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 DEBENHAM'S VOW 
 
 BY 
 
 AMELIA B. EDWAEDS, 
 
 AUTHOE OF 
 
 'BAKBAEA'S HISTORY,' 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHEKS, 
 
 13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 1870. 
 
 The right of Traaslation is reserved.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Strangeways and Walden, Printers, 
 
 23 Castle St. Leicester Sq.
 
 S2 3 
 
 v./ 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5 
 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 1 
 
 X 
 < 
 
 I. 
 
 ST.- HILDEGARDE THE MARTYR . 
 
 9 
 
 S 
 
 II. 
 
 A day's work . . . . • 
 
 27 
 
 Cvl 
 
 III. 
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS 
 
 37 
 
 04 
 
 i 
 
 IT. 
 
 THE HARDWICKES .... 
 
 49 
 
 
 V. 
 
 THE PARTY AT STRATHELLAX HOUSE . 
 
 57 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 3IISS HARDWICKE .... 
 
 76 
 
 -1 
 
 VII. 
 
 AT HOME IN CAXOXBURY . . . . 
 
 81 
 
 VIII. 
 IX. 
 
 OX THE WYE 
 
 IX THE PORCH .... 
 
 91 
 
 . 104 
 
 ^ 
 
 X. 
 
 MR. ALLEYXE 
 
 112 
 
 
 XI. 
 
 3IUSICAL AND AESTHETIC . 
 
 119 
 
 <5» 
 
 XII. 
 
 ' FOR THE FIRST TIME ' . . . 
 
 133 
 
 St 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE CHURCH AMOXG THE HILLS 
 
 141 
 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE VOX HUMAXA 
 
 148 
 
 i 
 
 XV. 
 
 ARCHIE DISAPPROVES 
 
 1G4
 
 VI 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVI. THE TRYST BY THE RIVER ... 170 
 
 XVII. WHAT DEBENHAM FOUND AT THE POST- 
 OFFICE 181 
 
 XVIII. MRS. DEBENHAM's LETTER . . . 189 
 
 XIX. BENHAMPTON 200 
 
 XX. THE TABLET IN THE CHURCH . . » 206 
 
 XXL COST WHAT IT MAY .... 213 
 
 XXII. MONEY VERSUS FAME .... 234 
 
 XXIII. * HE LOVES AND HE RIDES AWAY ' . . 246 
 
 XXIV. THE FIRST PLUNGE .... 263 
 
 XXV. BY LAND AND SEA .... 277 
 
 XXVL DE BENHAM MAKES HIMSELF MASTER OF 
 
 THE SITUATION .... 290
 
 DEBEJ^HAM'S VOW. 
 
 Prologue. — a.d. 1842. 
 
 In a tiny way-side inn at the head of one of the 
 wildest passes of the Snowdon range, a traveller 
 lay dying. An invalid on his first arrival there 
 some six or eight weeks before, he had been slowly 
 fading ever since ; and now, towards dusk, to the 
 low wailing of the wind and the soft incessant 
 patter of the rain, was passively drifting away. 
 His wife sat by his pillow, as she had been sitting 
 since mid-day, listening in an agony of apprehen- 
 sion for his every breath. His child, a tall pale 
 boy of some eight years of age, lay coiled in a big 
 arm-chair beside the half-opened window, watch- 
 ing the changing mists and thickening twilight. 
 Neither spoke. In the house all was silent. There 
 were no drovers at the tap, no wayfarers in the 
 parlour, no wheels upon the road. The coach had 
 passed long since, bringing neither passengers nor 
 letters ; and save a monotonous, dull sound of 
 wood-chopping in some yard close by, and now 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 and then the bark of a sheep-dog far away, no 
 token of life was audible about the place. 
 
 It was a low, large room, fronting west; the 
 ceiling intersected by one heavy, black beam ; the 
 window lozenge-paned ; the floor sunken and un- 
 even. A four-post bedstead, from which the 
 hangings had been removed, stood in one corner, 
 and near it a smaller bed for the child. A few 
 varnished prints in black frames hung over the 
 mantelpiece. A dilapidated easy-chair, a huge 
 Elizabethan chest with ponderous clasps and 
 handles, a small square of faded carpet in the 
 middle of the floor, some rush-bottomed chairs, and 
 a rickety Pembroke table, made up the total of 
 the furniture. Poor as it was — and it could not 
 vvell be poorer — this lodging might by no means 
 be classed with ' the worst inn's worst room.' The 
 remoter Welsh hostelries are sufficiently comfort- 
 less to this day, but they lagged still farther in the 
 rear of English progress some twenty or thirty 
 years ago. A landlord who stammered a dozen 
 words of Sassenach, a landlady acquainted Avith 
 the properties of bohea, a bed-room which the 
 traveller was not called upon to share with some 
 stranger whose tongue was as unintelligible to him, 
 and whose habits were as barbarous, as those of a 
 South Sea islander, were then people and con- 
 ditions not only rare to find, but, in certain moun-
 
 PROLOGUE — A.D. 1842. 3 
 
 tain districts, wholly unknown. The roomj in 
 short, was an exceptionally good room, and the inn 
 an exceptionally good inn, as those times went; 
 and the occupants thereof, being provided with 
 the actual necessaries of life, had reason to be 
 well satisfied. 
 
 Something was there for grace, however, as 
 well as for necessity — a large dish filled wath wild- 
 flowers and mosses ; a few well-worn but richly 
 bound books ; and an antique silver inkstand, 
 elaborately chased. These, apparently, were the 
 property of the travellers ; for the dish was of the 
 rarest Gubbio ware, lustrous with gold and pur- 
 ple; and the book-plate in the book, and the lid of 
 the inkstand, were engraved alike with a stately 
 coat of arms. Theirs also were the boxes and 
 portmanteaus piled together in a distant corner; 
 the garments hanging on the door ; the song-bird 
 silent in his cage. 
 
 To a practised observer, certain of these trifles 
 might have told a whole history of w^ell-born 
 poverty and homeless wandering. Only the 
 dwellers in tents carry their household gods from 
 camp to camp. 
 
 Such was the interior of the room, growing 
 momently dimmer in the coming dusk. The scene 
 without was scarcely less gloomy. It had been 
 raining for several days without intermission, and
 
 4 debenham's vow. 
 
 the water lay in troubled pools about the road and 
 yard. The sky was low and leaden, and hung 
 like a dense curtain over the mountains which 
 here closed round in every direction, leaving only 
 their lower slopes obscurely visible. The wind 
 came and went with long sighs, like the breath of 
 one in pain. A few last leaves fluttered shiver- 
 ingly down now and then from the solitary ash-tree 
 at the door. In the air was a confused murmur, 
 as of the rushing of many torrents ; and the barren, 
 boulder-strewn flats which stretched away from 
 the head of the pass to the brink of the little 
 heron-haunted tarn some three-quarters of a mile 
 farther up, were almost wholly under water. 
 
 And all this time the rain poured on, beating 
 a monotonous measure on the roof of the inn, and 
 dripping mournfully from the eaves above the sick 
 man^s window. 
 
 Presently, for the first time in several hours, 
 he uttered a faint m.oan. It was little more than 
 a sigh, and scarcely audible ; but it thrilled both 
 listeners like a trumpet-call. The boy started to 
 his feet, pale and shivering. The mother held up 
 a trembling finger. 
 
 ' Hush ! ' she whispered. ' His lips move — 
 he may speak.' 
 
 They knew that hope was past. They knew 
 that he was dying. The doctor, who came all
 
 PROLOGUE — A.D. 1842. 5 
 
 the way from Corwen and was anxious to spare 
 both his pony and his time, had dismissed himself 
 the night before, bluntly declaring that the patient 
 had not a dozen hours to live. But twenty hours 
 had dragged by since then, and still, with half- 
 closed eyes and parted lips, and a pulse growing 
 feebler with every passing minute, he lingered. 
 
 Again he moaned. Again his lips stirred feebly. 
 
 The boy crept to his mother's knee. She, 
 watching that white, unconscious face with a pas- 
 sionate eagerness that mio-ht almost have called it 
 back to life, wiped the damp brow, put aside the 
 scattered locks, and waited breathlessly. 
 
 Such a young face as it was, too, to have death 
 written on it so legibly ! Prematurely worn, and 
 lined, and grey; but still young, still handsome, 
 still instinct with a sort of pathetic dignity that 
 not even approaching death had power to efface. 
 He was only thirty-three years of age, and had 
 been sickly from boyhood. Disappointment, re- 
 verse of fortune, exile, privation, were alike familiar 
 to him. Young as he was, he had suffered bit- 
 terly ; but the time for suffering was now almost 
 gone by, and everlasting peace was at hand. 
 
 ' If it were but one word — only one ! ' 
 
 It was as though her supplication were an- 
 swered. A faint shiver swept over the pallid face. 
 The languid hand became suddenly contracted.
 
 6 debenham's vow. 
 
 He looked up, and, not so much uttering the 
 word as shaping it with his h'ps, asked for 
 ' water/ 
 
 She gave it to him steadily, tearlessly. Her 
 hand did not even tremble. And yet she had 
 thought never to see those lips move or those eyes 
 open again. Then she asked if he had slept. 
 
 ^ Yes,' he murmured faintly. ' T have slept — 
 and dreamed.' 
 
 ^Dreamed, my dear love?' 
 
 He closed his eyes affirmatively. 
 
 * Of — of the old place,' he said. 
 
 * Of Benhampton ? ' 
 
 'Ay — of Benhampton. I seemed to see it so 
 plainly.' 
 
 She looked in his face with a wan smile. 
 
 ' Benhampton is but a name to me,* she said ; 
 'and yet I seem to see it plainly, too — when you 
 speak of it.' 
 
 He sighed, and relapsed, apparently, into un- 
 consciousness. How like death he looked and lay ! 
 How faint and far between was the coming of each 
 feeble respiration! The wife hung over him, 
 daring neither to speak nor stir. The boy stood 
 by, weeping silently. And still the rain dripped, 
 dripped, dripped from the eaves outside the win- 
 dow, like minute drops from a clepsydra, pitilessly 
 telling off the last moments of a life condemned.
 
 PROLOGUE — A.D. 1842. 7 
 
 He presently spoke again. 
 
 ' You remember ? ' he whispered. 
 
 ' I remember, Reginald.' 
 
 ^ In the chapel — at Benhampton — under the 
 north window.^ 
 
 ' Yes, dearest — yes.^ 
 
 He pressed her hand. His strength was ebbing 
 fast, and his voice became each moment less 
 articulate. 
 
 ^Tell me — once more,' he faltered. ^ Do you 
 forgive ? ' 
 
 ' Forgive ! Oh, my dear love, what have I to 
 forgive ? Nothing — nothing — nothing ! ' 
 
 He looked at her, and a strange light, as of a 
 smile in which the lips had no part, came upon his 
 face like a glory. 
 
 * God bless you!' he said, brokenly. * God 
 bless you — wife and child!' 
 
 The light faded; the breath died away; the 
 clasped fingers fell apart. 
 
 What next ? He must surely move, look up, 
 speak again! There was no change within the 
 last few seconds ! Nothing was gone — nothing 
 was hushed ! It could not be that his heart had 
 ceased from beating ! Was it the dusk only, or 
 had a cold grey tint stolen suddenly upon his 
 features like a veil ? Gracious heaven ! was this 
 the end ? Was this death ?
 
 ,8 DEBENHAM^S YOW. 
 
 Seized by a nameless terror, the child broke all 
 at once into a passion of sobs. 
 
 ' Take me away ! ' he cried. ' Oh, take me 
 away ! ' 
 
 But his mother, instead of taking him away, 
 drew his head to her bosom, kissed him, wept over 
 him, clung to him. He was her all, now. In the 
 whole wide world she had nothing to love, nothing 
 to hope for, nothing to rejoice in, to serve, to suffer 
 for, but this one fragile, fatherless boy. 
 
 She knelt down beside the bed, still holding 
 him fast locked within her arms, and prayed aloud 
 — a poor, broken, artless supplication, which he, 
 in his childish way, repeated sentence by sentence. 
 Then came those words whose very cadence 
 echoes with the sorrow of ages — ' Thy will be 
 done.' 
 
 ' Thy will he done I ' Only four words ; and 
 yet what a history is theirs ! Alas ! what scars 
 they cover ! What tears they consecrate ! What 
 broken hearts, and darkened lives, and ruined 
 homes, they grow over and sanctify, like sweet 
 flowers over graves ! Can resignation, humility, 
 fortitude, go farther than this ? What heroic 
 phrase of all the olden time, what golden saying 
 of patriot, philosopher, or poet, breathes such high 
 courage ? What more has heaven to ask, or man 
 to give ?
 
 *MSi 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ST. HILDEGAEDE THE MARTYR. 
 
 Far east of Temple Bar, beyond St. PauPs, beyond 
 the Mansion House, beyond the Bank, beyond the 
 uttermost landmark entered in Belgravian charts, 
 stands, and has stood for nearly a thousand years, 
 the ancient Church of St. Hildegarde the Martyr. 
 Buried deep in the heart of that intricate quarter 
 where streets are narrowest, traffic densest, popu- 
 lation scantiest, this tiny building is only remark- 
 able in so far that it is one of the smallest churches 
 in one of the smallest parishes of the City of 
 London. Other fame or interest it has none. It 
 is neither curious, nor beautiful, nor historical. It 
 is enriched by no stately monuments, by no wealth 
 of sculptured stone, carved oak, or painted glass. 
 It is simply very small and very old — a church 
 without a congregation in a parish without inhabi- 
 tants. So hidden is it in a network of byways, 
 that one might pass daily within a dozen yards of
 
 10 debenham's vow. 
 
 St. Hildegarde the Martyr without so much as 
 suspecting its existence. Huge warehouses hem it 
 in on every side. Round and about it from dawn 
 till dusk, a sluggish, thunderous tide of heavy 
 traffic ebbs and flows. One window, crusted with 
 the grime of centuries, looks upon a narrow 
 thoroughfare leading dockwards ; the rest stare 
 blankly into a court surrounded by stores and 
 counting-houses, where in summer no sunbeam 
 ever penetrates, and in winter the gas burns all 
 day long. Through this court, by means of a 
 passage tunnelled under the warehouses, the 
 Church of St. Hildegarde is approached from the 
 busy world without. A quaint, out-of-the-way 
 nook; populous by day; a desert when business 
 hours are past ; now vibrating to the rush and roll 
 of wheels, traversed by innumerable feet, and 
 echoing to the discords of many voices ; now 
 wrapped in a Sabbath-like stillness, every door 
 locked, every window shuttered up, every clerk 
 and porter gone. Entering it thus on a summer^s 
 evening, when the sky is yet full of light, and the 
 far-away parks are at their gayest, and the river 
 close by is all alive with steamers, the solitude of 
 the place has in it something both strange and 
 solemn. It is as if one had come upon a city of 
 the dead. 
 
 On such a summer evening, in the pleasant
 
 ST. HILDEGARDE THE MARTYE. 1 1 
 
 month of June, in the year of our Lord 1860, one 
 of the church windows being partly open and the 
 church door standing ajar, the little court, then at 
 its stillest, was filled with an irregular sound of 
 chanting — a sound as of hymns begun, broken 
 off, repeated; responses continuously sung, and 
 canticles from both services indiscriminately suc- 
 ceeding each other. This lasted for perhaps three- 
 quarters of an hour. Then came a pause ; then a 
 pattering and scrambling, as of little feet heavily 
 shod; and then the door was dragged suddenly 
 open, and an impatient flock of school children 
 came trooping out. They were about a score in 
 number. Some of the boys wore quaint little grey 
 coats turned up with dirty yellow, and muffin caps 
 of the same ; but both boys and girls, for the most 
 part, were dressed in their home clothes, and 
 looked untidy enough. Crowding together for a 
 moment on the threshold, they paused and looked 
 back. 
 
 ^ At half-past ten, then, on Sunday morning,' 
 said a voice within. 
 
 * Yes, sir ; half-past ten, sir,' replied some six 
 or eight shrill voices. 
 
 'Not one minute later, remember.' 
 
 'No, sir. Oh, no, sir!' 
 
 And with this, being finally dismissed, they 
 broke loose into the court, laughing, hallooing.
 
 12 DEBEN ham's VOW. 
 
 flinging caps into the air, chasing each other into 
 corners, and vanishing presently under the dark 
 arch leading to the world of streets beyond. 
 
 When the last straggler had disappeared and 
 the last shout had died away, a young man came 
 to the threshold ; stood there for a moment, bare- 
 headed, with the cavernous gloom of the door- 
 way behind him and the evening light upon his 
 face ; drank in a deep breath of cool air ; cast a 
 wistful glance towards the glowing patch of sky 
 over the housetops; and then, half-reluctantly, 
 turned back into the church. 
 
 He shut the door and locked it from the inside, 
 waking a desolate echo through the empty nave. 
 Within, all was twilight; except where twilight 
 deepened into profound shadow. The topmost 
 leaves of a solitary tree close outside the east 
 window showed like bronze against the sky. Here 
 and there, making the darkness darker as it were 
 by contrast, a faint gleam stole along the walls, 
 rested on altar-rail and pulpit, and glanced upon 
 the pipes of the tiny organ standing back in an 
 obscure corner by the vestry door. 
 
 Unsightly and insignificant without, the church 
 of St. Hildegarde was no less unlovely within. It 
 measured, perhaps, a hundred feet in length by 
 about forty in width ; and, excepting only a certain 
 unmistakable look of age, resembled nothing so
 
 ST. HILDEGARDE THE MARTTE. 13 
 
 nearly as a plain, ill-lighted lecture-hall or corn- 
 exchange in a provincial town. The bare stone 
 walls, unskilfally daubed with bands of rough 
 colour, were blotched with mildew and hung in 
 places w^ith common illuminated cards. Rows of 
 rush-bottomed prie-dieu chairs filled the body of 
 the church. The ceiling just above the commu- 
 nion-table w^as painted blue, and stuck over w^ith 
 little stars of cut paper, most of which had fallen 
 away, while the rest, half detached, hung flutter- 
 ing overhead. A gilt heart and a few wreaths 
 and crosses of immortelles were suspended over the 
 altar ; and in an antique-looking piscina close by 
 lay a scrap of crochet work, on which stood a small 
 glass jug crusted with dregs of sacramental wine. 
 A dismal place to be alone in fowards dusk. Dis- 
 mal for its silence — dismal for its solitude — 
 dismal, above all, for the poverty that betrayed 
 itself in every shabby fitting and tawdry deco- 
 ration. 
 
 The young man who had just locked himself 
 in there with the gathering shadows, was used, 
 however, to the little church, and indifferent to its 
 dreariness. For him it was neither silent nor 
 solitary — for him it echoed to noble sounds, and 
 was peopled with the spirits of Handel and Bee- 
 thoven and Mozart. He was a musician — very 
 young, very poor, very much in love with his art,
 
 14 
 
 and parochial organist, with a salary of twenty-five 
 pounds a-year 
 
 Considering that he lived at Islington, a good 
 three miles from St. Hildegarde the Martyr ; that 
 his rector was an Oxford man, with High-Chm'ch 
 proclivities ; and that, besides the orthodox three 
 services on Sunday, he had to play an early service 
 every morning, and an extra eleven o^clock service 
 on saints^ days and fast days, it must be admitted 
 that this young man was not overpaid with twenty- 
 five pounds a-year. He was not dissatisfied, how- 
 ever. He was even contented. Granted that the 
 salary was light, he was none the less willing that 
 the duty should be heavy. He looked upon it as 
 * good practice,' and upon himself as a particularly 
 fortunate fellow in being able to command it. And 
 so he was, perhaps, V argent apart. Musical talent 
 is not at a premium, and young organists are 
 plentiful in the market. When the situation fell 
 vacant some eighteen months before. Temple 
 Debenham — then just returned from the famous 
 collegiate academy of Zollenstrasse-am-Main, and 
 armed with a double first-class certificate counter- 
 signed by the Grand Duke himself — carried off the 
 prize from more than thirty competitors. It was 
 quite a triumph, as far as it went ; and the salary, 
 translated into florins, sounded sufiiciently imposing 
 when written about to fellow-students on the other
 
 ST. HILDEGAKDE THE MARTYR. 15 
 
 side of the Channel. What wonder, then, that a 
 clever, ambitious, inexperienced young fellow, who 
 had never owned a spare thaler in his life, and 
 who believed in his fellow-creatures as implicitly 
 as he believed in himself, should mistake this very 
 small victory for a brilliant omen, and conceive 
 that he was on the high road to fame and fortune 
 with twenty-five pounds a-year ? 
 
 Twenty-five pounds a year ! Pshaw ! it was 
 not the pay that he valued; it was the position. 
 Was it nothing to hold a responsible situation in 
 a London church? Was it nothing to step at 
 once into a ready-made connexion ? Was it 
 nothing to be able to write * Organist of St. Hil- 
 degarde the Martyr' after one's name? Fancy 
 it in print, on the title-page of that prize Cantata 
 that gained such glory at Zollenstrasse the summer 
 before last ! 
 
 It has already been said that Temple Deben- 
 ham was a disciple of the famous Grand Ducal 
 Academy, and as his early history is comprised 
 in half-a-dozen sentences, it may as well be told 
 and dismissed at once. He was the only son of 
 a widow, and a musician born. Like baby Mozart, 
 he spelt out harmonies upon every instrument 
 that came within his reach before he had arrived 
 at words of three syllables, and scrawled crotchets 
 and quavers long enough ere his little hands had
 
 16 debenham's vow. 
 
 mastered the mysteries of pothooks and hangers. 
 The gift grew with his growth and strengthened 
 with his strength. It developed itself without 
 culture, without opportunity, and in the face of a 
 thousand difficulties. At length his vocation be- 
 came so pronounced that the widow began to cast 
 about for some means of providing him with a 
 sound musical education. 
 
 It chanced, however, that Mrs. Debenham was 
 both poor and proud — so poor that, because food 
 and lodging might there be had at less cost than 
 in most other places, she lived with her boy in 
 a tiny cottage in a tiny fishing village on the coast 
 of the Isle of Anglesea ; and so proud that, al- 
 though she might have made acquaintances when 
 she first came to St. Owen's, she did not know a 
 soul in the neighbourhood. Politely, but firmly, 
 the widow declined to visit. She lived for her 
 child alone. To watch over him, to amuse him, 
 to work for him, to educate him, was her one 
 absorbing occupation. He was her only com- 
 panion, she his only playfellow. With him she 
 toiled through the arid wastes of the Eton Latin 
 Grammar; for him did battle with Euclid and 
 Lempriere, and pursued with fainting steps the 
 steep and difficult ways of the Gradus ad Par- 
 nassum. By-and-bye, as the boy's vocation became 
 more distinctly manifest, his mother fell into a
 
 ST. HILDEGAKDE THE MARTTE. 17 
 
 very wilderness of hopes, doubts, and perplexities. 
 That he, her child, should be gifted with a special 
 gift .... she could scarcely believe it. She 
 scarcely dared think of it. It made her heart beat, 
 and not wholly with joy. There was fear in it, 
 and anxiety, and perhaps a little — a very little — 
 disappointment. It may be that Mrs. Debenham 
 was not altogether fitted by previous training to 
 take the loftiest view of an artistic career. It may 
 be that, poor as she was, she had dreamt some 
 dream of how her son might win his way to an 
 university education, and so, ultimately, to the 
 Church. For, of course, he was to be clever ; that 
 was only to be expected. He was to be very 
 clever, and to achieve distinction in some way; 
 but that he should be a genius, — a heaven- born 
 genius, was another matter. Mrs. Debenham had 
 not been accustomed to geniuses, and was disposed 
 to be somewhat afraid of them. Was not a 
 musician a sort of gifted madman? Could a 
 painter by any possibility be a gentleman ? Might 
 a gentleman, without loss of dignity, write poetry, 
 unless in Greek or Latin ? Was it quite certain 
 that Shakespeare and Handel and Sir Joshua 
 Repiolds paid their rent and went to church 
 like other people ? These were grave questions, 
 and cost Mrs. Debenham many a tear and 
 many a wakeful hour; but she was neither ex- 
 
 '^ VOL. I. C
 
 18 debenham's vow. 
 
 perienced enough, nor clever enough, to solve 
 them. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the boy's talent waxed daily. 
 He loved his mother's little old quavering piano 
 as other lads love the playground or the cricket- 
 match. To compose was as natural to him as to 
 breathe, and to write what he composed was as 
 easy as to play it. For him, as for all true mu- 
 sicians, sign and sound were one; and melody 
 sprang from his pen as readily as from his fingers. 
 At first he was not conscious of his gift. It came 
 to him spontaneously, like song to a young bird, 
 and he revelled in it with no thought beyond the 
 gladness of the moment. But this could not go 
 on for ever; and his mother, who watched the 
 rapid growing of his wings, trembled to think how 
 he must some day discover his strength, and soar 
 away into regions whither she would have no 
 power to follow. And so it was. With time 
 came the sense of power, and with the sense of 
 power the dawn of purpose. Before he was twelve 
 years of age, he had determined to become a 
 musician; and she, reluctantly, tremblingly, but 
 with something of pride and wonder as well as 
 of reluctance and trembling, had yielded to his 
 wish. 
 
 Then it came to pass that Mrs. Debenham, 
 while making such inquiry as was practicable in
 
 ST. HILDEGARDE THE MARTTE. 19 
 
 SO remote a spot as St. Owen's, chanced to catch 
 some far-away echo of the fame of the great 
 Academy at Zollenstrasse-am-Main. Here was an 
 institution where an industrious student might 
 make his prizes almost cover the cost of his college 
 terms ; where he would get not only a thorough 
 professional training, but a good general education ; 
 and where, as an out- student, he might enjoy all 
 these advantages without leaving the shelter of his 
 mother's roof. And at Zollenstrasse, too, one 
 might live even more cheaply than at St. Owen's. 
 At Zollenstrasse, it was confidently reported, a 
 shilling would go farther than eighteenpence in 
 Wales. At Zollenstrasse one might buy excellent 
 wine for about sevenpence the bottle ; meat for 
 something like threepence-halfpenny a pound ; fish, 
 fruit, vegetables, milk, on almost nominal terms; 
 and grapes in the vintage season at some such 
 price as might have been asked by the proprietors 
 of the Bottle Imp. To this land of promise, then, 
 after much calculation of ways and means, and 
 many hesitations, did the widow repair at last ; 
 and there resided with her son for a period ex- 
 tending over some eleven years, during which time 
 the youth grew and prospered, became a capital 
 German scholar, acquired something more than a 
 smattering of the classics, and went in for every- 
 thing that the Academy had to offer in the way
 
 20 ' debenham's vow. 
 
 of musical advantages. Now, it happened that 
 music was the strong point, par excellence, at 
 Zollenstrasse-am-Main. There were classes and 
 masters for counterpoint ; for orchestration ; for 
 singing; for every instrument under the sun, 
 including, doubtless, the sackbut and shawm, had 
 one been minded to learn them. A man, in short, 
 who really meant work might do anything at 
 Zollenstrasse, and the student who failed to become 
 thorough master of his profession had only himself 
 to thank for his shortcomings. 
 
 But Temple Debenham did mean work. It 
 was the one thing he had been hungering after 
 at St. Owen's ; and he flung himself into it with 
 all the energy of a strong will and a resolute 
 nature. He went under masters for the organ, 
 the violin, and the piano. He joined the choral 
 classes. He familiarised himself with the compass 
 and resources of every instrument in the orchestra. 
 He developed an insatiable curiosity for all the 
 profounder secrets of the art ; and, not content 
 with acquiring harmony upon the Zollenstrasse 
 system only, went back for himself to the earlier 
 sources of the science — to the works of Martini, 
 Tartini, Albrechtsberger, Pepusch, and other half- 
 forgotten authors, whose dusty volumes were 
 rarely disturbed upon the shelves of the Academic 
 Library. And the boy's indomitable industry
 
 ST. HILDEGARDE THE MARTYR. 21 
 
 flourished and bore fruit. At the end of his third 
 year he took two medals ; at the end of the fourth, 
 a prize of two hundred florins, which was equiva- 
 lent to about sixteen pounds of English money 
 and more than paid the fees of his fifth year. In 
 the course of the fifth, he carried off" the second 
 gold medal; and in the sixth, a three years' 
 scholarship. By the time the scholarship had 
 expired, he was senior student of music ; and for 
 the last two years of his college life held the rank 
 of sub-professor of counterpoint, and second violin 
 in the Grand Duke's private band. 
 
 Wlien at length Temple Debenham had spent 
 eleven years at Zollenstrasse, he suddenly an- 
 nounced his determination to go back to England. 
 His friends and colleagues were aghast. The pro- 
 fessors remonstrated; his fellow-students remon- 
 strated; his mother remonstrated. It was impos- 
 sible that he could mean it. The thing was simply 
 suicidal. His plain and obvious course was to 
 throw his fortunes in with those of the Academy, 
 and settle at Zollenstrasse for life. Would he not 
 be a full professor ere long, with apartments in 
 the college and eight hundred florins a-year? 
 Were not the professors allowed to take pupils, 
 and would it not be easy for him to get as much 
 teaching as he pleased in the season ? Then, too, 
 the Duke's Kapellmeister was getting almost past
 
 22 debenham's vow. 
 
 his work, and Debenham was thought so well of 
 up at the Residenz, that he might fairly throw in 
 the possibility of that succession among his other 
 prospects. And what a possibility ! A thousand 
 florins per annum, a ' Yon ' before one's name, 
 and in one^s button-hole the green ribbon of the 
 order of the Golden Pigtail. 
 
 But the young man was to be tempted by 
 none of these considerations. He had weighed 
 the matter quite fully, and, having made up his 
 mind, could by no means be brought to change 
 it. He was twenty-four years of age, and old 
 enough, he conceived, to judge what was best for 
 himself. He was not disposed to wed the Academy 
 for better or for worse. He must have a wider 
 berth — more breathing space — some footing in 
 that field where the race was really to the swift 
 and the battle to the strong, and a man might 
 give and take such blows as fell to his share. 
 Zollenstrasse was well enough in its way. Zollen- 
 strasse had given him his education, and he was 
 attached to the place to a certain extent and in 
 a certain way ; but he was not going to identify 
 himself with it for ever and aye. The idea of 
 remaining a mere German professor all the days 
 of his life was intolerable to him. He was weary 
 already of the etiquette, the gossip, the aesthetic 
 teas, and the thousand and one petty jealousies
 
 ST, HILDEGARDE THE MARTYR. 23 
 
 and interests of a tenth-rate German capital. He 
 was not in the least ambitious of becoming the next 
 Grand Ducal Kapellmeister, and he did not care 
 one kreutzer for the order of the Golden Pigtail. 
 
 So Temple Debenham's advisers threw their 
 remonstrances away, and ended by taking offence 
 at his obstinacy. If he would be deaf to counsel 
 and blind to his own interests, it was at least 
 no fault of theirs. They had done what they 
 could to save him from a fatal error, and if, after 
 all, he chose to ruin himself, he must do so. 
 Even his mother (who, to do her justice, cared 
 no more than himself for the order of the Golden 
 Pigtail) was by no means convinced of the wisdom 
 of her son's resolve. She reminded him that he 
 was giving up certainty for uncertainty, substance 
 for shadow ; that it was possible to live in Ger- 
 many for at least two-thirds less expense than in 
 England ; that he was already somebody in Zollen- 
 strasse, but that he would find himself nobody 
 in London; and a great deal more to the same 
 effect. But all was in vain. 
 
 ' It is of no use, mother,' he said ; ' Zollen- 
 strasse is not the place for me. I am made for 
 something better. I may not succeed in getting 
 that something better ; but, at all events, I mean 
 to tiy. So, please don't let us talk any more 
 about it.'
 
 24 
 
 Now, when Temple Debenham said he meant 
 to do a thing he invariably did it ; and the widow, 
 knowing that she might as well acquiesce at once, 
 opposed her son's determination no longer. So 
 he resigned his sub-professorship and his seat in 
 the Grand Ducal orchestra ; packed up his music 
 and his medals ; received his double first-class cer- 
 tificate with all its seals, formulas, and flourishes; 
 and bade a long farewell to the little capital which 
 had been his home for nearly twelve years. 
 
 Thus armed, he exchanged ZoUenstrasse for 
 London, and with his mother, took a modest lodg- 
 ing overlooking a nursery-ground, somewhere near 
 Canonbury, at Islington. And now, in accordance 
 with that curious law by which a novice pretty 
 surely wins at the first throw. Temple Debenham 
 began with a success. Before he had been three 
 weeks in London, the advertising columns of the 
 Tijnes announced that an organist was required for 
 the parish church of St. Hildegarde the Martyr. 
 He at once entered himself for the competition, 
 and, thanks to his fine playing and his 'double 
 first-class ' certificate, might almost be said to have 
 walked over the course. 
 
 It was his first prize in the great lottery of 
 London life; but, as time went on, it seemed 
 destined also to be his last. We have already 
 seen how sanguine were his hopes, and how.
 
 ST. HILDEGAEDE THE MAETTR. 25 
 
 in the first flash of his first success, he overrated 
 not only his position, but his prospects. This, 
 however, was before he had found out that the 
 regular congregation of St. Hildegarde's consisted 
 of some fourteen persons, exclusive of the pew- 
 opener and the clerk. Eighteen months had gone 
 by since then, and his enthusiasm had had time to 
 cool. The parish had brought him no connexion, 
 and his efforts to make himself known as a com- 
 poser had all ended in disappointment. There, for 
 instance, was the cantata — what pains he had 
 lavished on that neatly-written score, and with 
 what a beating heart he had left it at the door of a 
 certain committee-room at Exeter Hall! But 
 publishers are coy, and choral societies difficult, 
 and the magnum opusy again and again rejected, 
 was still unknown to fame. He had written a 
 symphony since then, and was at work now upon 
 an opera. His zeal, poor fellow, was yet unabated ; 
 his confidence in his own genius unimpaired. 
 Thorough master of his subject, skilled in all the 
 resources of his art, rich in ideas, in honest 
 ambition, in hope, how should he not be conscious 
 of the power that was in him ? That he should 
 feel bitter mortification when that ill-starred packet 
 came back from the honorary secretary of this and 
 that society was only natural. He may even have 
 swallowed down a tear ' upon occasion ; ' but he
 
 26 DEBENHAM^S YOW. 
 
 bore his defeats gallantly enough for the most part, 
 and as soon as one venture miscarried, was ready 
 to put forth another. Seneca was not too heavy, 
 nor Plautus too light for him. If the cantata was 
 unlucky, the symphony might prove more fortu- 
 nate ; if the symphony missed fire, there was his 
 pet mass in G minor ; and, failing all these, an 
 exhaustless mine of Lieder Ohne Worte, chamber 
 songs, madrigals, duets, trios, quartets, and the 
 like. Was not his brain full of them — full to 
 overflowing ? And was not he gifted with an in- 
 vincible determination to succeed — somehow?
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A DAT S WORK. 
 
 When Temple Debenham turned back and locked 
 himself in among the gathering shadows, it was 
 with a conscious reluctance against which his pride 
 of industry rose in prompt rebellion. He was 
 weary, and would not confess that he was weary. 
 He was even angry with himself for the instinctive 
 yearning that drew him to the outer sunlight. It 
 was his pleasure to stay. His day's work was 
 done; his time was his own. He could have 
 gone away if he preferred it. He had but to lock 
 himself out of St. Hildegarde^s instead of lock- 
 ing himself in, and turn to the river or the parks, 
 as might seem pleasantest to him. But he chose 
 to stay behind in the little dark church when the 
 school practice was over, and the school children 
 were gone, and he could enjoy the organ for as 
 many hours as he pleased without fear of inter- 
 ruption. To do this was one of the privileges of
 
 28 debenham's yow. 
 
 his situation. It was a privilege that he valued 
 more than his twenty-five pounds a-year ; for he 
 had no piano of his own, and of course no organ, 
 and to play upon some kind of instrument was 
 about as necessary to him as food or sleep. Be- 
 sides, he was always composing ; and to go on day 
 after day pouring out one's thoughts upon mere 
 paper and ink — ^ pipii^gj' ^s it were, ^ to the spirit- 
 ditties of no tone' — w^ould have been dull work 
 indeed. So Temple Debenham set great store by 
 his rights and privileges, and exercised them freely. 
 It chanced, however, on this especial evening 
 that he was really fagged, and wanted rest. His 
 day had been a hard one, and had begun early. 
 He had risen, in the first place, at five, and seating 
 himself, as he was wont to do, at his bedroom 
 window, had worked for two hours at one of the 
 choruses of his opera. It was a double chorus sung 
 by monks and soldiers, with a strange old Gregorian 
 chant cunningly interwoven among the j)arts, and 
 a march in the accompaniment — a very grand 
 affair, ^full of sound and fury,' winding up to a 
 tremendous climax with rolling of drums, clashing 
 of cymbals, and all manner of stormy orchestral 
 effects; but produced noiselessly enough with a 
 stumpy pencil and a few sheets of music paper. 
 And yet, to the young musician sitting at his open 
 window in the clear cool morning light, now sta-
 
 29 
 
 ring abstractedly over the nursery-gardens, now 
 humming softly to himself, now scribbling a bar or 
 two of complicated score, all those combinations, 
 all the clashing of those cymbals and the rolling of 
 those drums, were distinctly audible. He heard 
 them as vividly as if the orchestra and chorus were 
 drawn up under his window ; ay, and he saw the 
 stage too — all the marching to and fro, all the 
 waving plumes, the flashing armour, the crosses 
 and banners, and the scenic background with its 
 deep blue sky. For the mind is gifted with ear as 
 well as eye, and the mental tympanum of the 
 musician is as mysteriously capable as the mental 
 retina of the painter. The painter standing before 
 the blank canvas sees his picture already complete 
 — sees it by an effort, as it were, but quite dis- 
 tinctly, with all its light and shadow, its outline, its 
 play of colour. He does not merely fancy that he 
 sees it. He is under no illusion. He makes use 
 of no figure of speech. He sees, and sees so 
 literally that physiologists have more than once 
 questioned whether images thus vividly created by 
 the imagination may not be actually reflected on 
 the retina of the eye. So, too, the musician. 
 Given a complicated edifice of staves built up one 
 above the other like the stories of a Chinese pagoda, 
 violins or voices at the top, drums at the bottom, 
 and all imaginable stringed and brazen instruments
 
 30 debenham's vow. 
 
 piled up between, he can run his eye along the 
 whole — mass the column together in his brain — 
 hear the crash with which the performers lead off 
 — mark the flitting of the melody as it lights first 
 on one instrument and then upon another — trace 
 the airy flights of the violins, the cooing of the 
 clarionets, the surly comments of the basses — 
 listen to every effect — analyse every modulation — 
 taste every subtle discord — hear the whole com- 
 position, in short, and hear it with a sense as per- 
 fect and mysterious as that by which the painter 
 sees his future picture. A strange, half-divine sort 
 of power this ! A power granted to some in only a 
 limited degree — from some altogether withheld ; 
 but possessed by Temple Debenham in all its 
 fulness as he sat, morning after morning, pouring 
 forth his dumb symphonies and choruses with as 
 true an ear to their effect as if he had the resources 
 of a Costa at command. 
 
 Having written, then, for two hours, the young 
 man swept his papers into a drawer, paused a 
 moment at his mother's door to say good-bye as he 
 passed, hastily swallowed the customary cup of 
 cold tea left for him on the parlour table, and 
 started away for the City at a gallant pace. It 
 was by this time nearly half-past seven. The tide 
 of clerks and omnibuses had not yet begun to flow 
 eastward, and the shopkeepers along Islington
 
 A day's work. 3 1 
 
 Green were only just beginning to take down their 
 shutters as he went by. Even the time-keeper's 
 stool was vacant at the ^ Angel; ' and the City Road, 
 so busy an hour or two later, was as yet scarcely 
 awake. Punctual, however, as the High- Church 
 incumbent himself, the organist was at his j^ost by 
 five minutes before eight, and the early service 
 was performed to a congregation of five. This 
 done, he betook himself to a certain dreary corner 
 house in Finsbury Square, where he administered 
 piano lessons twice a-week to the infant daughters 
 of one of his churchwardens. To Temple Deben- 
 ham these lessons were sources of exquisite misery 
 — the bitterest drop in his cup — the heaviest penalty 
 that poverty called on him to pay. The churchwarden 
 was a meat salesman in the parish of St. Hildegarde. 
 His wife weighed eighteen stone. They were ex- 
 cellent people; vulgar; ostentatious; good-natured; 
 utterly distasteful to the luckless organist whose 
 fate it was to be brought into contact with them. 
 Their well-meant hospitality irritated him. Their 
 English made him shudder. Their guineas weighed 
 him down with a crushing sense of humiliation. 
 He endured his disgust, however, in silence, and 
 breathed no word of it to his mother, who would 
 have suffered more than himself in knowing it. 
 
 By the time the Finsbury Square ordeal was 
 over, it was mid-day — broiling, glaring, dusty
 
 32 
 
 mid-day ; and Temple Debenham was due at 
 the Crystal Palace at two o'clock, where, for 
 no pecuniary consideration whatever, but in the 
 mere hope of becoming known as a performer, he 
 played every other afternoon for two hours on 
 Messrs. Stumpf and Hammerfest^s new grand 
 double-action pianoforte. Few listened to him. 
 Nobody appreciated him. He never gained a 
 stiver by the transaction; and, being too poor to 
 afford an omnibus fare, wore out in three months 
 as many pairs of boots as would have lasted him 
 for a year at Zollenstrasse-am-Main. Still, a 
 dogged sort of persistence being one of the strong 
 points of this young man's character, he held to 
 the faint chance, such as it v/as, and tramped the 
 weary Sydenham road in wind, rain, dust, and 
 sunshine, thrice a-week. Drier, dustier, sunnier, 
 longer than ever seemed the miles, duller than 
 ever the British public, more than ever intolerable 
 the great glass palace, this hot June day. Temple 
 Debenham struggled, oh, how wearily! through 
 his appointed task. He loathed Messrs. Stumpf 
 and Hammerfest's new double-action grand. He 
 abhorred the young lady with light eyes who said 
 ' How pretty ! ' after the Sonate Pathetique, and 
 asked him for the Post Horn Galop. He hated 
 the people in open carriages, the people on horse- 
 back, the very costermongers and omnibus con-
 
 A day's wobk. 33 
 
 ductors who passed him on the road as he toiled 
 back to town. And then, having partaken of a 
 stale roll and a cup of muddy coffee at a dreary 
 little shop in the Borough, he found himself once 
 again at St. Hildegarde's. Here the school 
 children were assembled for their weekly drill; 
 and so, after an hour of chanting and psalm- 
 singing, his day^s work came to a close. And a 
 tolerably hard one it had been, too, extending over 
 some fourteen hours, and including no interval of 
 rest. He might well feel languid. He might well 
 sigh for the quiet breath of the summer evening. 
 But he put the impulse aside as if it were treason- 
 able ; and, forcing his thoughts back into the 
 old musical groove, returned to his seat at the 
 organ. 
 
 It was a poor little organ enough, built of 
 stained deal, ornamented with a graduated row of 
 plain zinc pipes, and standing about eight feet high. 
 It looked like an overgrow^n set of Pandean pipes, 
 such as might have fitted the ^ capacious mouth ' 
 of Sicilian Polyphemus. Small as it was, how- 
 ever, it did not want for tone, and had no less than 
 twelve stops, besides an octave and a half of 
 pedals. 
 
 ' If you please, sir,' said a shrill voice from the 
 back, ' am I to begin to blow ? ' 
 
 Whereupon Temple Debenham took a tumbled 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 debenham's yow. 
 
 roll of manuscript from his pocket ; swooped down 
 upon the whole twelve stops at once ; said, ' Yes, 
 blow away, Timothy ! ' and began. 
 
 It was his chorus — his chorus of monks and 
 soldiers with the march accompaniment, which he 
 had been at work upon in the morning. Well 
 might he desire Timothy to 'blow away,' and well 
 might Timothy — a tiny fellow in canary-coloured 
 shorts — fling himself upon the bellows like a 
 charity boy possessed. The whole power of the 
 organ was on, and Temple Debenham, thundering 
 away with his trumpet stops, gave that luck- 
 less blower more than enough to do. Higher 
 and higher rose the defiance of the soldiers, 
 deeper and deeper rolled the warning antistrophe 
 of the monks, and still the exertions of the small 
 boy at the back kept pace with the inspiration of 
 the player. At length, when he had blown him- 
 self almost off his legs and utterly out of breath, 
 the performance came to an end. The wind went 
 out with a gasp. The blower dropped upon his 
 bench exhausted. The composer pulled out a pencil, 
 and scrawled memoranda on the margin of his 
 manuscript. It was the lull following the tempest; 
 and in the midst of it, startling the echoes after 
 quite another fashion, came a tremendous thumping 
 and rattling at the church door. Temple Debenham
 
 A day's woek. 35 
 
 bit his lips, settled himself in his seat, and went on 
 pencilling. 
 
 ' Please, sir,' said Timothy, peeping cautiously 
 round the corner, * there 's somebody at the door.' 
 
 ' Somebody is welcome to stay there. Blow 
 again, my man.' 
 
 So Timothy went back to his blowing, and 
 Debenham to his chorus, and the applicant outside 
 remained unanswered. No sooner, however, w^as 
 the organ again silent than the knocking began 
 more vigorously than ever. Timothy ventured 
 once more to the rescue. 
 
 ' Please, sir,' he said, ' shan't I go ? ' 
 
 ' So.' 
 
 ^But — I think it's Mr. Blyth, sir.' 
 
 * Who gave you leave to think at all ? ' 
 
 * Please, sir, I — I don^t know,' stammered 
 Timothy, abashed. 
 
 ' Your business here is to blow — not to think,' 
 continued the organist, with severity. ' Be so 
 good, Timothy, as to remember that fact for the 
 future.' 
 
 Whereupon the small boy slunk away, pro- 
 foundly depressed, and Temple Debenham, having 
 jotted down another bar or two, rose very leisurely 
 and went towards the door. The ' cannoneer with- 
 out ' had in the meanwhile continued to knock in
 
 86 
 
 the most cheerful and untiring manner, delivering 
 his blows in volleys, and showering them down 
 upon the stout old panels with the greatest pre- 
 cision and brilliancy. He was in the midst of a 
 rattling fantasia, when the door suddenly opened 
 and brought his operations to a close.
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 
 
 The door fell back, and the two who there found 
 themselves face to face shook hands over the 
 threshold. They were about the same age. They 
 were as nearly as possible about the same height. 
 And yet it would have been difficult in the course 
 of a long morning's walk to find two joung men 
 who, in every other particular, whether of mind 
 or person, were more curiously dissimilar than 
 Temple Debenham and Archibald Blyth. They 
 w^ere familiar acquaintances. They called them- 
 selves friends. But they had scarcely a taste, 
 scarcely a topic in common. They mnst, one 
 would fancy, have been drawn to each other by 
 some law entirely the reverse of that to which 
 chemists give the name of elective affinity. 
 
 The one was essentially an artist ; contempla- 
 tive, reserved, indifferent for the most part to those 
 things by which the passions and prejudices of the
 
 38 debenham's yow. 
 
 majority are chiefly swayed, and, like all who 
 dwell in a world of their own creation, somewhat 
 unsympathetic in his relations with his fellow-men. 
 The other, on the contrary, was a * City man ' born 
 and bred ; interested in business matters and busi- 
 ness gossip, active, light-hearted, facile, easily 
 pleased, easily persuaded, and given to the lavish 
 exercise of a wit which w^as, in truth, of the 
 smallest calibre. To Temple Debenham, on the 
 contrary, were given an iron will, a patient strength 
 of purpose, and a profound energy of character, 
 which w^ore too often the outward aspect of sullen- 
 ness or scorn. Nor did the contrast end here. It 
 went beyond diversity of disposition, of pursuits, of 
 mental culture, and extended to mere personal 
 appearance. They were to the full as unlike each 
 other in style and feature as in all the rest. 
 
 The portrait of Archibald Blyth may be 
 sketched in a dozen words. He was fair and 
 boyish-looking; had frank, bright eyes, rather 
 blue than grey ; a dimple in his chin ; and the 
 most good-natured smile in the world. He cul- 
 tivated his whiskers after the latest Stock-exchange 
 fashion. He delighted in a white hat and a blue 
 cravat. And he had a weakness for jewelry. 
 He dressed, in short, with that ' City ' smartness 
 which, however difficult to define, is distinctly 
 characteristic of the class to which it belongs. Of
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 39 
 
 that class the organist's friend miglit fairly be 
 taken as a type. One may see dozens of Archi- 
 bald Blyths more or less jewelled, white-hatted, 
 and blue cravated, flitting to and fro about Mark 
 Lane, Leadenhall Street, and Cheapside, any sun- 
 shiny morning between March and October. 
 
 Adequately to transfer to paper the outward 
 man of Temple Debenham is a less easy matter; 
 and this chiefly, perhaps, because in him the out- 
 ward was for the most part but an indication of 
 the inward. As the jagged outlines of a mountain 
 summit betray the secret of its formation, so in 
 his face was every line, in some sense, a graven 
 hierogh-phic, and in his general bearing, each 
 wonted gesture of special signification. He was 
 not handsome. He was not even what is called 
 ' striking-looking ' at first sight, because the ex- 
 pression of power that would have made him so 
 to a merely casual observer was controlled, almost 
 concealed, by habitual reserve. His brow was 
 broad rather than lofty ; prominent and overhang- 
 ing above the eyes, as was the brow of Handel, of 
 Beethoven, of most famous musicians. His eyes 
 were dark, deep-set, luminous ; seeming, however, 
 to lose their light at times, as if it were turned 
 inward — and then blazing out again, like a beacon 
 on the sea. The chin and jaw were square-cut, 
 strong, yet delicate ; the lips, on the other hand.
 
 40 debenham's vow. 
 
 were thin, flexible, somewhat compressed, as if to 
 keep down their involuntary play of expression ; 
 and, though capable of lighting up into a smile 
 singularly grave and sweet, were not wholly free 
 from a lurking suspicion of sarcasm about the 
 corners. He was tall, nearly six feet in height ; 
 sparely yet strongly built ; lengthy of limb ; light 
 and swift of step ; with something resolute and 
 eager-looking in the very stoop of his head and 
 shoulders — for it was a stoop that told neither 
 of indolence nor weakness, but of onicardness, as 
 if life were literally a race, and he were for ever 
 pressing forward. He wore his hair long, after 
 the fashion of German students in general ; and 
 upon his upper lip a heavy, drooping, brown 
 moustache, which he was wont to gnaw furiously 
 when he was playing. And his hands were long, 
 slender, supple, with nerves and muscles of steel 
 beneath their delicate surface ; and his complexion 
 was pale; and his voice was grave and clear; — 
 and when all these things are said, we have no 
 portrait of the man after all ; but only a catalogue 
 raisonnd of his inches, colour, and so forth; the 
 w^hich conveys no more idea of his personality 
 than a map conveys of the scenery of Switzerland. 
 Here, we say, is a lake — there a valley — between 
 these mountains a pass. The mountains stand so 
 many thousand feet high. The pass is so many
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 41 
 
 thousand feet above the level of the sea. ' Words 
 — words — words !^ What have these measure- 
 ments to tell us of the glory of the everlasting 
 peaks, of the scented gloom of the pine-forest, of 
 the rose-flush on the snow-field, of the gentian 
 shivering on the brink of the glacier? The poorest 
 sketch ever committed to paper were in this case 
 more effectual than the best map that money could 
 purchase ; as the commonest photograph of Tem- 
 ple Debenham would here be worth more than 
 a volume of elaborate description. Such as it is, 
 however, the portrait must stand — in default of 
 a better. 
 
 And these were the two who shook hands that 
 summer evening over the threshold of St. Hilde- 
 garde the Martyr. 
 
 'Sorry to interrupt you,' said Debenham, 
 grimly. 
 
 The new comer flung away the end of his 
 cigar, and stepped in without waiting for an invi- 
 tation. 
 
 ' My dear fellow,* he said, ' don't mention it. 
 I am charmed to exchange any occupation, how- 
 ever instructive or entertaining, for your society.' 
 
 The organist shrugged his shoulders and re- 
 locked the door. 
 
 * Go on,' he said ; ' you know the way. What 
 a diabolical vacarme you have been making I '
 
 42 debenham's yow. 
 
 ^ You recognised the " Huntsmen's Chorus ? "^ 
 
 ^Notl/ 
 
 ' Then, Orestes, the delicate susceptibilities of 
 thy Pylades are wounded. Methought that soul- 
 stirring strain, albeit performed with no more 
 capable instrument than the prosaic walking-stick 
 of daily life, would have waked a familiar echo 
 to thine ear/ 
 
 ' I thought you would have battered the door 
 in,' replied Debenham. 
 
 ' And I — horrible suspicion ! — I feared my 
 friend was stricken with deafness.' 
 
 Temple Debenham, who had by this time re- 
 sumed his place at the organ, muttered some not 
 very intelligible apology, and suggested that his 
 visitor should be seated. 
 
 ' What if 1 take one of those not too luxurious 
 prie-dieu chairs — will it be sacrilege, O my 
 Orestes ? ' 
 
 ' If you could be rational for only five minutes, 
 Archie, I should be so much obliged to you.' 
 
 The new comer took out his watch. 
 
 ' It wants precisely four minutes to eight,' he 
 said, gravely. * I promise to be unexceptionably 
 rational till one minute past the hour. Accept the 
 effort, my dear fellow, as a tribute to friendship.' 
 
 The organist struck an impatient chord or 
 two.
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 43 
 
 ' Where do you come from ? ' he asked pre- 
 sently. ' What have you been doing all day.' 
 
 ^ Ask me, rather, why I am here now.' 
 
 * I should hardly be so uncivil.' 
 
 ' Is it possible ? ' 
 
 'Besides, I can guess. You have nothing 
 better to do.' 
 
 'Not a bit of it. I have a good deal that is 
 better to do.' 
 
 ^Then why' .... 
 
 'Exactly so. Why — not being born for the 
 express purpose of blushing unseen — should I 
 waste my sweetness, and so forth ? Because I 
 have been over to the Regent's Park this after- 
 noon, and seen the Hardwickes.' 
 
 ' Qu'est ce que cela me fait "^ The Hardwickes 
 are nothing to me.' 
 
 'Pardon me. The Hardwickes, my Orestes, 
 are something to you. Josiah Hardwicke is an 
 undoubted something to you. Does not the whole 
 parish, such as it is, belong to him ? ' 
 
 'What of that? I am not a part of the 
 parish.' 
 
 ' You belong to it — you, and the parson, the 
 clerk, the beadle, and the charity children. You 
 are his loyal subjects, every one of you. There, 
 don't look fierce. I am not asking you to do him 
 homage. I am only reminding you that he is the
 
 44 debenham's yow. 
 
 father of lils people, and that it's better worth your 
 while to have him for a friend than an enemy/ 
 
 ' I am not aware/ said Debenham, haughtily, 
 ^ that Mr. Hardwicke is called upon to be either 
 my friend or my enemy.' 
 
 Archibald Blyth uttered a subdued groan, and 
 for a few moments there was silence. Then, 
 looking down and fidgeting with his cane, he 
 said : — 
 
 ' Now, Debenham, look here ! Let us talk 
 sense. Your name turned up to-day at Strath- 
 ellan House — and — and the opportunity occur- 
 ring, I — I .... by Jove, I'm afraid to tell you.' 
 
 'Afraid?' 
 
 * Well, you^re so impracticable, you know. 
 But I thought it might pave the way to something 
 better, and — and money is money . , . J 
 
 The organist faced suddenly round. 
 
 'Confound you, Archie,' he said, almost an- 
 grily, 'what folly have you been committing in 
 my name ? Out with it ! ' 
 
 ' Well, Hardwicke gives one of his great parties 
 to-morrow nighty and they had engaged Thalberg 
 to play — they always engage some musical star for 
 their great gatherings, you know.^ 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; I have heard you say so. Go on."* 
 
 ' This afternoon, however, Thalberg telegraphs 
 to say that he is detained in Paris by a command
 
 A PAIR OF FEIENDS. 45 
 
 from the Tuileries, and cannot keep his engage- 
 ment. Pylades being present when the telegram 
 is delivered, at once proposes Orestes. I, Pylades, 
 undertake that you, Orestes, shall take Thalberg's 
 place. The Hardwickes commission me to offer 
 you ten guineas for the evening, and — me void ! ' 
 A shadow passed over Temple Debenham's face. 
 
 * How do they know that I am competent to 
 take Thalberg^s place ? ' he said. 
 
 ^ Because I told them all about you.^ 
 
 ' Indeed ! And may I ask what that was ? ' 
 
 * Oh, I said what a wonderful musician you 
 were, and how you composed ; and that you had 
 taken a musical degree at that place in Germany 
 
 'I took nothing of the kind. The Academy 
 has no power to confer degrees. It is not an uni- 
 versity.' 
 
 ' Then what is that parchment aflFair that you 
 once showed me, with all the seals and flourishes?' 
 
 ' Pooh ! — my certificate.' 
 
 * Well, it's much the same thing. I engaged, 
 at all events, that you should play as well as Thal- 
 berg, if not better ; and here I am, the bearer of 
 their offer.' 
 
 The organist looked down uneasily. 
 
 ^ It is a very liberal offer,' he said ; but — ' 
 
 ' You are not going to decline it ? '
 
 46 
 
 Debenham hesitated. 
 
 ' No,' he said. ^ That is, I am not sure. I 
 cannot afford to decline it.' 
 
 ' Then why hesitate ? ' 
 
 ' Because — well, I have played, of course, at 
 the Grand Duke's parties ; but then in Germany 
 the social position of the artist is very different ; 
 and — and he was the Grand Duke, after all. It is 
 not quite the same thing, Archie.' 
 
 ^ My cousin is not a German Grand Duke, if that 
 is what you mean. But he is an English merchant, 
 and a gentleman.' 
 
 ' I don't doubt that Mr. Hardwicke is a gentle- 
 man,' replied the organist, hastily ; ' but, then, in 
 what light would he regard me? As an inferior?' 
 
 'No, no, of course not! As my friend— as an 
 artist.^ 
 
 ' Are you sure of that ? ' 
 
 ' Beyond a doubt. But — but then there's 
 Claudia.' 
 
 'Who is Claudia?' 
 
 'Hardwicke's sister — mistress of his house — 
 handsome — horribly proud — not a pleasant person, 
 I admit. A sort of Edith Dombey, you know. 
 Frightens a fellow out of his senses at the first 
 glance.' 
 
 'I don't think she would frighten me,' said 
 Debenham, smiling.
 
 A PAIR OF FEIENDS. 47 
 
 ' Ah, you don't know her/ replied Mr. Blyth, 
 with a prolonged shake of the head. ' She^s a 
 beautiful refrigerator, my Orestes. However, if 
 you are not daunted . . . .^ 
 
 * Neither by her beauty nor her pride/ said 
 the organist. ' I cannot afford to be afraid of a 
 lady.' 
 
 ' Then I may say that you accept ?' 
 ' Yes. At what hour ?' 
 
 * Ten o'clock precisely. They have conde- 
 scended to invite me this time. Shall we go 
 together, or do you prefer to go alone?' 
 
 ^ I think I will go alone, if you don't mind, 
 Archie. And now, having disposed of that matter, 
 shall I play to you ? ' 
 
 'Do — always provided that you play down to 
 ray level. I can't stand Bach.' 
 
 ' The Gloria from Mozart's " Twelfth Mass," 
 then?' 
 
 ' I had rather hear the prayer from '* Masa- 
 niello."' 
 
 ' As Christopher Sly, when he might have 
 quaffed sack, called for "a pot o' the smallest 
 ale." Oh, Archie, Archie, are you not ashamed of 
 your taste?' 
 
 With this protest. Temple Debenham turned 
 again to his organ, and, having played the prayer 
 ' by desire,' glided thence into a stream of extem-
 
 48 debenham's vow. 
 
 poraneous composition, down which, unconscious 
 of the deepening twilight, he suffered his fancy to 
 float as it listed — a stream that followed every 
 capricious twist and turn of his wandering 
 thoughts; now sparkling in sunshine — now dark- 
 ling in shadow — now lingering tenderly about 
 some little phrase of melody, sweet and wild as 
 water-side blossoms ; now breaking away, and 
 eddying on from key to key in a tumult of strange 
 modulations ; now falling into a sudden trance of 
 calm, tender and lulling as though the breath of 
 the lotus were being wafted upon the face of the 
 waters ; and at last, after many a hindrance and 
 many a ' winding bout,' flowing on to a close in 
 one majestic strain, like a tidal river widening to 
 the sea. Long before he came to his journey's 
 end, however. Temple Debenham lost all remem- 
 brance of the listener for whose entertainment he 
 was supposed to be playing, and left off" at last to 
 find the church all darkness, and Archibald Blyth 
 as profoundly asleep as Bedreddin Hassan at the 
 gate of Damascus.
 
 49 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HAEDWICKES. 
 
 JosiAH Hardtvicke, Esquire, of Strathellan House, 
 Regent's Park, Hardwicke Hall, Kent, and the 
 parish of St. Hildegarde the Martyr, situate within 
 the liberties of the City of London, in the county 
 of Middlesex, was a man of very considerable 
 wealth, and much respected in the commercial 
 world. He was a merchant, and he came of a 
 family of merchants, many of whom had been 
 City magnates in their day — none, by the way, 
 more notable than his uncle, the well-known 
 Sir Thomas Hardwicke, Knt., forty-four years 
 alderman, and once Lord Mayor of London. 
 For himself, however, Mr. Hardwicke placed 
 but slight value on civic dignities. He had, 
 indeed, declined them so often that his fellow- 
 citizens had at length grown weary of pressing 
 them upon him. Neither the robe of the Common 
 Councilman, nor the Aldermanic gown, nor the 
 golden collar of the Mayor, possessed any kind of 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 
 
 attraction for him. Being elected Sheriff, he paid 
 the fine sooner than accept the office. He objected 
 even to be chairman of a board, or to preside at a 
 f)ublic dinner. It was, in short, his peculiarity — 
 perhaps his pride — lightly to esteem those things 
 which most City men covet. To know that his 
 signature was ^good^ on any Exchange in Europe, 
 that his agents were to be found in all great 
 commercial ports, and his ships on every ocean 
 highway, was all the distinction he professed to 
 value. 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke was one of those portly, suave, 
 middle-aged, and somewhat poDfipous bachelors, of 
 whom one is ready to predict at first sight that 
 they will remain bachelors to the end of the 
 chapter. His features were good, his complexion 
 florid, his hair iron-grey, curling, and abundant. 
 Pardonably vain of a handsome foot and hand, he 
 was scrupulous in the matter of boots and gloves ; 
 and, indeed, generally solicitous respecting the 
 adornment of his outward man. 
 
 With regard to what Anthony a Wood would 
 have styled ^ his intellectuals,' Mr. Hardwicke was 
 a man of good average education, and more than 
 average capacity. He had gone to school at 
 Harrow, and stayed there longer than most lads 
 destined for the City. He had travelled. He 
 spoke French with fluency and refinement ; and he
 
 THE HARDTVICKES. 51 
 
 had some taste for art — a taste sound enough as 
 far as it went, but neither sufEciently deep nor 
 sufficiently cultivated to lead him beyond the pre- 
 cincts of the French Salon or the English 
 Academy. Of the merits of a Giotto, a Perugino, 
 a John Bellini, he had no perception whatever. 
 He tried to relish Raffaelle, but entertained a 
 secret preference for Carlo Dolce ; and he esteemed 
 Meissonier above every other painter, living or 
 dead. Still, he did care for pictures, and he not 
 only cared for them, but bought them ; and as his 
 taste was essentially modern, and as the pictures 
 he bought were really good, it followed that Mr. 
 Hardwicke's money went for the encouragement of 
 living art, and the support of the living painter, 
 and so did more positive service than if he had 
 been imbued wath the strictest classicism from his 
 youth upwards. 
 
 A man's house, how^ever, must be to some ex- 
 tent a reflection of himself. Granted that the 
 upholsterer and decorator supply both taste and 
 furniture, enough must always remain to indicate 
 something of the culture and proclivities of the 
 possessor. By means of the pictures on his walls, 
 and the books, or absence of books, on his table — 
 by his dogs, his birds, his flowers — nay, even by 
 his walking-stick and umbrella, one may draw 
 many a shrewd inference, and supply many a 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 DEBENHAM^S VOW. 
 
 lacuna. In like manner, had a practised observer 
 been set down within the precincts of Strathellan 
 House, he would have perceived on every side indi- 
 cations slight but certain on which to found his 
 estimate of the master of the establishmento It 
 was a very big house to begin with, — one of the 
 biggest and finest houses in Regent's Park, fur- 
 nished throughout with the biggest and finest 
 furniture. It had a front like a Grecian temple ; 
 a Gothic lodge ; a handsome carriage-drive ; huge 
 conservatories ; a built-out ball-room forty feet in 
 length ; and gardens planted in the Italian style, 
 sloping down to the ornamental water at the back. 
 It was, in short, just such a house as it seems 
 impossible to describe without falling into the style 
 of one of Messrs. Christie and Hanson's adver- 
 tisements. There was the entrance-hall, like the 
 hall of a club-house, with busts of the twelve 
 Caesars standing on Scagliola pillars round the 
 walls. There was the spacious staircase carpeted 
 with the richest and softest velvet pile carpeting, 
 up which Mr. Hardwicke's guests might have 
 walked six abreast. There was the suite of re- 
 ception rooms, three in number — the yellow 
 damask room, the blue satin room, and the crim- 
 son velvet room — all panelled with enormous 
 looking-glasses, lit by chandeliers like pendent 
 fountains, and crowded with gilded furniture, pic-
 
 THE HARDWICKES. 53 
 
 tures in heavy Italian frames, tables of Florentine 
 mosaic, cabinets in buhl and marqueterie, ormolu 
 clocks, and expensive trifles from all quarters of 
 the globe. Here was nothing antique — nothing 
 rare, save for its costliness. Here were no old 
 masters, no priceless pieces of majolica, no Cellini 
 caskets, no enamels, no intagli, no Etruscan tazze, 
 no Pompeian relics : but in their place great vases 
 of the finest modern Sevres ; paintings by Frith, 
 Maclise, Stanfield, Meissonier, and David Roberts ; 
 bronzes by Barbedienne ; Chinese ivory carvings, 
 and wonderful clockwork toys from Geneva. The 
 malachite table in the boudoir came from the 
 International Exhibition of 1851 ; the marble group 
 in the alcove at the end of the third drawing-room 
 was by Marochetti; the Gobelin tapestries were 
 among the latest products of the Imperial looms. 
 Money, in short, was there omnipresent — money 
 in abundance; and even taste. But not taste of 
 the highest order. Not that highly trained taste 
 which seems to ^run^ in certain classes of society, 
 like handsome hands or fine complexions. Mr. 
 Hardwicke, however, had no claim to this kind of 
 hereditary culture. He sprang from no aristo- 
 cratic stock. His childhood had not been spent in 
 the midst of old family Holbeins and Vandykes, or 
 under the shade of ancestral oaks. Born within 
 hearing of Bow bells, brought up to regard the
 
 54 debenham's yow. 
 
 City as his destiny, transferred from Harrow to 
 the counting-house at nineteen years of age, and 
 living ever since In an atmosphere of trade. It was, 
 on the whole, extremely creditable to him that he 
 should know and care as much as he did about the 
 graceful things of life. In all these matters, how- 
 ever. Miss Hardwicke's taste and influence should 
 be taken into account, — and Miss Hardwicke's 
 Influence was paramount in Mr. Hardwicke^s 
 house. 
 
 She was his youngest and only surviving sister 
 — a handsome, haughty, stately woman, who ruled 
 the merchant's household after a queen-like fashion, 
 and had so ruled it since the day when she first 
 came home from the Continental boarding-school at 
 which her education had been finished. Rich by 
 the Inheritance of two separate fortunes, the one 
 coming to her under her mother's marriage settle- 
 ment, the other under the will of her uncle, the 
 ex-lord mayor and alderman — proud with a pride 
 that was in no wise concerned with either her wealth 
 or her beauty, unless in the scorning of all wealth 
 amassed in trade, and of all beauty that had not its 
 source in noble blood — ambitious in her secret 
 heart of hearts, passionately ambitious of rank, of 
 social distinction, of power in any shape — cold In 
 manner — colder still in speech — a silent hostess, 
 and an indifferent guest, Claudia Hardwicke en-
 
 THE HAEDWICKES. 55 
 
 joyed the honour of being very cordially disliked 
 by the bulk of her brother's acquaintances. To- 
 wards City men, their wives, daughters, entertain- 
 ments, conversation, society, and all therewith con- 
 nected, she cherished a profound distaste ; and this 
 distaste she was at no pains to conceal. She would 
 talk French and German across Mrs. Alderman 
 Butterworth throughout a long City dinner, be- 
 stowing no more notice upon that superb matron 
 than if she were a lay figure in velvet and diamonds. 
 At her own receptions she would studiously ignore 
 the musical acquirements of the Jenkinson girls 
 (though they sang really well, and had seventy 
 thousand pounds apiece), and made a point of en- 
 gaging what Archibald Blyth called a 'musical 
 star ' for the evening. At certain state parties 
 where the great City dames vied with each other 
 in splendour, she would appear in the simplest 
 toilet that good taste and a first-class dressmaker 
 could devise, without an ornament of any descrip- 
 tion. And because she did these and a thousand 
 other things of the same kind, and because, being a 
 woman, and a clever one, she knew precisely how 
 and where to plant every handerilla that a scornful 
 wit could su£[crest. Miss Hardwicke counted her 
 foes by the score, and rejoiced in her unpopularity. 
 Bat with all her magnificent scorn of men and 
 things. Miss Hardwicke was mortal, and had her
 
 56 debenham's vow. 
 
 failings. There was something great about her 
 pride, but there was also something small. Truth 
 to tell, she ' dearly loved a lord.' Title, precedence, 
 a coronet on her carriage panels, a footing in the 
 grande monde — these were the glories for which she 
 sighed. She held them to be not shadows, but sub- 
 stantial things ; and she was destined, perhaps, to 
 find out some day that they were but shadows after 
 all.
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PARTY AT STRATHELLAN HOUSE. 
 
 ^YRAPT in some sort of loose German overcoat 
 adorned in the orthodox German-student fashion 
 with braid and buttons in abundance. Temple 
 Debenham made his way up the avenue and into 
 the hall of Strathellan House. The night outside 
 was intensely dark — the hall a blaze of light ; so 
 that he was for a moment almost dazzled to find 
 himself in the presence of the twelve Csesars and 
 Mr. Hardwicke's footaien. He came on foot, and 
 the dust on his boots betrayed him. He carried a 
 roll of music in his hand. And he waited in the 
 hall to put on his white gloves before going up- 
 stairs. The twelve Cgesars and the twin giants 
 in livery looked on contemptuously. They had 
 seen the sort of thing before, and they knew what 
 it meant. 
 
 ' Come to play the piano,' whispered Thomas 
 to John.
 
 58 DEBENHAM^S VOW. 
 
 * Looks poor enough, too/ responded John. 
 ^ But then there's poor and rich, the same as in 
 everything else. The last we had came in his pri- 
 vate brougham, like a gentleman.^ 
 
 And then a carriage full of ladies drove up, and 
 the organist went upstairs and presented himself 
 at the door of the first drawing-room, unannounced. 
 
 It was a very splendid room, gorgeously fur- 
 nished, but almost empty. A little group of gen- 
 tlemen about the fire-place, and a young lady 
 turning over a volume of engravings at a side 
 table, were its only occupants. There was a sound 
 of many voices in the reception-rooms beyond, but 
 the young man did not like to venture farther. The 
 damsel at the side table looked up for a moment, 
 but the gentlemen at the fireplace, eager in discus- 
 sion, seemed not even to observe that another guest 
 was present. So Temple Debenham, after linger- 
 ing for a few minutes near the door, wandered over 
 to the table, and, keeping as far as possible from 
 the young lady already in possession, took refuge 
 also in a book. 
 
 Because he had not yet been received, he 
 would not take a seat ; but, still holding his roll of 
 music in one hand, stooped over the volume, 
 chafing inwardly. He had seen the ladies who 
 arrived after him ushered into a ground- floor room 
 where tea and coffee were served. Why had he
 
 THE PAETT AT STRATHELLAN HOUSE. 59 
 
 not been shown there also? Whj, at least, had 
 neither of the big footmen conducted him up-stairs, 
 and announced his name at the door? Did they 
 know who he was? Had they been instructed 
 beforehand to treat him with indignity ? He told 
 himself if it was so — if he could be sure it was 
 so — he would straightway walk downstairs, and 
 never enter the house again. 
 
 At this moment appeared one of the twin 
 giants at the drawing-room door, vociferating with 
 all the power of his lungs the names of ' Mrs. 
 Blower, Miss Blower, Miss Juliana Blower, Miss 
 Bianca Blower;' and in sailed the four ladies 
 whom the organist had encountered in the hall. 
 At almost the same moment Mr. Hardwicke came 
 forward from the adjoining room to receive them. 
 He shook hands with Mrs. Blower; he bowed to 
 each of Mrs. Blower's daughters; he inquired 
 solicitously after the health of various absent 
 Blowers. Then he gave his arm to Mrs. Blower, 
 and led her and hers into those more distant rooms 
 where the company seemed mostly to have con- 
 gregated. 
 
 The cloud on Debenham's brow deepened. He 
 fancied that INIr. Hardwicke's eye had lighted on 
 him as he turned away; and to be seen and not 
 welcomed was even worse than to be neither seen 
 nor welcomed.
 
 60 debenham's vow. 
 
 ' If he saw me at all,' thought he, ^ he must 
 have known me ; and if he knew me, he is bound 
 to welcome me to his house.' And then he re- 
 membered having asked Archie Blyth how he 
 should be treated if he came, and Archie had pro- 
 tested that he would be received and regarded as 
 a guest — a guest pur et simple. But surely he 
 had been a fool to take Archie's word in the 
 matter. He might have known how it would be. 
 He might have known that, having consented to 
 come to this man's house for money — for ten 
 miserable guineas — he had, as it were, sold him- 
 self for the time being, and become, in a certain 
 sense, the man's inferior. 
 
 * He has hired me,' he muttered, as he bent 
 still lower over the album with which he was 
 pretending to be occupied. ^ I am his servant to- 
 night, and he treats me as his servant.' 
 
 And reflecting thus. Temple Debenham con- 
 trived so to aggravate himself that he was on the 
 point of shutting up the book and shaking the dust 
 of Mr. Hardwicke's house from off his feet, when 
 a hand was suddenly laid upon his shoulder, and 
 a familiar voice said close to his ear, — 
 
 ' Well, old fellow, do you think it like ?' 
 
 ' Like!' he echoed. * Do I think what like?' 
 
 ' Why, that, to be sure.' 
 
 And Archibald Blyth, scented, curled, gloved,
 
 THE PAETT AT STEATHELLAN HOUSE. 61 
 
 and gorgeous with jewelry, laid his finger on a 
 certain carte de visite inserted in the page over 
 which his friend happened to be bending. 
 
 ' Is it meant for you ? ' asked Debenham, who, 
 intently as he had seemed to be looking, had not 
 seen a photograph in the book till this moment. 
 
 * Most people think it a capital likeness. It ^s 
 one of Silvy's.^ 
 
 ' And tills ? ' 
 
 ' Horatio Slawkins, son of Sir Obadiah Slaw- 
 kins, who was Lord jMayor a few years ago, and 
 got knighted — I've no notion why. The whole 
 tribe of Slawkins will be here to-night, I suppose. 
 Are the other rooms pretty full ? ' 
 
 ' I do not know,^ replied Debenham. * I have 
 not been into them.' 
 
 ' You ^-e seen my cousins ? ' 
 
 ' Mr. Hardwicke came through just now to re- 
 ceive some ladies. I should not know Miss Hard- 
 wicke if I were to see her.' 
 
 ^ Here 's her portrait — not half handsome 
 enough, of course ; but like her.' 
 
 ^ Xot handsome at all, to my mind,' said the 
 organist, who was in no mood just then to admire 
 anything. 
 
 'Ah, you won't say that when you see the 
 original. Her features are perfect, and she has 
 the air of a queen.'
 
 62 debenham's yow. 
 
 * Of a tragedy queen, I should say/ 
 
 ^ No, there^s no pretence about her ; it's all 
 pride, and the pride is real enough. She has about 
 as much heart, you know, as a cricket-ball/ 
 
 The guests by this time were arriving rapidly, 
 passing for the most part direct into the farther 
 drawing-rooms, and thence, by degrees, overflowing 
 back again into the first. Of these the majority 
 were merchants, stockbrokers, aldermen, and so 
 forth, with their wives and families; with here and 
 there a West-end banker, or an aristocratic railway 
 director with a handle to his name. 
 
 Archibald Bly th, not a little proud of his wealthy 
 kinsfolk and the splendours of Strathellan House, 
 stayed by his friend, pointing out most of the 
 guests by name, bowing to some, being spoken to 
 by others, and stealing a side-glance now and then 
 at the musician^s face to measure the extent of his 
 admiration. 
 
 ' That's old Lady Tuke,' he whispered eagerly ; 
 ' wife of Sir Sloman Tuke, the member for Joggle- 
 bury ; and that little dark man now talking to her 
 is Abrahams — Japhet Abrahams, you know, of the 
 firm of Abrahams and Gabriel — a man worth his 
 two millions and a half, if he's worth a penny. The 
 couple now coming in are Sheriff Biddle and his 
 wife. He will be the next Lord Mayor ; she was 
 the widow of Alderman Sharpies. Immensely
 
 THE PAETT AT STRATHELLAN HOUSE. 63 
 
 rich — fine woman — knows how to dress. DonH 
 see such diamonds every day, do we, my Orestes ? 
 Ah, here comes Mr. Choake— your parson, old 
 fellow. Why don't you bow to him ? ' 
 
 ' He is the vicar of St. Hildegarde's — I am 
 only the organist/ replied Debenham, drawing him- 
 self to his full height. ^ Let him bow to me, if he 
 is so disposed.'' 
 
 But the Reverend Tobias Choake — a tall, pal- 
 lid, lank-haired young man, who fasted on Fridays, 
 advocated auricular confession, and was suspected 
 of wearing a hair-shirt under his patent Eureka — 
 passed on with an air of the deepest abstraction, 
 recognising no one. 
 
 ' There goes a fellow who would give anything 
 if he might be allowed to shave a little round place 
 on the top of his head,' said Archie, laughing. *By 
 Jove ! here^s Washington Flack. Wonderful man ! 
 — Yankee — writes for the Transatlantic Extermin- 
 ator — goes everywhere — knows everything about 
 everybody. Shall I introduce you? ' 
 
 Debenham, however, had no wish to become 
 acquainted with the man who knew everything 
 about everybody ; and that illustrious American, 
 having recognised Archibald Blyth by a passing 
 salutation, was swept on by the stream. 
 
 An hour — more than an hour — had now gone 
 by, and Temple Debenham had not yet penetrated
 
 64 
 
 beyond the outer room. But the outer room was 
 by this time almost as full as the others, and quite 
 as noisy. The guests seemed, for the most part, to 
 be acquainted, and talked familiarly, as people 
 talk whose interests, occupations, and topics are 
 alike. The young man stood apart, scanning some- 
 what curiously, perhaps also somewhat critically, 
 this gallery of bourgeois heads. Scraps of a hun- 
 dred conversations buzzed about his ears — greet- 
 ings, gossip, the news of the day, the price of shares, 
 the bank rate of discount, the Greek loan, the state 
 of the money market, the stoppage of the Anglo- 
 Abyssinian Bank, the rumoured failure of Clint 
 and Clutterbuck, the aspect of American politics, 
 the prospects of the cotton trade. It was money, 
 money, money ; on all sides, money ; on every lip 
 the same song ; in every mind the one prevailing 
 idea. 
 
 ^ Come, Debenham,' said his friend, secretly 
 disappointed by the indifference with which the 
 musician was looking on, *did you ever see 
 anything like this down at that place in Ger- 
 many ? ' 
 
 ' Like fMs ! ' repeated Debenham, with a curious 
 emphasis on the pronoun. 
 
 ' Such diamonds, you know — such dresses — 
 such wealth ? Why, there must be over three 
 hundred people here already, and I don't suppose
 
 THE PARTY AT STRATHELLAN HOUSE. 65 
 
 there are fifty out of the number who are not rich 
 — very rich, indeed.' 
 
 ' I understand. Money is here what rank was 
 at Zollenstrasse. A case of purse versus pedigree 
 — the " gowd's '^ the " man," and liis banker's book 
 is his patent of nobility. A la bonne heure ! Autre 
 temps, autre mceurs,'' 
 
 ' I'd sooner be a rich English merchant than a 
 beggarly German duke, any day,^ retorted the City 
 man, half angrily. 
 
 At this moment a voice, almost at Debenham's 
 shoulder, said, not loudly, but with singular dis- 
 tinctness, — 
 
 ' It is time we had some music. Does any one 
 know where this paragon of Archie's is to be 
 found ? ' 
 
 He turned, and found himself face to face with 
 Mr. Hardwicke and a ladv. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 66 DEBENHAM^S YOW. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MISS HARDWICKE. 
 
 Debenham did not need to be told that the lady 
 was Miss Hardwicke. He should have recognised 
 her from Archie^s description, if even he had not 
 seen her photograph. The photograph, indeed, 
 did her no kind of justice ; but the description, if 
 it could be called a description, was correct 
 enough. Her features were ^ perfect,' and she 
 liad ' the air of a queen.' She was not, however, 
 as he had once said, like Edith Dombey — 
 the flashing-eyed, raven-haired, theatrical Edith 
 Dombey of the illustrations we all know so well. 
 Not in the least. Her beauty was of a far loftier 
 and rarer order — classic, stately, serene. Not 
 classic according to that current acceptation of 
 the phrase, which limits the classicism of beauty 
 to the Greek ideal, and takes for its universal 
 standard some such familiar model as the Clytie of 
 the Townley marbles ; but classic after the Roman 
 type — a type essentially real; majestic rather than
 
 MISS HAKDWICKE. 67 
 
 allurirjfT ; intellectual rather than sensuous ; ex- 
 pressive in the highest degree of purpose, of gravity, 
 of command; a type, in short, which, however 
 influenced by Greek taste and modified by Greek 
 artists, retained from first to last, in its decadence 
 as in its prime, the stately and impressive charac- 
 teristics of Etruscan origin. 
 
 Essentially classical, then, but essentially of the 
 Roman school, was the beauty of Claudia Hard- 
 wicke. Turned suddenly to stone by the wand of 
 a malicious enchanter, she would have passed for a 
 noble specimen of the art of the Augustan period. 
 The shape and pose of her head, the somewhat 
 massive throat, the stately sweep of the shoulders, 
 the full and faultless modelling of the ample bust, 
 would have borne to be transferred direct to 
 marble, nor have needed any refining touches from 
 the chisel of the sculptor. As for her hand and 
 arm, they were simply perfect. Giulia Grisi in 
 the first splendour of her youth had not a more 
 perfect arm. Those who had lived long enough to 
 compare the impressions of some thirty and odd 
 years ago with the impressions of to-day, averred 
 that Miss Hardwicke^s arm was the more beautiful 
 of the two. Like Grisi' s, it was white, rounded, 
 dimpled at the elbow, dimpled at the wrist, almost 
 infantile in the exquisite softness of the curves, yet 
 suggestive of none of the feebleness of infancy —
 
 68 
 
 suggestive, on the contrary, of more than ordinary 
 womanly strength. Like Grisi's, too, it was some- 
 what fuller than is, perhaps, prescribed by the 
 strict canons of art. Here, however, the resem- 
 blance ceased. Miss Hardwicke's hand was not 
 in the least like the hand of the great prima donna. 
 It was not a small hand ; neither was it a large 
 hand ; but it was as large a hand as might pertain 
 to a finely proportioned woman. White was it, 
 but not too white ; soft, but not too soft ; pleasant 
 to hold ; firm to clasp ; with just an indication of 
 dimples across the knuckles in repose, and a blush 
 of rose-pink on the palm. And the fingers of this 
 charming hand were not taper — for your taper 
 finger, we take it, deserves only to be regarded as 
 an elegant deformity, and may be cast into the 
 same scale with small waists and arched eyebrows, 
 and all such doubtful perfections — but they were 
 rounded at the tips and curved upwards against the 
 nails, which is far more beautiful. It was the sort 
 of hand that looks best unadorned, and is almost 
 disfigured by rings. It was the sort of hand that 
 painters and sculptors love. Michael Angelo 
 would have modelled it again and again — would 
 have filled pages of one of his wonderful note- 
 books with sketches of it in every position and 
 from every point of view. To say this, however, 
 is to sum up the foregoing description in a single
 
 MISS HARDWICKE. 69 
 
 line. We all know what kind of hand it was that 
 Michael Angelo loved. He would as soon have 
 fashioned a Cleopatra or a Zenobia with a wasp- 
 like waist as with tiny hands or taper fingers. So 
 much, then, for Miss Hardwicke^s statuesque 
 beauty of form. Justly to describe the beauty of 
 her face is more difficult ; and here again recourse 
 must be had to that Roman type already made use 
 of. Her features, ' perfect ^ as they were, had 
 nothing in common with those of the Niobe or the 
 Yenus of Milo ; still less with those of the Clytie 
 of the Townley marbles. But she did strikingly 
 resemble one of the finest specimens of Roman art 
 in the galleries of the Louvre — namely, the 
 statue of that Julia known as Julia Domna, who 
 was the wife of Septimus Severus. A more 
 majestic portrait was never shaped in marble. 
 Beautiful with an imperial kind of beauty befitting 
 the wife and mother of emperors, she stands with 
 her head bent slightly forward, as in the act of 
 graciously listening. With one hand she seems to 
 have just drawn aside her veil ; the other hand and 
 all the rest of the figure are closely draped. She 
 is tall — taller than the generality of tall women. 
 Her brow is neither low nor lofty ; but it is lofty 
 enough to be intellectual, and it perfects the oval 
 of her face. The nose, small, refined, and deli- 
 cately cut, just departs sufficiently from the severe
 
 70 debenham's vow. 
 
 line of the Greek ideal to belong to the Roman 
 type. The eyes are long and serious. The mouth, 
 exquisitely modelled, but sharper in its curves than 
 the Greek, is indicative both of sweetness and 
 firmness ; chiefly, however, of firmness. The chin, 
 though small, is prominent, and indented with a 
 tiny cleft. An indescribable air of dignity, of 
 modesty, of serenity, of reserve, is expressed in all 
 the contours of this admirable piece of art ; in the 
 turn of the head ; in the position of the hands ; in 
 the arrangement of the hair ; in the foot half with- 
 drawn ; in every clinging fold of the voluminous 
 drapery. Above all, it is patrician through and 
 through. The very marble is, as it were, informed 
 with the subtlest element of aristocracy. 
 
 And to this statue — this statue of a Roman 
 empress, who reigned, sinned, died, some sixteen 
 centuries and more ago — Miss Hardwicke bore so 
 singular a resemblance that any written description 
 of the one must unavoidably tally with any written 
 description of the other. The two profiles wero 
 identical. The features of both seemed to have 
 been cast in the same mould. There must, of 
 course, have been minor points of divergence, and 
 could the lady and the statue have been placed side 
 by side, those points of divergence would probably 
 liave come into marked relief; but, taken apart, 
 they were so slight as to escape detection. Enough
 
 MISS HARDWICKE. 7 I 
 
 that the likeness was true, marked and unmis- 
 takable — so marked, so unmistakable, that Miss 
 Hardwicke^s bust (done by a Florentine sculptor, 
 and enthroned in a niche hung with ruby velvet 
 curtains at the upper end of the dining-room at 
 Strathellan House) might well have been taken for 
 a copy of the head and bust of the Julia Domna of 
 the Louvre. The same royal look was there, and 
 even more than the same pride. Not, however, the 
 same sweetness. In Miss Hardwicke, the gracious 
 air of the marble empress was altogether wanting. 
 That which showed as dignity in the one became 
 hauteur in the other ; reserve hardened into scorn ; 
 serenity into icy coldness. She moved, spoke, 
 smiled, as if no man born of woman were worthy 
 to touch so much as the hem of her garment. She 
 might have sprung from a hne of empresses, or, 
 like Csesar, have claimed descent from a goddess, 
 so imperial was her beauty and her bearing. 
 
 And yet the Hardwickes had not one drop of 
 blue blood in their veins. They had been merchants 
 and tradesmen, and had intermarried with the sons 
 and daughters of merchants and tradesmen, for four 
 generations. Beyond that point all was chaos. Miss 
 Hardwicke knew that her grandfather was a saddler, 
 that he had been a member of the Worshipful Com- 
 pany of Stationers, and that he succeeded his father, 
 Amos Hardwicke, in the saddlery business. But
 
 72 debenham's vow. 
 
 who the said Amos Hardwicke had married, 
 whence his parents came, and where he was 
 buried, were facts respecting which not even a 
 tradition remained in the family. With this an- 
 cestor the Hardwicke pedigree came to an abrupt 
 conclusion; and even he, Amos Hardwicke, was 
 but a name — a mere phantom hovering dimly 
 about the confines of the eighteenth century, with 
 chaos behind him. Where nothing is known, 
 however, anything is possible — at all events in the 
 way of genealogy — and the haughty Claudia, who 
 would have given all her fortune for a noble name, 
 may have descended from Danish Yikings, or 
 have owed her dower of supreme beauty to Roman 
 ancestors, when the Romans ruled in Britain. But 
 these were mere chaotic possibilities, only to be 
 dreamed of now and then ' ^twixt sleep and wake : ' 
 — to be dreamed of, and trampled upon, and cast 
 scornfully back into that same chaos whence they 
 came. 
 
 And this was the Claudia Hardwicke with whom 
 Temple Debenham, turning at the sound of her 
 voice, found himself quite suddenly face to face. 
 
 She wore a dress of some delicate shade of grey 
 velvet ; soft, and lustrous, and pearly, like the in- 
 side of a shell, and trimmed with massive old 
 Veronese lace about the sleeves and bosom. A 
 single diamond star flashed in the folds of her hair.
 
 MISS HARDWICKE. 73 
 
 It was brown hair — rich, crisp, brown hair, with a 
 dash of gold upon it. In her hand she held a gor- 
 geous Oriental fan of crimson feathers. That dia- 
 mond star was her only ornament, that fan her 
 only point of colour. It was a dress that would 
 have been infinitely trying to any woman of 
 doubtful complexion ; but to Claudia Hardwicke 
 no colour was trying. She could wear literally 
 what she pleased; and this because she was herself 
 almost colourless — like marble with the warmth of 
 life in it. All this, and infinitely more than all 
 this, flashed upon Debenham at a glance. The 
 pale, proud beauty, the classic grace, the scarcely 
 concealed air of weariness and scorn, the half-con- 
 temptuous tone — he observed and noted all. 
 
 ' It is quite time we had some music. Does 
 any one know where this paragon of Archie's is to 
 be found ? ' 
 
 These, spoken in that low ringing voice which 
 he then heard for the first time, were the words 
 that caused him to turn and look at her ; and in 
 the words themselves, as well as in the tone, there 
 was something that displeased him. 
 
 ^Here is Archie,' said Mr. Hardwicke, graci- 
 ously shaking hands with his cousin. ' And Mr. 
 Debenham, whom I have had the pleasure of 
 meeting before.' 
 
 The organist bowed.
 
 74 
 
 ' My sister was just inquiring for you, Mr. 
 Debenham,' continued the merchant, with his 
 blandest manner. ^ Our friends would no doubt 
 be gratified to hear some music. You will find a 
 piano in the middle room/ 
 
 ' We have heard much of Mr. Debenham's 
 talent,' added the lady. 
 
 But the words were pronounced with just that 
 degree of indifference that robs a civil speech of its 
 civility. 
 
 The organist bowed again — this time so pro- 
 foundly that only a superficial observer could have 
 mistaken such exaggerated deference for the defer- 
 ence of humility. 
 
 ' To be over-estimated,' he said, ' is a misfor- 
 tune. Mr. Blyth^s opinion must, I fear, be taken 
 rather as the measure of his regard than of my 
 merit.' 
 
 Slowly and haughtily Miss Hardwicke lifted 
 her eyes and surveyed this hired musician who 
 presumed to let it be seen that he appraised her 
 speech at its value. As slowly, as haughtily, he 
 gave back the look. No word was uttered, but 
 the dialogue was unmistakable. The one said — 
 I have condescended to patronise you ; it is your 
 place to accept the patronage unquestioningly. ' 
 The other replied — ' I recognise in you no right 
 of patronage, and I decline to accept it.'
 
 MISS HAEDWICKE. 75 
 
 This episode occupied but a moment. Miss 
 Hardwicke just looked at him, froze into uncon- 
 sciousnessj and passed on. Mr. Hardwicke, al- 
 ready in the midst of another conversation, ob- 
 served nothing. But Archie Blyth saw it all, and 
 became supremely uncomfortable. 
 
 ' Come and play, Debenham,' he said, ner- 
 vously. ' That is better than talking about it.' 
 
 Then, as they made their way to the middle 
 room, he added : — 
 
 ' Now then, old fellow, I want you to astonish 
 them.' 
 
 He could scarcely have made a more ill- 
 advised speech. Irritable, sensitive, easily thrown 
 out of tune with his surroundings. Temple Deben- 
 ham was precisely one of those who can do 
 nothing to order. A speech of this kind would 
 at any time have put him out of sympathy with 
 his audience ; but, coming at this unlucky mo- 
 ment, it placed him in direct antagonism to 
 them. He looked round at the crowd whom he 
 w^as brought there to entertain, and he told him- 
 self that he would as soon have performed before 
 a select society of owds. He felt that he had not 
 a taste or sentiment in common .with any one of 
 the number. He must play to them ; he was 
 bound to play to them; but — he was not bound 
 to please them.
 
 76 debenham's tow. 
 
 * Astonish them ! ' he repeated. ^ Oh, yes — I 
 will astonish them.' 
 
 And so he did. He played a pianoforte pre- 
 lude and fugue by his old master, Professor 
 Schwartz of the Zollenstrasse Academy — a mar- 
 vellous composition of its kind, a miracle of 
 learning — crabbed, scholastic, involved to the 
 last degree, and a very curiosity of manual 
 difficulties. This piece he played, and played 
 superbly; but he confounded his hearers. For 
 the first two minutes they were silent ; towards 
 the beginning of the third minute they became 
 restless; then they began to whisper; and long 
 before the middle of the fourth minute the con- 
 fusion of tongues was again at its height. 
 
 Archie was aghast. 
 
 ' My dear friend,^ he said, when it was once 
 fairly over, ' that's the most hideous thing I ever 
 heard. How could you play it ?' 
 
 ^ I played it on purpose,' said Debenham. 
 
 ' But nobody liked it.' 
 
 ' Are you sure of that ?' 
 
 * I watched their faces, and they looked . . .' 
 ' Bored?' 
 
 * Well, yes — bored to death/ 
 
 ' I meant them to be bored,' replied the or- 
 ganist, with grim complacency. ^ I am delighted 
 to know that they were bored. I mean to bore
 
 MISS HARDWICKE. 77 
 
 them again presently. My only regret is, tliat, 
 in order to bore them quite thoroughly, one must 
 feed them with pearls.' 
 
 * You don't call that thing a pearl ? 'said Archie. 
 ' A pearl of great price — a pearl of pearls — 
 
 a marvellous achievement. There is no man 
 living, except Schwartz of Zollenstrasse, who 
 could have written it.' 
 
 ' Then,' said Archie, ' let us pray that 
 Schwartz of Zollenstrasse may speedily be ga- 
 thered to his fathers, and leave no successor. 
 One such masterpiece is enough.' 
 
 ^ Nevertheless, I shall give you another of 
 them by-and-by.^ 
 
 But Miss Hardwicke was too experienced a 
 hostess to permit anything of the kind. She 
 knew quite enough of the German school to 
 apprehend something of the merits of the per- 
 formance ; but she also knew that such music was 
 wholly unsuited to the occasion. 
 
 * It is clever enough,' she said, taking her 
 brother aside ; ' but no one understands it. An- 
 other piece of that kind would spoil the evening. 
 Tell him to play Thalberg. ' 
 
 And Mr. Hardwicke, who obeyed his sister 
 in everything, went up to the piano accordingly, 
 and requested Mr. Debenham to favour him with 
 one of Thalbercr's fantasias.
 
 78 DEBENHAM^S YOW. 
 
 ^ So few persons,' he said apologetically, ' are 
 capable of rising to the level of such music as you 
 have just been so good as to play to us. May I 
 ask, Mr. Debenham, whether that — that sonata .... 
 Am I right in calling it a sonata ?' 
 
 ^ It is a fugue,' replied the organist, stiffly. 
 
 ^ Just so — a fugue. May I, then, ask whether 
 that fugue is one of your own compositions ?' 
 
 ' It is by Professor Schwartz, of Zollenstrasse- 
 am-Main,^ said Debenham, 'the profoundest of 
 living musicians, and one of the few surviving 
 pupils of Beethoven.' 
 
 ' Professor Schwartz ! I do not remember the 
 name.' 
 
 ' Probably not. He is very little known in 
 this country.' 
 
 * And why so V 
 
 ^ Perhaps, because the English standard of taste 
 is not sufficiently elevated.' 
 
 * Ah ! precisely — precisely : caviare, no doubt 
 — caviare to the general. And now, Mr. Deben- 
 ham, will you favour us with something by 
 Thalberg?' 
 
 The musician had no resource but to compl}^, 
 and so Mr. Hardwicke's guests escaped their 
 second dose of pearls. He played Thalberg, and 
 they listened ; then a mdlange of popular airs with 
 showy variations, which was not only listened to.
 
 MISS HARDWICKE. 79 
 
 but applauded. And thus it happened that 
 Temple Debenham made a success in spite oi 
 himself. 
 
 At a little after midnight he stole from the 
 rooms and made his way downstairs, but was 
 overtaken in the hall by Archibald Bljth. 
 
 * Not cpoin^?^ exclaimed his friend. 
 
 ' Whj not? I have played three times.'' 
 
 ' But there ^s supper at half-past twelve.^ 
 
 The organist shook his head. 
 
 ' I hope to be almost home by then,' he said. 
 
 'Nonsense! you don't know what you miss. 
 Hardwicke's suppers are princely. Be persuaded, 
 my dear fellow, and take your share of what is 
 going/ 
 
 ' Not if Lucullus were host.' 
 
 ' But you haven^t said good-night ?' 
 
 * No. I depute you to say it for me. Speak 
 the speech, I pray you, trippingly on the 
 tongue.' 
 
 ' Has any one affronted you?' 
 ' Not particularly.' 
 ' Haven't you enjoyed yourself?' 
 ' Not particularly.' 
 
 ' But why ? What has happened ? What 's 
 wrong?' 
 
 * My dear Pylades,' said Debenham, preparing 
 to be gone, ^ you are gifted by Providence with
 
 80 debenham's vow. 
 
 an inquiring mind, and an inquiring mind is the 
 index to a lively understanding. Judiciously 
 cultivated, it will be a credit and a comfort to 
 you throughout the term of your natural life. 
 Good-night. Accept my blessing/ 
 
 And so, having buttoned the frogged overcoat 
 up to his chin, and stowed away his music in one 
 of its many pockets, he nodded a laughing fare- 
 well, ran down the steps, and, turning his back 
 upon the splendours of Strathellan House, plunged 
 into the outer darkness of the Regent's Park. 
 
 Undecided whether to follow his friend or stay 
 for supper, Archie lingered for a moment in the 
 hall and listened to Debenham's retreating foot- 
 steps. Then appetite prevailed over friendship, 
 and he went upstairs again.
 
 AT HOME IN CANONBURY. 8 1 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AT HOME IN CANONBURY. 
 
 Debenham went striding, meanwhile, along the 
 umbrageous roadways of the Regent's Park, 
 emerging over against the York and Albany, 
 and striking off northwards through a maze of 
 still swarming thoroughfares. Thus he left be- 
 hind him Camden Town, Somers Town, and the 
 terra incognita adjacent to the Caledonian Road, 
 and, coming upon higher ground at every step, 
 arrived by -and -by upon the borders of that 
 metropolitan Oberland which begins at Islington 
 and thence reaches away to the uppermost regions 
 of Highgate and Hampstead. But his home lay 
 not very far within the boundaries of this high- 
 level district. Canonbury was soon gained, and 
 the line of market-gardens, and the modest little 
 terrace where, in one tiny parlour window, a 
 welcoming light was shining for him like a 
 beacon. 
 VOL. I. a
 
 82 debenham's vow. 
 
 Seeing that lights he sprang forward, cleared 
 the bit of front garden at a bound, and opening 
 the door with his latch-key, was in the room 
 almost before she who sat there watching had re- 
 cognised his footfall on the gravel. 
 
 *Ah, Mutter,'' he said, tenderly, ^naughty 
 Mutter ! Did I not entreat you to go to bed ? ' 
 
 And then he kissed her, in German fashion, on 
 both cheeks. 
 
 ^ My darling, I should only have lain awake 
 till you came home. You look tired."* 
 
 ' Not tired. Mutter — only hungry. There was 
 a grand supper in preparation up yonder; but I 
 would not stay for it.^ 
 
 *That is just as I thought it would be, my 
 son,' replied Mrs. Debenham; ^and your supper 
 is ready for you. Hush ! not another word till 
 you have eaten something.' 
 
 Then, moving about him in sweet motherly 
 fashion, she took his over-coat, placed his plate 
 and tumbler, and waited upon him while he ate. 
 
 ' Is the house very splendid ? ' she asked pre- 
 sently. 
 
 * Yes — after a roturier style.' 
 
 ^And the people?' 
 
 ^ Redolent of pounds, shillings, and pence.' 
 
 She smiled, and, standing beside his chair, 
 passed her hand lovingly through his hair.
 
 AT HOME IN CANONBUKT. 83 
 
 'Was Mr. Blyth there?' she asked. 
 
 ' Indeed, yes — produced in the highest style 
 of art — Edition de luxe — all gloves and jewelry — 
 lost in admiration of the aldermen's wives.^ 
 
 ' Poor Mr. Blyth ! Were there many guests?' 
 
 ' About four hundred. All City people — the 
 men made of money and the women of millinery.' 
 
 * Did you converse with any of them?' 
 
 ' Merci. I heard them talking to each other, 
 and that was more than enough. They had but 
 one topic — money, money, money. St. Chry- 
 sostom was not more golden-mouthed.' 
 
 ' And you saw no one whom you knew ?' 
 
 ' The virtuous and reverend Choake — looking 
 like a canonised undertaker.' 
 
 ' Did he make any rem.ark about your applica- 
 tion for a month's holiday ? ' 
 
 ' None. I am not sure that he saw me. He 
 was in a state of ghostly abstraction whenever 1 
 chanced to be in his neighbourhood.' 
 
 ' But how long is it since you wrote to him ?' 
 
 'About a fortnight.' 
 
 ' And though he has seen you dailv ever since, 
 he has never even alluded to the letter ?' 
 
 The young man shrugged his shoulders, and 
 went on with his supper. 
 
 ' He is extremely ill-mannered,' said Mrs. 
 Debenham, w^armly.
 
 84 debenham's vow, 
 
 ^ Dearest Mutter, I must not expect courteous 
 treatment at the hands of the sainted Choake,' 
 replied her son, bitterly. ' It is not as if I were 
 a gentleman, you know — I am only an organist.' 
 
 A faint flush rose to Mrs. Debenham's wasted 
 cheek. She seemed about to speak ; but checked 
 herself, and sat down with a sigh. 
 
 ^ I have been looking up routes to-day,' said 
 the young man, presently ; ' and I find I must 
 give up the Highlands. For a walking tourist 
 with only a month at command, the distance is 
 altogether too great. I should consume half my 
 vacation in the journey to and fro.^ 
 
 'There is the railway, my son/ said Mrs. 
 Debenham; 'and with the ten guineas you have 
 earned to-night . . . .' 
 
 ' No, no, Mutterchen. We have no guineas to 
 fling away. Besides, there are plenty of other 
 places quite as interesting and more accessible. I 
 have almost decided for the Wye, if Archie 
 approves of it.' 
 
 ' For the Wye ! ' repeated Mrs. Debenham, in 
 a low, tremulous voice. 
 
 ' Yes — it's such a practicable tour. We could do 
 a bit of third class, you know, part of the way 
 between London and Bristol ; walk the rest ; take 
 the boat across to Chepstow ; and fish our way 
 the whole length of the Wye between Chepstow
 
 AT HOilE IN CAXOXBTTRT. 85 
 
 and Ross. I'm not sure that I don't prefer it to 
 the Scotch scheme, after all/ 
 
 'The Wye!' 
 
 *" Why not, Mutter, dear ? You repeat the 
 name as if you objected to it.' 
 
 ^Oh, no!" 
 
 ' You think Scotland more bracing V 
 
 ' 1 was not thinking of that.' 
 
 'Of what then?' 
 
 ' Of — of a Monmouthshire family .... But 
 the point in question is your holiday, my son. The 
 Wye rums through a beautiful country.' 
 
 ' You have been there, mother ?' 
 
 ' No, I have not been there.' 
 
 And again ^Irs. Debenham sighed heavily. 
 
 ' It is very cheap all about Monmouthshire,' 
 said the young man. 
 
 ' No doubt,' 
 
 « And I should not be nearly so far away from 
 you as in the Highlands.' 
 
 ' That is true. I only wisH . . . .' 
 
 ' That you were going, too ? So do I, Mutter, 
 with all my heart.' 
 
 ' No, not that, dear, because I know it is im- 
 possible. But I wish you had a more suitable 
 companion.^ 
 
 'The two first requisites in a brother pedes- 
 trian are good legs and a good temper,' said
 
 86 debenham's yow. 
 
 Debenham, smiling ; ' and a more cheerful and 
 enduring fellow than poor Archie is not to be 
 found in the three kingdoms.' 
 
 ' I believe Mr. Blyth to be an excellent person/ 
 replied Mrs. Debenham; ' but he is in every way 
 your inferior.' 
 
 ' Indeed, he is nothing of the kind. He is far 
 more unselfish, more good-natured, better tem- 
 pered tban myself; he is ... .' 
 
 ' He is all that I admitted him to be,' inter- 
 rupted Mrs. Debenham, somewhat coldly. ^ An 
 excellent person — not a gentleman, and therefore 
 an unsuitable companion for my son.' 
 
 The young man pushed his plate away, and 
 rose from table. 
 
 ^ Alas ! mother,' he said, impatiently, * what 
 better society need I hope for? My father, you 
 tell me, was a gentleman ; but what am I ? An 
 obscure musician, thankful to earn a wretched 
 pittance by teaching tradesmen's children, and 
 playing at tradesmen's parties ! Of what use, 
 then, to look Lack? Of what use to shape the 
 sordid present upon the ruined past ? Let that 
 dead past bury its dead. Better, far better for 
 me, had I never inherited a pride beyond my 
 station. How much less I should have had to 
 endure ! What tortures of conscious humiliation 
 I should have been spared !'
 
 AT HOME IN CANONBUEY. 87 
 
 Mrs. Debenham pressed her hand upon her 
 side, as if in pain. 
 
 ' Oh, Temple ! ' she said, ' you suffer, and I do 
 not know that you suffer !' 
 
 He stooped quickly, and kissed her brow. 
 Already ashamed of his impatience, he would have 
 given much to recall those last few words — at all 
 events, to efface them. 
 
 ' I have to bear a trifling mortification now 
 and then,' he said; 'but what of that? We 
 must both take and give blows in the battle of life, 
 you know.' 
 
 ' You should neither take nor give them, if I 
 could help it,' said his mother. 
 
 'But an occasional buffet is good for one's 
 moral health. I am a fool to be fretted by these 
 nothings, and a worse fool to speak of them.^ 
 
 * But what are these nothings ? ' 
 
 ' Pshaw ! mere intangibilities — shadows — 
 trifles light as air — petty slights, petty omissions, 
 petty exactions — things that vanish away when 
 one attempts to define them.' 
 
 ' My own boy !^ 
 
 ' Nay, 1 will not be pitied. I should become 
 an intolerable prig if the conceit were not taken 
 out of me now and then.' 
 
 ' When you were a little child, I would not 
 let the winds of heaven visit your cheek too
 
 88 
 
 roughly. I could protect you then. Now I am 
 helpless.^ 
 
 And as she said this, Mrs. Debenham's eyes 
 were filled with tears. 
 
 The young man bent over her, and took her 
 hand between both his own. 
 
 ^ You will make me hate myself, Mutter^ if you 
 talk like that/ he said. ^You are not helpless. 
 You are stronger than ever to help and to comfort. 
 What should I be without you ? Is it not for you, 
 and through you, that I am what I am ? But for 
 you, should I have worked as I have worked? 
 But for you, should I hope for riches, or dream of 
 fame ? Helpless, indeed ! Why, when I become 
 a great man, it will be you. Mutter, who will have 
 made me so.' 
 
 The mother smiled faintly. She was com- 
 forted, but not reassured. 
 
 ^ And in the meanwhile,^ she replied, * even 
 the great men of the future are but mortal. They 
 must sleep. They cannot work all day and wake 
 all night. It is just two o'clock.' 
 
 * You ought to have been in bed. Mutter, three 
 hours ago.' 
 
 ^ And you, my son, have to be at St. Hilde- 
 garde's by eight.' 
 
 ' Ah, but I need so little sleep,' said Debenham. 
 
 And then he lit his mother's chamber candle.
 
 AT HOME IN CANONBTJRT. 89 
 
 held the door open for her to pass, and followed 
 
 her upstairs. At her bed-room door, he paused 
 
 to say good-night. 
 
 ^ You have not told me/ said she, * whether 
 
 Miss Hardwicke is so handsome, after all?' 
 
 'Yes,' he replied coldly. ' She is handsome.' 
 And with that he kissed her, and ran quickly 
 
 up to his own little room, sous les toits.
 
 90 debenham's vow. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 ON THE WYE. 
 
 Scene — a river among wooded hills ; a broad, 
 swift river broken up here and there into swirling 
 rapids, and making at this point so deep a bend 
 that the hills seem to close it in on every side. At 
 the deepest point of the bend, a low wall built of 
 shingle and rough stones, reaching some sixteen or 
 twenty feet into the bed of the river. No expert 
 needs to be told that this wall, carried out as it is 
 at an abrupt angle, is a kind of salmon trap, or 
 rather salmon barrier, designed to keep the fish 
 from going too far down stream. In the fore- 
 ground (following the windings of the river, but 
 half hidden by the trees which here grow so 
 thickly as to form a natural avenue), a lonely 
 turnpike road. Between this road and the river, 
 a narrow slip of meadow-flat sprinkled here and 
 there with clumps of alder-bushes. In the shade of 
 one of these clumps of alder-bushes, extended at
 
 ON THE WYE. 91 
 
 full length on the grass, two young men, appa- 
 rently both asleep, with their fishing-tackle lying 
 beside them on the grass and their knapsacks under 
 their heads. In the sky, not a cloud ; on the 
 road, not a wheel ; in the air, not a sound. Time — 
 some twenty minutes past four o^ clock on a fiery 
 August afternoon. Thermometer — eighty in the 
 shade. Place — the pleasant river Wye, somewhere 
 about halfway between Tintern and Monmouth. 
 Characters — Temple Debenham and Archibald 
 Blyth. 
 
 It was the fourth day of their tour. They had 
 travelled down to Bristol by rail, crossed the 
 Severn in a little Bristol steamer, and begun their 
 pedestrian work at Chepstow. At Chepstow they 
 had climbed the Windcliff, seen the town and the 
 ruins, and done all that Black^s Guide demands 
 from the conscientious tourist. From Chepstow 
 they had walked to Tintern, and at Tintern had 
 spent one clear day and two nightSj sketching, 
 fishing, exploring the neighbourhood, and getting 
 the beautiful old abbey off by heart. This brought 
 them to the morning of the fourth day. On the 
 afternoon of that fourth day, however (having 
 walked to Raglan and back before luncheon, and 
 being as yet not well broken in to their work), the 
 unwonted heat and the unwonted exercise beo-an to 
 tell upon them. As the day advanced, the miles
 
 92 
 
 seemed to grow longer, and their knapsacks 
 heavier. At length they fairly gave in, and, 
 although they had already voted half an hour for 
 luncheon, were fain to call a second halt at four, 
 and lie down in the first shady nook they could 
 find by the way. Here they fell asleep to the 
 pleasant music of the river ; or rather Archie slept, 
 while Debenham, lying with closed eyes, inhaling 
 the fragrance of the unmown grass, and listening 
 to the cool lapsing of the current among the rushes 
 hard by, suffered his thoughts to drift on vaguely 
 towards the border land of dreams. Whither they 
 so drifted, what fragmentary recollections of the 
 happy student-life left behind in Germany, what 
 half-defined hopes and plans for the uncertain 
 future, what subtle threads of melody, what passing 
 pictures of places and people, what echoes of wild 
 studenten lieder, what rhymes and fancies and 
 caprices flitted, shadow-like, across his mind, he 
 could not himself have remembered when once the 
 mood was past and the reverie broken. 
 
 Rousing himself at length by an efibrt, he 
 brought out a pipe from the depths of one of his 
 pockets, filled it, lit it, and, leaning on his elbow, 
 smoked contemplatively. It was a regular stu- 
 dent's pipe — such a pipe as one sees by hundreds 
 in the streets of Heidelberg and Bonn — a pipe with 
 a flexible tube, and a long china bowl capped with
 
 ON THE WYE. 93 
 
 a metal lid and chain, and adorned with a painting 
 of the inevitable German mddchen peeping out 
 from a wreath of vine-leaves. It was a shabby 
 old pipe — a dear old pipe — the friend of years. It 
 had been given to him by a brother student at 
 Zollenstrasse long, long ago, when the brother- 
 student went away to fill a musical professorship 
 in some Austrian college ; and he had kept it ever 
 since. Only the smoker knows how true and 
 intimate a friend a pipe may become. Only 
 Debenham himself knew to what good resolutions, 
 to what brave aspirations, to what dreamy and 
 pathetic melodies, that shabby old pipe had given 
 birth. And now, as he lit and smoked it, looking 
 up to the blue sky and the green leaves overhead, 
 and listening to the hum of insect life in the deep 
 grass round about, there came upon him a deli- 
 cious sense of rest and thankfulness. The strug- 
 gles and annoyances, the poverty and privation of 
 the last eighteen months seemed to vanish away 
 ' into thin air.' He felt once more free — free from 
 the daily drudgery of St. Hildegarde, and the 
 spiritual rule of the Rev. Tobias Choake; from the 
 dull round of suburban teaching ; and, above all, 
 from Messrs. Sturapf and Hammerfest's new 
 patent double-action grand. Here were a hundred 
 and thirty — more than a hundred and thirty miles, 
 and the breadth of the Bristol Channel, between
 
 94 debenham's vow. 
 
 himself and London. East, west, north, south, 
 were ahke open to him. He had but to shoulder 
 his knapsack, set his face to whichever point of 
 the compass he pleased, walk where he pleased, 
 halt where he pleased, sleep where he pleased. 
 The world was all before him where to choose — 
 for six weeks. Yes, for six whole, delightful 
 weeks. He had applied for only a month ; but in 
 Mr. Choake's reply, which came the very day 
 after the Strathellan House entertainment, he 
 begged to inform Mr. Debenham that the parish 
 church of St. Hildegarde the Martyr was about to 
 be closed during the space of six weeks for pur- 
 poses of repairing and whitewashing, and that he, 
 Mr. Debenham, was therefore at liberty to absent 
 himself during the whole or any part of that time 
 according to his, Mr. Debenham 's, convenience. 
 The same post also brought Mr. Hardwicke's 
 cheque for 'ten pounds and ten shillings ster- 
 ling;' so that both funds and holiday came to- 
 gether. Archie Blyth, who was employed in one 
 of Mr. Hardwicke's City offices, had in the 
 meanwhile obtained his own annual furlough ; and 
 here they now were, knapsacks, sketch-books, 
 fishing-rods, and all, in the fourth day of their 
 tour. 
 
 Debenham smoked his pipe out in quiet enjoy- 
 ment, and then proceeded to refill it.
 
 ON THE WYE. 95 
 
 'Archie/ he said, 'Archie, do you mean to 
 wake to-day ? ' 
 
 An inarticulate murmur was Archie's only 
 reply. 
 
 ' Because, if we are to sleep at Monmouth to- 
 night, we liave eight, if not ten miles yet to do — 
 besides catching our fish for supper.' 
 
 Another inarticulate murmur, of which the 
 only intelligible word was ' chops.' 
 
 ' Chops ! ' echoed the organist, in a burst of 
 virtuous indignation. ' Who dares to utter the 
 ignoble name of chops ? Archie, I blush for 
 you!' 
 
 * Such a bore to do anything,' pleaded Archie ; 
 ' and chops are cheap.' 
 
 ' Base is the slave that pays ! ' 
 
 ' Besides, we were an hour and twenty minutes 
 yesterday at Tintern before we caught anything.' 
 
 ' Sport, Archie — sport.' 
 
 ' Hang sport ! Especially if it comes at the 
 end of a long day's work, when a fellow's hot and 
 hungry, and wants his dinner,' said Archie, with 
 a tremendous yawn. 
 
 ' Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, spirit- 
 less outcast ! ' quoted Debenham, with a flourish of 
 his pipe. 
 
 Archie sat up and rubbed his eyes. 
 
 ' Gracious heavens ! ' said he. ' That's power-
 
 96 
 
 ful language. What a fortune you must have 
 had spent on your education ! ' 
 Debenham laughed. 
 
 * Nay/ he said, ' the fortune — if fortune and I 
 are ever to come together — must be got out of my 
 education, for it certainly was never put into it. I 
 don't believe my college fees ever came to more 
 than fifteen pounds a-year/ 
 
 ' Fifteen pounds a-year ! ' 
 
 * Ay — and not even to that when I had once 
 begun to go in for prizes and competitions, and so 
 on. I was gaining money all the last two years 
 at Zollenstrasse ; and if I had stayed on, I should 
 have been full professor, perhaps Kapellmeister, by 
 this time.' 
 
 ' Ah, but then you're such a wonderful fellow ! ' 
 said Archie, meditatively. 
 
 ^ Delighted to hear it.' 
 
 ' You know such lots of things, I mean. You 
 can do anything you choose.' 
 
 ^ Can I, by Jove ? I'll trouble you to prove 
 your proposition. I cJioose to earn a thousand 
 a-year. Tell me how to do that, and I'll be vastly 
 obliged to you.' 
 
 * You will never do it by music,' said Archie. 
 ' I fear that ^s true.* 
 
 ' But then music is not your only resource. 
 As I said just now, you know such lots of things.'
 
 ON THE "\YTE. 97 
 
 ' True, again, my friend. I know how to eat 
 sauer-hraut and drink Lager-beer; how to make 
 potato kuchen ; how to sew on a button ; and how 
 to sit through a German tea-party without yawning 
 oftener than once in every quarter of an hour.' 
 
 'Nonsense, Debenham ; you know that's not 
 what I mean.' 
 
 'Then explain — not forgetting how I am to 
 earn that thousand a-year.' 
 
 ' You'll never earn it by music, as I said before; 
 but I don't see why, with your education, you 
 should not earn it some other way,' said Archie, 
 sententiously. 'There are mathematics, for in- 
 stance, and languages — why you know^ five or six 
 languages, don't you ? ' 
 
 ' Thoroughly well, only two — namely, German 
 and French. Italian and Spanish I read, but that 
 is all ; and as for classics — well, I should never 
 make a Heine nor a Bentley, though I were to give 
 up my life to the work as they did ; but I have as 
 fair a share of Latin and Greek as most outsiders. 
 But why do you ask? Would you have me turn 
 usher in a school, or tutor in a nobleman's 
 family ? ' 
 
 ' I 'd have you take to commerce,' said Archie. 
 
 Temple Debenham took his pipe from his lips, 
 and half rose upon his elbow. 
 
 ' Commerce !' he ejaculated. ' Well, you could 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 
 
 scarcely have suggested anything for which I am 
 in every way less suited/ 
 
 'How so?' 
 
 ' Because I detest trade — because I am so un- 
 fortunate as to have the tastes and prejudices of a 
 gentleman — because I have not received a com- 
 mercial education — because . . / 
 
 ' Because, in fact, you know nothing about 
 commerce,' said Archie, warmly; 'not even the 
 meaning of the word.' 
 
 ' My dear fellow, I do know the meaning of the 
 word. Commerce means capital, of which I have 
 not a farthing. Commerce means book-keeping 
 (double and single entry), the mysteries of which 
 are inscrutable to me. Commerce means iron, 
 cotton, hides, indigo, molasses. Good heavens! 
 what do I know, or care to know, about iron, 
 cotton, hides, indigo, or molasses? What is the 
 use of indigo ? Does any one ever buy indigo ? 
 Does any one eat molasses ?' 
 
 ' If I knew German and French as well as I 
 know English, and could read and answer a letter 
 in Spanish or Italian,' said Archie, ' I should now 
 be drawing six hundred a-year instead of two. 
 And if, added to all that, I was a really clever man, 
 and besides being a really clever man, was a skilled 
 mathematician, classical scholar, and so forth, and 
 had that broad way of thinking that comes of a
 
 ON THE WYE. 99 
 
 liberal education, I should be worth — well, I 
 scarcely know how much I should be worth to my 
 employer. A man of commanding abilities is as 
 valuable in commerce as elsewhere, if only he 
 devotes those abilities to his work.' 
 
 ' Put Pegasus to the plough, in short, and he 
 will excel Dobbin. Many thanks. I have no 
 mind to supersede Dobbin.^ 
 
 ' You work harder than Dobbin as it is, mj 
 dear Pegasus,' said Archie. 
 
 ' Possibly.' 
 
 ' And the labour is not all of the most celestial 
 kind.' 
 
 Debenham was silent. 
 
 Presently a little lad came down from the high- 
 road, driving a cow to water ; and the cow looked 
 at the travellers with her large, placid brown eyes, 
 and waded in among the rushes, close beside where 
 they lay in the shade of the alder-bushes. And 
 then Debenham looked at his watch, and found 
 that it was nearly six o'clock. So they got up, 
 lazily enough, shouldered their knapsacks, and 
 again followed the road, which still followed the 
 river. The sun, though less oppressive than it had 
 been some hours earlier, still glowed above the 
 heights to their left, and the dusty road took the 
 impress of their feet at every step. All was 
 silent, verdant, monotonous. Here were none of
 
 100 debenham's vow. 
 
 those riven, fantastic rocks that castellate the 
 banks of the Wye at Chepstow and crown them 
 with precipices at S jmond's Yat ; but only liills — 
 rounded, undulating hills, partly wooded, partly 
 cultivated, with here and there a mansion ^bo- 
 somM high in tufted trees,' or a boat-house down 
 among the rushes. It was the scenery of Tintern, 
 in short ; but Tintern without the Abbey. Through 
 this scenery, prolonged and reiterated mile after 
 mile, the young men had been travelling all day ; 
 but to them, weary of London and London work, 
 it had not seemed monotonous. Laughing and 
 chatting as they trudged along, they had enjoyed 
 every foot of the way. 
 
 Now, however, the gaiety and the travel-talk 
 seemed suddenly to have evaporated from them. 
 Debenham had become all at once moody and 
 absorbed. He strode on in silence; his brows 
 bent, his eyes fixed upon the ground. He was 
 evidently revolving some painful subject in his 
 mind. Once or twice he opened his lips as if to 
 speak, but checked himself each time, and re- 
 lapsed into a still gloomier silence. Now and then 
 he quickened his pace impatiently. 
 
 In the meanwhile Archie, observant of these 
 signs and tokens, made no effort to renew the con- 
 versation. Suddenly, however, having walked 
 some three or four miles farther, they came to a
 
 ON THE WYE. 101 
 
 bend in the road, and all was changed. The 
 liver widened out before them, one sheet of molten 
 gold. A picturesque hamlet lay clustered about 
 the water^s edge, not an eighth of a mile ahead. 
 There were boats drawn up along the shelving 
 bank, and women standing on the thresholds of 
 their cottages with babies in their arms. The 
 ferry was just crossing with a freight of cattle. A 
 little knot of boatmen and labourers had gathered 
 about the landing-place. There was a cart at the 
 inn-door, waiting to cross at the next passage ; and 
 the inn itself, a very bower of greenery with all 
 its windows winking in the sun, looked as if it 
 had been put there by Birket Foster's own hand. 
 
 This sudden change from solitude to habitation 
 — from silence to the stir and hum of life — was so 
 cheerful and unexpected that the young men 
 uttered a simultaneous exclamation. 
 
 ' I vote we go no farther to-night,' said Archie. 
 
 ^Agreed.' 
 
 * Proposed, seconded, and carried, without a 
 dissentient voice.' 
 
 * Provided always that we find accommodation,' 
 added Debenham. 
 
 'Nothing to fear on that head,' said Archie, 
 confidently. 'This is the sort of place where 
 nobody stays. The tourists all go on to Mon- 
 mouth.'
 
 102 debenham's vow. 
 
 Debenham shook his head, and pointed to a 
 spot on the opposite side of the river. 
 
 ' Not all,' said he. ' There^s an artist at work 
 over yonder — regularly encamped, too — seems to 
 have contrived some sort of temporary tent between 
 the trees. He's staying at the inn, depend on it ; and 
 probably not alone. Painters run in packs at this 
 time of the year — where you find one, you generally 
 find more. I shall not be surprised if the place is 
 full.' 
 
 The place, however, was not full. The land- 
 lady, plump and smiling, hastened out to bid them 
 welcome. Her two front bed-rooms were engaged, 
 and her only sitting-room ; but she had two little 
 bed-rooms at the back of the house ; and if the 
 gentlemen would not mind eating their supper in 
 the kitchen . . . 
 
 The gentlemen minded nothing. They engaged 
 the rooms without even looking at them, left their 
 knapsacks at the bar, asked a question or two 
 about the fishing, and then, following the landlady's 
 instructions, went up the river to a point about 
 half a mile above the ferry, to seek their supper. 
 Here, in the course of some three quarters of an 
 hour, Debenham landed a plump salmon-trout 
 weighing nearly four pounds. With this prize 
 they returned, like Piscator and Venator, to their 
 ' honest ale-house,^ gave in their fish to be cooked.
 
 ON THE WYE. 103 
 
 and were shown to their rooms — two tiny pigeon- 
 holes at the back of the house, clean as convent 
 cells, fragrant of lavender, and overlooking a 
 cabbage-garden.
 
 104 debenham's yow. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN THE POECH. 
 
 Having supped upon their salmon-trout — excel- 
 lently cooked and smoking hot, albeit served in the 
 kitchen upon wooden ware, and washed down by 
 potations of cider from an ^ Uncle Toby ' mug — 
 the travellers went out to sit awhile under the 
 porch, and smoke their pipes in the gloaming. 
 
 The evening was supremely calm. The golden 
 glow had not yet quite faded out of the sky ; but 
 in the valley it was already night. All was silent. 
 Here and there, a cold gleam on the river — here 
 and there, a flickering light in some cottage win- 
 dow — now and then a distant bark — a footstep on 
 the road — a passing ' good night.' In the shadows 
 that mystery, in the leaves that whispering, in the 
 air that living stillness which are the poetry of 
 night. 
 
 The young men sat in the porch, one at each 
 side of the door, and both silent. To their right 
 lay the kitchen, which was not only kitchen but
 
 IN THE PORCH. 105 
 
 bar and tap -room as well ; to their left the parlour, 
 now given up exclusively to the artist whose en- 
 campment they had seen on the opposite bank 
 some tw^o or three hours before. His name was 
 Alleyne. He was accompanied by his daughter, 
 and they had already been more than three weeks 
 in their present quarters. The name of the village 
 was Chillingford — so called because the Chilling, a 
 small stream coming from the hills, there emptied 
 itself into the Wye. And the inn was known as 
 ' The Silver Trout.^ All these particulars they 
 had learned from their landlady during supper. 
 
 They sat there, it has been already said, in 
 silence ; partly because the evening lay about them 
 so still and sacred — partly, also, from a sense of 
 restraint ; for the parlour window was wide open, 
 and the room seemed full of light. The blind, 
 however, was drawn down, and all within was pro- 
 foundly quiet. Not a word, not a movement, was 
 audible. Not even a shadow moved across the 
 blind. If any one had stirred or whispered, they 
 must have heard it ; and yet they felt, somehow, 
 that the room was not empty. Half-an-hour went 
 by thus. Then Archie, unable to control his 
 natural restlessness any longer, got up and went 
 down to the river-side, where he amused him- 
 self by playing at ducks and drakes in the moon- 
 
 light.
 
 106 debenham's vow. 
 
 At the same instant that he strode away, some 
 one moved in the parlour and a peevish voice 
 said: — 
 
 ^ My dear child, what are you doing ? ' 
 
 To which the silveriest and sweetest voice that 
 Debenham had ever heard, replied: — 
 
 ^ Nothing, father. I have not stirred.' 
 
 * What waked me, then ? ' 
 
 ' Footsteps outside, I think. Some person has 
 been sitting in the porch, smoking, and has just 
 gone away.' 
 
 ' Smoking, was he ? Ay — I smell the tobacco. 
 Common enough too. Faugh ! ' 
 
 Debenham put out his pipe. 
 
 Presently the man's voice began again. 
 
 ' How long have I slept ? ' 
 
 * About three quarters of an hour.^ 
 
 ^ And you were reading. Let me see — what 
 were you reading, my love ? ' 
 
 ' About the clouds, padre mio ; and you were so 
 soon lost in them, that I closed the book before 
 getting to the end of a single page. It was dread- 
 fully tedious. It nearly sent me to sleep, too.' 
 
 ' Tedious, my dear ? Oh, fie ! Ruskin is never 
 tedious.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes, I know that is treason,' laughed the 
 girlish voice ; * but how is it, then, that somebody
 
 IN THE PORCH. 107 
 
 always falls asleep when I take up a volume of 
 " Modern Painters ? " ' 
 
 'Because, my darling, you always take it up 
 after dinner. You are not putting the Avine 
 away ?' 
 
 ^ Indeed, I am, sir, having just rung for tea. 
 Besides, there is exactly enough left for to-morrow. 
 Shall I draw up the blind ? ' 
 
 ^ And fill the room with bats and moths ? No, 
 thank you. A little evening society would be 
 pleasant enough; but not of that sort. Good 
 heavens ! how dull this place is ! ' 
 
 Here Debenham, who had leaned eagerly for- 
 ward in the hope of seeing the window opened, 
 heard a sound as of the pushing back of a chair, 
 and of footsteps slowly pacing to and fro. 
 
 * It is quiet,' replied the sweet young voice, 
 after a brief pause ; ^ but then it is very beautiful. 
 And you are not dull, dear, when you are at work. 
 Besides, the picture is going on so well.' 
 
 * I am not sure of that. I was strongly inclined 
 to rip it across with my penknife this afternoon.' 
 
 ' And Lord Wyelands ? ' 
 
 ' Que le diahle Vemporte^ I hate commission 
 pictures. I have never had the least satisfaction 
 in painting one — never. I have heard Jasper 
 Chrome say the same thing. The mere fact that
 
 108 debenham's vow. 
 
 the picture was already priced and purchased 
 seemed, he said, to paralyse him. And it is quite 
 true — and quite reasonable. The thing is never 
 your own. You can't even exhibit it without per- 
 mission. There are no hopes or fears connected 
 with it. You have only one man to please instead 
 of the whole public. Pshaw ! I wish I had never 
 undertaken it/ 
 
 ' Dearest father, Mr. Chrome's sentiments are 
 the sentiments of a Bohemian. If he prefers un- 
 certainty to certainty, it is because he has all a 
 gambler's love of excitement.' 
 
 The footsteps came to a sudden halt. 
 
 ' Bohemian, indeed ! ' said the artist, irritably. 
 * That is a ridiculous word, Juliet — a most ridicu- 
 lous word. A mere scrap of French slang, I 
 hope I shall never hear you make use of it again. 
 Is that tea never coming ? ' 
 
 ' I will ring again,' said the young lady, gently. 
 
 And then Debenham heard the bell tinkle in 
 the kitchen, and saw a shadow flit across the blind. 
 He knew now that her name was Juliet — a sweet 
 name linked to a still sweeter voice ! He longed 
 to see her face. If she would but come to the 
 window and look out upon the moonlight ! If 
 even he could see her shadow more distinctly on 
 the blind I And still he sat there in the leafy 
 porch, scarcely daring to breathe, glancing every
 
 IN THE POECH. 109 
 
 now and then in the direction of the river, and 
 dreading lest Archie should come back and break 
 the spell. Then he heard the tea brought in ; and 
 bj-and-by, after some minutes of silence, the artist 
 spoke again. 
 
 ^ Have you seen or heard anything of those two 
 men who are putting up here to-night ? ' he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 ' Not since we caught that glimpse of them as 
 they went up the river/ was the reply. 
 
 * Humph ! I wonder w^ho and what they are.' 
 
 ' The tall one looked gentlemanly,' said the 
 sweet voice. 
 
 Debenham's lip quivered with just the faintest 
 smile of gratified self-love. 
 
 * If one could only have them in, and get up a 
 rubber! I would give anything to-night for a 
 hand at whist.' 
 
 Debenham's thoughts reverted to his knapsack. 
 It contained, alas ! no evening suit ; but he re- 
 membered that he had a pair of black kid gloves 
 and a black silk neck-tie, both new, in the com- 
 partment where he kept his papers. 
 
 ' Will a game at chess do as svoW, padre mio V 
 ' Good heavens ! no. I am bored to death as 
 
 it is ; but a game at chess By the way, Juliet, 
 
 have you reminded the landlady to send into Mon- 
 mouth for the curry-powder and olives ? '
 
 110 DEBENHAM's YOW. 
 
 ^ Yes ; and for some books also. We have 
 come almost to the end of our own, and Mrs. 
 Joneses library contains only Foxe^s ^' Martyrs," 
 Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and Walton's 
 " Angler," in addition to her Prayer-Book and 
 family Bible/ 
 
 ^ Then Mrs. Jones's library does her infinite 
 credit. Three excellent books, Juliet — standards, 
 every one. I should not really have expected to find 
 three such excellent books in a little river-side inn 
 in Monmouthshire. You may give me that volume 
 of Balzac — the third to your right, my darling, at 
 the end of the shelf.' 
 
 ^ You would not prefer me to borrow one of 
 Mrs. Jones's standards for you, sir?' 
 
 ^ Comme Vesprit vient aux jfllles ! No, my little 
 mocking-bird, certainly not I am too old for 
 Messrs. Foxe and Bunyan. As the cares of life 
 press upon us, we want amusement. Heavy read- 
 ing for the young, light reading for the old ; that 
 is my theory. So, you see, the levity of the one is 
 corrected and the gravity of the other relieved. 
 This tea is wretched stuff, my darling. If we are 
 to stay here for another month, I must positively 
 send to London for something more drinkable.' 
 
 * Perhaps the second cup will be better.' 
 
 ' Thanks, I do not care to try. I think I will 
 go outside and smoke a cigar.^
 
 IN THE PORCH. Ill 
 
 These last words sounded Debenham's retreat. 
 As Mr. Alleyne opened the parlour door he stole 
 noiselessly from the porch, and when that gentle- 
 man had lighted his cigar in the kitchen and 
 emerged into the moonlight, Debenham was saun- 
 terincr to and fro within a few yards of the house.
 
 112 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ME. ALLEYNE. 
 
 Temple Debenham was not a sociable man. His 
 manner was cold ; he disliked strangers ; and 
 strangers, for the most part, disliked him ; yet he 
 became acquainted with Mr. Alleyne in the course 
 of a few minutes. A passing salutation as their 
 paths crossed in the moonlight — a remark, when it 
 came to the next turn, on the beauty of the night — 
 a halt on both sides — a word or two about fishing, 
 and the thing was done. By the time that Archie, 
 attracted by the sound of their voices, gave up his 
 ducks and drakes and came up from the landing- 
 place, he found his friend and Mr. Alleyne in active 
 conversation. 
 
 Seen by this imperfect light, Mr. Alleyne showed 
 as a short, plump, fresh-coloured, pleasant-looking 
 man, of about fifty-five years of age. His hair 
 was almost white, but curling and abundant. He 
 smiled a good deal, and his teeth were faultless.
 
 MR. ALLETNE. 113 
 
 He was well, though somewhat carelessly, dressed. 
 He wore a high collar, a frilled shirt-front, and a dia- 
 mond ring on his little finger. His hands were parti- 
 cularly white and well-shaped ; and he had the air of 
 a hon vivant. No one would ever have taken him 
 fur an artist. He indulged neither in long hair nor 
 moustachios, nor velvet coats, nor gorgeous cravats, 
 nor hats of boundless brim. He looked on the 
 contrary like a pleasant, gentlemanly, easy-going 
 diner-out of the old school, and was precisely the 
 sort of man whom one is accustomed to encounter 
 at * the breathing time of day ' along the shady 
 side of Pall Mall. 
 
 ^ A dull place,^ he was saying as Archie came 
 up; — *a wretched place. I have been here three 
 weeks, and am degenerating daily. In three weeks 
 more I shall become a savage — a quadruped — a 
 befe farouche. I shall browse. I shall chew the 
 cud. Fancy livino one's life in such a wilder- 
 ness : ' 
 
 ' The Wye is very lovely about here,^ said 
 Debenham, smiling. 
 
 * But the accommodation abominable. Believe 
 me, sir, the finest scenery in the world is improved 
 bv a fjood hotel in the forcrrround.^ 
 
 * Then you do not approve of the " Silver 
 Trout ?'^' 
 
 'Mv. Alleyne shrugged his shoulders, and 
 TOL I. I
 
 114 
 
 shrugged them as a Frenchman does, significantly, 
 yet almost imperceptibly. Before Debenham had 
 spent an hour in his society, he discovered that 
 Mr. Alleyne had many of the small habits of a 
 Frenchman ; but then he performed them with 
 all a Frenchman's dexterity, so that even the 
 shrug, which, as De Quincey says, is ^an odious 
 gesture,' sat airily and almost gracefully upon 
 him. 
 
 ^ Not so,-* he replied. ^ I cordially approve of 
 the '^Silver Trout"" — for the frequenters of the 
 ^' Silver Trout.'' Voila tout: 
 
 ^You have had it pretty much to yourself 
 here, I suppose, sir,' said Archie, speaking for the 
 first time. 
 
 Mr. Alleyne turned his head sharply, as if at 
 once detecting the difference of tone and ad- 
 dress. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, somewhat more distantly. 
 ^ We have had it entirely to ourselves. One is 
 quite out of the world at Chillingford.' 
 
 Then, turning again to Debenham, he 
 added : — 
 
 ' Your arrival is an unprecedented event. No 
 one comes here. I believe that no one ever has 
 come here since the beginning of time. The place 
 is a terra incognita to the civilised w^orld — known 
 •only to a few" ancient Britons in coracles, and
 
 mi. ALLET>'E. 115 
 
 other outer barbarians. Have you seen any 
 coracles on the river yet ? ' 
 
 Debenham had not yet seen any ; confessed, 
 indeed, that he did not even know what a coracle 
 was. 
 
 ' If I seem to be very ignorant/ lie said, ' I 
 must plead that I have been brought up and 
 educated abroad, and am almost a stranger in my 
 own country.'' 
 
 ' You might have lived all your life in Eng- 
 land, and yet be as ignorant/ Mr. Alleyne replied. 
 *A coracle is a sort of rude boat made of tarred 
 hides and osier-boughs — ^just the shape of a turtle- 
 shell. Csesar describes them, you may remember, 
 and says he learnt the use of them from the 
 Britons. And here you find them on the Wye, 
 and on most of the Welsh rivers, to this day. 
 They are very curious. I mean to buy one, and 
 take it homiC for a model. May I offer you a 
 cigar ? ' 
 
 Debenham, rememberino; what had been said 
 of his own tobacco, declined ; but Archie accepted 
 one, and even before he had lighted it, broke into 
 praises of its fragrance. 
 
 The artist received this tribute with easy com- 
 placency. 
 
 ' Yes,^ he said, ^ they are part of a case I 
 shared the other day with a Portuguese friend.
 
 116 DEBENHAM's YOW. 
 
 They come direct from Havana. You do not 
 object to the perfume of Vanilla? I always 
 keep a small piece of Yanilla in my cigar-case. 
 A simple luxury — allow me to recommend it.' 
 
 Chatting thus, they walked up and down for 
 some twenty minutes or more, Mr. Alleyne 
 leading the conversation ; Debenham putting in 
 an observation here and there; Archibald Blytli 
 puffing away in serene enjoyment, and listening to 
 all that the others were saying. Garrulous enough 
 at most times, the City man felt, somehow or 
 another, an ' exposition ' of silence upon him in 
 Mr. AUeyne^s presence. But he wanted his friend 
 to play a more important part in the conversation, 
 and was somewhat jealous that the stranger should 
 have all the talk to himself 
 
 Mr. Alleyne, however, conversed like a man 
 who was accustomed to have the talk to himself, 
 and Debenham seemed willing enough to drop into 
 the position of listener. The artist was amusing. 
 He contrived, within the space of those twenty 
 minutes, to touch upon a variety of topics. If he 
 did not talk in epigrams like a light-comedy wit, 
 there was, at all events, an epigrammatic flavour 
 about what he said. His style was light and easy. 
 His voice was agreeable. Perhaps he sprinkled 
 his conversation too liberally w^ith French phrases, 
 scraps of quotation and the names of titled persons.
 
 MR. ALLETNE. 117 
 
 Perhaps, like Chaucer's Serjeant of the law, who, 
 though a busy man, seemed ' busier than he was,^ 
 'Mr. Alleyne, though a clever talker, had the art 
 of saying things in a way that made them seem 
 cleverer than they were. But in any case he 
 was entertaining, and evidently a man of the 
 world. 
 
 At last, when Archie had reluctantly cast 
 aside the stump of his cigar, Mr. Alleyne asked 
 if they would go in and take tea. 
 
 ' It is wretched stufF,^ he said, ^ and half cold 
 by this time — and the room is a mere kennel 
 about twelve feet square. I am ashamed to ask 
 you into it."* 
 
 The young men looked at each other. Deben- 
 ham hesitated. 
 
 '^ We are pedestrians,' he said, ^ and carry our 
 wardrobes on our shoulders. I fear we can 
 scarcely present ourselves before a lady .... 
 in the evening . . . .' 
 
 Mr. Alleyne cut his apology short with a wave 
 of the hand. 
 
 'Living as we live here, beyond the pale of 
 civilisation,' he said, smiling, ' we have almost 
 forgotten that smockfrocks and highlows are not 
 de rigueur in the best circles. Pray dismiss every 
 consideration of that kind, and only remember 
 that we are livincr in the dreariest exile. Think
 
 118 
 
 what it would liaA^e been to Robinson Crusoe, had 
 a couple of civilised strangers dropped in one 
 evening to tea ! ' 
 
 With this he led the way, and the young men 
 followed him. 
 
 Temple Debenham had too early been brought 
 face to face with the hard realities of life, to retain 
 any of the mere timidity of youth. As a bo}^ 
 indeed, he was more than commonly self-reliant, 
 and as a young man he prided himself upon his 
 habitual sang froid. And yet at this moment, for 
 no cause whatever, he felt his cheek flush and his 
 breath come quicker. What was it? Why was 
 it ? But he had no time even to ask himself these- 
 questions ; much less to answer them.
 
 MUSICAL A^'D ESTHETIC. 119 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MUSICAL AND iESTHETIC. 
 
 They found a little room poorly furnlslied, but 
 brightly lighted; the tea still upon the table; and a 
 young lady standing by the fireplace reading. Her 
 book lay open before her on the mantel-piece. She 
 closed it when they came in, and received them 
 courteously. Mr. Alleyne then tasted the tea, 
 pronounced it undrinkable, rang for a fresh supply, 
 produced a portfolio of sketches, and made his 
 guests at home in a few moments. 
 
 Archie, painfully conscious of his clump-soled 
 boots, sat on the edge of his chair, silent and shy, 
 lamenting the gorgeous shirt-fronts and resplendent 
 waistcoats that he had left at home^ in his London 
 lodgings. 
 
 Debenham, feio-nino; to be absorbed in the 
 sketches, saw only Miss Alleyne. 
 
 Lie thought he had never beheld so dainty a 
 creature. He scarcely dared to look at her, and
 
 120 debenham's vow. 
 
 jet he could not keep his eyes away. She was 
 small — very small — exquisitely proportioned, 
 dark-haired, dark-eyed, with the slenderest throat, 
 the tiniest hands, the sweetest mouth imaginable. 
 Her eyes were large, lustrous, "changefulle as the 
 winds or seas;" her complexion of that pure, 
 glowing, transparent olive, which the French de- 
 scribe as the peau meridional, and which when 
 pale is the most pathetic, and when flushed, the 
 most radiant in the world. But it was neither to 
 the lustre of her eyes, nor the splendour of her 
 skin, nor the supple grace of her figure, that Miss 
 Alleyne owed the great charm of her beauty. It 
 was to her smile. That smile was magical. Taken 
 in repose, the face wore a thoughtful expression 
 that bordered upon melancholy; but the smile 
 transformed it, illuminated it, flooded it like sud- 
 den sunshine. Debenham saw it for the first time 
 before he had been half-an-hour in her presence, 
 and it was one of her father's sketches that called 
 it forth. 
 
 Taking the drawing from the folio — a river 
 scene, with flat, low banks, a line of pollard wil- 
 lows, and a punt moored against a speary ' plump ' 
 of bulrushes — Mr. Alleyne turned it towards her, 
 and said: — 
 
 ' Juliet, do you remember the bull ?^ 
 
 She had been sittino; by till then, silent enough.
 
 MUSICAL A>'D ESTHETIC. 121 
 
 with her face half averted, and her cheek resting 
 on lier hand ; but the flash of mirth came on the 
 instant, lightening over every feature. 
 
 ' Shall I ever forget the bull — or you ?' she 
 replied ; ^ or the tragical end of the sketching 
 umbrella?' 
 
 And then Mr. AUeyne laughed too, and told 
 them how he had been besieged by a bull while 
 peacefully sketching his own pnnt from the oppo- 
 site side of the river; and how, being unable to 
 get at the punt and unable to swim, he had con- 
 trived to clamber up a tree, while the bull made 
 war a Voutrance on the sketching-umbrella. 
 
 ^ I never remember that adventure,' said he, 
 * without marvelling at my own activity.' 
 
 ' If you could but have seen yourself, papa, as 
 I saw you when I came to row you back,' said 
 ]Mis3 Alleyne, ^ perched in the tree like some 
 stransje bird, broodincr over the ruins of the 
 umbrella ! ' 
 
 ' If you could but have seen the bull, my love, 
 defying it, bellowing at it, stalking round it, goring 
 it, tossing it, trampling upon it ! It was a sight for 
 Landseer. He was a magnanimous bull, however, 
 to give him his due. He respected the fine arts, 
 and spared my sketch-book.' 
 
 'And this happened lately^ on the Wye?' said
 
 122 debenham's tow. 
 
 Debenham ; asking the question for the sake of 
 saying something. 
 
 ' Oh no, it happened at a little place in Hert- 
 fordshire, where we spent a few days in the spring. 
 Do you know the neighbourhood of Berkhamp- 
 stead ? ' 
 
 The young man shook his head. 
 
 ' I am quite a stranger in England/ he replied. 
 ' I left it when a child, and only came back some 
 eighteen months ago.' 
 
 ^ Then you have travelled a great deal?^ 
 
 ' No ; we were always at Zollenstrasse. I was 
 educated there.' 
 
 Mr. Alleyne had heard of Zollenstrasse — had 
 passed once within a few miles of the frontier — had 
 known some one who afterwards became a pro- 
 fessor at the Academy. This set them talking 
 more freely ; and as Mr. Alleyne, in his airy way, 
 asked a multiplicity of questions, it was not long 
 before Debenham had been led into an unwonted 
 degree of expansiveness, telling his name and his 
 profession, and even drawing, in some half-dozen 
 sentences, a sarcastic sketch of the Grand-Ducal 
 court, and the formal life of that self-important 
 little capital. He described a court-day at the 
 Residenz — the washerwomen bringing home the 
 ladies' flounced petticoats dangling from long poles.
 
 MUSICAL AND .ESTHETIC. 12S 
 
 as if they were some kind of portentous fish just 
 caught — the Lord High Chamberlain in his nan- 
 keen mornlnsf coat, trottincr home bare-headed 
 from Kopf the barber's, not daring to put on his 
 hat for fear of disturbing the hair-powder — the six 
 tall cuirassiers who were regularly selected from 
 the corps de garde and transformed into footmen 
 for the day, to swell the somewhat scanty pomp of 
 the Grand-Ducal establishment — the old yellow 
 chariot from the Hotel des Rois, which all Zollen- 
 strasse wanted to hire at the same moment, and 
 which was to be seen in every part of the town at 
 once, throughout the afternoon — the gentlemen 
 who had walked, dusting their pumps and shaking 
 out their ruffles in the entrance-hall of the palace 
 — the Baroness von Schlitte and the Bareness von 
 Pffeffer squabbling for precedence in the ante-room 
 — the Grand-Duke yawning behind the plume of 
 his cocked-hat — the Grand-Duchess scolding the 
 princesses for tittering — the gentlemen ushers and 
 the gold sticks in waiting cutting jokes on the sly 
 — the dust, the fuss, the flutter, the bustle that 
 pervaded the whole town from seven in the morn- 
 ing till five in the afternoon; and the relief it was 
 to everyone concerned when the gun up at the old 
 Scliloss gaA*e notice tl\at the Residenz gates were 
 about to be closed, and tlie reception was over. 
 Ail this he told, and told it with humour ; and
 
 12 i debenham's vow. 
 
 Miss AUeyne, though still sitting somewhat apart, 
 listened and smiled ; and each time she smiled he 
 thought her more bewitching than before, and 
 longed to make her smile again. 
 
 Then the conversation drifted into more serious 
 channels. Zollenstrasse led, somehow, to Munich ; 
 and then they talked of German music and poetry 
 — of Goethe, and the wonderful Weimar period — 
 of Wagner, and King Ludwig of Bavaria. 
 
 ' As for Karl August,' said Mr. AUeyne, ^ he 
 has been so effaced by Goethe that the world has 
 scarcely done him full justice. He was almost a 
 great man/ 
 
 ' Must he not have been quite great, so to 
 appreciate greatness ?' asked Miss Alleyne. 
 
 * He was certainly a magnanimous man,' said 
 Debenham : ' for Goethe, with his Olympian airs, 
 his pomposity, and his infinite egotism, must have 
 been a difficult person to deal with. Merely to 
 have been the friend of such a man, and to have 
 maintained that friendship unimpaired, without 
 loss of dignity, throughout a period of fifty-five 
 years, augurs a high degree of forbearance.' 
 
 ^ It was an unequal friendship, too,' observed 
 Miss Alleyne. 
 
 ' And unequal friendships are as full of shoals 
 and quicksands as unequal marriages,' said Mr. 
 Alleyne, sententiously.
 
 MUSICAL A>'D ^ESTHETIC. 125 
 
 ' It was unequal in a manner particularly try- 
 ing to the Duke/ said Debenham; * for all the 
 rank was on his side^, and all the fame on 
 Goethe's.' 
 
 ' Yet tlie Duke must have been an able man/ 
 said jNIiss Alleyne. 
 
 ' The Duke was a very able man/ replied her 
 father ; ' but he was able as a statesman and re- 
 former ; so that, his field of operation being small. 
 Ills abilities went for nothing in the eyes of the 
 world. He must have felt this and chafed under 
 it ; for, after all, it is not pleasant to be obliterated, 
 even by the friends we love best/ 
 
 ' Was Mr. Blyth also a Zollenstrasse student?' 
 asked the young lady ; thinking, perhaps, that 
 poor Archie was undergoing that very process of 
 obliteration, and kindly trying to give him some 
 share in the conversation. 
 
 Archie bluslied wp to the eyes. 
 
 ' I ?' he stammered. ' Oh, no. I was at iMer- 
 chant Taylors'. But Fve been in Germany. I've 
 been up the Rhine.' 
 
 ' The one place in Germany that I have now 
 any special desire to visit is Munich,' said the 
 artist. ' Vienna and Dresden I know by heart ; 
 but the treasures of the Pinacothek I have yet to 
 see. I should wish not to die without having seen 
 Titian's "Presentation in the Temple.'"
 
 126 
 
 - ^ And I would give the world to hear Tann- 
 liailser and see Herr Wagner!' said his daughter. 
 
 ^ Mr. Debenham has, no doubt, done both, and 
 can give us every information.' 
 
 But Debenham had never been in Munich, nor, 
 though the music of it was famihar to him, heard 
 Tannliauser performed. He had, however, seen 
 not only Herr Wagner, but his eccentric friend 
 and patron, the King of Bavaria ; both having 
 been present at one of the great Zollenstrasse 
 festivals some three 3^ears before. 
 
 ' On which occasion,' said he, ^ a symphony of 
 Herr W^agner^s was performed by the orchestra 
 of the Academy ; and a more crabbed, distort, and 
 singular composition I never took part in before 
 or since. Yet there were wild, wonderful frag- 
 ments of melody cropping up throughout in all 
 sorts of unexpected places ; often quite lost to sight 
 — buried in the heart of the score, like diamonds 
 in a block of quartz, and only discoverable by an 
 adept. I remember one little passage of about 
 four bars played by the oboe — a delicate, airy, 
 exquisite flight of notes that haunted me for weeks 
 after ; but it was imbedded in a crash of other 
 instruments, and probably not a soul among the 
 audience, unless it were King Ludwig, even sus- 
 pected its existence.'
 
 MUSICAL AND ESTHETIC. 127 
 
 ^ Then there may really be a soul of beauty in 
 things discordant !' said Miss Alleyne, smiling. 
 
 * In Wagner's music — yes ; but you must be 
 an analyst to find it out/ 
 
 ^Is King Ludwig an analyst?' 
 
 ^ King Ludwig is not a Pericles, nor even a 
 second Karl August; but he has a real know- 
 ledge and real love of music,' replied Debenham. 
 * Whether he is an analyst in the technical sense, 
 I cannot say. But he has insight ; and it needs 
 insight to pierce the rough and sometimes gro- 
 tesque husk in which Wagner chooses to swathe 
 his musical ideas. He has as rich a vein of mere 
 melody as other composers, but he values it less 
 and employs it differently. His whole career, we 
 must remember, is a re-action against a school of 
 melodists — his every composition a protest against 
 Bellini and the followers of Bellini. Like all re- 
 actionists, liowever, he pushes his theory too far. 
 He is not content to deny that melody is of para- 
 mount importance in music. He is not content 
 to establish melody and harmony on a footing of 
 equality. He insists on degrading melody. He 
 uses it as a mere accessory — as the cheapest of 
 accessories; and lavishes it just where it is least 
 observed and least needed.' 
 
 ' Like the Count of Monte Christo, who wore
 
 128 debenham's yow. 
 
 no jewels, but caused a priceless emerald to be 
 hollowed out to make a box for his opium loz- 
 enges,' said Miss Alleyne. 
 
 ^ Mr. Debenham is the first admirer of Wagner 
 whom I have had the pleasure of conversing with/ 
 observed the artist. 
 
 ^ Pardon me,' replied Debenham. ' I do not 
 class myself with Herr Wagner's admirers. I re- 
 cognise his talent, but I entirely disapprove of his 
 style. I hold that beauty is the end of art, as 
 truth is the end of science ; and I cannot but 
 regard music from which melody is banished (or 
 in which melody is so far obscured as to be vir- 
 tually banished) as essentially inartistic. Still the 
 composer of Tannhaiiser is a man of mark.' 
 
 ' And originality.' 
 
 ' Oh, he is startlingly original,' said Deben- 
 ham. 'There is but one Wagner.' 
 
 * And Ludwig of Bavaria is his prophet !' 
 
 ' But if the King has, as Mr. Debenham asserts, 
 a real knowledge and a real love of art, and can 
 appreciate such learned and difficult music as 
 Wagner's, why deny him the title of a second 
 Karl August?' asked Miss Alleyne. 
 
 ' Goethe's Duke, my love, always kept up his 
 personal dignity. He never said or did an^^thing 
 to make himself absurd in the eyes of the world ; 
 but King Ludwig is — well, suppose we say im-
 
 MUSICAL AND ESTHETIC. 129 
 
 pulslve, and his impulsiveness has led him into 
 many follies. His quarrels and reconciliations with 
 Herr Wagner alone are notoriously ludicrous.' 
 
 * Still, if he has so much taste and cultiva- 
 tion . . . .' 
 
 ^ I fear, even so, that he will not bear com- 
 parison with so noble and steadfast a man as Karl 
 August,' said Debenham. ' Or, at best, we must 
 regard him as a mere whimsical, erratic, half- 
 pathetic, half-ludicrous imitation — like the jester 
 at the funeral pageant of a Roman emperor, whose 
 office it was to strut in the robes and mimic the 
 bearing of '^ imperial C^sar dead and turned to 
 clay.'" 
 
 'And your own Grand Duke — he of Zollen- 
 .strasse — is he musical ? ' asked Mr. Alleyne. 
 
 * He partakes of the nature of the Academy,' 
 replied Deb^ham, laughingly. ' He is a little of 
 everything. He paints a little, composes a little, 
 models a little; handles a lathe as dexterously as a 
 bow, and turns a tune or a needle-case with equal 
 facility.^ 
 
 ' I hope you do not imply that your academic 
 studies at ZoUenstrasse are conducted on that 
 principle ! ' 
 
 ' With this difference, — each student learns a 
 great deal of something, and a little of every- 
 tlnng/ 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 debenham's yow. 
 
 ^ And yon, I suppose, learned a great deal of 
 music and a little of the fine arts. Do you 
 paint ?' 
 
 * I sketch — very indifferently. One cannot 
 help it when half one^s fellow- students are artists/ 
 replied the young man apologetically. 
 
 ' I hope you will let us see your sketch-book.' 
 
 But Debenham protested he had not courage 
 to show it ; and so, the clock in the kitchen loudly 
 striking eleven, rose to say good-night. 
 
 ^ There, I have frightened you away,' said the 
 artist. ^ But I think you will let me see it to- 
 morrow, all the same. Shall you be here to- 
 morrow?' 
 
 ' Oh, yes ; we shall be here to-morrow. ' 
 
 ' I don't ask if you make any stay ; it's such a 
 wretched place, and the river is so much finer 
 higher up.' 
 
 ' I can scarcely tell,' replied Debenham, with 
 an air of great indifiPerence. ' It depends on the 
 fishing. If we get very good sport here, we may 
 stay some days.'' 
 
 ^Then I hope you may get excellent sport,' 
 said Mr. Alleyne. ' What— you will go ? Then 
 good-night.' 
 
 And so they shook hands, and parted; but 
 Debenham did not dare to offer his hand to Miss 
 Alleyne. He only bowed profoundly, and Archie,
 
 MUSICAL AND ESTHETIC. 131 
 
 who was just stepping forward with outstretched 
 palm, checked himself, and bowed also. 
 
 ^ I suppose that's foreign manners, old fellow/ 
 he said, as they went up stairs. 
 
 ' Foreign manners ! what do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' Why, not shaking hands with Miss What's- 
 her-name.' 
 
 ' I know little enouMi of Eno-lish manners,' 
 replied Debenham, ' so I cannot tell where mine 
 differ from them ; but abroad, certainly, no man 
 would venture to shake hands with a young 
 unmarried lady. It would be an unheard-of 
 liberty.' 
 
 ' You did not even say good-night to her. 
 Would that also have been a liberty?' 
 
 ' I think so. What right have I to wish her 
 a good-night ? Had it been her birthday, should 
 I have presumed to wish her many happy returns 
 of the day ? ' 
 
 ' Not if that's the light in which you look at it ; 
 but it's an artificial light, to my thinking. I pre- 
 fer English manners. I sliould have liked to shake 
 hands with her — I should, uncommonly.'' 
 
 ' Well, good-night,' said Debenham, abruptly. 
 
 They had now reached the landing, and his- 
 hand was already on the latch of his own bed- 
 room door. 
 
 ^ Don't be in such a hurry ; I want to ask you
 
 132 debenham's vow. 
 
 a question. What was that you said about staying 
 here some days? Did you mean it ? ' 
 
 * Mean it ? Well, perhaps. I don't know.' 
 
 * But I thought you were so eager to push on. 
 I had no idea you cared so much about the 
 fishing.' 
 
 ' My dear fellow,' said Debenham, impatiently, 
 * we can talk of this to-morrow. Let us go to bed 
 now. I'm horribly tired.' 
 
 ' All right. I only asked because I was sur- 
 prised. And you wanted to have slept at Mon- 
 mouth to-night, you know. However, I don't 
 care, — not a bit. And if you've taken a fancy to 
 the place. . . .' 
 
 ' Good-night, Archie.' 
 
 * Good-night, then. But, I say. . . .' 
 
 * What do you say ? ' 
 
 ' Isn't Miss Alleyne a little beauty ? ' 
 Debenham shut the door in his face.
 
 133 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 *FOE THE FIEST TIME.' 
 
 The next day, and the next, and yet the next, 
 went by, and still, to Archie's infinite perplexity 
 and ennui, Temple Debenham lingered on at 
 Chillingford. He liked the place; he liked the 
 fishing; he liked the landlady: he liked the 
 ' Silver Trout ; ' he liked sketching with Mr. 
 AUeyne ; he liked anything, in short, except stick- 
 ing to the programme they had laid out for them- 
 selves at starting. Archie, to be sure, though he 
 liked neither the ' Silver Trout,' nor the landlady, 
 nor Mr. Alleyne, could only sigh and obey. That 
 Debenham should do as he pleased, and that 
 Archie should do as Debenham pleased, was in- 
 evitable. The one always led, and the other 
 always followed. Their friendship, indeed, had 
 been based on this hypothesis from the first, and 
 the result, till now, had been uniformly satis- 
 factory.
 
 134 debenham's vow. 
 
 On the present occasion, however, Archie's 
 -allegiance pressed somewhat heavily upon him. 
 They had been out only a few days ; the weather 
 was superb ; the pleasure of their holiday was all 
 to come ; and yet Debenham had already called a 
 halt, and showed no sign of moving. Nor was 
 this all. There were strangers in the way — 
 strangers who sketched, and talked German aes- 
 thetics ; and to these people his friend devoted all 
 his time and conversation. So Archie, who 
 neither sketched nor talked German aesthetics, 
 found it decidedly dull. 
 
 In the meanwhile. Temple Debenham had 
 fallen irretrievably in love. 
 
 For the first time — literally for the first time. 
 Till this moment, he had cared for no woman but 
 his mother. He had never known even a boy's 
 passing fancy. All the bright eyes in Zollen- 
 strasse (and they were not a few) had never cost 
 him a single heartbeat. As for his fellow-students, 
 they cultivated the tender passion as they culti- 
 vated their beards and hair — that is, profusely. 
 Full to the brim of Kimst, and sentiment, and 
 Vaterland, they lived in a chronic state of ro- 
 mance, and would not have known how to live 
 out of it. Perhaps the sight of these tender- 
 hearted German youths prosing together about their 
 Gretchens and Annchens, as they quaffed their
 
 'FOR THE FIRST TIME.' 135 
 
 Bai'risclie beer and smoked their cheap tobacco 
 under the trees in the Linden platz, may have had 
 something to do with Debenham's indifference. 
 He saw too mucli of love and love-making, and, 
 like a nurse in a fever hospital, lived in such an 
 atmosphere of contagion, that he became proof 
 aojainst dano-er. But now that he no lono;er lived 
 in that atmosphere, he was no longer safe. For 
 him, as for other men, there was peril in ^ a rosie 
 cheek or a coral lip.' His turn had come at last 
 to take that ^falling sickness,' yclept love; and, 
 like all who take it late, he took it severely. 
 
 The mischief was partly done before he had 
 ever seen her. Sitting in the porch that first 
 night, he listened to the music of her voice till he 
 had half listened his heart away. The tender 
 shades of the gloaming, the dawning stars over- 
 head, the peace and poetry of the coming night, 
 the very novelty of the situation, all predisposed 
 him to any new impression. He was just in that 
 mood when a man cannot help falling in love. 
 Then her father came out, and invited him into 
 her very presence ; and he went in ; and he saw 
 her; and he found that she was as fair to see as 
 her voice vras sweet to hear; and then it was all 
 over with him, and he was as desperately in love 
 .as any of those poor Karls and Heinrichs whom
 
 136 debenham's vow. 
 
 he used to laugh at so heartlessly in the old Zol- 
 lenstrasse days. 
 
 However slowly the time may have dragged 
 by for Archie, for Debenham, at all events, the 
 days and hours flowed past in one enchanting^ 
 stream of poetry. Chillingford became his terres- 
 trial paradise. No other air was ever so laden 
 with perfume ; no other skies were ever so blue ; 
 no other hills so golden in light, so purple in 
 shadow. It seemed to him as if some strange and 
 subtle spell had suddenly descended on the earth. 
 Never had nature shown so fair ; never had he, at 
 all events, been so keenly conscious of the bound- 
 less beauty of forest and field. 
 
 As for Miss Alleyne, he contrived to be with 
 her, or near her, all the long day. He organised 
 walks. He taught, or pretended to teach her the 
 art and mystery of fly-fishing. He sketched, and 
 Mr. Alleyne corrected his perspective and touched 
 up his foliage. He read aloud, while the father 
 painted at the door of his temporary tent, and the 
 daughter, sitting close by in the shade, pursued 
 some deft little handicraft that looked like lace- 
 making, less the pillow and bobbins. And then 
 he talked — ah! never before had he talked so 
 well. Never had his memory been so reproduc- 
 tive, his imagination so vivid, his illustrations so
 
 * FOR THE FIRST TIME.' 1ST 
 
 happy. All his reading came suddenly to the 
 surface, and things long forgotten were remem- 
 bered like things of yesterday. It seemed to 
 him as if he had never known till now how much 
 he had thought, or how extensive his observa- 
 tion had been ; but then, till now, he had never 
 been in love, and love is of all stimulants the most 
 powerful. It sharpens the wits like danger, and 
 the memory like hatred; it spurs the will like 
 ambition ; it exalts the imagination like hashish ; 
 it intoxicates like wine. A man of real power 
 who, loving for the first time, loves with all the 
 force of his intellect and all the fire of his blood, 
 feels himself capable of all things. He holds the 
 world and its gifts in the hollow of his hand. He 
 has but to will and to do. He is no longer a man, 
 but a demigod. 
 
 And so it was with Temple Debenham. A 
 new world had opened to him — a new life had 
 descended upon him — a glory of hope and glad- 
 ness was about his head. Rapt, inspired, lifted 
 out of himself, he felt like a hero — he talked 
 like a poet. All the genius that was in him 
 blazed suddenly into love. The coldness, the 
 selfishness, the hardness of his nature, seemed all 
 at once to shrivel away, and be consumed in that 
 Promethean fire. He longed to do something 
 great, that he might be worthier of her affection.
 
 138 debenham's yow. 
 
 He would fain have been called upon to make 
 some heavy sacrifice or undergo some poignant 
 suffering for her sake. How easy to achieve, 
 endure, resign anything in her name ! He was 
 ready, in short, to undertake the impossible. 
 
 It was a condition of things that could not 
 long remain a secret to the lookers-on. The land- 
 lady of the ^Silver Trout ^ found it out imme- 
 diately, and told it, of course, to her married 
 sister, and her sister's husband, and the sister's 
 husband's niece, and all her friends and acquaint- 
 ances. The ruddy, red-haired, slatternly drudge 
 called by courtesy the ^ chambermaid,^ made the 
 discovery for herself quite as promptly, and 
 shared the information with every gossipping 
 crone and giggling chit in the place. Archie, to 
 his unutterable consternation, stumbled upon the 
 truth in the course of the fourth day. Mr. Alley ne, 
 however, being, like all selfish persons, extremely 
 unobservant of matters not directly affecting his 
 own comforts, painted and talked, sipped his port 
 and smoked his scented Havannahs in the most 
 luxurious disregard of the little drama which was 
 being enacted before his eyes. He either did not 
 see it at all, or, seeing it, mistook the whole per- 
 formance for a mere ordinary flirtation, ^ signifying 
 nothino;.' 
 
 And Miss Alleyne ?
 
 139 
 
 TTell — ^liss Alleyne was a woman ; and no 
 woman, however modest or dull, w^as ever yet so 
 modest or so dull as to be unconscious of the 
 admiration of a man. Juliet Alleyne was perfectly 
 aware from the first that Debenham admired her ; 
 but then she was used to admiration, and even a 
 little tired of it — or tried to believe that she was 
 so. She accepted his homage, at all events, as a 
 matter of course, and attached no more importance 
 to it than she had already attached to the homage 
 of a score of others. She listened to him, how- 
 ever, and knew that he was worth listening to. 
 She made entries in her diary of the books he 
 praised and the authors he quoted. In the morn- 
 ings, when she was getting up, she began to 
 wonder where and how soon she should see him ; 
 whether he would join them over at the tent, or 
 meet them first on the Chillingford side, or cross 
 with them in the ferry. At night she fell into 
 a habit of sitting on the side of her bed re- 
 calling the thincrs he had talked about durino^ the 
 day, and how he looked when he said them. 
 Perhaps she even began to miss him when he was 
 absent, and to listen, involuntarily, for the sound 
 of his voice on the stairs, or his footstep on the 
 gravel. But of this she was not even conscious. 
 She liked him, of course. She would have an- 
 swered frankly enough on that head, had she been
 
 140 debenham's yow. 
 
 questioned ; but that she liked him better than she 
 might, under similar circumstances, have liked any 
 other chance acquaintance, was a proposition that 
 never occurred to her for a moment. 
 
 And so she suffered the acquaintance to glide 
 into something almost approaching to intimacy 
 before any suspicion of love — earnest, vehement, 
 passionate love, such as this dark-eyed stranger 
 might be capable not only of feeling but inspiring 
 — had even flashed across her thoufjhts.
 
 THE CHURCH AMONG THE HILLS. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE CHUECH AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 Wandering at hot noon in the scented gloom of 
 the pine-woods ; chmbing at sunset by steep lanes 
 and stony footpaths to every neighbouring hill- 
 top; following the windings of the steel-bright 
 river in the early summer moonlight; reading 
 Shakespeare in the shade of an antique oak that 
 might have struck root in the forest of Arden : 
 gathering poppies in the corn-fields and wild 
 straw^berries in the woods ; listening to the night- 
 ingale in the gloaming, and to the cuckoo's double 
 note in the sultry silence of midday; talking of 
 music, of art, of poetry, of places and people famed 
 in song and story, of the Alps and the sweet South 
 — of everything, save love — these two drifted on 
 day by day, setting their hearts to the music of the 
 joyous present, as if life had never a past behind 
 nor a future before it. 
 
 An enchanted time ! Perhaps, take it for all 
 in all, the very swettest time that lovers know —
 
 142 
 
 when the frail barrier of silence is yet unbroken ; 
 when nothing has yet been asked, and nothing 
 granted ; when lips that have never met are 
 tremulous with untasted kisses ; when the passion 
 that has not yet found language vibrates in the 
 voice, and thrills the lingering palm ; when nothing 
 is certain but hope, and nothing worth hoping for 
 but certainty ; when the fair face of nature seems 
 all at once to be divinely transfigured, and every 
 common thing is informed with beauty, and the 
 very air is love. An enchanted time ; but, by 
 necessity, a brief one ! Love will out, no less than 
 murder ; and, however sweet the suspense of 
 silence, lovers will speak and end it. Debenham 
 spoke and ended it before many days were past. 
 
 It happened thus. 
 
 Miss Alleyne had said that she would like to 
 hear him play, and the landlady had told them of 
 a little church up in a fold of the hills some three 
 or four miles away, where there was an organ. 
 So Debenham beat up the neighbourhood for a 
 donkey, and. at about four o'clock one brilliant 
 afterncon they started — Miss Alleyne heading the 
 procession on donkey-back; Debenham leading 
 the gallant animal by the rein ; Mr. Alleyne and 
 Archie bringing up the rear. 
 
 The way was steep, and led, for the most part, 
 through young plantations and clearings populous
 
 THE CHURCH A:.IO^'G THE HILLS. 143 
 
 witli rabbits. Once they passed a woodcutter's 
 cottage with its bit of garden, its beehives, its 
 hollyhocks, its yelping cur and group of wonder- 
 ing children at the gate. Sometimes they startled 
 a covey of partridges, and once or twice heard the 
 whirr of a pheasant. But it was a wild, solitary 
 climb, on the whole, and, till they came to a cross 
 road a long way up, leading to a space of furzy 
 common where stood a cluster of some six or 
 eight dilapidated cottages, they met not a single 
 wayside passenger. Hence they were directed 
 along a green road still trending upwards, and 
 so came to an old-fashioned parsonage half hidden 
 in trees, and a tiny church so overgrown with ivy 
 that the windows and door, the little wooden 
 belfry, and part of the roof, were alone visible. 
 They found the church-yard gate unfastened, the 
 parson's cob feeding among the graves, the church- 
 door standing wide open for all who chose to enter. 
 So Miss Alleyne alighted, and they tied the donkey 
 to the gate and went in. 
 
 A quainter, quieter, sadder little church it 
 would be impossible to conceive. The raftered 
 roof, the screen, the pews, panels, and pulpit, 
 were all of black, worm-eaten oak. Old scut- 
 cheons and death's-head tablets crowded the walls. 
 The altar-cloth, once red, looked like a rusty pall. 
 The footsteps of generations had worn the pave-
 
 144 debenham's tow. 
 
 ment into deep hollows, and half trodden away a 
 pair of monumental brasses near the altar-rails. 
 As for the windows, they were so darkened with 
 ivy and so overladen with the dust of years, that 
 it was impossible to distinguish even tlie colour of 
 the few patches of stained glass that yet remained 
 in them. The organ stood in a little dark corner 
 against the choir, partly hidden by the screen, and 
 partly by a faded red curtain. 
 
 * And now, my dear sir,' said Mr. Alleyne, at 
 once doing the honours of the place as if he were 
 lord of the manor or bishop of the diocese, ' we are 
 all impatience to hear you. Is the organ locked ? 
 If so, we must apply at the parsonage for the 
 key.' 
 
 * It is not locked,' said Miss Alleyne, peeping 
 through the curtain; Mt is open; and it is the 
 strangest little organ ! The keys are all ebony, as 
 if its very teeth were black with age ; and it looks 
 so feeble and decrepit, that it seems impossible it 
 should have any voice left.' 
 
 ^ Here is some trace of an inscription,' said 
 the artist, adjusting his double eyeglass ; ' but the 
 gilding is so worn, and the place so dark, that I 
 cannot decipher it.' 
 
 Debenham, taking his seat on the organist^s 
 bench, bent down and read aloud the name of 
 ^Edward Fisher, Maker, London, 1622.'
 
 I 
 
 THE CHUKCH AMONG THE HILLS. l45 
 
 ^ It is nearly two hundred and fifty years old/ 
 he said, running his fingers lightly along the keys, 
 which, there being no wind in the bellows, gave 
 out a hollow sound like the rattling of dry bones. 
 'Two hundred and fifty years — a long life for 
 such a thing of pipes and valves ! Why, Milton 
 might have played upon it; Cromwell might have 
 listened to it.' 
 
 ' Has it been hidden up here in these wild 
 hills, I wonder, all that time?' said Miss Alleyne. 
 ' One would like to know its history.' 
 
 ' A chequered one, most likely,^ replied Deben- 
 ham. ' It has changed its religion and its politics 
 more than once, we may be certain. Organs are 
 sad reneirades, and this one is old enou£[h to have 
 turned its coat a good many times. It may have 
 been Koyalist and Roundhead, Papist and Pro- 
 testant — have droned Puritan psalm-tunes in the 
 days of the Protectorate, lilted secular airs to the 
 rhymes of Sternhold and Hopkins for the Merry 
 Monarch, and lent itself to Palestrina's mass-music 
 under James II. There is nothing in the world 
 so shamelessly inconsistent as a church organ, 
 except a peal of bells.' 
 
 ' Or a woman,^ said ]Mr. Allejne. 
 
 * That observation. Monsieur mon pere, has not 
 even the merit of novelty,^ said his daughter, 
 saucily. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 debenham's vow. 
 
 ^ Eternal truths never have, my love. But 
 Mr. Debenham wants some one to blow for him.' 
 
 ' I'll blow,' said Archie, eagerly. 
 
 ^ Then you must let me relieve guard when 
 you are tired,' said the artist, condescendingly. 
 
 Archie laughed and shook his head. His coat 
 was off already. 
 
 ^ I'm never tired,' he replied. * I'm used to it. 
 Now, Debenham, say when.' 
 
 But Debenham was not yet ready. He was 
 examining the stops, the names on which were 
 almost illegible, and trying the compass of the 
 pedals. 
 
 ' Here is a stop,' he said presently, ' which is 
 seldom, if ever, made by modern builders, — the 
 Yox Humana.' 
 
 ' I should like to hear that,' said Miss 
 Alleyne. 
 
 ' It is sure to be very bad. These Vox- 
 Humana stops are generally failures, even in the 
 best instruments. Still, the thing has been done. 
 There are two Vox-Humana stops in the great 
 organ at Freiburg — soprano and tenor — the 
 effect of which is simply indescribable.' 
 
 ' Do they really sound like human voices ?' 
 asked Miss Alleyne. 
 
 ' They sound like superhuman voices — like 
 the voices of angels making use of no articulate
 
 THE CHURCH AMONG THE HILLS. 147 
 
 speech. Imagine an absolutely faultless voice 
 singing without the utterance of even a vowel 
 sound. But there! — one cannot imagine it. A 
 voice must utter a note by means of a vowel 
 sound, and an organ can only utter the note. 
 This it is which gives such unearthly effect to a 
 good Vox -Humana stop.' 
 
 ^ And this one . . . .' 
 
 'I predict that it is a bad specimen. Now, 
 Archie, blow !'
 
 148 debenham's yow. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 THE YOX HUMANA. 
 
 Aechie fell upon the bellows with a will. Mr. 
 Allejne, having ensconced himself in the most 
 comfortable corner of the squire's pew, closed his 
 eyes and prepared to listen luxuriously, or, it may 
 be, to sleep. Miss Alleyne remained in the choir, 
 separated from the organ by only a rail and a 
 half-drawn curtain. 
 
 ' Do you mind being overlooked while you 
 play ? ' she said. * Shall I go away ?' 
 
 He was playing now — a few soft preliminary 
 chords. 
 
 ' Ah, no,' he said, dreamily, without looking 
 round. * Never go away. Stay here, and let me 
 play to you always.' 
 
 ^Always?' she repeated, with a gay little 
 lauo'h. 
 
 ' Ay ; if on 2 could arrest the shadow on the 
 dial!'
 
 THE YOX HUMANA. 149 
 
 And lose the pleasure of expecting to- 
 
 'OW.' 
 
 * To-morrow ? There is no to-morrow for 
 those who . . . .' 
 
 He checked himself; drew out another stop; 
 went on playing. 
 
 ' To-morrow !' he resumed after a moment's 
 pause; still not looking round — still in the same 
 low, musing tone. ' To-morrow may bring doubt, 
 or certainty worse than doubt; to-morrow may 
 bring death, or parting w^orse than death. Do 
 not speak of to-morrow ; it makes a coward of me.' 
 
 Miss Alleyne drew back a little into the shade 
 of the curtain, but said nothing. 
 
 ' I used to live in and for the future,' he went 
 on. ^ Ten days ago I thought of nothing else. 
 The present, with its disappointments and strug- 
 gles, was a mere probation. Now the present is 
 all in all ; the future nothing.' 
 
 'You have had disappointments and struggles?' 
 said Miss Alleyne, with a touch of tremor in her 
 voice. 
 
 ' Who that is ambitious has not ? They are 
 the purchase-money of success.' 
 
 He did not see the bright look that flashed 
 across her face as he said this. 
 
 * But — but if one pays for success too dearly?' 
 she said, hesitatingly.
 
 150 debenham's tow. 
 
 ^ There are some things for which it is impos- 
 sible to pay too dearly.' 
 
 ' For instance^ fame?' 
 
 ^ No : one may pay too high a price for fame ; 
 but for happiness . . . / 
 
 He broke off abruptly. All this time he had 
 not ceased playing ; all this time the stream of 
 sound kept swelling under his fingers like a 
 gathering tide, as he added fresh stops and wan- 
 dered on to richer and remoter combinations of 
 harmony. 
 
 ^ It is perhaps one of our heaviest misfortunes,* 
 he began again presently, ^ that we do not know 
 when we are happy. Blind to the wealth of the 
 present, we go on staking upon the future till we 
 have lost all. Now, had T the power given to 
 Joshua of old, I would bid the sun and moon 
 stand still in the heavens for ever. I would go on 
 playing, you should go on listening, for ever. The 
 trees out yonder should never shed their leaves, 
 the cornfields never ripen, the shadows never 
 lengthen on the grass.' 
 
 ^ And papa should never have his dinner, and 
 poor Mr. Blyth should never leave off blowing !' 
 laughed Miss Alleyne. ' I fear they would not 
 accept immortality upon such hard conditions. But 
 you have not yet used the Vox-Humana stop.'
 
 THE TOX HUMANA. 151 
 
 ' I am leading np to it,' he replied. ' All this 
 is introduction. I will use it now, as a solo.'' 
 
 ' As a solo — what do you mean?' 
 
 * I mean that I will take it alone, without the 
 admixture of any other stops, on this upper row 
 of keys — playing it as you will see with the right 
 hand, while the left hand on the row below^ and 
 the pedals, supply the accompaniment.' 
 
 ' Like a voice, in fact, singing to an accom- 
 paniment.^ 
 
 ' Exactly. And now you must imagine that it 
 is night. Scene, a garden — the moon gleaming 
 through broken rifts of cloud — the trees whispering 
 prophetically as the night- wind comes and goes — 
 the facade of an Italian palazzo all ghostly in the 
 moonlight — a girlish figure on the balcony — a 
 moving shadow among the cypresses below. ^ 
 
 ' The garden-scene in " Romeo and Juliet !" 
 Yes, ]Mr. Debenham, I will try to imagine all that. 
 Having done so, what next ? ' 
 
 ' Having done so, we will suppose this Vox 
 Humana to be the voice from the garden.^ 
 
 ^ Romeo sino-incr to Juliet.' 
 
 For the first time since he had begun to play, 
 Debenham lifted his head and flashed a sudden 
 glance at her. 
 
 ' I have not said that it is Romeo,' he replied.
 
 152 debenham's yow. 
 
 Something in his voice, in his words, brought 
 the warm colour in a tide to Miss Alleyne's cheek 
 and brow. Something in his glance seemed to 
 scathe her like fire; but even as he spoke, his 
 master- touch evoked the first low, detached tones 
 of the Vox Humana. 
 
 The stop was not a fine one — that was hardly 
 to be expected; but it was not, as Debenham had 
 predicted, a very bad one. In quality it was 
 somewhat dry and harsh; but as it belonged to 
 the swell organ, the player had it in his power to 
 make this defect less apparent. It was capable, at 
 all events, of expression. 
 
 And now, warming to his subject as he went 
 on, the young man flung his whole soul into his 
 improvisation. It was no longer the voice of an 
 imaginary lover in an imaginary garden. It was 
 his own voice telling the tale of his own passion. 
 Hesitatingly, timidly, the Yox Humana began, 
 like the uncertain utterances of a love hitherto un- 
 spoken. Phrased like a recitative — interrupted by 
 frequent pauses— now breaking off abruptly on 
 some unresolved note, as if waiting a reply — now 
 hurrying on, as if eagerly pleading — now passion- 
 ately uplifted, now falling to a whisper, the voice 
 part scarcely needed words to make its story 
 plainer. Declaration, suspense, hope, fear, en- 
 treaty, were all poured forth in turn. The very
 
 THE VOX HUMANA. 153 
 
 soiil of the player seemed to pass into the instru- 
 ment. The pipes obeyed his touch as if informed 
 with a conscious s\Tnpathy — as if breathing the 
 language of a living passion. 
 
 Then suddenly these speaking, striving irre- 
 gular utterances ceased. The accompaniment, no 
 longer waiting upon the voice as in dramatic re- 
 citative, swept into a magnificent flow of chromatic 
 passages, rising and falling, coming and going, now 
 dying in the distance, now returning in might, like 
 the fitful swelling of a summer wind ; while clear 
 above all, earnest, and full, and impetuous, the 
 voice-part rose in a strain of impassioned melody. 
 
 Miss AUeyne had moved away before; but 
 now, constrained, as it were, by the spell of his 
 ' so potent art,' she di-ew insensibly nearer till she 
 found herself standing breathless, fascinated, close 
 behind the player. Such music as this she had 
 never heard before. Not that it was so wonderful 
 in point of manual skill, for Debenham was too pro- 
 found a musician in the largest sense of the phrase 
 to attach undue importance to the mechanism of his 
 art; and, finely as he played, it would at any 
 time have been easy to find a dozen public per- 
 formers who, as mere executants, surpassed him in 
 dexterity. But his playing was the direct inter- 
 pretation of his genius. It was mind expressed in 
 sound — every passage an inspiration — every touch
 
 154 debenham's vow. 
 
 an idea. Between such playing as this — the play- 
 ing of a great improvisatore — and the playing of a 
 mere performer, there is the same difference as 
 between the speech of a fervid orator and the con- 
 ventional recliaiiffee of a newspaper reporter. 
 
 Upon Archie Blyth labouring at the back of 
 the organ in his shirt-sleeves, and upon Mr. Alleyne 
 placidly dozing among the cushions of the squire's 
 pew, this wealth of harmony was cast away ; but 
 not so upon the one hearer for whom alone it was 
 created. She, at all events, listened as though she 
 were listening to the music of the spheres. 
 
 'Have you skill to interpret this dumb singing?' 
 he asked, presently. 
 
 ' I am skilled in nothing, Mr. Debenham,' she 
 replied : ' but — but I suppose no one ever played 
 Mendelssohn's Lieder Olme Worte without imao^in- 
 ing words of some sort to the melodies.' 
 
 ' Then what words Iiave you given to our Vox 
 Humana ? ' 
 
 Miss Alleyne hesitated. 
 
 * I do not think it is possible,' she said, ^ to put 
 actual words to music which one hears for the first 
 time. One may ascribe a general meaning to the 
 whole ; but unless one knows what is coming next 
 — unless, indeed, the music is written . . . .' 
 
 ' True. But you have ascribed a general mean-
 
 THE TOX HUMANA. 155 
 
 ^ I supposed YOU had taken the garden scene in 
 " Romeo and Juliet" for your theme.' 
 
 * And this voice?' 
 
 ' Romeo's, of course.' 
 
 'Nay, I warned you against that conclusion. 
 Miss Alleyne.' 
 
 'True; but you bade me at the same time 
 imagine a garden and moonlight — an Italian 
 palazzo — a lady, who could be none other than 
 Juliet, on the balcony . . . .' 
 
 ' Ah, Miss Alleyne, take Jidiet for granted, if 
 you will!' he said, half turning in his place; his 
 left hand still resting on the keys ; his eyes looking 
 into hers ; his voice low, and hurried, and eager. 
 ' Let it be Juliet who listens ; but not Romeo, not 
 Romeo, who sings ! This song, could you read 
 it aright, would tell a tale of love as sudden, as 
 deep, as passionate as his ; but with this difference 
 — it is a tale of first love. Romeo, remember, 
 loved Rosaline before ever he loved Juliet; and 
 may have loved a score of others besides. But he 
 who made this song never gave a thought, or a 
 hope, to any but the one Juliet whom he loved for 
 the first and last time in his life. Nay, I beseech 
 you do not draw away — I beseech you, hear me ! 
 What I have to say, cannot be new to you. You 
 must have known that I love you. You must 
 have seen it in my face — heard it in my voice —
 
 156 debenham's yow. 
 
 felt it in the very air we breathe together ! I have 
 loved you from the first moment I beheld you ; I 
 have gone on since then loving you more and 
 more every day, every hour. Perhaps, had I 
 been sure you could never have loved me back 
 again, I might have overcome it at the first — I 
 might have forced myself to fly from you and 
 never see your face again ; but now it is too late. 
 I have not a hope, or an aim, or an end in life that 
 does not centre in you. If I am to work now, 
 it must be for you — if I am to excel, it must 
 be for you — if I am to live the life and fight 
 the fight that lay before me a week ago, it must 
 still be for you. Failing that motive — and a 
 man's heart is so fearfully strong in hope that 
 it needs a mighty effort even to think of adverse 
 possibilities — failing that motive, Ju — Miss 
 Alleyne, I hardly think I should be equal to 
 anything, or worth anything, in the time that lies 
 before me ! ' 
 
 He broke off abruptly. Miss Alleyne turned 
 a frightened glance upon the squire's pew ; but her 
 father still slept the sleep of the just. 
 
 ' I — I had not expected this,' she said, falter- 
 ingly. 
 
 ' Does it surprise you ? Is it possible you had 
 not seen how I loved you?' 
 
 The question was inconvenient. Like a true
 
 THE YOX HUMANA. 157 
 
 woman, she answered it, after a moment's hesita- 
 tion, by another. 
 
 ' But why do you love me?^ 
 
 That she had a spice of the coquette in 
 her composition may not be denied ; but, unless 
 she were the veriest coquette that ever lived, 
 she could not have asked that question if slie 
 had meant to bid him despair. It was a ques- 
 tion that authorized him to launch out into 
 all the foolish, fond, extravagant reasons that 
 a lover's w^it could devise. Why did he love 
 her ? Why did the sun shine in the heavens by 
 day and the stars by night? Why did the birds 
 sing in the springtime, and the tides obey the 
 moon, and the kindly fruits of the earth succeed 
 each other season after season ? Was it not that 
 all things were governed by ' a law divine' — a law 
 of order, of fitness, of beauty, of sympathy, of love ? 
 Was it not in obedience to that law that heart 
 sought heart, and hand was outstretched for hand, 
 throughout the pilgrimage of life? And across 
 what a desert that pilgrimage lay for those whose 
 fate it was to perform it alone ! For himself he 
 dared not contemplate it. For himself there was 
 nothing but Paradise or the desert. Whv did 
 he love her? Not because she was beautiful — 
 graceful — accomplished ; not because her tastes 
 were his tastes ; not because she loved art, music.
 
 158 debenham's vow. 
 
 books ; not because chance had thrown them 
 together in a romantic spot at tlie sweetest season 
 of the year. No — for none of these reasons ; but 
 for her very self. Were she unbeautiful, ungrace- 
 ful, untaught, he felt he must have loved her just 
 the same. It was that he had found himself con- 
 strained to love her — irresistibly drawn towards her 
 as towards a second self — and this even at the first 
 sound of her voice, before he had so much as seen 
 her face ! Was this accident, or the result of cir- 
 cumstances? No — it was destiny. It was that divine 
 law of fitness and sympathy . , . et ccetera, et coetera. 
 
 In short. Temple Debenham, being not yet 
 twenty-six years of age and very much in earnest, 
 talked a vast deal of eloquent nonsense, to all of 
 which Miss Alleyne listened with a beating heart 
 and a changing colour. Had she disliked the 
 speaker, or read all these pretty things in a second- 
 rate novel, or overheard them addressed to another, 
 she would have been ready enough to criticise 
 them ; but what woman ever yet detected faults of 
 style in the declaration of the lover she really cared 
 for ? As for Debenham, he would have been less 
 fluent had he been less hopeful. Miss Alleyne's 
 one little question as to why he loved her, had 
 buoyed him up to the seventh heaven at once. 
 
 Having talked himself out of breath, he came 
 by-and-by to a pause.
 
 THE VOX HUMANA. 159 
 
 'You have risked me/ he said, looking long- 
 ingly at her hand which was resting on the 
 ciu'tain rail, but not daring to touch it, 'why I 
 love you, and I have tried to tell you. Perhaps 
 my best and shortest answer, after all, would be to 
 say that I love you because I cannot help it. Will 
 you tell me in return if there is any reason why I 
 should not love you ? ' 
 
 'I — I don't know,' she answered, with the 
 faintest flitting of a smile about her mouth. ' I 
 should think there were a good many reasons.' 
 
 ' Do you dislike me ? ' 
 
 'N — no.' 
 
 ' Do you love any one else ? ^ 
 
 ' Yes. I love that excellent man asleep in 
 yonder pew.' 
 
 ' Ah, do not trifle with me. Miss Alleyne ! 
 You know what I mean, and . . . You must 
 have so many lovers ! ' 
 
 ' A flattering supposition. Many thanks.' 
 
 ' Tiiis is cruel I You jest with me, knowing 
 how desperately I am in earnest.' 
 
 ' But what do you want ? ' 
 
 ' One word of hope.' 
 
 ' It is the first time you have even asked for 
 itl' 
 
 ' Good heavens ! what have I been doing for 
 the last half-hour?'
 
 160 
 
 * Let me see. . . . Well, you have been 
 telling me, in the first place, how much you love 
 me ; and in the second place, why you love me ; 
 and in the third place, you wanted to know if 
 there were any reasons why you should not love 
 me. Now, I think, there are several.' 
 
 Her hand was still resting on the curtain rail, 
 and he was still looking at it. Timidly, as if it 
 were a sacred thing, he stooped and touched it 
 with his lips. She blushed, and withdrew it. 
 
 * Name them,' he said, gently. 
 
 * You do not know me.'' 
 ' I think I do.' 
 
 ' Indeed, you do not. I am neither so good, 
 nor so clever, nor so — so pretty, as you seem to 
 fancy. And you know nothing of how I have 
 been brought up, nor of my surroundings, nor 
 of my disposition. I repeat it, — you don't know 
 me.' 
 
 ' I beg leave to hold my own opinion on that 
 point. What else ? ' 
 
 ' Well, I don^t know you.' 
 
 ' You know mure of me in some respects than 
 my own mother knows of me ; and I think I have 
 told you all my story, such as it is. However, 
 the question is not whether you know me, but — 
 but whether you can love me.' 
 
 Miss Alleyne's hand had by this time returned.
 
 I 
 
 THE TOX HIDIANA. 161 
 
 somehow or another, to the curtain-rail. He 
 kissed it again, imprisoned it fast within his own, 
 laid his cheek ao;ainst it, felt it tremble, strussle 
 
 J ■' ■> OCT 
 
 for a moment to be free, and then yield itself pas- 
 sively into captivity. 
 
 'I know I am not worthy of you,' he said, 
 tenderly; M^ut I love you, and I will work for 
 you, and some day you shall be proud of me.' 
 
 ' I am proud of you already,' she whispered. 
 
 His arm was romid her waist now ; but he 
 was still sitting, she stiU standing, the envious 
 curtain-rail still between them. He drew her 
 nearer, but still not near enough. He laid his 
 head back against the curtain-rail, but also against 
 her bosom ; for she was half bending over it. He 
 looked up into her face with those dark, deep, 
 passionate eyes that were his only personal 
 beauty. 
 
 ' If it is true,' he said ; ^ if it is not all a dream 
 — kiss me.'' 
 
 But she averted her face, and held back si- 
 lently. 
 
 * I have never been kissed in my life,' he said 
 simply, ' except by my mother.' 
 
 Her eyes filled with sudden tears. 
 'My mother died without having kissed me — 
 without having seen me,' she faltered. 
 
 * Poor child!' 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 debenham's yow. 
 
 * You are sorry ? ' 
 
 ^ Yes; because you have lost so much. I love 
 you ; but what of that ? It is but a man's love, 
 after all ; whereas a mother's . . . Well, the 
 human being whose childhood has been blessed 
 with the love of a good and tender mother gets 
 his heaven at both ends of life, instead of at the 
 latter end only.' 
 
 * How good Mrs. Debenham must be, for you 
 to say that ! ' exclaimed Miss Alleyne. 
 
 The young man bent his head as reverently 
 as a devotee who hears the name of his patron 
 saint. 
 
 ' My mother,' he said, ' is an angel.' 
 
 ^ Do you think that — that she will like me?' 
 said Miss Alleyne, shyly, but with a gleam of 
 coquetry. 
 
 ' She will adore you ! ' 
 
 ^But I am not an angel, you know.' 
 
 * Dieu merci ! What hope would there be for 
 me if you were ? I should never get that kiss, 
 for instance , , . .' 
 
 ' Hush ! My father is waking.' 
 
 'No; he has only moved his head. But he 
 will wake presently ; I must go on playing. See, 
 I cannot get up — I cannot take you in my arms. 
 Be generous, and give me what I think you would 
 not refuse if I were free to take it.'
 
 TIIE TOX HUMANA. 163 
 
 ^ For your mother's sake, then/ she whispered ; 
 and, blushmg crimson, bent forward and touched 
 his forehead lightly with her lips. 
 
 At that instant jMr. AUeyne sneezed and 
 woke. He sat up, looked round him, and, re- 
 membering where he was and all about it, patted 
 his hands softly together in decorous applause. 
 
 ' Thanks, Mr. Debenham,' he said, graciously ; 
 * many thanks. A very charming performance, 
 indeed. Quite a treat — quite a treat. I have 
 enjoyed it immensely.' 
 
 ' The music, papa, or the nap ? ' asked his 
 daughter, laughingly. 
 
 * My love, I have not been asleep.' 
 
 * Oh, 'padre mio ! ' 
 
 'Not for a moment — not for a moment, I as- 
 sure you. I have not lost a single note.' 
 
 Debenham, to conclude with, played Men- 
 delssohn's immortal \Yeddin2; March.
 
 164 debenham's yow. 
 
 CHAPTER Xy. 
 
 AECHIE DISAPPROVES. 
 
 The lovers went back to Chillingford by the direct 
 road to Paradise and spent the evening in a 
 delicious dream, talking but little, drinking en- 
 chanted tea out of enchanted cups, and looking out 
 oftener than was strictly necessary at the moon. 
 Later in the evening Mr. Alleyne proposed the 
 now habitual rubber, in the course of which 
 Temple Debenham repeatedly trumped his part- 
 ner's best card, and Miss Alleyne invariably 
 forgot to follow suit. 
 
 After they had all bidden good-night and gone 
 up to bed, Debenham called Archie into his room 
 and invited him to sit down. 
 
 ' There is the bed,' he said, ' and there is the 
 chair. The chair, however, has only three legs — 
 I recommend the bed.' 
 
 Archie perched himself upon the side of the 
 bed, and stared at his friend in ominous silence.
 
 ARCHIE DISAPPROVES. 165 
 
 DebeDliam was evidently embarrassed, and Archie 
 was not disposed to help him out of his embar- 
 rassment. A solemn pause ensued; Debenham 
 walking excitedly backwards and forwards in his 
 shirt- sleeves and slippers ; Archie swinging his 
 legs to and fro, and waiting to be spoken to. Ail 
 at once, Debenham plunged his hand into his 
 knapsack and brought his cigar-case. 
 
 * Have a weed, Archie,^ he exclaimed, in a 
 burst of hospitality. 
 
 But Archie was not to be thawed. He took 
 the cigar with a nod, put it unlighted between his 
 lips, and sat gloomily sucking it. 
 
 ' I have something to tell you, old man,' said 
 the other, presently. 
 
 Archie removed the cigar; grunted; put it 
 back again ; and still answered not a word. 
 
 ^ There, — I may as well tell it in half-a-dozen 
 words as a thousand. I love her, Archie, and she 
 loves me. It ^s all right, and I ^m the happiest 
 fellow in the w^orld. Congratulate me.^ 
 
 He put out his hand as he said this, so that 
 Archie could do no less than shake it; but he 
 pursed up his mouth and, as it were, performed 
 that ceremony under protest. 
 
 ^I don't see that it's all right at all,' he said, 
 gloomily. ^ I should be more inclined to say it 
 was all wronor. It '11 be the ruin of you.-'
 
 166 
 
 * The ruin of me ! What, in heaven's name, 
 do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' I mean that it 's all nonsense, and worse than 
 
 nonsense. A man with your genius why, 
 
 you'll be making love when you ought to be 
 making money. Such an engagement as that will 
 weigh like a millstone round your neck.' 
 
 ' Nothing of the kind. It will inspire me to do 
 greater things than ever.' 
 
 Archie shook his head. 
 
 ' It gives me something to work for.' 
 
 'You had fame to work for — fame and fortune.' 
 
 ' Well, now I shall have fame, fortune, and a 
 wife to work for.' 
 
 ' A wife ! Why, you 've only known her a 
 week. What are you to live upon ? ' 
 
 ' I haven't the slightest idea — counterpoint and 
 kisses.' 
 
 Archie shrugged his shoulders dolefully. 
 
 ' Oh, dear, dear ! ' said he, * if you had only 
 had a business education ! If you had only been 
 brought up in the City ! What will Mr. AUeyne 
 say?' 
 
 * Can't imagine.' 
 
 ' And Mrs. Debenham ? ' 
 
 'My mother will be utterly happy to have 
 such a daughter. They will adore each other.' 
 Archie groaned aloud.
 
 AECHIE DISAPPBOYES. 167 
 
 ' I M bet any sum you please/ said he, ^ tliat 
 she hasn't a farthing. The old man spends every- 
 thing on himself.' 
 
 ' And is welcome to do so for me,' exclaimed 
 the lover. *Do you think I want money with the 
 woman I love ? Not I ! I M rather have Juliet 
 Alleyne without a farthing, as you call it, than 
 with twenty thousand pounds for her fortune.' 
 
 Archie got up, and turned towards the door. 
 
 * You are mad,' he said. ' Stark, staring, raving 
 mad. But there ! — it 's no business of mine. I 
 will say no more. I am only m^aking myself dis- 
 agreeable.' 
 
 ' Confoundedly disagreeable, old fellow ; and 
 for nothing. I thought you'd be delighted.^ 
 
 * How can I be dehghted ? I 'm disappointed 
 — awfully disappointed. I 'm not clever. I don't 
 pretend to be clever ; but I know what genius is 
 when I see it. I thought you were going to be a 
 great man. I had set my heart on it. I thought 
 you'd write somethhicp wonderful in the way of 
 music ; or do something wonderful ; for it seems 
 to me there 's nothing you could not do, if you 
 liked. And then I thought you 'd be famous, and 
 marry a girl with lots of money — Claudia Hard- 
 wicke, perhaps ; and tlien . . . .' 
 
 Debenham burst into a hearty laugh. 
 
 * Marry Claudia Hardwicke ! ' he repeated.
 
 168 DEBEKHA3l's VOW. 
 
 ' Why, I 'd as soon many Lady Macbeth or the 
 Minerva Medica. No, thank you, Archie; I 
 won't trouble you to choose a wife for me. I 
 think I can please myself best in that matter. 
 Nay, don't look so grave. Wish me joy, at least, 
 before you go/ 
 
 ' Oh, I wish you joy — of course, I wish you 
 joy,^ replied Archie, his hand upon the door. 
 
 ^ I 'm afraid it has been a little dull for you 
 these last few days, dear old fellow.' 
 
 Archie made a sort of grimace. 
 
 ^Well, it — it hasn't been amusing,' said he. 
 ^You've thrown me over, you know, altogether. 
 The tour is at an end, I suppose, as far as you are 
 concerned ? ' 
 
 ' Indeed, I do not say that. I certainly shall 
 not let you go on alone.' 
 
 * Ah, that means that you would like to stay 
 on here for ever, playing at Corydon and Phillis, 
 with me for audience.' 
 
 ^ No — it means that I want neither to part from 
 you nor from her. Mr. Alleyne's picture will be 
 finished in another week or ten days, and then he 
 will go back to London. If we stay on till then, 
 we shall still have three weeks left.' 
 
 ^ Bother Mr. Alleyne's picture ! ' said Archie, 
 pettishly. ^ Be hanged if I '11 wait for it. Good- 
 night.'
 
 AKCHIE DISAPPROYES. 169; 
 
 And with this he went out, and banged the 
 door. 
 
 Poor Archie! It was very rude, of course. 
 Of all known evidences of temper there is, perhaps, 
 not one more futile, more ridiculous, more vulgar 
 than door-banging. But it is very natural, and, 
 no doubt, very comforting. Besides, it was a case 
 of real provocation. Archie^s was, at all events, a 
 lovincp nature — honest, forbearincr, faithful as a 
 dog's ; and Debenham had, verily and indeed, 
 ' thrown him over ' for a pretty face of a week's 
 standing. Large allowances should be made for 
 the aberrations of jealousy.
 
 170 debenham's vow. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TKTST BY THE KIYER. 
 
 What will Mr. Alleyne say? 
 
 It was a question that had flitted across Deben- 
 ham^s mind before ever Archibald Blyth translated 
 it into down-right, common-place English. And 
 it was a very unpleasant question — a question open 
 to a variety of disagreeable answers, and suggestive 
 of all kinds of inconvenient possibilities. That 
 Mr. Alleyne would inquire of him concerning his 
 means and prospects, was certain. That unless 
 Mr. Alleyne took an exceedingly elevated and 
 artistic view of the matter, he would be highly 
 dissatisfied with the result of those inquiries, was 
 no less certain. But then, was Mr. Alleyne likely 
 to take that elevated and artistic view ? He was an 
 artist. He abounded in lofty sentiments. He was 
 fond of talking of himself as a servant of the Ideal, 
 a high-priest of the Beautiful, and all that sort of 
 thing. But, on the other hand, he was particular
 
 THE TRYST BY THE EITER. 171 
 
 about his dinners, ciurious in his wines, extravagant 
 in the matter of cigars, olives, liqueurs, and all 
 such personal luxuries. Was it not, then, gravely 
 to be feared that, heau parleur though he was, Mr. 
 Alleyne might in the present instance incline to- 
 wards that prosaic view of love and matrimony 
 which is formed upon the oracular columns of 
 Letts's * Housekeeper,' rather than towards that 
 ideal standard which measures all such matters by 
 the law of pure sentiment, and is founded on a 
 recognition of the eternal fitness of things ? 
 
 Oppressed by these misgivings, the lover could 
 not refrain from expressing something of his appre- 
 hension to Miss Alleyne when they met next 
 morning, not wholly by accident, up at the w^eir, a 
 good hour before the high-priest of the Beautiful 
 was up and stirring. 
 
 ' You see, my own Juhet,' he said, caressing 
 the little hand that rested confidingly upon his arm, 
 * I have no money.' 
 
 ' Xone at all ? ' 
 
 ' None at all — except what I earn.' 
 
 * But that is our own case ! Papa has only 
 what he earns.' 
 
 'But I earn so little! Mr. Alleyne has an 
 established reputation — an aristocratic connexion 
 — commissions in plenty. Mr. Alleyne, I doubt 
 not, can sell whatever he paints.^
 
 172 
 
 ^ He could sell ten times more than he paints,' 
 replied Miss Alleyne. 'The difficulty is to get 
 him to work.' 
 
 'Whereas I work nineteen hours out of the 
 twenty-four, and can neither get my compositions 
 performed nor published — much less paid for.' 
 
 ' Then how . . . .' 
 
 She checked herself, and blushed; but he 
 finished the sentence for her. 
 
 ' How do I live ? Well, I give lessons ; I play 
 the organ at a little church in the City; I — in 
 short, I barely earn enough to pay for the food I 
 eat and the coat on my back.' 
 
 ' But you support your mother ! ' 
 
 ' No. My mother has a small annuity — a 
 salvage from the wreck of my father's fortune. 
 He had been rich once, I believe ; but was already 
 a ruined man when they married. She has always 
 been poor ; but she is a millionaire compared with 
 myself.' 
 
 Miss Alleyne pointed to a felled trunk a few 
 yards distant. 
 
 'Let us sit down there,' she said, 'and talk 
 it over.' 
 
 So they sat down, his arm about her waist, her 
 head half resting against his shoulder; and for 
 a few moments they were silent — silent and very 
 happy.
 
 THE TRYST BY THE EIYER. 173 
 
 ' What folly it seems to talk of anything but 
 love ! ' said Debenham presently. ' Listen to the 
 birds — they vex their little throats with no ques- 
 tions of wavs and means. Thev build their nests 
 on the first branch they fancy, and leave all the 
 rest to Providence. How divinely that thrush is 
 singing ! The fellow is as happy this morning as 
 ourselves.' 
 
 ^ It must be very pleasant to live in a tree,' 
 said Juliet. ' I should like it so much. How 
 delicious to go to sleep at night to the rustling 
 of the leaves, and wake to the first glow of 
 sunrise ! ' 
 
 ''Ay, and how economical! No rent to pay, 
 no taxes, no servants, no appearances to keep up ! 
 Shall we try it ? Fancy how the address would 
 look upon our wedding-cards : " Mr. and Mrs. 
 Temple Debenham, At Home, Broad Walk, Ken- 
 sington Gardens, second elm to the right, fourth 
 branch. Nota Bene. — The nest being somewhat 
 high up, visitors are requested to provide them- 
 selves with wings." ' 
 
 ^ What nonsense ! ' 
 
 ' Nay, for a couple with no money . . . .' 
 
 ' I do not really see that it matters in the least 
 whether we have money or not,^ interrupted Miss 
 Alleyne, tracing figures of eight in the dust with 
 the end of her parasol, and assuming an immensely
 
 174 
 
 practical air. ' It is not as if we cared about 
 getting married . . . / 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, I care about getting 
 married ! ' 
 
 Miss Alleyne shook her pretty head, and went 
 on as if he had not spoken. 
 
 * It is not, I repeat, as if we cared about getting 
 married. It is enough for us that we love 
 each other, and are ha^^py. We are both young ; 
 and if we were to wait for fifteen or twenty 
 years . . . .' 
 
 ' My darling ! The age of man is but three- 
 score years and ten,' remonstrated Debenham. 
 *You forget that we are not living before the 
 deluge.' 
 
 * Well, supposing, then, that we waited ten or 
 fifteen years . . . .' 
 
 ' I decline to listen to any proposition founded 
 on such monstrous premises ! ' 
 
 * You cannot decline, Signore. It is a form ol 
 high treason. It is your duty to give heed to the 
 voice of your charmer, charm she never so wisely 
 or never so unwisely — to obey her in all things 
 reasonable and unreasonable — to see with her eyes, 
 hear with her ears, speak with her tongue ; and, 
 above all, never to interrupt her.' 
 
 * Thy slave hears, O Queen ! ' 
 
 * You see. Temple ' (how deliciously she pro-
 
 THE TRTST BY THE ElYER. 177 
 
 such duties and such devotion as Mr. Alleyne was 
 in the habit of exactino; from his daucrhter would 
 be incompatible with the performance of her duties 
 as a wife. But he would not be so ungracious. 
 He onlv sicrhed, and said : — 
 
 I/O -' 
 
 ' We are all human ; we all have our tempers 
 and jealousies. These schemes, I know, seldom 
 answer, and generally end in mutual disagreement.' 
 
 ^ But we would resolve to let nothing of that 
 sort creep in. It depends on ourselves, you know, 
 after all ; and as for papa, why he is the most 
 courteous and charming person in the w^orld, if 
 only he is allowed to have his own way.^ 
 
 * But when that is every one's case?' 
 
 * It is not every one's case. It is not mine ; 
 and I'm sure it is not yours.' 
 
 * Then there is my mother.' 
 
 * She sliall live with us too, of course; and then 
 we shall be always four to make up the evening 
 rubber. Why, it will be perfect paradise ! And, 
 oh, Temple ' 
 
 ^ Well, my darhng ?' 
 
 ' Suppose they fell in love too ! ' 
 
 * What do you mean ? Who?' 
 
 ' Mrs. Debenham and papa ! There, I prophesy 
 it — the oracle prophesies it I They will fall in love 
 with each other, and be married too, and we shall 
 be the happiest household in the whole world I' 
 VOL. I. N
 
 174 debenham's tow. 
 
 practical air. ' It is not as if we cared about 
 getting married ....■' 
 
 ^ I beg your pardon. I care about getting 
 married ! ' 
 
 Miss Alleyne shook her pretty head, and went 
 on as if he had not spoken. 
 
 ' It is not, I repeat, as if we cared about getting 
 married. It is enough for us that we love 
 each other, and are happy. We are both young ; 
 and if we were to wait for fifteen or twenty 
 years . . . .' 
 
 ^ My darling ! The age of man is but three- 
 score years and ten,' remonstrated Debenham. 
 *You forget that we are not living before the 
 deluge.' 
 
 * Well, supposing, then, that we waited ten or 
 fifteen years . . , J 
 
 * I decline to listen to any proposition founded 
 on such monstrous premises ! ' 
 
 * You cannot decline, Signore. It is a form ol 
 high treason. It is your duty to give heed to the 
 voice of your charmer, charm she never so wisely 
 or never so unwisely — to obey her in all things 
 reasonable and unreasonable — to see with her eyes, 
 hear with her ears, speak with her tongue ; and, 
 above all, never to interrupt her.' 
 
 ' Thy slave hears, O Queen ! ' 
 
 * You see. Temple ' (how deliciously she pro-
 
 THE TRYST BY THE ElYER. 177 
 
 such duties and such devotion as Mr. Alleyne was 
 in the habit of exactinoj from his daucrhter would 
 be incompatible with the performance of her duties 
 as a wife. But he would not be so ungracious. 
 He only sighed, and said : — 
 
 ' We are all human ; we all have our tempers 
 and jealousies. These schemes, I know, seldom 
 answer, and generally end in mutual disagreement.' 
 
 * But we would resolve to let nothing of that 
 sort creep in. It depends on ourselves, you know, 
 after all ; and as for papa, why he is the most 
 courteous and charming person in the world, if 
 only he is allowed to have his own way.-* 
 
 ^ But when that is every one's case ?' 
 ' It is not every one's case. It is not mine ; 
 and I'm sure it is not yours.' 
 
 * Then there is my mother.' 
 
 ' She shall live with us too, of course; and then 
 we shall be always four to make up the evening 
 rubber. Why, it will be perfect paradise ! And, 
 oh. Temple ' 
 
 ' Well, my darling ? ' 
 
 ' Suppose they fell in love too ! ' 
 
 * What do you mean ? Who?^ 
 
 ' Mrs. Debenham and papa ! There, I prophesy 
 it — the oracle prophesies it I They will fall in love 
 w^ith each other, and be married too, and we shall 
 be the happiest household in the whole world I' 
 VOL. I. N
 
 3 78 debenham's votv. 
 
 The air rang again with her joyous laughter ; 
 but Debenham forced a grave smile, and made no 
 reply. 
 
 Miss Alleyne looked at her watch. 
 
 ' Oh, dear V she said, ' it is breakfast time. 
 Who would believe that we had been here an 
 hour ? ' 
 
 ^ If you told me we had been here three hours, 
 I should not be surprised,^ said Debenham. 
 
 ^ Indeed ! Does the time seem so long ?' 
 
 ^ Ah ! you never read a poem of Longfellow's 
 called « The Monk Felix.'' ' 
 
 ' Yes, I have. The Monk Felix went out for a 
 walk, and stopped to listen to the singing of a bird ; 
 and when he came back to his convent all the 
 monks were changed, and he found that he had 
 been gone a hundred years.' 
 
 * Ay, but the bird sang of heavenly things, so 
 that the monk fell into a miraculous ecstasy and 
 the hundred years went by like a few minutes. 
 Now my case, you see, is even stronger. I have 
 not merely heard of the joys of Paradise — I have 
 been in Paradise. Tell me that I have been here 
 with you three days — three wrecks — three months 
 — and I will believe it immediately.' 
 
 ' A very pretty compliment,' laughed Miss 
 Alleyne ; ' but a trifle too elaborate. But indeed I 
 must not linger here another moment.'
 
 THE TRYST BY THE EIYEE. 179 
 
 ^ Yes, one moment. I shall go into Monmouth 
 to-day, to see if I can find a ring for this dear little 
 finger. How I wish I had anything by which to 
 measure the size of it ! ' 
 
 ' Noj no — I never wear rings/ 
 
 ' The more reason why you should wear mine. 
 I must label you " sold/' you know, as they label the 
 pictures in the Exhibition. I suppose I had better 
 not walk back with you to the house?' 
 
 ^Oh, no — not for the world. Papa will be 
 dreadfully cross, too, when he comes down and 
 finds no coffee ready.' 
 
 ' Like the rest of the world, Mr. Alleyne's most 
 benevolent time, of course, is after dinner.'' 
 
 ' I think it is — but pray, pray let me go now. 
 You will see me again, you know, in an hour.' 
 
 ^Ah, it is hard to let you go, even for an 
 hour!' 
 
 And he held her, and kissed her again and 
 again, and when she broke from him, half angry, 
 half laughing, stood looking after her till the last 
 flutter of her dress had vanished behind the 
 willows. 
 
 And then he sighed, and gnawed his moustache, 
 and remained there for a long time thinking. His 
 thoughts, however, seemed scarcely to be the 
 thoughts of a happy lover. He looked perplexed 
 and anxious, and by-and-by began throwing stones
 
 180 debenham's vow. 
 
 into the river in a drear j, abstracted way, as if 
 hardly conscious of what he was doing. 
 
 ' Well, I needn't speak to him to-day, any- 
 how,' he muttered, presently. ' To-morrow will 
 do, after dinner.' 
 
 And then, shaking off his reverie, he turned, 
 with long, swift strides, towards the village. 
 
 To-morrow — ah, who can foresee to-morrow I
 
 "V7HAT DEBENHAM FOUND AT THE POST-OFFICE. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WHAT DEBENHAM FGUIND AT THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 LoYE is an expensive luxury, as all lovers can 
 testify. The poorest clown must find a piece or 
 two wherewith to buy ribbons for Mopsa, when 
 Autolycus comes by with his pack ; and in like 
 manner Temple Debenham, than whom few lovers 
 could well be poorer, trudged into Monmouth that 
 very afternoon, and bartered away a bright, new 
 sovereign for a ring to place on Miss Alley ne's 
 finger. It was a poor little ring enough — a mere 
 wire of twisted gold, surmounted by a tiny heart 
 set with one small turquoise, and containing a 
 place for hair. But Temple's sovereigns were 
 very few in number, and, slight as the gift was, 
 he could afibrd no better. He gave the jeweller 
 a bit of his hair to put in the little heart, and then, 
 having Archie with him for company, took a stroll 
 round Monmouth while it was being done. 
 
 Conscientious sight-seers both, they contrived
 
 182 debenham's tow. 
 
 within the next hour and a half to explore the 
 quaint old town from end to end, seeing the market- 
 place, the castle-walls within which Harry V. was- 
 bom, the ancient gate upon the Monnow-bridge, 
 and the beautiful old Priory window in which, say 
 the traditions of the place, Geoffrey the Chronicler 
 loved to sit and write. 
 
 By the time, however, that the sight-seeing 
 was achieved and the ring ready, it was nearly 
 five o'clock. The afternoon was hot, the way long, 
 the road dusty, and Archie proposed that they 
 should take a boat back to Chillingford. While he 
 ran down to the Wye bridge to chaffer with the 
 boatmen, Debenham, strolling leisurely after him^ 
 caught sight of the post-office at the corner of a 
 neighbouring street. He hesitated — passed on — 
 stopped — turned back. 
 
 It seemed unlikely that there should be any 
 letters waiting ; and yet it was possible. For 
 himself, he had heard from his mother quite regu- 
 larly since leaving home, and he had no other 
 correspondent. He had also kept her informed of 
 his address. Still, both he and Archie were to 
 have been at Monmouth a week ago, and, Archie 
 being a man of business, it was just possible . . . 
 At all events he could not do wrong to inquire. 
 
 So he went into the post-office, and asked if 
 there were any letters for Mr. Archibald Blyth.
 
 WHAT DEBENHAM FOUND AT THE POST-OFFICE. 183 
 
 Tlie post-mistress, a rather pretty young woman 
 in ringlets and a scarlet Garibaldi, dipped into a row 
 of pigeen-holes at the back of her desk, and pro- 
 nounced that there were no letters for Mr. Archi- 
 bald Blyth. 
 
 ^IN'or for Mr. Temple Debenham? ' 
 
 She fluttered about the pigeon-holes again, 
 shook her ringlets triumphantly, and produced an 
 envelope sealed with black wax. There was a 
 letter — one letter — for Mr. Temple Debenham. 
 
 He recognised the seal, shape, and general 
 aspect of the letter before even seeing the hand- 
 writing. It was from his mother. 
 
 He turned it over. He examined the post-mark. 
 It bore date of more than a week ago. 
 
 Now it happened that he had received a letter 
 from Mrs. Debenham that very morning, and one 
 almost every morning since he had been at Chilling- 
 ford ; but in none of these had she made allusion 
 to this missive, lying, 'to be called for,' at the 
 Monmouth post-office. Concluding, therefore, that 
 it had been despatched before he had announced 
 his intention of putting up at the ' Silver Trout ' 
 till further notice, and also concluding that its 
 contents must by this time be tolerably stale, he 
 thrust the letter into his breast-pocket and ran on 
 to the Wye Bridge to see what Archie was after. 
 He found that cheerful and indefatisable bench-
 
 184 debenham's yow. 
 
 man sitting on tlie parapet, whistling a lively air, 
 and contemplating the labours of a boatman who, 
 having piloted his boat to the foot of the stairs, was 
 busily wiping down the seats, spreading his bit of 
 carpet, and making ready for the journey. 
 
 ^ Behold our " trim-built wherry," ' he said, as 
 Debenham came up, breathless from running. 
 ' Charon asked five bob. Thy Pylades offered him 
 three. The bargain is struck for three-and-six. 
 Don't look grave. Even to walk costs something, 
 you know ; and in this world nothing can be done 
 for nothing. See, I've bought some buns, a tin 
 flute, and a number of the Family Herald — the 
 buns for our fleshly sustenance; the Family Herald 
 for the improvement of our minds and manners ; 
 the tin flute that we may have ^^ music on the 
 waters,'^ goiiig along. You can serenade the fair 
 Juliet on it to-night, if you like. So romantic ; 
 cost one penny. Hi, boatman ! are you ready ? ' 
 
 The boatman touched his cap, and sung out, 
 ' Ay, ay, sir,' in true nautical fashion. So they 
 went down, took their seats, pushed ofl", and in 
 another moment were gliding along as fast as a 
 capital pair of oars, aided by the force of the cur- 
 rent, could carry them. 
 
 Then Debenham bethought him of his letter. 
 He had no sooner taken it from the envelope, 
 however, than he was struck by something un-
 
 WHAT DEBENHA.3I FOUND AT THE POST-OFFICE. 185 
 
 usual in the appearance of it. It was a very long 
 letter, to begin with. It was written upon Bath 
 post letter-paper. The writing, too, was smaller 
 and closer than Mrs. Debenham's ordinary hand, 
 and covered rather more than three pages. 
 Finally, the whole document, in its regularity and 
 clearness, looked hke a careful transcript rather 
 than a news-letter thrown off, as IVIrs. Debenhann's 
 letters were habitually thrown off, currente calamo. 
 
 Marvelling somewhat at these things, and 
 moved by a vague and sudden sense of apprehen- 
 sion, the young man began to read. At about the 
 third or fourth line he paused, looked back to the 
 date, and referred to the post-mark on the enve- 
 lope. Then he began afresh from the beginning, 
 and read about half the first page. And then, 
 with a look not so much of trouble as of surprise 
 and perplexity, he stopped again, darted an impa- 
 tient glance at Archie, who was shrilling negro 
 melodies on the tin flute with all his might, folded 
 the letter up without attempting to read further, 
 thrust it hastily into his pocket, and leaned back, 
 earnestly thinking. 
 
 ^No bad news, I hope,' said Archie, stopping 
 short in the midst of a flourish. 
 
 Debenham shook his head. 
 
 ' Xo,' he said. ' Xo news at all, — at least, 
 nothing that can be called news.^
 
 186 debenham's tow. 
 
 Archie looked up inquiringly. 
 
 * But don't ask me anything about it, dear old 
 fellow/ continued Debenham, hastily. ' I really 
 don't myself know what the letter is about, yet — 
 bygone family matters, so far as I can see. There, 
 we won't talk of it, please.' 
 
 And so the matter dropped. 
 
 The Alleynes had just sat down to dinner 
 when they got back to Chillingford ; but later, when 
 Temple and Archie had desj^atched their own 
 frugal meal and made such change of dress as 
 their limited resources would permit, Mr. AUeyne 
 came out to smoke his usual post-prandial cigar, 
 and found them in the porch. Then followed the 
 now habitual invitation to tea and a rubber; and 
 then Mr. Alleyne and Archie strolled up and 
 down outside, while Debenham talked to Juliet 
 through the parlour-window. 
 
 ' You look,' he said, ^ like a portrait in a frame 
 of honeysuckle ; or, rather, like one of those 
 pieces by two masters, where one painted the 
 head, and the other surrounded it with a garland 
 of flowers.^ 
 
 ' I hope I am a good likeness,' laughed Miss 
 Alleyne. 
 
 ' The best ever seen — of an angel,'' said the 
 lover, passionately. 
 
 And then lie brought out his little ring, tried
 
 WHAT DEEENHAM FOUND AT THE POST-OFriCE. 187 
 
 it upon her finger, and besought her to wear it for 
 his sake. 
 
 ' Think that it is my heart,' he said, showing 
 her the httle device, ' and try not to break it.' 
 
 ' Yoiu' heart has a hinge to it ! ' 
 
 ^ Yes — see, it opens.' 
 
 ^ And this is your hair ? ' 
 
 ' This is my hair.' 
 
 ' Nay, then, yon cannot be enshrined in your 
 own heart. It must be my heart, if you are 
 in it.' 
 
 Mr. Alleyne's back being turned for the mo- 
 ment, Debenham seized her hand and covered it 
 with kisses. 
 
 ' That is the dearest thing you have ever said 
 to me yet I ' he exclaimed. ' Am I really enshrined 
 in your heart? Is it my home, my shelter, my 
 kingdom for ever?' 
 
 ' Be sober, please, or I will immediately unsay 
 it,' retorted INIiss AUeyne, drawing back from the 
 window. 
 
 * Could you be so cruel ?' 
 
 ' You have no idea how cruel I can be. I am 
 tlie perversest creature living.' 
 
 ' If I were only sure that you love me as much 
 as I love you, you might torment me to your 
 heart's content !' 
 
 ' I think, my darling,' said Mr. Alleyne, com-
 
 188 debenham's vow. 
 
 ing back to the window, ' you had better ring for 
 tea/ 
 
 So Miss Alleyne rang for tea, and the gentle- 
 men went in, and all love-whispering was over for 
 that evening. She wore his ring, however; and 
 she was his partner at cards; and her hand lin- 
 gered in his at parting. 
 
 ' I shall go out again presently,' he murmured. 
 * Bid me good-night from your windc w.' 
 
 And she gave him a smile which was a promise. 
 
 He then went up to his room, as if for the night, 
 and bolted himself in. He would not go out again 
 at once, for two reasons — the first being that he 
 did not care to have Archie's company under Miss 
 Alleyne's window ; and the second, that he had all 
 this time been waiting for a quiet opportunity to 
 read his mother's letter. So now he sat down on 
 the side of his bed, took the candle in one hand 
 and the letter in the other, and disposed himself to 
 a careful perusal of its contents.
 
 ISd- 
 
 CHAPTER XYIIL 
 
 MRS. DEBENHAM's LETTER. 
 
 The letter, it has already been observed, was 
 long and closely written. Seeing once more how 
 long and how close it was, Debenham was again 
 conscious of that same vague sense of apprehen- 
 sion which he had felt on first opening it. He told 
 himself, however, that presentiments were all folly, 
 and that his mother could not possibly have any- 
 thing to write to him which he should not rejoice 
 to read ; and so he began. 
 This was what he read : — 
 
 ' Cumberland Terrace, Canonbury,. 
 'August 4, 1860. 
 
 ' My dear Son, — I intend this letter to be re- 
 ceived by you when you reach Monmouth, and I 
 therefore send it on to await you at the post-office,, 
 knowing that you will find it there sooner or 
 later.
 
 190 debesham's yow. 
 
 ' You will be surprised when I tell you that at 
 Monmouth you are within a dozen miles of the spot 
 where your beloved father lies buried. You know 
 that he died in North Wales ; but you do not know 
 that he was a native of Benhampton, in Monmouth- 
 shire, and that he was laid, by his own wish, in the 
 vaults of Benhampton Church, the burial-place of his 
 family for many generations. I never saw the place 
 before that day, when, at the close of a long and 
 mournful journey, I there parted from all that yet 
 remained to me of my precious friend and com- 
 panion. And I have never seen it since. You, how- 
 ever, ought to see it ; and you ought to know more 
 of your family history than I have yet had courage 
 to tell you. It has ever been a painful subject to 
 me ; but that has not been my only reason for 
 avoiding it. I have shrunk from it on your account, 
 my own boy, even more than upon my own. Your 
 life, up to this time at least, has been embittered 
 by no regrets. You have been obscure, and in- 
 dustrious, and happy ; and you have been honour- 
 ably ambitious of success in the profession of your 
 own choice. What unhappiness for me, if any- 
 thing I had to say to you should disturb that 
 peace, and make you dissatisfied with your present 
 condition ! 
 
 ^ A chance determination, however, has taken 
 you almost to the very spot where your family
 
 ^iIES. DEBENHAJif S LETTEK. 191 
 
 history may be said to begin and end ; and it is 
 now my plain duty to tell you in what way you 
 are connected with that spot, and to give you an 
 opportunity of seeing the birth-place and burial- 
 place of your father and his people. 
 
 ^ Your father wrote his name De Benham, as all 
 the De Benhams wrote it before him. The first 
 De Benham of whom any definite record remains 
 is one GeofiPrey William, to whom King Edward 
 the First devised a grant of lands in Monmouth- 
 shire in the year 1273. This Geoffrey Wilham is 
 supposed to have built the most ancient fragment 
 of the present ruin. At all events, he founded the 
 family and gave his name to the place. You will 
 £nd a village called Benhampton, and a parish and 
 parish church of the same name ; and even, I 
 bfelieve, a small stream, which the villagers call the 
 Benham river. Six centuries of De Benhams lie 
 buried in the vaults of Benhampton Church. Tlie 
 walls are lined with their monuments — the aisle is 
 paved with their brasses. Your father lies under 
 the north window, to the left as you face the altar, 
 a little below the chancel. A plain stone slab en- 
 graved only with his name and the dates of his 
 birth and death, is let into the wall close by. His 
 wife was too poor to erect a better monument ; his 
 son must some day undertake the office. 
 
 ' ]\ry own boy, you will not let the sight of these
 
 192 debenham's yow. 
 
 things trouble your contentment. The De Benhamsy 
 as a family, are no more. All that was once theirs 
 has passed into the hands oF strangers, and their 
 very name is by this time almost .'forgotten. You 
 are the last of the stock, and all that remains to- 
 you of what w^as once a large inheritance are the 
 vaults in which your ancestors sleep. You will 
 make up your mind to these facts, my son — you 
 will not give way to useless regrets. You have- 
 always been poor, and you have always been happy; 
 and this knowledge leaves you no poorer, and 
 ought not to leave you less happy. Instead of 
 repining over what was lost before you were born,, 
 you should rejoice to know that you represent a 
 noble and ancient family. Such knowledge is- 
 wealth in itself, and ought to inspire you with fresh 
 courage to fight what you have so often called the- 
 battle of life. And, after all, their ancient name 
 and unstained honour were the De Benhams' best 
 possessions, and these you still inherit. For my 
 own part, I am prouder that my son should be- 
 heir to their virtues than to all the lands and pri- 
 vileges that have melted away. 
 
 ' These lands and privileges, however, had heen 
 melting for many generations before your father's. 
 time. Much was confiscated, I believe, during the 
 Commonwealth : and much more was squandered 
 by those De Benhams who lived under the four
 
 MES. debenham's lettek. 193 
 
 Georges. One after another, tliey mortgaged, sold, 
 and mutilated their estates; so that wlien your 
 grandfather died, leaving your father an orphan of 
 eleven years of age, only a remnant of the pro- 
 perty remained. This remnant bemg vested in the 
 hands of a conscientious guardian, was carefully 
 nursed for him during his minority. He went to 
 Eton and Oxford, and was intended for the army. 
 He had good abilities, without being particularly 
 clever ; and he was good-natured to a fault. Like 
 many very good-natured people, he was somewhat 
 inclined to indolence and disinclined to study ; and 
 was as generous, unsuspecting, and credulous as a 
 child. Xature seems to design such men for 
 victims. The needy and dishonest scent them, as 
 it were, by instinct, and prey upon them without 
 pity. It was your father's heavy misfortune to fall 
 in the way of one of these social vultures during 
 his third year at the university, and the vulture 
 devoured him. I shall not attempt to do more than 
 outline the story of his ruin. 
 
 ' The young man^s name, I think, was Wynyatt ; 
 he was only twenty years of age, and your father 
 v/as turned twenty-one. But the younger was the 
 elder in all worldly things. He came of a bad stock. 
 His father, I have heard, was a disreputable, dis- 
 sipated man, involved in turf transactions ; married 
 to an Italian-opera singer of doubtful re[)utation ; 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 debenham's tow. 
 
 and discountenanced by his family. The son at 
 twenty was blase, vicious, and unscrupulous ; he 
 obtained a fatal ascendancy over your father's 
 mind ; led him into wild and reckless courses ; 
 plunged him into debt; induced him to put his 
 name to all kinds of papers — in a word, ruined 
 him ! 
 
 * And never was ruin more swift and thorough* 
 There "was so little to lose, and it w^as so quickly 
 gone ! Your father was hurled in a few weeks from 
 competency to beggary. He quitted college without 
 having taken his degree, fled to the Continent, and 
 left his guardian and creditors to deal with the estate 
 as they pleased. In the meanwhile, the elder 
 Wynyatt refused to pay one penny of the bills 
 which his son had led your father to accept. 
 Young Wynyatt was a minor, and irresponsible; 
 your father was of age, and legally liable for the 
 •whole. Then the last acre of the De Benham 
 lands was brought to the hammer, and your 
 father's fortunes were wrecked at once and for 
 ever. 
 
 ' A miserable pittance of something less than 
 fifty pounds a-year having been rescued for him 
 by the strenuous efforts of his guardians and 
 lawyers, he continued to live abroad, and hid 
 himself for more than a year in some obscure 
 town on the borders of the Italian Tyrol. In-
 
 MES. debenham's letter. 195 
 
 terest was then made for him at Vienna, and he 
 obtained a commission in the Austrian service. 
 This he continued to hold, as you know, till about 
 a year before his death, when his health finally 
 broke and we came back to England. We had 
 then been married some nine years ; and you, our 
 only child, were just eight. The youngest daughter 
 of a needy English chaplain in a foreign capital, I 
 had been used to poverty all my life, as you have 
 been, my son ; and I could not understand why 
 your father was not as happy and contented as 
 myself. But his life was one long regret. He 
 could not endure privation ; he could not reconcile 
 himself to the loss of his position in society; he 
 could not bear to see his wife and child poorly 
 dressed and lodged, and living in obscurity. You 
 remember how sad your dear father used to be^ 
 Temple, and how he would sometimes sit for 
 hours by the open window, silent and brooding, 
 with his head resting; on his hand. You remember 
 the journey to England, and the summer we spent 
 all that time when he was so ill among the moun- 
 tains in Xorth AY ales. And I think you remember 
 the mournful place where, when the last leaves 
 fell, he died. 
 
 / ' This is a long letter, my son, and yet it leaves 
 much unsaid that I had meant to say. But I feel 
 that no letter, however long, and no details, how-
 
 196 debenham's tow. 
 
 ever circumstantial, would tell you as much of tlie 
 past as you would learn at Benhampton in the 
 course of a pingle morning. Write to me after 
 you have been there. I think I know you well 
 enough to be certain that, when once you have 
 received this letter, you will not rest till you have 
 made the journey. 
 
 ' Your loving mother, 
 
 ' Adelaide Mary De Benham/ 
 
 With some pauses and some turning back, tlie 
 young man read this letter through from the 
 beginning to the end : and then he sat for a long 
 time on the side of his bed, still with the candle 
 in one hand and the letter in the other, lost in 
 meditation. And then he read it all through 
 again. 
 
 It was a long letter, a very long letter — simple, 
 and earnest, and straightforward, as became the 
 occasion, and written, as has been already observed, 
 with almost documentary precision. Debenham 
 felt, as he read it, that every word in it had been 
 weighed. He also thought that he could trace in 
 almost every sentence a studied repression of 
 feeling, and even a tone of reserve that extended 
 to the statement of facts. The oftener he read
 
 MBS. DEBENHAM^S LETTEE. 197 
 
 certain passages, the more this impression gained 
 upon him. It was a very vague impression. He 
 could not by any means have put it into words ; 
 but he had an indefinable instinct of somethincr 
 
 o 
 
 vet to come. 
 
 For, after all, the letter told him very little that 
 was new. He had always known that he had 
 gentle blood in his veins, and that his father's 
 circumstances had once upon a time been less 
 terribly straitened. That the De Benhams 
 should date back to so remote a period as six 
 hundred years, and that the family name should be 
 so divided as to carry the aristocratic Norman pre- 
 fix, were facts pleasant enough in themselves, but 
 not so very surprising when one came to look into 
 them. And then, if designed only to tell him these 
 things, and to enable him to pay a pious visit to his 
 father's grave, was not the letter needlessly 
 elaborate ? 
 
 Pondering thus, he still fancied, and could not 
 help fancying, that there was something which his 
 mother had left untold ; something that was not 
 mere omission of detail ; something important, 
 which it concerned him to know, but wliich she, 
 for some reason wliich he could not conjecture, had 
 hesitated to tell him. 
 
 And what was the nature of this somethinir 
 
 C3
 
 198 debenhajVi's vow. 
 
 left untold? He could not guess. Nay, he was 
 almost afraid to guess, dreading some painful truth 
 of which he would fain be left in ignorance. But 
 he would learn it at Benhampton — that much was 
 certain. Be it good news or evil news, he would 
 learn it at Benhampton. 
 
 And then he resolved that he would go there 
 to-morrow. 
 
 His candle had all this time been burning lower 
 and lower, and the moon had slowly set behind the 
 hills, and the sweet summer night was waning in 
 the heavens. But he noticed neither the candle, 
 nor the moon, nor the summer night, so absorbed 
 was he in his thoughts and in his letter. Then, 
 in the midst of the silence, the clock in the 
 kitchen struck one. 
 
 He sprang to his feet with an exclamation of 
 dismay. It was not possible that it should be one 
 o'clock already ! He looked at his watch, and the 
 watch confirmed the fact. He could not believe it ! 
 He could not believe that, having come upstairs at 
 half-past ten, two hours and a half had slipped 
 away so quickly. And Miss Alleyne — Miss 
 Alleyne, who was to have come to her window to 
 bid him good-night, when the rest were gone to 
 bed. Good heavens ! he had forgotten all about 
 her.
 
 MRS. DEBENHAM^S LETTEE. 199 
 
 What should he say to her? — what could he 
 say to her in the morning ? How was it possible 
 that he should confess to the lady of his love that 
 he had forgotten all about her ?
 
 200 debenham's tow. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 BENHAMPTON. 
 
 ^ Hallo there ! Is this the way to Benhampton ?^ 
 
 The rustic thus hailed halted with his hand on 
 the gate, grounded his scythe, and looked round. 
 Seeing only a dusty and somewhat shabby-looking 
 wayfarer in the road below, he shouldered his 
 scythe again, and, boor-] ike, answered with a 
 question. 
 
 ^ Maybe you 're bound for Farmer Bowstead's?* 
 
 ' No/ 
 
 ' Then maybe you 're going up to parson's ? ' 
 
 ' I 'm going to Benhampton, if I can find the 
 way,' retorted the stranger, impatiently. * If you 
 can't direct me, just say so.' 
 
 The man with the scythe grinned, shifted his 
 weight from the left foot to the right, and said : — 
 
 ' Well, I 've lived here, man and boy, nigh upon 
 forty years. I think I owt t' know the way by 
 this time. You^re in Benhampton parish ever 
 since you passed the pike.'
 
 BENHAMPTON. 201 
 
 ' Then where is the village ?' 
 
 ' Down yonder, at the bottom o' tlie hill.' 
 
 ' And the church ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, the church is up agin Farmer Bow- 
 stead's.' 
 
 ^ Which is my way, then, to Farmer Bow- 
 stead's?' 
 
 Rusticus scratched his head and considered. 
 He knew every inch of the parish ; but he had no 
 talent for description. 
 
 ' You go by the road,' he said, hesitatingly, ' as 
 far as Mill Pond, and then up Goodman's lane and 
 across t' common. But the nighest way 's up here 
 by the quarry.' 
 
 ' Then I '11 come up by the quarry.' 
 
 And, swift in act as decision, the traveller 
 sprang upon the bank and climbed the slope in a 
 moment. 
 
 * If you 're going that way, my man,' he added, 
 * I '11 go with you. Are you one of Farmer Bow- 
 stead's labourers?' 
 
 Whereupon he of the scythe, moved thereto, 
 perhaps, by something of authority in the stranger's 
 manner, touched his cap and replied more de- 
 ferentially : — 
 
 ' Ay, sir. I be one o' Farmer Bowstead's men.' 
 
 And with this he trudged on, leading the way 
 by a scarcely perceptible foot-track that ran up
 
 202 
 
 transversely across a steep hill-side, divided here 
 and there by rough stone fences. At the top of 
 this hill there ran a long belt, or terrace, of fir 
 plantation. Beyond that again, the ground seemed 
 still to lead up to higher levels ; while the road below 
 wound down into the valley, which spread thence 
 away into the far distance, fertile, and sunny, and 
 golden with the coming harvest. To the left, 
 some ten miles off, or more, lay the Monmouth 
 hills marking the course of the Wye; of which, 
 however, not a gleam was visible. 
 
 Temple Debenham observed all this as he scaled 
 the hill-side, looking out the while for any first 
 sight of housetop or spire. He was himself sur- 
 prised at the keen and eager interest with which 
 he scrutinised each foot of the way. Of every 
 tree, every enclosure, every fence, he said : — ' This 
 was once theirs.' The landscape took a deeper 
 significance, because it had been so familiar to those 
 who were gone before. The very clodhopper 
 plodding by his side, inasmuch as he was a son of 
 the soil, seemed not altogether the same as other 
 clodhoppers in Temple Debenham's eyes. 
 
 ' Did you say you were born here — in this very 
 parish ? ' he asked, presently. 
 
 The man nodded. 
 
 ' Ay,' he said. ^ I were born here, sure 
 enough. And my father before me.'
 
 BENHAMPTON. 203 
 
 ^ You don 't remember the old family, I 
 suppose?' 
 
 The man looked at him vacantly, and shook his 
 head. 
 
 ^ What old family ? ' said he. 
 
 ' The De Benhams — the old masters here, who 
 once owned jail these parts. You must have heard 
 of them r 
 
 He shook his head again. 
 
 ^ No,' he said. ' I never heard tell of any such 
 name.' 
 
 And then he began to whistle. 
 
 The young man sighed, and a feeling of deso- 
 lateness came upon him. His mother was right. 
 The family, as a family, was indeed extinct, and 
 the place thereof knew it no more. He had not 
 thought to find the very name forgotten. 
 
 By this time they had mounted the hill-side 
 and struck into the plantation. 
 
 Presently Rusticus, who was now plodding 
 ahead, the path being full narrow, gave his scythe 
 a hitch, and, half looking back, said : — 
 
 ^ Maybe you mean the folks that belonged to 
 th' old castle; but that was before my time.' 
 
 * What old castle?^ asked Debenham, quickly. 
 
 ^ Benhampton Castle, to be sure — Farmer Bow- 
 stead's place.' 
 
 Benhampton Castle ! His mother had told him
 
 204 debenham's vow. 
 
 nothing of this — not a word. He remembered^ 
 however, that her letter had said something about 
 a ruin. Still he had not dreamed that this ruin 
 was the ruin of so great a place as the name of 
 Benhampton Castle would seem to promise. 
 
 ' What do you mean by speaking of it as 
 Farmer Bowstead's place ? ' he said, after a brief 
 silence. ' Is the castle a ruin, or a farm-house?' 
 
 * Both,' replied Rusticus, curtly. 
 
 ^Both?' 
 
 ^ Ay — t' master lives up in a corner like, and 
 a' leaves the rest to th^ owls.' 
 
 The young man fell back a step or two,, 
 silenced and troubled. His eagerness was gone. 
 He cared to ask no more questions. He had heard 
 too much already. 
 
 How high they must have held their heads, how 
 rich in all worldly possessions they must have been, 
 those De Benhams of the olden time I And now 
 — now their very name was not only forgotten in 
 the place, but their ancient home, the birthplace of 
 the race, was given over to Farmer Bowstead and 
 the owls ! Bitter reflections, these. Debenham 
 began to think that his mother was not altogether 
 wrong in her apprehensions. It might have been 
 better for him never to have known these thincvs — 
 never to have set foot in the place. 
 
 They now emerged from the plantation, and.
 
 BENHAMPTON. 205 
 
 -still following the path, skirted the base of another 
 slope, apparently no less steep than the last. Then, 
 ])asslng a huge stone-quarrv, hewn out of the hill- 
 side like an ancient amphitheatre and long since 
 clothed with trees and brambles, they came to a 
 stile ; and beyond the stile to an open space where 
 •sheep were feeding. 
 
 ' Yonder 's the church,' said Ra^ticus, pausing 
 with his foot on the stile. ' And yonder 's the 
 •castle.' 
 
 Debenham cleared the stile at a bound.
 
 206 debenham's vow. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE TABLET IN THE CHUECH. 
 
 ' The knight's bones are dust, 
 And his good sword rust ; 
 His soul is with the saints, I trust.' — Coleridge. 
 
 Benhampton Castle on the crest of the hill ; Ben- 
 hampton Church nestling against the slope a little 
 lower down ; Farmer Bowstead's stacks and barns 
 clustered, not unpicturesquely, in the midst of the 
 ruins ; Farmer Bowstead's sheep feeding all about 
 the pleasant sward ; Farmer Bowstead's plump 
 roan colt looking out placidly from his place of 
 pasture in the churchyard, with his nose on the 
 churchyard gate ; in the background, more hills,, 
 more woods, more belts of fir and pine; in the 
 foreground, reaching far and wide on either side 
 and down into the valley, long waving slopes of 
 gold-brown wheat and rippling barley, rich spaces 
 of chocolate-coloured fallow, fragrant fields of 
 white and purple clover, and broad tracts of turnip 
 lands and beet ; down in the vallev, a chain of low
 
 THE TABLET IN THE CHrECH= 207 
 
 meadows, green, alder-fringed, populous with cattle, 
 and watered by a ^yinding rivulet ; bevond all this, 
 the open country, and the far-away hills. Such 
 •was the scene, en bloc, as it were, which met 
 Temple Debenham^s eyes at the first glance. That 
 first all-embracing glance once given, he looked 
 again for the details. 
 
 A long, straggling, grey stone ruin was Ben- 
 hampton Castle, bounded by a line of battlemented 
 wall which enclosed, apparently, a space of several 
 acres. This wall, in some places quite perfect and 
 in others so broken away as to be almost level with 
 the ground, was interrupted here and there by 
 a hollow-eyed, windowless watch-tower ; while 
 standing a little back (towards the centre, as it 
 might be, of the inner courtyard) arose a huge 
 square keep, literally tapestried with ivy from top 
 to bottom. A picturesque and imposing ruin, on 
 the whole, and superbly situated. So, at least, 
 thought Temple Debenham, who had seen feudal 
 ruins by the score during his life in Germany. 
 
 The church looked very small, and more modern 
 by some centuries ; but this, probably, was because 
 it had been restored from time to time, and so 
 restored as to lose on each occasion some of its 
 primitive characteristics. It was surmomited by 
 neither spire nor tower, but only by a small 
 wooden belfry containing a single bell. And the
 
 208 debenham's yow. 
 
 church, like the castle keep, was almost overgrown 
 with ivy. 
 
 The grassy hill-side on which these buildings 
 stood was dotted over here and there with clumps 
 of fine old trees, and presented one unbroken 
 stretch of pasture covering perhaps twenty acres. 
 It was evidently all that remained of the park of 
 former times. 
 
 For some moments Debenham stood looking: 
 iixedly, silently, as one who pauses at the summit 
 of a mountain-pass, when first the landscape which 
 he has toiled so far to see breaks upon his sight. 
 Then he drew a deep breath, and, turning to the 
 labourer who still lingered by his side, said: — 
 
 ^ Is the church open ? ' 
 
 ' It 's open most days,^ was the reply. 
 
 'But if not, shall I find the keys up at the 
 castle?^ 
 
 'Ay — you ask th' master. He'll let you in 
 with his key. He be one o' the churchwardens.' 
 
 'Thanks for your guidance, my man,^ said 
 Debenham, his fingers exploring the somewhat 
 waste recesses of his waistcoat pocket. ' Get your- 
 self some beer this hot morning.' 
 
 Rusticus looked at the shilling, looked at the 
 stranger, and looked back again at the sliilling. 
 He had been doubtful all along whether or not 
 this dusty pedestrian was a gentleman ; but the
 
 THE TABLET IN THE CHURCH. 209 
 
 shilling decided it. So he touched his hat for the 
 second time, consigned the coin to some pocket of 
 unknown depth and difficulty under his smock 
 frockj and with a muttered ' Thankee, sir — thankee 
 kindly/ turned on his heel and went his way. 
 
 Then, very slowly, Temple Debenham went 
 up towards the church. He could see as he drew 
 nearer that the half-door at the porch was standing 
 ajar, but that the inner door was closed. At the 
 churchyard gate he paused to glance for a moment 
 at the graves. There were but few of these — a 
 dozen headstones, perhaps ; one or two railed 
 tombs ; a score or so of plain mounds on which the 
 grass had had long time to grow. The young 
 man knew that none of his own people lay out 
 here in the cold. His mother's letter told him to 
 look for their monuments and brasses in the 
 church ; and yet his glance lingered with a kind of 
 interest on tliese humble graves. Were they not 
 the resting-places of those who had been tenants, 
 labourers, servants of the family, generation after 
 generation ? 
 
 The roan cob snuffed at him, as if knowing 
 him to be a stranger, and, as he opened the gate, 
 moved aside to let him pass. And then he went 
 quickly up the path, and through the porch, and 
 up to the church-door. The handle turned in his 
 grasp, and the door yielded. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 :210 debenham's yow. 
 
 His heart beat fast as lie took off his hat and 
 •stepped across that threshold. 
 
 He advanced a few steps — paused — looked 
 round — looked down — ^saw that the very flagstones 
 on which he was standing were covered with in- 
 
 o 
 
 scriptions and armorial bearings; that the walls were 
 thick with tablets and mouldering hatchments ; 
 that the aisle and chancel were lined with stately 
 monuments. Were these all De Benhams ? Were 
 these stained glass heraldries through which the 
 noonday sun was pouring in shafts of purple and 
 orange, these many-quartered coats of arms, these 
 mottoes, these devices theirs — all theirs? His 
 brow darkened as he reflected that he, the heir, 
 the last living representative of all these dead, was 
 ignorant of the very insignia of the family. 
 
 But before approaching any of these monu- 
 ments, before deciphering one of those inscriptions. 
 Temple Debenham looked round for the one 
 :tablet which, above all else, he had come there to 
 to see. 
 
 ' Under the north window,' said his mother's 
 .fetter. * Under the north window, facing the 
 . altar — a little to the left of the chancel.' He had 
 •not yet advanced beyond the font, just inside the 
 'door; but he saw it instantly,— a small square 
 tablet bordered with black marble ; a tablet that, 
 «€ven at this distance, looked newer than the rest.
 
 THE TABLET IX THE CHURCH. 2 11. 
 
 In another moment he ^Yas standing before it, 
 reading the inscription. 
 
 That inscription was brief and simple enough ; 
 but it epitomised a history. 
 
 NEAE THIS SPOT LIES THE BODY OF 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. REGINALD TEMPLE 
 DE BENHAM, 
 
 TWENTT-EIGHTH BAKON DE BENHAM 
 
 OF BENHAMPTON 
 
 IN THE COU.NTY OF MONMOUTH, 
 
 AND COUNT OF THE HOLY BOMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 BORN APRIL 14, 1809, 
 
 DIED NOTEMBER 6, 1842. 
 
 The young man read, and, as he read, a deep 
 dark flusli mounted slowly all over his face and 
 brow. Tlien the flash faded, and left him very 
 pale. 
 
 For a long time he stood on the saaie spot, in 
 the same attitude; motionless; absorbed in profound 
 thought. Again and again he read that brief 
 inscription ; again and again recapitulated to him- 
 self the facts whicli it recorded. But they were 
 facts of which he found it difficult at first to realise 
 the full significance. At length he drew a deep 
 breath, sat himself down upon the altar-step, and 
 covered his face with his hands.
 
 212 debenham's tow. 
 
 The sun had shifted from the painted window 
 
 and the shadows had changed upon the floor, before 
 
 • he looked up from that reverie. And then he 
 
 rose heavily, dreamily, like one just roused from 
 
 sleep. 
 
 One by one, he then took the monuments as 
 they came, staying to read the inscriptions upon 
 such as were still legible, and setting himself, ap- 
 parently, to carry away a clear and permanent 
 recollection, not only of each separate tomb, but of 
 the name and deeds of those who lay beneath. 
 Happening to have a pencil and a small note-book 
 in his pocket, he now and then scrawled a line of 
 memorandum as he went along; and once he 
 stopped to sketch a hasty outline of a coat of arms. 
 All this he did methodically, earnestly, with a 
 strange look of concentrated purpose in his face — 
 such a look as it had never worn in all his life before. 
 
 It was a long task ; for the monuments were 
 many — very many, very various, all more or less 
 defaced. The inscriptions, too, were difficult to 
 read, full for the most part of quaint spelling and 
 crabbed abbreviations, and in some cases almost 
 wholly illegible. Of one, for instance— a beautiful 
 Gothic tomb surmounted by a carved canopy of 
 delicate, lace-like tracery — he could only discover 
 that it was erected in memory of one Alan Beau- 
 clerk De Benham, slain somewhere in battle, a.d.
 
 THE TABLET IN THE CHUECH. 213 
 
 1306. Of another and a very curious monument 
 in high rehef, representing a knight and his lady 
 kneeling face to face with their children kneeling 
 hehind them, four boys behind the father and four 
 girls behind the mother, all in painted stone but 
 greatly mutilated, he could make out no more than 
 that these Avere the effigies of one Marmaduke De 
 Benhani and Elizabeth his wife, with their family, 
 and that they both died on the same day of the 
 same year some time during the reign of King 
 Henry YII. But the dates were all effaced, and 
 the inscription, though long and apparently full of 
 detail, was so chipped and obliterated that even an 
 adept would have been puzzled to decipher it. 
 Next to this group (for the monuments succeeded 
 each other in anvthino; but due chronolomcal 
 order) came a cumbrous structure of cinque-cento 
 pillars, relievos and decorated arches, in the midst 
 of which reposed the headless ef^gy of a certain 
 Simon Charles De Benham, thirteenth baron of 
 that name, attired in full trunk-hose, starched ruff, 
 and high-heeled shoon. This nobleman, said the 
 Latin epitaph inscribed along the front of his 
 tomb, served while a young man and during his 
 father's lifetime, as a volunteer in the Imperial 
 army under the Emperor Rodolph II. ; and, 
 having valiantly distinguished himself against 
 the Turks at the siege of Gran, in Hungary, a.d.
 
 214 debenham's yo^t. 
 
 1595, was, for his services there rendered, created 
 a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, the title to 
 descend to his children and their successors for 
 ever. Then came a pompous mural tablet sur- 
 mounted by a bust of one Algernon Sackville De 
 Benham in a laced cravat and a Ramilies wig — a 
 great man in his generation ; a captain of the 
 second troop of Horseguards ; a Lord of the Bed- 
 chamber to his Hio-hness Prince Georore of Den- 
 mark ; Lord Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of 
 the Gounty of Monmouth, and Governor of the 
 Island of Guernsey. This Miigh and puissant 
 lord,' as he was styled in the inscription, died at 
 St. Peter Port a.d. 1747, and was brought to Ben- 
 hampton ^with much honour' to be buried in the 
 vaults of his famil3\ 
 
 Then, besides these more imposing monuments, 
 there were numbers of smaller tombs, mostly of 
 Gothic design ; some richly panelled and decorated 
 with elaborate coats of arms; some yet retaining 
 traces of paint and gilding; some bearing recumbent 
 figures of knights and ladies ; and one adorned 
 with a statue of a portly abbot in his m.itre and 
 robes. Here, too, were tablets, and brasses, and 
 flao;stones, eacli with its record — one tellinf^ how 
 an only son had fallen at the battle of Flodden 
 Field, on the 9th of September, 1513; another 
 lamenting the death of a young bride only four
 
 THE TABLET IN THE CHUECH. 215 
 
 months ^Yed(led; another, setting forth how a 
 whole family, seven in number, the childi-en of 
 Jocelyn, sixteenth Baron De Benham and Mary 
 his wife, were swept away in less than three weeks,, 
 dating from May 12th, 1667, by 'a malignant 
 fever.' 
 
 More ancient, however, and for every reason 
 more interesting than any of these, was a plain 
 black marble sarcophagus standing in a dark 
 recess behind the choir, upon which lay the 
 statue of a knicrht in full chain armour with his 
 
 o 
 
 hands folded in prayer, his sword and spurs girded 
 on, and his dog at his feet. No statue in all the 
 church was so mutilated. Not a feature of his 
 face, not a finger of his gauntleted hands remained. 
 His very dog was shattered almost oat of form — 
 and yet before this tomb Temple Debenham 
 lingered longer than before any of the others ; for 
 here, as testified a modern inscription let into the 
 wall above, lay the dust of that Geoffrey William 
 De Benham upon whom the barony was first 
 bestowed in 1273. * He fought,' said the tablet,. 
 ' for the king at the battle of Evesham, a.d. 1265 ; 
 accompanied Prince Edward in his expedition to 
 the Holy Land in 1270 ; and was among the first 
 of those, his former companions of the Cross, whom 
 that prince distinguished by his favour on return^ 
 ino' home as kino- of Eno-land in 1273.-' Of the
 
 216 debenham's yow. 
 
 date of his birth, of the date of his death, of his 
 wife^s name and lineage, of all the deeds of all his 
 later life, no vestige of record or legend remained. 
 
 Having gone the round of the monuments and 
 investigated every nook and corner of the church. 
 Temple Debenham turned back as he was leaving 
 the place, and retraced his steps — not to the tablet 
 under the north window, but to that dark corner 
 behind the choir where lay the dust of the Cru- 
 sader. Between that shadowy warrior and himself 
 yawned an abyss of well-nigh six hundred years ; 
 and yet he felt attracted to his grave by a subtler 
 sympathy of kinship than he could anyhow bring 
 liimself to feel for the hero of Gran, or the governor 
 of Guernsey, or any others of those his prede- 
 cessors who reposed close by in high funereal state» 
 What manner of man, he wondered, was he, the 
 stalwart founder of so long a line ? Was he not 
 only brave but wise ? Was he good ? Was he 
 happy ? Lived he to a green old age, building his 
 house, planting his trees, cultivating the arts of 
 peace, and surrounded by a numerous family? 
 Supposing that grave were to be opened, what 
 would be found within ? Dust and ashes ? A 
 rusty sword ? A pair of golden spurs ? Who 
 could tell ? Ah, who indeed ! Not one of all 
 these pompous statesmen — not one of these be- 
 frilled and be-periwigged courtiers. Least of all
 
 THE TABLET IN THE CHURCH. 217 
 
 he, the poor obscure musician, the landless heir to 
 all these empty honours ! 
 
 So, beside the resting-place of the founder of 
 his family, lingered and mused, half in bitterness, 
 half in sadness, the last of the De Benhams. At 
 length he turned away, for the day was ^vearing 
 on, and he had yet the castle ruins to see ; but his 
 last glance, as he passed out into the porch, sought 
 the graye of the Crusader.
 
 218 debenham's tow. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 COST WHAT IT MAT. 
 
 ' An extinct family, sir — an extinct family, and an 
 extinct title. Not one of ^em left. All dead and 
 gone — dead, and gone, and forgotten. Such is 
 life ! Not but what they had a good time of it, 
 those De Benhams. Six hundred years, sir — six 
 hundred years ! It was a long lease, and they 
 made themselves uncommonly comfortable while it 
 lasted. They dipped their fingers into everybody's 
 pie, and very pretty pickings they got, I can tell 
 you, — abbey-lands, governorships, rich heiresses, 
 monopolies of all sorts. Bless you! I know all 
 about them — how they got it, and how they spent 
 it. The spending was quick work compared with 
 the getting, too. Why, I 've an old chest up in 
 one of my garrets yonder, full of their mouldering 
 old family papers — deeds, charters, settlements, 
 leases, letters, and the deuce knows what beside. 
 Many 's the winter evening I 've amused myself
 
 COST WHAT IT MAT. 219 
 
 and my girls by spelling ^em over. It 's made 
 regular antiquarians of us — by Jove ! it has.'' 
 
 So, in a big, burly voice, with his hands in his 
 trousers' pockets; his feet very wide apart; his 
 studs, his watch-chain, his brass buttons glittering 
 in the sun ; the whole length and breadth of his 
 enormous person radiating pomposity, respect- 
 ability, good humour, and irreproachable solvency, 
 said Farmer Bowstead. 
 
 Or, as he himself preferred to be called, Mr. 
 Bovrstead, Or, as liis daughters would fain have 
 had him called. Squire Bowstead. He had, how- 
 ever, no claim to the squiredom, being in truth 
 neither more nor less than a wealth}^ yeoman of 
 yeoman parents bred ; fairly well educated ; ready 
 of speech at a vestry-meeting, an agricultural 
 dinner, or an election committee ; as well known 
 in the hunting-field as the master of the hounds 
 himself; and a prominent man in all local and 
 parochial matters. A well-intentioned, liberal- 
 minded man, too, according to his light ; ready 
 with his purse ; hearty and hospitable withal. N'o 
 great favourite, by the way, with the Reverend 
 Agag Golightly, perpetual curate of St. Barnabas, 
 Benhampton; but well liked, on the whole, by his 
 labourers and servants, and gratefully spoken of 
 in time of dearth or sickness by the poor of the 
 parish.
 
 220 debenham's yow. 
 
 ' I presume that I am addressing the owner of 
 — of this property?" said Temple Debenham, 
 glancing from Farmer Bowstead to the ruins, and 
 from the ruins back again, with some inward 
 distaste, to Farmer Bowstead. 
 
 ' I bought the castle, sir, such as it is, and the 
 home farm, at Colonel Smithson's death,' replied 
 the big man, audibly jingling the gold and silver 
 in his pockets as he spoke. *No great bargain, 
 either. A light, poor land, up here among the 
 hills ; some good pasturage down in the valley ; 
 seven hundred and twenty acres, altogether. As 
 for the castle, you see what that is, — building- 
 material — mere buildino:-material ! ' 
 
 Debenham had gone up from behind the 
 church and entered the ruins at a point where 
 the line of outer fortification was broken away 
 level with the ground. Here he had suddenly 
 €ome face to face w^ith Farmer Bowstead, who, 
 well pleased to do the honours of the place, had at 
 once begun the conversation. They were now 
 standing close under the shadow of the keep, a 
 massive quadrangular building in the later Nor- 
 man style ; or, perhaps, more accurately, in that 
 transitional style which followed the Norman and 
 preceded the Early English. An inner quadrangle, 
 or courtyard, of which only some portions remained 
 standino^, seemed to have been added at a later
 
 COST WHAT IT MAT. 221 
 
 date, retaining the keep apparently, as a sort of 
 military front or gateway, and so, with some los& 
 of architectural congruity, but much gain of pic- 
 tm^esqueness, incorporating it with the new design. 
 This quadrangle, of which the other three sides 
 reached away to a considerable distance at the 
 back, had evidently consisted of a series of gal- 
 leries or corridors in the Decorated style, flanked 
 by four rectangular bastions, and further strength- 
 ened by a smaller tower in the centre of each wing. 
 Of these galleries and corridors, the outer wall, for 
 the most part, alone remained ; and even this was 
 in many places shattered out of form, covered 
 with brown and yellow lichens, and overgrown 
 with ivy. Fine Gothic windows in which a tiny 
 lozencre of stained slass was yet visible here and 
 there; towers, of which the shell only was left; 
 spiral stairs springing from the wall at inaccessible 
 heights and leading nowhere ; chimney-pieces rich 
 with heraldic carvings, showing the site of stately 
 upper chambers, from which all trace of floor and 
 ceiling had alike disappeared; arched doorways- 
 with foliated mouldings ; capitals without columns; 
 columns without capitals ; indistinguishable heaps 
 of fallen masonry ; charred timbers, bushes, young 
 trees, long rank grass, and weeds innumerable ; — 
 such were the characteristics of this inner quad- 
 rande to which Farmer Bowstead had referred.
 
 222 
 
 not altogether inaptly, as ' mere building-ma- 
 terial.' 
 
 ' Have you used any of it/ said Debenham 
 gravely, ^ for that purpose ?' 
 
 ' None of this part,' replied the master of Ben- 
 hampton ; * but I got two capital barns and a 
 whole row of out-buildings from the ruins of the 
 outer walls. As good as a quarry, sir — as good as 
 a quarry ; and cheaper to work.' 
 
 The young man checked a sigh. 
 
 ^ So far as I can see,' he said, looking round 
 with a scrutinizing eye, ' no part of the castle 
 seems habitable.^ 
 
 ^ You w^on't say that when you have been 
 round to the other side of the keep,' rejoined the 
 farmer. ^You'll find that we have a habitable 
 corner — not very cheerful, perhaps, and not very 
 luxurious; but habitable. We've the servants* 
 hall, now partitioned off into two rooms, wdiich 
 serve us for dining-room and sitting-room ; and 
 the guard-room, which is our kitchen; and the 
 warder's-room, and the rooms over the gateway. 
 We manage pretty well, on the whole. Better 
 than Colonel Smithson managed, I should say; for 
 the place was in a wretched state when I bought 
 it.^ 
 
 ^ Colonel Smithson ? ' said Debenham, inter- 
 rOiXativelv.
 
 COST WHAT IT MAT. 223 
 
 This was the second time that Farmer Bow- 
 stead had mentioned the name, and the young man 
 wondered who Colonel Smithson was, and what he 
 could have had to do with the property. 
 
 * I put it in thorough repair/ said Farmer 
 Bowstead, chinking his gold and silver, as if his 
 pockets were an outlying colony of Tom Tiddler^s 
 ground. ^ I put in modern grates, and new win- 
 dow-sashes. And I laid down two new floors ; and 
 I papered and painted every inch of wall and 
 wainscot before coming in. The Colonel may not 
 have been particular ; but I don^t like living in a 
 pig-stye myself.' 
 
 ' So you bought this property from Colonel 
 Smithson?' said Debenham, abruptly. Then, cor- 
 rectincr himself with a well-bred n;race that came 
 to him naturally at times, he added : — ^ I beg your 
 pardon. These questions seem inipertinent ; but 
 I have just been seeing the monuments in the 
 church, and I cannot help feeling some interest — 
 some curiosity . . .' 
 
 ' Don't mention it, sir — don't mention it,' re- 
 plied the farmer. ' Impossible not to be interested 
 in a fine old place like this. Yes, I bought it from 
 Colonel Smithson ; that is to say, I bought it after 
 Colonel Smithson's death from Colonel Smithson's 
 executors. An eccentric old man ; had lived all 
 his earlv life in India; visited no one; neither
 
 224 debenham's tow. 
 
 shot, nor hunted, nor did anything that a country 
 gentleman is expected to do. Never went to 
 church. Never voted. Never opened a newspaper. 
 Hated the sight of a woman — wouldn't have a pet- 
 ticoat about the place. Folks about here used ta 
 say he was mad ; but that was all rubbish. Eccen- 
 tric, if you like; but no more mad than you or 
 myself.^ 
 
 'And how did he come by it?^ asked Deben- 
 ham, inwardly chafing against the man's pompous 
 garrulity; but enduring it for the sake of such 
 information as might be extracted therefrom. 
 
 ' By the property ?' 
 
 ' Yes, by the property.' 
 
 ' Well, he rented it, I rather think, for several 
 years before he bought it — rented it from the 
 creditors, you know ; for the last lord was over 
 head and ears in debt — hadn't an acre that he- 
 could call his own. When he died, everything 
 came to the hammer ; and Colonel Smith sou 
 bought just what I bought after him — the home- 
 farm and the castle. But he did the place a world 
 of damage, sir — a world of damage.' 
 
 ' Ay — how so?^ 
 
 ' Neglect, sir — sheer neglect ; let it fall to 
 pieces faster than need have been. The banquet- 
 ing-hall was quite perfect when he first came here^ 
 and nearly all the north side of this quadrangle;
 
 COST WHAT IT MAY. 225 
 
 but he would not do the least thing to preserve the 
 place. Except in the corner where he lived — 
 where I live now — he never replaced a tile, or put 
 in a pane of glass, or shored up an insecure bit of 
 v/all, or spent a sixpence to save the place from 
 ruin. And so it fell from bad to worse, and be- 
 came what you see. Age, of course, has done 
 much ; but wind and weather and neglect have 
 done more.' 
 
 ' So that it has really suffered more damage 
 Avithin the last seventeen years than might have 
 come to it, with fair treatment, in the course of a 
 century,' said the young man bitterly. 
 
 ' Colonel Smithson bought the property some- 
 where about March eighteen 'forty-three, and we're 
 now in eighteen hundred and sixty,' muttered 
 Farmer Bowstead, half aloud. ' Yes, that's just 
 seventeen years. Humph ! I took you for a 
 stranger, sir; but you seem to be readier with 
 these dates than myself.' 
 
 * Probably because I have just come from the 
 church, where I have been reading the inscription 
 on — the latest tablet,' rephed Debenham, with 
 some hesitation. 
 
 The suspicious look cleared off from the 
 farmer's hearty face like a shadow. 
 
 ' To be sure, — to be sure,' said he. * I told you 
 he bought it when the last lord died, and you saw 
 
 \0L. I. Q
 
 226 debenham's vow. 
 
 by the inscription that it happened in November^ 
 'forty-two. Quite right, sir — quite right. The 
 Colonel did buy it seventeen years and five months 
 ago, by the book. And I bought it in 'fifty-six 
 — four years ago next Michaelmas. And there 
 you've the whole history of Benhampton Castle- 
 It has only changed hands twice since the old family 
 died out, and they held it over six hundred years.'' 
 
 'And now, you sa}^, there is not one of the 
 name left?' said the young man, with assumed 
 indifference. 
 
 * No ; I said it was an extinct family ; but it 
 is not yet an extinct name. Lady De Benhara is 
 still living.' 
 
 The young man could not repress an involun- 
 tary movement. It was the first time he had 
 thought of his mother by that title. 
 
 ' The estate was clogged with an annuity for 
 her,' continued the owner of Benhampton; 'and 
 she draws it to this dayo' 
 
 ' From you ? ' said Debenham, quickly. 
 
 ' No, no. Not from these lands. These are 
 mine, fairly bought and fairly sold — freehold — 
 unencumbered — no mistake about them. No — 
 Lady De Benham's pittance, such as it is, comes 
 from land down in the valley. I have nothing to 
 do with it. I should be very sorry if I had. Fancy 
 forty pounds a-year for the widow of Lord De
 
 COST TTHAT IT MAT. 22T 
 
 Benham, one of the oldest barons in the English 
 peerage I I should be ashamed to have the pitiful 
 sum pass through my hands/ 
 
 *■ The feeling does you honour, Mr. Bowstead/ 
 said the young man in a low voice. 
 
 And at that moment he liked tlie burly farmer 
 so well that he would gladly have shaken hands 
 with him. He felt as if the man must be a good 
 man in that he spoke of Lady De Benham, even in 
 this rough fashion, witli compassion and respect. 
 And, besides, he gave her her title — that title 
 which her son now heard for the first time, and 
 which sounded so pleasantly in his ears. He would 
 perhaps have been ashamed to acknowledge it even 
 to himself, but that Farmer Bowstead should have 
 been the first to speak to him of his mother by that 
 name affected him almost as a special claim upon 
 his regard. 
 
 In the meanwhile the owner of Benhampton, 
 all unconscious of what was passing in the mind of 
 the sunburnt stranger, stared at the compliment^ 
 and felt half inclined to resent it as a liberty. 
 
 ^ You spoke of the banqueting-hall just now/ 
 said Debenham., resuming the conversation.. 
 * Where did it stand V 
 
 ' There — where you see that large end window.. 
 The chimney-piece, and all the east wall, are still, 
 pretty perfect, and even the hinges of the door..
 
 228 debenham's yow. 
 
 Would you like to make the round of the 
 ruins ? ' 
 
 This was precisely what Debenham had been 
 longing to do from the first ; so Farmer Bowstead, 
 who really proved to be a capital cicerone, led the 
 way, and the young man followed. 
 
 They began with the site of the banqueting- 
 hall — a magnificent room, now roofless, floorless, 
 carpeted with weeds and brambles, and open to 
 all the winds of heaven. This hall, said Farmer 
 Bowstead, measured sixty feet in length and 
 twenty-four in width, and had formerly con- 
 tained a musicians' gallery over the door, as 
 well as a panelled and gilded ceiling of extraor- 
 dinary richness. Over the chimney-piece (which, 
 being of carved stone, was still comparatively un- 
 injured), the young man recognised the same coat 
 of arms which he had just now sketched in the 
 church. 
 
 Next after the banqueting-hall came the cook's 
 kitchen — an area some thirty feet square, but now 
 left with only two sides standing. Some frag- 
 ments of a groined and vaulted roof, and the great 
 cavernous fireplace, however, yet remained — that 
 hospitable fireplace at which many an ox had been 
 roasted whole in the good old times of Debenham's 
 feasting forefathers. 
 
 'There's a chimney for youl^ said Farmer
 
 COST WHAT IT MAT. 229 
 
 Bowstead. * We don't build such clumnejs as 
 that now-a-days.' 
 
 And then Debenham peeped up the great 
 yawning funnel which, black and mysterious as a 
 coal-shaft, went narrowing up to a square glimpse 
 of daylight some forty feet above. 
 
 From the kitchen they then passed on to the 
 site of what had once been the servants' hall, and 
 thence, threading their way amid a wilderness of 
 weeds and rubbish, made the circuit of the whole 
 quadrangle. 
 
 Of this, little more than a line of dilapidated 
 outer wall remained standing ; and though his 
 guide professed to know all the topography of the 
 place, saying of one spot that it had been the ar- 
 moury, of another that it w^as anciently a tennis- 
 court, of a third that it was the site of the guard- 
 room, and so forth, still the young man felt that it 
 was mere guess-work, and more likely, on the 
 whole, to be wrong than right. 
 
 Coming back thus to the keep, and approaching 
 it from the other side, he found himself all at once 
 in the midst of inhabited ground. The ivy on 
 this side had been partially shorn to make way 
 for a smart green door and trellised porch, and 
 some half-dozen modern windows. The porch was 
 clustered over with white roses ; the windows 
 showed glimpses of white Winds and scarlet curtains.
 
 230 
 
 and were flanked with boxes of mignonette and 
 stocks ; and the weed-grown courtyard was here 
 transformed into a shp of smooth-shaven lawn 
 islanded with brilliant flower-beds. 
 
 Debenham came to a sudden halt. The cheer- 
 fulness of the place was almost startling in con- 
 trast with the desolation of the rest ; but its very 
 cheerfulness jarred upon him. 
 
 In vain did the hospitable farmer urge him to 
 go in and rest awhile ; in vain press upon him the 
 refreshment of ' a cup of tea, or a glass of home- 
 brewed ale.' He felt as if he could not bring 
 himself to cross the threshold or break bread under 
 that roof-tree — as a guest. He felt he coukl no 
 longer endure to talk indifferently of the place and 
 its history, or to keep up the semblance of a mere 
 stranger's curiosity regarding it. His heart was 
 too full, and he wanted now, above all else, to be 
 alone. 
 
 ^ My girls would make you kindly welcome, 
 -sir,' said Farmer Bowstead. ' Let yourself be 
 persuaded. It's altogether against my creed to 
 let the stranger turn away from my door in this 
 way.' 
 
 At that moment, however, Debenham's quick 
 
 ear caught the first few notes of a popular polka 
 
 jangled out of tune' upon a piano whose days 
 
 were evidently in the sear and yellow leaf. There
 
 COST WHAT IT MAT. 231 
 
 flashed upon Lim a liorrible vision of the Miss 
 Bowsteads, red-cheeked, red-elbowed, possibly red- 
 haired, and musical exceedingly. The vulgar 
 measure grated upon his ear like a profanity. He 
 recoiled impatiently. 
 
 ' Xo, no/ he said. ^ I must go. Time presses, 
 and I have a long walk back. Many thanks — 
 good-night.'' 
 
 And with this he raised his hat, turned abruptly 
 on his heel, and strode away. 
 
 Leaving the ruins by the way he had come, he 
 neither paused nor looked back; but with the 
 swift, assured step of one who has a definite pur- 
 pose before him, made direct for the churchyard 
 gate, puslied it open, went up the path, took off his 
 hat in the porch, walked straight up to the altar- 
 rails, bowed his face upon his hands, and knelt 
 <lown in silence. 
 
 He remained thus for some moments ; then rose 
 — fetched a small Testament from the nearest pew 
 — turned again towards tlie altar — put the book 
 reverently to his lips, and said, almost in a 
 whisper : — 
 
 ' I swear it — so help me God !^ 
 
 He had taken a solemn vow, and taken it in 
 the most solemn way he could devise, with the 
 dust of a long line of ancestors beneath his feet, 
 and their monuments looking down upon him from
 
 232 debenham's vow. 
 
 every side. No Avonder, then, that, having re- 
 placed the little Testament and cast one last 
 glance at the tablet under the north window, he 
 turned away with a graver brow and slower step 
 than before. 
 
 Then, still intent upon his own thoughts, he 
 replaced his hat, as it were, mechanically ; passed 
 out through the churchyard ; and followed the 
 downward path as far as the stile. Here he stopped 
 and looked back. The sun was now fast bendino^ 
 towards the west, and the ruins were all aglow in 
 the rich light of tlie early summer evening. He 
 gazed at them long and earnestly, and, as he gazed, 
 there again came into his face that strange, con- 
 centrated look — that look of hard resolve — which 
 was soon to become its fixed and habitual ex- 
 pression. 
 
 ' I have sworn it ! ' he said, scarcely conscious 
 that he was speaking aloud. ' I have sworn it, 
 and I will achieve it — cost what it may !' 
 
 The next moment he had bounded over the 
 stile, and was swinging back to Monmouth at tlie 
 rate of something better than four miles an hour. 
 
 In the meanwhile Farmer Bowstead, presiding 
 oVer a well-furnished tea-table, discussed the 
 stranger's visit with his daughters — three pleasant^ 
 comely young women enough, not one of whom.
 
 COST WHAT IT MAT. 23^ 
 
 by the way, was either red-elbowed or red- 
 haired. 
 
 ' As off-hand a fellow as ever I saw in my life/ 
 said the master of Benhampton Castle. ^ I asked 
 liim in — offered him a glass of our old ale — and he 
 barely thanked me. Just turned on his heel and 
 marched off, as if my house wasn^t good enough 
 for him.' 
 
 ^ Was he young, papa?' asked one of the 
 damsels. 
 
 ' About six or eight-and -twenty. ■* 
 
 ^ And cpood-lookinor ?' 
 
 ^Not according to my notions, Miss Bella.' 
 
 *I'm sure he was a gentleman/ said the 
 youngest and prettiest of the three. 
 
 Farmer Bowstead frowned, shook his head, and 
 helped himself to an enormous slice of meat-pie. 
 
 ' Not a bit of it, my dear,' he said. * Not a bit 
 of it. A shabby-looking fellow — pedestrian tourist, 
 evidently — an actor, or painter, or magazine-writer, 
 or something of that sort, I '11 be bound. Not a 
 bit of a gentleman I'
 
 234 debenham's yow. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 MONEY VERSUS FAME. 
 ' The world is mine oyster.' — King Henry IV. 
 
 Mr. Archibald Blyth was not given to early 
 rising. Under his fellow-traveller's rule and 
 governance, he consented, coyly enough, to rise at 
 six, or even, on especial occasions, at half-past five ; 
 but, left to himself, he would go on sleeping the 
 sleep of the just till eight, or nine, or even ten 
 o'clock, on the briMitest summer mornino; that ever 
 shone. Thus it came to pass that at nine A.M. on 
 the day following the events last related, when the 
 little world of Chillingford was all up and doing, 
 and the birds outside his window were singing for 
 joy of the sunshine, and even Mr. Alleyne was 
 engaged upon his matutinal broiled trout and 
 coffee, Archibald Blyth was suddenly wrenched 
 from the farthest Elysium by the pressure of a 
 hand on his shoulder, and tlie sound of a voice in 
 his ear.
 
 MONET VERSUS FAME. 235 
 
 ' '"Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen ! " ' said the 
 familiar, half-mocking tones that he knew so well. 
 * Why, man alive ! do you know what o'clock it 
 is?' 
 
 Archie sat up, gasping, and rubbing his eyes. 
 
 ' What — Debenham — back already ? ' he stam- 
 mered. * Where do you come from ? ' 
 
 'From Monmouth, where I slept last night 
 and breakfasted this morning at half-past six. I 
 have had such a glorious walk ! You never saw- 
 such effects of sunshine and colour.' 
 
 'And you have transacted the business you 
 went about?' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' It didn't take long, anyhow,' said Archie, 
 staring at Debenham with all his might. 
 
 The other looked grave. 
 
 'Look here, my dear fellow,' he said, after a 
 moment's hesitation. ' I don't want to be mys- 
 terious with you. ^ly solitary expedition has 
 puzzled you. . . .' 
 
 ' Enormously.' 
 
 ' Well, be puzzled no longer. I wxnt to visit 
 my father's grave. He was buried not many 
 miles from Monmouth, and I had never seen the 
 place before. Didn't know where it was, in fact, 
 till three days ago. Znow you have it, and I had 
 rather the subject was not named between us again.'
 
 236 debenham's yow. 
 
 So Archie, with a very serious face, protested 
 that no allusion to it should be made on his 
 part. 
 
 ' And now,' said Debenham, ' I want you to 
 get up and come for a walk — and a talk. I have 
 a heap of things to say to you.' 
 
 ' I '11 be ready in ten minutes,' said Archie,, 
 scrambling out of bed. 
 
 ' But you 've had no breakfast.' 
 
 ' Doesn't matter a bit,' sputtered Archie, wutli 
 his head and face in a great round tub of cold 
 water. ' I 'Jl put a crust in my pocket.^ 
 
 Debenham, however, would not hear of this ; 
 so he ran down to get his friend's breakfast pre- 
 pared in the kitchen, and in about half-an-hour 
 they were strolling together by the river. 
 
 ' You have seen Miss AUeyne, of course ? ' said 
 Archie, finding that Debenham did not begin the 
 promised conversation. 
 
 To which Debenham — looking away, and full,, 
 apparently, of other thoughts — replied in an ab- 
 stracted voice, that, supposing the Alleynes to be 
 at breakfast, he had gone straight to Archie's 
 room, and seen no one. 
 
 * They asked me in to tea last evening,^ said 
 Archie. ' I thought it was kind of them — in 
 your absence.'
 
 MONEY YERSUS FAME. 237 
 
 Here he paused for a reply ; but receiving 
 none, went on. 
 
 ' We played two rubbers, with dummy. Mr. 
 Alleyne took dummy, and won everything before 
 him.' 
 
 ^ Ah— indeed!' 
 
 ' So for once, you see, I had ]\Iiss Alleyne for 
 my partner. Are you jealous ? ' 
 
 Debenham smiled faintly, and shook his 
 head. 
 
 * What did you talk about?' he said. 
 
 ^ Well, let me see — of you, for one thing.' 
 
 'Yes? — what did they say about me?' asked 
 Debenham, looking round with more appearance 
 of interest than he had yet shown. 
 
 ' I must consider. Mr. Alleyne said you were 
 a good conversationist. You reminded him of 
 some famous w-it — I forget wdio. And then he 
 said that music w^as a poor profession — he meant 
 in the way of getting money.' 
 
 ' He 's quite right,* said Debenham, bitterly. 
 ■* It 's a beggarly profession ! What else did he 
 say?' 
 
 * He thought you very clever, but . . .' 
 
 * But what?' 
 
 ' He feared you were very unpractical.' 
 
 ' Unpractical ? Confound his insolence ! On
 
 238 debeneam's tott. 
 
 what ground does he — an acquamtance of ten 
 days' standing — presume to base his opinion?' 
 
 ' Ah, I didn't ask him that,' said Archie, dryly. 
 
 ^ And Juhet — what did she say ? Did she 
 agree with him ? ' 
 
 ^ I don't know. She didn't say so.' 
 
 ^ Did she contradict him ? ' 
 
 'No/ 
 
 ' Did she speak of me at all ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; she asked if I expected to hear from you 
 this morning. I fancy she thought you had gone 
 away rather abruptly.' 
 
 * Did she tell you so ? ' 
 
 'No; but I fancied I saw it in her manner. 
 You told her where you were going, of course ? ' 
 
 ' Why '' of course ? " She 's not my wife yet — 
 we are not even formally engaged. I told her I 
 was summoned away on family business, and might 
 not be back for a day or two. I told you the same. 
 It was quite enough.' 
 
 Archie looked down, and was silent. The gloom 
 and irritability of his friend's manner both pained 
 and perplexed him. He seemed out of tune with 
 all things. He had called his beloved art ' a 
 beggarly profession.' His indignation against Mr. 
 Alleyne seemed out of all proportion with the 
 magnitude of the offence. Even in the tone in 
 which he had spoken of IMiss Alleyne, there was a
 
 MONET TEKSUS FAME. 239 
 
 something which grated upon Archie's ear. True 
 lovers, according to Ins simple creed, should have 
 no secrets from each other ; and, although he did 
 not argue the question out in so many words, he 
 felt instinctively that the young lady had a fuller 
 right than himself to Debenham's confidence. It 
 was plain that something had gone wrong ; but, 
 then, what could that something be? 
 
 ' You said you had heaps of things to talk to 
 me about,' he said presently. ^ When are you going 
 to begin?' 
 
 ' Now, if you are disposed to listen. Shall we sit 
 down on this old trunk, and smoke a pipe the while ?' 
 
 It was the same felled trunk on which he had 
 sat with Miss Alleyne only two mornings ago ; but 
 his mind was full of other matters now, and he did 
 not even remember it. So they sat down, lit their 
 pipes, and smoked for some moments in silence. 
 
 ' Do you remember the day we came to this 
 place?' asked Debenham, at length. 
 
 ^ Remember it ! ' said Archie. ' I should think 
 so. It was the hottest day I ever knew in my life.' 
 
 ' And the meadow by the river side^ wdiere we 
 rested and you fell asleep ? ' 
 
 'Thrice-blessed meadow^, and thrice thrice- 
 blessed sleep ! I have the liveliest recollection of 
 both.^ 
 
 Debenham frowned. He was in no mocd for
 
 240 debenham's vow. 
 
 jesting ; and the levity of Archie's tone displeased 
 him. 
 
 'I cannot, of course, expect you also to re- 
 member the subject of our conversation that 
 afternoon/ he said. 
 
 ' Not unassisted, perhaps ; but if you will re- 
 fresh my memory . . . .' 
 
 ' We were talking of money, and how to make 
 it. I said I should like to earn a thousand a-year; 
 and you said that with good abilities and a good 
 education, a man might command as much as that, 
 and even more — in commerce. Do you remember 
 that?' 
 
 ^ Yes, I remember it perfectly.' 
 
 * Was it true — or a mere figure of speech ? ' 
 
 ' True, of course. Literally true.' 
 
 ^ But how ? In what way ? Not in a mer- 
 chant's office ? ' 
 
 ^ Yes ; even in a merchant's office, if by that 
 you mean sitting all one's life at a desk in a count- 
 ing-house. Managing clerks, for instance, and 
 foreign correspondents, get famous salaries some- 
 times. But that was not what T meant when I 
 spoke of the sort of openings that are to be found 
 in commerce for men of real talent and extensive 
 acquirements.' 
 
 ^ What did you mean then, Archie?' said 
 Debenham, earnestly — so earnestly that Archie,
 
 MONEY TEESUS FAME. 241 
 
 catching a sudden glimmer of the truth, laid down 
 his pipe and looked full in his friend's face. 
 
 ' Why, Debenham I ' he exclaimed, ' is it pos- 
 sible . . / 
 
 ^ Yes, it 's quite possible,' interrupted the other, 
 hurriedly but very decisively. 'My opinions on 
 that subject are changed. I am tired of being 
 poor. I want money. I am determined to 
 have money. I don't care how hard I work 
 for it — I am used to work hard. And I don't 
 care what sort of work it is, if it only pays me 
 well enough. That is the point. It must pay. 
 And a little will not content me. I have knowni 
 what it is to be poor — very poor; and now I mean 
 to know what it is to be rich. Only tell me how — 
 only show me the way. Let the path be steep and 
 thorny ; the steeper and thornier it is, the better I 
 shall like it.^ 
 
 ' My dear fellow,^ said Archie, ' you positively 
 take my breath away ! ' 
 
 ' But the way — only sliow" me the way ! ' per- 
 sisted Debenham, almost fiercely. 
 
 ' You can't make a fortune in a day,' said 
 Archie. ' There's no way to do that.' 
 
 ' Of course not ; but I would be will in (j to work 
 
 with double energy. I would be willing to put a 
 
 week's labour into a day; a month's into a week; 
 
 a year's into a month. I would be willing to spend 
 
 TOL. I. R
 
 242 debenham's yow. 
 
 brain and fibre at a double rate — ay, at ten times a 
 double rate, if that were all. A man may surely 
 push the hands on in that way ? ' 
 
 ' Ay — if he doesn't cripple the clock meanwhile,' 
 said Archie, sententiously. * But you must let me 
 think for a minute or two. You have so taken me by 
 surprise, that I seem not to have an idea in my head.' 
 
 And then, planting his elbows on his knees, and 
 resting his chin upon his hands, be began, slowly 
 and clearly, though in a somewhat roundabout way, 
 to explain in what special directions a man of great 
 capital might employ and amply remunerate the 
 services of a man of high education. There were 
 foreign loans, for instance, in the negotiation of 
 which the nicest tact was required, and the most 
 discriminating: knowledo;e of all sorts of lancruaoes. 
 And there were foreign missions in abundance — 
 missions imolving the adjustment of differences, the 
 legislation of commercial rights, the establishing of 
 difficult and distant business relations, and so forth. 
 Political knowledge, too, commanded its premium. 
 Enormous fortunes had been made at a blow, by 
 those who were skilled in watching the political 
 horizon and knew how to take prompt advantage 
 of every change and rumour of change. In short, 
 though he could deal only in generalities, Archie 
 said quite enough to convince his friend that his 
 brains were marketable, and that if the world were
 
 MONEY TEESUS FAME. 243 
 
 indeed an oyster, lie had a fairer chance of opening 
 it tlian most penniless adventurers. 
 
 ^ And so you are really in earnest/ said the City 
 man, when their long talk came at last to an end. 
 
 ' I am really in earnest.'' 
 
 ' And it is to be commerce versus music — money 
 versus fame ? ' 
 
 * It is to be commerce and money for the next 
 ten years of my life— or the next twenty, if need 
 be. I don't say that it may not be music and fame 
 after that ; when T am a rich man, and can afford 
 to indulge my tastes.^ 
 
 ^ Then all I can say is, that I am heartily glad 
 of it,' said Arrhie, warmly. ^ You never would 
 and never could have earned more than a bare 
 living by music ; and even so you must have gone 
 on giving lessons all your life. And you would 
 never have been looked upon as a gentleman — at 
 least in England. I always felt that with your 
 splendid talents you ought to make a fortune. And 
 so you will, old fellow. So you will.' 
 
 * I will try,' said Debenham, more to himself 
 than to Archie. 
 
 ' And I will speak about it to my cousin Hard- 
 wicke the moment we cret back to London.' 
 
 ' Thank you, Archie — thank you. That is, if 
 I do not speak to Mr. Hardwicke myself.' 
 
 And with this they rose up and strolled on side
 
 244 
 
 by side — both silent ; both weary of talking ; each 
 absorbed in his own thoughts. 
 
 As for Archie, he was lost in wonder at what 
 had taken place, and kept stealing furtive glances 
 now and then at his companion. The more he 
 thought of all that had been said, the less he seemed 
 able to believe it. What a revolution ! What a 
 change! Who more indifferent to money, who 
 more devoted to his art than Debenham, but one 
 little month ago ? And now . . . Well, the 
 motive, at all events, was not far to seek. He 
 wanted to make money that he might marry Miss 
 Alleyne. Nothing could be clearer ; nothing, 
 after all, more natural. It was just the old, old 
 story over again. That is to say, it was the old, 
 old story — with a difference. For love, which 
 makes fools of so many, had, from Archie's point 
 of view, made a wise man of his friend. And 
 then he smiled to himself, thinking that it was like 
 the old Antwerp legend turned upside down ; for 
 here, instead of the smith turning painter, the 
 artist, for lovers dear sake, was about to give up 
 his art for the drudgerj' of anvil and hammer. 
 Such was the miracle-working power of a pretty 
 face ! 
 
 But in all these assumptions and conclusions, 
 obvious as they seemed, Archie was wrong ; entirely
 
 MONEY YERSUS FAME. 245 
 
 and fundamentally wrong. That a marvellous 
 change had come upon Temple Debenham was 
 true — but neither love nor Miss Alleyne had any- 
 thing whatever to do with it.
 
 246 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ' HE LOVES AND HE EIDES AWAY.' 
 
 Mk. and Miss Alleyne were botli out when the 
 young man returned to the ' Silver Trout;' where- 
 upon Debenham remembered that lie must write 
 to his mother. 
 
 ' You may depend they have only gone over to 
 the other side of the river,' said Archie. 
 
 ' Suppose, then, you just take the ferry across, 
 like a good fellow, and see,' suggested Debenham 
 hurriedly. 
 
 ^ And if I find them, what shall I say V 
 'Oh — say that I've come back tired, and — and 
 that I have an important letter to write before the 
 Chepstow coach goes by.' 
 
 ' And that you will follow me by-and-by ?' 
 ' Yes — of course. In less than an hour.' 
 So Archie went off, not without some inward 
 wonder at his friend's want of empressement, and
 
 247 
 
 Debenham locked himself into his room and sat 
 down to write a long letter to his mother. The 
 task, however, was not an easy one. He felt as it' 
 he ought to say a great deal, but his inclination 
 prompted him to say very little. Mrs. Debenham 
 w^ould expect him, perhaps, to write about his 
 father, and the castle, and the church, and the 
 monuments, and the ancient glories of the De 
 Benhams, — yet what could he say of these things? 
 He had nothing to say about them. The past was 
 past, and all his thoughts now were of the future; 
 he must write what was really in his mind. At 
 all events, he must write something. 
 
 So, having made two or three unsuccessful 
 beginnings, he at length took a fresh sheet of 
 paper, and dashed off what he had to say, just as it 
 came. 
 
 ' Chillingford, August — , 1860. 
 
 ' My dearest Mothee, — I told you in my last 
 that I had found your letter addressed to me at the 
 Monmouth post-office. Since then I have been to 
 Benhampton. I am sorry that my knowledge of 
 the place and its history comes so late. I am 
 sorry that at sixteen I was not as wise as I am 
 now at six-and-twenty. I should have shaped my 
 life altogether differently, and have worked with 
 quite other ends in view. Late, however, as this
 
 248 debenham's vow. 
 
 knowledge comes to me, I hope it is not too late. 
 At all events, I mean to begin life anew. 
 
 ' Do you remember, dear mother, in that essay 
 of Maeaulay's that we were reading just before T 
 came away — I mean the one on Warren Hastings 
 — there was some account of how the little fellow, 
 while yet a mere child, was taken to see the grand 
 old family place that had once belonged to his own 
 people ; and how, stealing away from the rest, he 
 went and lay down under a tree by himself, taking 
 in every detail of the scene, and, child thougli he 
 was, silently resolving to win that old house and 
 those broad acres back again ? Well, mother, I 
 think if you had taken me to Benhampton ten or 
 twelve years ago, and shown me those ruins and 
 those tombs, I should have taken the same reso- 
 lution ; and by this time, perhaps, I should have 
 fulfilled it. 
 
 ' However, it is of little use to think of what 
 might have been. Let it be enough that, as a 
 man, I have arrived at that point from which 
 Warren Hastings started as a boy. I mean at 
 once to give up the profession of music — to look 
 out for some lucrative employment — and to think 
 of nothing but making and saving money for many 
 a year to come. And then, mother, I hope some 
 day to see you again occupying your proper 
 station in society ; and I hope myself to buy back
 
 ' HE LOYES AND HE RIDES AWAY.' 249 
 
 the old place, and restore the old castle, and 
 sustain as worthily as I may my father's name 
 und title. 
 
 * I fear this will sound to you like a wild and 
 impossible scheme. Still, I can but fail ; and, 
 wild and impossible though it may be, I must 
 henceforth devote to it such strength of mind and 
 body as are mine. 
 
 * We leave Chilllngford to-morrow, or at the 
 latest on Saturday ; pleasant neighbours at the 
 inn, charming scenery, and good fishing, having 
 already beguiled us into lingering here for nearly 
 three weeks. You may direct your next letters to 
 Ross. I think I shall return in about a fortnight 
 — that is, by the end of the fifth week. Archie 
 gives me good hope that I may find something to 
 do in the City ; and I shall therefore be glad to 
 have a few days at my own disposal, to look about 
 me, before St. Hildegarde's is re-opened. 
 
 ' T continue to be as idle as ever; doing nothing 
 in the way of music — that is to say, doing nothing 
 worth mention. A little Toccata in the antique 
 style, however, pencilled down in bed the other 
 night when I could not sleep, might please you. 
 
 ' The weather is superb. We have had a few 
 showers ; but not one wet day since we left Chep- 
 stow. Archie, of course, maintains his character 
 as the best of travelling companions. He is really
 
 250 debenham's yow. 
 
 a paragon of cheerfulness and good nature. I 
 have made up my mhid, liehe Mutter, that you 
 must go somewhere out of London for a week or 
 two in September; so please not to oppose me. 
 You know what a determined fellow I can be when 
 I choose. 
 
 ' I find myself at the foot of the last page of my 
 second sheet, so good-bye for to-day. 
 
 ^ Ever, dearest mother, your loving son, 
 
 ^ De Benuam. 
 
 'P.S. — I sign myself, you see, wdth my own 
 lawful signature ; but of course only to you. For 
 the rest of the world, I remain plain Temple 
 Debenham — at all events, till I have made my 
 fortune.' 
 
 This he wrote in hot haste, without pause or 
 correction; and, for fear that he might not be 
 satisfied with it on perusal, sealed it up and con- 
 signed it to the Chillingford post-box without even 
 reading it over. And perhaps, on the whole, it 
 was as good a letter as he could have written at 
 that time. He loved his mother with a deep and 
 tender love ; but he could not help feeling that he 
 ousjht Ions: since to have been told the secret of his 
 birth. He knew that Lady De Benham had acted 
 for the best, according to her judgment; but he
 
 ' HE LOVES AND HE RIDES ATTAY.'' 251 
 
 also knew that she had pushed the parental right of 
 judgment beyond its proper limits. Knowing how 
 every rood of his inheritance had passed away, 
 and concluding that her son must therefore re- 
 nounce all the privileges of his birth, she had 
 trained him to regard obscurity as his portion in 
 life, and to desire no other. But then, as he told 
 himself again and again, she had no right to leap 
 to that conclusion, and still less right to act upon 
 it. He ought to have known the truth at sixteen, 
 at the latest. He had an undoubted legal right to 
 know it at twenty-one. Not knowing it, he had 
 been vlrtualiy excluded from that freedom in the 
 choice of a career which is a young man's most 
 precious privilege. And he had wasted ten of the 
 best years of his life. 
 
 It was natural that he should feel sore when he 
 thought of these things, and that he should chafe 
 impatiently against them in his mind ; and it 
 would have been excusable if he had evinced some 
 of this impatience and soreness in his letter. But 
 he had put a control upon his pen ; and if he had 
 written somewhat coldly, entering into few par- 
 ticulars, and expressing himself with unwonted 
 brevity and decision, still he had not given utter- 
 ance to one bitter or reproachful word. In so far, 
 then, as the letter was temperate and not unloving, 
 it fulfilled its purpose and was, as has already
 
 252 debenham's vow. 
 
 been said, as good a letter as he could have 
 written, under the circumstances. 
 
 But if he succeeded in keeping his regrets and 
 his bitterness below the surface, he was none the 
 less affected by them and by the momentous re- 
 solution which he had taken. A great change had 
 come upon him — a change of which he was him- 
 self vaguely conscious, and whicli none of those 
 about him could for one moment fail to observe. 
 His whole nature seemed suddenly to have indu- 
 rated. A strange, hard look had settled on his 
 mouth ; and when he smiled, it seemed less like an 
 impulse than a deliberate effort of the will. Then 
 lie felt so much older. He looked out upon the 
 world from such a different point of view. He 
 had parted at one fell swoop from the hopes, and 
 dreams, and pleasures of his whole life, and taken 
 up with the hardest of hard realities. And this he 
 did, knowInjT the mao-nltude of the sacrifice — 
 counting the cost — resolute to pay the price, come 
 in what form it might. 
 
 ^ Ay — come in what form it might!' He had 
 fallen into a way of repeating this and similar 
 phrases to himself, within the last day or t\Y0 ; not 
 that he attaclied any special meaning to the words, 
 but because the mere repetition of them seemed to 
 streno:then him for the battle to come. 
 
 In the first moment of meeting. Miss Alloyne
 
 * HE LOTES AND HE EIDES AWAY.' 253 
 
 saw that there was a clouclj a shadow, a something 
 upon his brow, which was not there before he went 
 away. And then she concluded that he had met 
 with some loss or disappointment in the matter of 
 liis journey, and her whole heart filled with sym- 
 pathy for him. She tried to show this sympathy 
 in a thousand pretty, quiet ways, all through the 
 day, telling herself tliat he would be sure to confide 
 his trouble to her when they were alone, and 
 thinking how she would try to comfort him in this 
 and every other mischance that might befall him. 
 But, somehow, the afternoon went by, and they 
 se[)arated at dinner-time without having been 
 alone together for a moment. Once, however, he 
 had pressed her hand unseen; and when Mr. 
 Alleyne, putting up his canvas and colours, invited 
 the friends, as usual, to take tea, he accepted the 
 invitation with a glance that seemed to say for 
 whose sake he was glad to do so. 
 
 ' It is so good to have you back again, old 
 fellow,' said Archie, as they sat by-and-by at their 
 ac(*ustomed table in the kitchen window. * The 
 place seemed awfully dull yesterday without you. 
 Isn't this a fine big pike? I caught him last 
 evening, just above the weir; and, not thinking 
 you would be back so soon, I was lamenting that 
 I must sit down to him alone. How glad I am 
 that I did not send him to the AlleynesI'
 
 254 debenham's tow. 
 
 * It is indeed a Goliath of a pike, my little 
 David,' said Temple, ' and capitally cooked/ 
 
 But though he praised the fish, he sent his 
 plate away almost untasted. He could not eat. 
 His mind was ill at ease, and many things were 
 perplexing him. So he presently left Archie to 
 finish his dinner alone and betook himself to the 
 river-side, where he walked up and down in front 
 of the inn, anxiously thinking. 
 
 Should he, or should he not, tell Miss Alleyne? 
 That was the question. It w^ould be pleasant to 
 tell her; and perhaps he ought to tell her. But 
 then, how would it profit her to know? Would it 
 add one iota to her happiness, or her love ? It 
 ought not to do so. Nay, more — it was impossible 
 that it sliould do so. Still, it was sweet to know 
 that he was loved for himself alone. Besides, why 
 should he put her discretion to so severe a test ? 
 She was very young to be trusted with so grave a 
 secret; and a secret it must remain — profound, 
 strict, inviolable. Surely it would, on the whole, 
 be wiser to keep silence — at all events for a year 
 or two longer. And then so many things might 
 happen in a year or two ! 
 
 Deliberating thus, he strolled to and fro till 
 Archie came out ; and by-and-by they were joined 
 by Mr. and Miss Alleyne. Mr. Alleyne, however, 
 brought his glass and his decanter of port into the
 
 ^ HE LOVES AND HE EIDES AWAY.' 255 
 
 porch^ and sat there smoking liis customary post- 
 prandial cigar, while the others went down to the 
 landing-2:>lace to see the cows ferried home from 
 their pastures on the opposite side of the river. 
 
 ' You did not expect me back to-day, Juliet ?' 
 said De Benham, finding that Archie lingered dis- 
 creetly in the rear. 
 
 * I think I did — that is, I hoped.^ 
 
 * I despatched my journey as quickly as I 
 could/ he said, hesitatingly ; ^because — because I 
 find it is absolutely necessary for me to be in 
 London by the end of another fortnight, and there- 
 fore '" 
 
 ' I know,' said Miss Alleyne ; the smile with 
 which she had looked up at the beginning of his 
 sentence having vanished in a sudden paleness. 
 ' And therefore you must resume your tour. 
 When do you think of going?' 
 
 ' I suppose — I fear — to-morrow.^ 
 
 He felt a slight tremor in the hand which 
 rested on his arm ; but that was all. 
 
 ' It seems to come suddenly at last,' he said, 
 half apologetically ; ' but we have had three weeks 
 at Chillingford already, and — and I am bound to 
 consider Archie a little. For myself, I should 
 desire nothing better than to spend the whole time 
 here.^ 
 
 She tried to force a smile.
 
 256 
 
 ' I know that,' slie replied, simply; ^but it will 
 <lo you more good to travel. You work so hard in 
 London, and you ought to go back so much 
 stronger.' 
 
 ' My darling ! ' he said, tenderly ; and then he 
 thought he would tell her, after all. ' I mean to 
 work harder than ever, now,' he began, ' and to be 
 better paid for my work. In fact, I am going to 
 give up music and take to some more profitable 
 occupation.' 
 
 'Give up music!' repeated Miss Alley ne. 
 * Impossible !' 
 
 ' " A cosur vaillant, rien d' impossible.''^ That 
 was Henri Quatre's motto, and it shall be mine.' 
 
 ' But what other occupation . . . . ' 
 
 * At present I can hardly say. I only know 
 that I have certain marketable acquirements, and 
 that I mean to sell myself to the highest bidder. 
 Would you not like to be rich, Juliet?' 
 
 * Not in the least. I only desire to be happy.' 
 ' But have you no ambition ?' 
 
 ' Of that sort, none whatever.' 
 
 * Well, but you have some ambition for me?' 
 
 ' Yes, I have ambition for you ; but still not of 
 ihat sort. I should like you to be famous ; I do 
 aiot care that you should be rich.' 
 
 * But this is mere romance, my sweet,' urged 
 the lover. 'Money represents the graces and
 
 * HE LOTES AND HE RIDES AWAY/ 257 
 
 charities, to say nothing of the comforts, of life. It 
 is impossible that you should not care for these. 
 You might as well say that you place no value 
 upon rank or station.' 
 
 ' Nor do I,' said Miss Alleyue, promptly ; 
 ' unless as the reward of personal merit.' 
 
 * Do you mean that if I, for instance, were heir 
 to an hereditary coronet transmitted through a 
 long line of ancestors, you would be no prouder oi 
 me than as plain Temj^le Debenham?' 
 
 * I should be no whit prouder of you,' she 
 answered, radiant and glowing. ' On the contrary, 
 I should long for you to achieve some distinction 
 that miMit raise von above vour title!' 
 
 But De Benham had no response for the girl's 
 generous answer. He only looked away, and said, 
 coldly : — 
 
 * So — you are a democrat ! I had no idea of 
 that. You and I must never talk politics, then, 
 cava mia ; for we should surely disagree.' 
 
 And from that moment he made up his mihd 
 that he would not tell her. 
 
 Yet, when he went to bed at night and was 
 alone in his own little room, his heart smote him, 
 and he wondered at the change that had come 
 upon him. But a few days ago, and he was as 
 unworldly as herself. But a few days ago, and he, 
 too, would have chosen to earn rather than inherit 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 debenham's vow. 
 
 his honours. He had then as little care for wealth, 
 as little fear of poverty, as keen an appetite for 
 fame, as the warmest enthusiast could desire ; and 
 now . . . Well, now he was Lord De Benham, a 
 Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and twenty- 
 ninth Baron of his name ; the last male represen- 
 tative of his family ; friendless, fortuneless, landless, 
 with scarce a second coat to his back, and something 
 less than five pounds in his pocket. These were 
 pregnant facts — such facts, surely, as might well 
 excuse a man for some change of opinion. Besides, 
 it was no mean ambition, after all, to aim at re-in- 
 stating a grand old name and reviving the honours 
 of an ancient house. Nay, was it not something 
 more than an ambition ? Was it not a duty ? 
 
 So reasoning, and so comforting himself, he 
 decided that it was a duty — clearly a duty; and, 
 having arrived at this satisfactory conclusion, he 
 laid his head upon the pillow and fell fast asleep. 
 
 The next day they parted, stealing a few last 
 words in the porch before Mr. AUeyne was down. 
 
 ' I have said nothing to your father, dearest,' 
 said the lover. ' I dared not, in my present beg- 
 garly position ; but I have every hope that in the 
 course of a few weeks I shall have found some 
 employment commanding a fixed salary, and then 
 I shall feel that I have a better right to speak, 
 and a better chance of beino^ heard.'
 
 * HE LOYES AND HE PJDES AWAY.' 259 
 
 Miss Allejne looked down with a somewhat 
 heightened colour, and made no reply. 
 
 ' He has invited me to call upon him at Ken- 
 sington,' added De Benham. ^ May I come the 
 day after your return home ? ' 
 
 ^ I cannot tell when that will be/ replied Miss 
 AUeyne. ' You have seen how capriciously papa 
 takes up and lays aside his picture. He may 
 finish it in ten days, or he may stay here for three 
 weeks longer.' 
 
 ^But you will let me know — you will write to 
 me !' 
 
 ^How is that possible? What would my 
 father sayr' 
 
 'But, my darling, you would not leave me 
 without news of you for three whole weeks ? You 
 might be ill — a thousand things might happen! 
 I had hoped that you would write to me every 
 day.' 
 
 Miss AUeyne shook her head. 
 
 * You cannot seriously mean to refuse me ! ^ 
 exclaimed the lover. 
 
 ' I am very sorry — so sorry ; but you ought 
 not to ask me.' 
 
 * Once a week, then — only once a week !' 
 'No. It would not be right.' 
 
 ' Right !^ he echoed, impatiently. 'And our 
 enc^ao-ement ? '
 
 260 debenham's vow. 
 
 She turned her face away. Her lip quivered ; 
 but she made no reply. He repeated the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 ' There can be no engagement between us,' 
 she said, falteringly, ' without my father's sanc- 
 tion.' 
 
 He paused a moment before replying; but 
 when he did speak, it was with the calmness of 
 suppressed irritation. 
 
 ' Very well,' he said. ' In that case I must 
 speak to Mr. Alleyne before I leave Chillingford. 
 I believe that I shall injure my cause by doing so 
 at tffis time ; but I must take my cliance.' 
 
 ' I do not counsel you to speak to him,' said 
 Miss Alleyne, gently. ' I would rather you should 
 act as you think best' 
 
 'But you say there can be no engagement 
 
 * That is true. Temple ; but why need there be 
 one — just yet? Be patient, dear. I know that 
 you love me — and I will wear your ring, and I 
 will think of you day and night while we are 
 parted. It will be but for three or four weeks, at 
 the most.' 
 
 And with this she put up her other hand, and 
 so clasping his arm quite round, looked up at him, 
 half smiling, half in tears. 
 
 'But if you should be ill ! '
 
 ' HE LOTES AND HE EIDES ATVAT/ 261 
 
 * I have not the sh'ghtest intention of being ill. 
 I never was better/ 
 
 ' And how shall I know when yon go home?' 
 'Call at the house now and then when you 
 are passing that way and inquire of the ser- 
 vants.' 
 
 ' Humph ! And you don^t care a bit about 
 not hearing from me all that time ? ' 
 
 * I do care ; but I know it is not for long. 
 And now you must tell me where you will be each 
 day of your tour, that I may follow you upon the 
 map and always know where you are.' 
 
 So De Benham tore a leaf from his pocket- 
 book, and made out a list of such places as he and 
 Archie had proposed to stop at en route ; and by 
 the time this was done, Mr. Alleyne came down 
 and beijan rinmniij for coffee. 
 
 ' You will come in presently to wish papa 
 good-bye,' said she, preparing to be gone at the 
 first echo of the bell. 
 
 ' Yes ; but I must have my farewell kiss now. 
 ^ly love — my own Juliet! Ah, surely as much 
 my own as if we were never so formally en- 
 gaged ! ' 
 
 For a moment she let herself be folded in his 
 arms, pressed to his heart, kissed on brow, and 
 eyes, and lips. 
 
 ' You do love me ? ' he said passionately.
 
 262 
 
 ^Yes,' she whispered, 'I do love you — with 
 my whole heart — with my whole heart ! ' 
 
 But even as she said the words, she slipped 
 from his embrace and was gone. 
 
 Half an hour later, they shook hands and 
 parted quite gaily and politely, as a well-bred 
 lady and gentleman should. 
 
 ^We shall expect to see you at Kensington, 
 remember,' said Mr. Alleyne, graciously, as he 
 followed the young men to the gate. 
 
 Whereupon they thanked him, looked forward 
 to the earliest opportunity of paying their respects, 
 exchanged all due civilities and good wishes, and 
 took their departure in heavy marching order, 
 knapsack on back and staff' in hand, like two pious 
 pilgrims of the olden time.
 
 THE FIEST PLUNGE. 263 
 
 CHAPTER XXiy. 
 
 THE FIRST PLUNGE. 
 
 It may be conjectured that neither Archie nor 
 Temple were sorry when th.e tour came to an end 
 and they shook hands on parting at the Paddington 
 terminus. The real pleasure of the excursion was 
 all over ibr Archie when Miss Alleyne came upon 
 the scene ; and, somehow, even when Miss Allepie 
 was left behind, and they were again wandering 
 together day after day by river and ruin, wood- 
 land and vale, the old feeling of camaraderie was 
 missing, and things w^ere never the same again. 
 De Benham, absorbed by one fixed idea, w^as a 
 changed man ; and Archie, though attributing that 
 chancre to a wron(T cause, could not but feel the 
 effects of it at every turn. De Benham silent and 
 gloomy, De Benham brooding over the lost for- 
 tunes of his family, De Benham pondering the 
 one great problem of his own future life, seemed to 
 him no other than De Benham desperately in love 
 and thinking perpetually of INIiss Alleyne. Even
 
 264 debenham's yotv. 
 
 when tlie conversation reverted, as it was always 
 reverting now, to money and money-making, 
 Archie, wearied to death of the subject, still be- 
 lieved that his friend's sole aim was to get rich for 
 the sake of the woman he loved. 
 
 And then Temple, on his side, grudged every 
 day that deferred the execution of his project. 
 Gone for him was that enchanted time 
 
 ' Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,' 
 
 when only to walk abroad in the sunshine and 
 breathe the morning air was joy, and inspiration, 
 and gain immeasurable. He now only longed for 
 the toil and press of active life, for the city, and 
 the mart, and the fever of success. So it was well 
 when the holiday was over ; and not either of the 
 travellers, we may be sure, would have desired to 
 prolong it. 
 
 They came back on a Saturday evening, just 
 one week before the re-opening of St. Hilde- 
 garde's; so that, for the first time in eighteen 
 months, De Benham found himself in London on 
 Sunday with nothing to do. How he would have 
 enjoyed such liberty, five weeks ago I He would 
 perhaps have taken his mother to Westminster 
 Abbey in the morning ; have dropped in at St. 
 Paul's or the Temple Church in the afternoon; 
 thence have pushed on for a long ramble through
 
 THE FIRST PLUNGE. 265 
 
 Kensington Gardens and the Parks/and have come 
 home at dusk, tired and hungry, and happier than 
 a king. But now all was changed. Fine organs, 
 choral services, famous j^i'^achers — he cared for 
 none of them. Moody and preoccupied, he spent 
 liis morning sorting papers, making out accounts, 
 and tying up his compositions in parcels, dated and 
 endorsed, as if to be laid aside for ever. This 
 done, the rest of the day seemed interminable. He 
 wandered in an aimless sort of way about the 
 dreary little streets and squares of the neighbour- 
 Jiood. He went with his mother to some dull 
 church close by, in the afternoon. He did not 
 care to talk. He could not read, for his thoughts 
 were too busy. He could only count the hours 
 as they went by, and \vonder if to-morrow would 
 ever come. 
 
 The morrow came, however, and found him at 
 about half- past eleven o'clock in Mr. Hardwicke's 
 counting-house, addressing himself to one of Mr. 
 Hardwicke's clerks and requesting the favour of 
 ten minutes' conversation with the great man him- 
 self. 
 
 The clerk looked at him doubtftdly; sug- 
 irested that he should see Mr. Knott, the manao;- 
 ing clerk, instead ; and finally, on being told that 
 lie was the organist of St. Hildegarde's, consented 
 to take his message.
 
 266 
 
 'Mr. Hardwicke is much occupied/ he said, 
 coming back after a few minutes ; ' but he will see 
 you presently, if you like to wait.' 
 
 So Temple said he would wait, and did wait 
 for more tlian half-an-hour, watching the coming 
 and going of messengers and porters, and listenino- 
 to the hum of office-talk, the rapid scratching of 
 many pens, the busy ticking of the great clock 
 over tlie door, and the ceaseless reverberation of 
 heavy traffic in the street without. At length he 
 was summoned to Mr. Hardwicke's private room ; 
 a room dark and lofty, double- doored, double- 
 windowed, heavily furnished in mahogany and 
 red morocco, after the fashion of Strathellan 
 House, and adorned over the chimney-piece with a 
 stupendous portrait of the late illustrious Alderman 
 Hardwicke in the full panoply of civic robes — 
 that Alderman Hardwicke, who, it will be remem- 
 bered, was Lord Mayor of London, and from 
 whom the beautiful Claudia had inherited no small 
 proportion of her wealth. 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke, standing with his back to the 
 fireplace and an open letter in his hand, received 
 the young man with his customary urbane smile, 
 though, at the same time, with less pompous 
 suavity, and a more brief and business-like manner 
 than it was his pleasure to assume when dispensing 
 the hospitality of Strathellan House.
 
 THE FIRST PLUNGE. 267 
 
 'Good morning, Mr. Debenliam,' he said. 
 ' I thought you were following Mr. Choake's 
 example, and enjoying your liberty. Mr. Choake 
 is in Switzerland, and St. Hildegarde's, they tell 
 me, can scarcely be got ready by next Sunday 
 after all. You want to know, I suppose, when 
 your duties will be^in afrain?^ 
 
 ^ I haye no such excuse for my intrusion, sir,' 
 replied De Benham. ' I come to ask the fayour of 
 your adyice upon a matter of priyate business.' 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke looked graye, anticipating an 
 appeal to his purse, and glanced at the clock on 
 the chimney-piece. 
 
 'I can say all that I haye to say within the 
 space of fiye minutes,' said De Benham, haughtily, 
 'if you can spare me so much of your time.' 
 
 The merchant begged his yisitor to be seated, 
 and replied, somewhat formally, that he was 
 entirely at Mr. Debenham's service. 
 
 De Benham, howeyer, following Mr. Hard- 
 wicke's example, remained standing. 
 
 ' Yon know me, sir, as a musician,' he said, 
 ' but the calling is nnremuneratiye, and I am dis- 
 satisfied with my prospects. I haye received a 
 liberal education; I have good health, and I am 
 not afraid of hard work. How to get work is my 
 difficulty. I know what I can do ; but I do not 
 know what I am fit for/
 
 268 debenham's tow. 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke's brow cleared. He liked the 
 straightforward way in which the young man 
 stated his case; and he was relieved to find that 
 there was no question of borrowing or lending. 
 
 ' What can you do, Mr. Debenham?' he said, 
 smiling. 
 
 ' I can write and speak fluently German, 
 Erench, and Italian. I have a fair knowledge of 
 Spanish. I know some Greek, and more Latin. 
 I have taken a medal for mathematics. I am a 
 tolerable draughtsman. And I have been a mis- 
 cellaneous reader upon all kinds of subjects, so 
 that there are few matters of general interest about 
 which I do not know something, in case of need.' 
 
 'Book-keeping, I presume, is not one of 
 them?' 
 
 ' No— but I will learn it.' 
 
 ' Of everything connected with trade — the 
 import and export trade of Great Britain, for 
 instance — you are no doubt entirely ignorant?' 
 
 ' Of trade as trade I am, as you say, entirely 
 ignorant; but I have some leading notion of our 
 own natural and industrial resources, and of those 
 commodities which we receive from abroad.' 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke referred to his letter. 
 
 ' It is absurd, of course, to ask the question,' 
 he said ; ' but I have here a letter of advice from 
 Liverpool in which my correspondent mentions a
 
 THE FIEST PLUNGE. 26^ 
 
 consignment of some article called cliica— do you 
 know what it is? I have no idea, myself; unless, 
 judging by the small quantity reported, it is some 
 kind of drug/ 
 
 De Benham hesitated. He remembered to 
 have come upon the word long since in some book 
 of travels, but he could not, for the moment, force 
 his memory to bring back the details. 
 
 ' Where does your consignment come from?' 
 he asked. 
 
 ' From America.' 
 
 And then it all flashed upon him. 
 
 ^ It is a pigment,' he said quickly. ' It is a 
 red pigment prepared by the Indians of the 
 Orinoco from a plant of the bignonia tribe. They 
 use it, mixed with alligator fat, to stain their 
 skins.' 
 
 ' You are sure of that, Mr. Debenham ?' 
 
 ' Quite sure. I read it years ago, in a German 
 book of travels. I remember it perfectly.' 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke looked pleased, pencilled a 
 marginal note against the word, and put the letter 
 in his pocket-book. 
 
 ' INIany thanks,' he said. ' Your miscellaneous 
 reading and your good memory, Mr. Debenham, 
 are evidently not without their value. That you 
 are a linguist is also in your favour. A commer- 
 cial man cannot have too many modern languages-
 
 270 debenham's yo\y. 
 
 at liis command. It would not be amiss if you 
 were to add Russian, Portuguese, and Romaic to 
 your present stock — the two last would come to 
 you easily enough through your Spanish and 
 Greek.' 
 
 Then, without giving De Benham time to 
 reply, Mr. Hardwicke opened a drawer in his 
 writing-table and took out a pile of thin, foreign- 
 looking papers. 
 
 'Here,' he said, 'are two letters from two of 
 my foreign correspondents — Mr. Empedocles of 
 Athens, and Mr. Viliada of Lisbon — the one in 
 Romaic, the other in Portuguese. Can you make 
 anything of them?' 
 
 ' I do not doubt that I can read the Portu- 
 guese,' replied De Benham. ' Of the Romaic I 
 am not so sure ; but I will try.' 
 
 Saying whicli, he took the letters over to the 
 window, for the writings were strange and crabbed 
 and the room dark, and there stood, studying them 
 attentively. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Mr. Hardwicke drew his 
 chair to the table, opened his desk, and scribbled 
 off a note or two ; humming softly to himself the 
 while, and now and then stealing a glance at his 
 visitor. Presently he touched a spring-bell and 
 sent his letters to the post ; and once a clerk came 
 in with some message about an invoice; but all
 
 THE FIEST PLUNGE. 271 
 
 this did not occupy more than ten minutes, at the 
 end of which time De Benham said he thought he 
 understood the drift of both the letters. 
 
 ^ Mr. Villada, it seems to me/ he said, ' regrets 
 that there should have been a mistake in the last 
 shipment, and informs you that a fresh consign- 
 ment is already on its way to the port of London. 
 xVnd he adds that one Mr. Montalba, a friend of 
 his, will take those goods wliich liave been wrongly 
 sent, and remove them at his own expense from 
 your w^arehouses at any time you may appoint.' 
 
 Here Mr. Hardwicke, referring to a large 
 ledger-like volume lying beside his desk, nodded 
 approval. 
 
 * Quite right, IMr. Debenham,' he said. ^ Quite 
 right. For myself, I don't profess to know any 
 modern language but French; but in this book 
 I keep English abstracts of all foreign letters of 
 importance. Your translation tallies with my 
 clerk's abstract in every particular. Now for Mr. 
 Empedocles.' 
 
 ' I am not sure that I follow the meanino; of 
 this writer throughout,' replied De Benham. ' His 
 abbreviations are puzzling, and his Greek charac- 
 ters very difficult to read. I gather, however, that 
 he introduces his nephew, Mr. Demetrius jMichaelis, 
 for whom he entreats your good offices during his 
 visit to London. Mr. Demetrius Michaelis is
 
 272 debeniiam's tow. 
 
 also, as I understand it, the bearer of a case of 
 choice Santorin wine, of vvhicli Mr. Empedocles 
 begs your acceptance. I cannot make out the 
 concluding paragraph — it refers to some money 
 transaction . . . .' 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke closed the abstract-book, and 
 said with his most courteous smile : — 
 
 ' EnouD^h, Mr. Debenham — more than enoui]jh. 
 That you can deal so well with languages of which 
 you know nothing, is ample proof of your facih'ty 
 in dealing with those you profess to understand. 
 Be so good as to favour me with your address. 
 I will bear your wishes in mind, and promote 
 them if I have the opportunity.' 
 
 While the young man was yet expressing his 
 thanks and getting out his card, the same clerk 
 who had parleyed with him in the outer office 
 came in, bringing a telegraphic despatch. 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke tore the envelope open and ran 
 his eye rapidly along the lines. De Benham, 
 having placed his card upon the table, took up 
 his hat, made his bow, and moved silently towards 
 the door. 
 
 Mr. Hardwicke looked up, frowning and 
 troubled — glanced from De Benham to the tele- 
 irram, and from the telegram back to De Benham 
 — seemed about to speak — hesitated till the door
 
 THE FIRST PLUNGE. 273 
 
 was just closing between them, and then called 
 his visitor back. 
 
 'Stop!' he said. 'Another minute, Mr. De- 
 benham.' 
 
 The young man turned back, with his hand ca 
 the door. 
 
 ' Shut it,' said Mr. Hai dwicke, impatiently. 
 
 * Shut it, and come in.' 
 
 Not quite liking this authoritative tone, De 
 Benham, with a somewhat heightened colour, shut 
 the door and came in. 
 
 ' I have bad news here,' said Mr. Hardwicke. 
 
 * One of my ships — the Fairy Queen, laden with 
 tallow from Odessa — driven out of her course by 
 stress of weather, has stranded somewhere on the 
 south-eastern coast of Calabria. Her captain hav- 
 ing met with some accident, I do not know of 
 what kind, is lying ill in the nearest village. The 
 vessel, unfortunately, is not insured ; and I must 
 send some one out at once to look after both 
 captain and cargo. You say you can bear fatigue, 
 and you speak Italian fluently. Will you go ? ' 
 
 De Benham's heart gave a great leap of exult- 
 ation ; but he put control upon himself, and said 
 promptly, but quite gravely — ' Yes.' 
 
 * At once?' 
 
 * I can be ready within an hour and a half.' 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 debenham's yow. 
 
 ^ Good. You can take the tiJal train which 
 leaves London Bridge at twenty minutes past 
 four — that will allow you more than four 
 hours. You must go straight through to Naples 
 without stopping, and from Naples inquire your 
 quickest way to — what is the name of the place ? 
 — Soverato. And, mind, you will spare no expense 
 to save time. Arrived at Soverato, you will at 
 once assume the command. Mackenzie, the first 
 mate (he who telegraphs the news), is an honest, 
 active fellow, and will ohey you implicitly; but 
 you will do well to follow his advice in all matters 
 of which he knows more than yourself. Do you 
 follow me?' 
 
 ' Perfectly.' 
 
 ' Your duty, of course, will be to protect the 
 cargo, keep off the natives, resist imposition, and 
 if possible, get the ship off again. But if you find 
 the damage is too great, charter another vessel, 
 and re-ship the cargo without loss of time. Do 
 you know anything about the law of salvage? ' 
 
 ' Nothing.' 
 
 ' Then here is Ponget's book, " Les Principes 
 du Droit Maritime,''^ Read it on the journey ; it 
 will tell you all you ought to know. And as for 
 Barclay, the captain (an excellent sailor and a 
 •man for whom I have the highest esteem), do all 
 that is possible for him. Perhaps you had better 
 
 \
 
 THE FIRST PLUNGE. 275 
 
 take on a surgeon with you from Naples. The 
 coast on that side is wild and desolate, and I sus- 
 pect that Soverato is a mere fishing village, desti- 
 tute of any sort of aceom.modation, and probably 
 no doctor within reach for twenty miles. Now 
 go ; and be back here by three o'clock for your 
 credentials. You shall have full written instruc- 
 tions, full powers, and ample credit. For the rest, 
 your success depends upon yourself.^ 
 
 * I will do my best, sir, not to disappoint you,' 
 said De Benham — bowed — and was gone. 
 
 Then Mr. Hardwicke drew a deep breath, 
 rose from his seat, and began pacing thought- 
 fully up and down the room. He was not given 
 to act upon impulse; but he had acted upon im- 
 pulse now, and his mind misgave him sorely. 
 The young man seemed clever — was clever un- 
 doubtedly ; not wanting, apparently, in decision of 
 character — self-reliant, ready, straightforward. 
 Still he was untried, untrained, a mere novice in 
 things commercial. It was a risk. ]\Ir. Hard- 
 wicke could not conceal from himself that it was a 
 very serious risk ; and the more he considered it, 
 the more his mind mis^^ave him. 
 
 ' I wonder what Knott will say to it ! ^ he mut- 
 tered to himself. ' I wonder if I have made a fool 
 of myself ! ' 
 
 Mr. Knott, it will be remembered, was Mr.
 
 276 debenham's vow. 
 
 Hardwicke's managing clerk, and Mr. Hardwicke 
 entertained a profound respect for Mr. Knott's 
 opinion ; so it was not without some inward tre- 
 pidation that he wondered what that sagacious 
 henchman would ^ say to it.'
 
 BY LAND AND SEA. 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 BY LAND AND SEA. 
 
 Speeding along for the first time in his hfe by 
 first-class express ; a handful of bright sovereigns 
 in his purse, and a little packet of letters of credit 
 in his travelling-belt ; representative, for the nonce, 
 of a great commercial house; and furnished not 
 only with money but authority, De Benham was at 
 first almost bewildered by the change in his posi- 
 tion and the new life into which he had plunged. 
 The time had been so short and his preparations 
 so hurried, that it was not till the train had steamed 
 out of the station and he was fairly on his way, 
 that he had time to think at all. And then the 
 whole thing seemed to him more like a dream 
 than a reality. But an hour or two ago, and he 
 was rushing hither and thither, hunting up a sub- 
 stitute to take his duty at St. Hildegarde^s, in case 
 the little church should re-open before his return — 
 writing an explanatory letter to Mr. Choake, to be
 
 278 debenham's vow. 
 
 forwarded by his mother m case of need — supply- 
 ing the deficiencies of his wardrobe at an outfitting 
 warehouse — packing — parting — flying back to the 
 City in a Hansom — receiving his money and cre- 
 dentials, not from Mr. Hardwicke, but from the 
 far more awful hands of Mr. Knott, a stony- visaged 
 veteran with a relentless eye, who glared upon him 
 as if he were a convicted felon, and dismissed him 
 as it might be to the penal settlements — all this 
 but three hours, two hours, half an hour ago, and 
 now .... now the new life had begun, and these 
 things belonged already to the past — that past which 
 he seemed to be leaving farther and farther behind 
 with every fleeting mile. 
 
 Folkestone already, the impatient steamer pant- 
 ing at the pier, and the dancing sea beyond ! Now 
 the fresh breeze and the open deck — the welcome 
 cigar — the delicious summer evening — Boulogne 
 sparkling with innumerable lights, just as the last 
 glow fades out of the sky — the landing-place — the 
 ■custom-house — the inevitable ' portion ' of cold 
 chicken and half bottle of vin ordinaire at the 
 station — and now the rail again. By this time, it 
 is night. The train, though professedly ' grande 
 vifesse/ makes but moderate speed and stops often 
 i)y the way. Alone in his compartment, De Ben- 
 nam wraps himself in his railway rug, makes a 
 pillow of his travelling bag, and tries to sleep; but
 
 BY LAND A>'D SEA. 279 
 
 in vain. The more he tries, the more hopelessly 
 Avide awake he is. At last he gives it up; lights 
 his reading lamp, and devotes himself to a careful 
 study of the Continental Bradshaw. 
 
 LoikIou to Paris, Paris to Marseilles, ^Marseilles 
 to Naples ! Up and down, backwards and for- 
 wards, he performs the traveller's perpetual pen- 
 ance, and with the usual results. Trains do not 
 correspond with each other, and steamers do not 
 correspond with trains. Four hours^ delay in 
 Paris ; nineteen hours to IMarseilles ; seven hours* 
 delay at Marseilles; fifty-six hours by the boat 
 .... Why, to get to Naples alone will take him 
 ninety-eight hours at the very least, and then he 
 has to find his way across the country to Soverato ! 
 Meanwhile the Fairy Queen may be slowly going 
 to pieces among the rocks, and her cargo washing 
 out to sea with every tide. The mere thought of 
 this danger comes upon him with so keen a sense 
 of his own utter helplessness, that, stopping now 
 for twenty minutes at Amiens, he is fain to allay 
 his impatience by hurrjing up and down the 
 platform till the train goes on again. 
 
 It is now past midnight. He is no longer 
 alone in his compartment, and feels less than ever 
 inclined to sleep. Two ecclesiastics — one, appa- 
 rently, of high rank — are his travelling com- 
 panions from this point. The dignitary sleeps
 
 280 debenham's vow. 
 
 profoundly all the way, while his subordinate nods 
 over his breviary by the feeble light of the oil 
 lamp overhead. Thus the night wears, and at a 
 little before three they arrive in Paris. On, then, 
 at once through the dark and empty streets to an 
 hotel over against the terminus of the Chemin de 
 Fer de Lyon, where, after much knocking and 
 ringing, a sleepy porter stumbles to the door, and 
 lets the traveller in. Here, all dressed as he is, De 
 Benham snatches some two hours of heavy sleep ; 
 and then, after breakfast and a bath, is on the road 
 again. 
 
 A delicious morning, fresh, and breezy, and 
 joyous ; the bare French landscape all open to the 
 sun ; the reapers at work in the yellow corn-flats ; 
 the oxen at plough in the stubble ; the children on 
 their way to school, stopping to shout after the 
 train as it flies by ! De Benham is now deep in 
 Pouget's ' Prindpes^ beginning conscientiously at 
 page the first ; but as the day advances and the 
 sun gains power, the study of maritime law be- 
 comes more difficult. Too sleepy to read and too 
 hot to sleep, half choked with dust, and half 
 blinded by the intense glare struck back from earth 
 to sky, he is carried on league after league, hour 
 after hour, by Dijon, and Chalons, and Macon, 
 with flying glimpses of the sleepy Saone and the 
 golden hills of the Burgundian Arcady. Then,
 
 BY LA>"D AND SEA. 281 
 
 about six o'clock, as the lieat begins to abate and 
 the shadows lengthen, comes Lyons. Three- 
 quarters of an hour, here, for refreshment, and so 
 on again southward, to the sea ! 
 
 Sunset now, gorcreous and olowino- — twili^lit, 
 and ' eve's one star ' — night, and the crescent 
 moon, and the transparent darkness of a southern 
 sky. The twinkling lights from hill-side villages 
 and the gleaming river close at hand are so mys- 
 teriously picturesque, the time is so peaceful, the 
 air so cool and fragrant, that De Benham would 
 now fain keep awake, and prolong the pleasure of 
 the passing hour. But he cannot. The oblivion 
 that would not be courted last night, comes upon 
 him at last with resistless power, and, fairly tired 
 out, he sleeps profoundly all the way to Mar- 
 seilles. 
 
 At a little after two in the morning, however, 
 he is roused up, cold and shivering, by the blaze 
 of a lanthorn and the voice of the guard impera- 
 tively demanding his ticket. It seems to him 
 that he has but just left Lyons, and he cannot 
 believe that he is already at the end of his jour- 
 ney by land. The keen air, however, comes to 
 him laden with the taste and smell of the sea as 
 soon as he is out of the station; and he sees a 
 forest of masts at the bottom of the street through 
 which he is driven to his hotel.
 
 282 debenham's YO^Y. 
 
 The seven liours in Marseilles drag by slowly 
 enongh, and by nine A.M. he is on board the steamer 
 of the Messageries Imperlales, bound for Naples, 
 but touching at Civita Yecchia by the way. This 
 touching at Civita Yeccliia is another inevitable 
 delay, which, however, like the rest, must be 
 borne patiently. 
 
 And now, breathing the salt air, pacing the 
 deck, and studying Pouget with a will, De Ben- 
 liam finds the time pass less wearily. His fellow- 
 travellers, mostly French and Italian, enjoy them- 
 selves immensely; but then they are gay and 
 sociable by nature, and are neither hedged in by 
 an invincible reserve, nor oppressed by business 
 cares. The weather, too, is enchanting — the sea 
 scintillating like a diamond, and blue as the bluest 
 sapphire. Towards evening there is music upon 
 deck, and some dancing ; and by midnight all the 
 passengers, save one, are gone to their berths for 
 the night. That one, though he has not been 
 regularly in bed for two nights already, is restless, 
 and prefers the deck. Here, falling into conver- 
 sation with the captain, he hazards an inquiry re- 
 specting Soverato, its distance from Naples, and 
 its accessibility by land ; but the captain, who has 
 spent his life on the Mediterranean, has never even 
 heard of Soverato. Upon one point, however, he 
 is positive; and tliat is, that his passenger must
 
 BY LAND AND SEA. 283 
 
 not attempt to reach the south-eastern coast by 
 land. The roads are bad, and the nionntains in- 
 fested with banditti. Besides, there are plenty of 
 Italian steamers plying between Naples and Mes- 
 sina ; and by taking one of these as far as Reggio, 
 he can easily hire a small sailing-boat for the rest 
 of the distance. Judging from what De Benham 
 tells him of the position of Soverato on the map^ 
 he imagines it may be done, with favourable 
 weather, in about eighteen hours — say, allowing 
 for delays, twenty-four. 
 
 Twenty-four hours from Naples, and not yet at 
 Civita Yecchia ! Five nights and six days — 
 perhaps longer — and not one bourns avoidable 
 delay ! What will Mr. Hardwicke say ? What 
 will Mr. Knott say? What is happening, mean- 
 while, to the Fairy Queen ? 
 
 'Is there no quicker way?' he asks, his 
 anxiety betraying itself in his voice. 
 
 The captain shrugs his shoulders, shakes his 
 head, and, with true Frenchman's dislike to utter 
 an unacceptable truth, says nothing. 
 
 ' Supposing that I landed at Civita Vecchia and 
 went on by rail to Naples — should I gain even a 
 few hours, do you suppose ? ' 
 
 Again the captain shakes his head. 
 
 ' JIais noj},' he replies. ' There is but one 
 Rome to Naples each day ; and
 
 284 
 
 that train leaves Rome in the mornhig, and takes 
 -all day to crawl to Naples. Besides, when you 
 land at Civita Yecchia, yon are still forty-five miles 
 from Rome; and we shall not get into port till the 
 first train has started. You would lose twelve 
 hours, instead of gaining one.' 
 
 ^ Then there is no help for it ? * 
 
 ' Rien que la patience, Monsieur^ replies the 
 captain, with another little shrug. 
 
 ' La patience,' indeed ! Is there, in our whole 
 vocabulary, French or English, a more irritating 
 phrase in the ears of an impatient man ? 
 
 ' Monsieur le Capitaine would, perhaps, find it 
 difficult to be patient, if his good boat here were 
 in hourly danger of being wrecked or plundered, 
 and he travelling day and night to her rescue.' 
 
 ' Ma foi, oui ; but Monsieur puts an extreme 
 case,' says the captain, deprecatingly. 
 
 ' I put my own case,' retorts his passenger ; 
 and so goes on to relate something of the disasters 
 that have befallen the Fairy Queen and her 
 captain. 
 
 Hereupon the Frenchman's professional sym- 
 pathies are at once awakened, and he is as ready 
 and eager with his counsel as if he had a personal 
 interest in ship and cargo. He asks questions, 
 proposes expedients, and has, withal, some valu- 
 >able suggestions to offer. That the captain of the
 
 BY LAND AN'D SEA. 285 
 
 merchant vessel should be disabled is, in his opi- 
 nion, the worst feature of the case. An immense 
 responsibility has devolved upon the mate, and to 
 this responsibility he may not be equal. He is 
 probably beset by all kinds of difficulties — want 
 of authority, of money, of experience, of presence 
 of mind. He may find It next to impossible to 
 keep his crew together — to repel intruders — to 
 make himself understood by the natives — to en- 
 gage proper assistance. For all this, Monsieur 
 must be prepared beforehand. By the way, has 
 ^lonsieur communicated with the mate ? Does 
 the mate know that ^Monsieur Is on his way ? Ah T 
 that has been done by the owners in whose in- 
 terests Monsieur is travelling. Good — but the 
 mate may all this time be sorely in want of ad- 
 vice — of assistance. Would it not be well if 
 ^lonsieur were to telegraph from Civlta Vecchia 
 to the nearest British Consul (say at Squillace, 
 which cannot be very far from Soverato) and 
 request him to give such help and countenance as 
 may be in his power? And what if Monsieur 
 were also to telegraph to the mate, telling him 
 that the British Consul had been summoned to 
 his assistance, and that Monsieur would himself 
 be upon the spot in the course of twenty-four 
 hours? Such a message could do no harm, and 
 might do much good. The man's courage and
 
 '286 debenham's vow. 
 
 endurance, for instance, might be giving way ; 
 and, tonnerre de Dieu ! who can say what a timely 
 word of encouragement may not be worth? As 
 for salvage, if any kind of assistance has been 
 rendered by those on shore, Monsieur must hold 
 himself prepared to encounter the most exorbitant 
 claims, and to contest them point by point. Here, 
 again, the British Consul will be his main help 
 and adviser ; but he can also appeal, if necessary, 
 to the Conciliatore, or petty magistrate of the 
 xjommune. 
 
 All this, and much more to the same purpose, 
 does the eager little captain of the Etoile du Nord 
 pour with untiring volubility into De Benham^s 
 attentive ear, as they pace the deck in the moon- 
 light. All this the young man seizes upon, acts 
 upon, and turns promptly to account. At CI vita 
 Vecchia he telegraphs to the mate at Soverato, 
 and to the British Consul at Squillace; and 
 throughout the rest of the voyage he continues to 
 cultivate the captain, so hiving a world of va- 
 luable information, and learning more of cases of 
 wreck and salvage than he could have acquired In 
 a month from all the books that had ever been 
 written on the law of merchant shipping. Ar- 
 rived at Naples, they part with hearty thanks on 
 the one side and many expressions of good-will on 
 the other; and then De Benham, In a strange.
 
 BY LAND AND SEA. 287 
 
 noisy^ brilliant foreign city, is once again throAvn 
 upon his own resources. 
 
 Tn Naples, however, he is destined to stay 
 longer than he had foreseen, and to take quite 
 another route than that suggested by the captain 
 of the Etoile dii Nord, Being advised thereto by 
 various persons in whom he is bound to have 
 faith (such as Lloyd's agent, and the British vice- 
 consul, and a certain Signor Festa up at the 
 British Library, who is an irrefragable authority 
 in all such matters as maps, routes, guide-books, 
 couriers, and the like), he gives up that scheme 
 of taking the Neapolitan steamer to Reggio and 
 then doubling Cape Spartimento in a sailing boat, 
 and decides, instead, upon landing at a place 
 called La Pizzo, about half-way between Naples 
 and Reggio, and thence posting on across the 
 mountains to the Gulf of Squillace on the eastern 
 coast, at a point where the two seas are but 
 fifteen miles apart in a direct line. Even by this 
 route, undoubtedly the best and quickest he could 
 take, he finds it impossible to reach Soverato in 
 less than forty-five hours. Arrived at Naples 
 about seven in the evening, he there has to wait 
 twenty-four hours for the boat to La Pizzo ; and 
 is fortunate even so, for at this time the Adriatic 
 steamers ply only once a week along that coast. 
 All night long, too impatient to rest, he stays on
 
 288 
 
 deck from Naples to La Pizzo. All day long he 
 posts from La Pizzo to Soverato. For though 
 tlie mainland is but fifteen miles across from sea 
 to sea, as the crow flies, the roads are hilly and 
 circuitous, and double backwards and forwards in 
 such wise as almost to treble the distance. At 
 length, when all this is done, and his carretteUa 
 draws up before the doors of the dilapidated 
 albergo and posting-house situate at the farther 
 extremity of the still more dilapidated village of 
 Soverato, he still finds himself more than two 
 miles from the scene of the Fairy Queens disaster ; 
 and so, taking a bare-legged Masaniello in a 
 scarlet cap for his guide, and followed by a troop 
 of ragged urchins, brown and beautiful as little 
 antique bronzes, he goes down to the shore on foot. 
 
 It is now just the hottest hour of the hottest 
 day he has ever experienced. Sea and sky are 
 all of one pitiless blaze. The bare volcanic rocks 
 of this wild eastern coast ; the long, white, blind- 
 ing roads over which he has been toiling in an 
 open vehicle for the last seven hours ; the very 
 stones and sand under his feet, strike back the 
 universal glare, and smite upon him like the blast 
 from a furnace. 
 
 And now, at about three o'clock in the after- 
 noon of the second day after his arrival at Naples, 
 threading his way down a precipitous path, evi-
 
 BY LAND AND SEA. 289 
 
 dently the bed of a winter torrent, and turning a 
 sudden ano;le of rock that seems almost to over- 
 hang the sea. Temple De Benham sees the ship — 
 the object of all his anxiety, the goal of his long 
 joui-ney — lying over on her beam-ends against a 
 steep shelf of rocky beach some forty or fifty feet 
 below, apparently safe and uninjured, looking like 
 a monstrous whale cast up, dead, by the waves. 
 
 VOL. r.
 
 290 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 DE BENHAM MAKES HIMSELF MASTER OF THE 
 SITUATION. 
 
 That splendid, fast-sailing clipper ship, Fairy 
 Queen, A A 1, 700 tons register. Captain James 
 Barclay, presented nothing like the spectacle of 
 wreck and disaster that De Benham had been 
 picturing to himself all these days and nights that 
 he was journeying from London. He had seen- 
 her, in his mind's eye, a mere dismantled hulk,, 
 fast breaking up, partly submerged, the sea wash- 
 ing over her, and the beach strewn with shattered 
 casks, fragments of broken masts, and debris of 
 every description. He found her, on the contrary, 
 high and dry, and to all appearance uninjured. 
 The Fairy Queen, however, was not uninjured. 
 She had lost her bowsprit, suffered damage in 
 various places to her yards and rigging, and sus- 
 tained a severe shock in taking the ground. Still, 
 the damage done was not considerable, and much 
 of it had been already repaired before ever De
 
 MASTER OF THE SITUATION. 291 
 
 Benham appeared upon the scene. The real 
 damage, in fact, was that she should be where she 
 ■was; and the real difficulty would be to get her 
 afloat a^rain. That she should ever have o-ot 
 there at all, seeing in what a narrow cove she lay, 
 and how the mouth of that cove and all the inac- 
 cessible coast beyond and around it for miles 
 on either side bristled with perils, seemed little 
 short of a miracle. 
 
 The worst of the injury done, in truth, was not 
 to the Fairy Queen, but to her captain. He, it 
 seemed, had been knocked down by a falling spar 
 just at the moment when the ship grounded, and 
 was now lying between life and death at the house 
 of the parish priest, somewhere on the outskirts 
 of the village. According to Mr. Hardwicke's 
 wish, De Benham had brought an English sur- 
 geon with him from Xaples; but they found the 
 medico from Squillace in close attendance, and 
 Mr. Cooper said at once that Signer Stefani had 
 done all that was possible under the circumstances. 
 The patient was still delirious, though not so vio- 
 lent as he had been; and his skull was fractured 
 in two places. Signor Stefani was not without 
 hope of bringing him through ; * aided,^ as he 
 courteously said, ^ by the skill and experience of 
 the Signor Cooper.'' But the Signor Cooper, who 
 was in a hurry to get back to his own patients^
 
 292 debenham's yow. 
 
 managed to turn the whole affair into a mere con- 
 sultation; and, protesting that he could not leave 
 Captain Barclay in better hands, took advantage 
 of De Benham's returning carrettella, and went his 
 way that same evening. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the whole village turned out 
 to marvel at the stranger who had come all the 
 way from Inghilterra to see after the safety of the 
 Fairy Queen and her captain. Stalwart, scowlini;::, 
 bare-legged men in blue sliirts and scarlet c:ips 
 and linen drawers rolled up above the knee ; 
 mothers with their children climrinff to tlieir 
 skirts, and their babies shmg upon their backs ; 
 young girls and youths, brown, and black-eyed, 
 and full of joyous life, like beautiful bacchantes 
 and fauns ; patriarchal old men with beards and 
 tattered cloaks ; horrible old women with scant, 
 dishevelled locks and pendant eye-brows, withered, 
 toothless, mumbling, and decrepit — all these, and 
 more, came crowding down upon the narrow 
 beach, clamouring for alms, for employment, for 
 salvage-money, for rewards proportioned to all 
 kinds of imaginary services; and equally ready 
 to fight, quarrel, or steal, upon the smallest pro- 
 vocation. 
 
 Mackenzie, the mate, a fiery, curly-headed 
 Scot, of about thirty-four or five, hailed De Ben- 
 ham as if he were an ambassador from Jove him-
 
 MASTER OF THE SITUATION. 293 
 
 self, and denounced the whole Calabrian popula- 
 tion as a set of ' ill-bluided, skulking, knifing, 
 pilferinor deils, whom hanmufr wag too irood for.' 
 And then he swore at them heartily, in broadest 
 Scotch, and shook his fist in their faces ; where- 
 upon the men only scowled the more fiercely, and 
 the old women begged the more clamorously, and 
 the girls and boys were more daring than before. 
 
 'They've just driven me beside myse?,' said 
 the mate. ' It 's only been by setting up targets 
 against the rocks, and putting the men to ball 
 practice, that I 've kept them oiF the ship. They 'd 
 lia'e strippit the very copper off her bottom, sir!' 
 
 And then he went on to explain how, for the 
 first few days, the inhabitants of every fishing 
 village within the next fifteen or twenty miles had 
 turned out en masse, hoping to find the ship a 
 wreck, and eager for plunder ; and how, with the 
 exception of bringing down fresh meat and vege- 
 tables for sale, all of which had been paid for on 
 the spot, no kind of help or service had been ren- 
 dered to the ship's crew by those on shore. As the 
 Fairy Queen had been cast, so she had lain ever 
 since. The ship^s carpenters had been hard at 
 work upon her, refitting masts and yards, stopping 
 leaks, and doing all that was possible, while 
 she remained in her present position ; but in none 
 of this work had thev found it necessary to call in
 
 .-294 
 
 ■assistance. Every claim, therefore, that might be 
 advanced, whether for salvage, wages, or debt of 
 any kind, was false and extortionate. 
 
 As the ship was comparatively uninjured, so 
 also was the cargo. Of nine hundred and thirty-six 
 tons of tallow in the hold, not a dozen tons, in so 
 far as it was possible to judge without unlading the 
 vessel, had sustained salt-water damage. 
 
 The crew, however, had not proved easy to 
 manage. As the captain of the Etoile du Nord had 
 predicted, the temptations of the shore proved 
 stronger than the authority of the first mate, and 
 Mackenzie had found it impossible to keep his 
 younger sailors from straying to the neighbouring 
 villages. 
 
 ' I 've been tied to the ship mysel',' said he, ^ or 
 I 'd ha'e luggit them out o' the wine-shops. But 
 now you 're come, sir, we maun ha'e discipline.' 
 
 ^ We icill have discipline, Mr. Mackenzie,' said 
 De Benham. 
 
 And though he said it very quietly, the first 
 mate knew that he meant it. 
 
 He did mean it, too ; though perhaps he felt 
 less securely confident of his own power than he 
 chose to appear. The responsibility was, in truth, 
 enormous ; and it w^as a responsibility that he never 
 fully realised till he came face to face with his 
 work. That work, however, had to be done, and
 
 MASTER OF THE SITUATION. 295- 
 
 as the first step towards doing it, lie proceeded to 
 get rid of the mob. 
 
 It was no use, he told them, to beg, for he 
 would give them nothing. If they had claims, 
 they might send three spokesmen to him at the 
 Albergo del Sole, and he would hear them; bat if 
 they could even prove those claims, it would be for 
 the British Consul to pay them. He himself had. 
 no power to pay away a single grano. And in 
 order that he should listen to them at all, it was 
 necessary that they should at once disperse to their 
 homes. He was determined, he said, to keep the 
 beach clear. He would have no intruders wuthin a 
 hundred yards of the ship on any side. And then 
 he warned them that an armed patrol was about to 
 be posted round the ship ; that it would be the duty 
 •of this patrol to challenge all comers ; and that such 
 persons as disregarded the challenge would do so 
 at their own proper peril. 
 
 Finding that lie spoke their language fluently, 
 they listened to him ; and seeing that he said what 
 he had to say in a plain, resolute way, and was not 
 one jot afraid of them, they hung back, cowed and 
 silenced, and tlien gradually dispersed. 
 
 When they were all gone — and De Benham 
 never stirred, nor took his eyes off them, till the 
 last straggler had turned away — he bade Mackenzie 
 call uv) the crew ; asked the name and arade of
 
 296 debexiiam's vow. 
 
 each sailor; inquired if any were absent without 
 leave ; took down the names of two then missing ; 
 selected two men for the patrol and two others to 
 relieve them at the end of the first watch ; desired 
 that each man should be armed with revolver and 
 cutlass, and himself traced out the line of their 
 beat, and gave them the watchword. This done, 
 he left the first mate in command, and went back 
 to Soverato on foot. 
 
 Xot to dine, however, nor to rest, fasting and 
 fatigued though he was. Before he would admit 
 to himself that he wanted either food or sleep, the 
 missing seamen must be found ; punished, if neces- 
 sarv : at all events, sent back to their duty. 
 
 And he did find them, after repeated inquiries 
 and much wandering to and fro in the village. He 
 found them carousing in a low wine-shop at the 
 bottom of a dark, disreputable alley ; and, at the 
 risk, perhaps, of some personal danger, brought 
 them out from the midst of a savage, half-intoxi- 
 cated company, any one of whom would have been 
 ready with knife or stiletto at a moment's notice. 
 He then saw them out of the village and along 
 part of the road leading to the beach ; and so, 
 bidding them go at once to the first mate and report 
 themselves, dismissed them. 
 
 Walking slowly back to his inn in the pleasant 
 summer dusk, with the stars coming out one by
 
 MASTER OF THE SITUATION. 297 
 
 one overhead, and the fire-flies beginning to flit 
 and sparkle about his path, De Bcnham could not 
 but be conscious of a pleasant sense of victory. 
 He felt that he had established his authority with 
 the crew ; and lie almost marvelled at his own 
 success in dealing with such a mob as that which 
 had gathered about the ship In honour of liis 
 arrival. So far, this was very well, indeed. True, 
 the most difScult part of his mission— that part for 
 which he was least fitted by previous experience, 
 and iii the performance of which lie must rely 
 chiefly upon the help and counsel of others — still 
 remained to be done ; but that part which depended 
 on himself alone, that part in which there was even 
 some little spice of danger, and which, for its 
 successful accomplishment, demanded courage, 
 promptitude, a strong will, and some power of 
 endurance, was already achieved. 
 
 Thinking these things over, he sat down by- 
 and-by to his solitary dinner, in a bare, white- 
 washed room, looking to the sea. ]\I eagre were 
 the resources and execrable was the cuisine of the 
 Albergo del Sole ; but, fortunately for De Benham, 
 that same pleasant sense of victory covered a 
 multitude of culinary sins, and imparted a flavour 
 to the omelette and a body to the thin Gerace wine, 
 to which neither could lay claim on the score of its 
 own individual merit. After dinner, fagged though
 
 298 debenham's yott. 
 
 lie was, he went again to the piiest^s house, to 
 inquire after the sick man ; and then back to the 
 nn to despatch a letter to his mother, and another 
 to Mr. Hardwicke. The letter to Mr. Hardwicke 
 was by no means short, for it treated of important 
 details ; but the letter to his mother took a still 
 longer time to write, and covered many pages. In 
 it he told her all that he had seen and done since 
 leaving Naples. He described the journey across 
 the mountains; sketched the scenery with the 
 touch of an artist, and the people with the pen of a 
 satirist ; and was as gay and discursive as though 
 he were neither overwhelmed with anxieties, nor so 
 worn out with fatigue that the pen was almost 
 dropping from his fingers. For he knew that his 
 letters, when he was far away, were to her as the 
 very bread and wine of life, and he would not, for 
 any consideration upon earth, have let her want 
 that bread and wine while it was in his power to 
 give them to her. Nay, he would, if necessary, 
 have sat up half that night to write his letter, and 
 have spent the other half in walking to Squillace 
 and back to post it, sooner than leave her fasting 
 for a single day. And then, having written the 
 longest and most amusing letter he could think of, 
 he stayed some time with the paper and pens before 
 him, thinking of Miss AUeyne. 
 
 How strange it seemed, sitting there all alone in
 
 PIASTER OF THE SITUATION. 299^ 
 
 that atIIcI, far-away Calabrian albergo — sitting 
 there and thinking of her, with hundreds of miles 
 of land and sea between them ! How strange to 
 look back upon those three weeks at Chillingford, 
 so near in point of time, yet so distant in the im- 
 pression they had left upon his memory ! It 
 seemed to him as if years had gone by since that 
 day when they went up to the little church among 
 the hills . . . And now she did not even know 
 where he was ! Well, that was not his fault. She 
 had forbidden him to write to her ; and if fate had 
 sent him to Australia instead of to Italy, it would 
 have been all the same. Still, in the absence of 
 any positive engagement, she was right. And it 
 was better so. In nine cases out of ten, a long 
 engagement was neither more or less than a 
 purgatoire a deux; and what right had any man 
 to condemn any woman to so weary an ordeal ? 
 Clearly none, be his love what it might. Yes, yes, 
 it was undoubtedly better so — especially for Miss 
 Alleyne. 
 
 And then the young man shut his eyes, buried 
 his face in his hands, and tried to bring back her 
 image to his mind; for he had no portrait of her — 
 not even a carte de visite. But, somehow or 
 another, the sweet face eluded his memory, and 
 would not come for all his trying. He could 
 remember the flash of her eyes when she smiled>
 
 300 debenham's yow. 
 
 or the tarn of her head, or any separate feature ; 
 but, strive as he would, he could not evoke the 
 gracious picture as a whole. It was like a strange, 
 tormenting puzzle. The pieces were all there ; but 
 to put them together defied his utmost skill. 
 
 And, trying still to put them together, he fell 
 asleep. 
 
 THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 dTRANGEWAYS AKD W.\LDEN, PRINTERS, 
 
 28 Castle St. Leicester Sq. 
 
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