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 L I B R.ARY 
 
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 THE 
 
 TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 VOL. I.
 
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 CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W.
 
 THE 
 
 TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER BESANT & JAMES RICE 
 
 AUTHORS OF 
 
 ■READY-MONEY MORTIBOY ' * THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY' 'THE MONKS OF THELEMA 
 
 ' THE SEAMY SIDE ' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 1881 
 
 « 
 
 [All rights reserved^
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 ^^3 
 
 V. I 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIKST VOLUME. 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 lAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. How I MET Him 3 
 
 II. How I DID Him a Signal Service . . . 25 
 
 III. How HE Rewarded Me 38 
 
 IV. How HE Coxfided in Me 56 
 
 V. How HE USED his most Excellent Gift . . 82 
 
 SWEET NELLY, MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 
 
 o ^ I. In Sackcloth and Slavery 131 
 
 II. On Tower Hill 164 
 
 III. Rival Suitors 211 
 
 IV. My Lord Eardesley 247 
 
 1
 
 THE 
 
 TEN YEAES' TENANT, 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW I MET HIM. 
 
 Tt is now twenty years ago. I was staying at 
 an hotel in Scarborough, one of the great places 
 where they have a couple of liundrecl people 
 every day at their table d'hote. In the even- 
 ing some of the compan}^ who had been long 
 enough in the place to make each other's ac- 
 quaintance had got up an entertainment for the 
 rest in the shape of private theatricals, which 
 was given, after the Elizabethan manner, with- 
 out the accessories of scenery, in the dining- 
 hall. I forget what the play was ; but it 
 needed no scenery, being a comedy of the last 
 century, for which the actors were dressed in 
 
 B 2
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 the fasliions of the second George, stately and 
 splendid, though rather stiff. 
 
 I am not very fond of private theatricals. 
 It always seems to me that the best amateur 
 actors are those who have most carefully 
 studied the gestures and tricks of professionals 
 in the same parts. Therefore my attention was 
 gradually diverted from the performance to the 
 audience, where were all the materials from 
 which an old-fashioned morahst would have 
 drawn his weary old moral, with a tag of ' telle 
 est la vie ' about the group met together that 
 night, never again, perhaps, to gather under the 
 same roof. There was the doddering old gentle- 
 man ; there was the bright and happy girl of 
 seventeen, to whom life seemed made up of 
 lovers and sugar-candy, a most delightful object 
 of contemplation for men of all ages ; there 
 were the two elderly maiden ladies, who were
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT, 
 
 enjoying the representation enormously, with 
 a fearful joy, because they had been taught to 
 regard the drama as wicked beyond all things ; 
 could, it was always asked, a serious person, 
 with a regard to his soul, look even at the 
 outside of a theatre without shuddering ? 
 There was a comfortable old widow, sound 
 asleep with her mouth open ; there was a group 
 of children, in happy raptures ; there were 
 young men and maidens, half listening and 
 half flirting ; there were the usual superior young 
 men from Oxford, who looked on with tolerant 
 pity ; there were the country cousins, half 
 ashamed of enjoying the performance too 
 much ; there were the waiters and servants at 
 the door, mouths and eyes wide open. Pre- 
 sently my eyes fell upon a listener who some- 
 how compelled m}^ attention, so that I forgot 
 all the rest, even that sweet rosebud of
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 seventeen, and gazed steadfastly upon him 
 alone. 
 
 He was a man between fifty and sixty years 
 of age ; his hair was ' grayed,' but not white ; 
 his whiskers were grayer than his hair ; his face 
 was puffy and red ; his nose was certainly 
 swollen with good living and little exercise ; 
 his lips were rather thick ; his eyes were 
 bright ; his forehead was broad ; his chin was 
 square. It was the face of a man who had 
 lived and enjoyed all his fifty years. 
 
 He was listening to the performance with a 
 curious intentness which the subject scarcely 
 deserved. What did he see in the old-fashioned 
 play ? The dialogue was stilted, the sentiment 
 was false. Lord Bellamour, Captain Lovelace, 
 and Amanda were tedious to me, with their 
 parade of musty epigrams and stale claptrap, 
 though their dresses were fine. Yet to this
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 man they seemed full of interest. Yet lie 
 neither laughed nor sighed ; what pathos 
 there was in the piece moved him not, nor 
 did the low-comedy servant provoke a smile. 
 There was a good deal of ' busmess ' with 
 snuff-boxes and fans : at this he shook his 
 head critically, as if the by-play left much 
 to be desired ; when they performed a 
 minuet he turned away his head despond- 
 ingl}^, as if he must draw the line of endurance 
 somewhere, and he could not stand that. Yet 
 I thought the minuet gracefully danced. 
 
 He was, perhaps, an actor himself; or he 
 might be a London manager on the look-out 
 for talent. That, no doubt, was the meaning of 
 it. Managers in strange towns always go to see 
 the play, I believe, just as the attendants at one 
 Turkish bath spend their little hohday in visit- 
 ing rival establishments, or conscientious mutes
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 off duty haunt cemeteries. Yes, he must be a 
 London manager. 
 
 After the performance some of the men 
 found themselves presently in the smoking- 
 room. Here, instead of gloomily staring at 
 each other, we fell to talking over the evening's 
 entertainment. Hither came my friend with the 
 red face and thick lips. He took a chair next to 
 mine, and, calhng for a brandy-and-soda, began 
 to talk. His utterance was slow and measured. 
 
 ' It is always,' he said, when his mixture 
 was set before hhn, ' advisable to fall in with 
 the habits of the current generation. A 
 hundred years ago — in 1760, for instance- 
 gentlemen did not drink brandy-and-soda, nor 
 did they smoke tobacco. Common people, 
 country clergy, light porters, and the like took 
 their pipes. But not gentlemen.' 
 
 These propositions, thus baldly stated, pro-
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 duced on my mind much tlie same effect as two 
 or tliree copy-book texts. 
 
 'I suppose,' I replied, presently rallying, 
 ' that one cannot help adopting the manners of 
 his own generation.' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' he said, ' it is difficult for ordinary 
 people to avoid doing so. As for myself, I con- 
 fess it is sometimes pleasant to live again in the 
 past — sometimes to dine off peacock-pie at 
 noon, to eat a larded swan, to order a plum- 
 porridge, now and then to exchange claret for 
 mead, and to breakfast off that neglected 
 beverage, small ale.' 
 
 Not a London manager : an antiquary, an 
 eccentric of uncommon type. It would, 
 perhaps, reward one to encourage him by a nod 
 of approval, as if mead, larded swans, and 
 plum-porridge were within the art of every 
 plain cook at sixteen pounds a year.
 
 lo THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 ' It gratified me to-night,' he went on, ' to 
 witness an attempt, laudable though unsuccess- 
 ful, to revive something of the great and glorious 
 eighteenth century. The dresses were fairly 
 correct ; it is difficult to go wrong in the matter 
 of dress with so many pictures before one ; at 
 the same time the fashion of one wig was that 
 of L750, and of another that of 1770, while I 
 think the patches in the year 1760 were worn 
 quite differently. But perhaps I am thinking 
 of 1745 ; one's memory sometimes plays one 
 false in the matter of ten years or so. As for 
 the language, it was, of course, that of the 
 time ; where they failed was in the tone, the 
 pitch, the management of the voice. Good 
 Heavens, sir ! ' — he turned quite red with emo- 
 tion as he- said this — ' what would be your 
 surprise and indignation were a modern actor 
 to represent a young gentleman of the Victorian
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. u 
 
 age talking in the cockney accent and the nasal 
 twang of an omnibns cad ? And the manage- 
 ment of the fan and snuff-box ! Deplorable, 
 sir ! Quite pitiable ! And the minuet ! How 
 contemptible a failure ! To think of that 
 courtly dance being executed as if by chimsy 
 boys and girls in a dancing academy ! ' 
 
 ' But, my dear sir,' I ventured to say, ' it is 
 not everybody who has studied the period so 
 deeply as yourself. What, for instance, was 
 wrong about the snuff-box ? ' 
 
 ' They handed it so ; ' he imitated with 
 exaggeration the offering of the box as rendered 
 by our actors of the evening. ' So. Did one 
 ever see the like ? Wliy, sir, a cit at Vauxhall, 
 a London mercer trying to pass for a gentleman 
 at Epsom Wells or Tunbridge, a country 
 bumpkin thinking to put on the manner of St. 
 James's at Bath, would have done better ! The
 
 12 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 true way to offer the snuff-box, the courtly 
 way, is — thus.' 
 
 He stood up and assumed an attitude which, 
 in his frock-coat, seemed profoundly ridiculous. 
 The body was slightly bent, the head inclined 
 in an attitude of courteous and deferential 
 invitation, the right hand held out the snuff- 
 box with the lid open, the left was raised as if 
 partly to protect the snuff-box and partly to 
 emphasise the offering. The attitude of the 
 legs was similarly studied, the right leg being 
 advanced ?nd slightly bent at the knee, the left 
 being held in readiness for immediate action. 
 
 ' That, sir,' said the antiquary, ' was the 
 courtly method of offering the snuff-box, and, 
 of course, with the lid open. I would I could 
 by any attitude of mine figure to you the 
 elegance and ease with which the charming 
 ladies of the period handled their fans. Believe
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 me, they as far surpassed the present age in 
 their grace and beauty (which was the triumph 
 of Art practising on Nature in her most gene- 
 rous mood) as the beaux of the time surpassed 
 the uncouth moderns in carriage, wit, and po- 
 hteness.' 
 
 . He sat down again, and drank off his tumbler 
 of soda-and-bi^andy. 
 
 ' A theory,' I said very weakly, ' which you 
 would have to defend against a formidable 
 array of facts.' 
 
 'Facts! what facts r ' he biurst in. 'Where 
 are they ? Can literature, books, letters, poetry, 
 reconstitute a salon? Can we actually see 
 Horace Walpole amusing old Madame du 
 Deffand, for instance, or can we again hear the 
 witty Mrs. Montague or see the beautiful Peggy 
 Banks, or cry over the fate of the lovely Miss 
 Eay cut off in her prime? Can you even
 
 14 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 imagine the atmosphere, the light, the grace of 
 an evening when men met ladies, not to rush 
 round the room with them, but to talk ? I say 
 advisedly, talk. Why, sir, every sentence was 
 an epigram ; the meaner wits studied their 
 phrases before they came ; the ladies were as 
 ready as the men — ay, readier sometimes — 
 with their arrows, whose points were so sharp, 
 though they were no longer than the point of a 
 pin. A dance in such an assembly was a 
 stately thing, in which every lady walked as if 
 she were a goddess, and every man as if he 
 were a great lord. Attitudes were taught and 
 studied in those days ; a proper carriage of the 
 body was part of a gentleman's education, and 
 the art of deportment, now lost, was a thing 
 which could never be truly acquired save at 
 Courts and under the wing of great ladies. . 
 This art alone, sir, marked the distinctions of
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 rank, and taught the classes who work for their 
 bread that between themselves and the nobility- 
 was fixed a gulf never to be bridged over. 
 Why, why did the nobility of England and 
 France resign that inestimable advantage ? 
 Why has a school of manners been allowed to- 
 grow up which opens the salons of the greatest 
 to every scrub wdio can boast that he does 
 not jump a counter and can buy a black tail- 
 coat ? A dress-coat ! Saw one ever a more 
 frightful, a more meaningless, a more levelling 
 garb ? Into what days are we fallen, when our 
 gentlemen sit down to dinner in the same dress 
 as the lacqueys and fellows who wait upon 
 them ! ' 
 
 This was given with sucii earnestness, that 
 one felt exactly as if the man were delivering 
 himself of a personal reminiscence. Of course 
 that was nonsense. But one felt so. The
 
 i6 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 other men in tlie room were attracted, and 
 chairs were pushed closer to the table at which 
 we sat. Presently conversation ceased, and all 
 listened. 
 
 ' Every century,' he went on, his eyes 
 having a far- off look, ' takes something away 
 with it which can never be restored. I dare say 
 there is something, if one knew it, in this dull 
 and driving age of yours which is to be prized ; 
 but one by one the old things leave us. What 
 I most regret in the eighteenth century is its 
 politeness. What have you gained to compen- 
 sate for the loss of politeness ? Think what it 
 means. The attitude of body proper for every 
 circumstance in life — can one ever forget the 
 dignity with which, for instance. Lord Ferrers 
 went to be hanged ? — that is one thing ; the 
 tone of voice suitable for every kind of neces- 
 sary or complimentary speech, such as that
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 17 
 
 proper for a tradesman or a servant, that for a 
 lady, that for a pretty woman. Lord Foppington 
 in the play may show you what I mean. There 
 is the true manner of estimating your own posi- 
 tion and rank compared with those of other 
 people, None of your accursed revolutionary 
 levelling down; no freedom in print over a noble- 
 man's name ; a gentleman was a gentleman ; rank 
 had a real meaning ; every younger son of a 
 squire did not consider himself as good as an 
 earl ; and lawyers, doctors, chaplains, ushers, 
 actors, artists, writers, curates, and such cattle, 
 worth}' enough in their way, did not pretend 
 to be gentlemen. Think of the absurdity of 
 any man who earns his living by work calling 
 himself a gentleman ! When levelling began, 
 pohteness vanished. Where are your manners 
 now? How do you treat ladies? What re- 
 spect remains for rank ? What have you got in 
 VOL. I. c 
 
 ^
 
 i8 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT, 
 
 exchange for the good old rules which laid 
 down the deference to be paid to woman and 
 the aristocracy ? I saw, only a month ago,' 
 here he shuddered, ' I actually saw a common 
 man, whom I knew to be a person in the City, 
 tap a Duke — a Duke ! — upon the shoulder ! ' 
 
 The men laughed. One of them replied 
 conventionally : 
 
 ' We have railways. We can travel.' 
 
 " The better sort travelled then,' replied the 
 antiquary, ' and quite fast enough. As for 
 the rest, they stayed at home, did their work, 
 went to churcli, died, and went to the heaven 
 set apart for the unbred and the illbred.' 
 
 ' Electric telegraph,' proposed a second. 
 
 ' Eubbish ! what good to know bad news 
 a minute before you need ? ' 
 
 ' Eree-trade,' said a third. ' You will allow 
 that '
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 19 
 
 ' That the farmers are on the high road to 
 ruin.' 
 
 ' Universal education is fast coming,' suid 
 a fourth. ' That alone ' 
 
 'Will complete the ruin of the world. 
 Society will dissolve into universal anarchy 
 when you have taught even your farm- 
 labourers to read, write, learn, and compare. 
 Stick to your old Church Catechism : " Learn 
 and labour to get your own living in that 
 state of life " — ah, good and honest teaching, 
 how is it disregarded ! Your own state I 
 You would like my state ! ' 
 
 ' Come, sir,' said a man who looked as if 
 lie belonged to Birmingham — that is, he had 
 an intensely practical and self-satisfied air, so 
 that one felt sure tliat, if he was not really a 
 native of that illustrious town, he must sym- 
 pathise witli the opinions of the majority — 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 ' Come, sir, what do you say to tlie spread of 
 Eadical ideas and the progress of national free- 
 dom ? What do you think of universal suffrage 
 and the ballot, which we are bound to in- 
 troduce ? ' 
 
 'Tut, tut!' The learned antiquary put 
 him aside with a wave of his hand, and 
 declined to reply. As no one else made any 
 suggestion, he went on himself : 
 
 ' Your steam has turned the working man 
 into a machine. He is no longer an intelligent 
 man; he makes a little bit of something, 
 always the same httle bit ; away from his work 
 he is a barrel for the reception of beer, 
 w^hich you have not the sense to supply 
 unadulterated ; he can read, but he cannot 
 think, therefore he is a tool in the hands of 
 any agitator. Your railways incite people to 
 travel about and look for visionary joys abroad
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 instead of finding substantial ones at home ; 
 your electricity threatens to upset everything 
 left that we value — but never mind. Of all 
 your boasted inventions, only two deserve to 
 be mentioned with respect. One is the use of 
 chloroform. This shows that when mankind 
 begin to pay one-tenth the attention to medi- 
 cine which they pay for the accursed arts 
 by which accidents are multiplied and life 
 made noisy and noxious, they will be on the 
 right path. I beheve the sewing-machine is 
 also a useful invention. And upon my word, 
 gentlemen ' — he rose and took a candle from 
 the table — ' upon my word, there is no other 
 invention of modern days worth a thought, 
 and your losses are greater than your gains. 
 Politeness, rank, conversation, dress, dancing, 
 cookery — all these are gone.' 
 
 ' Pardon me, sir ' — it was a young fellow
 
 22 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 who had played in the piece — ' you have for- 
 gotten one thing. Permit me to suggest that 
 we have gained by the loss of the tallow candle/ 
 
 The antiquary set down his candlestick, 
 and regarded the speaker with a benignant 
 admiration. 
 
 'That,' he said, ' is the most sensible speecli 
 1 have heard to-night. You are the young 
 man who made an exhibition of ignorance witli 
 a snufF-box just now, are you not? Come to 
 me to-morrow morning, and I will teach you 
 better, as a reward for this reminder. Yes ; 
 you have gained by the adoption of a composite 
 candle. Everything which adds to the comfort 
 of the upper classes is a distinct gain to hu- 
 manity, if only because it promotes admiration 
 of their happy lot. I allow, gentlemen, that 
 the tallow candle was, in the last century, a 
 serious grievance. No house, however rich.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 23 
 
 could afford wax candles for the kitchen ; few, 
 indeed, of the middle classes could afford a 
 sufficiency of common di}3s. From the palace 
 to the tavern we were cursed with the con- 
 tinual dropping of tallow. The servants 
 smeared the loaf with it and poisoned the 
 butter with it ; they snuffed candles with 
 their fingers, and then handled the white 
 French bread for breakfast ; the cook held a 
 tallow candle with one hand while she fried 
 a cutlet with the other ; the tallow mingled 
 with the hot bread-crumbs ; you found a melted 
 di'op in the soup; it lurked in the sauce; it 
 poisoned the gravy ; it lay upon the browning ; 
 it corrupted the pudding ; you smelt it in the 
 air, especially when you passed a bevy of 
 servant-girls on a Sunday; the smell of the 
 candle-snuffing destroyed the illusion at the 
 theatre and shocked the flow of devotion in
 
 24 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 the church The saloon, ht with wax candles 
 and crowded with high-bred ladies and gentle- 
 men who knew the value of manners, more 
 nearly resembled heaven than anything you 
 have to show ; but to reach these sweet and 
 pleasant places you had to pass through a 
 purgatory of stinking tallow. Gentlemen, I 
 wish you good-night.'
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 HOW I DID HIM A SIGNAL SERVICE. 
 
 By the simple process of asking the waiter, who 
 consulted the visitors' book, I discovered before 
 going to bed that this remarkable lover of the 
 past was named Mr. Montagu Jekyll, and that 
 his room in the hotel was next to my own, both 
 being at the end of a long passage on the first- 
 floor. The name tauo^ht me nothing. I knew 
 of no books written, so far as I could remem- 
 ber, by anyone of that name ; I had never 
 heard of any great historian or scholar of the 
 name. Possibly he was one of those little 
 known but learned antiquaries who grub along 
 among their books in the country, acquire
 
 26 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 immense knowledge, keep it to themselves, 
 chuckling over the ignorance of mankind, and 
 never w^rite anything except, perhaps, a paper 
 for a meeting of the Arch^ological Institute, 
 should that rambhng body pass their way. 
 
 We continued to talk of him after he went 
 away at eleven o'clock. The reality and vivid- 
 ness which he had thrown into his talk concern- 
 ing the past ; the confidence with which he 
 spoke of such little details as the snuff-box, 
 whose lid was always to be open when offered ; 
 the attitude with which he illustrated his teach- 
 ing ; the way in which he spoke of us and our 
 gaucheries as 'you ' and 'yours,' just as if he 
 did not belong to the century at all — all 
 these things pointed to an absorbing study of 
 our period. Then we began to recollect 
 similar instances from our own experience and 
 from the pages of history.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 27 
 
 ' I knew a man,' said one, ' who never read 
 anything which was not connected with the his- 
 tory of his own catheclrah ' 
 
 ' I knew a man,' said a second, ' who never 
 read anything that did not bear on the subject 
 of infant baptism.' 
 
 'I knew a man,' said a third, 'who was 
 always engaged in finding out mysterious 
 things about the Great Pyramid.' 
 
 ' I knew a man,' said a fourth, ' who was 
 for ever occupied with the site of Sok^mon's 
 Temple. He couldn't talk about anything 
 but the Temple.' 
 
 ' I knew a man ,'said a fifth ; and so on. 
 
 They went on telling anecdotes about men 
 they had know^n. I listened until two superior 
 undergraduates began to relate marvels about 
 the men of their college. Then I left them 
 and went to bed.
 
 28 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 I found the antiquary putting liis boots 
 outside the door. He looked up and nodded. 
 
 ' Very interesting conversation to-night,' I 
 said, ' thanks to you.' 
 
 'About the last century.^ Yes, you know 
 nothing, any of you — nothing at all, conceited 
 though you are — of tliat most remarkable 
 period.' 
 
 ' In what books,' I asked, ' can a man find 
 those curious details which you presented to us 
 to-night in t he smoking-room ? 
 
 ' Books ! books ! ' — he spoke with great con- 
 tempt — ' I never read. Men — and women — 
 women especially — are the only books worth 
 studying.' 
 
 ' Then how in the name of goodness ' 
 
 ' Good-night, sir. It is past twelve o'clock.' 
 
 I went to my own room and sat down on 
 
 the bed, pondering over this very singular per-
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 29 
 
 son. Perhaps he was mad ; perhaps he was only 
 afiected. Men have been known to study repar- 
 tees and hons mots^ which they afterwards bring 
 out under the pretence of their being impromptu. 
 No doubt this humbug had carefully got up 
 the whole scene beforehand. Not read books ! 
 Of course he must read books. How else could 
 he know things ? To be sure it w^as possible, 
 and perhaps not unlikely, that he invented. 
 Anybody, with the necessary impudence and a 
 little practice beforehand^ could have invented 
 the whole thing. Likely enough he was postur- 
 ing before his looking-glass at that very moment 
 in an eighteenth-century attitude. Or was he 
 the Devil ? 
 
 I went to bed with just that little touch of 
 nervousness which always comes over a man 
 wiien he seems to touch upon the, domain of 
 the supernatural ; and I confess that I should
 
 30 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 have been better pleased had my room been at 
 the other end of the house. There was a door 
 of communication between my room and his ; 
 there was a bolt on my side, which I drew. 
 The key was on Ms side, to be sure ; but it was 
 useless while my bolt held. With such reflec- 
 tions to soothe me, I fell asleep. 
 
 1 was awakened an hour or so later by a 
 suffocating smell of smoke. I sprang to my 
 feet, rushed to tliC door, and looked into the 
 passage ; there the gas was burning tran- 
 quilly, and I could see no sign of fire. I 
 ran to the end of the passage ; all Avas 
 quiet and safe. I returned to my own room : 
 there was no mistake possible, the room 
 was filled with smoke. But where was the fire ? 
 My candle had long been out. The fire, I said 
 to myself, must be below me ; the ceiling very 
 likely w^as already on fire. At any moment the
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 31 
 
 flames might break through the floor. At least, 
 I thought, rapidly weighing the chances, the 
 joists might hold out long enough to enable me 
 to escape either through the door or the window. 
 One thinks quickly in moments of great 
 danger. I bethought me, next, of my neighbour, 
 the man in the next room. I ran to the door 
 of communication, unbolted it, and tried to 
 open it. It was locked on the other side. With 
 one firm and judicious kick, I burst the lock 
 open and rushed in. Good Heavens ! the man 
 was lying in a heavy sleep on the right side of 
 the bed, while on the left, close to him, the 
 curtains, sheets, mattress and all, were in flames. 
 I threw myself upon him, dragged him, still 
 half asleep, from the bed, and began to pile the 
 blankets upon the flaming mass. There were a 
 couple of cans full of water, for the bath in his 
 room and my own. I ])ourod the whole over
 
 32 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 the bed, pulled down the curtains, and suc- 
 ceeded, at the expense of a few shght burns, in 
 rapidly subduing a fire which might have 
 burned the house down. When I saw that 
 there was no more danger, I opened the window^s 
 in both rooms, and lit a candle in my owai. 
 Then, and not till then, I remembered my 
 friend the antiquary. He was sitting on a sofa 
 in his room in the dark, shivering and shaking. 
 He had taken no part in extinguishing the fire ; 
 he had said nothing ; and now, when it was all 
 over, he sat still in helplessness, terrified out of 
 his wits. 
 
 ' Come,' I said, taking him by the arm, ' you 
 must not sit there any longer ; you will catch 
 cold. The fire's out, however; that's the great 
 thing. Get up and come into my room, out of 
 this horrible mess.' 
 
 He follow^ed without a word. His teeth
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 33 
 
 were chattering, his face was liorribly pale, his 
 limbs shook with terror. 
 
 I had a spirit-flask containing brandy. I 
 made him drink a couple of glasses, one after 
 the other ; then he looked up, gasped, and said 
 incoherently 
 
 ' I lost it in the eighteenth century.' 
 
 ' What did you lose ? ' I asked, to humour 
 his wandering wits. 
 
 'I lost my Eeligion. In a moment like this 
 one feels to want it ; but it is quite gone. I 
 have not looked after it for close upon two 
 hundred years.' 
 
 ' You had better get between my blankets 
 and go to sleep,' I said, wondering if the 
 man was really mad, or only frightened out 
 of his wits. ' This business has upset you. 
 Come.' 
 
 I laid liim in my bed and covered him u]:) 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 like a child. Then I stole to look at the ex- 
 tinguished fire — what a mess the place was in ! 
 — shut the windows, wrapped myself in my rug, 
 and went to sleep on my sofa. 
 
 In the morning I awoke and found my 
 guest still sleeping. I rang for the waiter and 
 explained things ; the manager was called ; he 
 came and saw the mischief and heard my story. 
 He used bad words about the cause of the acci- 
 dent, still asleep, and good words about my 
 promptitude in action. Truly the house had 
 had a most narrow escape. 
 
 After breakfast I found my antiquary still 
 sleeping. In fact, it was not until past eleven 
 that he awoke ; then he sat up with lack- 
 lustre eyes and looked round. If it was a 
 remarkable face which I had observed the 
 night before, the face of the morning was still 
 more remarkable : it seemed the face of a very,
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. ^s 
 
 very old man, older than any man one has ever 
 read of, full of wrinkles, crows' feet, and lines ; 
 shrunken were the cheeks and feeble were the 
 eyes. As I looked on, the sleep passed from 
 him, a change came upon him : the hues rapidly 
 disappeared, the cheeks filled out, the eyes 
 brightened. The face became again that of a 
 man of fifty or so. 
 
 ' I know now,' he said, nodding his head. 
 ' I remember now what happened last night. 
 I was reading in bed. I went to sleep. (I 
 shall never, never, never read again in bed, 
 unless by daylight, as long as I escape accident.) 
 The bed caught fire. You got in, somehow, 
 and dragged me out. You saved my life. I 
 do not know your name, sir, but I thank 
 you.' 
 
 ' That is nothing,' I replied. ' Of course I 
 did what '
 
 36 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 ' You call it nothing ' — he had by this time 
 got one leg out of bed — ' you call it nothing ? 
 Sir, the life you have saved is no common 
 ephemeral existence. It is a most remarkable 
 life, sh% although you know it not.' 
 
 I bowed. 
 
 'It is a life to which history affords no 
 parallel, one of which the world is ignorant.' 
 
 ' Eeally ! ' 
 
 One naturally felt a little angry at this ex- 
 traordinary boastfulness. Both legs were out 
 of bed. 
 
 ' Sir ' — he stood upright with the blanket 
 round him — ' the life you have saved is a unique 
 life.' 
 
 He strode with the grandest air into his 
 own room and closed the door of communica- 
 tion. Presently, while I was packing my port- 
 manteau, he opened it again.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 37 
 
 ' In case I do not see you again to-day,' he 
 said, ' would you kindly give me your card ? 
 Thank you. I will do myself the pleasure, if 
 you will allow me, of calling upon you in town. 
 You have saved, sir, a life which is unique in 
 history.
 
 38 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 HOW HE REWARDED ME. 
 
 After my return to town, I thought little more 
 about the strange old antiquary. Perhaps the 
 adventure, with its hero, made with too much 
 learning, served for an after-dinner story more 
 than once. But I hardly expected to see him, 
 and nothing ever surprised me more than to 
 receive his card, brought to my room by a 
 clerk one afternoon in the following winter. 
 He followed his card. He called, he said, to 
 thank me again for the presence of mind and 
 courage I had displayed, and begged me to 
 believe that he was not insensible nor ungrate- 
 ful. Having satisfied me upon this point, he
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 39 
 
 invited me to dine with him that evening at a 
 well-known private hotel in Jermyn Street. I 
 accepted, and he went away. When he was 
 gone I began 10 recall the many curious things 
 connected with the fire ; liow old and worn he 
 looked when he woke up in the morning, 
 the strange words he used about his own 
 life. 
 
 ' A maniac,' I said. ' Probably a harmless 
 one, mad on one point. One had better 
 humour him.' 
 
 He gave me an excellent dinner, with no 
 attempt at emulating the ancients in the 
 matter of larded swans and plum-porridge. 
 On the contrary, the menu was as modern as 
 could be desired, and the dinner as well 
 cooked and as well put on the table as could 
 be wished. 
 
 ' Come,' I said, 'the eighteenth century
 
 40 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 could not beat a dinner like this, and there 
 couldn't have been better wines.' 
 
 'The century was greater at suppers,' he 
 replied, ' than at dinners. As for wines, the 
 claret and champagne and German wines were 
 as good as they are now. The port, I admit, 
 was generally too fiery. Many a quarrel has 
 been caused, many a valuable life has been 
 thrown away, by the ardent nature of the 
 eighteenth-century port.' 
 
 ' We do not light duels now,' I urged. 
 'You must give us credit for so much.' 
 
 But he refused to give us any credit on that 
 account. He said that a quiet and unpretend- 
 ing gentleman need never fight a duel ; that 
 the knowledge of its dangers made ail men 
 practise and acquire the noble art of fencing, 
 which brought with it a dignified carriage ; 
 that polite manners were greatly assisted by
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 41 
 
 the fear of being called out if you offended a man; 
 and that public opinion was set dead against 
 unnecessary duels and professional bullies. 
 
 I humoured him, and he enlarged at 
 length on the eighteenth century. He seemed 
 to know the beginning as well as the end, and 
 was as familiar with Queen Anne's reign as 
 with George III.'s. Yet it was a strange sort of 
 familiarity. He showed no interest in political 
 events, regarded Ministries with contempt, and 
 such things as wars, alliances, sieges, and 
 victories, or the growth of national liberty — 
 about which modern historians keep such a 
 coil — he had either forgotten or was ready to 
 forget. Nor did he care at all to talk about 
 poetry and literature, evidently holding authors 
 and j)oets hi the greatest contempt. Indeed, 
 he professed not to know wlio Ohver Gold- 
 smith was, and called Dr. Johnson himself a
 
 42 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 dictionary grub. He loved, however, to talk 
 about dinners, society, the coffee-houses, amuse- 
 ments, theatres, actresses, young lords, gambling 
 hells, and so forth ; and he told me some 
 excellent stories about Cupid's Gardens, the 
 Folly, Eanelagh, the Marylebone Bowling Green, 
 and Yauxhall. One thing presently struck me ; 
 he seemed to have collected and to remember 
 quite clearly every story he could hear con- 
 nected with accidents. 
 
 ' It was not nearly such a time for acci- 
 dents,' he said, after telling me some of them, 
 ' as the present. To be sure there were a 
 good many fires, and the service for extin- 
 guishing them was next to useless ; but there 
 were no railways. There was a great thing 
 to begin with. There were no hansom cabs, 
 no mail-carts, no galloping butchers' carts, no 
 enormous vans thundering down the street.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 43 
 
 Things everywhere went slow. There was no 
 hurry. Only think of the safety to life and 
 the immunity from accident involved in that 
 single statement. Things went slow. Then 
 there was no steam-engine of any kind ; not a 
 locomotive yet built, not a paddle-wheel boat 
 yet devised, no macliinery, no boilers, no 
 driving wheels, no explosions, no bursting of 
 pipes, no scaldings by escape pipes, no colli- 
 sions. Think of there being no fear of accident 
 on the hne or on tlie liver. To be sure, one 
 could not wholly escape the danger of accident. 
 If you rode, yom' horse sometimes ran away 
 with you and killed you ; but you might 
 easily get a quiet pad. In the streets there 
 were sometimes mad bulls ; a friend of 
 mine — that is, a man of whom I have read 
 — was once killed by an escaping bear; 
 there was once a highly respectable mer-
 
 44 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 chant of the City, also a friend of mine — 
 that is to say — well — such a man was once 
 killed by the fall of a shop sign upon his 
 head ; another, I remember to have read, was 
 knocked over by a crowd chasing a pickpocket, 
 and trampled on so that he died ; or a man 
 might be bitten by a mad dog, or he might be 
 run through by mistake, being supposed in the 
 twilight to be quite a different person. Then 
 there were such things as occur everywhere, 
 such as the fall of things from roofs upon your 
 head, or slipping and breaking your ribs, or 
 being upset in a coach, or — in fact, one can 
 never escape the chance of an accident. But 
 in quiet and slow times one has comfort in 
 taking precautions, and I say that the precau- 
 tions one had to take a hundred years ago 
 were as nothing, merely nothing, compared to 
 those one must take now.'
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 45 
 
 He spoke with heat, and as if labouring 
 under the sense of some personal injury, 
 I said that everybody must run his chance, 
 and that if we did nothing but look out for 
 accidents, we should have no time to look 
 after our business. The observation was 
 weak. 
 
 ' Ay,' he groaned, ' you are right. That 
 is what I find : lookinc^ out for accidents 
 absorbs the whole of a man's time.' 
 
 At eleven o'clock I left him. He very 
 kindly hoped that we might meet again, and 
 spoke of calling upon me when next he should 
 be in London. 
 
 In the morning I received a small parcel with 
 Mr. Montagu Jekyll's compHments. It con- 
 tained a splendid gold watch and chain. This 
 was very handsome. I wrote to thank the 
 donor, but received my letter back. Mr.
 
 46 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 Jekyll had left the hotel, given no address, and 
 ordered that letters were not to be kept for 
 him. 
 
 It was in the year 1870, ten years later, 
 that I saw my friend again. He called at my 
 office as before, and asked me to dinner as 
 before I congratulated him on his excellent 
 health. In fact, he looked younger than he 
 had some ten years before, yet he must then 
 have been considerably over sixty. He said 
 he had been at some German baths, and had 
 found great relief as to gout. 
 
 ' We old fellows,' he said, ' like to look as 
 young as we can.' 
 
 In the course of the evening he informed 
 me that he had married since he saw me last, 
 but had lost his wife. I condoled with him, 
 but found him singularly cold on the matter.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 47 
 
 or perhaps he affected a coldness which he 
 did not feel. 
 
 ' It is the way of life,' he said. ' We 
 desire a wife ; we take a wife ; if she is a 
 good wife she dies, to disappoint him ; if she 
 is a bad wife she hves, to torment him. My dear 
 friend, if I could only tell you my experiences! 
 Are you married ? ' 
 
 ' No ; but I am engaged.' 
 
 'Ah!' 
 
 The expression he threw into that interjec- 
 tion was wonderful, but he did not pursue the 
 subject. 
 
 The day after the dinner he came to my 
 office and desired to confer with me on profes- 
 sional matters. He proposed, he said, to buy a 
 certain house standing in its own grounds about 
 ten miles north of London. 
 
 I managed the business for him and drew
 
 48 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 up the conveyance of the property. After he 
 had bought it, however, somethmg disgusted 
 him — I think it Avas the fall of a slate from the 
 roof, which he said might have come upon his 
 own head and killed him — and he begged me to 
 sell it again. I managed that, and my friend 
 disappeared without telling me he intended to 
 leave London. 
 
 I saw him no more for ten years. It was 
 in May of this present year of grace eighteen 
 hundred and eighty, while the young spring' 
 days were still hke January for rigour, that he 
 came to see me once more. For the third time 
 I w^ent to dine with him, and he looked posi- 
 tively younger than ever, yet he must have 
 been seventy-five at least. He was very 
 friendly ; produced a pretty set of presents, 
 which he begged me to give to the wife and 
 children, made a -little speech about that fire
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 49 
 
 business, and offered me as good a dinner as 
 the heart of man could desire. I asked him 
 where he had been during the last ten years. 
 He said that he grew restless from time to time ; 
 that England, France, and other civilised 
 countries became during these fits insufferable 
 to him, and that, under the influence of one 
 of these fits, wliich were a kind of melancholy, 
 or, as he boldly put it, due to the extraordinary 
 isolation of his position, he had thought tliat a 
 few years in some quiet place, reasonably free 
 from the chances of accident, quite removed 
 from western civilisation, would act as a beneficial 
 change, and probably restore his mind to its 
 usual groove of contentment. The place which 
 he fixed upon, after very great inquiry and 
 search among gazetteers and consular .blue- 
 books, was a small island in the Greek Archi- 
 pelago. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 'The wine there,' he said, 'is rough, but 
 remarkably good ; it keeps a long while, like 
 Commandery, and when you get it old it has a 
 luscious fragrance, quite peculiar ; the climate 
 is delightful ; the fare simple, it is true, but 
 wholesome for a few years. No carts, no 
 horses, no railways, because there are no roads ; 
 none of the ordinary causes of accident. There 
 were dangers in getting there, to be sure, 
 and I meditated long whether I should go on 
 grumbling over the dulness and stupidity of 
 this century, of which thirty years more had 
 then to be got through before we began a new 
 period' — did the man expect to live another 
 thirty years ? — ' but I turned everything over 
 in my own mind, and at last resolved to pluck 
 up courage and brave the dangers of the 
 journey. You will probably laugh when you 
 hear me speaking of danger which common
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 51 
 
 men, ordinary men of the groove, so to speak, 
 recklessly meet every day and think nothing 
 of them. But you do not know, my friend, you 
 do not know what risk I, alone among men, 
 have to face. You, and the rest of you, may 
 lose the short remainder of your contemptible 
 lives . . . bah ! ten years, twenty, thirty, forty 
 at the outside . . . while I . . . but you do 
 not know. Horrors ! I did face the danger. I 
 went across the continent in an express train, 
 and a tumult of terror ; had three days of gale 
 and peril in a steamer, with four and twenty 
 hours of risk in a half-decked boat ; and finally 
 landed with all my stores and with my French 
 valet on the island. Ah ! ' He breathed a long 
 sigh. ' Here I lived for nine years and a half. 
 I married a wife ' — good Heavens ! he had 
 actually married again — ' found that the place 
 suited nie remarkably Avell, and, in fact, was for 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVEfiSiTY OF ILLINOIS
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 a short time perfectly happy. They murdered 
 my valet ; but as I found that the Greeks of that 
 island only stick knives into each other when 
 they are jealous, I did not consider myself in 
 any peril. My wife was, at first, a most remark- 
 ably beautiful girl, with such eyes as one 
 dreams of when one is young. She fell off, 
 however, terribly, and — and, in fact, the reason 
 why I came away was that I made the dreadful 
 discovery that Greek women are sometimes 
 jealous without a cause. There was not a 
 creature of her sex upon the island on whom 
 I dared to cast an eye, on account of their 
 brothers' knives. Yet she was jealous. And 
 her temper was violent, and I love a philo- 
 sophical calm. So I ordered a steam-yacht; 
 gave instructions to the skipper to pretend it 
 was his own ; went on board to see the craft 
 when she arrived, and — ho ! ho ! steamed away.'
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 53 
 
 ' And your wife ? ' 
 
 'She will, I dare say, think that I was 
 drowned. No doubt by this time she has dried 
 her eyes. Do not let us trouble ourselves 
 about her.' 
 
 It seemed afterwards, when I came to think 
 of it, a tolerably cold-blooded thing to do. 
 
 We drank a good deal of wine during 
 dinner and after. My friend's red cheeks 
 became redder and he began to talk faster. 
 When we were in the middle of the second 
 bottle of claret he laughed oddly, and said : 
 
 ' And who do you think I am .^ ' 
 
 ' I have not the slightest idea. You are an 
 enigma to me.' 
 
 ' And to every one else who knows me : 
 that is the reason why I am unhappily com- 
 pelled to change all my friends every twenty 
 or thirty years.'
 
 54 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 'Of course, I do not understand a word 
 you say.' 
 
 'I have a great mind to tell you. Yet I 
 fear. Are you sure that you can keep a 
 secret ? ' 
 
 ' It is part of my profession to hear and to 
 keep secrets.' 
 
 ' True, true ; and it would be comfortable 
 to have a man like yourself to advise 
 with on matters. You see, my position is a 
 lonely one : I have never confided my history 
 to a single person, not even to any of my 
 wives.' 
 
 ' Any of your wives ? ' 
 
 ' I have had seventeen,' he replied calmly. 
 ' Now to you I think I might, perhaps, 
 communicate part of my history. People 
 are no longer burned for possessing know- 
 ledge, even if you should break confid-
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 55 
 
 ence. Aiid besides, I may sometimes want an 
 adviser.' 
 
 ' Pray go on.' 
 
 I was by this time extremely curious and 
 interested. 
 
 ' I was born,' he said solemnly, ' in the 
 parish of Malvern, being the eldest son of a 
 gentleman of good family, on the fourteenth 
 day of August, in the year one thousand six 
 hundred and fifteen. 
 
 ' What ! ' I pushed the chair back, ready to 
 fly from a madman. ' In what year ? ' 
 
 ' In the year one thousand six hundred and 
 fifteen. Sit down again, my dear sir ; I am no 
 more mad than yourself. Shall I repeat the 
 words .^ In the year one thousand six hundred 
 and fifteen.'
 
 56 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 HOW HE CONFIDED IN ME. 
 
 ' I WAS born,' he continued, ' in the year one 
 thousand six hundred and fifteen. Ah ! a long 
 time it seems to look back upon, but nothing 
 when it is gone. The Jekylls are an old 
 family, although ours was a younger branch. 
 They sent me to Cambridge, and thence to Lin- 
 coln's Inn, where I studied such law as is 
 useful for a country gentleman and a justice of 
 the peace. There came a time, however, when 
 I exchanged the pursuit of the law for one 
 more fascinating and useful. After profiting 
 by the result of those studies for two hundred 
 and fifty years, it would be ungracious to join
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 57 
 
 in the ignorant outcry which your men of 
 science (poor bhncl mortals, most of them) 
 carry on against the search which we of the 
 seventeenth century made after the philo- 
 sopher's stone and the elixir of life. I allow that 
 you know more about electricity, with which, 
 
 if you used it rightly, you could ' here he 
 
 stopped short and paused for a moment. 
 ' What we sought was effect ; that is the only 
 thing in this world worth looking for ; what 
 you seek is cause. You consider that when 
 you have formulated laws, you have found a 
 cause ; you think that when you have classi- 
 fied facts and deduced a rule, you have laid 
 your hand on the final cause ; you escape 
 from God by substituting an equation ; you 
 thhik it better to live under the reign of law 
 than the reign of love. Cause ! Can any one 
 among you all tell me why the sun puts out
 
 58 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 the fire, why the poker placed in front of it 
 gets it up again ; or why the moon causes the 
 rain to fall ? Yet these are little things. How, 
 then, can you explain birth, growth, and 
 decay? We did not try to explain. We 
 sought to prevent decay, to find out, not the 
 secret of life, but the preserver of life, the uni- 
 versal specific to cure all things, even the slow 
 decay of man's strength. Glorious and noble 
 pursuit ! 
 
 ' You never heard, I suppose, of John 
 Eowley, reputed necromancer and astrologer? 
 Yet history preserves the smaller names of 
 Cromwell, Milton, and Hampden, who lived 
 about the same time. Eowley was no astro- 
 loger, though he did not doubt the influence of 
 the stars, a thiug no reasonable man who has 
 weighed the evidence can for a moment doubt. 
 He was a searcher after the secrets of Nature ;
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 59 
 
 he worked upon the properties of matter ; he 
 looked to find the primitive metal from which 
 all the common metals have descended ; he 
 wanted to make gold for himself, because the 
 possession of gold gives power to conduct ex- 
 periments ; and he worked at the discovery 
 of this universal medicine. 
 
 ' I made the acquaintance of this remark- 
 able man, it matters not how, I was admitted 
 to his laboratory. I acquired his confidence ; 
 I worked with him. In those days I was 
 young, hopeful, and enthusiastic ; I worked 
 with an ardour the contemplation of Avhich at 
 this moment appals me : sometimes our labours 
 were continued without remission for two or 
 three days and nights continuously, one of us 
 taking turn now and then to snatch an hour's 
 
 slumber while the other watched at the 
 fire. All other work was thrown aside,
 
 6o THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 all other friends were neglected, and from 
 my twenty-second to my twenty- eighth year 
 it was hardly known whether I was 
 living or dead. Yet during this long period 
 I was but on the threshold, working for 
 the master as his apprentice, by whom all 
 kinds of work must be done, while his mas- 
 ter teaches him by slow degrees the mys- 
 teries of the craft. 
 
 ' After serving John Eowley as long as 
 Jacob served Laban for Each el (which is an 
 allegory for the patient working after the 
 Elixir), and received Leah (which means that 
 he got that lower, yet most excellent, gift 
 which came to me), the master called me apart 
 and spoke to me very gravely. 
 
 ' It had given him, he was good enough to 
 say, the greatest pleasure to watch the zeal and 
 patience with which I had worked for seven
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 6i 
 
 years, and it cut him to the heart to discourage 
 any student in our glorious science, the only 
 science worthy of the name. Yet I must 
 understand, and be under no illusions, that 
 the highest prize of philosophy is given to 
 none but those who possess, to a degree beyond 
 that of my own gifts, an insight almost pro- 
 phetic, and the power of reaching out, as it 
 were, into the darkness and depths of ignorance 
 which enables the truly great man to walk 
 blindfold among pitfalls and traps. There- 
 fore he would not encourage me to per- 
 severe in researches which would lead me 
 to disappointment. Let me leave them to 
 others more favoured by Heaven than 
 myself. 
 
 ' I was greatly dashed at hearing this ad- 
 vice, for I was already so far advanced as to 
 know something of the infinite possibilities of
 
 62 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 chemistry. Yet the master spoke with so 
 much wisdom, and with such evident sorrow, 
 that 1 could not choose but be persuaded that 
 he spoke true words. 
 
 ' " Those," he continued, " to whom it is 
 given to discover the Great Secret of Life, 
 hidden away by Nature till the time shall come, 
 must keep that secret jealously and hand it 
 down to few. No greater misfortune to 
 humanity could possibly happen than a gene- 
 ral immortality with all their sins and vices 
 still upon them. Think of an immortal Nero ! 
 Think of an immortal Grand Inquisitor ! It 
 is the prospect of dissolution alone which 
 prevents men from committing the most fright- 
 ful crimes. Thanks to death, there is a limit 
 to suffering as well as to sin. The tyrant must 
 die as well as his victim ; the torturer must 
 lie down beside the tortured."
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 63 
 
 ' I asked him, were there many who knew 
 the secret ? 
 
 ' He rephed that, so far as he knew, there 
 were but two or three to whom it had been 
 given to discover it, and that they had com- 
 municated it to none. He was himself, he said, 
 one of those who had arrived at it after a long 
 life of research. '^ I hold it in my power," he 
 said solemnly, " to live as long as I please ; to 
 die when I please ; to ward off all diseases ; to 
 suffer no pain ; to return to youth, if youth 
 should seem desirable to me. If I please I 
 can go on enjoying the pleasures of life, or I 
 can spend a deathless period, as long as the 
 world endures, in research and contemplation. 
 I can follow the slow growth of true religion, 
 and mark the onward march of mankind, a 
 man among men. Or, by a simple effort of the 
 will, I can stay the beating of the pulse, and
 
 64 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 pass away painlessly to an unknown and un- 
 knowable Eternity." 
 
 ' I asked him, then, if his studies gave him 
 any glimpse or vision of the other world. 
 
 ' He replied that Nature can only yield up 
 her own secrets. As to the mysteries of the 
 hereafter, they were hidden from the search of 
 man, and could only be seen and apprehended 
 by the eye of faith. And here he changed the 
 discourse, and informed me with further ex- 
 pressions of goodwill that he was resolved 
 upon giving me such a proof of his affection as 
 the world had never before heard of. 
 
 ' It was, in fact, this. He offered me no- 
 thing short of the absolute power of living as 
 long as I pleased. There were certain condi- 
 tions which, he said, were necessarily imposed 
 upon the gift ; otherwise I should grow to 
 regard myself as an Immortal. The mention
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 65 
 
 of conditions, I confess, troubled me : but as 
 he proceeded to unfold the plan, I found the 
 conditions light indeed compared with the 
 magnificence of the gift. 
 
 'Briefly, because it would be tedious to 
 relate all the discourses we held and the in- 
 structions I received, I learned that by follow- 
 ing a simple course in which he instructed me 
 I could arrest my age for ten years — that is to 
 say, supposing I began at thirty, I could for 
 ten years remain thirty, and then after ten 
 more years I could again remain thirty for 
 another decade ; but that should I pass 
 beyond the ten years without renewing the 
 term, I should at one leap become forty ; and if 
 I did not choose to continue, the ordinary lot 
 of human life would be mine, and in course of 
 time decay of strength and gradual decline 
 would follow. During each period of ten years 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 I was to be subject to no other disease than 
 any which might be upon me or in my con- 
 stitution at r oefore the beginning of that 
 period ; so ,t ,<: if I were subject to rheumatism, 
 gout, col^!, or fever, I should remain subject, 
 but yet not be killed by any attack. The rules, 
 further, did not hold me free from accident. 
 A drunken man's club, a quarrelsome man's 
 knife, a chance gun-shot, the kick of a horse, 
 anything might bring upon me the death which 
 otherwise I had no occasion to fear. When, 
 in cold blood, I came to tliink of this danger, it 
 became certain to me that some day or other I 
 should fall a victim to accident. For though 
 a man may possibly pass through the wretch- 
 edly short tenure of life allotted to the common 
 herd without accident ; and although one may, 
 as I have done, pass through two centuries and 
 a half in perfect safety, yet the time may come
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 67 
 
 — nay, sometimes I think it must come — wlien 
 the inevitable accident will happen, and I shall 
 perish.' 
 
 He paused again, overcom'j )v this appre- 
 hension. It was not till much letter that I 
 realised how differently the chance of an acci- 
 dent would appear to him. For to us, though a 
 hansom cab may run over us or a train may 
 have a collision, yet there is always the feeling 
 (in anticipation) that we are all of us in the 
 same boat ; whereas to my frieud Mr. Jekyll 
 the feeling was always that he was alone. He 
 would live for ever ; he had lived already for 
 a quarter of a thousand years ; and there was 
 only this one danger to fear: no disease, no 
 decay could kill him — only the danger of ac- 
 cident. Presently he went on again, with a 
 long sigh. 
 
 ' The conditions once understood, and the 
 V 2
 
 68 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 instructions learned, we had next to decide 
 upon the age of commencement. This, on 
 reflection, proved a much more difficult 
 matter than would at first be supposed. 
 The master was for my waiting until I was 
 seventy, and then beginning life. '' For," he 
 said, " at seventy one is free from the passions 
 of youth and the ambitions of middle life ; one 
 is full of wisdom, reflection, experience, and 
 learning. There may be, it is true, a few of 
 the inconveniences of old age, but think of the 
 advantages of beginning with the stock of a 
 lifetime of work ! " Now a singular change 
 had come over me from the very first moment 
 that the master communicated his design to me. 
 My thoughts flew away from the dingy and 
 smoky laboratory to the joys of the world. 
 "Let me," I cried, "be twenty-two.' "Fie 
 upon thee! " said the master; " wouldst remain
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 69 
 
 ever a boy? Well, I see that the last and 
 greatest gift could never have been thine. 
 Choose rather some ripe age, when the passion 
 of youth is over, and the strength of the brain 
 is at its best ; an age which commands rever- 
 ence, but not as yet pity." I had, however, 
 no taste for gray locks, and pleaded at last to 
 begin at once, being then about twenty-eight. 
 To this, however, he would not accede. Finally 
 he consented to my beginning at thirty-five, pro- 
 vided that I should wait in patience and take 
 my chance with the rest of mankind until then. 
 Thirty-five, he reminded me, is an age when 
 one should be strongest in body and fittest in 
 brain for undertaking any kind of work, and 
 most ready for any kind of enjoyment. I 
 have always thought it a happy thing that I 
 consented to wait for seven years in order to 
 begin the long period during which I remained
 
 70 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 steadily at thirty-five. Fool, insensate fool that 
 I was, ever to pass that limit ! 
 
 * Further, the master promised me that just 
 as my health and vigour should continue una- 
 bated, so my fortune should be unimpaired. 
 Both were to remain unaffected by time or 
 w^aste. Therefore he urged upon me to live 
 with economy and thrift, as well as with great 
 moderation as regards eating, drinking, exercise, 
 and so forth, for the seven years between me 
 and full fruition. Then he took a solemn fare- 
 well of me. We shoidd never more, he said, 
 meet in this world ; he was about to retire to 
 the wastes of Arabia, where, removed from the 
 clash of arms and the struggles of men, he 
 could work on until he felt tired and satisfied^ 
 and content to fall asleep. As for me, he wished 
 me a happy use of the gift which he had placed 
 in my hands, and lioped that I should find this
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT, 71 
 
 limited tenure of life so satisfactory that T. 
 should be induced to prolong it indefinitely. 
 He exhorted me to use it well, and for the 
 benefit of mankind ; to work on, accumulating 
 knowledge, extirpating diseases, discovering 
 new modes of increasing happiness, preventing 
 famines, and spreading wisdom. " Then," he 
 said, " you will be a benefactor to the human 
 race such as the world has never yet seen. We 
 who learn and meditate can assist you who will 
 learn and work. My friend, you may become 
 the greatest of mankind." He added cautions 
 about certain temptations w^hich might draw 
 me aside, but I will not repeat these. " Fare- 
 well !" he said. " I have hopes, but I have 
 misgivings. Take the gift and use it as you 
 w411. When you are tired of your work or dis- 
 satisfied, let the years go on unheeded ; take 
 your chance with the rest ; lie down and die
 
 72 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 with the common herd." He left me, and I sat 
 dov/n, wondering, overwhelmed at this great 
 and wonderful fortune. Now consider my 
 situation. I was twenty-eight years of age ; I 
 owned an estate of five hundred pounds a year 
 in Warwickshire (what was then five hundred 
 has since risen, by increase in the value of 
 money — for I have long since sold my land — to 
 live thousand a year). I had seven years to 
 wait, during which my life was exposed hourly 
 to the same dangers which threaten Tom, Dick, 
 or Harry. I might in quiet times have gone to 
 live on my estate, content to wait there in com- 
 parative safety. But the times were not good 
 for quiet men. Everybody in the year 1643 
 was taking a side : a man had to be Cavalier or 
 Koundhead, and to fight for his cause. Was it 
 likely that I, with so great a gift, was to im- 
 peril my precious life, my unique life, for the
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 73 
 
 sake of a party ? Wliy, from that very moment 
 I ceased to take the least interest in either side 
 or in any pohtics. Men who had only a few 
 trumpery years to throw away might go and 
 fight for King or Parliament. Was a man 
 who had hundreds, nay thousands — perhaps 
 — to hazard them for any cause whatever? 
 I made up my mind, therefore, to withdraw. 
 I put my affairs into such order as was 
 possible, and I retired to Ley den, under the 
 pretence of studying at the newly-founded Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 ' Few places in Europe were better suited to 
 my purpose than Ley den. It was retired ; it 
 was not a great city ; it was peaceful ; it was 
 healthy; the students were not brawlers or 
 strikers ; one might reasonably expect there, if 
 anywhere, to escape accident and disease. I 
 entered my name as a student, and I began
 
 74 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 the seven years — a longer seven years than any 
 captive ever passed — with an anxiety which 
 made me, who had previously been as brave 
 a man as my neighbours, nothing short of a 
 coward. I passed for one who was entirely ab- 
 sorbed in study. Alas ! I read but little, being 
 continually pondering over the chances of 
 accident. I had narrow escapes, too, which 
 made me more anxious. Once there was a 
 rumour of the plague ; once a neighbour's house 
 took fire in the night and was burned down ; 
 once, when I was walking with a companion, a 
 drunken fellow ran past us with a knife and 
 stabbed him to the heart, so that he fell dead. 
 It might just as well have been myself. They 
 accused me of cowardice because I did not run 
 after the flying madman. Why, what would have 
 been the sense in pursuing a man who would 
 have finished the race with a stab in the vitals ?
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 75 
 
 Was such a life as mine to be fooled away in an 
 attempt to revenge the death of another ? And 
 another time I was rmi over by a trooper on 
 horseback. It seemed as if sudden and hor- 
 rible accidents were around and about me on 
 every side. 
 
 ' The years passed slowly on ; there came 
 a time when twelve — six — three months only 
 remained to complete the time. The three 
 months became one ; the four weeks became one 
 week ; and then, because I would be alone when 
 the time arrived, I left Leyden and sought a 
 lodging in a farmhouse some four or five miles 
 from the town. The farmer, who lived there 
 with his family of two or three sons and a 
 daughter, gave me his best room, thinking that 
 the grave and serious scholar from the Univer- 
 sity would benefit by the country air. 
 
 ' Then came the eve of the day, my birth-
 
 76 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 day, my thirty-fifth birthday. I spent the day 
 in the fields, meditating. The words of the 
 master returned to me. I was to be a benefactor 
 to the human race. I was to use his gift in the 
 acquisition of knowledge. I resolved that I 
 would do so. I would master all knowledge ; 
 I would confer such benefits on mankind as 
 they had not dreamed ' 
 
 ' And have you done so ? ' I asked eagerly. 
 
 ' Not yet,' he replied ; ' all in good time. 
 Why, man, it is only two hundred and fifty 
 years since I began to live. Give a man a little 
 rope — — ' 
 
 He grumbled and growled for a few mo- 
 ments about the hardships of expecting a man 
 to begin work at once before he had had 
 his Hing. Presently he resumed his narrative. 
 
 ' In the evening I went early to my room. 
 Now I suppose I could have considered the day
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 77 
 
 as beginning at midnight. I would not ; it sliould 
 begin at sunrise. All night long I sat up wait- 
 ing. The casement was closed ; I would not 
 begin the new life with a cold in the head. 
 Then I considered myself carefully. I wa& 
 well made, strong, and had no complaint, weak- 
 ness, or defect of any kind. Every function of 
 mind and body in perfect working order. What 
 a future lay before me ! 
 
 * As I waited and watched, full of fears, 
 calculations, and doubts, it seemed, just at the 
 darkest hour, about two in the morning, when the 
 whole world is sleeping, as if the room became 
 suddenly filled with ghosts. I saw nothing ; 
 but I knew they Avere there, and that they had 
 come to reason with me. First it was the voice 
 of my mother who spoke to me. " Son," she 
 said, " I looked to see thee soon among us in 
 the Islands of tlie Happy Dead. Now must I
 
 78 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 wait — and how long? Yet forget not that, 
 soon or late, Death will come even to you, and 
 the past shall be but as a dream of the night, 
 even if thy days be as long as the days of 
 Noah. Forget not this ; and remember that 
 men do not live until the after life." 
 
 ' Then spoke the voice of my father. 
 *' 'Twere better, son, to fight the good fight and 
 then to die like thy forefathers. Thou hast 
 turned aside from thy country and thy kin in 
 their sorest need. Turn not aside from the 
 Faith. We watch and wait for thee." 
 
 ' Then spoke the voice of one whom I had 
 loved in my youth and forgotten. " Sweet- 
 heart," she said, " bethink thee. There is no 
 life without love ; there is no love between 
 our generation and those which follow after." 
 
 ' Then it was the voice of my little sister. 
 "- Brother," she said, " come to us before you
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 79 
 
 have forgotten us all ; do not quite desert me. 
 Come soon and play with me again." 
 
 ' Strange. It is two hundred and fifty years 
 ago. I have indeed forgotten them. During 
 all these years I have never thought of them 
 again until now. Can it be that they wait 
 for me still .^ My sister must long since have 
 grown up — grown old — do they grow old 
 there .P' 
 
 His face changed as he said these words ; 
 his eyes softened ; but only for a moment. 
 Then he went on again : 
 
 ' These appeals annoyed me. Just at the last 
 moment, when I was entering upon my glorious 
 career, to be thus addressed by my own people, 
 who should have been proud of their son's dis- 
 tinction ! I thought of the future, and hardened 
 my heart against the past. Then the voices 
 ceased, though I heard a weeping and sobbing
 
 8o THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 as of women over the death of one they love. 
 Yet this moved me not ; for I was mad to begin 
 the new hfe free from fear of death, disease, 
 want, and age. The weeping of the spirits 
 ceased, and they left me. Then another vision 
 began, and it seemed as if the world with all 
 its pleasures lay at my feet, waiting for me to 
 enter upon my inheritance and enjoy. 
 
 ' A long night, but it came to an end. I 
 saw the streak of light in the east ; I saw the 
 gray grow into red, the darkness into dawn. 
 Then up' sprang the glorious sun, bright, warm, 
 clear ; the sky was blue ; the bjrds burst out 
 a-singing. Nature rejoiced with me as I rose 
 and followed the instructions I had so long 
 known by heart. 
 
 ' Why, I was filled with a new life ; I was 
 like one intoxicated with the joy of breathing ;. 
 I was strong with a strength you cannot dream
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 8i 
 
 of. Heavens ! what a splendid man I was ; 
 what a splendid man I remained for two 
 hundred and sixty years ! You shall hear, 
 presently, by what mad folly I threw away that 
 glorious manhood.' 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 82 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW HE USED HIS MOST EXCELLENT GIFT. 
 
 ' I REMAINED ill my room,' he went on, after 
 a pause, ' while the sun rose higher in the 
 heavens. With every moment my pulse beat 
 stronger, the blood coursed more freely through 
 the veins, my heart sounded the note of stronger, 
 eager, and impetuous manhood. I was more 
 than a king — I was a demigod, because Death, 
 the slayer of all, and Time, the slow subduer 
 of all, had no power over me. I, alone of created 
 things, was free from the law of decay. In the 
 fieJds below me I saw the farm drudges creeping 
 about their day's work ; I heard the song 
 of my landlord's daughter as she began her
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT, 83 
 
 work in the dairy ; I watched the birds in the 
 trees, the cattle in the meadows, the horses 
 being led from the stable, all alike, at first, with 
 that pity which naturally seized the mind in 
 thinking of the pitiful condition from which I 
 had myself only that moment emerged.' 
 
 ' And you still feel that pity? ' I asked. 
 
 ' Not at all,' he replied promptly. ' I feel 
 no more pity for those who are beneath me — 
 in fact, for all humanity — than you feel for 
 the menial condition of the waiter who has 
 just brought in the soda-and-brandy, or for tlie 
 abject state of any wretched beggar in the 
 street, or for the sufferings of any unknown 
 patient in a hospital. It is Fate. We have 
 nothing to do with Fate. When I think of my 
 long life behind me and the long life before me 
 I am glad, that is all.' 
 
 I was silent, and he proceeded :
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 'I went downstairs, presently, in a dream, 
 and my landlord's daughter, a blue-eyed girl of 
 eighteen, gave me a cup of milk, for which I 
 thanked her with a kiss. She laughed and 
 said she did not expect that of the grave scholar 
 from Leyden schools ; and then she blushed 
 and started, and wanted to know what I had 
 done with myself ; for my feet seemed to dance 
 as they went, and my eyes were bright with 
 life and love ; my lips were ready to sing, or 
 to kiss, or to drink ; my cheek was ruddy and 
 healthy, and dotted with a couple of dimples ; 
 and my arms were swinging so loosely that it 
 seemed the most proper and seemly thing i^n the 
 world for them to seize the girl by the waist and 
 kiss her again. Poor Lisa ! Well, she has for- 
 gotten her troubles this many a day. 
 
 ' After a few weeks I began to think it vv^as 
 time to devise some plan for the future, and
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 85 
 
 without saying farewell to the poor fond 
 creature — ^indeed, I found consolation in the 
 thought that a short forty or fifty years would 
 bring her to the end of any sorrow my depar- 
 ture might occasion. I therefore returned to 
 Leyden, where I sat down, resolved to draw 
 out a fixed plan for work. 
 
 ' First, I recalled the words of the master, 
 how I was to use my gift so that it might 
 become a boon to the whole of mankind. How 
 was this best to be effected P Not, I thought, 
 by conferring the same gift upon the whole of 
 humanity. Why, if there were no end to life, 
 there would be no need of religion, to begin 
 with. Why, if there were only two such men 
 in the world at the same time as myself, very 
 serious difficulties might arise. 
 
 ' I would not make men immortal ; but I 
 would free them from disease.
 
 86 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 ' I conceived the most beautiful dream 
 — some day I mean to work it out tho- 
 roughly, if it takes me a thousand years 
 to do it ; but not just yet, not yet. To re- 
 member that dream causes me the greatest 
 satisfaction, because it shows how fit and 
 worthy a man I am for the confidence be- 
 stowed in me. I thought that if a man 
 situated as haj)pily as myself were to devote 
 himself, taking one disease at a time, not 
 only to its alleviation and cure, but also — a 
 very much more important thing — to its com- 
 plete and entire suppression, he would become 
 in very truth the greatest benefactor to the 
 human race that has ever appeared upon 
 the world. It would take time to collect 
 statistics, facts, figures, and accounts ; but what 
 was time to me? Nothing. If each disease 
 were to take me a century of uninterrupted
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 87 
 
 labour, consider what that would mean to man- 
 kind if it ended in its entire abolition. 
 
 ' You see, there are the big things first : 
 fevers, plagues, smallpox, consumption, rheu- 
 matism, gout ; then the smaller things, for 
 which surgeons use the knife ; then the many 
 little ailments of life which cause so many 
 grievous moments, such as toothache, earache, 
 headache, and all the pains. I would begin 
 with the great things, and after destroying 
 them from off the face of the earth I would 
 attack the smaller, and finally the smallest 
 diseases. Acknowledge that this was a great 
 — a noble dream. I pictured myself at work 
 in my laboratory for generation after genera- 
 tion, discovering why this or that disease 
 existed, and what should be done to meet it 
 and prevent it. What, to me, were centuries 
 of patient labour? I pictured to myself at
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 last a strong and grateful humanity plagued no 
 longer witli diseases, or, if tlie symptoms showed 
 themselves in punishment for excesses, able to 
 meet them at once, and, with little suffering, to 
 subdue them. My friend, I declare to you that 
 this dream, while it lasted, filled me with an 
 ineffable rapture ; my old religion, which 
 seemed to have deserted me, came back and 
 filled my soul; I was able to thank God 
 solemnly for His great and wonderful gift, 
 and to implore His blessing on my most be- 
 neficent enterprise.' 
 
 He was silent, and shook his head sorrow- 
 fully. 
 
 ' Why did the dream leave you ? ' I asked 
 him. 
 
 ' There is always between the conception 
 and the realisation of a dream,' he replied, 
 ' the interposition of something from the out-
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 89 
 
 side. This time it was the arrival at Ley den 
 of Lisa's brothers. I fled with such precipita- 
 tion that the dream was for the time shattered 
 to atoms. 
 
 'I repaired to Paris, whither I was quite 
 certain those young Hollanders would not 
 follow me. Here, as an English gentleman 
 of fortune, I was hospitably received, although 
 I Avas fain to assume the disguise of a Eoman 
 Catholic, as an excuse for not having fought 
 for the king. 
 
 ' Paris, in the year 1650, was a much less 
 desirable place of residence than London, ex- 
 cept that there were fewer theological con- 
 troversies. The streets were narrow, accidents 
 were fearfully common, the people were rough 
 and rude, gentlemen were given to duelhng on 
 small provocation, and there were always the 
 dangers of the Bastille. Suppose, I thought
 
 90 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT, 
 
 sometimes, that I was to incur the misfortune 
 of being imprisoned for life on suspicion of 
 some libel. How long would it be befora my 
 gaolers would have their suspicions aroused by 
 the youthfulness of their prisoner ? And what 
 would the Church say, if the problem were set 
 before it? And with what face could I tell 
 the story and bear the tender mercies of the 
 secular arm, which was heavy indeed upon 
 magicians? Had it not been for disquietude 
 on these accounts, I should have been happy 
 in Paris. It was a city which possessed 
 (should my dream of labour come back to me) 
 the best library of medical books in the 
 world, and when I was inclined to enjoy the 
 pleasures of life, gave me such boon companions 
 as Chapelle, Bachaumont, and Bois-Eobert ; 
 such evenings as none but well-bred ladies 
 of Paris could offer ; and such talk as was to
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 91 
 
 be heard nowhere but among the scholars of 
 Paris. 
 
 'After a year or two of Paris, when it 
 seemed as if things were becoming more 
 settled in my own country, I returned to 
 Warwickshire. In the calm retreat of my 
 estate, I thought, I could carry out undisturbed 
 those projects which I had only laid aside for 
 a while, and proposed to undertake in earnest.' 
 
 ' And what prevented you .^ ' 
 
 ' The usual thing — a woman. I fell in 
 love. She was a girl of twenty- four, hand- 
 some, well-born, with a considerable fortune, 
 and was reported to have a good temper. I 
 have nothing to say against her at all ; she 
 was a most excellent housekeeper. At 
 making of strong waters, brewing, baking, 
 pickling, preserving, and the knowledge of 
 herbs, there was never any one her equal.
 
 92 • THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 We married, and for tlie first twenty years 
 of my married state I was perfectly happy. 
 But in each experiment made in a life like 
 mine there are new dangers and difficulties 
 which were unforeseen. The danger which 
 I had overlooked was that my wife would 
 grow old while I should not. In fact, w^hen 
 she was forty-five and I was, in the eyes of 
 the world, fifty-live or so, I was freely con- 
 gratulated on my wonderful preservation. 
 This, which was only matter for laughter then, 
 became, ten years later, when I should have 
 been sixty-fiV^e, a thing of unwelcome notoriety. 
 To be sure, it is not every day that one sees a 
 man of sixty-five with the crisp beard and brown 
 curls, the clear eyes and the elastic tread of 
 thirty-five. To avoid this kind of talk I once 
 kept my bed for a week, pretending illness, and 
 came out of it with a stoop in the shoulders
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. • 93 
 
 and a shaking at the knees. I also adopted 
 an old-fashioned periique, and painted every 
 morning crows'-feet and lines about the eyes. 
 
 'It is very well to make up (being five 
 and thirty) into five and sixty. But what 
 about five and seventy, ^^^ and eighty, five 
 and ninety? My friend, the most unforeseen 
 thing happened. The life of my wife was pro- 
 longed so far beyond the usual span that she 
 actually reached the age of ninety-eight. K'ow 
 consider what that meant to me. First, there 
 was the discomfort, which lasted for sixty years 
 and more, of being married to a wife older 
 than yourself. How should you at thirty-five 
 like to be married to a woman of ninety-five, eh? 
 Then there was the inconvenience of having to 
 look as if age was telling upon me more and 
 more. It would be positively indecent for a 
 man at a hundred to shake a leg as merrily as
 
 94 • THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 a man at thirty : he may not laugh, nor sing, 
 nor ride, nor dance, nor talk cheerfully, 
 nor even drink. Now when she had got 
 to ninety-eight, T, though still only thirty-five, 
 was actually supposed to be a hundred and 
 nine. You may walk bowed and bent ; when 
 any one is looking, you may shake in every 
 limb ; you may pull an old-fashioned wig over 
 your ears, or sit muffled up in a nightcap ; yet 
 your eye ivill hole young. You cannot pretend 
 at five and thirty to get along on the same 
 amount of food as does for an old man of a hun- 
 dred ; you cannot disguise the fact that you have 
 all your teeth ; you cannot wholly dissemble 
 your vigour. Therefore it became the fashion 
 in my neighbourhood to see, and bring strangers 
 to see, this wonderful old fellow, who, at a 
 hundred and eight, was so vigorous. " Look 
 at him," they would say, as if I was a prize ox ;
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. • 95 
 
 " there is health for you at a hundred and eight. 
 Look at his eye, full and clear and strong. A 
 hundred years, gentlemen, and eight I This is- 
 marvellous ! He ate two mutton-chops yester- 
 day to his dinner, and a dish cf hot sausages to 
 his supper, and drank a quart of October. Saw- 
 one ever the like? His teeth, too, look at 
 them ! And your memory, good sir ? " 
 
 ' " Alack," would I reply, in feeble pipe, 
 " there my age finds me out ; for my memory, 
 gentlemen, save for things of my childhood, 
 when Charles I. was king, is but a poor 
 thing." 
 
 ' Clergymen preached about me, books 
 were written upon me ; and I sat still in my 
 chair opposite the poor old lady, who was now 
 bent double, wondering what would happen, 
 and how to get out of the difficulty. A cruel 
 thing, to desire the death of a wife, yet what
 
 96 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 else could I wish for ? And in the end I killed 
 her.' 
 
 ' You murdered your wife ? ' 
 
 'Not exactly; yet I killed her. Thus it 
 was. On one Saturday afternoon in June, the 
 year being 1724, I felt an uncontrollable desire 
 to leave the armchair, in which after dinner at 
 noon I was left for my afternoon nap, and to 
 move about somewhere. The maids were in 
 some distant part of the house. I took my 
 sticks and hobbled slowly along, intend uig 
 to creep into the garden, where, if no one 
 were about, I might straighten my back 
 and stand upright for a bit. On the way I 
 passed the cellar door, and thought I should 
 like for once a full tankard of ale. I de- 
 scended, and throwing away the sticks, I sat on 
 a stool and poured down the strong October 
 tankard after tankard, till it mounted to my
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 97 
 
 head. Still, I did not so far forget myself but 
 that I returned to my own room on the crutches, 
 stooping and staggering, so that the maids 
 whispered that the old gentleman was failing 
 fast. When I found myself alone, as I thought, 
 I contained myself no longer ; but, locking the 
 door, I threw my wig up to the ceiling, my 
 crutches on the floor, and I began to dance, the 
 jolly old ale in my heels. 
 
 ' Ouf ! It was a relief. For many days I 
 had been so carefully watched, that here had 
 been no chance of any exercise. The quiet 
 house, in which the only noise was the slow 
 ticking of the cuckoo-clock ; the aged lady who 
 sat opposite to me all day long, bowed and bent, 
 meditating on the past and future — for to the 
 old there is no present — the old servants, the 
 old dogs, the old furniture, amid which our 
 married life of seventy-five years had been 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 spent — all these things fell upon my spirits like 
 lead. So that, warmed by the strong ale, be- 
 lieving myself free from observation, I shook 
 off all disguise, and danced with the agility of 
 a man in his twenties. 
 
 'A loud shriek interrupted me. I had 
 made a mistake in the room, the beer being in 
 my head : instead of my own bedroom, I was in 
 our common sitting-room. My poor old wife 
 stood before me, pointing with her shrivelled 
 finger, gasping for terror and amazement. 
 Then her head turned, and she fell headlong to 
 the ground. The shock and affright were too 
 much for her, and she never spoke again.' 
 
 'After that,' I said, 'there would be 
 nothing to prevent your beginning the Grand 
 Eesearch ? ' 
 
 'Stop a moment. Think. Another diffi- 
 culty began here. How was I to get rid of
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 99 
 
 myself? An old man of a hundred and eight 
 could not suddenly leave his house and go away 
 by himself. How was I to make the old man 
 disappear ? This difficulty occupied my thoughts 
 continually. Sometimes I thought of escaping 
 at night ; but I wanted to keep my estate, 
 whicli, when I disappeared, would fall to my 
 heirs. Now, here an accident happened which 
 proved of the greatest use to me. My eldest 
 son (cut off at seventy) had left a grandson, 
 his own son having also died, who was at the 
 time living quietly, being a young man of 
 twenty-two, and of studious habits, in a lodging 
 at Westminster. Here he contracted a fever 
 of some kind, which quickly carried him off. 
 No one of the family, except myself, knew his 
 place of residence ; none of his cousins or great 
 uncles (my sons) had ever seen liim ; for an ob- 
 scure country lad to die in an obscure London 
 n 2
 
 loo THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 lodging makes but little stir. Therefore I 
 made use of his death to my own advantage. 
 I instructed my lawyers that my heir, Mr. 
 Montagu Jekyll the younger, would shortly call 
 upon them. He did call : he had a long talk 
 with them about the estate and the failing 
 health of the old squire ; but when he came to 
 pay his respects at the Hall I was nowhere to 
 be found. 
 
 ' It was strange ; I had disappeared. They 
 dragged the rivers ; they searched the woods ; 
 they found my crutches; they found my 
 clothes, my wig, and my hat. But my body 
 was never recovered. I need not tell you that 
 the young man, the heir, was no other than 
 myself. 
 
 ' That difficulty surmounted, I resolved that 
 it should not occur again. The estates were 
 not entailed, and I sold them, reckoning on the
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. loi 
 
 promise that I should always have the equivalent 
 to what I started upon in an annual income.' 
 
 ' And the rest of your children and grand- 
 children ? ' 
 
 ' I do not know. It is absurd to suppose 
 that I could keep the genealogical tables of so 
 large a family as mine. Why, at the estimate of 
 four children apiece, I have reckoned that my 
 present descendants amount to over a million 
 and a quarter ; and, of course, many of them 
 must have liad more than four children. It 
 is long, however, since I cared about follow- 
 ing the fortunes of my grandchildren. I 
 start the sons and portion the daughters ; then 
 they go out into the world, and I know 
 nothing more about them. Long before the 
 grandchildren begin to get troublesome, I am 
 away and forgotten.' 
 
 ' Do you, then, change your name P '
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 ' Sometimes, for a generation or two. Then 
 I take it again, and display a curious acquain- 
 tance with the family history of the Jekylls of 
 Worcestershire. At present I am bearing my 
 own name.' 
 
 ' Then, having got rid of your estate, I 
 suppose the Eesearch was fairly begun ? There 
 were no longer any obstacles ? ' 
 
 He laughed gently. 
 
 'No obstacles? Why, I was beginniiig 
 the world all over again. I, who had for 
 forty years pretended to be an old man, I was 
 a young fellow agam of five and thirty. My 
 heart was young as well as my body ; I quickly 
 forgot the poor old lady with wliom I liad for 
 so long been unequally yoked ; and I burned 
 to make a new departure.' 
 
 ' But your studies, your resolutions — did 
 you think nothing of them ? '
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 103 
 
 ' Yes, at times I thought of them ; but they 
 would always wait ; meautime, I wanted to 
 enlarge my experience of the world. 
 
 ' I Avent to London this time ; the glorious 
 eighteenth century was well begun : when 
 shall we see its like again ? I found myself 
 among wits of whose talk you can have no 
 conception, among ladies whose beauty was 
 only equalled by their incomparable grace, and 
 in a school of manners the like of which the 
 world has never seen. It was only in the 
 eighteenth century that men and women 
 succeeded in defeating age. By means of 
 wigs, powder, paint, stays, and other artificial 
 adornments, they kept up the pretence of 
 always being young. When they failed, as 
 sometimes happened through an unmannerly 
 palsy or a disconcerting blindness, or anything 
 of tliat sort, the rest of us pretended that
 
 I04 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 nothing was wrong. But, short of their afflic- 
 tions, men and women — I mean gentlemen and 
 ladies, of com^se — went on with their suppers, 
 their cards, and their dice, until they fell down 
 and died. To me, of course, who dreaded 
 nothing but an accidental knock with a chair- 
 pole, or the upset of a coach, or the falling of 
 something on my head, there w^as no merit in 
 this kind of acting ; but I confess that I was 
 then, and am still, lost in admiration of the 
 admirable way in which these poor creatures of 
 a few short years behaved as if centuries at 
 least w^ere before them.' 
 
 He sat still and stroked his chin reflec- 
 tively. 
 
 ' How well I remember it, that century of 
 gaming, drinking, suppers, and what preachers 
 call unreality! Unreality, indeed ! when men 
 and women took all there was to be had in
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 105 
 
 life, and said : " Thus will we live while we 
 are in health. Sufficient for the present the 
 wax-tapers, the supper-table, the wit and con- 
 versation of well-bred men." Ah ! ' 
 
 He heaved a profound sigh. 
 
 ' We might have been going on still in the 
 same way, making a httle Paris in every 
 capital, the rich enjoying life, and the poor — 
 I suppose the poor were no worse off then than 
 they are now. But the French Eevolution 
 came and spoiled everything. I never before 
 thoroughly realised the selfishness of mankind 
 The most beautiful society that the world had 
 ever seen, smashed and destroyed ; a whole 
 continent in flames ; and all because a few 
 demagogues persuaded the people that they 
 were unhappy. For the first time I was dis- 
 gusted with my epoch, and for the first time 
 for a hundred and fifty years I was contented
 
 io6 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 to think that I had uot spent my time in toiling 
 for them. 
 
 ' Long, however, before the crash of the 
 Eevolution, which altered and upset so much, 
 I left London and retired to the country, where 
 I met with that great misfortune which ' 
 
 ' Which retarded the prosecution of the 
 Great Eesearch ? ' 
 
 'No, sir, worse than that — which added 
 ten years to my life. It began, naturally, with 
 a woman. I formed for her the most serious 
 passion of my life. Can you wonder if I post- 
 poned, for the sake of her society, the prose- 
 cution of my stupendous design, which could 
 always wait, and might be commenced when 
 she grew old ? 
 
 ' She was eighteen when I married her. 
 She was the daughter of the old vicar of the 
 parish. She was innocent and true ; her tem-
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 107 
 
 per was of the sweetest ; her face was the love- 
 liest ; she loved me' — here he paused and 
 sidled ao'ain. ' Never, never shall I meet 
 again anyone like her. We lived together in 
 perfect bliss for eight years ; at the end of 
 that time a fever carried her off. 
 
 ' I was entirely cast down at this sad mis- 
 fortune : her religion had softened me ; her 
 faith at the end subdued me; I made a re- 
 solution that, come what might, I would give 
 up my immortality for her sake, and take my 
 lot among my fellow-creatures. I kept that 
 resolution with firmness. I saw the hour 
 approach when I must either go back ten years 
 again, or take the irrevocable step of going 
 on ten years. Life was so dreary vvdthout my 
 Susan that I did not care to face it again ; and 
 on the last night of the tenth year, when I 
 should have become five and thirty for the
 
 io8 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 fifteentli time, I went to bed heroically resolved 
 to pass straight on to forty-five, and after that 
 to endure the rapid advance of time, and 
 sink to the grave with my seventieth year. I 
 would live, I said, always in the country ; 
 I would know no joys but those of medi- 
 tation and retrospect ; I would recover, if I 
 could, tlie consolation of religion ; my future 
 years should be spent in making me worthy 
 to join my Susan in heaven, where she awaited 
 me. 
 
 ' Nothing could have been more laudable 
 than my resolution ; but there was one thing 
 which I had forgotten. There was a clause 
 in our agreement that should I slip a decade, 
 and therefore carry on my age for ten years, I 
 should be, like other men, liable to punishment 
 in the flesh for the sins of my past life. Now 
 before I fell in love with Susan I had been
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 109 
 
 drinking in the company of the hardest hvers 
 of the time — with perfect disregard of the 
 futm^e, as I had a right to do — port, punch, and 
 strong waters of all kinds. I had gone to bed 
 in the most beautiful, resigned, and religious 
 mood possible. I felt, for the first time since 
 many a long year, repentance for the past 
 follies, and a sincere desire to amend during the 
 brief future. I would, I was resolved, die when 
 my time came, and join my Susan in heaven. 
 And at that moment I even remembered my 
 mother and sister departed so long before, and 
 forgotten since that night in the Dutch farm- 
 house. 
 
 This peaceful and holy frame of mind was 
 to be rudely disturbed in a way quite unex- 
 pected and most disagreeable. I fell asleep. 
 At midnight I aAvoke suddenly to find that 
 not only was I forty-five years of age, in
 
 no THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 itself a fearful misfortune, but also that I 
 was afflicted with the most violent attack 
 of ^out in the ofreat toe that ever unfor- 
 tunate man experienced. What can with- 
 stand gout? Not love, not religion, not re- 
 grets. All these vanished, and I cursed the 
 hour when I was fool enough voluntarily, actu- 
 ally without being obliged, to surrender the 
 best part of my manhood. 
 
 ' I got through the gout ; but, my dear 
 friend, forty-five is not thirty-five. The elas- 
 ticity of life is gone at forty five ; the muscles 
 are no longer young ; the stomach is beginning 
 to be used. They say that a man of forty-five 
 is in his full vigour. I deny it ; he is not. He 
 has already begun to feel the prickings of time ; 
 he has passed the first fresh rush of feeling and 
 enjoyment. The world has no more to give 
 him ; and to think that I might have con-
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 tinned my vigour and enjoyment but for mere 
 boyish, weak, mawkish , sentimental regret over 
 a girl I loved ! ' 
 
 He paused again, this time deeply 
 moved. 
 
 ' That was,' he resumed, ' about the year 
 1795, more than eighty years ago. I confess 
 that my life since then has been a wandering 
 and uncertain life. You, as a moralist, might 
 
 condemn it ' He hesitated, and looked at 
 
 me with uncertain eyes. 
 
 ' I am your confidant first,' I said, ' and a 
 moralist afterwards. Let me hear such parti- 
 culars as you wish to tell me.' 
 
 ' I told you before,' he went on, ' that 1 
 have had seventeen wives. I have only as yet 
 accounted for two. That leaves fifteen for 
 eighty-four years, an average of less than six 
 years apiece.'
 
 112 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 
 
 ' You don't mean to say, man,' I cried, 
 * that yon have murdered fifteen wives ? ' 
 
 ' Nay, I am not Bluebeard. I did not 
 murder them ; I only deserted them.' 
 
 ' You — -deserted — them ? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' He was quite calm, and looked as 
 if he was confessing an action neither virtuous 
 nor the opposite, but just of the commonplace 
 kind. ' Yes ; you see, after my last experiences 
 of marriage, I was difficult to please. If my 
 poor Susan, blameless herself, was the cause of 
 my gout, my forty-five years, the loss of my 
 youth, the appearance of crows'-feet, fatness, 
 puffed cheeks, thin hair, and a red nose, she 
 had also instilled into my mind an ideal of 
 womanly perfection which, while it was delight- 
 ful to possess and to reflect upon, stood greatly 
 in the way of conjugal happiness. I passed in 
 review one maiden after another ; I considered,
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 113 
 
 but without profit, the widows : I failed any- 
 where to find my ideaL I did not, perhaps, 
 consider that most unfortunate rule of human 
 life, that, as a man grows older 'and knows 
 women better, he becomes more difi&cult to 
 please, because his imagination is duller ; 
 wliile it is more difficult for him to please, 
 because he is no longer a young man and 
 comely. To be sure, I was less comely just 
 then than I am now, having upon me the 
 effects of a hundred years' suppers. Still, with 
 a courtly manner, good means, and such ex- 
 perience of the world as was mine, one might 
 have hoped for something better than what 
 I found. Eight of my wives lasted for an 
 average of two years each. Then they became 
 insupportable, and, after making due provision 
 for their welfare, I left them.' 
 'Children and all?' 
 
 VOL. J. I
 
 114 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 ' Children and all. I never did care greatly 
 for children, and latterly I have cared less than 
 ever. They are the most selfish creatures in 
 existence. To be sure, women are not much 
 better.' 
 
 He was silent again, and reflected for a few 
 minutes. 
 
 '- 1 did not expect much ; but a little 
 honour, a little respect to my extraordinary 
 attainments, I did look for. Yet — would you 
 believe it ? — they treated my science as if it was 
 so many old women's tales, and my stories of 
 the past as if I had made them up, and the 
 halo of romance, which I could not help 
 wreathing round my own brow, they laughed 
 at. Women have no poetry, no imagination ! 
 And then they annoyed me by always wanting 
 to know about my parents and connections ; 
 searching among my papers when the^ thought
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 115 
 
 I was out of the way ; putting leading ques- 
 tions about tlie origin of my fortune ; giving 
 me, all round, no peace. 
 
 ' It was this intolerable curiosity which 
 caused me to desert my vows, not, I assure 
 you, any roaming disposition, nor any selfish 
 desire to seek for greater beauty. Selfishness 
 is a vice of which I have never, I am happy to 
 say, been guilty, though my wives have fre- 
 quently brought it against me as a charge. 
 The difiiculty in each case was to get rid of 
 them quietly and without fuss. The best way 
 seemed to make them widows. You can't call 
 a man selfish who makes away with himself in 
 order to benefit his wife — come. Once, when 
 we lived by the seaside, I pretended a violent 
 passion for boating, kept a sailing boat, and one 
 evening set the sail, stove a great hole in her 
 side, and launched her. I then walked away.
 
 ii6 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 The boat was found, capsized, and of course 
 they concluded I was drowned. On another 
 occasion, later on, when we were in London 
 there was a great accident on the river — a 
 steamer run down, with two or three hundred 
 people drowned. I did not go home that 
 evening or ever after, and had the satisfaction, 
 a few days later, of seeing my own name 
 among the list of the supposed victims. One 
 cannot, however, always find an accident ready 
 to one's hand, and different means had to be 
 devised. In these I think I showed considerable 
 ingenuity. On one or two occasions, however, 
 I was compelled to adopt a common and even 
 a brutal plan, as when, after a more than stormy 
 scene with a very bad-tempered and long- 
 tongued wife (although a beautiful creature), I 
 left home, and sent her a letter to say that I 
 was going away and should retiu-n no more.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 117 
 
 This was in 1808, I remember. Slie was living 
 in Edinburgh, but I suppose she hves nowhere 
 now. Ah ! she promised well at the beginning. 
 But they all fall off— they all fall off* after the 
 first month or two. Selfishness, morbid curio- 
 sity, and inability to appreciate my excep- 
 tional qualities! . . . But these details tire 
 you. Of course I had to leave the place 
 and move to quite another part of the world 
 after every such little change. 
 
 ' They have been, one with another,' he 
 went on, ' a good-looking lot of women ; fair, 
 <iark, brunette, blonde ; eyes of every shade, 
 blue, gray, brown, black, violet, hazel ; tall and 
 petites ; majestic, like Juno, or gracieuses, like 
 Venus. I have had little to complain of about 
 their beauty. Their tempers have, of course, 
 varied from " set stormy " to " change.' They 
 could all be coaxed into good temper, and
 
 ii8 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 most of them would believe anything, unless 
 they were jealous. One of them, whom I could 
 only stand for three months, was extraordinary 
 in her jealousy — gave me no peace at all.' 
 
 ' And about your friends ? ' 
 
 ' My — my friends ! ' He lifted his voice a 
 httle, and smiled. 'You are comparatively 
 young; you think there are such things as 
 friends in the world. Perhaps some day you 
 will know better. Friends ! I never had any. 
 Nobody ever has any. A few men become 
 close acquaintances, and are fools enough to 
 tell them all their private concerns ; but I was 
 never that kind of man. No ; we were acquain- 
 tances m the dear dehghtful eighteenth century 
 who conversed with each other, gambled, drank, 
 and banqueted, at arm's length ; ready at a 
 moment to draw the sword upon each other, 
 distrustful and distrusted, anxious to get the
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 119 
 
 best for ourselves, and careless about anybody 
 else. Friendship means the association of men 
 for the purpose of making the best out of life ; 
 marriage means a compact in which either 
 party expects the other to work for him or her ; 
 children love their parents for the good things 
 they get ' 
 
 ' And parents love their children — for 
 what ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' You forget,' he answered coldly, ' I told 
 you I did not like children.' 
 
 He went on talking ; but I fell into a sort 
 of reverie, and only half heard what he said. 
 He was describing his different wives, I believe. 
 I was thinking what a strange effect this man's 
 wonderful gift had produced upon his moral 
 nature ; of his cold and callous crust of selfish- 
 ness, which made him insensible to any of the 
 ordinary feelings of human nature ; how the
 
 I20 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 sight of SO many generations dying around him 
 had robbed him of sympathy, power of love, 
 friendship, hmnanity — all the qualities whicli 
 draw men together, and make them seem less 
 lonely. He could no longer love woman, man, 
 or child ; he could no longer shed tears for 
 bereavement, or feel the sorrow of the hasten- 
 ing years. He could no longer feel for the 
 sufferings of others ; he pretended to perish 
 suddenly, thinking only how to get rid of 
 a woman of whom he was tired ; he walked 
 away, deserting a creature who loved liim, 
 with children who looked for his love, in 
 cruel, heartless, unheeding callousness. It 
 seemed to me as if, were that the inevitable 
 result of such a gift, it would be better to take 
 one's chance with the rest, and live out the 
 three-score years and ten. 
 
 When I listened again he was still talking.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 ' On leaving her, my fifteenth wife, a truly 
 dreadful thing happened. I had been so continu- 
 ally occupied for a whole year in devising this 
 notable scheme of separation, that I actually 
 forgot that the fatal ten years was once more 
 drawing to a close. The time arrived in the 
 middle of the night, when I was still walking 
 away from the house, on the hard and frosty 
 road, rejoicing to be once more free, and resolv- 
 ing that it should be indeed a long time 
 before I would again run the risks of matri- 
 mony. Suddenly I heard the clock strike 
 twelve ; in a moment I remembered, with 
 horror and agony, what had happened. A 
 sudden loss of vital force, a curious feeling 
 of comparative weakness. I had forgotten 
 to renew my forty-fifth year, and I was fifty - 
 five. 
 
 'That, my friend, I am still; that I intend
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 to remain. It is not a bad age. My gout is 
 with me still, but it is not so troublesome 
 as it has been. I have contracted no fresh 
 diseases. I lead a regular life, drink little, 
 go to bed early, and enjoy things in mode- 
 ration.' 
 
 ' And now,' I said, ' that you have given 
 up marriage, you will be able to commence the 
 Eesearch.' 
 
 ' Oh, the Eesearch — the Eesearch ! ' he spoke 
 impatiently. ' Yes ; no doubt some day I shall 
 begin it. Meantime, is my experience com- 
 plete — have I done with matrimony? Truly, I 
 cannot say. Stay; I will show you some of 
 my manuscripts.' 
 
 He opened a desk, and took out a volume 
 bound in leather, fastened with brass, and put 
 it into my hands. 
 
 ' Sir,' he said, ' one of my old volumes.
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT 123 
 
 This contains all the chemistry of the sixteenth 
 century.' 
 
 I opened it. The volume was closely 
 written in a small and crabbed handwriting, on 
 paper gone yellow with age, and in ink still 
 black and clear. 
 
 ' All the chemistry of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. I have only to read that book again, to 
 read the discoveries of modern science, and I 
 am furnished with the materials for the Grand 
 Eesearch. Yes, I am resolved to begin it. Some- 
 times, though, I confess, my desire to benefit 
 my fellow-creatures is much less than my desire 
 to live comfortably and beyond the reach of 
 accident. And, to live quite comfortably, I 
 want the right kind of wife. Find her for me, 
 my friend, and I will show my gratitude to you 
 in any way you prefer.' 
 
 We had more talk, but it was of no further
 
 124 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 importance ; and presently, as I saw that my 
 host was growing silent, and besides, as it was 
 already half-past eleven, I took my leave. He 
 promised to call upon me the next morning 
 about some business, the nature of which he 
 did not state, and, shaking my hand, he said : 
 
 ' My friend, I am in earnest about a wife. 
 Find me a sensible, kind, good-tempered girl, 
 who will put herself out a little to please a man 
 — no longer young.' 
 
 ' But you would grow tired of her after a 
 little, and leave her.' 
 
 ' Not till she grew tired of me,' he replied. 
 ' Believe me, my wives were as glad to get 
 rid of me as I was to be free. "Selfish, thought- 
 less, except about my own pleasures" — such 
 were the epithets they used to hurl at me ! What 
 a benefactor I have been, to make so many 
 widows — and all so young ! '
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 125 
 
 • What a benefactor,' I said, ' you might 
 have been, had you stuck to your Grand Ee- 
 search ! ' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' he rephed airily. ' Patience ; 
 your great-grandchildren will reap the benefit 
 of my work. I shall begin — say in thirty, 
 forty, fifty years. Who knows ? I am now 
 two hundred and sixty-four years of age. 
 Durino' nearly the whole of that time I 
 have lived for my own pleasure. What • a 
 life I have had ! And how I wish the eigh- 
 teenth century would return with my five 
 and thirty years ! Oh, to sit at the play in wig- 
 and satin coat, with your hat under your arm 
 and your little telescope in your eye, ogling 
 the women behind the wax-candles ! Oh, for 
 the little suppers after the play, with songs and 
 the wine and the punch ! Oh, for the faro-table 
 and the sweet rapture of winning a couf I Oh,
 
 126 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 for St. James's Park in tlie afternoon and Eane- 
 lagh in the evening, and the dominoes and 
 hoods and the chase of the fair incognita I 
 But the century is gone, and with it half the 
 grace and pleasure of life. Good-night, my 
 friend ! ' 
 
 I was very busy next day, and forgot all 
 about his appointment, which was for half-past 
 twelve. At about two o'clock in the afternoon, 
 however, a policeman came to see me, with 
 a letter addressed to me. I opened it. The 
 lines which were written were illegible. The 
 signature alone remained, ' Montagu Jekyll,' 
 with the address. 
 
 ' Sad accident, sir,' said the policeman. 
 ' The gentleman slipped in the road and was 
 run over and instantly killed. It was a hearse 
 as did it.'
 
 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 127 
 
 A sad accident, indeed. I went to the hotel. 
 My poor friend was laid out, quite dead, ready 
 for his funeral. The odd thing was that his 
 face had grown already quite old, incredibly 
 old ; a thousand lines were round the eyes and 
 mouth, the skin looked like parchment, the 
 fingers were lean and shrivelled. 
 
 ' He made up wonderfully well,' the head- 
 waiter whispered. ' Who would have thought 
 he was such an old man ? He looks like 
 ninety.' 
 
 ' He looks, John,' I said, ' hke two hundred 
 and sixty-four — or,' I added, because the num- 
 ber might seem strange, ' like any other age 
 you like. I was his lawyer once, in some busi- 
 ness matters. I will, if you please, open his 
 desk, and ascertain, if possible, the address of 
 his present advisers.' 
 
 We searched the desk. There was money in
 
 128 THE TEN YEARS' TENANT. 
 
 it, but no more than enough to pay his hotel 
 and funeral expenses, and a number of papers, 
 but all of them illegible. Nor have I learned 
 anything since then about this wonderful 
 client.
 
 SWEET NELLY, 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN SACKCLOTH AND SLAVERY. 
 
 In a trackless country, through a forest stretch- 
 ing away for hundreds, and perhaps thousands, 
 of miles — for no traveller has ever yet crossed 
 the great continent of America and measured 
 its breadth — there journeyed, slowly and with 
 pain, a woman who sometimes carried and 
 sometimes led a little girl four years old. The 
 woman wore no hat nor hood, and her clothes 
 were torn to shreds and tatters by the thorny 
 briars through which she had made her way. 
 Her eyes were wild, and her face, save when 
 she looked at the little child, was set stern : 
 her lips moved as she went along, showing that
 
 132 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 she was engaged in some internal struggle. 
 The forest since she first plunged into it had 
 changed its aspect. Everywhere now were 
 pines, nothing but pines, growing in clumps, 
 or in belts, or in great masses, in place of the 
 oaks, maples, hemlocks, and birches through 
 which she had passed. There were no longer 
 any wild vines ; the air was resinous to the 
 smell ; the ground was soft and yielding. In 
 some places the fugitive drew back her foot 
 in dismay, because the soil sank beneath' her 
 weight. 
 
 The sun was making rapid way down to 
 the west ; tlie shadows were long ; the child 
 dragged its steps, and presently began to burst 
 into a little crying ; the woman sootlied her. 
 Presently the little cry became a great sobbing. 
 ' Nelly is hungry,' she sobbed. 
 
 Then the woman sat down on a f^ilJen
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 133 
 
 trunk, and looking round her, wrung her hands 
 in despair, for she was quite lost ; she knew 
 not where to go, and she had no food. 
 
 ' I thought to find revenge,' she cried, ' and 
 I have found death and murder. Heaven is 
 just. I shall sit and watch the little one starve 
 to death — the child will go first — and then I 
 shall die. Oh, wretched woman ! why wast 
 thou born ? Child, child ' — she burst into 
 tears of despair, and clutched the little one 
 to her heart — ' curse me with your dying- 
 breath. Oh ! my little mnocent, my lamb, I 
 have murdered thee ; for I have no food, no 
 water. Hush ! hush ! Try to sleep.' 
 
 She soothed and rocked the httle one, who 
 presently, weary with the long day's march, 
 dropped asleep, hungry as she was. 
 
 Then the sun sank lower ; a little more, 
 and he woidd have disappeared altogethej',
 
 134 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 and the woman would have been left alone 
 for the night with the starving child : but 
 while the red colour was beginning to spread 
 in the west, she saw emerging from a clump of 
 pines before her an old man. 
 
 He was a white man, but his skin was now 
 dark with exposure to the sun and air ; he was 
 clad in skins ; he was very old ; his hair and 
 beard were long and white ; he leaned upon 
 a stick as he went ; his steps were feeble ; his 
 eyes wandered up and down the glades of 
 the forest, as if he were afraid of being 
 watched. Presently he saw the woman and 
 the child, and after a moment's hesitation he 
 made his way, in a curious and zigzag fashion, 
 across the green space which lay between 
 himself and the woman, and accosted her. 
 
 ' Who are you ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' A runaway,' she replied.
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 135 
 
 ' Show me your hand.' 
 
 She held out her left hand ; he held out 
 his ; on both was the same mark — the brand 
 of a convict. 
 
 ' I am a thief,' she said ; ' I was rightly 
 punished.' 
 
 ' I am an Anabaptist,' he replied. ' I was 
 punished by the law of the land. Who is the 
 child?' 
 
 ' I stole the child. It is my master's. I 
 stole it for revenge, because they were going to 
 flog me. I have brought it all the way. My 
 food is exhausted, and so she will die. And 
 now,' she added, with a despairing cry, ' I am 
 a murderess as well as a thief and the com- 
 panion of thieves, and there can be no more 
 hope for me in this world or the next.' 
 
 The old man shook liis head and looked at 
 the child, still asleep.
 
 136 SWEET AELLY 
 
 ' Come with me,' lie said ; ' the little- 
 one shall not die. I have a hut, and there 
 is food. Both hut and food are poor and 
 rough.' 
 
 He led her with the greatest care across 
 the treacherous quagmire by steps of which he 
 alone knew the secret. ' Here I am quite safe,' 
 he explained, 'because no one except myself 
 can cross the place. Safe, so long as I am in 
 hiding. This place is an island of firm land in 
 the midst of a bog.' 
 
 There was a hut standing beneath pines 
 which grew on ground a little elevated. It 
 was furnished with a few skins and an earthen- 
 ware pot of the rudest kind. There was. 
 besides, another earthenware vessel containing 
 water. In the pot was meal. The old man 
 mixed the water with the meal. 
 
 ' When the child wakes,' he said, ' s^ive her
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 137 
 
 some, and take some yourself at once. Xow 
 sleep in liope: to-morrow I return.' 
 
 ' Oh ! do not leave us alone,' said the 
 woman. 
 
 ' You are quite safe. I go to fetcli more 
 meal ; there are some friendly blacks who will 
 provide me. Sleep in peace.' 
 
 Then he disappeared, and the woman, 
 laying the child upon one of the skins and 
 covering it with the other, sat beside her, 
 wondering, and presently fell fast asleep. In 
 tlie morning when she awoke the sun was 
 already up, and her host was standing in the 
 doorway. Then the child awoke too, and 
 presently sat up and ate her breakfast with a 
 heaity good will. The old man, leaning upon 
 his stick, thereupon began a very serious and 
 solemn discourse. He told the woman what 
 a wicked thing she had done in carrying
 
 138 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 away a helpless child to the great Dismal 
 Swamp, a place inhabited by none but run- 
 aways, and those scattered about, difficult to 
 find, and poorly provided. ' Here,' he said, 
 ^ the whites who have exchanged slavery for 
 this most wretched freedom live separately, 
 each by himself; they are jealous of one 
 another, they suspect each his brother ; and 
 the blacks, who live together in communities, 
 change their quarters continually, for fear of 
 being caught by the planters, who come out 
 with guns and dogs to hunt them down. I 
 have had to lie hidden here without fire or 
 food for days, while the hounds followed my 
 track until the morass threatened to swallow 
 them up. You, who might have courted such 
 a life yourself — did you think what it meant 
 for a child ? ' 
 
 The woman shook her head.
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 139 
 
 ' I liave been here twenty years and more. 
 I have lost the count of time ; I know only the 
 seasons as they follow. I think that I am over 
 seventy, and when I can no longer beg meal 
 of my friends, I must lie down to starve. I 
 have spoken to no wliite person except to you 
 during all this time. When I came I had 
 a Bible. That was lost one night of storm. 
 Since then I have had nothing but my medita- 
 tions and my hopes ; and you — what w^ould you 
 liave had ? The continual memory of a mur- 
 dered child.* 
 
 ^ What shall I do ? what shall I do ? ' she 
 cried. 
 
 'Take back the child ; whatever happen 
 afterwards, take back the child.' 
 
 The little girl looked up in the w^oman's 
 face, and laughed and clapped her hands. 
 
 ' I have sinned,' said the woman. ' Let me
 
 HO SWEET NELLY 
 
 take her back. God forgive me ! She shall 
 go home to her mother.' 
 
 She rose at once, as if there was not a 
 moment to be lost. The old Anabaptist put 
 up some meal in a bag of skin, and led her 
 again over tlie treacherous path. 
 
 ' You have lost your way,' he said. ' I will 
 be your guide.' 
 
 He led her by paths known to himself 
 across forty miles and more of thick forest. 
 When they came near any cleared land, they 
 rested by day and travelled by night. After 
 four days of travelling, tliey came to their 
 destination. 
 
 The old man took the cliild in his arms and 
 solemnly blessed her in all her doings. Then 
 he prayed with the woman for a while, and 
 then, grasping his stick, he disappeared in the 
 forest.
 
 j/V HEART'S DELIGHT. 141 
 
 The woman, left alone, began to tremble. 
 Before her were the broad fields of tobacco 
 belonging to the plantation. On the fields she 
 saw the gangs of men and women at work, 
 the overseers going about among them armed 
 with their heavy whips. Some of the labourers 
 were white, like herself; some were black. 
 Far away, beyond the fields, she saw tlie house. 
 It was afternoon. She retreated . to the forest 
 and sat down, thinking. Finally, she resolved 
 to delay her return until the day's work was 
 done and the gangs had left the fields. 
 
 . It was past seven o'clock and already dark 
 when she came to the house. Slie told the 
 httle one to be very quiet. There was no one 
 in the portico, but there were lights in the 
 state room. The woman opened the door and 
 set the little one down. 
 
 ' Eun to your mother, child,' slie whispered.
 
 142 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 A pattering of little feet, and a wild cry as 
 the mother snatched up her lost babe, and then 
 the woman, leaning against the door, sighed 
 heavily and sank to the ground. They found 
 her there — those who came running at the cry 
 of the mother — and brought her within the 
 room. 
 
 ' It is the woman Alice Purview,' said the 
 master. 
 
 'Leave her to me, husband,' said his wife. 
 'If she carried away the child, she hath 
 brought her back again. Let me deal with 
 her.' 
 
 Madam dealt very gently with her. Her 
 past offence, whatever that was, received 
 pardon ; her wounded and torn feet were 
 bandaged and cared for ; her broken spirit was 
 soothed. When she recovered she was taken 
 from her former office of nurse to the sick
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 143 
 
 ward, and made nurse to the little girl ; and, a& 
 the sequel will show, no girl ever had nurse 
 more faithful, loving, and true. 
 
 The woman was my nurse ; I was the little 
 girl ; that journey to the Dismal Swamp is the 
 first thing I can recollect ; and when I read of 
 Ehjah, I think of the poor runaway Anabaptist, 
 whose face, I am sure, was like unto the face 
 of the prophet. 
 
 It was my fortune to be born in His 
 Majesty's Plantations of Virginia. I am per- 
 suaded that there is not anywhere upon this 
 earth a country more abundantly supplied than 
 this with all that God hath provided for the 
 satisfaction and dehght of man. It is not for 
 me, a simple woman, to undertake the praise 
 of this happy colony, which has been already 
 fitly set forth by those ingenious gentlemen
 
 144 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 wliose business or pleasure it is to recommend 
 the place for the enterprise of gentlemen ad- 
 venturers, planters, and those whose hearts 
 are xaliant though their fortunes be desperate. 
 Yet, when I contemplate the hard and cruel 
 lives led by so many poor people in the great 
 city of London, I am moved to wonder that 
 His Majesty the King, who with his council is 
 ever considering the happiness of his subjects, 
 doth not order the way to be made plain and 
 easy for all who are in poverty to reach this 
 ha])py land. Who, for instance, in the hope of 
 a few pence, earned with trouble and sometimes 
 with kicks and blows, would cry up and down 
 tlie street dry faggots, small coal, matches, 
 Spanish blacking, pen and ink, thread, laces, 
 and the like, when he might with little toil 
 maintain himself in comfort on a farm which 
 lie poidd get for nothing? Tliere is room for
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 
 
 145 
 
 all on the banks of the Potomac, the Eappahan- 
 nock, and the James Elvers. Yet the crowd of 
 the city grows daily greater, and the forests 
 of Virginia remain uncleared. Or when learned 
 men demonstrate that, at the present rate of 
 increase, our own population long before the 
 end of this eighteenth century will be so vast 
 that there will not be enough food for all, and 
 thousands, nay, millions, will yearly pqrish of 
 starvation, I am constrained to think of those 
 broad tracts which are ready to receive thou- 
 sands upon thousands of Englishmen. Sure 
 I am, that if those at home knew the richness 
 and fertility of the American colonies, every 
 newly-born English child w^ould be regarded as 
 a fresh proof of Heaven's benevolence to this 
 country, and another soldier in the cause of 
 liberty and the Protestant faith. 
 
 I was born in the year one thousand seven 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 hundred, on my father's great Virginian estate. 
 It stretched for six miles and more along the 
 banks of a little river, called Cypress Creek, 
 which runs through the Isle of Wight County 
 into the James Eiver. My father, Eobert 
 Carellis, Esquire, was a Virginian gentleman of 
 old stock, being a grandson of one John Carel- 
 lis who came to tlie Province in the ship which 
 brought the first company of Gentlemen Adven- 
 turers. There were, alas ! too many gentle- 
 men on board that vessel, there being fifty of 
 that rank to a poor three of labouring men. 
 They were too proud to dig, being all armigeri 
 and esquires, although younger sons. Some of 
 them in consequence proudly perished of starv- 
 ation ; some fell fighting the Indians ; a few, 
 however, of whom John Carellis was one, 
 survived the first disasters of the colony, and 
 became lords of vast territories covered with
 
 AfV HEARTS DELIGHT. 147 
 
 forest, in a corner of whicli tliey began to plant 
 tobacco. It has been said of tlie Virginian 
 gentlemen that they would all be kaisers, and 
 obey none. In sooth, they are all kaisers, inas- 
 much as they live each on his own estate — the 
 lord and seigneur whose will none questions ; 
 the owner and absolute master of slaves whom 
 they reckon by hundreds. When I read the 
 narratives of those unfortunate men who have 
 served in captivity to Turk or Moor, I think 
 of our slaves in the plantations ; and the 
 hfe of the Turkish bashaw, in my mind, 
 greatly resembles that of his honour, Eobert 
 Carellis, save that my father was ever a 
 merciful man, and inclined to spare the 
 lash. 
 
 Those who worked for us were, of course, 
 all slaves. They were of many kinds, white, 
 black, and copper-coloured. They were Eng- 
 
 L 2
 
 148 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 lisli, Irish, Scotch, French, Africans — men of 
 every country. First, as regards the negroes. 
 There are some, I know, who doubt the right- 
 eousness of this trade in men. Yet it cannot 
 be denied that it must be a laudable thing to 
 bring these poor creatures from a land, where 
 they live in constant danger of life, to one 
 where they are maintained in security ; and 
 from the most brutish ignorance of religion ta 
 a knowledge of the Christian faith. I am aware 
 that the Keverend Matthew Marling, Master of 
 Arts, our late learned rector, held that it is 
 uncertain, the Church not having pronounced 
 upon the matter, whether black negroes, 
 children of Ham and under his curse, have 
 souls to be saved or lost. Yet, I have seen so- 
 many proofs of intelhgence, fidelity, and affec- 
 tion among them, that I would fain believe 
 them to be in all respects, save for their colour.
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 149 
 
 which for this hfe dooms them to a condition 
 of slavery, like unto ourselves. 
 
 Side by side with the negroes worked in 
 our fields the white slaves, sent over to the 
 plantations from the London and Bristol gaols 
 — the forgers, tliieves, foot-pads, shoplifters, 
 Iiighway robbers, passers of counterfeit coin, 
 vagabonds, and common rogues, ivho had, by 
 their ill-doing at home, forfeited their lives to 
 the law and lain in prison under sentence of 
 death. They had been respited by the King's 
 mercy, some of them even rescued at tlie very 
 last moment, when the noose that was to kill 
 them Avas already hanging from the fatal beam, 
 and the bitterness of death was already tasted, 
 and the dismal funeral service had been already 
 commenced by the ordinary. The Eoyal 
 €lemency gave these fortunate wretches a re- 
 prieve, but they were pardoned only on condi-
 
 ISO SWEET NELLY, 
 
 tion of being sold for a term of years to work 
 on the plantations of Virginia, wliither they 
 were conveyed after being branded in the handy 
 and sold on their arrival by public auction to 
 the highest bidder. 
 
 It might be thought that desperate creatures 
 such as these, the offscourings of the country, 
 would prove troublesome, mutinous, or mur- 
 derous. But the contrary was the rule. No 
 one, seeing their obedience, their docility (to be 
 sure, the overseer's terrible whip was always 
 present before their eyes), would have imagined 
 that these men and w^omen had once been 
 hardened criminals, common rogues and vaga- 
 bonds. For the most part they worked cheer- 
 fully, though they lived hardly. Some of the 
 more prudent of them, when their time was 
 out, took up small plantations of their own, 
 grew tobacco, and even advanced so far as to
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 151 
 
 become themselves the owners of slaves, as well 
 as of lands. Then w^ould they fain forget the 
 past, and, in company, when they thouglit 
 tliemselves unknown, would even try to pass for 
 Gentlemen Adventurers. 
 
 There was a third class of plantation slaves 
 of whom my father would have none. I mean 
 the men sold into captivity for rehgious opinions 
 or for political offences. It was a most dreadful 
 thing, my fither said, that men whose only 
 crime was a lack of reasoning power should be 
 driven to work under the lash. Therefore he 
 would never buy any Papists, Anabaptists, or 
 Quakers, although on other plantations there 
 were plenty of these gentry. And while other 
 planters had servants who had been out with 
 Monmouth, or were concerned in some of the 
 little conspiracies of that unquiet time, my 
 father would have nothing; to do with them.
 
 152 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 Once, indeed, in the year one thousand seven 
 hundred and sixteen, he bought and brought 
 home with him half-a-dozen gallant gentlemen 
 (though they were at the time greatly cast 
 down and unhappy in their appearance) who 
 had been engaged on the wrong side in the 
 rising of the Pretender. These, I say, he 
 brought home to his house, and then, calling 
 for wine, he made them a speech. ' Gentle- 
 men,' he said, ' it grieves me to see you in this 
 piteous case. Yet believe me it might have 
 been worse, because, although I have bought 
 you, and, for so many years, your services are 
 mine, yet I cannot find it in my heart to sub- 
 ject persons of your consideration to the rigours 
 contemplated by your judges. I cannot, how- 
 ever, break the law and give you your freedom. 
 I propose, therefore, to establish you all to- 
 gether on a piece of land which you will cul-
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 153 
 
 tivate for yourselves, according to such rules as 
 you choose to establish for your own guidance. 
 There I will help you to what you want for 
 necessaries. And now, gentlemen ' — for all 
 began to cry aloud for surprise and joy — ' here 
 is wine, and we will drink to the health of 
 the King — and on this side of the Atlantic we 
 must all, whatever our opinions, add — " over 
 the water." ' 
 
 We lived in a large house built entirely 
 of wood, like all the houses in the country, 
 and embellished with a wooden portico after 
 the Grecian style, erected in front : this served 
 instead of the verandah which most Virginian 
 houses possess. The great chimney, which served 
 for all the rooms, was built of brick outside 
 the house. The room of state where my 
 mother sat was a low room, forty feet long, lit 
 with five windows, opening upon the great por-
 
 154 
 
 tico ; in tlie summer the glass windows were 
 replaced by green jalousies ; the ceiling was 
 plastered white ; the walls were painted of a 
 dull lead colour ; the fireplace and mantelpiece, 
 which were very grand, were made of walnut- 
 wood richly carved by a London workman, in 
 flowers, fruits, and the arms of the Carellis 
 family, gilt. In the winter there was a screen 
 and a carpet before the fire, but in the summer 
 these were taken away ; the tables and chairs 
 were all from London ; there were portraits of 
 our ancestors on the walls ; there was a genea- 
 logical tree carrying back the family of Carellis 
 to a patriarch who lived about the same time as 
 Abraham (it was so stated on the tree), but 
 wlio is passed over in the sacred narrative be- 
 cause, as I always supposed, his estate was far 
 from that of Abraham, and they never met ; 
 and outside, in the portico, were chairs made of
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 
 
 hickory wood with sloping backs, where, in the 
 summer evenings, my father sat with his friends 
 and smoked a cool pipe of his best Virginia. 
 
 One does not look for books on a Virginian 
 estate, yet we had a goodly library, consisting 
 of Captain John Smith's History of Virginia, 
 Speed's English History, Livy done into Eng- 
 lish by Several Hands, the History of the Tm^ks, 
 the History of the Spaniards' Conquest of 
 Mexico, and the True Eelation of Bacon's Hor- 
 rid Conspiracy. These books served for lesson 
 books for myself, though I do not remember 
 that anyone else ever read them. As for our 
 overseers and people, my father was ever of 
 opinion, in the which I agree with him, tliat 
 the arts of reading and writing should only be 
 taught to those who are in a position of author- 
 ity, so that they may with the greater dignity 
 admonish unto godliness and contentment tliose
 
 156 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 placed under them. The Church Catechism 
 warrants this doctrine, to my thinking. 
 
 Our house was, in fine, a country seat 
 which any Enghsh gentleman would be proud 
 to call his own, furnished witli guest-chambers, 
 dining-rooms, and every sort of convenience 
 and luxury. Behind it lay a great garden 
 planted with fruit trees, vegetables for the table, 
 and herbs for the still-room. Before it was 
 the square, a large cleared ground, on the three 
 sides of which stood the houses of the over- 
 seers and the slaves. All these houses were 
 alike, built of logs, the windows without glass, 
 the brick or mud-built chimney standing at one 
 end ; eacli with a little projecting verandah or 
 lean-to, and some with a small garden, where 
 the people grew what liked them best. There 
 were stables, too, and coach-houses, with horses, 
 mules, cows, turkeys, ducks, geese, fowls, and
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. iS7 
 
 pigs. A running stream ran through the 
 square, and after providing drinking-water 
 above the clearing, became, below it, a gutter 
 to carry off refuse. The pigs ran about every- 
 where, save in the gardens of the house ; and 
 here and there were enclosures where fatting 
 hogs lay grunting and eating till their time 
 arrived. It was like a great farmstead, only 
 there were no corn ricks ; the barns held meal 
 (but it was not grown on the estate) and home- 
 made pork and bacon : the pigs and cattle, like 
 the slaves, belonged to his honour ; all was for 
 him. 
 
 Beyond the house and square lay the to- 
 bacco-fields, and beyond them forest, every- 
 where forest. Save on that side where you 
 rode down to the banks of the great James 
 Eiver, running into Chesapeake Bay, you had 
 forest on all sides, boundless and without end.
 
 158 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 Unless you knew the forest very well ; unless 
 you knew the Indian compass, the hemlock-tree 
 which always inclines its head to the east ; and 
 unless you could read the blazings of the trees 
 which pointed to the homestead, you could lose 
 yourself in the forest in fiwQ minutes ; and then 
 wander round and round in a ring of twenty 
 yards, thinking you were walking straight ahead 
 for miles, till starvation seized you and you fell 
 down and presently died. 
 
 The Virginian manner of hfe was simple, 
 yet plentifLil. It becomes not a woman to 
 think overmuch about eating, yet I own that 
 the English breakfast- tables seem to me but 
 poorly provided compared with those of Vir- 
 ginia. Here, indeed, you have cold meat and 
 small ale in plenty, v/ith bread and cheese, and, 
 for the ladies, a dish of tea ; there you had 
 daily set forth fried fowl, fried ham, bacon
 
 A^V HEARTS DELIGHT. 159 
 
 and eggs, cold meat, preserved peaclies, quinces 
 and grapes, hot wlieaten biscuit, short-cake, 
 corn- cake, griddle-cake soaked in butter, with 
 claret or small ale for the gentlemen, and milk 
 or milk and water for the women and children. 
 Our wine, our malt for brewing, the best sort 
 of our beer, our spices, our sugar, our clotlies, 
 our furniture, all came from England. 
 
 Virginia has been divided into parishes — 
 not like your little London parishes, which con- 
 sist of half an acre of houses, but great broad 
 districts half the size of an English county. To 
 each parish is a clergyman of the Established 
 Church. No dissenters are allowed, nor any 
 meeting-houses save one of Quakers. Our 
 clergyman was paid ten thousand pounds of to- 
 bacco for all his stipend ; and as he could sell 
 it for threepence the pound, you will perceive 
 that the clergy of Virginia are better paid than
 
 i6o SWEET NELLY, 
 
 those of Ed gland. In addition to their stipend, 
 they received two hundred pounds of tobacco 
 for a christening, three hundred pounds for a 
 wedding, and four hundred pounds for a funeraL 
 Add to these advantages that the clergyman 
 was not expected, as is too often the custom 
 here, to rise from the table at the third course, 
 or to drink less wine than his host and the 
 other guests. 
 
 Thus, then, and in so great state, did we 
 live, in the enjoyment of every luxury that can 
 be procured in England, together with those 
 which are peculiar to America — notably, the 
 soft sweet air of Virginia. We were, on our 
 estates, our own builders, carpenters, gardeners, 
 graziers, bakers, butchers, brewers (only we 
 used Enghsh malt), pastry-cooks, tailors, and 
 bootmakers. We had every variety of fish, 
 flesh, and game ; we drank Madeira, Canary,
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. i6i 
 
 claret, cider, peacli brandy, and apple wine ; 
 we formed a society of gentlefolk, separated 
 and set apart from the settlers who had been 
 our bought servants, and who bore in their 
 hands the brand which no years can ever efface. 
 We had been Cavaliers in King Charles's time, 
 but we stood up for Churcli and State, and wel- 
 comed the Protestant hero, great William the 
 Deliverer. We had scant sympathy with those 
 who would trouble the peace for the sake of a 
 Papist Pretender, who, if all reports were true, 
 was no son of King James at all, but liad been 
 brought into the Queen's chamber in a warming 
 pan. Open house was kept for all comers — 
 all, that is, of our own station, for no peer in 
 England was prouder of his rank than we of 
 Virginia were of ours — and should there be 
 a decayed gentleman of good family among us, 
 he might still live at ease and gallantly by jour- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 i62 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 neying from one plantation to another, only- 
 taking care never to outstay his welcome. And 
 this, provided he were a man of cheerful dispo- 
 sition, or one who could sing, shoot, drink, and 
 tell stories, would be difficult, or well-nigh im- 
 possible, in a Virginian house. 
 
 So we lived, and so I grew up ; bred in 
 such courtly and polite manners as were fami- 
 liar with my mother, the most dignified gentle- 
 woman in Virginia ; taught to read, write, cy- 
 pher (but indifferently) ; to work samplers, to 
 make puddings, pies, and preserves, to distil 
 strong waters, to brew home-made wines, to 
 say the Catechism and respect the Church, and, 
 naturally, to believe tliat there was nowhere on 
 the surface of the earth, except, perhaps, tlie 
 King of Great Britain, a man of nobler birth 
 and grander position than his honour, Eobert 
 Carellis, my father.
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 163 
 
 But at the age of nineteen a great misfor- 
 tune happened to me. The overseers brought 
 from James Town, where they had purchased 
 them, six men who, though we did not know it, 
 were suffering from gaol-fever. They all died ; 
 two of the overseers died ; many of the people 
 died ; lastly, my father and mother caught the 
 infection and died too. 
 
 Then I was left alone in the world. 
 
 I had many cousins to whom I could go, but 
 by my father's will — made while in full expecta- 
 tion of death and in true Christian resignation — 
 I was to be sent across the Atlantic to our agent 
 in London, there to remain as his ward until I 
 was twenty-one, when I was to be at liberty to 
 do what I pleased with my inheritance . 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ON TOWER HILL. 
 
 We had a favourable voyage of five weeks 
 and two days, with fair weather and no adverse 
 winds until we arrived off the Nore, where we 
 were compelled to lie to and anchor in the 
 Eoads, together with over a hundred other 
 vessels, small and great, waiting for the wind to 
 change, so that we might beat up the river to 
 the port of London. If I was surprised at the 
 sight of so many ships gathered together in one 
 place, you may think how much more I was 
 astonished as we slowly made our way up the 
 crowded river, and finally dropped anchor in 
 the Pool over against the Tower of London, in
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 165 
 
 the midst of so many masts and such a crowd 
 of ships as, in my ignorance, I had never 
 dreamed of. There were East Indiamen ; 
 dusky colhers ; brightly painted traders with 
 France and Spain ; prodigious gieat ships in the 
 Levantine trade, armed with long carronades ; 
 round Dutch sloops ; with every kind of pm- 
 nace, tender, smack, hoy, brig, schooner, yacht, 
 barge, and ferryboat. On all these ships men 
 w^ere running about, loading, unloading, 
 painting, repairing, fetching, carrying, and 
 shouting. There, before my very eyes, rose the 
 White Tower, of which Speed speaks so much ; 
 London Bridge was on the left ; beyond it the 
 Monument to the Great Fire ; then the dome of 
 St. Paul's, and innumerable spires, steeples, and 
 towers of this rich and prosperous city. I re- 
 membered, standing on the deck of the ship and 
 seeing all these things for the first time, liow
 
 i66 SWEET AELLV, 
 
 we colonists had been accustomed to speak in 
 our boastful way of America's vast plains. 
 Why, is the greatness of a country to be mea- 
 sured by her acres ? Then should the Dis- 
 mal Swamp be more illustrious than Athens, 
 Virginia more considerable than Middlesex, and 
 the Potomac a greater river than the Tiber or 
 the Thames. What have these new countries 
 to show with the old ? Why, the very stones 
 of the old Tower, the narrow arches of the 
 bridge, the towering cathedral, even the 
 roofs of the houses, cry aloud to the people 
 to remember the past, how they fought for 
 liberty and religion, and to be jealous for the 
 future. 
 
 It was late m the afternoon, about five 
 o'clock, when w^e finally came to anchor in 
 the Pool, and I began to wonder what was 
 coming next. My guardian's name was
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT, 167 
 
 Alderman Benjamin Medlycott, and he lived 
 on Tower Hill. He and his had been agents 
 to the Carellis plantation since we first settled 
 there. They were far-off cousins, John 
 Carellis the Gentleman Adventurer having 
 been a first cousin of Carellis Medlycott, the 
 alderman's great-grandfather; so that I was 
 not going among strangers, but my own kin. 
 
 What was he like, this formal merchant 
 whose letters I had read .^ They were full 
 of the prices ciuTent ; they advised the arrival 
 of cargo, and the despatch of wine, spices, 
 furniture, clothes, wigs, saddles, guns, swords, 
 sashes, and all the things which were required 
 in the settlement of a Virginian gentleman of 
 rank. But nothing about himself or his 
 family. 
 
 I had not long to wait in suspense. 
 Presently, standing on the quarter-deck with
 
 i68 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 Nurse Alice, I saw the captain shake hands 
 with a young man soberly attired in a brown 
 square-cut coat, with long calamanco waistcoat 
 down to his knees. I had time to look at 
 him, because he conversed with the captain 
 for a few minutes before the latter led him 
 aft and presented him to me. I set him down 
 at once as a messenger from my guardian, 
 and I made up my mind that his dress, which 
 was by no means so splendid as that which 
 my father habitually wore, was in the fashion 
 of London merchants. There was no finery ; 
 the cuffs were wide and large; steel clocks 
 adorned the shoes ; the stockings were silk, 
 but of a dark colour ; his peruke was long 
 and curled, but not extravagant ; a black silk 
 cravat, of the kind they call a steenkirk, was 
 round his neck, and his laced linen cuffs 
 were of a dazzling whiteness. This splendour
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 169 
 
 of linen, I learned afterwards, was thought much 
 of by London citizens. On his hands, which 
 were white, he wore a single signet ring. He 
 carried no sword, but a short stick was under 
 his arm. His hat was trimmed with silver 
 galloon. As for his face, I could only see 
 then tliat his features were straight and 
 handsome. Was he, I thought, a son of my 
 guardian ? 
 
 After the exchange of a few words with the 
 captain, and receiving a packet of papers, he 
 climbed the companion, and, taking off his 
 hat, bowed low. 
 
 ' Mistress Elinor Carellis,' he said, * I have 
 the honour to present myself as the alderman's 
 chief factor, though unworthy of that posi- 
 tion, and your most obedient servant. My 
 name is Christopher March.' 
 
 I made him a courtesy.
 
 I70 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 - ' I hope,' I said, ' that my guardian is in 
 good health.' 
 
 ' He suffers fi'om gout, otherwise he is 
 well. I trust,' continued the chief clerk, 
 'that you have had a favourable passage, and 
 as much comfort as is possible on board a ship.' 
 
 These compliments exchanged, Christo- 
 pher March — I call him so henceforth, be- 
 cause he never received any other style or title 
 — informed me that he had waiting along- 
 side a boat to carry me ashore, and that the 
 ship's officers would see all my boxes brought 
 up to the house as soon as convenient. 
 Upon that I took leave of my friend the cap- 
 tain — an honest brave sailor, and less addicted 
 than most seafaring' men to the vice of 
 swearing — and so into the boat with Alice, 
 my nurse. 
 
 The little voyage lasted but a few minutes,
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 171 
 
 and we were presently landed at the stairs. 
 Our conductor led us through a narrow lane, 
 with tall Avarehouses on either side, and paved 
 with round stones, which were muddy and 
 slippery ; then we turned to the right, and 
 found ourselves in a broad and open space, 
 which was, he told me. Tower Hill, the 
 place where so many unfortunate gentlemen's 
 heads have fallen. On the other side I 
 saw the beefeaters in their scarlet em- 
 broidered uniform. But I was so bewildered 
 with the noise and the novelty of everything, 
 that I hardly saw anything or heard what was 
 said to me. But we had not far to go. We 
 passed a warehouse four storeys high, and from 
 every storey a projecting beam with ropes, 
 which made me think of the gallows. But the 
 beams were only for the pulleys and ropes 
 by which bales w^ere hfted up and down. 
 
 i
 
 172 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 ' This,' said Christopher March, 'is Mr. 
 Alderman Medlycott's warehouse, and this — ' 
 he stopped at the door of a private house 
 next to the warehouse — ' this is Mr. Alderman 
 Medlycott's residence.' 
 
 He spoke of the alderman in tones of 
 such great respect, that I began to feel as if 
 part of my education had been neglected — 
 that part, I mean, which teaches resjDCCt to the 
 aldermen of London. A thought also crossed 
 my mind that this excessive respect for his 
 master was useful in exaltmg his own position. 
 
 However, there was no time to think, 
 because the door was presently opened, and we 
 found ourselves in a large and spacious hall, 
 containing chairs and a fireplace, with a stand 
 of strange weapons. Horns, heads of buffaloes 
 and deer, and curious things of all sorts, 
 brought to Tower Hill by the alderman's
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 173 
 
 captains, hung upon the walls. Then the maid 
 opened a door to the right, and I found 
 myself in the parlour of a great London city 
 merchant. 
 
 The room was lofty, and had two win- 
 dows looking upon Tower Hill ; the walls 
 were wainscoted and painted in a fashion 
 strange to me and unknown in Virginia. A 
 soft Turkey carpet was on the floor, a bright 
 sea-coal fire was burning in the fire-place, 
 though the air was not cold to one fresh from 
 the sea breezes ; there was a high mantel- 
 shelf, on which were displayed more curiosities 
 from beyond the seas, and above them won- 
 derful specimens of ladies' work in samplers, re- 
 presenting peacocks, birds of paradise, landscapes, 
 and churches all in satin. Seated at one window 
 were two ladies and a gentleman, who rose 
 to receive me. Christopher March, I observed,
 
 174 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 left me at the door with a profound bow. 
 We made deep reverences to each other, and 
 then T bhished because, although Alice had 
 dressed me in all my best, I felt how countri- 
 fied and rustic was my appearance compared 
 with the fine new fashions of these London 
 ladies. 
 
 The elder lady, who was about forty-five 
 years of age, and had a most kind face, 
 with soft eyes, held out her hand. 
 
 ' My dear,' she said, ' I am Mistress Medly- 
 cott, the wife of your guardian, the alderman, 
 who is now ill with the gout, but Avill see you ^• 
 shortly ; and this is my daughter Jenny, who 
 desires your better acquaintance.' 
 
 Jenny here in her turn took me by tlie hand. 
 She was a little thing, and so pretty and 
 agreeable was her face, with bright laughing 
 blue eyes, light brown hair, a dimple in her
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 175 
 
 chin, and saucy lips, that I thought I had 
 never seen the like. ' Good heavens ! ' I 
 thought ; ' what must they think of me — ill- 
 dressed, tall, and ungainly ? ' 
 
 ' Mistress Eh nor,' said Jenny, ' if I were 
 tall enough I would kiss you- As I am not, 
 I hope you will stoop and kiss me. We shall 
 be very good friends, I hope.' 
 
 ' I may present my Lord Eardesley,' said 
 madam, with dignity. ' His lordship, being 
 here upon business with the alderman, liatb 
 requested permission to see ' — here she stopped 
 and smiled very kindly — ' to see the Princess 
 Pocahontas of Virginia.' 
 
 At that little joke we all laughed. His 
 lordship was a young man, about the same 
 height as Christopher March, but very much 
 unlike the chief factor. For while Christopher 
 had a way of dropping his eyes when he met
 
 176 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 your OAvn, and of hanging his head, and in 
 many other ways of showing that he was not 
 perfectly at his ease with ladies, the young lord 
 looked you frankly in the face and laughed, 
 and was not only happy himself in being with 
 two girls, but also made us all happy as well. 
 Only this knowledge came later. 
 
 'I must call you Nelly,' said Jenny, pressing 
 my liand. ' Elinor, or Mistress Elinor, is too 
 long. How tall you are ! And oh ! ' — she 
 broke off, with a sigh and a laugh — ' Nelly, the 
 hearts of all the men will be broken.' 
 
 ' Pray Heaven,' said my lord, ' that the 
 fragments of one, at least, be put together 
 again.' 
 
 ' This is idle talk,' said madam. ' Mistress 
 Elinor will despise us after the grave discourse 
 to which, no doubt, she has been accustomed 
 in Virginia.'
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 177 
 
 '■ We had grave discourse,' I explained, 
 ' when the Eeverend Matthew Marhng came 
 to see us, twice a year. At other times Ave 
 talked about the crops, and my father's sport, 
 and such topics.' 
 
 Presently Lord Eardesley took his leave 
 with more compliments. When he went away 
 it seemed as if some of the sunshine of the 
 room had gone with him. To l)e sure, a great 
 deal of the colour had gone, for his coat was 
 of scarlet silk, and he wore a crimson sash for 
 his sword. 
 
 ' Do not think, Nelly,' said Jenny, in her 
 quick way, ' that lords associate every day 
 with City merchants, or that we know more 
 than one peer. Lord Eardesley has had money 
 affairs with my father for many years, and 
 the custom has grown up for him to call 
 upon us whenever he calls at the counting- 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 178 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 house. Oh, Nelly ! they did not tell us what 
 to expect.' 
 
 ' My dear,' I said, ' you will make me vain. 
 And, indeed, I am not so pretty as you.' 
 
 ' Oh, I ? I am a City girl, little and saucy ; 
 but I know what a beautiful lady of family 
 should be — she should be like you. You ought 
 
 to be Lady ' 
 
 ' Jenny,' her mother interrupted, ' for 
 shame. As for Lord Eardesley, Elinor, he is 
 an excellent young man ; but he is, unfortu- 
 nately, very poor, his father having gambled 
 away all the money and most of the estates. 
 Poor young Lord Eardesley will probably have 
 to take service with the Austrian.' 
 
 Jenny shook her head. 
 
 ' He had better carry the Virginian colours,' 
 she said, with a laugh. ' Come with me, Nelly. 
 I will show you your room.'
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 179 
 
 They had bestowed me m the best room on 
 the first floor, which had a httle room beside it 
 for Ahce. I was at first much awed by the 
 magnificence of the bed, which was much 
 finer and more richly hung than any in our 
 Virginian home. But famiUarity presently re- 
 conciles us to the most majestic things. Here 
 I found my boxes and trunks, which had been 
 brought ashore, and here was Alice taking 
 everything out. Jenny looked on, naturally 
 interested at the display of dress, and though 
 she kindly said nothing, it was plain to me 
 that she found my frocks of a fashion quite im- 
 possible to wear in London. Presently, how- 
 ever, we came to my jewel-case, wherein lay 
 all the family treasures, which had been my 
 mother's ; and her dehght was extraordinary 
 when she had dressed herself up in all the 
 necklaces, bracelets, rings, chains, and glittering
 
 i8o SWEET NELLY, 
 
 gauds][which had been worn by many suc- 
 cessive matrons in the Carellis family. She 
 then threw her httle head back, waved her 
 hands, and went through a hundred posturings 
 and bowings. 
 
 ' I am Mrs. Bracegirdle, at tlie theatre,' she 
 said. ' This is how she looks and carries her 
 fan, and makes eyes at the beaux in the pit.' 
 
 However, we could not stop playing there,, 
 because madam sent word that the alderman 
 was ready to see me. 
 
 It was nr)w past six, and candles were lit. 
 Madam herself led me to the back of the 
 house, where was a covered wa}- to the 
 counting-house. Here the alderman himself 
 was sitting with his clerk, Christopher March. 
 One foot was wrapped in flannel, and lying on 
 a cushion ; a stick stood by the side of the arm- 
 chair in which he sat, with a pillow to give
 
 A/V HEART'S DELIGHT. i8i 
 
 him ease ; bundles of papers were on the 
 table before Inm. 
 
 ' Come in, my dear,' he said, in a cheery 
 voice — ' come in. Leave her here, wife, to 
 talk to me. Send for her when you take 
 your dish of tea. I^ow, Christopher, your 
 day's work is done. Good-night to you, and 
 be off.' 
 
 The words were peremptory, but the tone 
 was gentle. Christopher March bowed low to 
 him, and lower still to madam, and departed. 
 Meanwhile I looked to see what manner of 
 man this guardian of mine might be. He was 
 a man of sixty or so, and he had a mon- 
 strously red face, but his nose was redder still ; 
 his lips were thick and projecting ; his wig was 
 pushed a little off one side, which made him 
 look, somehow, as if he were going to say 
 something to make everybody laugli. His eyes
 
 l82 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 were kind and soft, and his voice, tliough a 
 little rough, was kind, too. In fact, as I after- 
 wards found out, the alderman was well known 
 for being the kindest man who ever sat on the 
 bench of magistrates, or ruled a great house 
 with many clerks and servants. 
 
 The first thing that he did, however, was 
 not reassuring. He clutched the arm of his 
 chair, leaned forward, and gazing upon me 
 w^ith intense eyes, he shouted : 
 
 ' Death and zounds ! ' 
 
 Naturally, I shrank back, frightened. 
 
 'Do not be alarmed, my dear,' said his 
 wife calmly. ' It is his only relief when a 
 pinch seizes his toe.' 
 
 I thought he would have a fit, for his eyes 
 stood out of his head, and his face became 
 quite purple. But he recovered suddenly, and, 
 with a sigh of relief, resumed the benevolent
 
 AfV HEART'S DELIGHT. 183 
 
 expression which the redness of his face and 
 his puffed cheeks could not altogether conceal. 
 ' Sit down, my dear,' he said. ' I am 
 better now ! Phew ! That was a pinch. If 
 you want to know what gout is like, take a 
 hair-pin from your pretty head and put it in 
 the fire till it is a white heat. Then put it to 
 the middle joint of — your thumb will do for 
 illustration — and hold it there tight ; and if 
 you find that any method besides swearing w411 
 relieve you, I sliall be glad to know what that 
 method is. Sit down, my dear, and let us talk.' 
 
 I took a chair opposite to him, and madam 
 left us alone. He arranged his papers, and 
 began to talk to me about my affairs. 
 
 First, after some kind compliments on my 
 beauty (which I may pass over), he told me of 
 his grief on receiving intelligence of my father's 
 death, by which unhappy event he had lost a
 
 i84 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 much esteemed correspondent. He had always 
 lioped, he said, to see my honoured fatlier some 
 day at liis poor home, and offer him such lios- 
 pitality as a London merchant, with the aid of 
 his company — that of the Grocers — could 
 command. He added, with much considera- 
 tion, that it would have been his duty to re- 
 commend my father to the hospitality of the 
 Lord Mayor, as a Virginian Gentleman Ad- 
 venturer of the highest position ; and he gave 
 me to understand that in the important matter 
 of turtle soup and fat capons, without speaking 
 of venison, turkey, Christmas ducks, small fowl, 
 haunches of mutton, and barons of beef, and 
 without dwelling on the hypocras, loving cups, 
 and their vast cellars filled with such wine as 
 even kings cannot equal, the Worshipful Com- 
 pany of Grocers stood pre-eminent among the 
 Cit}^ guilds.
 
 JIIV HEART'S DELIGHT. 185 
 
 ' Our kitchen motto,' he added, with a fine 
 feeling of pride, which, somehow, seemed to 
 reflect credit upon him, as indicating a tlu'ifty 
 habit as well as a large enjoyment of good 
 things, ' is one ^vhich should be engraven on 
 the heart of every one Avho loveth the good 
 gifts of Heaven, ' Waste not — spare not ; ' so 
 that while the reputation of the City be main- 
 tained, we may ever remember that there are 
 others outside our hall not so richly favoured 
 as ourselves. And you may see, my dear, 
 within a stone's throw of Grocers' Hall itself, 
 boys and even men who have, poor wretches, 
 to make a dinner oflP a penny dish of beef 
 broth, with a cup of small ale added by tlie 
 charity of the cook.' 
 
 After this digression, he proceeded with the 
 main thread of his discourse, which was to the 
 effect that, although I had some two years to
 
 1 86 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 wait before I attained my majority, it was his 
 duty to lay before me an account of my affairs 
 and of his stewardship. 
 
 And then occurred the greatest surprise of 
 all my life. Of course I knew without being 
 told that the daughter of Mr. Eobert Car ell is, 
 his only child, was certain to be what in 
 Virginia would be called wealthy. I could not 
 live in the rough splendour of the plantation 
 without looking on myself as belonging to the 
 ranks of those who are called rich. But I was 
 not prepared for the greatness of the fortune 
 which my guardian announced to me. 
 
 The successive owners of the Carelhs estate 
 had all transmitted their tobacco every year to 
 Medlycott and Company. The merchants re- 
 ceived the cargo, sold it, and after remitting 
 to Virginia all those things which were 
 required, invested the remainder of the
 
 AfV HEARTS DELIGHT. 187 
 
 money as advantageously as was possible. 
 Mine was the fourth generation of this annual 
 consignment ; and though some years might 
 be poor, some cargoes might be wrecked or 
 spoiled, yet in the space of a hundred years 
 the profits of the tobacco had grown up to a 
 vast amount of money. In a word, I was a 
 very great heiress. My guardian held in trust 
 for me over one hundred thousand pounds, 
 and my plantation in Vn^ginia produced, 
 even under the careless and easy rule of 
 my father, more than a thousand pounds a 
 year. 
 
 ' You are worth,' said Mr. Medlycott, 
 looking at the figures with admiring eyes, ' you 
 are worth more than a plum.' He smacked his 
 lips over the word. ' A plum, my dear. How 
 few of us, unworthy and unprofitable servants 
 that we are, a(jhieve a plum ! and how many
 
 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 things can be boiiglit when one lias a plum 
 in one's hand to buy them with.' 
 
 Ey a pkim, I learned afterwards, he meant 
 a hundred thousand pounds. 
 
 ' But what am I to do with all this money?' 
 I cried, aghast. 
 
 ' You will buy, my dear,' he said, laughing, 
 Halbalas for your frocks, quilted petticoats, 
 gold kickshaws, china, pet negro boys ' 
 
 ' Oh, no,' I said, laughing ; ' I Jiave had 
 quite enough of negro boys already.' 
 
 * Then there is one expense saved. And as 
 for the rest, why, my child, unless we take 
 heed, your husband — nay, never blush — will 
 show you how to spend it. There are 
 gamblers enough, I warrant, among the gal- 
 lants of St. James's, who would cock their hats 
 for our Virginian heiress, and leave lier in 
 the end as ragged as any fish-wife. But fear
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 189 
 
 not, Cousin Elinor. Here shall we keep you 
 under lock and ward, safe from the Mohocks.' 
 
 Presently he stopped, and I, fearing to 
 trespass longer on his patience, rose to 
 go. 
 
 He took my hand, and was about to raise 
 it to his lips, when another twinge of gout 
 seized him. 
 
 ' My dear ward Death and zounds ! ' 
 
 When I returned to the parlour I found 
 Jenny waiting for me. 
 
 ' Come,' she said, ' let us sit down and talk. 
 We shall be alone for half an hour, and we 
 have so many things to say that one does not 
 know where to begin.' 
 
 I noticed then that there was some appear- 
 ance of preparation. 
 
 ' It is our evening for cards,' Jenny 
 explained. ' Most ladies in the City have one
 
 I90 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 evening a week ; and, indeed, my mother, who 
 is fond of a game, generally plays four or fiwQ 
 evenings in the week. But, for my part, I love 
 better to sit out and talk.' 
 
 Two silver candlesticks were on the mantel- 
 shelf, hghted, and four more stood, ready to be 
 lighted, on the card-table, set out with counters 
 and cards. 
 
 ' Have we,' I asked, ' so much to say ? ' 
 
 ' Why, surely. Princess Pocahontas. We 
 are to be friends, and to tell each other every- 
 thing. Now, show your friendship by telhng 
 me how you like the name — the name ' — here 
 she blushed and laughed — ' of Lysander.' 
 
 ' Of Lysander ^ ' 
 
 ' And Clarissa ? Lysander and Clarissa. 
 Do they go well together ? I will show you 
 his poems, and on Sunday next I will show 
 you — himself.'
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 191 
 
 I began to understand. It was a little love 
 story that was to be confided to me. 
 
 ' And does no one know anything about it ?' 
 
 ' Hush — sh ! ' She opened her eyes very 
 wide and shook her pretty head. ' No one. 
 Christopher March receives his letters and 
 gives them to me privately. I send mine to 
 Wills's Coffee House. It is like the novel of 
 " Clarinda, or the Secrets of a Heart," all in 
 letters. And on Sunday mornings we sigh at 
 each other across the pew^s while the people 
 are singing the psalms.' 
 
 The young man, Christopher March, then, 
 was assisting to deceive his master by secretly 
 receiving letters for his master's daughter. 
 This was very remarkable in so good a young- 
 man. But I could say no more then, because 
 the company began to arrive. They were all 
 ladies, except Christopher March himself, who
 
 192 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 had assumed a gayer coat for the evenmg ; 
 and, still ^vitli the exception of that young 
 man, they all came to play cards. A little 
 delay, at which some waxed impatient, 
 happened while I was introduced as the Vir- 
 ginian newly arrived, but presently they were 
 all seated at the table and deep in play. 
 Among them were one or two quite young 
 girls, no older tlian Jenny or myself, and it 
 surprised me to see them staking and losing 
 little piles of counters, which meant, I knew, 
 money. The ladies were very finely dressed, 
 with patches set on artfully — some of tliem 
 with more paint than I could approve — and 
 their manners very stately. But, Lord! to 
 see what a change the chances of the game 
 presently wrought in my hostess's face, which 
 had naturally so much kindness in it. For 
 her colour came and went, her eyes brightened,
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 193 
 
 and her mouth stiffened. She represented in 
 turns, and in a most Kvely manner, the varied 
 emotions of hope, terror, indignation, joy, and 
 despair. The other ladies were like her, but 
 they concerned me less. 
 
 'Look at my mother,' whispered Jenny. 
 ' That is the way with her every night. She 
 says there is no other joy so great as to win 
 at cards. Let us play and sing.' 
 
 She played the spinet very prettily, and 
 presently sang with great spirit, ' As down 
 in the meadows I chanced to pass.' 
 
 Christopher March applauded, and then 
 asked me to sing. I declined, because I 
 wished to do nothing but look on that first 
 night. Then he began to talk to us, and 
 paid compliments, at which Jenny laughed 
 contemptuously — it was clear that her father's 
 clerk was a person of small position in her eyes. 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 
 
 At twelve o'clock the chairs came, and 
 the ladies presently rose to go. After what 
 promised to be an endless shouting of bearers 
 and link-boys, with more swearing, the chairs 
 were got away at last. 
 
 Madam sank into a seat and pressed her 
 hands to her head. 
 
 ' Did ever woman have such luck ? ' she 
 
 cried, lifting her face, 
 
 ' You have lost, madam ? ' asked Christopher, 
 
 with a grave face. 
 
 She groaned. 
 
 ' I shall want to see you to-morrow raorn- 
 ning, Christopher,' she said. ' Girls, go to bed. 
 Elinor, my dear, I thought you would bring 
 me good luck.' 
 
 To be sure, as the sequel proved, my 
 arrival was the beginning of the worst luck in 
 the world.
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 195 
 
 All niglit I lay awake listening to the 
 rolling and rumbling of carts and coaches, 
 which never seemed to stop. About three in 
 the morning there was a lull, but the noise 
 began again at six, and at seven it was at its 
 height again, with shouting of men and cries 
 of the streets. 
 
 ' Oh, nurse ! ' I cried, ' is London always 
 so full of noise ? ' 
 
 ' Always,' she replied. ' There is never 
 any lull from year to year. It is the 
 labour of the world which makes this 
 noise.' 
 
 She dressed me, and I went downstairs. 
 No one was there yet, although it was already 
 half-past seven, and Betty, the maid, when she 
 came to clear away the card-tables and set 
 out the breakfast, was astonished to see me so 
 early. I waited a little, and then took refuge
 
 196 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 with Jenny, wlio was lying awake, reading 
 Lysander's last. 
 
 ' It is beautiful, Nelly,' she cried, with 
 sparkling eyes. ' How should you like to 
 have a man writing to you — verses, you know, 
 not prose — beautiful verses like this : 
 
 Sure, Jenny hatli some secret charm 
 That she doth guard, but not discovers, 
 
 To raise the hopes and soothe th' alarm 
 Of all her sighing, anxious lovers.' 
 
 It did not seem to me very real, or if the 
 poet meant it ; but it would have been unkind 
 to say so. 
 
 ' When my mother loses at cards,' she told 
 me, * she always sends for Christopher March. 
 He gives her money without my father 
 knowing any thing about it. What she does 
 with the money which she wins, I cannot 
 
 teir
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 197 
 
 Then we went downstairs and had a dish 
 of chocolate for breakfast. The chocolate was 
 good, but I missed the abundant and plentiful 
 provision of things wliich we had in Virginia. 
 xTot that one wanted to eat more, but in 
 America, as I have already said, there is 
 always on the table a prodigality of good 
 things, as if nature was lavish with her gifts. 
 
 After breakfast I stood at the window 
 and looked at the people. There was a com- 
 pany of soldiers in red coats going through 
 drill ; at the right-hand side, a little in advance, 
 stood the fugleman, with a pike, and it seemed 
 to me as if the men were all copying him ; 
 in front of them was a sergeant, brave with 
 ribbons, giving the orders in a hoarse voice, 
 and with him a drummer boy, smart and ready. 
 The open space north of the Tower was 
 crowded with groups of sailors waiting to be
 
 198 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 hired by the captains of trading ships, who 
 marched gravely about among them, asking 
 questions of one and another, and sometimes 
 engaging one. In one place a quarrel and a 
 fight, quickly begun and soon ended ; in an- 
 other a pump, whither I see a crowd haling a 
 boy with shout and laughter, and presently 
 pumping upon him till he is half drowned. 
 Then they let him go, and he creeps away, wet 
 and faint with ill-usage. 
 
 Then, when I had tired of looking out of 
 the window, nothing would please Jenny but 
 that I must go a-shopping in Cheapside. It 
 was already eleven of the forenoon, and the 
 streets were filled with people. I was so 
 rustic and ignorant that I was for stopping at 
 every shop and gazing stupidly at every crowd, 
 so that people had much ado not to run against 
 me. However, Jenny made me take the wall,
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 199 
 
 and by leading me through the narrow lanes 
 and passages which make this wonderful city 
 like an anthill, she conveyed me safely to 
 Cheapside, where for two hours we were shown 
 the most wonderful things, and I laid out a 
 great sum of money, by Jenny's advice and 
 instigation, all to make me fine. There were 
 wadded calico wrappers ; a musk-coloured vel- 
 vet mantle, lined with squirrel skins ; falbalas ; 
 laced shoes with high heels ; roundabout 
 aprons with pockets ; hoods ; satin frocks ; 
 whalebone hoops ; a gold repeating watch, with 
 a gold chain ; a gold etui for needles and 
 scissors ; and all sorts of vanities, the like of 
 which I had never before dreamed of; and 
 yet they pleased me. Heaven knows, being a 
 girl, and therefore by nature prone to love 
 these worthless yet pretty things. Besides, as 
 Jenny said, ' You are a great heiress, my dear.
 
 200 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 It is fitting that you should dress so that no 
 one will mistake you for a poor, penniless 
 country maid.' I wanted to present her with 
 something to hansel friendship, but she would 
 have nothing except an ostrich egg, set in a 
 rim and feet of silver, which took her fancy, 
 together with a silver-gilt box for carraway 
 comfits, to be taken during long sermons : 
 the lid, I remember, was beautifully ena- 
 melled with a Cupid fishing for hearts. And 
 one little thing she bought herself. It was a 
 ninepenny-piece, bent both ways by no less 
 a person than the great Lilly, the fortune- 
 teller. Jenny bought it for luck at langter-a- 
 loo. But I never heard that it brought her any, 
 and I fear that the man who sold it was dis- 
 honest — perhaps Lilly never saw the coin, and 
 the dealer himself may have bent that piece. 
 As for lip-salves, rouge, and all the things
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 201 
 
 which we were asked to buy, I would have none 
 of them ; and, indeed, Jenny owned that I 
 needed not the artifices with which some of the 
 pale City madams are fain to heighten and 
 set off their graces. 
 
 The next day we went to church at ten in 
 the morning. The church of our parish was 
 that of St. Olave, a beautiful structure, built by 
 that great architect Sir Christopher Wren. Our 
 own pew was square, with straw hassocks and 
 red serge seats, high and narrow. . I was as- 
 tonished to see the ladies as they came in 
 bowing to their friends in the pews. I^or did 
 it seem to me becoming for gentlemen carry- 
 ing their hats under one arm, and having 
 their canes suspended from the button of their 
 right sleeve, to take out little telescopes and 
 look up and down the church, spying out their 
 friends. Several of these tubes were directed
 
 202 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 at our pew, and I saw Jenny suddenly drop 
 her eyes upon lier prayer-book, and assume an 
 air of devotion which I had not thought to 
 belong to her nature. 
 
 In Virginia we had service for all alike, the 
 household, the convicts, and the negroes, so that 
 I was sorry to see in this church none but the 
 well-to-do, with the respectable clerks and their 
 wives. Surely, I thought, free-born Britons 
 of all kinds should be brought to the ordinances 
 of religion as much as negroes and convict 
 slaves. The clergyman who read the prayers 
 was a young gentleman fresh from the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford, where, I learn, they for ever 
 run after some new thing. The language of 
 the prayer-book was not, it seems, to his liking. 
 He would have ' pardons ' instead of ' pardoneth,* 
 and ' absolves ' for ' absolveth ; ' but I think 
 his taste was wrone^ when he chose to read,
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 203 
 
 ' endue 'um, enrich 'um, prosper 'um,' instead of 
 ' endue them,' &c., as I had been accustomed 
 to read. 
 
 While the psalms Avere singing, Jenny- 
 nudged me gently with her hand, and I saw 
 her turn her head half round and look straight 
 across the church. Then she shut her eyes, 
 and gently raised and dropped her head, and I 
 remembered what she told me about their sighs 
 in church. Sure enough, on the opposite side 
 of the church, Avas a young gentleman who was 
 affected in exactly the same manner. He did 
 not appear to me to be possessed of a very 
 noble appearance, being small, pale, and with a 
 turned-up nose, a feature which in men should 
 be straight, or perhaps Eoman. When we sat 
 down, our heads being well below the top of 
 the pew, Jenny whispered to me that it was 
 Lysander. The lesson for the day was a
 
 204 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 chapter of Proverbs, and there were in it certain 
 verses which seemed a special rebuke for the 
 frivohty of us gu'ls. ' Favour is deceitful and 
 beauty is vain ; but a woman that feareth the 
 Lord, she shall be praised.' 
 
 The sermon, a very long one under five 
 heads, was preached by the rector himself, in 
 whose face and voice I seemed to perceive some 
 resemblance to my guardian the alderman, for 
 his cheeks and nose were red and puffed, and 
 his voice was thick. He was, in fact, tlie 
 chaplain of the Grocers' Company, and, as such, 
 was present at all their feasts. At last he 
 finished the sermon, and we all got up and 
 came away. If the ragged boys had not come 
 to the service, at least they were standing out- 
 side the doors, and while we thronged the 
 porch there was a cry of pickpocket, and one 
 of them darted from the crowd and fled
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 205 
 
 through some of the lanes, followed by two or 
 three. 
 
 The next day, after serious talk with madam, 
 I began to undertake the study of those things 
 in which I could not fail to be ignorant. The 
 most important were that I should learn to 
 dance, and that I should be improved in music 
 and singing, and for these I had masters. My 
 dancing- master, who took the first place, and 
 considered himself an artist of the greatest dis- 
 tinction, was Sieur Isaac Lemire, a French 
 gentleman of Huguenot descent, born in London. 
 He was a man of little stature, somewhat over 
 the middle age, "with thin features and bright 
 eyes. He was very careful about his dress, 
 which was always in accordance with the most 
 recent French fashion ; he spoke English as 
 well as French ; and when he went out to give 
 a lesson he was followed by a negro boy carry-
 
 2o6 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 ing the fiddle with whicli he accompanied his 
 instruction. 
 
 ' Mademoiselle,' he said with a profound 
 bow, on being introduced to me, ' I am charmed 
 by the prospect of lending a fresh grace to one 
 already possessed of so fine a figure and so 
 beautiful a face. Mistress Jenny, I am your 
 very humble servant. You will, I trust, assist 
 us in our task.' 
 
 Jenny always stayed, partly because she 
 loved dancing and partly because this professor 
 talked during the whole lesson, and gave us 
 the latest West End news, which we could not 
 get from the ' Postman ' or the ' Examiner.' 
 
 ' A young lady dancing,' said the professor, 
 tuning his fiddle and occasionally allowing one 
 foot a preliminary flourish as if for a treat ; ' a 
 young lady dancing is a brandished torch of 
 beauty. She is then most dangerous to the
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 207 
 
 heart of man ; she is then most powerfuL' 
 Twang-twang. ' You will now, mademoiselle, 
 have the goodness to pay attention to the 
 carriage of Miss Jenny while she treads with 
 me the minuet de la cour' It is a beautiful 
 dance, the minuet. My heart warmed for it at 
 once ; the stateliness of it ; the respect for 
 woman which is taught by it ; the careful bear- 
 ing of the body, the grace of the studied 
 gestiu"es, which must be in harmony with the 
 music ; all these things made me love the minuet. 
 That was our first lesson; but the professor 
 was not contented with the minuet only, al- 
 though that dance was the most important. 
 We had, besides, the Enghsh country dances ; 
 we danced the Hey, with Joan Sanderson, the 
 Scotch reel, the round, and the jig. He taught 
 us, besides, the old-fashioned dances, such as 
 used to be danced at Court, the saraband, which
 
 2o8 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 Jenny did very prettily, with the help of cas- 
 tanets, and coranto, and the cotillon. And 
 then he taught us figures of his own country, 
 such as the Auvergne hourree^ the Basque step, 
 and the jigs of Poitou and Picardy. 
 
 Once, when we were in the midst of our 
 lesson, Lord Eardesley paid us a visit. Then it 
 was delightful to practise with him as a partner, 
 while Jenny played the spinet and the pro- 
 fessor the violin. And his lordship and the 
 professor, and Jenny, too, all said kind things 
 of my grace and quickness in learning. 
 
 So began my new life, with kindness, hos- 
 pitality, and affection, such as I had not looked 
 for nor expected. When the alderman grew 
 better I found him the most delightful of com- 
 panions, full of stories about the greatness of 
 London and the vastness of her commerce. I 
 was troubled, however, in my mind when I
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 209 
 
 thought what he would say if he knew that his 
 wife secretly took money from Cliristopher 
 March, and that his daughter, by help of the 
 same agent, was carrying on a correspondence 
 with a secret lover. 
 
 As for nurse, she began by being heavy and 
 dull, whereat I guessed, rightly, that she was 
 thinking over that bad past which never left 
 her mind. She spoke little of it, but once 
 when we were ciossing Tower Hill, and I gave 
 a penny to a ragged brat, she began to cry 
 gently, and told me that she had once a son 
 who might have been like that poor boy, as 
 friendless and neglected. ' And their end, my 
 dear, is to carry a musket for sixpence a day, 
 and so get killed in battle, or to go a-thieving, 
 and so get hung.' 
 
 After a while, however, she cheered up and 
 found her way to the place which most de- 
 
 VOL. I, P
 
 2IO SWEET NELLY, 
 
 liglited her, the still-room. Here she sat among 
 the bottles and compounds, making lavender 
 water, ratafia water, decoction of primroses for 
 toothache, cowslip wine, elder-flower wine, 
 and elder-berry wine, preserving poppy-heads 
 and camomile for fever pains, horehound for 
 coughs, trying all the thousand recipes which 
 a woman of her condition of life should, if she 
 be a notable woman and take a pride in her 
 own knowledge, understand perfectly. And 
 madam said that she had never a still-room 
 maid with half her handiness and knowledge.
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 RIVAL SUITORS. 
 
 Naturally, I had to unlearn a good many of 
 the opinions which I had learned in Virginia. 
 For instance, I thought there that in England 
 everyone was honest except those few excej)- 
 tions who, being caught, were either hanged or 
 else branded in the hand, well flogged, and sent 
 across the seas to us. I now learned that for 
 one so caught there were a hundred thieves at 
 large, and that every unknown person was con- 
 sidered dishonest until the contrary was proved. 
 As for my ideas of religion, it was always diffi- 
 cult for me to believe that the fine ladies and 
 gentlemen in the City churches were so devout 
 p 2
 
 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 as our poor Virginian convict^. As for our 
 amusements, I could not learn to like cards, be- 
 cause it seemed to me cruel to take the money of 
 a player who could not afford to lose it. But I 
 liked the City shows, when we could look out 
 from a window and see the processions, the Lord 
 Mayor's day of state when he sat in his gilded 
 coach, preceded by the train-bands, the City 
 companies, and the masons, singing, ' Hey ! the 
 merry masons ! Ho ! the merry masons,' as 
 they went, while the cannon were fired and the 
 bells clashed. On the Fifth of November they 
 carried Gog and Magog through the streets 
 with more bands. Sometimes the butchers 
 made a wedding merry-making with bones and 
 cleavers. At Christmas the waits came at 
 midnight — 
 
 Sing high, sing low, sing to and fro, 
 Gro tell it ont with speed ;
 
 MY HEARTS DELIGHT. 213 
 
 and the mummers came without being invited 
 — Turks, sweeps, kings and queens — and 
 frohcked among us as long as they listed. 
 And at the New Year we had parties at which 
 the alderman would have no cards, but only 
 the merry old games of blind man's buff, hot 
 cockles, and country bumpkin. On Twelfth 
 Night we looked for the bean in the cake. In 
 the spring, when the flowers came, whenever 
 there was a City rejoicing we had gardeners' 
 walks made in the streets and lanes with green 
 arches and rows of flowers — lupins, bachelors' 
 buttons, peony roses, ribbon grass, and the like. 
 There was, indeed, no lack of amusement for 
 me, a girl who had seen so little. 
 
 It took me long to learn the value of 
 money. To teach it was the alderman's share 
 in my education. He gave me whatever I 
 wanted, but made me enter it in a book which
 
 214 SWEET NELLY 
 
 he kept for tlie pur^DOse. I put it down on the 
 left-hand side, and on the right I set out all 
 that I had bought. It was a record of vanity, 
 for the most part, and my cheeks burned while 
 the alderman read it aloud. 
 
 ' To laced gloves, two shilhngs ; to satin 
 for a frock, five guineas ; to hoops for ditto, 
 twelve shillings. Truly, my dear, no husband 
 will be wanted to teach thee how money may be 
 spent. Let us consider how it has been made. 
 These gloves of thine stand for eight pounds of 
 tobacco ; this satin for four hundredweight — 
 a grievous load of tobacco for your young 
 slender shoulders. How many naked wretches 
 have risen early and toiled all day in the sun 
 beneath the whip to sow, plant, weed, keep clean, 
 pick, and roll this tobacco before it could be sold 
 or exchanged for thy satin frock ? They have 
 fared of the worst, these creatures, and toiled
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 215 
 
 the hardest, all that thou mightest go in satin 
 and hoops. Of a truth, my dear, thy lines have 
 been cast in pleasant places.' 
 
 The alderman, to be sure, had his own 
 weaknesses. I might have asked him, for 
 example, why he ate turtle soup and drank the 
 strong wine of Oporto, when so many boys 
 were running ragged and uncared for about 
 the streets. . !N"evertheless, his words were 
 timely, and made me understand what a 
 thoughtless gu'l was I, who could, without 
 reflection, thus waste and lavish the money 
 which the labour of so many poor wretches 
 had been given to save up. And yet, whether 
 I spent the money or whether I saved it, made 
 no difference to the convicts or to the 
 negroes. 
 
 But the thing which most astonished me 
 was the conversation of the young ladies who
 
 2i6 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 called upon Jenny and me, and were our 
 friends. For, when we were all alone together, 
 they talked about nothing but love-making and 
 how to attract the admiration and attention of 
 men. For my own part, I suppose that if I had 
 ever thought about it at all, I had considered 
 it likely that I should some day marry some one, 
 and so dismissed the matter from my mind. 
 The ordered coiu*se of things would come in 
 due time. But these girls were continually 
 thinking and talking about the lover of the 
 present or of the future ; they had their little 
 secrets ; they would show each other songs 
 and verses addressed to their fair ej^es, just as 
 Jenny did ; they discussed the beaux, their 
 dress, their carriage, their impudence, or 
 their wit (mostly, I beheve, their wit 
 was impudence) ; and they openly pitied, or 
 derided, any of their friends who had failed to
 
 A/V HEARTS DELIGHT. 217 
 
 find a lover and was destined to lead apes in 
 that place which frivolous and thoughtless 
 persons are too ready to name lightly. 
 
 ' Were you not so tall, Nelly,' said Jenny, 
 when I first remonstrated with her on this idle 
 talk, ' I would call you little Puritan. But 
 prithee consider. If it were not for the atten- 
 tion and thought that men bestow upon us and 
 we upon them, what would become of the men. 
 It is for their own good, my dear, more than 
 for ours, that we seek to attract their foolish 
 eyes.' 
 
 Here, indeed, was a pretty turning of the 
 tables ! 
 
 ' No man, my dear,' she went on, laughing, 
 ' can possibly make any figiu-e in the world 
 imtil he begins to hope for our favours. Then, 
 indeed, he pays attention to his figure and his 
 manners, learns to talk, dresses himself in the
 
 2i8 SWEET AELLY, 
 
 latest mode, carries himself with a fashionable 
 air, and becomes a pretty fellow. Then, to 
 attract the eyes of one of us, he studies to 
 distinguish himself, and when he cannot 
 succeed he tries to be different from his fellows, 
 and commits a thousand pretty follies. 
 Such, my dear, are a few of the benefits we 
 confer upon our lovers.' 
 
 Jenny stopped and laughed again. 
 
 ' What part does Lysander play ? ' I 
 asked. 
 
 At that she smiled and blushed prettily. 
 * Lysander,' she said, ' has offended his 
 Clarissa. I have had enough verses, and I 
 have written to say that if he wishes to gain 
 my favours in reahty, he must now, in person, 
 inform me of his rank and name.' 
 
 ' Good heavens, child ! ' I cried. ' Do you 
 mean that you have been in correspondence
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 219 
 
 with a man whose very name you liave not 
 learned ? ' 
 
 ' 'Tis even so,' she replied, laughing. 'No 
 harm has been done, my fair Puritan princess ; 
 Clarissa has written nothing that would hurt her 
 reputation ; trust Clarissa, who is a Londoner, 
 for taking care of herself As Lysander 
 prettily says, " Clarissa doth command an awe, 
 would straight confound the great Bashaw/' 
 He may be a lord, or he may be a templar ; I 
 fear he is the latter. But what a noble air he 
 shows, particularly when he sighs during the 
 psalms ! ' 
 
 I thought of his turned-up nose, and was 
 unable to agree with Jenny, but did not tell 
 her so. 
 
 The one thing which displeased me at this 
 time was the constant intrusion of Christopher 
 March into all our plans and conversation.
 
 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 We could oro nowhere without meeting him 
 
 & 
 
 g 
 
 and then he would walk with us ; if we were 
 playing or singing he would join us without 
 being asked ; he generally took dinner with us, 
 and on madam's evenings was always one of 
 the company. That did not matter much but 
 for his attentions to me, which were incessant, 
 especially before company. It was as if he 
 wished the world to consider me as his property. 
 Of course, I was not so foolish but that I under- 
 stood the meaning of his politeness ; a week of 
 Jenny's talk had been sufficient to remove the 
 ignorance of my Virginian days ; but, naturally, 
 being a Carellis, I was not so mad as to think of 
 encouraging the mere clerk of my guardian, 
 a paid servant, to aspire to such a thing as 
 marriage with me. My only difficulty was to 
 know how, without being cruel and unkind, I 
 could get rid of the man.
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 221 
 
 I supposed, and rightly too, that it was he 
 who sent me verses and epistles written in the 
 same extravagant fashion as that followed by 
 Jenny's Lysander, and signed ' A Lover.' I 
 kept them all carefully and said nothing even 
 to Jenny. But I told Nurse Ahce, and bade 
 her watch and find out by what means they 
 were conveyed to my bedroom. 
 
 Alice presently informed me that they were 
 placed on my table by Prudence, the house- 
 maid. So I sent for the young woman and 
 roundly taxed her with the fact, which she con- 
 fessed with tears and promises of amendment. 
 
 ' But, girl,' I said, ' who gave you the 
 verses ? ' 
 
 At first* she refused to tell me, but being 
 pressed and threatened, she owned that it was 
 none other than Christopher March. And here 
 I made another discovery. Not only had this
 
 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 man won the alderman's complete confidence 
 by reason of his industry and zeal, not only had 
 he gotten a holdover madam by secretly giving 
 her money, and over Jenny by conniving at her 
 correspondence, but he had made the very 
 servants afraid of him by acquiring a know- 
 ledge of their secrets, and by letting them feel 
 that their situations and characters depended 
 upon his pleasure. When I understood the 
 state of the case I considered whether I ought 
 not to let the alderman know, and to ask him 
 Avhether it was proper for one of his servants 
 to gain this footing and authority in his own 
 house. And yet I dared not for the sake of 
 madam, for I knew not how much money 
 Christopher had supplied her with. I would 
 that I had told him all, and so saved — but 
 that I could not know — the honour and the 
 fortune of that good old man !
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 
 
 Well ; I sent away the girl forgiven and a 
 little comforted — be sure I did not ask the 
 nature of her secret — and I determined to seek 
 out Christopher March and explain myself 
 openly to him. 
 
 I waited till one afternoon, w^hen madam 
 and Jenny had both gone out a-shopping, 
 and I was private in the parlour. Tlien I 
 sent Ahce to invite my gallant to an inter- 
 view. 
 
 He came slJraight from the counting-house, 
 wearing his office brown coat, and looking 
 exactly what he was, a merchant's clerk and 
 servant. Yet he tried to assume a gallant air, 
 and stepped with as much courthness as he 
 could manage. 
 
 ' Christopher March,' I began, ' I have 
 asked you to come here when I am alone because 
 I have a serious discourse to hold with you.'
 
 224 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 He bowed and made no reply. 
 
 ' I am an ignorant American girl,' I went 
 on, ' and unused to the ways of London. But 
 I am not so ignorant as not to know the mean- 
 ing of those compliments and attentions with 
 which you have honoured me.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mistress Elinor,' he cried, sinking on 
 his knees, ' give your most humble adorer a 
 httle hope.' 
 
 ' Get up immediately,' I said, ' or I will 
 leave the room. Get up, sir, and stand or 
 sit, as you will, but do not presume again to 
 address me in that way.' I was now really 
 angry. ' Eemember, sir, if you can, that I am 
 a gentlewoman, and you are a clerk. Know 
 your position.' 
 
 He rose as I bade him. 
 
 ' In London,' he said, in a soft, slow voice, 
 with down-dropped eyes, ' young men of ob-
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 225 
 
 scure family have a chance of rising. Many a 
 Lord Mayor began by being an errand-boy. 
 It is true that I have no coat-of-arms. Yet I 
 am already well-considered. If the alderman 
 does not make me a partner, some other mer- 
 chant may. No clerk in the tobacco trade has 
 a better reputation than I have. I could bring 
 your ladyship a good name and an honest heart. 
 What better things can a man have than honesty 
 and honour ? ' 
 
 ' Assuredly, nothing. Give them, therefore, 
 to some young woman of your own station. 
 Meantime, Master Christopher March, take 
 back these foolish verses and these letters. 
 Let me have no more nonsense. There can 
 be no question of that kind between us ; none 
 at all.' 
 
 He received the letters with ^dark and 
 gloomy brow. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 ' You will not only cease your letters, you 
 will entirely cease you compliments and your 
 attentions. You understand what you have 
 to do?' 
 
 ' And if I disobey your ladyship's com- 
 mands ? ' 
 
 ' In that case I must inform the alderman. 
 I should, at the same time, ask him to consider 
 the nature of that " honour and honesty " of 
 which you make such boast, when it permits 
 you to advance madam sums of money of which 
 her husband knows nothing ; secretly to assist 
 his daughter in a silly correspondence ; and 
 secretly to threaten his servants.' 
 
 ' You would, then,' he rephed coldly, ' do 
 much more harm to the alderman's happiness 
 than you would do to mine.' 
 
 'Perhaps. But I should do all the harm 
 to you that I w4sh ; which is nothing but that
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 227 
 
 you should continue to be the faithful servant 
 which the alderman believes you to be, that 
 you should not aspire beyond your station, and 
 that you should confine yourself entirely, so far 
 as I am concerned, to your duties. Perhaps 
 you had better return, then, at once to the 
 counting-house, or the alderman my be examin- 
 ing the books for himself, and find out where 
 some of his money goes.' 
 
 He turned suddenly white, and glared at 
 me with eyes which had as much terror as rage 
 in them. Then he left me without another 
 word. But I know that I had made of Chris- 
 topher March an enemy, though being young 
 and fooHsh I did not beheve he could harm me. 
 I have since learned that there is no man, how- 
 ever humble, who cannot at least do mischief. 
 Some men, by their evil lives and base thoughts 
 may lose the power of doing good ; but the 
 
 q2
 
 228 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 power of wickedness never leaves us. I had, 
 however, the good sense to tell Alice what I 
 had done. She, though this I knew not till 
 afterwards, began to watch the movements 
 of the man until, long before the rest of lis 
 knew anything about him, she had learned all 
 his secrets. 
 
 I told Jenny something of what had passed, 
 and, to my great joy, she laughed and clapped 
 her hands, and kissed me. 
 
 ' Oh, Nelly,' she said, ' I am so glad. I have 
 seen for a long while what was coming, and 
 I did not dare to warn you. Besides, he 
 threatened ' 
 
 • Jenny ! ' I cried. ' Is it possible ? Did 
 you allow your father's servant to threaten 
 you?' 
 
 ' What could I do ? ' she repHed. ' He 
 knows all about — about Lysander, you know.'
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 229 
 
 ' Oh ! this is dreadful, Jenny. Go straight 
 and tell your father, child, and then you can 
 laugh at him.' But this she would not do, 
 fearing the alderman's displeasure. 
 
 The next thing I tried to do was to persuade 
 madam to go to her husband for money to pay 
 her debts of honour. The good lady was 
 growing more passionately addicted to cards 
 every day, and, whether she played ill or had 
 continual bad luck, she seemed never to win. 
 Then it was difficult for me, a young woman, 
 to remonstrate freely with her, and though I 
 spoke a little of my mind once, Jenny being 
 out of the room, I could not persuade her to 
 tell her husband all. So that failed. Yet had 
 I succeeded, all the unhappiness that was to 
 follow would have been averted. Fate, as the 
 Turk calls it, or Providence, as we more rightly 
 say, is too strong to be set aside by the efforts
 
 230 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 of a weak girl. We were all to be punished 
 in a way little expected for our sins and weak- 
 nesses, and the wicked man was to work his 
 wicked will for a httle space. 
 
 ' Alas ! ' said Jenny, sitting in my room, 
 where we could talk freely. ' He is a dangerous 
 man, and I would he were not so much in my 
 father's confidence. Before you came the 
 attentions which displeased you were offered to 
 me. He actually wanted me to marry him ! 
 Perhaps that would have been my fate, but 
 for your arrival. The chance of getting a 
 hundred thousand pounds for a fortune with 
 such a wife as you turned his head, and I now 
 fear him no longer. It would, indeed, be a 
 rise in life for a gutter-boy like him to marry 
 you, the Virginian heiress.' 
 
 ' Why do you call him a gutter-child ? ' 
 ' Because he was, as much as any of those
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 231 
 
 ragged little wretches playing out there on 
 Tower Hill. He would willingly hide the story 
 if he could ; but he never shall, so long as I 
 live to tell it for him. Such as those boys are, 
 such was he ; as ragged, as dirty, as thievish, 
 I daresay ; as ready to beg for a penny to get 
 him a dish of broth. He was found lying on 
 the doorstep one cold wintry day in March, 
 barefooted, bareheaded, stupid with cold and 
 hunger. My father had him taken to the 
 kitchen to be warmed and fed. Then, seized 
 with pity for a boy so forlorn, he gave him to 
 one of his porters to be brought up at his ex- 
 pense. Then he sent the lad to school, where 
 he got on, being quick and clever. Finally he 
 took him into his own counting-house, and 
 gave him a chance to rise in the world, as so 
 many poor boys have already done in London. 
 Methinks he has risen already high enough.'
 
 232 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 Let US leave Christopher March for the 
 present, and talk of more pleasant things. 
 
 I have said that Lord Eardesley once or 
 twice called upon us when we were with 
 Monsieur Lemire, the dancing-master, and took 
 part in our lesson. During the winter he came 
 but little, to my chagrin ; because, having then 
 no thought of what was to follow, I found his 
 manner and discourse pleasing. He brought 
 new air to the house, and talked of tilings which 
 otherwise we should not have heard of. It 
 did us all good when his lordship came in the 
 evening and took a dish of tea with us. Then 
 madam forgot her cards, Jenny put on her 
 finest airs, and the alderman, who generally 
 despised tea, joined us and told stories. The 
 best tea-cups were set out — those, namely, 
 brought from Canton by one of the alderman's 
 seafaring friends — the reserve or company
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 233 
 
 candles were lit, and the tea brewed was 
 stronger and better than that which we allowed 
 ourselves. After tea we would go to the 
 spinet and sing, Jenny and I in turn or to- 
 gether. 
 
 Those were pleasant evenings, but there 
 were few of them. My lord was a most cheer- 
 ful and agreeable man, without any of the 
 fashionable affectations of which Jenny had told 
 me ; full of sense and understanding. He did 
 not waste the time in paying us foolish com- 
 pliments, and when he spoke of himself, he 
 laughed at his own lamentable condition as an 
 irbpoverished peer. He told us once, I re- 
 member, that he seldom dined at his friends' 
 houses, because he could not afford the vails 
 expected by the servants. 
 
 So the winter passed quickly away, and 
 the spring came upon us with those easterly
 
 234 
 
 winds whicli in England do so poison and 
 corrupt that sweet season. 
 
 As tlie year advanced the attention of 
 everyone was settled upon that great bubble, 
 the South Sea Company, whose stock advanced 
 daily till it reached seven hundred, eight 
 hundred, and even a thousand pounds. I 
 knew little, indeed, and cared nothing, be- 
 cause I understood nothing, of the general 
 greediness ; yet we heard daily from the alder- 
 man, at dinner and supper, how the shares 
 were fought for, and what prodigious prices 
 they fetched. And once he took me to the 
 Exchange, where I saw a crowd of finely- 
 dressed ladies and gentlemen mixed with a 
 throng of merchants and tradesmen, all strug- 
 gling, fighting, and shouting together. They 
 were buying and selling South Sea Stock. 
 The street posts or the backs of porters served
 
 MV HEARTS DELIGHT. 235 
 
 for writing-desks ; lie who had a bunk or a 
 stall commanded as much rent as if it had 
 been a great house in Eastcheap ; and, in that 
 crowd, a petty huckster of Houndsditch, if he 
 had but a single share, was as great a man as 
 a lord. 
 
 ' See, Nelly,' said the alderman ; ' the love 
 of money is like the hand of death ; for it 
 strikes at all alike, both rich and poor.' 
 
 The alderman, who believed that Sir 
 Eobert Walpole was the greatest and wisest 
 of statesmen, took fright when he heard that 
 the minister had spoken in the House 
 vehemently against the South Sea Scheme, to 
 which, before this, he had perhaps secretly 
 inclined. ' It was a project,' said this great 
 man, ' which would lure many thousands of 
 greedy and unwary people to their ruin ; 
 holding out promises which it never could
 
 236 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 keep, and offering dividends which no scheme 
 ever devised could maintain/ 
 
 While everybody else was mad with this 
 dream of wealth, we in our house were full of 
 our own thoughts, careless of the tumult 
 which raged in every heart. As the spring 
 advanced, Lord Eardesley came oftener, and 
 w^ould go with us when we drove out to take 
 the air. London is a great city, indeed, but 
 it is richly provided with fields, gardens, parks, 
 and places of recreation. We could drive 
 to the spring gardens of Knightsbridge ; to the 
 bowling-green of Marylebone ; to the fields 
 beyond Islington, where we bought cakes ; to 
 those of Stepney, where there is another kind 
 of cake; or to the walk of Chelsea, where 
 there are buns. We could go farther afield, 
 and visit Caen Wood and Hampstead, or 
 to the gardens beyond Hyde Park, where they
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT, ^lyj 
 
 sold syllabubs. We were a gay and happy 
 party whenever we had his lordship with us. 
 And for one thing I am grateful, indeed, to 
 Jenny, that though she suspected what was 
 coming, she was so good as not to spoil the 
 innocence of my happiness by telhng me her 
 suspicions. 
 
 One evening in April — ah ! happy even- 
 ing — Lord Eardesley took us to the theatre. 
 
 Suppose you were never to go to a theatre 
 at all until you were nineteen years of age ; 
 suppose you had read of a dramatic perform- 
 ance, but never seen one ; and suppose you 
 had no idea whatever what it would be like. 
 Then think of going — for the first time ! 
 
 It was to Drury Lane. We drove to the 
 doors, where we were met by my lord, iu 
 brave attire. He led us to the first row of 
 boxes, where, for the most part, only ladies of
 
 238 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 quality are found, the wives of citizens com- 
 monly using the second row. Truly it passes my 
 power to express the happiness of this evening 
 and the splendour of the scene. The pit con- 
 tained only gentlemen, but the boxes in which 
 we sat were full of ladies dressed in extra- 
 vagance of splendour of which I had never 
 dreamed, nor Jenny either. But the patches 
 spoiled all ; nor could I ever, although for the 
 sake of the mode, I wore two or three small 
 ones, reconcile myself to the custom of stick- 
 ing black spots over a pretty face. The house 
 was brilliantly lit Avith many thousands of 
 candles. I say nothing about the play, except 
 that the players did so artfully represent the 
 characters, that you would have thought the 
 house, with all the audience, a dream, and 
 only the play itself the reality. Yet I was 
 astonished to find so many fine ladies whisper
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 
 
 239 
 
 ing, laughing, and flirting with the fan, while 
 the most moving scene and the most eloquent 
 passages failed to rouse their interest. 
 
 'You know not your sex, fair Virginian,' 
 said Lord Eardesley, when I ventured to take 
 this objection to the behaviour of the spec- 
 tators. ' The ladies do not come here to see, 
 but to be seen. They are the principal spec- 
 tacle of the house to the gentlemen in the pit.' 
 And then I observed that, although I 
 myself could see with the greatest ease what- 
 ever was done upon the stage, and the faces of 
 the actors and actresses, a large number of 
 gentlemen, especially those of the younger 
 kind, were afflicted with a sort of bhndness 
 which forced them to carry to the theatre 
 the little magnifying tubes which I had seen 
 in church. And such was the strange callous- 
 ness of these unfortunate young men to the
 
 240 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 piece performed, that many of tliem at the side 
 of the pit stood with their backs to the stage, 
 and, with their tubes held to one eye, surveyed 
 the glittering rows of beauties on the first 
 tier of boxes. 
 
 ' Nelly,' whispered Jenny, ' you are the 
 prettiest girl in the house. Half a hundred 
 beaux are gazing upon you.' 
 
 In the delight of the play 1 forgot the 
 annoyance of this attention, and, perhaps, 
 Jenny was mistaken. 
 
 When we came away, at the falling of the 
 curtain, we found the entrance-hall lined Avith 
 a double row of pretty fellows, all hat under 
 arm and right leg thrust forward. One of 
 them stepped audaciously forward to the front 
 and offered to lead me to the coach. 
 
 ' This young lady, sir,' said my lord, ' is of 
 my party. We thank you.'
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 241 
 
 The young fellow said something about 
 pretty faces and hoods, upon which our escort 
 stepped forward and whispered in his ear. 
 
 'I am Lord Eardesley,' he said aloud. 
 ' You can find me when you please.' 
 
 I did not know enough of polite customs 
 to suspect that the altercation might possibly, 
 although so slight, Iccad to a duel. 
 
 Alas ! that this custom of duelling should 
 make every young man hold his life in his 
 hand ; so that it is less dangerous to cross the 
 Atlantic Ocean, or to travel among the Indians 
 of Western Virginia, or to serve a campaign 
 against the Turk, than it is to live in London 
 for a season — I mean, for a young gentleman 
 of birth and rank. As for plain citizens, I 
 have never heard that the custom of the duello 
 has been brought into the manners of the 
 London merchant. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 I tliouglit little that night of the matter, 
 my head being full of the wonderful play. 
 But the next day, when I was sitting alone 
 and feeling a little sad, as is the way with 
 foolish girls after an evening of great happiness, 
 Jenny burst in upon me in a half hysterical 
 state of excitement. 
 
 ' Nelly ! ' she cried. ' Have you heard 
 the news ? They have fouglit, and my lord 
 has pricked his man.' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' You remember the dapper little man at 
 the theatre last night, who insulted us by 
 calling us pretty girls — the wretch ! As if we 
 did not know so much already. 'Twas an 
 officer in the Guards. Lord Eardesley fought 
 him this morning in the Park with small 
 swords, and ran him through the left shoulder. 
 He is as brave as he is generous.'
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 243 
 
 It was quite true. Our evening's pleasure 
 had ended in two gallant gentlemen trying 
 to kill each other, and one being wounded. 
 Surely the laws of honour did not need so 
 tragic a conclusion to so simple an adventure 
 Nevertheless, I was proud of Lord Eardesley, 
 and rejoiced that he was so brave a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 He came that evening. Madam was 
 abroad, playing cards. Jenny and I were 
 alone, and presently Jenny rose and left the 
 room. She told me afterwards that my lord 
 had asked her to do so. 
 
 Then he begged permission to speak 
 seriously to me, and my heart beat, because 
 I knew, somehow, what he was going to 
 say. 
 
 That is, I knew what his speech would 
 contain, but I could not guess the manner in 
 
 R 2
 
 244 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 which he would say it. He began by saying 
 that he was the poorest man of his rank in 
 Great Britain ; that all his wealth consisted of 
 a barren mountain, a marshy valley, and a 
 ruined castle in Wales ; that in offering his 
 hand to a rich heiress like myself he should 
 be accused of fortune-hunting. 
 
 ' Nay, Mistress Nelly,' he went on, ' I must 
 confess that at first my thoughts ran much 
 upon the money of which you are possessed. 
 That was the reason why, having had the 
 happiness of seeing you, I came here once or 
 twice, and then ceased my visits. But,' he 
 added, ' I was constrained to return. And 
 having come, I was drawn daily by irre- 
 sistible ropes to the shrine of my affection.' 
 He took my hand and held it. ' Nelly, rich or 
 poor, believe that I love you tenderly.' 
 
 I made no reply. Oh ! that life could be one
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 245 
 
 long rapture sucli as that which followed 
 when he took me m his arms and kissed my 
 lips. 
 
 I cannot write more of that moment. It 
 would be a sacrilege of that first baptism or 
 sacrament of love when we promised our hands 
 and hearts to each other. 
 
 Presently, however, Jenny came back, dis- 
 creetly knocking at the door — the little witch ! 
 
 ' Jenny, my dear,' cried my lord, ' come 
 kiss me.' He laid his hands upon her should- 
 ers, and kissed the pretty little laughing thing 
 as gaily as if a kiss meant nothing. Heavens, 
 what had it meant to me ? ' See, this Princess 
 of Virginia, this queen of fair maidens — she 
 has promised, my pretty Jenny, to be my wife.' 
 
 ' No — not a queen at all," I murmured, 
 while Jenny flew into my arms and kissed me 
 again and again. ' Not a queen — only my
 
 246 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 lord's handmaid. It may be that I have 
 
 found favour m the sight of my king ' 
 
 ' Not a queen ? No,' he rephed, kissing my 
 hands. ' No — not a queen — only my mistress 
 sweet and fond— only Nelly, my Heart's De- 
 light!'
 
 MV HE AT&T'S DELIGHT. 247 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MY LORD EARDESLEY. 
 
 Whejn" my lover left me lie immediately sought 
 the alderman, in order to convey to his worship 
 the substance of what he had said to me. My 
 guardian heard the story patiently, and then, 
 falling into a kind of muse, sat with his head 
 upon his hands, saying never a word. 
 
 ' Why, su',' said my lord with some heat, 
 after waiting for a reply, ' surely my proposal 
 hath no dishonour in it. I can but offer Mis- 
 tress Elinor what I have to give. It is little, 
 as you know, besides my hand and a coronet.' 
 
 ' Sit down, lord,' said the alderman gravely. 
 
 ' I have much to s^y.'
 
 248 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 He then proceeded in such terms, as would 
 give the young suitor as httle pain as possible, 
 to remind him that his own estates, save for 
 the mountain and valley in Wales, were gone 
 altogether, and that by his father's rashness 
 over the gaming-tables, so that had it not been 
 for the small fortune left him by his mother his 
 lordship would have nothing. But, said the 
 alderman, the lack of fortune would have been 
 a small thing, considering the ample inheritance 
 of his ward, were he assured that none of the 
 late lamented peer's weaknesses had descended 
 upon his son. Lord Eardesley must excuse 
 him for speaking plainly, but it was rumoiu:ed, 
 rightly or wrongly, that he himself was addicted 
 to the same pernicious habit. 
 
 Here my lord protested strongly that the 
 rumour was based upon no foundation what- 
 ever in fact, and that he never gambled.
 
 AfV HEART'S DELIGHT. 249 
 
 ' Indeed,' tlie alderman replied gravely. 
 
 'Then am I rejoiced, and I hope that 
 these words of yours can be made good.' 
 
 After this he became more serious still, and, 
 speaking in a whisper, he reminded the young- 
 lord that there were other sins besides the 
 grievous sin of gaming, that many — nay, 
 most of the young gentlemen of rank took a 
 pleasure and pride in deriding and breaking all 
 God's laws ; that they were profane swearers, 
 professed atheists, secret Jacobites, duellists, 
 deceivers of maidens, and contemners of order ; 
 that the voice of rumour had been busy with 
 his name as concerns these vices as well. 
 
 Here Lord Eardesley protested again. He 
 would confess to none of these things. A duel 
 he had certainly fought only a few days before, 
 but that was in defence of two ladies — in 
 fact, Mistress Elinor CareUis herself and Mis-
 
 250 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 tress Jenny, tlie alderman's own daughter — 
 but, lie added, he had spared the life of his 
 adversary, and only given him a lesson. That 
 personally he abhorred the cursed laws of so- 
 called honour which obliged a gentleman to 
 risk his. life or seek to take another life at any 
 fancied insult. As for the other vices men- 
 tioned by the alderman, he declared that he was 
 not guilty of any of them ; that his life 
 and conversation were pure, and his religion 
 that of his forefathers. 
 
 ' It may be so,' said the alderman. ' Never- 
 theless, we do well to be careful. The young 
 lady is an orphan ; she hath neither brother 
 nor near relation to protect her, should her hus- 
 band use her ill ; she is a stranger in the land 
 and ignorant of the wickedness of this great 
 town ; like all innocent maidens, she is accus- 
 tomed to look on every stranger, if he be a
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 251 
 
 gentleman, as a good man ; she admires a gal- 
 lant carriage, a noble name, a long pedigree, a 
 handsome face — and all these, my lord, she 
 admires in you. Then, she is a great hehess ; 
 her husband will have, with her, a hundred 
 thousand pounds in bonds, scrip,and mortgages, 
 and none of your perilous South Sea Stock, be- 
 sides a great estate in Virginia. Think of all 
 this, my lord. Consider further that she hath 
 been placed in my charge as a most sacred 
 trust by my far-off cousin, Eobert Care! lis, now 
 deceased, out of great confidence which he was 
 good enough to repose in me — and own that 
 I do well to be careful. Eemeniber that she 
 is all virtue and innocence ; and that, according 
 to the voice of rumour, you, my lord — par- 
 don the plain speaking — are addicted to the 
 --the same manner of hfe as most young 
 noblemen. Why, you would be a wicked man.
 
 2^2 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 indeed, if you thought that I should easily con- 
 sent to her marriage and without due fore- 
 thought. 
 
 ' Take all forethought and care possible/ 
 said my lord. ' I assure you the voice of ru- 
 mour was never so wrong as when it assigned 
 me the possession of those fashionable follies 
 which, I may remind you, require the waste 
 of a great deal of money.' 
 
 ' True,' my guardian replied. ' That is a 
 weighty argument in your favour. Meanwhile, 
 my lord, we thank you for the honour you have 
 offered to confer upon this house. I am sure 
 that his lordship Eobert Carellis would have 
 wished for no higher alliance for his daughter, 
 were he satisfied on those points on which I 
 have ventured to speak. I go now, my lord, 
 or I shall go shortly, to make such enquiry into 
 your private life as is possible. I expect that,
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 253 
 
 meanwhile, you will abstain from visiting this 
 house or from maldng any attempt to see my 
 ward. The delay shall not be longer than I can 
 help, and if the issue be what your words as- 
 sure me, there shall be no further opposition 
 on my part, but, on the contrary, rejoicing and 
 thankfulness.' 
 
 He bowed low to his lordship and con- 
 ducted him to the door of the counting-house, 
 which led to the outer office. Christopher 
 March was there ; he looked up, and, seeing 
 Lord Eardesley, he changed colour. The alder- 
 man, walking slowly back, beckoned his chief 
 clerk. 
 
 ' You told me,' he said, ' that Lord Eardesley 
 fought a duel the other day.' 
 
 ' Yes. On account of some quarrel over 
 cards, I heard,' said Christopher. 
 
 ' Where did you hear it .? '
 
 254 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 ' It was the talk at Wills's Coffee House. It 
 was the talk at all the coffee-houses.' 
 
 'So they make free with his name, 
 then.' 
 
 ' They make free with every name,' rephed 
 Christopher. ' Yes, sir, they call him -gamester, 
 like his father ; duellist, like his father ; profli- 
 gate, like his father. Of course, I know nothing 
 except what I learn from these rumours.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay,' the alderman mused. ' No smoke 
 without fire. It is, indeed, a perilous thing 
 to be born to rank and title 1 We humble folk, 
 Christopher, should thank Heaven continually 
 that we are not tempted, in the same way as 
 our betters, to overstep the bounds of the moral 
 law. No dicing, no profligacy, for the sober 
 London merchant.' 
 
 I understood, presently, that I was not to 
 see my lord until the alderman was perfectly
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 255 
 
 satisfied as to his private character. This gave 
 me no uneasiness, as I was so assured of my 
 lover's goodness that I felt no pain on that 
 score, and was only anxious for the time of pro- 
 bation to be passed. 
 
 Now a thing happened during the time 
 when my lord was conferring with the alder- 
 man concerning his suit, which caused in my 
 mind a little surprise, but which I thought no 
 more of for the moment. It was this. 
 
 Outside the house my lord's servant, holding 
 his horse, was waiting for his master. It was 
 midsummer, and the evening was quite light. 
 One does not in general pay much heed to 
 men-servants, but this fellow caught my eye as 
 I stood at the window and wondered what my 
 guardian would say. When the mind is greatly 
 excited a little thing distracts the attention for 
 the moment and gives relief. Therefore I ob-
 
 256 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 served that the groom was a rosy-faced fellow, 
 not very young, but fresh of cheek, who looked 
 as if he had come up from the country only the 
 day before, so brown and rustic was his appear- 
 ance. In his mouth there was a straw, and his 
 hair was of a bright red, of the kind called 
 shock. While I was idly noting these matters 
 I saw Christopher March standing by one of 
 the posts of the street, looking, as men will do, 
 at the horse. Presently the groom looked in 
 his direction, and a sudden change came over 
 him. For his rosy cheeks grew pale and his 
 knees trembled. 
 
 Then Christopher started and slowly walked 
 nearer the horse. He spoke to the man, and 
 began stroking the animal's neck, as if he were 
 talking about the horse. I knew, however, by 
 some instinct, perhaps because I now suspected 
 Christopher in everything, that he was not talk-
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 257 
 
 ing of the horse at all. But what could he 
 have to say to a country bumpkin, the groom 
 of Lord Eardesley ? I watched more narrowly. 
 They were having some sort of explanation. 
 Gradually my bumpkin seemed to recover from 
 his apprehension, and began to laugh at some- 
 thing Christopher said. And when the latter 
 left him he nodded after him with a familiarity 
 that was odd indeed. 
 
 Nor was that all. While I was still won- 
 dering, partly how the alderman would take it, 
 and partly who this servant could be, that he 
 should be an old acquaintance of Christopher 
 March, another thing happened. 
 
 Ahce, who had been out on some errand 
 or other connected with my w^ants, was re- 
 turning home. I saw the dear old woman 
 slowly walking along the rough stones with- 
 in the posts, and transferred my thoughts easily 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 enough to her and her fidehty. Why, I 
 should have something that night to tell her 
 worth the hearing! Then, all of a sudden 
 — was I dreaming ? — she, too. stopped short 
 on sight of Thomas Marigold, which was, I 
 learned afterwards, the fellow's name, and 
 gazed upon him with an air of wonder and 
 doubt. Then she, too, stepped out into the 
 road and accosted him. Again that look of 
 terror on his face ; and again, after a few 
 moment's talk, the look of rehef. 
 
 What they said was this, as nurse told me 
 afterwards. She touched his arm and said 
 sharply, ' What are you doing here ? ' 
 
 Then it was that he turned pale. 
 
 * What are you doing. Canvas Dick ? ' 
 
 Upon this he staggered and nearly dropped 
 the reins. 
 
 ' Who — who — are you ? ' he asked.
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 259 
 
 'Never mind who I am. It is enough 
 that I remember you, and that you are 
 Canvas Dick, and that what I know about 
 you is enough to hang you any day.' 
 
 Then his knees trembled and his jaws chat- 
 tered for fear. 
 
 ' It is nigh upon twenty years ago/ he said, 
 ' since I heard that name. Too long for anybody 
 to remember ; and, besides, what is it you know? 
 Perhaps, after all, you are only pretending.' 
 
 'Then will this help you? A man and 
 two boys, one of them fifteen years of age, 
 that is yourself, and one six or seven years 
 younger ; a house in the Eatcliffe Highway ; 
 a great robbery of jewels, planned by a man 
 and carried out by the boldness and dex- 
 terity of the two boys ; and ' 
 
 ' Hush ! ' whispered the man. ' Don't say 
 another word. Tell me who you are.' 
 
 s 2
 
 26o SWEET NELLY, 
 
 'They call me Alice,' said nurse, looking 
 liim straight in the face. ' That does not help 
 you much. If you want to know more, I am 
 nurse to Mistress Carellis, who lives in this 
 house.' 
 
 The man stared hard at her. ' No,' he 
 said ; ' I can't remember who you are. Do 
 you mean mischief, or do you mean halves ? ' 
 
 ' First, what are you doing here ? ' 
 
 ' I'm groom to Lord Eardesley.' He grmned 
 from ear to ear. ' Who would think to find 
 me as Tummas Marigold, honest Tummas, 
 fresh from the country, and grooming a 
 nobleman's horse ? ' 
 
 'Groom to Lord Eardesley, are you? 
 Oh ! ' and here a sudden hght sprang into her 
 face. ' And what,' she asked with a catch in her 
 voice, ' What became of the other boy ? ' 
 
 Honest Tummas hesitated. Then he re-
 
 AIV HEART'S DELIGHT. 261 
 
 plied/ taking the straw out of his mouth and 
 stroking the horse's neck : ' Why — the 
 other boy — the httle un' — he was hanged a 
 matter of five years ago, on account of a girl's 
 purse which he snatched in the fields behind 
 Sadler's Wells.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' she groaned, with a kind of despair. 
 ' It was the end to be looked for. It is the end 
 of you all.' 
 
 ' Ay,' he said ; ' give us a long day and 
 plenty of rope. Then we climb the ladder 
 gaily and kick off the shoes, game to the 
 last.' 
 
 She shook her head. ' Well,' she said, 
 ' now I know where to find you, I must use 
 you for my own purposes. Come here if 
 you can to-morrow evening at nine, and I 
 will ask you certain questions. Be sure that 
 you answer me truthfully.'
 
 262 SWELT NELLY, 
 
 ' Then you don't mean miscliief. ' 
 
 ' If you serve me faitlifuUy I will not harm 
 you. If you dare to play me false I will tell 
 his worship, Alderman Medlycott, who you are, 
 and give evidence against you at Newgate.' 
 
 The man still hesitated. Presently, how- 
 ever, he held out his hand. 
 
 Honour, he said, was the only thing on which 
 poor rogues and gentlemen of the road had 
 to depend. And as he was satisfied that the 
 good lady meant him no harm, he would 
 meet her the next day and take her to a quiet 
 place in the fields where they could talk. 
 
 Here mu'se laughed. ' Thou art a villain 
 indeed, Dick, but put that thought out of your 
 mind. An old woman like me may be knocked 
 o' the head, but suppose she writes a history 
 of Thomas Marigold, and lays it in a place 
 where, after her murder, it might be found ! '
 
 MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 263 
 
 Thomas laughed at this, and protested that 
 he was a most honest and harmless fellow, 
 and that he would certainly come and answer 
 all her questions. 
 
 That night, nurse, Jenny, and I had a 
 long and serious talk together in my chamber ; 
 so long that when I went to bed the watch- 
 man below was bawling, ' Past two o'clock 
 and a fine night.' And all our talk was 
 about my lord. 
 
 Nurse had foreseen what was coming ; so had 
 Jenny ; so had everybody except the principal 
 person concerned. Nurse was sure that he was 
 as good as he was brave and handsome, and 
 only owned to some misgivings on the subject 
 of wine, which, she said, when gentlemen ex- 
 ceeded their couple of bottles or so, was apt 
 to fly to the head and make them quarrel- 
 some. Then, because she was a very wise
 
 264 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 woman, and knew the world, she began to 
 tell me how different my life would be when 
 I was a peeress. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said Jenny, with a long sigh, ' I 
 wonder if Lysander is a peer. There is an 
 air about him ; he may be anything. Happy, 
 happy, happy Nelly ! ' she cried, kissing me 
 before she went to bed. ' To marry such a 
 man, and to gain a title and — oh I Ly- 
 sander ! ' 
 
 She ran upstairs to her own room — and 
 I began to midress. 
 
 ' As for my lord's character,' said nurse, 
 ' the alderman may make any enquiries he 
 pleases. But I have a surer way to find the 
 truth.' 
 
 In two or three days she told me that 
 she had learned all. Lord Eardesley was the 
 most quiet and steady young man in London.
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 265 
 
 He was studious, and read and wrote a great 
 deal. In the evening he might be seen at a 
 coffee-house or at the play. He went but 
 little into society. He neither drank nor 
 gambled. He attended church. His friends 
 were chiefly gentlemen older than himself. 
 No character could have been more satisfactory. 
 I was in the highest spirits. I did not ask 
 nurse how she came by the information, which 
 I trusted entirely ; and I waited impatiently 
 for the alderman to tell me that all was well, 
 and that my lord was coming to the house 
 as my betrothed lover. 
 
 It was bright sunny weather in early 
 summer, I remember. The June and July 
 of 1720 were full of splendid days, in which 
 every stone in the White Tower stood out 
 clear and distinct, and the river sparkled in the 
 sunshine. They were all days of hope and joy
 
 266 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 Yet a week — a fortnight — passed, and the 
 alderman made no sign. That is, he became 
 more silent. He had an attack of gout upon 
 him, though not a serious one. Yet it laid 
 him up, so that he could not get about. 
 
 One day I sought him in the counting- 
 house, and asked him, seeing that he was 
 alone, what was the meaning of his continued 
 silence. 
 
 'My dear,' he said, ' I hope you will 
 receive with resignation the news I have to 
 give you. I would fain have spared you yet. 
 But you force it from me.' 
 
 ' Go on quickly,' I said. ' Is Lord Eardesley 
 ill?' 
 
 'More than that,' he replied solemnly. 
 ' He is not worthy of your hand. He must 
 not marry you.' 
 
 He laid his kindly hand on mine, to keep
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 267 
 
 me quiet, while with sad eyes and sad voice 
 he said what he had to say. 
 
 'He is a fortune-himter, Ehnor. He is a 
 gamester ; he is a wine-bibber ; he is a profli- 
 gate. Such as his father was, so is he ; and 
 the late Lord Eardesley was the most notorious 
 of all the men about Court twenty years 
 ago. Such as his grandfather \vas, so is he ; 
 and the grandfather was the private friend and 
 intimate of Charles the Second, Buckingham, 
 and Eochester.' 
 
 ' How do you know, sir, that the son in- 
 herits the vices of the father ? You speak from 
 some envious and lying report.' 
 
 'Nay, child, nay. I would I did. At 
 first I had only my fears on account of idle 
 reports which reached my ears ; now, how- 
 ever, these reports are confirmed, and I 
 know from a most certain, although a secret
 
 268 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 source, the whole private life of this young 
 nobleman.' 
 
 I was silent, bewildered. 
 
 ' Consider for a moment, child, what a 
 dreadful thing it is to be the wife of a gam- 
 bler. At the beginning of an evening's play 
 he hath a noble fortune, say, perhaps a hun- 
 dred thousand pounds ; at the close of the 
 night all is gone — all gone. Think of that. 
 The money which represents the patience of 
 generations and the labours of hundreds of 
 men, all gone in a moment — in the twinkling 
 of an eye, fooled away upon a chance. 
 Why, girl, the profligate and the drunkard 
 are better ; they, at least, have some sem- 
 blance of pleasure for their money; the 
 gambler alone hath none.' 
 
 ' I do not believe,' I said doggedly, ' that 
 my lord is a gambler at all.' Then I remem-
 
 MV HEART'S DELIGHT. 269 
 
 berecl my nurse's discoveries. ' Why, my dear 
 alderman, I can prove you are wrong. I 
 have my secret way of finding out, too, and 
 my information is trustworthy. What do you 
 say to that .^ ' 
 
 ' I say, EHnor,' repHed the alderman, ' that 
 I cannot promise the hand of the daughter of 
 my late correspondent and honoured friend, 
 Eobert Carellis, to the young Lord Eardesley, 
 and that I have written to tell him so. Believe 
 me, child, it was the hardest letter that I 
 ever had to write. Now it is written.' 
 
 ' In a year or so I shall be of age,' I said bit- 
 terly. ' Then I shall not want your consent.' 
 
 ' Be it so,' he replied. ' Let me do my 
 duty meanwhile as it becomes an honest man. 
 Go, child. You are sorrowful, and with reason. 
 The day will come when you will own that I 
 have acted rightly.'
 
 270 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 I returned sadly. Jenny and madam 
 knew what had been done, and we sat and 
 cried together. Presently Jenny whispered, 
 ' What if Lysander should prove a gambler ! ' 
 
 ' All the sorrow in the world/ said madam 
 solemnly, ' comes from the extreme wickedness 
 of man. What vice is so terrible as the love of 
 gaming ? ' 
 
 I thought of her own passion for cards and 
 wondered. I know, now, that people are 
 never so virtuously indignant as when they 
 denounce the sins to which they are themselves 
 most prone. 
 
 Before night a letter was brought to me. 
 It was from my lord. 
 
 ' Dearest and best of women,' he said, and 
 I seemed to feel again the touch of his hand 
 and to hear his soft and steady voice, so that 
 m}' head swam and my heart sank, 'I have
 
 MV HE AT&T'S DELIGHT, i-ji 
 
 received a letter from the alderman, in which 
 I learn that I possess such vices as unfit me 
 for your hand. I know not, in very truth, 
 what they are. Have courage, my dear, and 
 cheer your Geoffrey with an assurance that 
 you will trust him until he can clear away 
 these clouds. I have promised that I will not 
 intrude myself upon your house. My intention 
 is to do nothing for a week or two, and then to 
 ask if the alderman will bring before me the 
 reasons, clearly and certainly, for his bad 
 opinion. So now farewell, and believe that 
 I may be unworthy of so great a blessing as 
 your love, but that I am not insensible to it 
 and not ungrateful.' 
 
 Had any girl so sweet a letter ? Be sure 
 I answered it with such silly words as I could 
 command, telling him that I was altogether 
 his, and that I firmly believed in his inno-
 
 272 SWEET NELLY, 
 
 cence. And so, with lighter heart and with an 
 assured hope in the future, I lay down to sleep 
 on the first night after my lover w^as sent 
 from me. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BT 
 
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