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 L I B R.ARY 
 
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 or ILLINOIS 
 
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 K I L M E N Y 
 
 BY 
 
 ^yilliam: black 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' IX SILK ATTmE ' ' LOVE OR MARRIAGE : 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET 
 1870 
 
 (All rights reserved)
 
 3n cinem Z^al bet armen >^\tUn 
 erfd^ien mit iebem junqen ^a1:)v, 
 (Sobalb tie erjten Serc^en fd)tt){rrten, 
 ein SOldbdjen fc^on unb wunberbar. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BT 
 
 SP0TTI3W00DE AND CO., NKVV-STEEET SQUAEB 
 
 AND PAELIAMBHT SXEEBX
 
 Y. I 
 
 CONTKXTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME 
 
 i CHAPTER I 
 
 r PAGE 
 
 My Master 1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 My Home 21 
 
 ^3 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 My Uncle Job 38 
 
 ' sf CHAPTER IV. 
 
 V^,' My Fktend 68 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 V. In Regent's Park 99 
 
 ^^c CHAPTER VI. 
 ,v^ The Esthetic Grotto 129 
 
 f
 
 iv CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER YII. t\ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Some Old Friends 169 
 
 CHAPTER Yin. 
 Polly's Mothee 195 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Lewes Castle 221 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Polly and He 255 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Mr. Alfred Burnham 272 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 At Shoreham 288
 
 KILMENY. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 MY MASTER. 
 
 I WAS not born to command men. The keen, 
 audacious spirit whicli plans the building of 
 bridges, lays down great lines of railways, 
 and gets up prodigious companies, was always 
 a mystery to me — a mystery as depressing as 
 the things themselves. I used to be afraid 
 of laro^e mechanical works — used to wonder 
 what sort of men first undertook to raise im- 
 mense viaducts, drive tunnels through moun- 
 tains, and plan huge ships. The mere size 
 of a church made me sad. And when I met 
 men who seemed to have splendid, matter-of- 
 
 YOL. I. B
 
 2 KILMENY. 
 
 fact strength in their faces — men who had 
 hard, clear, Hteral views of things — who 
 were on equal terms with the newest enter- 
 prises, and were capable of imagining even 
 newer and bigger things, I almost feared 
 them. A tall man overawed me as a big 
 building did. Then the great, rich people, 
 who had such a royal way with them — the 
 men who could stare a beggar out of counte- 
 nance, who could quite honestly look at a 
 tradesman or a waiter as a sort of divinely- 
 appointed slave, who could do cruel things 
 when the law allowed them, and laugh over 
 the misfortune of their weaker opponent — 
 they, too, were among my mysteries. The 
 world was too big, and strong, and rich, and 
 hard-hearted ; and I feared it. 
 
 I used to make a world of my own, in 
 which there were no gigantic walls, or gaunt 
 buildings, or lonely squares, with cold iron 
 railings and melancholy trees. It was a
 
 MY MASTER. 3 
 
 world which I must have borrowed from 
 some theatrical scene ; for it only consisted 
 of an Irish lake, surrounded by hills, under 
 moonhght. I used to imagine myself Hving 
 always by this lake, and listening to the old 
 Irish airs, which seemed somehow to hover 
 round about it, and be its very atmosphere. 
 At night I would lie in a boat, on the still 
 surface, with the moonlight on the sedges 
 and trees ; and the melody that always 
 came then — hke the lake itself speaking — 
 was, ' Silent, Moyle, be the sound of thy 
 waters!' Fancy falling asleep to that pa- 
 thetic ^ail! Then for the brisk morning 
 breeze and the sunshine — the joyous ' Garry- 
 owen ' falHng into the plaintive minor of 
 ' Shule Aroon.' And somehow that always 
 led on to ' Love's Young Dream ' — the old 
 air which no repetition can rob of its ex- 
 ceeding sadness — sad as love's young dream
 
 4 KILMENY. 
 
 itself — which is the saddest thing a man 
 meets with on this side of death. 
 
 I suppose it all arose from my being 
 physically not the equal of my neighbours. 
 I saw big, strong, handsome men, and they 
 were to me as demigods. Was it not their 
 right that they should Jiave plenty of money, 
 and beautiful wives, and a fine, domineering 
 manner, and a splendid carriage to whirl 
 them homeward to their grand dinners? 
 Notwithstanding my having been born and 
 bred in the heart of an English county, I 
 was small and shght ; I was sallow of face ; 
 I was hungry-looking ; and they used to say 
 that my eyes stared like those of a young 
 crow. Once Big Dick — of whom you will 
 hear more by-and-by — in a kindly mood, 
 begotten of too much beer, said to me — 
 
 'I.iOok here, Ted, I'll tell you what you 
 are hke. Did you ever snare a rabbit, and 
 take it up before it was dead ? Did you
 
 MY MASTER. 5 
 
 ever catch it by the back of the neck, and 
 look at its wild, frightened, big eyes, that 
 were full of fear and trouble ? You always 
 look to me like a caught rabbit, half dead 
 with fright, and hke to cry, if you only 
 could. My sister had eyes hke you. I 
 wonder if you would cry, like her, if you 
 heard pretty tunes ? Ted, I think you were 
 meant for a girl.' 
 
 I did not tell ; but that I used to cry 
 bitterly, in secret, over certain kinds of 
 music — especially some of these Irish airs I 
 have named — was too well known to myself. 
 You must not suppose, however, that this 
 altogether arose from physical weakness. 
 So far as muscular force went, I was strong. 
 I had a broad chest. My arms, rather long, 
 were tough and sinewy. When the fit came 
 across me, I used to torture myself with 
 physical exercise, to get rid of my plethora 
 of nervous strength. I will say nothing of
 
 b KILMENY. 
 
 my having seen a boy, twice as big as 
 myself, beating a little girl one day in High 
 Holborn. I so nearly strangled him that 
 the sight of his face has never been erased 
 from my memory. 
 
 I used to have my dreams, of course. I 
 used to imagine myself one of those big, 
 handsome, florid-faced men, with lots of 
 money, with beautiful women my friends, 
 with the power of going whither I pleased, 
 with the delight of having no master. Oh 
 the luxury of lying in bed as long as you 
 might wish ! Oh the happiness of walking 
 out in the sunny forenoons — with no fear 
 of coming work — to saunter idly by the 
 grey Serpentine, and watch the blowing of 
 the leaves of the trees ! To have no master, 
 and lots of money ! But it was not for 
 me — I was too small and insignificant. 
 These things were for the big and proud. 
 
 You may ask how such a one should
 
 MY MASTER. 7 
 
 have a story to tell ; and I reply at once 
 that there is nothing heroic of my doing 
 which I shall have to record in these pages. 
 But I have a tenacious memory ; life has 
 seemed very various, and, on the whole, 
 very beautiful to me ; and I venture to set 
 down some sketch of what I have seen and 
 known, that others may judge whether 
 they see the world with the same eyes. 
 Hence I must beg the reader to regard the 
 following narrative as wholly impersonal ; 
 the word ' I ' will occur frequently, too 
 frequently; but it will merely represent a 
 lens, and the reader is asked to look at 
 the pictures only. There are some, curious 
 in such matters, who may be inclined to 
 analyse the pecuharities of the lens by 
 watching the distortions they will find in 
 the pictures ; they too, I hope, will not be 
 disappointed, if frankness will help. 
 
 Now if there was anybody likely to cure
 
 8 KILMENY. 
 
 one of mooning and clay-clreaming, it was 
 my master. His name was Weavle, but we 
 generally called him Weasel. He was a 
 carver and gilder in High Holborn ; and 
 lie employed three men and myself. He 
 was in a fair way of business, deahng more 
 with artists than with the general public, 
 and hence it was that I came to know so 
 many artists. His shop adjoined the Eoyal 
 Oak Yard, and the work-room windows 
 looked into the stone square of the old 
 Eoyal Oak Inn, into which, every fore- 
 noon, the Buckinghamshire omnibus is still 
 driven. How I used to look out of the 
 dingy grey panes, and envy the rosy and 
 happy faces of the people who came in, 
 with the light of the country in their 
 eyes, and the keen breeze painted on 
 their cheeks ! How I used to envy the 
 people who got up on that coach, and
 
 MY MASTER. 9 
 
 were taken away out of the great close 
 town ! But, to my master. 
 
 Weavle was a short thin man, round- 
 shouldered, with a pale face, a bald head, 
 and small, reddish-grey eyes. He was 
 querulous and captious as an ill-bred and 
 angry woman ; he had a shrewish tongue, 
 a diabolical temper, and a nature so in- 
 describably petty and mean that I despair 
 of conveying any notion of it. He walked 
 about in thick, soft slippers, for the express 
 purpose of catching his men in some small 
 delinquency ; and then he would stand 
 and scold with a womanly spite and in- 
 genuity of epithet that were wonderful. 
 It was, I beheve, the thing dearest to his 
 heart, this angry declamation, in which he 
 exhibited a marvellous power of saying 
 everything that could wound a man's feel- 
 ings to the quick, and humiliate him before 
 his fellows. He laid traps for the men.
 
 10 KILMENY. 
 
 He slid about like a spectre, and watched 
 them with the eyes of a detective. And 
 he never went out of the workshop without 
 turning sharply round, to see if any one 
 were grinning over his washerwoman 
 speeches. 
 
 The very keenest pleasure I have in 
 life is this. Sometimes, even at this re- 
 mote period, I dream for a whole night 
 that 1 am again under Weavle's domina- 
 tion. I have to submit to the insult of 
 his stealthy footsteps, to the virulence and 
 meanness of his scolding ; the old pain 
 and heart-sickening return, the bitterly 
 cold mornings, the dull days, the hopeless 
 labour, the weary struggle against poverty. 
 The daylight breaks, and I fancy that I 
 have to go and submit to that cruel, mean 
 old man. And then, slowly, as if sunshine 
 were filhng the room, I begin to have the 
 consciousness that there is no Weavle, that
 
 MY MASTER. 11 
 
 all the bad time is past, that I am my own 
 master, with my own plenteous time, and 
 my own plenteous money — that I am free ! 
 It is almost worth while to have had one's 
 heart-blood sucked for years by such a 
 Weasel, to know the intense strong joy 
 which accompanies that conviction. 
 
 The man was not always mean and 
 offensive ; at night he slept. And if in 
 his dreams he ever saw a company of 
 angels, I know that his first instinctive 
 impulse was to watch them, lest they 
 should be steaHng their master's time. 
 
 It was this poor httle tyrant who first 
 taught me to love the great, generous 
 forces of nature. It was when I thought 
 of him, and of his unutterable pettiness 
 and suspicion, that I grew to know and 
 love the sea, the long swathes of light 
 across the blue, the far-off coast-Hne and 
 the moving splendours of the clouds.
 
 12 XILMENY. 
 
 Even at this moment I cannot bear to 
 look on a river or an estuary. There 
 must be no land on the other side, nothing 
 but the great plain on which the winds 
 come down darkling, or on which the 
 sunlight sleeps still and warm, blurring 
 the horizon-line with a mist of heat. In- 
 deed, the whole bent of my life, physical 
 and mental, has been escape from Weavle. 
 That I am now free I have already hinted, 
 and I propose to tell the story of my re- 
 lease. 
 
 Perhaps you ask if my companions re- 
 garded Weavle as I did. First let me say 
 a word about them. Big Dick was a man 
 who stood six feet one in his stocking-soles ; 
 he had a massive and strong frame, a fine 
 chest, tangled black hair, and a handsome 
 face, flushed by much drinking. His wife 
 was dead. He had a httle boy, whom he 
 had handed over to his sister, thus leaving
 
 in MASTER. 13 
 
 him free to follow his own courses. And 
 regularly as Saturday came round, so re- 
 gularly did Dick get drunk ; and drunk he 
 continued until the following Wednesday. 
 Then he would come in to his work, his 
 big scarred hand, with its protuberant 
 knuckles, swollen veins, and horny finger- 
 tips, trembhng and uncertain, his eyes 
 bleared and lustreless. He was gruff, and 
 would not speak to us then. By Thursday 
 the black-sheep feeling wore off, and he 
 set to work to make up for lost time. 
 He was a splendid workman, and by the 
 Saturday had always amassed as much 
 wages as he wanted for his needs. He 
 was remarkably good-natured, and being 
 'a rare handy man' was in much request 
 among the neighbours. He could glaze 
 and paint, and hang wall-papers, and work 
 in stucco — in short, he could do everything, 
 and he was always ready to do it as a
 
 14 KTLME]!^?'. 
 
 neighbourly turn, if you allowed liim his 
 necessary liquor. Dick good-humouredly 
 said of his master, that Weasel could not 
 hold his tongue if he tried, and that he 
 did not mean half of what he said. When 
 Dick got into trouble, he bore the rancorous 
 and scurrilous speechifying with resignation, 
 and only gave a sigh of relief when Weasel 
 slipped out. 
 
 But you should have heard what Joe 
 Eisley had to say about my master. 
 Throughout the trade Joe was known as 
 ' The Eoyal ' — because, on Coronation-day, 
 Joe had dressed himself in a Coronation- 
 coat, and, having got a little tipsy, made a 
 rush forward to the Queen's carriage, in 
 order to shake Her Majesty by the hand. Joe 
 very nearly lost his ear by a dragoon's sword, 
 and was picked up from among the horses' 
 feet with his coat rent in twain. Perhaps it 
 was this circumstance that had made ' The
 
 MY MASTER. 15 
 
 Eoyal ' a furious, bitter Eadical. He was a 
 dark-whiskered cadaverous man, with big, 
 lambent, black eyes, a weak chest, and a 
 shaky frame. He had read extensively — 
 especially in history ; and when woke up by 
 some argument into fierce fight, the eyes 
 used to glow, and the frail figure quiver with 
 excitement. But he rarely spoke of these 
 things except when he was drunk ; and then 
 he would describe to you the scattering of 
 the AlHes at Austerhtz with sweeps of the 
 arm that threatened all the glasses near him, 
 or he would pronounce a panegyric on 
 Napoleon which might have done Hazlitt 
 credit. Napoleon was his great hero. He 
 forgave the conqueror his despotism in view 
 of the terror he had struck into the hearts 
 of ' the leagued band of kings.' It was as 
 well that Joe seldom became excited about 
 poHtics in the shop ; for there he used, in
 
 16 KILMENY. 
 
 his enthusiam, to destroy the gold-leaf,* 
 sendmg fragments flying into the air as if he 
 were Napoleon blowing into chaos a whole 
 worldful of diplomats. ' The Eoyal ' looked 
 upon Weasel as the personification of the 
 tyranny of money ; and used to curse him 
 between his teeth as a usurper and a would- 
 be aristocrat. 
 
 'Kent' is hardly worth speaking about. 
 He was a pale, flaxen-haired young man, 
 who got into a terrible fright when Weasel 
 caught him doing anything and began to 
 rage. I scarcely think he had any par- 
 
 * I need hardly say that Weavle cheated. He never 
 allowed a leaf of ' deep red ' to be used where ' Dutch 
 metal ' could be used in its place ; and, instead of the 
 ordinary varieties of ' lemon ' he had all manner of 
 foreign abominations, which invariably turned green or 
 black in course of time. Big Dick rebelled against this 
 more than against the scolding ; for he was proud of his 
 work, and he did not like to let a frame leave his hands 
 which he knew would change its colour after being 
 hung lip in some gentleman's room and subjected to 
 London gas for ten or twelve months.
 
 MY MASTER. 17 
 
 ticiilar desire or aim in the world. He was 
 content if he got his w^ork done in good 
 time ; and sometimes, but rarely, he took a 
 holiday, which he spent in lying upon 
 Hampstead Heath. He seemed to have no 
 friends ; and never went down to Dartford, 
 his native place. His real name was, I 
 think, Taplin or Toplin. 
 
 Such were my companions in Weasel's 
 shop ; but they were very differently situated 
 from myself. They were men, and inde- 
 pendent of other men. They could spend a 
 half-crown without thinking much of it. 
 Above all, they were free to work wlien they 
 pleased, to be idle when they pleased. If 
 the whim came into their head (that it never 
 did was always a puzzle to me), they could 
 have snapped their fingers in Weasel's face, 
 and gone off to spend a whole day on the 
 banks of the Serpentine, assured that next 
 morning they could get work elsewhere. At 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 KILMENY. 
 
 least they could take a holiday ; and my 
 notion of a holiday was always associated 
 with the Serpentine. I loved that little bit 
 of water as if it had been the sea. I used to 
 make it a sea by sitting down on one of the 
 benches and shading my eyes so as to hide 
 the opposite bank — so that I could see 
 nothing but the grey rippling water, hear 
 nothing but the wind in the trees overhead ; 
 and then I grew almost faint with the dull, 
 dumb joy of being alone by the sea. I for- 
 got the rich people who were riding up and 
 down the Eow behind me ; I saw none of the 
 poor idling loungers who stood at the end of 
 the lake, and threw crumb^ or stones at the 
 ducks. There was nothing before me but 
 the wind-stirred water, and where I could 
 see no more water, I imagined water until it 
 touched the sky. Sometimes I fancied I 
 could hear the sound of waves on the far-off 
 coast : sometimes I fancied I could see, just 
 on the line of the horizon, a faint white
 
 MY MASTEK. 19 
 
 speck of a ship appear, catching a touch of 
 gold from the sunset. The Serpentine is 
 small and insignificant, doubtless ; but so is 
 a sea-shell, and the sea-shell, if you are 
 alone, and if you listen closely, will tell you 
 stories of the sea. 
 
 As I dreamed there, on certain rare occa- 
 sions, I grew to think that life, for me, was 
 scarcely worth having. My existence was a 
 blunder. I was not fitted to cope w^ith the 
 forces around me, and wrest from them that 
 alone which would have made life endurable. 
 I had no clear idea of what that was : I only 
 knew that it was unattainable. What lay 
 before me ? A fife similar to that pursued 
 by my companions in Weasel's shop would 
 have been sufficiently distasteful, even had I 
 had the fine physique and good humour of 
 Big Dick, the keen interest in political afiairs 
 of Eisley, or even Kent's imperturbable 
 temperament. What was the use of me to 
 
 c 2
 
 20 XILMENY, 
 
 anybody — to myself even ? The mere object 
 of keeping one's self alive with nothing to 
 look forward to but the endless round of 
 work, in which one could take no interest, 
 was disheartening in the extreme. Many 
 and many a time I wished that I could com- 
 press my whole life into a few moments, and 
 make it useful to some one who would 
 kindly thank me for it. One of those 
 beautiful women, for example, who rode by ? 
 Could I not throw away my life at her feet, 
 doing her some slight service, and earn from 
 her the gratitude of a smile ? My hfe was a 
 weariness to myself : could 1 make it heroic 
 and worthy even for a second, by yielding it 
 to the service of one of those peerless 
 women, who were so far away from me— so 
 cold, and beautiful, and distant ? 
 
 As I sit here, thinking of that old, sad, 
 ridiculous time, some one looks over my 
 shoulder, and reads these words, and laughs.
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 MY HOME. 
 
 It was the month of primroses ; and the 
 wmd blew fresh and mellow with the 
 promise of the summer. Even in the 
 London streets there was a strange sweet- 
 ness in the air, and a new, keen hght in the 
 sky. And on that morning, when I was 
 free to go home for a whole couple of days, 
 the spring seemed to have taken a clear 
 leap ahead, and got into a fine breezy 
 summer warmth. As I made my way to 
 the Great Western Eailway Station, the 
 grey dawn broke into a pale saffron, and the 
 hght lay along the tall, silent houses and 
 their rows of windows. Beautiful houses
 
 22 KILMENY. 
 
 they were — up by Park Lane, and Con- 
 naught Place, and Eastbourne Terrace— but I 
 was no longer oppressed by them or by the 
 grand people who lived in them. I snapped 
 my fingers at the closed white shutters and 
 the lowered green blinds. I laughed aloud 
 in the empty streets, to the amazement of 
 sohtary policemen. I skipped, and hopped, 
 and tried to jump impossible jumps ; so that 
 I reached the station half an hour too soon, 
 and speedily got sobered down by the 
 melancholy gloom of the place, and the 
 official gravity of the porters. 
 
 But then again, as the train got out and 
 away from London — leaving Holland Park 
 and its tall houses pale and silvery in the 
 east — and we were among the warm 
 bright meadows and fields — with the sun- 
 light shimmering over the young green of 
 the trees — with the sweet, pure, spring wind 
 rushing through the open windows of the
 
 MY HOME. 23 
 
 carriage — with the joyous motion of the 
 train, and the thought of utter, unrestrained 
 freedom and pleasure for two entire long 
 days — was it possible that I should feel 
 unkindly to any man or place ? I blessed 
 London — after Notting Hill was long out of 
 sight. I began to think ' Kent ' almost an 
 enlivening sort of person, and very nearly 
 forgave Weasel. 
 
 There were to be grand doings at Bum- 
 ham House, and at Burnham, the little 
 village down in the heart of Bucks, where 
 my father and mother lived. Miss Hester 
 Burnham, the last of that long line which 
 had given several prominent names to Enghsh 
 history — particularly during the great Eang- 
 and-Parliament struggle — had just come 
 home from France to live in England. My 
 father was head-keeper at Burnham — a man 
 who ought to have been born in feudal 
 times ; and it w^as somehow his notion of
 
 24 KILMENY. 
 
 what was riglit and proper that I, though 
 having nothing to do with Burnham, ought 
 to be there wdien this important event came 
 off. Fain would I have gone down on the top 
 of the coach that daily leaves Holborn for 
 these quiet Buckinghamshire parts, and done 
 the journey in the old picturesque fashion ; 
 but I shordd have reached Burnham too late 
 in the evening ; and so I had to take rail 
 to Wycombe, and walk across to that little 
 village which has been for centuries a sort 
 of appanage to Burnham House. 
 
 I had very little interest either in Miss 
 Hester Burnham, or in the doings that were 
 to celebrate her return. I remembered her 
 only as a little girl, with dark hair and star- 
 ing eyes, who used to ride about on a white 
 pony, and was greatly petted by the farmers 
 and their wives — indeed, by everybody. 
 Doubtless, Miss Hester was now a fine 
 lady, come home from France to set up her
 
 MY HOME. 25 
 
 state in the great old house, where her 
 people had lived for centuries. Indeed, so 
 little did I think of the whole matter, that I 
 forgot that Miss Hester could scarcely be 
 sixteen years of age. 
 
 So it was that, when I reached Wycombe, 
 instead of walking straight over to Burnham, 
 I set forth on a ramble across the long 
 chalk hills and through the dense beech- 
 woods which were once so famihar to me. 
 
 How well I knew every house, and 
 orchard, and field, as the road gradually 
 rose and brought into view the deep and 
 pleasant valleys, that were now so green and 
 warm. Night after night, in my poor 
 London lodgings, I had lain with open eyes 
 and dreamed of these woods, and hills, and 
 hollows ; and lo ! here they were — not as 
 I had imagined them — but under the 
 bewildering glare of the spring hght. 
 
 Yet the day was not one of strong sun-
 
 26 KILMENY. 
 
 shine. There was a thin, transparent 
 yellow mist, that did not so much obscure 
 the sunhght as conceal the directness of 
 its rays ; and while you could not turn to 
 any point of the sky and say the sun was 
 there, you felt that it was all around you, 
 shining in the intense pellucid green of the 
 young hawthorn leaves and causing the 
 breaks in the distant chalk-hills to gleam 
 like silver. Then all the wonders of the 
 spring were out — the rich-coloured japonica 
 in front of the labourers' cottages, the white 
 masses of petals on the great pear-trees, the 
 big flowers of the cherries, and the rose-tinted 
 scarcely unfolded apple-blossom, sprinkled 
 here and there with little bunches of woolly 
 leaves. Here, too, were all the spring flowers 
 about the hedges and banks ; and the spring 
 freshness and brilliancy upon the young 
 leaves of the chestnuts, and the elms, and 
 the ash. The limes were black yet ; the
 
 MY HOME. 27 
 
 tall and graceful birch had ouly a tinge of 
 green on its drooping branches ; and the 
 interminable beech-woods — the glory of 
 Buckinghamshire in the time when they 
 grow red, and orange, and crimson — showed 
 as yet only a duU purple, caught from the 
 ruddy and twisted buds. And over all these 
 things brooded the warmth of that pale 
 yellow hght — so calm, and still, and silent, 
 but for the pearly music of a lark that was 
 lost in it ; and the woods, also, and the long 
 low valleys, seemed to be hushed into a 
 drowsy silence, broken now and again by 
 the clear, strong piping of a thrush in one 
 of the blossom-laden orchards. It was all 
 so different from London. 
 
 Through these beech-woods, strewn with 
 dead leaves, and matted with briar and 
 breckan, I joyously went until I issued upon 
 the summit of the hill, upon the steep side 
 of which is cut the great white cross that
 
 28 KILMENY. 
 
 can be seen all tlie way from Oxford. The 
 old grand picture of that immense inter- 
 vening plain was once more before me. 
 Princes Eisborough, with its red-tiled houses 
 and its church lying down there under the 
 faint blue smoke of the village ; the long 
 white road leading on to Bledlow ; the 
 comfortable farmsteads smothered among or- 
 chards ; then the great patchwork of fields 
 with their various colours — the red and 
 brown fallow, the dark green of the young 
 clover, the fine tint of the wheat, here and 
 there already yellowed with charlock ; the 
 sharp, black lines of the hedges gradually 
 getting closer and fainter as the eye rose to 
 the horizon, and there becoming a confused 
 mass of misty streaks ; on the right the 
 remote uplands, with their larch-plantations, 
 and here and there a white house shining 
 in the sun ; down on the left the continuing 
 line of the chalk hills, rounded and smooth
 
 MY HOME. 29 
 
 where they became visible from among the 
 dusky stretches of the beech- woods ; and far 
 on in front, half lost in the shimmer of lisht 
 along the edge of the sky, the pale blue 
 plain of Oxfordshire, indeterminate and 
 vague. 
 
 How long I lay on the shoulder of White- 
 cross Hill, with the dazzling glare of the 
 concealed sun lying warm and crimson on 
 my shut eyehds, I cannot say. I was out- 
 side of all distressing conditions — absolutely 
 free, and without a thought for anything or 
 anybody, including myself It was enough 
 to be in the fresh and beautiful air, to be 
 alone, to be able to dream. And it seemed 
 to me, as I lay there, that there were fairies 
 hovering over me, and that the warm spring 
 air, blowing over my face, was only their 
 tickling my forehead with their small hand- 
 kerchiefs. Or was it with spikes of feather- 
 grass ? I lay and pictured their walking
 
 30 "KILMENY. 
 
 round me in all sorts of picturesque and 
 shining costumes — tlie small gentlemen with 
 helmets of acorn-cups, and shields made out 
 of the shell of the green beetle ; the small 
 ladies with parasols formed out of a curved 
 rose-leaf and bonnets of white larkspur. 
 Then, somehow, a thought of Weasel inter- 
 vened ; I got up angrily, and made to go 
 down the hill and get back to Burnham. 
 
 I then found that a pair of new boots I 
 had put on that morning — assisted, doubt- 
 less by the mad jumping and hopping of my 
 progress to the station — had severely hurt 
 my feet. Indeed, when I reached the foot 
 of White-cross Hill, I found it impossible to 
 put one foot to the ground, so intense was 
 the pain which the pressure caused. Under 
 the circumstances, I took the only course 
 open to me — sat down, pulled off my boots 
 and stockings, put the latter in the former, 
 and, shnging the whole over my shoulder,
 
 MY HOME. 31 
 
 prepared to walk bare-footed until I should 
 near Burnham. Perhaps by that time I 
 might be able to pull my boots on again; 
 if not — and the chances were against it — I 
 should have to put a bold face on the 
 matter and walk with absurdly white feet 
 up to my mother's door. 
 
 But, as I yet rested, I heard a pattering of 
 horses' hoofs, and, looking around, saw a 
 couple of riders coming along the white 
 road. The glare of the light was in my 
 eyes ; but I could make out that the one 
 was a young girl, the other a youngish 
 gentleman, though considerably older than 
 she. It struck me at the moment that very 
 likely this would be Miss Burnham ; and so 
 I sat stiU, that I might see her well as she 
 passed. Besides there has always seemed to 
 me something very fine, and stately, and 
 beautiful in the position of a woman (who 
 can ride at all decently) on horseback, and
 
 32 KILMENY. 
 
 in these days lady-riders wore long skirts, 
 which greatly added to the effect of their 
 appearance. So they came cantering along 
 the dusty road; and just before they 
 reached me, the light was so altered that I 
 could distinctly see them. 
 
 My first thought was, ' How quickly girls 
 grow in France ! ' 
 
 My second, ' What a sweet face ! ' 
 Pale it was, and dark (at least it seemed 
 dark in shadow), scarcely surrounded by loose 
 masses of brown hair that the wind had blown 
 back from her hat. You could not tell what 
 the features were, for the wonderful eyes of 
 the face caught you and kept you there. As 
 she swept past, she drove a single glance right 
 through me ; and I thought that I had seen a 
 vision of all the sweetness and gracious kind- 
 Hness of womanhood revealed by this one 
 swift look. Here, at least, was a gentle- 
 woman in nature, one who was not super-
 
 MY HOME. 33 
 
 cilious, or cursed by conventional pride. I 
 looked after her, and I said to myself, ' There, 
 now, if you could do any service to one such 
 as she is, life would not be quite worthless.' 
 
 Then I saw her, before she had gone 
 twenty yards, pull up her horse. Her com- 
 panion, a young man of about twenty-two, 
 fair-haired, apparently tall, and with cold 
 grey eyes, followed her example. 
 
 She said something to him — he shrugged 
 his shoulders — and, as well as I could hear, 
 said he had no coppers. 
 
 ' Give me silver, then ! ' she said, with a 
 sort of girlish petulance ; and then he handed 
 something to her. 
 
 She wheeled round her horse and rode up 
 to where I sat. I could not understand all 
 this. She held out her hand. I rose, expect- 
 ing her to say something. She still held out 
 her hand, and I, reaching up mine, received 
 into it a half-crown. Still I stood, stupifiecl, 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 KILMENY. 
 
 wondering what tlie beautiful blue-grey eyes, 
 under those long black eye-lashes, meant ; 
 and then, before I had recovered myself, and 
 without a word, she turned her horse again 
 and rode away. 
 
 It was all the work of a second ; and for 
 some little time I was too bewildered to 
 know what had occurred. At last, when I saw 
 the white half-crown lie in my hand, a sensa- 
 tion which I shall never forget came over me 
 — a sensation of consuming, intolerable shame, 
 and of bitter and envious hatred. This was 
 what the kindliness of her eyes meant, that 
 I was a beggar and she pitied me. I felt my 
 face grow white and cold, and then burn red 
 with confusion and rage ; while the uncon- 
 trollable hate with which I strained my eyes 
 to catch a glimpse of the two people on the 
 road — with which I wondered whether I 
 could not even yet overtake them, and hurl 
 their money at them, with mad imprecations
 
 MY HOME. 35 
 
 — made my whole frame shake and quiver. 
 To have alms thrown to me by the wayside, 
 to be treated as a common beggar — the very 
 thought of it seemed to crush me with a 
 deadening, burning weight, that was scarcely 
 reheved by wild anticipations of revenge. 
 For this insult there should be insult. Was 
 not my mother a gentlewoman, too ; although 
 only the daughter of a poor clergyman, when 
 my father, then a young gardener, got so 
 madly in love with her that even his notions 
 of duty were unable to prevent his running 
 away with her? And was not his careful 
 and respectful behaviour to her — now that 
 they had been married something like eigh- 
 teen years — a wonder to the neighbours, and 
 a greater wonder to my mother's old friends, 
 who had prophesied the usual consequences 
 for her folly ? Nay, had not the Burnhams 
 been always tenderly considerate to my 
 mother, though she was only the wife of 
 
 D 2
 
 36 KILMENY. 
 
 their head-keeper ; and who was it that 
 taught this very Miss Hester the httle ac- 
 comphshments of a gentlewoman before she 
 went to her Parisian schools? These things, 
 and others, I thought over ; but the accursed 
 white half-crown lay out in the middle of 
 the road, whither it had rolled after I flung 
 it violently to the ground; and the mere 
 sight of it seemed to make my eyes burn. 
 
 I noticed a bird fluttering in an unusual 
 manner in the hedge opposite. Anything 
 was a distraction just then. I went over, 
 and found that a blackbird had been caught 
 in a small horse-hair snare, fastened by a 
 peg into the ground. I grasped the bird. 
 It struck its bill into my finger, and the 
 blood jumped to the skin. I pulled it, the 
 snare, peg, and all through the whitethorn 
 hedge, and tore my hand with the thorns as 
 I did so. 
 \ ' Now,' I said, with my teeth clenched —
 
 MY HOME. 37 
 
 for I was beside myself, and knew no more 
 what I said tlian what I did — 'I will tear 
 this bird into inches, wing by wing, and leg 
 by leg.' 
 
 I looked at its frightened eyes, its half- 
 opened yellow bill, and glossy back; then 
 I threw it into the air, and sat down, and 
 burst into bitter and angry tears.
 
 38 KILMEXY. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 
 
 The broad grey front of Burnham House has 
 stood these couple of hundred years and 
 more at the head of one of the finest avenues 
 in England — an avenue about a mile and a 
 half in length, and at least three hundred 
 yards broad, leading up from the valley in 
 a straight hue to the building on the top of 
 the hill. Many a goodly company has can- 
 tered up and down that splendid ride, with 
 its dense, mossy, close, green turf, its patches 
 of furze and broom and breckan. On 
 either side stands a row of magnificent 
 Spanish chestnuts ; on the one hand skirting 
 the woods that slope down to the Amer-
 
 MY UXCLE JOB. 39 
 
 sham-road, on the other forming the boun- 
 dary-line of Burnham Park. The House itself, 
 fronting this spacious avenue, commands 
 the broad valley that stretches for miles 
 eastward ; and from almost any point around 
 you can see from afar the grey frontage of 
 the old building, gleaming like gold in the 
 sunshine, high up there among the trees. 
 Just outside what is called the ' ladies' 
 garden ' stands the little, old church, whose 
 walls are covered with marble memorials of 
 the Burnhams ; and from thence a narrow 
 road, dividing the park, leads across the 
 summit of the hill to Burnham village and 
 Burnham Common. The place, with all its 
 historical associations of the times of the 
 Civil War, is little known by Englishmen ; 
 but it is famihar to Americans, and French- 
 men visit it, and Germans write about it ; 
 and in St. Petersburg you can buy photo- 
 graphs of Burnham, and Burnham Church,
 
 40 KILMENY. 
 
 and of the monumental stone erected to 
 John Burnham, the friend and colleague of 
 Cromwell. 
 
 Before coming near Burnham I cooled my 
 feet in a small stream that runs along the 
 valley, and managed to pull on my boots 
 again. The pain of walking was intense ; 
 but I did not mind it so much now. When 
 I got to the lodge, I went in and borrowed 
 a spade from the lodge-keeper. 
 
 ' Why, I bain't a wolf, Mahster Ives,' said 
 he ; ' you needn't speak to a mahn as if he 
 wur a wolf.' 
 
 ' I didn't mean to be uncivil,' I said. 
 
 'It wur only my fun,' he said, bringing 
 the spade; 'but you do look a bit vexed 
 and hout o' sorts.' 
 
 That I might not be seen by any of the 
 people who were now at the House, I passed 
 into the wood by the side of the avenue, 
 and made my way through the thick under-
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 41 
 
 growth to a deep cleft or dell in which we 
 children, w^ho had the eiitree to the woods 
 of Burnham, used to play. We had had a 
 notion of getting up some kind of grotto 
 there, and a large number of big stones 
 were still strewn about the edge of the 
 wooded pit. The biggest of these I placed 
 on my shoulder ; and then made my way 
 down through the tangled briar and bushes 
 to the bottom of the dell. There I dug a 
 hole about a foot square and a foot deep. I 
 flung the half-crown into the hole — I think 
 I struck at it with the spade in impotent 
 rage — and, covering it up, put the big stone 
 over the place. 
 
 ' That is the first alms I ever had ofiered 
 me,' I said aloud — and my voice had a 
 strange sound in the dell — ' and that is 
 what I did with it.' 
 
 I took the spade back to the lodge- 
 keeper.
 
 42 KILMENY. 
 
 ' Why, Master Ted/ said he, ' you look as 
 if you'd gone and buried your sour looks. 
 You be younger and brighter by a dozen 
 years than you wur when you axed me for 
 the spaad. And it's a good spaad, too.' 
 
 ' It's a capital spade,' I said. ' Did Miss 
 Burnham pass up to the House lately ? ' 
 
 ' Yaas, she did.' 
 
 ' On horseback, with some one with her ? ' 
 
 ' Yaas.' 
 
 ' Who was he ? ' 
 
 'That be a son o' Colonel Burnham's — 
 Mr. Alfred — and he be a divvle to curse and 
 swear, he be.' 
 
 ' I suppose he means to marry Miss 
 Burnham ? ' 
 
 ' Lor' bless ye, there wun't be thoughts o' 
 marryin in her 'ed for yurs yet. And when 
 she do marry she'll marry a properer mahn 
 than Hm. I bain't much of a weather-wise 
 mysel', but I doan't think much o' that ere
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 43 
 
 'errin' gutted young feller. He's bin to 
 college, I reckon, and learnt to play cahrds, 
 and swear at ye as if ye wur a dead stoat.* 
 
 I saw that old Joshua Tubb knew very 
 little about Mr. Alfred Burnham, but that he 
 was inclined to guess the worst, probably by 
 reason of his having suffered a httle of the 
 young gentleman's strong language. 
 
 ' He's living up at the House, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Yaas, and his father, and lots mower on 
 'em. The old plaace begins to look Hve-hke 
 now.' 
 
 I went up by the side of the avenue to 
 cross over to Burnham, keeping out of the 
 way of the house. It seemed to me just 
 then that all the hateful influences I feared 
 and loathed were within that gaunt grey 
 building; and that it also held the first 
 human being who had ever thought so 
 meanly of me as to make me a beggar. If 
 you consider that it was at the very moment
 
 44 KILMENT. 
 
 when I was rejoicing in my freedom from 
 that sense of constraint and inferiority which 
 the town pressed down upon me, that she 
 appeared and again brought home to me the 
 immeasurable distance that lay between 
 my insignificance and helplessness and the 
 beautiful independence, and strength, and 
 power of the rich and lovely, you will un- 
 derstand how I felt towards her. I had 
 begun to forget what I was : she came, and 
 seemed to say — 
 
 'You have no right to rejoice in the fi'ee 
 air and the light. You must not imagine 
 yourself equal with other people, even by 
 forgetting their existence.' 
 
 I am too conscious how feebly and im- 
 perfectly these pages that I have written 
 express the one constant and bitter feeling 
 that was always with me at this time. As 
 I look at them myself, they seem to tell me 
 that at the time of which I speak I was the
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 45 
 
 victim of a morbid vanity — angry with my 
 own position, and envious of the position of 
 others. If such be the impression produced 
 upon any other, then the words entirely 
 mislead. So far from being envious, or 
 jealous, or vain, my torment was my know- 
 ledge of my own worthlessness and insignifi- 
 cance. I did not envy the rich and power- 
 ful ; for I was too much impressed by the 
 easy assumption with which they wore their 
 honours. I never dreamed of daring to 
 question their right to have these fine 
 things : the present fact that they had 
 them was a sufficient and most imposing 
 authority. All this may have been suffi- 
 ciently morbid and paltry, but it was not 
 the result of envy. 
 
 When I reached the small cottage, front- 
 ing Burnham Common, in which I was born, 
 I found my mother training some creeper 
 up the outside wall, around the window ;
 
 46 KILMENT. 
 
 while my father stood by, waiting upon her 
 and assisting her as he could. They were 
 very unlike — he a tall, brown, sun-tanned 
 keeper, with a hook nose, grey eyes, scant 
 whiskers, and ruddy hair ; she a small, tender, 
 black-eyed woman, who had at one time 
 been very good-looking, and who even now 
 was pretty, and neat, and engaging. This 
 little, sensitive woman, who never spoke a 
 harsh word to anybody, who could not even 
 scold an unruly dog, had this big man her 
 absolute slave. I think he was fonder of her 
 then than when he persuaded her to run 
 away from her father's home with him. 
 Naturally, he was rather overbearing in his 
 manner — at least he was extremely practical 
 in his aims, very plain-spoken, and inclined 
 to regard everybody who did not agree with 
 him as more or less of a fool ; and yet with 
 her you could see that he was almost studi- 
 ously courteous, and gentle, and tender.
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 47 
 
 Even his manner towards myself I attributed 
 in part to the notion he had somehow got of 
 my mother and myself being of a different 
 race from his own — or being somehow 
 superior to the people round about. It was 
 this feeling, I imagine, that induced him to 
 send me to London, when the situation in 
 Weasel's place was offered, rather than 
 allow me to grow up to the ordinary 
 routine of farm work. 
 
 After the customary greetings and enqui- 
 ries, I went inside to get a pair of slippers ; 
 and sat down in our little front room, which 
 looked out on a bit of garden and on the 
 common. By this time the sunlight had so 
 far dispersed the faint swathes of mist as to 
 show along the sky a strong glow of pale 
 gold, streaked across with bands of cirrous 
 clouds which gleamed white and silvery in the 
 warm yellow light. Burnham village is very 
 pretty and picturesque in its high-lying posi-
 
 48 XILMENY. 
 
 tion ; its few scattered cottages and gardens 
 fronting the undulations of the furze-covered 
 common, and looking towards a long stretch 
 of woodland beyond, which encloses the 
 small colony and shelters it from the wind. 
 I was gazing out from the shadow of the 
 room upon this secluded little place — so 
 warm and silent under the heat and light — 
 and was relapsing into the old feehng of 
 dreamy contentment, when a sudden appari- 
 tion awoke the bitterness and shame I had 
 experienced in the morning. Miss Hester 
 Burnham walked up to the little green gate, 
 and entered our front garden. She came 
 forward, with the sunlight and a smile on 
 her face, to shake hands with my mother ; 
 and, but for the difference in dress, I think 
 vou could have taken them for mother and 
 daughter. I was too exasperated and 
 ashamed to pay attention to such things ; 
 but I can look back and see that at this
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 49 
 
 moment, standing in tlie sunlight of the 
 garden, she must have been exceedingly 
 pretty. The slight and girlish figure was 
 small and dehcate, exquisitely proportioned, 
 and gracious and graceful in every motion. 
 Her eyes seemed to be darker that my mo- 
 ther's eyes ; but they were not. They were 
 of a soft grayish blue, quiet and tender in 
 expression ; but what made them dark in 
 appearance was the long and idmost black 
 eyelashes which deepened their meaning and 
 added singularly to the beauty of her profile. 
 Then her eyebrows were high, finely curved, 
 and black ; and a profusion of dark hair 
 fell about the rather pale face, and down on 
 the white small neck and the delicate small 
 shoulders. As for her features — you could 
 not see them for looking at her eyes. They 
 may have been regular, irregular — anything : 
 all you could distinctly say was that there 
 appeared a singular light and fife about 
 
 VOL. L E
 
 50 KIKMEXY. 
 
 them, with an occasional touch of gravity 
 which was beyond the girl's years. The 
 eyes seemed to have too much sympathy in 
 them for one so young ; and yet in their 
 wise truthfulness you could see there was no 
 trace of affected interest. I can remember 
 how she looked into my mother's face, with 
 those tender, thoughtful, and beautiful eyes. 
 I can remember, too, that she was dressed 
 very neatly — in a tight-fitting slate-grey cos- 
 tume, that had lines of white about it, and just 
 a touch of scarlet ribbon near the neck. She 
 wore a small grey hat with a single gleam- 
 ing red feather in it ; I think she had a rid- 
 ing-whip in her hand ; and she had a sprig 
 of crimson heath in her bosom. 
 
 ' Mrs. Ives,' she said — and her voice had 
 the soft, contralto mellowness that made 
 my mother's voice so tender and pleasant — 
 ' I must trouble you again ; I really think 
 you must let me coax you to live at the
 
 MY UXCLE JOB. 51 
 
 House altogether. I very, very much want 
 you to come now and help me among all 
 those tiresome people. Can you come at 
 once ? ' 
 
 ' Certamly, Miss Hester.' 
 
 ' Then I suppose I must go in and wait 
 until you're ready ? ' she said, with a sort of 
 girhsh impatience that made my mother 
 smile. 
 
 ' Xo, Miss Hester, you need not wait ; 
 I will be over at the House in a few 
 minutes.' 
 
 'Then I will wait. You see how you 
 have spoilt me with your kindness ; and so 
 — and so ' 
 
 I heard her come into the passage ; and 
 I rose. 
 
 ' My son is within,' said my mother. 
 
 ' Oh, that's Ted,' I heard her say, ' who 
 used to be my great friend, and my cham- 
 
 ■ 2 
 
 u. (X^ ILL ua.
 
 52 KILMENY. 
 
 pion when I got into trouble with old 
 Joshua. Is he in here ? ' 
 
 The door was opened, and she advanced a 
 single step. I saw the peculiar, frightened 
 glance she directed towards me : then her 
 face grew scarlet, and for a moment she 
 stood in direful confusion. For myself, I 
 said nothing, and did nothing ; but my blood 
 was up in rebellion, I knew. 
 
 Then, with a wonderful graciousness and 
 the frankest of smiles — I could not help 
 admiring the ease with which her fashion- 
 able education enabled her to extricate her- 
 self from this embarrassment — she came 
 forward, and held out her hand, and 
 said — 
 
 ' May I beg you to forgive me ? ' 
 
 I said, coldly enough perhaps — 
 
 ' I have nothing to forgive.' 
 
 Her eyes met mine for a moment ; and 
 I knew that her woman's wit — wonderfully
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 53 
 
 ingenious even in a girl like that — was 
 wrestling with all the circumstances of the 
 case. Then (all this had happened in a 
 moment, and her hand was still extended), 
 she said in a low voice that was intended 
 not to let my mother hear — 
 
 ' I will take it back ; and then I will ask 
 you to forgive me. It was a mistake — I am 
 very, very sorry.' 
 
 Then it flashed upon me that I could not 
 give her back that accursed piece of money 
 which was lying buried down > in the dell; 
 and I knew she would fancy that I had 
 accepted the alms — that I had already spent 
 the money. The horror and agony of that 
 one moment was worse than all that had 
 gone before. If there was one thing I was 
 proud of it was my pride. It was my only 
 possession : I had need to preserve it. And 
 now the only creature belonging to those 
 gifted people who held the world in their
 
 54 KILMENY. 
 
 hand who had ever descended so far as to 
 speak to me (and in the old days to be a sort 
 of patronising httle friend to me) had offered 
 me alms, and she would imagine that I had 
 sold my birthright of independence for this 
 wretched bit of money. 
 
 ' I — I have not got it — I cannot give it 
 to you,' I stammered ; and then, half- 
 conscious of the wonder and astonishment of 
 her eyeSj I went past her, and out of the 
 room, and out of the house. 
 
 I went out into the cool air of the after- 
 noon, feeling that I had the brand of Cain 
 on my forehead. Was I not a convicted 
 pauper? I walked away from Burnham, 
 over the park, into the stripe of wood by 
 the avenue, and down into that dell. The 
 stone was still there. My first impulse was 
 to dig up the half-crown again, and take it 
 to her, and throw it at her feet; but how 
 could I make the explanation ? No ; it
 
 MY UIS^CLE JOB. 55 
 
 should remain tliere ; and she might think 
 of it all just as she Hked. 
 
 At that moment I heard voices above — of 
 two men who were walking along the 
 avenue. I heard some snatch of conversa- 
 tion like this : 
 
 ' Not much, certainly. But there is 
 
 the house and grounds — a fortune in them- 
 selves.' 
 
 ' You would not sell them ? ' 
 
 ' I w^ould, if T had the chance.' 
 
 'Then I suppose, you'd send that poor 
 little girl adrift, and spend her money on 
 Clara Beauchamp. Well, Alfred, you have 
 got a wonderful decision about you, to put it 
 mildly.' 
 
 ' Clara is a devilish fine girl ; though she 
 ought to have taken some other name than 
 Beauchamp when she started on her career. 
 As for my cousin Hester, you know I shall 
 be compelled to get money somewhere, and
 
 56 KILMENY. 
 
 she has got such a d d smooth temper, 
 
 she would stand anything ' 
 
 That was all I heard : but it was enough 
 to suggest many things. And the most 
 probable theory of the aim of this conversa- 
 tion which I was forced to hear, was so 
 mean and repulsive and depraved that, at 
 the time, it delighted me. These grand 
 people, then, were occasionally in straits 
 like others. They were not immaculate, 
 either. They had their meannesses — per- 
 haps more absolutely gross and mean than 
 was possible with lesser people in lesser 
 circumstances. To be looked upon as a 
 beggar was bad enough ; but there were 
 more despicable beings in the world than 
 beggars. 
 
 When I got out of the dell, and looked up 
 the avenue, I saw that one of the two men 
 who had been speaking was the gentleman 
 who had been riding with Miss Hester in the
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 57 
 
 morning. Then I turned my back upon 
 Burnham House ; and hoped that I might 
 never see it again. 
 
 I walked over to my uncle Job's farm — 
 some two miles off; and there I spent the 
 evening and the whole of the next day. 
 This Uncle Job was my father's elder 
 brother — an old bachelor who had, by rigid 
 parsimony, worked his way up to the 
 tenanting of a farm of over 200 acres. Many 
 things contributed to make him a sort of out- 
 cast from amoncT his neis^hbours. To be^in 
 with, he went about in a frightfully un- 
 shaven and ragged condition, with an old, 
 smashed, and sun-tanned hat, a wisp of dirty 
 black silk tied round his neck, no collar, an 
 old and shabby coat, and a pair of tight and 
 dirty corduroy breeches ; while his un- 
 washed and unshaven face was ornamented 
 with a curiously large grey moustache, 
 which was ordinarily besprinkled with snuff.
 
 58 KILMENY. 
 
 He smoked a short clay pipe, and puffed 
 out all manner of socialist and revolutionary 
 speeclies along with the smoke. He never 
 went to church. He had been the friend of 
 a God-forgotten major who used to dwell in 
 a lonely house near Crutchett's Coppice, and 
 who was supposed to be a monster of 
 wickedness, and to have murdered his wife. 
 It was found at his death that the major had 
 provided that he should be buried in the 
 neighbouring wood, instead of in consecrated 
 ground : was not this sufficient proof that 
 the devil was sure of his prey ? My uncle 
 Job was left as perpetual guardian of the 
 Major's house ; and that had now fallen 
 pretty much into ruin, because, as everybody 
 knew it was haunted, nobody would hve in 
 it. The experiment was tried once ; and the 
 people were glad to get away. In the dark 
 of an evening, the noise of carriage-wheels 
 was often heard without — on the carriage-
 
 in UNCLE JOB. 59 
 
 drive and at the hall door : when the 
 occupants of the house went to the window 
 nothing was visible. Loud laughter, coming 
 from the neighbouring wood, used to startle 
 the people at dead of night; when they 
 opened a door suddenly, a sort of scuffle was 
 heard, and sometimes the faint echo of a laugh 
 a minute afterwards. But the climax of these 
 visitations was that the owner of the house, 
 going home one night, distinctly saw a grey 
 dog-cart, with a white horse, standing oppo- 
 site his door-steps. He went forward : as 
 he approached, it faded away, and he walked 
 right through it. That same night no one 
 in the house could sleep for the shrieks of 
 laughter heard all round the place. Next 
 morning the man left, with all his family ; 
 and nobody had ventured to sleep in the 
 house since. 
 
 Uncle Job was very unwilhng to speak 
 of these matters. He growled in his bitter
 
 60 KILMENY. 
 
 way at the superstition and folly of the 
 people around ; but he would never say 
 distinctly what the occupant of the Major's 
 house had told him when he left. 
 
 ' Darn the fools,' he used to say, sitting 
 at his fire of a night, with the small black 
 pipe in his mouth ; ' they'd believe anything 
 if the pahrson 'ud only tell it them. But 
 the pahrsons are too lazy now-a-days to 
 invent new stories — they stick to the hold 
 ones, Ted. They keep to the hold stories, 
 and they've shot the dower agin the new 
 ones. They be rare fond o' telhn ye o' 
 the plagues o' Egypt, but what I says is. 
 Why didn't Moses try the Egyptians wi' a 
 plague o' pahrsons.^ — that's what I say. 
 And that's a rare good un', too, about the 
 sun standin' still. Bah! It's my opinion 
 that if the sun stood still, it was because 
 it was so darned astonished at Joshua's 
 cheek in askin' it.'
 
 MY UNCLE JOB. 61 
 
 I think there can be no doubt about 
 my uncle Job having been a frightful old 
 ruffian. But the cool way in which he 
 disposed of his respectable neighbours, and 
 maintained the independence of his position, 
 was fine in its way. I walked over his 
 farm the next morning with him. Job 
 had his small pipe in his mouth, and his 
 hat drawn over his forehead to shelter his 
 eyes from the sunlight. 
 
 ' The pahrson doan't come to my shop,' he 
 said ; ' I doan't go to his. I be as good a 
 mahn as he — I be. No, I doan't say as goin' 
 to church is a bahd thing, but there's a rare 
 lot o' hypocrites as goes, and what I say is 
 as it's better not to go unless you can hact 
 up to it — that's what I saay. They go to 
 church, and talk o' the blessin' o' bein' poor, 
 and try to make one another believe as they 
 believes it ; b.ut it's my opinion as bein' rich 
 isn't so much of a curse arter all ; and I
 
 62 KILMENY. 
 
 doan't see as tliey throw any o' their money 
 into the sea, or much of it into the poor- 
 box, for the matter o' that. Yes, they talk 
 o' bein' poor, and yet they want to farm 
 their two thousand and their three thousand 
 acres, and keep a lot o' families starvin' as 
 ain't got a bit o' land to work on. It's one 
 mahn eatin' up the livin's o' eight or ten — 
 that's what it is, Mahster Ted. What I say 
 is, every mahn should ha' an acre — a mahn 
 an acre — then there 'ud be no starvation 
 or Unions.' 
 
 'Why do you farm two hundred acres 
 yourself. Uncle Job ? ' said I. 
 
 ' What 'ud be the use o' me givin' up my 
 patch o' ground? what could a mahn get 
 wi' his spade out o' an acre o' this darned 
 stuff? Now, lookee there, Mahster Ted 
 — ^look at that divvehsh Httle dell as I 
 ploughed for the first time last spring.' 
 
 We were now on the brow of a hill,
 
 MY UXCLE JOB. 63 
 
 above tlie long valley in which the straggling 
 village of Missenden, with its red brick 
 houses and its pale blue smoke lay under 
 the early morning sunshine. And right in 
 front of us, at the other end of the valley, 
 rose the great avenue that led up to Burn- 
 ham, and the House stood soft and shadowy 
 there among the blue mist of the trees, with 
 a flush of pale yellow across its frontage, 
 caught from the glow of the east. Job 
 paused on the edge of a deep hollow at one 
 end of this field, and blinked at the sunshine, 
 and puffed his pipe, and said — 
 
 ' As I was a ploughin' thear, I turned 
 over cannon-bullets as was fired all across 
 that valley from Burnham House by Hohver 
 Cromwell.' 
 
 I asked Job how he knew that the can- 
 non-balls had belonged to Cromwell, but I 
 was aware that the people living in this 
 district attribute all historical relics to the
 
 64 KILMENY. 
 
 time of the Civil War. There seems to 
 have been in history an absolute blank, so 
 far as the Missenden valley is concerned, 
 between that time and this ; the people 
 speak of 1640-50 as of yesterday, and there 
 is scarcely a stone or tree in the parish that 
 has not somehow been mixed up in the 
 great struggle between the King and the 
 Commons. 
 
 ' How do I know ? ' said my uncle. ' AVho 
 ever came into this part of the world to fire 
 ])ullets except him ? Ah ! those wur grand 
 times, when gentlemen knew what wur 
 expected of gentlemen, and went out and 
 fought for the poor people as was being 
 taxed. They're talkin' in the newspapers, 
 as I hear, o' spirit-rappin', and all that 
 darned stuff, and it's my opinion that the 
 pahrsons are only humbuggin' us about the 
 joy o' goin' to 'eaven, if we're to be sent to 
 attend on a lot 'o darned old women, and
 
 MY UXCLE JOB. 65 
 
 play accordions for them. But what I say is, 
 if it wur possible for ghosts to come back, 
 what d'ye think, Mahster Ted, 'ud Ireton, 
 and Cromwell, and Blake, and Burnham — to 
 say nothing o' them as wur on the other 
 side — think of our fine gentlemen now, 
 ruinin' themselves and their famihes wi' 
 horse-racin', fightin' in theatres, gambhu' 
 wi' blasted furreigners in Germany, and the 
 like ? Look at the House there — isn't it as 
 fine a house as any in England ? And them 
 as has had it — bah ! — and him as is goin' to 
 have it ' 
 
 ' Who is that ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' Why, I bain't a prophet, be I, when I 
 say as I know Mahster Alfred Burnham ain't 
 got a darned farthing, and that his father has 
 plenty to get beaver * for, let alone him ; and 
 when I sees him ridin about day arter day 
 with Miss Hester, and looking so particlar 
 
 * Beaver — food. 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 KILMENY. 
 
 attentive, I don't need to be Eliza — Elijah I 
 mean — to say as there's somethin' hup. Well, 
 she ain't got much money either, as I can 
 hear on ; but he'll get a rare good sum for 
 the old 'Ouse. I dunnow if he can sell the 
 church, too. It wur a pity if he couldn't 
 make some use o' them vallyble bits o' 
 marble as have all the Burnham's names on 
 'em.' 
 
 ' You don't think he would sell these, do 
 you ? ' I asked. 
 
 But at this moment the bell of Missenden 
 church — high up on the hill there, above the 
 grey old abbey, and the small river, and the 
 broad meadows — began to toll. 
 
 ' Darn them bells ! ' said Uncle Job, turn- 
 ing away testily, ' let's go round to the other 
 side of the hill ; and get out of the way o' 
 their noise. I hate 'em. They 'mind me of 
 a funeral ; and they say to me as the people 
 who go to church are so darned respectable,
 
 MY UXCLE JOB. 67 
 
 and solemn, and proper ; and they tell me 
 what yiir respectable people think of me — 
 and that is that I am a flamin' old cuss, who 
 ought to go and bury myself, because I doan't 
 shine my boots, and go and snivvle in a 
 church-pew, and promise to obey all the ten 
 commahndments, and ten mower, if Pro- 
 vidence '11 only make me better off than my 
 neighbours.' 
 
 I don't think old Job Ives was a very 
 profitable companion, as he went about on 
 a quiet Sunday morning, down in this 
 Buckinghamshire vale, railing and cursing 
 against his kind. However, I hated Burn- 
 ham, and I remained at my uncle's farm all 
 day, creeping over to bid good-bye to my 
 father and mother after dusk, when no one 
 from Burnham House could see. 
 
 T 2
 
 68 KILMEXY. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 MY FRIEND. 
 
 I RETURNED to London, and to Weasel's shop, 
 with a great purpose in my heart. I was 
 determined to be Correggio, or Isaac Newton, 
 or Edmund Kean — anybody of such trans- 
 cendent genius as should make the world 
 pause and wonder. It was not alone the 
 small world of Burnham that I wished to 
 conquer, but that greater world which had 
 cast me down and made a beggar of me. I 
 should be even with it ; and, if I spent my 
 life in the struggle, would in the end force 
 it to recognise in me its equal. What were 
 the means? An astounding audacity, as- 
 sumed for the purpose ; backed by a resolu-
 
 MY FRIEND. 69 
 
 tion to explore all the various branches of 
 human knowledge. There was nothing I 
 did not attempt. Greek was my first effort ; 
 though I begin to perceive now that life is 
 not long enough to let a man learn Greek. 
 French, and a little German, my mother had 
 taught me ; and, while I still coached myself 
 up in these languages, I took to the indiscri- 
 minate study of everything. I had no master, 
 or instructor, or guide. I gathered up pence, 
 and bought second-hand books in Holborn. I 
 began to fancy myself learned in hydraulics, 
 and could turn you off at a moment's notice 
 the proper angle for a sluice-gate. I 
 regarded myself as profound in chemistry ; 
 and only wanted some apparatus to increase 
 considerably the list of non-metallic elements. 
 I studied astronomy ; and knew that, with 
 the requisite time and instruments, I should 
 have discovered Neptune. I studied botany 
 (theoretically, alas !), and had my own notions
 
 70 KILMENY. 
 
 about the protoplasmic movement and origin 
 of life. For amusement, I drew, and dabbled 
 in water-colours. I made the absurdest 
 efforts to excel in all these things, that I 
 might wipe out, some day or other, the 
 corrosive stain that Hester Burnham's silver 
 coin had left upon my hand. 
 
 I pass over all this foolish time, and arrive 
 at a period when a little further knowledge 
 had cooled my hopes, if not my impatience 
 and desire. My great and faithful friend, 
 now as then, was an artist to whom I had 
 occasionally to carry home picture-frames. 
 He and I somehow became acquainted : he 
 took a sort of fancy to me ; and I used to 
 spend all my brief snatches of leisure in his 
 studio in Granby Street, Hampstead Eoad. 
 His name was Owen Heatherleigh ; and I 
 thought at first that he had no friends or 
 relations. I discovered afterwards that he 
 had plenty of both ; but he went near them
 
 MY FRIEND. 71 
 
 rarely. He was a man getting on towards 
 thirty, with rough unkempt hair and beard, 
 a broad, honest, powerful face, with a gash 
 upon one cheek which he had received while 
 studying in Germany; large, brown eyes, 
 a good, handsome figure, and slovenly dress. 
 His story, as I heard it from himself, bit by 
 bit, was a peculiar and sad one. He was of 
 very good family : his father was a squire in 
 some remote district of Westmoreland ; and, 
 some ten years before I knew him, Owen had 
 the misfortune to fall in love with a young 
 girl, the daughter of the village school- 
 master. His parents would hear nothing of 
 the match. But the girl loved him ; and he 
 had just come home from a German Univer- 
 sity, full of ambition and independence and 
 the fine feeling of youth. He left his father's 
 house, and never set foot in it again. 
 
 ' I used to go and see her every morning, 
 from my lodgings,' he said, one night to me,
 
 72 KILMENY. 
 
 as he sat before the fire, ' and they had a 
 httle room prepared for me, in which I used 
 to work at my water-colour sketches, that 
 were, of course, to make a fortune for us both. 
 You know what I am, Ted : what I think 
 about many things. One day I went up to 
 the window of the cottage : it was open — 
 summer-time, you know. She was singing — 
 it was an old, poor piano — but my little girl 
 had the tenderest voice. She was singing 
 some religious hymn or other ; and I caught 
 the words, ' Nearer my God to thee, nearer 
 to thee,' uttered with such a pathetic aban- 
 donment that I dared not enter the house. 
 I felt like a murderer who had wandered 
 near a village church, and heard the people 
 singing. I stood outside and asked myself 
 if I could destroy that beautiful, simple faith 
 of hers. If she were to marry me, would 
 she not either break her heart over my con- 
 dition ; or could I, on the other hand, crush
 
 MY FRIEND. 73 
 
 out all the tenderest and holiest aspirations 
 of her sweet young life, and leave her the 
 prey of doubt and despair ? Still she sang, 
 and you might have imagined that the 
 angels themselves were listening to her. I 
 hurried away from the place as if I had 
 been an evil spirit ; and — God forgive me ! 
 but — I fled here to London. 1 thmk it was 
 not more than three months after then that 
 my darling died ; and when I went down 
 there, I went into the churchyard and saw the 
 flowers on her crrave. She died without 
 ever knowing how wholly and perfectly I 
 loved her, or what it was that had caused 
 me to leave her. Some half-hour before 
 her death, she asked for her prayer-book — 
 there was a primrose in it, you know : that 
 was all .... I never kissed her.' 
 
 Such was his story. 
 
 At another time he told me why he was 
 so lazy — he who could gain repulsion and
 
 74 KILMENY. 
 
 money by every half- hour of work he chose 
 to expend. 
 
 ' I came up to London again, resolved to 
 make my own way, and be equal with the 
 people who had cut me on poor Hettie's 
 account ' 
 
 ' Was her name Hester ? ' I asked, with a 
 sudden accession of interest. 
 
 ' Yes. But I found it was no use. What 
 was the good of working yourself to death 
 to amass money, when you found yourself 
 baffled even in the poor competition for the 
 honour that money can give you, by people 
 who never worked a stroke in their life ? 
 They had all the chances on their side ; I 
 had none. Had I made a lot of money, I 
 should still have been looked on in society 
 as a poor devil of an artist — a man who had 
 to earn his bread — whom one might patro- 
 nise — who was your servant when you paid 
 him. I gave up the fight,' he continued,
 
 MY FRIEND. 75 
 
 recovering his gaiety of tone, ' I take my 
 ease. I have educated myself into tastes 
 that are easily gratified. I hke beer better 
 than all other drinks. I prefer a pipe to 
 any cigar you can give me. I work as little 
 as I can. I have a fine constitution, and am 
 content to enjoy laziness. I lead, on the 
 whole, a remarkably jolly Hfe. As we used 
 to say over in Heidelberg — 
 
 Ein starkes Bier, ein beizender Tabak, 
 
 Und eine Magd in Putz, das ist nun mein Geschmack.' 
 
 ' You have the beer and the tobacco ; but 
 I don't see the well-dressed girl,' I re- 
 marked. 
 
 ' Not when Polly Whistler comes to look 
 us up ? ' he said. 
 
 But if there was any girl in the world 
 whom it was unlikely Owen Heather- 
 leigh would care about, it was Polly Whis- 
 tler — the strapping, frank, good-natured
 
 76 KlUIENY. 
 
 model, who had a tongue as keen as her 
 wit, and a heart as soft as her big black 
 eyes. Polly was a very respectable girl, be 
 it understood. She only sat to two or three 
 artists whom she knew, and who were 
 known to each other ; and she was a good 
 deal more scrupulous about her costume 
 than many ladies who would have regarded 
 her with anger and disdain. Sometimes I 
 used to think that Polly cared more about 
 Owen Heatherleigh than he suspected, or 
 than she chose to show ; but then again the 
 suspicion was dispelled by the open manner 
 in which she ' chaffed ' him about his miso- 
 gynist habits, and suggested that if she 
 were his wife, she would improve both his 
 chambers and himself. 
 
 I remember walking up with him one 
 evening to his studio ; he had been insisting 
 on my going to live with him, help him in 
 his work, and share the profits. The mere
 
 MY FRIE>T). 77 
 
 suggestion of such a thing set my head 
 spinning with wild anticipations ; and I 
 eagerly went to his lodgings to talk the 
 project over. 
 
 When we entered the lars^e room, we 
 found the lamp already ht — throwing a dull 
 light on a great, gloomy screen, on the 
 various sketches and pictures hung around 
 the walls, on the httered and dirty apart- 
 ment, and on a row of dusty and sepulchral 
 plaster busts set along a high shelf. Polly 
 was seated by the fire. 
 
 ' Well, Polly, are you here ? ' he said un- 
 concernedly taking another seat. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, turning her bright, frank 
 face to us with a smile ; ' my old woman 
 went out to a concert with one of her neigh- 
 bours, and I didn't care about sitting in the 
 house alone.' 
 
 ' Quite right too. Sitting alone begets 
 gloomy fancies.'
 
 78 KILMENY. 
 
 ' That's why you are so particularly dull 
 at times. I came down here thinking to put 
 your place a bit to rights for you ; but I was 
 too lazy, or tired. I was to tell you from 
 your landlady though, that two gentlemen, 
 who would not leave their names, called to- 
 day and will be back again to-morrow.* 
 
 ' Good ! ' said Heatherleigh to me. ' I 
 swear they want to offer me a commission to 
 paint a picture for the Prince of Wales.' 
 
 ' No, ' said Polly, with her black eyes 
 twinkling maliciously, ' I believe they are 
 like the unbelieving Jews — they seek a 
 sign.' 
 
 ' You are very wicked, Polly, do you 
 know ? ' he said carelessly, filling a pipe. 
 ' You will never be tamed and made re- 
 spectable until you marry. I wish I were 
 the happy man.' 
 
 ' I wish you were,' she said, with a laugh. 
 ' But no. You will never be such a fool as
 
 MY FRIEND. 79 
 
 to offer to marry me ; and I shouldn't be 
 such a fool as to accept you, if you did.' 
 
 'I hope I shall never get fond of you, 
 Polly,' he said. 
 
 'Why?' 
 
 By this time the smile that her chaffing 
 had brought to his face had quite died away, 
 and he was staring pensively into the fire. 
 When he spoke it was as if he were speak- 
 ing to himself. 
 
 ' Because the chances are you would die.' 
 
 ' Good gracious me ! ' said Polly. 
 
 *I sometimes have a notion,' he continued, 
 rather absently, ' that the unknown presence 
 of some fatal malady — some predisposition 
 to death — may lend to women's faces a sort 
 of expression, or tenderness, or sadness, that 
 is pecuharly attractive to some men. The 
 man does not know why he is attracted by 
 this expression — he only knows that all the 
 women he has loved have died off one by
 
 80 KILMENY. 
 
 one, while they were still young. It is only 
 a theory, you know, but there are some 
 men who are unlucky like that.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Polly, ' of all the agreeable 
 topics that were ever started, this is about 
 the most Hvely. It all comes of your sitting 
 indoors, and taking no interest in anything 
 — not even in your painting. An artist has 
 no business with philosophy — has he, Ted ? ' 
 
 For she called me Ted, too. 
 
 ' Why, no,' I said ; ' but Heatherleigh 
 dabbles in philosophy, in order to excuse 
 his idleness.' 
 
 'Well, Polly, suppose we start another 
 topic. Suppose we take you into our con- 
 fidence, and consult you about this young 
 gentleman's prospects. I propose to assume 
 the garb of an old master, and have him for 
 a pupil — a student — a disciple. In time, he 
 wiU be able to paint all my pictures for 
 me ; and I shall have all the money, while
 
 MY FRIEND. 81 
 
 be reaps all the praise. I propose taking a 
 junior partner into the business ; he is to do 
 the work, while I get the profits. What do 
 you think of it, Polly ? Did I ever show you 
 the things he has done ? They're not very 
 good, you know, my boy ; they're chiefly 
 remarkable for cheek. But in a short time 
 you would, I think, be able to paint a good 
 many bits of my interiors for me, and so 
 forth. What do you say, Ted ? ' 
 
 What could I say ? Here were two of 
 the very kindest beings I have ever met in 
 this world laying their heads together to 
 help me ; and the astonishment and grati- 
 tude with which such a circumstance filled 
 me almost blinded me to the obvious fact 
 that Heatherleigh was trying to disguise the 
 nature of his offer. To be plain, he, too, 
 was conferring charity upon me. I knew 
 that for a long time I could not be of the 
 slightest use to him. Besides, he did not 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 KILMENY. 
 
 want to make money either by my efforts 
 or his own. He worked by fits and starts — 
 and after he had got a cheque from a dealer, 
 he relapsed into his dawdhng ways and 
 indolent, abstemious luxury. He had an 
 amazing gift or trick of manipulation — paint- 
 ing cost him neither study nor pains. He 
 could turn off, when pressed for money, a 
 picture in an inconceivably short space of 
 time ; and, if it was not a striking or origi- 
 nal work, it was still out of the common run 
 of picture-dealers' pictures. There was not a 
 particle or trace of genius in his work — no 
 bold conception, or lofty aim, or sharp and 
 luminous interpretation ; but there was an 
 easy and bright cleverness which had a cer- 
 tain individualism of its own, and which 
 procured a too-ready market for all that he 
 produced. I think he was quite conscious 
 of all this ; and that the knowledge helped 
 to confirm him in his indolent ways. He
 
 MY FRIEXD. 83 
 
 was not even gifted with the vague hope 
 that he might become a great painter. He 
 painted when his funds became low, or when 
 he took a sudden fancy to dress himself re- 
 markably well and give a few companions a 
 dinner at Eichmond. He was a handsome 
 man, as I have said ; and, when he chose, 
 he could throw off the roughness of his pre- 
 sent mode of life, and astonish one with the 
 extreme elegance and finish of his toilette 
 and general appearance. His hands were 
 fine and dehcate ; he had small feet, and a 
 certain air of refinement and ease which be- 
 came his intelligent face and well-set neck. 
 When he thus dressed himself, he completed 
 the metamorphosis by becoming absurdly 
 critical in all such matters as wines, cigars, 
 dishes, dress, and manners. He was only 
 acting a part, and imagining what he might 
 have been had he not quarrelled with his 
 family ; and yet he acted the part so natu- 
 
 G 2
 
 84 KILMEXY. 
 
 rally that his companions, chiefly artists, 
 used to be greatly impressed by such evi- 
 dences of culture and high-breeding. ISI'ext 
 day, you would find him laughing at his 
 own folly — dressed in an old velveteen 
 jacket, with his hair uncombed, his waist- 
 coat open and showing a shirt liberally 
 stained with megilp and colour, his delicate 
 fingers sticky and dirty with varnishes and 
 oils, and on the table beside his easel a short 
 clay pipe and a battered pewter pot filled 
 with half-and-half. 
 
 ' I say that you are too kind,' I replied — 
 ' that I should not be worth my keep for a 
 very long time, if ever.' 
 
 ' You don't understand, Master Ted,' said 
 he ; 'I am entering upon a business specula- 
 tion. I am buying up rough land, out of 
 which I mean to get great harvests yet. I 
 mean to make an artist of you, Ted.' 
 
 " Make an artist of yourself ! ' said Polly.
 
 MY FRIEND. 85 
 
 ' I mean to buy you out of the hands of 
 that charming person, Weavle. I shall hold 
 you as my slave and bondman; and then, 
 when I am an old man, grown white, and 
 lean, and shaky, you shall work for me and 
 pay my little bills, and I shall bless you. 
 You are not bound by any engagement 
 to Weavle ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Nor by any promise to your parents ? ' 
 
 ' No.' 
 
 ' What do you say, then ? ' 
 
 ' I say that if you give me this chance, I 
 will do my very best in whatever way you 
 want ; and whether I succeed or not, I shall 
 never forget your kindness to me — about the 
 greatest I have ever received.' 
 
 ' Bravo ! ' cried Polly, with a sort of sob 
 — indeed, nothing could equal this kind 
 creature's intense sympathy with everybody 
 and everything around her. ' But do you
 
 86 KILMENY. 
 
 know, Ted, what you have to go through 
 before you can become an artist ? ' 
 
 I professed my ignorance ; and inwardly 
 hoped that Polly did not mean that I must 
 grace the occasion by kissing her. 
 
 ' There never yet,' said she, ' was an 
 artist, or an author, or a poet, or anybody 
 Avho had to live by his wits that was of any 
 good until he had met with a terrible disap- 
 pointment in love. You must have your 
 heart half- broken, Ted, before you can do 
 anything. You know, they say that a reaper 
 never does any good until he has cut himself 
 Avith the sickle ; so an artist must get 
 wounded and hurt in the same way before 
 he discovers the way to touch people. We 
 must get your heart broken, Ted.' 
 
 ' Isn't it a lucky thing that there are so 
 many women,' said Heatherleigh, ' whom Pro- 
 vidence seems to have appointed for the pur- 
 pose. I can easily supply him with any
 
 MY FRIEXD. 87 
 
 number of young persons whose profession 
 it is to break your heart with the most 
 charming air in the world. Let 's see : I 
 wonder whose house I ought to take him to 
 — to get him broken in, as it were. The 
 air of Lewison's drawing-room — I call his 
 place the Esthetic Grotto — is too fine and 
 clear for a vigorous, strong flirtation ; and 
 yet there are some promising young execu- 
 tioners to be met with there. You remem- 
 ber what Alfred de Musset says : — 
 
 J'aime encore mieux notre torture, 
 Que Yotre metier de bourreau. 
 
 There is Bonnie Lesley, as they call her, 
 for example ' 
 
 ' What ? ' I said, ' the girl whose face you 
 are constantly sketching ? ' 
 
 'Even so, young sir.' 
 
 ' If she is like your copies of her, she 
 must be something better than what you 
 say.'
 
 88 KILMENY. 
 
 ' Oh, she is pretty enough, and sweet 
 enough, doubtless,' said he. 'At least, I 
 presume she is good-looking. In my young 
 days, you could be sure of a woman's being 
 beautiful, because you had a chance of 
 seeing her face.' 
 
 ' I'll be sworn,' said Polly, ' you have 
 painted her face oftener than she has done. 
 I saw her once in Eegent's Park — recognised 
 her directly. I should fall in love with her 
 if I were a man.' 
 
 ' Very likely,' said Heatherleigh, ' and, if 
 you were a man, you would probably regret 
 it. However, I am glad to hear you say a 
 kindly word for her, Polly. You women 
 are so very distrustful of each other.' 
 
 ' I suppose it's because we know ourselves 
 so well,' said Polly, with a sigh. 
 
 Heatherleigh now rang the bell, and 
 begged his landlady to send up supper. It 
 was soon on the table — cold mutton, pickled
 
 MY FRIEXD. 89 
 
 onions, water-cresses, cheese, and half-and 
 half, with a small bottle of stout for Polly's 
 exclusive use. 
 
 Polly Whistler and I frequently supped 
 there ; and at these modest entertainments 
 the girl really made a most charming com- 
 panion. She had an inexhaustible fund of 
 good spirits ; and she had a playful, inge- 
 nious wit that I have never seen approached 
 by any other woman. Of course, the 
 brilliant, and sharp, and odd things she was 
 constantly uttering lost none of their effect 
 by the freedom of her manners, or by a half- 
 dramatic trick she had of giving them point 
 and expression ; and yet there was never a 
 trace of rudeness or bad taste in anything 
 she said or did. Heatherleigh used to lie 
 back in his big wooden chair, and hsten 
 with a sort of lazy enjoyment and paternal 
 forbearance to her rapid talk, her bright 
 laughter, and her shrewd and humorous hits.
 
 90 KILMENY. 
 
 He, too, in his indolent fashion, would often 
 meet her half-way in these sarcastic com- 
 ments on men, women, and the accidents of 
 life. She used to laugh, and talk, and jibe 
 for the mere pleasure of amusing her com- 
 panions and herself ; but you could see that 
 in his lazy epigrams upon human nature 
 there was just a touch of bitterness — as if, 
 unconsciously to himself, he was exhibiting 
 marks of that old and useless struggle 
 against the hard, resisting mass of the world. 
 There was a half-concealed pungency about 
 his wit that made you think he was scarcely 
 himself aware of its acrid flavour ; and to 
 one who was accustomed to his ways, his 
 sayings had the unusual merit of appearing 
 to be dragged from him. I never saw him 
 talk for effect — even in trying to amuse a 
 girl, when a man is scarcely expected to be 
 accurate, honest, or sensible. He and Polly 
 used to relish these quiet little meetings
 
 MY FRIEXD. 91 
 
 keenly ; and I — why I thought there never 
 were in the world two people who enjoyed 
 themselves so thoroughly and in so innocent 
 a fashion, who were so good-natured and 
 disinterested and frank and kind to every- 
 body, high and low, whom they met. But 
 I knew they were exceptions ; for the 
 average of human nature was as yet repre- 
 sented to me by Weavle. 
 
 Then we went to see Polly home. She 
 lived just round the corner, in Albany Street, 
 behind Eegent's Park ; and when she bade 
 us good-bye, she said she should some day 
 go to see my picture in the Academy. The 
 words thrilled through me, and for a 
 moment I could see nothing of the dark 
 houses and the pavement, and of my two 
 companions — but instead a great room filled 
 with fashionable folks in splendid attire, all 
 come to look at the rows of brilliant pictures. 
 If I could but get a modest corner there !
 
 92 KILMENY. 
 
 I said to myself, with a strange throb — and 
 if, by chance, my obscure and Httle effort 
 were to be glanced at, even for a moment, 
 by 
 
 ' Thank you, Polly,' said I, with the old 
 bitter consciousness falling down on me 
 again ; ' my work has already been seen on 
 the Academy walls, and I suppose it will be 
 again — on the frames.' 
 
 So we turned away, Heatherleigh and T, 
 and walked carelessly onward. It was a 
 beautiful night, still and mild, with a full 
 moon shining on the pale fronts of the tall 
 houses that lie along the north side of 
 Eegent's Park, and glittering here and there 
 on the glossy leaves of the young birches. 
 There was almost no one to be seen along 
 the white pavements ; but occasionally 
 we passed a house the windows of which 
 were lit up, gleaming warm and red into 
 the pale grey light outside. We walked
 
 MY FRIEND. 93 
 
 round Eegent's Park, and Primrose Hill, 
 and along the Finchley Eoad towards the 
 neighboiurhood of Hampstead ; Heatherleigh 
 talking of many things — of the project he 
 had proposed to me, of Polly Whistler, and, 
 latterly, of that old dead love of his, and of 
 all the beautiful hopes and aspirations that 
 lay buried in her grave. He seldom talked 
 of her ; when he did, there was something 
 to me almost terrible in witnessing the 
 emotion of this strong man — of the piteous 
 way in which he used to look back and 
 wonder how the world could have compassed 
 this cruel and irremediable thing that was 
 to haunt the rest of his life with its shadow. 
 And yet there was a sweetness in the 
 memory of it, I think, as I think there is in 
 the memory of all our great sorrows — so 
 long as these have not been the result of 
 our own wilfulness or folly. 
 
 * Come,' he said, ' let us talk of something
 
 94 KILMENT. 
 
 else. Do you know I regard Polly Whistler 
 as the most heroic little woman I know? 
 How Polly would laugh if you were to tell 
 her she was a heroine. Did you hear, just 
 as we walked off, an angry screech of a 
 woman's voice from inside the house ? 
 ' I heard something of the sort.' 
 'That note of kindly welcome was 
 sounded by her mother, who, I suppose, has 
 returned from her concert in a state of in- 
 toxication. Pred Ward told me this morn- 
 ing of the frightful persecution the girl 
 suffers at the hands of this woman, who 
 spends all her earnings, and threatens her if 
 she does not bring home more money. 
 When she is in one of her drunken fits, she 
 follows the girl through the streets, and 
 goes up to the studios after her, and insists 
 upon getting money.' 
 
 ' Fred Ward,' said I, ' must have been 
 putting more imagination into his story than
 
 MY FRIEND. 95 
 
 he ever did into one of his pictures. How 
 is it Polly never hinted anything of the 
 kind, but, on the contrary, has always 
 spoken very generously and nicely about 
 her " old woman ? " How is it that the 
 old woman never pestered you for money ? ' 
 ' There's the odd thing,' said he. ' You 
 know Polly only sits to three or four 
 fellows, all of whom I know. Every one 
 of them, it seems, is familiarly acquainted 
 with the mother, except myself ; and Ward 
 told me that Polly had made very great 
 sacrifices that I might not know, and begged 
 them all not to tell me. Indeed, the old 
 woman, it seems, holds up a visitation to my 
 studio as the highest threat she can use, 
 and Polly will do anything rather than that 
 I should learn what sort of mother she 
 has got. Ward says it is time that this 
 terrorism should cease, and that I ought 
 to explain to Mother Whistler that she had
 
 96 KILMENY. 
 
 better drop it. He says, too, that the girl's 
 conduct towards her mother is simply ad- 
 mirable — in kindness, and forbearance, and 
 good-nature. But now I can look back 
 and explain a good many things about Polly 
 that used to puzzle me sometimes.' 
 
 ' Well,' I said, ' if I were you, I should 
 not tell her that I knew. The girl doesn't 
 want you to think ill of her mother ; give 
 her her own way.' 
 
 ' I'll consider about it,' he replied ; ' but 
 if I could get a private word with Mrs. 
 Whistler, at some sober moment, I should 
 like to tell her what might be the result of 
 her conduct upon a girl less determined in 
 character than poor Polly.' 
 
 It was nearly one o'clock when we drew 
 near Primrose Hill again. The streets were 
 now quite deserted, and there was scarcely 
 a hght to be seen in any of the windows of 
 the tall, pale houses. As we came round
 
 MY FRIEXD. 97 
 
 by Albert Eoad, however, we observed one 
 house in which the lower rooms were yet 
 lit up. Heatherleigh crossed over, and we 
 paused in front of the railings. 
 
 ' That is the Esthetic Grotto,' he whis- 
 pered ; ' I wonder who are inside at 
 present ? ' 
 
 The windows were open and the Venetian 
 blinds were down ; the latter, from their 
 sloping position, showing only gleaming lines 
 of the roof and chandeliers inside. Presently 
 a girl's voice was heard — a pure and high 
 soprano, that rose clearly and fully above 
 the dehcate ripphng accompaniment of the 
 piano. In the stillness of the night we 
 heard every tone and modulation of the 
 exquisite voice, and I, for one, stood en- 
 tranced there, drinking in the beautiful, 
 touching melody. 
 
 ' I think it is Schubert's,' said Heather- 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 KILMEIs^Y. 
 
 leigh ; ' the Lewisons are mad about Schu- 
 bert.' 
 
 At length the song was finished, and the 
 blank stillness that followed struck painfully 
 on the ear. 
 
 ' They are unusually late to-night,' said 
 Heatherleigh. 'They keep open house 
 every evening, for everybody who has 
 musical or literary or artistic tastes. The 
 place is a perfect den of big and small 
 celebrities, and sometimes they have the 
 most brilhant little gatherings.' 
 
 After a moment, he said with a smile — 
 
 ' Do you know who was singing that 
 German song, just now ? ' 
 
 'How should I?' 
 
 ' It was Bonnie Lesley, as they call her.'
 
 99 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 IN regent's park. 
 
 On the first morning that I walked up 
 Tottenham Court Eoad towards Heather- 
 leigh's studio, with th old shadow of 
 Weavle removed from over me, I felt 
 that the world had grown immeasurably- 
 wider. It was the morning of the first of 
 May, and all the sweet influences of the 
 season were added to this one supreme 
 sensation of breadth, and life, and a joyous 
 and active future. I imagined myself then 
 going to conquer the world. I felt the 
 dehght of anticipation tingling through 
 me. I straightened up my shoulders and 
 sniffed the fresh morning air, which was 
 
 H 2
 
 100 KILMENY. 
 
 sweet and grateful even in this dingy 
 district. I clenched my fists, brought 
 them up to my chest, and shot them out 
 again as if I were knocking down a Weavle 
 on each side. To my horror and surprise, I 
 found that, as a matter of fact, I had in my 
 blind exultation, dealt a severe blow to an 
 elderly gentleman, who had been crossing 
 the street, and was just about to step on 
 the pavement. 
 
 ' You great, lumbering idiot ! ' he said. 
 
 I turned, and made the most ample 
 and profuse apologies, which he cut short 
 with 
 
 ' Go to the .' 
 
 I did not hear him complete the sentence 
 as he angrily turned away, but I can 
 imagine how it ended. Yet I would have 
 braved any amount of anger to hear those 
 words ' great, lumbering,' applied to me. 
 Was it, then, that I might not be so deficient
 
 101 
 
 in bodily presence as I had imagined ? I 
 regarded myself in the window of a shoe- 
 shop. I did not cut a distinguished figure 
 — that was clear. I was obviously taller than 
 the old gentleman whom I had hurt in a 
 sensitive place, but then he was of the 
 barrel order of human architecture. For 
 the rest, I had not much in my appearance 
 on which to pride myself. There was a 
 certain lean and hungry look on my pale 
 face, which the staring dark eyes, and rather 
 beak-like nose, did not diminish. By ac- 
 cident, my hair had been allowed to grow 
 long, and, as I looked at myself in this ex- 
 temporised mirror, I could comp)are myself 
 to nothing so much as a hungry Italian 
 refugee, who had lost some notion or idea 
 when he was young, and spent the rest of 
 his hfe in wistfully trying to recall it. 
 Pictured against the rows of shining boots, 
 my face must have seemed that of one
 
 102 KILMEXY. 
 
 unsatisfied, meditative, melanclioly, and 
 perhaps a trifle older-looking than I ought 
 to have been at my years. 
 
 ' Good-morrow to the youthful Apelles,' 
 said Heatherleigh, when I entered. ' You 
 have come betimes. I presume you mean 
 to set to work immediately.' 
 
 He was lying in his big easy-chair, his leg 
 over the one arm of it, a clay pipe in his 
 mouth, a volume of Bain in his hand, the 
 breakfast things still on the table. He 
 certainly had not washed, and you could 
 only say by way of courtesy that he had 
 dressed. 
 
 'If you please,' I said. 
 
 I felt very nervous all the same, and 
 looked timidly round to see if there was 
 anything I fancied I might be able to do 
 for him. I glanced at the picture which 
 was on his principal easel. It was a 
 remarkably clever study of a lady of
 
 IN regent's paek. 103 
 
 Charles II. 's time, seated in a high-backed 
 chair, with a couple of spaniels playing at her 
 feet. There was absolutely no idea or aim 
 whatever in the picture ; he had merely 
 taken this pretty and cleverly-painted face, 
 and surrounded it with a few appropriate 
 accessories. 
 
 ' What do you think of that ? ' he said. 
 
 ' I don't see what you mean by it,' I 
 answered, in a tone which doubtless told 
 him what I thought of the picture. 
 
 ' I will tell you, then. I mean money by 
 it. It is a sketch I made for the market 
 some eight months ago. I had the good 
 sense to be ashamed of it, and turned its 
 face to the wall. I took it down this 
 morning, and mean to finish it — why? do 
 you think ? * 
 
 Of course, I had no idea. 
 
 ' Because Professor Bain has just been 
 pointing out to me that I have a natural
 
 104 KILMENY. 
 
 genius for being happy. In the country, 
 I have the keen pleasure of Self-conserva- 
 tion — the storing up of physical health and 
 nervous energy ; in the town, I have the 
 indolent pleasure of Stimulation — drawing 
 upon that store of superfluous vitality. If 
 Stimulation were out of the question, and 
 all our pleasures only increased our health ! 
 As it is, however, it seems to me, Master 
 Pupil, that I have not been balancing the 
 two— that I must have more of Self-con- 
 servation ; and as I propose, consequently, 
 to go into the country, I took down that 
 picture to find the means.' 
 
 ' I shall be very glad if you will instruct 
 me in Philosophy as well as in Art,' I said. 
 
 ' That notion has just occurred to me. 
 But then, you see, the old masters of 
 philosophy were accustomed to talk to their 
 disciples under the trees and in the leafy 
 alleys of Academus ; and, accordingly, the
 
 m KEGEXT'S PAKK. 105 
 
 best thing I think we can do on this fine 
 morning is to take a walk in Eegent's Park. 
 What do you say ? ' 
 
 ' It is for you to decide, of course,' I 
 answered ; but the notion of thus being 
 able to walk out anywhere in the hours 
 which ought to be devoted to work was 
 thoroughly bewildering to me. Nor could 
 I throw off an impression that there was 
 something wrong in the proposal ; and that, 
 if we did go out, we should be ' caught.' 
 
 ' I must dress,' he said, getting up out of 
 the chair, ' and, meanwhile, I will put you 
 on your trial. You see I have sketched in 
 behind the lady that screen over there. If 
 you like, you can try your hand at finishing 
 it — keeping it very quiet. Use my palette 
 until I get you one for yourself. There, sit 
 you down.' 
 
 He left, and I sat down before the 
 picture with fear and trembling. My hand
 
 106 KILMENY. 
 
 shook so that I could scarce squeeze the 
 colour out of the tubes ; and my eyes 
 seemed to throb and burn. The screen 
 was an old, tattered thing, which had at 
 one time been covered with coloured maps. 
 Now all these had subsided, until the sur- 
 face was a mass of cool greys, with here and 
 there just a touch of warmer tint, where 
 Africa or England was vaguely visible. It 
 was an admirable bit of background ; but 
 how was I to attempt it? 
 
 I wonder if Heatherleigh purposely de- 
 layed his return. At first, it seemed to me 
 that every moment the door leading into 
 his small bedroom would open, and that he 
 would walk over to the picture to see that 
 I had been too nervous to begin it at all. 
 Then the brush began to work a little 
 better ; and although my eyes still throbbed 
 and burned so that at times the whole 
 screen and room faded away and left only
 
 IX EEGEXTS PARK. 107 
 
 a spotted mist there, I felt, rather than saw 
 that the screen in the picture was beginning 
 to look somewhat hke the actual screen 
 beyond. 
 
 This was not by any means the first time 
 I had attempted painting in oil. Many a 
 chance effort I had made to wrestle with 
 the stronger medium ; although I always 
 returned to water-colour as that which I 
 could use most easily. It is well-known 
 that tyros paint more presentably in oil 
 than in water — their experience of both 
 being equal ; but I had dabbled in water- 
 colour for two or three years, while 
 my acquaintance with oil was exceedingly 
 limited. From the moment, however, in 
 w^hich I had accepted Heatherleigh's offer, 
 I had industriously experimented with a 
 few of the cheapest tubes and some bits of 
 board, until I could fairly copy the different 
 colours and hues of the objects around me.
 
 108 KILMENY. 
 
 Yet to have my clumsy manipulation placed 
 exactly side by side with Heatherleigh's 
 dexterous and clean touch was a cruel 
 test. 
 
 At length, the door opened, and he 
 walked across the room. The brush fell 
 from my hand, and I had nearly dropped 
 myself, for my head was swimming with 
 the superlative concentration of the last 
 half-hour. Very probably, too, my face 
 was a trifle paler than usual ; for I noticed 
 that he regarded me curiously, before he 
 looked at the picture at all, and that he 
 kindly placed his hand on my shoulder as 
 he proceeded to scan the wild effort I had 
 made. 
 
 I felt myself grow hot and cold alter- 
 nately in that moment of dire suspense ; 
 and when he said, with a tone of surprise, 
 ' By Jove ! ' it was as if a blow of some 
 sort had struck me. I dared scarcely say
 
 IN regent's paek. 109 
 
 to myself what that exclamation might 
 mean. 
 
 Then he said, quietly and cheerfully — 
 
 'Whatever made you try to paint in all 
 that accurately in five minutes ? Of course, 
 it won't do, you know ; but the effort you 
 have made, and the result you have gained, 
 in a few minutes, is astounding.' 
 
 I rose up, keeping firm hold — I know not 
 why — of the brushes and the palette. 
 
 ' Do you think,' I said — ' do you con- 
 sider ' 
 
 Then I felt that I was reeling, and knew 
 vaguely that he put out his arm quickly to 
 catch me. After that a blank. When I came 
 to, I found that I had fallen backward, strik- 
 ing my head against the table. Heatherleigh 
 led me into his bedroom, and made me 
 bathe my head in cold water. After a few 
 minutes, I was all right. 
 
 ' Come,' said he, with a quiet smile on
 
 110 KILMENY. 
 
 his face, ' take my arm, and let's go for a 
 walk in Eegent's Park.' 
 
 We went out into the cool, fresh air ; and 
 I was proud of the exhaustion I felt, for I 
 knew it had been incurred in that one ter- 
 rible effort to cut for ever the chain that 
 bound me to Weavle and the old hard times. 
 But was it of any avail ? He had never 
 answered my question ; and I dared not ask 
 it again, lest he might tell me, in tone if not 
 in words, that I could never be useful to 
 him — that the dreams I had already began 
 to dream were visionary, impossible, hope- 
 less. 
 
 After a few minutes' silence, he said to 
 me, gravely and kindly — 
 
 ' If you don't find some means of curbing 
 that impulsive and impetuous will of yours, 
 I fear your life will be neither a long one 
 nor a happy one. If you suffer your tem- 
 perament to lead you into the habit of de-
 
 IN KEGENT'S PARK. Ill 
 
 siring successive things so earnestly that you 
 lose all consciousness and judgment in striv- 
 ing for them, you will find yourself subjected 
 in life to a series of the bitterest disappoint- 
 ments, and these revulsions might have a 
 disastrous effect on one so sensitive as you 
 are. There is nothing of an intensely dra- 
 matic or tragic kind that I can imagine as 
 being unhkely to fall in your way. You are 
 the sort of man, for example, who, if I mis- 
 take not, would coolly and deliberately blow 
 out your brains if some woman you had 
 set your heart on proved unfaithful to you.' 
 
 ' You imagine all that,' I said, ' because I 
 tried hard to paint the screen. But I didn't 
 know that I had been trying hard until it 
 was all over.' 
 
 ' Precisely,' he said ; ' you entirely abandon 
 yourself to a passing mood or fancy. I have 
 remarked it several times. Now what would 
 be the result if you happened to set before
 
 112 KILMENY. 
 
 you one supreme aim — if you staked all your 
 chances upon one throw ?' 
 
 ' In what direction do you mean ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' In any. You say to yourself 1 will never 
 cease striving until I have painted a Madonna 
 to eclipse BaphaeVs^ or I will win such and 
 such a woman^ or die. You are just as likely 
 as not, in either case, to aim at something 
 quite impossible. The result? — when you 
 find yourself cheated in your notions of your 
 own power, when you find the chief object 
 of your life removed from you, what is more 
 likely than that you will suddenly put an 
 end to a wretched failure — by a pennyworth 
 of poison.' 
 
 ' You want me to confine myself to easy 
 possibilities?' 
 
 ' To possibilities.' 
 
 ' Who is to tell me what is possible to 
 me? Suppose I have an unconscionable 
 vanity, that might make me hope to win this
 
 113 
 
 or that prize ? Or don't you think that one 
 may feel the dehght of striving for anything 
 — however impossible — a greater happiness 
 than the achieving of some small immediate 
 success ? You yourself^ — don't you constantly 
 aim at something new and unknown in a 
 picture, and chance the failure ? ' 
 
 ' No, I don't,' he said, with a laugh. ' I 
 know very accurately what I can do ; but I 
 am out of court in the matter. I know that 
 I am myself a failure ; and the knowledge 
 doesn't bother me. All I say to you is 
 this — take heed not to set your desires 
 too high ; for to you a disappointment 
 might be a catastrophe of a sudden and final 
 kind.' 
 
 For me to set my desires too high! I 
 inwardly laughed at the notion. Was it not 
 enough that I was permitted at times to 
 break through the hard conditions of life by 
 dreaming? — by dreaming of things which 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 E.ILMEXY. 
 
 were possible to others, but whicli were to 
 me for ever impossible. 
 
 So we went round and entered Eegent's 
 Park. Heatherleigh kept talking of all sorts 
 of things — following, as usual, the most di- 
 verse moods of morbid introspection, of gay 
 raillery, of bitter sarcasm. Yet all this was 
 coloured by a broad, warm light of kindli- 
 ness which, I suppose, partly owed its origin 
 to the evident enjoyment he had in exer- 
 cising himself in any way. Life was really 
 a happiness to him ; and his sharp speeches, 
 and brooding analyses, and light-hearted 
 jocularity were as great a dehght to him as 
 the physical acts of breathing, and seeing, 
 and walking — all of which he enjoyed with 
 an enjoyment that was at times just a trifle 
 too conscious. I do not beheve that he had 
 a single care to cloud his mind. He had 
 long ago cut all connection with whatever 
 relatives he may have had ; and was free
 
 IN EEGENTS PAKE. 115 
 
 from necessary friendships and forced duties. 
 His few acquaintances were of his own 
 manner of living ; and he could obtain their 
 society just in such proportion as he chose. 
 He could make more money than he needed; 
 and the labour was neither painful nor irk- 
 some to him. He had no particular aim or 
 desire to torment him ; he rejoiced in his 
 physical strength, in his mental clearness, as 
 he rejoiced in the flavours of food and beer 
 and tobacco. How a man, living under such 
 circumstances, failed to become a selfish mis- 
 anthrope, I never could understand. 
 
 ' Don't you ever mean to marry ? ' I said 
 to him, this morning, as we were passing tlie 
 Zoological Gardens, and were coming in view 
 of the broad park, that lay green and beauti- 
 ful in the May sunlight. 
 
 ' Sometimes I wish somebody would take 
 the trouble to marry me,' he said. ' I think 
 I am in the position of a good many un- 
 
 I 2
 
 116 KILMEXY. 
 
 married men. They know tliey could be very 
 affectionate and contented if they married ; 
 but they know the bother and peril of look- 
 ing out for a wife, and don't care to run the 
 risk. You glance round the circle of your 
 acquaintance, and see a number of more or 
 less sensible, pretty, and well-meaning girls. 
 You can't marry one of them without spend- 
 ing ever so much time and anxiety in find- 
 ing out her disposition, and also without 
 encountering the nuisance of rivalship. Then 
 you may either find yourself mistaken and 
 be disgusted with your waste of trouble, or 
 you may really fall in love with her, and 
 find her perverse or inchned to marry some- 
 body else — and so on; while all the time 
 you are losing the best years of your life in 
 this perplexing, and irritating, and often 
 profitless search. Of course, I am talking of 
 men who are a little anxious about the sort 
 of woman they mean to marry. At your
 
 IN EEGENT'S PARK. 117 
 
 age, I fell in love witli everything that wore 
 earrings, and would have married anybody- 
 capable of saying " I will." ' 
 
 ' Yet men do marry,' I said, ' in spite of 
 all the current talk.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes,' he said, ' in the meantime they 
 do. But if our young men cultivate their 
 present notions and habits, we shall soon 
 have this world getting so far to be like 
 heaven that there shall be in it neither 
 marrying nor giving in marriage. At 
 present ' 
 
 Either he paused, or I forgot to hsten. 
 For some minutes I had been gazing vaguely 
 at two figures which were walking slowly 
 towards us under the trees. While they 
 were yet a long way oJSf, the lines of sunshine 
 falHng across the path from between the 
 branches gleamed upon them from time to 
 time ; and it seemed to me that the materials 
 for a very pretty French picture were there
 
 118 KILMEXY. 
 
 before us — in the straight road, the long and 
 narrowing avenue of trees, the bars of sun- 
 light, and the fashionably-dressed ladies who 
 were walking together. Without thinking of 
 them, I was admiring the contrast in their 
 costume. One of them wore a tight-fitting 
 dress of black silk and crape, with a rather 
 lengthy train that added height and dignity 
 to her somewhat short and slight figure. 
 Even at that distance, I could see that she 
 walked with a wonderful ease and grace, that 
 made the girlish little person look almost 
 majestic. Incedit regind. Her companion, 
 on the other hand, actually shone in the 
 sunlight ; for she wore a gauzy white dress, 
 the upper and tight portion of which was 
 touched here and there with bright blue, 
 while the under part revealed a bold dash 
 of colour in the gleam of a blue silk petticoat. 
 Then she wore a small white hat, with a blue 
 feather in it ; and she had a bit of blue near
 
 IN eegent's park. 119 
 
 her neck ; while she carried in her arms 
 a white Pomeranian dog, which, Hke herself, 
 wore a collar of blue satin ribbon, with 
 absurdly big bows. She had profuse golden 
 hair, and a bright complexion that the 
 twilight of her white parasol scarcely- 
 dimmed. Indeed, so very brilliant and 
 beautiful was this apparition, that as the 
 belts of sunlight through which she passed 
 broadened, and as she came nearer, I could 
 not keep from regarding the harmonious 
 taste of the dress and the singular effect 
 the whole figure produced in the alternate 
 green shadow and yellow sunlight — inso- 
 much that I paid no attention to the other 
 lady by her side. 
 
 I suppose we all of us often look at 
 people without seeing them — stare in their 
 faces, while thinking of something else, and 
 are yet quite guiltless of intentional rudeness. 
 I know that I had fallen into a sort of trance.
 
 120 KILMENY. 
 
 and lieard nothing more of Heatherleigh's 
 voice, when I suddenly observed a smile of 
 surprise appear on the face of the girl in 
 white and blue. I knew, rather than saw, 
 that Heatherleigh lifted his hat, and went 
 forward to speak to her. At the same time, 
 as I was naturally passing on, I caught a 
 glimpse of a pair of eyes that had been look- 
 ing at me. I only remembered, a minute 
 afterwards, when the cold shiver had gone 
 out of me, that these dark, luminous, grey- 
 blue eyes had also a certain surprise in them 
 — perhaps a kindly surprise, and enquiry. 
 
 Heatherleigh stopped and talked to the 
 two girls for several minutes ; and I was glad. 
 I never could understand the easy dexterity 
 with which the matter-of-fact people in the 
 Scriptures encountered the most startling 
 and unexpected things — how this man 
 answered directly and frankly the questions 
 of an angel ; how the other accepted some
 
 IS regent's park. 121 
 
 great miracle as a thing of course, and only 
 to be considered as getting him food or 
 water. Why were they not wholly paralysed 
 and overwhelmed with wonder? why did 
 they not instinctively beg for time to com- 
 prehend and reahse the mystery before 
 them ? 
 
 ' What a singular coincidence ! ' said 
 Heatherleigh, laughing, when he came up. 
 ' I was just going to speak of her in con- 
 nection with your marriage-topic. Do you 
 know who that was ? ' 
 
 ' The lady in blue and white ? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' No, I don't' 
 
 ' That, Master ApeUes, is the young person 
 to whom Polly and I mean to hand you over 
 in order that your artistic education may be 
 completed. That is she whom her nume- 
 rous admirers and victims call " Bonnie 
 Lesley." '
 
 122 KILMENY. 
 
 ' You have contrived to warn me effec- 
 tively,' I replied. 
 
 ' That may have been a mistake of mine, 
 from an artistic point of view,' he said, 
 laughing. ' But perhaps if I were to tell you 
 why I like to run down that young creature, 
 you might be inclined to take up the cudgels 
 for her, and impound me. Seriously, she is a 
 very nice sort of girl. She is staying at the 
 Lewisons' at present, as I imagined when I 
 heard her sing there. I fancy she lives there 
 chiefly now. I told her the service I wanted 
 of her as regards you. She was very 
 willing ; and hopes you will go with me to 
 the Lewisons' house on Thursday evening. 
 It is only one of their ordinary evenings — 
 aesthetics and mild refreshments. I pro- 
 mised you would come with me.' 
 
 I looked at him ; I thought he was joking ; 
 but he was not. 
 
 ' One or two young men about town
 
 123 
 
 come in evening dress,' he continued ; ' but 
 Lewison doesn't care about that element, and 
 discourages it. His wife hkes it, for the 
 sake of her young-lady friends, and of course 
 where Bonnie Lesley is, there young fools 
 are sure to be.' 
 
 ' What did she do to you,' I said to him, 
 compassionately, 'that you should be so 
 bitter about her ? ' 
 
 ' She once made me beheve that she had 
 a heart ; but I discovered afterwards that 
 it was only an organ with two openings, 
 situated in a cavity of the chest, for the con- 
 venience of the lungs.' 
 
 ' I understand.' 
 
 ' No ; don't mistake me ; Bonnie Lesley 
 and I were never lovers. But of that anon. 
 What I want to say to you is this : mind, in 
 speaking to her, not to ask her too particu- 
 larly where she has lived — I mean, in what 
 particular place she was brought up.'
 
 124 KILMENY. 
 
 ' Where do her parents Hve ? ' 
 
 ' She hasn't any.' 
 
 ' Her relations, then ? ' 
 
 ' She hasn't any. I don't think she ever 
 had either the one or the other. I imagine 
 that on some hushed, warm afternoon in 
 summer, when everything was lazy and 
 quiet and solemn, somebody down in some 
 still valley saw a small angel, dressed in blue 
 and white, with a tiny white hat and a blue 
 feather, drop quietly down from the clouds. 
 And she has grown up to be Bonnie Lesley, 
 and the hat has grown with her. Eeally 
 there seems to be a good deal of vagueness 
 about her antecedents. For myself, I only 
 know that she is acquainted with some parts 
 of France and Germany. Whoever called 
 her Bonnie Lesley, must have supposed she 
 was Scotch ; but, if she is, she must take un- 
 common pains to conceal the fact. She has 
 her notions of form and colour, too, has that
 
 IN eegent's park. 125 
 
 young woman. Do you know what slie said 
 of you?' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 'That you might, with proper dressing, 
 resemble either Dante, Schiller, or Vandyke. 
 She preferred Vandyke herself; and I pro- 
 mised to get you to buy a big brown beaver, 
 with a broad and dashing rim.' 
 
 ' Tell me honestly — did you or she speak 
 of me at all ? ' I said. 
 
 ' I give you my word of honour that she 
 expects to see you at the Lewisons' on 
 Thursday next.' 
 
 'What did the lady who was with her 
 say?' 
 
 ' The girl in black ? Nothing particular. 
 By the way, I did not catch her name when 
 I was introduced to her.' 
 
 ' I can tell you that,' I said, ' it is Miss 
 Hester Burnham.' 
 
 ' What ? — the girl who has got the big
 
 126 KILMENY. 
 
 house down in that valley you are constantly 
 talking about ? ' 
 
 ' Yes. My father is her gamekeeper. I 
 suppose she, too, is staying at the Lewisons', 
 and I dare say you would consider it as 
 rather appropriate that I should go there 
 and meet her on equal terms ! ' 
 
 ' Monsieur, you mistake. When you 
 enter the -Esthetic Grotto, you leave all 
 such considerations behind. Besides, what 
 does it matter to you whether your father is 
 Miss Burnham's keeper, or the devil, or any- 
 body? You are an artist. I have given 
 you the royal accolade. You are the equal 
 of all men upon the earth, even if your purse 
 be rather short, and your reputation nothing 
 to speak of. But if I had known that the 
 quiet little girl was Miss Burnham, I should 
 have looked at her attentively. I only know 
 that she had singularly fine eyes, and a soft 
 and pretty voice.'
 
 IN regent's park. 127 
 
 I was unwilling to let him imagine that it 
 was because my father was a gamekeeper, 
 (though even that suggested the propriety of 
 my not meeting Miss Burnham) that I did 
 not wish to go to the Lewisons' house. So 
 I told him the whole story of that visit to 
 Burnham which was yet fresh and keen in 
 my memory. When I had finished he 
 looked at me curiously, and said — 
 
 'You are a strange creature. I can't 
 make you out.' 
 
 ' If you had been in my place,' I asked, 
 ' wouldn't you have felt as I felt ? ' 
 
 ' I should have laughed at the whole 
 affair. I should not be glowing with in- 
 dignation and anger and wrath as you are 
 now. Come, suppose we go to Lewisons' on 
 Thursday. Suppose we beg Miss Burnham 
 to rebel against her womanly instincts, and 
 speak the truth, for once. Suppose we ask 
 her '
 
 128 KILMENT. 
 
 ' If I go,' 1 said to him (while I felt my 
 face flush), ' it will be to meet her as an 
 equal.' 
 
 ' Bravely spoken,' said he, ' but you forget 
 one thing : it is very unlikely she will be 
 there. The Lewisons' house is not a 
 hotel;
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE .ESTHETIC GROTTO. 
 
 But long before Thursday evening, my 
 courage failed me. I had had wild ideas of 
 revenge and self-assertion, and all the rest 
 of it ; but not even these would permit me 
 to be guilty of an impertinence ; and an 
 impertinence I certainly considered the 
 notion of my being present as a guest in 
 any house where Miss Burnham was also a 
 guest. I told Heatherleigh I would not 
 go. 
 
 In the meantime 1 applied myself ear- 
 nestly to whatever snatches of work he al- 
 lowed me to undertake. Looking back at that 
 strange probationary period, I can scarcely 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 KILMEXY. 
 
 say whether I had grown bold enough to 
 consider certain dreams of mine possible of 
 realisation ; or whether it was only the fever 
 of impatience and desire, begotten of a cer- 
 tain extravagant purpose that had nothing to 
 do with art, which drove me into constant 
 and painful effort to leap over necessary 
 study and achieve definite results. Heather- 
 leigh looked at the matter from a practical 
 point of view. 
 
 ' You are still labouring under the habit 
 you acquired in Weavle's place,' he said, ' of 
 thinking that you must constantly be work- 
 ing. Why, absolute idleness is the very 
 commissariat of art — that fine, receptive calm 
 in which you are storing up, unconsciously, 
 experiences and reflections for future use. 
 You work as if Weavle were constantly at 
 your elbow.' 
 
 Polly Whistler took great interest in my 
 progress : and used to tell the most auda-
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 131 
 
 cious lies in the form of criticism upon my 
 labours. I was so very grateful for her 
 encouragement and kindness that I was 
 nearly falling in love with her. But Polly 
 had a fine, practical way with her, which not 
 only instantly detected any such tentative 
 lapse from the explicit relations existing 
 between her and the people around her, but 
 also set the matter straight again with a 
 surprising and business-like swiftness. Early 
 love, of this nebulous and uncertain kind, 
 thrives upon secrecy, but is killed by frank- 
 ness ; and Polly was uncommonly frank. 
 
 ' I'll be a mother to you, if you like,' she 
 said to me, in her merry way, 'but you 
 mustn't fall in love with me, because then 
 you would get angry because I didn't fall in 
 love with you. It seems to me a pity that 
 men and women can't be friends with each 
 other without falling in love and spoiling it 
 all, becoming jealous and cantankerous and
 
 1S2 KILMEXY. 
 
 exacting. Everybody should take a lesson 
 from Mr. Heatlierleigh and me.' 
 
 I looked up at her as she uttered the last 
 words, and she inadvertently dropped her 
 eyes. 
 
 To return, however, to the proposed 
 meeting at Lewison's house. On the Wed- 
 nesday, Heath erleigh brought me a positive 
 assurance that Miss Burnham could not be 
 present on the following evening, and also 
 Mr. and Mrs. Lewison's cards, with their 
 compliments. In the end, I went. 
 
 This was my first introduction into any- 
 thing like society ; and for a time I could 
 scarcely tell, myself, what my first impressions 
 were. The chief thing that struck me, I 
 think, was the extreme quiet and repose of 
 the peoj^le. They seemed to live in a deli- 
 cate atmosphere, which caused small sensa- 
 tions to appear large to them. They never 
 had to emphasize what they had to say; and
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 133 
 
 there was a general apprehension of minute 
 points and appearances which made me a 
 httle nervous. The very air of the room 
 seemed to be fine and watchful and critical. 
 
 Mr. Lewison was a tall, fair man, with a 
 partially bald head, dark blue eyes, and a 
 red moustache. He had a peculiarly bland, 
 easy manner about him which puzzled me ; 
 because it seemed to Hft him so entirely 
 above that sphere of struggle, and competi- 
 tion, and passionate impulses with which I 
 was familiar. I thmk he had been in busi- 
 ness ; at any rate, he was now hving as a 
 private gentleman, his chief amusement 
 being the making of his house an open resort 
 for all sorts of artistic and literary persons. 
 
 When Heatherleigh and I entered the 
 large and brilliant room, there were not 
 more than a dozen people there. Miss 
 Lesley was at the piano, singing a rather 
 commonplace ballad in her splendid style.
 
 134 KILMEXY. 
 
 She had an excellent soprano voice, tenderly 
 expressive, and perfectly cultivated. There 
 was a gentleman by her side, in evening 
 dress, who was turning over the leaves of 
 music for her. 
 
 I was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Lewison, and found myself surprisingly at 
 ease with both. Indeed, I found at this 
 time that, however apprehensive I might be 
 about meeting any stranger, I had no sooner 
 begun to enter into conversation than my 
 embarrassment vanished. Besides, all the 
 responsibihties and formalities lay upon 
 Heatherleigh. 
 
 When Miss Lesley had finished singing, 
 she took the arm of the gentleman who had 
 been waiting upon her, and crossed the 
 room towards us. I saw with dismay that 
 her companion was Mr. Alfred Burnham. 
 Instinctively I glanced round the room 
 asain to see that she whom I had feared to
 
 THE ^ESTHETIC GKOTTO. 135 
 
 meet was not there. No ; there was no one 
 even resembling her. 
 
 The young man with the hook nose, the 
 cold grey eyes, and closely-cropped yellow- 
 ish hair moved off to another part of the 
 room, and Miss Lesley was left talking to 
 Heatherleigh. Then Heatherleigh intro- 
 duced me to her ; and, somehow or other, I 
 found myself seated beside her, on a couch, 
 turning over a collection of proof-engravings. 
 
 I had Kstened to her voice but for a 
 few moments, when I began to wonder how 
 Heatherleigh could have spoken so unfairly 
 of the girl. Was it to surprise me with the 
 contrast ? She had a face that, in spite of 
 its full-grown and developed beauty — its 
 broad, fine tints, and dazzling complexion — 
 was almost childhke in its simplicity of ex- 
 pression; large, blue eyes of great tender- 
 ness of colour and depth ; a full little mouth, 
 rosy and plump; a somewhat low, smooth.
 
 136 KILMENY. 
 
 Grecian brow ; and great masses of yellow 
 liair, that were artistically arranged and 
 decorated with a broad band of violet 
 velvet. She wore a low white dress, with a 
 train of heavy violet satin, and there was 
 round her white neck a thick gold serpent, 
 whose diamond head and ruby eyes, lying 
 upon her bosom, scarcely rose and fell as 
 she breathed or laughed. That this glorious 
 creature should waste upon me — upon me 
 alone — a single thought or word would at 
 another time have seemed incredibly absurd 
 to me ; but under the spell of her voice — 
 which had a scarcely perceptible lisp that 
 was singularly quaint and attractive — I for- 
 got all considerations of whatever kind, and 
 went on talking to her as if I were in a 
 dream, only to hear the sound of her voice 
 in reply. 
 
 She asked me if I liked the song she had 
 sung. There was but one answer to the
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 137 
 
 question : perhaps I did not limit my ex- 
 pressions as I ought to have done. 
 
 ' I am so glad,' she said, with a pretty- 
 smile in her eyes, as she played with an 
 ivory paper-knife that she held in her tiny 
 white fingers, 'because here, you know, 
 they don't care for anything but classical 
 music. I feel very guilty when I sing any- 
 thing that is simple and commonplace, and 
 I am so pleased to discover that some parti- 
 cular one here or there has been enjoying 
 it. You like ballad-music, then ? ' 
 
 ' I never heard any kind of music, played 
 on any kind of instrument, that I did not 
 like,' I said enthusiastically, but with abso- 
 lute truth — ' so long as it was in tune. I am 
 like a confirmed drunkard, who will drink 
 anything that will intoxicate him ; and the 
 effect that music has upon me is more in- 
 toxication than anything else.' 
 
 ' But Mr. Heatherleigh says you are an
 
 138 KILMENT. 
 
 artist. Why, with such a passion for music, 
 did you not become a musician ? ' 
 
 ' I am neither an artist, nor a musician, 
 nor anythuag else that produces,' I said; 'but 
 there is no sort of art that I do not enjoy. 
 As for being a musician, I dare say I should 
 keep in tune if I played on the drum.' 
 
 'But if you enjoy every kind of music,' 
 she said, with a kind of childish wonder, 
 ' what is the value of a compliment from you ? 
 Perhaps you thought the song I sung rather 
 stupid, although you liked the jingle of the 
 music' 
 
 .' Well, I did,' I said. 
 
 ' But you must prefer some kind of music 
 to other kinds.' 
 
 ' I should have preferred hearing you sing 
 a German song that you once sung when I 
 was listening outside, at the railings.' 
 
 ' Ah, do you like German music ? ' she 
 said, turning her large and beautiful eyes
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 139 
 
 upon my face, and blinding me. ' I love it. 
 I think it is charming.' 
 
 Now ' charming ' is not exactly the adjec- 
 tive which I should have applied to German 
 music. I never could see prettiness in the 
 sea. But then, Miss Lesley was a very young 
 girl; and very young girls are not always 
 apt at choosing the proper word to describe 
 their emotion or opinion. If you had looked 
 at the perfect flower of her face, at its 
 changing lights and tenderness, you would 
 have seen that the pathos and utter misery 
 of the old German ballads, and the mystic 
 grandeur of the German classical music, 
 were somehow themselves expressed there. 
 
 We talked of all manner of things — of the 
 pictures before us, of artistic subjects gene- 
 rally, of the people in the room. On the 
 last point, she was very confidential; de- 
 scribing not only the one or two celebrities 
 present, but also her own impressions of
 
 140 KILMENY. 
 
 them. What chiefly struck me about her 
 was her childUke desire to obtain informa- 
 tion. Once or twice, I turned and regarded 
 her, to see if she were making fun : but 
 no — the large, infantine blue eyes still 
 begged for the knowledge she had de- 
 manded. She was so anxious to acquire a 
 correct taste in artistic matters, she said. 
 She did not wish to appear stupid ; and she 
 would be very grateful if I would privately 
 give her some little assistance. 
 
 ' You see how I am situated,' she said, as 
 she pretended to turn over the engravings 
 which neither of us heeded. ' I meet here 
 men and women who are profoundly learned 
 in subjects of which I know nothing. I 
 dare not speak of these things and confess 
 my ignorance, or they would look upon me 
 as a barbarian. Now, with regard to old 
 pictures, the only rule I have been able to 
 make out for myself is to admire whatever is
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 141 
 
 very dirty, very ugly, and indistinguishable. 
 In crockery — enamelled faience, don't they 
 call it ? — in china and glass and such 
 things, I find my only chance is to seize 
 upon what is more than usually absurd and 
 extravagant. If the lizards, frogs, and eels 
 on the plate are very ugly and ridiculous, 
 then one is safe in praising it ; and if the 
 drmking-glass be dirty, of a bad shape, and 
 useless, it is certain to be some rare speci- 
 men of Venetian or some such ware. I find 
 it the same in other things. If one is turn- 
 ing over a collection of ferns, for instance, 
 one may be certain that the ugliest and 
 most insignificant are the rarest. Of course, 
 it is only my ignorance that makes me think 
 so ; and I should be so grateful to any one 
 who would kindly explain to me the real 
 beauty of artistic marvels. But then, it 
 would have to be quite secret — this instruc- 
 tion. When grown-up people learn to
 
 142 KILMEFT. 
 
 dance, you know, they are very much 
 ashamed of the process, and make it quite 
 private. Suppose you were to go and bring 
 me the black thing that Mr. Lewison has 
 just put down — on the top shelf of that 
 Chinese what-not.' 
 
 It was a Japanese jug in bronze, with a 
 curious handle, and a long, slender spout. 
 The design of the jug was very graceful, 
 and the workmanship remarkably delicate. 
 I fetched it, and showed it to Miss Lesley, 
 who regarded it with that air of pretty 
 wonder which was almost the typical ex- 
 pression of her face. 
 
 ' Shall we go into the room opposite ?' she 
 said. 'They use it as a sort of picture- 
 gallery ; and I suppose you have not seen 
 the pictures.' 
 
 She took my arm, and we left. The 
 large room we found to be lit up, although 
 there was no one in it. There was an im-
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 143 
 
 posing array of pictures all round, and one 
 of them especially having caught my eye as 
 I entered, we went towards it. I can re- 
 member only that it was the figure of a 
 young man, who sat dejected and alone 
 amid a curious flood of golden light. The 
 whole character of the painting was Greek ; 
 and it was apparently decorative in treat- 
 ment. Despite the obvious mannerism of 
 it, it was a work of singular power. 
 
 ' Isn't it very pretty ? ' she said, with the 
 same expression of gentle wonder on her 
 
 face. ' It was done by , who is a great 
 
 friend of 's, the poet, whom you will see 
 
 here to-night most likely. It represents 
 some story, Mr. Heatherleigh told me ; but 
 he did not say what it was.* 
 
 ' I know the story,' I said, as soon as I 
 heard the name of the young poet, who had 
 then just made his appearance, and who was 
 puzzling the sober-minded critics with the
 
 144 KILMENY. 
 
 reckless impertinences and wilfulnesses of his 
 unmistakable genius. 
 
 ' Will you tell it to me ? ' she said, sitting 
 down upon a couch. 
 
 'How can I translate it into prose?' I 
 answered. ' However, the story is of a young 
 Scandinavian poet who dies. You find him 
 in the world of spirits, wandering about 
 moody and discontented. Odin comes to him, 
 and asks him why he complains. He says 
 it is because the maiden whom he loved on 
 earth must now have grown old, and grey, 
 and wrinkled, and when she, too, comes into 
 heaven, he will not be able to recognise 
 her. 
 
 ' " Does she love you still ? " asks the 
 god. 
 
 ' " Her love is like mine," says the poet ; 
 " it is the same always." 
 
 ' So Odin sends him down to earth, and 
 bids him seek out his old love. He wan-
 
 THE iESTHETIC GROTTO. 145 
 
 ders about, and cannot find her. At last 
 he enters a chamber, and finds there the 
 dead body of an old and wrinkled woman, 
 and they tell him that the dead woman is 
 the woman he loved. At first he is sorrow- 
 ful and then he is glad ; for he says, " I still 
 love her ; and now I shall know her when I 
 get back to heaven." So he bids farewell to 
 earth again, and prepares to meet his love 
 grown old and careworn. But he is just 
 entering heaven when he sees before him, 
 with a smile on her face, the very maiden 
 whom he knew in his youth. She comes 
 forward, and takes him by the hand ; but 
 he is half-afraid, for he thinks that Odin has 
 played him a trick. 
 
 ' " Are you really my httle Frida, whom I 
 loved long ago ? " 
 
 ' " I am your little Frida ; don't you know 
 me ? " she asks. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 KILMENY. 
 
 ' " But I saw you lying dead ; and you 
 were old and grey." 
 
 ' " And don't you know," she says, " that 
 the gods have decreed that whoever loves 
 truly shall always be young? I shall be 
 always to you your little Frida, whom you 
 loved long ago." ' 
 
 When I had finished my poor effort at 
 conveying a notion of the story, she sighed 
 gently, and said — 
 
 ' How very pretty ! Do you know many 
 of these stories ? ' 
 
 ' No,' I said, ' for that is the story of a 
 modern poem ; but old Scandinavian and 
 German poetry is full of such legends.' 
 
 ' I should like to listen to them for ever,' 
 she said, with a sort of pleased curiosity in 
 her eyes. 
 
 Then we rose, and made a tour of the 
 pictures. Her remarks puzzled and per- 
 plexed me. It was not that she made
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 147 
 
 any great mistakes, or talked nonsense ; 
 but that she seemed to have the same 
 appreciation of every quahty of excellence. 
 Nothing seemed to affect her beyond a 
 certain point ; and everything seemed to 
 reach that point. We crossed a very pretty 
 hearth-rug, and I drew her attention to the 
 quiet and artistic pattern of it — so different 
 from the staring bunches of red roses and 
 white ribbon which I had seen in uphol- 
 sterers' windows. Well, she appeared to 
 be as much struck by that as by a small 
 moonlight scene of Turner's, which was a 
 wonder of idealised and yet literal faith- 
 fulness. Sometimes, when a particular pic- 
 ture seemed very striking or powerful to 
 me, I almost begged her to be a little 
 more enthusiastic in her admiration, and 
 then she always was — in words. By this 
 time we had grown quite famihar with each 
 other. She confessed afterwards that she 
 
 L 2
 
 148 KILMENY. 
 
 was astonished by my easy frankness ; but 
 then I knew nothing of the reserve that 
 society demands, and she undoubtedly failed 
 to impress it upon me. She so little over- 
 awed me that I began to wonder what most 
 affected her — on what side of her character 
 she was most receptive and impressionable. 
 For pictures, it was clear, she cared little ; 
 or, rather, she had a general hking, which 
 may have been indiscriminate through im- 
 perfect education. But she was never 
 moved by a picture ; and I gathered from 
 her admissions that she had no great pre- 
 ference for any kind of music. I wondered 
 whether, on hearing Mozart's Sonata in A 
 sharp, or one of Mendelssohn's splendid 
 choruses, she would only express a faint 
 surprise, as she did on meeting a master- 
 piece in painting. Or was it that all the 
 artistic side of her nature was cold and 
 shallow, while in matters of personal
 
 THE ^ESTHETIC GROTTO. 149 
 
 feeling she was recej)tive and warm and 
 deep ? 
 
 Perhaps some temporary indisposition 
 might have blunted her artistic perceptions. 
 I have noticed that people who were ready 
 to over-praise mediocre work, and be 
 quite enthusiastic about good work, when 
 they entered a picture-exhibition, passed 
 over with indifference or cold distaste the 
 very best pictures when they drew near 
 the end of their visit — so powerful an agent 
 is physical fatigue in destroying the keen- 
 ness of the sesthetic sense. Perhaps Miss 
 Lesley had a headache, or was annoyed by 
 the non-receipt of a letter ; and only out 
 of courtesy expressed a vague acquiescence 
 when I ventured to praise a picture. 
 
 At all events, on the emotional side, no 
 one could question the generous width and 
 tenderness of her nature. To look into her 
 eyes was to kill doubt. The warm love
 
 150 KILMENT. 
 
 light of them seemed to thaw reserve, and 
 draw you closer to her. You could not 
 help .speaking in a low voice to her; you 
 could not help, if you looked at her eyes, 
 unbosoming your most secret confidences 
 and begging for a return of this more than 
 friendly frankness. She seemed to have 
 around her an atmosphere of warmth and 
 kindliness — an atmosphere silent and deli- 
 cious, that predisposed you to waking 
 dreams. To be near her was to breathe 
 poetry ; and yet, when you regarded the 
 statuesque beauty of her bust and neck 
 and head, the fine play of colour and light 
 in her complexion, the warm, supple con- 
 tour of her face, and the life and tenderness 
 of her eyes, you were puzzled to understand 
 why this glorious woman should, even in 
 one direction, exhibit a hardness or thinness 
 of character that seemed so inconsistent with 
 her soft and stately and yielding beauty.
 
 THE .ESTHETIC GEOTTO. 151 
 
 I was recalled to myself by hearing some 
 voices, and when I looked up (we had again 
 sat down, and I was listening intently to 
 what she was saying) I found Heatherleigh's 
 eyes fixed on me, with a peculiar mocking 
 expression in them. He had been led into 
 the room by Mr. Lewison, who was talking 
 to him ; but when I looked up he was 
 quietly regarding us both, with a sardonic 
 smile on his face. It was a corrosive and 
 destructive smile, that seemed to me to 
 have something demoniacal in it. Did he 
 imagine, then, that I was incHned to play 
 Faust to his Mephistopheles ? No sooner 
 had Miss Lesley perceived their presence 
 than she asked me to take her into the 
 other apartment ; I gladly consented, and 
 so we walked across the room. 
 
 A httle incident occurred as we were 
 going out. 
 
 ' Miss Lesley,' said Mr. Lewison, ' do you
 
 152 KILMENY. 
 
 know why, according to Mr. Heatherleigh, 
 we ought to be thankful that we are 
 Christians ? ' 
 
 ' No,' she said, simply. 
 
 ' Because, if we were not, some other 
 nation would probably try to make us 
 Christians.' 
 
 She uttered a musical little laugh and 
 passed on. But when we had got outside 
 into the hall she said — 
 
 'I do dislike conundrums. I never dis- 
 covered the fun of a conundrum even after 
 it was explained to me.' 
 
 'But that isn't quite a conundrum,' I 
 said, with some surprise ; ' he means that 
 the process of being made a Christian 
 against your will is rather ' 
 
 ' I beg you not to waste your time in 
 trying to explain a joke to me,' she said, 
 laughing, but still with the most obvious 
 candour and honesty. 'I assure you I
 
 THE .ESTHETIC GROTTO. 153 
 
 never could understand the simplest of 
 them. People will not believe me ; but I 
 cannot even understand the meaning or 
 enjoyment of a pun. They show me that 
 they say two things, using the same word 
 in each; but I don't see the fun of it — I 
 don't see why they shouldn't use another 
 word. Don't you think me very stupid? 
 Of course, I know it is clever to make 
 a pun ; but, if I laugh at one, it is 
 merely as a comphment, as you are 
 expected to admire a painting you don't 
 care for.' 
 
 Then she seemed to recall herself, 
 shrugged her shoulders slightly, and laughed 
 the pretty little laugh again. 
 
 ' There are some people one cannot help 
 talking freely to ; and perhaps I have been 
 creating in your mind a notion that I am a 
 monster of ignorance and dulness. Is it 
 so.?'
 
 154 KILMENY. 
 
 Now I never could pay a compliment to 
 a woman. If I liked her, and admired this 
 or that in her character, I could and always 
 did become enthusiastic, and was in nowise 
 loth to let her know my exaggerated 
 opinion of her excellences. But absolutely 
 to pay a compliment, in the form of a com- 
 pliment, to a woman who drove me into it — 
 no. I remained silent — perhaps a trifle 
 vexed that I could not easily fence off the 
 question as any one accustomed to the small 
 word-warfare of society might easily have 
 done. 
 
 Fortunately we were just entering the 
 other room ; and so my embarrassment 
 was partly concealed. 
 
 ' Why, she has come after all ! ' exclaimed 
 my companion. 
 
 The next moment I caught a glimpse of a 
 small darkly-dressed figure ; and I knew that 
 it must be Miss Burnham. I dared not
 
 THE JSSTHETIC GROTTO. 155 
 
 look her in the face — indeed, I scarcely 
 knew what I did, as Bonnie Lesley re- 
 hnquished my arm and went forward to 
 greet her friend. Was it she or I who 
 effected the separation ? I only know that 
 I walked away, without once turning my 
 head ; but I heard Hester Burnham's voice, 
 and I fancied a tall gentleman who was by 
 her side must be Colonel Burnham. I went 
 to the other end of the room, to a small 
 table which stood in a corner and was 
 covered with works in terra cotta, and there 
 I busied myself partly with them and partly 
 with devising some means of escape. I had 
 no time to think of how I had been led into 
 the trap ; my only desire was to get out of 
 it. It was clear that Miss Burnham had 
 arrived unexpectedly ; and I knew that in 
 any case Heatherleigh would not have 
 intentionally deceived me ; so there was 
 nothing for it but to get quickly away from
 
 156 KILMENY. 
 
 the possible inconveniences and annoyances 
 of this ill chance. 
 
 I could not walk out of the house and 
 go home, without offering some apology 
 or explanation to Mr. or Mrs. Lewison. 
 But to get out of the room was my first 
 consideration; afterwards, I could seek 
 Heatherleigh and Mr. Lewison, and make 
 some sort of excuse. 
 
 I turned; and there they were — those 
 eyes! She came forward to me — she was 
 alone — and held out her hand. Did not 
 I remember the exact counterpart of this 
 little scene, happening in my mother's room 
 long ago ? There was the same friendly 
 light in the wonderful, wise eyes ; there 
 was the same queenly ease and grace in the 
 position, of the small figure — the same 
 tender entreaty in her voice, as she said — 
 
 ' Have you not forgiven me yet ? ' 
 
 And I was possessed by the same insuf-
 
 THE ^ESTHETIC GROTTO. 157 
 
 ferable sense of clumsiness and boorishness, 
 as I stood there perplexed and embarrassed, 
 wishing the floor might open under me. 
 Of course, I knew that she wanted no for- 
 giveness — that she did not imagine she had 
 done me any wTong, I knew that the 
 sohcitude of her voice and the look in her 
 eyes w^ere but part of that polite training 
 which people in her position necessarily 
 acquire by good example and tuition. It 
 was her sense of courtesy that made her 
 come as a beggar to me, and endeavour to 
 put me at my ease by assuming an attitude 
 which was absurd. If she had accidentally 
 hurt the feelings of her coachman or cook, 
 would she not have been equally desirous to 
 rectify the WTong ? And here was I, not 
 able to meet her on equal terms — not know- 
 ing in what fashion to put aside this inver- 
 sion of our natural and real relations. If I 
 had been educated to the fine sensitiveness
 
 158 KILMENY. 
 
 and delicacy with which well-bred persons 
 treat such matters, I should have been 
 able to let her know that I understood an 
 effort of courtesy which was prompted by 
 her sense of duty to herself — that I accepted 
 it for what it was worth, and held my 
 position in the affair as nothing so long as 
 she was satisfied — that I did not mistake 
 her humihty, but rather looked upon it as 
 a species of proper pride. 
 
 All this passed hurriedly and confusedly 
 through my mind, with the painful con- 
 viction that she must be imagining that I 
 took her words literally. Imagine a man so 
 unacquainted with the symbolic usages of 
 society as to take the phrase ' your obedient 
 servant,' coming from a stranger, as literal, 
 and presume upon it! In lesser degree, 
 such was the position I saw that I should 
 assume in Hester Burnham's eyes. Finally, 
 I blurted out —
 
 THE iESTHETIC GROTTO. 159 
 
 ' You are very kind, Miss Burnliam. But 
 you know that you have nothing to forgive. 
 Why should you take the trouble to recall 
 that — that mistake ? ' 
 
 She looked at me for a second ; and I 
 thanked God I had nothing to conceal from 
 those calm and searching strange eyes. 
 
 ' You won't shake hands with me ? ' she 
 said. 
 
 It seemed to me that she sighed as she 
 spoke. I could have flung myself at her 
 feet, had I not been vexed at the same 
 moment with the thought that this look of 
 hers was another bit of that delicate by-play 
 which an extreme social courtesy demanded. 
 And it seemed to me monstrous that, merely 
 to preserve her personal pride in being just 
 and courteous to all persons, she should go 
 the length of talking to me, who must be 
 an insignificant nothing in her eyes, in a 
 way that otherwise might have driven a
 
 160 KILMENT. 
 
 man mad. Had she but meant what her 
 look and speech and tone conveyed, I 
 would have said to her, ' You are too kind 
 to one such as I am. What can I give 
 you in return for your kindness ? I have 
 nothing of any value, except it be my life : 
 if it will but give you five minutes' pleasure, 
 I will lay it with joy at your feet.' 
 
 What I did say was this — 
 
 ' I hope you won't speak of it any more, 
 Miss Burnham. It is too small a matter for 
 you to think twice about.' 
 
 And as I did not consider it was for her 
 and me to shake hands, I did not offer her 
 my hand. 
 
 She turned away then, a httle proudly 
 perhaps, and took the arm of Mr. Alfred 
 Burnham, who was coming towards her. 
 Mrs. Lewison came and sat down beside 
 me. I don't know what she talked about, 
 for Hester Burnham was now sinmng.
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 161 
 
 Then I left the room, and found that 
 Heatherleigh, with one or two other men, 
 were in the smoking-room upstairs. Hea- 
 therleigh was in an excellent humour ; and 
 as he lay in a chair, with his great frame 
 stretched out, he poured forth a continual 
 stream of quaint and odd suggestions, happy- 
 repartees, and occasional sharp sayings, that 
 sometimes hit one or other of his com- 
 panions a little severely. For instance, 
 when I entered, a young man, elaborately 
 dressed and scented, was raihng against 
 women, quoting ancient authorities to prove 
 that women were regarded as of the brute 
 creation, and finally declaring that he 
 beheved them to be a superior species of 
 monkey. Heatherleigh was irritated, I 
 could see ; and no sooner had the philoso- 
 pher advanced this opinion of his, than 
 Heatherleigh, with a sharp glance said — 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 KILMENY. 
 
 ' That is why you don't marry, I sup- 
 pose — fearing the ties of consanguinity.' 
 
 Now there was a good deal more bru- 
 tahty than wit about this remark ; but I 
 constantly observed that, on this one sub- 
 ject of woman, Heatherleigh never would 
 suffer in his presence the little affectations 
 of cynicism which are common in ordinary 
 talk. On any other topic it was absolutely 
 impossible to stir him into anything hke 
 a temper. If you flatly contradicted every 
 position he took up, and went dead against 
 his most favourite opinions, he would lie 
 with his head up in the air, and a quiet smile 
 on his face, as if he were balancing your 
 theory alongside his own on the point of 
 his nose. He would play with your opinion 
 as he played with his own, and would put 
 it into comical lights with an easy grace 
 and wit which were irresistible, because 
 they were the offspring of a fine fancy and
 
 THE ^ESTHETIC GROTTO. 163 
 
 a tender disposition. You might tickle him 
 all over, and he would only smile ; but when 
 you spoke sneeringly of women (as many 
 of his bachelor artist acquaintances were 
 inclined to do) you pricked his eye, and 
 then he would spring up and deal you a 
 blow with the utmost savagery of which he 
 was capable. 
 
 I wanted him to go home ; but a mes- 
 sage came at this moment to the effect that 
 supper was ready. Heatherleigh insisted 
 on my staying; because, he said, Bonnie 
 Lesley had complained to him that I had 
 run away from her, and because she ex- 
 pected me to take her in to supper. 
 
 ' Is there anything particularly laughable 
 in that ? ' I asked, seeing that there was 
 a curious smile on his face. 
 
 He looked at me for a moment. 
 
 ' Well,' he said, ' men hke to see other 
 men innocent and arulUble, for it flatters
 
 164 XIOIENY. 
 
 their own astuteness. Of course, too, it 
 multiplies their chances of existence. But 
 you are so very, very believing and simple, 
 Ted, that you are a positive wonder. The 
 Midianitish woman has already captured 
 you, merely by staring at you.' 
 
 I was very vexed to find myself incapable 
 of replying to his raillery ; but it was on 
 Miss Lesley's account that I was vexed. It 
 seemed to me unfair that Heath erleigh 
 should, even in joke, talk of Bonnie Lesley 
 as of some interested and deceitful woman, 
 and I could not help recalhng my suspicion 
 that something underlay this fun — that 
 Heatherleigh had some cause to feel spiteful 
 against her, and was thus revenging himself 
 in a petty and unworthy way. Nor was 
 this impression lessened by some chance 
 remarks made by Miss Lesley herself, as I 
 sat next her at supper. 
 
 ' I don't believe,' she said, ' that artists
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 165 
 
 have souls. I believe that artists, and 
 actors, and authors — all the people who have 
 to live by art of any kind — sell their soul to 
 the pubhc, and leave none of it for home 
 use. They can assume various characters, 
 and pretend to have a regard for this or 
 that, but it is only a pretence. They are 
 empty inside. They have neither a soul 
 nor a heart — they have sold both to the 
 public, and live upon the result. Oh ! I 
 know it.' 
 
 ' Do you mean ? ' 
 
 'Look at Mr. Heatherleigh,' she con- 
 tinued. 'He could act being in love with 
 any woman, and she might believe him, and 
 yet I am certain that his profession has 
 taken it out of his power to be seriously 
 and honestly affectionate towards anybody 
 in the world.' 
 
 ' You are quite mistaken, then,' I said. 
 ' You will meet with very few men who are
 
 166 KILMEXY. 
 
 as generous and disinterested and affec- 
 tionate as Heatlierleigli.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I am so glad to hear you say that,' 
 she repUed, with that air of pretty wonder 
 which was so irritating, for it left you in 
 doubt as to whether she understood, or 
 believed, or cared for what you had been 
 saying. 
 
 But it seemed to me that she knew, or 
 fancied she knew, something more of 
 Heatherleigh than she chose to express, 
 and I hoped that my true and honest 
 friend had not suffered by some mischance 
 in her estimation. Indeed, I ventured to 
 press my opinion on the point, for it seemed 
 to me almost painful that these two, who 
 had so much that was beautiful and loveable 
 about them, should be separated by some 
 misunderstanding. She listened to all I 
 had to say, and appeared deeply interested. 
 Nor had I any desire to cut short my
 
 THE ESTHETIC GROTTO. 167 
 
 speech, for it was an indescribable pleasure to 
 me to watch everything I said reflected sym- 
 pathetically in the large and expressive eyes. 
 The various phases of attention and depreca- 
 tion and astonishment that passed over them 
 were so singularly beautiful. But a quiet as- 
 tonishment was their normal expression, and 
 it was so far normal that it seemed to answer 
 what you were saying, when she herself 
 was thinking of something else. She ap- 
 peared to have some curiosity to hear what 
 you said, and every new sentence seemed 
 to convey another pretty little surprise to 
 her, but in time you began to see that all 
 your efforts to interest her only awoke the 
 same result. It was not that she was pre- 
 occupied or absent. But she seemed so 
 contented with hei*self (as surely she had a 
 right to be), that she cared only for the 
 pleasure of sitting still, and being tickled by 
 small novelties of information. I grew to
 
 168 KILMENY. 
 
 wonder whether, if a Hghtning-bolt shot 
 past her, and spht the mantel-piece beyond, 
 she would do more than turn the big, child- 
 like eyes upon the place, and regard it with 
 a bright and pleased curiosity. 
 
 On our way home Heatherleigh did not 
 choose to speak about Miss Lesley, and I 
 was rather glad of it. But he questioned 
 me about Hester Burnham, and I told him 
 minutely and accurately everything that 
 had occurred. 
 
 ' You are a perpetual conundrum to me,' 
 he said ; ' I can't make you out. I never 
 saw such exaggerated self-depreciation 
 joined to such insufferable pride.'
 
 169 
 
 CHAPTEE Yll. 
 
 SOME OLD FEIEXDS. 
 
 I FEAR it will be impossible for me to convey 
 to the reader any sense of my great enjoy- 
 ment when it first began to dawn upon me 
 that I was really of use to Heatherleigh. 
 Those who have been dehcately brought up, 
 with wide possibihties around them, with 
 ease in money matters, and innumerable 
 avenues of pleasurable activity lying in front 
 of them, cannot understand how hard and 
 gloomy and dismal was the pall which had 
 hung over my life, and the presence of which 
 had always seemed to be inevitable. And 
 now there was a rent overhead, and a stirring 
 of free wind ; and a ray of Heaven's own
 
 170 KILMENY. 
 
 sunlight fell upon me, and found me without 
 words to express my gratitude. 
 
 Heatherleigh, in his lazy way, used to 
 make fun of me (in order to protect himself) 
 whenever I ventured to hint of the debt I 
 owed him. Generous to a fault, he shrank 
 with an exceeding sensitiveness from being 
 considered generous, and you could not 
 have made him more uncomfortable than by 
 showing him what you thought of his good- 
 ness. So I nursed my great debt towards 
 him in my heart ; and wondered if ever I 
 should have the chance of revealing. my 
 respect and admiration and affection for 
 this good man. I used to think that if he 
 and I were to love the same woman, and 
 she loved me, I should leave her, for liis 
 sake. 
 
 ' What an irritating fellow you are ! ' he 
 said to me, one day, when I was beseeching 
 him to go on with some work, that I might
 
 SOME OLD FRIEXDS. 171 
 
 get something to do. ' Why can't you take 
 life easily? Nobody will thank you — 
 certainly not I — for worrying yourself to 
 death.' 
 
 ' But I cannot help it,' I said. ' Weasel put 
 the notion into my blood — and it will always 
 remain in it — that I ought never to be a 
 moment idle in working-hours. I can't help 
 it. I feel wretched unless when I am work- 
 ing ; and if I sit talking to you, I have an 
 uneasy feeling that some one may open the 
 door, glide in on slippers, and scowl and 
 scold. I never enjoy taking a walk in the 
 day-time — I expect to see some one some- 
 where who will ask me why I am doing 
 nothing while all men are working.' 
 
 ' You are Hke some unfortunate wretch 
 who has been all his life in prison, and who 
 sickens and dies in free air for want of his 
 ordinary employment of scraping the wall 
 with his finger-nail.'
 
 172 KILMENY. 
 
 ' This morning, coming down here at half- 
 past ten, I saw Weasel in the street, and I 
 half expected him to come up and ask why 
 the devil I was so late, and if I wasn't 
 ashamed to be cheating my master. Just 
 now, I'd much rather work than sit talking 
 like this.' 
 
 ' Confound you, do you think I am going 
 to pander to your diseased appetite ? If you 
 must work, work at home, and don't bother 
 me.' 
 
 ' I have been working at home.' 
 
 Then I told him all about it. I had been 
 trying a picture on my own account for 
 some months. I began it in the early part 
 of the year, and, as the dayhght widened, I 
 rose earlier and earlier, until now I got 
 between five and six hours at it every morn- 
 ing before I hurriedly swallowed my break- 
 fast. I used to get up at four, paint until 
 ten, and then eat somethinaj or other and be
 
 SOME OLD FRIENDS. 173 
 
 down at Heatherleigh's studio by half-past. 
 There were many reasons why I did not 
 wish Heatherleigh to know about my 
 labouring with this picture, chief of them 
 being that I did not wish him to see it until 
 it was in some sort presentable ; although 
 had I shown it to him, I might have spared 
 myself an immense deal of toil and vexation. 
 I was working without tools, to begin with. " 
 I had to place one chair on the top of 
 another to form an easel ; then the canvas 
 was tied to the back of the upper chair by a 
 bit of string, while I sat on a stool. The 
 colours I had bought were of the cheapest 
 kind ; but I had acquired under Heatherleigh 
 considerable experience in heightening and 
 tempering dull or crude pigments. Of 
 course, I had no models ; but the recollec- 
 tion of form was always easy to me. And 
 yet the amount of pain, physical and mental, 
 that the incessant struggle with my own
 
 174 KIL.MEXY. 
 
 ignorance and inexperience gave me, was 
 indescribable. Again and again I painted 
 portions over — here rubbing out the damp 
 work of the previous day, there coating over 
 what was too dry for that operation. It is 
 conceivable that the canvas crot into a 
 deplorable state ; and at last I drove a knife 
 straight through it. It was my second effort 
 at the same picture which was on the stocks 
 when Heatherleigh spoke ; and of it, such as 
 it was, more may be said hereafter. 
 
 In the meantime, Heatherleigh besought 
 me to moderate the vehemence of my labour. 
 He professed himself unable even to supply 
 sketches for me to fill up. He was growing 
 too rich, he said — he should have to die and 
 leave his wealth to the hospitals. More than 
 one dealer owed him money — an unprece- 
 dented thing — which he had never asked 
 for. And with that, he suddenly slapped 
 his knee.
 
 SOME OLD FRIEXDS. 175 
 
 'Ted,' he said, ' I have a grand idea. Let's 
 both put on a spurt for the next month or 
 five weeks. The Lewisons are going down 
 to Brighton in June ; and you and I will go 
 too — for a grand long hohday of magnificent 
 laziness. We can make up by that time 
 200Z., I know ; and we will go fair halves 
 in it. Now don't blush like a school girl, 
 whether you are vexed or pleased — you do 
 three-fourths of the work and you ought at 
 least to have half the money. Or we will 
 have a common stock, if you like it better. 
 Is it a bargain — five weeks' hard work, and 
 then a month at the sea ? ' 
 
 The sea ! I heard the sound of waves 
 then, as clearly as I can hear them now, 
 down on the beach there, xls clearly as I 
 behold it now, from this window, I looked 
 through the mist that was before my eyes, 
 and I saw the great, breezy, green sea in
 
 176 KILMENY. 
 
 the sunlight, with the joyous white laugh 
 of its running waves. 
 
 Then I told Heatherleigh how there was 
 not even a river down in the Missenden 
 valley in which I had been brought up ; 
 how the farthest views you could get from 
 the chalk hills only revealed extensions of a 
 great cultivated plain ; how the sea and all 
 its strange associations — so different from 
 those of the land, so beautiful, and wild, and 
 terrible — produced a sort of dehrium in me ; 
 and how even the remembrance of it was 
 to me full of the sadness which is somehow 
 interwoven with the beauty of all beautiful 
 things. 
 
 We talked of Brighton then, and of the 
 sea, and of what was to be done there. 
 Miss Lesley was certain to be with the 
 Lewisons. Perhaps the Burnhams would be 
 down. 
 
 ' I know several other people,' said Hea-
 
 SOME OLD FRIENDS. 177 
 
 therleigh ; ' they are all nice sort of people, 
 who have the courage to leave the London 
 season at its height, and catch the flush of 
 the year at the seaside.' 
 
 I resolved, if it was to be our good 
 fortune to go thither, that I would spend 
 my holiday by the sea in my own fashion. 
 It was not for me to visit the people with 
 whom Heatherleigh would be thrown into 
 contact. His good-nature would have it 
 that I should accompany him when he did 
 chance to go among grand people ; but I 
 never liked it. I considered myself as an 
 impostor. I had no right to be there at all. 
 I was received and talked to as an artist. 
 I was no artist. The first evening I went to 
 Mr. Lewison's house, Bonnie Lesley, by her 
 pretty manner and engaging talk, made me 
 forget everything and everybody ; but I 
 had gone there once or twice since, and felt 
 that I ought not to have gone. Everybody 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 KILMENY. 
 
 present had done something or other. 
 There was the young poet whose praises 
 all men were sounding — a mere boy — whose 
 song of despairing and cheated love, sung in 
 splendid English rhythm, had touched the 
 oldest hearts ; there was the man who was 
 at the head of the classic revivahst school in 
 painting ; there was the girl whose future 
 fame Gibson, the sculptor, had prophesied. 
 What business had I there ? 
 
 The very next day I had to go down 
 Holborn ; and I met Big Dick and the 
 sleepy-headed Kent, who were on their way 
 to their dinner. I went up and spoke to 
 them, and I felt hke an impostor with them 
 also. Kent was very respectful, and I hated 
 him for it. Big Dick was more natural, and 
 talked pretty much in his usual fashion ; but 
 of course I had grown a good deal older 
 since I was his apprentice, and there was 
 a difference in his manner too.
 
 SOME OLD FKIEXDS. 179 
 
 ' Let's go in to this doorway,' said Kent, 
 glancing at my fine suit of grey clothes and 
 my hat. (I was on a diplomatic errand for 
 Heatherleigh, and had got out of the ordi- 
 nary slouching studio-costume. ) ' You won't 
 care to be seen with the hkes of us.' 
 
 ' Don't be a fool,' I said, rather angrily, 
 and kept standing in the middle of the pave- 
 ment. 
 
 I was debating in my own mind how I 
 could offer them something to drink without 
 appearing to be ostentatious (for I knew 
 they were rather sensitive on that matter of 
 treating, which is a point of honour among 
 working-men) when Big Dick, having more 
 moral courage than I, proposed (and I was 
 heartily glad) that he should stand some- 
 thing. The doorway which Kent wished to 
 shelter him led into a chop-house, in which 
 there was also a bar ; so as we were going 
 in, I said — 
 
 M 2
 
 180 KILMENT. 
 
 ' What do you say to our all dining here, 
 instead of your going home ? ' 
 
 ' All right,' said both of them ; and so we 
 went in and sat down. 
 
 They asked me to order the dinner, and 
 I did: a very good dinner— mutton chops, 
 vegetables, gooseberry pie, and bottled 
 stout. 
 
 ' Well, I'm d d glad to see you, Ted,' 
 
 said Big Dick, shaking my hand again with 
 his great horny fist, ' only I suppose we 
 must call you Mr. Ives, eh ? ' 
 
 ' You may if you like, Mr. Eichard 
 Primer,' said I — at which profound joke 
 Kent laughed consumedly. 
 
 ' And what a change there is in you ! ' 
 said Dick. ' Why you were a poor little 
 fellow when I knew you — all eyes, you 
 know, and looking as if you was afraid 
 everybody wanted to eat you. And now 
 you've grown tall and straight, and the
 
 SOME OLD FRIEXDS. 181 
 
 worst of you I can say is as you look too 
 
 like a b Frenchman or Italian. But 
 
 that comes through your way of life now, 
 I dare say.' 
 
 Kent had been looking at me stedfastly 
 for some time with a sort of wonder in his 
 sleepy eyes. At last he said, cautiously and 
 with nervous politeness — 
 
 ' I hope we're not detaining of you.' 
 
 ' I wish you wouldn't talk like that, Kent,' 
 I said, nettled beyond endurance ; and this 
 woke him up somewhat, for by-and-by he 
 said, when the stout had warmed him a 
 Httle— 
 
 ' You'll be marrying presently, and then 
 there'll be Mrs. Ives, as well as Mr. Ives, 
 and lots of little Iveses.' 
 
 With that Kent stretched his grey eyes to 
 their uttermost, endeavouring to control his 
 merriment ; and then half shut them again,
 
 182 KILMENY. 
 
 and abandoned himself to a roar of laughter 
 over his wit. 
 
 'But I've good news for you, Ted,' said 
 Dick, laying down his tumbler. ' There's an 
 awful revolution round there at Weasel's. 
 Weasel used to be a great man to you — I 
 know you was frightened of him. Ha ! you 
 should see Weasel now. He's married — 
 married a big, strapping woman as warms 
 him, I can tell ye, when he get's into a bad 
 temper. There's no cantankerousness '11 do 
 for her. She can give him a hot un 
 when she likes; and the scoldin's all the 
 other way now. Of course he's the same to 
 us — mayhap he revenges hisself on us for 
 what he gets from her ; but doesn't he get 
 it! She comes down to the shop and lays 
 about her like a good un ; and Weasel, with 
 his whitey-brown face, stands and bites his 
 lips, and then drives the things about when
 
 SOME OLD FRIENDS. 183 
 
 she's gone. Lord bless ye ! he can't call his 
 soul his own.' 
 
 ' He never could,' I said. ' If he has one, 
 lie must have borrowed or stolen it.' 
 
 Well, I don't see anything particularly 
 brilliant in that remark ; but its effect upon 
 Kent was alarming. He had been drinking 
 a good deal of bottled stout ; and what I 
 said about Weasel's soul sent him into a 
 prodigious fit of laughter, with which doubt- 
 less the beer had something to do. He 
 laughed till the tears ran down his face ; 
 and then something stuck in his throat, and 
 he gasped, and laughed, and coughed until 
 he was blood-red. Seeing that he was in 
 the same good-humour when he recovered, 
 I proposed that we should have a pint bottle 
 of old port with our cheese, to which they 
 agreed ; and before the dinner was over, we 
 had entirely established our ancient rela- 
 tions.
 
 184 KILMENY. 
 
 ' I'm proud of ye, Ted,' said Kent, whose 
 lazy grey eyes had never been so excited for 
 years, ' and I say as you are a credit to the 
 shop that brought you up. And we'll dance 
 at your wedding.' 
 
 Then came the question of paying. I 
 said, carelessly, that I should much prefer to 
 pay for the whole ; but I saw by Dick's face 
 that he was a little hurt by the proposal, 
 and he dissented from it in rather a stiff and 
 formal way. 
 
 ' Come, then,' I said, ' let's toss for it.' 
 
 Now there is a favourite trick among the 
 Missenden boys (and probably among boys 
 elsewhere) by which you can toss up a 
 penny, put it between your hands, feel with 
 your thumb whetlier tail or head is upper- 
 most, and change the coin according to what 
 your opponent calls. I was never very dex- 
 terous at this piece of juvenile leger-de- 
 main; but I succeeded in convincing both 
 
 J
 
 SOME OLD FRIEXDS. 185 
 
 Big Dick and Kent that I had lost both 
 times, and so they let me pay the small bill. 
 It was a very pleasant dinner, that in the 
 Holborn chop-house : I have since then 
 risen from many a grander banquet having 
 enjoyed myself considerably less. When we 
 parted, I believe Kent was in such good 
 spirits that, at my request, he would have 
 gone straight into the shop and challenged 
 Weasel to a hand-to-hand fight. 
 
 However, to return to this projected trip 
 to the sea. As I was going home that even- 
 ing I met Polly Whistler; she turned and 
 walked up Hampstead Road with me, and I 
 told her what Heatherleigh and I proposed 
 to do. Polly's face grew a trifle thoughtful 
 for a moment ; and then she said, with what 
 seemed to me a rather affected carelessness. 
 
 ' I suppose Mr. Heatherleigh expects to 
 meet people he knows down there — the 
 Lewisons, perhaps?'
 
 186 KILMENY. . 
 
 ' Yes, he does.' 
 
 'And that girl, Miss Lesley?' 
 
 Polly was looking hard at the ground. 
 
 ' Yes, I think she will be there also.' 
 
 ' I suppose Mr. Heatherleigh means to 
 marry her?' 
 
 ' Marry her ! ' I said, in astonishment, and 
 — shall I confess it ? — with a sharp touch 
 of pain. 
 
 ' Why not ? ' she said, with a smile that 
 was peculiarly unlike her ordinary frank 
 smile. 
 
 ' Don't you know the manner in which 
 he always talks of her ? ' I asked — ' quite 
 unfairly, I know ; but still he does it.' 
 
 ' That is only his way,' she said. ' He 
 never likes you to know that he is fond of 
 anything or anybody, and makes fun over it 
 in order to hide himself. If he were dread- 
 fully in love, and going to be married to- 
 morrow morning, he would spend to-night
 
 SOME OLD FRIENDS. 187 
 
 in satirising us poor women-folks as hard as 
 he could.' 
 
 ' Then he is not dreadfully in love, for he 
 never attempts anything of the kind.' 
 
 ' But you say he talks in that way about 
 Miss Lesley. Xow, what sort of a girl is 
 she?' 
 
 So, as we went on, I told her all I knew 
 of Bonnie Lesley, and of her fine and hand- 
 some appearance, her childlike and winning 
 ways, and her kindness to myself. Polly 
 listened very attentively, and put two or 
 three questions the drift of which I could 
 not quite catch. Then she grew a little more 
 cheerful. 
 
 ' You are likely to be dreadfully spoiled 
 by women, Ted,' she remarked. 
 
 'Why?' 
 
 ' I don't know. There's something about 
 your manner — something desperately direct 
 and honest — that provokes one's confidence.
 
 188 KILMENT. 
 
 Don't you remember I talked to you imme- 
 diately after I saw you just as I would 
 talk to you now ? And so this Miss 
 Lesley has been making great friends with 
 you. What does she say about Mr. Hea- 
 therleigh ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing. I think there is some mis- 
 understanding between them. He is con- 
 stantly gibing at her, and making epigrams 
 about her ; and she is very cautious in men- 
 tioning him at all.' 
 
 ' I'm glad you and he get so pleasant a 
 subject to talk about all day. It must be 
 such a variety from the constant talking 
 shop that you men are so fond of. We 
 women never get a chance of talking shop 
 — unless when we talk about babies.' 
 
 Polly said this in the most artless manner, 
 but in a second she had caught herself up, 
 crimsoned deeply, and then burst out laugh- 
 ing. To hide her confusion she stooped and
 
 SOME OLD FRIEXDS. 189 
 
 picked up a pin that happened to be lying 
 on the pavement. 
 
 ' There,' she said, showing me the pin 
 (though there was still a laugh lurking 
 about the corners of her mouth), 'how 
 many times have I laid the foundation for 
 a fortune ! You know the stories of the 
 industrious young men who picked up a 
 pin, and then heaps of money came to them 
 through it. But here have I been picking 
 up pins for years in the expectation of 
 getting only a small competency, and it 
 never comes. What are you laughing at ? ' 
 
 ' At your ill-luck in never getting a for- 
 tune,' I said, boldly ; wherewith she laughed 
 too. 
 
 Having once got into these good spirits, 
 she rattled on like a mad thing. She took 
 my arm, and we strolled along carelessly 
 towards Hampstead, she all the while telling 
 stories, and making the oddest remarks about
 
 190 KILMENY. 
 
 the people passing, and laughing in her quiet 
 and discreet fashion. First she began about 
 a lady in her neighbourhood, a widow, who 
 was famous for the number of her suitors 
 and the rapidity with which they were 
 changed. She described the various lovers, 
 and their mode of making love ; although I 
 am positive she never was inside the house, 
 nor heard one of them speak. 
 
 ' The one she has got just now,' con- 
 tinued Polly, ' is the smallest man, I believe, 
 in the world — so small, and thin, and pale. 
 I used to call him the widow's mite ; and 
 she heard of it, and said she would teach me 
 better manners if she laid her hands on me.' 
 
 This led up to another experience of 
 Polly's. She had been going on a bitterly 
 cold winter night to visit some one at Stam- 
 ford Hill ; and after the omnibus was packed, 
 a rather good-looking young girl appeared 
 at the door, and looked in.
 
 SOME OLD FRIEXDS. 191 
 
 ' Come in,' said an elderly gentleman, 
 ' Come in, my girl, and you can sit on ni}^ 
 knee till you get out.' 
 
 Eather than wait half-an-hour in the cold, 
 the girl, blushing a httle, did as she was 
 bid, and was subjected to a good deal of 
 quiet and harmless joking by the pas- 
 sengers, who were Qomg: home to their 
 suburban houses, and all of whom knew the 
 old gentleman who was so complaisant to 
 the new-comer. He himself was very good- 
 natured and jocular, and made some remote 
 hints about his wishing that he was not 
 married. 
 
 ' Then,' said Polly, ' the old gentleman 
 asked her where she meant to get out. 
 "Clarence Lodge," she says. "Why," he 
 says, " that's my house ! " " Are you Mr. 
 Sandemann ? " she asks. " Yes," he says, 
 beginning to look uncomfortable. "Then 
 I'm your new servant, sir," she says, and
 
 192 EILMENY. 
 
 you may imagine how all the gentlemen 
 roared. But did you ever notice, Ted, that 
 in getting into a 'bus, or anywhere, women 
 are far less courteous to each other than 
 men are to each other ? Men seem to have 
 some idea of fairness, and let the first- 
 comers go in ; but women will squeeze and 
 elbow, and push themselves foremost in 
 defiance of justice. Of course one of the 
 fine ladies you visit wouldn't do that. She 
 would let anybody who had the vulgarity 
 to take precedence, take it, and would only 
 show her contempt with the tip of her nose. 
 I am beginning to think that all fine ladies 
 are my natural enemies.' 
 
 'But you ought to love your enemies, 
 Polly,' I said. 
 
 ' Oh ! it's very easy to love your enemies,' 
 she said, 'when they don't do anything to 
 you. I have no objection to loving them 
 at present. Indeed, I'm in love with every-
 
 SOME OLD FRIENDS. 193 
 
 body just now — I'd forgive that old widow 
 for her threat — I'd let her marry Tom 
 Thumb if it wasn't bigamy, or I'd let her 
 flirt, and never say a word about it, with 
 a man two hundred feet above the level 
 of the sea.' 
 
 Witli this sort of nonsense (which gained 
 not a little from Polly's bright eyes, and her 
 low delightful laugh), an hour or two passed 
 very pleasantly, and it was getting towards 
 dusk when we came down Hampstead Eoad 
 again. I thought there was something 
 more m that vague dislike to fine ladies 
 that lay on the surface of her foolish talk, 
 and I noticed that Polly more than once 
 turned the conversation towards Bonnie 
 Lesley. She was careful about what she 
 said, but indirectly she uttered some rather 
 cutting speeches about this poor girl, who 
 seemed to be more suspected the less she 
 was known. Polly had not even seen her. 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 KILMENY. 
 
 And, having cogitated over the matter, I, in 
 my wisdom, evolved these propositions, to 
 account for the mystery. 
 
 1. Heatherleigh has been, and perhaps is, 
 in love with Miss Lesley. 
 
 2. She has refused him, and promised to 
 keep the secret. 
 
 3. He is vexed, and makes epigrams 
 about her fickleness, simply because he 
 happened to be in love, and she wasn't. 
 
 4. Polly is in love with Heatherleigh, 
 and, without having seen her, is jealous of 
 Bonnie Lesley, and consequently spiteful. 
 
 There were some few points which did 
 not seem to me to square with this theory, 
 but it was the best guess I could make at 
 tlie position.
 
 195 
 
 CHAPTEE Vm. 
 folly's mother. 
 
 I THREW myself into that five weeks' work 
 with all the energy of which I was capable. 
 Look at the splendid prize that was to 
 recompense our labour. To Heatherleigh 
 a month at the seaside was nothing ; to 
 me it was a treasure perpetual, inex- 
 haustible. While I worked I dreamed of 
 it. That gaunt and dusty chamber in 
 Granby Street seemed to smell of seaweed, 
 and the stillness of it was Hke the murmur of 
 a shell. People who have repeatedly spent 
 a month at the seaside, know how short a 
 period it is, but I looked forward with a 
 
 o 2
 
 196 KILMENY. 
 
 kind of wonder to the idea of rising morning 
 after morning, and still finding oneself 
 confronted by the great width of water. I 
 liked the labour, and I liked what was 
 coming after it. At present, the excite- 
 ment and the interest of hard work ; in the 
 future a blaze of sunhght, and tingling 
 breezes, and the glories of the sea. 
 
 And it was during this period, too, that 
 I first definitely saw that my work was of 
 some value to my benefactor and friend. 
 Not only did I do the greater portion of 
 most of the pictures, but I goaded him 
 mto what work he did undertake. But for 
 me, I think the scheme would have been 
 abandoned. Many a time I went up in the 
 morning, and found him lounging in his 
 easy chair, absorbed in one of his favourite 
 treatises. 
 
 'I don't think I shall go on with that 
 picture to-day,^ he would say ; ' what is the
 
 folly's mother. 197 
 
 use of bothering ? Let us go down to Eotten 
 Eow and stare at the people.' 
 
 Then I would remonstrate, and remind 
 him of our compact. 
 
 ' You are the most uncompromising, per- 
 sistent, stiff-necked brute I ever met. What 
 is the use of life, if you must subject your- 
 self to all sorts of needless martyrdoms ? 
 You will worry yourself now, and, when 
 you find yourself at Brighton with nothing 
 to do, idleness will drive you mad.' 
 
 ' Idleness hasn't driven somebody else 
 mad whom I know,' I said. 
 
 ' You haven't enough of reflection in you 
 to know that the intentional idleness you 
 propose to have at Brighton would be a 
 nuisance, while the chance idleness you take 
 at the suggestion of a whim is always 
 charming. So soon as a man is over- 
 conscious that he is doing something, the 
 enjoyment of it flies. I have a notion that
 
 198 KILMENY. 
 
 you could make one of those mad harlequin- 
 dancers miserable, by getting him to read 
 a treatise on anatomy. Indeed you would 
 destroy his chances of living. Show him 
 all the dehcate mechanism of the bones and 
 sinews, and he could never afterwards fling 
 his limbs into contorted forms, without a 
 vague fear which would render the per- 
 formance a failure.' 
 
 Now, if I had let him go on, there would 
 have been no more work that day. He 
 would start some such subject, and pursue 
 it through all its phases, comic and serious 
 and practical, with his hands crossed on the 
 crown of his head, and his legs stretched 
 out and crossed in front of him. As I have 
 said, he had no sort of interest in painting 
 as painting. To him it was merely a pro- 
 fession which yielded him an easy life, 
 plenty of leisure in which to indulge his 
 habit of indolent day-dreaming and listless
 
 POLLY'S MOTHER. 199 
 
 speculation, and as much money as kept 
 him comfortably, or allowed him to be 
 generous when he wished. 
 
 Something else in this book had struck 
 him ; and he was anxious to explain to me 
 how the writer was wrong in assuming that 
 civilisation would in time work frightful 
 mischief by developing the cerebrum at the 
 expense of the cerebellum. 
 
 ' That's all very well,' I said, ' but ' 
 
 ' It is absurd,' he persisted. ' The physi- 
 cal conditions of life will prevent it. So 
 long as men have got to contend with cold 
 and rain, and the toil and exposure of agri- 
 cultural work, the race will never so exclu- 
 sively cultivate its intellectual powers as to 
 improve itself off the earth. It seems to 
 me ' 
 
 With that, I sat down at his easel (not 
 mine) and began working at the picture. 
 But I had been merely a dummy hstener ;
 
 200 KILMEXY. 
 
 he continued his meditations all the same, 
 and it was only when I began to meddle 
 with the face of his heroine (a very good 
 likeness of Polly) that he started up, and 
 took his palette and brushes in hand. 
 
 ' After we get down to the sea-side,' I 
 said, ' I will lie on the beach, if you like 
 for hours, and listen to everything you have 
 to say about harlequins, or priests, or philo- 
 sophers.' 
 
 ' You have the determination of ,' 
 
 he said, naming a historical personage who 
 may have been determined, but who was 
 notoriously unsuccessful. 
 
 At length the time drew near ; and, al- 
 though we had not got in all the money, it 
 was worked for and available. Heather- 
 leigh, having taken down some cheques to 
 be cashed, came back with a pocketful of 
 bank notes. He counted them out — one 
 hundred and sixty pounds odd — and then
 
 folly's mother. 201 
 
 he quietly told off eighty of these and placed 
 the money before me on the table. 
 
 I was the possessor of eighty pounds in 
 hard cash — it was my own, my very own. 
 
 ' Heatherleigh,' I said, ' let us have a walk 
 through Kensington Gardens, and round 
 the Serpentine.' 
 
 ' Why, you positively love the Serpentine, 
 I believe, you abominable Cockney. And 
 you going to the sea to-morrow ! ' 
 
 Nevertheless we went ; and as we drew 
 near the small lake, the sun had set in the 
 north-west, and after the red light had quite 
 faded down, there was a strange pale ' after- 
 glow ' in the sky, while a gathering mist 
 fell over the water, causing the opposite 
 shore and its trees to recede into a vague, 
 ethereal distance. I had grown to love the 
 Serpentine in the old days of my bondage, 
 when I used to steal out alone in the even- 
 ing, and sit on the cold wooden seats, as
 
 202 KILMENY. 
 
 the stillness of the night fell. And now, 
 as we walked across the damp grass, the 
 various sounds of the day ceased, and the 
 place was solitary and quiet ; while the wan- 
 dering white of the fog settled thicker over 
 the further side of the lake, and through it 
 we saw the far gas-lamps burning sharp and 
 red. Then, as we lingered awhile, a strange 
 golden moonlight crept up the skies and 
 made the faint streaks of the clouds visible ; 
 w^hile it touched the trees also, and glim- 
 mered, a trembling line of yellow light, 
 along the shore. You forgot that you were 
 near a great city, and the poor Serpentine 
 became lonely, mystic, magical. 
 
 Did Heatherleigh guess why I wished to 
 come hither ? Many a time, in the old 
 days, I had wandered round the small lake, 
 empty-hearted and empty-pocketed. In all 
 my dreams, did I ever anticipate that within 
 a year or two I should walk over that damp
 
 folly's mother. 203 
 
 grass, and round that mystical shore, my 
 own master, with the art that I had loved 
 as an amusement now become the sole 
 occupation of my life, with a future full of 
 freedom and beautiful possibilities before me, 
 with eighty pounds of savings clasped tightly 
 in my pocket ? 
 
 'What are you thinking of? ' said 
 Heath erleigh. 
 
 ' Of the power that this money gives me. 
 Couldn't I live for a whole year, doing any- 
 thing or nothing just as I hked, upon it ? I 
 could set eighty wretched creatures wild 
 with delight by giving them a sovereign 
 a-piece. I could take fifty pounds of it, and 
 buy a small, little brooch, with curious 
 stones in it, and I. could send it, without 
 being known ' 
 
 ' To whom ? * said Heath erleigh. 
 
 Then I burst out laughing ; for I knew 
 it was time the farce should end.
 
 204 KILMENY. 
 
 ' Here,' I said, ' take tlie money. I have 
 no right to it. I wanted to have the sensa- 
 tion of having it, and of coming down here 
 to crow over the notions that Weavle used 
 to give me.' 
 
 He refused to take it. 
 
 ' I won't have it,' I said, simply enough, 
 ' because you know as well as 1 do that I 
 have no right whatever to it.' 
 
 ' Well,' he said, ' you are still to me that 
 perpetual conundrum that I can't make out. 
 Where were you born, Ted ? Had you a 
 father and mother? I beheve you are a 
 sort of will-o'-the-wisp — there's no catching 
 you. You have the courage and determi- 
 nation and self-reliance of half-a-dozen men, 
 and you have the sensitiveness, and finical, 
 particular, humbugging nonsense of a thou- 
 sand girls ; and all this confusion of charac- 
 ter you exhibit with a simplicity which 
 astounds me. Brought up as you have been.
 
 folly's mother. 205 
 
 you should be as hard as steel, cautious, 
 keen, avaricious ' 
 
 But .1 need not follow him into his 
 theory about the manner in which I had 
 come to develope those wonderful qualities 
 he had discovered. When he finished, we 
 were still walking round the Serpentine ; 
 and the moonlight was now full and clear 
 in the skies. 
 
 'That bodes well for to-morrow,' said 
 he. 
 
 ' But,' said I, ' you haven't taken the 
 money. If you like, I will accept ten 
 pounds of it ; and let the rest go into our 
 general fund for house-keeping at Brighton.' 
 
 To this he agreed ; and next day we pro- 
 ceeded to get our things in readiness for 
 starting. Polly Whistler called round in the 
 forenoon ; and then I persuaded her to go 
 out with me and help me to purchase, "vvith 
 the ten pounds, a dress for my mother. We
 
 206 KILMENY. 
 
 went to a big place in Tottenham Court 
 Eoad, and Polly was quite grand in her 
 manner as she insisted upon seeing pretty- 
 nearly everything in the shop. At last, she 
 confessed herself pleased; and the parcel 
 was ordered to be sent on by the Burnham 
 coach to its destination. 
 
 Further, I persuaded Polly to dine with 
 us, and, finally, to come and see us off. 
 
 ' It is a heart-breaking thing to part with 
 you, Ted,' she remarked ; ' but we must 
 teach ourselves to suffer. Besides, my old 
 woman is a little wild to-day ; and then I 
 like to give her the house to herself.' 
 
 'She has been trying to keep you in 
 order, Polly,' said Heatherleigh, strapping 
 down his portmanteau. 
 
 ' And she can keep people in order,' said 
 Polly. ' If she had been Nebuchadnezzar's 
 wife, she 'd have made him pare his nails 
 precious smart ! '
 
 Polly's mother. 207 
 
 I could not help admiring the good- 
 natured way in which the girl joked about 
 this afiair, which was certainly no laughing- 
 matter to her. To listen to her, you would 
 have imagined that her mother's only fault 
 was a certain impatience of people who did 
 wrong, and a desire to have her own way in 
 ordering her house. Polly said nothing of 
 the persecution and insults, and often bodily 
 pain, she suffered at the hands of that bad 
 old woman, whose drunken madness had 
 long ago made her forget that she was a 
 mother. 
 
 There was some commission which Hea- 
 therleigh had undertaken that prevented our 
 catching the afternoon express. There was 
 nothing for it but to sit in patience, with our 
 portmanteaus at our feet, waiting for the 
 recusant messenger, the while Polly chatted 
 and laughed, and pretended to make love to 
 me.
 
 208 KILMENY. 
 
 Our fooling was suddenly interrupted by 
 the sound of a loud voice on the stairs — a 
 woman's voice, shrill, angry, intoxicated. 
 How it flashed across me that this must be 
 Polly's mother I don't know ; but I shall 
 never forget the quick gesture and look of 
 the girl when she heard the noise. She 
 instinctively caught my arm, as if for protec- 
 tion, while she darted a terrified, anxious 
 glance towards Heatherleigh. It was as 
 though she had cried to me, ' Ted, save me, 
 and don't let him know ! ' In that brief 
 second, the whole nature of the girl was 
 revealed ; and I said to myself, ' She loves 
 him with her whole heart.' 
 
 Instantaneous as was the warning given, 
 and dumb as were her directions, I had suffi- 
 cient presence of mind to go quickly to the 
 door. I went outside, and shut the door behind 
 us. The woman w^as on the stairs, directing 
 the fury of her speech, along with much
 
 folly's mother. 200 
 
 gesticulation, upon a maidservant, who, from 
 underneath, was protesting against the 
 strange visitor going up-stairs unannounced. 
 My appearance on the scene turned the flood 
 of her wrath upon me. 
 
 ' I've got you, have I ? I thought it was 
 here you'd be found ; and it's time I had a 
 chance of speakin' hout. You're Mr. 
 Heatherleigh's friend, are you ; and what 
 have you done with my daughter ? I say, 
 what have you done with my poor girl, 
 that's bein' made a byword of among a pack 
 of wolves. Oh, don't pretend to pacify me 
 — I heard o' your goin's on this morning, 
 and buyin' a dress for a respectable girl as 
 belongs to a family as 'zpectable as yours. 
 And are you not ashamed of yourself, sir — 
 my poor lamb among them wolves. But I'll 
 have the law on you, I will, I wiU, I 
 will!' 
 
 'Don't be a fool,' I said, 'hold your 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 KILMENY. 
 
 tongue, and come downstairs, and tell me 
 what you want.' 
 
 ' Is my daughter in that room ? ' she 
 screamed, at the pitch of her shrilly 
 voice. 
 
 'If you don't be quiet, I'll have you 
 turned out of the house,' I said, and then 
 added — determined to avert the shame of an 
 exposure from poor Polly — ' Is it money you 
 want ? I will give it to you, only don't make 
 such a hideous noise.' 
 
 ' Merciful 'eavens ! ' she yelled ; ' he wants 
 to buy me as he has bought my daughter. 
 Oh, the wretch! Oh, the vile, wicked, 
 traitorous ' 
 
 I caught her by the arm ; as I thought 
 she was going to tumble down the stairs. 
 
 ' Would you lay hands on me ? You think 
 you'll buy me ' 
 
 ' Why, you old humbug, I wouldn't give 
 twopence for a dozen of you,' I said, when I
 
 POLLY'S MOTHER. 211 
 
 saw it was impossible to restrain her violence 
 by persuasion. 
 
 With that she caught me by the coat, 
 dashed past me Hke a wild-cat, and entered 
 the room. I followed ; and whatever there 
 may have been of absurdity or comicality in 
 the old woman's ravings on the stair, was 
 forgotten now in what I saw before me. 
 Polly stood motionless, her face bent down 
 and quite pale. Her hps were trembhng ; 
 but that expressed only a tithe of the humi- 
 liation and shame that seemed to cover her 
 whole figure. She had heard what had 
 been going on outside ; and she stood there 
 absolutely stupified and speechless by the 
 cruel shame and mortification that she must 
 have long dreaded. Heatherleigh stood at 
 the other end of the room, with a look of 
 wonder on his face that soon gave way to 
 indignation and anger. For the old woman 
 at first confronted her daughter, and made 
 
 p 2
 
 212 KILME^"T. 
 
 such speeches as I need not write down 
 here. It is not a pleasant thing to hear a 
 mother mouthing out lies against the 
 character of her daughter, wounding her 
 at her most sensitive points, and outraging 
 even the bvstanders' sense of decencv. She 
 spoke so rapidly, too, that the mischief was 
 done before either of us could interfere ; 
 but Heatherleigh, with a quick flush on his 
 fece, went forward and caught her by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 ' You shameless creature,' he said, ' do you 
 know what you are doing r ' 
 
 Here Polly, still looking down, came for- 
 ward and interposed between them. 
 
 ' Mr. Heatherleigh, she is my mother,' 
 said the girl, now crying very bitterly. 
 ' Mother, come away.' 
 
 But the infuriated woman drove her aside, 
 and held her ground ; while she confronted 
 us with an intoxicated stare.
 
 folly's mother. 213 
 
 'Grood-bye, Ted,' said Polly to me, hold- 
 ing out her hand. Then, I thmk, she 
 directed one furtive glance towards Heather- 
 leigh, and went away. The mother re- 
 mained behind. 
 
 ' Grood-bye,' I had said to her, knowing 
 that it was the last time she would ever enter 
 that room, in which we had spent so many 
 innocent and happy evenings. 
 
 ' Do YOU know what you have done, you 
 I -^ old idiot? Do you know what you 
 have done ? ' said Heatherldgh, with his face 
 full of mortification and anger. 'Do you 
 know that you have tried to destroy the 
 : an honest and industrious girl, 
 vh :: ^ :: Ti'to kept you and indulged 
 y :r : f : v Voits : Do you know that you 
 ir y " ^ : : ^ : r of her honest life? 
 
 Do y v. k: vhat has happened within the 
 1 ^ : V minutes — that you have outraged 
 : i _s oi a sensitive girl, whom you
 
 214 KILMENY. 
 
 ought to have protected ; and may God for- 
 give you if anything comes of your drunken 
 insanity ! ' 
 
 He snatched his hat, and hastily went out. 
 It was half an hour afterwards when he 
 returned. By that time the old woman had 
 gone. Heath erleigh's words had partly 
 sobered her ; she had begged my forgive- 
 ness, and burst into a flood of alcoholic 
 tears. When Heatherleigh came back, I 
 noticed that he was rather pale, and there 
 
 was a thoughtful, fixed look in his face. 
 All the way down in the train he 
 
 scarcely spoke. Neither of us cared to read 
 
 by the light of the dingy carriage-lamp ; 
 
 and so we lay and stared out into the dusk. 
 
 There was a faint light outside, owing to the 
 
 moon, but the moon herself remained 
 
 hidden. 
 
 Presently he said to me, looking up from 
 
 his reverie —
 
 folly's mother. 215 
 
 ' Did you ever hear or see anything like 
 that?' 
 
 I knew what he meant ; and I said — 
 
 ' It is the last time Polly will ever be in 
 that room.' 
 
 ' I followed her,' he said. ' I overtook 
 her ; and, do you know, she would scarcely 
 speak to me. The poor girl seemed quite 
 dazed and bewildered — no wonder. I could 
 have strangled that incoherent old idiot who 
 went raving on and seeing nothing of what 
 she was doing. And yet Polly should not 
 have been so much put out. When 1 told 
 her we all understood that her mother was 
 talking nonsense, she said nothing but that 
 I was to go back again, and leave her to go 
 home alone. I don't understand it.' 
 
 ' I shouldn't wonder if Polly never spoke 
 to you any more,' I said. 
 
 ' Why ? ' he asked with a quick glance of 
 surprise.
 
 216 KILMENY. 
 
 ' I don't know. I don't think she ever 
 will.' 
 
 The apartments which Heatherleigh had 
 secured for us were in King's Eoad, and 
 therefore fronting; the sea. But as we drove 
 down from the station and round to the 
 house, I could see nothing but a dusky grey 
 where the sea ought to have been. I heard 
 the murmur of it, however, far away, like 
 innumerable strange voices. 
 
 Supper was prepared for us. Afterwards, 
 Heatherleigh smoked a solitary pipe almost in 
 total silence ; and then we retired to our re- 
 spective rooms. Mine was a small chamber, 
 near the top of the house, fronting the sea. 
 I could not sleep for that strange noise, that 
 seemed so vnld and distant and yet so sadly 
 famihar. I must have lain and tossed about 
 for a couple of hours or so, I think ; and 
 tlien I began to perceive that the room was 
 full of light, and on the wall, near the
 
 folly's mother. 217 
 
 window, the moon was gleaming in slanting 
 squares. 
 
 I got up and went to the window ; and 
 involuntarily I uttered a cry of astonishment 
 and joy. The world outside was all aglow 
 ^\'ith moonlight of a soft and greenish- 
 yellow hue, the large, full moon herself 
 hanging up there over the sea and throwing 
 a great, broad lane of glittering hght on the 
 water. Every object was sharply and 
 clearly defined ; from the pahngs along the 
 parade and the boats on the grey beach to 
 the fleet of fishing-smacks whose black hulls 
 lay and rolled in the flood of moonhght. 
 And I could see the waves now — tiny waves 
 that came gently in, and broke over with a 
 murmur which was repeated and echoed in 
 the intense stillness of the night. The picture 
 was magical, wonderful. I hstened to the 
 sound of the waves, and gazed upon the 
 splendid pathway of silver tliat lay and
 
 218 KILMENY. 
 
 quivered on the great grey plain of the sea, 
 until I was numbed with cold. Then I 
 hastily dressed myself, sneaked downstairs, 
 opened the door of the house stealthily, and 
 was outside. 
 
 There was not a human being abroad at 
 that hour ; this whole, beautiful world was 
 mine. I walked away from the houses — 
 westward, past the chain pier, the dark 
 masses of which were touched with the 
 moonlight, and past those long terraces of 
 tall buildings that gleamed grey and ghost- 
 like in the silence of the night. I wandered 
 on, along the smooth turf of the cliffs, meet- 
 ing no one but some solitary coast-guards- 
 man — a black figure seen vaguely against 
 the grey-green of the sea. The moon was 
 at my back now, but all around was the 
 wonderful, calm, clear hght; and so I 
 walked on until I stood over Eottingdean,
 
 folly's mother. 219 
 
 the small hamlet that lay dark and silent 
 under the throbbinc^ eastern stars. 
 
 Here I went down on the beach. The tide 
 was some distance out ; and there came a 
 breezy odour of sea- weed from those patches 
 of rock out there, among which the pools of 
 water ghmmered white. I lay down on the 
 shingle, under tlie great cHffs, that echoed 
 back the long rush of the waves on the 
 shore. I could now see the distant lamps of 
 Brighton, the black line of the pier, the 
 specks of fishing- boats, and the moon that 
 seemed to belong to that side of the picture ; 
 while before me stretched the vague and 
 mystical sea, and overhead dwelt the silence 
 of those splendid constellations that were 
 now growing faint and wan. Was that the 
 famous jewel of the Harp that gleamed so 
 palely up there? The twisted snakes of 
 Cerberus were cold and dead ; and the flam-
 
 220 KILMENY. 
 
 ing points that used to stud the aerial 
 harness of Pegasus were scarcely visible. 
 Hercules himself seemed sick and pale in the 
 moonlight ; or was it another strange light 
 that now began to show in the east, bringing 
 with it a stirring of cold wind ? I know 
 that when I returned to Brighton, and got 
 into the house again and tumbled into bed, 
 a glow of pale saffron was shining along the 
 level coast by Shoreham and Worthing ; 
 while high up in the east there were flakes 
 of red in the sky, and all the new motion of 
 the dawn.
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 
 
 I AWOKE in a torrent of adjectives. Heather- 
 leigli was standing by my bedside, heaping 
 reproaches on me for lying so long on such 
 a morning, when, as was evident from the 
 great splatches of sunhght on the wall of 
 the room, the weather was lovely. He was 
 dressed remarkably well — in a fashion which 
 set off his handsome figure ; and you would 
 have failed entirely to recognise in this tall 
 and gentlemanly-looking man with the 
 accurate gloves, the easily negh'gent tie, and 
 the large brown beard which was exactly 
 that of the ' swell ' of that time, the indolent 
 student-painter who a few days before was
 
 222 KILMENY. 
 
 lounging about a dirty room in Granby 
 Street in shabby clothes, with unkempt hair, 
 no collar, and an old wooden pipe. The 
 odd thing was that in either case there was 
 not the least self-conscious assumption. He 
 was as natural in the one condition as the 
 other ; although I think he greatly enjoyed 
 the sudden contrast of these twin modes of 
 living, and went to extremes in both to 
 increase his pleasure. 
 
 ' Why, it is past twelve,' he said, ' I have 
 been riding with Bonnie Leslie since half 
 past ten. Ah ! I thought I'd wake you up 
 with that bit of news. Fancy our having 
 been at Eottingdean while you were lying 
 asleep, like a pig, in broad dayhght.' 
 
 ' I was at Eottingdean this morning before 
 either of you,' I said ; and then I told him 
 how I had wandered about all night. 
 
 ' Madness ! my boy, madness ! ' he said.
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 223 
 
 ' But come, dress yourself smartly ; you are 
 due at the Lewisons' at one, for lunch ; and 
 Liiss Lesley sends you her kind regards, and 
 hopes you will spend the afternoon with her. 
 That is a comphment, mind you ; for she is 
 holding quite a court down here.' 
 
 ' I hope you have made friends with her 
 again,' I said. 
 
 ' Oh, Bonnie Leslie and I have always 
 been friends — of a kmd,' he said. 
 
 When I went downstairs, and went to 
 the front window, the world of Brighton was 
 out driving and riding and walking in the 
 glowing sunlight, while a gentle sea-breeze 
 came over the far blue plain, and brought 
 with it coolness, and the odour of sea-weed, 
 and the plash of the waves on the beach. 
 What a gay and brilhant company it was, to 
 be sure — the twos and threes of ladies who 
 lay lazily and proudly in their phaetons and 
 landaus; the packs of rosy-cheeked girls who
 
 224 KILMENY. 
 
 cantered past on horseback, accompanied by 
 a riding-master or their papa ; the incessant 
 strolling backwards and forwards of men and 
 women dressed in the extreme of fashion, 
 and having the air about them of the supe- 
 riority of conscious wealth and beauty. This 
 was the world which I was asked to enter — 
 I, a waif and stray, a nobody, an insigni- 
 ficant fraction of that other world of hard 
 work and narrow means, of small hopes 
 and few enjoyments. I did enter it, almost 
 against my inclination ; and I saw for the 
 first time how these rich and beautiful 
 people passed day after day, week after 
 week — the round of brilliant pleasures they 
 enjoyed, the gay scenes and pleasant excite- 
 ments which were always pressing upon 
 them, their courteous ways and manners, 
 their kindness, amiability, frivohty. Any- 
 body acquainted with the ordinary life of 
 fashionable people could describe it in a few
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 225 
 
 words ; but to me it was all new and won- 
 derful. 
 
 At one o'clock we presented ourselves at 
 the Lewisons'. There were a number of 
 people there ; and they were quite different 
 from the people I had met at their house 
 before. The sesthetic element was nearly 
 wholly absent. Instead of sculptors, and 
 authors, and what not, the party consisted of 
 very grand people who happened to be 
 visiting Brighton — among them a viscount. 
 I looked at this gentleman with awe. He 
 was a small, thin, grey-haired man, who paid 
 particular attention to his plate, and mut- 
 tered to himself his comments on what other 
 people were saying. His wife was a young 
 and pretty woman, who exhibited all the 
 little coquetries of a girl, and was especially 
 amiable to Heatherleigh, beside whom she 
 sat. I sat between her and Miss Lesley ; 
 and wlien the viscountess happened to say 
 
 VOL. L Q
 
 226 KILMENT. 
 
 something to me, which she did with a smile 
 that made you fancy you had known her for 
 years, I was in great straits to know whether 
 I should, in answering her, address her by 
 her title. As I was not quite sure, how- 
 ever, what that was, I forbore ; and hoped I 
 was not guilty of some appalling rudeness. 
 
 But for my being beside Bonnie Lesley, 
 perhaps I should have been overwhelmed by 
 this assemblage of grand people. No sooner, 
 however, had we re-established our old rela- 
 tions with each other, and these consisted of 
 many little secret understandings, which 
 were very pleasant to ourselves, than I for- 
 got all about the other persons present. She 
 and I talked exclusively with each other, 
 despite the efforts of one or two gentlemen 
 to engage her in conversation across the 
 table. I noticed that more than one of them 
 regarded me with a stare of stolid surprise, 
 when she persistently turned and talked to 
 me in her confidential way. 
 
 I
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 227 
 
 ' You have no other companion, then, 
 down here than Heatherleigh ? ' she asked. 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Don't you find him dull at times ? ' 
 
 'Never. He is the best companion I 
 could wish for.' 
 
 ' How strange ! ' she said, with a pretty- 
 smile. ' But, even if he is so pleasant a 
 companion, you can't always go about with 
 him. You will see him captured by some- 
 body when lunch is over; and he will be 
 taken off to drive with some of those ladies. 
 So shall I, probably ; or perhaps some of 
 those gentlemen over there will thrust 
 themselves upon us. Now, what do you say 
 to our going off at once, the moment they 
 rise from table ? The mail-phaeton is to be 
 round in a few minutes ; what if we slip 
 downstairs, and go off without warning ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing could be better.' 
 
 ' You won't be afraid if I drive ? '
 
 228 KILMENY. 
 
 ' Certainly not. But you need not drive, 
 unless you like. I have had lots of ex- 
 perience with horses in the country.' 
 
 ' Thank you, but I am passionately fond 
 of driving; and as they never will let me 
 take out those horses by myself, I mean to 
 secure them to-day by stratagem.' 
 
 So it was arranged ; and I was dehghted 
 with the arrangement, not expecting that it 
 would lead to a little scene. The moment 
 we were free, she and I sHpped out of the 
 room, and I went downstairs, while she 
 went to change her attire. The carriage 
 was there, and I had had sufficient acquaint- 
 ance with the horses at Burnham House to 
 see that one of the pair harnessed to this 
 phaeton was rather a restive animal, which 
 the groom was trying as well as he could to 
 pacify. Presently Bonnie Lesley appeared, 
 with a flush of pleasure on her fine face. 
 More than one passer-by turned to look at
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 229 
 
 her as she got up into the high seat, and 
 took the reins in her fingers, while the other 
 hand, small and tightly gloved, held the 
 whip in the most artistic fashion. Suddenly 
 Heatherleigh came running down. 
 
 ' Eeally, Miss Lesley, you must not ' 
 
 ' I will,' she said, rapidly and in a low 
 voice, while she cut at the neck of the 
 restive horse with her whip. The animal 
 would have sprung forward ; but Heather- 
 leigh had rushed to its head (displacing 
 the groom) and tried to hold it. Of course 
 the horse plunged and reared. 
 
 ' I tell you, Miss Lesley,' said Heather- 
 leigh, ' you will kill yourself and him, too.' 
 
 The girl's face turned white with a spasm 
 of anger. 
 
 ' Are you afraid ? ' she said to me, 
 abruptly. 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Will you go with me ? '
 
 230 KiLMExy. 
 
 ' Certainly.' 
 
 With that she made a cut at the neck of 
 the near horse with her whip, and then 
 caught the other, which Heatherleigh was 
 holding, over the ear. Both horses sprung 
 forward, nearly knocking him to the 
 ground; and the next minute we were 
 dashing madly along the Parade, while Miss 
 Lesley sat cold and firm, without moving 
 a muscle. 
 
 Then she burst into a laugh of down- 
 right, unaffected merriment. 
 
 ' I hope I didn't knock him over ; but I 
 half expected he would come out, and I 
 was determined to have my own way for 
 once. I am so very much obhged to you 
 for coming ; and I will take the greatest 
 care of you. No, you needn't laugh : I 
 fancy you looked afraid when you got up.' 
 
 ' If I had been afraid,' I said, ' I should 
 have been none the less dehghted to come.'
 
 LEWIES CASTLE. 231 
 
 'Why?' 
 
 She withdrew her eyes for a moment 
 from the horses' heads and fixed them on my 
 face with her ordinary look of bright won- 
 der. Under other circumstances I might 
 have felt embarrassed by this awkward 
 question; but driving through the cool 
 wind, in the brilhant sunlight, and perched 
 up beside the handsomest woman in 
 Brighton, who could have failed to acquire 
 some boldness ? 
 
 ' The pleasure of being beside you might 
 make one risk a much greater danger than 
 this ; and you knew that when you asked 
 me to come.' 
 
 She laughed a charming and unafiected 
 little laugh, and was evidently greatly 
 pleased — why, I was, long afterwards, to 
 find out. 
 
 ' Shall we turn and drive back aloncr the 
 Parade and the King's Eoad ? '
 
 232 KILMENY. 
 
 ' As you like.' 
 
 ' People will stare at us, if I drive.' 
 
 ' Why should you care ? ' 
 
 ' There are such a lot of carriages out at 
 this time.' 
 
 ' Come,' I said, ' confess that you want 
 me to urge you to do it — and I do.' 
 
 She wheeled round the horses very 
 cleverly ; and soon we were again clattering 
 along the Parade. When we got into the 
 thick of the carriages in the King's Koad, 
 it was astonishing to see the number of 
 people, mostly gentlemen, who bowed to her. 
 Every one looked at her — as well they 
 might ; for in all that brilliant throng there 
 was neither girl nor woman to be compared 
 with her. Her dress, too, I admit, was rather 
 calculated to attract notice. She wore a 
 sailor's jacket, of some beautiful, white, soft 
 substance, touched here and there with 
 blue ; a sailor's hat, of gleaming white, with
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 233 
 
 a blue ribbon round it ; and a pair of pale 
 blue gloves whicli were conspicuous enough 
 as she held the reins and whip. But you 
 should have seen how the wind had stirred 
 the blood in her peach-like cheek — how the 
 sunlight caught here and there the great 
 masses of her splendid yellow hair, and 
 how the excitement had brightened and 
 kindled her big eyes — to know why the 
 sedate ladies in their phaetons, and the timid 
 girls on their cantering hacks, and the in- 
 dolent young gentlemen who stood on the 
 steps of this or that hotel, were forced to 
 forget their manners, and turn and stare at 
 Bonnie Lesley. 
 
 ' There is Mr. Heatherleigh,' she said to 
 me. 
 
 He was seated in an open carriage, with 
 two ladies and another gentleman. As 
 they approached, I saw that one of the ladies 
 was the viscountess whom I had seen at
 
 234 XILMENY. 
 
 lunch, and I supposed that the gentleman 
 opposite her was her husband. He and 
 Heatherleigh had their backs towards us, 
 and, of course, could not see us ; but the two 
 ladies, who could not have failed to dis- 
 tinguish Miss Lesley even at some distance 
 off, pretended to see nothing of her, and 
 passed her by without any sign of recognition. 
 
 I noticed a shght shadow of mortification 
 cross my companion's face. 
 
 ' I am getting tired of this. What do 
 you say to going for a short drive into the 
 country ? ' 
 
 Having made some enquiries about the 
 horses of the man who was in the small box 
 behind, it was finally arranged that we 
 should drive to Lewes. I was glad to get 
 away from that crowded thoroughfare, and 
 into the sweet-smelling country roads. The 
 summer was at its brightest and greenest ; 
 and we had no sooner left the town, and got
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 235 
 
 into the quiet of meadows and corn-fields 
 than Miss Lesley regained her equanimity and 
 began to talk in her usual cheerful and con- 
 fidential way. Indeed, I was very much 
 struck by the rapid fashion in which vexa- 
 tions passed off her mind. While she had 
 been bitterly angry with Heatherleigh at the 
 moment of starting, three seconds had suf- 
 ficed to chase away her resentment and 
 restore her ordinary good-nature. Her 
 temper was like a delicately balanced pair 
 of scales : a touch of your finger would 
 produce a great disturbance, but the distur- 
 bance never lasted above a moment. 
 
 What a pleasant drive it was, through the 
 cool avenues of trees, and out again into the 
 glare of the sunlight, with the broad white 
 road lying Hke a line of silver between the 
 dark-green meadows and fields. Here and 
 there they had begun to cut the tall clover, 
 and from the cleared portions of the fields
 
 236 ■ KILMENY. 
 
 the piles of grey-green hay sent us the 
 warm, sweet odour which makes the summer 
 gracious. But for the most part the grass 
 was still standing ; and the light breeze that 
 went over it stirred the smooth velvet plain 
 into waves of shimmering grey, while it 
 rustled across the great corn-fields and 
 swayed the as yet unripe ears of the wheat. 
 The country was as still and silent as the 
 unfathomable blue that stretched overhead ; 
 you only heard the far-ofi* call of the cuckoo 
 from some distant wood. 
 
 At length we reached the old-fashioned 
 and picturesque town, with its quaint and 
 clean streets, its sudden descents, its ancient 
 churches, and its fine old castle. If a 
 stranger wished to see a typical English 
 country town, homely, quiet, and bright, 
 with neither the pestilence of manufactories 
 in the air, nor the vices of fashion visible 
 in the streets, could he do better than visit
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 237 
 
 Lewes ? I had never been to Lewes ; but 
 I was proud of it, for Miss Lesley's sake. 
 She, too, was a stranger to the place ; and, 
 after she had delivered over the horses to 
 the man to be put up, we started on an 
 exploring expedition. We went down the 
 hilly streets, and through quiet thorough- 
 fares, and out to the precipitous chalk hills 
 which surround the outskirts ; then we re- 
 turned to the Castle, and clambered up the 
 wooded old ruin, where the sunlight was 
 straggling down through the elms and 
 chestnuts. We were the only visitors ; 
 and when we had got right up to the top 
 of the tower, we found ourselves alone, 
 for the portly and good-humoured seneschal 
 remained below. 
 
 The view from the top of Lewes Castle, 
 as everybody knows, is one of the finest in 
 England; and on this particular day the 
 splendid plain, with its woods and hills
 
 238 KILMEXY. 
 
 and valleys, lay in the warm sunshine and 
 shone. I think such a view, whether in 
 sunlight or not, is rather saddening — per- 
 haps it was so to me because it so closely 
 resembled that stretch of Buckinghamshire 
 country which was connected in my mind 
 with so many old memories. However, 
 Bonnie Lesley leant on the parapet, and 
 gazed long and wistfully over the great 
 extent of country that lay so peacefully 
 under the summer sky. Suddenly she 
 spoke, and I saw that she had not been 
 dreaming dreams of bygone times. 
 
 'Did you think I was very angry when 
 Mr. Heatherleigh tried to stop the horses.^' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' You saw how soon I got over it ? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Would you consider that a fault ? ' 
 
 'What, a fault to get rid of anger! 
 
 'Yes.'
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 239 
 
 ' I should consider it — and did — a sign of 
 great good-nature.' 
 
 ' Mr. Heatherleigli would say it was a 
 weakness.' 
 
 She turned and said this to me with a 
 show of petulance, and there was a kind of 
 wonder in her eyes. 
 
 ' I think you mistake Heatherleigh alto- 
 gether,' I said, ' or else there is a mis- 
 understanding on both sides.' 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 ' Is that a question ? There is no mystery 
 between us. He says I am incapable of 
 mystery, among other things.' 
 
 ' Heatherleigh couldn't say anything so 
 idiotic. Why should anybody want to be 
 mysterious ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps it isn't mystery, entirely, that I 
 mean. But, tell me, you and he are very 
 much alike in your tastes ? ' 
 
 'Very much, indeed.'
 
 240 KILMENY. 
 
 ' You care for the same sort of people ; 
 you have the same notions of things ; you 
 have the same sort of nature, in short ? ' 
 
 ' Pretty much the same in most things,' I 
 said, 'but very different in others.' 
 
 ' You hke the same sort of people ? ' 
 
 'Yes, I think so.' 
 
 ' And you said it was a pleasure to you 
 to come with me ? ' 
 
 ' You know that it is.' 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 You must remember that this was the 
 first ' fine lady ' with whom I had ever 
 been privileged to be on any terms of inti- 
 macy ; and that I found nothing singular 
 or abnormal in her peculiarly frank way 
 of talking. I was not aware that there was 
 a touch of the Bohemienne in her manner 
 and conduct. I knew nothing of the ex- 
 treme restraint that society imposes on the 
 speech and general relations of young and
 
 LEWES CiSTLE. 241 
 
 unmarried folks. I saw that, amongst other 
 people, Bonnie Lesley was as reserved and 
 ceremonious as any ; and fancied that there 
 was nothing unusual in her childhke con- 
 fidence and her self-disclosures, when it had 
 pleased her to break the bounds' of for- 
 mality between herself and me. And this 
 boldness of hers naturally encouraged me 
 to be bold. I did not know that I was 
 sinning against the laws of society, and 
 offendino: the canons of good taste, in shoAv- 
 ing her what I thought of her good looks, 
 and in expressing gratitude for her especial 
 favour to myself. 
 
 Doubtless she perceived this ; and was 
 provoked into exaggerating the licence of 
 her frankness through some notion of the 
 humour of the position. If she encouraged 
 me, my simpHcity encouraged her. My 
 ignorance of the customs of good society 
 had produced in me that peculiarity of 
 
 VOL. L R
 
 242 KILMENY. 
 
 which Polly Whistler spoke — I was unable 
 to see why a man and a woman should 
 not be as intimate in their confidences as 
 two women, and I never could teach myself 
 the least embarrassment in speaking honestly 
 to a woman. This much by way of ex- 
 planation, or excuse, for much that hap- 
 pened then, and will have to be recorded 
 afterwards. 
 
 'Will you consider me egotistical,' she 
 continued, 'if I ask you to tell me what 
 you think of me ? ' 
 
 ' I daren't,' I said. 
 
 ' What ? ' she replied, turning her eyes 
 upon me, with a look of amused surprise in 
 them, ' are you afraid to tell me tlie truth ? 
 And is it because you would have too many 
 cruel things, or too many pretty things, to 
 say to me ? But do let me hear what you 
 would say, in any case. I shall not be 
 angry.'
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 243 
 
 ' Well,' I said, ' I think you are very 
 kind; 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 ' I think you are very courageous and 
 independent in your kindness. For instance, 
 you leave all your friends to come here with 
 me, who am almost a stranger to you, and 
 you make friends with me instead of ' 
 
 ' All that is nothing,' she said. 
 
 ' Then you are very amiable.' 
 
 ' Well ? ' 
 
 ' And remarkably good-natured.' 
 
 'WeU?' 
 
 ' Very frank.' 
 
 ' WeU ? ' 
 
 Here I stopped, not knowing how to 
 describe her disposition further, whereupon 
 she cried out impatiently — 
 
 ' Don't you see ? That is the very thing. 
 I am amiable, and good-tempered, and kind: 
 is that all you say? Why not say I am 
 
 K 2
 
 244 KILMENT. 
 
 desperately revengeful, or cunning, or pas- 
 sionate, or morose — anything gloomy, and 
 deep, and hideous. He says there is no 
 background to my disposition ' 
 
 ' And pray who could have said anything 
 so abominable and wrong ? ' said a new 
 voice, and Heatherleigh appeared at the 
 top of the stairs, and stepped out upon the 
 leaden roof of the tower. 
 
 Miss Lesley turned with a start to see 
 who was the speaker, and when she saw 
 who had overheard her, she stamped her 
 foot with an involuntary spasm of vexation. 
 Then she crimsoned deeply, bit her lip, and 
 turned contemptuously away, pretending to 
 look out upon the plain. 
 
 'Pray forgive me for breaking in upon 
 you. Miss Lesley,' said Heatherleigh, who 
 seemed rather amused by the scene, ' but I 
 could not help riding after you to see that 
 no danger befell you. Come, don't be angry.
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 245 
 
 if I intermpted your tete-a-tete at an awk- 
 ward moment — upon my honour, I had no 
 intention of doing so. I have been waiting 
 for you at the foot of the tower for a long 
 time ; then I thought I'd be able to point 
 out some objects of interest to you if I came 
 up.' 
 
 ' You are very kind,' she said, coldly. 
 
 ' Come, Ted,' he said, ' be my intercessor. 
 Plead for me.' 
 
 But Miss Lesley turned round, with a 
 smile breaking through the coldness of her 
 look, and said — 
 
 ' We will forgive you, if you fulfil your 
 promise. Tell us everything you know 
 about the place.' 
 
 Which he did ; for he had lived in Lewes, 
 and studied its history and traditions and 
 legends — told us such stories of friars and 
 kings and knights, of battles and sieges and 
 monkish exploits, that the place appeared
 
 246 KILMENY. 
 
 to me enchanted. It seemed as thougli that 
 old and beautiful and picturesque time was 
 divided from us by some thin veil of mist ; 
 and that, if we went down there, might it 
 not return to the still, quiet town? How 
 long ago was it that the cold winter days 
 awoke to find the Saxon farm-people over- 
 lorded by the fierce and drunken sea-pirates 
 of the north, while Alfred the King and his 
 small court lay hiding in the swamps of 
 Athelney, planning a sudden raid upon 
 them ? How long ago was it that Canute, 
 sailing through the yellow sea-fog of the 
 morning, heard the monks of Ely singing, 
 and bade his knights row near the land? 
 The time came quite near to us; English 
 history seemed to be around us; and as 
 Ave leant upon the old wall and looked 
 down on those fields and mounds into which 
 generation after generation of Saxons and 
 Normans and English had peacefully passed,
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 247 
 
 tliere came up to us the slow, soft notes 
 of an organ, wliicli was being played in 
 one of the churches. It was probably only 
 the work of some amateur player, trying 
 over some new chants; but as it reached 
 us — so faintly that we lost it occasionally— 
 it seemed a breath from these old forgotten 
 times, full of mystery and pathos and sadness. 
 
 Miss Lesley uttered a slight cry ; she had 
 dropped her glove over the wall. 
 
 ' Jump down for it,' she said to me, ' or 
 shall we all go down? The horses must 
 have rested sufficiently by this time ; and 
 that young one especially gets fidgety if he 
 is kept long in strange stables. I hope he 
 w^on't run away with me.' 
 
 ' If he were a more intelhgent animal, he 
 might be excused,' said Heatherleigh, with a 
 smile. 
 
 Bonnie Lesley blushed slightly, and said, 
 rather inappropriately —
 
 248 KILMENY. 
 
 ' Oil, you think that men are superior to 
 all the other animals ? ' 
 
 ' In some things only,' he said. ' As food, 
 for instance, men are inferior to sheep.' 
 
 I could not help reflecting what a rejoinder 
 Polly Whistler would have made at this 
 moment. Indeed, I sometimes wished that 
 Miss Lesley, with all her splendid graces 
 and accomplishments, could possess herself 
 of Polly's wit and gay humour and bright- 
 ness. But would not a perfect woman be a 
 monster ? Surely Bonnie Lesley had 
 enough of what was beautiful and desirable 
 in woman. 
 
 When we had gone down to the hotel, 
 and ordered the man to get out the horses, 
 Heatherleigh came up to me, and said 
 (Miss Lesley was not within hearing) — 
 
 ' You can ride, can you not ? ' 
 
 ' No ; but I can stick on the back of a 
 horse like a leech.'
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 249 
 
 ' Will you ride my liorse home, and let 
 me go in the phaeton ? ' 
 
 ' Are you tired ? ' 
 
 ' No ' 
 
 ' Then why do you want to exchange ? ' 
 
 ' I can't tell you just now ' 
 
 ' Well, I'd rather go back in the phaeton. 
 You seem not to like Miss Lesley ; why 
 should you want to go with her ? ' 
 
 ' Very well,' he said, turning away. 
 
 There was no look of disappointment or 
 vexation on his face ; but there was a mean- 
 ing in the tone of his voice which I could 
 not understand. Then his anxiety that she 
 and I should not go off together — his sud- 
 den appearance at the old castle — this pre- 
 sent desire to separate us — what could it all 
 mean? 
 
 Was he jealous of the favour which Miss 
 Lesley, in her thoughtless good-nature, was 
 so hberally extending to me? I was irre-
 
 250 KILMENY. 
 
 sistibly driven to this conclusion ; and my 
 old friend, if he should happen to read these 
 confessions, will understand that I now re- 
 cord the fact with shame. 
 
 That notion took possession of me, and 
 by its false light I read all the occurrences 
 which happened at this time. On that very 
 night — after Bonnie Lesley had driven home 
 in time for dinner — Heatherleigh and I dined 
 at a big new restaurant in West Street. He 
 spoke of what had happened at Lewes Castle. 
 
 ' I only caught the last sentence ; but I 
 knew that she had been speaking of what I 
 had said about her, and as I did not wish 
 to hear more, I broke in upon you.' 
 
 ' Then you did say that ? ' 
 
 'I did, and do. The girl is in many 
 respects a very good sort of creature ; but 
 she has no more permanence or depth of 
 character than a sheet of tissue-paper.' 
 
 ' Her G^ood-nature '
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 251 
 
 ' Her good-nature is negative. It is the 
 absence of the power to be really angry. 
 She has not depth of nature enough even to 
 feel a proper resentment against anybody or 
 anything. She has no emotional capacity 
 whatever. She admires everything in a 
 pretty and careless way, and admires every- 
 thing to the same extent. She loves, and 
 hates, and wonders, all in this slight and 
 superficial fashion * 
 
 ' For goodness' sake, stop,' I said to him. 
 ' When you begin to talk about Miss Lesley, 
 you lose your reason. What has she done 
 to you, that you should be so savage? And 
 if she is so feeble and frivolous a creature, 
 why were you so anxious to enjoy her 
 society that you rode all the way to Lewes, 
 and why did you want to go back with her 
 in the phaeton ? ' 
 
 He looked at me for a few seconds. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, ' you have your troubles to
 
 252 KILMENY. 
 
 come ; and it doesn't matter which woman 
 it is who opens your eyes. Do you re- 
 member when Polly and I were talking 
 nonsense about the necessity of a young 
 artist's having his heart broken ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' And I proposed to make Bonnie Lesley 
 the operator in your case.' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' That was a joke ; and I did not think 
 that Bonnie Lesley would have taken the 
 whim that she has taken. But if I were to 
 tell you why the girl is petting you, you — 
 with your subhme faith in the virtue of 
 everybody — would not believe me.' 
 
 ' Certainly not,' I said, ' if you proposed to 
 tell me that the girl was acting unworthily. 
 Why, it is too absurd. Take your own 
 position — that she is kind to me for some 
 particular purpose of her own ; and how 
 does that affect me ? I find a warm-
 
 LEWES CASTLE. 253 
 
 hearted and generous girl, whom everybody 
 (except one) admires ; and she chooses to 
 make friends with me, who am too young to 
 be of any importance to her or to any- 
 body else ' 
 
 ' Younger men than you have run away 
 with pretty girls, and married them — 
 consequently, younger men than you have 
 been led into the notion that they might do 
 so, and, finding themselves mistaken, may 
 have had their faith in human nature de- 
 stroyed and their lives ruined. I warn you, 
 Ted, not to continue your friendship with 
 this girl. I rode out to Lewes to separate 
 you ; and I would have ridden as far again : 
 for your sake alone, understand me. Per- 
 haps, as it was, I saved you from a danger 
 that might have befallen you in a few 
 minutes ' 
 
 The thought that these words suggested 
 was so fearful and horrible that I started
 
 254 KILMENY. 
 
 back from it. I sprang to my feet — my 
 face, I knew, was as white as death, and my 
 heart seemed choking. I said to him — 
 
 ' You have been my friend, and I am 
 grateful ; but, as sure as I hve, I will never 
 listen to another word from your lips.' 
 
 I rushed out of the place : he followed, 
 but he had to stop for a moment or two to 
 explain to the waiter. This saved me. I 
 walked about all night ; and took the first 
 train in the morning for London.
 
 255 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 POLLY AND HE. 
 
 I WAS hasty enough, I know ; but I was 
 beside myself with indignation. For Heath er- 
 leigh to talk of my losing faith in human 
 nature through some possible underhand 
 dealing on the part of Miss Lesley seemed 
 absurd when I considered that he, without 
 any proof, or reason, or excuse, suggested 
 about an honest and good-hearted girl what 
 his words dared not state explicitly. What 
 danger ? — and to me ! Why, so great was 
 my sense of that beautiful creature's bounty 
 in even regarding me and speaking to me, 
 that I should have been only too willing to 
 suffer anything to give her a moment's plea-
 
 256 KILMEXY. 
 
 sure. And it was out of the question that 
 any suffering of mine could affect her in any- 
 way. Suppose she was one of those impos- 
 sible women who are supposed to go about 
 the world in order to imperil men's souls by 
 breaking their hearts — suppose she liked to 
 boast of conquests as a savage points to the 
 number of his scalps, was it likely she would 
 care to make a conquest of me ? There were 
 a dozen men in Brighton at that time anxious 
 to have the honour of being her victims. 
 They hovered round her, knowing that all 
 of them could not marry her, and certain 
 that all, except some particular one, must be 
 disappointed. To catch a smile, or a word, 
 or the pleasure of handing her a fan, they 
 sought her society at this risk ; and it was 
 not to be considered that she should turn 
 aside from these suitors, who had every ad- 
 vantage of age and position and money, to 
 me, as one likely to flirt with or make love
 
 POLLY AND HE. 257 
 
 to her. Why she should in any case have 
 shown me such favour was sufficient of a 
 mystery ; and it was exphcable only on the 
 ground of her disinterested good-nature and 
 that independence of Mndness which I had 
 observed in her. 
 
 As I was going up Hampstead Eoad to my 
 lodgings, on the morning of my hurried de- 
 parture from Brighton, I met Polly WMstler. 
 I shook hands with her heartily ; for I was 
 glad to see some face that I knew. It was 
 my first estrangement from Heatherleigh ; 
 and all the world seemed to have grown 
 cold and distrustful. 
 
 ' What are you doing here, Ted ? ' she 
 said. 
 
 ' I should like to tell you, Polly ; but it is 
 a long story. Where are you going?' 
 
 ' I was to sit to ;Mr. Frances at ten o'clock, 
 in place of that Italian girl — only for the 
 costume, you know. I don't look like an 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 KILMENY. 
 
 ItaKan peasant-girl, do I ? However, come 
 along with me, and I will tell him I can't 
 sit for him this morning. He must wait for 
 her until to-morrow. Then we can take a 
 walk in Eegent's Park, and you will tell 
 me all about it.' 
 
 'But you will lose the sitting,' I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 ' I don't care now,' she said, rather sadly. 
 ' I used to like to gather a few shilHngs, you 
 know, and buy little things for the house ; 
 but my mother .' 
 
 I understood the mother not only took 
 the girl's earnings, but sold such httle orna- 
 ments or luxuries as she chose to buy. So 
 Polly and I went round to Eegent's Park ; 
 and I told her the whole story. She was 
 deeply interested in it. 
 
 ' And do you think he is in love with 
 her ? ' she asked, with her eyes fixed on the 
 ground.
 
 POLLY Ai^D HE. 259 
 
 ' JSTo,' I said, ' I can't say that. A man 
 would not talk about a woman in that way 
 if he was in love with her.' 
 
 Polly was very thoughtful for some time. 
 We sat down on one of the benches under- 
 neath the great lime-trees fronting the broad 
 stretch of the park that lies south of the 
 Zoological Gardens. It was here that I had 
 first seen Bonnie Lesley. There were few 
 people in the park at this time ; and an un- 
 usual silence dwelt around, for the leaves of 
 the trees scarcely stirred in the warm sun- 
 light. 
 
 ' You think he would not talk like that if 
 he was in love with her ? ' said Polly. ' Did 
 you never imagine the position of a man 
 who is compelled, in spite of himself, to love 
 a girl whom he considers unworthy of his 
 love ? Don't you think he would be bitter 
 against her, and bitterer against himself? 
 Would he not be likely to laugh at the folly 
 s2
 
 260 KILMEIST. 
 
 of being in love ; and sneer at those feminine 
 arts by which he had been captivated ? 
 Would he not revenge himself in that way, 
 and cover his own weakness, of which he is 
 ashamed ? ' 
 
 It seemed to me that this bright and 
 happy girl must have had her moments of 
 cruel and sad reflection before she could 
 have hit upon a notion like that, the truth 
 of which flashed upon me at once. But was 
 such the position of Heatherleigh ? 
 
 ' Come,' she said, with a laugh, ' what 
 have you and I to do with love-matters, 
 Ted ? They are for rich people, who have 
 nothing to do but choose whom they will 
 marry. We have our living to look after ; 
 and it takes us all our time, doesn't it ? I 
 wonder if, in the next world, we shall be 
 able to get free of all these things, and 
 speak to each other of what might have 
 been here below ? It would be like a
 
 POLLY AND HE. 261 
 
 Sunday out for us poor people, if we were 
 to get such a chance. There — will you 
 look at this thing, that I copied the other 
 night ? ' 
 
 With a sort of assumed carelessness, she 
 shpped into my hand a bit of paper, which 
 I unfolded. There were some verses on it, 
 written in her own handwriting, which I 
 knew. It was very correct and precise, but 
 a trifle stiff: she had taught herself. 
 
 The verses, so far as I can remember, 
 began with these lines — 
 
 ' If you and I were only ghosts, 
 
 Cut off from human cares and pains, 
 To walk together, at dead of night, 
 Along the far sidereal plains — ' 
 
 and went on to say how they would forget 
 all the cruel conditions that had separated 
 them here on earth, and talk to each other 
 of all they had been thinking when these 
 things had kept them asunder. Indeed, the
 
 262 KILMENY. 
 
 lines, toucHngly pathetic here, and awk- 
 wardly constructed there, were so obviously 
 a reproduction of what she had been saying, 
 that I cried out — 
 
 ' Oh, Polly, you have been writing poetry ! ' 
 
 ' Nonsense ! ' she said, with an embarrass- 
 ment and blushing I had never seen her 
 exhibit. ' I told you I had copied it.' 
 
 ' And you told me a fib/ 
 
 She put her arm inside mine (she had 
 flipped the paper into her pocket mean- 
 while), and said — 
 
 ' Come, let us go into the gardens. I 
 have got a shilling, if you have. And you 
 shall tell me of all you mean to do. I 
 insist first, though, on your making friends 
 with Mr. Heatherleigh.' 
 
 We passed into the Zoological Gardens, 
 and we strolled about the walks, sometimes 
 talking about Heatherleigh and Bonnie Les- 
 ley, sometimes talking about the animals in
 
 POLLY A^^) HE. 263 
 
 the cages. Polly was in better spirits now ; 
 and went on chatting in her usual bright 
 and happy fasliion. I wish I could remem- 
 ber a tithe of the remarks she made about 
 the animals — mad interpretations of their 
 feelings and opinions, humorous touches of 
 description, and comical comparisons of 
 every kind. From cage to cage we went, 
 from enclosure to enclosure, and there was 
 scarcely a bird or beast that she did not 
 endow with human feelings, and wonder 
 what each w^as thinking of at the time. 
 Some of these anthropomorphic fancies were 
 extraordinarily ingenious, and they flowed 
 out so freely and spontaneously as to charm 
 one with their constant variety and novelty. 
 She had just described the opinion pro- 
 bably held by a very mangy-looking hyaena, 
 about Offenbach's music, as played by the 
 band of the Coldstream Guards opposite its 
 cage, when her arm, which was inside mine
 
 264 KILMENY. 
 
 gave a sudden start. Heatherleigh ap- 
 proached. 
 
 The expression of her face changed in- 
 stantly ; and she seemed anxious to get 
 away without speaking. However, he came 
 up, and shook hands with her, and asked, in 
 his old friendly way, how she was. She 
 answered him very coldly ; and, saying that 
 he probably wanted to speak to me, was 
 for going off by herself. 
 
 ' Don't go away hke that, Polly,' said he. 
 
 ' At least let me go with you,' said I. 
 
 ' There now,' he said, with a peculiar 
 smile, ' are my two best friends — about the 
 only people I care for — in league against 
 me, and going to cut me ! Have I deserved 
 it ? At any rate tell me what I am accused 
 of.' 
 
 ' I don't accuse you of anything, Mr. 
 Heatherleigh,' said Polly, in a low voice, 
 ' but I wish to go home.'
 
 POLLY A^^D HE. 265 
 
 He looked at her for a moment with a 
 strange look in his face — a look of infinite 
 compassion and tenderness. I thought he 
 would have seized her hand. But he only- 
 said, in a graver voice — 
 
 ' Don't let any misunderstanding remain 
 between us three. Life is not long enough 
 that we should waste it in quarrels; and 
 friends are not so plentiful that we can 
 afibrd to throw them off. Let us sit down 
 on this seat. There now. As for you, Ted, 
 I will bring you to your senses in a moment. 
 You misunderstood entirely what I meant 
 about Miss Lesley. But say that you 
 didn't ; and I profess myself all the same 
 very sorry, and I will never say anything 
 against her again. It was entirely for your 
 sake that I spoke : you will find that out 
 some day, when you know both her and 
 me better. I say that I regret having said 
 what I did : will that do ? '
 
 266 KILMENT. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 ' Shall we be friends, then ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly ; I don't see how we could have 
 been anything else under any circumstances. 
 But your conduct towards her is a mystery 
 to me. You say that some day I shall think 
 otherwise about her. You don't suppose I 
 am in love with her ? But, so far as I do 
 know her, I know you do her a great in- 
 justice, and last night what you said was 
 simply ' 
 
 ' There, there,' he said, ' we'll have no 
 more about that. I regret it ; and you will 
 think no more about it. Is it a bargain ? ' 
 
 'I am only too glad to be friends with 
 you again on any terms ; but it is you who 
 will think otherwise in time — unless your 
 present opinion of her is only a pretence.' 
 
 'And now for you, Polly; what have I 
 done to you that you should try to avoid me?' 
 
 'Nothing at all, Mr. Heatherleigh,' said
 
 POLLY AND HE. 267 
 
 Polly, casting down her eyes, ' and you 
 know it.' 
 
 ' Why you used to be as frank with me as 
 the daylight, Polly,' he said. ' Wlien I came 
 round the park in search of Ted, and when 
 young Cartwright, who saw you both, told 
 me you had come in here, I said to myself 
 that I should have an ally in bringing him to 
 reason. Instead of which I have both of 
 you to argue with ; and the mischief is that 
 I don't know what it is we have to argue 
 about. You are not in love with Bonnie 
 Lesley, Polly?' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Then what is the matter ? ' 
 
 ' You forget how we parted last,' she said, 
 in a low voice. 
 
 ' But what has that to do with me ? ' he 
 said, taking her hand. 
 
 She drew her hand away, and said — 
 
 ' It has nothing to do with you, Mr.
 
 268 KILMENY. 
 
 Heatherleigh, of course, but — but I don't 
 wish you to speak to me any more ' 
 
 Slie hastily rose from her seat, and left, 
 with her back turned to us. He would 
 have followed her; but I restrained him. 
 
 ' Don't shame her any more,' I said, ' she 
 is crying.' 
 
 He bit his lip, and sat silent for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 ' That old idiot ! ' he muttered ; ' why 
 should her nonsense be regarded by us who 
 are sane ? ' 
 
 ' By-and-by Polly will have forgotten 
 much of what her mother said, and may 
 not be ashamed to meet you; but at 
 present ' 
 
 ' Well, at present ? ' he said ; ' wasn't she 
 chatting just as usual to you when I came 
 up?' 
 
 ' That is another matter,' I said, looking 
 hard at him.
 
 POLLY AND HE. 269 
 
 He did not seem to draw any inference 
 from the words : he was staring at the path, 
 and drawing hnes on the gravel with his 
 stick. Eventually I persuaded him to go 
 over to his rooms, saying that I would 
 follow him. 
 
 Then I went in search of Polly, and found 
 her. 
 
 ' Is he gone ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' Yes,' I said. 
 
 She pressed my hand ; and we went 
 slowly towards the gate, without a word. 
 
 ' Eeally,' I said to her, in crossing over 
 the park, on our way home, ' you put too 
 much importance on what passed that night. 
 Heatherleigh understands that your mother 
 did not know what she was saying ; and he 
 is very sorry that it should have occurred, 
 and is vexed that it should alter in any way 
 our old relations. Don't you remember the 
 jolly evenings, Polly, when we three used
 
 270 KILMENY. 
 
 to sit all by ourselves after supper, aud chat 
 until near midnight ? You know, the 
 autumn nights will be coming on again ; 
 what shall we do with ourselves if we are 
 never to meet as we used to do? 
 
 ' You are very kind, Ted,' she said, ' but 
 that is all over.' 
 
 ' It isn't all over, Polly. When Heather- 
 leigh finally comes back from Brighton ' 
 
 ' Do you think I can ever enter his house 
 again, considering how I left it ? ' she said, 
 with just a touch of indignation in her voice. 
 ' Do you think a woman has no sort of self- 
 respect, even although she is a model P Oh, 
 I hope I shall never, never see him again — 
 for it kills me to think of his standing in 
 that room and listening to all the cruel 
 things she said of me.' 
 
 I saw her mouth quivering, and her 
 breath came short and quick. Then she 
 said —
 
 POLLY AND HE. 271 
 
 ' You told me you had a picture at your 
 lodgings, Ted.' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Could I — could I be of any use to you ? 
 We are both poor, you know — at least I 
 am ; but I have plenty of time, and I should 
 like to come and sit for you. Will you let 
 me do that in return for your kindness ? ' 
 
 ' But why should you cry about it, Polly?' 
 said I. 
 
 The tears were streaming down the poor 
 girl's cheeks. As we passed along, I knew 
 that Heatherleigh was watching us from 
 under the shadow of one of the trees ; but 
 she did not see him.
 
 272 KILMENY. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MR. ALFRED BURNHAM. 
 
 I WENT down to Brighton again with 
 Heatherleigh, and re-entered that strange 
 world of indolent enjoyment, of luxury and 
 gaiety, of day-dreaming by the sea, of listen- 
 ing to Bonnie Lesley's pretty voice and 
 looking at the pretty wonder of her child- 
 like eyes. 
 
 What chiefly astonished me in this new 
 world, was the life led by the young men — 
 the young Olympians of handsome figure, 
 of faultless dress and unhmited command of 
 money, who drove their mail-phaetons in 
 such splendid style, and had such a fine 
 indifierence to the presence of waiters.
 
 ME. ALFRED BURXHAM. 273 
 
 Eather against my will, I was dragged into 
 tlieir society by Heatheiieigh, who knew 
 several of them who were living at various 
 hotels. So far as I was concerned, I could 
 not help admiring the free and easy manner 
 with which they used to try to convince me 
 that I was their equal. I was too much 
 impressed by their manner of living, how- 
 ever, to think of myself in the matter : it 
 was enough for me to watch the actions of 
 those young favourites of fortune, with their 
 irresistible coolness and self-possession, and 
 their unconscionable expenditure in flowers, 
 gloves, and cigars. How httle they thought 
 of tossing up as to who should pay for a 
 dinner for four or five of them, which cost, 
 at a moderate computation, eighteen shil- 
 lings a head ! How carelessly they would 
 hand a half-sovereign to the leader of the 
 band wliich used to play in front of the 
 hotel at night ! With what indifference they 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 KTLMEl!^. 
 
 wrote off to Poole to send them down a 
 couple of suits of clothes ! And with 
 what a royal magnanimity they dispensed 
 shiUings and half-crowns to anybody who 
 did them the smallest service ! 
 
 There was one among them who was 
 never guilty of these thoughtless acts of 
 generosity or extravagance ; and that was 
 Mr. Alfred Burnham. Miss Hester Burn- 
 ham, I heard, had come down, and was 
 living with her aunt — an old lady who had 
 a large house at the extreme east end of 
 Brighton. This lady I had never seen ; but 
 I knew she was not very favourably disposed 
 either to her nephew, Mr. Alfred Burnham, 
 or to his father and her brother-in-law, 
 Colonel Burnham. Such, at least, was the 
 gossip down in Buckinghamshire, and it was 
 so far corroborated by the fact that Mr. 
 Alfred Burnham, instead of Hving at her 
 house, stayed at an hotel.
 
 MR. ALFRED BURXHAM. 275 
 
 I detested that man, and everything I 
 saw and heard of him at Brighton increased 
 the bad impression I received from his cold 
 and calculating eyes, his thin lips, and selfish, 
 hard face. He was handsome enough, in 
 one way — indeed, he looked hke the best 
 type of young Englishman, with the emo- 
 tional and moral qualities withdrawn. He 
 had a good physique, good complexion, and 
 excellent manners, of a somewhat indifferent 
 and hlase kind. To women he could be 
 exceedingly agreeable, when he chose ; and 
 then he would turn away, with a half- con- 
 cealed look of weariness, as if he rather 
 pitied their folly in being pleasant to him. 
 In the company of men, he was chiefly 
 remarkable for his constantly watchful 
 habit of making the most of current circum- 
 stances — of winning bets, and extricating 
 himself from the necessity of paying any- 
 thing. He did not seem to care to shine in 
 
 T 2
 
 276 KILMENY. 
 
 auy way. He never boasted of anything — 
 not even of his successes with women. He 
 acknowledged himself ignorant of politics ; 
 was rather inclined to be a Conservative, as 
 he considered the Eadicals ' such a pack of 
 
 d d cads ; ' he hunted sometimes, but he 
 
 had no good runs or exciting escapes to 
 recount ; he shot sometimes, but cared 
 nothing about it. 
 
 Here is a httle incident wdiich I used to 
 think revealed his nature admirably. 
 
 He and two or three others, with 
 Heatherleigh and myself, were going into 
 the Grand Hotel. I may say here, par 
 parenthese, that I had no scruple about 
 meeting him. I did not care whether he 
 remembered or not that he had given me 
 half-a-crowm by way of alms. I dishked 
 him, and, had there been any disposition on 
 his part to recall that incident at the foot of 
 White-cross Hill, I should not have been
 
 MR. ALFRED BURNHAM. 2 t ^ 
 
 ashamed of it in his presence. As it was, he 
 made no difference between me and the 
 others, except that he never tried to make 
 bets with me. 
 
 As we were going up the steps, I saw him 
 hnger behind, and drop a stone on to the 
 ground. I could not understand why a 
 man should have been carrying a stone in 
 his pocket, but paid no particular attention 
 to the fact. We went into the biUiard- 
 room, somebody having proposed that there 
 should be a game of pool before lunch. 
 Some played, others looked on, and bet 
 upon who should divide. I happened to 
 sit down beside a young barrister, with 
 whom I had become acquainted. 
 
 ' I fancy you noticed Burnham drop a 
 stone as we came in,' said he to me. 
 
 ' I did.' 
 
 'Come out with me, and we'll have a 
 lark.'
 
 278 KILMENY. 
 
 We left the billiard-room together, and 
 when we got outside, he picked up the stone 
 which Alfred Burnham had dropped. 
 
 'Now,' said he, 'he's up to some trick. 
 He means to bet about that stone — either 
 the distance it lies from the pavement, or 
 its weight, or something like that. He's 
 always at it ; and he's not above trying any 
 sort of dodge if he thinks he can get a fiver 
 out of you. Suppose that we get a bit of 
 string and measure how far the stone lies 
 from the pavement, and then we can have it 
 weighed ? ' 
 
 He put the stone down again, and we 
 accurately measured the distance. Then we 
 went into the tobacconist's shop at the 
 corner and had the stone weighed — seven 
 ounces thirteen drams was the result. 
 Finally the stone was put back in its place, 
 and we returned to the billiard-room. 
 Burnham was in high spirits ; he had won a
 
 MR. ALFRED BURXHAM. 279 
 
 sovereign, betting three to one that Heather- 
 leigh would divide the last pool. He offered 
 to toss double or quits ; but the offer was 
 declined. 
 
 We went into the room in which 
 luncheon had been prepared for us ; and 
 sat down at the prettily decorated table, 
 with its coloured claret-glasses, its vases of 
 flowers, and — not least attractive — its 
 handsome wine-coolers, out of which the 
 rounded heads and golden necks of two 
 champagne-bottles peeped. And out there 
 the gay crowd rolled past in its handsome 
 carriages, and there was a glow of briUiantly 
 tinted parasols, and bonnets and dresses, 
 along the pavement ; and then, out beyond 
 that again, lay the great white sea, and the 
 sunlight, and the far-off specks of sails. 
 
 Heatherleigh was sitting next me, and I 
 begged him to tell me whose guest I was. 
 
 ' I don't know,' he said ; ' it doesn't matter.'
 
 280 KILMEIS^Y. 
 
 ' Don't you know whose wine you are 
 drinking ? ' 
 
 'I believe a person of the name of 
 Roderer is the excellent author of it. Don't 
 distress yourself. We were hustled in here 
 indiscriminately by two or three men, and 
 if there is any one of them whose bread and 
 salt you would rather not eat, we shall 
 forbid his paying his share. Have an honest 
 care of your stomach, Ted ; and leave 
 Alfred Burnham alone.' 
 
 ' I wasn't talking of Alfred Burnham,' I 
 said. 
 
 ' No, but you were thinking of him, when 
 you asked that question. There is old 
 Ebury, at the end of the table, preaching 
 about the benefits to civilisation that the 
 Italian canal, in which he is a shareholder, is 
 going to produce. He may talk about the 
 Italian caaal till Doomsday; but it is his 
 own intestinal canal he is thinking of.'
 
 MR. ALFRED BURNHAM. 281 
 
 At this moment I overheard Mr. Alfred 
 Burnham beginning to talk rather loudly 
 about the fun of making absolutely absurd 
 bets. 
 
 ' Why do you treat Alfred Burnham so 
 defiantly — so cavilierly/ continued Heather- 
 leigh. 'Has he done you any injury? 
 Why, you speak to him as if he were a 
 be^crar ' 
 
 ' That is my role,' I said, laughing. 
 
 ' Ah, I remember,' said Heatherleigh. 
 ' But you don't blame him for that P ' 
 
 ' I don't blame him for anything — I dis- 
 like him ; and I shouldn't eat or drink a 
 morsel or drop at this table if I thought he 
 was going to pay for it.' 
 
 ' Be at rest on that score, Ted ; Alfred 
 Burnham never pays. It is a point of 
 honour with him ; and I am glad there is 
 one thing on which he follows a principle.' 
 
 Burnham was now engaging the attention
 
 282 KILMENT. 
 
 of the men nearest him by describing the 
 various bets he had seen made. The run- 
 ning of rain-drops on panes, the motions 
 of flies, the chasing of waves — anything in 
 which no possible calculation could be made 
 he preferred. 
 
 Tor instance,' he said, getting up and 
 holding his table-napkin in his hand 
 (although lunch was not nearly over), ' I 
 shouldn't mind having a bet about the 
 weight of anything lying out there — a 
 stone, or a bit of dry stick.' 
 
 With that he looked out of the window. 
 
 ' Are you good at guessing right ? ' asked 
 my friend, the barrister, whose name was 
 TiUey. 
 
 ' I take my chance, like everybody else,' 
 said Burnham. ' For example, I will bet 
 you anything you hke that I will go nearer 
 the weight of that stone lying out there than 
 you will.'
 
 MR. ALFRED BURXHAM. 283 
 
 'Sit down, you fellows, and drop your 
 betting,' said some one. 
 
 Burnham, however, ordered the waiter 
 to go out and fetch in this particular 
 stone. He brought it, and it was handed to 
 TiUey. 
 
 'I don't mind having a bet with you,' 
 said he. 
 
 ' What shall it be ? ' returned Burnham, 
 carelessly. ' Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred ? ' 
 
 ' Anything you like — say fifty.' 
 
 ' All right.' 
 
 By this time everybody at table was 
 listening. 
 
 ' Send it off to be weighed,' said Tilley, 
 ' and make the waiter bring back the weight 
 on a bit of paper. You and I must write 
 down our notion of the weight, and hand 
 the two slips to Heatherleigh.' 
 
 ' Very well,' said Burnham, with a laugh. 
 ' I suppose we must be particular when fifty
 
 284 KILMENY. 
 
 pounds are in the case. Or, what do you 
 say, shall we double ? ' 
 
 ' I don't mind/ 
 
 A minute or two afterwards, the waiter 
 returned, and gave Heatherleigh the third 
 slip of paper. 
 
 ' I find,' said Heatherleigh, speaking with 
 official gravity, ' that Burnham guesses the 
 weight of this interesting piece of stone at 
 eight ounces, which is a very near guess, as 
 it weighs seven ounces thirteen drams. But 
 I find that Tilley is even nearer ; for he 
 guesses it at seven ounces thirteen drams. 
 Accordingly, he has won the bet.' 
 
 Heatherleigh must have seen through the 
 whole afiair when Tilley's paper was handed 
 to him ; but he made the announcement 
 quite gravely. It was received by the 
 others with an explosion of laughter. Burn- 
 ham was beside himself with rage ; for not 
 only had he lost the money, but he saw
 
 MR. ALFRED BURXHAiM. 285 
 
 that his neighbours perceived he had been 
 caught in his own trap. He tried to laugh 
 and said to Tilley — 
 
 ' You think that a good joke ? ' 
 
 ' Well, I do,' said Tilley, who was laugh- 
 ing heartily. 
 
 ' I'll tell you what I think,' shouted Burn- 
 ham, entirely losing command of himself, ' I 
 think you are a d d swindler.' 
 
 Tilley was about to drink some claret out 
 of a tumbler. The next second the wine 
 was thrown into Burnham's face. Then 
 ensued a pretty scrimmage, two or three 
 men holding Burnham back by main force, 
 and everybody begging everybody else to be 
 quiet. Tilley stood calm and collected at 
 the table. At lenorth, Burnham, vowinsf 
 unheard-of tilings, was persuaded to go to 
 his bed-room, and change his stained waist- 
 coat; while Tilley sat down, and asked if 
 anybody was willing to cash Mr. Alfred
 
 286 KILMEI^Y. 
 
 Burnham's note of hand for a hundred 
 pounds. 
 
 ' I will — when you get it,' said his neigh- 
 bour. 
 
 Burnham did not re-appear ; and Tilley — 
 who made no secret of the way in which he 
 had trapped his opponent — finished his 
 lunch in peace. From that day, I noticed 
 that the men rather fought shy of Mr. Alfred 
 Burnham. When, through habit, he offered 
 to bet, they dechned. 
 
 'Lucky for him the Lewisons have not 
 heard of that prank ? ' said Heatherleigh to 
 me. 
 
 'Why?' 
 
 ' Because he would not be allowed to visit 
 there, and it is only there he has a chance of 
 meeting your friend. Miss Hester.' 
 
 ' Then you think ' 
 
 ' That he means to become an honest man 
 so soon as he can marry her and get her
 
 MR. ALFEED BURNHAM. 287 
 
 money to live upon. They say these two 
 are engaged.' 
 
 Heatherleigh was silent for a long time. 
 
 'She reminds me so much sometimes of 
 that girl — whom — whom I told you I used 
 to know. She has the same sort of manner, 
 and her eyes have the same strange expres- 
 sion. Sometimes I look at her and think 
 
 that Bah ! nonsense ! What is she if 
 
 she is capable of thinking of marrying 
 Mm?'
 
 288 KILMENY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 AT SHOREHAM. 
 
 Some local club or society having resolved 
 to hold its annual fete at the Swiss Gardens, 
 Shoreham, Mr. Lewison, who knew several 
 of the members, was asked to form a party 
 to go there. He accordingly did so; and 
 Heatherleigh and I were among the number 
 invited. Some started from Mr. Lewison's 
 house ; others drove over by themselves, in 
 their own carriages. Among the former 
 were Heatherleigh and myself, and, as the 
 party was successively told off, it happened 
 that we were ordered to accompany Miss 
 Lesley. 
 
 It was a very pleasant morning, with a
 
 AT SHOREHAM. 289 
 
 cool breeze blowing in from the sea that 
 tempered the fierce heat of the sunHght. 
 Miss Lesley was looking particularly hand- 
 some; and she was particularly gracious. 
 Even Heatherleigh's coldness seemed to be 
 thawed by her obvious desire to be pleasant 
 and friendly ; and he chatted with her in a 
 better-tempered fashion than I had ever seen 
 him exhibit towards her. Once or twice, 
 however, when he happened to say some- 
 thing to me about painting or poetry, or 
 sonie similar topic, and when she joined the 
 conversation, he turned to her with a poHte 
 and cold attention, which plainly said, 'I 
 don't choose to have you talk on such 
 subjects.' 
 
 This was unfair ; because again and again 
 I had noticed in the girl a desire to appre- 
 ciate and understand these things, which 
 deserved every encouragement. I have 
 already said that it seemed to me the 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 KILMENY. 
 
 artistic side of her nature was singularly un- 
 impressionable — that she seemed incapable 
 of receiving artistic influences ; but surely 
 it was all the more creditable to her that 
 she should be anxious to be able to take an 
 interest in such matters. Even to assume 
 the interest she did not feel was in itself a 
 virtue. Most women in her position would 
 have used the prerogative given them by 
 their surpassing loveliness to despise what 
 they could not comprehend, and banish any 
 mention of it from their circle. To hold in 
 subjection a court of lovers, to look like 
 some glorified Cleopatra, would have been 
 sufficient for them ; and they would have 
 laughed at and scouted the intellectual 
 cravings which they could not understand, 
 even as modern interpretation will have it 
 that the object of Pygmalion's love outraged 
 and disappointed the passionate longings of 
 her creator.
 
 AX SHOEEHAM. 291 
 
 When we reached Shoreham, we found 
 that a number of people had arrived, and 
 had already become familiar with what 
 must have been to them the very novel 
 amusements of the gardens. Here some 
 young girls in gauzy white, with red roses 
 in their hair, and pink gloves on their hands, 
 were practising archery in a reckless fashion, 
 and getting extraordinary compliments from 
 one or two gentlemen who were their atten- 
 dants, whenever chance brought a stray 
 arrow near the target. There a party was 
 playing at croquet, and exhibiting to by- 
 standers a much greater skill in the fine art 
 of flirtation than in sending a ball through 
 the bell. Then there were the quiet walks 
 through snatches of copsewood (with some 
 painted pasteboard figure suddenly staring 
 at you from among the bushes) the green- 
 houses, the flower-gardens, the lake, and 
 what not, to attract straggUng couples. I do 
 u2
 
 292 KILMENY. 
 
 not mean here to describe the various 
 amusements that occupied us during the day 
 — a picnic on the lawn being prominent 
 among them ; nor yet the performance at 
 the theatre, where Miss Lesley sat in the 
 front of the gallery, and endeavoured to 
 keep her numerous gentlemen-friends from 
 talking to her while the actors were on the 
 stage. As the people were going out, we 
 happened to get together ; and, as chance 
 would have it, we carelessly strolled onwards 
 until we found ourselves in that straggling 
 line of wood which surrounds the lake. 
 
 Here we walked up and down in the 
 cool of the beautiful evening, all around 
 us the flutter of green leaves and the 
 stirring of the sweet pure air ; and then, 
 when we came to a gap in the trees, we 
 found a pale yellow sky overhead, sharply 
 traced across with lines of cirrous clouds, 
 gleaming like silver on the faint back-
 
 AT SHOREIIAM. 293 
 
 ground of gold mist. The young moon 
 was there, too ; and Bonnie Lesley turned 
 over all the money in her pocket, for luck's 
 sake. 
 
 ' You artists don't care to be rich,' she 
 said. 'You have a world of your own, and 
 you are rich in dreams, and you don't care 
 about us poor folks out here, or what we 
 think is pleasant to have.' 
 
 ' I know what is pleasant to have,' I said. 
 ' I wish I was rich, and beautiful, and strong 
 and happy, not for my own sake, but to 
 have the power of conferring favour and 
 pleasure. I see men and women here who 
 have only to smile to confer a favour : — you, 
 yourself — you know what pleasure it must 
 give you to be beautiful and bountiful and 
 loveable — to be able to gladden the people 
 around you with a look or a w^ord. 
 
 ' Do you know what you are saying ? ' she 
 said, with a laugh of surprise.
 
 294 KILMENY. 
 
 It seemed to me that I did not. I was 
 so anxious to show her what I considered 
 the happy position of rich and beautiful 
 persons, that I had taken no care to conceal 
 what I thought of herself personally. This 
 I told her, frankly. 
 
 ' You think it is a fine thing to be good- 
 looking and all this that you say? What 
 if you can't please the very people you want 
 to please ? Why, if I were to beheve the 
 nonsense you talked, I should be able at 
 once to overwhelm you with kindness.' 
 
 'You do that now,' I said, truthfully 
 enough. 
 
 ' Is what you say true ? ' she said, turning 
 her large eyes, full of a pretty astonish- 
 ment, upon me. 'Is it really of any 
 concern to you that I should do everything 
 in my power to please you ? If I told 
 you now that — that there was nothing I 
 wouldn't do '
 
 AT SEOREHAM. 295 
 
 With that she laughed lightly. 
 
 ' Come/ she said, ' we are drifting into 
 confessions, and there are sure to be 
 people walking round this way, who would 
 
 imagme- 
 
 And here she laughed again, and turned 
 away from me, and tripped, down the bank 
 to the margin of the lake. Before I knew 
 what she was about, she had j umped into a 
 boat, and lifting one of the oars, had pushed 
 out from the bank. 
 
 ' How far would you jump in order to 
 have the pleasure of coming and talking to 
 me ? ' she said. 
 
 ' Let the boat stop where it is, and I will 
 jump from the bridge.' 
 
 ' You silly boy, you would break your 
 neck. See, I will be merciful, and you shall 
 break your neck for me another time.' 
 
 'When I can be of service to you.' 
 
 ' Just so.'
 
 296 KILMENY. 
 
 She pushed the stern of the boat towards 
 the shore ; I got in and took the oars. We 
 paddled about a httle — passed under the 
 bridge, and out upon the larger lake, which 
 was now growing crimson under the evening 
 sky. Out in the middle of the water, we 
 allowed the boat to float idly, and Bonnie 
 Lesley bade me come and sit beside her, 
 that she might talk to me. 
 
 ' Whatever put that strange notion into 
 your head about wishing to be rich and 
 so forth, in order to be able to please 
 people ? The only use in riches I see, is 
 that they make you independent. For 
 instance, if I had no money, I should have 
 to marry a man who could keep up a house 
 in a certain style ; but I shall have a little 
 money, you know, when I come of age, 
 and I can look all round my friends and 
 say to myself, ' Well, there are one or two 
 who, I think, would hke to marry me, but 
 I shall wait until I get desperately fond of
 
 AT SHOREHMI. 297 
 
 some one, and then, if he is as fond of me, 
 I can marry him, even although he is a 
 beggar. Now that is fortunate.' 
 'It would be, for the beggar.' 
 ' Why not for me ? Surely you have a 
 better opinion of me than to think that I 
 have any sympathy with the common 
 notions about marriage? Oh, I am more 
 romantic than you imagine, and if you 
 would only try me — I mean if you would 
 
 not misunderstand me, I might But 
 
 no matter. Do you remember what Queen 
 Elizabeth wrote in reply to Sir Walter 
 Ealeigh's hues about his fearing to rise so 
 far lest he might fall ? She was right, too, 
 was she not ? Isn't it the business of men to 
 dare, and of women to give ? ' She uttered 
 these last words in a low voice, Avith her 
 head bent down. 
 
 Inadvertently I took her hand in mine, 
 and she did not withdraw it.
 
 298 KILMENY. 
 
 The boat, meanwhile, had drifted back 
 almost to the bridge, and, at this moment, I 
 looked up and saw Hester Burnham stand- 
 ing there, alone. Her eyes met mine. 
 
 Did I ever tell you what those eyes were 
 like — the large, dark pupils, set in the 
 tender-blue grey, and shaded by long eye- 
 lashes — eyes full of a strange intense life, 
 that was yet tempered by the calm, wise, 
 kind expression of them? 
 
 I met that earnest look for a moment, 
 and I withdrew my hand from Bonnie 
 Lesley's fingers. I knew that between me 
 and her, between me and any possibility 
 of such hope and happiness as I had dared 
 to think she suggested, there lay something 
 as wide, and as sad, as the sea. 
 
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