OF THE UNIVERSITY Or ILLINOIS 823 J489s t 1844 Itf Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/storyoffeather00jerr_0 Pa.£e 3 0 noif&up ye^%? LONDON. ^ /A& ' ^s/s/srSC c y/ssJ'/'/s/ 18 44 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. BY DOUGLAS JERROLD, AUTHOR OF “CAKES AND ALE,” “PUNCH’S LETTERS TO UIS SON,” ETC. ETC. ETC. ILLUSTRATED WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY LEECH. LONDON : PUBLISHED AT THE PUNCH OFFICE, 194, STRAND. M DCCCXLI V. LONDON : J5RADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTFRS, WHITHKRIARS. £2 5 X \ TO MY DAUGHTERS JANE AND MARY; THIS LITTLE STORY IS I-nscri&eU BY THEIR AFFECTIONATE FATHER. The piecemeal manner in which this little tale was (in the pages of Punch ) necessarily published, did not permit a minute and elaborate development of plot ; even had such finished conduct of a story been within the power of the writer. The only thing attempted was to shew rapid scenes ; to mark mere sketches of character. In the present reprint several of the latter chapters are, it is hoped, rendered less imperfect than when they originally appeared ; written, as they then were, under severe illness. London. May , 1844. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction 1 CHAPTER I. My Arrival in England ; my Visit to Shadrach Jacobs, of the Minories . 5 I am sold to the Jew.- CHAPTER II. -Miriam the Temptress. — The Family Watch . 10 CHAPTER III. Flamingo, the Court Feather- Merchant. — The Duke’s Pine- Apple. — Birth of a Prince of Wales . * 15 CHAPTER IV. Patty Butler, the Feather-Dresser. — Patty’s Mother.— Mr. Lintley, the Apothecary . 21 CHAPTER V. Patty Butler finishes her work. — A word on London Garrets. — A Ruffian.— Patty in the Watch-house 26 CHAPTER VI. Patty Butler in the Watch-house. — The Charge. — Her Release . . . 31 CHAPTER VII. Patty returns home. — Unexpected Visitor 37 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER VIII. A Funeral.— St. James’s Palace.- The Prince of Wales . . . . 43 CHAPTER IX. The Prince of Wales exhibited.— The Countess Blushrose. — Dreadful accident to Mr. Flamingo 48 CHAPTER X. I am carried off from the Palace. — The Countess Blushrose and her Chaplain .54 CHAPTER XI. Domestic Happiness of the Earl and Countess Blushrose. — Peculation by Lord Tootle’s Maid 60 CHAPTER XII. The Countess Blushrose and her Babe. — Slavery of Saint James’s. — Garrick’s “ Romeo” 67 CHAPTER XIII. Drury Lane Theatre. — A broken-hearted Woman. — The Countess is summoned home. — An old Acquaintance 74 CHAPTER XIV. I am purchased by Madame Spanneu. — An illustration of human Motives 81 CHAPTER XV. I am of Madame Spanneu’s Stock. — Gossip of Gowns and Cloaks. — Short History of a scarlet-heeled Shoe 87 CHAPTER XVI. Madam Spanneu’s Customers.— Their Humility. — Domestic Peace and Pickles ; an Episode 93 CHAPTER XVII. Monsieur Spanneu and his Scholars. — I am ill-used by a Poodle . . 99 CONTENTS. ix PAGK CHAPTER XVIII. A husband's Wrongs.— A Listener.— An Attack — Triumph of Colours . 104 CHAPTER XIX. I am taken to a Tavern. — Left in a Hackney-coach 110 CHAPTER XX. A House in Bloomsbury. — I again meet Patty Butler . . . .115 CHAPTER XXI. Mrs. Crumpet and Patty. — Cramp, the Card-maker 121 CHAPTER XXII. An Intruder. — A stolen Watch.— Patty in new Affliction . . . 127 CHAPTER XXIII. A short account of a Highwayman. — Arrival of Mr. Lintley . . . 132 CHAPTER XXIV. I am removed to Cramp’s House. — Death of the old Card-maker . . 138 CHAPTER XXV. A House of Mourning. — I am in great Peril. — A Message from the Dead 144 CHAPTER XXVI. Mrs. Cramp’s new Suitor.— The Widow’s Cap 149 CHAPTER XXVII. I am again taken Abroad. — The Widow loses her Lover and Myself . 155 CHAPTER XXVIII. I am taken to Newgate —The Turnkey and his Wife . . . 100 X CONTENTS. PAGK CHAPTER XXIX. I meet Patty Butler in Newgate. — The Turnkey’s Wife pleads for Curl well 166 CHAPTER XXX. Patty is visited by Mrs. Gaptooth and Curlwell. — Offer of Marriage . 171 CHAPTER XXXI. Curl well’s Suit rejected. — Appearance and Grief of the Widow Cramp . 178 CHAPTER XXXII. Mrs. Cramp’s appeal to the Widow. — Visit of a Jealous Wife . . . 184 CHAPTER XXXIII. A Conspiracy against Patty. — More Visitors to Newgate. — The Misses Peachick 190 CHAPTER XXXIV. The Trial of Click Abram and Patty Butler 196 CHAPTER XXXV. I am taken to Drury-lane Theatre, and become Part of its Wardrobe. — The Play-house behind the Scenes 203 CHAPTER XXXVI. Something more of Fanny Davis. — The poor Actor’s Home — Miss Gauntwolf 209 CHAPTER XXXVII. I go upon the Stage. — The Green-room. — The Actors. — Mr. Gauntwolf and a Pinch of Snuff 215 CHAPTER XXXVIII. I am left in Clive’s Dressing-room. — A Colloquy with a Hare’s Foot . 221 CONTENTS. XI PAGE CHAPTER XXXIX. I am taken from the Theatre.— A Critic’s Inkstand.— Death of Mrs. Gaptooth 227 CHAPTER XL. I remain in the Family of the Gauntwolfs. — A Letter and a Cheque . 232 CHAPTER XLI. Gauntwolf falls Sick. — His Grief and his gold Snuff-box . . . . 237 CHAPTER XLII. I am pawned, and again sold to Shadrach Jacobs.— I become the Pro- perty of an Undertaker 242 CHAPTER XLIII. I leave the Undertaker and am promoted to a Monkey’s Cap . . . 247 CHAPTER XLIV. I again meet with Patty Butler. — Her Marriage. — Conclusion 252 , . THE STORY OF A FEATHER. INTRODUCTION. I am a native of Africa ; but my parent ostrich having been hunted down for the property he carried with him, I •was, many years ago, shipped at the Cape of Good Hope for London ; in which magnificent city I have lived a life of many changes. In my time, I have tossed my head above the noblest of the land ; and now — But I will narrate my adventures in the order they befel me. My duty to my parent demands that I should champion him against the supercilious sneers of the world — that I should vindicate his memory from the ignorant slander of mankind. I will confess it, when, after a race of some twenty leagues, with the horses close at my parent’s tail, I beheld my honoured sire thrust his head into a bush, believing, as it was too plain he did, that because he could see nobody, nobody could see him, — I do confess, despite of filial love, I felt a fluttering of indignation, not unalloyed — may I be pardoned the sin! — with contempt. The world has taught me better wisdom. Experience hath made me tolerant. Since I have seen men, praised, too, for their excelling prudence, commit the self- same folly as my unfortunate sire, reproach has subsided into sorrow, and contempt become softened by regret* B 2 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. But I come of an outraged, a slandered race. What bouncing fibs have been written of me, by sand-blind philo- sophers, and glibly repeated by gossips of all sorts at their firesides ! How venerable does a lie become by length of years ! Truth is never a babe, and never a hag. As at the first, so at the last : full-blown yet young ; her eyes lustrous through ages, and her lip ruddy and fresh as with the dews of Eden ; upon her brow sits an eternity of beauty. N ow Falsehood is born a puling, roaring thing : its very infancy is anticipative of its old age, and stamped with the grossness of mortality. Day by day it waxes bigger and stronger ; has increase of reputation, crowds of clients ; until, at length, its unrighteous hoariness makes it worshipped by multitudes for no other reason save this — it has gray hairs. And so the wrinkled wizard keeps his court, and works his mischief- dealing, paralysing spells, until Truth at some time turn her sapphire eyes full upon him, and as a bubble at a finger’s touch, Falsehood is gone. For thousands of years my ancestors have borne the weight of lies upon their backs. And first, for the shameless scandal that the family of ostriches wanted the love which even with the wasp makes big its parental heart towards its little ones. “ The ostrich, having laid her eggs, leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sun.” Such is the wickedness that for tens of centuries has passed among men for truth, reducing the ostrich to a level "with those hollow-hearted children of Adam, who leave their little ones to the mercies of the world — to the dandling of chance — to the hard rearing of the poor-house. There is Lord de Bowelless ; he has a rent-roll of thousands ; is a plumed and jewelled peer. Look at him in his robes; — behold “ law- maker” written on the broad tablet of his comprehensive brow. He is in the House of Peers ; the born protector of his fellow-man. How the consciousness of high function sub- limates his nature ! He looks, and speaks, and lays his hand upon his breast, the invincible champion of all human suffer- ing — all human truth. Turn a moment from the peer, and look at yonder biped. There is an old age of cunning cut and THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 3 lined in the face of a mere youth. He has counted some nineteen summers, yet is his soul wrinkled with deceit. And wherefore ? Poor wretch ! His very birth brought upon her who bore him abuse and infamy — his first wail was to his mother’s ear the world’s audible reproach. He was shuffled off into the world, a thing anyway to be forgotten, lost, got rid of. In his very babihood, he was no more to men than the young lizard that crawls upon a bank, and owes its nurture to the bounty of the elements. And so this hapless piece of human % offal — this human ostrich deserted in its very shell — was hatched by wrong and accident into a thief, and there he stands, charged with the infamy of picking pockets. The world taught him nothing wise or virtuous, and now, most properly, will the world scourge him for his ignorance. And thus, because man, and man alone, can with icy heart neglect his little ones — can leave them in the world’s sandy desert to crawl into life as best they may, — because a Lord de Bowelless can suffer his natural baby to be swaddled in a workhouse, to eat the pap of pauper laws — to learn as it grows nothing but the readiest means of satisfying its physical instincts, — because his Lordship can let his own boy sneak, and wind, and filch through life, ending the life the peer did him the deep wrong to bestow upon him, in deepest igno- miny, because, forsooth, his Lordship is capable of all this, he must, in the consciousness of his own depraved nature, libel the parental feelings of the affectionate ostrich ! Oh, that the slander could perish and for ever ! Oh, that I could pierce the lie to the heart ; with a feather pierce it, though cased in the armour of forty centuries ! Again, the ostrich is libelled for his gluttony. Believe what is said of him, and you would not trust him even in the royal stables, lest he should devour the very shoes from the feet of the horses. Why, the ostrich ought to be taken as the one emblem of temperance. He lives and flourishes in the desert ; his choicest food a bitter, spikey shrub, with a few stones — for how rarely can he find iron, how few the white days in which the poor ostrich can, in Arabia Petrsea, have the luxury of a tenpenny nail, — to season, as with salt, his vegetable diet ! And yet common councilman Prawns, b 2 4 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. with face purple as the purple grape, will call the ostrich — glutton ! For how many centuries did that stately rajah, the ele- phant, move about the earth, mankind all the while reso- lutely denying to him the natural joints of his legs ! Poor fellow ! although thousands and thousands of times he must have knelt before men — going upon his knees that his rider might tell the truth of him, — they nevertheless refused to him the power of bending. But the elephant has become a tra- veller — has condescended to eat cakes at a fair — has shown the combined humility and magnanimity of his nature, by going on his marrow-hones on the boards of a play-house, and the world has at length passed a truthful sentence upon him — at length the elephant has joints ! I have endeavoured, feebly enough I know, to vindicate the character of the maligned ostrich. Let that pass — my pur- pose in the following chapters is to tell what I have seen in my eventful, ever-shifting existence, as a feather, among men. An ostrich feather ! Consider my mutations, and give cour- teous ear to my history. CHAPTER I. MY ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND ; MY VISIT TO SHADRACH JACOBS’, OF THE MINORIES. My voyage from the Cape to the port of London I would fain pass with the fewest words. I had at least this consola- tion — I was an unwilling traveller. Otherwise, I had de- served all the miseries of ship-hoard — the darkness, the fetor, the hubbub and violence of the prison. I have some pity for anything that in its ignorance of salt-water first trusts itself to its mercies; but none for the fool that ventures twice. There may be some Eden-like spots even in a coal-mine ; but, the hold of a ship — ugh ! I remember being once present at a party of the Bishop of Fato’thelands. The conversation turned upon the bountiful- ness of the sea, ordained, as it assuredly was, for the facile communication of man with man. Poor simpletons ! It is my inherent faith that the ocean was expressly created to keep nations as much as possible separate ; but that the courageous wickedness of man has set at nought the benevolent design of Nature, and — to her astonishment — has triumphed in the very teeth of sea-sickness. Nay, have I not on my side, the wis- dom of law-makers ? For were they not of my faith, would they tax silks and pepper ? On the contrary, would they not take to their bosoms the adventurous men who are tossed to and from the far East for rare commodities to clothe the limbs, and tickle the palates of their fellow-bipeds ? And what is the fact ? Why, legislation, as a check to the presumption of man, makes him — in a hundred different modes — pay for his temerity. The sea was intended to keep people to them- selves ; but the human heart is wicked, and men became ship- builders. Let me here advise the reader of one of my besetting faults. I am now and then apt to give up the thread of a narrative, 6 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. that I may run after some butterfly thought starting up before me : however, if the reader have patience, he will find that I always return to my story. If he have not, let him make clear the history and utility of the Pyramids, and at once lay down the feathery tale before him. I am conscious of this infirmity of falling into idle chit-chat. Consider, however, the prejudices of my early education. Consider the time of life at which I was taken to court — consider the society amidst which I passed my whitest days, and you will pardon the small-talk of this my forlorn, ragged, mortified old age. However, to begin the history of my adventures in merry, miserable England: — I found myself the property of the third mate of the Jupiter, who had purchased me, with other of my companions, of a Kaffer, for a twist of pig-tail ; my new master rejoicing himself exceedingly at the cultivated intellect which enabled him to trick the savage. He never, I am certain, felt so much of an Englishman, as when he had fobbed the Hot- tentot. Jack Lipscomb, for so was my new master named, combined in his nature — at least, so he thought — all the courage and daring of the sailor, with the prudence and fore- sight of the experienced merchant. With this belief, he had the deepest contempt for every man of every nation, save of England. He believed that the blessings of arithmetic were wholly confined to his own beloved country and her darling sons ; hence, in his small traffic with Chinese, Malay, and Hottentot, he would insist that two and two made seven, five and seven fifteen or twenty, as he might feel it convenient to arrange the figures. In a word, he considered every foreigner to be produced by benevolent nature for this one purpose — to bestow profit and pleasure on a freeborn Briton. It was this consciousness of superiority that made him vote himself “ honest Jack Lipscomb — a man as was above a lie, and didn’t care who knew it. He ’d no deceit in him, not he : no — he never did nothing that he need hide from nobody.” It was, doubtless, this fine principle that induced the ingenu- ous sailor to pack myself and some sixteen companions between his shirt and jacket ere he quitted the Docks. Doubtless, there was no need of such an arrangement, no other than the whim, the caprice of honest Jack Lipscomb. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 7 On leaving the Docks, Jack took his way towards the Minories ; and in a short time smote the hospitable door of an ancient Hebrew, known among his people as Shadrach Jacobs, and still more familiarly recognised by his intimates as “ old Fluffy.” Shadrach w’as a dealer in the pomps and vanities of life, turning the honest penny by such commodities, and still benevolently deploring their existence. He would employ an hour, persuading a poor wench that ear-rings of very question- able metal were of the purest ore, pocket the girl’s quarter’s wages for the small commercial deceit, and then sigh for the promised innocence, the pure felicity of the New Jerusalem. This was the tradesman who, for the past four voyages, had purchased the merchandise of honest, knowing Jack Lipscomb. “ Veil! if it isn’t Mr. Lipscomb — if I didn’t dream on you last night — if I didn’t dream you was come home, captain, don’t never believe me, that’s all ! ” Such was the salutation of the Hebrew dealer, as Jack stood revealed at the door-step. “ This vay, Mr. Lipscomb — this vay ; ” and old Fluffy fluttered down the passage, and mounted the narrow staircase, shaking at least twenty years from his heels, with the expectation of sudden gain. Jack was speedily conducted into the Jew’s room, crammed and littered as it was with exotic produce. Shells, feathers, birds, bamboo-sticks, Indian hammocks, war- swords, canoe-paddles, with half-a-dozen screaming parroes and macaws, enriched the commercial sanctuary of the Hebrew. “ If I didn’t dream you was captain, Mr, Lipscomb ! ” re- peated the Jew as Jack dropt himself upon a chair. “ Captain ! ” cried Jack, affecting a contempt for such vain dignity. “ Veil, then, first mate,” said the Jew, as though his dream comprehended even the second rank. “ Ugh !” cried Jack, “ a pretty first-mate we’ve got — yes, a good ’un, he is — just knows a bowsprit from a umbrella, and that’s all.” “ Bless me ! veil ! ” sighed the Jew, and then smiling and rubbing his hands, he turned himself towards Jack, and with an affected look of anxiety, said, u In course, Mr. Lipscomb, you comes back second?” 8 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ I tell yon what, old Fluffy,” said Jack, stnng by the feeling of unrewarded personal merit, “ I tell you what — I’m just what I was — honest Jack Lipscomb — third mate of the Jupiter, — and I’d like you to show me a more straightfor- w T arder, honester, cleverer fellow ! ” “ Ha ! it would do good to my eyes to see him as could,” said Shadrach ; and then, in a tone of sympathy, “ only third- mate — veil, this is a vorld, to be sure ! ” Having thus de- livered himself, Mr. Jacobs proceeded to the first business of his life ; namely, to business itself. He had thought it merely prudent to learn the condition of his old acquaintance, whether improved or not, since they last met. This, it must be owned on the part of the Jew, was really respectful to station in the abstract ; for if Mr. Lipscomb were Captain Lipscomb, Mr. Jacobs, of course, knew too well what was due to rank to offer to a commander, or even to a first or second mate, that which in the trader’s own opinion, was merely due to the third. “ Yell, and vot have you brought us, Jack?” asked the Jew, with the old familiarity of an old friend. u In the first place,” answered the sailor, “ feathers and he produced me. “ Feathers, — veil, I don’t know,” mused the Jew, u as for feathers, Jack, they ’re down to nothin’. There’s no vonder the vorld’s vot it is, for feathers is quite gone out. Look at them shelves, there ; look at them boxes — all full — not sold a feather this six months. I don’t know vot ’s come to people. Some say it’s edication — I don’t know ; if it is, it ought to be put down,* for it makes the feather trade nothin’ — nothin’ — nothin’.” Thus spoke the Jew, his voice deepening on each of the last three words, until he sounded what seemed the very bass-string of despair. Indeed, the Jew and the sailor might have made a picture. Shadrach had, in his youth, rejoiced in luxuriant locks of more than golden : they were, in the intense signification of the phrase, red gold. These, in the storms of life, had become thickly specked with gray and white ; yet remained there a departing ray among them to indicate the glory that was past. Shadrach’s face was lean and pointed ; his eyes quick, and, as at times they seemed, trembling with excess of light — a light THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 9 reflected as from guineas. His nose was boldly bowed, indi- cating the true son of Israel ; and whilst the corners of his upper lip were twitched by muscular emotion — (how mys- teriously is fashioned the civilised man, when there is a con- nexion between the seat of the pocket and the seat of the mouth) — emotion, due homage to the spirit of gain, his under lip hung down, lapped over with the weight of sensibility, or sensuality, I cannot here decide. His sharp face, quick eye, faded yellow hair, and ardent complexion, gave him, to the eye of fancy, the visage of an old fox, grown venerably gray as the blood of stolen geese. And thus Shadrach sat and gazed at Jack Lipscomb. And Jack received the looks of the Jew with the stalwart manner of a British tar, chewing the while that sweetest condiment — pigtail tobacco ! CHAPTER II. I AM SOLD TO THE JEW. MIRIAM THE TEMPTRESS. THE FAMILY-WATCH. There was a pause of some two or three minutes ; Jack Lipscomb fully apprehending the purpose of Shadrach Jacobs, yet at the same time feeling somewhat humiliated by the con- sciousness of his inferiority to the Jew. How had Jack in his innermost heart crowed and triumphed at the hard bar- gain which had made me his property ! With what profound contempt had he contemplated the intellectual degradation of the KafFer who sold me, tricked, cheated, as the poor savage had been, by the mixed lying and bullying of the sailor. Such had been Jack’s emotions ; but as he sat, and silently chew- ing, gazed at the Jew, he half-seemed to himself to change his condition with the barbarian he had gulled — he felt, in its fullest force, the supremacy of the Jew ; — he shrank beneath the influence of a subtler nature. Thus, Jack Lipscomb remained doggedly silent — and thus the Jew was at length compelled to be a talker. “ I tells you, Jack, feathers is nothin’. If, now, you Ve a little bag of gold-dust, or any nicknack of that sort — veil, you hav’n’t ? Veil, veil — more \s the pity, Jack — more ’s the pity, Mr. Lipscomb.” “ Then we sha’n’t deal, eh ? ” asked Jack sulkily, and throwing a significant glance towards the door. “ Well, there ’s Barney Aaron yet — that ’s one comfort.” “ Veil, I didn’t think it of you, Jack ; to threaten me with that sarpent — that disgrace to the synagogue. Vot if feathers is a drug, do you think, Mr. Lipscomb, that I ’d let you be robbed ? Vy, I should think the roof would fall upon me if I let you go out of this house to be cheated.” u Humph ! I don’t know,” said Jack, a little mollified — cs perhaps you ar’n’t the worst of the sharks.” THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 11 “ I vish I vos — yes, Mr. Lipscomb, I vish I vos,” said the Jew, earnestly, “for then I shouldn't be the beggar vot I am. Ha ! this is a vorld ! Veil, veil, ve must take it as it is till the better one comes.” “ In course,” responded Jack, philosophically ; and then counting my companions and myself before the Jew, he asked, “ How much for the lot I” “ I don’t know vot to do vith ’em,” answered Shadrach, despondingly, looking down upon us, and sighing deeply. “ As I ’m an honest man, I shall only keep ’em for the moths. Vot money have you in your pocket, Jack ? ” “ Something within hail of five pounds,” replied the sailor. “ Veil, let me see, — vun, two, three, — yes, fourteen feathers — ” “ Seventeen, you griffin,” growled Jack. “ Veil, veil — I didn’t see ; ven you ’ve looked upon the vickedness of the vorld as long as I have, Mr. Lipscomb, you’ll have some feeling for an old man’s eyes. Let me see, six — no, yes — seventeen — veil, seventeen feathers, and you’ve got seven pound in your pocket ? ” “ Four pound, fifteen shillings,” said Jack in correction. “Now shall I tell you what I ’ve long thought of, Mr. Lipscombe ? I 've often said to myself, vot a pity it vos that a man like you, Mr. Lipscomb, didn’t think more of yourself : that you didn’t show the face you ought to the vorld.” “ What do you mean, Mr. Jacobs ? ” asked Jack, very seriously. “ Vy,you see,” continued the Jew, in his blandest manner, smiling upon the sailor — as an epicure smiles upon a dish he purposes very pleasantly to incorporate in his system — “ vy you see, vot does it go for if you’re the best sailor as ever swum — the honestest, jovialest, goodlookingest young man as ever von the vink of a wirtuous young voman — vot does all your goodness go for vith the vorld, if you don’t vear a votch ? ” Jack Lipscomb, with increasing gravity, sawed the back of his hand across his chin, and looking upon the floor, seemed as if the interrogative of the Jew had awakened a dormant feeling of vanity — had, in a moment, solved to his entire 12 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. satisfaction, a great social mystery. “ I don’t know if you ar’n’t right,” said Jack, after a pause. “ As the yorld goes — for it ’s made of wanity, Jack — a man’s nothin’ vithout a votch.” “ There may be something in it,” agreed the sailor. “ I’m an old man, my tear friend, and know the vorld vith all its crooked bits, and nasty blots, and I talk to you, Jack, like my own flesh and blood.” “ Come, avast there ! ” exclaimed Jack, suddenly ; “ none o’ that — I’m a Christian, and loves pork.” “ To be sure, vy not ?” answered the Jew, in no way dis- concerted : he then returned to the charge. “ I talk to you as I ’d talk to my own son, and if it vos the last vords I had to speak, I ’d say, Jack Lipscomb, do justice to yourself and get a votch.” “ Advice is plentiful as sprats,” said the sailor. “ Any fool can say, get a watch ; but he isn’t such a fool, who shows how it ’s to be done.” “ My tear friend,” said the Jew, “ vait a minute.” Shad- rach then unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a large, yellow, metal watch, exposed it, with a light laugh, to the sailor. “ It’s a big un,” said Jack Lipscomb, gravely. “ It’s a beauty,” exclaimed the Jew;, “but you hasn’t seen half, Jack, look here.” Shadrach then wound up the watch, and the picture of a ship fixed in the dial -plate w T as set in motion, rocking very regularly over grass-green billows, under which was written the legend — “ Such is life” “ She carries a good deal of canvas for such a sea,” said the sailor, glanciijg at the toy with a purely professional eye. “ To be sure — vonts nothin’,” answered the Jew, casting his gleaming looks in the weather-beaten face of the doomed purchaser. “ Humph ! I wonder how long them studding-sail booms would stand in a trough of the sea like that ? They ’d snap like clay-pipes ; if they wouldn’t I’m — ” “ Never mind, my tear friend,” cried the Jew quickly, “sixpence vill paint it out. Veil, vot do you say to that, Jack ?” asked Shadrach, now holding the watch to the sailor’s THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 13 eyes, now withdrawing it, and now turning it in his hand, as though he held a magic mirror to dazzle and confound the looker’s senses. “ Yot do you say to that, Jack 1 ” Jack spoke to the Jew’s understanding a whole volume ; albeit he really uttered not a word. For he slowly wiped his lips with the cuff of his jacket, the while he gazed at the chronometer ; again he wiped away, what to the Jew seemed the water rising to the sailor’s mouth, brought thither by strong desire of making that watch his own. “ For six pound with them feathers,” and here the Jew threw an affected look of contempt upon myself and com- panions prostrate at his feet — “the votch shall be yourn.” “ Is it gold 1 ” asked Jack. “ Yot ! veil ! ” exclaimed the Jew, and he advanced two indignant steps towards the drawer, as if about to consign the watch for ever to its keeping — then paused, and looking sorrowfully up into the face of Jack Lipscomb, asked him, in most pathetic tones, “ vot he thought of him ? ” “ No offence, I hope,” said Jack Lipscomb, deferentially. “As if I’d sell my best friend anything but the best gold. Ha ! Mr. Lipscomb, you don’t know me — no, you don’t ; you’ve cut me clean to the heart ; but to show you I bears no malice, I ’ll take all the money you have for the votch — ” “ Without the feathers ?” asked the sailor. “ No, my tear friend, with the feathers ; though they’re of no use to me — quite none ; still, for principle, my tear friend, I must have the feathers.” Jack turned his tobacco in his mouth, looked at the watch, as the cameleon fixes a fly, ere with its long thread of a tongue he consigns it to its jaws, — then, throwing forth his right hand, seized the timepiece, almost immediately emptying his pocket of four pounds, fifteen shillings. “ You’ve a bargain, Mr. Lipscomb — you’ve a — veil, bless my heart, don’t go,” — said the Jew, as the knocker smote the street-door — “ it’s only an old acquaintance of yourn, my daughter Miriam.” Saying this the Jew quitted the chamber, and in two minutes from his departure, Miriam, a more than plump Jewess, with vast black eyes, a profusion of black hair (a very net for 14 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. sailors’ hearts), large rosy lips showing every one of her bril- liant white teeth, and her massive face polished over with smiles, swam into the room. Poor Jack Lipscomb ! This may be a proper place to observe that a sentimental affection had, for the duration of three past voyages, grown up between Jack Lipscomb and Miriam Jacobs. If, however, it was not strictly between them, ’twas all the same — Jack thought it was. There was, unfortunately, what at first pro- mised to be an inseparable bar to the happiness of matri- mony — namely, the religion of Miriam ; Jack sticking for it, most lustily, that his wife must be like himself, every inch a Christian. “ Ha ! Miriam, what a pity it is you’re a Jew !” This was wont to be the frequent complaint of the orthodox Jack ; and at length Miriam, worked upon by her lover’s affection — for sure we are his many presents had nothing to do with it — pro- mised, after a fair exercise of thought on the subject, to give up the synagogue. Miriam Jacobs and Jack Lipscomb are together. Shall I betray the language of lovers ? I will not. I will content myself, and I trust, the reader too, by stating that Miriam (having seen the watch) promised to become a Christian -wife in a week’s time ; in token of which promise, she received the said watch as a gift of her expectant husband. Jack Lipscomb, nothing the better for the alcohol sold in the Minories, quitted the house of Jacobs penniless, leaving me and my companions — whom he had all but stolen from a barbarian, only to be tricked in his turn — the property of the Jew. As Jack reeled his way towards his ship, Miriam consign- ing her jetty locks to the close imprisonment of paper, glanced at the rocking ship on the watch, and for a moment ceasing to hum a tune, read — “ Such is life .” CHAPTER III. FLAMINGO, THE COURT FEATHER-MERCHANT. THE DUKe’s PINE-APPLE. BIRTH OF A PRINCE OF WALES. My next remove was far westward. I became the property of the feather-merchant to the court ; or, as the tradesman himself delighted to blazon in gold letters over his shop-door, “ Plumassier to their Majesties.” I confess I felt myself somewhat humiliated by the ill-report of Mr. Flamingo, who, in his dealing with Miriam Jacobs — on this occasion ambas- sadress from her sire in the Minories — protested that I was the inferior article of the whole lot ; and that no pains of cleaning and dressing would ever enable me to return six- pence to my purchaser. This melancholy feeling, however, gave place to better hopes, when, on the departure of the Jewess — Miriam had been compelled by the hard chaffering of the feather-merchant to throw a green monkey into the bargain, for the especial delectation of the youngest Miss Flamingo — my new master selected me from my com- panions, and, shaking me tenderly, asked the wife of his bosom, “ if I wasn’t a perfecty beauty 1 ” This pleasing flattery was, moreover, adequately responded to by Mrs. Flamingo, who, with glistening eyes, declared me “ quite a love ! ” I have already said, Mr. Flamingo was feather-seller to the court of Great Britain. He felt, intensely felt, the surpassing importance of his position. His very soul seemed plumed with the dignity. Hence, like my parent ostrich, he would, when -full of the consciousness of his greatness, scarcely tread the shop-floor, but, raised upon the wings, or winglets, of his self- conceit, half-fly, half- walk. It was the religion of Peter Flamingo, that the whole moral and social condition of man depended solely upon feathers. Nay, I believe it to have been his inner-creed that plumes were not so much designed 16 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. for kings and nobles, as that potentates and peers were espe- cially sent into this world for plumes. I say, inner-creed ; because my experience of mankind has convinced me that there are some people who have an outside faith — covering a faith, in the same way that jugglers have a box within a box, the last in its small sanctuary generally containing the con- jured shilling. When Peter Flamingo read or heard of the possible perfectibility of man, I am certain that man appeared to him like a Poland cock, with a natural crest of feathers. With this faith, it was consequent that Mr. Flamingo should pay profoundest reverence to those privileged to wear the artificial glory, such reverence being at the prime cost of those to whom fate had rigorously denied that proud advantage. Hence, the reader can imagine the separate places of the Marchioness of Mannaville, born to the right of a plumed coronet, and of Patty Butler, also born to the duty of dressing feathers — can conceive their separate conditions in the mind of Mr. Flamingo. The Marchioness was a creature apart — a glory to be numbered with the stars of heaven ; the feather- dresser, a mere weed of earth, millions of miles away from that starry presence. Therefore, like a good penny-turning Chaldean, Flamingo thought, to properly worship the star, he must tread upon the weed. Mr. Flamingo, in the observance of this faith, did at times forget the mere naked meaning of words, substituting another set of syllables for the only set rightly called for by the occa- sion. In home-spun phrase, Flamingo was a liar : but then his lies, if I must call them so, were used to the very best advantage. He dressed himself in falsehood, but then he looked all the better for it. He made positive gold-leaf of his untruths, which cast a lustre on him, covered, as he would still be covered, with borrowed radiance. Being feather- seller to the Court, he was, of course, intimate with the whole peerage. He would, at a moment, cast you up the number of dimples to be found in the cheeks and chins of Countesses — would minutely describe to you the hangings and furniture of every best bedroom of every nobleman’s mansion in the kingdom, he, in the course of his glorifying profession, having been an honoured guest thereat. With him true friendship THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 17 was a flower that was only to be plucked from the gardens of the nobility ; and this flower Flamingo was for ever twisting between his lips, or sporting in his button-hole. “ My friend, the Marquis,” — “ My most excellent friend, the Duke,” — “ My worthy acquaintance, the Baronet ! ” Thus continually spoke Flamingo ; and so speaking, he thought he let fall diamonds and rubies from his tongue for the world to wonder at. A man with so many, and with such friends, had of course frequent evidences that friendship was not what the poetic cynic calls it, only “ a name.” By no means ; to Flamingo^ it was sometimes a turbot — sometimes a turkey. His friend the Marquis w T ould now and then appear upon the feather- dresser’s table in the not less attractive though twin shape of a brace of pheasants : his most excellent friend the Duke has smoked upon the board, in the solid beauty of a haunch of venison. Of all men in the w T orld, Flamingo would have been the last to deprive the peerage of their proxies. More : how often did some exalted dowager appear in a rich and candied preserve — how often some earl’s daughter, the last out of the season, sent a basket of peaches, ripe and pulpy as her own lips ? At least, if these gifts were really not made by the exalted people praised by Flamingo for their generosity, it was not the fault of the feather-dresser ; no, the more his virtue to preach up the necessity of liberality to the world, even by apocryphal examples of true bene- ficence. It was sometime after I had passed from the hands of the feather-merchant, that I heard a story illustrative of this his theoretical virtue. As, however, I may not find a fitter place than the present for the story, I will here narrate it ; the more especially as the occurrence took place whilst I was yet Flamingo’s property, albeit then ignorant of the history I have to speak of. Peter Flamingo gave a dinner. I should say he rather presided at a dinner given to him ; for there was no dish upon the table that might not have borne above it the banner of the noble house from which it emanated. Believe Fla- mingo, and the banquet was no other than a collection of c 18 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. offerings made to him by the English nobility : he could have pointed out the representatives of the peerage, from the noble who came to cut throats with William the Conqueror at Hastings, to the last baron ennobled for cutting the throats of his constituents at Westminster. How Flamingo’s guests — benevolently picked out by him from the very mob of trades- men — wondered at the banquet ; how they praised their host for his high connexions ; and how they hated him ! The dinner passed off with excessive cordiality. The wine, every drop of it from the cellars of the peerage, made at all events a passing call at the hearts of the drinkers, ere it mounted into their heads ; and all was sincerity and noisy happiness. The dessert appears. Was there ever seen such magni- ficent pine-apples ] Flamingo drops his eye proudly yet lovingly upon the fruit and says with a soft voice, so modu- lated that not one man shall lose one syllable — “ Ha ! my dear Duke of Diddleton — he is indeed a friend ; all — all from his own gracious pinery ! ” “ Bless my heart ! Well, you are a lucky man ! ” cries Brown. “ Was there ever such a duke in the world ? ” exclaims Johnson. “ It ’s a shame to put a knife into ’em remarks Field, directing his looks, sharpened to a very keen edge, towards the crown of the ducal gift. (C Pooh ! pooh ! what are pines grown for, if not to be eaten ? ” cries Flamingo, handling his knife, looking full at the pines, but only looking at them. “ Don’t cut the duke’s gift — it ’s a shame ! I "wouldn’t touch a bit of it,” says Robinson ; “ but there ’s a couple of little ones, there, that — ” “ Well, if you prefer them — they’re not so large; but their flavour is delicious ! They were sent by — yes, I think by him — by Sir Harry Bargate, a baronet of the last batch : will you venture ? ” And without waiting for a reply, Fla- mingo cuts into very, very small pieces the smallest pine. And still all proceeds with increasing felicity. The bottle goes round and round, and at length the heads of the drinkers THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 19 begin obediently to follow it. The laugh increases — the shout swells — and all is boisterous merriment. Brown jumps to his legs. “ It ’s no use/ 5 he cries ; “ I’ve fought against it long enough : I must have a cut at the Duke.” So saying, Brown seizes the largest pine, and, with furious precipitancy, strikes his knife into it ; Flamingo’s blood running cold to his very toes. “ And so must I ! ” cries the no less drunken Johnson, following Brown’s example. “ And I ! ” screams Field ; and the third knife enters the Duke’s third pine. “ And I, too,” shouts Robinson, rising to commit execu- tion ; but Flamingo, restored by the third attack to something like consciousness, snatches up the pine, and Robinson, missing his mark, falls sprawling on the table. The charm of the night is broken ; Flamingo looks sulky ; and the guests, a little sobered by a sense of their attack upon the Duke’s gifts, depart. “ We were wrong,” says Brown, “to demolish those pines ; for, if Flamingo had had to buy ’em, what wxmld they have cost ? ” “I wonder what’s the market-price now?” says Johnson — “ let ’s ask.” And as he spoke, he turned into a celebrated fruiterer’s. “ What’s the price of those pines ? ” “ Three guineas each, sir,” answered the tradesman. “They’re very small,” said Johnson. “Have you none bigger ?” “ Yes, four — very large ; five guineas each. ]}ut I can’t show them now ; for the fact is, they ’re out on hire for a night to my neighbour, Mr. Flamingo ! ” And so, the Duke of Diddleton was the shopkeeper ; and so Flamingo paid fifteen guineas (he saved one pine) for a lie, certainly, if there be any means of testing the value of lies, not worth half the money. This little banquet took place on the 11th of August, 1762. With much melancholy did Peter Flamingo rise on the 12th. His bile, however, was blown away by the Park guns, for they announced the birth of Queen Charlotte’s first-born— the Prince of Wales. c 2 20 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. The u rudiments of an angel 5 ’* were begun in George the Fourth. Did Peter Flamingo rejoice at the birth of a Prince of Wales ? I think so ; but certain I am “ his heart leapt up” at the fine prospect for — feathers. * In The Yorkshireman of Jan. 14, 1843, is the report of a meeting of “ The Stockton Mechanics’ Institute,” William Bailey, Esq., in the chair. The Chairman, in introducing the Prince of Wales and Princess Royal, said— “ Reverence in the son the future man, and in the prince the future king. Destroy not in either royal scion the rudiments of an angel'' CHAPTER IV. PATTY BUTLER, THE FEATHER-DRESSER. PATTY’S MOTHER. MR. LINTLEY, THE APOTHECARY. The week that followed the 12th of August, 1762, w r as a time of jubilee for rejoicing, thoughtful England. A Prince of Wales was born ; and as I heard, numberless patriotic sages had, at public dinners, already prophesied in him an- other Alfred. In his time all the virtues would walk the highways, dropping flowers in the every-day paths of mortals, and rejoicing Plenty unloose her golden sheaves for the no more repining poor. The sky would wear a purer azure — the gladdening sun once more beam with the sanctifying light it cast on Eden — the whole earth lie nearer Paradise, and once more “ angels talk familiarly with men,” as men were wont to talk with one another. The Prince — it was predicted from the tables of a thousand taverns — would be the paragon of mortals ; in his own great acts indicating to the highest the divine origin and end of man, and showing the folly, the littleness, of all human malice, and all human selfishness. George the Fourth yet slept in his cradle, when the spirit of prophesying thus walked abroad, and played the sweetest notes upon its silver trumpet ; and tailors and gold-lacemen felt a strange, mysterious gladness — a lightening of the heart and pleasant spasm of the pocket ! Patty Butler dwelt in a long, dark lane, on the north side of the Strand ; in one of those noisome, pestilent retreats abutting on, yet hidden by, the wealth and splendour of the metropolis ; one of the thousand social blotches covered by the perfumed, gold- worked trappings of the harlot London. Even to this place did the birth of the Prince of Wales bring gladness : for Patty Butler smiled, as dreaming grief might 22 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. smile upon an angel, as Luke Knuckle, Mr. Flamingo’s light- porter, somewhat suddenly stood before her. “ Hush ! ” said Patty, advancing to him, with upraised finger. “ How’s mother ?” asked Luke, with a quiet earnestness. “ Better — better, Luke, and asleep. Have you brought work ? ” inquired the girl with trembling voice, and the tears already in her eyes. “ Hav’n’t you heard the news ?” asked Flamingo’s porter. “ What news should I hear in this place 1 ” said Patty. “ Why, to be sure, you might as well be clean out of the world ! Not to have heard all about it ! Well, I wouldn’t ha’ believed it! Can’t you guess'?” Patty, with a wan smile, shook her head. “Well, then,” said Luke, “ not to tease you any longer — for God help you ! poor babe, you’ve enough trouble for any six — what do you think 1 — there’s a Prince of Wales born !” “Indeed 1 ?” said Patty, unmoved by the blissful intelli- gence. “ Why, where could you ha ’ been not to have heard the bells ringing, and the guns — to be sure, this isn ’t much of a place for merry bells to be heard in at all — -but where could you ha’ been ?” “ Where could I have been — where could I go ? ” said Patty a little impatiently — and then forcing a smile to her fading lips, she asked — “ and what, Luke, can a Prince matter to folks like us ? ” “ Well ! — why you used to be a quick girl — don’t you see, the Prince of Wales as is come will make the fortin of feathers ? It’s what they call one of his royal perogatives — though, for myself, I can’t say I know w T hat they quite are. I know this much, though ; old Flamingo’s all upon the wing agin. There’s work for three months certain,” added Luke. Patty clasped her hands in gratitude, but said nothing. “ Master said you must come to the shop and work, or go without it; but I talked to missus — ha! she’d ha’ been a nicer woman after all, if luck hadn’t given her such good board and lodging, — I told her how ill your mother was — how you’d starve beside her, but wouldn’t leave her; so I THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 23 got her to abuse master into a bit of goodness, and so that you mayn’t leave mother, I’ve brought the work to you.” Here the honest porter displayed myself and others to Patty Butler. “ You are always so good-natured, Luke,” cried Patty. “ I don’t know about that,” said Knuckle ; “ but after all, it seems to me so easy to be good-natur’d, I wonder anybody takes the trouble to be anything else. Good bye, Patty : I say, the work must be done directly — for master says he don ’t know when it won’t be wanted.” u I won’t stir, Luke, till I’ve finished it, that you may be sure of,” said Patty, with new cheerfulness ; and wishing her a cordial farewell, and speedy health to her mother, Luke Knuckle — the light-porter to Flamingo, the court feather- merchant — descended the dark narrow staircase with the feeling of the finest gentleman ; for he trod gently, anxiously, lest he should wake the sleeping sick. Released from the case, I could now look about me. Iam sure I felt a thrill of pain as the place broke upon me. An August sun struggled through a narrow lattice, as though stained and tainted by the gloom it had to pierce ; dimly showing the space of the apartment, a space not encumbered by useless furniture. In a recess, a nook of the room, was a bed : and I could hear the hard breathing of a sleeper — but only hear ; for a curtain of surprising whiteness hung between us. Indeed, every object was wonderfully clean, and dis- played itself in contrast to the meanness, the homeliness of the material. All was penury, — but penury in housewife attire. Patty Butler took me from my other companions, looking earnestly at me. I have seen eyes exulting under coronets ; have felt throughout my frame the magic breath of beauty, born with all earth’s pleasures for its handmaids ; have waved above and touched the velvet cheek of lady greatness ; yet have I never felt such deep emotion as when gazed upon by the poor feather-dresser — the girl of fifteen years — the drudge of a garret in a pestilent and fever-breathing alley. Patty would never have been beautiful : born in down, and fed upon the world’s honey-dew, she would have passed for 24 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. nothing handsome ; but she had in her countenance that kind of plainness, to my mind, better than any beauty heaven has yet fashioned. Her sweet, gentle, thin face trembled with sensibility — with sensibility that sent its riches to her eyes, glittering for a moment there, beyond all worth of diamonds. I have said, she was really but fifteen ; she would have passed for twenty. From earliest childhood, she was made to read the hardest words — want, poverty — in the iron book of daily life ; and the early teaching had given to her face a look of years beyond her age. With her, daily misery had anticipated time. And she sits, in that almost empty garret, a lovely sacred thing — a creature that redeems the evils and the wrongs of earth ; and in her quiet suffering — in her devotion, constant to her heart as her heart’s blood — gives best assurance of a future heaven. She sits, glorified by patient poverty — by the sustaining meekness of her soul, by the unconquerable strength of her affections. Beautiful are queens on thrones — but is there not a beauty (eternal as the beauty of the stars !) in placid want, smiling with angel looks, and gathering holiest power, even from the misery that consumes it ? For two nights, Patty scarcely took one constant hour’s repose. Still she worked ; her labour only intermitted by her frequent visits to the bed-side where lay her sick mother. I have seen the feet of the best opera-dancers ; heard them praised for their life, ay, for their intelligence — their sentiment. Yet have I seen nothing like Patty Butler’s foot, touching the garret floor from her chair to the bed-side ; so gentle, so affectionate, so noiseless, yet so trembling at its motion, lest she should wake her mother. Each day, the doctor — not the parish doctor — came. A neighbour had told him of the sick woman ; and he had accidentally seen the gentle Patty. Mr. Lintley was a poor apothecary. It was at times a hard struggle for him not to tell the man who called for the taxes, — to call again. He had no hope of a shilling from Mrs. Butler, even could his skill restore her ; but more — he knew the seal of death w^as on her ; consumption — Patty knew it not — withered her. The third day I passed in the garret, the doctor paid his THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 25 morning visit. Patty had been up all night : that night she had wept— bitterly wept — had risen every five minutes to hover about her mother, who would still assure her she was better — much better. Mr. Lintley, the apothecary, entered the garret. What chaplets are woven for men of slaughter ! What statues erected to men-slaying conquerors ! What notes of glory sounded — what blaspheming praises to the genius of blood- shedding ! I have seen much of the ceremonies dedicated to these things, and contrasting my late feelings with my present, with what new homage do I venerate the race of Lintleys — the men who, like minor deities, walk the earth — and in the hqjnes of poverty, where sickness falls with doubly heavy hand, fight the disease beside the poor man’s bed, their only fee the blessing of the poor ! Mars may have his planet, but give me what — in the spirit of the old mythology might be made a star in heaven — the night-lamp of apothecary Lintley. “ And how — how is your mother ? 55 asked the apothecary, shown into the room by Patty, who, with me in her hand, had risen to open the door. “ She is better, sir,” said Patty — “ better and asleep.” The apothecary looked with a mild sadness on the girl, and drew aside the curtain. Her mother was dead. In tears and agony and numbness of heart, and death about me, I was prepared — “ drest” for — But of that in another chapter. CHAPTER Y. PATTY BUTLER FINISHES HER WORK. A WORD ON LONDON GAR- RETS. A RUFFIAN. PATTY IN THE WATCH-HOUSE. Patty’s loss of her mother was quickly known ; and as quickly was the chamber of death filled with poor neighbours — the needy, suffering, squalid, ay, and even vicious denizens of that miserable, fetid alley. Touched by sympathy, in the very fulness of heart, utter destitution proffered service and assistance to the motherless girl — when its only aid was a comforting look ; its only means, the starting tear : nature, forgetful of its worldly destitution, spoke only from the abundance of its pity. Old, care-lined faces — with the ugli- ness of habitual want sharpening and deforming them — looked kind and gentle, for the time refined and humanised by the awakened spirit of human love. These pressed about the sufferer, and with trite words of comfort — with old and common phrases of compassion — (the best rhetoric the talk- ers had to offer) — tried to soothe the stricken girl. “ God help her ! ” cried an old crone, with melting looks, though with the features of a sybil. “ God will help her !” cried a young creature, sobbing, whilst the tears ran down her cheeks, washing from them the branding rouge that set apart the speaker. So earnest was the voice that Patty raised her head from her hands, and her eyes meeting the eyes of her girl neighbour — of the poor, reckless thing, often so heedless and laughing in her very despair ; of her, who a hundred times when passing in the lane, by venom words and brassy looks, had taunted and out-stared the simple, gentle feather-dresser — Patty felt a communion of heart in the deep sincerity of that assurance of God’s help, and through her tears smiled dimly, yet thankfully, affectionately on her comforter. The blighted girl, thus recognised, was about to seize Patty to her arms with the folding of a sister : she then shrunk back as THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 27 at a ghost, and, as though poison had suddenly shot through all her veins, trembled from head to foot, whilst the paleness of death rose beneath the paint, in ghastly contrast of mor- tality and shame. With a half-suppressed moan, the girl darted down stairs, and rushed to her only place of refuge — the horrid street. Happily, the kindness of Mr. Lintley, the apothecary, ren- dered the assistance of the neighbours — could they have offered any beyond the kindness of mere words — needless. Lintley was doomed to, perhaps, the most penal condition of poverty ; that is, to an outside show of comfort, with that gnawing, snapping fox, penury, eating to the bowels within ; was one of the thousand grown-up Spartans who, with aching hearts and over-jaded faculties, turn a shining outside look on London streets. Nevertheless, Lintley determined that Patty’s mother should not go to the earth in workhouse deals ; for though his philosophy smiled at the vanities of the under- taker, it had still, in its very elevation, the better part of philosophy, a benign and charitable consideration for the weakness, the prejudice, yea, for the folly of others. Thus, all things necessary for that last scene of life — in which the man, though dead, still plays a part — were duly ordered at the charge of Mr. Lintley, and — how few the hours ! — Patty sat and worked beside her coffined mother. “ Now, child — do come down stairs — do, now ; you ’ll be comfortable there,” urged an old woman, a lodger, to Patty, seeking to win her from the place of death. “ Thank you, I am better here — happier — indeed I am,” said Patty, with sweetest meekness. “Well, but it’s getting late and dark,” said the woman, “ and ain’t you afraid % ” “Afraid ! Of what should I be afraid ?” asked the girl. “ Well, to be sure, for a young thing you’ve a bold heart ; but when I was a girl, I could have no more stayed alone with anybody dead — ” “ Not if you loved them ?” interrupted Patty. “ Why, love’s something, to be sure ; but still death, my dear, you know — ” “ Takes fear from love, and as I feel it, makes love stronger. 28 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. I loved her when she was here, and must I not love her — still more love her — now she is an angel ? I tell you, it comforts me to be alone — it does indeed,” said Patty. “ Well, to be sure ! if ever ! who could have thought !” and the old woman would have proceeded in her exclama- tions. “ But if you ’ll be kind enough to stay here till I come back from Mr. Flamingo — ” “ To be sure ; Mrs. Shroudly and me will stay,” said the woman. “ You will so serve me ! In half-an-hour I shall have finished my work ; I shall soon be back.” “ And you’ll sleep here alone in this room to-night asked the querist. For a moment Patty could not speak : then, with a torrent of tears, and a voice of anguish, she answered — “ It is the last, it is the last.” The well-meaning neighbour left the room, and by the last light of a golden August evening, Patty completed her task. Her work was done ; and the room darkened, darkened about her. She sat fearless, self-sustained in the gloom ; her thoughts made solemn and strengthened by the atmosphere of death which fell upon her spirit. She felt as in a holy presence. That poor, weak, ignorant creature — in the exal- tation of her soul, communed with her mother in the skies ; talked, wept, prayed to her, and was comforted. And for that which lay apart — for that mute, dull semblance of the thing that was — it was for a time forgotten in the rapturous grief that sorrowed at its loss. Thus passed the girl an hour of darkness, made bright by spiritual dreams ; and then, calmed and sustained, she prepared to venture in the roaring street. Unseen, unknown, are the divinities that — descending from garrets — tread the loud, foul, sordid, crowding highways of London ! Spiritual presences, suffering all things, and in the injustice — most hard to turn to right — of our social purpose, living and smiling, daily martyrs to their creed of good. Young children, widowed age, and withered singleness — the ardent student, flushed and fed with little else but hope — THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 29 the disappointed, yet brave, good old man, a long, long loser in the worldly fight, who has retired apart, to bleed unseen, and uncomplaining die — the poor and stern man, only stern in truth — sour of speech, with heart of honied sweetness, — all of these, in all their thousand shades of character and spirit — the “army of martyrs” to fortune, and the social iniquities that, drest and spangled for truths, man passes off on man — all of this bright band have, and do , and will con- secrate the garrets of London, and make a holy thing of poverty by the sacrificial spirit with which they glorify her. Many of these are to be known — but more escape the search- ing eyes of the quickest moral vision. There is a something — a “ look of service ” in the aspect of some ; a depression that elevates, a dogged air of courage that speaks the fight- ing man in poverty’s battalions — an honourable, undisguised threadbareness that marks the old campaigner ! Are not his darns more beautiful than best work of Sidonian needles — is there a patch about him that is not, morally assayed, true cloth of gold ? And has not such poverty its genii, its at- tending spirits ? Oh, yes ! a bloodless glory is its body-guard, and its tatter-bearer an angel. And does not some such presence walk with Patty Butler down the Strand, on to the house of Peter Flamingo, feather- merchant to the court % Stay : who is it, that now addresses her ? There is a tall creature hanging about her steps — now, shifting to the right side, now the left ; now behind and now before. And now he inclines himself, and says something to the ear of Patty, who — with her thoughts in that room of misery and desolation — cannot heed him, but with her heart in her throat, walks quicker and quicker, silent and choking. “ If you hav’n’t a tongue, I’ll see if you’ve lips !” exclaimed, not the good angel of Patty Butler, — and the speaker threw his arms about the girl, who shrieked with misery and terror. Ere, however, the sound had died upon his ear, the ruffian had measured his length upon King George the Third’s highway. Luke Knuckle, Mr. Flamingo’s porter, had been sent to Patty to hurry her with her work. Arriving at the house 30 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. but two or three minutes after her departure, he had followed closely on her steps, and was thus in a most advantageous situation for the proper application of his fist, at a most dramatic point of time. “ Watch ! watch !” roared the fellow, still upon his back ; for with evidently a quick sense of the magnanimity of Britons, he felt the only means of escaping a second blow was to use nothing but his lungs. “What’s the matter?” asked a watchman, who miracu- lously happened to be near the spot. “ I ’m robbed,” was the answer. “ Robbed !” and the watchman whirled his rattle. “ Robbed ! 55 was the lie repeated ; “ and I desire you take to the watch-house that pickpocket” — and the speaker pointed to Knuckle — “and that — ” but the word was lost in the noise of a newly-sprung rattle. The watchmen gathered together, and Patty Butler, with her honest champion, was taken to the w^atch -house of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. CHAPTER VI. TATTY BUTLER IN THE WATCH-HOUSE. THE CHARGE. HER RELEASE. “ What’s the charge ?” asked Mr.! Naplightly, night-con- stable of the parish of St. Martin-in-the Fields. “ Picking pockets,” replied one of the watchmen, trip- pingly. “ Ha ! I see — yes, an old friend, eh, watchman ? ” said Naplightly, looking with brazen significance at the little feather-dresser, pale, trembling, and dumbfounded by the suddenness of the event that had placed her in the foul, dim dungeon, where justice, for a time laying aside a half-smoked tobacco-pipe, was to decide upon the accusation. “ You know this young lady, of course ?” asked the con- stable. “ Bless your heart, sir, — know her ! Do I know my own rattle ? The most troublesome and abusingest girl on my beat,” answered the watchman. “ That’s plain enough — plain with half an eye. Now, sir, if you please” — and the night-constable looked towards the tall man, the assailant of Patty. “Now, sir, everything according to business. What ’s your name ?” “ Julius Curlwell,” answered the ruffian, looking loftily around him, as though very proud of his name, and pulling up his manifold white neckcloth, as if still prouder of the cambric. “ And where do you live, and what are you 1 ” asked the functionary. “ I at present reside,” answered Mr. Curlwell, with mono- syllabic majesty, “with my friend, my lord Huntingtopper.” The face of the night-constable — before, arched with dig- nity — relaxed into a courteous smirk, and he felt his voice grow mellow in his throat : the watchmen too drew them- 32 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. selves up, glancing respectfully at Lord Huntingtopper’s friend, who, doubtless, unconscious of the impression he had made, jerked with languid, lackadaisical air his heavy gold chain and seals between his right thumb and finger. “And you charge this young girl, Mr. Curlwell, with picking your pocket ? — you — ” Here the constable was interrupted, as he called it, by Patty ; for she fell in a heap upon the watch-house floor, as though stabbed to the heart. In an instant, Knuckle raised her in his arms, and removing her bonnet, the yellow light of a flaring lamp fell upon her death-pale, innocent face ; and a tear rolled down her white cheek on the rough hand of Luke, who, as though molten lead had dropt upon his flesh, started round, and with a look of pain and passion glared now at the constable, and now at Mr. Julius Curlwell. “ You stony- hearted vipers,” cried Luke at last, — “ will you let the poor girl die — will none of you get some water ? ” “ Yes, it’s all right,” muttered one watchman, leering and laughing, “ when the evidence is strong, they always tries a faint.” Worn out, exhausted by the anguish of the previous days, — oppressed with that feeling of desolation which makes the world far worse than valueless,— terrified, astounded by her situation — Patty had remained in a half-stupor — her mind and senses numbed by the apathy of misery. The words of the constable for a moment called her back to consciousness, and then she sank beneath the torture. “ There — she ’ll do, with a little water,” jested one of the watchmen, as Luke sprinkled Patty’s face — “ and if she won’t I’m sorry for her ; seeing as the parish finds no hartshorn. I told you she’d do,” repeated the fellow, as Patty unclosed her eyes, and, breathing heavily, looked mournfully about her. “ Oh, Luke ! ” she exclaimed at length, bursting into tears, as the implied accusation of the constable flashed upon her. “ Oh, Luke ! ” “ Silence ! ” cried the night-officer, knitting his brows ; and then turning to the injured man — Lord Huntingtopper’s friend — he broke into a grim smile, saying, “ Now, sir, if you THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 33 please ? Come to the robbery.” Again Patty moaned, and again the night-constable roared “ Silence ! ” “ I — I — I can’t precisely make a — a what you call — a criminal charge against that young woman in particular — no, understand me — not in particular — certainly not — neverthe- less, I have been robbed — a very handsome family snuff-box — robbed and knocked down — or knocked down and robbed ; for understand me, I wish to be exact ; a very handsome, gold-mounted, tortoise-shell box — could n’t go without fingers — with family crest — dolphin with tail in his mouth, Latin under it, and everything proper.” Such was what Mr. Julius Curl well evidently considered to be his charge. The night-constable indulged in a heavy shake of the head, and glancing at Patty, observed, “ If things of this sort is n’t put down by the strong hand, there’s an end of respectability. I think there’s evidence enough to lock the girl up till the morning.” “ Oh, for the love of mercy ! ” shrieked Patty ; and then, convulsed and heart-stricken, she could speak no more ; but held forth her clasped hands to the night- constable. “ Stop — stop ! ” cried the officer, as Luke was about to speak ; “ let us do everything in order ; first search the girl ; the property may be about her.” Patty looked entreatingly at the constable, who waved his hand as though his public virtue were proof against looks. She then turned with stream- ing eyes to Mr. Curlwell, who, with a slight cough, and avert- ing his face from the glance of the accused, somewhat hurriedly drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and with considerable energy, blew his nose. “But to begin with Watchman, what’s that?” asked the constable, pointing to the case, where reposed myself and companions : “ what ’s that ?” “ My work, sir — it is, indeed ; I was going to take it home,” said Patty, “ when that gentleman — her voice fal- tered — “ when that gentleman — Oh, God help me ! ” — she could say no more. “ Ha ! ” and the night-constable breathed hard, sucked his underlip, and then said, speaking as an oracle — “ The thing D 34 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. looks very black agin her. Watchman/’ and he raised his voice, “ what ’s in that case ? ” Immediately the watchman drew me from my compa- nions, and with a look of admiration that ought to have pleased me, cried, “ Well ! what a hit o’ snow !” “ Young woman,” said the night-constable — he also smitten with my beauty ; “ Young woman, I do hope these things are honestly come by ; I say, I do, as a father, hope it,” he repeated, with a manner that proved he had no hope what- ever on the subject. “ Honestly come by — to be sure they are — as I ’d show you in five minutes if I was only out of this dog-hole,” cried Luke. “ By the bye,” said the night-constable, at length really awakened to the presence of Knuckle — “ What is the charge against this man ? What is your charge, sir ? ” I cannot exactly say what it was that prompted the answer to Mr. Julius Curl well, but that person having placed his hand in his coat side-pocket, raised his eyelids with a slight motion of astonishment, and replied in the softest voice — “ Charge ! none whatever.” “ I thought you were knocked down, sir, and” — “ Unquestionably ; but I wish to be particular, and — no, I would n’t make a mistake for the world — and I — that is, against the man — I have no charge whatever.” “You may go,” said the night-constable, adding, with a leer, “ and you may thank this noble gentleman for his good- nature.” Luke evidently deemed such politeness unnecessary, for taking no notice of Curlwell, and saying in a hurried whisper to Patty, “Just you wait a minute,” he impatiently made his way from the watch-house. “ Upon second thoughts,” said Mr. Curlwell, “ I do think, Mr. Night-Constable, you had better let the girl go too ; she may amend — she may reform — and for my part, I pardon her — I do, indeed ; so, you ’d better let her go.” Mr. Naplightly, the constable, certaintly felt desirous of entertaining the humane idea suggested by Mr. Julius Curl- well, but as that philanthropist did not back his arguments by other reasons, very current in the good old days or nights THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 35 of the good old roundhouse, Mr. Naplightly relapsed into official virtue, and said he would certainly lock the girl up till the morrow morning. Here Patty entreated the constable to wait the return of Luke ; he would be back immediately. Mr. Curl well also joined in the request, adding that as the night was very hot, and the watchhouse not particularly well ventilated, he would wait outside until he saw better reason either to forego or press his charge. Here Mr. Curlwell slipt a crown into the hand of a watchman, and the lock of the door was turned, Mr. Curlwell sagaciously observing, as he stepped into the moonlight, that “ there was nothing so sweet as fresh air.” And yet there was another sweetness which Mr. Curlwell lost no time ere he enjoyed ; for he drew from his side-pocket the tortoiseshell gold-mounted snuff-box — the box, bearing the dolphin with its tail in its mouth, the Latin under it, and everything proper — the box which he had deemed lost in the mob that had gathered round him on his prostration ; but which happily he had found whilst in the watch-house, though being on certain occasions what is called a close man, he did not then make known the discovery. To return to Patty in the watch-house. She is not thrust into the den in which half-a-dozen wretched creatures have been screaming and shouting, but is permitted a seat among the watchmen, who, leaving his Majesty’s subjects to the influence of their own impulses, good or bad, sit at the hearth and drink porter, the while they admire myself and fellows. “ I say, Barney,” cries an old guardian, sticking me in his greasy hatband, and straddling about the floor ; “ here ’s a thing to go a courtin’ in ! ” The shout excited by this magic touch of humour was checked by violent knocking at the watch-house door. It was no sooner opened, than Luke Knuckle, Mr. Flamingo the feather-merchant, and — though not too willingly — Mr. Curlwell, entered. Mr. Flamingo, seeing me, turned pale at the desecration, and tremblingly asked the watchman how he dared to pollute his property. The night-constable was now satisfied — Patty’s story was T> 2 36 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. true, and if she would only ask Mr. Curlwell’s pardon for having accosted him in the street, she might go about her business. u Never !” exclaimed Patty, her face reddening to scarlet. It so happened that Curlwell — the faithful valet of Lord Huntingtopper — had no intention to appear again in the watch-house, but had unhappily met his acquaintance, the feather-merchant, on his way thither, accompanied by Knuc- kle, who had compelled him to return. Being brought back, he felt he was obliged to appear the injured person. “ Bless my soul ! ” said Flamingo, in a half- whisper to the valet — “ and that creature addressed you in the street ! How Mrs. Flamingo ’s deceived in her ! This is the last bit of work she does for us.” Then turning to the night-constable, he exclaimed, — “ If she wont’t ask the gentleman’s pardon, lock her up.” Patty thought of her home — poor, stricken creature, what a home ! — of the last night she was to pass beneath a roof with her dead mother ; and with this thought in her face, her eyes, her voice, — she approached Curlwell, and in a tone that must have made him soul-sick, said — “ I ask your pardon, sir.” “ The charge is dismissed,” cries Naplightly, the night- constable. CHAPTER VII. PATTY RETURNS HOME. UNEXPECTED VISITOR. When Mr. Flamingo had fairly crossed the threshold of the round-house, he paused, and throwing as much solemnity as lay in his power into his figure, voice and manner, asked of Patty, “ What she thought would become of her 1 ” Poor girl ! that thought w T as then busy at her heart — that thought then bewildered her : she answered not a word — but sobbed bitterly. “ See what it is to have fallen into, the hands of a Chris- tian,” continued the feather-merchant. “ If Mr. Curlwell had only pressed his charge,” — that worthy person being too modest to listen to his praises, had walked quickly on — “ what, what could have saved you from oakum and Bride- well ? If you ’re not quite lost to shame and virtue, you ’ll pray for that good man.” “ Pray for him !” cried Knuckle. u Well, master, if you do n’t make the flesh shake upon one’s bones — I tell you, as I’ve told you before, it was the old fellow himself who in- sulted the child — it was .” “ Silence, sir — silence ! That shocking habit you have of speaking against your betters will some day take you to Tyburn. Do n’t I know the gentleman well ? A man with money in the Bank ! A man in the confidence of one of my best customers ! A man with such a fatherly look ! — wears powder, and everything respectable ! Is it likely, eh ? ” asked the feather-merchant, with an invincible air. “ As for you,” — and Flamingo turned to Patty — “ as a Christian, I hope you ’ll not want bread ; but — no ! — I owe it to Mrs. Flamingo—- J owe it to the virtuous young people about me — you never eat another crumb of mine.” “ I did nothing, sir — I said nothing — indeed, sir — I — oh, 38 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. sir ! — yon do n’t know what I ’ve suffered.” — Patty could stammer out no more. “ Suffered ! And what have I suffered ? Is it nothing to have one’s property flaunted about in a round-house ? Gracious me ! if the world knew what had happened to these feathers, where would be my reputation — and more, where would be my connexion ? The feathers now,” said Flamingo, “ ar’n’t Worth a groat.” “ Well, if they have been tumbled a little,” urged Knucke, “ can’t Patty put ’em all to rights again ?” “ Yes, indeed, sir,” cried Patty, earnestly — “ indeed I will — I ’ll not sleep first.” “ Humph ! ” said Flamingo, “ and how do I now know that the property will be safe 1 ” Patty spoke not a word ; but she looked in the face of Flamingo— in his hard, swoln, pros- perous face— and the look made his eye blink, and his lip work ; he violently rubbed his chin, and said hurriedly, “ Well, well, I hope after all, that you are honest ; and so, under the circumstances — I’ve no doubt I’m setting a bad example — still, under the circumstances,” (it was thus deli- cately Flamingo touched upon the death of Patty’s mother,) “ I ’ll bring myself to trust you. Now, go home ; say your prayers, be a good girl, and particularly mind that I have the feathers to-morrow. Luke, I want you — quick.” Saying this, Mr. Flamingo walked towards his westward habitation. Now, the feather-merchant was, when all is said, not really so coarse and selfish as his words and manner seemingly proclaimed him. He did not credit all the story told, or rather cunningly hinted, by Curlwell, of Patty ; nevertheless, he would not trust himself to disbelieve Lord Huntingtopper’s valet : he was so respectable, so well-placed, and more, he was in the establishment of a nobleman, whose lady had such a laudable love of feathers ! Therefore, Flamingo suffered his belief to be nicely balanced between the valet and the girl ; both might be right — both might be wrong. Flamingo was, however, one of those politic folks, who think the surest way to make people, that is, people depending upon them, better than they are, is to treat them as if they were infinitely worse. A workman had only to THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 39 commit some heinous fault, and so entirely forfeit the con- fidence of his master, to learn for the first time what an estimable person the feather-merchant had once thought him. A man had only to turn thief, to make Flamingo earnestly declare that “ he would have trusted that man with untold gold.” Such trust, however, it had never really been his weakness to put in the human animal. Knuckle, having said a few hurried words of comfort -to Patty, followed his master. Patty, then, with quickened steps, turned towards her home. Yes, with lightened heart, she almost ran along the street, gliding and shrinking from every passer-by, as though dreading some new impediment, some terrible delay, to keep her from a hearth, where death alone remained to greet her. So happy, so strangely happy was she at her escape from the den she had quitted, so relieved from the paralysing dread that the last, last consolation would have been denied her, that, in her assurance of liberty, she seemed to lose a conviction of that irreparable misery at home : she ran once more to find her mother, hardly for the time remembering, that that mother had passed away for ever. The bell of St. Martin’s tolls two, and Patty, with swoln eyes and anxious, bloodless face, is working alone. She is sewing some piece of dress, a mourning garment, a piece of decent outside black, purchased by the sacrifice of almost all necessary apparel — of the very bed-covering, for which in the coming winter nights she may starve with winter cold ; she is working, mechanically working, her face dead, blank with misery — her fingers only moving. (What a hideous vanity may leer from out the ornamental mourning of the rich — what elaborate mockery of woe in gauze and flounce, bought over fashion’s counter ! — but what a misery on the misery of death — what sacrifice upon suffering in the black of the poor, bought with money lent — that is, sold — by the money-broker !) The church-bell had scarcely ceased to sound, when a low, distinct knock struck on the door ; again, and again, yet Patty heard it not ; but continued at her work, absorbed and uncon- scious. The door opened, and a female, silently as a shadow, glided in. 40 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ Patty, Patty,” said the visitor. Patty lifted up her head, was about to shriek, when, by a violent effort, she subdued her emotion, and, laying down her work and rising from her chair, she asked with trembling voice — “ In the name of God, who, what are you V 9 “ Do you not know me, Patty % 99 said the woman with a slight shudder. “ Can it be Jessy V 9 cried Patty. “ It is that wretch ; though God bless you for calling me Jessy, that ’s something.” “ I should not have known you ; what has happened, — are you not well ? ” asked Patty, hurriedly, becoming alarmed at the unearthly aspect of her visitor. Indeed her appearance was changed and terrible. Her face looked clay-cold, and clay-wet ; white and reeking from the agony of brain and heart. Her black eyes had something awful in their wild energy, and her discoloured lips were pressed as one together, as though to master and control the passionate grief that struggled to burst from her. Thus changed, thus possessed, it was no wonder that Patty paused ere she recognised in her visitor the lost, the wretched girl, whose sympathy had awakened in her sorrowing heart a feeling of sisterly pity, of mournful gratitude. Poor creature ! the look of trading misery, the reckless, flaunting air that a few hours since she deemed a fitting, necessary grace, was lost, destroyed in the intensity of mental suffering. Con- trasting her past aspect with her present, she seemed a thing of vulgar vice, elevated and purified by agony ; the hideous face of wretchedness affecting mirth, heightened to the solem- nity of mortal tragedy. “ What ’s the matter ? What do you want — here ? ” asked Patty, timidly, and endeavouring not to shrink back from the figure which — despite of her attempted firmness — seemed to dilate and grow more terrible before her. u What do you want here ? ” repeated Patty, and she glanced at the coffin. The look, on the sudden, changed the woman to meekness ; and the next moment touched her into tears. “ I would not for the world, dear Patty — oh, let me for this night call you so — I would not disturb you, and at such a THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 41 time — I would not, but there ’s something at my heart — do let me tell it — do, or my heart will break. 5 ’ With gushing eyes, the poor outcast made this passionate request ; and Patty, with pitying looks, offered her a chair. “ What is the matter ? ” asked Patty with her sweet, tender voice, made more cordial by the uncontrollable sorrow that possessed her visitor. “ I ’ll tell you,” said the woman with an effort ; and in a few moments, with dry eyes, but with a voice deep and husky with subdued emotion, she thus proceeded. “ I come, Patty, first to ask your forgiveness.” “ You never offended me — indeed, no,” said Patty. “ I tell you, yes ; many a time I have laughed at you — sneered at you — called you foul names. And why ? It was to relieve my heart — it would have burst if I had not. When I saw you so young, so innocent, so cheerful, working early and late for the dear soul that now lies there” — Patty uncon- sciously stretched her hands towards the coffin — “ Ha ! ” cried Jessy, u you may look there — you may pray there ! I could not dare to do it — for my mother would rise in her shroud and curse me.” “ No, no — do not think so,” said Patty, “ it is not goodness to think so.” “ But let me say,” cried Jessy, “ what I came to say. You did not know when I sneered and laughed at you, how much I loved you ; but was it for such as I was to say so ? No : and so I relieved my heart with madness and vile words, and — but that is over ; I have seen that to-night” — here the woman shuddered, and her cheek quivered with terror — “ seen what has changed me.” “ Thank Heaven for it, Jessy,” cried Patty, with a look of gladness. “ You forgive me ? ” Patty took the speaker’s hand, and pressed it between her own. “ And will you, before we part for ever, let me — it will ease my heart — let me tell you my miserable story ? ” “ If ’twill indeed please you, yes,” said Patty. cc It shall be in a few words — for I am in torment while I speak ; yet it is a torment, that a something, I know not 42 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. what, will make me suffer. I am country-born ; my child- hood was one long happy holiday : I was an only child, and was to my father as his heart was to his bosom. All life to me was nothing but happy sounds and happy sights. My first trouble was the departure of a neigh- bour’s son for the sea : but we parted with a vow of lasting love, and that vow was approved by our parents. I — I — two years passed — my heart was changed ; some devil had altered my nature — I became vain, headstrong, selfish, — I left my father’s house a wicked, guilty thing, and for three years have tried to hide my shame here, in London. Oh ! those three years! Had the sky for that time rained fire upon me, I had not suffered half so much. My story is nearly done. Two hours since I was in the street — laughing, loudly laughing from an empty and corrupted heart. A man slowly passed me ; with a laugh, I laid my hand upon his shoulder ■ — he turned his head — oh, Christ ! it was my father ! ” With these words the wretched woman sank back in the chair, and with fallen mouth, fixed eyes, and ghastly features, looked, on the sudden, death-struck. Patty was about to rise to seek assistance, when Jessy grasped her by the hand, and held her with convulsive strength. In a few minutes she became composed, and then pro- ceeded : — “ Patty, I am now determined. I quit this life of horror. I will pray to find something like peace — like goodness. I have done you harm — will you forgive me — forgive the wretched Magdalen — and — yes — pray for her ? ” Saying this, Jessy, in a passion of grief, dropped upon her knees. Patty, starting from her chair, and hiding her face in her hands, sobbed — “ I do forgive you — I pray for you — I — God in heaven bless and strengthen you ! ” CHAPTER VIII. A FUNERAL. — ST. JAMES’S PALACE. THE PRINCE OF WALES. “ We give Thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our sister out of the miseries of this sinful world — ” Thus, in measured, metallic note, spoke the curate of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields — whilst the daughter Patty could have screamed in anguish at the thanksgiving. A few more words — another and another look — yet another — now the piling earth has hidden all — and the forlorn creature stands alone in the world. The last few moments have struck apart the last link that still held her to a beloved object — and now indeed she feels it is in eternity. Two or three women press about her — turn her from the grave — and, garrulously kind, preach to her deaf ears that “ all is for the best , 55 and that “ to mourn is a folly.” All this I gathered from the gossips who brought back Patty to her dreary, empty home. There, after brief and common consolation, they quitted her — and there, for a time, the reader must leave the stricken, meek-hearted feather- dresser. Early the next morning, I found myself in the hands of Mr. Flamingo. The slight disorder — in truth, more imaginary than real — I had suffered in the round-house, had, in the eyes of the tradesman, been amply remedied by Patty, and my owner turned me reverently between his thumb and finger — and gazed and gazed at me as though, for his especial profit only, I had dropt from the wing of an angel. Great was the stir throughout the household of Flamingo — and great the cause thereof. He had received an order from the palace of St. James’s : his very soul was plumed — for he should get off his feathers. 44 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. This I heard and saw, and — I confess it — with the trepi- dation of expectant vanity, beheld the feather-merchant make selection from his stock. At length, with melting looks, and a short, self-complacent sigh, he placed me — I was sure of it — as the crowning glory, the feather of feathers, among my kind. I was to wave my snowy purity in St. James’s ! And for this, thought I, was I drest— prepared by the lean fingers of want in an unwholesome garret ! Alas ! I have since felt — ay, a thousand times — that if dim-eyed Vanity would use the spectacles of truth, she would see blood on her satins — blood on her brocades — blood on her lace — on every rich and glistening thread that hangs about her — blood. She would see herself a grim idol, worshipped by the world’s unjust necessities — and so beholding, would feel a quicker throb of heart, a larger compassion for her forced idolaters. “ To the palace,” cried Flamingo to the hackney-coachman, summoned to bear myself and companions on our glorious mission. “ To the palace,” cried the feather-merchant, with new lustre in his eyes, harmony in his voice, and a delicious tingling of every nerve that filled his whole anatomy with music. “ To the palace,” were really the words uttered by Flamingo ; yet in very truth, he believed he said — “ To Paradise.” Not that St. James’s was terra incognita to Mr. Flamingo ; a Marco Polo’s domain filled with golden dreams. Certainly not : Mr. Flamingo knew exactly the number of steps composing that private way to heaven, — the back-staircase. He had smiled, and trembled, and bowed and wriggled, and smirked and cringed his way to the patronage of Queen Charlotte (of blessed memory). This exalting truth Mr. Flamingo had several times tested ; and that in a matter peculiarly flattering to himself. For instance, a very fine cockatoo had been thrown in to the tradesman among a lot of foreign feathers : this cockatoo Mr. Flamingo submitted to the inspection of her Majesty, who was graciously pleased to say to it “ Pretty Poll.” On another occasion, Flamingo took a Java tom-tit to the palace ; which bird was graciously per- mitted by the Queen to perch upon her little finger, her Majesty still further condescending to cry — “ Swee-e-e-t J ” THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 45 These circumstances were at the time totally overlooked by the Court historian ; but they are recorded, written in very fine round-hand, in the “ Flamingo Papers.” I had scarcely been an hour in the Palace, ere my memory began to fail me. Yes, all the previous scenes of my existence, that an hour before lived most vividly in my recollection, began to fade and grow dim, and take the mingled extrava- gance and obscurity of a dream. Was it possible that I had ever been a thing of barter between a savage and a sailor for pig-tail ? Could 1 have ever known a Jack Lipscombe 1 Had I crossed the seas in the dungeon of a ship ? Was it possible that I could detect the odour of bilge-water ? Was there such a haunt for human kind as the Minories 1 And that old Jew — surely he was a spectre — a part of night-mare ! His large-lipped, globe-eyed daughter, too, she — with all her plumpness — was no more substantial. And then, that dim garret in the alley — the death and enduring innocence — the heaviness and misery of human days — the suffering that made of mortal breath a wearying disease — all the worst penalty of life — had I known and witnessed it ? Could it be possible ? And was there really a Patty Butler looking with meek face upon a frowning world, and smiling down misfortune into pity ? I confess that — having delighted in the atmosphere of a palace for scarcely an hour — all these realities seemed waning into visions of a fevered sleep. It was only by a strong effort — by a determination to analyse my past emotions — that I could convince myself of the existence of a world of wretched- ness without — of want, and suffering, and all the sad and wicked inequalities of human life. How often does sudden prosperity mingle Lethe in its nectar ! I pass by moments of tumultuous anxiety — of hope, painful in its sweet intensity — of the delirium of assured aggrandise- ment. It is now the remnant of my former self that speaks, and, therefore, be the utterance calm and philosophic. It was my fate to be chosen one of the three plumes — be it remembered, the middle and the noblest one — to nod above the baby Prince of Wales, all royally slumbering in his royal cradle. It was my destiny, in 1762, to commemorate the conquest 46 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. and bloodshed of 1345 — to represent an ancestral plume whereof poor John of Bohemia was plucked that he of the black mail might be nobly feathered : yes, it was my happy duty to wave above Ich Dien in 1762. Ich Dien — “ I serve.” Such is the Prince of Wales’s motto ; and looking down upon the Princelet’s face — upon his velvet cheek brought into the world for the world’s incense — viewing the fleshly idol in its weak babyhood, — I repeated for it “ I serve ! ” and then, in the spirit of the future, asked — What ? Bacchus — Venus — or what nobler deity ? The Prince of Wales — a six weeks’ youngling — sleeps, and Ceremony, with stinted breath, waits at the cradle. How* glorious that young one’s destiny ! How moulded and marked — expressly fashioned for the high delights of earth — the chosen one of millions for millions’ homage ! The terrible beauty of a crown shall clasp those baby temples — that rose- bud mouth shall speak the iron law — that little pulpy hand shall hold the sceptre and the ball. But now, asleep in the sweet mystery of babyhood, the little brain already busy with the things that meet us at the vestibule of life — for even then we are not alone, but surely have about us the hum and echo of the coming world, — but now thus, and now upon a giddying throne ! What grandeur — what intensity of bliss — what an almighty heritage to be born to — to be sent upon this earth, accompanied by invisible angels to take possession of ! The baby king cooes in his sleep, while a thousand spirits meet upon the palace floor — sport in the palace air — hover about the cradle — and with looks divine and loving as those that watched the bulrush ark tossed on the wave of Egypt, gaze upon the bright new-comer, — on him that shall be the Lord’s anointed ! What purifying blessings purge the atmo- sphere of all earthly taint ! What a halo of moral glory beams around that baby head — that meek vicegerent of the King of kings ! Wisdom will nurse him on her knees — Pity and Goodness be his play-fellow 7 s — Humility and Gentleness his close companions — and Love for all men, a monitor con- stant as the pulses of his heart ! And will it, indeed, be so ? Poor little child — hapless creature — most unfortunate in the fortune of a prince ! Are THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 47 such, indeed, the influences about your cradle — will such, in very truth, be your teaching ? Will you, indeed, be taught as one of earth — a thing of common wants and common affec- tions ? Will you be schooled in the open pages of humanity — or taught by rote the common cant of kings ? Will you not, with the first dim glimmerings of human pride, see yourself a thing aloof from all — a piece of costly selfishness — an idol formed only for the knees of men — a superhuman creature, yea, a wingless deity ? Will not this be the teaching of the court — this the lesson that shall prate pure nature from your heart, and place therein a swelling arrogance, divorcing you from all, and worshipping self in its most tyrannous desires, in its deepest abominations ? Will you remain among the brotherhood of men, — or w r ill you be set apart only to snuff their incense and to hear their prayers ? Splendid solitude of state — most desolate privilege of princes ! With this thought, I felt a strange compassion for the Prince of Wales. All the glories of the palace seemed to vanish from about me, and I looked down upon the sleeping creature wdiom I was there to honour, with a deep pity, a sorrow for the rough and trying fortune he w r as born to. CHAPTER IX. THE PRINCE OF WALES EXHIBITED. — THE COUNTESS BLUSHROSE. DREADFUL ACCIDENT TO MR. FLAMINGO. I soon discovered that their Majesties George the Third and Queen Charlotte had benevolently consented that their baby should be exhibited to the men and women of England. These tidings had rung like a merry peal of bells throughout London ; and on the very morning after my exaltation to the Prince of Wales’s coronet, crowds were clustering at the gates of the palace. Here, however, I must fain confess to a disappointment. Being in the very temple of royalty, I at first indulged in the most extravagant expectations of the moral dignity — the uttered wisdom of the high and fortunate people about me., I watched the King’s mouth, as a bride gazes on her wedding casket, rapt with an assurance of its contained richness. I followed the motions of the Queen, as though, for a time, she had taken leave of the skies, to dazzle and to dignify a benighted planet. Such were my first emotions : but let me be frank, — they were of brief endurance. I very soon dis- covered his dread Majesty to be a mere man who loved mutton for dinner, and the Queen from Paradise, a quiet little woman, with a humility so marked that it disdained not decimal fractions. And then there were the Lords in Waiting — the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber — the women of the like Elysium — and those doomed, fragile dolls and victims of state — God help them ! — the Maids of Honour. In the simplicity of my inex- perience, I believed all these people to be of another order of flesh and blood — to possess a more exquisite anatomy — to be refined by the pure and healthful atmosphere of a court into natures above the sordid influences of this nether sphere ; to THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 49 be, indeed, mid-intelligences between men and angels. Must I say it ? I have found the coarse mind of the merest foot- man in the lackey peer ; and in the Lady of the Bed- chamber, the small envy, the petty heartburning of Molly the chambermaid at the Star and Garter. Alas, too ! for the Maids of Honour! Hapless images of ceremony — poor, moving anatomies, with eyes that must not wink, tongues that must not speak ; and, hardest tyranny of all, with mouths that must not yawn at the dull discipline that con- sumes them. I have seen them in the royal presence stand on their throbbing feet, until the blood has vanished from their lips ; and had I been a fairy wand, I w^ould have changed them straight — have bestowed upon them the para- dise of a three-legged stool, with a cow to milk beneath the odour-breathing hawthorn. If, however, the Maids of Honour affected my com- passion, the Ladies in Waiting excited my highest admi- ration. Here, I thought, are women — doting wives and loving mothers — quitting the serene and holy circle of their own hearths — relinquishing for an appointed term the happiness and tenderness of home, to endure a glorifying servitude beneath the golden yoke of Ceremony. Here, at least, I thought, is self-devotion : here a noble sacrifice to noble objects — here at once the heroism and the true religion of loyalty. The Countess Blushrose was a Lady in Waiting. Provi- dence had expressly fashioned her for the ennobling function. She had some vague notion that there were human creatures — a white race, something higher in the scheme of the world than the mere Hottentot ; but it was also a part of her creed that, like horses and oxen, they were sent for no other pur- pose to this earth, save for that of ministering in any manner to the will and wish of herself, her friends, and her immediate acquaintance. The Countess never neglected her religious duties, for she had a pew that a Sybarite might have slept in ; and therefore generally once a week seemed to listen' to the home-simplicities of the pulpit — of death, and common dust, and common judgment. Nevertheless, it was plain that her ladyship possessed a strength of mind that continued superior E 50 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. to such antique prejudices — hence, to her dying hour, she remained an unconverted hearer. The world, the habitable world, to her was composed of about an area of two miles, with St. James’s Palace for the centre. Any part beyond that boundary was, to her, mysterious as the Mogul country : she looked upon it with the intelligence that possessed the theological opponents of Columbus, wdien he talked of a new continent : allowing it to exist, and to be once reached, there were certain currents that rendered impossible any return from it. To the Countess Blushrose, Nature herself had written Nee ultra on the west side of Temple-Bar. The Countess was allowed to be beautiful as the most beautiful statue : and save in the presence of Majesty, viewed all things unbendingly and with a stony gaze. She seemed to make the atmosphere about her cold by her very looks. She rather appeared an exquisite piece of machinery — an im- provement on Maximilian’s wooden dove and iron fly of old — a wonderful work constructed and adorned by the laboured ingenuity of man, than a creature w T armed by human blood, and sanctified with a human soul. Yet men called her beau- tiful. Nay, born a baronet’s daughter, she had owed her coronet to her creamy cheek and high abstracted gaze. The heart of the Earl of Blushrose had been led away, it would seem, in chains of ice. He had been frozen into matrimony by the spells of a sorceress ; and, influenced by his partner, seemed to his old friends never to have recovered his natural heat. At the time of my elevation to St. James’s, the Countess had only one day relieved a sister Lady-in-Waiting in her exalted ceremonies. At that time, the Countess had an infant son — Lord Tootle — in the cradle. She was very fond of it — really, very fond of it ; but then she felt such devotion towards the Palace. This truth I afterwards learned from a brief incident. The child was born weak and puny. “Madam,” said the Doctor, “you must nurse this babe yourself.” “ How can you talk so ridiculously, Doctor ? ” said the Countess. “ Indeed, your ladyship, I advise only what is necessary — indispensable,” urged the Doctor. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 51 “ Necessary ! How can I submit to such a tie, when there is the Palace to — ” “ Well, Madam,” said the Doctor in conclusion, casting a significant glance at the babe, and then at its mother, — “ if you do not nurse the child yourself, my word upon it, ’twill die — die, Madam — die.” Whereupon the Countess, gently elevating her eyelids, said — and said only — “ Poor thing ! ” I have dwelt thus long upon the character of the Countess Blushrose, as she will be found a somewhat important person in my narrative. Indeed, it was to her that I owed my speedy removal from the palace. But of this in due time — let me not anticipate. At the opening of this chapter the reader was acquainted with the condescending intention of their Majesties : the Prince of Wales, in his cot or cradle of state, was to be exhibited in bib and tucker to his future liege subjects. Every due precaution had been carried out to prevent the too near approximation of the curious vulgar to the resplend- ent baby : the rockers sat at the cradle within an inclosure at the end of a state apartment, part of the royal household lined the room, and then, units of the world without were suffered to enter at one door, and walking past the cradle, and casting one look — for a second was scarcely possible — at the majestic infant, were rapidly conducted out at a door opposite, to N the world they had come from ; a world they felt them- selves henceforth authorised to gladden with tales of the baby Prince — of the glories of a palace. It was curiously instructive to watch the beaming coun- tenances of the happy few who, having elbowed it lustily in the crowd outside — who in the excess of loyalty had thrust and fought their neighbours to catch a look of princely baby- hood — now arranged their rumpled habits, and tried to conjure serenity to their red and streaming faces. Men and women of nearly all conditions poured along the room, and glanced at that marvellous baby. The only court attire commanded for the event was decent cleanliness — in very truth (if history be anything), not always palace wear. Great was the veneration paid to the Prince ! Men, whom e 2 . UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS UBRARY 52 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. I afterwards recognised in the world, came to look their homage to the all-excelling infant ; men, who with red wine on their table, and their knees at the Christmas fire, would with barred and bolted door hear the starved orphan wail the Christian carol in the frozen street ; men, with hearts close as their fobs, felt the said hearts marvellously touched and melted when they looked upon the Prince ! How deep, how exceeding their sympathy for baby helplessness hedged about by palace guards, — how beautiful, how touchingly beautiful, is infancy born to dominion whereon “ the sun sets not ! 55 And there were other lookers — honest, simple souls, who with a hurried, almost fearful glance at baby royalty, felt themselves richer for their coming lives. They had seen things called babies before, but the Prince was a blessing— a glory in lace, only for the first time vouchsafed to the world. Some trod the palace floor as though they feared to hear their own breath : had their shoes creaked, it was plain they must have fainted. Others, again, looked anxiously, fearfully about them, as though, like men in an Indian wood, they feared some wild beast, with death in its jaws, to spring out upon them. Many of these — I watched them — never saw the Prince at all. They approached the cradle pantingly, but urged on by the attendants, passed it ere they could call up courage to look upon the dazzling glory within. I was thus contemplating the various characters of the crowd, when I beheld a face I thought not wholly strange to me. After a minute, I recognised the visitor : it was my first acquaintance in England, Shadrach Jacobs, the old Jew of the Minories. Having that day washed himself, it was difficult for any one to detect the Hebrew dealer through the strange disguise. Washed, however, he had been, — washed, and drest in black and buckles, as though he had been going to court at the New Jerusalem. He hobbled past the cradle, gazing with his raven eye, which kindled sparklingly, but whether at the babe or the lace that half smothered it, I leave to be divined by the genii of Solomon’s brazen kettles. Immediately following the Jew came Miriam, his volu- minous daughter. Great was her beauty, but greater still THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 53 her strength : else how at her ears, her neck, wrists, and fin- gers, could she have borne the many trophies of her victories bought by sailors’ wages out of goldsmith’s cases ? Miriam was there ; but where was Jack Lipscomb ? Where was my first English friend ? Alas ! sick, perilously sick on an outward-bound voyage. Poor Jack was in his hammock. No matter. Tom Bracely of the “ Good Intent” went with Miriam to St. James’s. Thus, seeing an old acquaintance, my thoughts went to Patty Butler. “ Will she,” I asked myself, “be here?” Then I looked hopefully about me. Another minute, and I saw — not Patty — but her smug employer, Mr. Flamingo, with Mrs. Flamingo beside him — both gazing about them, joyous as spirits new to Paradise. Though Flamingo was loyal to the very nails, his visit was not paid only to the infant Prince. No ; feathers had something to do at the tradesman’s heart, and he came — kindly bringing his wife with him — to behold the exaltation of his ware. I could see him look up at myself and two companions, as if he felt the soul of the Prince was there in the white plumes, and nowhere else ; as if the dignity of the Prince would have been naked as a day-old sparrow, but for the feathers, which were — in Flamingo’s mind — its natural clothing. With these feelings Flamingo approached the cradle, and Flamingo’s evil spirit kept close at his skirts. The Prince of Wales has fallen fast asleep. Flamingo prepares himself to look his homage. He is as close as ceremony permits his advance : when some demon in the air tickles his nostrils, for the feather-merchant stands fixed, throws his head back, and explodes in the loudest sneeze that ever profaned the roof-tree of a palace. As Flamingo sneezed, the Prince of Wales, startled by the noise, woke — and waking, roared most lustily. The baby of a bacon-fed ploughman never yelled in higher pitch. Flamingo was about to pray that the floor would open and swallow him. Ere, however, he could frame his petition, he was hurried to the door by the attendants ; further admission was denied to thronging sight-seers, and for that day (and all owing to the untowardness of a sneeze), the exhibition was concluded. CHAPTER X. I AM CARRIED OFF FROM THE PALACE. THE COUNTESS BLUSHROSE AND HER CHAPLAIN. Few and brief were my days of glory in the Palace. Long ere the Prince of Wales cut his first tooth (what a chapter might be written on the teeth of princes !) I was removed from my high, intoxicating place of state ; plucked from the coronet. Nevertheless, a splendour still hung about me ; I was still enriched by the recollections of the past. I had waved above the slumbers and the waking smiles of the Prince of Wales — I had been a type of state and honour — I had been glorified by position — and was, therefore, a relic dear to the associations of those who trod the carpet of a palace as though they walked the odorous turf of Eden. It was to this love, this veneration that, I am convinced, I owed my speedy removal from St. James’s. Had the Countess Blushrose felt less devotion towards the Prince of Wales, I might for years have remained in the Palace ; it may be, thrown aside to pass into the stomachs of Palace moths. I was, however, doomed to a more various destiny. The Countess Blushrose refined away the vulgarity of mere honesty by the excess of loyalty. A philosopher, or — if he were duly hired for the coarse word — an Old Bailey prac- titioner, would say the Countess stole me. Well ; in hard, iron phrase, she did so : but surely the spirit that prompted the felony, made the theft a divine one ! Even the accusing angel must have put his finger to his lip, and inwardly said “ Mum ! ” as the Countess, in a flutter of triumph, bore me from the palace. How her heart beat — for, snugly concealed under her short satin cloak, I felt the throbbing organ — beat, as the beautiful robber entered her carriage. I doubt not, there are simple folks who will marvel at this story — nay, it may be, give no belief to it. They may ask — THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 55 “ What ! a countess filch a feather, when a word in the proper place would doubtless have made it her lawful chattel ? Such petty pilfering might have been looked for at the hands of Mrs. Scott, the Prince’s wet-nurse — of Jane Simpson or Catherine Johnson, rockers — but from Countess Blush- rose !” I confess it : in my inexperience of the world, such w T ere the very thoughts that oppressed me ; now it is otherwise. Not without melancholy I own it ; but I have found that with some natures it would pain and perplex their moral anatomy to move direct to an object : like snakes, they seem formed to take pleasure in indirect motion ; with them the true line of moral beauty is a curve. Had Queen Charlotte herself bestowed me upon the Countess, the free gift, I am sure of it, had not conveyed so much pleasure as the pilfered article. Borne from the palace, I speedily arrived at the mansion of the Countess, in Square. A curious adventure greeted me, I may say, at the threshold. As her ladyship passed through the hall, she was met by a mild, gentlemanly looking person. There was a certain meaning in his look — a something significant of disquietude softened and controlled by constitutional calmness. “ May I speak some words with your ladyship V 9 he asked. “ Certainly, Mr. Inglewood,” answered the Countess ; and, turning into an apartment, she let her cloak drop from her shoulders, cast me upon the table, and then, with the volup- tuous majesty of Juno, sank upon a chair. “ Have you heard how the dear Bishop is to-day?” she inquired ; and, then, without waiting for an answer, she continued : " poor man ! what he’s made of I can’t think — mere flesh and blood had never lasted till now.” “ His lordship has been a great sufferer,” replied Mr. Ingle- wood ; “ but to-day he is better.” u But there ’s no hope — impossible. He mends and he mends ; but then he breaks and he breaks. That cough of his ought to have killed anybody. Well, Mr. Inglewood,” — and here the Countess, lifting me from the table, and now idly fanning her cheek with me, and now breathing upon me, 56 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. and smiling as at her breath I trembled — “ well, Mr. Ingle- wood,” she said, “ I suppose we must all die.” u Thank God ! ” was the answer. “ Really now,” asked her ladyship, still waving me to and fro in her white hand, “ don’t you think this w T orld would be a much prettier place if death never showed his wicked features in it ?” Mr. Inglewood gravely shook his head, and then with a gentle smile asked — “ Ought we to say wicked, madam 1 ” “ I can’t tell — perhaps not; you as a clergyman are bound, you know, to have other opinions. And yet,” added her ladyship, condescending to glance with brilliant archness at the reverend man, — “ and yet, I dare say death, though at times he may be thought a tolerable sort of thing by a curate, is ugly enough — oh, a perfect fright — to a bishop.” “ I hope not, Madam,” answered the private chaplain of the Countess. “ You have no notion,” asked her ladyship, “ who will have the vacant mitre ? Very good, Mr. Inglewood ; by that look of humility I can perceive that mitres make no part of your dreams. You are above such vanities.” “ In truth, your ladyship, though I ’m not of worse stuff than bishops are sometimes made of ” “ Certainly not,” interrupted the Countess quickly ; “ I don’t see why you should despair. There is the Bishop of ; he was only chaplain, and taught — what is it ? — hie, hoc to the children. You are certainly as good as he — and then you can swim so well ! How lucky it was that you brought his lordship’s nephew out of the Isis ! How very lucky for your prospects — though I doubt if the younger brother will ever thank you for it. How strange now, if some day it should prove that you fished a mitre from a river ! ” Thus spoke her ladyship to the dependant parson — spoke in a cold, icy tone of banter, that — I could see it — made the man wince as he listened. “ Madam,” said Inglewood, “ I have no such hope ; I w T ill add, no such wish. Contentment — ” “ To be sure!” cried her ladyship — “ contentment is the prettiest thing in the world, Oh, it saves people such a deal THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 57 of trouble ! Tis an excellent thing — a beautiful invention for the lower orders ; and then it ’s so easy for them to obtain — easy as their own bacon, milk, and eggs.” “ Very often, Madam,” replied Inglewood, with some em- phasis ; “ nay, too often, quite as easy.” “ But with us, who are constantly troubled with a thousand things, contentment would be as out of place as a gipsy in a court suit. I think, if ever in my life I was to feel perfectly and truly content, I should expire on the instant.” “We pray against sudden death,” said Inglewood, so- lemnly. “ Lud ! ” cried the Countess, startled by her chaplain’s tone — “ do n’t name it ; 1 do, most heartily. Do n’t talk of it — I ’d forgot — you had something to say, Mr. Inglewood 1 ” “ Will you forgive me, Madam,” said the Chaplain, “ if, presuming on my function, I interfere with matters in this house, as I have been told, not within my duties V 9 “ Mr. Inglewood ! ” cried the Countess, with some surprise, throwing me upon the table, “ pray go on, sir : as a clergy- man, nothing, sir, should be below your interference that — ” “ That affects the peace of mind — the happiness of a fellow creature,” added Inglewood. “Very right, Sir; very right : as a Christian minister of the Established Church, nothing less should be expected of you. I have the greatest opinion of your morals, Mr. Ingle- wood — the greatest. I only hope that the Earl — for I can perceive, by your manner, that it is of his lordship you are about to speak — ” “ Indeed, madam — I — ” The interruption was in vain. The Countess, with increas- ing rapidity of speech — accompanied with gestures that left nothing for the Chaplain to do, save to wait with resignation the silence of the talker — continued to repeat her sentiments of confidence in the judgment, vigilance, and devotion of the divine, together with hints and suspicions directed at the con- nubial loyalty of his lordship, towards whom her vanity took the place of love. It was her instant and fixed belief that her chaplain — the man of peace — was about to vindicate his functions by becoming a domestic tell-tale ; that he was 58 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. about to prove himself her faithful friend, by making her “the most wretched of women.” At length — for even the tongue of a vain and jealous woman will stop (an invincible proof of the ending of all mortal things) — at length the Countess was silent ; and, throwing herself back in her chair, with the deepest devotion of a do- mestic heroine, was prepared for the worst. She had always felt that she was reserved by fate for something dreadful, and the moment was arrived ! The Earl was a fickle, false, and selfish man, and she — sweet martyr to the marriage service — she, alas ! was his wife. “ Madam,” said Inglewood, somewhat abashed and con- founded by the energy of the Countess, “ were I base enough — but no” — and the Chaplain stammered, and his face for a minute flushed — “ I have no word to speak of the Earl : were there that to say of him which your ladyship’s fears — most groundless fears, I am sure — would listen to, it would little suit my place or nature, Madam, to utter it.” “ What does the man mean ? ” asked the Countess. “ Did you not say that you had to speak of something that affected happiness and peace of mind — and all that ?” “ True, Madam,” answered Inglewood. “ Well, then — and to whose happiness, to whose peace of mind could you possibly allude, if — ” * “ Will your ladyship hear me? I will be very brief,” Said the Chaplain, with an inward twinge — a rising of the heart — at the inborn, ingrained selfishness of the beautiful creature before him. “ Oh, say what you like — I suppose I must hear you,” answered the Countess, again taking me from the table, and pettishly waving me about her. “ A person in your ladyship’s household has committed a fault — ” “ Of course,” said the Countess — “ such creatures do no- thing else.” “ She has proved not trustworthy in the duty confided to her.” “ I hear of nothing else,” cried the Countess, waving me more violently. “ Let her be turned away immediately.” THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 59 “ You will pardon me, Madam : she was about to be cast from the house — cast out broken-hearted and with a blighted name — when 1 took it on myself to stand between her, and, for what I know, destruction, and to plead her cause before you.” The Countess looked at the Chaplain impatiently — angrily, and then said, “ Mr. Inglewood, I am sorry for it. I wish you would confine yourself to your duties.” “ And what, may it please your ladyship — what are they 1” asked the clergyman, with calm voice and fixed look. “ I trust, Sir, you know them — to say prayers, and make or read a sermon,” answered the Countess. “ And nothing more, Madam V 9 inquired Inglewood. “ Surely not. What else ? ” cried her ladyship, with raised voice and wondering eyes. “ At least, Madam, to strive to practise what I pray and preach,” answered the Chaplain. “ Mr. Inglewood, his lordship, out of esteem for you, placed you here ; you were lucky enough to save a relative’s life, and perhaps it was right — I do n’t say it was n’t — to ac- knowledge the attention ; nevertheless, I will have no monk- ish, papistical principles put forward in this house. If you can comport yourself with respect and decency, as a chaplain ought to do, remain where you are, if not — I say, if not, sir — but you of course know what must follow.” “ Perfectly well, Madam. I am either to remain a salaried mockery — an inward apostate — a blaspheming thing of out- ward observance — ” “ I beg, sir,” cried the Countess, impatiently — “ I beg you will use better language.” “ A creature, wearing the skin-deep livery of truth,” con- tinued Inglewood, his face glowing, and his eye flashing as he spoke — “ foul and leprous within — a hideous mountebank, owing the daily bread of daily hypocrisy to an adroit juggling with words ; I am to do this, to take the place of the fool of other times in his lordship’s household, or I am to quit it ? His lordship, Madam — ” But at this moment Earl Blushrose entered the apartment. CHAPTER XI. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS OF THE EARL AND COUNTESS BLUSHROSE. PECULATION BY LORD TOOTLE’S MAID. “ You come in good time, my lord/’ said the Countess, with icy speech, “ in excellent time for Mr. Inglewood’s eloquence.” “ I am always happy to listen to Mr. Inglewood,” said the Earl, politely bowing towards the wife of his bosom. His lordship then graciously smiled upon his chaplain, and draw- ing a chair, ceremoniously seated himself, as though resigned to a long discourse. This formality somewhat abashed the worthy Chaplain ; but there was another circumstance which increased his confusion. He knew that for the past week the wedded couple had not once met ; and the feigned civility interchanged between them gave certain omen of a rising storm. Their general bearing was that of polished indifference ; but when either of them was stung into ex- treme politeness, hostilities were sure to follow. The Earl could have loved his wife, nay, when he married, he did love her ; but she had chilled him into coldness. Her excelling beauty had fascinated him ; but too late he found that he had sacrificed his dearest hopes to a statue. The Countess was that most terrible, but happily that rarest, evil of creation, a selfish woman. Supremely arrogant in her personal charms, her looking-glass presented her with all the external world contained ; whilst self — self — self sang to her soul a never- ending lullaby. u Would to God!” cried her husband, as one day he looked upon her fatal loveliness with moistening eyes — “ would to God she could change that face for a heart !” She would not have bartered one day’s bloom of it for the maternal pride of a Cornelia. u And now, Mr. Inglewood,” said the Earl, “ now for your household sermon, I see how it is,” he continued, marking THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 61 the discomfort of the Chaplain, keenly observing too the cloudy brow of the Countess, — “ I see how it is ; as usual, you have been discoursing to her ladyship.” Here Inglewood inwardly shivered ; for he knew by fatal experience how his lordship — otherwise kind and considerate towards him, — delighted to play him off in his churchman’s character against the Countess. It was, to the Earl’s think- ing, an exquisite touch of policy to correct his wife — correct, did I say ? no, the Earl had no such desperate thought; but to punish the partner of his fortunes with the rod of the church. The Earl, I say, considered this to be a stroke of fine policy : some folks may call it conjugal cowardice. “ My lord,” said Inglewood, determined to make an effort to extricate himself, — “ I will defer my suit — for indeed, it was a suit I had to urge, and not a sermon — until to- morrow.” “ Certainly not,” Mr. Inglewood, cried her ladyship, affect- ing a distrustful glance towards her husband. “ Proceed, I beg of you. I assure you, my lord, Mr. Inglewood was talking very charmingly — very much so, when you inter- rupted us. I am sure he had something of importance to communicate ; something that you, doubtless, ought to hear — I beg he will continue.” All this was said with meaning, inquisitive eyes, and in a tone of suppressed suffering ; so admirably did the unfeeling wife act jealousy — so perfectly did her very heartlessness assume a heart. At once, his lord- ship knew that he was reserved for some mysterious mischief, and so resolved to make the first attack. (Poor Inglewood — poor chaplain ! And he — he was to be the sentient shuttlecock, struck in cruel sport from wife to husband — from husband back to wife ! At that moment how did his heart yearn for the Paradise of a Welsh curacy !) “ Her ladyship, Mr. Inglewood,” cried the Earl quickly, for the first time in his life getting the advance speech of his wife, and valorously determining to keep it — “ Her ladyship — for all she may affect towards yourself— has, I know, the greatest veneration for your worth, your honesty. She loves plain-speaking dearly ; though perhaps it might be impolitic 62 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. at all times to avow it. Still, Mr. Inglewood, you must not be too ascetic with her ladyship ; you must be a little indul- gent. You must not wage such a deadly crusade against piquet. I know what you have said of a woman gamester ; I have listened with great edification to your description of the terrible sect ; have really shuddered at the frightful picture ; at the anatomy, I may say, you have prepared from what for all good purpose has ceased to live — a lady gambler ; nevertheless, my dear Mr. Inglewood” — and here his lordship wreaked such cordiality upon his remonstrance — “ never- theless, you must not confound a casual instance with a custom ; you must not consider her ladyship a hopeless idolater of painted paper, if now and then — to give wings to a heavy hour — she takes a hand or so. Really, you must not, Mr. Inglewood.” Thus spoke his lordship ; and in the vanity of his masculine heart he thought he had achieved a wondrous triumph over the woman he had vowed to love and cherish. The lady, however, who had as strongly sworn, proved her- self at least an equal match for the man she loved, honoured, and obeyed. As for Inglewood, he sat with his lips glued together. The polite vehemence of the Earl had kept him silent : now, her ladyship was about to speak, and he knew that nought remained for him but to suffer. With what scorching softness in her eyes — with what bitter self-com- placency — with what an obtrusive sense of martyrdom, — did the Countess Blushrose carefully construct a handful of inuendoes, every one of them enough to wound a woman’s peace for ever ! Ci I ’m sure, my lord,” — (if a man could be killed by music, the mortal melody of her ladyship’s well-educated voice had certainly slain her husband,) — “ I ’m sure, that is I hope, I am always a patient listener to Mr. Inglewood. I know the goodness that prompts him ; the conscience that animates every word : I know his devotion to the high and abstract character, as I think I have heard you call it, — you see, my lord, how I treasure all your syllables, — yes, the high and abstract character of his function. — I know his regard for the family — his especial consideration for ourselves, and therefore from him can bear anything. Nevertheless, my THE STORY. OF A FEATHER. 63 lord, as I was saying to Mr. Inglewood whenyou entered — that is, I was about to say — I would not have him scold you as I know he does. He must not take upon common report — the world is so censorious, the world so delights to destroy wedded confidence — what I never can believe, at least not all of it. And, therefore, my lord, I say he must not scold you.” Has the reader watched a well-grow T n kitten with its maiden mouse ? Has he seen how that velvet-coated, playful crea- ture, having first crushed its victim’s loins with all its teeth, drops it ; and now, crouching apart, with serene assurance that the miserable wretch cannot escape, watches with sweet forbearance its writhings and its smugglings, the very hope- lessness of its agony to get away ? How the said kitten, — its claws humanely sheathed, they having already done their work — puts forth one paw, and now taps the mouse on one side — now on the other — and turns it over and over — and all in play — all in the prettiest sport ? If the reader has seen this, sure I am, he can find a parallel in wife and husband to puss and mouse. “ No, Mr. Inglewood,” continued her ladyship, — “ his lordship has, I know, his faults ; still, he is not the unscrupu- lous libertine” — u Madam ! ” exclaimed his lordship, firing at the word, and then turning fiercely round upon his chaplain, — Mr. Ingle- wood, what is this ? ” Mr. Inglewood, in patient amazement looked at the wedded pair, then asked, “ What, my lord 1 ” “ Am I, Sir, indebted to your insinuations for this cha- racter ? Is it thus, in my own house, you fulfil a mission of peace 1 ” “ I protest, my lord,” stammered Inglewood, — “ I protest I”— u Oh, Mr. Inglewood is a plain speaker,” cried the Countess, delighted at the success of her artifice. “ And then so faithful, so vivid an artist, too ! I am sure I am delighted with the portrait that, as you tell me, my lord, Mr. Inglewood has passed off for me. It must have been so grateful to a husband, — so flattering to his wife ! And 64 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. then it is so comfortable to have at one’s elbow a kind remem- brancer of one’s little faults. Not that I want to know all your lordship’s treasons, — and even if I did, Mr. Inglewood is so good, he would never tell me allT The Chaplain was by nature and self-discipline a meek, forbearing man, but he was full of generous impulses, and the implied slander of her ladyship was too much for his patience : he therefore committed a great breach of decorum ; for, ere her ladyship had well concluded her sentence, Mr. Ingle- wood brought down his clenched fist upon the table with such a report that the Countess leapt in her chair with a slight shriek. “ Mr. Inglewood ! ” exclaimed the astonished Earl, — “ you forget yourself. Do you know, Sir, what you are ? ” “ Yes, my lord,” replied Inglewood, with sudden calm- ness, — “ no longer your chaplain. I entered your lordship’s service as a minister of peace : I will not — no, my lord, will not — to suit the fickle humours of the great, be made a scapegoat and a firebrand. I am no longer, Sir, your servant.” “ Come, come,” said the really good-natured nobleman, “ not so hasty, Mr. Inglewood. Spoil not your hopes in life by a piece of temper.” “ My hopes in this life, my lord,” said Inglewood, “ are a quiet conscience, health, and a cordial faith, let them make what mistakes they will, in my fellow-creatures. Of these three hopes, it may please God to deprive me of one ; never- theless, two — whilst my reason lasts — must, and shall remain with me.” “ Mr. Inglewood — I have been wrong ; I confess as much, and” — u My lord,” replied Inglewood firmly, yet respectfully, a I have been wrong ; and by quitting your service can make the only reparation due to myself : understand me, my lord — to myself. I now know my place : it must be my own house — my own roof — though wind and snow drive through it ; my own hearth, though with scarce a log to warm it ; my own time, that I may work to know the mystery within me. I thank you, my lord, with all my heart I thank you, for this relief from bondage. You intended kindly by me : THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 65 but I feel it, my lord — I should dwarf and wither under your patronage : I should never grow to be a man ! ” “ You know best,” said the Earl, resuming his dignity. “ I would not by my favours blight a giant. Come, come,” said the Earl smiling, “ you are a young man — a very young man. Let us talk of this to-morrow.” “ My lord,” answered Inglewood, “ I have made my election ; I am free. Yet, my lord, let me leave your house a peace-maker.” Then turning to the Countess, he said, “ Will your ladyship grant me a moment’s hearing 1 for what I have to say must interest you ” Her ladyship nodded dignified assent. “ I would plead for a weak and foolish woman. She has betrayed her trust. Yet, I believe ’twas pride, a silly pride — no deep sin — that beguiled her.” cc WTiat woman ’s this ?” asked the Earl. u One beneath your roof, my lord. One of your tenant’s daughters, hired to tend your child. This morning — ” u Ten thousand pardons, my lady,” cried an elderly, hard- featured woman, bursting into the apartment, “ but flesh and blood can’t bear to have such doings made nothing of. If Susan is n’t packed off, nobody ’s safe. I knew his reverence here wanted to talk her off — but — I — I beg your pardon my lady, for breaking in, but everybody’s character must suffer.” Here the ancient dame, with her apron corner, care- fully dislodged a small tear from either eye. “ What’s the matter, Mrs. Pillow — what has Susan done asked the Countess. “ Stolen half-a-yard of lace from his lordship’s cap,” an- swered Mrs. Pillow. “ Not stolen — not stolen,” shrieked a girl, as she rushed in, and with streaming eyes fell at the feet of the Countess. “ I never had a thief’s thought — never : nurse said ’twas of no use — none ; and I only took it to remember me of that sweet child — I love it dearer than my own flesh — to remem- ber it when I should be old, and baby be a man.” The girl, with clasped hands, looked with passionate grief in the face of the Countess. Her ladyship rose, and fanning her cheek with me — new from the Prince’s coronet — said, “ Send the culprit from the house, and instantly.” F 66 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. The girl fell prostrate on the floor. Mr. Inglewood fol- lowed the Countess with his eyes as, still waving me to and fro, she walked from the room. “ God teach you better mercy ! 55 he said in a low voice, and he stooped to raise the heart-stricken offender. CHAPTER XII. THE COUNTESS BLUSHROSE AND HER BABE SLAVERY OF st. James’s — garrick’s " romeo.” u I beg your ladyship’s pardon — but will your ladyship’s goodness allow a word with your ladyship ] ” Thus spoke Mrs. Pillow, the housekeeper, following the Countess from the apartment ; and her ladyship, by a motion of the head, implied consent to the petition. " I shall never forgive myself, never, till my dying day,” said Mrs. Pillow, immediately she found herself closeted with the Countess. “ What has happened now ? Pillow,” asked her ladyship listlessly. Matter, your ladyship ! Well, was there ever such a kind, forgiving mistress ! I ’m sure, my lady, I ” — but here the growing emotion of the housekeeper broke forth in short, quick sobs. “ Another robbery, I suppose ? ” said the Countess, with affected resignation. “ By no means, my lady,” answered Mrs. Pillow. “ Now Susan ’s gone — not that she shall leave the house, my lady, before her boxes are well tumbled — I ’d answer with my life for the honesty of all us.” “ Well ? ” said the Countess, in a fretful tone ; and imme- diately the housekeeper knew she must be brief. “ But, your ladyship,” — and here the tears trickled down Mrs. Pillow’s face like rain-drops down a window-pane — “ when I think of my own assurance — my — my — my worse than that, in lusting in as I did before your ladyship and my lord — ” “ Well, well, see ’tis not repeated. I suppose it was your zeal for — ” 68 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ That ’s it, your ladyship, that ’s it. I thought if that hussy — saving your presence — only had the first word, for first words with a brazen face go so far — she might deceive your ladyship ; and, like her impudence, she would come to you — but then, what do such trollops know what Providence really made ’em for ? — Then I followed her, your ladyship, — and there she would stand in the hall, your ladyship, trying to cry, and aggravating me past Christian flesh and blood with her assurance — and then I — oh, my lady, character’s such a jewel, and makes us forget what ’s proper to ourselves and our betters.” And Mrs. Pillow concluded this fragmentary sentence with a new supply of rolling tear-drops. “ That will do — no more — that will do,” said the Countess, and her lips almost broke into a forgiving smile. Magical was their effect upon the housekeeper ; for Mrs. Pillow wiped her face which, on the instant, was smooth, passionless, and glossy, as a face of ornamental china. “ Mr. Inglewood leaves us,” said the Countess. “ I am not surprised at that, my lady, if Susan goes.” Her ladyship, turning quickly round, bent a haughtily inquiring gaze upon her servant. Mrs. Pillow felt she had been too abrupt. “ That is, I don ’t think Susan would have stayed long after him. His reverence once gave the girl a prayer- book, my lady ; well, would your ladyship believe it, the wench was always a reading that book. I always thought it strange, my lady, still I hoped it was nothing but religion. But when people turn thieves, and rob such a sweet baby — oh, your ladyship, what a darling, darling lamb his lordship is ! So quiet, too ! I ’m the worst of sinners, if he doesn’t cut his teeth like any blessed spirit.” This energetic praise of the baby seemed to touch the maternal instincts of the Countess ; for suddenly remembering that she had a child, she said — “ Let his lordship be brought to me.” I would fain pass over the emotion of such a mother. The babe was brought ; the mother kissed her child — kissed it as a nun would kiss her beads. Two or three minutes passed, and she was about to return it into its nurse’s arms, when the fretful creature — it seemed wasting and pining, an offering THE STORY OF A FEATHER. G9 prepared for death — threw out its tiny hand, and fixed its fingers in its mother’s hair, whining and pulling with all its little strength. “ Take him away,” cried the Countess, with a slight laugh — “ the — the little rebel ! ” and as the babe was borne to the nursery, the mother turned quickly to a mirror, and arranged a few disordered raven threads delicately, tenderly, as though they were vital as her heart- strings. What knew such a mother of her child 1 She had heard its first wail — that inconvenience she could not avoid. It was from that moment divorced from her cares. It grew not beneath her eye, taking its hourly life from her ; she never knew that sweet communion, when nature touches every nerve to tenderest music, still drawing forth new love, repaid by love increasing ; by dawning consciousness ; by looks of brightening knowledge ; by fitful, broken murmurings, deep with a sense of brooding joy ; by all that interchange of mother love and baby happiness ; and more, by all those pulses of the soul which, in the thrilling present, assure the blissful future. The Countess saw her child but at stated intervals ; she knew she was a mother only by the clock. Her sole offspring was her beauty ; that she nursed, that she watched, that she tended ; that, with every furtive glance, she with deep affection worshipped. For her child, that was entombed in her face. It was this that to my thought made her hideously lovely — that threw the cankerous aspect of the witch upon the features of a goddess. Of all I have known, the Countess stood apart. Whilst in the possession of her ladyship I saw all to be seen of the high world. Drawing-rooms — assemblies — balls — the opera — all the shifting scenes, all the beautiful and brilliant things, that make what is called society. I have seen true nobility of heart add lustre to the jewel on its breast ; I have seen the man of birth, whose great ancestors were to him as continually present ; whose memories were as protecting angels, denying aught of mean, or low, or selfish to approach the sanctuary of his soul ; men with hearts and minds sweetened and purified by that everlasting fragrance breathing from good and great men’s graves. And I have 70 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. seen the caitiff whose stars and trinkets, like blazoned coffin- plates, glittered on nothing but corruption ; men, with souls dead and noisome, in moving carcases. With indignation did I first behold them ; with scorn and a fierce hatred. I called Fortune filthy names, and arraigned directing Fate of gross venality. This was the passion of very ignorance. Since I have seen the world in its many inequalities, have known and seen how much the selfish lose in what they deem intensity of gain, I have looked upon them with compassion — with a deep, mute pity. Poor small things, infinitely small in their imagined greatness ; men who, like the maggot in a nut, feed and grow gross in darkness, unwitting of the world of light and beauty, without that petty shell of self that circles them. I have seen, too, woman in her sweetest, noblest aspect ; a thing of highest thoughts and deepest tenderness, still elevated — made softer still by ministering tastes, almost refined away from earth — a creature priceless and unpur- chaseable as the angels ! Yet have I seen her sold — bartered; paid for with golden guineas — with tinkling title — with flash- ing coronet. I have heard something of the slave-markets of Cairo — of Alexandria ; tales of snow-skinned Georgians and Circassians — of fairest victims vended by avarice to lust. The tales were touching — very, very touching. But hearing them, I have smiled at the wilful ignorance, the smug self- complacency of Britons — I have smiled and remembered me of the slave-markets of St. James’s ! “ What ! ” cries the reader, and his lip turns slightly purple with indignation, u St. James’s ! ” Yes, Sir, St. James’s ! I have seen blue eyes, pink cheeks, scarlet lips sold — ay, as you would sell a nosegay — fathers and mothers luring on the customer, but having by a bishop who shall bless the bargain. There is this difference between the Georgian and the British mer- chandise — a small circle of gold wire about it, no more. Have I not seen creatures with seraphic looks — beings that in real loveliness of form and aspect, in living harmony of gesture — have almost made the imagination barren ; have I not seen them sold to some paralytic Plutus — some half- palsied earl ? No — not sold ; they were married. Their THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 71 parents made for them good matches ; they were married in a church — married with all the honours. The bells ring out a merry peal — look at the bride, her colour comes and goes, and her lip shakes like a rose-leaf in the wind ; tears blind her eyes ; and, as she steps from the carriage, the earth whirls about her ! Is that the church- door ? Surely, it is the entrance of a tomb. She fights with closed lips — mutely fights against her swelling heart. She raises her eyes — she sees her father’s stony face glittering with a smile — a statue in the sun ; beholds her mother’s simper — her weight of great content ; she turns — more hor- rible than all — and catches then the look of him, in some brief minutes to be made her owner ; he smiles, and her heart dies at his Pan-like leer ? Well, they are married ! The bargain is completed — the receipt, a marriage certificate, is duly passed. The happy couple start for his lordship’s Hall. An ox is roasted — butts of ale are tapped — all is joy and rioting among his lordship’s happy people ; happy, too, the happiest of the happiest, is his lordship’s self ! What an excellent match for the bride ! how many praise the wisdom — the policy of her parents ! How nobly they “ have done their duty” by her. Is it not proved by after years ? does not her ladyship make an immaculate wife ? Is she not chaste as Iceland snows 1 Can even midnight drunkenness dare to pass a jest upon her ? Is she not a pattern of all the choice propri- eties ? True — very true. Her father and mother are proud of the match — proud of the spotless virtue of their daughter. And she is virtuous. She may, with most serene defiance, think of Westminster Hall ; but what has her prudent father to answer, what her most politic mother to reply to that har- lotry of soul they have forced upon her — to that inevitable daily falsehood which they have made her act — to that con- stant lie — that agonizing ulcer eating in her heart, most eating when a smile is flickering at her lips ? Is she not a white slave — a Christian slave — a bondwoman bought in a St. James’s drawing-room, albeit wedded after at St. James’s Church ? I have heard of women slaves toiling in rice-grounds, heard of the planter’s whip winding like whetted steel around poor woman’s form : of these things I 72 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. have heard. But I have seen white slaves in carriages — have known the agonies inflicted on them by the scourge of their own mind, by the worm preying in their hollowing temples, by the very quietude of their despair. These scenes I mingled in — these things I saw whilst in the possession of Lady Blushrose. I have, however, trespassed by a long digression — have again committed my usual fault of wandering from the direct line of my story. Let me hasten to return to it. Some three months after I was stolen — no, taken is the word — from the Palace, the Earl’s infant, the heir of his house, fell ill, very ill. “ I am somewhat uneasy about Edward,” said the Earl to his wife, who was drest for the theatre. “ I ’m sure he ’s looking a great deal better — a great deal,” answered the Countess, pressing her little finger to a beauty patch which threatened to fall from her chin. “But if you think it necessary, why not send for Doctor Wilson ?” “Madam,” and the Earl slightly coloured, — “after your conduct to the Doctor this morning, 1 really have not the courage to send for him.” “Conduct! Was not the man insolent? — did he not accuse me of — ” “ I fear, Madam, his great offence was — he told the truth,” answered the Earl. “Doctor Wilson is, doubtless, a man of the world — a shrewd man, and passes off brutality of manner, that some people may mistake it for the independence of genius. For my part I have no very high opinion of him. Did he not say that I should kill the child ? The wretch ! — kill it — because I had not nursed it myself ? Has the man no feeling ? Did not all my friends say that I should bring myself to the grave if I did nurse it ? And you yourself, know my con- stitution ? ” “ Yes, Madam,” answered the Earl gravely ; “ I have often wondered at its excellence — often, too, after the labours of the card-table at four in the morning.” “ Now, do not let us quarrel. You shall not spoil my evening — that I am determined. I have made a party with THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 73 Lady Dinah to see Garrick’s Romeo ; — I have not yet seen it, and really one might as well be out of the world. You might have accompanied me. I know the time,” — and the Countess acted a little pouting smile — “ that to have seen Romeo and Juliet with me — ha ! well, well, marriage turns the poetry of hope into the very prose of reality.” “ And you go to see Garrick’s Romeo?” asked his lordship, sadly. “ I ’m told it ’s delicious ; so full of feeling ! ” answered the Countess. “ The carriage is at the door, my lady,” said the servant. " You wdll at least hand me to it,” said the Countess, to his lordship, with a seraphic smile. The Earl raised his eyes to his wife. Still she smiled, and held forth a fairy palm. The Earl sighed, and taking his wife’s hand as he would have taken a thistle, led her to the carriage. CHAPTER XIII. DRURY LANE THEATRE.' — A BROKEN-HEARTED WOMAN. THE COUNTESS IS SUMMONED HOME. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. The Countess was in raptures with Garrick. Her friend, Lady Dinah, too, a widow of four-and-thirty, whose chief favourite in this life was her own broken heart — was softened to the extreme of tenderness by the passion, the energy, the enthusiasm of the little man. I have said it — Lady Dinah had a broken heart. Happy woman that it was so : for that shattered organ stood to her in the place of a parrot, a spaniel, a precious pet, to be fondled and fed upon the choicest mor- sels. It was this attention to the craving appetite of her broken heart that brought Lady Dinah to Romeo and Juliet. Sympathy was a necessity of her nature — but then it must be sympathy with the wants and woes of love. At eighteen she had been married to a nobleman of large estate, sixty years old, and a pair of crutches. The daughter of a fox-hunting squire, she had been legally sold to his lordship— -vended to the winter-stricken peer, like any peach in January. She had been a widow only four years ; her husband, with a stub- bornness often peculiar to the ailing, determining not to cancel the contract a single day before. “ And so, my dear, that is how my heart was broken.” This was the constant theme of Lady Dinah ; who would continually show her broken heart to her friends and acquaintances, as other women would show their china. It was, indeed, her only solace — her only comfort. Her face had in it frank good temper ; her eyes were swimming in laughter ; her lips ever curling with smiles — she was altogether a ripe, plump piece of frolic nature ; yet to her five hundred bosom friends she insisted upon being known as “ a blighted thing ; indeed, a disappointed woman, with a broken heart.” And then she THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 75 would hint at the mystery of an early passion — of what in her girlhood she had suffered for a first love. This mystery was never cleared ; for I give no credence to the vulgar gossip of her nurse, who, as I heard, declared that her ladyship before marriage had “ never loved anything that signified, except green gooseberries.” The play proceeded, and with every scene the admiration of Lady Blushrose, the emotion of Lady Dinah, increased. “ ’Tis very nice,” said Lady Blushrose at a part of the balcony scene. “Nice, my dear! it’s delicious,” cried Lady Dinah, and for a moment spreading her fan before her face, she sighed deeply. Very different were the feelings of the two ladies. The one sat as a patroness of the poet and the actor — now and then graciously according an approving smile ; the other was in the scene ; was, indeed, — or assuredly tried to think so, — Juliet herself. “It’s very foolish,” said Lady Dinah, and with an attempt at vivacity, she brushed her handkerchief across her eyes, I do verily believe, thinking there was at least one tear in each of them. “ Dost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say — Ay ; And I will take thy word.” Thus spoke Juliet , and immediately Lady Dinah, in a whisper to her friend, exclaimed, “ Just like me when quite a girl.” “ Good night, good night ! parting is such sweet sorrow. That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” Here Juliet disappeared from the balcony, and Lady Dinah, throwing herself back in her seat, slowly shook her head, observing, — “If it does n’t take me quite to my father’s orchard ! ” “ My dear child,” said Lady Blushrose, looking round the house — “ you distress me, you do, indeed, to find you thus give way to your feelings. You know it ’s only a play.” “Very true — I know that — but memory, memory, my dear ! In this life we — ar’n’t they the Clevelands opposite ? Lud, no ! I’m getting blind I think — in this life, woman has but one heart, and when that is broken — ” 76 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ To be sure. Why, there ’s that wretch Huntingtopper,” cried Lady Blushrose, who, whilst sympathising with her friend, had carefully surveyed the boxes. “ He mus’n’t come into the box — positively, he mus’n’t come into the box. I -would n’t have him see us for the world, — where is he V 9 Lady Blushrose immediately pointed out to her broken-hearted friend the situation of his lordship, who, on the instant recognising the ladies, kissed his hand to them, and left the box. “ He’ll never come to us,” cried Lady Dinah, as though she expected a reply. u No doubt he will — and why not V 9 asked Lady Blushrose. “ Oh, my dear — I quite loathe the man,” said Lady Dinah. “ He ’s very handsome,” said Lady Blushrose, believing in that she had said everything. “ But then his sentiments, my dear ; so coarse — so little respectful of Sympathy — so utterly ignorant or careless of the emotions of the heart.” A knock at the box-door, and, immediately, enter his lord- ship ! He seemed a man of about two-and-thirty. His fea- tures were handsome — very handsome ; in point of regularity, faultless. A well-formed, well-painted lamp, but w T ith no light in it. As I shortly discovered, his lordship w’as the veritable Huntingtopper, the lordly master of Mr. Curlwell, whose generosity towards the little feather-dresser was so touchingly displayed in St. Martin’s watch-house. “ Well, ladies, how do you like it 1 Garrick wants a little of the dash of a giant for my notions of a lover. He ’s mean — plaguy mean,” said Huntingtopper, plunging at once into the play. u Does your lordship measure hearts by a foot-rule ? ” asked Lady Blushrose. “ Not exactly — but then, one wants a sort of style in these things : when we talk of heroic poetry, of course, we want people of heroic look to utter it — otherwise it’s nonsense, quite nonsense.” Thus spoke the lordly critic. “ But altogether, what does your lordship think of Romeo and Juliet ?” inquired Lady Dinah, with a downcast look, and in the gentlest tone of voice — yea, almost in the accents of a sufferer. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 77 “ There’s some good tilings in it ; can’t deny that — very decent things in it ; but then there ’s a good deal of stuff. Now, all that we ’ve listened to about the fairy’s coach — can any reasonable person make it clear ? Come, here ’s the book,” and his lordship read in a loud tone, “ ‘ Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers ; Her traces of the smallest spider’s web ; Her collars of the moonshine’s watery’ — ” “ Silence in that box ! ” roared a voice from the gallery, and looking upwards, I recognised my old, honest friend, Luke Knuckle, Mr. Flamingo’s porter. Luke, otherwise a peaceable fellow, was too much interested in the fate of the lovers to pay any deference to anybody in any box ; and, therefore, almost unconsciously rebuked the talkers. His lordship cast a contemptuous look towards the audience, as though one of the dearest prerogatives of high box company — namely, to talk loud at a play to the annoyance of actors and auditors — had been most impudently interfered with. So indignant was his lordship, yet withal so defying of vulgar opinion, that he was about to continue the quotation, when a hurried knock struck at the box-door. It was opened, when one of the Earl’s servants delivered a letter to her ladyship. “ It’s impossible !” said her ladyship, with slight agita- tion, having read the note. Then, turning to Lady Dinah, she said — “ My dear, you must excuse me — I am summoned home.” “ What has happened ?” cried Lady Dinah. “ Oh, nothing ; that is, nothing but his lordship’s ground- less fear — I will be back in a short time.” “ Pray do n’t miss the tomb scene,” urged Lady Dinah, u but what — what is the matter % ” u ’Tis only to frighten me, I know — it can’t be otherwise ; but his lordship writes that dear little Edward is dying. But it can’t be — he was so much better this morning. I shall be able to come back, I ’m sure.” “ To be sure you will,” said Lady Dinah, with a comfort- ing manner ; and very willing to be so comforted, Lady 78 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. Blushrose suffered herself to be handed to her carriage by- Lord Huntingtopper. u You’ll have no cause to remain at home, I trust,” said his lordship ; “ and till you return, I’ll talk Shakspeare to the broken-hearted widow.” As his lordship, with a pecu- liar smile, uttered these w^ords, Lady Blushrose raised her fore-finger in playful reproof of Huntingtopper’s intention. Ere, however, he could reply to this, the carriage rolled away. Arriving at his lordship’s mansion, the door was already open, and servants already watching the coming of their mistress. There was a sudden look of real seriousness in one or two faces ; in others, worn as a part of the Earl’s livery, for the occasion ; a look that convinced me death was in the house. Mrs. Pillow was on the staircase, having descended at the sound of the carriage- wheels. She stood with clasped hands, pursing her mouth, and striving to look smitten to the heart. All she said was — “ Oh, my lady ! so sweet a baby !” The Countess slightly trembled at the aspect of the matron, then rapidly passed her. In a minute the mother was in the room where lay her dying child. The Earl sat at the bedside. Never shall I forget the look with which he met his wife — the mother of his infant. There was no reproof in it — none — but the very eloquence of pity. The Countess was running to the bed, when the Earl arose and folding her in his arms, led her aside. “ He ’s not ill — not so very ill V 9 cried the Countess hys- terically. “ Patience, Margaret, patience, said the Earl, with apparent calmness. He may be better — but he is, I fear so at least, much changed.” “ My dear — dear child!” screamed her ladyship. “ He will be spared us ? ” “ Let us hope it, let us pray for it,” said the Earl ; “ still we must be patient.” He then led his wife to the bed-side ; and instantly the grief and cries of the Countess were redou- bled. She threw herself upon the bed, and called Heaven to witness how she loved her child. “ A letter, my lord, from Doctor Wilson,” said a servant, presenting a note to the Earb THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 79 “ Where — where is the Doctor ?” exclaimed the Countess. “ Be calm, my love ; I sent for him — he sends this letter/’ answered the Earl. “ A letter ! Why does he not come ? — a letter ! ” cried the Countess. “ He will not come,” said the Earl. “ Listen.” His lord- ship then read the note of the physician : — “ c My Lord, — It is with unaffected pain that I cannot feel it due to my professional character to attend your summons. After what fell from her ladyship this morning, I should forfeit all sense of self-respect were I again to do so. Her ladyship expressed a total want of confidence in my skill J “ I never meant it — he knew I never meant it ! ” cried the Countess in a rage of grief. “ ‘ Permit me, however, to recommend to your lordship, the gentleman who is the bearer of this. I have frequently met him in the course of my professional experience, and have great pleasure in herewith testifying to his high ability. I know no man to whose skill I would so readily entrust the health of my own children. “ ‘ I remain, your obedient humble servant, “ c Charles Wilson.’” “ Conduct the gentleman here,” said the Earl. “ Is he a physician V 9 asked the Countess. “ The Doctor does not tell me, but I have all faith in Wil- son, let the gentleman be who he may.” As the Earl spoke this, the servant ushered in an old acquaintance of the reader’s, no other than Apothecary Lintley. The Countess glanced at his plain outside — for in the days whereof I write, the physician had a more marked exterior than in these one- coated times — and loudly whispered to her husband, “ I ’m sure he ’s not a physician.” Lintley, overhearing this, observed — “ No, madam, I am not. Doctor Wilson has, however, informed me of the case ; it is one I have treated a thousand times among the poor.” 80 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. At the word “ poor/’ the Countess looked toward her hus- band, as though, of course, he would instantly resent the insult. The Earl, however, immediately addressing himself to Lintley, said — “ I am happy, sir, that my child will have the benefit of so much experience.” Lintley then approached the little patient : in an instant I saw in the eye of the apothecary the fate of the babe. “ He is not so very ill, Sir ? ” asked the Countess. “ He is very ill, Madam,” answered Lintley. “ But not dangerous — nothing dangerous — you will answer for his recovery — of course, with your experience, you can answer?” cried the Countess. Lintley did not speak, but glanced at the Earl. The father saw there was no hope, and endeavoured to soothe the mother, whose extravagant grief burst forth in the wildest expressions. She hung about the child, and vowed she would never survive it — no, she would be buried with it. She who had loved it so — she who had so treasured her dear, blessed darling ! At these words, the Earl hid his brow in his hands, and groaned bitterly. “ Is there nothing, Doctor — nothing that will save him ? ” cried the Countess. Lintley still evaded an answer ; still the mother asked. At length the apothecary replied — “ Nothing, Madam — now” u Oh, I know what you would say — Doctor Wilson has said so, but it was impossible. How could I nurse it — how could I, blessed, dear babe that it is, — but how could I nurse it ?” “ Patience, patience, Margaret,” said the Earl, taking his wife’s hand. And so for hours they sat. As the clock struck six the child died. And then again and again the Countess mother vowed she would be buried with her darling infant. CHAPTER XIV. I AM PURCHASED BY MADAME SPANNEU. AN ILLUSTRATION OF HUMAN MOTIVES. The Countess being placed in mourning — such is the gen- tle, tender phrase that indicates the call of death at high houses — I was cast aside. Indeed, again and again before the Countess quitted London for Canaan Hall — the family- country seat — I heard her vow that she would leave the world for ever. Existence had lost its only value to her ; what was life without her darling child ] Most vociferous was her grief ; whilst the Earl, with calm, deep sorrow, would gaze at her, as I thought, with doubting looks. How- ever, the day after the death of her child, her ladyship departed to feed her misery in solitude. She would hence- forth employ herself among her husband’s tenantry ; she would visit the sick, the widowed, and the fatherless ; again and again did she assure her husband that she would be quite a blessing to the poor ! Hearing this, and finding myself cast carelessly by, I concluded that I, too, was doomed to a long retirement from the bustling world. In little less than a week, I found it otherwise. One afternoon I found myself in the hands of Mrs. Pillow, who declared me to be, with other matters — gowns, and gloves, and cloaks, and shoes — her lawful property, by gift from the Countess. This declaration was made by the house- keeper to a short, thin, flauntily- dressed little woman, who evidently gazed at myself and my companions with the depreciating looks of a purchaser. “ There, Madame Spanneu,” cried Mrs. Pillow, holding me daintily between her thumb and finger, “ I call that a beauty. It ’s a bit of wirgin snow, and never been in my lady’s head but once.” G 82 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ La, my dear,” said Madame, in a most affectionate tone, “ feathers fetch nothing. Indeed, I ’m the greatest sinner alive if all business isn’t quite gone to the dogs.” u Talking about dogs, Madame Spanneu, how ’s your hus- band ?” Thus spoke Mrs. Pillow ; and though the reader may feel that the inquiry, dictated by a thought of the canine race, was scarcely complimentary to Monsieur Spanneu, it was nevertheless the result of association of ideas in the brain of the housekeeper ; for, as I afterwards discovered, Monsieur Spanneu, Parisian born, was an enthusiast in poodles. They were to him as his own flesh and blood. He was their “ guide, philosopher, and friend though truth compels me to admit that he never hesitated to sell his pupils when he could obtain a purchaser. His fame, indeed, was widely spread throughout the fashionable world, and many were the declining maidens who owed the prime consolation of their lives to the delicate tending of Monsieur Spanneu. Indeed, as I once heard him declare, all his dogs were “ dogs of sentiment.” “ How is Monsieur ? ” again inquired Mrs. Pillow. a Bless your heart, my dear,” answered the partner of his soul, “ nothing ever ails the brute. Ha ! my dear, it serves me right — I would try to learn French, and I’m rightly served for it. That satin, my dear, is stained in three places,” and Madame Spanneu pointed to the spots on a rose- coloured gown. “ Well, I always thought it odd as how you could marry a Frenchman,” said the housekeeper, sinking the spots of a garment in the blemishes of a husband. “ I don’t think it ’s doing the right thing by one’s own country.” “ My dear, I had my scruples ; but then he said he was a Count. What shall I give you for the lot?” — -and again Madame jumped from thoughts conjugal to matters of business. “ Why, you shall give me — but we ’ll talk of that down- stairs ; I ’ve a little something, and such a glass of Madeira ! ” Saying this, the housekeeper hurried Madame Spanneu from the apartment. An hour, at least, had elapsed, and I, with the other per- THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 83 quisites, was carried to the housekeeper’s room ; where I could not but recognise the potency of the Madeira. Mrs. Pil- low’s face was luminous ; Madame Spanneu’s eyes twinkled ; and a gentleman, whom I at once discovered to be Mr. Curlwell, was chewing a bit of a song, in which there were “ Chloe’s eyes,” and “ Chloe’s lips,” and “ Chloe’s balmy kisses.” “ Well, my love,” cried Madame Spanneu, for wine had enlarged her heart and deepened her ordinary terms of affection , — “ well, my love, if I ’ve any weakness in the world, it ’s music.” “ That ’s me, all over,” said Mrs. Pillow, with a slight titter, and as I thought, an oblique half-look at Mr. Curlwell. Whether it was so or not, that gentleman took a deep respi- ration, and again burst forth in praise of u Chloe.” “ And when does Lady Blushrose come back, my love ? ” inquired Madame Spanneu, between one of Curlwell’s pauses. “ Bless your heart, nobody knows. She ’s a going to bury herself from the whole world. Poor dear thing ! ” Thus sympathised Mrs. Pillow. Mr. Curlwell, leaning back in his chair and putting his thumbs in his waistcoat, roared over his neckcloth — “ She '11 be at Ranelagh in a fortnight.” “ La ! how can you talk so 1 And with that dear child upon her mind ! To be sure, she knew as how it wouldn’t live, if she didn’t nurse it. Well, it’s in Heaven,” cried Mrs. Pillow with an air of satisfaction, in no way lessened by another glass of Madeira. “ I don’t know how it is : between ourselves, people haven’t the hearts they used to have when I was a girl.” Madame Spanneu was about to press her lips to the glass ; struck by this melancholy verity, she paused an instant : then, shaking her head with deep significance at the house- keeper, she cried, “ They haven’t,” and tossed off the Madeira. “ The world’s a getting still wickeder,” was the opinion of Mr. Curlwell — “ nobody now can trust nobody. I never thought much of the Countess. Some people says she’s o 2 84 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. handsome ; but she ’s not my beauty.” Here, the valet looked dead in the face of Mrs, Pillow, who — with the corners of her mouth slightly curling — said u You’re so partic’lar.” “ Poor thing ! Still, you know, my dear,” cried Madame, “ now the baby ’s gone, the Countess must have something to like.” “ Try a poodle,” said Curlwell ; “ for my part, I hate a house with babbies.” “ Well, what a man you are !” exclaimed Mrs. Pillow, smiling. “ But after all, people with the money of the Countess can’t feel grief like us as are poor.” “ They haven’t the hearts,” cried the valet in a loud voice, expanding his chest. “ With a good deal of money, folks can bear a deal of trouble, and be none the worse for it,” said the house- keeper. " Trouble does ’em good — teaches ’em who’s master,” vociferated the valet, and again he drank the Earl’s Madeira. “ Still, my love,” said Madame Spanneu, “ I pity the Earl ; everybody says, my dear, he ’s so much feeling.” “ Not a atom,” exclaimed Curlwell ; his charity towards his superiors fast vanishing with his sobriety. Indeed, I have no doubt that the valet’s firm belief was that all human goodness had for ever quitted the drawing-rooms of the great and set up its “ everlasting rest” in the butler’s pantry. Thus, he continued, “ The Earl feel ! Pooh ! Crocodiles, ma’am — crocodiles.” u But really, Mr. Curlwell,” said Mrs. Pillow, “ what motives, as we may say, should his lordship have — ” “ How do we know ? Motives ! Who knows anything about ’em ? I don’t trust to anything or anybody : if the Earl was to give me five hundred a year to-morrow, should I thank him for it in my heart ? No : and why not ? Why, because I should be certain he ’d some motive in it. Nobody does nothing without thinking of something.” Such was at once the simple and enlarged philosophy of Lord Hunting- topper’s valet. “ My dear Mr. Curlwell, I do think you’re right. I ’m sorry to say it : but something happened only yesterday at our THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 85 house, that makes me suspect everybody ; yes ” — said Madame Spanneu, with emphasis — “ everybody.” “ Can’t do better, ma’am,” cried Curlwell, again quaffing the Madeira. “ What was it ? ” “ Why, you know, my dear Mrs. Pillow, we lost our darling cat three weeks ago.” “ Dear me !” cried the sympathising housekeeper. “ Well, my dear, about the middle of last week a woman — a very tidy, civil sort of body, comes to our house, and says to me, says she — Marm, do you want a cat ? Why, my dear, says I, quite forgetting who I was talking to — I do. Well, then, says the woman, here ’s a sweet little cretur ; and with that, she does no more than take a black kitten out of her basket, as she had under her cloak. There, said she — there ’s a little rose in June for you ; black as a coal, ma’am ; search it all over, for I wish I may die if there ’s a white hair in it. Well, my dear, I ’m not superstitious ; no, I should hope not ; still, there is luck in a black cat. So I says to the woman, you ’re very kind ; I ’ll take the cat with pleasure : it ’s very good of you to have brought the cat. Don’t name it, ma'am, says the woman ; who would take no thanks at all for the matter. Well, I took in the cat, and the woman goes away. You ’d see nothing in that, would you, my dear ? ” “ Nothing at all,” said Mrs. Pillow. ce Cat was mad, no doubt,” cried the charitable Curlwell. “ Not at all : as sensible and as well-behaved a cat as ever entered a decent house,” averred Madame Spanneu. “ But what do you think, my dear? Yesterday comes the very woman to me again. Marm, says she, I hope you like the cat ? Very much, my dear, says I. You ’ll find it a beau- tiful mouser, marm, for I know its family. I ’ve no doubt of it at all, says I. Well then, says the woman, since you like the cat so much, we can now come to business. What business ? says I. Why, marm, says the woman, as I brought you the cat, you couldn’t do less than let me serve it ? Serve it — serve it with what ? says I. Why, with cat’s- meat, says the woman. Couldn’t think of such a thing, says I, as I always feed my cat from my own table. Then you should have heard her impudence ! Why, says she, calling 86 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. me everything but a lady, I could have got the kitten a place in a respectable family, yes, a place in a square — and you never could be such a fool — yes, my love, those were her very words — you never could be such a fool — could never know so little of life, as to suppose I ’d give you a kitten, if it wasn’t that I was to serve her with cat’s-meat.” “ Like all the world,” says Mr. Curlwell : and here ended Madame Spanneu’s chapter on human motives. CHAPTER XV. I AM OF MADAME SPANNERS STOCK. — GOSSIP OF GOWNS AND CLOAKS. SHORT HISTORY OF A SCARLET-HEELED SHOE. When I next saw the light, I found myself among the cast-off finery which formed the stock in trade of Madame Spanneu. There I was, in tolerably good company, to be sure ; but with fallen companions : with degraded silks ; cashiered taffeties ; expelled satins ; velvets, thrust for ever from the society of the great. Nor was I alone — a solitary plume. There were feathers, thick as snow-flakes, upon Madame Spanneu’s shelves. Thus, though at first I felt a sinking of the spirit — though, as I remembered my former glory, when I nodded above the baby prince, I felt a sort of sickness from the close, musty atmosphere about me, I soon became reconciled to my condition. Indeed, there was great jollity among us. For two or three nights — for it was only at night that the talk and fun began — I and my companions maintained the dignity of sulks. We were, however, speedily laughed into good temper ; and then we ourselves laughed with the loudest. Every day Madame Spanneu added to her stock : thus, every night gave us fresh matter of enjoyment. We were wont to receive the newcomers as hardened jail-birds welcome culprits on their first captivity ; grinning them out of their sorrow ; jesting them into obdu- racy. Indeed, so hardened, so reckless was I become, that had I been selected for the head of even Garrick, I do not think — such is the infection of lawless company — I should have been sensible of the abasement. I am not about to reveal the secrets blabbed by my com- panions : but this advice, my love for mankind — badly as I have been treated by the race — compels me to give. Never, gentle reader, so long as you have a stitch about your 88 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. anatomy, believe yourself alone. If thoughtless people could only know what their left-off clothes say about them, sure I am, they would resolve upon one of two things ; either to reform their lives, or to go naked. Let no man harbour a black spot in his breast, and believe that his waistcoat is wholly ignorant of the stain. Let no man drop an ill-gotten guinea into his pocket, and think the poke unconscious of the wrong. His very glove — though it reek with civet — shall smell and babble of the bribe that has burnt his hand. His cravat shall tighten about his throat, if that throat be seared with daily lies. Ignorance of man ! to believe that what is borne upon the body has no intelligence with the moral good or evil dwelling in the soul ; to think that the purple of a Dives knows not the innermost arrogance of its bearer ; that the rag that flutters upon Lazarus breathes not the sweetness of a May-day blossom. I know that people who believe themselves courageous thinkers, may call this a superstition. I will not argue it : but I will say, there may be worse. However, it is perhaps well for poorer men that the rich put no faith in such bigotry ; for if folks were once assured that their cast-off garments could reveal all the deeds and speculations of the wearers, great, indeed, would be the man who could afford to give away an old coat ! No : we should have even prime ministers and kings’ conscience- keepers burning their clothes in their bolted bed-chambers, cautiously and secretly as a gallant burns his Paphian letters the night before pistols. The stories I heard whilst on the shelf of Madame Spanneu made the white down upon me stand upright as the down of a thistle. How the gowns were w~ont to dis- course ! How the short cloaks would giggle with merriment ! How the very gloves would lisp their little adventures ! Nay, there was a high scarlet-heeled shoe — an odd one, — can I forget the story with which it would make every gown and petticoat heave and flap again with laughter, as it told — and we had the story with every newcomer — the curious incident by which, in a scuffle, it lost its fellow ! This shoe was a very old shoe : it had been in the possession of Madame Spanneu’s predecessor, flung aside amongst other THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 89 odds and ends, and having for many years outlived the fashion, and being in a state of widowhood, had no hopes of returning to the world again. Hence, the great delight of this scarlet-heeled shoe was to prattle all the scandal it could remember and, I believe, invent, of the sphere from which it was irrevocably banished. Nay, often the shoe would receive a smart reprimand from a peach-coloured satin, which would declare itself ready to turn red at the absurd prattle of “ the old w T retch,” that would extend its sides with laughter, mocking the censure. Then, I remember, there was a grave long-trained pompadour that would continually beg to know what the scarlet-heeled shoe took them for ; adding that its fittest place, after what it had seen, or professed to see, in this naughty world, would be a convent, and to go the rest of its life down-at-heel in penance for past iniquities. At these rebukes the shoe would laugh immoderately, its high, glowing heel rapping, in a spasm of merriment, against the shelf like a street-door knocker. The worst of it was, the shoe would never let any other companion tell its his- tory : the shoe insisting that the narrator had, in the course of the story, determinedly omitted various matters which the said shoe, with more loquacity than charity, would insist upon supplying. There was, I particularly remember, a dar- ling little smoke-coloured satin cloak, trimmed with death- black lace — a beautiful, quiet, modest thing, that Diana herself might have worn of nights, when she slipped out to chat with Endymion ; well, the envious shoe would never let the smoke-coloured cloak tell its story. Five successive nights it tried hard to do so, but still the shoe would so per- vert the motives of the cloak — would so minutely finish par- ticulars, where the cloak merely intended a general sketch — would so insist up'on Dutch painting, when the cloak, for reasons of its own, merely wished an outline of the faintest chalk — that at length, the patience of the cloak was worn out, and the tender little thing in a rumple of passion that astonished a very staid lutestring — a late Lady Mayoress by-the-bye — began to use its tongue so rapidly, and to call such names, that there was a general rising and shaking of gowns to smother the invective. I particularly remember, 90 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. too, that a pompadour, with all the majesty of the court of Louis Quatorze, begged the smoke-coloured cloak, if only for the sake of other ladies, to remember that “ there were feathers present.” And then there was a sudden hush — and then a murmur — and then whispering sounds, in which, however, I clearly distinguished the words — “ don’t know where it may go to” — “ wretches of men” — “amongst all sorts of people ;” and then, for the first time, a sense of my equivocal position came upon me. I then felt myself as belonging to no party. To-day, I might be in the head of a chaste and gentle countess, to-morrow in the hat of some masque-hunting, unprincipled gallant. I could not but acknowledge the prudence of the pompadour. I felt myself a kind of being of a harem ; endured, but never to be taken cordially into confidence. I own the thought saddened me ; but I was speedily drawn from myself by the loud, saucy voice of the scarlet-heeled shoe, who cried — “Feathers be fiddled ! I don’t care what they hear ! So swear away, little smoke-colour ; say your worst, my darling ; and then let me try if I can’t beat you ! ” The cloak, folding itself in dignity, deigned no answer ; and for a time, there was a pause, only interrupted by the low, malicious chuckle, and witch-like snigger, of the scarlet- heeled shoe. I hope, however, that without being treasonous to my trust, I have sufficiently warned my beloved female readers. Again and again let me tell them, there is peril in silk — there is danger in satin — yea, jeopardy in a bit of riband. When they are assured that cast-off gowns can babble — that cloaks can give tongue — that gloves may turn a secret inside out, — nay, that I have known even the tag of a stay-lace stab a reputation, — when they know all this, let them be the “ silver lining ” of the silken clouds that float between them and the world, — and in the innocency of their thoughts, defy the gossip even of those who have most closely known them. Ere, however, I quit this part of my subject, I cannot refuse to myself the desire of giving, in the words I heard it — ay, more than twenty times — THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 91 Sljovt Ijistorj) of a J$carUt=fjteUti £>ijoe. The shoe speaks. “Once upon a time — for I shall give no other register — there was born in the English court a beautiful female child. She was the daughter of a king’s minister ; but whether the first or the tenth, what does it matter ? I have heard it said, however, that it was the minister (whoever he was) who first put a tax upon shoe-leather ; for the which, if there be any truth in history, the punishment of corns was first sent down upon high people. “ This child was christened ; and great was the revelry at the baptism. All the fairies then in England, — for upon some huff or other the greater number of the good folk had quitted Britain, flying, like a flight of swallows, from a cliff of Dover, like the swallows no one knew whither — all the fairies who were too old to travel, and so were left behind, came to the christening ; and according to their custom, as shown in many histories, brought an especial gift of goodness for the little suckling. One brought the voice of a nightin- gale — one the grace of a fawn. One the simplicity of a lamb — one the gaiety of a kid. And then she had all sorts of fairy clothing ; with a good gift and a blessing worked in every article. In truth, she was clothed from top to toe from the workshops of the good people. She wanted nothing, nothing but shoes. They had been forgotten ; and great — great was the sorrow of the fairies ; for unless the baby were instantly shod, and that by fairy hands, it was doomed that the child should go barefoot all its life. Unseemly and most uncomfortable would this have been to the beauteous daugh- ter of the minister of the king. Everybody was in grief, and everybody asking everybody what was to be done ; when an old woman, where she came from nobody could tell, appeared in the court, carrying myself and my little sister, both of us then of baby size. ‘ Here/ said the strange old woman — 1 here, an it please you, are the shoes ! * But all the fairies cried out witch — hag — devil, — and swore by all their fairy rings, by moonlight, and by whatever else the 92 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. good people hold solemn, that the babe would be lost, if suf- fered to wear the old woman’s shoes. What, however, was to be resolved ? Either the child must have the shoes then provided, or go barefoot. Now bare feet for the daughter of a minister of a king was not to be thought of — the child might as well have been born a gipsy-beggar. Whereupon the king’s minister rose, and with a passionate voice cried — ‘ Put on the shoes, put on the shoes ! ’ — and immediately all the fairy folk vanished with a howl ; leaving the little old woman to fit her gift upon the child. “ Wonderful shoes were we ; for we were no sooner on the feet of the minister’s daughter than we became fixed as her flesh, growing hour by hour and day by day as her feet grew. And so we grew, and so we agreed, for about seven- teen years. It was impossible that there could be a more loving pair of shoes. We were always whispering in each other’s ear ; kissing one another ; and behaving with the greatest closeness of affection. This lasted for seventeen years : and then, I know not how it was, a sudden aversion arose between us — and, in the end, we never felt so happy as when we were apart. u At length, it matters not how, I lost my companion, and the minister’s daughter in grief, in misery, died. She had received every good gift, but all was as nothing ; what was each virtue under the sun, w T hen a beldame fairy had bestowed upon her wrangling shoes P’ This was the story of the Scarlet-heeled Shoe. I heard it over and over again ; but never without sounds of anger, contempt, or scorn from the gowns, cloaks, and stomachers about me. CHAPTER XVJ. MADAME SPANNERS CUSTOMERS. THEIR HUMILITY. DOMESTIC PEACE AND PICKLES J AN EPISODE. During my sojourn with Madame Spanneu, I had frequent opportunities of considering the various characters of her cus- tomers, who — I confess I was at first astonished at the dis- covery — were many of them most genteel and easy-going people ; and, indeed, in their own esteem, a parcel of the very best society. Still, whatever was their bigotted opinion of their own worldly consequence, their visits to Madame Spanneu gave pleasant proof of their humility of spirit, inas- much as they all came to habit themselves in the left-off garments of their betters. And this humility was the more christianlike, inasmuch as I verily believe that many of the purchasers would have gone to the stake in cast brocade, rather than have confessed to the meekness which induced them to buy it. They were, it is true, lowly of heart, but would not for the world have had the virtue made public. How often have I seen the gown of a peeress carried off by the wife of a tallow-chandler ! How often has the cloak of an earl’s daughter been doomed to the shoulders of the spin- ster of two rooms ! Nay, the Countess’s gowns — the rust- ling perquisites of Mrs. Pillow — I saw no less than three of them sold to buyers, whose brassy looks and bold voices made me tremble for the future destiny of the garments. And can I ever forget the cold chill that struck through me when I once felt myself taken up by such a customer, who blew through me and shook me, and— my heart of pith sank at the words — inquired, “ How much ?” Madame Spanneu, with a just estimate of my virtues, asked a good round sum, and thanking my stars for my escape, I felt myself dropped from the hand. “ Feathers, Jemima, darling, isn’t the thing ; 94 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. no, my rose-bud, they isn’t indeed.” Thus spoke an old gentlewoman — dear Mrs. Gaptooth, as Madame Spanneu called her — to the girl, who desired to make me her own ; but the reproof of the matron, though uttered in the calmest, most maternal voice, appeared by the very force of its sweet- ness — or certainly by some force — to convince Jemima. She sighed, pouted a second, then seemed resigned. u Gals of your tallness, Jemima, don’t carry off feathers well ; they makes you gawky ; and in this wicked world, looks is every- thing.” I was quite charmed with the appearance — the manner of Mrs. Gaptooth. I thought I had never seen so vene- rable a woman ; and even while she spoke of the necessary shows of life, she discoursed in so passionless a tone — seemed to have so just a value of all the fleshly vanities of the earth, that she appeared to me a kind of lay saint ; a creature, doomed by the imperfection of human nature to eat, drink, and sleep, but at the same time never forgetting the passing value of mere mortal beauty, when most beautiful. " Ha ! Madame Spanneu,” the dear old soul would cry, “ beauty, as I often says to my gals, is a flower — a tulip — Madame Span- neu, a painted tulip ; now, a flourishing in a bed, and now on a dunghill.” “ True, my dear ; very true — beauty” — Madame Spanneu would reply — “ doesn’t last as it ought, not even with the best of us.” “ Ha ! my dear Madame Spanneu, the beauty I ’ve seen come on and go off — beauty ! it ’s like a guinea, Madame Spanneu ; when it’s once changed at all, it’s gone in a twinkling. That satin, by candle-light, Jemima, will be worth any money.” And thus Mrs. Gaptooth — who was a frequent visitor at Madame Spanneu ’s — would discourse before her daughters, as I concluded they were, from the maternal tenderness which she would shed upon her mingled talk of the outward loveliness of humanity, and the glories, sold at second-hand, by Madame Spanneu. For Mrs. Gap- tooth herself, I must repeat I had the very deepest respect. Charming, easy, loveable old woman ; her eye had such a soft, half-slumbering look ; her voice came like the gentle breathing of a flute ; she always walked as if she trod a church-floor, and seemed fed on nothing coarser than marma- lade and honey. As for her numerous family of daughters, I THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 95 must confess I have often wished they had been a little more like their mother, they must, I am sure, have been at times most troublesome to the good old lady ; they appeared so for- ward, loud, self-willed, and frolicsome. But be it understood once and for all, that I write from the impressions of charac- ters and scenes as they at the time fell upon me. Mrs. Gaptooth on one of her visits came alone. Madame Spanneu, who was always with us, received the dear old creature in her show-room. One of Madame’s young women — for there were two or three assistant semptresses in the house — was present ; and the conversation was carried on between Madame and her visitor in so low a voice that I could only catch here and there a few words. I was con- vinced, however, that Mrs. Gaptooth spoke of Lord Hunting- topper with the air and manner of an acquaintance. “ There ’s no accounting for taste, Madame Spanneu/’ said Mrs. Gap- tooth in a somewhat piteous voice, “ but w’here she ’s got to, I ’m a sinner if I know.” “ And you ’ve come to tell his lordship as much, my dear ?” “ Certainly not, Madame Spanneu, Lord Huntingtopper’s coming here to-day to see your husband — Mr. Curl well told me as much — so I ’m come just to throw myself promiscuously into his way, that I may know a little more about the business. One can’t be too safe.” Thus much I could piece out from the low-voiced colloquy of the ladies. Madame Spanneu was, however, fidgetty under the restraint of a third person, and so told the young woman to go down stairs, and see that those nasty dogs did no mis- chief. The girl being gone upon her delicate mission, Madame Spanneu talked freely. “Well, I did hear that Lord Huntingtopper was going to marry Lady Dinah Wil- loughby.” “ What of that, my dear 1 Why shouldn’t he 1 But after all,” said Mrs. Gaptooth in her mild, matronlike way, “ who knows if the fellow ’s serious ?” “ No doubt of it,” responded Madame Spanneu ; “ he must be in earnest, for he ’s bought her ladyship a poodle ; Julien ’s teaching it all sorts of things. Ha ! Mrs. Gaptooth, men are nice creatures, they are,” cried Madame Spanneu with bitter- ness. Charming, however, most charming was the charity of 96 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. Mrs. Gaptooth, for she gently clasped her hands, twisted her thumbs, and a smile gilding her broad quiet face, she cried — “ Poor fellows ! silly things !” and then she chuckled, gently chuckled. “ Don’t talk in that way, my love / 5 said Madame Spanneu, “ it makes my flesh crawl to hear you pity ’em, it isn’t stand- ing up for your sex. Ha ! you don’t know what I ’ve to suffer.” “ Anything new ?” asked Mrs. Gaptooth, withlhat peculiar serenity which characterises the interest of some people in the misfortunes of their neighbours. “ New ! ” exclaimed the wife, and she closed her eyes, gave a spasmodic shake of the head, and seemed to swallow a rising emotion. Then there was silence for a moment, and then Madame Spanneu, with an alacrity that appeared to do her heart good, cried, — “ But, my dear, I ’ll tell you all about the villain.” I had not yet seen Monsieur Julien Spanneu, for hfs wife rigidly enforced his seclusion to his own room, and, as she would say, to his fittest company, his filthy dogs — his pupil poodles. I had, however, heard more than enough of him ; and had formed in my own mind his outward man from the notes which proceeded from his fiddle as w T ell as from him- self : for really, they were so eternally blended, that man and fiddle seemed but one instrument. I have heard men declare that they have only to hear a voice to immediately fit it with an anatomy ; albeit the fleshy instrument from which the voice is heard shall, in its reality, be in every point a con- tradiction to the body which has been, by the fancy of the listener bestowed upon it. I suppose this habit of men, not only when hearing persons but also when hearing of them, — this custom of endowing them with flesh and blood of some sort, arises from the difficulty that poor human nature has to consider mind in the abstract — to think of the human soul, without head and shoulders, legs and arms. Be this as it may ; I had — from a too frequent overhearing of Monsieur Spanneu — made him a present of a long, thin, lizard-like body, a face sharp as a bladebone, twinkling eyes, grinning jaws, and a back bending like a willow in a breeze. His THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 97 voice came with a cutting scream, far above his catgut. Hour by hour I heard him raving, stamping, singing, fiddling, at his canine pupils, withal so passionately, so earnestly, with such apparent consciousness of the importance of his function, of the great social value of his teaching a dog to go on three legs at the word of command — to limp as if wounded — to tumble head over heels — to feign the last mortal agony — and, above all, to toss a sixpence from its nose, at any given num- ber, — that whatever might have been my opinion of the value of Monsieur’s labours, I could not but respect the amount of sincerity, of real heart, he put into them. Then, how he would vociferate ! How he would scream — “ Chien que tu es ,” — as if in his indignation he told the dunce of a dog a startling truth, and then as the gender might be, crying, “ Chienne que tu es” as the worst opprobrium he could wreak upon a female learner. With these things fresh in my mind — for Monsieur Julien kept them day by day smarting like a new sore — I listened with all my ears to the coming narrative of Madame Spanneu, perceiving that — like a good wife as she was — she never felt so truly happy as when she could con- vince a dear female friend, who promised to keep the imparted secret locked for ever in her breast, what a villain she was married to. When Madame Spanneu, as I have observed, promised Mrs. Gaptooth such happiness, the matron, decorously pre- paring herself for the pleasure, merely said, “ Do.” “ Well, my dear,” begins the injured wife, “ you recollect that creature, Louisa 1 ” “ A very fine gal,” answered Mrs. Gaptooth with some vivacity. u Beautiful flaxen hair, and eyes as blue as blue chanev. Where is she, my dear ? ” This question Madame Spanneu did not answer, but waving it with a real or affected shiver, kept to the story of her wrongs. u And you know, my dear, that I ’m a little parti- cular in my pickles ] ” In the name of the mummy of King Cheops — certainly one of the best preserves of the earth — what can there be in common with domestic wrongs and domestic pickles ? This question stirred me, but not Mrs. Gaptooth. She evidently H 98 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. felt there was nothing inharmonious in the matter ; for had she been a statue made to speak, she could not with more tranquillity have answered, — “ My dear, I do.” u I ’m not a proud woman, Mrs. Gaptooth ; no ; my worst enemy, my dear, if I have such a thing, can’t say that ; but I ’ll turn my back upon no woman for pickles. No ; if I can stand upon anything in the world, it is my onions.” “ Very true, my dear,” was the corroboration of Mrs. Gap- tooth. “ But the gal % ” “ Well, my dear, I was called to Leatherhead for a week, to, see my aunt in the jaundice. She got over that, but she can’t live long, my dear, and whenever she goes, there ’s something for us. Well, there was I, out a week from home, I may say, upon business ; leaving that Louisa to keep the house. When I came back, there was n’t a walnut — a bit of cabbage — not a single onion, my dear, if you ’d have died for it.” “ And all with Louisa ?” asked Mrs. Gaptooth. “ My love,” cried Madame Spanneu, most affectionate in her wretchedness, u My love, I afterwards found out she ’d been altogether — yes, altogether — mistress of the house ; and so the wretch had not only destroyed my peace, but eat my pickles ! ” CHAPTER XVII. MONSIEUR SPANNEU AND HIS SCHOLARS. — I AM ILL-USED BY A POODLE. Dear Mrs. Gaptooth felt for the double calamity of Madame Spanneu all the sympathy of a sister. The heart of the matron, upon her own grave assurance, bled for her friend ; albeit, no woman ever sat above a bleeding heart with sweeter composure. “ It ’s a bad world, my dear,” said Mrs. Gap- tooth, “ but we ’re in it — we ’re in it, and must make the best of it.” With this expression of philosophy, the old gentlewoman quitted the room, followed by Madame Spanneu. I had that day been turned over and over by several hands, and had been carelessly thrown upon a chair, the price Madame Spanneu placed upon my beauty being considered too extravagant by those who came to purchase. I confess it, my situation became irksome to me : I longed once more to be in the world : I had had sufficient of retirement, and yearned for society. Whilst these thoughts possessed me, one of Monsieur Spanneu’s poodles frisked into the room. The little beast was a most mischievous and volatile animal, despite the daily lessons of a master to correct the vices of his constitution. He was never so happy as when gnawing the edge of a carpet — jumping up and tearing at the maids’ aprons — biting the cat in the nape of the neck — and, in fact, committing every licence within the wicked powers of puppy- hood ; a more irreclaimable little dog was never born to the luxuries of life. As the poodle entered the room I felt a strange shudder. He came in with a light cautious air, treading on the very tips of his toe-nails, and lifting up his jet-black nose, as though he snuffed delicious mischief some- where ; then, in very self-abandonment, he chased his tail, h 2 100 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. spinning round like any opera-dancer. Then, tired of the sport, he approached a table with sudden seriousness, and staring full at a blue riband or cap-string, twitched the muslin on the floor, and in an instant buried his head, fighting it the while with his fore-paws, in the cap itself. Never did a dog seem more delighted — never was puppy so completely caught by a cap. At length, by the very force of his admiration, the poodle tore the cap into strips, and sated with that peculiar pleasure, looked round about him for another victim. It was but an instant, and I was in the poodle's mouth. That I, who had helped to decorate the Prince of Wales, should be made the plaything of a dog ! I felt that my last moment was come — that my ignominious end was near. How the poodle snapped at me and tossed me ! Then, dropping me on the floor, he barked and barked at me ; and then, after a momentary pause, he caught me up in his mouth and ran with me out of the room. In another minute, the heedless puppy, unseen by his master, carried me into Monsieur Spanneu’s academy ; for there was the Frenchman, kit in hand, playing the Minuet de la Cour to a couple of poodles, stamping, vociferating, swearing whilst he played. I have no doubt that the action of the Frenchman had sudden operation on the fears of the animal that had carried me off, for the dog crouched under a chair with me between his paws, now pulling me through his teeth, and now con- templating in curious silence the motions of his canine schoolfellows. I have little doubt, too, that a somewhat ponderous whip, which the Frenchman remorselessly applied to the backs of his students, had its due effect upon the trans- gressing poodle ; for as the whip cracked, and the culprits yelped and howled, the poodle trembled throughout every hair, and yelped in sympathy. It was, however, delightful to witness the affectionate manner with which Monsieur Spanneu inflicted punishment on his students. “ Ha ! ha ! mon mignon” he would cry, and the thong would wind round the darling’s body with force enough to crack it. cc Viens , mon ami” the master would exclaim, at the same time kicking the pupil to the other end of the school-room. He divided his time between THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 101 soft endearing phrases and hard thwacks. His lips dropt oil, but his hand still bore a whip. The poodle having left me beneath a chair, although I was somewhat flustered by the rough treatment I had received, I nevertheless soon recovered sufficient composure to look about me. I then noted, what I have since a thousand times remarked, the difference — even to extremes — between a man in his reality and a man as we may, in our imagination, have painted him. Here was Monsieur Spanneu, a short, obese Frenchman ; yet surely never did man carry so much fat so lightly. He was about four feet six in height, with a face ample as the moon at the full, a broad forehead and bald head, its nudity half-discovered by a nightcap half-slipped from its resting-place. Nothing could have been more ludicrous than the aspect and manner of the teacher, had they not been redeemed by an energy, a certain enthusiasm of purpose, that imparted to him something like dignity. It was impossible to laugh outright at Monsieur Spanneu ; the earnestness of the teacher would repress the giggle of the scoffer. It is true he taught nothing but dogs ; but then he convinced you that there were no creatures on this earth so worthy of teaching. “ A dog,” Monsieur Spanneu would say, “ is de only true friend of de man,” and this opinion the master would dignify by laying the whip on to the best friend of our species. Whether Monsieur Spanneu’s pupils were more than ordi- narily dull, or the master himself more than usually irascible, I cannot determine ; but never during my stay in the house had I heard such crackings of the whip, such yelpings and howlings from the dogs, as whilst I lay unseen beneath the chair, a witness of the discipline of my host. Monsieur had arranged his pupils for a cotillon, when, after the sweetest evidence of temper on his part, — after the master had twenty times called to the dogs, “ mes petits ,” “ mes amis” “ mes mignons” u mes enfans ” — after he had lavished upon them all sorts of endearing syllables, — he lost his benevolence, and seizing his whip, went in among the pupils and laid about him like a thresher. It was at this moment, when the very tiles of the house- 102 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. top were ringing with the howling of the dogs, and their master was raging like a tempest, his face scarlet, and his forehead streaming with passion, that Madame Spanneu rushed into the room, ceremoniously followed by Mrs. Gaptooth. u Monsieur Spanneu, 1 ’ll put up with this nuisance no longer,” cried Madame ; and if ever woman looked in earnest, it was the wife of the teacher. Monsieur Spanneu was instantly composed. He stooped to pick up the nightcap which in his energy had dropped from his head, and folding it delicately, tenderly between his hands, he suffered a smile to break all over his face, and bending with graceful devotion, he said — “ Ma belle Elise There was nothing in the words. Any other husband might have called his wife his beautiful Eliza, but in the manner of Monsieur Spanneu, there was the devotion of a life. Never was there such fealty paid to the wedding-ring. I saw it at once : the poodles, whatever were their sufferings, w T ere fully revenged by the wife of their tyrant and teacher. The meekest, poorest dog there, was a lion in heart and independ- ence before Monsieur Spanneu, compared to Monsieur Spanneu before his wife. Hence, the husband met the ferocity of his helpmate with nothing more than a deprecating bend of the back, and “ Ma belle Elise” “ None of your nonsense,” cried Madame Spanneu, — that lofty-minded woman rejecting what the weakness of her sex might have deemed a compliment. “ I won’t have my house turned into a kennel any longer, The dogs shall pack ; and all the better if their master packs with them.” “ Mon ange ! ” cried Monsieur Spanneu, his meekness, if possible, increasing with the violence of his wife. “ Yes, you ’re a pretty fellow to call anybody your angel, you are ; I ’m none of your angels, I can tell you,” — exclaimed Madame Spanneu, with a vigorous tossing of the head. “ Now, my dear,” said Mrs. Gaptooth, apparently from the best spirit in the world, “ now, do n’t go on so — though, to be sure, so many dogs must put any house in a most terrible pickle.” “ Pickle ! ” cried Madame Spanneu, with intense shrillness of organ : “ pickle ! ” THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 103 “ Met chere” said the husband with a lost look, as though that one word pickle had conjured about him a throng of terrors which he felt it was in vain to struggle wfith. Had Madame Spanneu not been the poor man’s wife, she must have pitied him ; as it was, pity was the last feeling to be wasted on the villain. “ Pickle ! ” for the third time screamed Madame Spanneu, and I could perceive as she moved from the door, that her husband shifted himself, preparing to make a retreat. “ I wonder that the floor does n’t open and swallow you at the word,” she cried. “ Ma belle Elise ! ” said the Frenchman, but he spoke in vain. “ I wonder that you can have the impudence to exist — you, that I have given house and home to — you that I harbour, with your filthy curs — you that — ” The Frenchman was about to fly, w T hen casting his eye about, he observed me lying tumbled and bitten beneath the chair. The poor man turned ghastly pale when he saw me. He was at once assured of the ill behaviour of one of his dogs, and of the increased abuse which would fall upon him, should his wife discover the accident. He must suffer anything, rather than permit the chance of such disclosure : hence, with false courage, he approached the chair beneath which I lay, and seating himself, so arranged his legs as to keep me out of sight. And then Madame Spanneu began again to abuse her husband, whilst he — poor man ! — began to tune his fiddle. Again did the wife call out “ False, vile wretch ? — miserable Frenchman!” whilst the Gaul, affecting philosophy, drew his bow, and sang — “ Norn rtavons qu'un temps a vivre CHAPTER XVIII. A husband’s WRONGS. A LISTENER. AN ATTACK. TRIUMPH OF COLOURS. And still did Madame Spanneu exercise her voice to her husband’s fiddle, albeit little mollified by the conjugal cat- gut. Orpheus — it is a trite tale — tamed lionesses by the magic of the gamut. Monsieur Julien Spanneu was not an Orpheus ; neither was his beautiful Eliza a lioness ; hence, the discord and the music continued for some minutes, and threatened to endure, when the maid jigged into the room, and announced the name of Mr. Curl well. At the sound, Mrs. Gaptooth observed in a confidential voice to Madame Spanneu, — “From my lord, I’m bound for him,” and hastened away to seek the valet. “ Come for Lady Dinah’s dog, 1 ’ll be sworn,” cried Madame Spanneu, with a fiery glance at her husband, “ and you ’re never in a state to see anybody. How the man sits ! Why don’t you run and clean yourself, you outlandish savage ? ” “ Ma belle Elise ,” cried the Frenchman, sitting cross- legged before me, with a shuddering dread of my discovery. “ Why do n’t you get up ? ” shrieked the wife. Monsieur Spanneu affected a sudden spasm — worked his nether jaw — moped and mowed like a monkey, and then ventured to ask his wife if she had no sentiment ? “ Sentiment ? ” echoed the beautiful Eliza, as though insulted. “ Mon ange y — I am sick — malade — Tiorriblement malade. Allez chercher du cognac — Oh ! if you have religion, get brandy and the Frenchman ground his teeth, and, rocking from side to side, with both his arms hugged his abdomen. “ Brandy ! ” exclaimed the wife, with mixed contempt and derision at the extravagance of the sick man, and was about THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 105 to leave the room. This was precisely what the husband required : he therefore sought to hurry her with sweetest phrase. “ Ha ! G'est bien, ma vie — mon tresor — mon ame .” Then, seeing his wife suddenly fixed, he roared — “ Get brandy, or I will die — I tell you, belle Elise , I will die.” “ Do you promise ? ” inquired the wife, with evident inte- rest in the question ; and then, with a laugh, she swept away from the moribund man. For an instant the sufferer sat listening to the footsteps of his spouse descending the stairs, and then he jumped up, and plucking me, rumpled and dis- ordered, from beneath the chair — cried u Ha! si cette dia- blesse vons avail me ! ” Saying this, he rapidly buttoned me under his waistcoat, and again fell in the chair — again sick, expiring for the life-bestowing brandy. He listened, but there was no wife hurrying back with the restorative ano- dyne. Yet, certainly, she would come — yes, she would never let him expire. That was her rushing step. No ; it was the cat at romps. Had he not promised to die if brandy came not ? Still silence ? It was plain the wretched woman wished to try if he would keep his word. Smitten with a sense of this truth, the mournful spouse rose from his chair, and drawing forth his handkerchief, was about to use it in search of a tear of wounded sensibility, a tear that might be in his eye. He hesitated, and the majesty of an offended husband coming to his aid, he exclaimed — I cannot for a certainty say what, but sure I am it was not “ Ange” Whatever it was, the word by its energy seemed to carry the man from the room, and he ran muttering down stairs, carrying me as his bosom companion on the way. I verily believe that Monsieur Spanneu, having descended his own staircase, was about to enter his own parlour ; he, however, brought himself dead up at the door. I heard voices within ; so, it was plain, did Monsieur Spanneu, for after pausing a minute, his heart commencing a hurried beat, he bent his ear close to the keyhole. I must confess that, for a moment, I wished I could have been turned into a living hedgehog, that I might have inflicted on the bosom of the offender a thousand pricking reproofs of the meanness of the act. I could have curled and twisted like a snake with 106 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. very indignation, as the Frenchman, grasping the handle of the door, seemed as he would screw the entire of his ear into the compass of the keyhole. How, at first, he shook and quivered at the voices within — and then, with an attempt at calmness, he set his teeth and slightly grunted as he listened ! Nevertheless, with all his industry and quickness of ear, Monsieur Spanneu was only enabled to catch half-sentences ; these he pieced together, making thereof a terrible scourge by the very ingenuity of his ignorance. I, having the acute organisation of a bird, could recognise sounds of softest volume, and was, therefore, excessively amused at the jea- lousy which Monsieur gathered from the mere fragments he was enabled to put together. Requesting that the printer will set in different letters — will, if I may use the conceit, put certain 'words in a whis- per — I will endeavour to show what Monsieur Spanneu heard, and what escaped him. The proverb that “ listeners hear no good of themselves , 55 is evidently worked out in this way : the good, if ever spoken, is spoken in so weak a voice that it falls dead ere it arrives at the keyhole. This was doubtless the case with Monsieur Spanneu. “ I never thought that his lordship could have so liked that Madame Spanneu, 55 — here begins the inaudible type, for words inaudible to the husband — (“to know all about her ladyship.”) “ But, bless you, he so loves her — so doats upon her ; ( and as Lady Willowby has a fine fortune , perhaps she deserves it”) The first voice I immediately recognised as the silvery property of Mrs. Gaptooth ; the second as the masculine organ appertaining to the valet Curl well. “Well, there’s no accounting for love, to be sure; and so his lordship comes here for a dog to show his love ! Mrs. Spanneu tells me everything ! La ! how she grins at her husband — ( though , do you know , I think she doats upon him after all”) Here the gentlewoman laughed : not so Monsieur Spanneu ; for his rage rising, his knees began to knock against the pannel of the door. Every moment I expected to hear a voice from the room cry, “ Come in . 55 THE STORY 0 A FEATHER. 107 The speakers were, however, too much interested to take heed of a light disturbance, so the half-lost dialogue, to the further misery of Monsieur Spanneu, went on. (“ I must say his lordship taJces a great deal of trouble about pleasing her ladyship.) Why does n’t he run off with the woman at once 1 33 “ Why not 1 I’m sure she ’d jump to have him: (and as for buying dogs , and all such fal-lals — it 3 s child 3 s work , Mr. Gurlwell; it is, indeed?) Here, again, Mrs. Gaptooth laughed ; and again the knees of Monsieur Spanneu smote the pannel. Almost breathless, the forlorn, self-tormenting husband again essayed to listen, yet heard but fragments. Thus the dialogue was continued. (“ But about that gal , Mr. Gurlwell ? If his lordship , as you say , is really in love with the widow, why shoidd he care for that gal ? You don't know the trouble she 3 s given me. 33 ) (“ You 3 re an excellent woman , Mrs. Gaptooth, and I scorn to deceive you) I ’ve only used his lordship, as his lordship’s used the dog — as a sort of blind. (He cares nothing for the feather -dresser ; he 3 s never seen her .) It ’s I as loves her,” answered Curlwell, and Monsieur Spanneu gasped again. “ Impossible !” cried Mrs. Gaptooth. “ Not that I can say, love ; but you know what I mean. I don’t know how it is — but I — I will have her, and there ’s an end of it,” cried the valet. u Sacre! 33 groaned Monsieur Spanneu. “ Well, I like a man of spirit,” said Mrs. Gaptooth. (“ I 3 m sure I 3 ve done all I could to rummage her out. She went from her last lodgings, nobody knows where. There was a talk about an old apothecary ; but I believe nothing about it.) And now, Mr. Curlwell, why should you deceive an old friend ? Why should you tell me it was his lordship as loved the woman, and not your proper self 1 33 “ Good reasons, Mrs. Gaptooth ; the world is n’t what it ought to be, or I should have as much money as them as carry their heads among the highest. It ’s a wicked world for poor men, m’em,” said the valet with a sigh. “ Well, well, the world ’s not so bad, after all,” said the philosophic matron ; u we may know a worse.” 108 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ Je Vesper e ,” muttered Monsieur between his teeth, and again with gaping ear he listened. u But you ’re rich enough for her/ 5 cried Mr$. Gaptooth, “ and it sha’n’t be my fault if you don’t make her a happy cretur.” “ I will, Mrs. Gaptooth — 1 will, as I’m a man,” exclaimed the valet with energy. Here Monsieur Spanneu with a sudden roar burst into the room. He uttered no syllable, but with a spring brought himself to the fire-place, — to his own sacred hearth — and caught up the poker which, save himself — for at that moment he had dreadful thoughts of his wife — was its brightest ornament. Mrs. Gaptooth, being a woman, slightly screamed. Mr. Curlwell in short spasmodic sentences exclaimed — “ Haho ! — The man mad ? — Murder to be done ? — Blood to be shed ( i Brains to be knocked out ? Killed like a dog T’ — And uttered other household expressions of household alarm. Monsieur Spanneu felt too much to speak. “ His voice was in — the poker.” Seizing that weapon — (we have often thought that marriage contracts will never be complete until it be part of the marriage-law that shovel, tongs, and poker be all and severally fastened by a certain length of chain to the fire-place) — he commenced an attack upon the valet, who shaking many years from his heels, ran round and round a table, the. injured husband — like Othello, injured only by false suspicion — following him. Mrs. Gaptooth, selecting the easy chair, sank in it, evidently prepared at any moment to faint. Still did Curlwell describe the circle of Monsieur Spanneu’s mahogany, which was happily of suffi- cient area to protect the valet from the avenging iron of the short and corpulent Frenchman, who, nathless, ran round and round, making at times the hardest blows upon his own hospitable table, blows inhospitably intended for the brain- pan of his guest. However, mortal breath could not long sustain the trial, and at length Monsieur Spanneu, gasping again and shaking his head at his imagined wronger, dropped the poker despair- ingly upon the table. At the same moment, Curlwell paused, THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 109 and with his knuckles resting upon the same piece of house- hold utility, took wind. There they stood, panting at one another, like two dogs in July on the opposite sides of a ditch. Seeing them powerless for any mischief, Mrs. Gap- tooth then felt it her duty as a woman and a Christian — as she afterwards said to Madame Spanneu — to scream the roof off. Down rushed Madame Spanneu, in full dress. She had, in truth, retired to her chamber to decorate herself for an audi- ence with Mr. Curlwell ; and not, as her husband foolishly imagined, pour chercher du cognac. Strange, mysterious are the movements of the human soul ! Arguing from common examples, does not the reader imagine that the very sight of his wife at such a moment would have been as oil to the Frenchman’s jealous flames ? It was other- vise. For in an instant, Monsieur Spanneu, crying, u Ma belle Elise ! mon ange ! mon ame ! ” locked his helpmate in his arms. Now Madame Spanneu was dressed in a blue lutestring, trimmed with white satin. “ Had it been any other colour,” Monsieur afterwards declared, “he vould have cast de traitresse avay — for ever avay ; but dat gown vas his veak- ness. He could not tink to lose her ven in de vite and blue ! ” In a word, the Frenchman struck to his wife’s colours. CHAPTER XIX. I AM TAKEN TO A TAVERN. — LEFT IN A HACKNEY-COACH. Our last chapter left Madame Spanneu in the arms of her husband. In less time than a leaf of this small history could be turned, the lady released herself from that sweet bondage ; and that, too, with a decision that flung her helpmate, sound- ing, against the wainscot. Never did woman more vigorously illustrate the fallacy of that vulgar saying, that man and wife are of one flesh ; for never was division more clearly mani- fested. u My heart is broke ! ” exclaimed Monsieur Spanneu. That his ribs also were not fractured was a mercy and an astonish- ment. The husband looked entreatingly at his wife-^there was no responsive glance — and, in another second, the wretched man had seized his hat, and stood the statue of despair upon his own door-step ! In that moment, active was the great fiend : for twenty little imps, the devil’s footboys, rose about the Frenchman ; some crying halter — some poison — some climbing his shoulder, and gently whispering in his ear, razors ; and some again, with a sweet, diabolic smirk, pointing their fingers in the direction of the Thames. Monsieur Spanneu instantly resolved on death. What place but the grave for a broken heart ? He would die : his only difficulty was the choice of means. Thus, hanging, poisoning, drowning, abscission of artery — one and all of these modes recommended themselves ; but their merits appeared so equal, that the Frenchman was too much puzzled to choose. He at once broke from the besetting difficulty, by — turning into an alehouse. Distrust- ing death, he rushed to drunkenness. Monsieur Spanneu drowned his reason twenty fathom deep ; but with wise reservation kept his clayey self safe from the coroner. Never THE STORY OF A FEATHER. Ill was the inexperience of man so shockingly displayed ; for almost before Bacchus could have winked, the Frenchman was disastrously drunk. This great evil was attributable to his temperance. He had never, poor man ! taught himself the use of the bottle, and, therefore, the exposure of his igno- rance was sudden and complete. He had been wont to dally with water, qualified with sugar, for luxurious tippling, and now stood he beside that burning Lethe — gin ! Have I not heard the story ? Is it not Esop’s ? The story of a stag, that drinking at the stream, still murmured at the shadow of its antlers ? In like manner did Monsieur Spanneu drink and drink, — yet see nought within his glass but an exaggeration of his wrongs, — wrongs shadowed from false thoughts that thronged his head. Hence, the Frenchman — the gin distilling from his eyes — would drink and cry — “ traitresse ,” u cocu ” — “ cocu ,” “ traitresse ,” — and then, in the very idleness of despair, sing forth the snatch of some infidel song defying love, and satirical of wedded truth. Thus, the wretched husband passed with greatest facility through all the degrees of drunkenness, until he was in a state of pro- fessorial imbecility. He cried, laughed, raved — became maud- lin, and then affectionate with his own hat, calling it “ sa belle Elise” then dashing it to the end of the room with new disgust : and then, some pause allowed, whistling — or splut- tering a whistle at his foot, as throwing it up and down he swore it was his favourite poodle dancing a jig. At length, passion would shift no longer ; and so, worn out, the poor Frenchman sat in his chair, a very skin of gin, and snored. Let 'it not be thought that Monsieur Spanneu was solus. By no means. He played his various antics to the rejoicing shout of the customary visitors of the Horse and Anchor, many of whom witnessed the growing inebriety of a French- man with the same zest and curiosity with which they would have made drunk a monkey, a dancing bear, or any other animal endowed with certain powers imitative of some ges- tures of humanity. These true-hearted Britons in the pride of patriotism, considered it something like impertinence, con- ceit, in a Frenchman to get beastly drunk ; it was very like a liberty in a foreigner. Therefore, they manfully marked 112 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. their censure of the circumstance, by filling the offender’s pockets with soot, by blackening his face with the same sub- stance — whilst an indignant wag smeared the Frenchman’s skull with mustard, telling him to the screaming enjoyment of the party, that yellow hair became him beautifully. These insults the Frenchman felt not — knew not. Gin had done its best and worst ; and he sat, the world spin- ning with him — the breathing block of a man. He had, however, paid what was called his reckoning ; and being incapable of swallowing another drop, the landlord of the Horse and Anchor — a humane man — thought it best to have the drunkard carried home ; the sot himself having, in his frantic cups, published, again and again, the whereabouts of the particular fireside where, in his own tragic words, he had been stabbed “ in de vitals of his peace.” A hackney-coach was called, and the Frenchman carried by the waiter and boots 'from the room, the company therein roaring “ Rule Britannia,” as the foreigner was borne to the vehicle. “ All right — you ’ll know,” said the waiter to the coachman, the driver being very imperfectly instructed in the dwelling- place of Monsieur Spanneu. “A Frenchman — you’ll find out,” bawled the waiter from the steps of the tavern, and the coachman with, as I thought, a fine faith in the doctrine of chance, persuaded by dint of voice and whip, his horses to gather up their legs, and move funereally on. How far we went I know not ; but the day was weaning, and it grew darker and darker ; and the coachman — strange to say — more and more impatient. “Is this it ?” he would cry, stopping at a house, and thrusting his head into the coach ; and once or twice Monsieur Spanneu, deep in his dreams, would answer something which the driver insisted upon interpreting as a negative, and, therefore, bellowed an oath — asked himself why foreigners didn’t stay in their own country — whipped his horses anew — and still went on. In the course of our journey, the coachman stopped at three houses, insisting that Monsieur Spanneu was the master of each of them, and that he had nothing to do, but to get out, undress himself, and go to bed like a Christian. My belief is, that Monsieur Spanneu had every desire to THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 113 resign himself to goose-feathers. More, I am half convinced that — whilst in the coach — he thought he was at home, and once more smiled upon his forgiving wife. For he kissed, ravenously kissed, the tips of his own fingers, and muttered “ Mon ange!” Then, I am sure, thought he of his peace- ful bed and preparing to repose himself therein ; for he unbuttoned his waistcoat, and I fell into the straw at the bottom of the coach. At this moment the coachman roared some unintelligible words — the Frenchman grunted some unintelligible answer — and the coach stopt. With great alacrity the coachman leapt from the box, and thundered — knocker in hand — at a door. “ GenTman drunk,” said the coachman, as the maid pre- sented herself. “ Here ’s master again ! ” cried the maid. “I wish I was in my grave !” exclaimed the mistress. Hereupon, after some delay, a light was brought, and the maid came to the coach, and the driver was about to lift out his passenger, when the girl screamed out, “ La ! let him be — this isn’t my master, but somebody else’s.” Again the coachman was compelled to mount the box — again to drive on. Again and again he stopped ; again and again he knocked at doors. Again he said, “GenTman drunk;” again domestic published to the house, “Here’s master again ; ” and again the mistress thereof wished herself out of this most comfortable abiding-place, the world. Even the patience of hackney-coachmen may pass away. This truth I learned on the third appeal to the third knocker ; for the driver, on being for the third time assured that Mon- sieur Spanneu was “ somebody else’s master,” lost all self- restraint — all philosophy. He roared like a satyr ; and coupling the most disrespectful words with the immortal essence of Monsieur Spanneu, swore that he would cause that essence to evaporate to a very ungenteel and, doubtless, dis- agreeable locality, unless the Frenchman would instantly, and in the very best English, declare the house where he might lawfully and conjugally put on his nightcap. It was very strange ; but the fervour of the coachman acted upon the drunken man like a bucket of cold water. For a moment, i 114 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. and a moment only, the soul of Monsieur Spanneu — or rather sense, for as pigs and goats may get drunk, the soul can have nothing to do with that very popular operation — came hack into its proper place, wherever it may be, with all its wits about it, prepared to consider anything that might be demanded of it. I am sure that a momentary excess of reason may be wrought out from an excess of drunkenness ; in the same way that a momentary spark, a fire, may be struck from out the cold, cold flint. Thus, when the coach- man laid hold of Monsieur Spanneu, and with certain circum- locutory phrases, insisted upon a straightforward, and most direct, and most reasonable response, Monsieur Spanneu sat bolt upright, opened his eyes and mouth, and looking more sensible, and articulating the English language better than I had ever heard him before, made answer, at once satisfying the driver as to the truthfulness of his reply. Dissatisfied is man ; for no sooner had the coachman learned what he had been an hour and more vainly seeking for, than he uttered phrases very condemnatory of not only the intellect but the eyes of his passenger, and with renewed vigour, plied the whip. In a very short time the vehicle was drawn up at Monsieur Spanneu’s door. Again the coachman knocked, and the door opened ; again he spoke, in tones as though he had brought some new luxury home — “ GenTman drunk.” “ It can’t be master,” cried the maid ; Spanneu never having before offended. She had scarcely uttered the words, however, when she rushed to the coach, and in amazement cried — “ Why, missus, if it isn’t ! ” I then heard Madame Spanneu very distinctly wish herself in the grave. The coachman inquired if “ he should bring the gen’l’man in ? ” I heard not the answer, but the driver took the Frenchman in his arms, and carried him towards the house, leaving me a waif, a stray upon the w T orld in the bottom of a coach. The door still remained open. “ Men are brutes, my dear,” said Mrs. Gaptooth. “ Lay him on the door-mat,” said Madame Spanneu. CHAPTER XX. A HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY. 1 AGAIN MEET PATTY BUTLER. The coachman drove to his stand ; where, with the patience of his tribe, he sat meekly awaiting another call. I heard a church clock strike ten ; immediately afterwards, a sharp, shrill female voice cried “ coach,” and the driver instantly opened the door, and handed in a woman, who bade him drive to some street, for the name escaped me, in Blooms- bury. The woman, as it appeared to me, was under some strange excitement ; for now she giggled, and now again she sighed heavily, and now she cried, “ Well, well, he can’t last for etfer,” — and with that consolation, laughed outright. In the midst of this, she let fall her handkerchief, and stoop- ing to feel for it, her hand caught me. How her eyes sparkled, as she held me to the window, and by the dim lamps in the street, scrutinized my shadowed beauty. “ It can’t belong to the coachman,” she said ; and immediately concealed me. From the brief glance I had had of my new possessor, I did not feel particularly hilarious at my destiny. She was a woman of about three or four and twenty, with an animated face, but withal a certain vivacious boldness of the eye, un- pleasing to the sobriety of my constitution. However, she had taken possession of me, by right of discovery. I was, to her own satisfaction at least, her lawful property. The coach stopt in a narrow, dark street, opposite a mean- looking dirty house — a house with all the outward indica- tions of squalor and disrepute. I may be fanciful, but there is a physiognomy in houses — at least such is my belief. Sure I am, I have seen houses with a swaggering, hat-a-cock sort of look ; whilst other habitations have seemed to squint and leer wickedly from the corners of the windows. The house the coach stopped at was of this kind ; my heart fell as my i 2. 116 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. new possessor gently struck the knocker. cc You ’ll give more than a shilling ? ” said the coachman, with an affected air of wonderment. “ A shilling is your honest fare — and as an honest man you can ask no more,” was the feminine reply. “ Honest man ! ” muttered the coachman, as if the woman talked of something altogether out of human experience. “ Yes, honest man !” answered my new owner, — who con- tinued to press me closely under her arm, ringing honesty upon every note of her shrill, quick voice. At length, the coachman mounted his box in evident disgust at the gibberish he had been compelled to listen to ; for his departing growl was “ honesty,” with no supplementary compliment to that very respectable virtue. “ And here you are agin, Mrs. Cramp !” cried an old withered woman, as my new mistress entered the house. “ And I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself ?” “ Not at all,” answered Mrs. Cramp, with sudden ill- humour. “ Well ! that is a bit of beauty!” exclaimed the old woman, as Mrs. Cramp laid me upon the table. “ How much did it cost ? ” * “ Got it quite a bargain, — I may say for next to nothing. And how’s your lodger, now?” said Mrs. Cramp, with an evident wish to withdraw me as the subject of conversation. “La! what do you think? Well, wonders will never cease. It’s only half-an-hour after you went away, when a gentleman comes here, and inquires about her. I thought there was some mystery in that pale face of hers. Well, when he found out that she was the lost sheep he ’d been looking after, he went on like mad. He told me, as soon as she got well, he ’d marry her, and make a lady of her — and more than that, putting a golden guinea in my hand, he told me to let her want for nothing.” Here Mrs. Cramp drew herself up, saying — “ Mrs. Crum- pet, I knew I was right — though I never clapt my eyes upon her, I knew she couldn’t be any better than she should be.” “ Well, well, we ’ve all our little faults,” said the charitable Mrs. Crumpet. “ But I hav ’n’t told you all. Besides the guinea, the gentleman went away, and in his own pockets THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 117 brought back two bottles of wine ; and told me not to spare it, for there was plenty more where that came from. So, my dear Mrs. Cramp, we ’ll take a little glass, just to drink the poor thing’s health.” “ I have no objection to wish the gentleman health ; but as for your lodger, we don’t know who ’s wdio,” said Mrs. Cramp. “ Oh, she ’s a sweet, quiet little pigeon,” cried the benevo- lent Mrs. Crumpet ; and her thin, yellow face, shone with a smile like new gold. The wine was produced ; the glasses filled, when a knock at the street-door called the landlady from the room. In a moment she returned. “ It ’s only Becky ; but she says Mr. Cramp w T on’t be pacified with any lies they can tell him — he ’s doing nothing but screaming for you.” “ Well, well, he can’t last for ever,” was the self-comforting answer of the wife. She then took the glass, and saying, “ Here ’s the gentleman’s health, whoever he is” emptied it. “ Well, I suppose like the girl in the play, I must take off my finery and be Cinderella again,” said Mrs. Cramp, and she rose to leave the room. “ You 'll find everything as you left it,” said Mrs. Crumpet, who, during her mistress’s absence called in Becky, and glorified her with half a glass of wine. " I suppose you don’t get much of this sort of stuff with your master ?” said Mrs. Crumpet. The girl made no answer ; but gave a melancholy shake to her head ; drank the wine, and heaved a deep sigh. “ And has the old fellow made much of a rumpus ? ” “ He ’s been doing nothing but praying and swearing these two hours,” said Becky. “ Well, Providence is very good ” said Mrs. Crumpet ; u there ’s one good thing — he ’s bedrid.” “ That’s the only blessing,” said Becky, “ for we can have the comfort of shutting all the doors and letting him hallo.” More conversation of this consolatory cast took place ere the return of Mrs. Cramp. At length she entered the room : but what a change ! She had thrown off every vestige of her finery, and was drest with scarcely more pretension than the smutch-faced, blowsy maid-of-all-work who had come to 118 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. fetch her. “ You’ll take care of the things — and of that particularly,” said Mrs. Cramp, pointing me out to Mrs. Crumpet. cc Like the apples of my eyes,” answered the landlady with emphasis. She then took the candle, and preceded her visitor to the street-door. u Good night, my dear Mrs. Cramp, let us hope for happier days.” “ Yes ! he can’t last long,” again repeated Mrs. Cramp ; and lightened by such comfort, I heard her trip quickly past the window, followed by Becky. Mrs. Crumpet returned to the parlour, and setting herself at the table, whereon was still the wine, divided her admiration between the bottle and myself. “ Well, they ought to bless their stars as are born to such things,” said Mrs. Crumpet ; her heart evidently soft- ening under vinous influence. She continued to soliloquize. “ Ha ! with such fine feathers, what a fine bird I should have been ? And now — the lord help me ! — I lets lodgings to all sorts.” Then, for new solace, did Mrs. Crumpet again address herself to the wine, which still increased its kindly operation. She took me from the table ; shook me ; blew through me ; and then began to hum the songs of her youth. For some minutes she said nothing ; but sure I am her brain was busy with the past ; with the glowing, radiant hopes which had faded into leaden-coloured realities ; for after a time, she dropt me upon the table, and in a deeper key exclaimed confidentially to herself — “ And now I lets lodg- ings ! ” At length, Mrs. Crumpet rose, and placing the bottle affec- tionately under one arm, she carried me, a wine-glass, and a candlestick from the room, with, as I soon perceived, the intention of ascending the stairs. This operation, after some difficulty, she effected ; and in due season I arrived at the door of one of the garrets. As Mrs. Crumpet opened the door — I know not how it was — but the candle fell from her hand, and was extinguished. With wonderful presence of mind — I might even say with an intuitive instinct — Mrs. Crumpet held fast the bottle. “ Who’s there?” cried a low, gentle voice — the voice of suffering. Instantly I recognised it ; a tremor thrilled me. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 119 It was the little feather-dresser, Patty Butler. “ Who ’s there 1 ” again she asked, in darkness. “ They do make such candles now ! ” cried Mrs. Crum- pet ; and she groped for the lost treasure, which with some difficulty she regained. “ I ’ve a tinder-box in the cupboard ; for at my time of life I can’t get up and down stairs as I used to do.” Saying this, Mrs. Crumpet, with extraordinary facility, took the box from the shelf. Here, however, began a difficulty. Mrs. Crumpet endeavoured to strike a light ; but by some accident neither flint nor steel would meet. Sometimes the stone jagged one set of the striker’s knuckles — sometimes the steel the other. And thus Mrs. Crumpet sat and struck, and struck, but no spark came ! Oh, wine — wine — Bacchus — Bacchus ! Here, in a wretched garret, with an old crone of a landlady, was thy subtle wickedness made manifest ! How often does excess of wine prevent the spark that might otherwise have cast its radiance far around ! How often has the genius, drenched with grape, done nought, when working hard to scintillate, but blindly strike his own knuckles ! “ The rain must have come in upon the tinder,” said Mrs. Crumpet, “ and more than that I ’ve cut my fingers all to mince-meat. Well, well, people at my time of life oughtn’t to do nothing. 0 dear,” she cried in despair — “ the flints they make now-a-day s ! ” “ Give it to me,” said Patty, “ I am sure I can get a light.” “ You ! bless the dear child ! ” cried Mrs. Crumpet, and vigorously she struck and struck, until striking her knuckles past patience, she flung the steel and flint upon the bed, where she had thrown me some minutes before. “ Well, if you will have your way you must,” cried the landlady, and she pushed the tinder-box, as I thought, towards Patty. In a minute, Patty sat up in bed. Once or twice she struck the flint ; then she was seized with a cough, which compelled her to desist. Again she essayed. Surely there was some truth in the saying of Mrs. Crumpet ; the flint was bad — worn out ; its fire quenched. Again and again Patty struck. And now the sparks come thick ! It is plain, 120 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. the rain has spoilt the tinder. No ! it kindles ! Patty — I had been thrown almost within a hand of her — blows the spark ; the fire casts a red hue upon her face, but yet I see the change. How wan — how thin — how much more like her dead mother ! The candle is lighted, but the exertion has proved too much for the girl. She coughs and coughs ; and exhausted, yet with such sweet mildness in her eyes, her face, she sinks back upon what her landlady would call a pillow. I looked round the garret. Oh, God ! CHAPTER XXI. MRS. CRUMPET, AND PATTY. CRAMP, THE CARD-MAKER. My first introduction to Patty had made me acquainted with the gloom and wretchedness of a London garret. I was, never- theless, startled by the extreme misery about me. The room was rather a nook, a hole for useless lumber, than a place for a human being. The landlady, a little woman, could scarcely stand upright beneath the slanting roof ; the gusty wind shook the small latticed window, and entered through broken panes, defying the rags and paper thrust therein to keep it out. In a corner, on the bare floor, was the bed or mat ; and there, beneath a web of a blanket, lay Patty Butler. Poor thing ! After my first surprise, I took a sad pleasure from her wasted face : I heard sweet music from her feeble voice. They are changing, I thought ; happily changing. A few more heavy days — some few restless, fevered nights, and that poor creature, dowered with the gentlest, purest spirit, will smile down upon the injustice and iniquities of a world that now casts her, like a useless weed, into its foulest places. As I continued to gaze upon her, I felt a strange curiosity to know her history since we last met. There was some- thing more than the pain of sickness in her face. Was it shame, I asked ; and immediately felt mean for the suspicion. Had her affections been snared by heartless device — or had she, secretly, nurtured a love that, in its very hopelessness, consumed her ? Yearning for sympathy where the world would sneer and mock at the desire, had she, in dumbness, suffered that inward bleeding of the heart, whereof more die than coroners dream of ? There was a sad story in that shrunken face. The history of the world is made of battles — conquests — the accessions and the deaths of kings — the doings of statesmen, and the tricks of law. This makes the 122 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. vulgar story of the external world. Its deeper history is of the hearts, even of its lowest dwellers — of the ennobling impulses that swell them — of the unconquerable spirit of meekness which looks calmly upon terror, and turns even agony to patience. A London alley might produce a more glorifying heraldry — if emotions could be quartered — than Poictiers or Blenheim. How many a man, whose only his- tory is written in a baptismal register and undertaker’s account, has conquered suffering, stronger in its onset than a squadron ! If true magnanimity awarded knighthood, how many who want even shoe-leather, have won their spurs ! With these thoughts passing in me, I continued to con- template the poor girl before me. She lay wholly exhausted by the effort of striking the light ; whilst Mrs. Crumpet, with characteristic consideration for the weakness of her lodger, attempted not to disturb her, but, with due self-pre- servation, fortified her own system with a glass of wine — with another — and another. This done, she spoke. u Well, I’m sure, my dear, if you’d only have let me known that you had such a friend about you, do you think I ’d ever have put you in this room 1 Bless you ! child, what do you think I ’m made of ? You might have stayed in the other apartment.” — (This, I afterwards found, was only the next garret, but then the casement was wdiole ; the bed was of decent flock ; it had more than one blanket, and had the elevation of a truckle.) “ Thank you, this will do very well,” replied Patty, with an effort: “ very well — for my time.” “ As I’m a Christian, you sha’n’t sleep here another night,” answered Mrs. Crumpet, with vivacity. “ No : I promised the gentleman to do all I could for you, and my word ’s my bond. Well, if you don’t remind me of my dear lost child, Maria ! ” Here the landlady wiped probably a tear from her eye, and again lifted the glass. " What gentleman do you speak of ? ” asked Patty, with a concerned look. “ There ! now — if I hav’n’t blabbed ; and I promised never to say a w T ord about him. But he is a gentleman — a real one ; nothing sham in him, my dear : and more than THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 123 all, you ’ve only to get well — and ha ! ha ! why you look better while I talk to you, and you ’ve a colour in your face that a duchess might give her ears for ! — Well, as I was say- ing, you ’ve only to get w^ell, to be made a lady of.” “ Pray tell me — pray do ! Of what gentleman do you speak ? I know no one — no one, who — ” and, excited by the manner of her landlady, Patty lay incapable of further speech ; and her heart — I was sure of it — fluttered like a bird. “Come, child,” cried the gossip, “you’re faint — only a little faint. I ’ve brought you some wine ; a glass — one little glass — will make you alive again.” “ I thank you — none — none,” said Patty, feebly. “ But you must, my love; you shall, my darling ” exclaimed Mrs. Crumpet, and she stooped towards the bed, with the bottle and glass. “ There,” she cried, filling — “ and if I stay here all night, you shall, my angel, drink it.” Patty cast a helpless look towards the landlady, and then resigning herself to the necessity, raised herself in bed. She stretched her hand towards the glass, and already had the liquor at her lips. “ Ha ! ” chuckled Mrs. Crumpet, “ if the gentleman who brought that wine for you, could only see you now.” — Patty instantly withdrew the glass, and in a faint, yet determined voice, said — “ I will not taste a single drop.” “ But you must, my cherub,” cried Mrs. Crumpet, with renewed vigour. “ Not a drop,” repeated Patty, “ until you let me know to whom I am to owe it.” “ Fiddlesticks !” exclaimed the landlady ; “ that you’ll know some day, and that shortly, if you ’ll only make your- self well and hearty. Come, drink the wine, child.” “ No,” said Patty, with calm purpose, and she placed the glass upon the floor. Again and again, Mrs. Crumpet tried to prevail, but Patty was obdurate ; she would not taste the wine until informed of the donor. This knowledge Mrs. Crumpet refused to communicate : let me, however, do the poor woman justice. I verily believe she would have hesitated not a second to 124 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. gratify her tenant, but for one circumstance ; she had not the means. She was as ignorant of the benefactor who had left the wine and money as was Patty herself. She, therefore, with the cunning of an experienced gossip, thought she might guess the person of the stranger, could she only know her lodger’s previous history. This she had often endeavoured, but in vain, to learn. In the present instance, she determined to make an indirect levy upon Patty’s gratitude ; and, there- fore, resolved to impart to her the history of Mrs. Cramp in advance for Patty’s own. To this politic end she bent her discourse. “ Well, my dear, I don’t know if you ar’n’t right. But who ’d have thought that anybody so young should have such caution— Ha ! if my good friend, Mrs. Cramp had been like you ! You ’ve seen Mrs. Cramp, my dear ? ” u I have heard you speak of her,” said Patty, whose thoughts were plainly far away from the subject talk of her landlady. “ To be sure ; I ’d forgot — you never have. Well, she was here to-night. She ’s been to a rout of some sort, and so she was obliged to come here to dress.” “ To dress ] ” said Patty languidly. “ Bless you, yes ; I keep all her fine things for her. You see, she ’s married to a man forty years older than she ; and though everybody thought he was dying when she had him, he ? s only dying now. Well, although he ’s as rich as king Solomon, he won’t let his wife have a decent rag upon her. And so, poor soul ! there ’s nothing left to her but to cheat her husband right and left.” “ Cheat him — her husband ? ” asked Patty. “ And as, by good luck, he J s bedrid, why it ’s cheating made quite easy, my dear. The worst of it is for poor Mrs. Cramp, although she ’s heaps of fine things, she mustn’t wear them in her own house. There, she must look no better than a cinder-wench ; or else the old villain might go out of the world with malice in his heart, peril his own precious soul, and cut the wife of his bosom out of his will. Well, my dear, that would be dreadful, wouldn’t it ? ” asked Mrs. Crumpet in a tone that peremptorily called for an answer. “ Yes,” replied Patty, almost unconsciously. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 125 “ And so to hinder that, whenever Mrs. Cramp goes out, she comes here to dress, and then comes back and shifts her finery for her old clothes to go home in. That ’s tricking the miser, isn’t it?” cried the landlady with a laugh. u Doubtless,” answered Patty. “ Now, here ’s this beautiful feather,” and Mrs. Crumpet took me up, “ she’s bought it quite a bargain. But do you think she might show it to old Cramp ? Bless you, she might as soon take a crocodile into the house. Well, thank good- ness ! the old villain has his reward. Bless you, his con- science must be as full of holes as a cullender. The devil’s always at his bedside, that ’s one comfort.” “ What do you mean ? What crimes has the poor man committed ? ” asked Patty. “ Why, no crimes in particular, as you and I should think ’em : only you see, he made all his money by making packs of cards. Now, in his old age, he ’s turned so shocking reli- gious l You ’d never believe it ; but he thinks he ’s haunted by all the Kings and Queens he ever passed across his counter. He vows they all peep in and gnash their teeth at him through the bed-curtains ; and once — you ’d ha’ died a laughing to hear him, for ’twas nothing but the fleas, my dear — once he swore he was bitten all over by the Jack of clubs.” “ Poor man !” said Patty. cc Ha ! if poor Mrs. Cramp had only known him afore she married ! And that brings me back to what I was going to say, that it was so proper in you not to take the wine afore you knew who sent it.” “ Then you will tell me ?” asked Patty. “ To be sure, I will, when you tell me how it was that you, with such friends, should ever have wanted anything. How was it that you came in such a pickle to me ? Without a farthing — without a ” u My story is not worth the telling — is nothing,” said Patty. “ La ! ” cried Mrs. Crumpet, unconscious of the truth she uttered, “ there ’s nobody as hasn’t a story, if they knew how to tell it. You must have had comforts about you.” “ I have found friends— dear, kind friends, in my worst 126 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. afflictions,” answered Patty. “ When my mother died, and I was left homeless, I found a home.” “ And why did you leave it ? ” asked the landlady, “ afore you found a better ?” u Because I feared I caused unhappiness, where I would have given my life to have given joy. Oh, so good a man — so kind — with such a gentle heart towards everything ! ” “ Was he a married man, my dear?” asked the landlady. “ He was,” answered Patty ; whereupon Mrs. Crumpet looked suddenly very sagacious, as though by inspiration she had solved the problem. “ I see,” said she ; u you and the wife couldn’t agree. The woman was ” “ Kind — excellent — most kind,” cried Patty with anima- tion — “ but weak and passionate.” “ And jealous, of course,” added Mrs. Crumpet. “ I saw that my presence gave pain to her, and I left her house, determined, whatever might be my portion, to keep my hiding-place a secret from herself and husband.” “ But he has found you out,” said Mrs. Crumpet. u Mr. Lintley?” cried Patty. “ And has brought wine and left money for you ; ” for Mrs. Crumpet immediately concluded that the stranger must be the apothecary. “ What say you to that, child ?” asked the lady. Patty could say nothing. She was silent, and in tears. CHAPTER XXII. AN INTRUDER. A STOLEN WATCH. PATTY IN NEW AFFLICTION. “ If it doesn’t delight my heart to see you cry,” said Mrs. Crumpet ; “ ’t will do you good, my lamb — it always did me good when I w^as young. Ha ! they don’t make the bottles as they used to d

STORY OF A FEATHER. 153 his beaver. He wore a jewel on his finger, and took snuff from what seemed a box of embossed silver. And this was Edward ! No, reader, it was not. It was Clickly Abram, highway- man. And did Mrs. Cramp know this 1 Not she, poor widowed dove. The truth is, she had met the man at Rane- lagh ; and as, conscientious soul ! she could not boast of her husband, she had never spoken of his existence. Again, know- ing that Mr. Cramp could not much longer endure this sinful world, his wife, like a provident woman, looked around her for a more than substitute for the dying card-maker, and looking, beheld — Edward. Hence, she had always spoken of obstacles that time might destroy, and then — and then — Edward and she might wed ; but Edward must wait. To Edward, the widow was the ward or niece of some ancient villain — for she now and then spoke of an old tyrant ; — whilst to the widow, Edward was the only darling son of a rich lady of the manor somewhere near the Land’s End. All this, I afterwards discovered ; but as I hate mystery, I lay the case before the reader at once. “Supper — something nice,” said Mrs. Cramp in a whisper to Becky, as the widow crossed the room to lay me upon the mantel-piece; and then as she returned — “never mind expense.” “ Ar’n’t you surprised to find me as — as I ami” asked Mrs. Cramp, glancing at her mourning. “ Not in the least, my angel — I knew your husband’s doctor all the time,” said Abram. “ Is it possible ] Well, if I ’d have known ! I shall never forgive myself,” exclaimed the widow, trying to look very like a penitent. “ And now the maid’s gone, my sweet one — name the day, when shall it be ? I ’m tired of this damned London, and I don’t know how it is, I get quite foolish — I want to see the old lady — I want to hug my old mother again.” Such were the filial yearnings of Edward ; but we fear that the stir caused by the highway robbery of Clickly Abram had some influence upon his wish for travel. “ When shall it be 1 ” he asked, smiling upwards in the widow’s eyes. 154 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ Why do you ask me ? You can leave London when you like — can’t you ? ” said Mrs. Cramp, with an innocence that would have adorned girlhood at sixteen. “ No — no ; I don’t budge without my dear Clarissa. Come, we ’ll say next week.” “ Impossible, Edward ! Have you no respect for the world ? and my husband only — no ; you must wait a twelve- month or two — a twelvemonth at least.” “ Why ? A man isn’t any more dead after a year than after a day, is he h ” asked the highwayman ; and, to confess, Mrs. Cramp seemed willing to be puzzled by the thief’s philosophy. “ As for the world, it ’s a damned world, my dear, and not worth the pleasing ; but, I tell you what — we’ll get coupled in the country ; come up to town in three or four years’ time, and say we’re just married.” “ Oh, the art of man ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Cramp, throwing up her pretty eyes in sweet reproof. “ And I say, Clarissa, are you fond of poultry ? ” asked the thief. “ Don’t dislike a chicken,” answered the widow. “ But I mean poultry in its natural state ? Ha ! you should see my mother’s doves ; a million of ’em, my dear. How they will flock about you ! And then our sheep, and our pet lambs ; and the haycocks and the orchard ; and the peaches, like your own velvet face, ripening on the wall ; and the pigs ; and the harvest-home ; and the dairy ; and, eh — eh, Clarissa ? ” and the highwayman laughed and rubbed his hands, full of glee at the rural objects that his imagination had placed at “ his mother’s.” Mrs. Cramp was evidently touched by the promised Para- dise ; for she said with a sigh, “ Well, I do like the country.” And thus the lovers — for we must call them so — talked, until the supper came. Becky proved herself bountiful as expeditious. She had attacked the larder of a neighbouring tavern, and had carried off a most substantial and most varied banquet. Wine and brandy also honoured the feast. Eating and drinking soften the heart. Edward became more urgent for instant flight, and marriage in the country ; whilst Mrs. Cramp said nothing, but sighed the more heavily. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 155 Bumper after bumper was swallowed by the wooer, and his increased passion did honour to the distiller. “ No, my angel, we ’ll be off — off by to-morrow ; and you shall be like a shepherdess in China* — and as for that cap ” Mrs. Cramp, dreaming doubtless of the cardmaker, had sat twiddling her cap-strings, until the tie w^as loosed ; whereupon the enamoured and excited lover twitched the muslin from her head, swearing “ it was wickedness to hide such lovely hair.” “ Now, Edward ! ” “ It looks like a bit of his shroud — shall never wear it again — never — never ! ” And so saying, the husband elect threw the widow’s cap upon the fire, thrusting it among the burning coals with the poker ; and thus he stood triumphant over burnt muslin, whilst Mrs. Cramp clasped her hands in what she intended for rage, astonishment, and wounded affection. CHAPTER XXVII. I AM AGAIN TAKEN ABROAD.— — THE WIDOW LOSES HER LOVER AND MYSELF. It may be supposed that Mrs. Cramp was justly offended at the ruthless sacrifice of her cap — one of the few tokens by which she remembered her departed husband ; which, when- ever she passed the looking-glass, convinced her she was a widow. To say the truth, she had a liking for the cap ; there was a significant prettiness about it that pleased her mightily. Hence, she was majestically indignant with Edward. He was a brute — a ruffian ; and then, her passion suffering a sweet diminuendo , he was finally a very foolish fellow. She would not take a glass of wine with him ; she would not even touch the liquid ; well, she would touch it and no more. She was not the foolish, weak woman he thought her ; but, if he was very good, she might go to the play with him on Tuesday. Should she ever see his mother, she would tell her what a scapegrace son she had — that she would. 156 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. And thus, with the prettiest affectation of remorse on the part of the highwayman, and with a coy, wayward pettishness on the side of the widow, who, never having been wooed by Mr. Cramp, promised herself an enjoyment of courtship in all its dear distracting variety, — thus, till eleven o’clock they sat, unseen Cupids hovering about them, snuffing the candles. I will pass the separation of the lovers, which Mr. Abram vowed — and he ratified the oath with a bumper of brandy — tore the very heart out of his bosom. Then he burst into the snatch of an amorous ditty, whilst Mrs. Cramp begged him to remember the neighbours. To this appeal he made answer by singing the louder, and vowing if he were hanged he didn’t care, he couldn’t die at a happier moment. And then Mrs. Cramp wondered what nonsense was in the man’s head about hanging ; and, finally, she and Becky coaxed him to the door, and “ hush-hushed” him into the street. “ Quite a gentleman, me’m,” said Becky, left alone with her mistress, who sat silently looking at her fingers. “ You didn’t see his hands, me’m ; never saw veal whiter, me’m ; always tell a true gentleman by his hands, me’m. Can’t be a London gentleman, me’m, — has a country look. Ha ! that’s the place, me’m, for my money. I could live among pigs, me’m ; and then for poultry — for breeding goslings, me’m — I may say without presumption, me’m, I was born for it, me’m.” Becky’s avowal of her love for an Arcadian life convinced me that the parlour-door was not without a key-hole. “ Lawks !” cried Becky, getting no answer from her mistress — “ here ’s the feather ; I couldn’t take it for ” u Never mind,” said Mrs. Cramp, and she took me from the mantel-piece ; “ never mind ; we ’ll talk about dyeing it another time.” “ Well, it would have been a pity and a shame, me’m ; be- sides, you won’t be in nasty black a year — I ’m sure you can’t, me’m.” “ I ’ve such a headache, Becky,” sighed Mrs. Cramp. “ I ’ll go to bed.” And the widow carrying me with her, and sigh- ing very heavily, crept slowly up stairs to her bedroom, fol- lowed by her maid. Laying me carefully aside, she sank into a chair. Taking up her pocket-handkerchief, she sat mutely THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 157 squeezing it between her palms, and then she slightly brushed the lawn across her eyes, and then her lips moved, as with some dolorous soliloquy. At length the widow cried, “ This is lonesome, Becky.” “ Might as well be buried alive, me’m. I couldn’t sleep here alone, me’m, for the world, me’m. And, then, there’s that pictur of master, me’m,” — and Becky glanced at a daub portrait of the late card-maker hanging over the chimney-piece, — “ it ’s shamefully like him, me’m, isn’t it ?” “ Don’t talk so, Becky ; you don’t know how you distress me.” “ Shall I turn him to the wall, me’m?” and Becky, with the word, had mounted a chair to give a turn to the card-maker. “ By no means,” said the widow ; “ what harm can the poor man’s picture do me ?” “ I don’t know, me’m ; but, if I was you, I should think he was always looking at me, me’m ; and, then, there ’s that big silver watch of his at the head of the bed. Well, how you can sleep with that, me’m, I can’t tell. I should think it was his sperrit, tick, ticking away all night, and I shouldn’t wink for him.” “ Silly creature !” said Mrs. Cramp, with a very faint smile. “ Why do you wind it up, me’m ?” cried Becky. “ Habit, Becky ; I always did when the poor man was alive. But it is loud to-night, and my head is, I think, going to pieces. Put the watch under the mattress, Becky.” “ Yes, me’m,” and in a trice the cardmaker’s chronometer was crammed away. “ Shall I turn the pictur, too, me’m ? ” cried Becky. “ 1 ’m afraid you should touch it : ’tis in such a wretched state, so worm-eaten, and I don’t know what — remind me that I send it away to-morrow to be revived. And Becky, as I see, foolish girl ! you are a little frightened, you shall sleep with me to-night.” And mistress and maid slept. The widow, for she told her vision when she awoke, dreamt that she was carried to the Land’s End through the air, drawn by a team of pouter pigeons ; whilst Becky, who was also favoured with a vision, 158 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. declared that she had hatched a couple of dozen of goose-eggs, with twin goslings in every one of them. Days passed on, and every day gave new brightness to the widow. She sang louder, laughed louder, trod her chamber with lighter step, and would lie and giggle in bed, Becky gig- gling in concert with her mistress. One morning, the widow observed to her confidential friend, “ This black, Becky, is sad hypocrisy.” u To be sure, me’m, it is ; but then, me’m, we can’t be respectable without it.” “ And then people stare so, if they see one in weeds with a gentleman, especially if one smiles, or — ” “ A wicked world, me’m ; think people ought to have their sperrits in mourning as well as their backs. I should like to know what mourning was made for, if it wasn’t to carry it all off.” “ I ’ll not go out in black to-morrow,” said the widow, after a pause. “ Well, me’m, I honours you for the resolution,” cried Becky. “ At the same time the neighbours needn’t know it,” ob- served Mrs. Cramp. “ Why should they, me’m ? Ah, them neighbours ! They’re the cuss of one ’s life, me’m. How happy all the world might he, me’m, if all the world hadn’t neighbours, me’m.” “ I can wrap a cloak about me, and sneak into a coach, Becky,” said Mrs. Cramp. “ And not a mouse be the wiser,” said her maid. The morrow came, the widow flung aside her black, and burst into colours. More ; as an excelling hit of beauty, she took me. I was placed in her head ; and I was delighted to find, as she looked and looked in the glass, that she fully appreciated the value of my presence. “ A beautiful feather, isn’t it, Becky ?” “ I ’ll tell you the world’s truth, me’m,” cried Becky, put- ting together her extended palms, and flinging them from her as she spoke — “ I ’ve seen the Queen, me’m, and she isn’t fit to see you to bed, me’m ! ” Thus irreverently did Becky speak of her anointed majesty, Queen Charlotte, of rappee memory. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 159 It was evening ; a coach was called. Mrs. Cramp, as cau- tiously as a midnight cat would cross a gutter, put her foot into the street, and for an instant looked hurriedly about her : the next moment, she was in the coach. The action was so rapid, yet I thought I saw two or three figures on the op- posite side of the way, watching the progress of innocent Mrs. Cramp. The coach drove on. At length it stopped at the corner of a street. “ All right,” said a voice to the coachman, and immediately the door was opened, and “ Edward ” was seated beside Mrs. Cramp. “ My angel ! ” he cried, “ why wouldn’t you let me take you up ? ” “ The neighbours, Edward — the neighbours,” said the widow. “ The fellow knows where to drive to ?” asked the high- wayman. “ I ’ve told him — he can’t mistake,” said Mrs. Cramp. The coach rolled on. u This surely can’t be the way,” cried the thief. “ He can’t be wrong — I was so particular, Edward,” re- plied the widow. “ I hope we shall be in time for the be- ginning.” “ Oh, I see ; all right,” said Abram, glancing through the window. At this moment the coach stopt. “ This isn’t Drury Lane,” cried the highwayman. “ No,” said a man, who presented himself at the coach- door, and whom I instantly recognised as Hardmouth, the police-officer — “ No, but it ’s Bow-street.” Instantaneously the highwayman turned round, and grasp- ing the widow’s hand, and looking like a demon in her face, he asked — “ Did you do this ?” “ What ? what ?” cried the widow. “ Nothing, nothing, my dear,” said Abram, assured by the woman's look of innocence. " Never mind, ’twill all be right. Hardmouth, take care of the lady,” cried the highwayman, jumping nimbly out of the coach, and immediately disappearing amidst a crowd of constables. “ Edward, Edward ! ” exclaimed the widow. “ He ’s in a bit of trouble, mum,” said one of the officers. 160 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ Trouble ! ” cried the widow, and with the word she stood upon the pavement. “ Highway robbery, mum,” said the same functionary. u A robber ! ” exclaimed the woman, fainting in the arms of the constable, who carried her into the office. “ It can’t be his wife, Tim,” said a man, as he brought water to restore the sufferer. “ One of ’em, perhaps,” was the answer. In a few minutes the poor soul became conscious of all about her. She was told that Clickly Abram — her Edward — was a known highwayman — that a poor girl was in New- gate upon his account — a girl, sacrificed to his safety. A watch he had stolen upon the highway from a sailor had been found in her bed ; what was that to him h He ’d hang twenty women, and laugh at ’em afterwards. Such were the acts, such the character, in brief, of the pri- soner. The widow, of course, would not believe a word of the scandal. She insisted upon seeing her Edward ; and, careless of all beside, she begged, entreated, that the officers would conduct her into the office. The officers, subdued by an influence which the widow had in her pocket, granted her request. She rushed forward to seek her Edward. In her agitation, I fell from her head, and for some minutes lay in the passage. And then, a rough, coarse-looking man took me up, and twirling me over and over, and grunting a sort of approbation of my beauty, put me under his waistcoat. CHAPTER XXVIII. I AM TAKEN TO NEWGATE. THE TURNKEY AND HIS WIFE. I soon discovered that my new owner was a tenant of Newgate. Official business of some kind had, for a time, drawn him from his home to the police-office. I cannot clearly tell the purpose of his errand ; but I believe it was to speak to new evidence which had come out against some thief committed for trial ; and that duty fulfilled, my possessor had nought to do but straightway seek his home in the Old Bailey. Nevertheless, he lingered about the office, whiling away the pleasant minutes in sessional discourse, with old acquaintance. “ Hanging must be the end of this ? ” said he to an emissary of justice. “ Click can’t get off this time ?” u Lord love you, no, Mister Traply,” was the answer. “ He may get measured for his coffin the first minute he has to spare.” “ He’s a fine fellow, and won’t disgrace Tyburn,” said my new master. “ Ha ! — Tom — it ’s a pity for the time folks have to live, that they can’t ’scriminate as to what belongs to ’em, and what don’t.” u I don’t know ; it’s all right and proper to say so; but if they did, what w r ould become of us ? ” “ That’s true, too. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world;” and with this worn adage, my new possessor pre- pared himself to depart, when Clickly Abram was brought into the hall, in the custody of a couple of officers, poor Mrs. Cramp, wdth streaming eyes and ashy face, following him ; and declaring, between her sobs, that “ they should never tear him from her.” “ Tell you what it is, mum,” said Traply, gently taking the woman aside. “ I ’m turnkey in Newgate ; and if you like to come there, you may be as happy as the day is long with him.” M 162 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ Heaven bless you ! ” cried the widow. Nor did the excess of her gratitude make her forgetful of the surer means of touching Mr. Traply ’s sympathy. “ I can have a coach ? ” said the highwayman, looking about him with regal dignity. “ To be sure you can, captain,” cried Traply ; “ and more than that, I ’ll ride with you.” The coach was speedily procured, and Mr. Abram as quickly invited to enter it. “We shall be happy yet,” cried Mrs. Cramp, throwing herself into the highwayman’s arms. “ As turtles, my darling,” said Abram ; and then, in a lower voice, “ don’t forget the money.” Mrs. Cramp answered hysterically, “ She would die first ;” and then again and again embracing the thief, she was at length separated from him, fainting in the arms of an officer. “ All right. Newgate!” cried a linkman with a laugh, having just picked up a shilling, thrown to him by the culprit, as the coach was about to drive away. “ It ’s not so bad, I hope, sir ?” said Traply, who had seated himself beside Abram. “ A bagatelle,” answered the thief. u I thought so,” cried the turnkey ; “ and that ’s not capital.” Rapidly the moments passed, and we stopt at Newgate. I shall never forget that dead halt. Ere the prison-door was opened, it seemed to me a pause between life and death — and then, what a terrible transition ! Now, and the man, albeit a prisoner, had out-door life about him ; saw the worldly working of men ; saw free faces ; beheld the passers-by carrying on the business of life : some were going to their homes ; some, as perhaps the prisoner fashioned to himself, going to merry meetings. And yet he — he — was as unthought of, as unacknowledged, as though he had never been. Still he felt himself a part of the world ; he saw its people, and he was of them ; another instant — the prison-door had closed upon him, and the outward world was to him a dream ! Between this and that side of a prison threshold, may there not be grey hairs ? THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 163 My possessor, Mr. Traply, was a privileged man in New- gate ; and therefore, as others might say, he was permitted to have his greatest comforts about him. Mrs. Traply was permitted — if she could — to turn a gaol to Paradise by her presence. I fear, however, that the opportunity was rarely improved by the good woman, whose first principle was to teach her husband the virtue of humility, by constantly showing to her mate how very much she was above him. It was late when I arrived in Newgate — very late. Mr. Traply, doubtless to cheat the misanthropy of prison life, had humanised himself with an extra allowance of liquor. That good intention was by no means applauded by the partner of his fate. “ Here you are again, like a beast, Mr. Traply,” cried the wife from between the bed-clothes, as the turnkey entered his den of a bed-room. “ Well ! if my father, the lawyer, had ever thought I should come to this !” “ Where could he think you would come to, when he brought you up, Mrs. Traply, — eh ? Where, ma’am, but to Newgate ?” asked the bacchanal and brutal husband. u You ’re a villain !” cried Mrs. Traply. “ That’s my affair, Charlotte,” said the turnkey. " Never- theless, my pet lamb, look here.” “ Don’t lamb me ! Ha ! I wish my dear father was only here.” “More shame for you ; if he was, he’d be hanged, you know, for coming back afore his time. Now, look here, Char- lotte.” “ I won’t look at nothing,” cried Mrs. Traply ; who then added, u What ri it !* Mr. Traply approached the bed-side, and with a candle in one hand, and me in the other, presented himself to the spark- ling eyes of his placable wife. “ What a beautiful feather, Mike! Where did you get it?” cried Mrs. Traply. “ Get it ? I’m always a buying something for you,” said the turnkey. “ It is a dear ! But what ’s feathers in Newgate ?” sighed the wife. 164 * THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ Well, well, we sha’n’t always be here, Charlotte. What ’s the news ? Anything happened since I went out ?” Mrs. Traply, taking me in her hand, and carefully exa- mining me by the candle, whilst her husband prepared himself for bed, began, in a changed voice, to narrate the events pass- ing in her husband’s absence. For once, I felt I had been a peacemaker between man and wife ; for the late complaining, shrewish Mrs. Traply spoke in accents of connubial sweet- ness : “ That gentleman has been here again.” “ What, Mr. Curl well ?” cried Traply. “ Well?” “ It seems, what they say in books, quite a passion with the man. But he says, he ’ll give anything if we can only tell him how to get the girl off.” “ And what says Patty?” asked the turnkey, by this time in bed. At the word, I trembled ; for I knew they spoke of the help- less, innocent creature, then with shame and misery upon her a captive in Newgate. “ She says, she doesn’t want him to meddle or make with the business,” answered the turnkey’s wife. “ What, then, she doesn’t buckle to him yet ?” asked Traply. “ She quite shivers and turns white when you talk of him. And, for all I had her up here to tea to-night, and tried to talk reason to her, she said she ’d rather die than she ’d have him.” “ Well, then, she must die,” said Traply. “ La, Mike !” cried the woman ; “you don’t mean it?” “ That is, you see, we must make her believe that Mr. Curl- well can get evidence enough about her — right or WTong, no matter — to hang her, if she won’t have him.” “ Well, do you know, Mike, I think she ’d die first,” said Mrs. Traply. “ You ’re a fool, wife,” answered the turnkey, “ and know nothing of natur’. All that we have to do is to keep from her the news that Click Abram ’s taken.” “ And is he taken ?” asked Mrs. Traply. “ Is he taken ? — Whenever I go out of Newgate, I don’t go for nothing ; I think I always bring my bird home with me. Yes, we have him. It’s a comfort to think we have him sleeping as sweet as any babby under the same roof with us.” TIIE STORY OF A FEATHER. • 165 The caption of the highwayman was plainly too high an achievement for Traply not to put in some claim to it. “ He ’s sure to be hanged,” said the turnkey, yawning. “ You don’t say so ?” cried the turnkey’s wife, slightly yawn- ing too. “ Well, for my part, Mike — after all, you ’re not so bad — that is a pretty feather you ’ve bought me — for my part, I don’t think — no, I wouldn’t hang nobody.” “ You wouldn’t hang nobody ! — You ’re a fool, wife ; and don’t know what morals is,” cried Traply. “ Well, and now you ’ve bought me that feather, what ’s the use of it ?” asked Mrs. Traply, with a quick jump from death to adornment. “ Feathers is of no use in Newgate, Mike.” “ You don’t think I ’m always a-going to bury myself as a turnkey, do you 1” asked Traply. “ I should think not,” said his spouse. “ Suppose, now, the governor should die ” “ And what then 1” asked Traply. “ Why, you might get his place. I say, you might get his place. For you can’t think what civil things Alderman Ruby says of you. Then, if you was governor, I suppose I should dress a little different to what I do now 1” “ Well 1” cried Traply, in a half-snore. “ And then, I suppose, we should see and be seen ?” “ Weill” said the turnkey in a fainter voice. “ And then, I suppose, we should go and dine with the Lord Mayor?” “ Humph !” grunted Traply. “ And, I suppose, if we was to ask him, the Lord Mayor would come and dine with us ?” The turnkey was asleep. “ I say, Mike,” and Mrs. Traply plied her elbow in her husband’s side — “ I say, suppose the Lord Mayor — Mike ! — you don’t hear what I say ? — I say, suppose ” Traply snored deeply — most profoundly. Mrs. Traply having fallen into a waking dream of ambition, would not dismiss it. She, therefore, again moved her con- nubial elbow: — “I say, Traply — my dear Traply! — I say, suppose ” 166 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. The turnkey jumped up in the bed, exclaiming, with most savage emphasis — “ Mrs. Traply, I have to go to Tyburn to- morrow morning ; and suppose you go to sleep, that you may get up time enough to mend them holes in my stockings 1” CHAPTER XXIX. I MEET PATTY BUTLER IN NEWGATE. — THE TURNKEY^ WIFE PLEADS FOR CURLWELL. At the time — the good old time — I was in Newgate, there was a finer spirit of cordiality between the keepers and the kept than, at the present day, lessens the gloom of that great, yet necessary, evil. The departing spirit of romance still lingered about it. Fine ladies thronged the lobby to roll their liquid eyes upon the gentle highwayman ; and house- breakers, though barred from liberty, were still treated as persons of distinction, indulgence being ever vendible for ready money. In those days, Bacchus and Venus were never denied by the grim turnkey ; but received with a frank courtesy due to their large influence on the lives of mortals. Hence, Newgate was not the stony terror of our time. Certes, it was not so clean ; but then, in all the real enjoyments of life, how much more comfortable ! Soap is but a poor com- modity, exchanged against that agreeable licence which softens captivity. True, there was then the gaol-fever, that sometimes lessened the fees of the hangman ; but then there was permitted ingress to all black-bottles, with no inquisi- torial nose of turnkey, snuffing their contents. Even then romance gilded the prison flags, and cast a bloom, a lustre on the footpad and the burglar ! Then was there popping of corks and rustling of lutestring ! And now is Newgate a hard, dull, dumpish reality ; dull as a play-house. As if too in mockery of the glad past, the gyves of Jack Sheppard hang, ignobly idle, in Newgate lobby. The imagination may yet play around them ; but, alas ! they are but as a satire and reproach to the poor, weak ankles of the degenerate THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 167 burglar of our time : to the living felon of present Newgate, as the Elgin Marbles to the dwarfs that gaze on tiptoe under them. That Mrs. Traply should board and bed with her husband in Newgate was a part of the indulgence vouchsafed in the old, benevolent day: turnkeys are not now so blessed. Hence, I owed my introduction to the gaol, and my early meeting with dear, persecuted Patty. Mr. Traply quitted his con- nubial bed before daylight, called from his repose by the iron tongue of law. “ Ugh ! ” he grunted, as he put on his clothes, “ here ’s a day, I can tell, to call a man out ! Pretty ride I shall have to Tyburn. It ’s pleasant enough in summer ; but this weather ’s enough to kill a man.” “ Never mind, Mike,” said his wife ; “ I ’ve got you what you love for dinner — rabbit and onions ; so let the thoughts of that comfort you as you go and come.” “ Ha ! ” cried Traply, “ a man wants something, heaven knows ;” and with this saying he went upon his awful errand, an errand to be lightened by the vision of rabbit and onions ! When Mrs. Traply rose, she looked at me again and again, and vowing I should be a perfect beauty when a little put to rights, began to prepare breakfast. Suddenly she stopped ; and then adding a second cup and saucer, said — “ Yes, poor dear, she shall breakfast with me ; and, as luck would have it, she ’s a feather-dresser, she can tidy it up for me.” With this thought Mrs. Traply left the room. In a few minutes she returned, with Patty Butler, prisoner. Poor thing ! I thought to see her much changed ; even more pale, more haggard than when earned from Bloomsbury. It was not so. Ill she looked — very ill. But to me she seemed as one who held constant communion with death, and was thereby comforted. There was sadness in her face, yet sadness glorified by sweetest patience. Sorrow seemed to ennoble her. She appeared no more sullied by all the hideous guilt and misery of the gaol than did the light of heaven that shone in upon her. Her eyes were mild and tearless ; and at her mouth there was a smile of resignation ; a smile that showed angelic might of heart ; mighty from its very weakness. Her voice was changed ; deeper, calmer. 168 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ There, my dear child,” said Mrs. Traply, whose heart was, after all, unchilled by the flints of Newgate, “ there ; make yourself happy with some tea and toast. Come ; you seem a little down this morning. Ha ! I don’t wonder at it. I, who have been here these ten years — ha ! my dear, when I danced at the race-ball with Sir Mohawk Brush, I never thought to come to Newgate. A little drop in your tea,” — and Mrs. Traply having qualified her own cup with some brandy, proffered the restorative to Patty. — “ You won’t ? Well, you know best. I should never get through these days without it. I’m sure it ’s enough to work poor Traply to death. They hang six more next Monday.” Patty spoke not, but shuddered ; then with an effort com- pressed her lips. “Jack Ketch drinks George the Third’s health every Monday,” said the woman ; “ calls him the real father of his people, he does so well know how to correct ’em. Ha ! ” cried Mrs. Traply, casting a glance at a Dutch clock in the comer, “ they hav’n’t got to St. Giles’s Pound yet ; and such a day ! Poor dear Traply ! I feel for his rheumatiz. And going, they do go so slow, my dear.” Patty tried to speak ; she could not. “ You couldn’t have lived so long in London without see- ing such a sight, my love ? ” “ I never did — never will,” said Patty. “ Let us hope not ; for though there ’s a sort of something that makes one long to see it — I don’t know, but it isn’t pleasant — no my dear it isn’t,” cried Mrs. Traply, with emphasis. “ I was a young, giddy, happy thing, when I saw the first man hanged. Ha ! my dear, little I thought of Newgate then. Well, we won’t talk of it. We ’ll talk of your little trouble, my love. I ’m sure I hope it will come to nothing. I ’m sure, I think you innocent.” “ I am innocent,” said Patty, mildly. “ But my dear,” cried the turnkey’s wife, “ what ’s inno- cence in Newgate 1 Bless you, it ’s better to be a little guilty and safe outside, than be as innocent as snow, and locked up. Still, you know, my dear, matters do look a little black against you. In case of the w^orst ” THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 169 “ I am prepared, even for the worst,” said Patty. “*I don’t blame you; as a Christian, my, dear, I don’t blame you,” said the woman. “ But for all that, you wouldn’t throw away your life, my dear 1 It would be murder, you know.” Patty said no word, but sighed heavily. “ And you ’re so young ; and if you were once comfort- able, I ’ve no doubt would be very good-looking. Bless you ! I shall live to see you a happy wife, and the mother of a dear family. Now, there ’s that gentleman, Mr. Curl well — the man ’s a doting upon you. He says he ’ll lay out his last farthing upon lawyers and witnesses for you : and for money, in a good cause, there ’s kind-hearted people to be found who ’ll swear what they ’re told, my dear.” “ I am sorry to hear it,” said Patty. " What ! when they know you to be innocent, and will swear what will prove as much ] ” “ Never mind; we will not talk of it, Mrs. Traply. I have known but little to tie me to this world ; and if it — if I say,” here Patty struggled with her heart ; then, observing me upon a chair, she said, her lips quivering as she spoke, “ What a pretty feather ! Is it yours ?” “ Yes, my dear ; though I don’t wear such things now. Ha ! the last time I wore that feather I danced wdth Sir Mo- hawk Brush — I think I ’ve named him to you before. Ha ! if he had only kept his word, what a sweet man he would have been ! It ’s been tumbled, my love, lying by in my box ; perhaps you can put it to rights for me 1” u Certainly : I shall, indeed, be glad ; for you have been very kind to me.” “ And I want to be kind to you, if you ’ll let me,” said the woman. " Now there ’s Mr. Curl well ” “ Pray, do not speak of him,” said Patty. “ A nice, kind, affable man ; older than you, to be sure ; but all the better ; for die when he will, he ’ll leave you snug. Suppose now — I merely say suppose, he could get you out of this trouble, if you ’d only marry him ? Suppose, I say, there was nothing between death and the church, what would you do 1 ” 170 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. Patty, who had been gazing at me, laid me down upon the table, and, looking full at the woman, answered in a calm, deep voice — “ Die ! ” “ You ’d never be so wdcked ]” cried Mrs. Traply. “ I will never be so wicked,” said Patty, “ so false, so cruelly deceitful towards any man, as to vow a love where my heart sickens.” “ Yes, my dear, but to die,” said Mrs. Traply. “ But to live,” cried Patty, with quick earnestness ; “ to live and be a daily hypocrite ; to feel a daily heartache ; to shudder at even a word of tenderness ; to loathe one’s-self for seeming content — happy ! Where all this is, what can be life ? Oh, no ! ” said Patty, with a gentle smile, “ I have thought of death ; and, indeed, I can die.” “ Ha ! my dear, that ’s often our pride and vanity to think so. But to die any way in our own sheets, with the doctor, and every other comfort about us, and to have all sorts of civil things said in a sermon made on purpose for us, even then, my dear, death is bad enough ; but what, when you go out of the world with a bad name — with the world, my love, always to have something to say against you ? ” “ Terrible, very terrible,” said Patty, placing her hand to her brow, “ but I have thought of this, too ; and it is little, very little, with the thought of innocence. The world ! ” cried Patty, in a piteous voice ; “ what shall I be to the world ? What to me the blame or praise of the world, when I am in the grave ?” “ Yes, my dear; but you must own there’s a hard trial ’twixt Newgate and that. Ha! at this moment, poor things,” — and again Mrs. Traply looked at the Dutch clock — “at this very moment, they ’re taking their last sup at the Pound. Ha ! there ’s the trial, my love.” Patty trembled from head to foot, and I could see her small hands work convulsively — could see the fighting of her heart to keep the terror down, as Mrs. Traply, for the kindest pur- pose, as she thought, painted the horrors of the death-journey from Newgate to Tyburn. “ You don’t know what it is, child, or you wouldn’t talk in that way. Ha ! my dear, it ’s very different to going with a THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 171 party, and sitting at a window to see the poor things in the cart ; that ’s very different to being one of ’em, you know. Innocence, my dear, is all very well ; but I don’t know any innocence that could bear to be stared at by thousands of people, all looking as if they had red-hot eyes upon you. And then to see the whole street swimming about you — and to have the blood like boiling lead in your ears — for a dear soul as was reprieved told me all about it — and how all the men and women looked liked stony-faced devils round him — and how as he heard some of ’em laugh, it went like a knife into his heart — and how as the cart rumbled along, he prayed for the stones to open and bury him — and how when he got to Tyburn, ha ! my dear, he was proved as innocent as you are, and yet he felt all this — and how, as I was saying, when he got to Tyburn — but you don’t listen to me ?” The woman spoke the truth ; for Patty had sunk beneath the struggle of her feelings, and lay insensible in the chair. CHAPTER XXX. PATTY IS VISITED BY MRS. GAPTOOTH AND CURLWELL. OFFER OF MARRIAGE. “If she hasn’t fainted !” cried the turnkey’s wife, jumping from her seat to the side of Patty. “ Poor little lamb !” said the woman, as she applied restoratives to the girl, and chatted calmly the while — for her prison-experience had taught her composure at such moments — “ Poor little kitten ! A stout heart she has for Tyburn ! No, no ; I shall dance at her wedding yet ! Dear me ? well, she is gone. Ha ! I’m sure when Traply first asked me, I thought I ’d be torn to bits first ; and now — well, it might be worse.” In this wise, the turnkey’s wife continued to talk to herself, when at length Patty sighed heavily. “ Yes, yes,” said the woman, “ she ’ll cry soon, and then be nice and comfortable.” At this moment there was a knock at the door. “ Come in,” cried Mrs. Traply, not stirring from her charge. 172 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. The door was opened, and Mrs. Gaptooth and Curl well, the valet, immediately entered. “ La ! and is it you ?” cried Mrs. Traply. “ Here she is, poor thing ! but she ’ll be better now you ’re come, Mr. Curl- well and the woman threw what she believed to be a very speaking look at the valet, graced, too, with a pretty bridling of the neck. “ Poor soul ! poor heart ! — Well, if ever !” cried Curl well ; and he then stared at Patty with knitted eyebrows and open mouth. “ Who ’d ha’ thought it ?” he then cried. “ If New- gate hasn’t made her all the beautifuller. Ha! Mrs. Gaptooth, she ’s a lily that would grow anywhere ; — a golden flower she is !” I could perceive that Mrs. Gaptooth had the most contemp- tuous opinion of Curlwell’s taste ; and this opinion she tele- graphed to the turnkey’s wife, who, by her mute acknowledg- ment of the intelligence, showed that she, too, considered the valet as a poor, fascinated, lost man. As, however, Curlw’ell looked for some sort of affirmation from Mrs. Gaptooth, that well-practised woman awarded to him one of her most elabo- rate smiles. “ She ’s coming round — a dove !” said Mrs. Gaptooth. “ As time ’s getting short, Mr. Curlwell, and as I wouldn’t have you throw your money away upon an ungrateful per- son ” “ I ’ll spend a hundred pounds upon her,” cried the valet, with magnanimous energy. “ Not upon another man’s wife, I should think. You ’d never be so extravagant as that, Mr. Curlwell 1” cried the full- fed oily hag. “ What do you mean, ma’am 1” asked Mr. Curlwell. “ An- other man’s wife, ma’am 1” “ Certainly. If the gal will marry you, why you know best, and may buy your wife out of Newgate ; but if, like a proud saucy jilt as she may be, she won’t have nothing to do with you, why, you ’re only saving an ungrateful thing from Tyburn, to be, for what you know, wife to some other man. That ’s my meaning, Mr. Curlwell,” said the hideous woman. “ To be sure,” said Mrs. Traply; “ the gentleman oughtn’t THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 173 to lay his money out in the dark. He ought to know what ’s what first. It ’s but reasonable.” “ I ’ll spend a hundred pounds upon the dear creature !” repeated the valet. u You ’ll do as you like, Mr. Curl well ; but, as your friend, — though, the Lord help me ! real friends are held cheap now- a-days — as your friend, and as the trial ’s coming on next week, you ought not to throw away your money, the reward of your honest labour — the very sweat of your brow, as I may say — without knowing what for. So let the gal speak out, once and for all. For my part, I ’m upright and downstraight, and can’t abide pigs in pokes. And now,” cried Mrs. Gap- tooth, dropping with physical emphasis upon a chair, “ now you know my mind.” “ She ’s coming to,” said Mrs. Traply. “ Go into the next room — he may, my dear, mayn’t he ? — and, when the girl ’s quite recovered, you can get an answer.” Thus counselled Mrs. Gaptooth. Mr. Curlwell again muttered his determination to lay out a hundred pounds, and passed into the adjoining room. Mrs. Gaptooth slowly turned her head, following him with a most pitying sneer. She then rose, and approached Patty. “ A hundred pounds ! and for a nose like that ! If the blessings of money ar’n’t thrown away upon some people !” “ She ’s getting better,” said Mrs. Traply ; who continued, in a low tone of confidence, — “ You ’re right, Mrs. Gaptooth. Men are fools, ma’am, when they get a fancy in their heads — quite fools. Noses, indeed ! The noses, and the eyes, and the complexions too, that I ’ve seen taken out of the dirt, car- ried to church, and stuck up for life in carriages ! People talk of beauty ; but I do think there ’s often great luck in solid ugliness. She ’s getting better. Men are fools.” “ They are, my dear,” said Mrs. Gaptooth ; “ and perhaps, after all, it ’s as well it is so : it makes all the better for the weakness of our sex. She ’ll do now and Mrs. Gaptooth turned aside, as Patty unclosed her eyes, and looked dreamily about her. " There, you ’re better — to be sure you are,” said Mrs. Traply, “and it was very foolish of you to take on so. Bless 174 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. your poor heart ! you ’ll never suffer anything of the sort, not you. No, no ; you’ve too many good friends about you, if you ’ll only let ’em be your friends.” “ I am better,” said Patty, leaning her brow, as if in pain, upon her hand. “ It was weak of me to — but, pray, say no more of it.” “ There, your colour’s coming like a carnation,” said Mrs. Traply ; “ and, since you ’ve been ill, some friends have come to see you.” “ Mr. Lintley cried Patty, with sparkling eyes and ani- mated face. “ No, not Mr. Lintley, but ” Ere the woman could end the sentence, Mrs. Gaptooth showed herself, approaching Patty. I shall never forget the two faces. They seemed the incarnated expressions of con- fident wickedness and alarmed innocence. When I first saw the old woman at Madame Spanneu’s, I confess I was tricked into a respect for her ; she seemed so meek, so mild, so ma- tronly. And now — perhaps it was from seeing her in contrast with Patty — I felt for her a loathing, a disgust ! This feeling was strengthened by what I witnessed in the turnkey’s room. The old woman, overlaying her broad ripe face with a smile — a laborious look of complacency — made up to Patty. As she approached, the face of the girl changed to marble pale- ness ; her eyes looked darker and darker ; and her mouth be- came rigidly curved, with an expression of mingled fear and scorn. Once, as from some ungovernable impulse, she shivered from head to sole. She grasped the arms of the chair, and still shrank back as the old woman came nearer to her. She seemed possessed by some terrible antipathy — some irrepres- sible loathing — that, in its intensity, made her powerless. Still Mrs. Gaptooth, with her undaunted smiles, advanced. She was about to lay her hand upon Patty, when, with almost a shriek, the girl leaped from her chair. “ Creature ! touch me not !” Patty exclaimed with a vehe- mence that surprised me. She then passionately seized Mrs. Traply by the hand, begging protection from that “ horrid woman.” As Patty spoke the words, the shadow of a black heart THE STORY OF A FEATHER, 175 darkened the woman’s face ; in one brief moment, I beheld within it the iniquities of a long, noisome life. The old crone stood for a moment eyeing the girl like a baulked witch. It was a hideous sight. “ You ’re a foolish, fly-away puss,” said Mrs. Gaptooth, rallying herself, and again essaying her customary smile, though I could see the harridan still shaking with passion. “ I come to do you good, and you call me wicked names. — Ha ! you have much to answer for — you have.” “ I know the good you would offer, ” said Patty ; “ you have offered it before. I was helpless, alone, without a friend ! and, therefore, you offered it. — Oh!” and Patty cried as from a crushed heart — “ shame upon you !” “ You silly little child!” said Mrs. Gaptooth, still striving to trample upon her passion. “ You foolish little pet!” she cried, and, laughing, would have playfully pinched Patty's cheek, but the girl with a look repelled her — “ There, you silly creature !” she continued, “ all I said about a lord, and a fine gentleman, and a carriage, and gay clothes, and all that, was only a tale — a story to try you. Now, there is no lord in the case ; but an honest, worthy gentleman.” “ You lose your pains,” said Patty, again restored to her composure. “ He can and will take you out of this place,” cried the in- vincible Mrs. Gaptooth, “ and make you his lawful, wedded wife. Do you hear what I say, child ? — his lawful, wedded wife. What say you now, Patty ?” “ I say again to you,” answered the girl, with the natural dignity of a pure heart — “ I say again, you lose your pains, woman. Go.” Patty had overcome the patience of Mrs. Gaptooth. That ignominious word, woman ! — that name so stung its unworthy possessor, that the old crone gave up her tongue to most unli- mited indulgence. In a deep contemptuous tone, she first begged to ask Patty what she thought of herself that she called her betters, woman ? — “ You, indeed !” exclaimed Mrs. Gap- tooth. “ You ! — woman, indeed ! and in such a place ! — In Newgate, madam — Newgate! — or, perhaps, Miss, I say Miss, you have forgotten where you are 1 ” 176 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. “ Indeed, no ; nor the cause, the wicked cause, which brought me hither,” said Patty. “ Clickly Abram and a gold watch,” cried Mrs. Gaptooth, with a loud malicious laugh. At this moment I observed the door open, and apothecary Lintley, followed by some one whose face I could not see, was about to enter. He, however, shrank back, the door remain- ing ajar. The noise caused by Mrs. Gaptooth enabled Lint- ley to make this backward movement without being noticed. cc I was happy, at least I was content, when you, like some bad thing,” said Patty, “ when you beset my daily walk — when you followed me to my home — when you uttered words to me. You, an old woman, that should have advised, have comforted a helpless creature like myself — when you tempted me with — but you know the wickedness, the shame ! It was to avoid you, who seemed to taint my life, I left a comfortable home — lost the means of certain bread. I was driven — by want and sickness driven — to the miserable house, where the most cruel accident ” “ Accident ! Ha ! ha ! 55 chuckled Mrs. Gaptooth. u Acci- dent put a gold watch in a lady’s bed ! And do you know what comes of such accidents ? ” Patty looked pityingly upon the hard-hearted creature, saying — “ Yes ; I know.” “ And now, you would have the impudence to abuse me — who would have been your best friend — you, standing there, so bold and glib, do you know that you mayn’t have another month to live ? ” iC Oh, Mrs. Gaptooth ! ” cried the turnkey’s wife, moved by the fiendish malice of the hag. “ She does not hurt me ; let her speak,” said Patty, with a patient, yet a worn and wearied look. “ It is very true,” she then said, turning to the wretched woman, “ another month — or less — and I may be with the dead. I do not fear to go to them ; and that, your own heart will tell you so — nothing better — that is much. Let me then seem to you a dying creature ; and with my dying breath, let me—poor, wretched woman ! — -let me pray you to repent. Consider it ; what a weight of broken hearts is upon your soul ! What daily THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 177 misery, what nights of horror, fall to your account. Repent, I say ; or what, indeed, will be the last hour to you ? What the thoughts of helpless, happy, creatures, snared and killed by your wickedness. Again, I say, repent ! ” There was a moment’s pause. The old woman had recoiled, shrunk beneath the quiet energy of soul with which Patty addressed her. There was a pause ; and the woman with a tenacity of evil — a daring resolution not to be awed and beaten by a girl — shrieked at her. Many of her words were unintelligible from their shrill volubility : they seemed to me the sounds of some fierce, brutish thing. 66 What you ! you ! you ! ” at last I distinguished. “ You to preach to me ! To me ! Now, I tell you what — I tell you what,” screamed the harridan, approaching Patty w r ith clenched, trembling fists — “ l ’ll see you hanged — I ’ll see you hanged ! If I give twenty guineas for a window, I’ll see you hanged — I’ll see you hanged! Twenty guineas ! Twenty guineas ! 55 The door opened, and Apothecary Lintley, followed by Mr. Inglewood — vdiom we trust the reader has not wholly for- gotten — entered the room. “ What wretched creature is this ? ” asked Lintley, looking at Mrs. Gaptooth, as she stood writhing and spent with execration. She, however, made one last raging effort ; for, bursting into a loud hysteric laugh, she exclaimed, “ Twenty guineas to see her hanged ! Twenty guineas ! ” And wdiooping, the old demoniacal woman rushed from the room. CHAPTER XXXI. CURLWELL’s SUIT REJECTED. APPEARANCE AND GRIEF OF THE WIDOW CRAMP. “ Have I not heard of this woman, eh, child 1” said Lintley, taking Patty’s hand. “ The wretch ! must she follow you even here ? But now we will not talk of her. This is Mr. Inglewood, a clergyman, my friend. He had heard your stoiy, and wished to see you.” “ You will pardon me, I hope,” said Inglewood. “ It was impossible to suppress such a wish, learning such a history. I came — I felt it my Christian duty — to counsel, comfort you. I find you well prepared ; so well, many might learn their best lesson of you. Young woman, the sorrow that has fallen upon you becomes, through patience, a sweetness and a beauty. It is a fiery trial, this,” said Inglewood, with a slight tremor of voice, “ and proves the purity of your immortal spirit.” Patty made no answer ; but with downcast eyes and flush- ing face seemed to shrink and tremble at the commendation of the speaker. Her agitation increased : her feelings had been overwrought in the past scene, and now the voice of tenderness and sympathy quite subdued her. Still grasping Lintley ’s hand, her big heart relieved itself in tears. (Let me seize this moment — for I would fain explain mat- ters as I proceed — to account for the appearance of Mr. Ingle- wood. As I afterwards discovered, he had become known to Mr. Lintley through Doctor Wilson, who, it may be remem- bered, was physician to the Countess of Blushrose and her child ; and whose recommendation had introduced Lintley, albeit too late, to the Earl’s house. When Inglewood renounced his chaplain’s office, he sought — but vainly sought — for the humblest curacy. Promises, promises were, after a time, almost his daily food. Still, often dinnerless, he put a blithe look upon ill-fortune, descending from his garret to the world, THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 179 as though he came warm from every household comfort. And then it happened, that as his purse shrank his health failed. When he appeared in the prison he looked a disappointed, patient, dying man. Had he made his condition known to the Earl of Blushrose — the Earl’s nephew was out of England — that kind, good-hearted nobleman, had placed him in em- ployment. Often, the poor parson promised himself to make the appeal ; and then something put off the hour. That something could not have been pride ; for Inglewood himself was the last person to suspect it.) “ Come, Patty, I have some good news for you,” said Lint- ley. “ The man Abram is taken — is now a prisoner in the gaol.” “ La, sir, and if he is,” said Mrs. Traply, vexed that the secret should have escaped, “ the judges won’t take his word for the young woman’s innocence, supposing he can be brought to swear it : and if he ’s a chance of slipping his own head out of the rope — oh, sir, I know what Newgate is — he won’t mind whose head he puts into it. As for Mrs. Gaptooth, why, she’s as good a heart, I ’ll be bound, as ever beat : but temper, sir — temper spoils the best of us. I ’m sure I should be sorry, very sorry, if anything was to happen to the girl ; and if you ’ll take my advice,” — here Mrs. Traply beckoned Lintley and Inglewood apart, and lowered her voice to a confidential whisper — “ take my advice, and persuade her to marry the gentleman in the next room, he ’ll lay out any money on witnesses. And he ’s quite struck with her ; quite foolish like ; and more than that, really means honour and nothing less.” “ Of what gentleman do you speak ? ” asked Lintley. “ Mr. Curl well,” answered the turnkey’s wife. a Mr. Curlwell, pray walk into this room,” said Lintley, opening wide the half-closed door, and discovering the valet, who, stationed close beside it, had overheard all that had passed. Curlwell, somewhat abashed, awkwardly complied with Lintley’s request. Patty, who, for the first time, was made conscious of the presence of her old persecutor, instinc- tively approached Lintley, as for protection. “ Your servant, Mr. Inglewood ; hope you are well, sir. n 2 180 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. Strange place to meet in, Mr. Inglewood,” said Curlwell, whose visits to the Earl’s housekeeper, Mrs. Pillow, had made the person of the chaplain no stranger to him. Moreover, the valet wanting a subject to relieve his discussion, availed himself of the readiest that offered. 16 1 have heard of you, Mr. Curlwell,” said Lintley : “ and as the friend, the protector, of this young woman, desire a little plain speaking. Why do you follow her ? ” “ Honour, sir ; all honour,” answered the valet, throwing back his head, and spreading the fingers of his right hand over his heart. “ I hope, Mr. Lintley, sir, I ’m a man above prejudice. And I ’m not ashamed to own it, I don’t think Miss Butler at all guilty ; and to prove it, sir, if a jury should think as I do — and as I ’ve had lawyer’s opinion, there ’s little doubt all may be made straight, if we go the right way to work;” and here Curlwell slightly laughed, and slightly winked ; “ why, sir, then ” “ And then ? ” asked Lintle}^, in a tone not to be mistaken. “ And then, as I said before, sir,” answered Curlwell, “ I offer Miss Butler my hand, my purse, my heart. Can any gentleman do more?” cried the valet with a self-approving smile. “ Well, Patty,” said Lintley , 66 it is now for you to speak. If Mr. Curlwell has followed you ” “ All love, nothing but love and honour,” exclaimed the valet. “ Nothing but that could have made me follow her as I have done ; seeking her out in all corners. Oh, sir ! the work I had before I found her in Bloomsbury — that will prove I ’m in earnest. I know, I don’t deny it, I ’ve been wild, like other young men ; but a man may repent, eh, Mr. Ingle- wood ? ” “ I hope you feel he may,” answered the parson. u Never was more certain of anything,” said Curlwell ; “ and so, as I said before, if Miss Butler will let me try to clear this matter up, there ’s my hand, my purse, my heart.” “ Patty,” said Lintley again, “ it is for you to speak.” Patty, in a most calm, collected manner, as though she had gathered her energies for the one effort, quitting the side of Lintley, approached Curlwell. The valet was plainly flattered THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 181 by the action, and stood smiling, and working his fingers, ready to seize the hand that he was sure was to be resigned to him. “ You would have my answer, Mr. Curl well ? I believe, I am sure, you are sorry for the pain you have given me ; from my very heart I pardon you. I thank you, too, for the offer of your help ; I cannot, on your terms, accept it. Still, sir, indeed, I thank you. Grant me one kindness — but one. Never again — whatever may be my fate — never waste a thought, a word upon me.” Thus Patty, in the most clear and passionless voice, de- stroyed the hopes of Curl well. 16 Well, you know best,” cried the valet, with a face of scarlet, violently putting on his gloves, and with equal vio- lence trying to smile. “ You know best ; I meant well ; and if things shouldn’t turn out as some other people would desire, at the last moment don’t blame me.” Saying this, Curlwell stalked towards the door. Pausing a moment, he returned, approaching Patty. “ Still,” he said, “ if you should alter your mind, remember there ’s my hand, my purse — yes, my purse and my heart.” And then Curlwell disappeared, though unable to divest himself of the conviction that his offer must be accepted at the last : how, indeed, could it be otherwise ? “ And now, Mrs. Traply,” said the apothecary, “ let me thank you for your goodness to my young friend here. I hope we shall not much longer trouble you. Dear me ! I had almost forgotten ! Here are the drops I promised you,” and Lintley drew a phial from his pocket. “ Take about twelve drops when you feel the fit come on.” “ You ’re very kind, doctor. Nobody knows what I suffer from vapours, sometimes. And it ’s no wonder ; I wasn’t brought up to Newgate. When I was a girl at Chester — do you know Chester 1” and Mrs. Traply sighed. “ Very well,” answered, Lintley. u You don’t know the family of the Brushes ?” and again Mrs. Traply sighed. u I can’t say I do ; but I have no doubt, from what I have heard you say, they are very excellent people Mrs. Traply having, in her short acquaintance with the apothecary, again 182 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. and again talked of Sir Mohawk Brush and his high relations ; insinuating, moreover, that she had never been troubled with the vapours at Chester ; which desolating complaint, real or imaginary, had enabled Lintley cheaply to show his apprecia- tion of Mrs. Traply’s kindness to Patty. Hence the phial. “ Inglewood, I have some business in the prison : I will not be long,” said Lintley, hastily quitting the room, as though animated by some sudden thought. Inglewood for a moment looked confused. His face flushed, and when he appeared about to address Patty, words seemed to he denied him. And then he sighed heavily, and looking at the wretched girl, melancholy, like a deep shadow, fell upon him. For a moment he buried his face in his hand ; he then rose, and walked rapidly up and down the narrow room. “ You don’t look well, sir,” said Mrs. Traply : “it’s the weather.” “ It is,” answered Inglewood listlessly, casting his heavi- ness of heart upon the all-suffering atmosphere. “ Will you try the doctor’s drops, sir ?” and the woman proffered the phial, the harmless fraud — well would it be were all frauds so harmless — of Lintley. “ With me the sky sometimes pours vapours ; hut then my nerves are like any cobwebs. Like me, sir, perhaps you ’re not used to London. Now, when I was at Chester ” u I wish somebody would take you there, and never let you come back again,” said Mr. Traply, entering the room, and bringing with him, well nigh dissolved in tears, the widow Cramp. “ Here, make this lady comfortable, if there ’s room,” cried the turnkey, glancing at Patty and Inglewood. “ Why, there ’s nobody here but Miss Butler and ” the turnkey’s wife was proceeding. “ Butler ! that ’s the young woman I wished to see ! Oh, my dear child ! How is he ? A blessed creature ! How is he ? ” cried Mrs. Cramp. “ Doesn’t he ask after me ? Isn’t he dying to see me?” exclaimed the widow, seizing Patty’s hand. “ What is it — of whom do you speak 1 ” asked Patty. “ Of whom ? Why, of Edward — dear, suffering, innocent Edward,” exclaimed the widow. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 183 “ She means Mr. Clickly Abram, the gentleman that ’s stole a watch,” cried a voice ; and looking, I observed the faithful Becky, Mrs. Cramp’s maid. “He did no such thing ! ” cried Mrs. Cramp. “ Dear slan- dered creature ! he ’s as innocent as the baby at the bosom. And you ’re innocent, too,” said the widow to Patty ; “ at least, I hope you are ; but at all events, you can clear him, my dear girl, can’t you ? ” “ Truly, madam,” said Inglewood, “ you seem to forget that the man Abram — that the crime committed by him has caused the misery of this innocent young woman : it is he who must clear her.” “ There — there — you ’re all alike — all against him ; a dear, noble fellow. But he ’ll overcome his enemies yet ! Yes ! if I sell my bed from under me, he shall. I don’t want money; no, thank heaven, I don’t want money.” “ Don’t, missus ; don’t,” said Becky whispering, and edging close to the widow. “ ’Twill be all right enough, ma’am,” said Traply ; “never a doubt of it. Can’t it be easily proved Mr. Abram was fifty miles from the place where the man was stopped, and the watch taken ? ” “ To be sure, no doubt,” cried Mrs. Cramp. “ He steal a watch ! That noble, generous soul ! with the sentiments he possesses ! He ’d have died first. Ha ! they little know Edward ; and so my good girl,” — and again the widow, in the very childishness of her grief, turned to Patty — “ so you can prove that you know nothing of him ? That the watch found with you was given to you by somebody else — that however you came by it, dear Edward knew nothing of the matter 1 ” “ I must beg your silence, madam. I have already told you, the young woman is a victim — a helpless, ignorant victim of the atrocity of the man Abram ; and again I beg,” said Inglewood, But he was permitted to say no more ; for Mrs. Cramp, again bursting into a passion of tears, loudly exclaimed that everybody was set against the charming creature — that all the world thirsted for the life of her dear Edward. CHAPTER XXXII, MRS. CRAMP’S APPEAL TO THE WIDOW. VISIT OF A JEALOUS WIFE. Whilst the widow recreated herself with her sorrows — for to me it seemed plain that she took a strange pleasure in declaring her wretchedness — I could perceive that Mr. and Mrs. Traply communicated with one another by frowns and pouts, and other expressive means known to the married ; which looks and signs I readily interpreted into great discon- tent on the part of the turnkey at the presence of Patty and Inglewood ; whilst poor Mrs. Traply, by the eloquent elevation of her eyebrows, asked as plainly as ever woman spoke, “ How she was to help it ? ” The truth was, Mr. Traply had returned soured and disgusted to Newgate ; for, as I after- wards discovered, the cart had been stopped in Oxford-road by a reprieve, and the horse’s head turned towards the Old Bailey. Such an accident, especially in the winter season, was a mishap to ruffle the turnkey, who, as I heard him swear, vowed it “ was only playing with people.” Hence he had returned cold and hungry, and no promissory rabbit and onions prepared for the board. This incident was of itself enough to curdle the milky humanity of the officer. When, however, he saw Patty and Inglewood — from whom, with a fine instinct, he knew he could obtain nothing — when he saw them intruding upon Mrs. Cramp, who declared she had plenty of money, and whom, therefore, the man very naturally wished to have all to himself — he lost the patience which, by the very smallness of the stock, was so valuable to him, and relieved his bursting heart in contempt of Patty. u All very fine, Mr. Parson — since you are one — all veiy fine, sir : but the young ’oman can tell what ’s what. Bless your heart ! she ’s not such a fool — she can tell Newgate from THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 185 pie-crust. She knows it wasn’t Mr. Abram as give her the watch ; and though she might turn king’s evidence ” — “ She ’d never be such a wretch ! Never swear away the dear man’s life ! Could you be such a monster ? ” exclaimed Mrs. Cramp, entirely losing herself in her fears for the high- wayman. “ No, no, you shall not leave me,” cried the widow, as Patty moved towards the door ; “ you shall not quit this spot until you swear to me — and this kind gentleman will take your oath — until you swear to me that you ’ll preserve Edward.” And with these words Mrs. Cramp seized Patty by the WTists, who meekly begged Traply to take her back into the prison. “ Not till I have her oath ! Not till I have her oath ! ” repeated the woman hysterically. Patty for a moment forgot her own miseries in pity of the forlorn condi- tion of the wddow. “ Your oath, my dear, sweet girl, your oath, before this pious, reverend gentleman ! Swear it, and I ’ll go upon my knees ” — And the widow, in the veriest imbecility, was about to prostrate herself, when Patty prevented her. “ Be assured I will say nothing— can say nothing — to injure him,” said the girl. “ But swear it ! swear it ! ” cried Mrs. Cramp ; who was for a moment interrupted in her violence by the return of Lintley. The apothecary had heard of the widow’s consuming passion for the highwayman, and placing himself between her and Patty, he said — “ I am come from Mr. Abram.” “From dear Edward?” exclaimed the widow, “ha, the suffering martyr ! ” “ I have had some talk with him,” said Lintley, “ about the stolen property. He knows nothing of the watch, of course.” “ I ’ll be sworn for him ! A love ! ” cried Mrs. Cramp. “ Neither Patty, does he know anything of you. No : he does you this much justice ; he says, though they hang him for the robbery, as far as lies in him, he ’ll acquit you.” “ Hang him ! He, a robber ! Oh, trouble’s turned the dear creature’s brain. I see it. They ’ll drive him mad, and then make him say all sorts of things against his precious self. 186 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. He steal a watch ! I wouldn’t believe it, though I saw him. No : I ’d rather doubt my own eyes than him. But he ’ll he murdered ; and for her sake — to save her. Yes, yes ; I know it — I see it,” and the poor widow, flinging herself in a chair, moaned piteously. “ Good bye, sir — good bye,” said Patty to Lintley, as she endeavoured to hurry from the room. Then, after a moment, turning to Inglewood, she said, “ Sir, I thank you for this kindness ; and whatever may befal me, must think of it.” “ Whatever may befal you,” cried Inglewood sadly, taking Patty’s hand, “ I will pray for the best ; and whatever may befal you,” he repeated with earnest yet trembling voice, “ I will be here to sorrow or rejoice with you.” The tone in which Inglewood spoke — I could see it — thrilled the heart of Patty. New emotion seemed awakened within her. She was fixed to the spot — her eyes upon the ground — her face now red and pale. And Inglewood, with death in his aspect, gazed upon the hapless, persecuted girl, and for a moment his eye brightened, and he smiled as though he heard the whisperings of long-silent hope. To me, the couple were a touching sight. The girl, with affec- tions deep as the sea, a wronged and blighted thing ; doomed, it might be, to death made horrible by every circumstance of shame ; the man, in the first strength of life, with the best nobility of heart ; a gentle, upright, holy-minded being, surely withering to an early grave. And in these two, there were new-born hopes ; affections for the first time known ; a dream — a mocking vision that, for the moment, made the prison- place a paradise, and glorified the hideous present by the happy future. “ And shall it be” — I communed with myself — “ shall it he, indeed, a dream h ” “ Come, Patty,” said Lintley, not unobservant of the girl’s emotion, “ I will — with Mr. Traply’s good leave — see you through the passage.” And with this intention, Lintley, taking Patty’s hand, was about to leave the room, when the door was flung open, and Mrs. Lintley — for she soon proclaimed herself — bounced before her husband. Poor Lintley ! I could see it : he was a man of firm, yet gentle, temper ; he was upon the noblest duty that can employ a human creature ; THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 187 that of administering sympathy and strength to the weak and suffering, and yet for an instant he looked confounded : had he been detected in the meanest act that could vulgarise life, he could not have looked more shamefaced. He had swal- lowed the bitterest drug in his shop, rather than the words — for well he knew their quality — of Mrs. Lintley. Now, the apothecary’s wife doated upon her husband ; and such excess of affection was, to her, a sufficient reason that she should make him, now and then, extremely miserable. She employed her love upon her husband, as cats employ their claws upon a half-dead mouse ; hence, she would make him keenly suffer her affection. In the first place it was with her an enduring principle that eveiy woman wffio saw Mr. Lintley — who, in truth, was a good-tempered, sweet-natured looking man, and no more — was from the moment incurably in love with him. Maids, wives, or widows, all were alike ready to sacrifice their hearts, their wedding-rings, and mourning-caps to the apothecary. It never for a moment struck Mrs. Lintley that by such belief she committed a grievous scandal upon all her sisterhood ; certainly not ; she never so far analysed her feelings ; but lived on, with suspicion of all for her connubial creed. The ingenuity with which her jealousy would trans- form straws into poisoned daggers, and cobwebs into whips of steel, though highly creditable to the maker of the imple- ments, was grievously painful to the sufferer. Let a girl, with a tolerably sparkling eye, enter the shop for some anodyne for tooth-ache. “ Oh,” in the words of the apothecary’s wife, “ there must be something in it !” Let her opposite neigh- bour have a pain in the head, and send for Mr. Lintley : why, “ That woman was always having a pain in the head, and there must be something in it ! ” A poor widow could not summon Lintley to the spasms, but — “ there must be some- thing in it ! ” Nay, had the same widow broken a limb, and sent for Lintley, there would have been “ something” even in a compound fracture. And then, Mr. Lintley had such an inveterate habit of feeling the pulse of a patient. “ Could he not,” asked Mrs. Lintley, at least when the sufferer was feminine, “ could he not tell what was the matter without squeezing the woman’s wrists ? Oh, there must be something 188 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. in it ! ” Many a time, when, after a hard day’s drudgery — tramping through the mud and mists of London to his far- scattered patients, the worn apothecary had stretched him- self in bed, and the sordid, miserable pettinesses of the world were melting in the balm of sleep, many a time wdien that demon, lodged in the clapper of his night-bell, has called him from warm sheets into the raw, drizzling, wintry air, the apothecary’s wife, ere the bell has ceased sounding, has de- clared it very strange “ that all his labours should be at night : very strange, indeed ; but it was plain enough — there must be something in it.” And this was the woman — the affectionate wife, for she was so, in her own persecuting way — who caught Mr. Lintley in the fact ; apprehended him, with his fingers holding the fingers of Patty Butler. “ Now, Mr. Lintley, I ’m satisfied, quite satisfied,” and the little woman spoke as though she was chewing ground-glass. “ Yes, I knew it — I was sure of it — I always said to myself, there must be something in it.” “ My dear Nancy—” said Lintley, with his customary meekness. “ No, no, Mr. Lintley ; not dear Nancy — but dear Patty,’’ and then Mrs. Lintley smiled, as none but women can smile under such circumstances. “ I assure you, Mrs. Lintley,” — and Inglewood was about to intercede for his friend ; but vain indeed his intercession. “ Oh ! Mr. Inglewood, it ’s not for me to speak ; but I really am ashamed of you. A parson — a minister of the Church — and here abetting a man — a husband and a father of a family — abetting him, I say, in such doings. The whole neighbourhood rings with ’em ! It wasn’t enough that I was to be insulted in my own house, but he must come to New- gate — among felons, and worse than that.” “Are you not ashamed, Nancy?” cried Lintley, and his colour rose. “ No, Mr. Lintley, I am not ashamed, nor you either, but you ought to be. I thought you had given this creature up, but ” — “ Woman,” exclaimed the apothecary, in a stem, com- THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 189 manding voice, — “ for your foolish sayings, keep them for your own house, and for my ear — since I must hear them — for my ear alone. But I say to you, speak not a syllable, look not one affronting look against this poor wretched girl ; this victim of ill-fortune ; this patient, unrepining piece of good- ness. At another time, your words would have been those of a silly woman ; now do they sound as of a wicked one. Here is a poor, innocent, friendless soul, standing for what we know on the very edge of an untimely grave — yet standing with a courage and a meekness enough to put pity in the breast of a wolf — and yet you — you, a woman and the mother of future women, you with a vain and idle tongue must stab a heart the world so wickedly has bruised. Are you not ashamed ? Blush, I say — blush, lest I despair of you.” The little woman was awed, conscience-stricken by the stem yet wholesome rebuke of her husband. She vowed she meant nothing in the world, only that she was never allowed to speak, and Mr. Lintley was always so violent. Then she dissolved into tears, at the same time declaring that she thought Patty the most innocent creature that ever broke the world’s bread. CHAPTER XXXIII. A CONSPIRACY AGAINST PATTY. MORE VISITORS TO NEWGATE. THE MISSES PEACHICK. “ Didn’t yon say you wanted to go into the prison ?” asked Traply of Patty ; for the turnkey became more impatient of the unprofitable delay of herself and friends. Patty instantly grasped the hand of Mrs. Lintley, and looking farewell to the apothecary and Inglewood, with a forced smile upon her face, hurried from the room, followed by Traply. “ God help her!” exclaimed Lintley. “ Amen— amen!” cried Ingle- wood, as from a writhing heart. Mrs. Lintley could say nothing, but weeping, placed her arm beneath her husband’s, who, pressing it in token of conciliation, led her away. Nobody remained, save the widow, her maid Becky, and Mrs. Traply; the widow exclaiming against the stonyhearted- ness of all the world, and the turnkey’s wife eloquently sympathising with her. The passion of Mrs. Cramp grew and grew with nursing ; at length, in a paroxysm of love and grief, she vowed she would give her last shilling to the lawyers, rather than see her Edward murdered. He — the dear man ! — had, with his own sweet lips, vowed to her his innocence ; and yet the world was made up of such wretches, they would not believe him ! Nevertheless, she would spend her last shilling upon him. Poor, departed Mr. Cramp ! How — thought I — would it irk your ghost, could it know that all the harvest of your daily shuffling — all the bright, bliss-bestowing guineas, for which for a long life you played at bo-peep with the devil, — all were to be emptied into the bags of law, to save a high- wayman for your disconsolate mate ! Had Joseph Cramp toiled, and edged, and scraped, — and all to buy from Tyburn a husband for his widow ? Surely, I thought, if elderly folk THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 191 would now and then — whilst chaffering and fibbing in the world’s market-place for the over-reaching pennyworth — if they would ponder on the future outlay of their gains when they themselves should be slabbed over with a flattering gravestone, they would let many a bargain slip, and with it many a sin ! But no, with such folks the spirit of hard- dealing is a spirit hostile to death. It is impossible — thinks the hard huckster — that death should be so unmannerly as to surprise me in the middle of a bargain. No: with the miser, every guinea got is a nail out of his coffin. And so, chuck- ling, he draws nail and nail, and promises himself the days of Methusaleh, when abruptly comes Mr. Undertaker with his screw, — a surer implement than the sword of Caesar. Mrs. Traply was at length left alone, when, with housewife alacrity, putting her room straight, she placed me in a bureau amongst her other treasures. As she did so, she cried, “ There ’s so many people about that Patty, she ’ll never be able to put it to rights. If she gets off, I dare say she ’ll be like the rest, and never think of the kindness she ’s had in Newgate; and if she shouldn’t, why then the thing’s im- possible.” It was thus the turnkey’s wife speculated upon the life and death of Patty Butler — upon the condition of an ostrich feather ! I was shut up in an old wainscot bureau, through which the light glimmered in twenty creaks, though not sufficiently to allow me to discern surrounding objects. I could, however, distinguish nearly every word that was uttered, though the sound came to me somewhat muffled. Hence, there was enough to alarm me for poor Patty. One whole day I was left in continual terror. Poor, dear Patty ! I pictured her to myself in that dreary prison, surrounded by objects of misery and vice in their thousand dreadful apparitions. I trembled for her : and then, remembering her sweet, invincible patience, the mighty gentleness of her heart, I knew she would retire within her own nature, enshrined from prison-taint : I had no fear of the crystal purity of her soul, but I trembled for her life, and, indeed, with good cause, from the voices I heard about me. My first London purchaser, Shadrach Jacobs, the old Jew, was a visitor at the hearth of Mr. Traply. He had 192 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. been shown Patty in the prison, and he could not be mistaken ; no, he never was, in all his life. And then, Mrs. Gaptooth would talk in a low voice to Shadrach, and afterwards laugh horribly. I shuddered, as I felt assured that the life of poor Patty was chaffered for by wretches. Then I heard Curlwell, in a voice of remonstrance, declare that he would have fair play ; and then, twitted by Mrs. Gaptooth, who would call upon him to be a man, and not be made a fool of by a brazen slut, he would vow “ he ’d rather see her hanged than see another man have her.” Mrs. Gaptooth would then declare “ she was too good for him, but he must have his own way. She had no spite against the wench for her impudence ; none — she couldn’t feel spite for the poorest thing in the world — it wasn’t by no means in her natur ; nevertheless, she’d go and see her hanged with the greatest pleasure.” The reader may believe that, from these broken sentences, I could piece out sufficient to make me tremble for Patty. Days passed on, and from what I could hear, the next day was appointed for the trial of Clickly Abram and his con- federate, as she was called, Patty Butler. Now it was the custom of Mrs. Traply — I know not whether it be common with the sex — to visit the treasures in her bureau, at least once a day. She would take up, and hang over, and smile and nod at various odds and ends of silk, and ribbon, and lace ; and now and then sigh at an old fan, as though it brought back to her the days when she danced at Chester with Sir Mohawk Brush. The remnants of by-gone frippery among which I was placed, seemed to tie poor Mrs. Traply to the out-door world. There were laces in that bureau, knitted up with the strings of her maiden heart. There were pieces of silk which reminded her of her lustrous youth, when Newgate was to her a fable; a gloomy dream; and nothing more. Then would she sigh, and that sigh spoke of sad experience of hard Newgate stones. It happened then that Mrs. Traply, in a mild, melancholy mood, took me, the morning before the trial, from my dark abiding-place. What she purposed with me I know not, but she was about to cany me from the room, when she was arrested in her intent by the sound of her husband. By the THE STORY OF A FEATHER, 193 softened tones of his voice, I concluded that he was about to introduce Newgate visitors into his domestic retreat. I was right. The turnkey showed into his room three ladies and a gentleman; and as they entered, Mrs. Traply at the same time curtseyed, and flung me on the top of the bureau. The male, and one of the female visitors, I immediately recognised as Mr. and Mrs. Flamingo, under whose auspices, it may be remembered, I was dressed for the Prince of Wales’s cradle. They were accompanied by two elderly ladies ; and I will here set down what I subsequently learned of them. They were maiden sisters, Miss Amelia and Miss Leonora Peachick, of Man-trap Park, in the county of Devon- shire. They seemed, at first sight, as indeed they afterwards proved, sweet, good-hearted old women. Age and celibacy had not soured their tempers, but mellowed them. I have, indeed, remarked through life, that, where the female heart withstands the withering, chilling influence of singleness, it becomes rich, ripened with a thousand virtues, that render it one of the noblest hearts of the world. And thus it was with the Misses Peachick. To this excellence, they united a simplicity of mind almost childish. They were both of an age not to be spoken of, and this was their first visit to London. To them life had been a tolerably long walk upon lamb’s- wool ; and they knew little of misery, save of that misery in novels, which is generally hung with golden fringe at the end. Hence, in London, they were in a perpetual state of agitation, from the objects of crime and wretchedness which beset them. Every day they vowed they would start for Man-trap Park, there to end their days, forgetful, if possible, of the horrors they had seen ; and every day Mr. and Mrs. Flamingo prevailed upon them to lengthen their visit ; there was something yet so beautiful — so interesting, they must behold. What would their friends in Devonshire say, if they did not ? I know not if destiny had ordered it as a reward or trial of the virtues of the maiden Peachicks, that they should be sent as first-floor lodgers to the house of Flamingo ; there, however, they were, and, under the potent persuasion of the feather-merchant, there they promised some time to remain. o 194 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. It was in vain that they protested they had seen enough of London ; Mr. Flamingo knew better. u No, no,” cried the elder Miss Peachick, as she came timidly into the room, “ I ’ve had quite enough of this dread- ful place ! Dear me ! Well, how anybody can live with bolts drawn upon them ! And you mean to say, Mr. Flamingo, that all those men and women — the poor prisoners, Heaven bless ’em ! — that they ’ve all really done something wrong ? They don’t look like it. There must be some mistake.” “ Most of ’em old hands, my lady,” said Traply. “ Confirmed thieves and murderers,” observed Flamingo, glibly. “ It can’t be,” cried Miss Leonora ; “ it ’s flying in the face of goodness to believe it.” “ And is that poor woman a criminal, too?” asked Miss Amelia, pointing at Mrs. Traply. “ My wife, my lady,” said the turnkey ; and then added, with a grin, “ sometimes a criminal for all that.” u Ha ! and the good woman helps you to lock the poor things up, I suppose ? And you live here, eh ? Well, bless me ! And you never let the prisoners out for an airing ? They never take a ride, poor things ? ” asked Miss Leonora Peachick, in the innocence of fifty-three and rustic life. “ Never take a ride, my lady,” answered Traply, that officer being mightily tickled by the simplicity of his guest ; “ never ride, ’cept when they go to be hanged.” “ Don’t talk in that way, my good man ; it ’s impossible,” cried Miss Amelia. u Why, you ’ll never tell me that they ’ll have the heart to kill any of those dear creatures we ’ve just eft. There ’s that sweet-looking little girl” — “ What, she ! Click Abram’s wife, as they call her ? Ha, my lady ! ” and Traply tried to look grave. “ Law ’s all luck ; but if she hasn’t a good share of it, I wouldn’t give the valley of a neck of mutton for hers.” “ What ! kill that innocent mild-looking ! — Come away, Leonora ; come away, child. Don’t let us stop in this wicked place, for fear it should fall upon us.” “ My dear madam,” said Flamingo, “ there ’s more to see yet.” THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 195 “ We ’ve seen quite enough of London,” cried Amelia. “ Quite,” said Leonora ; “ and nothing that ’s innocent and fit for Christian people to see but Mr. Garrick, the wax- work, Westminster Abbey, and” — “ The Tower and Bedlam is thought something of,” said Flamingo, with a critical air. “ Oh ! the king’s crown and the jewels are very well — very respectable, and all that. But, Bedlam ! — Well, I do hope,” cried Miss Amelia, with the tears nearly in her eyes — “ I do hope that the poor people are really mad, for then they can’t know how badly they use ’em.” “ Come along. I shall die if I stop here,” said Miss Leonora. “ Pray, come, Mr. Flamingo.” “ Certainly — to be sure ; and then, on our way back, we can peep at the debtors through the bars of the Fleet. Bless you, ladies ! you haven’t half seen London ; there ’s enough to delight you yet for a week.” The maiden sisters, without an answer, fluttered from the room, Mr. and Mrs. Flamingo, with suppressed laughter, following them ; and Mr. Traply conveying to his wife, by the eloquence of his looks, the most contemptuous opinion of his visitors. The day passed — the next day came. It was the first day of the sessions. Mrs. Traply had taken me from the top of the bureau, where I had remained from the first appearance of the Miss Peachicks. She stood, pondering, I know not w T hat ; holding me between her fingers, when her husband — it was a busy day — hurried in. “ There you are again, thinking o’ nothing but that cust feather,” he cried, snatching me from her hands, and about to throw me into the fire. He then paused, and thrusting me under his waistcoat, ran from the room, his wife vainly clamouring after him. In a few minutes — for I could peep very well from the bosom of the turnkey — I was in the court of the Old Bailey. It was the duty of Traply to stand in the dock near to the prisoners. He took his place close to Click Abram and Patty Butler — there and then arraigned before the Bench. o 2 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE TRIAL OF CLICK ABRAM AND PATTY BUTLER. As the highwayman glanced round the court, it was plain he felt the greatness of his reputation. He was to be tried before a most crowded and most fashionable assembly. His courtesies of Finchley and Hounslow had not been lost upon a reflecting world, that thronged to see a thief who robbed a lady of her watch, as though it had been her heart ; who would pick a pocket with the like mingled grace and serenity with which a statesman would propose a money-bill. Clickly Abram had elevated his profession ; he had made robbery like war, — at the worst, as people say, but a necessary evil. Hence, high and beautiful women had migrated from the west-end to the Old Bailey, and with scrutinising, sympathis- ing eyes, saw the lion in the cage — the hero in the dock. Clickly Abram, with a smile of killing sweetness, laid his hand upon his breast, and bowed. He was dressed in the fulness of the mode. His linen — the gift of the widow — was of the finest web ; and a diamond ring flashed upon the little finger of the highwayman’s white right hand, which, with graceful negligence he rested on the bar of the dock. A jeweller had visited Newgate to fit Mr. Abram with that ring ; and thirty guineas, the late money of the late Mr. Cramp, had paid for it. If— I thought at the time — the per- versity of an English jury should send the highwayman to that far country where the card-maker abided, what misery might the widow’s lover wreak upon the husband ghost ! But no ; it was impossible. Hang such a man, with such a smile upon his face, such ruffles at his wrists, such a coat upon his back ! No law could be so arrogant. Clickly Abram was not a thief. No ; he stood in the dock a graceful, light-hearted gentleman, summoned for some good he had THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 197 performed to receive a sentence of thanks from a grateful generation. Patty stood beside the highwayman. She was pale, and, after a brief time, tranquil as a statue. When she entered the dock, a momentary blush, deep as blood, covered her face and arms ; and she stood, struggling against the beating of her heart. The highwayman played his gallantry ; for he bowed, and smiled very powerfully upon his fellow-prisoner : he could not have been more polite to the widow at Ranelagh. The courtesy was, however, cast away upon Patty. Though she thought not to vindicate her own guiltlessness by scorn of her companion, she stood in soul apart from him. She felt alone in that dock — alone with innocence. I looked around the court, and to my surprise, saw many of my old acquaintances. Seated close to the bench, with her eyes upon the highwayman, was Lady Dinah Willoughby. She, of course, came to give a day’s recreation to her breaking heart : she was there to solace her sorrow with a highwayman in jeopardy of Tyburn, as she would have regaled her poodle, the pupil of Mr. Spanneu, on the breast of a chicken. A trial for life or death was a tit-bit for what she thought her con- stitutional melancholy. Not far from Lady Dinah sat the owners of Man-trap Park, the Miss Peachicks. They looked about the court, and then in each other’s face, and then at the highwayman and Patty, and then threw up their hands and eyes, and shifted in their seats, in a state of wondering agitation. In near neighbour- hood to them were the Flamingos. I could see the feather- merchant look very judicial, as he scanned Patty, and then whispered something to his helpmate, who nodded in apparent affirmation. Flamingo was not a juryman ; but he had already passed a verdict of guilty against the feather-dresser. Mrs. Gaptooth, with a gleesome wickedness in her looks, was amongst the crowd, and Mrs. Traply, and honest Luke Knuckle. Poor fellow ! he sat staring at Patty and vigorously gnawing his thumb-nail, unconscious of the feast. There, too, was the widow Cramp, with the faithful Becky at her side. Poor widow ! Tears had touched her beauty ; her face looked scalded with weeping ; and there, seeing 198 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. nothing before her, but one form, one face, she sat working her pocket handkerchief into a ball, in her burning hand. Abram saw her, and with a blithe look kissed his fingers towards her. The tenderness was too much for the poor creature ; she broke into hysterical sobbing, whilst the homely Becky, with one tear trickling down her nose, took her mis- tress like a child to her bosom, and a man of office, with a fierce eye cast towards the mourner, bellowed out — u Silence in the court.” Lintley, his wife, and Inglewood were together. Once only did Inglewood exchange a glance with Patty. He then seemed to avoid her ; seemed as though he had retired into his soul, and was there praying for her deliverance. The apothecary bowed to Patty, who meekly smiled ; and little Mrs. Lintley herself allowed the recognition, never even hinting that “ there must be something in it.” Mr. Curlwell was among the crowd, fidgetty and restless. Now he looked at Patty — now he blew his nose — and now he appealed for tranquillity to his snuff-box : that box — crested with a dolphin with tail in its mouth, Latin, and everything proper — which the valet had proclaimed in the round-house, on the night he had assaulted with his attentions the young feather-dresser in the Strand. Sure I am that that box smote Curlwell’s conscience at the Old Bailey ; and then he made himself comfortable with the thought, that if the girl would go to Tyburn instead of to church, the evil lay at the door of her wdcked wilfulness. The trial began. The indictment charged Abram with stealing a watch and certain moneys on the highway, and Patty with aiding, abetting, and comforting the evil-doer. The first witness called was one Andrew Bishop. He was a rough, dull-looking man, and stared doggedly about the court, as though the business therein transacted was wearying and contemptible. His examination, which I reduce to the main points, began. He had been supercargo to the Mermaid : she had sailed without him, and he had lost his berth, and all along of the damned watch and the trial. (Here the witness was rebuked by the Bench for bad language ; where- upon, the witness scratched his head.) It w*as a gold w^atch, THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 199 with a ship in the plate, pitching in a green sea, with the words Such is life . He had met the prisoner at the bar of a tavern, the Dog and Duck : thought him a jovial gentleman ; he sang a good song. Witness left the tavern, and the prisoner went with him : went through a many places. At last, up somewhere by the Long Fields, when there was nobody by, the prisoner clapt a pistol to witness’s skull, and said he must have all he had. And so the prisoner took it ; and that was all witness knew — but that he 5 d swear to. Mr. Clickly himself cross-examined the witness, and with an elegant subtlety of manner that would have honoured even the coif. In vain : the witness was too obstinate to be puzzled. He would not stir from two facts. The one, that Abram had put a pistol to his head ; the other, that Abram had taken both his purse and his watch. Mr. Abram himself smiled pityingly upon the witness, and then smiled upon the jury : but it aided him not — Andrew Bishop, supercargo, was fixed in the two facts. Shadrach Jacobs w^as the next witness, and proved that he had sold the watch to Bishop, (a circumstance substantiated by the subsequent testimony of his daughter Miriam). He proved that he was present at the Dog and Duck with Bishop ; that there was a man, drinking and singing with the super- cargo, very like the gentleman at the bar ; certainly, very like him ; but not the gentleman. There was a girl with the man ; and that girl — Shadrach Jacobs would swear it — was the girl in the dock. Here an ejaculation of disgust was heard from one of the audience, and the officer, looking in the direction of Luke Knuckle, exclaimed, “ Silence in the court l” Curl well, looking at Patty, seemed anxious and irresolute ; and Mrs. Gaptooth leered and smiled. And then came the evidence of Hardmouth and two of the watchmen. They had tracked the prisoner to his lodgings in Bloomsbury, whence he had escaped. They, however, found there the pocket-book (the money gone) and the watch of the prosecutor. The watch was found in the bed of the female prisoner, after Abram had escaped from the room. Mrs. Crumpet, who declared that she believed Mr. Abram 200 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. to be a perfect gentleman, deposed that he had lodged in her house. Never knew anything irregular in him. Would have trusted him with untold gold. The young woman at the bar had been a long time sick ; and, when the robbery was com- mitted, was in bed. Could not, certainly, explain how the watch was found with Patty. Three more — witnesses for Mr. Abram — courageously swore that, on the night of the robbery, the maligned prisoner was at Gloucester. I could perceive that the widow, albeit she looked wonderingly at these witnesses, looked not with displeasure. Mr. Lintley bore testimony to the worth, the goodness of Patty ; and Mr. Flamingo, who had been hunted out and compelled to attend by the apothecary, deposed that he thought the female prisoner a very honest woman ; and then, on cross-examination, allowed, with great alacrity, that she had been once in the round-house ; that there had been a charge against her — something about a snuff-box. “ But that man knows it was all a lie,” cried Luke Knuckle from the gallery, pointing to Curl well. “ Remove that man ! ” said the judge to the officer of the court ; but Luke did not wait to trouble that functionary. Mr. Lintley, however, immediately communicated with the counsel ; and when Flamingo’s examination was over, Julius Curl well was called and sworn. It was very true, he owned, he had made a false charge — he had found his box — in fact, he had himself addressed, not assaulted, as the counsel said, the girl in the street. It was true he had offered to marry her ; since — yes, he would not deny it — he loved her very much. Had never said he could save her if he would. Knew Shadrach Jacobs — but knew no harm of him ; would swear — that is, he was almost sure he would — that he had never met the Jew about the trial. Knew a woman Gaptooth (here that excellent matron elbowed her way out of court) ; thought her character tolerably good ; she had been two or three times indicted ; would not swear that he had not sent messages by her to the prisoner at the bar ; they were not dishonourable messages — that is, they were only messages that gentlemen sometimes sent to young women. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 201 Here Curlwell’s examination terminated : that is, he was taken off the rack. He had a quick-witted counsel and his own conscience against him. Hence the valet turned pale and red, and shuffled and stammered, and grinned vacantly, and whined, and so laid bare before the court the miserable nature of Julius Curl well. There never was a more pitiable picture of a weak, dissolute creature. When released from the torture of self-delineation, the valet, with the sweat running from his brow, ran from the court. His evidence had done much for the cause of Patty. Lintley — I saw T it — thought so ; for he smiled and grasped Inglewood’s hand, and Mrs. Lintley herself nodded cheeringly to “ the female prisoner at the bar.” And now was Abram called upon for his defence. Leaning forward, he made a sort of sweeping bow to the whole court ; and then, with a condescending air, began. “ My lord and gentlemen of the jury,” said the highwayman, “ whilst I regret that the inconvenience of being in this place should have fallen to your humble servant, I cannot but feel that there are circumstances which, at the first blush, demanded, for the satisfaction of justice, that I should be so placed. A robbery has been committed, gentlemen, there can be no doubt of that ; the prosecutor, a most intelligent, • and I am sure, veiy honourable man, was despoiled of his money and his watch. He has sworn that I am the robber ; and I believe, gentlemen, that he believes he has sworn truly. But, is the fact supported by corroborative testimony ? Mr. Jacobs, a merchant of high standing, distinctly states that I was not present at the Dog and Duck ; but that a man, unfortunately like me, was : I must say,” and the speaker smiled, “ unfortunately for me, in this case. Three other respectable men swear, that on that very night I was at Glou- cester. Gentlemen of the jury, I was ! It is true the watch was found at my lodgings : but Mrs. Crumpet lets her every room. It has been said, I was lying concealed there. Gentlemen, it is true : and why ? I was a little in debt — I own it w T ith a blush — a little in debt. Gentlemen, I leave my case to your own intelligence. You will not find me guilty of felony, because I happen to resemble some unfortunate man ; 202 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. you will not hang me for a likeness and Mr. Abram tried to be jocular ; “ you will not find me guilty for having the same eyes, and nose, and mouth, as a highwayman, for such indeed is proved my only offence ; no, gentlemen, you value your own peace of mind — you value your own night’s rest, the rest of your wives and your families; and above all, you value truth ; in which case, gentlemen of the jury, without one anxious thought, do I leave my fate in your hands. I know what your verdict must be, and in the tranquillity of innocence await it.” There was a buzz, a murmur of applause, at the eloquence, the self-possession of the speaker, who bowed acknowledg- ment. The widow Cramp looked smilingly about. Patty was then called upon. Her defence was, simply — “ Not guilty.” The judge briefly summed up ; and as I thought, bore hard upon Click Abram : that person, however, seemed to think otherwise : for whilst the jury was retired, he lounged against the side of the dock, and employed himself by trimming the skin around his filbert nails. The jury returned into court. The verdict was given. “ Clickly Abram, guilty ; Martha Butler, not guilty.” A loud shriek rang from the gallery ; and then poor Mrs. Cramp, screaming u Murder, murder ! ” fell in the arms of her faithful handmaid. The highwayman paused, as he was about to turn from the dock, and a momentary look of anguish possessed him, as he gazed upward at the suffering widow. Mr. and Mrs. Lintley, Inglewood, and lastly the two Miss Peachicks, forced their way to the dock, to grasp the hands of Patty. CHAPTER XXXV. I AM TAKEN TO DRURY-LANE THEATRE, AND BECOME PART OF ITS WARDROBE. THE PLAY-HOUSE BEHIND THE SCENES. Traply, by duty of his office, retired with Click Abram and Patty from the dock into the prison. The highwayman, rallying his courage and his gallantry, begged to congratulate the girl on her escape. “ Gad’s me !” he cried, “ I ’m glad of it, though I lose the honour of your company to Tyburn. Yet, curse the jurymen ! To have one’s dinner spoilt by such a set of blockheads ! Buttermen and shoemakers to hang a gentleman ! ” And then Abram burst into a wild and hollow laugh to show his fine philosophy. “ Miserable man ! ” cried Inglewood ; u your grave is dug ; your knell about to toll ; death is staring in your face. Wretched creature, would you jest with God ]” Abram started at this passionate reproof of Inglewood, whose pale thin cheek was flushed and quivering with emo- tion : and then the highwayman, summoning his contempt, stared at the intruder, and executed a long, loud whistle. Inglewood, with sorrow in his face and voice, raised his hands and cried, “ Heaven be merciful to you !” He then joined Mr. and Mrs. Lintley and the Miss Peachicks, all of whom were congratulating and caressing Patty. The maiden sisters were weeping — joyously weeping ; and Mrs. Lintley declared that Patty should go home with her ; she was such a good, innocent creature, and would bring a blessing upon any house. Then Lintley smiled, and Miss Amelia Peachick, slipping a guinea into Traply’s hand, begged him to send for a coach. As for Miss Leonora, I heard her whisper to her sister, that “ she thought no harm could come to the poor creature who was found guilty ; they had, no doubt, only done it to frighten him.” 204 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. Traply departed on his errand ; as he hurried away, I caught a glance of Inglewood ; he stood somewhat apart from the group, gazing at Patty — his heart in his eyes. And thus I left him. When the turnkey returned to his wife, he was so mollified by the harvest of the day, that although he had entirely for- gotten me, he suffered his spouse to remind him of his bruta- lity with no other reply than a jocose growl ; and delivered me — bent and rumpled, and, as his spouse said, not fit for any Christian to wear — into the hands of his helpmate. I was curious to learn the condition of Mrs. Cramp, but heard nothing more than, as Traply reported at supper, that she had been “ a crying and a melting over Click like butter.” The next morning Mrs. Traply left Newgate, carrying me with her. In a few minutes, I found myself consigned to the hands of a feather-cleaner in Shoe-lane, with an injunction from Mrs. Traply to he put in order without delay. “ It ’s been a handsome thing in its time, but, like most of us, a little tumbled and worse for wear,” said an old woman, the shop- keeper, and, as I found, an acquaintance of her customer. “ Ha ! Mrs. Briggs, when I wore that feather at Chester,” cried Mrs. Traply. “ Well, well, you may say tumbled and, with a significant toss of the head, the turnkey’s wife departed, I suppose for Newgate. “ She ’s a nice cretur, she is,” said Mrs. Briggs to her dirty shop-girl ; “ she wear a feather ! I ’ll he hound for ’t got out of some poor thing in trouble — some dear soul in gaol.” About a fortnight passed, in which time I was cleaned and set in order, and, as I thought from a glance of myself in a glass, made to look as beautiful as ever. Alas ! was I to carry my whiteness back to Newgate? Fortunately, no. Mrs. Briggs was a shrewd shop woman. She had mislaid or lost an excellent feather brought, among others, by a large customer, and she resolved that I should take the place of the missing goods. “ As for Mrs. Traply,” said her acquaint- ance, Mrs. Briggs, “ she might he put off with anything, and never know any better. Now, Mr. Garrick was so partic’lar.” THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 205 My heart throbbed at the words. Was I to become the property of Mr. Garrick] Was I to go upon the stage] Having played my part above the cradle of a real Prince of Wales, was I to wave amongst kings and princes of sixty shil- lings per week ] These thoughts possessed me, as I lay in a bundle upon a shelf, among other feathers of all kinds and colours ; when, after an anxious three days, I felt myself car- ried out of the shop with my companions. In a short time, I found myself at the stage-door of Drury-lane Theatre. My bosom beat and glowed, for I was among his Majesty’s servants ! Assuredly, there is something subtly intoxicating in the air of a theatre. I had no sooner passed the vestibule of the playhouse, than I felt myself an exceedingly great creature. My every filament seemed to expand with new dignity ; I felt myself swelling like a cat’s tail. It is the atmosphere, I thought. It is the air, impregnated with the spirit of poetry — of mighty thoughts, that gives an elevation, a large- ness of manner, even to the door-keeper. The place seemed to me a sort of half-way house, between the sordid home- liness of the world and the revealed glories of the land of romance. I felt drunk ; but the intoxication was delicious. I was soon deposited in what I found to be the ladies’ wardrobe. Looking about me, I discovered more than one old acquaintance in the gowns I had fallen among at Madame Spanneu’s. There was my old friend, the lutestring, at times devoted to the nightly service of Mrs. Clive ; Mrs. Pritchard was wont to wear the pompadour ; and the smoke-coloured cloak had graced the fair shoulders of the gentle Mrs. Abing- ton. I nodded to them ; and at night began to talk to them as old acquaintances. They, however, treated me contemp- tuously as a new-comer and a nobody ; desiring me to remem- ber that all the town was mad after them ; that, indeed, the world itself could not turn round without them. Snubbed, I was compelled to hold my peace, or now and then to have a whispering chat with a shabby old blue boddice, commonly worn, as it informed me, by the meaner people of the play- house. “ I have never yet opened my mouth upon the stage,” said the boddice to me, in a tone of melancholy : and when I 206 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. begged to be farther informed of its meaning, it assured me that it was only worn by the girls who acted speechless peasants and tongue-tied domestics. “ Bless you,” it sighed, “ I have never yet been into the first green-room ; but have merely stared at it with all my eylet-holes, as I have passed on and off with the mob. Now, you,” said the boddice, “ you are sure to have better luck. I shouldn’t wonder to see you very soon as Mrs. Oakley, or the Queen, in Hamlet. I,” said the boddice, heaving a deep sigh, “ I have never known the sweets of a round of applause in all my life ; now, you ’ll have it — hot as you can sup it.” I confess it, I was in a flutter of delight at these words ; though from what I heard from every piece of raiment that opened its lips, I con- ceived a deep aversion for Mr. Garrick. No one had a civil syllable for him. “Are managers,” I asked of the boddice, “ always such wicked people ; such tyrants, such knaves, such shufflers, such hypocrites ?” The boddice made answer, with significant emphasis, “ My dear, always.” “ Kitty, was the house good to-night ?” asked the pompa- dour of the lutestring, or rather Mrs. Pritchard of Mrs. Clive, for I shall give to the garments the names of the ladies who sometimes wore them. “ Quite good enough,” answered Clive. “ That Jew, Gar- rick, acts worse and worse.” “ Now, Kitty,” cried Mrs. Abington, in the gentlest voice, “ why will you abuse David ? I’m sure he loves you like a brother % ” “ Yes, as brother Cain loved brother Abel,” replied Kitty. “ Love me ! Didn’t the wretch take me out of Miss Prue, and the romps I ’ve played for thirty years ? Had the impu- dence to talk of my age. He doesn’t see the wrinkles in his own face — as deep and as black as a coal-pit. Why didn’t the c sick monkey ’ stay in Italy ? I could kiss Beard for having driven him out of the country with cat-gut. The brute ! Took me out of Miss Prue ! Why doesn’t he take himself out of Ranger % ” “ But then, you know, love,” observed Mrs. Yates, repre- sented by a white satin petticoat, “ you know he ’s a manager.” At this all the ladies laughed in chorus. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 207 In a short time I learned all the past and present politics of the playhouse. Poor Mr. Garrick had been twanged away from tragedy by the fiddles of Mr. Beard, at Co vent Garden. Arne and Artaxerxes had been too much for David and Shak- speare ; and so the manager had fallen conveniently sick — “ The rosin-sickness, my dear,” as I heard Mrs. Clive declare — and sought the restorative air of Italy and France. “ I wish, when they had him abroad, they ’d have made him a cardinal,” cried Mrs. Pritchard. “ Yes,” chimed in Clive, with a chuckle, “ or a rabbi ; I ’m sure they *d have found him Jew enough.” I own I felt myself delighted with the sallies of these ladies, and of Clive in particular ; for though she was always the loudest in her abuse of Garrick, it seemed more as an exercise of her vivacity than of spleen. She called him a Jew — a tyrant — a Turk — a devil ; but she did so with a laugh that turned her bitterest words into sugar-plums. “ It must be a delicious life, that of an actress,” I whis- pered, one evening, when all was silent, to my friend, the boddice. “ I dare say it is,” was the answer ; “ but I know it ’s terrible work to be as I am. Nobody ought to be so miser- able a nobody as the nobody of a theatre ; only,” added the boddice, “in a theatre nobody ever thinks itself nobody. There ’s the little girl who wore me last night. Poor soul ! she has a few shillings a week ; and is, indeed, as good and meek a little creature as ever bore spangles. Yet, when even the king and queen come to the house, does she think herself one of the chief attractions of the show.” “ Is it possible 1” I cried. “ What folly ! ” “ And, after all,” said the boddice, “ is it not well that it is so 1 Conceit to a player must be as oil to a machine ; a thing necessary to keep the engine harmoniously at work, to prevent the grinding, clanging friction that else must follow. The lower the actor, too, the greater the need of such oil. And nature is kind,” added the boddice ; “ in such cases, it generally happens, the greater the supply.” “ I see not the necessity,” I observed. “ That comes of your ignorance of stage life,” replied the 208 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. boddice ; “ nay, I might add of life in almost every variety. Is there so hard a lesson for a man to con as to learn that he is nobody ? In a playhouse it is especially difficult. Here, strange as it may seem, men are kept in stirring spirits by a lively sense of their wrongs. Like eels, they are made the more vivacious by skinning. The man who plays Catesby to Garrick’s Richard believes, but for the tyranny of fate, he could play Richard every bit as well, if not better, than the manager. He recollects the applauses of his youth from rustic hands ; he remembers how he made certain barns echo and vibrate, and he thinks with pity on a London audience and Mr. Garrick. Now, make Catesby know his real worth, and you make him a miserable creature. Let a man unconsciously offer a counterfeit guinea, in his ignorance he will throw’ it with an air upon the counter ; and when accused of the attempt to pass a pocket-piece, fly into a tempestuous passion, making loud assertions of his honour and gentility. Let the same man, if he can persuade himself to the act, knowingly offer the bad coin, and with what a poor, sneaking grace will he acquit himself ! Now, the Catesby I speak of, and such actors, never will be persuaded that their Richards are pocket- pieces. No ; they are gold — best Mint gold ; but it is the perverseness, the injustice of men, that flings them back upon their hands. They are, however, rich that they themselves possess them, although refused by all the world. Prove the pieces brass or copper, make their holders know as much, and they, in that knowledge, w r ould be c poor indeed ! ’ ” “ I understand,” I replied. “ In truth, I have fallen amongst a strange people.” “ Nay, if they have follies, weaknesses — and who has not ? — to laugh at, there are virtues, even in a playhouse soil, to praise and venerate.” “ Virtues ! ” I cried, and I am afraid with a slight laugh. “ Listen,” said the boddice. “I spoke of Fanny Davis, the little girl who last night wore me. I will tell you a short, a very short history, of that gentle, that heroic child.” CHAPTER XXXVI. SOMETHING MORE OF FANNY DAVIS. THE POOR ACTOR’S HOME. MISS GAUNTWOLF. “ Fanny Davis,” continued the boddice, “ is only now in her seventeenth year ; and for her salary, she may, perhaps, have as many shillings as years. Yet is she the most dis- creet, the most gentle of creatures. Her first baby recollec- tions are of the playhouse. From the first hour she could balance herself upon her two feet, Fanny was an actress. Ere she had been twenty months in the world’s theatre, she was a little toddling fairy at one shilling per night. Being the child of poorest actors — folks just trusted with syllables in London — her baby earnings were precious silver drops in the small household cup of her parents. Hence, too, she had no real childhood. Happily for her, she was not an infant wonder. She was not taught to think herself a little lump of brain in red shoes ; a dwarfed woman housed in the image of an infant. Oh, those baby prodigies !” cried the boddice. u Baby prodigies ! ” I echoed in my ignorance. u Comedy and tragedy queens of six years old,” said the boddice. “ Creatures made to chew Shakspeare with their pap ; poor little souls forced out of babyhood to mum ma- turity. And they catch a trick of it, poor things ; and full- grown babies stare, and applaud, and whoop at the miracle, as doubtless Adam wondered when the first parrot cried c Pretty Poll ! ’ To make a prodigy of this sort, you must first kill the baby. Depend upon it, these doings are child- murders, with only this difference— they escape the coroner. Happily, I say then, Fanny Davis was none of these. She ■was not fed on the applauses of an audience — she was not brought up by the clapping hands of a wise and discerning public. To this moment she has never heard her voice upon p 210 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. the stage, but is accounted no more of than a part of the human furniture which makes up the train of queens and princesses ; is now one of a mob of happy villagers, and now a silent chambermaid. Hence, to Fanny there is no hope — none. She can never be an actress — never anything but a sort of fringe upon an actress’s robe. Her seventeen shillings per week may have increase of three — and there, in the play- house at least — must the hopes of Fanny rest. And the best of it is, dear creature, she knows this, and in all her poverty is blithe as a robin in December.” “ Is she pretty ]” I asked. “ Very beautiful,” answered the boddice ; “ and therefore in this place has need of a stout heart and constant spirit. Mr. Garrick is somewhat particular, and doesn’t let the wild fellows of the town sharpen their wits upon the actresses — he doesn’t let his greenroom be a place of ease to other places ; nevertheless, he can’t stop letters, and presents in them, with promises and kickshaws that catch poor butterfly girls. Generally one a night of these things comes to Fanny, and still it is refused. Only two nights since, a note was offered her. ‘ I know nobody to write to me,’ she said. ‘ But it is of consequence, Miss Davis,’ said the bearer. ‘ Is it so, indeed ] ’ cried Fanny, c then pray take it to my father.’ Bless her ! ” cried the boddice, “ I hugged her for the moment all the closer for it.” “ A sweet thing, indeed,” said 1. “ How I should like to see her ! ” “ In good time,” observed the boddice. “ But I haven’t told you half. Though I loved the dear child from the first time she wore me, I knew not her full worth until about a fort- night ago. ’T is a touching story, though indeed there ’s little in it.” “ Tell it me,” I cried impatiently. “ Last Thursday week,” said the boddice, “ I was worn by Fanny, who, I observed, looked ill — very ill. Poor child ! She was hoarse — almost inarticulate ; and, I could feel, burnt with a fever. Several of. the ladies — for Fanny is a general favourite — spoke to her, and begged her to go home. Still she answered with a smile, faint enough, that it was nothing — THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 211 it would pass off — she should be better. At length, dear Mrs. Clive called the under-prompter to Fanny. ‘ This dear child must go home — she sha’n’t stay here.’ i Well/ said the prompter, c she had better take off her dress, and — 5 ‘ Dress ! Don’t talk to me of your rags, man ; she sha’n’t stop an instant. Here, Nell!’ and Clive called to her maid, ‘ wrap her up warm in my cloak — get her things together, and — you, Bob, go for a coach ! ’ she said to one of the men. i And mind, Nell, you take her safe home, and say I shall come and see her in the morning. 5 Now, Mrs. Clive/ 5 said the boddice, “ is not a woman to be denied anything ; even David shakes before her ; and so, in a very few minutes, Fanny, well wrapt up, was in a coach on her way home, and Nell with her. I found Fanny’s dwelling-place humble enough, but clean and orderly. There were five children, all much younger than herself, at home. Fanny's mother had some time since quitted the stage, as she says, to look after her family. Poor soul ! this is a bit of professional pride: the stage quitted her. Her first hold upon it was merely a pretty face and slim figure, and as bloom and slimness departed, why, the stage slipped from her, and she then said it would be cheaper for her to look to her children at home, than to remain in the profession. Mr. Davis, with conjugal pride, is wont to speak of the sacrifice that Mrs. Davis has made for her family ; what she might have been, had she continued on the boards, nobody could tell. However/there was no arguing with a mother’s heart; the dear soul would have her way, and — it was a sacrifice — but she has it. Mr. Davis had an uncertain nightly salary at Covent Garden, which he always speaks of as our house, though it is now three years since he belonged to it. Poor fellow ! He is an honest, worthy creature, devoted to his wife and children, and by such devotion enabled to bear much. He and Mrs. Davis think each other the greatest artists in the world. Hence have they enjoyment — with only a handful of sleepy fire in the winter’s grate, and with pale-faced children about them — to talk of the triumphs of one another in the country.” “ Is it possible 1” I asked. u True, I assure you; and a great solace it is to them. p 2 212 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. I remained about a week in their lodgings, and heard them at it every day. ‘ Well, John,’ Mrs. Davis would begin, ‘ I saw Hamlet last night. People may call it a wife’s prejudice, but ’twas nothing like your Hamlet at Cranbrooke. I shall never forget that point of yours at the Ghost 9 s speech, “ I am thy father’s spirit.” As for Garrick, he quite missed it.’ c It ’s very odd, Mary,’ said Davis, e I was just then thinking of the new Juliet , and your Juliet at Gravesend. That line of yours — ’ c What line, John?’ Mrs. Davis asked, with the prettiest innocence. ‘ Oh, my dear, that line that struck the mayor so much — “ As with a club dash out my desperate brains ! ” There, Mary, though you ’re my own wife, I will say it, you went quite through the heart. The poor girl of the other night scarcely touched one’s waistcoat. And thus,” said the boddice, “ the happy pauper couple are wont to flatter one another.” “ With an empty cupboard, ’t is as you say, a great solace, and may serve them somewhat instead of beef and ale,” said I. “ Yes,” answered the boddice, drily; “ but they cannot feed the little Davises after that fashion. However, to my story of Fanny. Her poor mother was dreadfully alarmed when the girl was brought home. c Oh,’ she cried, c those shoes — those dreadful shoes ! I knew she ’d catch her death ! ’ This made me look at the shoes, which, with Fanny’s street attire, Mrs. Clive’s maid brought with her. They were worn thin as paper ; and though stitched and stitched, there were treacherous holes at the sides to let fever and death in from the cold wet street. Poor thing ! In those reeking shoes had she that day stood three hours at rehearsal. ‘ My dear Fanny ! ’ cried Mrs. Davis, with all the mother in her face. c Oh, I shall be quite well to-morrow ; I shall indeed. I am not so ill now — ’t was only Mrs. Clive would make me come home,’ said Fanny. c And she ’ll be here, ma’am, she bid me say, in the morning,’ cried Nell, who then returned to her mistress. Mrs. Davis assisted Fanny to bed ; and then, with heavy heart, rocking her youngest child to sleep, awaited the coming of her husband, who heard the story of Fanny’s illness with tearful eyes ; and swore that, come how they might, THE STORY OF A FEATHER. 213 new shoes should come to-morrow. Poor, penniless player ! I shall never forget the wretched, bewildered look with which he turned and turned over each shoe. i I knew ’t would come to this — I was sure of it,’ he said, with anxious voice ; and then again and again he handled the shoes ; again looked at every flaw ; and again and again heaving a sigh, dropt them at his feet. He then sat moodily looking at them for two or three minutes, and then leaping up, cried out, 6 My God ! that I should lose a child — and such a child — for a pair of shoes ! * I have seen many a tragedy acted,” said the boddice, “ have many a time heard Garrick’s soliloquy on death — it never touched me half so much as that poor player’s grief on two old shoes.” “ And Fanny ?” said I, impatiently. “She was better — so much better in the morning,” an- swered the boddice, “ that she resolved to go to the theatre. The streets were quite dry, she said, and she could get no hurt. Her father had gone out to borrow money for new shoe-leather, and her mother — as I think — upon the same fruitless errand. Fanny sat by the fire, with one of her little sisters in her lap ; and her shoes — the fatal pair — were still upon the hearth. A sharp, short rap struck the door, which, ere one of the children could reach, was opened, and Miss Gaunt wolf entered.” “ And who is Miss Gauntwolf ?” I asked. “ I forgot : you have not yet seen her. She is a girl in the theatre, in the same rank, and receiving about the same salary as Fanny.” “ I perceive,” said I ; “ Fanny’s friend.” “ Certainly not,” said the boddice : “ save on the business of the house, they never speak. Poor sold thing ! but you shall hear all in time. Miss Gauntwolf entered the room in a very cloud of musk. She was — as, indeed, she always is — magnificently dressed, in a sack of rich sky-coloured satin, with cloak and bonnet, and the prettiest shoes to match. ‘ Miss Gauntwolf,’ cried Fanny, colouring, and setting down her sister. “ ‘ My dear creature,’ cried the young lady, ‘ I saw you were very ill last night ; and you know, I couldn’t rest this morn- 214 THE STORY OF A FEATHER. ing till I came to see you. My dear soul ! you don’t take care of yourself. You don’t wrap yourself up enough this dread- ful weather. Now look at me, I always muffle — always — though I never stir out hut in the carriage’ ” — “ Carriage ! Did you not say the young lady had only seventeen shillings a week ? ” I asked. “ Seventeen shillings,” answered the boddice gravely, and then proceeded with the talk of Miss Gaunt wolf. “ ‘ Now, my dear, I hope you are better — much better/ and the visitor pouted her pretty lips, and threw a look of concern into her mealy doll’s face, as she gazed at Fanny. “ ‘ Better, much better/ answered Fanny, rising. “ c Now, don’t get up — don’t use any ceremony with me. The truth is, I came in the hope of finding you well enough to go to the house. My dear, they do work us to death at that theatre, and so I ’ve told his lordship over and over again; so that if you were recovered, I’d take you in my carriage. There is only my dear father in it/ said Miss Gauntwolf. “ c Your father in the carriage V said Fanny coldly. “ c That ’s all ; and he ’s nobody you know — so there ’s a sweet creature — do come/ said Miss Gauntwolf. “ c I thank you/ said Fanny, ‘ I must wait for my mother ! ’ “ 6 Now/ urged the young lady, ‘ I ’m sure that’s unneces- sary. Do come.’ u Fanny resolutely shook her head. “ ‘ But why not? Well, you are such a strange girl ! Such a day as this — and you so weak, so ill ; and there ’s a warm seat in the sweetest carriage in the world, and’ — u ‘ I ’d rather w r alk/ said Fanny firmly.