp on, what she called la chemise de ce cher Anglais; whilst the roaring, swearing, capering British tar, endeavouring to keep them off, ran hke mad to and fro by the water's edge. Count Hubert, a little removed from the crowd, and apparently highly entertained, could scarcely keep from falling, so violently was he shaken by laughter ; the Rev. Mr. Lindsay, more moderately expressive in his mirth, was endeavouring, by all the self-commanding means in his power, to pre- serve a becoming sang-froid ; and, at the prow of the barge, stood erect, alternately laughing and weeping, a more symmetrical, lovely counterpart of what some of you classical artists would desig- nate by the sonorous name of Naiad, to which we take the liberty of adding, ' in her morning neglige.' A neglige, moreover, which would have materially assisted in setting off to the best advan- tage the young charms of any fair one who hap- pened to be as fresh, beautiful, and pure. 128 EUGENIE. She, that lovely maid of the cleansing waters, had on what, by the simple arithmetical process of an addition, would have produced the smallest possible amount of necessary vestments ; all white, all undulating most bewitchingly in the roguish, caressing; breeze. But there was unfeigned mo- desty on that virgin brow; those dark eyes be- spoke nothing but gratitude and joy, warmly ges- ticulated forth by personified innocence, who had not yet learned that a maiden must artfully con- ceal even the most natural outpourings of her heart. Sixteen; budding, dawning sixteen was the sweet amount of her years. Aye — dawning six- teen ! Why should not the years of beauty have their dawn, as well as the^ light of day ? Similes have been used so countlessly by past generations; have been so monopolized of late, by that splen- didly metaphorical king of song, the Moore of Lalla Rookh, and that omnivorous other genius, Byron, to whom all things seemed to possess de- grees of similarity, sufficient at all times strikingly to correspond with his inimitable dreams, that poor writers now are driven to seize upon anything that can at all shadow forth the would-be novel and pleasing notions they have of beauty. Mean- while ' the dawn ' does not appear to be altoge- ther contemptible, in a comparison by which the EUGENIE. 129 state of the crepusculine morning, preceding the maturer brilliancy of the meridian day, is likened to the promising tender years of incipient youth, timidly and teemingly progressing towards the beauteous perfection of womanhood. No, no ; such a comparison may be tolerated, and we shall keep it — we shall keep it. Therefore bear in mind, kind reader, that bud- ding, dawning sixteen was the sweet age of that dear young creature, whom we left on the prow of that barge Her hair was black, but black, like the blackest object you, or any body else, ever saw, or poets ever described ; to which blackness you may boldly add the gloss of the best polished jewel in her present Majesty's crown ; and such a profusion of it too, that chaste Diana would have , considered herself amply screened under its luxu- riance, against the impertinent gaze of Actaeon, and even of all Olympus assembled. Without being tall, Eugenie ; there ! By the beard of Mahomet ! . . you have got her name : it may moreover be somewhat too soon ; however, as we do not intend to tell you much more about her, for the present ; we care not if you know, a trifle or so too early, the name of our jolie, petite blanchisseuse. Her stature, just one line or two above that of the celebrated Venus, sold to the Cnidians by G 3 130 EUGENIE. Praxiteles, was exactly such as you or we, who are people of refined taste, of course, could not help admiring. Length of hmbs, and breadth of shoulders are not, as many individuals suppose, sine-qu^-nons in the composition of what is called beauty, elegance, or dignity : there is in this realm a noble lady, who needs none of the over-praised concomitants which so many inches, more or less, bestow on other fair ones in the land. She proves a fact which has long been established in our own mind, as well as in that of all those who have no fond predilection for may-poles, that Eve, the perfection of female comeliness, would have found very little difficulty in wearing that said noble lady's regal attire ; let the princely garment have been head-gear, or stately robe, or embroidered sandal. So that by being told that Eugenie was rather a belle et chaste enfant than a demi-god- dess, after the commanding style of Calypso, the reader will not be surprised that, on beholding her, infantine and miniature-like, just then, as she stood, all the by-standers were impressed with a respect not less profound than their admiration was unbounded. Respect for a young washerwoman, be her personal charms ever so transcend ant, seems cer- tainly a violent stretch of human complaisance, on such a strange occasion too as the present — EUGENIE, 131 Granted ! — but wait patiently until you receive a hint or two more regarding the antecedents of this dear Httle heroine of our forthcoming tale. En attendant, permit us to account for all this unexpected commotion on the river side. Just as the trio, Count Hubert, his tutor, and the captain, had reached the Faubourg St. Ger- main side of the bridge, a dreadful shriek was heard, proceeding from some spot or other, as it appeared, under the arches or close by. A crowd instantly gathered towards the portion of the quay where it was expected that one could discover what the nature of the frightful accident could be. In their way thither, for the three traveUing friends had run there with the rest, Topaway, sailor-like to the core, had doffed his coat, cravat, and, it may just as well be said, without any further mincing, his trowsers and drawers, and all, so that, on reaching the strand, he had plunged at once into the stream. A very short while had sufficed for this son of the deep to ascertain what had happened ; he had instantly guessed the real cause of the poor girl's distress, and, having made ready, as he fully imagined, to save a fellow- creature's life, he, more readily still, cut right and left through the hurrying waters, to save whatever it might be that belonged to such a pretty lass. 132 EUGENIE. The fact was that one Madame Bonamie, who had the honor of washing for a duchess, being that day particularly busy rincing various sheets, counterpanes, and table-cloths, had given, not without a host of cautions, to her foster daughter a most costly ball-dress of mousseline des Indes, richly embroidered and profusely tricked up with blonde and Valencienne lace, to attend to. Thrice or more had Eugenie dipped that costly garment within the flowing tide ; her care, extreme, her fear of doing the least injury to the dress, so great, that the timid thing trembled hke a leaf all the while. An unlucky moment came at last; some neighbour had addressed her; the trifling question required a reply, were it simply from kindness, she turned round and. . . , and. . . . Topaway, dressed and triumphant, was then before her offering his prize to the grateful child. What a pleasure there is in doing good ! The countenance of that happy man was magnificently radiant with exuberant joy, and yet he was far from handsome, very far, for Topaway had an unfortunate nose that would have disfigured the face of Adonis : it had been minced, hterally minced, that nose, in a sharp encounter with some Americans on the Canadian coast, when the cap- tain, then simple midshipman, had, alone, for upwards of a quarter of an hour, sustained the EUGENIE. 133 furious attack of four wild Canadians, who had caught him, smoking in a cave, whilst the boat's crew were hunting after beavers. At the same time, what is such a good fellow's nose, when that good fellow's brow beams with benevo- lence ? Topaway, despite his flitch-hke sides, his heavy gait, sturdy hmbs, enormous fists, &c. 8cc., was handsome, beautiful, gloriously fas- cinating, because he was a good man We all know a few such men, at any rate it is to be hoped we do, aye, and a few such women too, whose plainness, be it recorded for the instruction of selfish helles, gradually vanishing through the talismanic power of their charitable and com- passionate hearts, has been transformed into positive loveliness, lovehness indisputable, before which the virtuous, the benign, the devoted, the brave have bowed with due admiration. Does not home, be it ever so homely, look beautiful in the sight of the sensible and ex- perienced man who returns to his fire-side, after gorgeous festivals and revelries, in which he has been feasted and entertained by the wealthiest and the most powerful in the land?, ...It is not certainly because that home abounds with luxu- ries, nor because it shines effulgently with gold and costly ornaments and furniture, lavished throughout spacious halls and galleries of un- 134 EUGENIE. exampled splendour ; most certainly not ! He merely finds there, at home, be it understood, sincere friends to greet him ; his arm chair, grown so familiar, that, turn about as he may, there is always a comfortable nook on it for liim to rest in ; he finds his favorite books ; his own desk ; his own little corner, in his own little snuggery; he finds there, in short, what he cannot find elsewhere. That is why home is dear, home is beautiful to the wise ; that is why a good man, the plainest, if you like, of God's creation, is beautiful also ; once more, that is why Topaway was a perfectly beautiful man. See how the kind creature helps poor Eugenie, who has just fainted from excess of joy and gratitude ! His huge limbs cradle her, as if she were reclining on a couch of down ; his solicitude, almost maternal, leaves nothing undone that can help to restore the helpless thing to consciousness and life. In this task of charity, let it be re- marked that both Hubert and Mr. Lindsay had cheerfully joined ; the former kindly carrying the maiden's basket; the latter— yes, the Rev. Henry Lindsay, of Brazen-nose — demurely bearing, behind the group, her bonnet and shawl. It would have done you good, gentle reader, to have heard the encouraging bravos, the shouts of applause, poured on the captain, your coun- EUGENIE. 135 try man, by that easily-impassioned French crowd, as they accompanied the pauvre enfant to Madame Bonamie's lodgings, in some narrow street behind Notre Dame. No easy task was that of carrying, through a dark and narrow passage, the delicate burden with which it was Topaway's good luck to be laden, and then to ascend a filthy staircase, on each step of which his feet constantly ran the chance of meeting some half-trodden carrot or turnip-parings, when no other equally slippery matter was there ; for in those days, the staircases of such houses were frequently no better for their cleanliness and salubrity than the corners and recesses of the dirtiest lanes : dead cats and worm- eaten dogs were often, for example, seen heaped up on the landings, with all those disgusting and offensive objects which people of the same class in England usually cast into their dust-holes. " What dreadful effluvia we have here," ob- served Count Hubert, addressing Mr. Lindsay; " I am not surprised that, when fevers declare themselves in Paris, their effects are so destruc- tive : an atmosphere such as this seems sufficient to taint the springs of life in the healthiest and the most robust of beings. Poor little creature, to live in such a hole I I could not exist here a single month ; could you V 136 EUGENIE. " I do not think that I could without being very much the worse for the sojourning," rephed the reverend gentleman, seriously ; " but you are not aware, my young friend, that in our beautiful countiy, so clean and airy to the eyes of the upper classes, there are towns and villages where the condition of the poor is not much better than this : indeed there are spots in our own great metropolis, which teem with cases of human wretchedness, to which this comfortless habitation would be a palace of luxury. My dear Hubert, the rich of every country are seldom aware of the misery which exists around them ; we, the ministers of God, are daily spectators of man's trials and destitution : we, whose calling and duty it is, when true faith animates us, to go to the sick abodes of the poor, are brought constantly in contact with suffering, starvation, and despair. This is nothing, I can assure you, to the distress; the utter absence of all the necessaries of life; which I have witnessed in London, during the few years of my ministration there, prior to the fortunate period at which I had the honor of becoming your tutor." '* Can it be possible that in England, and within our reach of rendering assistance, families writhe in such agony as that which you have just alluded to?" EUGENIE. 137 " Not within your reach, ray dear Count ; no, not within a wide range of humble cots and hamlets contiguous to Harecourt Knoll. His lord- ship, your worthy father, and Lady d'Harecourt, than whom, I can attest, there are not two more charitable beings in His Majesty*s dominions, have long ago driven frightful want, with its dreadful concomitants — crime and recklessness — from their immediate vicinity. Would that all the nobles and the wealthy of the land followed such praiseworthy steps ; instead of cherished revenge and nurtured animosity, which the inferior ranks of the population entertain against the aristocracy, a general sentiment of gratitude would warm every breast : the poor — poor only by com- parison — would daily wish health and prosperity to those who made such excellent use of their high birth and their riches. But see, my dear friend, the interior does not seem quite so re- pulsive as the approaches of this humble abode." The party had, by this time, reached Madame Bonamie's rooms on the fifth flat; there reigned au cinquieme etage a visible degree of neatness and proprete, which was not in the least obser- vable below, although the people residing au premier^ au second, and on the intervening floors, must consequently have been in better circum- stances than the good hlanchisseuse. However, 138 EUGENIE. they had not, as Madame Bonamie, a foster- child such as Eugenie, to preside over the general state of their domestic comforts. " EntreZy mes hons amis,'' cried, respectfully curtsying, the grateful owner of the local ; " we are but poor working-folks, as you see ; but never- theless we have hearts on which such kindness as yours never fails to make an everlasting im- pression : does it not, ma bonne Genie ? " observing that the dear girl was recovering herself. ** Pray, gentlemen, be seated." The persons here ad- dressed were the three English friends alone, for none of the crowd had presumed to follow the party further than the door of the house. It seemed that the talismanic atmosphere of home had operated on the vital springs of the recHning child, as it does in many other surprising instances, for no sooner had she been deposited on her be- loved Bonamie's neat httle bed than she revived. " Oh, gentlemen," said she, rising and modestly adjusting her ^cAm and disordered dress; "how shall I ever repay your disinterested services ? As for you, sir," apostrophising the captain, " no words can express the admiration which your courageous and devoted conduct has excited in my breast. Alas ! what a punishment it is to be deprived of fortune, when one acknowledges oneself under such deep obligation." These last eug]e:nie. 139 words were directed to Mr. Lindsay and Hubert, who were sitting close by each other. " I hope," rephed the elder gentleman, " that you do not regret the possession of a few golden pieces, from a desire of rewarding us in a pecu- niary way, for services of so trifling and natural a description as those which we have most willingly rendered you." " No, no, my good sir,*' warmly interrupted Count Hubert, as he observed that the unguarded remark had suff'used the innocent girl's fair brow ; " you mistake Mademoiselle Eugenie's meaning. I can participate in her anxious wish of proving herself worthy of your benevolent assistance : she longed for a palace, merely that she might honor the more and retain her welcome guests.'' The dignified apology, offered by this sensitive and sympathising young man, in the defence of that beautiful young creature, acted like a charm. Eugenie, as ingenuous and unsuspicious of wrong, as she was unbounded in her love, when she con- ceived that any one had treated her generously, cast herself at Hubert's feet, and repeatedly kissed the hand which he held out to prevent her kneeling. '• Voild Men, ma petite Genie!'' cried, exult- ingly, good Madame Bonamie, as she pointed to her darling child. " Elle est tout coeur, la chere 140 EUGENIE. enfant. Did you but know, gentlemen, one half of the good qualities of that sweet little creature ; her pure disinterestedness ; her fihal attachment ; her abhorrence of whatever is mean ; her tender care of me during my last illness ; in short, sirs, were you acquainted with that dear girl's grateful and affectionate conduct, ever since the day of my receiving her from her fond and heart-broken father, you could not, I am sure of it, find any bounds to your admiration." " Messieurs," broke in the confused maiden, suddenly addressing herself to Captain Topaway and his friends, as she gracefully rose, " I shall never sufficiently acknowledge my obhgations to you for your great kindness this day; be sure, however, that, although she possesses no earthly means of proving her gratitude in an adequate manner to you, you will be for ever present in the grateful recollections of Eugenie." The last words were, somehow or other, uttered with an accent, which seemed to vibrate on the vei'y heart- strings of Hubert. That which added, it must be confessed, considerably to their potent effect was that, at the very moment they were spoken, the maiden had directed her eloquent looks to- wards the young Englishman, with one of those accompanying innocent smiles that all our readers, the fortunate ones especially, have, at some period EUGENIE. 141 or other of their lives, known how to interpret and appreciate. Oh, those smiles; how different they are to the ten thousand smiles which, every day, disguise the features of the hypocritical, the heartless, and the treacherous. Through the former, are revealed the pure emotions of a virgin heart ; through the latter, like foul miasmas rising from malarious swamps, ooze out a mass of duplicities, villainies, and falsehoods. The friends, having first obtained permission to call on the morrow, for the sake of ascertaining whether Madame Bonamie's foster-daughter had quite recovered from her violent state of appre- hension, took leave of the bonne blanchisseuse and her protegee with courteous good-wishes ; Topaway, tout-a-fait a VAnglaise, bestowing on both, comme a Vordinairey a most hearty shake of hands. 142 EUGENIE. CHAPTER XII. That one all good Parisians call * Our Lady'— Commodities found on the ' Quai de la Feraille'— An inference— Place in which nobody would like to be — Species of fathers roughly spoken of^ Why clouds are sometimes preferable to sunshine — When hearers should avoid listening to ' first, secondly, and thirdly ' — Ques- tion involving a vast amount of meaning — What any one could discover with half an eye— When young men are found to be more particularly curious respecting the parentage of young women— Class of French women who spend very little money on their summer clothes — Why a young man blushed —Rooms to let — A captain to whom lectures are amazingly disagreeable — Reflections which young men love to dwell on — Tutor and pupil reconciled — A youth who bids defiance to Cupid and his mamma — Concierge and chambres meubl^es. " How shall we get out of this Augean labyrinth ? " remarked the captain, as soon as he had again obtained a breath of pure air, (perfectly pure it never was, it never can be in those confined pur- lieus of Paris,) " how shall we get back to the Pont Neuf ? We have no mob now to lead us, no euge:nie. 143 good-natured soap-sud quean to shew us the way. But, here, follow me ; I think I have caught sight of the Great Lady whom every dirty fellow calls here his own, * Notre Dame ; ' this way, Mr. Lindsay; Hubert, come on" As you pass the Hotel Dieu, a narrow street, (they are all awfully narrow, with a very few late exceptions,) you find yourself on the Quai de la Feraille, a sort of raised strand, all studded over with rusty nails and nondescript pieces of iron and brass of every description. On the right, as it were to contrast more forcibly with the rough ore just mentioned, you perceive gay front windows of jewellers' shops, watch-makers', and furbished quincaillers', all shining gaily in the sun, and fur- nishing a lesson to the wise. What lesson ? say you, stern inquirer, with one eye ideally cocked up at us, and the other shut, just to intimidate us, if possible, with the awful knowingness of such a physiognomy. Why, good friend, that lesson is simply this : — The goods lying promiscu- ously on the pavement, being by far more useful than the silver and gold so neatly fashioned into useless trinkets, which you see on your right, prove that gay attire, equipages, and palaces are seldom evidences whereon to rely that the man who owns them, is worthier of esteem or admiration than the man who has them not. Well, well, let 144 EUGENIE. the lesson drop, for fear that some one or other, find- ing the cap fits too aptly, should refuse to pass on. The next thing you see, and that is on the left, is a square stone building looking on the river, now, as it was then, called " La Morgue." Sad receptacle of what vice, folly, sometimes insanity, and worst of all, and more frequently than all, mental agony, snatch in moments of utter despair from the ranks of society. Laid out on oaken slabs in this dismal building, are seen, exposed to public view, the uncovered remains of the murdered, the drowned, the self-destroyed, the found-dead, be the motives and means of destruction what they may. Seldom, alas ! is this Morgue without a tenant. Crime, or the manifold heart-breaking casualties of life, furnish this kind of bone-house with weekly supplies. The gamester, driven to madness by his own evil propensity, leaves at the midnight hour his disconsolate wife, once perhaps the child of luxury, now reclining on a matted flock, and sleeping the perturbed sleep of one for whom there is nothing left but beggary, starvation, or death — to be brought there, the egotistical wretch, by the night watch, and to say, by the simple fact of his presence there, " Spectateur, r^- flechissez pendant qu'il en est encore temps ; telle est presque toujours la fin miserable de celui qui n*ecoute que ses mauvais penchants ! " The hap- EUGENIE. 145 less stranger, caught and slain by miscreant free- booters, as he was probably wayfaring towards those whom his return might have restored to life and hope, is deposited there, often unknown, and therefore unclaimed, to be buried without funeral rites, without a single tributary tear There also, O tale of unutterable woe ! the daughter of one, who once was deemed the pattern of an exult- ing and hopeful parent, is stretched, beauteous still, still in the spring of youth, and seemingly destined to grace the circles of her friends. Seduction came, arrayed in her most perfidious garb; the frail child, not timely or sufficiently warned, and ig- norant of guile, credulously listened; she loved, in short, with all her soul fondly and trustingly loved, and, what should have been the source of her happiness, proved the bane of her existence. No sooner deluded and undone, than shame and necessity completed the work of destruction. A ruthless father, an unnatural mother, relations, either eaten up with disgusting prejudices, or se- cretly instigated by interested motives of the worst kind, all equally impious, having driven that poor thing to the last resources of remediless want, have that death to answer for. Where can you find, man without a heart, the evangelical or moral precept which abets such a criminal implacable act as yours ? " Never shall she again enter these VOL. I, H 146 eugIiinie. gates; never shall that child be received again under any roof where I dwell ! May the curse of Heaven attend her ! be her cup of bitterness filled with the woes of endless agony ! and/' cries out the infu- riate and senseless father, " perdition alight on all those who dare to intercede in her behalf!" •* Perdition alight," responds the unerring voice of Justice, " on every father who can shut his heart to parental sympathy and forgiveness!" " Come, come this way," reiterated the young count, horror-struck at what he had witnessed — there were a little child, a young female, and an old man on the boards — " I see the Pont Neuf ; there it is ; this dismal place is calculated to give the merriest disposition in the world a dose of sad- ness, which all the gaieties of Paris would find it difficult to remove." " Very true, my dear friend," observed Mr. Lindsay, " but are you not of my opinion, that a few passing clouds of sorrow tend greatly to enhance the brilliancy of joyful sunshine ? We have had an opportunity this day of noticing various most interesting and instructive phases of human existence. First, the sentimental enthu- siasm of French crowds, who run everywhere, uselessly enough to be sure, to witness the tragico- comedies performed on the great stage of busy hfe. Secondly, we had a fine example of Parisian EUGENIE. 147 Samaritan charity in that good Madame Bonamie, who looked so grateful for the kindness done to her dear Eugenie. The heroic exploit of our friend there certainly saved that fair child a great deal of uneasiness. Thirdly " Count Hubert knowing perfectly well that, when- ever Mr. Lindsay began his first, secondly, and thirdly, there was no proximate end to his gradual scale, as the good gentleman, uniformly then fancy- ing himself in the act of dehvering a sermon, thought it necessary to extend his speech to the orthodoxical length, — Count Hubert, let it be ob- served, knowing this well, and moreover, wishing just at that moment to slip in a few words, which were uppermost in his mind, interrupted the well- meant homily, by saying with much interest: " Don't you think. Sir, that Mademoiselle Eugenie appears very superior to her present ap- parent condition ? Her manners, her language, the style of her person, appear to me those of a young lady well connected. She is not Madame Bonamie's own daughter, but her foster child." ** So said Madame Bonamie, I believe; did you not hear her say so, captain ? " replied the worthy tutor, turning towards his friend Topaway as he uttered the latter words. " Most assuredly I did," was the captain's quick answer. " Besides, one might discover that with h2 148 EUGENIE. half an eye; indeed, I could safely say that, with both eyes shut, none but a green-horn could have taken that interesting young maiden, by her voice alone, for any other than a lady. Hubert, there, I imagine, accomplished his discovery much sooner than we did; for his admiration of that sweet girl, I can vouch, went on at a presto crescendo rate, from the boat edsfe on the river to the chambre a coucher de la belle. But now, confess it, my dear Hubert, had the poor creature been mortally plain, would you have bestowed a single thought on her lineage i" ** I cannot say I should," laughed out the young man. " You know well enough, Captain, that objects which are comely, never fail to draw our attention more forcibly than those who simply bear an ordinary form. To my mind, that girl is the perfection of beauty." '* No doubt, no doubt," broke in the merry one apostrophised, " and the more so, as chance and opportunity would have it that the innocent thing, in her ingenuous gesticulations on the barge, had neglected to veil sundry charms, which our careful misses in England always take the greatest care to conceal. Those washerwomen of la Belle France spend very little of their hard earnings, I take it, on their summer clothes. Whilst I was carry- ing your fair Eugenie," addressing himself here EUGENIE. 149 more particularly to the young lord, " the scarcity of her garments left me not a shadow of doubt on that score." Count Hubert blushed like a girl of sixteen. He had certainly remarked that Madame Bonamie's foster-child did expose, for a few seconds, when she ran to the prow of the vessel, more of that swan- like neck, and a greater portion of those snow-like shoulders, than it had ever been his good fortune before to contemplate; and he blushed, and he looked confused, for which his alarmed tutor thought proper to chide the speaker. " My dear captain, this is not a fit opportunity to allude, in so volatile a manner, to circumstances which, in a well-regulated mind, should only give birth to modest sympathy, never, indeed, my good sir, to flippancy or immodest allusions of any kind ! . . . . Have we not reached the Rue de Thionville, to which the gar§on of the hotel di- rected us, as leading to the Luxembourg? We must keep straight along here, for, said he, when we shall have passed the Carrefour de Bussy, we shall find genteel and quiet apartments all the way to the palace, especially by bearing a httle to the right. Look here, ' chamhres meuhUes au second; rez de chausste garni ; grands appartements au premier ; beau salon, avec quatre pieces au-dessus de Ventresol:' let us go into this house." 150 EUGENIE. Captain Topaway had by this time turned rather sulky : he thought that Mr. Lindsay had been over- scrupulous, and, as he had never been a man to be lectured, either at home or abroad, he considered it a great piece of liberty in any one to take him to task, more particularly, too, when, as a sensible man, and by no means an immoral one, he had not, as he very properly thought, transgressed in the slightest degree the laws of decency. What he had facetiously pointed at, was simply meant as a relief to the melancholy which had insensibly taken possession of the party, in consequence of their visit to the Morgue. Besides which. Count Hubert was not a baby: the reproof was much more likely to create wandering reflections of an inflammatory nature than his innocent little bit of pleasantry. CaptainTopaway therefore, whispering to himself, " No, I shall not pick up a quarrel ; the old gentleman has overdone it, but his motive was good ; consequently, fare ye well, Reverend Sir, for the present, I shall go and cool," turned sharply round the corner of a street, and disap- peared. The young man himself had felt considerably ruffled at being treated so hke a school urchin; he did not experience, it is true, any of those feel- ings approaching to resentment towards Mr. Lind- say, which many another youth would probably EUGENIE. 151 have felt, but he thought that that gentleman might have allowed the captain's remark to pass unnoticed, especially as it had discomposed him more than he wished to acknowledge on such an occasion, and in such a presence. She was indeed beautiful, that fair girl, he confessed that to him- self, as she appeared to him, imploring assistance and wringing her hands and denuded arms like a Niobe, full of grace, and symmetry, and dignity, notwithstanding the many disparaging objects which surrounded her ; and consequently Hubert went on musing ; and Hubert, in short, was in the act of recapitulating, for the tenth or twelfth time, the minutest circumstances connected with the accident and results of that most absorbing event, when Mr. Lindsay, turning round, and staring with perfect amazement at his pupil, repeated a third time, " let us go in here'' .... *' But what can be the matter, my dear friend ? you look astonishingly thoughtful. Have you lost any thing ? Where have you sent Captain Topa- way?" " I have not sent our friend anywhere. Sir, but 1 observed that he very abruptly left us, at the conclusion of the severe observations you made, on his allusions to Mademoiselle Eugenie's dress : he seemed deeply offended." ** I hope not, I hope not," resumed very con- 152 EUGENIE. cernedly Mr. Lindsay. " It was, my dear Count, with the simple view of rectifying, for your own instruction's sake, an unguarded speech, which the worthy Captain should not have permitted himself to utter before so young an auditor. Decency of language should preside over all the conversations of men. It shall never be said that any over- wrought description of female comeliness, calcu- lated to inflame my pupil's mind, shall have passed uncorrected by me. I have sincerely your good at heart, my dear Hubert, forgive me if I some- times appear hypercritical or meddlesome." So kind an apology from so kind a man would have allayed the anger of the most irascible of God's creatures, it had therefore its natural and beneficial effect over the temper of our impatient young lord, who spontaneously took his tutor's hand, saying : " Many, many thanks for the daily proofs you furnish me, my dear Mr. Lindsay, of the sincere attachment you feel for our family. Nothing, I am certain, will ever make me disregard the sound principles of moral rectitude which you have so sedulously endeavoured to inculcate on my mind. So long as my master is by my side, like the young prince of Ithaca, no island of Calypso, no temple of Cythera, will ever be dangerous to me." This was said half playfully, half in earnest. EUGENIE. 153 The wise tutor, better acquainted with the frail- ties of our nature, shook his head, and entering the house which had on the doorway ' beau salon &c. au-dessus de I'entresol/ rang for the concierge. " Captain Topaway will, no doubt, be at the hotel on our return ; he cannot seriously be angry with me for endeavouring to do my duty to the best of my poor abilities ; he is a kind-hearted man ; his resentment, I feel assured, cannot last any great length of time," observed the reverend gentleman : " let us engage these rooms, if they prove to be sufficiently convenient. This is a very quiet and comme-il-faut looking street." A short half-calcined kind of human form issued, as these last words were spoken, from a dark cupboard-looking recess on the great staircase which led to the premier. This dried -up little mummy, bowing most obsequiously, with a last in the dexter hand, and a shoe quarter in the sinister, squeakingly of course, but very civilly asked the gentlemen what could be their pleasure. " We wish, monsieur, to see your salon and the quatre pieces which form the appartement a louer in this house. Are they quite ready ?" en- quired the count. " Quite ready, Milord," quickly rephed the concierge. " This way, gentlemen." H 3 154 EUGENIE. CHAPTER XIII. Hint from the Admiralty — Polite enquiry, which meets with a saucy reply— Two things which are equally disagreeable — Letter for which a captain pays half-a-crown — A period of time left for discovery— Excellent motives for quarrelling and fighting — Words that clearly prove what is indispensable to conjugal feli- city — Great folly of running down the merits of an enemy — Battle of Fontenoy — Little wood in which it was dangerous to go — Observations worth remembering for future handicuffs — Village round which many a brave Englishman fell — The French giving way before the victors of Dettingen — Sort of soul borne about in a litter — Where impartiality should be sacredly ob- served— Charge of cavalry in behalf of a horse — Singular notions entertained by a baronet — A Scotch farrier's peculiar habits. A LARGE Government -looking English sealed packet was lying on a bed-chamber table of the Hotel des Messageries, when Captain Topaway re- turned from his ramble over the Pont Neuf. A commissionnaire was also evidently waiting at the great gate for the arrival of some important per- son, whom he did not seem to know perfectly well ; for as soon as he caught sight of the naval EUGENIE. 155 officer, conceiving that our worthy friend was he, Latouche took off his greasy casquette, and asked him his name. " Topaway, my good fellow, Topaway; that's my name ; and I have besides that the honor of being a captain in the British navy, which some of your brigs and frigates may some day find out to their great sorrow. . . Captain Topaway, that's what they call me on the other side of the water. What do you want with me ? " " Un petit ecu, Monsieur;" bowed the man, holding out his hand. " And pray. Sir, what have you done so meri- torious to deserve this munificent reward at my hands? A half-crown! Why, sirrah, that is what an industrious Englishman gets in my country for a hard day's work, and you look vastly like the counterpart of one, to whom labor is as pleasant as a calm to the captain of the mail packet, when she happens to be some few hours behind time." " Pardon, Monsieur, you me not understand : me want to have your money for de big letter, which I have apportee to you." ** That you want to have my money, I do clearly understand, but I confess that I am not quite so wise, with regard to de big letter you mention. Where have you taken it ? Just give it me. . . . Here's your ' petit ecu.' " 156 EUGENIE. " You shall find it, Milord, on your table in de room for sleep : she come dis morning from Angleterre." " You don't say so !" and away scampered the anxious captain to the room which the commis- sionnaire had mentioned — and there, sure enough, he found a letter from the Admiralty, by which he was ordered instantly to take the command of his ship, then lying in the Dover roads, with further instructions to sail off without delay, with a regi- ment of troops for the Mediterranean. But, " confound it," this was Topaway's gentlest ejacu- lation, with a volley of you know what, the date of this important document proved that, by some means or other, a week at least had been lost, in unaccountable stoppages and loiterings on its way to Paris, so that the captain found he had not a second to spare. His travelling bag and valise packed up in a trice, the newly-created commander jumped into a diligence which was just starting for Calais, and there we shall leave him, wishing, as he did, with all his heart, that the cumbrous machine, in which he had to travel so many a long mile, could be transformed into a neatly-rigged schooner, flying before a sharp breeze. It was about the year — a plague upon dates I we always forget them — and during the subse- quent years, that the various events of the re- EUGilNIE. 157 maining part of our story must be recollected to have occurred. Contentions of various kinds disturbed the face of Europe ; treaties, decla- rations of war, actual wars had been, from the very commencement of the Second George's ac- cession to the throne, the general order of things throughout the continental states. Eng- land, as usual, was mixed up in the universal affray; with right sometimes on her side; with self- aggrandisement at other times for the sole object of her belligerent attacks. This, however, in every kingdom and empire is very much the motive for aggressions of every kind. Fighting now and then between nations is as necessary, we take it, as tempests and storms amongst the elements of this earth ; they serve, in each case, to shake the contending masses into something hke a natural and harmonious equipoise. See man and wife for example, in the happiest of connubial states, what good does not a comfortable little quarrel produce between them, were it simply touching a mut- ton-chop over-done, or the spoiling of a bran- new bonnet on a rainy day, when a shiUing or two, judiciously spent in locomotive accommoda- tion, might so easily have saved the darling thing. 158 EUGENIE. Confess it for once, all of you that have tried it, Aye, seek not, in dread of a lecture, to hide it ; When flat harmony's always at home, Is their joy in this life For a man and his wife, Who neither love drink, nor to gamble, nor roam ? It is then, is it not ? that a quarrel or pouting Kills monotonous peace, gives dull order a routing : Sweet variety's charms passing great, And a strife that steps in, Leaves occasions to win Forgiveness in kisses, grown scarcer of late. Preparations were being made on all sides for an encounter between the chivalresque legions of England and France. No two powers were, and will ever be, worthier of each other on the field of strife than Albion and Gaul. Equally commanded by men of genius; equally filled with men of undoubted intelligence and courage, both armies, when it is their glorious fate to grapple together for victory, meet on hostile ground, not like fiends, shedding blood for the love of carnage ; not like freebooters, cutting and maiming their victims for the sake of pelf, but hke heroes, high-minded antagonists, performing their duty, and ready, most charitably, to tend the prostrate foe, so soon as that foe, become impotent, is no longer able to retahate ; such EUGENIE. 159 was the martial spirit warming every soul of the hosts marching to battle on the plain of Fontenoy. Cleave down the man whose prejudiced mind, in France or England, can dare at one fell swoop, as many do, to cry down the natives of the rival land. Egotistical idiot ! he flatters himself that, by so doing, he bestows more largely a welcome mead of praise on those whose only disparagement, in our humble opinion, is that of having so mean and inexpert a panegyrist. What had been in our eyes, for example, the exploits of Hercules or those of Theseus, if the historians of those days had tamed down the lion of Nemaea to the courage of a lap-dog ; had made of the Lernsean hydra a harmless tiny snake, such as English country-boys sport with on their sisters* laps ? What, in short, had we thought of the cele- brated prowesses of the renowned Theseus, had we been told that the bull of Marathon was no other than the pet heifer of some Athenian milk- maid ? Such is the service which an ignorant, and in nine cases out of ten, a pusillanimous craven-hearted fellow renders to his country, whenever he is heard to declare that nothing is great or good, virtuous or bold, rich or rare, but that which belongs to his own native land. It was certainly not so at Fontenoy ; both sides 160 EUGENIE. were bold, both military in the highest degree, which is to say, that they were every thing that should appertain to the noblest of social and civilized characters : that of a soldier. At two o'clock in the morning, long before the drowsy inhabitants of Fontenoy and Tournay had shaken off the potent spell of their midnight slumbers, the first ominous " quick march ! " was heard, running along the English ranks ; soon after that, the well-known formidable En- glish word of command, " fire ! " was responded to by volleys of musketry, rattling from end to end of the first charging column. To this morning salute a courteous and highly grati- fying, though somewhat destructive, answer was instantly sent back, by the well- posted French artillery to the English assailants. Se- veral attempts had been made to dislodge some French infantry, who had, early in the night, taken possession of a wood on their left ; single- handed combats in such encounters, being mostly and necessarily the only means of attack and defence on both sides, men of courage and tac- tical dexterity show best then what they can do : slaughter was never more awful than that which was made in and round about that wood. The sword and pistol are, in close quarters, the only weapons reckoned upon as at all serviceable; when EUGENIE. 161 there is room for the bayonet, in open grounds, or where the trees and under-growing bushes of a forest are not over-thick, it very seldom happens that the result is doubtful, whenever English forces are in sufficient number. But, let us be fair towards our neighbours : upon most of those occasions, in which privates have had to depend exclusively on their knowledge of sword exercise, Messieurs les Fran§ais have carried the day ; this is more particularly proved, whenever officers contend with each other. Englishmen, whose dauntless bravery can never be contested, have the folly to think that, in a battle, be their antago- nists what they may, their own more physical strength and national intrepidity will supply every need of scientific instruction. Many a brave officer has learned to his sorrow, that if he had more frequently been present, in such halls as Messieurs Angelo's, and Hammond's, instead of wasting his time in divans and other places equally reputable, he would most probably have lived, to fight many a battle more, and to reap the harvest due to a long and glorious career, spent in the service of his country. The village of St. Antoine had alternately been taken and retaken, in repeated assaults, by the French and English regiments stationed on that 162 EUGENIE. side of each army. Nothing could surpass the examples of chivalresque bravery displayed in this portion of the field ; no sooner had a British detachment succeeded in barricading themselves, within the walls of any tenement capable of resistance, than a compagnie of fantassins, good- naturedly laughing, and crying : " chacun a son tour," advanced to the recapture. We have read excellent, and what is more highly valuable than all, impartial accounts of this sanguinary field ; it indisputably was the most bloody battle that had been fought since the commencement of the eighteenth century. The English army, with an auxiliary force of allied troops, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, for a considerable portion of that memorable day, bore down every opposition which they met. Full of the victory which the British arms had so ably wrested from the French at Dettingen, the troops of Great Britain seemed buoyed on with indomitable ardour. For some time indeed, at the beginning of the day, the fate of arms seemed to befriend their victorious battalions. Inch by inch the French had cer- tainly disputed the ground; blow for blow had been given ; charge on charge had been hand- somely returned; nevertheless, much to the EUGENIE. 163 disappointment and dismay of the French host, hapless France again, driven back within its strongholds, was about to be beaten. But whom can that litter be bearing from rank to rank, exposed as a target to cannon and gun, above the heads of those rallying files ? A soldier of fortune, educated in the native land of Turenne and Conde; a foster-son of that country whose martial sons, even the noble-hearted, the matchless, and glorious Wellington, cannot but confess that it was his greatest feat to vanquish. That litter, gentle reader, bore a man who, though cruelly suffering from a complaint, which terminated his existence five years later, saw with the lynx-eye of genius, which is superior to all pain, that the day was his, in spite of every success, until then, ob- tained by the English general. " Courage, mes braves amis!" cried the Marechal de Saxe, " ouvrez vos lignes, et quand elle y sera cernee, faites donner sur cette colonne qui fond sur nous toute I'artillerie disponible." This able manoeuvre having been executed to the letter, the fortunes of that battle were suddenly turned ; England knows well the result: it is useless therefore to record its disastrous consequences to those who, superior to the prejudicial impulses of national vanities, read historical narratives with impartiality; they will find them amply detailed in the pages of those 164 EUGENIE. honest historians (an astonishingly small number in every country), who have scrupulously avoided to state facts in any other light than that of truth. We leave the rest of our readers to put what con- struction they please on facts, which it has always afforded the greatest delight to the ignorant, the bigoted, or the prejudiced, to disfigure. ** No, Sir; by the souls of my honored and venerated ancestors, I swear that, not even a whole squadron of that French horse pouring upon us, fresh from the side of those hills, shall compel me to abandon my poor wounded charger," cried Colonel Sir Nicholas Highbred, addressing himself to a young lieutenant by his side, who was urging him to retreat, after having driven back, at the head of a few men of his troop, a strong detach- ment of the enemy's cavalry. " No, Sir; that horse has been my friend in many a past encounter; it is now my turn, as a grateful master, to do him good service. Just take him to the rear there, and lend me your own for a short while," he said to one of his men, " that I may have, at least, the satisfaction of castigating soundly those heartless Mounseers, for cutting at my poor beast instead of me. Forward, my brave fellows, charge, and follow me ! " Now, it happened that the French comparatively suffered more, from that single charge, than they EUGENIE. 165 had done by all the previous murderous attacks of the allied army. Sir Nicholas hewed down with his broad sword every poor Frenchman who ventured to meet him, and at every stroke, he was heard by his astonished companion, the young heutenant, to shout, " Another for Tudor ! Take this one, too, my Tudor ! . . . . Down with thee for a Tudor!" At the close of this day you might have seen that humane man, the colonel above mentioned, superintending most anxiously the dressing of the favorite animal's lacerated shoulder. No human being could have been more kindly tended, no beloved near relation could have drawn from good Sir Nicholas' heart more real sympathy than this suffering quadruped was observed at this moment to draw. " My poor Tudor ! good, dear fellow, to be knocked about in this way, at thy second coming, too, to be thy brother's friend ! Be careful there, you sirrah ! Zounds, Sir, you shall have a rare good taste of the gauntlet, if you don't mind what you are about. Can't you extract a few shots more gently than that? the poor thing trembles like a leaf! You may think it strange, Master Stanley," for he had been respectfully informed by the young officer, who had not left him since their joint irruption within 166 EUGENIE. the French lines, that his name was Stanley de Craufurd, of Craufurd Keep, in the county of Berks, " you may think it strange, I say, Master de Craufurd, that a man of my age and experience should act with so much apparent eccentricity towards a mere brute. Were you, however, to interpret the presence of each creature that moves as I do, with a firm conviction that our parents, relations, and friends, aye, our very enemies, hover about us after death, either to protect, to warn, to mislead, or to destroy us, you would cease to ascribe to folly the extravagant attentions which I pay to my horse." " My stars ! " would you, gentle reader, have been heard involuntarily to ejaculate forth, upon seeing, if you had been fortunate enough to see it, for it was worth one of Moliere's best comic scenes, the look of wonder, past all description, which cunning-minded Joe, the regiment farrier, cast at the worthy baronet. " The puir man be certainly demented ! " whispered he to himself, a Scotchman by birth, and a shrewd fellow in his way, to boot, when there was no philosophy broached. " Yer brither will do weel, Carnel," the man said aloud, " she's nae muir shot in her skin." " Very well, very well, Joe ; there, go and taste EUGENIE. 167 a few gallons of their sour Belgian wines ; but, mind ye, I'll not answer for your not dying of a fit of the gripes, and being turned into some beastly swine for giving way so frequently as you do to that tippling propensity of yours." 168 UUG^NIE. CHAPTER XIV. Pages, uninteresting to those who have not within them the milk of human kindness — Joe's principal occupation when he was not fighting — Clever fellow, named Poussin — How Poussin was picked up by his master — Sketch, with a goat in it, and a song, wherein beasts are strange beings — Lads whom lasses begin to look at — Odd meeting between a biped and a quadruped — Tear dropped on seeing a goat at breakfast — En- tremets, well calculated to spoil one's digestion — What Sir Nicholas did, what you and I would have done, in spite of the Pope's excommunication — Bruises and sundry contusions cured with golden ointment — Poussin's father — Paternal blessing bestowed in a singular way — Unlucky weakness under which laboured Gaspard Poussin — Real cause of the excessive se- verity of some fathers. A SHORT good-natured chat on * servants ' be- comes necessary in this place. Good-natured, because we are none of those ever-scolding and ever-worrying, selfish task- masters who look upon the domestic race as a set of brutes, whom it is their interest and duty to work hard, feed little, and bully for ever. EUGENIE. 169 Necessary as a chat, in this particular place, because most of our characters — Count Hubert, Lord d'Harecourt, Sir Nicholas, and others — being each of them provided with satellites of the afore- said description, and no allusion whatever having been made as yet to their important body, we find it indispensable very respectfully to introduce them to the reader. " Pshaw ! " you cannot refrain from exclaiming, fine sir, and you, gentle lady, " I'd rather be excused ! Who cares about getting acquainted with valets, butlers, and grooms? As for my part," says or thinks the former, " I hate being- spoken to touching such horrid folks." Pass on, pass on then to the next chapter, fasti- dious squire ; quickly turn over the ten or twelve sub- sequent leaves, over-sensitive super-refined belle, for here is Joe, the baronet's trooper; here are Jerry, Dick, Bill, and all the fraternity brought forth to make their bow, the dexters and thumbs tugging at their forelocks, with each a leg thrust out astern in token of conscious humihty. Indeed you may be forced mentally to hear, unless you skip much or quickly turn over the leaves, from the highest treble to the deepest diapason note, various salutations and friendly greetings such as these : " Your humble sarvant, ma'am," ** My VOL. J. I 170 EUGENIE. duty to you, maister," " How be ye, mississ ? " " Hope you're quite well, mister," &c. &c. Besides Joe — who, poor fellow, was an incorri- gible tippler whenever his evil luck would have it that he had no Frenchman to fight,(which he did always mightily well, like a true Scot,) or none of his colonel's or his own regimentals and gear to look after — besides Joe, Sir Nicholas had another attendant, a most important vade-mecum, pattern par excellence, of a perfect factotum : he could do every thing, knew every thing and every body, was every thing on every occasion to every one everywhere. The good baronet entertained for this worthy a high degree of such affection as that which a kind-hearted master may with pro- priety feel for a subordinate. How this man's name happened to be Poussin, which his fellow- servants had waggishly turned into Pussy on ac- count of his * metempsycomical ' notions, as they frequently remarked amongst themselves, neither you, nor I, nor the provost can tell. He was born and bred in France, which certainly ac- counted for the French twang of the academic, artistical cognomination which he bore in common with the two celebrated brothers, whose classical paintings are so well known. It was a singular coincidence, some twenty EUGilNIE. 171 years back, that had brought together this eccen- tric master and his no less eccentric man. Sir Nicholas was travelling through Normandy. According to his custom, avoiding all kind of reti- nue, that gentleman frequently peregrinated alone those parts of the continent with which it was his desire to become more intimately acquainted. There are spots in the neighbourhood of Rouen which an English artist, even a Copley or Theodore Fielding would not think it infra dig, to insert in his valuable sketch-book. It is in just such a spot as this that you must, at the present moment, watch the thoughtful baronet ahghting from his horse ; no rheumatic, gouty gentleman was he, dreading the least approach of a draught, and recoiling, horror-struck, from the proximity of the mere shadow of a puddle or pool, for fear of the consequences which the debilitated, the hypochondriacal, the pampered, are so sure to endure. He soon selected a mossy bank, soon drew out his pencils and paper, and very soon too was absorbed in that most peaceful and most pleasing mental occupation, the study of Nature. Trees more or less luxuriant ; a cottage, with its thatched roof and ivy-clad walls; a stream, gently meandering towards the valley, with here and there one of those tasteful items which great artists have alone the knack of scattering ad I 2 172 EUG^.NIE. libitum over their master-pieces, were filling up, one by one, the blank pages in Sir Nicholas's book. He was just sketching a goat, when his attention was drawn by the merry notes of the following song : — 1. A Samian sophist was the master-mind Who, horses, dogs, and asses too, Had learned to read and study through : E'en moles so blind, His sense refined With souls ethereal blessed : Beasts are but men, as dogs or asses dressed. Departed friends Pythagoras could find In pigs that grunt, in cows that moo ; To geese, perchance, he'd likened you. E'en moles so blind, His sense refined With souls ethereal blessed : Beasts are but men, as dogs or asses dressed. 3. That Samian true no doctrine new defined : The serpent, crawling round the tree ; Twas Satan's self. Now, don't ye see ? E'en moles so blind, His sense refined With souls ethereal blessed : Beasts are but men, as dogs or asses dressed. EUGENIE. 173 4. • I'll never beat again or starve my kind. *Tis wrong/ he said, * poor brutes to eat ; Our parents might be turn'd to meat.' E'en moles so blind, His sense refined With souls ethereal blessed : Beasts are but men, as dogs or asses dressed. The boy who was Joudly and merrily sending these ingenuous words to the four quarters of the wind was about fifteen or sixteen years of age— a fine fellow, with all the Norman about him, that is : a fair complexion, an aquiline nose, light hair, and two sharp, light blue eyes, such as the lasses of those days and those parts already began to look at with a slight fluttering at their hearts. No sooner had Poussin — for that boy was he, as you will immediately perceive, the Pussy of later years, the future valet de confiance of one of the renowned baronets of Great Britain — no sooner had Poussin espied the goat than, with open arms, he flew to the sagacious quadruped, and, strange to say, the quadruped, equally eager to hasten the joyous meeting, flew to greet his biped friend. Entertaining to a degree was this matutinal ' how-d'ye-do ' between boy and beast ; and so thought the amateur artist, who, tor some time undiscovered, had the leisure to 174 EUGENIE. contemplate the welcome scene. The goat, stand- ing on his hind legs, and capering all the while like mad, as youngsters say when they talk on such matters, fairly danced a pas seul before his friend. For a few seconds, say indeed two or three minutes, these odd creatures jigged it to- gether at this rate, in defiance of all the saltatory rules so gracefully and inimitably illustrated by the Vestrises of our modern operas, and then, exhausted, they both, close by each other, threw themselves on the grass. " Tiens, mon ami," said Poussin, " here is a part of my breakfast; you are heartily welcome to it, my good fellow," observed the lad, as the receiver was gratefully licking a charitable hand, in the act of presenting sundry pieces of bread and a few radishes, taken out of the boy's capa- cious pocket. Sir Nicholas silently let fall his pencil, and dropped a tear. " Take this also,'' laying down an apple before the caressed animal ; " I can get some more when I reach home." " That thou sha'nt," cried vo- ciferously a middle-aged man, accompanying the contradictory negative with half-a-dozen cudgel- blows most cruelly dealt on the backs of the two unsuspecting and happy beings. " That thou sha'nt, thou idle dog V EUGENIE. 175 Sir Nicholas tossed all his papers to the ground and leaped on his legs. " Begone home, I say, useless, sentimental blockhead," the brutal peasant cried out, '* with thy cows, and goats, and thy pet lambs, which thou runnest after all day. And take this for thy pains, Nanny," giving the poor innocent beast a most unmerciful kick in the body; " I'll teach thee what it is to play the fool witli my boy in this way, when he should be at the farm doing his work. Be off ! " and another kick had well nigh been given, when Sir Nicholas this time knocked him down ! Now, Sir Nicholas was anything but a pugna- cious man ; he was, on the contrary, constantly heard to repeat, in brawls of every kind, when he chanced to be there, the well-known aphorism, " A kind word turneth away wrath." At the same time Sir Nicholas could never keep his blood from boiling and his hands from interfering as soon as he witnessed the slightest act of cruelty towards the dumb creatures of this earth, be their species, form or size, what it might. In this particular case, had you threatened the good baronet with every chastisement that Roman Ca- tholics invented for tormenting the d d in purgatory, why !. . . , he still would have knocked that heartless farmer down. 176 EUGENIE. " Au meurtre ! a Tassassin !" roared the pros- trate wretch ; " An voleur !" roared he again and again, foaming with rage, and brandishing his knobby cane. " You shall pretty quickly catch it, my fine fellow, for luckily here are my men Jacques and Lucas ; a moi, mes amis ; fall on that scoun- drel ; trounce him soundly, d'ye hear ? Break his bones ; crack his skull, if you can." And Sir Ni- cholas, beset at once by three rough-looking coun- trymen as ever were, proved, for some ten minutes or more, that Cromwell was perfectly right when he declared that a handful of oentlemen were more than a match for a host of low-born knaves. He was, however, beginning to feel the disparity of the contending forces, when, to his utter asto- nishment, he observed the grateful boy Poussin behind him, offering a short stake which he had just snatched from a neighbouring vineyard. This auxiliary godsend very soon changed the chances of the fray ; the more so as Master Poussin himself very manfully joined the weaker side. Shortly after this, very shortly, Lucas, sprawling on one side, was pitifully crying mercy, whilst Jacques, with bruises sick, and a broken rib, had prudently retreated behind his master. '* Come, come, let's have a word of sense, after all this senseless bullying and fighting, " quietly observed the baronet, addressing himself EUGENIE. 177 to the farmer, " you are a very passionate man, supposing that your motives are good, and I am rather, it must be confessed, hasty in matters of this kind ; here are a few golden pieces for each of you, to mend your crowns ; and now, you and I, Monsieur. . . . Pray, what's your name ? " " Poussin, milord, a votre service." " Monsieur Poussin, be it then ; you and I shall have a short rational chat. What, may I ask, are your future views respecting the destiny of this good-natured lad, your son, I believe ? " ** Yes, sir, he is my son, and the worse luck," replied the man of granaries and sheds, " and as to what I intend to make of him, if that's what you mean, I'm puzzled to say." " Well, Monsieur Poussin, you will perhaps consent to his entering my service as a page, until I can do something better for him ? " " Oh take him by all means," impatiently broke in the over-joyed father, " do with him what you please, so that you rid us of the incor* rigible faineant. He may do vastly well for a valet, but he*d certainly never do for an indus- trious laborer of our fair land of Normandy." '' Beit, then, as you say, Messire Poussin ; I shall expect the boy to-morrow morning in Rouen about the hour of ten, not later ; here is my address, be punctual, as I shall set off for Dieppe very I 3 178 EUGENIE. soon after that, and he might be too late to travel with me. Take this billet de mille francs : it will help in some measure to make up for the loss of a pair of hands.'* Sir Nicholas, having carefully picked up his sketch and pencils, mounted his horse, and bid- ding a good-natured adieu to the boy, was soon out of sight. Young Poussin's heart went with him ; a good thing, too, that it did, poor fellow, for, in the basting which his irascible sire be- stowed on his shoulders and partout le corps, a few minutes after the parting between the master and servant, that kind heart of his might probably have been very seriou!?ly damaged. Oh ! how the old scoundrel — indeed, reader, the epithet is well deserved — how the old scoundrel belabored the lad ! Oh ! how that heartless unnatural father, by way of a paternal parting gift withal, con- tused and mutilated that helpless child ! And for what, in the name of patience ! was it all ? Simply for having spent a few minutes of leisure time with a fond little creature, far less brutal and senseless than he. Gaspard — such was the Christian cog- nomen of Poussin the younger — Gaspard 's in- dustry was universally acknowledged as exemplary in the district and round about the place ; his readiness to obhge, equally so ; every one could attest that the young master was always willing. EUGENIE. 179 cheerfully and zealously to do his duty. One fault alone he appeared to have, if a fault such a benevolent propensity could be termed, it was that Gaspard could never meet or overtake any animal, horse, bull, cow, or sheep, a donkey even, or a sow, without patting it on the neck, and greeting it in that familiar way which is usual between human beings. Consequently, there scarcely was a moving thing of any magnitude, on or near the farm, that did not, in some way or other, gratefully acknowledge the welcome presence of its friend whenever he chanced to pass. This was what Poussin the elder called idling away precious time; he could not endure to see so much familiarity between the cattle and his son : on many occasions, too, it more or less interfered with the business in hand. When Gaspard, for example, happened to be busily engaged gathering grapes for the wine- press in some vineyard, all at once a young heifer or a wild colt, from some adjacent close, espying the favorite, would instantly clear the fence, and forcing its way through scores of trampled-down vines, rush forward to come and Hck his hands and face, or attempt a few moments' gambol with him. These were, however, rare occurrences, as the boy, knowing this, mostly took the neces- sary precaution of ascertaining whether any of his quadruped acquaintance were likely to make 180 EUGENIE. such an unexpected incursion : a few words of recognition from Gaspard, with a well understood injunction to behave itself well, were sufficient at all times to prevent any subsequent mischief. No, no ; it was not the trifling harm done now and then by the hestiaux when perchance they met young Poussin, that made that old farmer use his son so ill. It was because he was one of those selfish progenitors whose sole paternal satis- faction is to exercise a boundless tyranny over the minds and bodies of their unprotected offspring. There are unfortunately many such in the higher as well as the lower ranks of society : they would have been Neros and Domitians as kings, they are worse than panthers and tigers as common men. Now, Sir or Madam, with a due apology for the foregoing necessary digression, we have ac- quainted you with the circumstances which origi- nally brought Sir Nicholas Highbred into contact with one of the best valets that Christendom ever produced — and if saying " the best" be not de- claring the positive existence of a miracle, we give up finding out what it can be. They both reached England in safety. EUGENIE. 181 CHAPTER XV. Stanley de Craufurd— Young student assisting a stranger fallen from his horse — An old man's sorrows — Paternal remorse — Discoveries on the eve of being made — Agony — Letter which might have removed all further doubts — Stanley sent to Mr. Legge— Singular conduct of a mother — Separation, not a little beneficial to Master Stanley — A young man's soliloquy, wherein much is said worth knowing — Dialogue, in which some accounts are given of an old baronet who is not happy — Countryman's details, coraico-serious — Sad character given of the French — Stanley de Craufurd hears what makes him reflect very seriously. Was not Stanley de Craufurd kindly assisting an elderly gentleman, who had just fallen from his horse, in the neighbourhood of Wallingford, when we last had occasion to speak of that youth — good widow Snobgold's protege ? He was. The prostrate horseman, upon hearing the voice of the young student, had suddenly raised his eyes, and, for some considerable time, had ap- peared wrapped up in the contemplation of various 182 EUGENIE. striking features which he seemed to recognise in the young man's physiognomy. " May I presume, young Sir, to ask you the fiimily name you bear? I cannot help fancying/* added faintly the recumbent gentleman, " that your voice and a few of the more prominent linea- ments of your face resemble those of a long-lost son of mine, who died, as I subsequently heard, in some disgraceful brawl abroad, at a time when, I confess it to my shame and sorrow, I was too much immersed in the selfish enjoyment of worldly pleasures to pay the parental attention which it is every father's bounden duty, regardless of all other consideration, to bestow on the heir of his title and lands. Pray, Sir, what is your name ? " As the last words were spoken by that venerable stranger, who had evidently reached his sixtieth, it might even be his seventieth year, the pain in his side had become so violent, that he had sunk again, writhing with agony, against the tree. A short time elapsed before Stanley de Craufurd thought it prudent to speak. He stood strangely interested, and, moreover, most unaccountably agitated, as he bent over the sufferer, and watched most anxiously every fit opportunity of facilitating any the least change of position which might help at all to alleviate his apparent pain. The horse- man, at last, returning to consciousness, raised EUGENIE. 183 again his eyes, to look once more at his juvenile benefactor ; he was undoubtedly much overcome ; heavy tears profusely fell from his aged eyes. " You have not, I believe, favored me, my friend, with a reply to the question, which I so earnestly wait to hear answered ? " " My name. Sir, is Stanley," modestly said the young man. "In what part of the country, will you further be pleased to inform me, dear Sir, were you, to the best of your recollection, brought up and bred ? My happiness, aye, may-be likewise much of your own future prosperity in life, let me tell you, greatly depends upon the substance of the information which your indulgent compliance may furnish to an inquisitive, most unhappy parent." — " My first home, Sir, I cannot per- fectly recollect," kindly observed de Craufurd in his answer, as he seated himself by the side of that mysterious old gentleman; not, however, without having first respectfully solicited his leave to do so, for young Stanley, somehow or other, did not feel quite at his ease in the pre- sence of his courteous inquirer, courteous and humble as he certainly strove to appear. " I merely heard my father sometimes allude to a manorial-looking house, such as that which you see yonder.^' 184 EUGi-NIK. " My own ! '* whispered to himself the asto- nished hstener. ** That one, in the centre of yonder noble grove of chesnuts and oaks," resumed the young man. " More than that, touching my early days, I am unable to tell you for the present. The next cir- cumstance of importance which my memory seems to have treasured is that my father, a military man in the King's service, having removed me sud- denly, to place me under my mother's care, as he gave me to understand on the journey, left me as suddenly, and disappeared to return no more." " You will, of course, have no objection to give me your mother's name?" inquired the perturbed stranger. '' Where was she residing at that time?" " Her place of abode. Sir, is another point concerning my unhappy boyhood which has also totally escaped my recollection : my kind mother's name is Snobgold." " Snobgold ! " interrupted Stanley's companion, " Snobgold ! . . . . Would to heaven it had been another name!.... But wherefore call you your boyhood unhappy? It is not generally the case with children who have affectionate parents." " Oh ! Sir, where is the boy who can be happy and cheerful, when he is constantly witnessing his mother's sorrow ? she was, the dear friend, inces- santly weeping." EUGENIE. 185 " What could be the cause of so much grief? Do you by some means or other happen to be acquainted with any of the cruel occurrences which appear to have exercised such heart-rending effects on your tender parent's mind ? " '* None whatever, Sir, unless it was the pro- longed absence of my father. I did certainly observe, now I think of it, that a very few years subsequently to my arrival under my mother's roof, she put on deep mourning, and then talked, with fresh tears in her eyes, of sending me to school. This took place, as far as I can remember, soon after receiving a long letter from Spain, with a black seal, and a broad black border all round the paper on which the letter was written." " Gracious heaven ! a letter — a letter from Spain ! edged with black, announcing the death, no doubt, of.... of.... of whom, Sir? For mercy's sake ! relieve me of my agonising sus- pense;" and the stranger, imploringly shrieking out those last words, seized the uplifted hands of his amazed hearer. " That letter. Sir, must have been, of course, from her husband .... my father. . . . Mr. Snob- gold : at least, so I supposed, from seeing her so soon after in widow's weeds," replied de Craufurd, this time very much alarmed ; for he interpreted 186 EUGENIE. the bewildered look, the panting, restless dis- quietude of his interrogator, as prognostics of approaching insanity. " Did you, my dear young friend, read that letter by any chance 1 " resumed the stranger, " I did not, sir ; and some two or three months after that event, a very interesting one to me, since, as one of its most painful results, I was so soon to be bereaved of both my parents at once, my mother having burnt a large collection of papers, with that identical letter amongst them, for I perfectly well recollect noticing it, I was taken to Newbury and there left at school under the care of a Mr. Legge, whose parental kindness I shall never forget." " Is then your mother dead ? " " I cannot tell you, sir All I am able to communicate on this matter, is that I have never seen Mrs. Snobgold from the day of my entering Mr. Legge's school to the present moment." *^ And who, pray, defrayed the expenses of your education there, and furnished you with the necessary pecuniary supplies for dress and pocket-money ? '* " Mr. Legge, sir, who himself received the same from a banking-house in the metropolis.'* " Where are you residing now ?. . . . But I begin EUGENIE. 187 to feel ashamed of this selfish catechising of mine, my young friend," said affectionately the recovering old gentleman. " Yet, were you to know all the motives which so insuperably prompt me to force this ungentle interrogatory on you, I am sure that you would cordially forgive me." " My dear sir, it affords me sincere pleasure to be in any way instrumental in your endeavours to discover what appears so indispensable to your future happiness. I am just now residing with a private tutor in the town of Wallingford, close by." The horseman had, by this time, so considerably regained his self-possession ; he had, besides that, succeeded to shake off so entirely the disagreeable symptoms of his merciless complaint, that rising, rather nimbly, it might be thought, for a man of his years, from the rechning posture which that severe paroxysm had compelled him to take, he mounted his steed, and kindly, though thought- fully, bidding adieu to his young acquaintance, rode away in the direction of the mansion pointed at in their conversation. " I hope and trust, young sir," he courteously said in his parting salutation, " that this first inter- view will serve as a prelude to many more meetings, in which I shall endeavour, I promise you, to be more cheerful, and, as well as I am able, to 188 EUGENIE. evince my heart-felt gratitude for the service you have so charitably rendered me to-day ; I hope indeed, let me add in perfect sincerity, that when next I have the pleasure of meeting you, it will be in a manner that shall give you a more favorable opinion of one whom you have met at such a critical and trying^ moment." Stanley bowed, and they parted. ** How is it," said the young student to himself as soon as he was alone, " how is it that, during the whole duration of this most unexpected inter- view, I have felt as if some new course of personal events was about to dawn upon my present exis- tence ? I have no reason whatever to suspect that yonder stranger will ever be likely to affect my destiny; but what can it be, after all, that prompts me to wish so earnestly for a more intimate acquaintance with him ? The expression of his countenance is certainly most benevolent ; there is an air of dignity pervading his whole person which is very seldom seen in any but noblemen of the highest rank ; the interest which he appeared to take in the history of my former days seemed, moreover, so intense, so unfeigned, so unac- countably excited, that a singular fascination gradually masters me, and I feel more and more miserable as that good old gentlemen gets more ajid more distant from me." EUGENIE, 189 " Aye ! " poor Stanley de Craufurd went on, " we are not the masters of our fate ; else as- suredly mine would have been very different to what it is, if not vastly better, had I had the power to chalk it out according to my own private notions. No father, no mother, to respect and to cherish. No brother, no sister with whom fondly to as- sociate : a mysterious unsatisfactory lot has been mine until now, blessed, as it most undeniably proves to be, with plenty on every side. There is not a wish L express which good Mr. Millington, my present tutor, does not immediately gratify ; there is not a person about me that does not seem to become my friend with alacrity, that does not appear willing, nay, eager to serve me whenever the opportunity occurs. " Nevertheless, I am not happy at heart, in spite of all the occasional bursts of mirth which circumstances now and then draw from me Who am I ?. . . . Where was I born ?. . . . What can be the insuperable cause of the dark shadow which my parents have seemingly been so studious to cast over my being ? Remittances punctually reach me at fixed intervals ; kind enquiries are periodically made touching the state of my health, the progress of my studies ; and urgent recom- mendations are sent each time to provide me with every thing that can contribute in the least measure 190 EUGENIE. to add to my daily comforts or my pleasures. No, no, I want nothing, I long for nothing on earth but the positive knowledge of my real origin and my parentage." " I say, Master, who is that gentleman on horseback whom you met some short while ago on the road to that mansion you see there ? He is just now entering the park gate : you surely must have met him, for it strikes me that you have but very lately left the spot to which he is actually bending his course," cried Stanley to a countryman about to pass him on the road. '* That old gemman," replied the countryman, '' as is now close to that there great house ?" " Yes, exactly so," was de Craufurd's answer, " Do you know him?" '* Why, to be sure, young master, I knows him right well ! Aye, don't I — and doesn't every man jack of this here place know the squire ? They calls him Huff or How dee Crowfoot, or some such outlandish name. He is, howsomedever, a true- born Briton, and his heart is in the right place, I warrant you. Poor cratur ! he maks all the folks happy about him but himself." " Is not the gentleman, then, a married man?" inquired Stanley. " Aye, aye, a married man, if you take it that way, some few years back. But now he is alone, EUGENIE. 191 alone, quite alone in that there great house, fretting and groaning all the live-long day." " You mean that he has lately lost his wife, and that the poor gentleman has bewailed his loss sadly ever since," observed the young inquirer. *' Wide, wide from the mark, young gemman ; she was an ould baggage, worrying him from morn- ing till night, every day of the poor ould soul's wearisome hfe." " I am then to understand, my good friend," interrupted Stanley, *^ that the squire's grief does not arise from the demise of his late partner in life : he has some other more distressing cause of sorrow ? " " Indeed, that he has, the dear good man; and more's the pity." *' Are not the people about here acquainted with the probable origin of their benefactor's in- cessant distress ? " asked Stanley, growing very anxious for further information. " To be sure they be ! Didn't mither Jamieson, of the hamlet hard by, nurse the squire's two chil- dren; and didn't long John, the maister's groom, scour the country, all round about here, for a whole week, taking with him every morning as many of us as could be spared, to find the young squire, who had run away, nobody then know'd why, and nobody know'd whither. And did'nt 192 EUG]fcNIE. Paunchy Bill, the coachman, save your presence, tell all of us that he heard, soon after, that the young gemman was abroad, as they call it, in Flaunders, fighting against the French, and that he would not come home any more, as long as his mither lived I To be sure, we all know why the good ould soul is so broken-hearted ! Why, lookye, Sir, finding that the young maister would not, by any means whatsomedever, listen to rason, and kenning right well that he loved his little sister better than anything else in the world, one morn- ing, long before any of us was stirring, the squire went off to that there Flaunders, to see if pretty little Girty, that was the dear little creature's name among us, to see, I says, if pretty little Girty could not get her runaway brother to come back with her .... More was the pity, d'ye see, Sir; for, as we was tould a few months later. Sir Huft" dee Someut, the squire, you know, I never can say that name, returned home alone, and very badly wounded in the arm and side. The ship in which he was agoing over, was blown somehow or other into a port of France, which they called Donkik, or Dungkirk; and there the squire was taken prisoner. Poor little Girty, with her papa's luggage, and all his papers, was left by the squire in a poor woman's cottage, just before he was nabbed and thrown into prison. There they say EUGENIE. 193 that those rascally Frenchmen, drat 'em ! beat him every day hke mad, giving him nothing to eat but brown bread, and dirty v^^ater to drink. One day, however, poor man, he managed to run away. Some fishermen on the coast, to whom he promised a good sum of money on his arrival, agreed to land him at Dover, if he could get a boat to come out to him, about a mile from the coast, and bring him the cash. It was all done as the squire wished ; he got home, took to his bed, and was very nearly dying from his dreadful wounds, and the loss of the dear pretty Girty, whom he tried in vain to discover after his escape from prison. We was all of us sadly taken, when we heard that the dear cratur was in the power of those vile mounseers, and we proved it right well too, when next a recruiting sergeant came in the place, for all the youngsters wanted to go and have a scratch with the ragga- muffins on t'other side of the water." " How long ago may all this have happened, my good friend?" asked the young student. " Can you recollect what was the age of the child when the baronet took her with him to Flanders, as he intended 1 " *' It may be eight, it may be ten years ago ; I cannot exactly tell : the child was five or six years old, or may-be a little older." " And how old, do you think, was the young VOL. I. K 194 EUGENIE. squire, when he took it into his head to run away?" further inquired Stanley. *' The young squire, Sir?" repeated the coun- tryman as he was considering, " the young squire must have been just then about nineteen or twenty; but there again I may be wrong. All of us though know well enough that the young scapegrace was a sad plague amongst the lasses ; he will not be easily forgot, indeed, by a great many of them ! He was also a preciously hot-tempered youth, the young maister, I assure you.*' " Thank you, thank you, my friend," broke in the young gentleman, giving a silver piece to the villager, and, having bid each other ' good evening,' they each went his way. EUGENIE. 195 CHAPTER XVI. Apostrophe to the land of all lands— Who those are to whom Eng- land appears full of plague-spots — Best arguments used with English rabbles and Chartists — Why John Bull is so proud when he is travelling abroad — Also, why true-born Britons are un- grateful, when they grumble and growl— Why thousands starve in the best of states — Hamlet of Shipsham ; its origin and site — The Toperveys — Present owner of Shipsham — Weakness pre- valent amongst inheritors of landed property — How a little inn was christened the ' Ship' — Passport necessary for admission in the hamlet of Shipsham. England ! Dear, favored land, where common sense, the inseparable companion of Industry, nobly led on by science, well-tried experience, or the chivalresque spirit of hereditary renown, reigns paramount over the kingdom. England, thou art blessed indeed ! With thy populous and opulent cities; thy villages so snug and comfort-fraught, that the towns of other lands appear insignificant and poverty-struck by their side; thy neatly en- closed hamlets and farms; thy plentiful hay-ricks k2 196 EUGENIE. and corn-stacks; thy fertile and salubrious soil, salubrious notwithstanding thy mists and fogs, themselves conveyancers of nutriment to the verdant surface of thy meadows and fields; England, once more, we salute thee ! Heartless, and senseless, and tasteless indeed is the man, English born or not, who, having travelled and dwelt in this in- dustrious and thriving country for a reasonable term of years, can return to it, at the expiration of any lapse of time, spent in the turbulent states of continental Europe, without feeling his heart expand, his mind resume its wonted calmness of thought, his security and freedom of action be- come again complete. Ingrate and unreflecting must that man be, then, if he fail to acknowledge, in some way or other, the beneficent presence of that God to whom the people of these climes unques- tionably owe their good moral inclinations, their universal piety, their respect for the laws, and con- sequently their general happiness and prosperity. Some miserable beings there are always in every realm, who, with the jaundiced eye of discontent, see all things on the wrong side. Inert or wanting abilities, or of a turbulent disposition, such indi- viduals cannot, will not, observe the real state of things — in their judgment, matters are all topsy- turvy; the talented, the persevering, the soaring eagles of legislature, jurisprudence, arts and sci- EUGENIE. 197 ences, naval and military tactics, manufactures, commerce, and husbandry, are all enjoying rank and luxuries, which should appertain to them only, the idle, the reprobate, the ignorant, the rough-cast and bred of the population. With good principles, rational piety, a suflficiency of aptitude for whatever he undertakes, and good health, which greatly depends on temperate habits, every human being in Great Britain has a fair chance of driving want and suffering from his door. Watch those who cry the loudest against the actual order of things, whatever their station may be, you will never find, or very seldom indeed find, on such occasions, that the vociferous and abusive murmurer is not considerably inferior to those whom he reviles. Those firebrands, whose chief motive is self-aggrandizement, when they declare against aristocracy, royal prerogatives, government expenditure, overpaid offices, and other misapplications of the public money, towards which they seldom contribute a stiver, take good care to avoid conscientiously pic- turing the condition of the ten thousand fami- lies in the trading districts, who live in compa- rative ease, aye, in comparative luxury too, from the profits of their labors: comparative luxury we said, and is it not so ? Say, where is the country in which pianos, and harps even, 198 EUGi:NiE. furniture useful and ornamental, comforts of every description, often convert the dwellings of the thriving laboring classes of England, when they are temperate and piously inclined, into that thoroughly English summum honum^ which is so appropriately called * home ? ' Where is the state in the wide world, in which common laborers feed one-half as well as they do here ; in which beggars and vagrants dare, with such consummate insolence, to reject the proferred widow's mite, encouraged as they feel to show their independence, by the charitable provisions of poor-laws, and the voluntary contributions of those very classes of society, whom your noisy democrats designate as proud, overbearing, and burthensome to the nation I Were the government, instead of using coer- cive means, as they have judged it sometimes expedient, to compel the discontented to be sub- missive ; were they, feeling conciliatory, and be- nevolent in their motives as they most certainly do, to oppose arguments to arguments, public speaking to pubhc speaking, soothing details of facts against inflammatory declarations of false- hoods, by sending clever and experienced men into the counties, with full powers to draw on the exchequer, for sufficient pecuniary auxiliaries, to make Whitbread's and Hazard's entire back the EUGENIE. 199 statements of reason and truth, they would find that Chartists, Republicans, and Socialists would soon, one and all, enlist under the ban- ners of well-moistened social right, persuasive double stout, most eloquent Bass's pale and bitter. What is it that makes the travelled Englishman so proud, when he is sauntering over the domi- nions of foreign princes?. . , . What is it, gentlemen, whom we see just now in our mind's eyes, from one end of the United Kingdom to the other, sapiently sipping your cream of the valley and Ben Lieven, at the Sun, the Swan, the Dragon, ' the Victoria, ' long life to Her Majesty ! the William or the George, what is it but his intimate conviction that his native soil far surpasses that of all other states ? What is it. Masters Bill, and Jim, and Tom, and all such handy worthies as you are, that makes you so bull-like strong, so lion-hearted, so plaguy obstinate, that no fighting man on the surface of either hemisphere could ever make you knuckle ? Is it not the fat of the land you live in ? Talk no more then of starving ! those who starve have no pluck in them ; now answer us, honestly this once, do you not feel that you could " hck," as you elegantly term it amongst you, single-handed any two natives or more 200 EUGENIE. of France, Germany, Turkey, China, or the Punjab ? To be sure you could ! Be there- fore grateful to the rulers, liberal or conservative, who furnish you with the means of lording it so handsomely over the lands and waves of nine- tenths of the admiring, the emulative globe. What is it, . . . what is it in the name of truth and justice ! English men, all of ye, throughout this your blessed island, but a palmy state of things which invites potentates overthrown to seek a safe retreat on its shores ; that hospitably beckons to statesmen in disgrace, nobles outlawed or expatriated, vanquished patriots, speculating men of every description, to congregate under the protection of its impartial laws ? Oh ! what is it but blessedness extreme and prosperity without example, when the gory surf of revolution lately threatened to engulf and annihilate the good with the bad of distracted Europe, what is it that transformed at that most critical period, in the eyes of myriads of refugees, the white cliffs of kind Albion into friendly boundaries, within which they sought and they experienced that safeguard and the hearty welcome which await the unhappy, the undone, the persecuted, and the banned of every clime ? If there are thousands who exist in a state of indigence approaching to starvation, it is nothing EUGilNIE. 201 singular. Every state occupying an important rank in the list of kingdoms and principalities has its paupers, its vagabond tribes, its voluntary beggars, its meek impostors by day, vy^ho, pistol or bludgeon in hand; turn thieves and footpads by night. Cases of real unmerited poverty are comparatively scarce, depend upon it, in this charitable realm. England, therefore, dear England, Heaven bless thy people and thy stores ! In a picturesque nook of woody meadowy Berkshire, far from the intrusive high-road, yet sufficiently proximate to that great thoroughfare, the stately, teeming, fertilising Thames, to reap all the advantages of its vicinity, a sweet hamlet flourished ; flourished in all the luxuriance of its natural unadorned comeliness. Like Thetis, if one may compare things so humble with things so stately, like Thetis rising from the sea, beau- teous from their own unassisted genuine charms, they both alike deserved to win the admiring observer's boundless praise. Shipsham was so inconsiderable a spot in point of magnitude, that scarcely any of the inhabitants of the more popu- lous part of the county were aware either of its name or its existence. Its origin, however, was not despicable, very far from it indeed, for it was to an old retired post-captain, who had gained some K 3 202 EUGJ&NIE. renown at the taking of Gibraltar from the Span- iards, in the reign of Queen Anne, that it was first indebted for a decent habitation. It appears by some curious documents, still retained and highly prized in the family, that one Topervey, here and there spelt Toperway and even Topeaway, dis- gusted with the treatment which officers in the navy were then receiving at the hands of go- vernment, whilst the fortunate Duke of Marl- borough, and all the military men of his staff, were actually surfeited with honors and golden compensations far beyond their deserts, solicited permission to withdraw from the service, and finally settled in the lovely spot above spoken of, by purchasing an old farm-house and grounds, which an extravagant and inexperienced young farmer had been obliged to make over to his creditors. This Topervey had married a near relation of the d'Harecourt family, a first or second cousin, we believe, of Lady d'Harecourt's. Mrs. Topervey, that is, according to our more modern custom of making redoubtable colonels, majors, and captains of the fair sex, Mrs. Post-captain Topervey was the daughter of a naval officer ; she had inherited some landed and funded property from her father, and it was this property, which was partly con- verted by her husband, on his purchase of the EUGENIE. 203 estate, into necessary repairs, the erection of various buildings and tenements, it was this pro- perty, we say, that served to lay the first stones in the early foundation of Shipsham. Captains in the navy are seldom good farmers : the Toperveys, ancestor, grandfather, father, and son, all understood thoroughly the methods neces- sary for attacking and boarding men of war ; the proper time for letting an Enghsh broadside sweep with murderous effect a Frenchman's deck; but all were totally ignorant of the time for tiUing, sowing, and reaping. However, as they were men of sense, all of them, quite as much so, as they had always proved themselves to be men of mettle, they never attempted to do anything in the way of husbandry besides merely growing grass ; they occasionally took in cattle to graze ; they stacked hay when the weather permitted ; they made butter and cheese ; so that they very seldom had any severe losses to sustain, any great disappointments to meet. Besides which the Toperveys had always preserved sufficient capital at interest, or vested in rents, to live inde- pendently of the produce of their land. Where are the inheritors of estates, be those estates extensive or not, who find it possible to abstain from effecting some alteration or other, some unavoidable change, some indispensable im- 204 EUGENIE. provement in good old daddy's house, his gardens, poor man, his orchards and fields ? Lucky indeed is the son and heir who does not disfigure or de- stroy, by his additions and subtractions, his mo- dernising contrivances, the goodly possessions which his wiser progenitor left him. Topervey the third and Topervey the fourth, our Topaway, in the seigniory of Shipsham, had all invariably been prudent landholders ; one had built a cottage, another a barn ; this one had made a road, and that, the last, a sociable convivial fellow, without being intemperate, had set up a neat little inn, which he christened " the Ship ;" his father or grandfather, for, respecting that particular point we are not very accurately informed, having pre- viously succeeded in securing to the place, during a jovial festival which occurred after haymaking, the most appropriate appellation of Ship's Ham, that is Shipsham, highly descriptive of a spot where, upon various memorable days in the year, masts were invariably hoisted as thick as grass. The hamlet, at the date we speak of, consisted of two thatched cottages on the left, almost facing the inn ; a stone-built house of a very respectable and somewhat commanding appearance, on the right, beyond the " Ship," where resided his honor the commodore, as the people of the place respect- fully called their landlord, in due reference to his EUGENIE. 205 gallant sea services; and a species of omnium gatherum-shop on the road side, as you entered the hamlet, with its heavily thatched roof, securely bent and spiked to the ends of two shortened booms set upright in solid beds of brickwork, which formed a kind of rough balcony, such as those which may still be seen in front of many of the log-houses scattered on the banks of Ameri- can torrents. All the Toperveys were of a merry disposition ; they loved a good joke; they enjoyed good cheer; they were, above all, sailors to the backbone. Not one of the inhabitants dwelling in Shipsham had been permitted to build himself a home of any kind, or to allocate one ever so small, without having first been closely examined by the commo- dore, regnant at the time, as to the ship he served in, the engagements in which he had fought, the seas he had crossed, the enemies he had helped to thrash. If perchance the candidate for admission in hospitable Shipsham had been fortunate enough to have served under the examiner's command, the matter was settled in no time, for Topervey, cordially seizing the lucky tar by the hand, shouted one of those hurrahs that men hear in the hottest pitch, and in spite of cannon and mus- ketry, when the enemy's ship is boarded ; then, sending the fellow wheeling round like a top, by 206 EUGENIE. a friendly shove on the shoulder, meant as an in- troduction, he generally cried to the sort of court- martial he convened on such occasions: " here, my hearties, here's another of us, another right- down good 'un ; look to him and find him a berth : I'll stand the tipping, if poor Jack has no blunt." EUGENIE. 207 CHAPTER XVIL Boat rowed under the steerage of a strange captain— The reader's wonder; very natural — What that hoat contained — Moral on the contents of that boat— Odd way in which a hamlet was built — A favorite spot at Shipsham — • The Sheds' — Another boat — Cannons firing ; people rejoicing — Who the passengers were, out pleasuring in the second boat, and what they said — Classical allusions with matter-of-fact remarks — Blockheads, often fond of travelling, why so — Various reasons frequently urged for going . from home — We return to former friends. Two boats were towing a heavily-laden barge by dint of hard pulling one afternoon, just beyond that part of the river which now irrigates the banks of a portion of Caversham parish, a short way on the Henley side of the bridge. Sailors they were all who tugged so manfully, and a sailor, too, v^s he who, seated on a pyramidal coil of sheet and bower cables, at times with the dexter at other times with the sinister hand, directed the 208 EUGENIE. course which was the easiest and shortest for the various crafts to swim through. No shght achieve- ment is that of steering an unwieldy affair such as a flat-bottomed boat against stream, where contrary currents abound, as in the Thames far up the river; it therefore required the utmost vigilance on the part of Captain Topaway, for it was no less a personage, to guard against angles, to avoid shallows, to cross into deeper waters, in short, to do what we, poor land-lubbers, usually understand much better than those fine navy boys, be they ever such dabsters on the foaming billows. However, in this case, the good captain had some considerable advantage ; for, having been born and bred on the river's side, he was almost as much at home on fresh as he was on salt water. " But what can, in the name of dripping Nep- tune! the post-captain of a man-of-war be doing with such a queer squadron, in such an out-of-the- way place?" our reader is impatiently ejacula- ting within himself, especially if it should so turn out that the aforesaid reader be well versed in nautical affairs. " What can he be doing there?" says he. " What can he be bearing along with him so carefully?" We most obligingly reply, for we never could bear making people wait for an answer to a civil EUGENIE. 209 question ; mind ! a civil question — we kindly reply, that the worthy captain is simply going home, like all his predecessors, after some twenty years of maritime exertions, to enjoy his half-pay, and, what is much better than that poor pittance, to live on a pretty little fortune which his father, good considerate soul just departed, has left him, with the whole hamlet of Shipsham to look after. We furthermore answer, that the barge, so un- couth to look at, for Oxonians or Cantabs espe- cially, happened to be chuck-full of ship gear, single and double tackle, and tackle of every de- scription, besides rigging, topmast and lower; bars, bows, and sterns; topgallants, bowsprits, and mizens ; the best part, in short, of the materiel of a jolly old three-decker, condemned as no longer sea-worthy. Here, indeed, might a moral be drawn as long as our arm, if you or we felt in- chned to act the Bossuet or Tillotson, and deliver an homily on the end of all things ; the fate of the most renowned warriors ; the finish of the greatest orators ; the full stop of the wisest philo- sophers ; first-rate line-of-battle ships, like wher- ries and punts, must finally tumble to pieces, and so must Marlboroughs, Napoleons, and Tommy Hopkins, and Dicky Trots. You are perhaps not aware, dear indulgent reader, that it was each Topervey's most sacred 210 EUGENIE. duty, on his leaving the navy, to purchase the condemned hulk of any far-famed vessel lying at the time for sale in the docks. Thus provided, the self-same Topervey would instantly set about conveying within the capacious hold of a barge, hired for the purpose, every portion and scrap of the said hulk which was at all likely in his esti- mation to prove useful in Shipsham. Nothing scarcely was thought unworthy of being stored, save and except the rotten wood, which years of rough usage below water had almost turned into dust. That is why, as you entered the beloved hamlet, you observed on the left, just beyond the omnium gatherum-shop described some few pages back, a length of sheds cramful of the most hete- rogeneous medley you ever saw of ship's-timbers, masts, rudders, and such like lumber, all strangely commingled with instruments of husbandry, bavins, trusses of straw, tubs full of hog's-wash, &;c., &c. There was no place to which the inhabitants of that hamlet resorted on high days and holidays with greater alacrity than to that vast marine store emporium. The fact is that very nearly each man there had a favorite object which he petted from the che- rished recollections of auld lang syne : some anchor, for example, which had belonged to a frigate on board which he had assisted to capture a Spanish EUGENIE. 211 galleon j some gun-carriage splintered or sadly drilled, from the culverin of which a well-remem- bered bullet, sent by himself, had struck a Dutch Von Dunk captain down, in the very act of shout- ing " Fire ! " in his frightful vernacular. TheshedSy in short, were at Shipsham a cozy welcome quarter where old friends met, spun a yarn, smoked or chewed their dear backy, all through the year. Many a time in the bland nights of summer some Jack or Billy's wife, tired of waiting for her hammock- fellow, would be seen, well aware of his whereabouts, passing the deserted Ship Inn in her way to " the sheds." What chatter-boxes novel-writers are, all of them ! We, the very counterparts of those hy- per-garrulous gossips, your soap-sud queans, for the sake of showing our intimate acquaintance with the highways and byways of that odd little retreat by the river side, have left most unce- remoniously a crew of industrious fellows, with their no less praiseworthy pilot just within sight of Cav. . . . yes, it was. . . . Caversham-bridge. But " what's all this noise about?" said to each other a party of ladies and gentlemen in a neatly trimmed cutter rapidly shooting by with the stream towards the good old town of Reading. " Hip ! hip ! hip ! hurrah ! " Bang, bang, bang, and, bang again. Human voices at their 212 EUGENIE. highest pitch, and artillery quite innoxious rat- tling from the shore. " Why, it's those people whom we saw just now at the water's edge greeting that man you have there, so oddly perched at the top of those black ropes. What, in the name of peace, has he got in that ugly boat of his ? " observed a young gentleman lately returned from the Netherlands. " They have brought here, with their strange- looking boats, such a strong smell of pitch and tar, that a very little more of what one usually sees in seaport towns would make one fancy oneself in Portsmouth or Dover." " Regardez, regardez, up there, amongst those trees," pointing to the hamlet, suddenly decked out for a festival, cried in bombastic accents a rather fine-looking girl of the party in the cutter ; " you may indulge in your fancy now, Mr. Stanley, for those masts certainly indicate the vicinity of a maritime settlement. May we not be nearing, let me ask you, some Phoenician port, where Telemachus is waiting on the shore to know what sort of reception Sesostris will condescend to grant him 1 " " A que pensez-vous, ma chere Mademoiselle Cleopatra," exclaimed Miss Seraphina Long- shanks, in her usual bad French. " Nous sommes dessus la Tamise." EUGENIE. 213 " And a far better place too than your Funny- chum docks and Tillymarcus chaps," roared out William Snobgold with a laugh, but a laugh, such as he alone could peal out, when he thought that he had said something good. Alas ! poor Squire du Kiosk, a Frenchified title which his fond sister often gave him ; not at all an inappropriate cognomen, between us, which we shall now and then permit ourselves to borrow, in order to avoid Snobgilding so often the various members of that distinguished family. Squire du Kiosk, notwith- standing Mr. Totlogan's classical instruction, very seldom was happy in his facetious hits. So that no one laughed on this occasion but himself. Mrs. Gracepot looked at the water through her lawnyet, pick .... pick .... picking still her nose ; good Mother Snob thrust her second or third handful of peppermint lozenges or brandy-balls into her capacious maw. People who are not over-burdened with self- entertaining thoughts ; whose minds are anything but rich hot-beds, wherein seed has been dropped capable of producing abundant and never-faihng fruit; people, you know it well enough, reader, who are next kin to blockheads, we mean, are often great travellers, great admirers, we should rather say, of locomotion, not to give offence to those who scour the round earth in search of 214 KUGJ3NIE. knowledge ; that is, when they chance also to have more money than wit. However beautiful their dwelling-places may be, picturesque or sublime as the country which surrounds them may appear, such people, witnessing all things as quadrupeds witness the finest dawn or the richest setting sun, fly from home in quest of new scenes ; scenes that may help to create, as they trust, a new set of ideas ; objects that may here and there succeed in drawing from their idle jaculatory organs of speech, a " Very fine ! vastly pretty ! wondrous grand ! " yawned out, as donkeys bray at the moon. The Snobgolds had lavished enormous sums of money on their estate of the Kiosk ; they had accumulated within their walls whole warehouses of articles of amusement ; even their library and their museum were worthy of the attention of learned men, naturalists, virtuosos, and dilettantis ; and yet, so truly unfit were they to derive any mental advantage from those valuable possessions, that every year they hired houses and mansions in various parts of the country to drive away listlessness and kill time. Some do this, we know it, from motives of self-preservation, their medical advisers recommending change of air ; others from reasons of economy, their creditors pointing out the necessity of a temporaiy continental tour, EUGENIE. 215 during which sundry estates in trust are rendered available for the liquidation of long-standing debts. Well, well, never mind the latent causes, commendable or not, which induce gentlefolks to leave their country-seats for the sake of roving or rusticating, or spending their money in their own way ; the Kiosk family had taken for a few months a pretty place just midway between Ox- ford and Henley. They had, as usual, invited their friends to come in rotation, and pay them their annual visits; and it was thus that Mrs. Gracepot and Stanley de Craufurd happened to be there just then. " Stanley de Craufurd ! '' cries out, in perfect astonishment, the person perusing these lines ; " why, the last I heard of that young gentleman was, methinks, in company with Sir Nicholas Highbred, at the conclusion of a sanguinary action in which we, the indomitable Britons, were made to acknowledge that the French are, now and then, worthy of some slight degree of respect on a field of battle." It was so, madam or sir ; young de Craufurd, at that time a cornet in a regi- ment of cavalry under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, was present, and, it may be added, heroically instrumental in driving back a host of French troops, to whose mercy Sir Nicholas had resolved not to abandon his wounded horse. 216 EUGENIE. A short account given here of a few of the incidents which followed the singular meeting of Stanley de Craufurd with his grandfather, for such he really was — that baronet of the same name, dwelhng in the vicinity of WaUingford — would serve greatly to prevent any further inuen- does to make up for our very culpable omissions in the foregoing chapters: you will find them, gentle reader, by simply turning the leaf. EUGENIE. 217 CHAPTER XVIII. The Legges of Newbury — Sir Hugh de Craufurd, of Craufurd Keep — Anxious inquiries concerning a youth — Allusion to Mr. Snobgold — A baronet's sad reflection — Mrs. Legge's dis- covery—Kind feelings entertained by the Legges for their former pupil — Grey locks not always a sign of wisdom — Why a widower happened to hate a certain town — How a man's fortune is often marred — A banking-house of those days — What infal- libly turns uncivil clerks into scraping scriveners — A traveller for whom a railway would have proved a blessing indeed— Soliloquy in a post-chaise — Sir Nicholas Highbred wanted — Greedy readers receiving an unceremonious rub. On the day which followed that on which Stanley de Craufurd aided the mysterious old gentleman to remount his horse, that same old gentleman was seen thoughtfully to alight at Newbury, before the gate of an individual whom we mentioned as keeping an excellent school in that town — Mr. Legge. A few words of introduction, delicately de- livered by the visitor, were amply sufficient to VOL. I. L 218 EUG]feNIE. apprise Mr. Legge that he had the honor of re- ceiving one whose rank and importance com- manded the greatest consideration. Sir Hugh de Craufurd was not in the least known to the inhabitants of Newbury. Being a severe recluse, from the insuperable effects of long-endured sorrow, the baronet was very seldom seen in pubhc, but as a rare and uncouth specta- tor of some of the sports which he had loved in his youth. His son had died abroad ; his daughter, the only remaining child, one whom he idolised, had been torn from him on the coast of France, as may be remembered, in his compulsory flight from that country, some years back, at the first breaking out of hostilities. As to Lady de Crau- furd, her demise, like the destruction of some noisy, troublesome neighbour, human or not, mortal or not, had removed a customary source of excite- ment, which had completed the state of utter wretchedness that seared the mind and heart of the unhappy lord of the Keep. " You had, I believe, sir, under your roof, some year or so back, a youth of the name of Stanley?'* began the baronet, addressing the gen- tleman on whom he was so unexpectedly caUing; " are you acquainted with the name and place of abode of his parents ? " ** I cannot, sir, precisely say that I am ,* but EUGENIE. 219 I shall nevertheless be most happy to furnish you with whatever information I have collected, chiefly through the inquiries dexterously made by Mrs. Legge on each of her half-yearly visits to London," answered the person interrogated. " Was the father's name de Craufurd, and was he an officer in the King's service ? " " We never had the pleasure of seeing dear Stanley's father ; I may add also, to save further fruitless questions, that we never either became acquainted with the boy's mother. A lady," con- tinued Mr. Legge, " who, we subsequently dis- covered, bore the name of Snobgold, brought him here, charging us very earnestly not to neglect the least trifle that might help to make him happy, talented, and good. A large sum of money was then paid in advance, being referred, when that should be expended, to this Mrs. Snobgold's bankers in the metropolis, where we should find every amount required by us instantly paid." ** Would you kindly obhge me with the direc- tion to the banking-house at which your demands were settled ?" asked very anxiously Sir Hugh de Craufurd. " With all my heart, sir ; permit me to leave you for a few moments ;" and Mr. Legge, bowing as he went, quitted the room. " Strange it is," whispered half audibly to him- L 2 220 EUGENIE. self the unhappy old gentleman, striking his fore- head with the flat of both his joined hands, " that cruel destiny seems to persecute me so unremit- tingly. My miseries indeed are scarcelyendurable. children, what unnecessary woes you inflict on your parents, when, hstening to the mad promptings of your inexperienced minds, you rush headlong into irretrievable follies! There was that boy; a finer, a more beautiful child never breathed ; Oh ! well do I remember his younger days: full of strength; full of manly promise; a boy-hero in all the sports of boys, where courage won the day; a boy Cicero, where force of argument could still the clamorous, empty pratings of other boys. Dear, dear Stanley, for his name was Stanley, too. , . . O ! God of forgiveness, mercy, mercy! I penitently acknowledge that, had I been a good father to that child, he most probably would have been a prop and consolation to me during my declining years. Having neglected my duties, he, unche- rished and untutored, naturally lost all feeHngs of gratitude for me. . . . We were strangers to each other, when it was our best interest to be bosom friends." '* Here it is, Sir, written by Mrs. Snobgold her- self," cried Mr. Legge, holding out a paper to the baronet, as he re-entered the room; ** I am sure you are very welcome to it, especially if it can EUGENIK. 221 be of any earthly use to our dear Stanley. You cannot imagine how great a favorite he was here amongst us all.'* Mrs. Legge hurriedly making her appearance at this moment, and running to her husband, " My dear WiUiam, have you told the gentleman how I found out that Mrs. Snobgold was a very opulent lady residing far down in the country, at a place called * The Kiosk,' that no one could tell what was tiie real amount of her property, so amazingly rich she appeared to be. The lady whom I ad- dressed on the subject, a near relation of one of the partners in the bank, declared to me that our dear Stanley was no legitimate son of Mrs. Snob- gold's, if son he were at all; that Mrs. Widow Snobgold, Sir," turning round to Sir Hugh, *' was the mother of two children, whom she frequently mentioned; whilst the lady alluded to often over- heard the partners in the bank talk of the great degree of mysteriousness, attached to all the trans- actions which concerned our pupil." " The youth himself did not seem to look upon Mrs. Snobgold as his mother," interrupted Mr. Legge. " Once, indeed," he went on, *' in allud- ing to some of his early days. Master Stanley observed that he faintly recollected a fine military- looking young man who came to the house where he Hved, and played with and fondled him most 222 EUGENIE. affectionately. There was at that time, too, a very young and beautiful lady, who treated him also very kindly." " Where, where. Sir, could this be ? Did he tell you the names of those early friends of his V broke in with great eagerness the attentive listener. " No, Sir; he never could tell us the name of those persons, although we repeatedly questioned him on the subject,'' replied Mr. Legge, very much surprised at their venerable visitors im- patience. *' May I ask you how often this Mrs. Snobgold came to your house ? " added the enquirer. " Only twice, Sir, during the whole period of Master Stanley's schooling with us; the day on which she brought him here, and the day on which she removed him, as she told us, to a private tutor far away," rejoined Mrs. Legge, anticipating her husband's answer. " So then you do not know where the young gentleman is at the present time residing ? " *' No, indeed. Sir, for we have not seen our dear young friend, from the time of his removal to this day," was the lady's reply. " A sad day it was amongst us: we all shed tears, as if we were losing a very dear relative; the boys accompanied the carriage to the farthest end of the town." " You have been indeed very indulgent to me. EUGilNIE. 223 my good friends, by answering so readily the im- pertinent inquiries of a stranger, so perfectly un- known in these parts. I promise you faithfully, however," said the baronet as he rose to depart, *' that, should I be fortunate enough to discover the parentage and pedigree of this interesting youth, in whom I feel the deepest interest, you shall be made acquainted with the particulars, as soon as I am able to communicate them." After the usual ceremonies of leave-taking, Sir Hugh de Craufurd, giving his name and address, stepped into the post-chaise which had brought him, and the post-boy received orders immediately to set off for London. Now, if Sir Hugh, instead of going to Newbury, had simply called on the Rev. Mr, Millington, of Wallingford, he would have instantly learned the young stranger's family name, which, singularly enough, was the same as his own — for it appears that, from some motive or other not then known, Mrs. Snobgold had found it necessary to entrust Mr. Millington with his young pupil's real paternal titles and character, with a great deal more be- sides. But it so chanced that the worthy baronet detested the very name of that town, on account of its having been the scene of many of his late wife's follies, besides containing still within its 224 EUGENIE. odious precincts several of her intimate quondam friends. What trifles frustrate our best resolves! We are the sport of the most fortuitous events : a man loses his fortune because he arrives a few minutes too late to lay down his stake; another becomes the admired chief of a great nation, because the letters of his name fortunately run in talismanic order; we recollect a clever man, a well-known foreigner, by-the-bye, who lately failed being elected, in an academic capacity, by an important civic body, in the great city of London, because he could not, the unlucky fellow, drink so deep a draught, sing so loud a bacchanalian song, as his bellowing bullying rival. No sooner was the baronet arrived in the me- tropohs than he went to the banking-house of Messieurs Teasdel, Goldsmith, and Co. Unacquainted as he was with the manner of carrying on business in large mercantile towns, Sir Hugh felt perfectly amazed at the noncha- ance, aye, the air of contempt, with which the clerks of that house looked over the papers, which they were reading, to show him in the coolest way imaginable that they had noticed his arrival. " I should feel much obliged to you, sir, were you to introduce me to one of the partners in the EUGENIE. 225 firm," said the baronet, addressing himself to the person immediately facing him. First stare over the paper. • " Can I speak to Mr. Teasdel, sir, or to Mr. Goldsmith?" Second stare, more impertinent than the first. " Am I to understand, sir, that a gentleman civilly asking a question is to be treated in this disrespectful manner vv^ithout any redress ? " " Speak to the porter," pointing to the door, tartly replied he of the quill-driving tribe, *' he will attend to you. We are here simply cashiers." He might also with great truth have added, ** conceited members of a most insolent species of jacks in office." The present Bank of Eng- land furnishes many a copy, faithfully transmitted to us from those provoking models, the clerks of former days. About a couple of hours, more or less, after the short dialogue between Sir Hugh de Craufurd and the courteous self-styled cashier alluded to, Messieurs Teasdel and Goldsmith were seen po- litely escorting the baronet to the very threshold of the banking-honse ; Sir Hugh observed, this time, as he passed the various desks of the clerks, that each busy writer addressed a profound bow to the triumvirate of whom he formed a part. Nothing but a steam-engine or a cannon-ball L 3 226 EUGENIE. could exceed tlie velocity with which a post-chaise and four, which had left London on the following morning, travelled day and night along the Bath and Bristol road. It was occupied by a venerable old gentleman, who, every now and then, when he had occasion to alight for refreshment, or to change horses, called the waiters ' Stanley * and the landlords ' de Craufurd ' by mistake as he paid them. Often too the aged traveller had despairingly struck his forehead with the palms of his hands, and ever and anon imploringly whis- pered a short prayer to crave heavenly assistance, in these his last efforts for the discovery of a legitimate heir to his great wealth and vast possessions. " Oh ! if that youth could but be the beloved object I fondly imagine he may be, the end of my wretched old age would be blessed indeed ! Stanley had a son, one of his wild early letters imparts it clearly, the idolized fruit obtained in wedlock too, by his happy union with one Julia Down ; there, as if to keep me in the dark touching the lady's family name, foolish boy, he concluded the name with a dash. But a son he certainly left behind him somewhere — another letter, and a much later one, alludes to that most important fact. Where is that child ? Under whose care was he left ?. , . . This fine EUGENIE. 227 youth, in whose open and intelligent countenance I discover so much likeness, not only to my poor lost Stanley, but to Gertrude, his dear sister ". . . . a few tears, at that name, rolled slowly down the fur- rowed cheeks of the venerable traveller. ..." this fine youth, I say, must be de Craufurd's child." And here Sir Hugh, interrupting himself once more, and thrusting his white head as far as he could out of the carriage window, impatiently cried to the post-boy, who by-the-bye was galloping just then at full speed, not to be creeping in that lazy way. " Get on, my man, get on ! you shall have double your fees, only make haste, there's a good lad." Oh ! for the sake of the poor animals, would that the other baronet figuring in this tale had been riding by! Those countless cuts of that • merciless whip had certainly ceased wealing the sides of those poor beasts. Indeed, a doubt remains fixed in our own minds whether Sir Nicholas, exasperated to madness, would not, shouting " Tudor again, here's for thee, my Tudor 1 " with- out further ceremony, have thought it right to make the post-lad bear for a while one half at least of the strokes which he so lavishingly bestowed on his horses. As a necessary inuendo, we may as well can- didly confess, before proceeding any further, that 228 EUGENIE. we have a peculiar and outlandish way of our own, good or bad, we cannot tell, of telling stories in our own way. Novel-readers have often boasted before us, that they were in the habit of reading works of fiction by beginning at the end, that is, by jumping at conclusions, without the trouble of wading through scores of pages of ' stuff,' as they very politely called it, which invariably con- verge, they went on observing, to one and the same end : the universal termination of a romantic love affair. We altogether repudiate such greedy readers, and in order to foil them in their unfair manner of devouring a book, tail first and head after, we have often purposely popped into our chapters the tail, where the head should have been, taking care at the same time to introduce such enlightening clauses as appeared necessary, to establish an interesting connexion for the proper developement of the story. With this hint, it is hoped that those who do us the favor of running through these volumes will do it patiently, and kindly wait until they have become acquainted with the whole narra- tive, before they form an opinion on its humble merits. EUGENIE. 229 CHAPTER XIX. Groom such as no one ever saw at Newmarket, or any where else — Pouting, not invariably disagreeable to see — Why Beau Bill wore wings in his cap and at his feet — Vastness of Miss Sera- phina's powers of invention — Physiognomy not at all Olympian — Distress of a sweet young lady — Rough way of being gallant — Alice d'Harecourt supposed to have been shot — Young squire, busy undressing whom he should not — Critical moment — Sister's reproof, well given and well taken — Miss Cleopatra Snobgold and Lady Alice meet for the first time — Stable objurgations — ' Arrival of Sir Hugh de Craufurd at the Kiosk — Alligators and a crocodile — Interview, which is at first anything but pleasant — Strictly confidential intimations from a single lady to a single gentleman — Entreaties of an old man — An interview growing extraordinary. We are just now again within sight of that most gorgeous, no-where-else-to-be-seen villa marvel- lous, the Kiosk ; we have before us the type, par excellence, and the beau ideal of a purse-proud master's pet groom; therefore, kind reader, be pleased, without murmuring over-much, unless 230 EUGENIE. you are a pretty young miss, with lovely ruby lips, which always look to^our mind vastly well, roguishly pouting in murmurs of any kind, be pleased, we humbly entreat you, to turn back to chapter the fourteenth, where you will perceive that one Bill, alias Beau Bill, is cursorily mentioned there. That Beau Bill, whom we slighted so grossly, dear reader, by being satisfied with merely mentioning his name, without having made the least possible allusion to his august person, is at this moment before you by the coach-house door. Clad in orange-coloured livery, that is, as it regards the riding-vest and waistcoat only, the * continuations ' being of azure blue, to represent as nearly as possible the celestial dress, which Miss Seraphina solemnly declared to her pupil. Miss Cleopatra Snobgold, that Phaeton wore every morning, when he first sallied forth to drive his father Phoebus through the skies, by way of a diurnal lamp: — Bill had on his capacious head a scarlet red cap, close-fitting, with two miniature gilt metal wings adorning each of its sides, another of the classical governess's conceits, in allusion to the swift messenger of the Olympian gods, the celebrated Mercury with his skull-cap. There never was a mind like Miss Seraphina's for rich conceptions : — Beau Bill's very whip was a caduceus, the thongs, two of them, for greater EUGENIE. 231 similarity's sake, acting as entwined serpents at the end thereof, of a most sinister aspect to the beholder, certainly, but very little felt by the horses, as may be imagined. Every thing which Billy wore was in unison : top-boots he wore not, however, but sandals he trod, supplied with spurs in the form of wings, similar to those on his cap. Now Bill, as a physical set-off to all that finery, had a turned-up red nose ; carrotty red hair ; small red eyes ; an enormous maw ; immeasurably long arms ; and a broad and bulky frame withal, sup- ported on legs as lanky and long as his arms. No man like Bill for sitting his horse ; no man like Bill for curry-combing him and doing the needful, be that what it might, at the stable-door. This afternoon he had been borrowed from his proud master to ride one of Miss Cleopatra's ponies, which were just being put to, for a drive that the young lady was about taking over to the Knoll. The two families, as it seems, had fortuitously got acquainted during the absence of Count Hubert. It was in this way: — The Honorable Miss Alice d'Harecourt, walking out one day, across the fields which separated the Snobgold property from the Knoll, found herself sadly annoyed by a shepherd's dog, which would 232 EUGENIE. not leave off, do what she pleased, cruelly worry- ing her dear mamma's darling little spaniel; the spoilt thing had obstinately persisted in following Miss d'Harecourt during her morning ramble. No one happened to be within call, which had very much increased the young lady's perplexities. She had first broken an expensive parasol, in a long encounter with the rough intruder ; she had next caught up the helpless creature, attempting to carry it in her arms, and hoping thereby, no doubt, to intimidate the troublesome animal ; but this last expedient had only served to make matters worse, for the undaunted brute, jumping about her and against her with his muddy paws, and, soiling and tearing her white mushn frock in the most provoking manner, had succeeded in fasten- ing on the poor spaniel's riband collar. Luckily for her at that very moment, if good luck might be called such an interposition, Squire du Kiosk, you know the party, having perceived her distress from the opposite side of a brook, where he was endeavouring to shoot a few wild ducks for good Mrs. Snobgold, suddenly shot the unfortunate quadruped through the heart. So unexpected and withal so frightful a succour had the effect that might be expected, when you bear in mind that the dear girFs nerves had been tried so long by that worrying animal j she dropped EUGEINIE. 233 to the ground, as if she also had received her death- blow. Nothing could exceed the horror which instantly seized Squire Snobgold, for beheving that, by some inadvertence, he had slipped two slugs into the fowling-piece instead of one, he very naturally concluded that, having slightly separated, one of those slugs had killed the dog, and the other, Miss Alice. There was no time to spare for reflection ; he ran to her assistance, gently and most concernedly propped the young lady against his broad chest, the infuriated little creature — cause of all the mischief — madly yelping at and biting him all the while, in chivalrous defence of his prostrate mistress, and Snobgold, endeavouring to find out where he had so unfortunately wounded her, was gradually loosening the various articles of her dress. Very opportunely, however, for Miss d' Hare- court, the squire's sister, accompanied by her governess, suddenly made their appearance : those young ladies had been for some time past hunting for the wild duck shooter, to give him a quiver full of short javelins, with which they had told him that the Romans brought down, in no time, all the fowls they caught the least sight of. Miss Cleopatra was of course dreadfully shocked, as any modest young maiden could not fail to be, when she found her worthy brother, in the positive 234 EUGilNlE. act of unlacing the Hon. Miss d'Harecourt's, shall we say it? of unlacing the honorable young lady's. . . . stays. We think he had reached the fourth or fifth eyelet-hole (is it not so called?) from the top, and matters were beginning to become highly critical, in more respects than one. " Good heavens ! " cried he, as soon as he per- ceived his sister; for the young man, in his violent haste to remove Miss Alice's garments, had no other motive than that of intense charity ; " come here, Cleopatra; come and help me, for I do verily believe that I have inadvertently killed Miss d*Harecourt ! " '^ You don't say so !" screamed both the ladies at the same time, running to the spot ; " but stop, William, stop, you must not undress the young lady in that way — it is very improper. What are you looking for ? ... . There, go away ; we shall look for the wound Where do you think that that dreadful slug entered ? " " Why, in the back to be sure, for I was behind her when I fired," and the young man retreated behind a neighbouring bush, wringing his hands in a most despairing way. Squire Snobgold had scarcely disappeared when poor Ahce, heaving a long sigh, opened her beau- tiful eyes. Miss Seraphina was just then plunging her right hand down the supposed fair sufferer's EUGENIE. 235 back, to ascertain, if possible, where the wound had been inflicted. A large shawl which Miss Snobgold had modestly thrown on her young neighbour's shoulders, partly removed the waking maiden's otherwise insufferable mortification. " What are you doing with me, ladies V drawing the shawl closer round her neck. " Who was it that so cruelly shot that poor dog ? " pointing to the shepherd's. *' Where is dear mamma's darling little pet V\ looking anx- iously round. " Miss Snob. . . . Snobgold of the Kiosk ! I believe," half whispered in hysterical accents the astonished young lady, as she endea- voured to rise ; hurriedly adjusting her disordered dress. " I am Miss Snobgold," replied the lady ad- dressed, with that sort of look that graciously said, *' very ready to make your acquaintance, and as ready to prove myself worthy of your friend- ship ". . , . " You have been dreadfully frightened, Miss Alice, have you not ? " " Indeed, I have been, ladies, dreadfully fright- ened ! " was the sobbing broken answer. " Are you hurt. Miss d'Harecourt, hurt in any part of your person ? Me comprenez vous ? " en- quired Miss Seraphina Longshanks ; " the over- hasty sportsman who thought it expedient to 236 EUGENIE. destroy that pauvre bete, because he fully imagined that it was enragee, is in mortal fear lest he has wounded your person, in his hurry to relieve you.'* •' We have been endeavouring to discover where my poor brother has had the misfortune of wound- ing you ; if he really has been so unfortunate, — I would rather say, so clumsy," broke in Miss Cleopatra, sympathizingly to remove any un- pleasant feeling, which Miss d'Harecourt might experience, upon learning that the squire had been so officiously employed about her dress. " Your brother, my dear Miss Snobgold, has been neither unfortunate nor clumsy. I am not injured in the least. It was through mere terror that I fiainted Pray, ladies, be so good as to fasten up my stays again Mr. Snobgold is not, I hope, near enough to see us." ** Oh ! now, don't begin to frighten yourself again in that awful way," interrupted the young lady du Kiosk, "there is no danger, I can assure you ; the poor fellow is on the other side of that brook, in a woeful state of agitation, for he thoroughly beheves that he has murdered you,'* The little spaniel at this moment having crept fondly against his young mistress, standing up on his hind-legs, as it were to greet her. Miss Ahce d'Harecourt felt free from all further apprehen- sion; she recovered her usual elasticity of spirit, EUGlfeNIE. 237 and, thanking very courteously her young neigh- bours for their compassionate attention, cheerfully proposed to go all together, for the purpose of consoling the alarmed sportsman. " Just so,'' observed Miss Seraphina ; " it will be like the trois Graces soothing le dieu Mars/' A side glance at Miss Longshanks, which Miss Ahce had involuntarily cast, convinced the latter young person that no painter or statuary could ever have chosen such a gaunt and scraggy model for one of his compositions, whatever he might have thought of the two other goddesses. A loud and happy laugh from Snobgold, when the two young ladies reached him, very soon evinced that his heart was now very far from bursting, however swollen it might have been,, so long as he thought that * manslaughter ' for the least, would be the decision of the courts against him. The party, readily accepting Miss d'Harecourt's affable invitation, to go home and take some refreshment with her, bent their steps towards Uhe Knoll/ which happened to be the nearer habitation of the two families. The Snob- golds had never before visited at the d'Harecourts. " Keep off there, with your filthy rips ! " cried most indignantly Master Bill, the beau Bill whose fascinating portrait we endeavoured to draw in 238 EUGENIE. the two or three first pages of this chapter ; " keep off there ! I says. Don't you see, you dirty chap, that my horses will kick your scarecrows to atoms if you leave 'em in that there way so close to each other ? " This hospitable stable-yard reception followed Sir Hugh de Craufurd's arrival at the Kiosk, about the end of his second day's journeying from London. Mrs. Snobgold was in the drawing-room ; Miss Cleopatra was dressing for her intended visit. William Snobgold and Miss Seraphina had gone out, early in the morning, towards the oriental pleasure-grounds, at the bottom of the park. Some improvements were there in contemplation, touch- ing a couple of sham alligators, which were to move on great occasions, by machinery, up and down the lake, like the famous monsters of the Ganges. A huge crocodile also had been con- trived, unexpectedly to dart from a dark cavern excavated under the mound. A few seconds had elapsed since the servant had announced the presence of Sir Hugh de Craufurd, a gentleman from Wallingford. Mrs. Snobgold had received the visitor with intense curiosity and surprise, not unmingled in- deed with some degree of apprehension. " You then decline, madam, answering my EUGENIE. 239 inquiries regarding the place of birth and real parentage of young Stanley de Craufurd?" ob- served, a second time, the surprised, much dis- appointed and discomposed baronet, addressing himself inquiringly to Mrs. Snobgold. '* I do, sir, from private motives, which my ov^^n interest imperatively commands me to conceal,'' w^as, at first, the lady's guarded answer, but soon after, seeming to feel overcome by some strong in- ward emotion, " I shall not, however, scruple to reveal a few circumstances to you, as to a gentle- man on whose honor I can rely." Sir Hugh de Craufurd, interrupting and bowing low in confirmation ; " I shall certainly, madam, consider myself bound to keep whatever you do me the favor of communicating deeply buried in my heart." " Well, sir, I acknowledge, that, a short time before marrying Mr. Snobgold, I had become the widow of a very young captain in the King's service, who, from some mysterious cause or other, died abroad : his name, strangely enough, was ex- actly similar to your own ; that is, it was Stanley de Craufurd ; he also, now that I have had the op- portunity of contemplating awhile the features of your face, bore a striking Hkeness to you." " What, madam ! Stanley de Craufurd, a young oflScer, much resembling me, was your husband ! " 240 EUGENIE. almost screamed out the overjoyed baronet. *' You are, then, young Stanley's mother. Pray, keep nothing back from me, for God's sake, that I may be enabled to make to my grandson all those amends, which my sad heart has so long desired to lavish on my poor departed boy. Acknowledge him as your child ; prove to me that his father was indeed my unfortunate boy — and this Stanley, then my grandson, shall inherit all I possess, and become before long one of the richest baronets of this realm." ** I am not, sir, the mother of the youth to whom you refer," replied Mrs. Snobgold ; '• Cap- tain de Craufurd, your son, for I have now no doubt as to that fact, from your perfect likeness to each other, was himself a very young widower when he married me." " You are not, then, acquainted with the cir- cumstances of my son's former marriage ? . . . . May I, nevertheless, entreat you, madam, to assist me in the further discovery of Captain de Crau- furd's first matrimonial connection, as far at least as you are able V* " Most willingly, sir, now that I have your word as a promise, to keep the whole of these dis- tressing details under the seal of the profoundest secrecy." And good Mrs. Snobgold, who could not help admiring and loving her adopted child, EUGilNIE. 241 Stanley, and who really was at heart a most ex- cellent creature, revealed to the attentive baronet every particular of her clandestine union with his son, from the first day of their meeting, to the morning on which she received the sad intelligence of his death. Letters and various documents were produced, and readily given up to Sir Hugh, which all contributed to remove every possible doubt as to the identity of the two persons, Mrs. Snobgold's former husband and his own son being one and the same individual. It was also clearly proved, by the papers examined, that the youth now at Wallingford was the legitimate offspring of a former wife, whose family name and residence were altogether beyond their power of ascertaining satisfactorily, for the present. VOL. I. M 242 EUG]feNlE, CHAPTER XX. Travelling dangerous in France ; not on account of Socialists — Short retrospection — Aged tutors, most convenient companions for giddy young travellers — Count Hubert revisits Melle Eugenie — The visit — Its consequences — Generosity of men, scarcely ever unalloyed, * when beauty calls it forth' — Madame Bonamie moves to other lodgings — Pleasant way of being called upon to deliver up one's purse — Landlords, not invariably merciless — Dialogue between two of the humblest, which would have done credit to two of the noblest in the realm — * Petite goutte' taken with a relish and an excellent motive. Count Hubert's travels abroad had unfortunately been undertaken during one of the turbulent periods which characterised the reign of Louis the Fifteenth of France. Many families who had, about that time, sought the shores of Holland and the Netherlands, or the coasts of picturesque Nor- mandy, from motives of health, pleasure, or eco- nomy, it matters not, had been forced repeatedly to retrace their steps across the channel, in conse- quence of the breaking out of hostilities. EUGENIE. 243 Previously to the departure of the young Lord d'Harecourt for the capital of France, many of the events recorded in some of the preceding portions of this volume had taken place. The battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy had been fought; several important naval engagements had bitterly taught the French to respect the British flag. Troops had been sent in behalf of Hanover into the Low Countries, to assist the Queen of Hungary to repel the encroaching armies of the heroic French king, whatever English historians may say regarding his unfair desires of aggrandisement. Sir Nicholas Highbred, still in the prime of manhood, had been actively employed as the colonel of a regiment of cavalry, during the famous campaign of Flanders, whilst Stanley de Craufurd, suddenly appointed to a company of horse, by virtue of a commission, which he most unexpectedly and unaccountably had received at Wallingford, during his residence there with his tutor, and subsequently to his in- terview with Sir Hugh de Craufurd, had also passed his mihtary apprenticeship, sometimes de- fending, sometimes retreating from Tournay, Fri- bourg, and the countries adjacent to the fields of Dettingen and Fontenoy. It may indeed be re- membered, how he assisted the brave and eccentric Sir Nicholas, in a charge which that officer com- M 2 244 EUG^.NIE. manded, to punish the merciless French for having wounded his favorite Tudor. So that the reader, kindly bearing in mind that many of the accounts which he has read, having a reference to the d'Harecourts as well as to the Snobgolds, relate to events of an anterior date to that which we found fixed for Count Hubert's visit to Paris, may probably succeed in unravelling many of the seeming mysteries sprinkled in the foregoing pages. When Count Hubert had finally chosen a set of rooms in the Faubourg St. Germain, where we left him, accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Lindsay, his tutor, after the abrupt departure of Captain Topa- way, their travelling companion, they naturally began their trips to the various places of national interest and to the more decent resorts of public amusement. Paris had not then, as it has now, the many ' rendez-vous' appropriated to the arts and sciences which sohcit the admiration and rivet the atten- tion of intelligent and inquiring travellers. It was, nevertheless, a city full of magnificent struc- tures, interesting old edifices, edifying and instruc- tive relics of olden times. During the performance of those necessary excursions^ Mr. Lindsay, who was not a very young man, nor a very robust EUGENIE. 245 elderly man, as many are, often complained of fatigue, from which he fancied that his delicate health was seriously suffering. This gradually created a mutual understanding of personal inde- pendence : the pupil compassionately offered to roam alone; the tutor, nothing loath, obhgingly consented to curtail his wanderings, and to super- intend the more substantial duties of providing for the necessities of home. A very few mornings subsequently to that upon which Mr. Lindsay thought it advisable to take care of himself, the young count, strolling along the quays, suddenly took it into his head to make some further polite inquiries, touching the con- valescence of Mademoiselle Eugenie, the washer- woman's foster-child. A lucky thought it was, for the elderly dame with the young maiden were both busily engaged packing up their scanty goods, when their unexpected but welcome visitor arrived. " Ah, monsieur, que vous ^tes rare ! " frankly cried Madame Bonamie, upon perceiving the young man just entering the room ; " Genie and I have often spoken of you since we last had the honor of seeing you." " Indeed, madame," observed Count Hubert, " I feel highly flattered by your thinking me worthy of one moment of your attention." These last words 246 EUGENIE. were, pointedly enough, addressed to the beautiful, blushing young girl, at that moment locking up a little box, in which she had deposited several letters, some other papers, and the few trinkets which she still possessed. " Helas ! monsieur," continued the garrulous and visibly distressed old laundress, " you find us moving from this inhospitable house, because, through bad luck and a fit of indisposition, which kept me from the water- side, I have not been able to pay up the last month's rent." And Madame Bonamie could not help it; she fairly burst out sobbing and crying hke a child. Dear Eugenie too, more overcome by her sympathy for her kind-hearted Bonamie than concerned about her own sufferings, was heard convulsively to sigh and seen sorrov^fully to shed a tear. Much and deeply as Hubert felt moved upon witnessing the kind old woman's distress, he could not control the sudden effects of his strono^er emotion, upon hearing the younger sufferer's quiet agony. " Mademoiselle Eugenie ! be comforted ! " he soothingly said to her, taking both her hands. " Merciful Providence, no doubt, has sent me to your relief; I am a rich man, provided with ample means to drive away want from your door. Pray, permit me to prevent this unpleasant re- EUGENIE. 247 moval from your present abode Let me run lo the landlord. Where does he reside ?. . . „ Oh ! what a delight it would be to me, were I allowed to be of the least possible service to you, my excellent friend, Madame Bonamie!" the young- man cried enthusiastically, being then by the washerwoman's side, where he had insensibly drawn her foster-child. " Non, non, monsieur ! " suddenly recovering from her depression, energetically remarked the laundress ; " we could never make up our minds to remain under thi^ roof, after the uncharitable manner in which we have been treated. You are a generous young gentleman. I will accept your proffered assistance, but you must not appear to supply us with the sum required ; other and worse insults might very probably be heaped upon us. Take this address ; it is that of our new dwelhng-place Let me go and pay that cruel man ; he may perhaps be led to think that you have simply brought us the amount of some charge of ours, for two or three months' washing, which has just become due." And the honest creature, with perfect reliance on her benefactor's virtuous and disinterested motives, held out her hand to receive the proffered aid. Hubert, with sincere thanks warmly depicted in his eloquent eyes, and modestly looking at the 248 EUGENIE. grateful girl, dropped his purse in Madame Bonamie's extended hand. Hurriedly and reluc- tantly then, wishing good morning to his con- fiding acquaintances, he left the house for his morning's ramble, bending his steps we beUeve to the celebrated palace of the Tuilleries. Roughness of speech we may always expect from the lower orders of society, especially on matters which regard pounds, shillings, and pence ; it does not, however, follow that, because the uneducated have a rude vocabulary of words, they have also a heart full of unsympathising feelings, a breast totally devoid of beaux send- ments, as Messieurs les Frangais justly call all those humane and generous inclinations, which prompt good men to the spontaneous performance of disinterested and noble actions. The offended blanchisseuse, on reaching the sixieme etage, where her landlord habitually sojourned, for a few weeks at the close of every quarter, his own family residence being outside one of the town-gates, was exceedingly surprised by the kind but per- tinacious manner with which he persisted to refuse the money, which she was proudly handing over to him. " No, no, Madame Bonamie; you have alto- gether mistaken the real object of my conduct this morning. 1 shall not accept moneys which EUGENIE. 249 you are evidently standing in such urgent need of, and which, I solemnly declare to you, I had previously firmly determined to return to you be- fore the close of this day." *' Then why should you think it necessary, sir, to speak so harshly to us, at such a trying moment too ? You very nearly broke my poor Genie's dear little heart ; she is so sensitive, the sweet child ! . , . . I could have overlooked any unkind usage, from which I alone was pained or injured ; but my own innocent darling shall never be ill- used, in my presence at least, without finding in me the devoted protection of a real mother," broke forth, half inchned to burst out again in a fit of crying, the truly benevolent creature. " We are poor, sir ; that we cannot help ; but we have, as God very well knows, all the inclination on earth to act uprightly and well." " I know it, I know it, my excellent friend; there, be seated, to shew me that you forgive me, and take this glass of noyeau, to settle the preli- minaries of peace between us : it was made by my wife's own self, an industrious body, something like you, who never neglect an opportunity [of contributing to the happiness of others." The old dame was not at all of a disposition to bear malice a long while ; the sincere bonhommie with which her usually good-tempered proprietaire M 3 250 EUGENIE. addressed her, instantly put to flight all her feel- ings of wrath ; she took the glass of liqueur, and cheerfully tossed it off, to the health and prospe- rity of the landlord and his family. " Thank you, thank you, Madame Bonamie!" sociably acknowledging the good wishes she had just expressed, by tossing off a glass of the same beverage himself to the better luck of his loca- taire, . . . ** You must know, Madame," he more seriously proceeded, " that it is not, in my case especially, all gold that glitters : my little fortune is often sadly cut up by the folHes of others. I have, as you know, a couple of sons, who would find no difficulty in ruining a millionnaire, if he chanced to be their father. Some gambhng debts, which the elder brother has contracted within the last week, have compelled me to part with this house : it is now the property of another." " I sincerely pity you. Monsieur, and I assure you that, had I been remaining as a tenant under this roof, I should very much have regretted the loss of so generous and compassionate a landlord.*' *' So, you are moving to another apartment ? " " Yes, Monsieur; too soon offended, I confess it, at your remarks this morning, on our carre, I set ofi^ on the spur of the moment, in quest of other rooms: they were hired before noon this very day." EUGEINIE. 251 " My remarks were indeed over hasty, Madame, and not sufficiently considerate," dejectedly ob- served the unhappy father; " but, considering the insurmountable impatience of temper caused by my present distress, and moreover, if you do me the kindness of recollecting that your opposite neighbour, on the sataie carre, w^as at that very mo- ment overhearing what I said, you will, I am sure, feel disposed to pardon me my apparent inhu- manity. That imprudent man is always dreadfully backward in his payments. Had he found me granting you any indulgence, he would no doubt have reminded me of the same, to postpone his own settlement." The good laundress took leave of that kind man with a heart full of gratitude, lecturing herself severely, all the way home, for having so intem- perately formed a bad opinion of ce pauvre cher ami, saying twice, with tears in her eyes, out loud on the stairs, *' que le Bon Dieu le benisse, lui et tous ses pareils; ainsi-soit-il ! " 252 £UG]^.NIB. CHAPTER XXI. Something which is anything but agreeable to people on a tour — A guide returning without his charge — Poor Hubert — Wretched Lindsay — Good reasons for preferring to be a prisoner on parole — A pupil somewhat restive — Some remarks worth reading for youths— Where and how the happiness of the inferior classes is best secured — Merit of every moral description not confined to the higher ranks of society — Ignorant noblemen, not over-flattered — Our estimation of a well-bred, well-read, and kind-hearted man of title — How it was that domestic peace was ever to be found at Harecourt Knoll — Study which every young lady should attend to — A mother's anxiety — JMiss Fielding's opinion of the French— A reproof whereby La Belle France is kindly treated — News from abroad. The short truce which followed the treaty of Aix- la-Chapelle was now every day drawing nearer to an abrupt conclusion. Many English famihes had already thought it prudent to withdraw from the land of vineyards and olive grounds, to seek the quieter shades of that fruitful soil, where hops and barley grow. Fortelling the approaching storms of international political strife, the wary and wise EUGENIE. 253 did not tarry until retrograde movements would be attended with more or less of personal danger, as Sir Hugh de Craufurd had, on a former occasion, most bitterly learnt to his cost. Each ship return- ing to England was heavily freighted with British subjects j fugitives of various countries were hastily seeking for safety within the frontiers of the adja- cent kingdoms; and every man-of-war, on either coast, was quietly pursuing her mysterious route towards the destination fixed as preparatory to the forthcoming renewal of hostilities. Thoughtful and sad, because he was alone ; miserable, because he was returning into the bosom of a family, his kindest friends, where his unexpected presence, thus unattended, would convey dreadful apprehension and intense sorrow : thoughtful and sad, and miserable we repeat, an- elderly gentleman stood at the stern of one of the last packets quitting the shores of pugnacious, restless, ever wrestling, attacking or defending Galha. That elderly gentleman, all clad in black, was, at that critical moment, anxiously watching a Government mail, bearing the English flag ; the bark was making her way, under a heavy press of sail, towards that ancient and renowned port of Calais, which had withstood, so far back as 1347, for eleven long months, the besieging forces of the 254 EUGENIE. third royal Edward of England, and which had been re-taken in 1557, by the Duke de Guise, at the end of an eight days' siege. The elderly gen- tleman had entreated the captain to inquire of the crew on board that mail, what important tidings they were bearing with such excessive speed from England to the land of Charlemagne. The startling answer which was obtained, upon the nearing of that flying ship, rang with terrific effect throughout the anxious crowd assembled on the packet's deck : '^ War with France! " " Poor Hubert!" the above-mentioned gentle- man cried, raising his hands towards heaven in the attitude of the greatest terror. ..." Poor d'Harecourts! what shall I have to tell them ?" The reader has, no doubt, already guessed that the Rev. Mr. Lindsay was the stranger standing at that stern. The fact is that, upon the first rumours of an approaching rupture between the two countries, Mr. Lindsay, to avoid all possible chance of mis- fortune which, from some oversight or other of his, might befal his pupil, had repeatedly urged, nay, peremptorily enjoined at last, a speedy de- parture from Paris. Here, however, he had con- stantly met with the most unaccountable and steadfast opposition; Count Hubert having every day some fresh engagement, some interesting spot EUGENIE. 255 to visit, which he must absolutely see before going; there was in the young man, heretofore so submis- sive, a seemingly growing spirit of insubordination, which began seriously to perplex and greatly to alarm his prudent companion. What could a studious, peaceable, unsuspecting scholar like that young nobleman's tutor do, where anything but academic wisdom and pro- found erudition seemed requisite to over-rule the rising independence of buoyant youth ? The more the pious man endeavoured to open his pupil's eyes to the frightful havoc, foreboded in the gathering tempest, the more his dauntless hearer smiled at what he termed, within his breast, the pusillanimi- ties of over-apprehensive old age. Besides this, the young lord of Harecourt had other and far more engrossing motives, which irresistibly bound him • for a short while longer as a willing prisoner in the capital of France. " Set off, by all means, sir," impatiently did he reply one day to his amazed Mentor, " set off at once ; you will only precede me by a very few days, should I not, which is more than probable, overtake you before your journey's end. Depend upon me, my dear Mr. Lindsay, I am old enough and wise enough now, to take care of myself, without being led about, as it were, like a baby- boy in leading strings." 256 EUGENIE. Oh ! what a deal of irreparable mischief, young reader, that longing to become masters of our actions in our adolescence has done ! You are little aware of the temptations, the perils and snares which surround you ; snares especially and temptations, against which it requires all the experience of maturity to guard. The most experienced, the long and severely tried, the very Nestors and Solomons of every rank of society, have frequently succumbed when most they flat- tered themselves that they had become proof against every kind of allurement : woe betide the juvenile wayfairer, who, without a friendly guide, undertakes too soon the intricate and chequered pilgrimage of hfe ! Mr. Lindsay, perfectly well assured that all further argument on the subject would prove use- less ; hoping, besides, that Count Hubert would very soon see the necessity of following him with- out further delay, as he himself had given to understand, thought it more judicious to set off alone, which he did that self-same day, in a frame of mind not at all likely to lighten the fears naturally created by a precipitate retreat, through provinces where every man you meet is more or less a foe. Domestic happiness, in the fullest extent which those dearly expressive words embrace, reigned at EUGENIE. 257 the ' Knoll ' over masters and servants, tenants, neighbouring dependants and all. When the aristocracy feel a sincere interest in the welfare of those over whom high birth has placed them ; there is not a happier state than that of the vassal, under the protection of his rightful manorial ruler. We are strongly disposed to believe that, w^ere it not throuo:h the interested o machinations of wicked instigators, who pur- posely throw seeds of discontent amongst the peasantry, to serve, in some mysterious manner or other, their own personal ends, mutual kind- ness and good-will would generally prevail, all through the land, between the lower and the higher classes, between the humble and the exalted. Aware, as every sensible man must be, of the intellectual inferiority which exists, in- evitably must exist between the well educated and the ignorant ; the long-practised, the well-disci- plined and nobly marshalled favorite of fortune, and the neglected, uncurbed, and untaught child of toil, menial existence, and want; that sen- sible man, conscientious, it is hoped, as he is rational, must see the reasonableness of a state of government, where opulence and hereditary rank soar over all, and consequently, select the best, and seize upon all that is choicest, most profitable, and most honorable. 258 EUGfeNIE. No doubt, tliere are men born under thatched roofs, and within the walls of comparative indi- gence, from parents too, to whom fortune and an- cestral dignities have never belonged, who might have become, through the cultivation of their pre- eminent natural abilities, and through great mental exertion, worthy of filling the highest stations of political and legislative economy. Such men abound, beyond all doubt; and great indeed is the loss, felt by the government of any kingdom, when those men, from unavoidable obstacles, con- comitant with their hapless, impotent state of poverty, are kept from participating in the superin- tendence of national affairs. Not much unlike iron, which is acknowledo'ed to be the most serviceable of all metals, and which requires to be melted, purified, and polished, before it can be applied in the manufacturing of rare and costly objects ; the man born with great mental powers, must, never- theless, undergo long and careful training, under the rigid discipline of classical, moral, and re- ligious education, the cleansing crucible, through the process alone of which, the highest intellects are rendered available for the loftier ranges of pubhc life, before he can fairly aspire to be the rival of such meteors as those exalted functionaries, naval, military, or civil, who are at this moment, have been, and will ever be, an honor to the execu- EUGilNIE. 259 tive and representative assemblies of Great Britain. Be sure of this, countrymen and plebeians of all degrees : let his rank be ever so exalted, his riches ever so amazing, the titled denizen of courts and camps ; the tolerated guest in regal palaces or gorgeous halls ; who is an ignoramus, unlettered, and unrefined ; a stultus homo in short, where all are expected to be brilliant, witty, and wise, is to the full as much despised by his compeers, the high-minded dukes and barons of the realm, and the learned placemen of the state, as the gilded calves, and the pompous cyphers of your own humbler circles are despised amongst you. An uneducated unpolished noble- man strongly reminds us, ** Now, don't go and tell him ! " of that master-piece of French deception in the culinary art, a " vol au vent," so splendidly enticing without, and so mar- vellously empty within. And, to make the simile more complete, the much-ado-about-nothing, by-the-bye, should be made of indifferent eggs, musty flour, and rancid butter ; which, please to serve, upon a platter thaf s unclean. It will be said by our courtly readers, upon skim- ming most impatiently the foregoing tirade, that we no doubt, shameless sans-culottes, form part and parcel of that odious set of inveterate democrats, 260 eug]6nie. to whom the very name of earl, marquis, or count, imparts a sudden reHsh for guillotines, wholesale massacres and noyades, such as those which are so faithfully portrayed forth by that incomparable historical narrator, the author of Caesar Borgia. And thereby shall we be grossly maligned, ill- judged, erroneously interpreted. We love and admire the nobility; we glory in the existence of a pure aristocracy ; we consider His Grace of A. or B., we look upon my Lord C, D., or E., as so much the more entitled to our admiration and respect, for the talents and virtues which they possess, that, being cradled in the very lap of fortune and under the panoply of rank, they have not thought it beneath them to acquire that knowledge, which should ever be, which ever is, the best characteristic feature of a well-bred gentleman. That was Loi;d d'Harecourt's own character to the very letter, and that is why he was in our eyes the purest type of a nobleman, such, we think, as a nobleman should be — that is also why we said, some few pages back, that domestic hap- piness reigned at the Hall, and round the Hall, far and near ; his lordship being a well-educated and highly - gifted scholar and philosopher, who is always a kind-hearted, benevolent, compassionate man. EUGENIE. 261 Lady d'Harecourt was sitting in the garden, under the shade of a flowering shrub; Miss Field- ing, at a short distance from the rustic seat selected by her ladyship, was giving her darling pupil a lesson in botany. Ladies should all acquire some knowledge of botany; it gives to the cultivation of many plants an amazing degree of additional charm. Medical botany, too, within a certain compass, should be studied by the fair sex. What can be more beautiful than a young and lovely gatherer of medicinal herbs, when the known ob- ject of her patient labours is her filial anxiety to relieve a suffering parent ; when the witching hour chosen for the task is saffron dawn ; the scene, a fragrant bank whereon the wild thyme and creep- ing honeysuckle grow ? " My dear ! '' cried her ladyship to her daughter, who was just skipping by in search of a plantain leaf, the best remedy, by-the-bye, for an irritated wound, " my dear ! is it not strange that we do not hear a word from our runaways ? It is now above a month since we last received a letter from our excellent friend Lindsay. I hope they are both well. Your father was observing, a day or two ago, that it would be prudent to advise Hubert to return home. War, they say, is very likely to be declared before long between the two countries." 262 EUG]&NIE. " You don't say so, dear mamma ! " exclaimed the young lady, very much alarmed. " What a sad thing it would be if dear Hubert were to be detained a prisoner in France; and poor Mr. Lind- say, how he would begin again to cry down those unfortunate Frenchmen, whom he never very much admired, I believe, from what I could gather in his remarks on their customs and moral conduct." " They are indeed very volatile," put in, rather doctorially. Miss Fielding, as she returned with a leaf of the plant looked for ; " volatile in rehgion, as well as in their insatiable pursuit after pleasure, the French, I very much suspect, have no stability whatever; nor constancy, I have often been told, in good or evil." " What are you discoursing so learnedly about there, young ladies ? " enquired Lord d'Harecourt, suddenly making his appearance, by issuing from a little grove of filbert-trees and lilacs on the left, where he had been giving some orders to the gar- dener. " You look very serious about it, my pretty Licy ; be it what it may," addressing him- self to his daughter. " Oh ! they were prattling about France and Frenchmen, and the war which is spoken of," was Lady d'Harecourt's reply ; her ladyship detailing to her husband both Miss Fielding's and her daughter's observations on the subject. EUGENIE. 263 " My dear young friends," said the Lord of Harecourt, drawing the Lady AHce towards him, and taking his seat on one side of the bench occu- pied by her ladyship ; " people speak too often from hearsay, especially concerning the character and the manners of foreign nations. A time will come, when intercourse between the continent and this island, having become more frequent, the two na- tions will learn to esteem and to appreciate each other upon fairer grounds. The French have their good points, depend upon it, quite as many, I dare say, as we sober-headed, home-ridden, and country-ridden insulars have a right to boast of. '' As to the danger of our dear Hubert's re- maining any longer in the French capital, I cer- tainly begin to wish him home; very anxiously do I wish it. The public accounts to-day are fraught with threatened hostilities. Mr. Lindsay, how- ever, is a prudent man; one, moreover, who will readily foresee the danger, whenever it begins to exist. Come, ladies, let us walk to the farm, and, trusting in Providence for the safe return of our absent friends, let us go and see our live stock, the old acquaintance and the newly arrived. Mathews, the steward, says that we have three fine calves, and a world of chickens. My dear Bertha," turning to Lady d'Harecourt, " have you seen some horses and cows, which I have j ust 264 EUGENIE. received from Normandy ? They are compact little creatures; rather small, but very symmetrical in their proportions: you know that I glory in my farm, Bertha." Here Lord d'Harecourt's butler brought a letter bearing foreign stamps : it was from Calais. EUGENIE. 265 CHAPTER XXII. Your own duty, whenever you turn author — Plausible reason for avoiding to complete metaphors — Where over-modest readers should be — Mrs. Snobgold's accounts of Stanley, when a boy — Clandestine marriage accounted for — Cunning old baronet — Rich widows may be generous, notwithstanding appearances — Elderly gentleman's acknowledgements becoming very warm — How retrospections create emotions in elderly widows — Paternal affection strangely expressed— Descriptive. . . .no mischief meant — Lady du Kiosk ; her dress — Baronets of a certain age in by- gone days — Explosion — Elegant extracts, delivered down stairs, of things going on over head — Reference made to Count Hubert in Paris — Satin Nell's private ideas of what constitutes a gentleman or lady — A lady's maid taken for somebody — Two postboys — Yorkshiremen. It is the paramount duty of a would-be respectable and useful writer to pay great attention to deco- rum, in spite even of the impatience of his loveliest readers; aye, in total disregard likewise to the mathematical order, which some novehsts of repute have extolled far above the moral of the tale, its language, its object, praiseworthy or not. VOL. 1. N 266 EUGENIE. Avaunt, then, all the cramping rules of logical precision ! Away with the stiff and pedantic laws of classical phraseology ! A book, written for the recreation and improvement of men, should, like the wandering torrents of Ind, be teeming with life and action; here seconding fecundity by ferti- lising irrigations ; there scattering luxuriance and beauty through the ten thousand hues and forms, which its fruitful waters help willing vegetation to assume. Look to it, reader, we never complete a simile further than this ; the lines of resemblance being strikingly faithful to our mind's eye, we leave you to discover the similitude in your turn. It is, in fact, paying a very bad compliment to any sagacious being, after having drawn a lively pic- ture, as every writer fancies he has done, of this or that portion of human existence, to go on giving a key to all the interesting features in the tableau. It is an insolent kind of instruction, which, in short, is just like an impatient artist saying, " here, stupid, that is a grove, and there, block- head, is a lake : yonder, those ivy-clad venerable looking ruins are the mouldering remains of an ancient monastery." To our excessive politeness, therefore, you will be pleased to ascribe all appa- rent neglect which you may stumble upon in these pages; to our great courtesy, the absence of all manner of corollaries for the metaphors. EUGENIE. 267 It is the paramount duty of a respectable writer, it was observed at the commencement of this chapter, to pay great attention to decorum : hie with us then, O super-modest reader, to Mrs. Snob- gold's drawing-room, where Sir Hugh de Crau- furd has been for a considerable time endeavouring, by all the artful taeans of persuasion, which a courtly widower is able to exercise over an uncon- trolled widow, to make her yield to his entreaties. *' I could never clearly make out who the mo- ther of Stanley could have been. The captain always alluded to her with visible regret and the utmost respect," continued Mrs. Snobgold. *' The child was brought to me as a helpless little being, suddenly bereaved of a parent, and then tenderly, most tenderly, I must say, recommended to my care by the father. So long as I was able, nothing diverted my attention from this sacred charge ; it was only after the captain's mysterious death that, finding myself once more under the necessity of seeking protection under the paternal roof, I saw myself compelled, by insuperable interference, to place your grandson, my dear Stanley, in Mr. Legge's school at Newbury." *' You were not then permitted," interrupted the baronet rather abruptly, " to take the boy home with you to your parents 1 " " No, Sir," painfully replied the lady. " As I n2 268 EUGENIE. told you before, having married against the con- sent of my relatives, after having also previously been promised to another ; this shameful dis- regard of filial duty had irritated my father to such a degree, that, not only would he never consent to receive the poor boy in his house, but that he peremptorily and steadfastly fnsisted upon my never divulging the secret of this clandestine marriage. Some plausible accounts were given to the Snobgolds respecting the length of my absence from home ; they were satisfied ; a day was fixed, and the late Mr. Snobgold, excellent unsuspecting creature, triumphantly led me to the altar From that time to this, sir, it has been my con- stant care to conceal, by every contrivance that my prudence could suggest, every kind of relationship or connection that my late husband's family might discover between me and the dear orphan : my own children know nothing whatever of the circum- stance. " " Has my grandson, madam, ever visited you in this place? " inquired Sir Hugh. " He has never visited me any where as a rela- tive, but as an orphan, left early in life under my care," was the answer. " His father," said then the baronet, " had an independent fortune, which one of my sisters left him at her death ; you, no doubt, are in possession EUGl&NIE. 269 of that property, or at least of a portion of the same, your own by conjugal right. I merely mention this to ascertain whether young Stanley was left suflBciently provided for, or whether, not having been so, it devolves upon me to offer you a just compensation for the expenses you have neces- sarily incurred — for your excessive and unremitted kindness, there is no adequate recompense within my reach." " Rest yourself satisfied, Sir Hugh, on that important point: although much reduced by various causes unknown to me, the little patri- mony bequeathed to Stanley, proved more than sufficient to cover all the expenses of his educa- tion, besides those of a commission in a regiment of cavalry, which I lately got a friend of mine to purchase for him ; the remainder was very recently invested at the Bank of England in his name, at a very fair interest, by my solicitor in London." '' You are, indeed, my dear Mrs. Snobgold," warmly cried the elderly gentleman, as he grate- fully took both the lady's hands within his own, " a pattern of integrity and benevolence. I am not in the least surprised at the affection which my son conceived for you, when the excellent qualities of your heart were thrown into the scale, to make weight with the other charms which you certainly must have possessed to an eminent degree." 270 EUG^JNIE. Mrs. Snobgold's rubicund complexion here be- came suffused with an inundation of the richest crimson tints : she sighed deeply, as one looking back with intense regret, through painful retro- spections, at former days of youthful happiness, never since repeated and for ever gone. " Your son. Sir Hugh," she almost inaudibly murmured, " notwithstanding his errors, was as affectionate to me to the last as he was true : I have often since, I can assure you, be it spoken to my shame or to my credit, shed tears of still existing love to his memory ; that is why dear Stanley, our Stanley, never ceased to be an object of my greatest solicitude : he will ever be so, wherever Providence determines that his life shall be spent." " Where is the fond father who could hear this spontaneous meed of praise, at such a moment, and in language so soothing to his grief, on a long-lost and deeply-regretted child, without being overpowered with the strongest emotions ? *' Sir Hugh de Craufurd, of nothing mindful, to all things mindless, suddenly relinquished the lady's hands to entwine his arms round her waist and to embrace her. A single moment, aged as the worthy baronet then certainly was, had been more than sufficient for the performance of this feat of uncontrollable tenderness. The lady, her- EUGilNIE. 271 self, a really kind ingenuous creature, ever and still under the sway of warm sentiments, albeit of the most natural and purest character, zealously responding to her visitor's parental salutation, gently dropped her head with filial confidence on his shoulder. It was a moving scene ! a strange comminghng of the ridiculous and sublime ; the latter, it must, however, be confessed, greatly predominating: a group before which, nothing exaggerating, it would have been difficult for a beholder to know whether he ought, irresistibly excited, to burst out laugh- ing, or, sympathetically interested, to weep. Figure to yourself a portly dame, portly to plethoric, aldermanly rotundity; somewhat below the middle size ; for Mary Fairlock, good Mrs. Snobgold in her sweet maiden days, was one of those dear miniature little darlings, whom men of sound discrimination and taste cannot help wish- ing they could devour, so loveable, and squeezable, and cuddleable they look, and they really are so. But Mary Fairlock, hke many another pretty Mary, with increasing age had increased in cir- cumference and length, increased in opacity, and consequently decreased in comeliness and sundry potent attractions, no longer now eatable, alas ! even no longer now tasteable. ' Sic transeunt parvulse gloriaB mundi ! ' Figure 272 EUGENIE. to yourself, therefore, well-fed and fat Mrs. Snob- gold, a staid comfortable-looking matron, clad in sky-blue satin trimmed with Valenciennes lace, wherever it could be tacked, — for costliness of apparel was prized above all things by the inmates at the Kiosk, — tricked up all down the front, on the sleeves and round the neck, with miniature effigies of almost all the quadrupeds and bipeds brought forth in the distant east. ' Cela etant necessaire,' had dictatorially pointed out their supreme oracle. Miss Sera- phina Longshanks, to the obedient Snobgolds, " to keep all things in harmony, the family residence having been erected, and the grounds laid out, entirely in the oriental style." A boa constrictor, massively wrought out of virgin gold, decked the Lady du Kiosk's demi- grey chignon. Hindoo slippers she wore, pearls in her ears, pearls on her neck, pearls round her wrists, pearls every where, in honor of the great ueen Cleopatra, whose name her daughter bore : she who is said to have loved pearls so well, that she gave them melted down for drink to her own Antony, whom she loved too much. Well then, when you have figured to yourself all the foregoing state of things, kindly betake yourself to a further figuring, which must now more particularly concern the second actor on the EUGENIE. 273 scene. Imagine that you have before your eyes the bending baronet, not inelegant though full of years, not frigid or unimpassioned though far advanced in the winter of his age. His locks white as drifted snow, his complexion pale: a Thermosiris for dignity; for acquired wisdom, a very Nestor, attenuated by sorrow, bent by worldly cares, was that venerable sire. " Kissing my mother, by jingo ! " vociferously cried, as he suddenly entered, the amazed and not over-pleased young squire of the oriental domain. " Who the devil are you, sir ? " ad- dressing himself to Sir Hugh. Miss Longshanks, holding the left arm of a wooden Vichnou, and the tattered remains of a stuffed monkey, stood transfixed at the door. ■ •••••• " You can't think, my dear Billy, what a noise and confusion there is in doors. That there tall ghost of an old gentleman, who came here in the post-shay, has been taking liberties with my missus, and young master, having caught him at it, is storming like mad. I can't tell, I'm sure, what will be the end of it all ; I'm afeared it's an old flame of my missus's, for I see'd her turn as red as the kitchen grate, when Miss Cleo- patra went in.*' " You don't say so, Nell ! " replied, with his N 3 274 EUGENIE. small red eyes dilated to an alarming size, and his endlessly long arms raised in an attitude of unspeakable astonishment, the important person- age spoken to. *' What ! that there old cur- mudgeon is not off yet ! '' continued Bill the Beau, " I wonder who he is, and what he wants in this here place of ourn." " What a wiseacre you are. Bill; go an ax the post-boy chaps; they'll be sure to tell you, you booby/' " Well, stop a minit, for I must jist put the horses in, they are so dratted hot, that they'll be after catching cold, if I leave 'em out in that there fashion. You know, Nelly, my buxom bit of satin, I've jist been with Miss Cleopatra to Harecourt-House. They're all down in the cellar yonder, for that there sour-faced tooter, as they call him, of the young lord has writ from Calus to say that Count Hubert can't come home, because as how, says he, those French scoundrels won't let him." *' Then they've made a prisoner of him, poor dear young gentleman," observed Mrs. Snob- gold's lady's-maid with much evident interest ; Nelly always felt very much interested about every living thing in the shape of human flesh, which happened to be both young and handsome, and which had to boot that indispensable deside- EUGENIE. 275 ratum in her eyes, a pair of real whiskers, without which she constantly declared, that no man was a man, no more than a lady could be a lady, without satin and a profusion of lace. When the post-boys were questioned by Beau Bill, with Satin Nell, (such was her nickname below stairs,) leaning on his arm, respecting what they knew of the strange traveller whom they had brought; they both professed perfect ignorance as to his name and titles, stating only that the old gemman paid like a prince. " He bean't no stingy chap, not he, he's a right-down good-'un, every inch on him,'' both cried out at the same time; but it was not at first, however, without some strange misgivings within, that the two astounded, staring lads answered to the odd- looking pair standing before them. Squire Snobgold's groom has been described, he of the orange-colored vest, azure-blue continua- tions, &c. We have only, therefore, to add a few words touching Nelly, his female com- panion of the Kiosk estabhshment. A broad- shouldered not ill-looking animal by any means, was the bonny maid Nell; rather given to em- bonpoint, to be sure; a slight defect in girls of twenty, but which a couple of inches above the common height of country lasses, served admi- rably well to correct in the Lady du Kiosk's 276 EUGENIE. abigail. A servile mimic in all that appertained to dress, Nelly scrupulously copied her younger mistress, and the supremely genteel Miss Sera- phi n a. Rich in left-ofF garments, the girl had only to let them out a thought or two, and to rub them well with bread-crumbs, to make all the village belles heartily wish they were attend- ants on gentlefolks, whose taste was so refined and liberality so great. This afternoon, the one we are alluding to, she appeared to her enamoured swain ; (Beau Bill, you must know, was the ac- cepted admirer of the condescending maiden;) in a richly brocaded silk slip ; a close-fitting spencer of her favorite satin, tightly enclosing her voluminous neck. She had also neghgently thrown over her dark hair, luxuriant crop ! . . a Cachemere scarf, the last which Mrs. Snobgold had worn, for that lady had that very day made up her mind to wear no more. Gloves she sported also, and silk hose ; the latter having irretrievably lost the shape of stockings, from the breadth of calf and fullness of ankle they had to circumvest. No wonder that Jack and Tom, the post lads, felt confused at standing in such dazzling pre- sence. Jack indeed, fancying, no doubt, that the lady of the manor was doing him the honor of a few moments' chit-chat, kept touching his cap at each * yis maum ' and * no maum,' which EUGlfeNIE. 277 he very respectfully delivered as he humbly bobbed his noddle ; bobbed of course, because it was anything but an elegant bend; noddle, for no one could presume to call head, a shape- less lump of flesh and bone, wherein eyes cer- tainly were distinguishable, but whereon the nose appeared as an angry carbuncle, chimney to the gaping oven beneath. As to Tom, a wondrous deal more knowing was he ; the county of York had given him birth, and that to some purpose. No scraping or bow- ing, therefore, did he bestow on the bedizened twain ; to him soon they both seemed what they were; two fools, saving your presence, arrayed in peacocks' feathers. All further inquiries being fruitless in that quarter, and Satin Nell, not very much rehshing* besides the famiharity with which * Tse York- shire' seemed to sniggle, whenever he looked at her, they both left the stables ; Nelly, to go and readjust her mistress's kerchief and dress, which that ' old feller,' she said in her mind must have sadly tumbled ; and Bill, to seek the kitchen, where he was piping hot to detail the great piece of domestic scandal which he had just learned. 278 EUGilNIE. CHAPTER XXIII. Avoid having secrets to keep — A son rather scandalized — Better be suspected of theft than of murder — Daughter by far too in- quisitive — Cruel interpretation put upon an innocent matron's conduct — Page worth reading on filial duty — Two Mary's com- pared — William Snobgold properly taken to task — Resentment of a vulgarian — Threats of disinheritance — Dignified language of an offended mother — Avarice and revenge, dangerous prompters in the human breast — How young people imbibe a love for riches — William Snobgold's early impressions — Wicked resolution frustrated, which leads to a dish of modern politics, fortunately very short. Secrets and mysteries are odious things to keep. Besides being oftentimes items of knowledge ama- zingly detrimental to the health and peace of mind of the harassed possessor, they are unfortunately also, nine cases out of ten, nay, ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, (as all the ladies know perfectly well,) the very piece of information we would give worlds to impart. Family secrets, however, are matters of a more serious nature : where the interest of many be- EUGilNIE. 279 comes endangered by the imprudent garrulity of one, it behoves us all to denounce the mean-spirited creature who has been guilty of treachery, as a wretch unworthy of further connection with decent society. Give us that renowned Porcia, who, rather than betray her husband and his friends, then engaged in a conspiracy against Julius Caesar, underwent every kind of persecution besides the ill treatment inflicted upon her by merciless judges: heroic woman, worthy of a better fate, who finally swallowed a handful of burning coals, to keep faithful to the last, and to avoid surviving Brutus. When Squire Snobgold was returning from his Burmese or Aracan lake ; it has not been recorded by what eastern name it pleased Miss Longshanks to baptise the piece of stagnant water decorating the lower end of the park; he little imagined that he would find his venerable mother, receiving the afiec donate accolade of an elderly beau, no- thing loath, as it seemed, and obstinately refusing to account for this most flagitious breach of de- corum. The old lady was, it must be confessed, acting with prudence : it was Letter to be, to a certain extent, suspected of impropriety of conduct, to be accused of committing follies in her old age, than to reveal the story of a by-gone love affair, uninteresting to every one but herself. Besides, had Mrs. Snob- 280 EUGENIE. gold divulged who and what had once been Miss Mary Fairlock, the London Snobgolds, and the Snobgolds every where, uncles and aunts, justly offended at the deception practised upon them by the elder Fairlocks, would naturally have deprived the present unfair owners of the kiosk of any ulti- mate participation in the enormous property, which it was still in their power to bequeath. " Good gracious, mamma, how very pale and agitated you look ! " observed Miss Cleopatra, as she returned from Harecourt Knoll, and was hur- riedly rushing in, to tell them all at home how it was that that poor dear Count Hubert was taken prisoner by those horrid mounseers ; how the un- happy young gentleman had been thrown into a frightful dungeon, for stories are very seldom in- deed curtailed by being retailed, where he was to linger out his wretched existence, fed on frogs, putrid water, and black bread. " Are you ill, my dear mamma V\ . . The young lady had entered the room just after the critical consummation men- tioned above. She consequently was quite in the dark, respecting the cause of the unaccountable looks, which the various physiognomies of her friends had assumed. The stranger, too, so evi- dently confused, and Miss Seraphina, still holding up the stuffed monkey before her eyes, in lieu of a friendly fan, to hide her modest confusion ; every EUGENIE. 281 body present, and every thing helped to make her perplexity, her wonder doubly painful. " Your mother, my dear sister, weary, no doubt, of leading a widowed life, however much we may endeavour daily to render it less irksome to her, by our assiduous attentions, has thought it necessary to take unto herself another partner : Miss Longshanks and 1 had the honor to be wit- nesses to the happy conclusion of her treaty of alliance with that gentleman How do you like your future father-in-law ? '' Sons or daughters, who at any time forget the respect which they owe to their parents deserve the severest rebukes. A father, a mother, in the very performance, even of acts of human frailty, which we are all, old or young, but too liable to commit, should ever be so sacred in the eyes of their children, that scoff or derision, or any word or action amounting to the least demonstration of disrespect, should be looked upon by them as per- petrations too odious to be conceived, much more so to be performed. It is the duty of fathers and mothers most scrupulously to keep from giving bad examples to their offspring. The parent who selfishly indulges in immoral practices before his son or daughter is, and must be, in the eyes of God, without any qualification we say it, a worse mis- creant than the highwayman who challenges you, 282 EUGENIE. pistol in hand, on the road ; a more unpardonable villain, he decidedly proves himself to be, than the midnight assassin who, without tainting your mind or your heart, simply attempts, frightful as the act may be, to obtain your money by means of a murderous deed. Let it not be imagined that Mrs. Snobgold had ever been guilty of any disregard to her maternal duties : as far as her discernment went, she had constantly endeavoured to practise what was right, and to inculcate what she considered to be pre- cepts of justice, morality, and virtue in the hearts of her darhng boy and her dear Cleopatra. Her faults had ever been those of an inexperienced judgment, coupled with strong feelings of natural affection. Where there is no consciousness of transgression, there can be no accountableness for sin. Mary Fairlock had loved imprudently, once in her life ; that once had been to her a lasting source of sorrow ; but Mary Snobgold, ever duti- ful, ever faithful to her husband ; attentive, de- voted to the best interests of her children, had been in every respect, as far as her wisdom had enabled her to be, an exemplary mother, a model of paren- tal attachment and rectitude. William Snobgold was, therefore, exceedingly to blame in his irreve- rent attack this day, whatever his suspicions might be ; however plausible the grounds might seem EUGENIE. 283 upon which he was so hastily founding those bitter suspicions. " It becomes you well, young sir," observed the baronet haughtily, " to impugn so flippantly the character of your respectable parent; for I presume that this lady has the misfortune of being thus related to you ! " " You have guessed right for once in your life, old fellow," replied the young squire with much insolence. '* My mother she certainly is; and I'll tell you what, old chap, you'll find Til take dev'lish good care you never become any dad of mine, do what you will, master. You guess my meaning right well, don't ye ? " Sir Hugh looked painfully at Mrs. Snobgold; the latter beginning to shew strong symptoms of uncontrollable rising indignation. " What d'ye think of it, Cleo?" addressing himself this time to his sister; *' Phina, there, and I have just caught these two youngsters kissing; a pretty pair of billing lovers, arn't they?" " My dear William," observed the young lady, very much shocked at her brother's indelicacy, *^ this gentleman may be a near relation of ours, for what you know: you should at all events have waited for an explanation. Dear mamma, will you tell ? Do tell us whom we have the pleasure of meeting here so unexpectedly?" 284 EUGENIE. " I am not aware, Miss Snobgold," answered the much offended lady addressed, " that you, or any one here, has the least right to catechize me. I shall not allow any one in my house, I can assure you, to interfere with my conduct. And you, sir," turning very angrily towards her son, " I would seri- ously advise you to bridle your tongue. You are httle aware how very much your future prospects are at my mercy: should you compel me, by any insolent bearing of yours, either towards myself or towards those whom I love and respect, to leave in other hands the vast fortune which your good father left entirely at my disposal, I shall do so, be sure of it, without the slightest hesitation." Then walking up to Sir Hugh with dignified composure: " Sir Hugh, forgive us, we beseech you, the unmannerly way in which we have ac- quitted ourselves of the duties of hospitality to- wards you. My son, I am sorry to say, is very little acquainted with the delicate usages of good society; indeed, we none of us here, being simply successful tradespeople, profess to be, in the full sense of the word, gentlefolks; we should never- theless recollect, that it is not sufficient to be rich: good manners are indispensable, when a rich man wishes to associate with those who have been bred up and educated as ladies and gentlemen from their birth. You have done us, sir, great honor EUGlfcNIE. 285 by your call: 1 feel proud, indeed, of having had an opportunity of making your acquaintance — let me add, furthermore, that I sincerely hope the object of your visit may not be frustrated; begging of you, as I most earnestly do, that you will kindly communicate to me the results of your present inquiries, especially in the event of their proving satisfactory." The baronet having taken affectionate leave of the lady of the house, bovi^ed coldly to the younger branches of the family, and retired. William Snobgold, be it remarked in this place, was by no means a young man as you might sup- pose him to be spurred on, at any time, by innate bad feelings. His faults, almost all of them, arose from vulgar notions of propriety ; early tutored in the school of rough manners, plebeian principles, and raw virtue, he naturally was uncouth in his civihty, unpohshed and unwinning in his daily intercourse with his friends; a good-natured bear, in short, an honest John Bull in everything that he did, upon all occasions but one. That one occasion, how- ever, happened unfortunately to be a serious, an all-engrossing, a most mischievous, destructive one; that in which money under any shape was concerned, whether to be got or to be preserved. Snobgold the younger kept still fresh in his mind the recollections of the elder Snobgold's 286 EUGENIE. great respect for cash ; he had seen the golden effects of the worthy old man's thriftiness ; he had witnessed one by one the wonderful results of magic pelf. Still would he often complacently retrace to his admiring imagination the worship- ping coterie of the Seven Dials, who bowed daily adoration at the shrine of his father's unheard- of commercial success ; he would hear the soft- spoken adulation of bland Mr. Treacle; the broader flatteries of big, bombastic, and carriage- mad Master Porto pipe ; the pounds -shillings - and-pence most convincing logic of Totlogan, the classic : the very bravos and nem. con. assents of the noisy set assembled at the St. George's Tavern, bellowed forth, between whiffs of tobacco- smoke and gulps of ale, whenever their chairman, Mr. Snobgold, opened his mouth, still rang, with marvellously influential power, on the young squire's retentive tympanum. As a matter of course, therefore, what had been, as it were, bred in the bone could never be totally eradicated from the flesh, Snobgold du Kiosk, we shall call him, worshipped Plutus; he daily observed the flattering halo which his gold was spreading round him. These, for example, over-grateful for a few ostentatious largesses, pom- pously dropped in their path, called him supremely liberal and benevolent; those, a parasitical throng, EUGENIE. 287 to whom all vain-glorious feeders, green money- lenders on mere probabilities, the promised fruits of immeasurable future gratitude, are, for the time being, demigods of sapience and erudition, un- blushingly extolled him to the summit of Hymet- tus, and of Helicon, and of every classical moun- tain they had heard of during their few days of un- available schooling. Du Kiosk, in short, of du Kiosk Nonesuch House, was a rare piece of perfec- tion in the eyes of all those whom he fee'd in some shape or other to tell him so ; ergo, William loved money ; erg5, William was not a man to be threatened with comparative poverty, without setting his wits at work, to find out the means of securing for ever what he had, and what he thought until now, had been bequeathed to him sans condition by his careful, most provident, and loving father. " So ho ! my good little mother," he said to himself as he left the drawing room, at the con- clusion of the stormy mysterious meeting in question, " so ho ! my good little mother ; it seems that you have in your possession some particular documents, by the contents of which it is in your power to deprive me, and Cleo perhaps as well, of our share in the valuable property which our dear father, intentionally, if not legally 288 EUGENIE. left us ! That must be looked into," here Snob- gold pressed the broad index of his right hand meditatively, just between his bushy eye-brows ; '* luckily it so happens that I know the cunning corner, I believe, where you keep those important papers of yours, sweet little mamma of mine." Blustering and fond of money though he unde- niably was, that young man had no other purpose in his heart, when he devised his sapient plan of self-preservation, but that of preventing all chances of probable disinheritance, without en- tertaining the slightest intention of snatching from his affectionate and beloved mother any part whatever of the claim, she justly laid to the administration of her fortune, during her life-time ; he merely contemplated the possibility of removing, by some dexterous coup de main, every possible likelihood of a post-obit disap- pointment, such as that which Mrs. Snobgold had dwelt on : that was all, and it is again par- ticularly requested of the reader to bear in mind that the Snobgolds, one and all, were a set of kind-hearted beings, intending well, though often, from weakness of judgment and want of expe- rience, acting frightfully ill. The shrewdest men have been thwarted in their plans ; witness that king of great modern renown, EUGENIE. 289 who, the better to keep his rebelhous subjects within the grasp of his thraldom, had cunningly enclosed their capital with a formidable cincture of masonry and bronze. A day came, on which all his precautions were unexpectedly called into request ; useless then were fortresses and artillery ; man's frailty became insuperable ; the monarch trembled ; courageous and learned, and very wise and ruse, as no one denies that he once had been, that monarch fled ; that monarch lost his all ; where another before him had lost his head as well as his crown. But what a change for so prosperous, so deserving, and so noble a progeny. Removed from regal state to comparative private insignificance. Princes, worthy of a far better fate, ye rue the over-provident anxiety of a father whose greatest fault, after all, was to have loved his children too well. Wait awhile, venerable hoary sire ; the insensate, inconstant multitude who drove thee forth, will bitterly repent their vio- lence : military despotism and dictatorial tyranny will, ere long, make thy quondam flourishing subjects sigh again for a rule, which it might be right to modify, whilst it was madness to anni- hilate. We have no inclination whatever to talk of politics, when our attention is naturally so much engrossed by the destinies of the heroes and VOL. I. O 290 EUGlfeNIE. heroines of this stoiy, or else we should express our candid opinion, respecting the great event which turned la Belle France, from a prosperous kingdom, into a problematical and, for the present, a far from flourishing republic. Storms are brew- ing at the Kiosk ; we simply endeavour by a line of comparison, somewhat out of the way, it must be confessed, to prepare the reader for the worst. EUGJ&NIE. 291 CHAPTER XXIV. Shout, such as Britons alone can feelingly give — A sailor's return home — Mythology, strangely quoted— Miss Seraphina's instruction to Mr. Snobgold— Shipsham full of glee — Allusions to the d'Harecourts — Various notions respecting politeness — A fair type of nautical good-breeding— Song, which might be sere- naded in Osborne-groves— Boat drifted from shore, and a maiden's challenge — Topervay's gallantry — Rejoicings, seldom witnessed before — Deo gratias — Piety with sailors — Justice done to the enemy by a noble-hearted foe — Captain Hood's preference — Sir Nicholas and metempsychosis — How Mrs. Tidy's worried soul was relieved for a while — Mrs. Snobgold's illustration. On nearing the shores of his beloved and thrice happy colony, the gallant and only surviving des- cendant of the Topaways, ahas Toperways, or Toperveys, whichever you like best, gave the cue to Saucy Jack, his alert and dreadnought satellite, and both, at the tip-top of their vocal powers, no penny trumpets, you may be sure of it, or wheezy bellows, shouted the well-known " hip ! hip ! " which Britons thunder out, and o 2 292 EUGENIE. Britons answer to, like no other men on the face of this earth. No more than a second or two elapsed before Shipsham rang again with a crash of echoing shouts, fit to wake a million of dead, fit to wake them indeed, had they all been soporified by hogsheads of chemical Bell's best Oxford-street laudanum. No wonder too, for Snobgold, and Stanley, and Mrs. and Miss Snob. . . . and the Gracepot, and the Seraphina Longshanks, all of them, suddenly inspired by patriotic enthusiasm, had joined in the welcome chorus. " Shiver my timbers ! Mr. Sweet-water;" cried the captain, addressing himself to Squire du Kiosk, who was at that moment standing upright in his boat, and waving his hat joyfully at the end of his cane, " you are a right-down hearty chap, to welcome a stranger home in this cordial way. And you too, ladies, I thank you, I thank you. May I be so bold as to ask you, ladies and gentle- men, to whom I, a poor sailor, just returned from the great salt-water pond, am indebted for this hospitable reception ? " " We two are merry Tritons," pointing to the young squire, " and these," the ladies, " are sweet mermaids. Sir Neptune," retorted Stanley de Craufurd in a humorous style, as he nimbly jumped up, to relieve his friend Snobgold, never EUGENIE. 293 a good hand at any thing that required a quick re- joinder. " We are your aquatic Majesty's wander- ing subjects," looking very meaningly at the younger ladies, *' thrice happy to have met with an opportunity of testifying our allegiance to your watery sway." " Bravo ! Stanley ; " interrupted du Kiosk ; " why ! you are learned enough in mythological gibberish to form one of the quartette, when my sister and Phina meet the Honorable Miss d'Hare- court, at the Knoll, to prate about Jupiter and all the Olympian dammy gods." '* Demi !. . . . Mr. Snobgold. ... I am for ever endeavouring to teach you the proper pronun- ciation of those classical terms which Miss Cleo- patra, my dear pupil, always uses so a-propos," put in with sententious importance the learned Miss Longshanks. The boats, by this time, had gradually drawn close ] together. . . . they had all arrived in fact at that part of the shore on which stood the whole population of Shipsham. Men, women, and children, were all there convened, to greet their kind landlord and master : every house, cottage, and barn, and shed, had its suitable mast and tackle set up, with colors and streamers more or less in accordance with the rank of each owner. 294 EUGENIE. *' I believe, sir, that you mentioned a short while ago the name of my much esteemed and respected friend and relative Lord d'Harecourt, the owner of Harecourt Knoll," observed en- quiringly Captain Topaway, as he addressed himself to the young master of the ' Kiosk.* ^* My friend may have forgotten it, Captain, but I do recollect that Mr. Snobgold did allude to the inhabitants of the ' Knoll,* '* readily answered Stanley. " So I did, sir," broke in the young gentle- man, suddenly recollecting his mention of the young lady Alice ; " we often call on our neigh- bours, the d'Harecourts ; they are nice sort of folks, arn't they ? rather too stiff and formal for me, however." " My brother, sir Captain," laughingly said Miss Snobgold, " calls formality and stiffness every kind of politeness which interferes with his abrupt way of acting and speaking ; pray excuse in him what the French would probably call his gaucherie ? " " Captain Topheavy, Miss Pert, is a sailor ; he does'nt like, I warrant it, palaver and cere- mony more than I do," was the somewhat ruf- fled brother's retort, as he turned to the naval officer. " My name is Topervey, good sir," observed. EUGENIE. 295 with a certain degree of coldness, the gentleman spoken to ; " you are perfectly right in saying that seafaring men are anything but palavering or ceremonious, but I hope you will allow me to take up your sister's defence, by adding that every sensible sailor, from the midshipman up- wards, who wishes to be a gentleman, in the right sense of the word, is aware that he cannot be so without a rational share of good manners. You will perhaps," relaxing into good humour, •' ladies and gentlemen, do me the honor of selecting my humble retreat to-day, as a pied a terre, to take some refreshment ; we shall all here be most happy to supply you with sailor's mess : plenty and welcome. What do you say to it, my lads?" *' Aye ! aye ! happy to see you, ladies — happy to see you. Hip ! hip ! hurrah ! ! ! " rang loud and long throughout Shipsham's hospitable strand. " I am so much the more happy and ready to offer you a resting place here, ladies," proceeded the captain, " that being neighbours of my kinsfolk at the Knoll, by so doing, I am performing a duty which they would gladly dis- charge themselves were they in my place, and much better, indeed, than I am able to do it. Another motive I have also, which is, I confess it, the satisfaction of proving to that gentleman," 296 EUGENIE. politely designating the Squire du Kiosk, " that, jack tars though we are, one and all in this hamlet, v\e pretend to be anything but ill- mannered ; some of us indeed might fairly be set up as specimens of good breeding for the instruction of many a town blade and drawing- room dandy.... Can any one of you tell me there," turning towards those on the shore, " whether my friend Captain Hood is here ? " " He is, your honor, he is," instantly replied a score of voices. " Yes, my worthy friend, here I am," said a most gentlemanly looking man, stepping forward and bowing courteously to the ladies ; ^' I arrived here according to your appointment two days ago, expecting to find the lord of the manor comfort- ably settled amongst his vassals, and ; but we'll talk of that by-and-bye : Mesdames, permit me to assist you ; there is always a certain degree of danger for ladies, on their landing from these unsteady fresh-water nutshells. In my humble opinion, noble sloops, proud frigates, and men- of-war are the only craft which should be deemed worthy of receiving such invaluable freight as the Fair Sex. Would that some day Great Britain might boast of possessing a regenerated Boadicea, riding dauntlessly over the deep, with her retinue of courtly angels about her ! " EUGENIE. 297 " Well, Hood, what would be the result of such a reign ? " broke in, chucklingly, Topaway, who, having by this time alighted with his crew, was helping Mrs. Snobgold and her friend ' the Gracepot ' to step out of their boat. " The result ! . . . . the result ! . , . . why, it is plain enough to every true-born Enghshman's mind," cried the captain ; ^* there's not a jack tar in the British navy who would not then, in peace or in strife, be ready heartily to shout — My sword's for my country's defence. My heart's for the Queen. . . , Where's the sailor of sense Who'll not fight for his Queen ? You'll show me your monarch enthroned ; Her courtiers around, bending low ; Her crown and her sceptre you'll show, With the treasures her sires have own'd. But I'll point to the rigging above ; I'll stamp on the deck of my boat, And I'll cry : " the fair monarch I love, Is a monarch afloat ! Is a monarch afloat ! " My sword's for my country's defence ; My heart's for my Queen,, . . Where's the sailor of sense, Who'll not die for his Queen 1 o3 298 EUGENIE. Men, women, and children, all enthusiasti- cally joined in the last words, so that Captain Hood, who was by no means an indifferent singer, found a ready organized chorus for his nautical extempore, just at the very moment too that such a chorus came off with tenfold effect. For Miss Cleopatra, who had remained the last in her brother's boat, by the oversight of some one or other of the gentlemen, having drifted far away from the shore, was suddenly observed standing erect, her left arm resting high above her fine head, for a fine head it decidedly was, notwithstanding a slight touch of the masculine in its general expression, — was suddenly observed, we repeat, standing erect, her left arm resting on one of the oars, which she held in an upright position, as Minerva might have done a lance, then, commanding and queen-like, she waved a scarf in the direction of Shipsham, singing with great skill and effect : — This boon's for the sailor so brave, Who, to snatch me from wreck, Shall encounter the wave, And be first on this deck. You boast of your love for the fair ; You talk of the zeal you'd display, Were a queen all your perils to share, And not mind either billows or spray : EUGENIE. 299 I'm your queen, and I challenge your crew, To prove how devoted you are ; To your monarch in danger, be true, Like a noble jack tar, Like a noble jack tar. This boon's for the sailor so brave, Who, to snatch me from wreck, Shall encounter the wave, And be first on this deck. " Bravo ! Hurrah !" broke forth from all ahke; and, the better to prove that their admiration was not confined to mere words, a score at least of the men, some half unclad, some more than half, some entirely, were already striking the waters with their brawny limbs, in quick progress towards the wandering bark. One of the swim- mers, however, more athletic, more eager than the rest, far outstripped his competitors; Hood, Hood it was, the gallant captain, who reached the boat by some dozen or so of strokes before his rivals. To him, therefore. Miss Cleopatra majes- tically, and blushingly withal, presented the pro- mised guerdon ; blushingly, because he was one of those who had thought fit to part with almost every vestige of cotton, worsted, and thread which he wore, that he might scud along all the swifter to gain the prize : he had consequently the honor of rowing back the truant boat to the admiring shore. A merrier day was never spent before or since 300 EUGENIE. on the peaceful banks of Father Thames. Mrs. Snobgold and her party, having been courteously invited by Commodores Toperway and Hood, a festival ensued worthy of the arrival, both, of the lord of Shipsham, and his fine company. The precious barge, wherein had been stowed such valuable heaps of marine stores, considerably to the annoyance of several of the later settlers in the colony who expected a share of its contents, was anchored within a small creek down the river, a little way beyond the hamlet. Refreshments, abundant as to quantity and variety, but some- what rough in nature, and coarsely dished up, were spread, some on tables, some on empty casks, from end to end of a wide space of ground fronting the Ship hotel. At a given signal, every one respectfully stand- ing and bare-headed as on board ship, joined piously in a general Deo Gratias. The perform- ance of this duty did honor to the family of the Topaways, fathers and sons, from the first gene- ration down to the present. Not like the empty words, so rapidly uttered by many of the would-be considered good people of this world, grace was said on all occasions, in that well-regulated little community, with humble and sincere acknow- ledgements of the bountiful providence of God. Better would it be by far for those who express EUGl&NIE. 301 their gratitude in an unbecoming manner, to omit altogether this part of their diurnal religious duties. It is thanking heaven for the necessaries of life with less courtesy than we do the merest stranger who grants us a trifle. Sailors of all nations may be considered more or less as a thoughtless improvident race; they may even now and then, in their follies, be known to forget, that uniformity of good conduct is indis- pensable to make up the life of an upright man ; that swearing and inebriety, and occasional de- bauchery itself, are incompatible with good prin- ciples and a love of virtue. But you will seldom find a genuine sailor who will wilfully and irreverently omit to perform his duties as a Chris- tian; much less one who would scoff at holy« things, or turn sacred truths into derision. " How long is it since you last heard of my relatives, the d'Harecourts? " enquired Captain Topervey, addressing himself to Mrs. Snobgold : " I hope my good friends are well, and that Count Hubert has at last returned from the continent?*' '^ The family at the Knoll, I have great pleasure in saying it, are quite well ; at least, they were so a week or two ago, when we left the Kiosk. But they were still very anxious respecting the safety of young d'Harecourt, who had not been heard of for some considerable time past." 302 EUGENIE. ** They are beginning to fear that he is confined in some stronghold, where his personal danger may be hourly increasing : those French people are so revengeful," continued Miss Seraphina Longshanks, looking enquiringly at Stanley de Craufurd. " Revengeful, my dear madam, appears too severe an expression," observed the young man partly apostrophised ; " I have lived vi^ith the French and fought against them, and I cannot but acknowledge that they are a noble and generous enemy, cruel and sanguinary, only in moments of phrenzy, when circumstances drive them to mad- ness. The few isolated cases of individual bar- barity which we sometimes hear of, are, I fancy, very little worse or more numerous than those, which our own criminal courts could bring to light and enumerate." " I am heartily glad to hear you say so, young sir," broke in the lord of Shipsham. " There is my friend Hood, whom you see there, who always agrees with me in declaring that he would sooner meet the French, on sea or land, than any other fighting men on the face of the wide earth, for they certainly know how to come to the scratch ; they moreover do the thing in a gentlemanly way, that is, they are ever ready to shake hands with us as soon as the fight is over, which is a proof of good EUGENIE. 303 fellowship, very little understood by Russians, Prussians, Austrians, and Spaniards. Pray, sir, may I presume to ask you in what engagement you made your debut on the fair soil of pugnacious Gaul ? " These last words were pointedly directed to young de Craufurd. " At Fontenoy, sir, where I fought at the head of a regiment of cavalry, by the side of our valiant colonel, Sir Nicholas Highbred." " Sir Nicholas Highbred ! Why that is one of my best friends, a brother of Lady d'Harecourt's; singular rather in some of his notions. Don't you think so ? " " If you are alluding to his doctrine of trans- migration," replied the young officer, " he cer- tainly maintains most eccentric notions.'' Then the youthful speaker related to the ladies the various acts of eccentricity performed by Sir Nicholas in that celebrated campaign, especially those which particularly referred to his favorite horse Tudor. " Only think, my dear Mrs. Snobgold," whis- pered the lawnyet lady, whom the reader cannot have forgotten as being the nose-pick. . . . picking person, spoken of in the earlier pages of this book, Mrs. Gracepot, " only think ! for a nobleman, and an officer too, to put it into his head that his 304 EUGENIE. brother had become a horse: he must be unsound in his mind, must he not, my dear madam? " " It would seem so, my good friend," was the answer; " but I can assure you that he is, in all other matters, a very talented and well-spoken gentleman. I have often heard him, at the d'Hare- court's, raving on the chapter of what he calls * Meat-empty-cozy.' One evening, when we had been waiting for him some considerable time. Lady d'Harecourt persisted in putting off the supper until he should make his appearance. He came in covered with mud and dirt from head to foot, bearing in his arms a little noisy, squeaking pig, as dirty as himself. ' I am sure,' he said, as he entered the room, speaking to his sister, * I am sure, dear Bertha, that I have rescued this evening your late good neighbour, Mrs. Tidy, from the jaws of another most awful death. Here she is ; I recognized her voice, just at the very moment that a rascally dog had worried her into a ditch.' The d'Harecourts smiled indulgently, and we all were amazed, as you may suppose. You must know, at the same time, my dear Mrs. Gracepot," (here Mrs. Snobgold assumed an exceedingly sapient look), " you must know that dogs, cats, cows, and even asses, are not what we take them for. . . . they are, used to say a great philosopher, called Pyth — EUGEINIE. 305 Pyth-hag-gorus — men, women, and children, whose souls are in a state of purcat, yes, purcat — tory. And — " Mrs. Snobgold would have gone on ex- plaining most learnedly the doctrine of transmigra- tion to her friend, as far as she was able, had not that friend set the whole company in a roar of laughter, by remarking very quietly that she had long thought that the Tories were no better than dogs and cats, and such-like creatures. The day was now perceptibly declining, and, as the Snobgolds with their friends had some distance to go, it was found necessary to separate, not, however, without mutual promises of future meet- ings, either at Shipsham, or at the Kiosk, to which one part of the company was on the eve of returning. " Remember, my friends, that my subjects ye are," observed Miss Cleopatra, singing theatrically and loudly, as she entered her boat to return home : — ** To the sex be devoted and true. Ev'ry woman of spirit's a tar : The better you fight and the more she'll love you. 306 EUGENIE. CHAPTER XXV. Gare au lecteur ; gare surtout a la jeune lectrice ! — Question which young people alone can answer, that is, with comparative purity of heart — Our love — Excellent resolution, with its usual result — Irresolution of a youthful adorer— Growth of crime: ** Judge not too severely, lest ye be judged" — Eugenie's new place of abode — State of young ladies' flower-pots, indicative in a great measure of their taste, neatness, and sympathies — Eugenie's treasures — When womanhood appears to the wise most dan- gerous to behold — Admirer not in the least admired—Madame Bonamie's notions of manly comeliness — Bashfulness of a huge lover — Gentle slap at a new set of patriots ; inevitable end of confusion. Lov E. . . . what is love? O malicious question! Who is the merciless wag who interrogates us on a topic so long forgotten, on an emotion of our former heart which we now so seldom feel ?. . . . Go to the youthful dreamer on earthly delights, who reads in a maiden's smile warm promises of indescribable joys, which his rich imagination gilds and bedizens far more gorgeously than eastern EUGENIE. 307 romancers ever adorned the paradise of their gods ; go and ask him what is love Go to the guileless, sensitive, susceptible young victim of first natural impressions ; that fair child, who, like the budding rose, which expands more and more at every breeze and every ray of sunny dawn, gently snaps each cruel tie, by which her yearning heart seems bereft of more than half its life ; go to her — and, before the worse than death- striking curtain, which conceals all the bitter fruits and rough after- realities of unrestrained love is removed, ask her what is love. . . . Ours once was such as that — a burning torrent, which inundated our whole being; a thirst so intense that no love on earth, found in any other one's breast, was sufficient to allay its parchino', • ever-increasing violence. A transient, briUiant moment of our existence, yes, did elapse. . . , now gone by full the fourth of a century, when our brimful cup of bliss, commingled with that of another, produced for some short, very short days, a nectar so intoxicating that few, if any, have ever quaffed the hke. That was, however, the frenzy of what most young wooers call love. We have since known tranquil love, which never fails to make good men better, wise men wiser, the sincerely affectionate happy and blessed. 308 EUGENIE. Reader, wait until maturer years enable you to fall tranquilly in love. Far from tranquil was the mind of Count Hubert, on the morning that followed the one on which he had parted with his kind monitor and friend, the Rev. Mr. Lindsay. He was reflecting upon the disappointment, which his tender parents would experience, when they would learn that he had refused to accompany his tutor home; especially at a time when the country in which he was sojourning happened to be so shaken by the sad consequences of war, with the more frightful effects of intestine commotions. This was the very first time he had resolutely refused to obey; painful compunctions began to torture his mind : indeed, had the least chance of amendment been at hand, he would not have hesitated a second to sacrifice his own private feelings, overpowering as they were, to his filial duties. What was he to do ? " My poor father ! " he trembhngly said ; " my dear mother; how frightfully trying their alarm will be. It must not be ; it shall not be ! As soon as I have called again on that dear girl, simply to see that she is comfortably situated ; good Madame Bonamie, too, well provided with the necessaries of life, I shall bid them farev ell ; EUGIENIE. 309 and then, no doubt, contented and happy, I shall no longer regret leaving the country." There was a growing impediment in the young man's speech which, becoming more and more troublesome, as he uttered the closing words of his sohloquy, ended in a sort of painful murmur, between a sigh and a groan. " Contented and happy " you would have found great difficulty to hear; but when it came to " leaving the country," he must have been a conjurer indeed, the one who could have made it out. The young count wrung his hands convulsively ; walked up and down his room several times, in a state of excitement better imagined than de- scribed. Like a wretched man, who is on the eve of committing some frightful crime, the storn» was all within ; good principles wrestling with bad, seemed in a fearful contention. Twice he tore his hair, as if grappling with himself might in some measure make the physical portion of his frame atone by suffering for the wilful errors which the mental appeared obstinately persisting to commit. " Dick ! '* he once vehemently cried, " get instantly my portmanteau ready. ... I shall fly. ... It will not do to venture there ! '* Now, fate would not lend her aid to that tortured, still well-disposed, affectionate son : there was no valet in the next apartment to obey his master's 310 EUGENIE. commands ; no one was there to second his good resolutions. Count Hubert dropped on a couch. Oh ! respect, all of you, the sacred moments during which an unpolluted heart is contrasting the comeliness of virtue with the alluring fascina- tions of vice. That interval of debating reflection must be sublime in the extreme. — Would that we could see those edifying, most eloquent throes of the affrighted soul, when first impurity of thought assails her ! Would that we could watch within the writhings of the comparatively immaculate, on the first eve of perpetrating a forbidden deed ! Such a sight, such watchings would achieve more, de- pend upon it, for the correction of mankind than all the precepts, so elaborately set forth by the best of our holy teachers. Criminals are all, the worst of them, to be pitied : pitied indeed as we pity those whom excruciating pain distracts ; for, what trials have they not endured, what penalties are they not yet to undergo ! Woe to him who brands with the searing-iron of after-censure, the hopeless culprit whom the law has condemned. That murderer, sir, born in your paternal hall, nur- tured and bred as you were nurtured and bred, had perhaps surpassed you in talent, gentleness, and rectitude. Many, far too many, of the minions of fortune, of those more particularly EUGENIE. 311 who take a pleasure in exhibiting, in their most revolting aspect, the faults of the lost ones of this earth, would probably have filled our criminal records with misdeeds, atrocities, and villanies, infinitely more appalling than those which they describe, had they been snatched at their birth from the lap of luxury, to be plunged into the contaminating, destructive vortex of poverty and pollution. Let those who have never been tempted to evil look with compassion and mercy on those whom temptation has destroyed. When the young nobleman arose from his temporary stupor, he was as a man who had formed a sudden resolution. He strode across the chamber, seized his hat and cane, and left the house. The new place of abode which Madame Bo- namie had selected, possessed a great advantage over the former, inasmuch as air and sunshine were here daily visitors at the casements: Eu- genie, the dear, innocent child, in this place had even the pleasure of cultivating, by the assistance of a few flower-pots and boxes, resting on her win- dow-sill, a few of those French favorites among the humble classes, the tall scarlet runner, the gay sweet pea, the mignionette much sweeter still, and the gorgeous nasturtium. Her little garden was a picture of neatness : no dead leaves to be 312 EUGENIE. seen, no tendril unpropped, no intrusive insect, allowed to disfigure the admired blossoms of her beloved miniature bower. Often of late had the generous blanchisseuse gone early in the morning to the boat alone, leaving her foster daughter to employ her time in needlework, an occupation which is always more or less needed in a laundry-room. Nothing used to give Eugenie more pleasure, when she had per- formed the small task set her by her elderly friend, than to open her own little boxes and drawers, and to spread out on tlie carpet or the table what she humorously termed, her private goods and chattels. You might have seen her, on such occa- sions, pensively take out one by one each object which those boxes and drawers contained : papers and various trinkets of apparently very little value, which had originally been left with her under the care of Madame Bonamie. The letters and pa- pers were all, remarkably enough, written in Eng- lish, and the names engraven on the trinkets were English also. Eugenie was exquisitely beautiful, and just reaching that charming age when young woman- hood is so transcendently bewitching, that he is lucky indeed, whoever he may be, whose head and heart have not felt the power of her presence. Many of the young men who had seen her had EUGENIE. 313 expressed their admiration, either by looks or by words, a kind of homage which the modest young- girl had scarcely ever noticed. Those who had been bold enough to speak so plainly as not to be misunderstood by Madame Bonamie, who was ever on the qui-vive, had received from the indig- nant laundress that sort of reproof, which no man of any dehcacy exposes himself to receive a second time. One of her dear girl's admirers, however, she had, to a certain extent, encouraged ; that is, she had permitted him now and then, when she was at home, and only then, to call. It was he who had furnished the best part of the flowers cultivated in the boxes on Eugenie's window : he had lately presented her with a rose-tree and myrtle. According to Madame Bonamie's best judgment and taste, there could not be a more suitable young man than Henri Mandrin : she thought him very good-looking, because he was very dark, very tall, and exceedingly strong. With regard to his morals, her superficial enquiries had led her to imagine that, no better than other Paris young- men, living in an unwedded state, he was certainly no worse. That was, in her estimation, saying a great deal for any youth so splendidly built, with such formidable whiskers, and possessing to boot the strength of a downright /or^ de la halle. Never VOL. I. p 314 EUGlfeNIE. had he dared to declare his partiality to the fair creature of his choice, unless it was by delicate attentions and polite courtesies, usually bestowed by young men to young women, whom they are in the habit of frequently meeting. Eugenie, there- fore, had never suspected that his devoirs had any further object than the pleasure of being merely useful or agreeable to her. Had she thought otherwise, Henri would soon have discovered that the maiden's affections were not yet to be en- gaged ; myrtles and roses, and flowers of all sorts would henceforth have been coldly refused, not a single trifle any longer accepted. A very natural thing too, when you came to compare the two beings at one glance. On one, was clearly seen the stamp of high birth, wrapped up in mystery as might be the earlier years of Eugenie's life ; on the other, there lurked the indelible mark of plebeian origin, which neither beauty, nor talent, nor any of the multitudinous advantages of fortune can ever obhterate. She had been indubitably born a lady ; he appeared what he really was, the son of an ouvrier, the son of an honest man, no doubt, but not that of a d'Harecourt or a Craufurd. You may frown, men enamoured with red re- publicanism and the forced fruits of compulsory sociaUsm ; you may use ill those who speak as we dare to do, the very violence of your revenge be- EUGENIE. 315 traying the lowness of your extraction. True nobility will reveal itself every where in spite of all opposition. Never could you wash the Ethio- pian white — the soaring eagle will never crawl, despite all your endeavours to spoil it of its wings. In every state there must be high and low. The inferior classes may, for a time, overrule the upper; rough numerical and physical force may grasp at government; but, sure as there is a Ruling Power in Heaven, so sure will genius and gentleness of blood become paramount : the mean in mind or matter must sink ; the great and noble must rise again and rule. Henri was not a suitable match for Eugenie. 316 EUGENIE. CHAPTER XXVI. Eaves-dropping, most excusable — The rivals — A prediction — Rough dialogue, fraught with future mischief— One appears, before whom the threatening storm abates — Circumstance ; a beautifier of comely things— Horror made more horrible still by casualties — Shipwrecks improved by lurid tints — Good Master Andrews made pictorially venerable and patriarchal — What it really was that transfixed two ardent young men with mute amaze — Second description of Eugenie — Fair reader, would you be fairer still (forgive us for imagining it possible !) select pro- pitious moments ; seize the magic presence of light and shade — Blonde and lace outdone— Harmony for a few moments restored — Enmity for ever. ^^ Monsieur, que faites-vous la?" said a dark young man, not over well dressed, addressing him- self with menacing gestures to another young man, not so dark by several shades, nor so athletic in stature, but gracefully formed and full of mas- culine dignity. ** Que faites-vous la?" The person apostrophised was, at the moment the other spoke, listening at an open attic window to the following words, sung, as if it were some EUGENIE. 317 gentle whisper, melodiously uttered by a spirit of the air at that instant passing by : Fair daughter of sires renown'd, Be firm ; thus thy destiny's cast : In infancy crush'd, in maturity crown'd, Future days shall atone for thy past. On a soil far remote sorely tried. Thy trials, though great, shall not last ! Fair daughter of Britain, in Heaven confide, And dread neither torrent nor blast. Though born to high i ank and to state, Deep sorrows thy bosom shall gall ; But, child of the good and the great, Thy virtues shall conquer them all. The fact is, Count Hubert, who was the listener at that window, having, by some oversight ofc other, mistaken the door of Madame Bonamie's rooms, had entered into an adjoining sort of garret, which he had found open, and he was in the act of reconnoitring the localities, as well as he was able, to find out la belle Eugenie's resi- dence, which could not, as he thought, be very far from where he stood, when the words of the foregoing mysterious song struck his ear. Great as was his astonishment at hearing his own native tongue so sweetly harmonized, his amazement was still greater, when he fancied that the voice which had so magically fascinated him p2 318 EUGENIE. was no other than that of the washerwoman's foster child. " Who can she be ? What can those words be meaning ?'* It was precisely at the moment that the young nobleman was most sapiently putting these two very shrewd questions to himself, that Monsieur Henri Mandrin unceremoniously made his appear- ance at the door. " I am not aware, sir," proudly rephed the count to the insolent intruder, " that you have any right whatever to receive an answer to so imper- tinent an inquiry." '* Impertinent or not, sir, you shall return a satisfactory reply to my question, or I shall take the liberty of conducting you to the next police station, to deliver you up as an English spy, or, at all events, as one who should be just now a prisoner of war." The threat was certainly, beyond all means, calculated to inspire prudence to the most reckless youth in Christendom. Count Hubert was a British subject; Count Hubert had been caught eaves-dropping to all appearance; and Count Hubert, moreover, knew perfectly well that it was by mere good luck that his hberty had not as yet been interfered with. *• I should scorn, sir, to yield to so rough and unmanly a mode of compulsion as the one you EUGENIE. 319 have most intemperately adopted to extort my answer ^ were it not that, by simply stating the truth, I may prevent very unpleasant consequences to both of us, and save you in particular the disagreeable after- thought of having acted like a bully, which does not seem to be your natural character, and as a bailiff, which is scarcely more creditable to an honest man. Madame Bonaraie, sir/' proceeded the young lord d'Harecourt, with considerable em- barassment, " is a person for whom I have lately conceived some degree of respect and friendship, more particularly on account of her maternal care of a poor young person, who, it seems, has for some years past been entirely supported by the kind washerwoman's exertions. I was about call- ing on her to ascertain whether I could be of any service to her, when, mistaking the door of this chamber for her own, I accidentally entered it before noticing my error. You found me, I con- fess it, very much interested in the verses of a song, the words of which I most unexpectedly discovered were in my own native tongue." " Between you and me, sir, however plausible your statement appears," sternly interposed Mon- sieur Henri, " there is a vast deal of improbability in your declaration, that a woman of the age and in the humble sphere of Madame Bonamie could entice a young gentleman of your rank and fortune 320 EUGENIE. to ascend half a dozen flights of steps or more with the sole intention of offering pecuniary assistance. I shall unscrupulously venture to put a different construction, and a much more likely one, on your present visit to these unsightly attics : you came, sir, or I am very much mistaken, to ensnare the unsuspecting innocence of a fatherless and helpless girl.'* The pride and the offended dignity of the d'Harecourts darted like thunderbolts through the flashing eyes of Count Hubert. " Dare you, insolent man, to brand me with such an odious aspersion ? " he cried, advancing a few steps, with revenge and uncontrollable madness in his gait. " I dare more, proud Islander; I tell thee that the dear child is under the protection of Henri Mandrin, one who must be trampled to death be- fore any seducer, were he the first lord of France, could hope to obtain the least triumph in his selfish enterprise." " Indignant as your unguarded accusations have made me feel, the warmth with which you espouse the defence of Mademoiselle Eugenie totally dis- arms me: I cannot, sir, but approve your generous interposition, and the more so, if you really feel convinced that I am the vile wretch you described. Have I, pray, tell me, been addressing a brother EUGENIE. 321 or some near relation of the young maiden's, by- chance?". . . . Eugenie herself, seemingly frightened, appeared in the dark space between the door and the oppo- site wall on the staircase. Both the young men politely bowed. Things sublime or beautiful, such even as those so surpassingly beautiful and sublime defined by Burke, acquire beauty and subhmity, when the perfecting wand of accident, or the startling con- comitant of circumstance, combines to add its unlooked-for and consequently more impressive effect. Stupendous crags, suspended, as it were, by a mere thread over our path; abysses so profound that imagination herself cannot sound their depths ;. a frail bark, tossed on the immeasurable deep, after a wreck, with none to guide it but a dis- tracted mother and her child, sole survivors of the ship's crew; are, to feeling hearts, objects sublime in the extreme. Superadd to these appalling scenes the sudden burst of crashing avalanches ; the livid light of sheet hghtnings, abruptly inundating the wide earth; and, in the latter case, just when the fond mother, outstretching her white arms in prayer to Heaven, is kneeling over her darhng babe, see careering, with destruction rife, towards the boat, a huge, black, eddying water-spout. 322 EUG^NIB. Tell us then, reader, whether what was sublime before, is not now a thousand-fold sublimer still. Beautiful is the meandering stream, bespangled here and here with water-lilies, and festooned along its bank with raalloAs and flags, creeping parasites and wide-spreading docks. Beautiful is our vil- lage, seen from the hill, with its grove of chesnut trees, and its gnarled oaks, and its ivy-clad church tower, and cottage roofs. Beautiful, we think so, is old Andrews also, the venerable patriarch of our parish, when, taking his morning walk, he meets the young and old of his birth-place, all kind friends, who, one by one, greet him as they pass. But, let accidental embellishments supervene: the slanting roseate rays, for example, of a fine sum- mer-day's setting sun, tinting the prismatic ripples of the stream; a nightingale sweetly warbling her vesper hymn in the solitary willow, by the water's edge. Let our village, beautiful as we know it to be, be descried early at morning time; the lowing herds and bleating flocks wending their way to their meadowy pasture grounds; cheerful voices at hand singing gaily; the distant bugle of huntsmen mustering at the meet; a fine September morning, to crown it all, with rising corn-ricks at the farm, and ploughs and ploughmen on their road to the stubble-fields. Then, let Andrews, the aged seer, suddenly be hailed by a well-known voice, sud- EUGENIE. 323 denly, too, let him receive withia his trembling arms a long-lost son, now returned from distant lands, with glory for his herald, with titles and fortune for his meed. . . . What then, confess it, what was beauty before, compared with the beauty now shadowed forth? Both the young men politely bowed. At the same time we must tell you, reader, that both the young men had not been struck dumb by the simple intervention of an inoffensive young girl. No. . . . no. , . . that was not the potent spell that transfixed them to the spot where they stood, that paralysed the principle of action, that arrested, indeed, for a few seconds the pulsation within ! It was unadorned beauty, lovely innocence in her most bewitching form, forthcoming feminine per- fection, sweetly linked with almost infantine purity of thought and feeling;. Eugenie's comeliness was not like that before which, in society, we kneel so frequently as men of taste, or men even of refined experience. Fair friend, you may be beautiful, you may be exqui- sitely fascinating, yet, excuse us, you could not personate our matchless heroine. An attempt was made by us, in our zeal to give satisfaction, with the imperfect colouring of words, to draw her likeness, to describe the symmetry of her graceful proportions ; read that picture again, ladies, read 324 EUGtNIE. it attentively, then, take our word for it, that picture was a daub There is no auburn hue one-half so rich as was that of her hair. . . . there is no alabaster, no drifted snow one-tenth part so white as the whiteness of her neck and arms, when a carmine suffusion, such as heaven's rain- bows alone can reveal, did not cast over that angel form a genial glow, too transporting, too enrapturing almost, without danger to be seen. There is no sea-born tempest that casts up clouds so densely black as the dark pupils of her eyes. There is no .... no ... . useless search ! there is nothing on earth so transcendantly divine as was that girl, when those two young men beheld her. Then form your own conception of the enhancing effects produced by accident and circumstance: — Profound night in the back-ground ; a brilliant solar beam, sporting by fits and starts through the fissures of her chamber-door, and now and then alighting, as it were caressingly, sometimes on her face, sometimes on her neck and arms ; each time unveiling new-born graces and nascent charms, which the fair child dreamt not she displayed. Her vestments. . . . were. . . . such as became her modesty best .... white, of course .... With your leave, reader, here we shall be sparing of what we call the propitious accidents and circumstances which often render things lovely EUGltflNIE. 325 more lovely still Eugenie was too poor to wear satin and lace. Although not in the least ashamed to own it, we are simple enough to think that plain white frocks, and roguish ringlets, tossing their elastic lengths in mad liberty round young heads, and pretty-made shoes, Marshe's or Melnotte's to wit, produce ten thousand times a better effect, on girls in their teens, than blond and lace, silk and satin, and any of those costly and elegant stuffs, found at our Howell and James', be the cunning art exercised to set them off as great even and tasteful as that which the clever Gurzon uses to adorn her maturer belles. " You are both of you, gentlemen, laboring under a great error," timidly observed Eugenie, curtseying and slowly advancing towards them, ' " for you both are my kindest friends ; and between two such kind hearts there cannot, there must not be any feehng of animosity .... permit me to introduce you to each other? . . . . '* The young men bowed their assent. " This, sir," addressing herself to the Count, and at the same time affably holding out her hand to Monsieur Henri, " is my good mamma's parti- cular protege; I have great reason also myself, not to elect him as a protege, for that would be a great piece of presumption in a poor beggar^girl like me, but to acknowledge him as one to whom VOL. I. Q 326 EUG]feNIE. I am gratefully indebted for many kindnesses which I had no right to expect." Count Hubert did not know why, but he breathed more freely, he felt less inclined to be proud and inaccessible, with regard to any further connection with Monsieur Henri. Monsieur Henri himself, well pleased with being so frankly acknowledged as a friend by the beau- tiful creature before him, felt, he knew not why, all his ire melt away ; indeed, the elated youth, quite a la Franqaise, was within an ace of catching Monsieur TAnglais round the neck, and kissing him with all his might and main, to prove beyond all further doubt the little malice he bore. It was lucky that the fair speaker, with more ceremony certainly this time than she had observed with regard to the introduction of her old acquaintance, good Henri, bashfully begged leave of Count Hubert to present him in his turn. " You will permit me, I hope, sir, to mention to Monsieur Mandrin a few of the circumstances which have recently served to bring you within the threshold of our humble dwelling?" " Undoubtedly, Mademoiselle Eugenie," readily answered the English youth, " I shall delight in being made acquainted with any person, whatever may be his rank and condition, who has been at II serviceable to you; your friend may, indeed. EUGENIE. 327 look upon me, for the future, as one ever ready to promote his interest." Monsieur Henri looked mentally disturbed ; his lips were curled ; a frown darkened his brow. This the dear girl observing, hurriedly said, " You are, I fear me, laboring under some error, sir; if I presume to make you both known to each other, it is, beUeve me, with no other motive than that of enjoying the satisfaction of seeing you both on friendly terms. I have, however, perhaps, taken too great a liberty, by venturing to entreat you, sir," looking enquiringly at the young lord of Harecourt, " to become acquainted with any one forming part of our humble family circle." Henri once more recovered his self-possession. ' Count Hubert was not proud, in any sense of the word; that is, he had no ridiculous pride, ^no pride originating in vanity, or in an over-rated estimate of his own personal importance. The few moments which passed between the maiden's question and the reply were taken up in simply saying to himself what you or we might very probably have said to ourselves. " But who is he ? What's his profession or his trade ? Then look, what shocking bad clothes he wears ! — A very awkward thing ! . . . . Were but Mr. Lindsay here, he might tell me 328 EUGENIE. whether forming a connection with this young stranger might not expose me to incm* the dis- pleasure of my dear father, and may-be, the indignation of my whole family ! Would that my rank " On uttering these last words, which he did in a tone of voice sufficiently audible to be caught and partly understood by the washerwoman's foster child, Count Hubert had raised his eyes. The young man was gone. Eugenie alone remained, agitated, mortified, frightened. " O, sir, what have you done?" she sobbingly cried, at the same time retiring towards the door. END OF VOL. I. MARCHANT SINGER AND CO., PRINTERS, INGRAM-COURT, FENCHURCU-STRBET.