L I B URY 
 
 OF THE 
 UN IVERSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS

 
 MINE IS THINE
 
 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.
 
 MINE IS THINE 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 LAURENCE W. M. LOCKHART 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'FAIR TO SEE.' ETC. 
 
 IX THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I, 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXVIII 
 
 A 11. Rinhts reserved
 
 8Z5 
 
 I 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS OLD BROTHER OFFICERS 
 
 92d GORDON HIGHLANDERS 
 
 THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR
 
 MINE IS THINE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I humbly desire, dear readers, to please you if 
 I can, and therefore hasten to gratify an aspira- 
 tion which lurks in all novel-readers' hearts — 
 to "get into the thick of the business at once." 
 So come with me and be summarily introduced 
 to one or two principal personages of this little 
 drama. Let us take them unawares, let us 
 surprise them while they sit at meat, — eating, 
 drinking, and (some of them, at least) making 
 merry, on the margin of the Lake of Como, in 
 one of the pleasantest hotels in Europe, the 
 " Bellevue," at Cadenabbia. And do thou, old 
 Time, turn back in thy flight a few short years, 
 and suffer us to enter the table-d' hote room of 
 the hotel in question, on the bright evening of 
 an early summer day in 18 — . 
 
 vol. I. A
 
 2 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 The banquet is spread. The guests are as- 
 sembled or assembling. They are of many 
 nationalities, of diverse ranks, of most ages ; 
 each of "the three sexes is represented, for more 
 than one palpable curate bows his meek head 
 over the flesh-pot. The noise is a little trying 
 at first. The crockery does seem to be possessed 
 with devils, and every glass in the room must 
 have St Vitus's dance. Every one seems to be 
 impatient at first — hungry, angry, vociferous. 
 What tempers these waiters must have ! Out- 
 side the window a string-band is playing a 
 selection from the 'Barbiere/ Could anything 
 be more appropriate 1 " Figaro qud, Figaro 
 Id ! " shrieks the band. " Kellner ! " « Garpon ! " 
 " Cameriere ! " " Waiter ! " shout the guests ; 
 and, through all the crush and the bustle, these 
 admirable men glide about — here, there, every- 
 where, breathless and perspiring, but full of 
 polyglot politeness and attention. The only 
 calm, still, cool-looking object in the room is 
 that tremendous head- waiter in the buff waist- 
 coat, standing near the door, in Jove-like seren- 
 ity. The guests, as they enter, pause before 
 him to ask where they may place themselves. 
 In that august presence, they appear to peak 
 and dwindle. He is too great to speak, but
 
 MINE IS THINE. 3 
 
 waves them off to their destinations, exact and 
 unerring as omniscience. His whole air seems 
 to say — " A good man struggling with difficul- 
 ties may be a sight for the gods ; but how much 
 grander this, the spectacle of a great man over- 
 coming every difficulty without a struggle, with 
 a bosom as unruffled as the buff garment which 
 envelops it ! " The diapason of discord has 
 achieved itself in the sudden collapse of that 
 mottle-faced waiter, involving in his ruin thir- 
 teen plates, a dish of potatoes, and a bottle of 
 Medoc ; and now that the yells of yonder Ger- 
 man have caused the last window in the room 
 to be closed, things begin to settle down into a 
 little more quiescence. Come, then, and let us 
 thread the hall. Don't look at that indigestive 
 spinster unless you wish to be petrified. Don't 
 waste a thought upon that glorious-looking old 
 man with the dome-like head and long white 
 moustache. He is not a very distinguished gen- 
 eral of division. He is a City man — probably a 
 stockbroker — and it is quite conceivable that his 
 name is Crump. Never mind the brunette — 
 beautiful as a star, but nothing to us. Let us 
 go on. Eat with their knives ? Of course they 
 do. The only Eussian princess whose confidence 
 I have enjoyed, ate with her knife — quite a trifle
 
 4 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 when you're accustomed to it. You see that old 
 lady dwelling in the fool's paradise of an au- 
 burn "front" and immense gutta-percha teeth? 
 Well, next her are two men. Voild notre affaire. 
 These are my hero Cosmo Glencairn, and his 
 friend Tom Wyedale. Yes, the fair one is Cosmo. 
 Why not ? Heroes ought to be dark ? I deny 
 it — not English heroes. They ought to be buff 
 men, with blue eyes, like the Vikings. Well, 
 there they are. Draw near to them, and listen 
 to them, and look out for new arrivals. And 
 now I leave you to find your way through the 
 labyrinth of this tale, from which the gods give 
 you and me a safe and happy deliverance. 
 
 " The menagerie seems to be fuller than usual 
 to-night, Cosmo," said Tom ; " the roaring is 
 louder, and there seem to be several new vari- 
 eties. I see a new skunk, and a chimpanzee, and 
 a sun-fish, and a hippopotamus." 
 " And all that being interpreted 1 " 
 " And all that being interpreted means that 
 we have a considerable increase in the number 
 of our co-diners, and that the new-comers are 
 rather a shady lot to look at."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 5 
 
 " Not very distinguished -looking, certainly. 
 What is the meaning of it, I wonder ? It isn't 
 near the tourists' season, and yet many of the 
 new arrivals look like the ideal tourist — not the 
 least like returning swallows from the Kiviera 
 or Kome." 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; but, perhaps, something has 
 been taking place in England — the Whitsuntide 
 holidays or something." 
 
 " You pagan ! we are still a fortnight from 
 Whitsunday." 
 
 " Are we ? I apologise. One forgets every- 
 thing in this Sleepy Hollow. But, Whitsunday 
 or not, if Mr Cook had shot a whole caravan into 
 the district, we couldn't be richer in his typical 
 followers." 
 
 " Yes, I've seen the kind of people before, in 
 connection with a ' conductor.' It's the old prob- 
 lem of the flies in amber." 
 
 " Seen them before ! By George, they're all 
 here ! There's the ' expansive ' Briton — that 
 underdone-looking man. See how he talks at, 
 through, up against, down upon, everybody and 
 everything ! He has a joke for every one. He 
 chaffs them all round, waiters included. He is 
 button -holing the whole table with his eyes. 
 Listen to the monster ! How he laughs ! You
 
 6 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 can hear nothing else. What a fearful thing is 
 vulgar geniality ! That fellow would chaff the 
 Pope if he could get at him. 
 
 "Then there are two or three specimens of 
 the ' reticent ' Briton. That pock-marked fellow 
 staring so fiercely at four inches of the table in 
 front of him, is one of them. Doesn't he look 
 as if his pockets were full of Orsini bombs ? as 
 if he were making up his mind to let them off 
 at once, and blow us all to smithereens ? And 
 there's another — that hectic man in the white 
 tie, looking as if he had just picked a pocket. 
 They are both in a white terror of being addressed 
 in a foreign tongue ; for, behold, beside one sits 
 a restless-looking Frenchman, and by the other 
 an affable Muscovite. Hence their woe. And 
 there is the archseological female Briton — she 
 may be in some other ' ology ' perhaps, but she 
 certainly goes in for ' mind ' and science of some 
 sort. They're all the same. You can't mistake 
 them. Limp, and with that mysterious top- 
 knot of scraggy hair gathered together from the 
 uttermost parts of the head. She looks as if a 
 savage had tomahawked her, and, finding the 
 scalp unsatisfactory, had hurriedly replaced it. 
 Doesn't she, Cosmo ? Oh, how I suffered from 
 one of the tribe at Eleusis last year ! The sun
 
 MINE IS THINE. 7 
 
 was raging, but she seated herself on a fallen 
 capital and held me, like the Ancient Mariner, 
 while she lectured for half an hour on the spirit 
 of Greek Art. She had come from Athens 
 without an escort, braving the brigands with no 
 protection save her awful virginity ; and I fear 
 there is no doubt it got her safe back. And ah ! 
 I thought we should find him here ; and there 
 he is, sure enough, up at the end of the opposite 
 table — and a fine specimen he is, too, of the 
 ' domestic ' Briton. You can see through all 
 that fellow's dodges, and read him like a book. 
 These two girls are his daughters, and he 
 trembles for them. Every well-looking indivi- 
 dual of the opposite sex is a hawk, ready to 
 swoop upon his dove-cot. You, Cosmo, are a 
 hawk." ' 
 
 " Thanks ; I fear your definition won't permit 
 a tu quoque." 
 
 "You are, as I say, in this man's perverted 
 vision, a hawk. His mind is full of hawks and 
 foreign counts. The foreign count is his bete 
 noire, and every well - dressed foreigner is a 
 count ' within the meaning of the Act.' Observe 
 how he has strategised against hawks and 
 counts. He has thrown out a flanking party on 
 either side of the dove-cot, — that tough-looking
 
 iS MINE IS .THINE. 
 
 spinster on the left, obviously an aunt — the 
 hobbledehoy on the right, clearly a brother ; and 
 he himself is a big gun of position in the centre, 
 ready to go off with fearful detonations." 
 
 " The doves are rather pretty, Tom ; the blue 
 one is really a charming little ingenue." 
 
 "Passable — passable; and indeed I find the 
 pink sister not without attraction. Impossible 
 head-gear, though." 
 
 " Oh, cela va sa?is dire ; at present all head- 
 gears are impossible. Now, if you were to tilt 
 back that terrible erection on the girl's head till 
 it sloped from the sky-line of the head, over the 
 neck, you would " 
 
 " Steady, Cosmo ! outlying picket alarmed 
 and signalling to the main body. Look at the 
 weather. Opposite window ; charming evening, 
 isn't it ? What a bloom there is on that hill 
 opposite ! How the last rays of the sun are 
 bringing out the tints of everything ! " 
 
 " Including that bottle of ' Gattinara,' which 
 has been with you ever since we sat down. 
 Pass it, before it is quite empty. I'll tell you 
 what it is, Tom, it is not a remunerative system 
 going shares in wine with a talkative fellow like 
 you. You don't give yourself time to eat much, 
 but you do contrive to drink like a whale."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 9 
 
 "Do I ? The action is quite mechanical, I 
 assure you." 
 
 " Very likely, but it empties the bottle quite 
 as effectually as if it were deliberate." 
 
 "After all, what is there in one bottle of 
 'Gattinara'?" 
 
 " Precisely what I wish to discover. Pass 
 it." ' 
 
 " Cornish men ? No, surr ; I never fouled a 
 Cornish man — not to know him." Thus spake 
 a cadaverous American gentlemen, who sat op- 
 posite the two friends, addressing an English 
 neighbour, and splitting up his remarks into 
 short, irregular sentences. 
 
 "They are splendid men, I can tell you," 
 said the neighbour ; " they're descended from 
 the ancient Britons, you know." 
 
 " Are they, now ? "Well, I niver met an 
 ancient Briton. But if any of them were to 
 give a look down Texas way. They'd keep 
 quiet about their descendants when they went 
 back, I guess. They've got a kind of a man 
 down there, surr, that mostly runs seventy- 
 three to seventy - seven inches. That's good 
 enough, ain't it ? You've heard of William G. 
 Howkins ? " 
 
 " I think not."
 
 10 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Ah ! that was a kind of a man that stood 
 ninety-two inches. And a fraction. And when 
 he killed the grizzly that ran to 900 pounds 
 in its skin and claws. You've heard of that 
 bear?" 
 
 " No, I can't say I have." 
 
 " Wall, he took and carried that thar grizzly, 
 and went browsin' all around the town with 
 that thar carcass on his back. To show him. 
 That's the kind of man William G. Howkins 
 was. And that's the kind of man they raise, 
 down Texas way. I guess an ancient Briton 
 would feel rather mean and skinny down there. 
 
 I guess he'd feel downright d d ashamed of 
 
 his descendants. When he saw them ao-ain." 
 
 " Howkins must have been a Goliath." 
 
 " Wall, he was above the middle height. But 
 he ain't the size now. Not since the war." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 "Wall, there was a cannon-ball that was a 
 trifle quick for him at Gettysburg. He got his 
 legs chipped. And shortened up, at that time, 
 seven or eight inches. But, I guess, they'd still 
 show the balance of him in Cornwall. For 
 money. W. G. H. wasn't descended from no- 
 body. You bet." 
 
 "A've harrd ov a Glasca man " beo-an
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 11 
 
 another gentleman, in the solemo doric of 
 North Britain. 
 
 " Be japers ! " interrupted a sprightly-looking 
 neighbour — "be japers! Mr Howkins must be 
 own brother to Larry O'Toole's aunt. 
 
 1 That had niver a father, 
 And sorra a mother, 
 But jist poured herself out from a jug of potheen.' " 
 
 " A racklack a Glasca man — u'm thinkin' his 
 name was Fechnie " Interruption, how- 
 ever, again befell the Scot, for an excitable- 
 looking Frenchman, who had been intently 
 listening to the dialogue, suddenly gave tongue. 
 
 "Messieurs," he exclaimed, "comment cela 
 s'explique-t-il ? Moi, je comprends parfaitement 
 r Anglais, mais il n'y a pas moyen de vous com- 
 prendre, vous autres. Vous parlez trois — mais, 
 oui ! — quatre langues, entre vous, tout a la fois. 
 Que veut dire ce ' Larree O'Toal ' ? Qu'est ce que 
 c'est que ce ' Glass Cow ' ? Comment expliquez 
 vous cet abominable ' Backlaxe ' ? Dites done, 
 
 je vous en prie, comment " But here a shout 
 
 of laughter reduced the Gaul to foaming silence. 
 
 The meal went bustling on. The blended 
 tumult of a hundred voices rose and fell, as in- 
 terval and onset relieved each other ; but at 
 every revival the pitch of voices seemed higher,
 
 12 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 and the laughter more strenuous than before, — 
 save where, like veritable " Towers of Silence," 
 the types of reticence sat wrapt in a taciturnity 
 that seemed to become palpable — to make itself 
 felt — even amid that human Babel, with its 
 crashing symphonies from delf and metal. All 
 round the table quaint idiosyncrasies progres- 
 sively evolved themselves before the laughing eyes 
 of Cosmo Glencairn and his loquacious friend. 
 About a third of the dinner had been achieved. 
 The American Eagle was soaring sublime, on 
 reckless wings of hyperbole and myth. The 
 Scotchman, who had failed to find a single taker 
 for some creaking observations on the bothy 
 system, as pursued in Eoss-shire, was watching 
 the Eagle, with the intention of a trapper in his 
 eye. His French neighbour continued to mutter, 
 " II n'y a pas moyen de comprendre ces gueux 
 d' Anglais." One female representative of British 
 mind, thinking entomology to be a good light 
 dinner subject — safe to draw — had plunged into 
 the habits of the " Death's-head moth," and se- 
 cured, for a time, the sympathy of several people 
 in her vicinity, including a curate, a governess, 
 with two female charges, a broken - English 
 German, and a highly -intelligent -looking old 
 gentleman, whose eye seemed to blaze with un-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 13 
 
 qualified appreciation, but who, as it afterwards 
 transpired, w T as deaf and blind. But suddenly 
 another of the sisterhood, who sat opposite, 
 unsuspected up to this time and incog., unmasked 
 herself and came into action, opening fire with 
 an " ichthyosaurus," and following it up with 
 u flint-headed weapons," which staggered the 
 curate, demoralised the pupils, and elicited a 
 long-drawn " So ! " from the German. Number 
 One, finding the Death's-head moth altogether 
 unequal to the position, withdrew it in favour 
 of " greywacke," which, to a certain extent, 
 rallied confidence, until " Primeval Man," " the 
 Moabite Stone," and " the Panathenaic Frieze," 
 fired off by Number Two in rapid succession, 
 left Number One without any following, save 
 the appreciative old man. But Number Two 
 did not long continue the heroine of the occa- 
 sion ; for the expansive Briton, expanding theo- 
 logically, laid an irreverent paw upon the Penta- 
 teuch, which roused the meek but true-hearted 
 curate, and, in a pause of silence and expecta- 
 tion, all the table awaited the encounter between 
 Christian and Apollyon. During this pause, 
 when dinner was half achieved, a new arrival 
 again diverted public attention, and concentrated 
 it on very different objects.
 
 14 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 The new party was preceded by a gaudy and 
 corpulent courier, who, after questioning the 
 buff- cinctured Jove with an air of impious 
 equality, marshalled his 'proteges to their seats, 
 with looks of scorn and menace, cast on either 
 side, as who should say, " Tremble, ye base 
 groundlings ! the social Juggernaut is upon 
 you." The public, however, paid small atten- 
 tion to this tremendous personage, for all eyes 
 were more pleasantly attracted to the lady and 
 gentleman who followed him. The lady was 
 beautiful. It is a bold assertion, an apple of 
 discord, which we should hesitate to hurl into 
 any assembly on the entrance of any living 
 woman. Did its sculptor succeed in expressing 
 a true ideal of Beauty, or did he only immor- 
 talise the Insipid, in the Venus dei Medici % 
 Are Eubens's often-painted wives glorious types 
 of vigorous and beautiful womanhood ? or are 
 they only two naked Flemish fish women, wallow- 
 ing in a superabundance of garish flesh ? Speci- 
 mens these, selected at random, of the diversi- 
 ties of opinion upon all questions as to beauty 
 depicted by human hands ; and how much 
 greater are the diversities when the claims of 
 this, or that, living woman are sub lite! I 
 make, then, a bold assertion ; but as the lady
 
 MINE IS THINE. 15 
 
 is invisible to the reader, I make it boldly, not 
 fearing contradiction, unless, indeed, some may 
 take exception to certain features which I may 
 state to have been distinctive of the fair entrant 
 — sea -grey eyes, to wit, — grey or blue, I know 
 not which, but the colour of the Mediterranean 
 when the sun has just gone down, and left upon 
 calm waters a look, between the blue of noon- 
 tide and the steely sheen that comes on them 
 with the gloaming, — sea-grey eyes and bronze- 
 brown hair, a pure complexion, a nose delicately 
 retrousse, a mouth like the bow of Cupid, and 
 a figure slight, but genuine and complete — not 
 that composition of door, hay-truss, and pillow, 
 with which art, supplementing natural deficien- 
 cies, contrives nowadays to make a travesty 
 of the " human form divine." All these were 
 attributes of the young lady in question ; and 
 I trust that, on these simple data, no reader 
 will be captious enough to found a theory that 
 she was not (what I distinctly assert she was 
 and is) beautiful. It is a goodly thing to be 
 beautiful ; it is a glorious thing to be young 
 (dwell upon this, rejoice in it, revel in it, 
 ye young, in the days of your youth!), — but 
 to be both young and beautiful is to be twice 
 blest ; and this fortunate lady enjoyed that
 
 16 ' MINE IS THINE. 
 
 double beatitude. And besides all this — an 
 attribute more exquisite still — she possessed that 
 subtle, magical charm which words cannot de- 
 fine nor art imitate, but which nature, culture, 
 and association, all three, combine to produce, 
 weaving it out of movement, manner, expres- 
 sion, carriage, and I know not what besides, and 
 which can only, but most feebly, be expressed 
 in words by the commonplace phrase, " a thor- 
 ough-bred air." Many of the guests at the 
 table dlidte might have been indifferent to her 
 beauty, or denied its existence altogether ; but 
 the air noble reached them all : so that every 
 eye was turned admiringly in her direction, and 
 the duty of eating strenuously up to a rather 
 high contract price was pretty generally sus- 
 pended for at least five -and -twenty seconds. 
 Certain eclipses took place. The charms of 
 half-a-dozen pink-and- white damsels, who looked 
 but now so fresh and bright and pretty, vanished 
 abruptly, just as one has seen a bunch of comely 
 village -garden flowers grow coarse and gaudy 
 when placed near some exotic, exquisite in its 
 simple purity of form and hue. As she passed 
 up the hall, the sun offered an inspiration which 
 Eaphael might have prized ; for the last rays, 
 streaming through the windows, smote upon the
 
 MINE IS THINE. 17 
 
 deep masses of her burnished hair, and seemed 
 to set a glory round about her small and shapely 
 head. 
 
 "A burning beauty ! " whispered Tom Wye- 
 dale. 
 
 Cosmo said nothing, but the thought written 
 in his face was " Oh ! dea certe ! " 
 
 " And," said the American, following up a 
 commendatory remark of his own — "and, I 
 guess, the old hoss looks like blood and bone, 
 and beans into the bargain." 
 
 These irreverent remarks were applied to the 
 gentleman who followed the beautiful appari- 
 tion. He was a tall, old man, with features 
 patrician rather than handsome, and an expres- 
 sion well-bred rather than courteous ; in carriage 
 upright, in movement deliberately angular ; 
 clear of complexion, with cold blue eyes, and 
 slight but emphatic whiskers ; highly collared, 
 amply neckerchiefed ; tightly buttoned - up, as 
 to his olive frock-coat, — his ensemble, in a word, 
 recalling the now extinct, grand air of the old 
 school. 
 
 His temper was not in a satisfactory con- 
 dition. He had a grievance, which exploded 
 every now and then in far-reaching fragments 
 of angry sentences, and which proved to be that 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 18 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 he was very late for dinner, but by no fault of 
 his own ; and the difficulty of bringing the 
 blame home to the real delinquent was that 
 which now exercised his mind. Some men — 
 nurses of their wrath — cannot be satisfied until 
 they get it into the concrete. They can't say, 
 " Confound it!" — they must be able to say, 
 " Confound him, them, or you ! " The old 
 gentleman was of this nature, and he was hunt- 
 ing for a personality wherewith to connect his 
 grievance. Every one, from his courier and his 
 daughter's maid, had, of course, shifted the 
 blame to some subordinate, so that half the 
 household were implicated, even the hall-porter 
 being entangled in the affair. Several of these 
 officials were brought up for examination in the 
 table-d'hdte room, and a sort of running court of 
 inquiry occupied the old gentleman in the in- 
 tervals between each tepid plat. It ended by 
 the summary conviction of the head -waiter, 
 whose lofty bearing had at once inflamed the 
 spirit of the old gentleman, and pointed him 
 out, without further evidence, as the guilty 
 person. So the case was closed by a few power- 
 ful observations addressed to that astonished 
 magnate. 
 
 " Don't answer me ! " cried the angry guest ;
 
 MINE IS THINE. 19 
 
 " it is, as I say, all owing to your abominable 
 carelessness." 
 
 " Beg your pardon, my lord ; every one knows 
 that the table-cVlwte hour " 
 
 "Every one, sir, is a very different person 
 from me and my daughter. I know nothing 
 about your table-d'hdte, except that I never saw 
 a worse dinner or more execrable attendance. 
 I shall report this to the direction, and also 
 about your manner, which is distinctly offensive. 
 Go away." 
 
 " Beg pardon, my lord " 
 
 " Go away, sir ! get out of my sight ! " — 
 whereupon the man went, crestfallen ; and the 
 American, regarding the old peer with a curious 
 veneration that could hardly have been surpass- 
 ed on his lordship's own domain, muttered — 
 
 " Darned if it ain't something to be a lord ! 
 A real English lord ! They all knock under 
 to that. That all -mighty waiter would have 
 laughed at any of your counts or barons. Or 
 even a duke. If he spelt himself D-U-C. But 
 the real article kicks 'em all about." 
 
 "After all," smiled his English neighbour, 
 "you see something in our aristocracy." 
 
 "Yes, surr. Something to be ashamed of. I 
 see something in human natur', too. And Fm
 
 20 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 ashamed of that. Human natur', surr, is a born 
 toady. I ain't proud of that fact. But that 
 don't prevent me seeing that while it is sich, it 
 ain't a bad thing to be a lord. Like the old 
 crocodile over the way. It's better to kick than 
 to be kicked — ain't it ? That's sense, I guess. 
 Holloa, waiter ! who's the lord ? " 
 
 The waiter didn't know, and was despatched 
 to the bureau to bring the required information 
 in writing — which being done, the Yankee read 
 the name, and said — 
 
 " Wall, I hope Lord Germistoune's property's 
 big. He wants elbow-room. It would take 
 about four of our parishes, I guess, to let him 
 turn in. Without grazing." 
 
 The tedious dinner came to a close at last, 
 and the company melted gradually away, to 
 take their coffee at fresco while listening to the 
 band ; or to be rowed about upon the lake, in 
 the dreamy twilight between sunset and moon- 
 rise. As Cosmo and Tom left the room, they 
 passed close by Lord Germistoune and his 
 daughter, just as his lordship, still unappeased, 
 was remarking — 
 
 "The whole thing is distinctly monstrous. 
 They have only now brought me these letters
 
 MINE IS THINE. 21 
 
 and papers, which have been awaiting us here 
 since yesterday." 
 
 " How very tiresome and stupid ! " said the 
 young lady ; " but I daresay it won't happen 
 again, now they know you." 
 
 " I shall take uncommon good care it does 
 not have a chance of happening again, for I 
 will leave the house." 
 
 " Dear papa, there is no other hotel." 
 
 " Not on this side ; but two, at least, at Bel- 
 laggio. Now, I propose to be rowed over there 
 this evening, and secure rooms for to-morrow. 
 If I sent that idiot Stefano, he would be sure to 
 make mistakes. Would you care to come ? It 
 is a lovely evening, and but a short row. Per- 
 haps you are too tired, though 1 " 
 
 " Not at all ; I should like of all things to go 
 with you." 
 
 " Very well : if you are ready in half an hour, 
 that will do. The moon is nearly full now, and 
 we need not hurry. In the meantime I will try 
 to get a cup of coffee outside."
 
 22 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The two friends passed an hour or so lounging 
 by the lake, till the moon began to rise over the 
 hills, and then Cosmo said — 
 
 " Behold the hour, and the boat of Pietro ! 
 Let us hail him, and get afloat. That little 
 breeze, just beginning to arrive from the Enga- 
 dine, is a godsend, after the stifling heat of the 
 day. Let us get right out into the middle of 
 the lake, and meet it and make the most of it, 
 and see the moon rising. The moonlight effects 
 here are superb ; and there is something in this 
 air that makes one appreciative. The moon 
 makes poets of us all down here — the moon and 
 the lake, between them." 
 
 Cosmo was right. Surely his must be a rusty 
 soul that takes no gleam of radiance and de- 
 light from the beautiful communion of the two ! 
 Beautiful ! There is no word in any language 
 o;ood enough, beautiful enough, to describe it.
 
 MINE IS THINE. 23 
 
 The moon must be in love with Como. Fancy- 
 free for all the world besides, the ''imperial 
 vot'ress" must have bestowed upon that fav- 
 oured lake the solitary passion of her mysterious 
 heart. Is not this why her countenance changes 
 as she passes over these enchanted and enchant- 
 ing waters ? Is not this why the fashion of her 
 beauty there grows softer, tenderer, dreamier? 
 Is it not for this that there she moves with such 
 slow and lingering languor, as all those who, 
 with seeing eyes, have beheld her, will attest \ 
 Yes, she is in love with Como ; and as lovers' 
 faces change at meeting the adored, so is she 
 transfigured when she looks over the hills that 
 shelter the object of her devotion. Lover-like 
 she comes, making the most of her own charms. 
 Lover-like she glorifies the beauties of the be- 
 loved with her idealising light. And oh ! most 
 lover -like she moves in that clear presence, 
 slowly, rapt, concentrated — piercing with her 
 glances the solemn depths of the enamoured 
 lake, which lies gazing up at her, earnest and 
 silent, needing no voice for a reply ; for she can 
 see into that clear, deep heart, and there behold 
 the transcript of her pure and holy flame. 
 Though "Adam lost Paradise — eternal tale I" — 
 there have still been left to us — few, indeed, and
 
 24 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 far between — scattered over the face of mother 
 earth, certain spots of heavenly beauty and 
 repose : Edens, the gates of which no flaming 
 swords nor " watch of winged Hydra " guard ; 
 where the flowers are not too obviously dis- 
 figured by the serpent's trail ; where even the 
 spirit of man, if not divine, at least possesses 
 some of the calm, suave attributes of divinity. 
 Surely Lake Como and its margin are of these. 
 The day had been one of sultriest heat, and a 
 kind of thundery silence had brooded over the 
 water, and over all the country round about. 
 Closed jalousies had darkened the faces of the 
 beautiful villas on the lake. The luxuriant 
 creepers, clothing their terrace-walls, hung down 
 limp and dejected, as though trying to reach the 
 water, and find coolness or death therein. The 
 fountains in the gardens seemed to send up 
 languid and unwilling jets, dim to the eye, and 
 with no joyous music for the ear. From Trem- 
 ezzo to Menaggio, from Bellaggio to Varenna, 
 you might have counted the visible population 
 on your fingers — a few languid forms, motion- 
 less for the most part, or only moving a few 
 unwilling paces, to subside again into inevitable 
 stagnation. Not a boat to be seen on the lake 
 save one — a large contadino barque, laden with
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 25 
 
 market-produce, which put off early from Var- 
 enna, but soon gave up the business as hopeless, 
 and lay all day at the opening of Lake Lecco, 
 the motionless cradle of its slumbering crew. A 
 terribly hot and breathless day it had been ; so 
 that when the breeze sprang up at sunset, it 
 was like Nature's sigh of relief after a long 
 ordeal of ennui and fatigue — as who should say, 
 " Gone at last ! " and then everything awoke 
 and was changed after that. The moon came 
 up and gave her light. The darkened eyes of 
 the villas opened and sent forth their light. 
 The spray of the fountains leaped gaily up and 
 caught the moonbeams and tossed them about, 
 like genii playing with handfuls of diamonds. 
 And the flowers, instead of closing their petals, 
 like conventional flowers, must have opened 
 them for the first time that day — so sweet be- 
 came the night with their breath, so rich with 
 all the fragrances of summer. And from either 
 shore floated tempered strains — the sounds of 
 all manner of musical instruments ; and on the 
 lake came airy-looking boats, many gaily illu- 
 minated with coloured lamps and torches — all 
 vocal, some with melodious laughter, some with 
 the voice of singing. Even the big contadino 
 barque, under way again with sail and oar, stole
 
 26 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 picturesquely and harmoniously along, and the 
 gentle plash of the oars acted as a pleasant 
 symphony to the well-worn, but captivating 
 Neapolitan ditty which the rowers sang, to the 
 worship and the wooing of the much-hymned 
 "Marianina" — 
 
 " Marianina ! Marianina ! 
 Cambia, cambia tuoi pensiere, 
 Non andar coi bersagliere, 
 Se ti vuoi maritar ! 
 Se ti vuoi maritar ! 
 Se ti vuoi maritar ! 
 Marianina mia ! carina mia ! 
 Dammi un bacio o mi iai morir ! " 
 
 Upon these waters bathed in the dreamy 
 lovelight of the summer moon, and into this 
 scene, worthier of dreamland than the workaday 
 world, the two friends put forth, with no special 
 object to decide the direction of their little boat, 
 save only to get into the middle of the lake. 
 Once there, the breeze met, the point of view 
 reached, Tom Wyedale, who was by no means 
 of a contemplative turn, demanded of his friend 
 whither he should order the boatman to shape 
 his course. Tom, by the by, who erroneously 
 believed himself to know a little Italian, had 
 stipulated that, for practice' sake, he should be 
 allowed on all occasions to act as spokesman. 
 
 "It does not matter/' said Cosmo — "any where."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 27 
 
 " That's rather vague." 
 
 " Yes, but vagueness is the very thing for a 
 night like this, which would be outraged by any- 
 thing so prosaic as the definite. Tell the old 
 man to move vaguely and promiscuously about." 
 
 " Eather trying to my stock of Italian, which 
 is rather for solid, than fancy purposes. Avanti, 
 Pietro ! " 
 
 "Si, signore!" cried the old boatman, plung- 
 ing his oars with alacrity into the water, and 
 heading away for Bellaggio at racing-pace. 
 
 "Too fast— too fast/' cried Cosmo. "The 
 old rascal is thinking of that wine-shop under 
 the colonnade. He has arranged our programme 
 and his own. We are to hang about and listen to 
 the Bellagian band for an hour, while he devotes 
 himself to the dismal wine of the country and 
 that mysterious game of fingers. Stop, stop ! " 
 
 " Fermatevi, Pietro ! " cried Tom ; "and now 
 whither ? " 
 
 " Everywhere/' 
 
 " Da per tutto, Pietro." 
 
 " Si signore ; " and interpreting his instruc- 
 tions to perfection, he subsided into a slow, 
 monotonous stroke, and shaped a serpentine 
 course. 
 
 " What fellows these Italians are, to be sure ! "
 
 28 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 said Cosmo, as a boat-load of minstrelsy passed 
 at a little distance, and filled the air with strains 
 that seemed to interpret the very spirit of the 
 hour and scene. " What an instinctive taste 
 they have ! Your English musician would have 
 destroyed everything here by something horribly 
 jerky and jigging. But these men have woven 
 into their music the moonlight and the orange- 
 trees and the sweetness of orange-blossoms, the 
 bright villas, the pleasant vineyards, the deep 
 woods, the gardens, the sprightly fountains, the 
 melancholy lake, and the happy languid far 
 niente that suits a midsummer night." 
 
 " Holloa ! I say " 
 
 " This is the very music of a midsummer 
 night's dream. Titania might have been lulled to 
 sleep by it on that delectable bank of wild thyme." 
 
 " Come, Cosmo, this is all very hard upon me." 
 
 " Yes, to be sure, my dear fellow ; a thousand 
 apologies ! I was thinking aloud. Pearls are 
 an offence to swine. I'll change the subject." 
 
 " It strikes me — all this is very fine, of course, 
 — but it strikes me that this same sentiment of 
 yours is rather of a sensual kind. I'll call it 
 sensuous, if you like. You're a sensuous fellow, 
 Cosmo — that's the word." 
 
 " Well, I don't object, I quite believe that
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 29 
 
 the great thing in life, so as to get the most out 
 of it, is to be thoroughly adaptive ; in a scene 
 like this to be able to be ' sensuous/ — a sybarite, 
 if you please, without prejudice to my being 
 metaphysical, spiritual, stoical, realistic, posi- 
 tive, and practical — each on the fitting occasion. 
 There is a time for all things. A one-sided man 
 must be constantly out of tune with his sur- 
 roundings. Life has so many phases, and such 
 incessant changes. Therefore, to-night, let me 
 be sensuous — if you please." 
 
 " A versatile man never comes to anything/'' 
 
 " An old parrot-cry — and not true ; but even 
 if it were true, he would come to nothing, hap- 
 pily — and happiness is the summum bonum of 
 my to-night's philosophy, which also forbids me 
 to indulge in prosy speculation ; so don't go on 
 with it, you Philistine ! " 
 
 " You began it." 
 
 " Argument of any sort is also impossible, or I 
 would deny it." 
 
 " Well, philosophy or not philosophy, it is very 
 jolly out on the lake to-night. I wonder what 
 that pretty girl thinks of it ! also, I wonder if 
 her papa has got over the coldness of the soup 
 and the lukewarmness of the attendance ! " 
 
 " Pretty ? do you call her pretty ? "
 
 ,30 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Yes, I do, most emphatically. What ! you 
 don't mean to say that you don't admire her 1 " 
 
 " No, I mean to say nothing of the sort — but 
 pretty ! How like you that is, Tom ! I would 
 not insult beauty of that type by calling its 
 possessor pretty. There is an elevation, a soul, a 
 purity in her beauty that I have seldom, if ever, 
 seen before, in a human face. I know a picture 
 for which she might have sat. I have not seen 
 it for years, but it has always haunted me. It 
 is, or was, in an obscure little Italian village 
 perched away up in the hills above the Eiviera. 
 Some old cardinal, who was born there, left it 
 with the rest of his collection to his native place. 
 It is a Madonna, by Sasso Ferrato ; not a replica 
 of any of his well-known pictures, but a unique 
 original — different altogether from any of his 
 other Madonnas, yet authentic, and of extra- 
 ordinary beauty and grace. The moment I saw 
 this young lady I was reminded of it. It is my 
 beau-ideal of female loveliness. When I first 
 saw the picture I was reminded of the verse — 
 
 " The star-like beauty of immortal eyes." 
 
 When I have thought of the picture, I have 
 always thought of the phrase. To-night I have 
 seen the conception of the painter realised ; and
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 31 
 
 in mortal eyes I have beheld the star-like beauty 
 of which the poet dreamed." 
 
 " My dear Cosmo, this is a very desperate state 
 of things. You must really take more exercise, 
 and get up early in the morning. I have been 
 suspecting for some time that there is a slight 
 tendency to hepatitis. Do you remember poor 
 Oliver Lee 1 He died of it, you know, and was 
 really comforted for his mortal sickness by its 
 big name. He insisted on it always, and was 
 continually checking off his symptoms — c clouded 
 vision, morbid fancies, loss of appetite, noises in 
 the head, insomnia/ &c. These were some of 
 them ; and I do think, Cosmo, that the vision 
 must be clouded and the fancy morbid which 
 transforms the beaute de diable into divine 
 loveliness." 
 
 " Beaute de diable! I suppose you think 
 you've achieved a neat antithesis, but you're 
 wrong; for between the beaute de diable and 
 divine beauty there is the same connection as 
 there is between the beauty of innocence and 
 the beauty of holiness." 
 
 " Oh, this is terrible ! Pray be sensuous again ; 
 it's better than being metaphysical after a table- 
 d'hote dinner. I suppose, then, you have fallen 
 in love with the Madonna at first sight ? "
 
 32 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " The reasoning of a chambermaid ! Well, 
 even if I had fallen in love with her, it would 
 not be at first sight ; for in seeing her to-night, I 
 only see the figure of the picture in a new pose, 
 with a change of drapery, in a different light. 
 Perhaps I am in love with the ideal which the 
 picture suggests ; if so, I shall certainly be faith- 
 ful to it, for the ideal never disappoints, and the 
 real generally does so. Therefore I would rather 
 avoid this young lady." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! ho ! he ! — also hum ! " 
 " If she were to fulfil the promise of the 
 picture, it would be something like the story of 
 Pygmalion and Galatea coming true. That is 
 not a likely occurrence. No ; were she never so 
 charming, she would fail to reach the perfection 
 which Sasso Ferrato has helped me to conceive. 
 It would be impossible not to associate her real 
 qualities with my ideal ; and since, as I say, the 
 real almost inevitably disappoints, my beautiful 
 illusion would be dissipated and my idol shat- 
 tered. I shall be careful not to come in contact 
 with the young lady." 
 
 " Well, I am sure I have no objection; and, 
 to tell you the truth, it just occurs to me that I 
 may as well fall in love with her myself. I have 
 not adventured in that line as yet ; but I daresay
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 33 
 
 I might succeed, because I am so ' adaptive/ as 
 you call it ; and there would be a dramatic pro- 
 priety in being in love on Lake Como, which I 
 am not insensible to. Besides, there's nothing 
 else to do here but smoke and loll about on the 
 lake ; and I daresay both these occupations 
 would gain by a flavour of the tender passion. 
 Yes, Cosmo, consider me in love, until further 
 instructions, and respect me accordingly — no 
 brusquerie, no roughness with the blossom 
 which now begins to expand before your eyes." 
 
 " You in love ? You ? " 
 
 " I — even I. You ought to be immensely 
 obliged to me. You're out of the running, you 
 know, and evidently developing into a bard. 
 It will be a godsend to you to watch the affair. 
 Besides, you will be of serious service in goose- 
 berry-picking ; and you are just the man to in- 
 triguer that combustible old gentleman — you're 
 so 'adaptive' and ' many-sided,' don't you see?" 
 
 " Well, I can conceive many things, but not 
 Tom Wyedale as the hero of a love-romance." 
 
 " Nothing happens but the improbable, my 
 boy ; and if there are a few deficiencies in my 
 composition, you can idealise me, you know. 
 With your talent, I think you ought to turn out 
 of this material a very first-class sort of hero." 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 34 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Somehow I don't see it." 
 
 " All ! you do us both injustice." 
 
 " I could hardly give romantic attributes to a 
 round of beef or a pot of porter." 
 
 " You wrong me, Cosmo — you wrong me ; but 
 it is the old story. A great man's school-fellows 
 are notoriously the last to recognise his great 
 qualities. The school-dunce develops into an 
 intellectual giant, but his early brother-dunces 
 can never forget the fool's-cap which he shared 
 with them. I forgive you, old mac" 
 
 " Very good of you ; but I can't say I remem- 
 ber that interesting bond between you and me." 
 
 " Likely enough ; memory plays sad pranks 
 in such matters." 
 
 " I can remember, however, that you were the 
 biggest dunce in your form." 
 
 " Imagination in fault this time ; it constantly 
 clouds the memory." 
 
 " I don't think I require to call upon my 
 memory, or use the past tense, in speaking of 
 your dunceship." 
 
 " Hepatitis ! hepatitis ! Clouded vision, mor- 
 bid fancies, noises in the head. We must have 
 you overhauled. There is a man slayer in the 
 hotel ; consult him." 
 
 " Hang it, Tom, what a bore you are ! I feel
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 35 
 
 so tired of you sometimes, it appears to me a 
 mystery how we are such friends." 
 
 " Candid friend ! it is difficult to say how it 
 should be so. The general rules are horribly 
 contradictory. Like draws to like ; but then, 
 contrasts fascinate each other. Perhaps the en- 
 dearing ties in this case are gratitude on your 
 part, and a sense of protectorship on mine — 
 continued from earliest youth until now." 
 
 " As how \ " 
 
 " How \ Why, who licked Jack Falls for 
 bullying you \ " 
 
 " I don't remember ; probably I licked him 
 myself." 
 
 " You ! Why, Jack could have eaten you. 
 Who supplied you with cricket- bats, like a 
 brother \ " 
 
 " No one did. I remember your giving me 
 a bat for my silver chain and my white mouse 
 that had one eye pink and the other green — but 
 the handle of the bat turned out to be sprung." 
 
 " Well, hang it ! I gave you back the mouse, 
 although I was devoted to it." 
 
 " Yes, you gave it me back to avoid a swish- 
 ing, when white mice were forbidden under 
 penalties. And then, when the holidays came — 
 although I had run the risk of keeping it all the
 
 36 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 half — you pretended you had only lent it to me, 
 to oblige me, and wanted to take it back." 
 
 " Oh, I can't go back upon all these trumpery 
 little details. I only remember that I was ex- 
 cessively generous to you about a mouse or mice 
 and cricket-bats." 
 
 " Generous ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and then the verses." 
 
 " I suppose you'll say next that you wrote 
 mine for me % " 
 
 " By no means ; that would have been a doubt- 
 ful kindness. No ; I frequently allowed you to 
 write mine for me, which was glorious practice 
 for a little fellow — upon my word, it was quite 
 fatherly of me. And then that row about Mother 
 Willet's orchard, when I saved you — and — and 
 — these and a hundred other little kindnesses, I 
 suppose, must have stamped themselves into the 
 plastic nature of your youth, and have been con- 
 firmed in manhood by the sense of protection 
 which an unpractical (shall I say a weaker Vj 
 nature derives from association with one which 
 is practical and philosophically robust. That, I 
 take it, is the explanation from your point of 
 view ; and from mine, it is, of course, not won- 
 derful to find a generous spirit attaching itself 
 to the object of its protection and generosity."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 37 
 
 " And looking out watchfully, no doubt, for 
 fresh opportunities of exercising these quali : 
 ties 1 " 
 
 " Most distinctly. I will be true to my mis- 
 sion, Cosmo. Lean upon me ; I won't desert 
 you." 
 
 " Now, Tom, you villain, I don't like this vein 
 at all. I seem to remember similar flourishes 
 in connection with certain financial embarrass- 
 ments, which always ended in being rather em- 
 barrassing to myself. Upon my honour, now, 
 I shouldn't be a bit surprised to find that there 
 was a temporary difficulty about an hotel bill, 
 or a temporary but equally pressing necessity 
 for two or three hundred pounds." 
 
 " My dear Cosmo, nor I ! What intuitions 
 the fellow has at times, to be sure ! To tell 
 you the truth, my banker is not a very good 
 fellow." 
 
 -Nor' 
 
 " No, not at all. I may say I'm ashamed of 
 him. He can never see more than one side of 
 a question, and his view of that is limited and 
 groovy. Now a banker ought not to be groovy ; 
 ought he ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 "No. Grooviness is inconsistent with the
 
 38 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 elevated intelligence which one has a right to 
 expect in a banker. Just listen to a case in 
 point. I " 
 
 Tom's statement, however, was interrupted by 
 a shout from a boat at a little distance. The 
 two friends had been rowed down near to the 
 Isola di San Giovanni ; there they had turned, 
 and, after sweeping close in to the Bellagian 
 shore, were now slowly heading for home. The 
 boat which hailed was behind them, motionless, 
 and no other boats were in the neighbourhood. 
 
 " They must be hailing us," said Cosmo. 
 
 " Tourists full of new wine," replied Tom. 
 " Let them howl." 
 
 The shout was repeated. Cosmo was for re- 
 turning. " Something may be wrong," he said. 
 
 "Let them rave. Avanti!" quoth Tom. 
 
 Then, as they got under way again, the cry 
 was repeated with such energy that it became 
 clear that something was the matter ; and they 
 turned back. As they approached the boat, a 
 sharp English voice upbraided them, in fierce, 
 broken Italian, for their tardiness ; but as they 
 were all still under the shadow of the hills, the 
 speaker was unrecognisable. 
 
 " Subito ! subito /" replied old Pietro, leisurely 
 paddling along.
 
 MIXE IS THINE. 39 
 
 Sahito ! D n it ! do you call that su- 
 
 bito ? " cried the voice. 
 
 " Subito! subito ! — pazienza ! pazienza ! — che 
 va piano va lontano" said, or rather sang, the 
 grinning boatman, as though soothing an im- 
 patient child ; and then, easing his oars as he 
 ran alongside, "Eccoci, signore ! " 
 
 " It is the ' beaut e de (liable * and her papa, as 
 I am a living, loving sinner," whispered Tom. 
 " How prompt is the arrow of Fate ! " 
 
 " You are English gentlemen, I presume," said 
 Lord G-errnistoune — for it was he — " and I do 
 think you might have been a little readier to 
 answer my cry for assistance." 
 
 " But what is the matter, sir ? " asked Tom. 
 
 " Matter, sir ? Drowning's the matter — that's 
 all." He then explained that the boatman had 
 snapped one of his oars, and in jumping up to 
 try to rescue the half which fell into the water, 
 had sent " his great blundering foot through one 
 of the rotten planks ; and the boat's filling — 
 that's all." 
 
 " We had no conception that there was any- 
 thing seriously wrong," said Tom. 
 
 The old lord then tartly suggested tranship- 
 ment instead of conversation. " If you will put 
 us on shore anywhere at Bellaggio, we can get
 
 40 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 another boat. Our destination is Cadenabbia ; 
 but don't let us inconvenience you." 
 
 " Our way would be yours in any case," said 
 Cosmo, addressing the lady; "but, as it hap- 
 pens, we also are bound for Cadenabbia." 
 
 The transhipment then took place, and the 
 damaged boat was taken in tow, her boatman 
 continuing in her, and indignantly denying 
 any danger. Tom contrived to dispose the new 
 guests so that he sat between the young lady 
 and her father. And now he began to play off 
 a little comedy for the amusement of his friend ; 
 and falling into the rdle which he had prescribed 
 for himself in his farcical conversation a few 
 minutes before, proceeded to dramatise the part 
 of the "aspirant" who, in "sapping up to a posi- 
 tion," makes almost as much love to the lady's 
 belongings as to herself. Cosmo, who knew the 
 " devilry " of which his friend was capable, 
 feared he might overdo the part. The gravity 
 of his face and manner were, however, unim- 
 peachable ; and all his attentions, divided pretty 
 equally between father and daughter, passed 
 muster in the most creditable way. Cosmo was 
 very far from approving of a joke of the sort, 
 and he soon had fresh cause for disapproval and 
 annoyance ; for Tom, out of pure wantonness,
 
 MINE IS THINE. 41 
 
 began to drag his name in, in such a way as to 
 throw discredit upon him, and in such a way as, 
 antithetically, to suggest his own superior merit 
 in all respects. 
 
 " I cannot," he said to the young lady, " suffi- 
 ciently blame myself for not insisting on our 
 immediate return. My friend is a little obsti- 
 nate, but I ought to have combated him. He 
 would have it that the cry came from some 
 party of tourists who had been — had been — a — 
 dining somewhere. The tone of voice ought to 
 have been sufficient for him. To me it was 
 unmistakably the cry of a gentleman in distress. 
 I ought to have been firm with him." 
 
 This spirited perversion of facts brought Lord 
 Germistoune into the field at once. " Your 
 friend's scepticism/' he said, with a very grim 
 look at Cosmo, " might have had disastrous 
 results for us. He might have been willing to 
 give us the benefit of the doubt, I think." 
 
 Cosmo was about to reply, when the young- 
 lady interposed. "I am sure," she said, "that 
 you came as quickly as possible. Papa, you are 
 really too exigeant. The accident seems scarcely 
 to have happened, and here we are, safe and 
 sound, on board another boat. Papa is too 
 exigeant" she continued, with a laugh, "but
 
 42 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 you must make allowance for him. He lias had 
 a sad chapter of accidents to-day. Have you 
 not, papa ? " 
 
 " Accidents ? I don't call them accidents," 
 snorted the old lord ; " downright, deliberate 
 insolence and mismanagement — these are not 
 accidents. Would you believe it, sir, I was 
 made twenty-five minutes late for dinner to-day 
 by false information % " 
 
 " Yes, I observed that you came in late for 
 dinner," said Tom, in a voice of sweetest sym- 
 pathy ; " and I feared there had been some of 
 the usual negligence. In fact, I think I said to 
 my friend, ' Here is the old, old story again ; it 
 is really getting too insufferable/" 
 
 " Ah ! you confirm me ? " 
 
 " Indeed I do." 
 
 " And then, that head-waiter ! " 
 
 " Oh ! he ? — he is notoriously an impostor." 
 
 " And his insolence ! " 
 
 " Insolence ! Now, I daresay he answered 
 you?" 
 
 " Ah ! that he did, and most improperly." 
 
 " There, Cosmo ! " said Tom, turning to his 
 friend with the air of a man who, after a pro- 
 tracted controversy, at length finds an argument 
 which gives him the victory beyond dispute —
 
 MINE IS THINE. 43 
 
 " there, Cosmo ! I suppose you won t support your 
 friend after that ;" and then, before Cosmo had 
 time to say anything — " to me, that man is the 
 incarnation of stupid impertinence. If it had not 
 been for my friend here, I would have brought 
 the matter to a point long ago, by going frankly 
 to the direction, and simply saying, ' Either that 
 head- waiter is dismissed, or I leave the hotel/ ' 
 
 " Quite right — quite right ! " cried the old 
 gentleman ; " and I'd have done it myself — I'd 
 have done it myself. Then, they keep back the 
 letters, and have no excuse to make. The 
 
 porter " 
 
 " Oh, the porter ! simply a cretin" 
 " And what business have they to employ 
 cretins f " 
 
 " Part of the system — part of the system." 
 " So it would seem ; and it's no better over 
 here. I have just been over to the ' Serbellone ' 
 to look for rooms ; and there, I protest to you, 
 I was treated like — like a scavenger. I said the 
 rooms smelt of rats. The manager denied this 
 brusquely ; said it had been the chateau of a 
 grand seigneur, and couldn't smell of rats. I 
 told him that I believed the walls were lined 
 with dead rats ; that the floors and the roofs 
 were full of them ; and that if there were no
 
 44 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 living ones there, it was simply because the 
 house was crumbling to pieces with dry-rot, 
 and going to fall. The manager then requested 
 me to leave the premises — me — actually — in so 
 many words, and stated that in no case should 
 I have rooms. I gave him my name, which 
 produced no sort of effect. I said I would ex- 
 pose him. He replied that that was my affair, 
 and a matter of complete indifference to him ; 
 and I was, as nearly as possible, hustled out of 
 the house. Now, did you ever hear anything 
 half so monstrous % — did you ever ? did you 
 ever % did you ever ? Eh ? hum ? what % " 
 
 Tom received this tale of wrong with immense 
 sympathy, interjecting little groans of indigna- 
 tion at critical parts. 
 
 " I think," continued the old gentleman, " the 
 whole place seems to have changed. Twenty 
 years ago it was charming ; but there is a sort 
 of an infernal democratic twang about it now, 
 that upsets me — upsets me. Don't you see a 
 change 1 " 
 
 " Oh, certainly ; nothing could be more 
 marked," replied Tom, who had seen the lake 
 for the first time one week before. " It's all de- 
 teriorated — sadly deteriorated," he added, with a 
 comprehensive wave of his hand, which appeared
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 45 
 
 to include the whole district, and even the lake 
 and the sky, in the condemnation of being rat- 
 eaten and of having a democratic twansf. 
 
 The old gentleman was greatly mollified by 
 all this sympathy ; but addressed himself exclu- 
 sively to Tom, who had contrived, out of sheer 
 wanton fun, to put his friend in the light of a 
 malefactor. 
 
 " It is very disappointing," said the young 
 lady ; "we intended to enjoy ourselves so much 
 here, and now all these contretemps have dark- 
 ened our prospects." 
 
 " You are not disappointed in the beauty of 
 the lake, I am sure \ " said Cosmo, who had 
 hitherto kept silence, and was now immediately 
 rewarded by a furtive kick from his friend, 
 meant to imply that he must not trespass on 
 another man's preserves. 
 
 " No, indeed," was the reply ; "I never, even 
 in my dreams, saw anything half so lovely." 
 
 Tom made rather a floundering attempt to 
 construct a gallant speech on these premisses, 
 and the lady went on — • 
 
 " One could not say too much in its praise ; 
 or rather, perhaps, one cannot say too little. 
 There are some things that seem to be above the 
 power of words."
 
 46 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Things that ought only to be painted, you 
 mean," said Tom ; " and you are an artist, with- 
 out doubt?" 
 
 " Oh, in a very, very humble way ; but papa 
 really is." 
 
 " Oh, how I envy him ! " cried Tom, with 
 rapture ; " this must be an artist's paradise — 
 points of view from land and water at discre- 
 tion, unrivalled effects of light and shade, and 
 — and — all that sort of thing," including an- 
 other kick for Cosmo. "You won't allow these 
 mishaps to drive you away immediately ? " he 
 continued, with much earnestness. 
 
 " Ah ! I don't know ; papa must be comfort- 
 able, and " 
 
 " And will be so, my dear," interposed her 
 father ; " and is certainly not going to be 
 hunted out of the place by a pack of innkeepers. 
 No, no." 
 
 " Bravo !" murmured Tom. 
 
 " I'm situated in this way," continued Lord 
 Germistoune — " Gull has ordered me to the En- 
 gadine. "Why Gull has ordered me to the 
 Engadine, I daresay Gull doesn't know himself 
 — I don't ; but doctors are tyrants, and these are 
 my tyrant's orders. Now, it seems one can't go 
 up there for a month to come, on account of
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 47 
 
 the hard weather in the mountains, and I had 
 decided to spend that month here — and here 
 I will spend it ; and Fll tell you what it is, since 
 there is no hotel fit for a gentleman to live 
 in, 111 take a villa. That will be a lesson 
 for them. Yes, 111 take a nice little villa to- 
 morrow morning, — eh ? hum ? what \ " 
 
 " I fear," said Tom, " it may be rather difficult 
 to find one for so short a time, and at such 
 short notice." 
 
 " Excuse me, I think not. There may, per- 
 haps, be difficulties ; but they shall be over- 
 come. Ill take a nice little villa to-morrow 
 morning. What ? " 
 
 " Papa is a most determined character, you 
 must know; he would rather buy a villa or 
 build one than be beaten." 
 
 " I generally contrive to have my own way, 
 Esme, as you know." 
 
 " Oh yes, dear papa, I do know ; only too 
 well sometimes," she added, with a laugh. "You 
 are a most formidable person when thwarted ; 
 but on this occasion I applaud your firmness — a 
 little selfishly, perhaps — for I am so glad we 
 are to stay on in this lovely place." 
 
 " It will be an example to them," chuckled 
 Lord Germistoune ; " 111 take a nice little villa
 
 48 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 in the morning." He gloated over the idea 
 which had only occurred to him in the course of 
 the conversation, and which seemed to offer a 
 pleasant salve of vengeance for his outraged 
 dignity. 
 
 " You must immortalise the lake with your 
 pencil," said Tom to the lady. 
 
 " Oh no ; but papa may. Indeed he has a 
 large portfolio of sketches done here years ago. 
 They first made me wish to come here." 
 
 Then Tom fell to cunning questioning as to 
 the views selected, expressing a burning curi- 
 osity to know how this and that subject had 
 been treated, the conditions of light at the time, 
 and so forth, invariably pronouncing the old 
 gentleman's artistic selection to have been pre- 
 cisely what it ought to have been, and generally 
 surrounding him with such a comfortable atmo- 
 sphere of appreciation and applause, that, when 
 the boat reached the shore, he was in high good- 
 humour. " Most agreeable, gentlemanlike fel- 
 low," he murmured to his daughter ; " must 
 make his acquaintance formally." Then turning 
 to the two friends, he thanked them very courte- 
 ously for the service they had rendered, and 
 even went so far as to hint at a vague regret for 
 having been betrayed into impatient language
 
 MINE IS THINE. 49 
 
 at the moment of rescue. " Let me offer you 
 my card," he said, in conclusion ; " I am Lord 
 Germistoune." The friends having duly handed 
 over theirs in return, were presented, with con- 
 siderable pomp and ceremony, to " My daughter, 
 Miss Douglas/' It then occurred to Lord Ger- 
 mistoune that Mr Wyedale's name was familiar 
 to him. " It reminds me," he said, " of one of 
 my oldest and dearest friends. AVe sat in the 
 House of Commons together for years, when he 
 
 was member for shire. "Was he a relation 
 
 of yours ? " 
 
 " He was my uncle," said Tom. 
 
 u Indeed ! Then I am doubly pleased to make 
 your acquaintance. Poor Tom Wyedale ! what 
 a witty dog he was, to be sure ! Quite one 
 of the best of us. And ah ! what a Tory ! He 
 would have had Peel hanged for his Corn-law 
 treachery, if he could. Ah ! a fine fellow, Tom. 
 He left no children, I think ? " 
 
 " No, his only son died." 
 
 " And Lady Mary?" 
 
 " She is very well, thank you." 
 
 "And the Abbey ?— Wyedale Abbey?— that 
 went to — to — not to you?" 
 
 " Alas ! no ; a brother darkened my life, by 
 getting into the light in front of me." 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! Well, we can't all hope to be 
 eldest sons. What?" 
 
 " No ; my aspirations would have been much 
 more easily satisfied." 
 
 " That reminds me of poor Tom. Well, shall 
 we say ' Good night/ or will you come up to 
 our quarters and have a cup of tea, and take 
 a look at these sketches we've been talking 
 about 1 " 
 
 Tom gladly assented, and the old lord led the 
 way to his apartment, explaining that the rooms 
 (which were really the best in the house and en- 
 tirely charming) were detestable ; but that, after 
 to-morrow, he hoped to receive his friends more 
 becomingly. " For " — and here he repeated the 
 formula about the nice little villa, which seemed, 
 to have captivated him like the refrain of a 
 pleasant song.
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Tom's conduct in the boat was, of course, merely 
 meant to amuse his friend, as the dramatic 
 sequel of their previous conversation, by a re- 
 presentation, as has been said, of the crafty 
 approaches of a politic lover. As far as his 
 friend was concerned, however, the humour of 
 the caprice had missed fire. Cosmo was any- 
 thing but pleased with it. Punctiliously polite 
 to strangers himself, his temper had been some- 
 what ruffled by the brusqueness of Lord Germis- 
 toune's first greeting ; it had been progressively 
 disturbed by Tom's persistent method of drag- 
 ging him forward in a false light, and by the 
 distinct manner in which Lord Germistoune 
 seemed to ignore his existence. Moreover, this 
 poking of fun at total strangers (one of whom 
 was a lady), all unwitting though they were, 
 appeared to him improper and impertinent ; 
 and the poking of fun at himself, except in 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 private, was by no means to his taste. From 
 all this it resulted that Cosmo had fallen 
 into a very considerable state of dignity, and 
 would have excused himself stiffly from accept- 
 ing the invitation to the Germistoune apartment. 
 Miss Douglas, however, divining, with feminine 
 tact, that something was amiss, and attributing 
 it to its true cause, or partly so, seconded the 
 invitation with a simple heartiness that made 
 refusal impossible, and Cosmo followed her. 
 
 And now came Tom's retribution. The port- 
 folio of sketches was his Nemesis — a huge 
 portfolio filled to overflowing with indifferent 
 performances, through which he had to wade 
 at solemn pace and slow. For the artist stood 
 by him, and saw that there was no evasion — 
 haranguing upon each "bit," bewildering his 
 victim with strange art-jargon, and keeping him 
 alert by sudden appeals and subtle pauses for 
 notes of admiration. There was no escape for 
 poor Tom, who knew as much about water- 
 colours as a Choctaw Indian, and was wont to 
 confess that he liked to take the beauties of na- 
 ture "with an object," and with special reference 
 to Epsom, Ascot, and Goodwood. But, with a 
 desperate resignation, he went manfully through 
 to the end of a long hour and a half. Anathemas
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 53 
 
 rose in his heart, mingled with poignant yearn- 
 ings for tobacco and cool tankards : but he sup- 
 pressed them all, and sat yawnless and smiling, 
 and the winner of golden opinions from his host 
 — richly deserved, indeed ; for he who can drink 
 to the dregs that " drowsiest syrup of the world " 
 — the prosings of an egotistical dilettante — and, 
 drinking, seem to like it, has fortitude enough 
 to win a martyr's crown. Meantime, and thus, 
 it so fell out that Cosmo was exemplifying the 
 vanity of human wishes. Scarcely two hours 
 before, he had expressed a resolution to avoid 
 contact with Miss Douglas, and now he was in- 
 voluntarily engaged with her in a tete-a-tete of 
 formidable length. The situation might have 
 been decidedly romantic — ought, indeed, so to 
 have been. The coincidence of the picture's re- 
 semblance — there was a romantic element ; and, 
 coupled with it, the virtual saving of the young 
 lady's life — there was another. Then, her ex- 
 treme beauty would have shed a halo over cir- 
 cumstances infinitely more prosaic ; and what 
 stage, what mise- en -scene, could surpass the 
 Lake of Como, with all its accessories of night, 
 summer, and the moon 1 But alas ! "the roman- 
 tic " visits us only as the angels of the proverb 
 do. Too seldom does it drop on our daily lives;
 
 54 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 and though, like some gossamery woof of magic 
 tints, it then draws over every rugged angle the 
 " softening folds of gracious drapery," it remains 
 but for an instant, and vanishes so abruptly that 
 we scarcely wot of the beauty that has been on 
 us and about us, till the glory has departed. It 
 is dissipated by a breath, and by none more surely 
 than the whisper of an incongruous association ; 
 and, by some psychological law, those who are 
 most susceptible of a romantic impression have 
 also usually the keenest perceptions of the incon- 
 gruous. Thus, Tom Wyedale's rollicking conver- 
 sation in the boat, and his Philistine tone about 
 the young lady herself, had brushed away, for 
 his friend, all romance from the events of the 
 evening. To Cosmo the little drama presented 
 itself in no ethereal aspect. The whole thing 
 had simply irritated him. Sensitive by nature, 
 and somewhat shy, his manner to strangers was 
 marked at best by a certain reserve and stateli- 
 ness that were scarcely prepossessing ; and at 
 present he was angry with Tom, offended with 
 Lord Germistoune, vexed with himself, and 
 almost displeased with Miss Douglas herself — 
 though why, it would have been difficult to say, 
 except, indeed, for bringing him, against his 
 will, into that contact with herself which, per-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 55 
 
 haps in scant earnest, he had announced his 
 intention of avoiding. This complication was 
 certainly not likely to subdue his natural char- 
 acteristics; so that Miss Douglas might have 
 been pardoned if, at first, she had rather re- 
 pented the warmth of her invitation, and felt 
 that the task of entertaining the guest who fell 
 to her charge was more formidable than plea- 
 sant. At first it certainly appeared to be so, for 
 Cosmo seemed to be bereft of all power of con- 
 versational initiative, and even in response he 
 was sluggish and frozen. Miss Douglas, as the 
 daughter of Lord Germistoune, a wealthy and 
 well-known peer, was presumably of the London 
 world ; Cosmo himself was more or less of the 
 same world, — and that two such people should 
 be together in a tete-a-tete, and be in want of 
 topics of conversation, even for a minute, might 
 well seem an unaccountable phenomenon. The 
 mere routine work of each season produces, for 
 a certain class of society, topics enough to supply 
 with the materials of many hours' dialogue, the 
 most brainless he or she who drifts through the 
 regulation amount of duty or pleasure prescribed 
 by the rubric of fashion. The veriest parrot, 
 from the blessed iteration of the same phrases 
 (if not ideas), heard hourly, for three or four
 
 56 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 solid months, can scarcely fail to have glibly on 
 the tip of his tongue sufficient small-change of 
 talk to pay his way, without difficulty, among 
 the initiated. And, then, there are always one 
 or two great salient events in the history of each 
 season, which, independently of the smaller 
 gossip, fend off from the talker the necessity of 
 plunging, without a cork-jacket, into the hope- 
 less waters of originality. Let us cast back an 
 eye over the last few seasons ; at once it is struck 
 by a dozen things of the sort. For instance, a 
 royal savage — the blacker the better — visits the 
 country, and reduces the nation to a state of in- 
 fantile imbecility. In his honour there are court 
 entertainments, where he is puzzled ; and muni- 
 cipal banquets, where his inner man is compro- 
 mised ; a review at Windsor, where he is again 
 puzzled ; an exhibition of ironclads, where he is 
 frightened and again sick. What a fund of topics 
 in all this ! What possibilities of earnest ques- 
 tion and response ! Were you there ? Were you % 
 Had you the entree to the privileged places \ 
 Did you see him f Is it true that he was sulky 
 and rude ? Can it be conceivable that his teeth 
 
 chattered ? Then the Duchess of , in giving 
 
 a fancy ball, supplies another fertile theme. It 
 was beautiful, but she gave it too late or too
 
 MINE IS THINE. 57 
 
 early. It clashed with the festa of some other 
 potentate. Such a pity ! And was royalty 
 really offended or not \ If so, why ? — if not, 
 why not ? Then the Prince's garden-party, — 
 if you were at it, it is well ; if not, still it is 
 well, for much time can be consumed in giving 
 every reason, but the true one, for your absence. 
 The Academy has a sensation picture, painted 
 by a girl blind from her birth. Here art-talk 
 d discretion. She is equal to Salvator Eosa, or 
 Horace Vernet, or Paul Potter, or any other 
 painter — no matter whom — to whom the vox 
 populi has taught you to liken her. There is 
 a new reading of Hamlet by a Hindoo, which 
 (in Hindustani) edifies society. Such a melli- 
 fluous language Hindustani I So perfect a vehicle 
 for Shakespearian thought ! Some curled darling 
 of society cheats at cards or helps himself to his 
 neighbour's wife. Here is breathless interest ! 
 Why did he do it % When ? How \ Where ? 
 What does Sir John say to it ? Will the count- 
 ess ever get over the shock ? Moral — how can 
 people do such things ? Some one else, who 
 ought to have known better, commits some 
 other faux pas, scarcely discussible, but which 
 can be sniffed round, with titillating innuendoes 
 and low, confidential, murmurings. Burnand
 
 58 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 lias a new farce, the scream of which has been 
 loud enough to cross the Channel and be echoed 
 in Paris. Doubtless you have heard it in both 
 languages % Offenbach outdoes himself in a new 
 opera -bouffe — 'Suzanne et les Vieillards.' A 
 little shocking, is it not ? but then so bright and 
 clever ! That atones for most things. And then 
 comes the " music of the future/' and sets the 
 whole queer jumble to appropriate strains. You 
 heard ' Lohengrin ' ? You did ? It was a perfect 
 enigma to you — or entirely comprehensible. You 
 sat through the whole of that first suffocating 
 night? to the end ? and wished for more ? No won- 
 der ! Or wished yourself dead 1 How natural ! 
 People who have these and a hundred kindred, 
 and equally welcome topics, freely at command, 
 ought not to be in much danger of having to 
 hazard an original thought, or of having to pause 
 in an unbroken stream of well-worn, but still 
 serviceable platitudes. And then there is in 
 reserve the gossip of " Prince's," " Hurlingham," 
 and Cowes ; the ordinary on dits about ordinary 
 marriages, scandals, scrapes, flirtations, and what 
 not. So that, altogether, there is surely more 
 than enough, when the season is over, to carry 
 one on from August till April — provided, of 
 course, there is an occasional change in the
 
 MINE IS THINE. 59 
 
 scene of one's platitudinising, Cosmo, however, 
 availed himself of none of these resources. He 
 had entered the room, as we have seen with 
 ruffled plumage ; but surely his good-breeding 
 could not possibly permit him to sulk in a tete- 
 a-tete with a lady who was doing her best to 
 entertain him \ No. Well, he was not sulky, 
 but he was sombre ; and that, with his natural 
 shyness, had dammed up his ideas. Then, every 
 moment he was with Miss Douglas deepened his 
 impression of her wonderful resemblance to the 
 Sasso-Ferrato Madonna, preoccupying him at 
 first, and then making him feel — fancifully 
 enough, to be sure — that ordinary topics of con- 
 versation were unsuitable in the presence of one 
 about whom clung so many suggestions far re- 
 moved from the banalite of common life. Miss 
 Douglas, on her side, bravely struggled with 
 difficulties ; but neither did she avail herself of 
 the dreary reserve of London small-talk. She 
 had in truth been but one season — that of her 
 debut — two years before, in town ; so that her 
 resources in that respect could neither have been 
 many nor recent. Had it been otherwise, per- 
 haps Cosmo's tongue would have been earlier 
 untied, because Sasso Ferrato's Madonna would 
 have ceased to embarrass him.
 
 60 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 She and her father had been great travellers ; 
 for the old lord — being half invalid, half valetu- 
 dinarian — required perpetual change of scene, 
 and frequent visits to those numerous health- 
 resorts, scattered all over that large portion of 
 Europe which is now included in the map of 
 the invalid. In this way there were few places 
 in Europe of great interest which she had not 
 visited ; and a splendid collection of photographs 
 which lay on the table, contained souvenirs of 
 everything beautiful and noteworthy which she 
 had herself seen. Upon this book, as an aid in 
 her difficulty, she fell back ; and, since Cosmo 
 had also travelled much, she was able for a time, 
 without seeming to lecture, to carry on a toler- 
 ably one-sided conversation. 
 
 Her manner was singularly unaffected and 
 simple ; and a certain freshness of appreciation 
 made her remarks, on what she had really liked 
 and admired, original and striking. By degrees 
 Cosmo was thoroughly thawed ; and catching 
 the infection of an enthusiasm which was by no 
 means foreign to his own nature, he began to 
 exchange experiences and sentiments with her, 
 with an earnestness and volubility which, if 
 they had suddenly broken forth from the iced 
 man of half an hour ago, would have suggested
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 61 
 
 magical transformation. But he, indeed, must 
 have been of the earth earthy, who could have 
 recalled, in company with a sympathetic spirit, 
 yet without some enthusiasm, the memories 
 which this book awakened. For there was the 
 Parthenon, shattered, despoiled, but peerless still 
 in its beauty, and glorious in its suggestions of 
 a panorama instinct with the genius of the 
 Golden Age. And there were the Pyramids, 
 from which even the tourist cannot hunt the 
 mystery and awe of the early world. The 
 Mount of Olives, where Eeverence feels that, in 
 no language, it dare utter its emotions. The 
 Pincian Hill, where History seems to stagger 
 under the burden of its records. The Golden 
 Horn and the Golden Shell. The beautiful 
 illusions of Stamboul, the wondrous realities of 
 Syracuse, the weird resurrections of Pompeii, 
 aud the sunny life of Sorrento. From one to 
 the other they passed, and through the quaint 
 portals of many a rare old town of Germany 
 and Holland, and by many a venerable monu- 
 ment of pious art, and up the castled Rhine, 
 through the land of legendary lore, and on into 
 the splendid wilderness of Alp and glacier. 
 People who had beheld such scenes with seeing 
 eyes — who had thought in them, felt in them,
 
 62 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 received some of their inspirations, and learned 
 a few of their myriad lessons — and who had 
 before them such aids to memory as this book 
 contained, had assuredly small need to fall back 
 for topics upon the dwarfed and dwarfing life of 
 modern society. The photograph-book proved 
 an entirely successful stratagem of despair, 
 which very soon changed into lively pleasure 
 and interest, so that all sombre clouds were dis- 
 sipated. But the conversation was by no means 
 all pitched in a transcendental or earnest key. 
 It was constantly relieved by humorous reminis- 
 cences, which this or that scene recalled. Esme 
 proved to be full of fun ; she was as eager and 
 fresh in that respect as in more serious matters, 
 and passed from one phase to the other with a 
 certain quaint naivete which ought to have been 
 wholly captivating to Cosmo, had he not been a 
 little doubtful as to the fitness of such character- 
 istics in one who wore the outward semblance 
 of his idealised Madonna. 
 
 The time began to pass quickly — even too 
 quickly. 
 
 At last there was but one more photograph to 
 look at. 
 
 " There ! " she said, as she turned it over, 
 " the last of my photographs, but to me the
 
 MINE IS THINE. 63 
 
 most beautiful — at least I am bound to say so ; 
 that is my home." 
 
 " It is beautiful," replied Cosmo, " and a 
 capital photograph, for I know the place well. 
 I can't be mistaken. It is Dunerlacht Castled" 
 
 " Yes. I think it is very good ; even papa is 
 pleased with it. The old part of the house 
 comes out wonderfully; and the shadow on the 
 water is so natural, is it not ? And your travels 
 have actually carried you up to our fastnesses ? " 
 
 " Yes. I had to pass Dunerlacht pretty often 
 
 a year or two ago. I had a shooting in 
 
 shire, not very far from you — Finmore." 
 
 " Oh, we know it very well ! Some friends of 
 ours used to have it. It is a charming little 
 place. How lucky you were to have Finmore ! 
 How did you like it 1 " 
 
 " I was delighted with it." 
 
 " And you like Scotland \ " 
 
 "Yes; indeed, very much more than most 
 other places." 
 
 " Now I am quite sure that your taste is 
 admirable, although I don't the least agree with 
 you about Interlachen or the Giessbach." 
 
 "Are you as enthusiastic about Scotland as 
 about Switzerland 1 " 
 
 " Oh yes — more so ; but it is a different kind
 
 64 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 of enthusiasm — just as I might be very enthusi- 
 astic about a friend, but still more so about 
 papa, you know." 
 
 " Yes — the fatherland, of course, ought to be 
 before all others ; and, indeed, I suppose I ought 
 to have the same sort of filial feeling to Scot- 
 land." 
 
 " What ! are you a Scotchman ? " cried Esme. 
 
 "Perhaps I should rather say of Scotch de- 
 scent," replied Cosmo, with some embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 " Oh, your family have deserted the beloved 
 country ! — long ago ? " 
 
 " I — I — really don't quite know — some time 
 — a generation or two, I believe." 
 
 Not to know the history and movements of 
 one's ancestors for several hundred years struck 
 Esme as astonishing in one of gentle blood ; but 
 there was something in Cosmo's manner which 
 told her that the subject was unpleasant to him, 
 although he had himself introduced it, and so 
 she abandoned it, merely asking him if he had 
 given up his visits to Scotland as a sportsman. 
 
 " No," replied Cosmo, " not in theory, although 
 in practice, since the year before last : but I am 
 half thinking of going back this year ; and, in- 
 deed, I have been in treaty for another moor —
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 65 
 
 in a different county, however. But I scarcely 
 think it will suit." 
 
 " I hear your friend talking about Scotland," 
 said the old lord, who had by this time come to 
 the end of his art-treasures ; " and, by the by, 
 who is your friend ? His name puzzles me. It 
 is Scotch, and it isn't Scotch. That is, it is the 
 name of a locality, and the title of a dormant 
 Scotch peerage ; but there is certainly no gentle- 
 mans family of that name in the country. 
 "Where does this gentleman come from 1 " 
 
 " Well, do you know, it is odd, but I can't 
 tell you, except in a very hazy way. Cosmo 
 and I were at Eton and a private tutor's to- 
 gether, and then at Cambridge, and we have 
 been fast friends all our lives ; but, as we used 
 to say at school, I don't ' know him at home.' " 
 
 " Ah ! by the by, there is a Glencairn, the 
 great capitalist and speculator. I know a good 
 deal about him — a rough, vulgar dog ; but I 
 believe he is unmarried. You don't know who 
 your friend's father is." 
 
 ' Well, I know one excellent trait in his 
 father's character — he is immensely rich. I 
 believe he made his fortune in the City; but he 
 retired from business long ago (which is also to 
 his credit), and lives in the wilds somewhere in 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 the west of England. Glencairn has never 
 asked me there, although I constantly go to his 
 own shooting. I fancy his father is peculiar, 
 — probably mad or something of the sort. He 
 seldom speaks of him, although I know he goes 
 to see him regularly. That's about all I know 
 of his father's family. I knew an uncle of his, 
 though, by the by, a brother of his mother's — a 
 capital fellow — Colonel Wildgrave. As to Glen- 
 cairn's nationality, I never thought of that, 
 except, of course, I supposed he was an English- 
 man ; but he might have been a Kaffir by ex- 
 traction, for anything he has ever said to me 
 on the subject. He is rather reserved on some 
 points, although the best fellow in the world, 
 when you know him, and immensely clever. 
 His regiment used to swear by him, and a 
 mess is generally not far wrong about a fellow's 
 character." 
 
 " Oh ! he was in the army 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; he was a Captain in the Dragoon 
 
 Guards." 
 
 " He doesn't strike me as exactly one's idea 
 of the ' darling of the mess.' " 
 
 "Ah ! well, but he was." 
 
 " The Dragoon Guards, you say ? " 
 
 "Yes."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 67 
 
 " Hum ! I think I have heard that that 
 regiment recruits its officers in the City, very- 
 much." 
 
 " Oh ! no. There are some rich fellows in it 
 of that sort ; but, City or not City, I don t know 
 a better lot in the service. They used to be, at 
 least, when Cosmo was in them." 
 
 " Well, I should have thought he was rather 
 conceited and stiff to be a regimental favourite 
 in a first-class corps. Only my own impression 
 — only my own first impression. You are not 
 in the service ? " 
 
 " No ; I am a retired diplomatist," replied Tom, 
 with a grin. 
 
 " Eather an early retreat, is it not 1 " 
 
 " Yes, perhaps : but I wanted a career ; and if 
 a fellow wants a career, F.O. is not likely to give 
 it him — either at home or abroad." 
 
 " And so you left it V 
 
 " And so I left it." 
 
 " And the career ? " 
 
 " Ah ! the career \ — well, I begin to think a 
 career is a mistake. I see fellows with careers 
 not half so jolly as I am. There's Gerald St 
 Clair — now, there's an example. That fellow 
 was always talking about it. He had career on 
 the brain, I believe, and he put a lot of that sort
 
 68 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 of stuff into my head at Cambridge. 'You must 
 have a horizon/ he used to say. Well, there he 
 is in the House — has been in it for five years — 
 and he has done nothing. On committees all 
 day, and in his place all night, with lots to say, 
 but never allowed to say it. I don't call that 
 jolly. His time, he says, hasn't come. He must 
 walk to his career over the dead bodies of a score 
 or two of second-rate prosers, who won't die for 
 thirty years. An obstruction like that prevents 
 one from seeing much horizon. I think Gerald 
 has put his foot in it. That's my idea." 
 
 " If every one thought as you do, we should 
 be rather short of Ministers." 
 
 " Oh no ; you can always get lots of ' middling 
 seconds' — quite good enough for the business 
 nowadays." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! you take a low view of Ministerial 
 qualifications. Perhaps you don't know that I 
 have been in office myself ? " 
 
 "Oh! of course I do. Who doesn't? But 
 that was in the good times. Yet even you left 
 it, though you had everything before you — 
 something like a career indeed ! " 
 
 " Health, health," said the old gentleman, 
 greatly delighted ; he had once been, for six 
 months, an under - secretary in an asthmatic
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 69 
 
 coalition Government, which had been born 
 moribund and expired within a year. " Health 
 is a worse obstruction than a phalanx of prosy- 
 seniors. But then you had the Church or the 
 bar, fairly unobstructed for a young fellow of 
 talent and interest." 
 
 "No, I didn't fancy the bar, and I'm pretty 
 sure the Church would not have fancied me — a 
 case of mutual incompatibility, probably." 
 
 "And so," said Lord Germistoune, blending 
 the elements of a yawn with a look of amuse- 
 ment — "and so here you are." 
 
 u And so here I am ; but I am certain I 
 ought not to be here any longer — it is fearfully 
 late. We are keeping you out of bed most un- 
 conscionably." 
 
 "Don't mention it — don't mention it. Ah! 
 dear me, it is late. Well, I hope you'll come 
 again and help me to kill an hour or two as 
 pleasantly." 
 
 "Thanks. Can I be of any use in helping 
 you in your hunt for the villa?" 
 
 " Oh ! thank you, no ; much obliged to you, 
 though — much obliged." 
 
 The party then broke up ; and Cosmo, at 
 least, left the room with very different feelings 
 from those which he had brought into it, not-
 
 70 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 withstanding that his lordship bade him good- 
 night with a stately frigidity, which was amply 
 responded to in kind. The fact was, either that 
 something in Cosmo's air or manner had piqued 
 the old gentleman, who was pleased with little 
 short of a slavish deference, or perhaps he had 
 been seized with one of those unaccountable 
 prejudices by which we are sometimes so un- 
 reasonably set against strangers, or — well, he 
 did not love Dr Fell, though the reason why 
 may have been as unexplainable as that in the 
 proverb. 
 
 Cosmo's wrath against his friend had evapor- 
 ated. " I daresay you were bored, Tom," he 
 said, as .they were separating for the night. 
 " The noble lord was not too lively, I can 
 imagine." 
 
 " Oh yes, I was bored, of course ; but I rather 
 like the old fellow ; and I improved the shining 
 hour, I think. I always cotton to swells, you 
 know, because swells generally have shooting ; 
 and, by the by, I made quite a little programme 
 for us both, while he was bragging about his 
 confounded daubs. It was this: You to close 
 with the Finmore shooting, and I to shoot with 
 you there from the 12th to — say the 28th — as 
 long as dogs are practicable, in fact ; and then
 
 MINE IS THINE. 7l 
 
 go on to Dunerlacht after the black game be- 
 gins, and the driving. What say yon \ n 
 
 " Very jolly for you.'' 
 
 " How cold yon are ! Now a good fellow 
 would have added * rapture for myself and luck 
 for Lord Germistoune.' Your manners are far 
 from nice, Cosmo. By the by, how do you like 
 the Madonna ? " 
 
 " I think Miss Douglas is extremely agree- 
 able." 
 
 " Indeed ! — and * the contact ' % was it not too 
 intolerable ? " 
 
 " What contact ? " 
 
 " Oh ! youVe forgotten our little dialogue in 
 the boat. Well, well, never mind. By the by, 
 I withdraw from my position as swain and 
 suitor. Her hands are too large." 
 
 " I didn't observe it." 
 
 " I did, though ; I shouldn't know what to 
 do with them. I'm going to stick to her parent 
 instead. I know there ought to be a tremen- 
 dous show of birds this year at Dunerlacht. 
 They had a jubilee last year, and Snowie tells 
 me there's not a scrap of disease in the district. 
 Good-night, Cosmo. I suppose we may con- 
 sider Finmore a fixture 1 " 
 
 " I don't know."
 
 72 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Come now, captain, make it a fixture, and 
 I'll stay with you till the 31st. I can't say 
 fairer than that." 
 
 " It certainly is most liberal." 
 
 " And I'll even return for a week or two at 
 the finish, if I can manage it." 
 
 "Provided no better billet offers itself." 
 
 " Well, hang it ! I'm only a mortal after all. 
 Come, now, 'parole Dunerlacht/ as you blood- 
 thirsty mercenaries say in the army ; bring the 
 parable home and add, ' countersign Finmore — 
 pass Thomas Wyedale, and all's well/ Come 
 now, out with it." 
 
 " I never talked shop, even when I was in 
 the service." 
 
 " An excellent rule; but the necessary excep- 
 tion would sound well in this echoing corridor. 
 Now, then, in a deep, soul -stirring baritone, 
 'countersign Fin '" 
 
 "Parole 'Slumber/ countersign 'Bed,'" said 
 Cosmo, entering his room, and shutting the door. 
 
 " Diplomacy retires before the brutalities of 
 War," shouted Tom, going on his way. 
 
 " Will Diplomacy have a liquor before he 
 turns in ? " said Mr Cass, the American hero of 
 the table d'hote, looking out of his door. 
 
 " Sir," said Tom, " between ' diplomacy ' and
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 73 
 
 f dipsomania/ the English language marks a dis- 
 tinction which is probably not preserved in the 
 American dialect. Nevertheless, what is the 
 creature i " 
 
 "Bourbon whisky. Drinks short. Clears 
 the eye." 
 
 " That's conclusive. I'm on. We can only 
 die once," said Tom. 
 
 Echoes of his laughter, long and loud, came, 
 for an hour and more, from Mr Cass's room, and 
 reached Cosmo, who, turning angrily on his pil- 
 low, muttered, " Confound the fellow ! he's got 
 hold of some one else now. I believe he'd rather 
 sit up all night with a Trappist than go to bed 
 at a reasonable hour." And, indeed, Tom would 
 have found talk and laughter enough to supply 
 the deficiencies of twenty Trappists, for a thou- 
 sand and one nights, if necessary.
 
 74 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 There are three influences which generally carry 
 their point in this sinful world — violence, obsti- 
 nacy, and money. Men, as a rule, hate a row, 
 and either knuckle under to violence or get 
 quietly out of its way. Obstinacy wears out the 
 resistance of indifference and laziness, which, in 
 nineteen cases out of twenty, are its only oppo- 
 nents ; and as for money, the consciences of all 
 intelligent readers tell them what it can do, so 
 that the author need not commit himself to a 
 misanthropical axiom. 
 
 Lord Germistoune, enjoying the advantage of 
 all these forces in combination, generally con- 
 trived, as he said, to get his own way; and, in 
 this wrathful freak about the villa, he was suc- 
 cessful. The hotel authorities, warned by the 
 courier of his master's indignant resolve, ten- 
 dered every sort of salve, in the way of excuse 
 and apology, which Italian amiability, sharpened
 
 MINE IS THINE. 75 
 
 by self - interest, could devise ; but in vain. 
 Violence gave way, indeed ; but obstinacy 
 stepped into the breach. 
 
 " I never," said Lord Germistoune to the ex- 
 cellent and most courteous manager — " I never go 
 back from my word. All you say may be true, 
 and indeed your tone is proper — very proper ; 
 but I have made up my mind. You may go." 
 
 Then the courier was despatched post-haste 
 to " find a villa." Under ordinary circum- 
 stances, to find a villa ready, then and there, 
 and available for so short a term, would have 
 been out of the question and not to be dreamed 
 of. But Lord Germistoune being violent, ob- 
 stinate, and rich, the necessary dwelling was at 
 once procured. The favourite maid of an Italian 
 rnarchesa who was occupying the Villa Bianca 
 for the season, had been accidentally drowned 
 in the lake two nights before, and her mistress 
 had received such a shock from the occurrence 
 that she was anxious to leave the place at once. 
 And thus, by paying her a double rent, and 
 taking over the establishment as it stood, on 
 condition of instant possession, the noble lord 
 was able, literally, to carry his point. His new 
 landlady went to the hotel for the night ; and 
 he, sending his courier in the forenoon to order
 
 76 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 dinner, took his daughter over in the even- 
 ing, in time to avoid the origo mali — the table 
 d'hote, 
 
 "It is too large," he said, "and the rent is 
 distinctly monstrous; but it will be a lesson 
 to them. The money is well spent." 
 
 And perhaps it was. " What ! " you cry, " in 
 such sinful extravagance ? in such a shameful 
 indulgence of temper \ " Yes ; but the money 
 went to the marchioness, who may have been an 
 angel of charity, who may have fed the hungry 
 and clothed the naked with the lire of the 
 angry man, and who at least took from bloated 
 England a crumb or two for starveling Italy. 
 There is an unction, drawn from philanthropy and 
 political economy, which the angry pauper may 
 lay to his soul when he is glaring with fiery 
 eyes at the profligate extravagance of the rich — 
 and it is this, that, in the vast majority of cases, 
 the rich man, by his self-indulgent frailties, 
 even though he fool it to the top of his bent, 
 does infinitely more good than harm to the 
 world at large. He may damage himself, to be 
 sure ; but what of that ? He is in an infinitesi- 
 mal minority. The greatest good of the greatest 
 number is what we have to consider. 
 
 If the indulgence of bad temper be criminal,
 
 MIXE IS THIXE. 77 
 
 the beauty of the Villa Bianca involved a certain 
 miscarriage of political justice. A little below 
 Cadenabbia, the lowest spur of a thickly- wooded 
 hill, projects a promontory into the lake ; and 
 on the centre of this the villa stood, somewhat 
 higher than all its neighbours, and with a clear 
 prospect up, down, and across the water. A 
 pleasant confusion of garden and grove and 
 shrubbery clothed the little peninsula with 
 luxuriant wealth of flowers and foliage, and 
 made the air about the house rich with the 
 perfumes of rose and violet, of citron, jessamine, 
 magnolia, and myrtle. Much taste and in- 
 genuity had been displayed in laying out, 
 adorning, and giving variety to this little terri- 
 tory. A labyrinthine path traversed it in all 
 directions, and wound up with a gentle ascent 
 to the summit of the hill behind. There, there 
 was a circular summer-house, open all round, 
 and commanding views in every direction. Be- 
 sides this, divers tributary paths led to a variety 
 of well-chosen points of view, where the prospect 
 might be enjoyed in shady solitudes. Esme 
 was enchanted with her new abode ; and the 
 favour with which her father first regarded it, 
 as a kind of moral beacon for refractory hotel- 
 keepers, was soon confirmed by its own charms.
 
 78 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 They began, at once, to live in the open air ; 
 and, small though their domain was, it contain- 
 ed so much variety in itself, and enjoyed so 
 unlimited a command of the scenery round 
 about, that they seldom went beyond their own 
 boundaries till evening, when, if the coolness of 
 the air tempted them out on the lake, they were 
 rowed about in a pretty boat, manned by rowers 
 in a picturesque costume, which belonged to the 
 establishment. Esme, who had a keen eye for 
 all kinds of beauty, and who was very suscep- 
 tible of impressions from external nature, was 
 never tired of wandering from point to point of 
 the pleasaunce and the hill. To her it was a 
 fairy-land, through which she moved amidst 
 constant transformations, finding in every mood 
 a congenial resting-place, and even being able, 
 as she said, to alter her mood at will by a change 
 of scene that could be effected in a few seconds. 
 " If I wish to be ' sublime/ " she wrote to a 
 friend, in describing the place, " I have only 
 to climb to the top of our 'Muses Hill/ and 
 gaze at the splendid mountains of the Engadine, 
 far away, and watch the shifting lights on the 
 eternal snow, and the weird effects of the whirl- 
 ing mists and vapours that hang about the 
 boundary line between the heat of Italy and the
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 79 
 
 cold of the Alps and the glaciers ; or if I desire 
 to be gently poetical, I look down upon the 
 sunny lake ; or if a dark spirit possesses me, we 
 have a grotto, all overshadowed by a gigantic 
 ilex, where the world may be comfortably for- 
 gotten. If 1 wish to sketch, there is a subject 
 everywhere ready to my hand, and I have only 
 to sit down and begin. In our Helicon we have 
 natural music always, for a most harmonious 
 little spring bubbles out near the top, and goes 
 singing down among the silent trees, and through 
 the gardens, and into the lake. As for poetry, 
 we have it here at first-hand. We see it and 
 breathe it; there is no need of books." 
 
 Her father, without taking such a transcen- 
 dental view of the place, was thoroughly con- 
 tented with it. Nothing jarred on his irritable 
 nerves. He worked away in the open air with 
 his pencil and brush, read his papers al fresco, 
 and composed weighty contributions to the liter- 
 ature of a " ganging plea/' which still seems to 
 constitute, in some Scottish families, a necessary 
 condition of landed state and dignity. 
 
 Two days after his establishment in the villa, 
 he paid a formal visit to the two friends at their 
 hotel. They had met on the lake, and had a 
 few minutes' conversation, on each of the previ-
 
 80 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 ous evenings ; and on this, as on all other occa- 
 sions, his manner was especially cordial to Tom 
 Wyedale, whose jovial humour had taken his 
 fancy, none the less that its joviality was tem- 
 pered with a careful deference to his opinions 
 and prejudices. His manner to Cosmo, on the 
 other hand, was markedly cool, stiff, and distant. 
 He seemed to have a difficulty in realising the 
 fact that Cosmo existed and was present. He 
 had certainly taken a violent dislike to the young 
 man ; to all which Cosmo, not slow to observe 
 and swift to resent it, responded with an equal 
 hauteur and reserve. Nevertheless, he accom- 
 panied Tom on the return visit the following 
 day. They found Lord Germistoune sitting in 
 the open air. He had just finished his corre- 
 spondence for the day, and his letters lay on the 
 table before him, sealed and ready for despatch. 
 Esme was with him, but just about to start with 
 her drawing materials for the top of the hill ; 
 and on the friends begging that their visit might 
 not detain her, she suggested that the whole 
 party might transfer themselves to the summit, 
 where she could promise a magnificent view ; 
 " and," she added, " I shall send you all away 
 when I am going to begin my work." 
 
 Lord Germistoune and Tom having mutually
 
 MINE IS THINE. 81 
 
 button-holed each other, Esme again fell to the 
 lot of Cosmo, and she led the way with him. 
 
 " We are very proud of our realms," she said, 
 " and I am going to take you all through them 
 before we begin the ascent. Prepare yourself 
 to be surprised and delighted." 
 
 Their pride was thoroughly justifiable. Cosmo 
 was much struck by the ingenuity with which 
 the labyrinthine path had been contrived ; for, 
 turning and winding, backwards and forwards, 
 here, there, and everywhere, it led them past 
 an astonishing variety of features, and gave the 
 wanderer the impression that he was traversing 
 a most spacious and variegated domain, though 
 the whole was probably included within two 
 hundred square yards. Here they came upon 
 a grotto ; there upon a fountain. Now they 
 plunged into a bosky dell, all gloom and tangle ; 
 or passed under bright arcades, where the sun- 
 beams glanced through leaves of the vine and 
 the passion-flower. Now they emerged on the 
 emerald sward of a miniature glade, or were met 
 by gorgeous flashes of colour from exquisite par- 
 terres. Everywhere marble fauns and nymphs 
 peered forth from bowery ambushes of bay and 
 acacia, taking a semblance of life and movement 
 from the quivering streamlet that washed their 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 feet, and from the boughs and leaves that cast 
 down upon them the shimmer of green-gold 
 shadows. At the upper end, a pretty group of 
 Nereids received a tiny cascade in a glittering 
 shell, and let it escape, a meandering rivulet, to 
 water the whole pleasaunce. At the other ex- 
 tremity, the daughters of Danaus caught it again 
 in a bottomless amphora, and gave it to the 
 lake in its original form. All around, the de- 
 scent to the water was steep and craggy ; but 
 flowers nestled amoug the rocks, creepers fes- 
 tooned the ledges, willows drooped their tremu- 
 lous sprays over them. Whatever was harsh 
 or rugged wore a brave mantle of bloom and 
 greenery, and none but fair images fell upon the 
 dreamy lake. At last it was all explored, and 
 they began the ascent. 
 
 " Well," said Cosmo, " you are indeed to be 
 congratulated. The contriver of all this must 
 have been a genius. Of his one talent he has 
 made at least ten, and he has done it all with 
 such perfect taste. We have seen much in the 
 small space, but there is no jumble or crowding. 
 One little morceau of scenery seems to lead 
 naturally to the next." 
 
 " It must have been a delightful amusement 
 laying it out," said Esme.
 
 MINE IS THINE. 83 
 
 " Yes ; I think there can be nothing more 
 fascinating than landscape-gardening." 
 
 " Oh, that must be delightful ! like painting, 
 with trees, and lakes, and rivers, and meadows 
 for one's materials." 
 
 "And then the contriver of these grounds 
 had, besides all the difficulties and charms of 
 the art, the triumph of concocting a sort of 
 Chinese puzzle ; a subtle delight for a mathema- 
 tical mind, I suppose." 
 
 " You will see that he had quite as true an 
 eye for grand scenery ; all the points of view on 
 the hill are perfectly chosen." 
 
 " There he excels his Italian ancestors. I was 
 thinking, down in the garden, that it might all 
 have existed in the old Roman days. Horace 
 would have delighted in just such a place. One 
 can imagine him reclining on that beautiful bit 
 of turf beside the cascade, passing the flask of 
 Chian wine to a circle of companions, pouring a 
 libation to Bacchus, and making the company 
 laugh with quaint conceits about the Nereids 
 and all the mythological statuary." 
 
 " But then he would have changed his mood 
 up here. Look at that glimpse, through the trees, 
 of the high peak — the Bernina, I think it is." 
 " Magnificent ! but Horace would simply have
 
 84 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 wrapped his toga round him, shivered, and pro- 
 posed an immediate return to the ' Chian.' He 
 would certainly have changed his mood, but it 
 would not have been for one of fine frenzy." 
 
 " And yet he was the most popular poet of 
 his time, was he not ? " 
 
 " Certainly — the most popular ; but if he had 
 gone into ecstasies over sublime scenery, he would 
 not have been so ; men would not have under- 
 stood him. A poet sings with the voice of his 
 age, or he does not sing to it at all." 
 
 " Well, but they were immensely cultivated 
 and civilised in those days." 
 
 " Yes, they were, of course ; but their culture 
 did not develop the love of natural scenery to 
 any great extent. They liked pretty scenery 
 certainly, but they looked upon the Alps with 
 horror, and the magnificence of a stormy sea was 
 only a thing to be shuddered at. After all, this 
 real love of scenery is quite modern." 
 
 " Then, has all this beautiful world been wasted 
 for thousands of years upon eyes that might as 
 well have been blind ? " 
 
 " ' Wasted ' is a strong word. Its beauty and 
 grandeur may have produced all sorts of other 
 valuable effects upon men's minds before it woke 
 up what may almost be called a new passion."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 85 
 
 " How did it come at last 1 " 
 
 " Ah, I am afraid that is getting rather beyond 
 my depth. But I suppose, for one thing, it would 
 begin to grow steadily as people began to travel." 
 
 " One does often notice that people who re- 
 main always in one place, even though it be 
 beautiful, take its beauties as a matter of course, 
 and don't seem to observe them or to be aware 
 of them." 
 
 " But, as they begin to move from place to 
 place, they naturally begin to compare one scene 
 with another. The habit of comparison increases 
 the habit of observation, and produces the idea 
 of excellence. Art takes hold of this idea, de- 
 velops it, paints it, teaches men to think of it, 
 helps them to compose from their own experi- 
 ences an ideal standard. By degrees, poetry 
 recognises the fitness of surrounding romantic 
 action with picturesque scenery, and suggests 
 the sympathy of external nature with men's 
 emotions. This is almost altogether modern. 
 The ancients have, indeed, beautiful flashes of 
 it ; but they are few and far between. One of 
 the most perfect gems of modern poetry is Ten- 
 nyson's ' CEnone.' You know it, of course. The 
 same story is beautifully told by an old Latin 
 poet. But compare the ancient with the modern,
 
 86 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 and it appears cold, sunless, and dead. The an- 
 cient relies upon the human pathos almost ex- 
 clusively ; the modern poet draws within the 
 circle of his drama, as a most sympathetic audi- 
 ence, and almost as active participants, every- 
 thing in external nature that made the Idalian 
 glen beautiful and impressive. The deep, solemn 
 ] )ine-wood — the light of the ' solitary ' morning 
 touching the far-away snow-peaks — the bewil 
 dered cloud seeking its lost way among the tree- 
 tops — the silence, the shadows, the distant mur- 
 mur of the cascade, — all in perfect harmony 
 with the sorrow that is wringing (Enone's heart. 
 And then the burst of life and joy when Aphro- 
 dite appears — the upspringing of the violet and 
 the crocus, the lotus, the lily, the amaracus, the 
 asphodel, to do her honour ; 
 
 1 And a wind uprose, 
 And overhead, the wandering ivy and vine, 
 This way and that, in many a wild festoon 
 Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs, 
 With bunch, and berry, and flower, thro' and thro'.' 
 
 Even history at last begins to chronicle events 
 with an eye to the scenery in which they are 
 enacted, and delights to point to harmonies and 
 discords between the former and the latter. 
 Look at Macaulay, Froude, and Kinglake, and
 
 MINE IS THINE. 87 
 
 then turn to Hume and Smollett. And 
 
 but here Cosmo broke off with a laugh, and 
 said, " A thousand apologies, Miss Douglas, for 
 prosing and lecturing to you, and for what is 
 perhaps, after all, mere solemn nonsense, What 
 I mean to say is, simply, that when this educa- 
 tional system has once been set in motion by the 
 arts, or what not, every sort of other influence 
 co-operates, and helps to clear our perceptions of 
 that to which the old world was nearly blind." 
 
 " You spoke," said Esme, after a pause, u of ' a 
 poet singing with the voice of his age ; ' and I 
 remember now that there is nothing worth speak- 
 ing of, in the way of landscape, among the early 
 painters. It had never occurred to me before 
 that the love of scenery was a modern invention, 
 and I don't think I had thought about the blank 
 in early art. Now I understand the reason." 
 
 " Ah ! an analogy. Well, I suppose the artist 
 ought to give expression, in every age, to that 
 with which the more ideal side of human nature 
 is mainly occupied in his time. It was the 
 aspiration of the ancient Greeks to reach, by 
 moral and physical discipline, an ideal standard 
 of beauty in the human form. How splendidly 
 this is expressed in their sculpture ! In the dark 
 ages, art, in any true sense, all but slumbered,
 
 88 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 because in the dark ages its occupation was all 
 but gone. Then, at the revival of art, we find 
 religion altogether the predominant subject. 
 The painters, to be sure, were generally, if not 
 monks, under monkish influence ; but, in fact, 
 religion was in these days almost the only outlet 
 which men had from their lower nature. As the 
 outlets were multiplied, the field of art was ex- 
 tended. You couldn't have a better proof of 
 this than by going direct from the Florentine 
 galleries to the annual exhibition of the ' Salon ' 
 in Paris, or of Burlington House in London. 
 Outlets there, with a vengeance. No one artist, 
 nowadays, could represent his age as one of 
 the great old masters represented his ; he would 
 require to have a thousand minds. Forgive all 
 these truisms." 
 
 " But they are not truisms to me. Though 
 I have seen many of the best pictures in the 
 world, I am afraid I have not thought about 
 them — beyond, of course, immensely admiring 
 what appeared to me to be beautiful." 
 
 "And I am sure you could not meet with any 
 one less competent than I am to hold forth on 
 the philosophy of art. 1 know nothing, except 
 that I know nothing." 
 
 " Oh, but you have both seen and thought ;
 
 MINE IS THINE. 89 
 
 and that at least gives you knowledge enough 
 for yourself — enough to make you enjoy art 
 thoroughly." 
 
 " But not enough to entitle me to lecture you 
 as I have been doing. Now, tell me which of all 
 the pictures you have seen is your favourite ? " 
 
 " What a formidable question ! If I knew 
 anything about painting, I might be able to say 
 which, in my opinion — my opinion ! how grand 
 that sounds ! — is the most admirable as a paint- 
 ing. But I know nothing of technicalities. I 
 only know the pictures that please me, and im- 
 press me, and touch me the most ; and there are 
 so many that seem to do all these things the 
 most. No, I could never say which was my 
 greatest favourite ; I have so many. Every 
 mood has its greatest favourite ; and each mood 
 is me, I suppose, for the time being. So I can 
 have no one constant, greatest favourite. That 
 sounds dreadfully fickle, does it not ? " 
 
 " Not at all. If we had no change of moods, 
 life would be monotonous indeed ; and if in 
 each mood you felt the same appreciation 
 of the same picture, it might only show that 
 you were not really touched by it at all. A 
 connoisseur, of course, can have a constant 
 favourite, because his judgment as to the me-
 
 90 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 chanical part of the work will not vary; but 
 when it comes to be a question of sentiment, 
 everything is changed." 
 
 " There is one painter, by the by," said Esme, 
 "though not one painting, whom I sometimes 
 fancy I prefer, on the whole, to all the others. 
 Of course, you will think me a barbarian ; for 
 he is, I suppose, what you would call a painter of 
 the darker age : but I must be honest — I mean 
 Perugino." 
 
 " Perugino \ " 
 
 " Yes ; you are horrified, are you ? Well, I 
 like him for one quality, and that is the beauti- 
 ful, pure, innocent expression which he gives to 
 all his figures. That, of course, would not make 
 him a great painter, but it makes all his works 
 lovable. I don't think he could paint a bad 
 man. It does one good to look at the faces he 
 has painted. I don't think they are often to be 
 seen in the real world, although they are real 
 men and women. But there they are, always in 
 his pictures, saints and angels, and holy men 
 and women, such as they should be. There 
 is a St John in the ' Belle Arti ' museum at 
 Florence which makes one think of man as he 
 may have been before the Fall. One must 
 delight in goodness and innocence in every
 
 MINE IS THINE. 91 
 
 mood, and so I am always delighted with Peru- 
 gino." 
 
 " You prefer him to his immortal disciple ? — 
 to Eaphael % " 
 
 " Well — no ; I won't answer that question. 
 Of course, even / know how much the disciple 
 excels the master in many things, and in none 
 more than in the power of painting varieties of 
 expression. Eaphael can paint every human 
 emotion. Perugino is always expressing the 
 same, but it is one that delights me more than 
 any other." 
 
 " Of course, then, you have the same feeling 
 for Fra Angelico ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. Yes, I have ; but not 
 nearly to the same extent. I think his holy 
 faces are the faces of holy people who have never 
 had any temptation. Perugino's are quite as 
 holy; and I think one has more sympathy with 
 them, because they are the faces of people who 
 have thought, and struggled, and suffered — who 
 have come out from many trials and temptations, 
 saddened but purified and pure. Do you not 
 like them ? I hope you do." 
 
 " Indeed I do. I have always been a great 
 admirer both of Perugino and Fra Angelico, and 
 for your reason ; but the distinction which you
 
 92 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 draw between them never occurred to me. It 
 is excellent. I shall remember it when I am 
 among pictures again : and, really, it is natural ; 
 for Angelico lived his holy life in the convent, 
 and Perugino lived his life in the world." 
 
 " Yes, Angelico's saints are certainly convent- 
 bred saints. Perugino's have had sad experi- 
 ences in the outer world." 
 
 " I see you have thought about pictures, not- 
 withstanding your humble disclaimer." 
 
 " No, I don t know how to think ; do you be- 
 lieve that any woman does ? " 
 
 " If I had ever doubted it, you would have 
 satisfied me that my doubt was groundless." 
 
 " Oh, Mr Glencairn, you must not laugh at 
 me ! I can only think, and then only in a very 
 dim way, when I am talking. One's silent 
 thoughts are so vague and shifting." 
 
 " The complaint is fully as much male as 
 female, you may be sure. I suspect that the 
 thoughts of most men are seldom quite complet- 
 ed till they are being expressed in some shape 
 or other. But the remedy is simple, is it not ? " 
 
 " What is it ? Oh, I see !— to talk." 
 
 "Is that not simple? or do you repudiate all 
 the brutal proverbs about the fair sex on that 
 score {
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 93 
 
 " Of course I repudiate them, as in duty 
 bound. But I am not really qualified to be a 
 champion of my sex. I know so little of it : 
 papa and I have been such wanderers since I 
 was grown up, and we have so few neighbours 
 in Scotland. Then papa's health has prevent- 
 ed us, almost entirely, from having visitors at 
 home, so that my acquaintances are very limited 
 indeed. I have a great many dear friends by 
 hereditary right ; but they are really strangers 
 to me, and shadows, more or less. Have you a 
 great many friends ? " 
 
 " A great many acquaintances, certainly; but 
 the friends are, like yours perhaps, rather 
 shadowy. But you have been in London some 
 seasons, have you not ? " 
 
 " Only one — the year I was presented ; and 
 that was such a whirl ! People were very kind 
 to me ; but one does not get to know people in 
 that kind of life : do you think so 1 " 
 
 " Men's lives are so different, but there is cer- 
 tainly little time for any one thing." 
 
 " No, there is no time to make friends. I 
 possess one real female friend in the world — the 
 funniest, quaintest, cleverest, kindest, best crea- 
 ture — my old governess, my beloved Fraulein. 
 I don't think she is in the least like any one
 
 94 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 else ; and if I were to form my ideas of women 
 from her — the only one I know really — and act 
 on my ideas, I suspect I should pass my life in a 
 comedy of errors. A whole world full of Frali- 
 leins ! It would be a very nice world, to be 
 sure, and a very good one, but too funny." 
 
 " Did you enjoy your season ? " 
 
 " Some of it, very much ; but there was too 
 much of the same thing every day." 
 
 " I should have thought you would have found 
 variety enough in London." 
 
 " Oh ! one certainly did a great many dif-' 
 ferent things every day; but every day was 
 very like yesterday, and I was always tired. 
 Papa thought I was not enjoying myself if I 
 was not always doing something, and my cha- 
 peron was full of energy, and I could get no 
 holidays. I wonder, now, what you would say 
 — is quiet monotony or bustling monotony the 
 more disagreeable \ " 
 
 Cosmo laughed, and said, " Miss Douglas, I 
 am getting quite afraid of you — you are so 
 philosophical ! " 
 
 " Oh, please don't think me ( strong-minded ' ! 
 — it is only a little question I was constantly 
 asking myself during that season. And oh ! I 
 must tell you, one night it got me into a dread-
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 95 
 
 ful scrape. I was dancing with a very pleasant 
 partner — exactly like every other partner I had 
 danced with every night for a month — and he 
 was making himself very agreeable, exactly as 
 they all had done, with the same ideas, and 
 almost the same words, as they all had used ; 
 and I was tired, and I became a little absent, as 
 one does when one is tired, and this unlucky 
 problem came into my head. Well, I mixed it 
 up with what my partner was saying, and when 
 he asked me, 'Which will you say?' — mean- 
 ing which of two dances he knew I was dis- 
 engaged for — I answered, ' I think, for the less 
 of two evils, I would like to choose quiet mono- 
 tony/ Then he was really very angry, and said, 
 'The quadrille, I suppose you mean;' and the 
 more I tried to explain, the less he seemed to 
 understand, and became silent and sulky; and 
 he didn't come for the dance. Was it not 
 dreadful?" 
 
 "The loss of the dance was so serious?" 
 laughed Cosmo. 
 
 " No, of course not ; but his feelings were so 
 much hurt — and he was really kind, and trying 
 to amuse me. That was serious." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Douglas, I could tell now, that you 
 had not been many seasons in London."
 
 96 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " From my want of manners \ " asked Esme, 
 simply. 
 
 " No, no ; from thinking so much of the 
 gentleman's feeling." 
 
 "Do you think a few seasons in London 
 would make me careless about people's feel- 
 ings? I don't think I should care to go to 
 London again if that were to be the result." 
 
 The words were simple enough, and spoken 
 without any arriere-pensee ; but sometimes the 
 simplest words, illustrated by a tone or a glance, 
 offer a magical revelation of character to a sym- 
 pathetic nature, and ever thereafter the voice 
 that spoke them has a different sound. Even 
 so was it now. " The Madonna ! " said Cosmo 
 to himself — and then aloud, after a long pause, 
 "No, Miss Douglas, I am perfectly certain that 
 no number of London seasons would produce 
 that effect upon you." 
 
 Esme changed colour a little and looked at 
 him inquiringly ; but his eyes were cast down, 
 and she said nothing : and though she wondered 
 how he could answer for her with so much con- 
 fidence, she never for a moment suspected that 
 he was using words of idle compliment. Here 
 was an instance of the sudden, and, so to speak, 
 unconscious but mutual insight of nature into
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 97 
 
 nature, upon which one might expand psycho- 
 logically ; but fear not, watchful reader ! 
 
 While the dialogue just recorded was in pro- 
 gress, the speakers had pursued the path in all 
 its windings, stopping mechanically here and 
 there, where a terrace and an artificial opening 
 in the woods invited the passer-by to pause and 
 admire. They had left all these, however, with- 
 out comment, engrossed in other topics ; and, as 
 the last words were spoken, they reached the 
 summit. 
 
 It would be difficult to conceive a more varied 
 or beautiful prospect than that which here met 
 them ; and they enjoyed it, for a time, in silence. 
 A scene of immense variety indeed, full of con- 
 trasts, with every feature of marked individuality, 
 each full of individual sucrgestiveness, but associ- 
 ated by a series of delicately-g^raduted tones of 
 light and colour which bound the complex whole 
 together in a sort of ethereal federation. Thus 
 the distant Alp was brought into communion 
 with the vine -clad slopes, the bowery gardens 
 and waving woods, and the grand expanse of 
 the blue lake, with its images and shadows, and 
 flying gleams from snowy sails and fluttering 
 pennons. It was not a scene the beauties of 
 which could be catalogued glibly off, as Milton's 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 98 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Allegro " catalogues the items of his panorama. 
 The delight of it would have exhaled in minute 
 examination. The mind would have become 
 wearied and paralysed under so many and such 
 various calls on its exertion. The coup oVocil 
 was sufficient. It was one which words could 
 never do justice to. This was one of the occa- 
 sions when " silence is golden." Esme, without 
 speaking, merely turned on her companion a 
 look of confidence in his appreciation, and then 
 both were silent for some time. At last Cosmo 
 said — 
 
 " Have you seen it by moonlight ? * 
 
 " Yes," replied Esme, " but it is a complete 
 transfiguration. Nothing could be so changed 
 by the absence of the sun. The colour is the 
 life of it. It is only a spectre by moonlight — 
 beautiful, but with all its glory gone. It almost 
 saddens one." 
 
 " I should like to see it." 
 
 " Oh, pray come and see it ! I should like to 
 hear what you think of it. 
 
 " But the moon becomes late of showing her- 
 self — too late to allow me to invade the villa." 
 
 " But, if you wish, we can have the gate left 
 open for you, and you know your way up here 
 now."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 99 
 
 " Thanks," said Cosmo ; "it is very good of 
 you : " but perhaps he felt that he would rather 
 contemplate the beautiful spectre in some other 
 company than his own or Tom Wyedale's. This 
 must have been his thought, otherwise his next 
 sentence would have had no reasonable connec- 
 tion with the last — for, " At any rate," he said, 
 after a pause, " I consider myself very fortunate 
 to have made acquaintance with this splendid 
 view, by daylight, and in your company. 
 
 " I consider that very flattering, Mr Glen- 
 cairn; because, in nine cases out of ten, one 
 would rather be alone in looking at fine scenery. 
 In nine cases out of ten, people either talk too 
 much, or they say something jarring, or they are 
 cold and indifferent." 
 
 " That is true ; but it does not make what I 
 say flattering. In all respects, this is one of 
 the tenth cases." 
 
 Esme looked at him quickly. Even in her 
 short experience, she had had, no doubt, many 
 gallant speeches made to her ; but the judicial 
 gravity of this method of making her pleased 
 with herself, was new, forcible, and gratifying. 
 She laughed gaily, however, and said — 
 
 " Well, Mr Glencairn, I feel as if I had talked 
 a great deal too much; but you must blame
 
 100 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 yourself — you know it was your own prescrip- 
 tion." 
 
 " To follow your metaphor, yours was one of 
 the cases where the physician is called in, and 
 finds the patient to be merely a malade irna- 
 ginaire, but is forced to prescribe something to 
 humour him. 
 
 "Oh, now you really are flattering me!" cried 
 Esme ; " but, not to let you monopolise all the 
 fine speeches, let me say that invalids sometimes 
 find the doctor s visits more beneficial from his 
 conversation than his prescriptions. But that, 
 by the by, is not paying you in kind ; for what 
 I say is true — for once you have really made me 
 think." 
 
 " Who speaks of malades imaginaires ? " here 
 broke in the voice of Lord Germistoune, who, 
 having once been thus described by a brusque 
 London doctor, was jealous of the phrase. 
 
 " It was only in a parable that such a person 
 was mentioned," said Esme. 
 
 " Ah ! in a parable % the only proper place for 
 him. No such person really exists. There's any 
 quantity of imaginary health in the world, but 
 no one needs to imagine himself sick. Every 
 one is sick, more or less." Then, turning to 
 Tom, he went on —
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 101 
 
 " As I was saying, these Lowland farmers are 
 the most confounded fellows in Europe. Ill tell 
 you what they are ; they're Communists — that's 
 what they are. The last time I was at Fernie- 
 hall — my place in the Lowlands — two of these 
 pirates came to me ' to remonstrate/ as they said, 
 about the state of the game. 
 
 '• ' I presume you mean rabbits \ ' I said. 
 
 " ' Rabbits, hares, and winged game too, par- 
 ticularly wood-pigeons,' they answered. 
 
 " ' Well,' I said, ' why don't you add crows, 
 magpies, and sparrows, and slugs, and snails, 
 and everything that eats anything on a farm \ 
 But what do you want ? ' 
 
 " They said that their crops were being eaten, 
 and they wanted the game to be killed down 
 to a reasonable limit. I told them that the 
 game ivas within a fair limit, and not more 
 than enough for the sport which I had a right 
 to expect for myself and my friends, on my 
 estate, which, I begged to remind them, was my 
 own. 
 
 " ' But our crops are being eaten,' they said. 
 
 "'And so they ought to be,' I replied, 'in a 
 fair proportion.' 
 
 " ' Game,' I then explained to them, ' is placed 
 on a property by Divine Providence — just as
 
 102 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 wind blows on it, sun shines on it, rain and hail 
 fall upon it, by the decree of Providence. The 
 crops suffer a little from all these things, by 
 the decree of Providence — and, by the same 
 decree, the game eats the crops in a fair propor- 
 tion. Great heavens ! ' I said, ' are you going 
 to fly in the face of Providence 1 ' 
 
 " They declined to fall in with this view of 
 the matter, and I then remarked — 
 
 " * When you became farmers you knew what 
 you had to expect; when you signed your leases 
 you knew all these things ; and what the devil 
 do you mean by trying to squeeze me for more 
 than your covenant gives you ? ' 
 
 " ' We want justice/ they said. 
 
 " ' No,' I replied, ' you want injustice — in- 
 justice for me ; ' and then I gave it them hot. 
 
 " ' I'll tell you what it is/ I said ; ' if you 
 think I'm going to be harried and bothered by 
 a lot of malcontents, you're mistaken. I'll make 
 you an offer ; it is a good deal more than just — 
 it is foolishly generous. I'll cancel your leases, 
 if you like, and all the leases on the estate, and 
 turn it all into a game-preserve. There ! I 
 believe there is a good market for game, and 
 I daresay I should not lose much by the trans- 
 action. But I'm indifferent to that. One tiling
 
 MINE IS THINE. 103 
 
 is certain, I am not going to be the servant of 
 my own tenants, cost me what my freedom 
 may/ 
 
 " Then I bowed them out, and told them to 
 send their decision to the factor." 
 
 " Admirable ! " cried Tom ; " that is the way 
 to deal with them. What did they do ? " 
 
 " Do ? stuck to their farms, of course. One 
 of them made £70,000 out of my land in thirty 
 years ; I know that for a certainty : and he 
 was only paying me a rent of £600. And what 
 did this fellow do % started against my man as 
 candidate for my boroughs — on the game-laws 
 ' platform/ of course. Fortunately I was able 
 to take advantage of a technical flaw in the 
 lease, and send him to the right-about/' 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! — bravo ! I daresay there was 
 a considerable fuss about that." 
 
 " I believe there was ; but I never read the 
 Radical papers, so it didn't even reach me. In 
 any case, the anger of pickpockets against a 
 man for looking after his own watch and purse 
 is not likely to affect him much. The Lowland 
 tenant-farmer is the most confounded fellow in 
 Europe. There is no one so greedy and selfish." 
 
 " I believe," said Cosmo, " that the great 
 irritation of the farmers about game is owing
 
 104 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 not altogether, nor perhaps even so much, to 
 over-preservation, as to the fact that the game 
 is very generally sold ; and another thing they 
 dislike is, that it isn't even shot by the gentle- 
 men of the neighbourhood. The farmers, of 
 course, have some sort of neighbourly feeling 
 for them, which they can t possibly have for the 
 strangers who are invited to the battues simply 
 because they are crack shots, able to swell the 
 grand total of the bag. All this looks to the 
 farmer like a mere mercantile transaction. I 
 confess I am not surprised at it. What they 
 wouldn't grudge to the landlord for his own and 
 his neighbour's amusement, they do grudge when 
 it appears to be simply another rent to be taken 
 off the land at the expense of the rents which 
 they have to find." 
 
 " You defend them? " cried Lord Germistoune, 
 with a rising crest. 
 
 " Not entirely, by any means '; but I can 
 quite understand their point of view, and to 
 some extent sympathise with it." 
 
 Cosmo was resolved to be calm, firm, and 
 judicial, though greatly irritated by the domineer- 
 ing tone of the noble lord, and smarting under 
 previous impertinences. 
 
 " Then, pray, sir," said Lord Germistoune,
 
 MINE IS THINE. 105 
 
 " may I ask, has a man, or has he not, the right 
 to do with his own as he pleases \ " 
 
 " Unquestionably, so long as it is his own 
 exclusively; but it seems to me he limits his 
 rights of proprietorship when he admits another 
 by contract, and for a consideration, to share 
 in the proceeds of his property : by so much 
 he lessens his right to do as he pleases with 
 what is then, only nominally , his own property." 
 
 " This is rank communism ! " 
 
 " Excuse me, my lord," said Cosmo, angry, 
 but with a laugh, " I entirely decline to plead 
 guilty to that. ' Communism ' is a word that at 
 present is very lightly used, and very loosely. 
 But as to the game question, after all, the griev- 
 ance is, as I say, very much a sentimental one, 
 which the tact and good feeling of the landlords 
 would easily allay." 
 
 " By giving up all their rights ? " 
 
 " By no means ; simply by exercising them 
 with fairness and discretion." 
 
 " I see, sir, that you are one of the ' new 
 lights.' When you have an estate of your own, 
 you will find your theories change marvellously." 
 
 " I don't pretend to any elaborate theories ; 
 any acquaintance I have with the question is 
 a practical one. As a game -tenant myself, I
 
 106 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 have come a good deal into contact with agri- 
 cultural tenants, and have never had the slight- 
 est difficulty with them." 
 
 "Ah, that is beside the question altogether. 
 I decline to consider sophisms. I distinctly beg 
 to be excused from argument with a sophist. 
 The Lowland tenant-farmer is the most con- 
 founded fellow in Europe. If you want to 
 find Belleville and Montmartre done into Scotch, 
 go to Forfarshire, and Aberdeenshire, and the 
 Lothians, and you will find them." Saying this, 
 he glared at Cosmo with a sic volo, sic jubeo 
 air, as though he were one of the agriculturists 
 in question, cast out of court and in outer dark- 
 ness for the future. 
 
 "Poor Cosmo!" said Tom, as though his friend's 
 logical annihilation were complete, " you'll never 
 make much of politics. You had better stick 
 to your moonlight, and music, and pictures, and 
 leave politics to practical men like Lord Ger- 
 mistoune, or even my humble self." 
 
 " A nice business you'd make of them ! — I 
 mean you, of course, Tom," said Cosmo ; " but 
 this is not a political question. It is extremely 
 mischievous and wrong to try to make it one." 
 
 " I think," said his lordship, loftily, " we have 
 quite exhausted the subject."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 107 
 
 " If it is not politics, it is quite as ■unpleasant," 
 laughed Esnie ; " and therefore I am glad it is 
 exhausted. Papa, Mr Glencairn has given me 
 so many new ideas ! " 
 
 <c They appear to be his forte" growled her 
 father. 
 
 " Oh, but not stupid, prosy ideas about game, 
 and farmers, and rents ; but about art, and 
 pictures, and the spirit of the age — what you 
 never will answer my questions about, or talk 
 about." 
 
 " I don't want you to be a ' new light/ my 
 dear. I had rather not see you lecturing on a 
 platform. Pray confine yourself to your own 
 subjects. What ? " 
 
 "But, papa, what are my own subjects ?" 
 
 " There, there ! don't tease," snapped her 
 father, with a pettish little stamp of his foot. 
 
 Esme gave a comic look of terror, and pres- 
 ently crossing over to Cosmo said, " There is a 
 view to the back you ought to see. Shall we 
 go ? " and they began to move. 
 
 " Where are you going \ " cried Lord Germis- 
 toune, sharply. 
 
 " Only to the other side of the plateau, papa, 
 to look at the inland view." 
 
 "I wish you to go down with me now, at
 
 108 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 once, Esme. There is something I wish to have 
 copied," and he turned in the direction of the 
 villa. His lordship's temper was evidently 
 broken, and his company manners all but eva- 
 porated ; and so the descent was made in haste, 
 and almost in silence. Even Tom Wyedale's 
 rattling power of talk was not exercised. Tom 
 felt by instinct that it was not his hour. Cool 
 adieux on the part of his lordship, even to Tom ; 
 more than cool — stiff and grim — to Cosmo. A 
 laughing whisper from Esme to the latter, 
 " Shall we have the gate left open ? Will you 
 visit * the spectre ' to-night \ " A gay reply 
 from Cosmo that it would "hardly be safe, in 
 the present state of the game-laws and the pen- 
 alties against night-poaching ; " and so the visit 
 ended. 
 
 " What were you saying to that puppy, Esme?" 
 snarled Lord Germistoune, when the friends had 
 gone. 
 
 " What puppy, dear papa ? " asked Esme, with 
 demure innocence. 
 
 " You know who I mean ; that priggish fellow 
 with the theatrical name — Glencairn." 
 
 "Oh, Mr Glencairn ! I could never have recog- 
 nised him under all these wonderful epithets." 
 
 " You're a little imbecile. I hate giggling.
 
 MINE IS THINE. 109 
 
 You distinctly giggled with him just now. I 
 abominate giggling. Get ink." 
 
 " You're ruining all my plans for the autumn, 
 Cosmo/' said Tom as they strolled homewards. 
 
 " What do you mean, Tom \ " 
 
 " Mean ? I mean that you're getting that 
 old man's back up mountains high ; and he's 
 just the sort of fellow to visit your sins upon 
 your associate. You'll cut me out of my Duner- 
 lacht shooting, to a moral certainty. Why do 
 you beard him \ Why do you run against his 
 hobbies ? " 
 
 Do you suppose /am going to cry 'Amen' 
 to every pompous old autocrat who chooses to 
 talk nonsense to me 1 I wouldn't do it to get 
 all the shooting in Scotland for myself; and 
 I'm not likely to do it merely to let your * pro- 
 gramme,' as you call it, fulfil itself." 
 
 " It's deuced selfish of you, then. There is no 
 place in Scotland where you can make so mixed 
 a bag, or so big a one, as Dunerlacht — that I am 
 sure of. There's a lake, and a marsh, and the 
 moor, and a good lump of forest, and Al part- 
 ridge-ground — all convenient to each other. It's 
 unique — that's what it is ; and I've set my heart 
 upon it. And now I'm to lose it, all because of
 
 110 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 your conceited, stiff-necked temper ! What does 
 it matter what the Lowland tenant-farmer thinks, 
 or does, or says, or suffers % Confound the Low- 
 land tenant-farmer ! For a day's good shooting 
 I would agree to swear him anything from an 
 angel to an imp of darkness ; and, for the same 
 consideration, I'd include in the same category 
 every agriculturist, from the rising of the sun 
 unto the going down of the same ! Hang it all ! 
 what can it matter to you ? But I've no pa- 
 tience with you." 
 
 " There's an effrontery about your selfishness, 
 Tom, which is almost magnificent, from its ex- 
 panse. However, you're not a humbug — not to 
 me, that is to say — which is so far well. And 
 now, for your comfort, I may tell you that I 
 shall spare your prospects any further jeopardy 
 by having nothing more to do with Lord Ger- 
 mistoune. His manner to me is nothing short 
 of insolent. So be of good cheer. A little of 
 your unadulterated blarney will soon set matters 
 right for you and your unique mixed bag." 
 
 " What ! you'll cut the connection altogether." 
 
 " Yes, I will." 
 
 " And Miss Douglas 1 " 
 
 " Well, what of her ? Of course I can't meet 
 her if I don't meet her father."
 
 MINE IS THINE. Ill 
 
 " That's a pity ; you seem to pull well : but 
 I suppose it can't be helped. After all, there's 
 a good deal of common-sense, Cosmo, in what 
 you say. There's an incompatibility between 
 your temper and that old patriarch's that would 
 lead to nothing pleasant for either of you. Your 
 absence will certainly help my autumn scheme. 
 On the whole, I have no objection. It won't be 
 so pleasant, of course, going by one's self; but 
 I can make a sacrifice for a friend at a time, I 
 hope." 
 
 " Of a friend, at least, beyond any sort of 
 question." 
 
 " That's right ; have a good sneer. Don't 
 mind me. It will do you a world of good, after 
 bottling up so much dignity with his lordship. 
 By the by, you've decided, I suppose, to close 
 with Finmore ? " 
 
 " No ; and I don't think, on reflection, that 
 I'll go to Scotland this autumn. I think I may 
 go to the Dolomites, perhaps, or try the fishing 
 in Bohemia, or make the tour of the Crimea — 
 one ought to do that — and perhaps work 
 through the islands of the iEgean afterwards, 
 or " 
 
 "Why not do the Andamans, or the Fijis, 
 when you're about it? or, say the Antarctic
 
 112 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 Circle ? Well, you are Then, one way or 
 
 other, you're determined to ruin my autumn — 
 that's about it. So there's no good my hanging 
 on here to make up my book. I'll be off. I say, 
 by the by" — here Tom lowered his voice to 
 a confidential tone — " do you remember what 
 I was saying about my banker the other 
 night 1 " 
 
 " No, I can't say I do, particularly ; he is so 
 often under discussion, you know." 
 
 "Why, I told you, didn't I, of his heathenish 
 conduct, about that over-draft ? and you very 
 kindly said " 
 
 " Did I ? " 
 
 " That is, you were just going to say, when 
 that old ass beo;an to shout for assistance " 
 
 But here again Tom was interrupted. " Lady 
 and gentleman anxious to see you, sir," said a 
 waiter, for they had now reached the hotel. 
 
 " Who are they ? " said Tom. 
 
 " Don't know name, sir." 
 
 " Where, then \ " 
 
 "No. 26, sir. Just arrived from Milan. Maid 
 and courier, sir." 
 
 " Do they want to see me too ? " 
 
 " No, sir," grinned the waiter. 
 
 " Show me up, then." And off he went, all
 
 MINE IS THINE. 113 
 
 excitement, forgetful of his budget, and his 
 autumn, and everything else. 
 
 " What a weathercock the fellow is ! " mut- 
 tered Cosmo. " No doubt his finances are in an 
 awful state, and some one will certainly have to 
 suffer. Just as certainly, however, Tom won't 
 be the sufferer." 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 114 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Tom Wyedale was not again visible to his 
 friend that evening. Apparently the anony- 
 mous party in No. 26 had proved amusing ; and 
 thus Cosmo was left to his own society. An 
 occasional respite from Tom's eternal flow of 
 mirth and badinage was not unwelcome to him, 
 and on this afternoon it was a positive relief. 
 Cosmo was in a thoughtful mood. He indulged 
 it in a long saunter along the shores of the lake ; 
 and at night, when the moon rose, he went out 
 upon his balcony overlooking the lake, and again 
 took up the thread of his reverie. 
 
 At certain stages of life, people of a certain 
 temperament and cast of thought seem to be- 
 come suddenly conscious that their relations 
 with the past are altogether altered — that what 
 seemed, but yesterday, good and pleasant and 
 fitting, must, or ought to, cease to be so any 
 longer. Such minds do not appear (though the
 
 MINE IS THINE. 115 
 
 process, if unconscious, must be gradual) to 
 arrive gradually at a conviction of change, but 
 to reach, with a bound, each new standpoint, 
 from which the necessities of the actual present 
 and the things of the immediate past are instan- 
 taneously discovered to have no relation to each 
 other, but to be separated by an impassable gulf. 
 To such, even at the outer confines of childhood, 
 its toys become in an instant despicable. At 
 the next stage, the delights and ambitions of 
 adolescence are discovered, by a coup d'ceil, to 
 be paltry and insufficient. Later on, the goodli- 
 ness of pleasure, scanned in the musings of a 
 single night, seems in a night to pale and wither 
 — exposed by a sudden vivid light, in which 
 life's realities flash upon the vision, or in which 
 duty unmasks itself and emerges from the lumin- 
 ous mists of illusion. And so on, doubtless, to 
 the end ; for these are only, in a more defined 
 and emphatic form, that series of deaths and 
 resurrections which, in ourselves, we all undergo, 
 and which connects itself with the ultimate 
 death which we all know we must die — with 
 the ultimate resurrection, in which we hope to 
 begin a new and higher life. The experiences 
 of each past stage are the poet's " stepping- 
 stones of their dead selves," by which men
 
 116 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 may rise to nobler things ; and those to whom 
 each stage is thus sharply revealed ought to 
 have the firmest foothold for the ascent. 
 
 Cosmo Glencairn was of this temperament. 
 In his case, one of these stages had been marked 
 by his adoption of the army as a profession, and 
 another by his retirement from it. To the first 
 step he was led, not merely by the natural 
 attraction which the " career of arms " has for 
 spirited youth, but, after the close of a studious 
 and earnest career at the university, by a sudden 
 reactionary feeling in favour of an active as 
 against a studious and contemplative life. " I 
 have learned my part for the drama of life, as 
 much as books can teach it to me ; and now I 
 must play it. Life cannot be meant to be 
 passed in literary otium or philosophical specula- 
 tion. A true man s true mission is active exer- 
 tion in the noblest sphere he can find. I have 
 had enough of books. Let me act ; let me be a 
 hero! " Thus mused the young enthusiast ; and 
 his ignorance of that life in which, as he con- 
 ceived, he had learned to play his part, suddenly 
 buried his aspirations in the bathos of a cavalry 
 regiment. Noble lives are doubtless led, and 
 noble aspirations fulfilled, in that splendid 
 branch of a glorious service ; but the aspir-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 117 
 
 ants are usually more patient, and have more 
 definite and limited and less transcendental 
 aims, than those professed by Cosmo Glencairn, 
 who forgot that in actual warfare alone does the 
 army offer a really exalted and heroic sphere for 
 active exertion. But to lead an active and 
 heroic life ! — it was for this that he turned his 
 back upon the Muses ; and, after the pleasant 
 novelty of the dramatic side of military life had 
 worn off, he found that he was embracing a sha- 
 dow where he had hoped to find a substance. 
 
 There was nothing heroic in the routine of 
 * stables " and parades — nothing lofty in mount- 
 ing guard over things that required no protec- 
 tion ; and he was too much (or too little) of 
 a philosopher, to like, or even venerate, the 
 minutiae of regimental organisation, and their 
 liturgical observance, in consideration of that 
 far-away end — efficiency before the enemy — 
 which they are designed to subserve. The 
 patience which does so consciously is eminently 
 laudible, and may indeed be altogether heroic ; 
 but Cosmo's heroism was of a different stamp. 
 Yet youth, however earnest and philosophical, is 
 youth after all — Mr Stuart Mill's venerable 
 infancy notwithstanding ; and the weariness 
 and disappointment which his mistaken choice
 
 118 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 of a profession entailed, were for a time neutral- 
 ised, or at least quieted, by those first experi- 
 ences of social pleasure which are so delightful 
 when life opens in a burst of sunshine. Many 
 of the best gifts of Fortune — youth, health, 
 wealth, personal charms, gay surroundings, 
 troops of pleasant friends, promotion coming 
 quickly, as it often comes to those who care 
 nothing for it, — all these were Cosmo's. It 
 was a glittering life ; and it was only at the 
 end of five years that the conviction flashed 
 upon him that the brightness was not the 
 effulgence of sterling gold. But then it came 
 suddenly, embodied in the following reflections : 
 "It is all pleasure — nothing else. What we 
 call ' duty' is simply mechanical, calling for 
 nothing but the slightest physical exertion. I 
 am doing nothing ; I am thinking nothing ; I 
 am losing ground intellectually. The world is 
 none the better for me. I am altogether de- 
 teriorating in the sphere which I have chosen; 
 I must leave it at once. Nothing else seems 
 open to me — no other field for high or even 
 useful effort. After all, I am ignorant and 
 uncultivated, and fit for nothing. I thought 
 myself educated when I left college, but I find 
 that I had only learned the alphabet, and I
 
 MINE IS THINE. 119 
 
 have been unlearning it ever since. Self- cul- 
 ture — that must be my first business; when 
 that is complete, the hidden uses of my exist- 
 ence may be revealed." 
 
 The immediate consequence of all this was, a 
 few weeks later, the ' Gazette ' announcement : 
 " Dragoon Guards. — Captain Cosmo Glen- 
 cairn retires from the service by the sale of his 
 commission;" and the departure of the ex- 
 dragoon shortly after, with a trunk full of 
 promiscuous literature, science, art, and philoso- 
 phy, to qualify for the discovery of the hidden 
 uses of his existence, in a tour through Europe. 
 Cosmo did not plunge haphazard into his travels, 
 shaping and changing his course by passing cap- 
 rice. He set about his educational pilgrimage 
 in a most systematic way ; and his appearance 
 at any special place generally marked a stage 
 of progress in some particular study. History, 
 art, systems of philosophy, systems of religion, 
 ethnology — such and such like — were the com- 
 panions, the directors, the objects of his travel ; 
 and, since the strongholds of art and history 
 lie for the most part in pleasant and romantic 
 lands, his poetic fancy and his love for the 
 beautiful were for ever receiving fresh delights 
 and new instruction. His tour was by no means
 
 120 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 a continuous one ; it was regularly broken every 
 year by a return home for several months, which 
 were spent in visiting his friends, and in that 
 Highland sport which he loved almost as well 
 as did the feverish intriguer — his friend Tom 
 Wyedale. 
 
 Thus had passed more than three years ; and 
 the years of Cosmo's life were eight-and-twenty 
 — a great age, as it appeared to him — a great 
 many years to have been passed in receiving 
 seed, without the issue of a single grain of har- 
 vest crop. And on this night, looking down 
 from his balcony upon the still and moonlit 
 waters, this conviction — the spirit, perhaps, of 
 another stage — fell upon him. Deep was his 
 depression, deep his self-dissatisfaction, as he 
 reviewed his own career and the process of his 
 own self - culture. He came to the conclusion 
 that, after all his pains, he was still but at the 
 threshold of knowledge, and as far removed as 
 ever from achievement of any sort. "Born to 
 be a cipher, a dreamer, at best a dilettante." 
 Such was his despairing verdict on himself, as 
 it well may be that of others who, however 
 cultivated, neither test nor utilise their acquire- 
 ments, by carrying them into the field of active 
 competition with other men. And what then ?
 
 MINE IS THINE. 121 
 
 The future seemed to be a blank. Was this 
 another recoil from the contemplative to the 
 active life, destined to mark the commence- 
 ment of a new phase in his history ? He cer- 
 tainly believed it to be so. Of one thing he 
 was convinced — that from his wandering life 
 all the good, if any, that could be derived from 
 it, had been already extracted, and that it ought 
 to cease. But in the future there was a blank ; 
 and even for the time, iu his own consciousness, 
 all onward impulses to effort and achievement 
 seemed to be paralysed. The darkness of soul 
 which falls at times so overwhelmingly upon the 
 children of genius, fell down upon him — that 
 darkness which permits the sufferer to see noth- 
 ing save his own impotence, the incomplete- 
 ness of the highest human effort, the shortness 
 of life and the narrow limits of human power 
 in comparison with the magnitude of human 
 aspiration, — these, and, written everywhere and 
 standing out in letters of fire on the walls of 
 this mental prison-house, a mournful inscription 
 declaring that " all is vanity." The steps which 
 led up to the conclusion that his wandering life 
 must cease, had no doubt been many, though 
 passed over all but unconsciously; but some 
 proximate cause of especial energy there must
 
 122 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 have been to develop and unmask the convic- 
 tion, and to bring about this state of despond- 
 ency, from the midst of which it sprang into 
 evidence. The task is not for us to grope 
 through psychological labyrinths, and discover, 
 for .the concurrence of intellectual convictions 
 and strange phases of moral consciousness, the 
 explanation of a common cause. Suffice it to 
 say, that something in the events of the day 
 had produced the feeling of despondency ; and 
 the sentiment of self-dissatisfaction which usu- 
 ally accompanies it, had naturally issued in the 
 conviction that a change of life was necessary. 
 But what was that something which set the 
 whole process in motion ? Cosmo himself could 
 not have told you. It certainly could not have 
 been the disturbance of his equanimity by Lord 
 Germistoune's unpleasant tone and bearing to- 
 wards him. Certainly not. He could never 
 have allowed himself to be more than irritated 
 by any one whom he held in contempt. Was 
 it in reality the discovery of a new want — the 
 unconscious perception of a void in his life, in 
 his being, revealed by the existence of that 
 which might satisfy the one by filling the 
 other? Well, but what was the want? and 
 what could supply it? All was misty, dark,
 
 MINE IS THINE. 123 
 
 and perplexing, and Cosmo's cogitations brought 
 no solution. 
 
 It was late when they came to a close, and 
 he turned from the balcony. But as he turned, 
 the moon, which for a time had been obscured, 
 dropped, far away out upon the lake, a solitary 
 circle of silver light. Complete and solitary, it 
 gleamed for a moment with a weird effulgence — 
 isolated in the darkness of surrounding waters — 
 gleamed thus for a moment, then slowly widened, 
 and at last gradually broke into a thousand tremu- 
 lous shafts, from the midst of which one broad 
 smooth avenue of mellow fire went solemnly to 
 landward. It crept up through the gardens of 
 the Villa Bianca, and bathed its glittering walls ; 
 it stole over the exuberant foliage of the woods 
 behind, and absorbed into its breadth of light 
 the snowy glints that flashed from plumes of 
 feathery blossom, — till, from the lake to the 
 hill -top, it lay like the path of some blessed 
 angel who paused a moment on his heavenward 
 way and rested upon Esme's home. Oh, mother 
 Nature ! beauteous and benign — mother that 
 never yet deceived the heart that loved thee 
 well — was this the mute response of thy tender 
 oracle to the bewilderment of a spirit that dimly 
 felt, but could not utter, its enigma ?
 
 124 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Tom Wyedale was by no means a domestic 
 character. So much may have already been 
 surmised. His intercourse with his relations 
 was intermittent and spasmodic, depending very 
 often upon the state of his exchequer. Baro- 
 metric pressure in that quarter was usually 
 accompanied by a rise in the thermometer of 
 his family affections, and vice versd ; and in the 
 latter condition there generally intervened be- 
 tween him and his people a certain haze which 
 concealed from either party the whereabouts 
 and movements of the other. Tom was the 
 kind of fellow whom one meets without surprise 
 in any part of the habitable globe ; lounging in 
 the "Street of Hermes," or loafing in "Fifth 
 Avenue ; " swarming up the " Cordilleras ; " in 
 " the Corso," in " Eotten Bow," in the " Maid- 
 aan ; " punting at San Francisco or Monte Carlo ; 
 in the ring at Epsom, at Longchamps, or Deyrah
 
 MINE IS THINE. 125 
 
 Doon, — wherever men are conspicuous by their 
 presence or their absence ; and very especially 
 where money is to be lightly made and lightly lost. 
 His own appreciation of time and space being 
 blunted by his erratic habits, he was prepared, 
 in his turn, to meet any one anywhere without 
 astonishment. Thus, when he walked into No. 
 26 and found his brother-in-law and his sister, 
 Mr and Mrs Francis Eavenhall, his only emotion 
 was one of slight regret that his summons had 
 not come from a more interesting quarter. 
 
 11 Oh, it's you, Lucy, is it \ " he said as he en- 
 tered ; " I couldn't think who it could be. How 
 are you, Frank ? Well, what brings you Lon- 
 doners here at this time of year, when the gay 
 and voluptuous throng the haunts of folly % and 
 how does the senator escape from the toils of 
 lawgiving \ How does the wisdom of the nation 
 thrive without its mainspring 1 " 
 
 "Oh, Frank has been out of sorts — over- 
 worked; too many committees, and then the 
 night- work. We have come away for a month's 
 complete rest." 
 
 " As Frank's night-work usually consists of 
 eating big, good dinners, and playing small, bad 
 whist, I think we can promise him perfect repose 
 down here. But is this your destination ? "
 
 126 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Well, we haven't quite decided on anything. 
 As we were passing through Milan, we met the 
 Phillipses, and heard a charming account of the 
 weather here, and also that you were here ; so 
 we thought we might as well run down and try 
 it : and here we are. What a time it is since 
 we have seen you ! Where have you been \ 
 What have you been doing with yourself? 
 What can you be doing in this quiet place \ 
 Are you alone ? " 
 
 " Too- many questions, impetuous sister. 
 Commencons par le commencement. Where 
 have I been ? I answer, like the wind, ' Where 
 have I not been ? ' Well, I was in Albania Feb- 
 ruary and a bit of March, with Bertie Kadcliffe. 
 We lived on board his yacht, you know, and 
 landed to shoot. The shooting was fair, and the 
 yacht well found, and the cook really quite a 
 gentleman ; but it was rather a sacrifice of time. 
 However, I didn't mind. The fact is, Bertie's wife 
 ran away from him, as I daresay you know, last 
 winter, and my post is ever with the afflicted." 
 
 " Particularly when they have good cooks 
 and good shooting." 
 
 « Providence has placed me in such a sphere 
 that I am usually called to mingle my tears with 
 those of affluence ; but, had I been born in fus-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 127 
 
 tian, they would have been equally at the dis- 
 posal of brother chaw-bacons. We all have our 
 missions, Lucinda. We ought all to be thankful 
 for such chances of sacrifice as come our way. 
 We ought not to grudge to others the more 
 delicious depths of self-abnegation and misery 
 with which they may have been blessed." 
 
 " Well, well, Monsieur Tartuffe, and when did 
 you leave Sir Albert \ " 
 
 " As soon as I could, kindly and consistently. 
 Bertie benefited immensely in spirits by the 
 shooting ; and when the best of it was over, he 
 was quite another man, and I was able to leave 
 him. He went on to the Piraeus : indeed he 
 wanted me to go with him ; and I might have 
 done so, but unfortunately his admirable cook 
 fell through a hatchway and broke three of his 
 ribs, which put him hors cle combat, of course ; 
 and then I felt that an extra mouth to feed, in 
 a scratch sort of way, would be a burden — so I 
 left him. After that, I went home for a week 
 or two, and was at Newmarket for ' The Guineas/ 
 By the by, Frank, didn't you dine with me in 
 town one night about that time % " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Quite sure « " 
 
 " I haven't set eyes on you for eight months."
 
 128 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " No ? I fancied I remembered your making 
 a row about a bad truffle at the Windham. I 
 daresay, after all, it was old Jack K-uggles. He 
 is just like you, you know — thinks of nothing 
 but his grub. I believe it ivas old Jack." 
 
 "Much obliged to you for the compliment." 
 
 " Well, then, let me see, where was I ? I 
 really was very unfortunate at Newmarket, and 
 my banker — you have no conception what a vil- 
 lain that man is, Lucy — behaved scandalously ; 
 and altogether, it was convenient to give up a 
 summer campaign in town ; and when I heard 
 from my old crony, Cosmo Glencairn, that he 
 was in Florence, and going to moon about in 
 this part of the world for a bit, I thought I might 
 as well join him. Cosmo and I hit it off exactly. 
 He is a quiet, studious man. Our habits are 
 similar, and we are mutually of use to each 
 other in our pursuits." 
 
 " Pray what are your pursuits % " asked Mr 
 Eavenhall. 
 
 " Severely intellectual, Frank. I am trying 
 to solve as knotty a problem as ever knit the 
 brows of thought." 
 
 " And what may that be ? " 
 
 " I am haunted by the desire to disprove the 
 Epicurean dictum, * De nihilo nihil in nihilum
 
 MINE IS THINE. 129 
 
 nil posse reverti ' — nothing from nothing is 
 made, nothing to nothing returns. Do you 
 know where the horrible hexameter comes from?" 
 
 "No, I don't." 
 
 " No matter. I can't remember ; and of 
 course, in a parliament of plutocrats, classic 
 lore don't pay, and you're not likely to know. 
 But the pith of it — the major proposition — can 
 you disprove it ? " 
 
 « I think so." 
 
 " Will you back yourself against Epicurus for 
 six hundred sovereigns ? " 
 
 "You know I never bet." 
 
 " I hate a fellow who hasn't the courage of 
 his opinions. But never mind, disprove it." 
 
 " The world was made out of nothing." 
 
 " Oh Solomon! what a bold assertion ! Never- 
 theless, conceditur. Well, but let us descend to 
 humbler regions, and apply the case where it 
 affects a man who hasn't the slightest desire to 
 make a world." 
 
 "Well, well, well?" 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " What are you driving at, man alive ? " 
 
 " Man alive, I want to draw out of void a 
 tangible something." 
 
 " Oh, you're getting beyond me." 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Exactly what my banker said when I stated 
 this very case to him in a less abstract form — 
 viz., that I wanted to overdraw my account, 
 which was empty, by six hundred sovereigns. 
 There was the void and the tangible something, 
 all en regie. The fellow has no orthodoxy; when 
 pressed,' it turned out that he held with Epicurus 
 obstinately. ' While you have no " effects," ' he 
 said, in his hideous jargon, 'it is impossible for 
 us to honour your drafts/ Hinc illce lac?ymce!" 
 
 " Oh Tom, Tom, you are incorrigible ! " cried 
 his sister. "All this fine philosophy only comes 
 to the old, old, tiresome story." 
 
 " No one can be more tired of it than I am, 
 Lucy." 
 
 " Then why don't you do something % " 
 
 " I piped to promotion in the Civil Service of 
 my country till I was short of breath, but it de- 
 clined to dance. In an age of mediocrity there 
 is no market for genius." 
 
 " What are you about, then ? " 
 
 "I tell you, I have been trying to confute 
 Epicurus without success, and it's getting serious, 
 Lucy — I can tell you, very serious. It has been 
 serious for certain people for a long time — so my 
 creditors assure me; but now it's becoming grave 
 for myself. In fact, Epicurus proving correct,
 
 MINE IS THINE. 131 
 
 my immediate future is, financially speaking, 
 rather more than cloudy. Don't you think, 
 now, that the squire might for once " 
 
 " No, Tom ; I'm sure he won't — not 'for once/ 
 by the by, but for the tenth time. He becomes 
 furious when your name is mentioned." 
 
 "That fellow has the soul of Cain. Well, 
 then " and here Tom's gaze rested mourn- 
 fully on his brother-in-law. 
 
 " Don't look at me, Tom — don't look at me ! " 
 cried that gentleman hastily, and nervously but- 
 toning his coat. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, Frank," said Tom, changing 
 his look to one of contempt ; " if the man who 
 fell among thieves were to be similarly unfortu- 
 nate a second time, do you think he would waste 
 a glance upon the Levite \ Not a bit of him. 
 No more do I." 
 
 "Very well, then — very well/' gobbled Mr 
 Ravenhall, with rising choler ; " we're both 
 satisfied." 
 
 " That I am satisfied, I deny ; that you should 
 be satisfied, is discouraging to one who hopes 
 for the amelioration of the species." 
 
 " Well, now," cried Mr Ravenhall, addressing 
 an imaginary audience — "well, now, here is a 
 fellow who has wasted his patrimony, and thrown
 
 132 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 away his chances of getting on. Here is a fellow 
 who is in debt — deeply in debt — for the twelfth 
 time * 
 
 " There have not been eleven liquidations, old 
 man," interpolated Tom. 
 
 " A fellow, I say, who is in debt deeply, and 
 who expects his friends to get him out of his 
 scrapes, while he lives — lives " 
 
 " Like a fighting-cock, you mean ; but I don't 
 — not at my own expense, at least." 
 
 " Lives, I say, a life of idle extravagance and 
 
 pleasure ; here is this fellow " but here Mr 
 
 Kavenhall's eloquence failed him. 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " errors excepted, here he 
 is ; apres ? " 
 
 " Well, hang me, if he oughtn't to feel his 
 position ! " 
 
 " He does, my boy : what he complains of is, 
 that others don't." 
 
 " Why didn't you take the secretaryship to 
 Mr Foozler when I got it for you ? " 
 
 " I hate encouraging fraud. Mr Foozler would 
 have started on my brains as a first-class parlia- 
 mentary speaker. Besides, I decline to cram a 
 politician to whom my principles are opposed." 
 
 " Principles ! Pray what are your principles ? " 
 
 " Patriotic (and personal) Conservatism."
 
 MINE IS THINK 133 
 
 " Patriotic fiddlesticks ! They have their price, 
 I'll be bound." 
 
 " So will I ; but as yet, the price has not been 
 offered. To return to Epicurus, I am that void 
 out of which that nothing — radicalism — cannot 
 be produced for nothing." 
 
 "And what the deuce does the man mean to 
 do?" 
 
 " We go round in a circle, my legislator ; the 
 man solicits tenders of advice and assistance on 
 that very point. The Epicureans " 
 
 " Oh, d — n the Epicureans ! " shouted Mi 
 Eavenhall ; and clapping his hat on his head, 
 he bounced out of the room. Tom threw him- 
 self into a chair with a shout of laughter. 
 
 " Frank," he cried, " is evidently not a Stoic, 
 and he curses the Epicureans ; what manner of 
 philosopher, then, is Frank \ " 
 
 " You ought not to vex and tease Frank." 
 
 "Why is he so confoundedly rusty, then \ " 
 
 " He is not well, poor fellow ; and then your 
 light tone about money and your difficulties 
 vexes him. He has a great regard for you, and 
 believes you to have ability, and can't bear to 
 see you waste yourself. Admit, Tom, that you 
 are provoking, and reckless, and unsatisfactory, 
 an d »
 
 134 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Altogether charming. Yes, I will admit any- 
 thing to your sisterly ear ; but I say, Lucy, don't 
 you really think you might draw the squire for 
 me % 111 let him off as cheap as I can — upon 
 my word I will ; and you might even hint that 
 if I have a good ' Leger ' I might refund. I sup- 
 pose, perhaps that would be too strong, though. 
 At all events, you may use full discretion." 
 
 " No, Tom." 
 
 " Come, Lucy : appeal to his brotherly feel- 
 ings ; say I'm looking thin and wretched. How 
 would it do to suggest that want of proper 
 nourish " 
 
 " No, no, Tom ; there has been quite too 
 much of that sort of thing already. He has 
 never forgiven that mythical rheumatic fever in 
 Bulgaria." 
 
 " Ah ! that was awkward ; but who could 
 have expected him to turn up at Wiesbaden ? 
 "What right had he to come to Wiesbaden % " 
 
 " No, Tom ; there's nothing to be expected 
 from him or any of us. You must really help 
 yourself." 
 
 " But how ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that's the question. On the whole, I 
 see nothing for it but to do as I have advised 
 before. You must marry money."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 135 
 
 Tom made a wry face. 
 
 " You might have married Miss Carter, you 
 know; she had £130,000." 
 
 "Might II" 
 
 " Every one said so." 
 
 "Except herself." 
 
 " Try to be in earnest for a moment." 
 
 "Well, failing Miss C. ?" 
 
 " You must look about you." 
 
 " I can't look about me without money. Epi- 
 curus and the void meet us at every turn." 
 
 " You have seen no one suitable ? " 
 
 "Not!" 
 
 " We must think." 
 
 " Well, that's cheap, at all events." 
 
 "By the by, Mrs Phillips said the Germis- 
 tounes were here." 
 
 "They are." 
 
 " He is an old friend of mine ; he was a great 
 friend of poor Uncle Tom's. By the by, the 
 girl must be grown up, is she not 1 " 
 
 " By the by, how cunning we are ! Yes, she 
 is grown up." 
 
 " And you have met her 1 " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "And— and " 
 
 " No, Lucy ; I'm not a marrying man."
 
 136 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " If it is between marriage and starvation ? " 
 
 " Quien sale f " 
 
 " Come, Tom, be sensible. Is she nice ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And pretty \ " 
 
 " Cosmo Glencairn calls her a Madonna." 
 
 " Cosmo Glencairn ! hem ! — does he admire 
 her?" 
 
 "As a sensible man may, who can afford to 
 be jolly without marrying." 
 
 " Reprobates ! Well, there is an heiress for 
 you. It must be £20,000 a-year at least. 
 
 " Very likely ; but there are three to a bargain 
 in this case : self, first ; damsel, second ; last, 
 but not least, angry father." 
 
 " Faint heart never won fair lady." 
 
 " I don't think it's in my line, Lucy. I don't 
 know how to set about it ; and I should get 
 sick of the business before the climax. She is 
 a nice girl, and pretty, and rich, and all the rest 
 of it — but what am I ? " 
 
 " Oh, you're good-looking, and clever, and 
 can make yourself charming if you choose, 
 and " 
 
 " You sweet sister ! and a younger son bar- 
 nacled with debts, and perhaps not of the best 
 possible reputation."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 137 
 
 " Why, you've done nothing very wrong, 
 have you ? " 
 
 " Xo, no — nothing that every one else doesrit 
 do ; but * every one else ; is a little disreputable 
 in the eyes of the old world. Ah, that old lord ! 
 I shudder to think of his imperial aspect when 
 I proffer my suit and tell the unvarnished tale 
 of my impecuniosity. Besides, an heiress of 
 that sort, Lucy ! Surely she is above my 
 flight ? " 
 
 " Xothing and nobody are above a man's 
 flight, if he will only use his wings perse- 
 veringly/' 
 
 " But an heiress, not merely of money, not 
 merely of lands, but of territories, mountains in 
 the Highlands, mines in the Lowlands, tracts 
 of arable everywhere ; and last, not least, a 
 pedigree. Good heavens ! a Scotch pedigree ! 
 going back to the period of the mastodon ! 
 That is a kind of heirloom which the old lord 
 would not like to transmit to the keeping of a 
 mere fellow like me." 
 
 " Our family is as old as most." 
 
 " Yes ; but we have none of the thin blue 
 blood of Caledonian thanes who lived and 
 robbed long before the heptarchy. I suspect 
 that would be a sine qua non in this case. I
 
 138 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 don't remember that there is any larceny in our 
 pedigree." 
 
 " How did you get on with his lordship ? " 
 " Famously. I ' compassed him with obser- 
 vances/ having an eye to some shooting at his 
 place this autumn. Shooting ! — by heavens ! 
 that's something like a game estate. By 
 heavens ! Lucy, if the match did come off, I 
 should have quite the best general shooting 
 I know ; and if I were to buy the next place, 
 Pockmahalakin (pretty title, by the by, for an 
 eldest son — ' Baron Pockmahalakin ! '), even 
 the forest would be a good deal more than 
 respectable. I'm not sure that I wouldn't drain 
 the lake and plant it — part of it, at least ; 
 there's far more than enough now : part of it 
 would be the very thing for a polo-ground. 
 And then ponies from the Shetland Islands, 
 crossed with Norwegian ! By George ! we'd 
 have a kind of polo undreamt of at Hurlingham. 
 We'd make it a national sport, and swear it a 
 revival. With plenty of bagpipes and yelling, 
 it would be accepted as the familiar recreation 
 of Scottish royalty in the days of Kenneth 
 M' Alpine. I myself, as < The M'Wyedale,' in a 
 suitable tartan invented by Poole — by that 
 time appeased and an ally "
 
 MINE IS THINE. 139 
 
 " Oh Tom, Tom ! I begin to despair of you." 
 " Well, Lucy, enough of sorrow. Let us, for 
 the moment, cast this matrimonial physic to the 
 dogs. Upon my honour, I'm in a very ugly 
 corner, and will place myself in your hands, and 
 will follow your advice, if you think you see 
 your way out of it ; yea, though the gates of 
 matrimony should have to open for me. But 
 even for you, Lucy, my Lord of Germistoune 
 will be a hard nut to crack. I tell him off to 
 you, of course. Be mine the sweeter task to 
 throw glamour over his f Princess of Thule,' if I 
 can ; and so — 
 
 All hail, M'Wyedale ! hail to thee, Thane of Dunerlacht ! 
 All hail, M'Wyedale ! hail to thee, Thane of Ferniehall: 
 All hail, M'Wyedale ! that shalt be Pockmahalakin ! — 
 
 and here comes Frank, a la bonne heure. Well, 
 Frank, we've laid the ghost of Epicurus ; and 
 I've repented, reformed, and become practical. 
 Lucy and I have been arranging a new scheme 
 of life for your contrite brother-in-law. But of 
 that to-morrow ; and now let me have all the 
 gossip. But first, by the by, about dinner ? " 
 
 " We've ordered it here at 7.30. Will you 
 join us \ " 
 
 " I am here. Quis separabit f A capital
 
 140 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 speech, by the by, Frank, that of yours, on the 
 Canadian Kail way Guarantee business ; quite to 
 the point." 
 
 " Oh, you read that ? " 
 
 " Eead it % we all read it ; for once your 
 principles are mine." 
 
 " I'm glad you liked it." 
 
 " Oh, it was quite first - rate. By the by, 
 about the wine here — avoid Kcederer's cham- 
 pagne. I hope you haven't ordered that f It's 
 spurious, and they always try to force it." 
 
 " No, I hadn't ordered any champagne." 
 
 " Lucky, by Jove ! Then — experto crede — 
 order ' Pomery and Greno,' vintage '65 ; that's 
 the stuff for a legislator — and his connections." 
 
 " You're an original, Tom, certainly," said Mr 
 Eavenhall ; but he was mollified by the compli- 
 ment to his speech, and the ■ Pomery ' was forth- 
 coming. Tom, thus fortified, was pleased to be 
 extremely amusing, and the party broke up at 
 last on the most amiable terms. 
 
 " I will call on the Germistounes to-morrow," 
 said his sister to Tom as they separated. 
 
 " Good night, best of sisters ! and, I am sure, 
 of sisters-in-law to be," said Tom.
 
 141 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Mr and Mrs Francis Eavenhall were a childless 
 couple, and having no offspring to expend their 
 affections upon, they supplied the blank by 
 adopting the world, and loving it with all their 
 hearts and with all their strength. They had 
 begun life poor, for the Eavenhall estate had 
 been dipped by extravagant predecessors ; but 
 minerals and other wealth - bringing develop- 
 ments had progressively enriched them, and, at 
 last, the splendid accident that a town required 
 to be built on the property had made them im- 
 mensely wealthy. Mr Eavenhall had the nar- 
 row selfishness, the ignoble ambitions, and that 
 earnestness in the cultus of wealth, rank, and 
 success, which constitute a worldly man, with- 
 out the redeeming savoir faire which distin- 
 guishes a man of the world. He was also stupid 
 at all times, and arrogant on occasion. Alto- 
 gether he was of the earth earthy. His wife
 
 142 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 was also endowed with all the characteristics of 
 worldliness ; but this, which so deeply degrades 
 the woman from the ideal standard of true 
 womanliness, was qualified in her case by the 
 charming attributes of a woman of the world. 
 She had tact, adaptiveness, and a wonderful 
 power of (spurious) sympathy. Clever and witty, 
 she never said an ill-natured thing, or allowed 
 her love of a mot to drown prudential considera- 
 tions, or to betray her into wit at the expense of 
 friends and acquaintances, actual or possible. 
 " Speak nothing but fair words, and you will 
 hear nothing but kind echoes." She laid the 
 proverb closely to her heart. One half of her 
 life she devoted to the acquisition of new ac- 
 quaintanceships — "friendships" she called them; 
 and the other half to sifting her acquisitions. 
 The wheat were the people who could be of 
 some advantage to her ; the chaff were the hope- 
 less ineligibles. The former were assiduously 
 garnered : the latter were not brusquely cast 
 into the fire ; they were simply let alone, till the 
 wind, blowing where it listed, gradually removed 
 them from her orbit. The chaff often believed 
 the act of separation to be due to their own care- 
 lessness or fickleness. Such is the power of tact. 
 Morally speaking, the husband and wife were
 
 MINE IS THINE. 143 
 
 probably on the same level, and that a suffici- 
 ently low one ; but he was detested — and she 
 was universally liked, at least. Mrs Eavenhall, 
 desiring to get on, had found herself heavily 
 handicapped with such a husband ; indeed she 
 would probably have been altogether over- 
 weighted — probably she would have broken 
 down — but that the change of fortune which 
 made them so rich came in time to save them. 
 Nevertheless, she toiled and spun, and wheedled, 
 and coaxed, and courted the world, so that it 
 endured her, and almost tolerated the sight of 
 her husband for her sake. And then, when 
 prosperity came — wealth, great wealth — the 
 world arose, and came forth, and took them 
 both in its arms, and bore them up, and brought 
 them in, and made as though they had been its 
 favourites and darlings all along, instead of mis- 
 erable, neglected, gnashers of teeth, standing at 
 the gates, in the cold and dark, hungry for faint 
 passing smiles and strangled recognitions. The 
 world, having taken Mr Eavenhall into favour, 
 at once decided that he should be a legislator ; 
 and, since Radicalism was in vogue at the time, 
 he became a Eadical. Toryism was not a social 
 necessity for him, since, though his family had 
 been poor, it was very ancient, and had been
 
 144 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 eminent long ago ; and he, or rather his wife, 
 saw three things : first, that Radicalism was the 
 winning side at the time ; second, that a change 
 from the creed of one's predecessors suggests in- 
 dividuality and a personal view ; third, that the 
 great programme of Radicalism was so cut and 
 dried, and had been so reiterated and ventilated 
 on platform and by press, that any one could, 
 without any exertion, make an appearance on 
 the programme without risk of blundering, and 
 with some certainty of applause. To swim, as 
 a Tory, against the tide, was a very different 
 thing ; and so Mr Ravenhall, with no principle 
 save his own self-interests, which English Radi- 
 calism did not seem gravely to imperil, became 
 a Radical. His wife then noted two other 
 things : first, that her husband's intellectual de- 
 fects put any sort of political success beyond his 
 reach ; and second, that there being thus no call 
 for thorough -going partisanship, another kind of 
 success was to be procured by occasional fits of 
 recalcitrancy against the mots d'ordre of the 
 party. Occasional rather eccentric junctions 
 with the Opposition — not carried too far, of 
 course, and always labelled " conscience " — 
 made the leaders of both parties civil and con- 
 siderate. Social advantages flowed from this ;
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 145 
 
 and the constituency, watching the division lists, 
 were able, every now and then, to say that 
 " whatever else their member was, or was not, 
 he had views of his own, patriotic views, and 
 the courage of his opinions. Moreover, that he 
 was no time-server, that he had a strong fund 
 of masculine common-sense, and was a bluff, 
 straightforward Englishman. " Men who have 
 become rich — no matter how — are generally 
 credited in England with " masculine common- 
 sense ; " and if their bluffness and straightfor- 
 wardness are only the stupid, brutal perverseness 
 and hrusquerie of the plebeian and the pauper, 
 with some gilding on it, what does it matter to 
 any one save the ruffian, who is erroneously be- 
 lieved to be "bluff" rather than brutal \ Alto- 
 gether, Mrs Eavenhall made her husband's legis- 
 latorial capacity minister greatly to her social 
 advancement; and with a talent for utilising 
 everything to that end, she turned even his 
 u bluffness" to account. Much expenditure of 
 money was, however, necessary ; and here she 
 had a difficulty, for Mr Ravenhall was by nature 
 close-fisted, and many of his wife's finest projects 
 were often in danger from a threatened stoppage 
 of the supplies. Yet, in the end, she usually 
 prevailed ; for she had gained an ascendancy 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 over him, founded, not on domestic love, but on 
 the (unacknowledged) conviction that without 
 her co-operation he would, in every department 
 of life, be " lost to use, and name, and fame." 
 
 u Then I have done with the matter, Frank. 
 Take your own way, and see what you can 
 make of it." 
 
 These words, pronounced firmly, and a firm 
 refusal to urge or listen to further argument, 
 were generally effective, and, as time went on, 
 had less and less to be put in requisition. 
 
 Grand were the entertainments of the mem- 
 ber for the county of . His country place 
 
 became the centre of county life and fashion. 
 Notable were his banquets in Belgrave Square. 
 Great people were notoriously to be met there — 
 ministers and diplomatists, strong men in finance, 
 subtle men of law, mighty men of letters and of 
 valour, poets, gastronomers, projectors, thinkers, 
 and talkers ; Haroun al Easchid, occasionally — 
 and Ali Baba, from the Stock Exchange, plea- 
 santly often. Nor was the more difficult sex 
 deficient. There were ladies of the right sort, 
 plentiful and cordial, stamping Mr and Mrs 
 Eavenhall with the cachet of fashion. Social 
 success is often stated to be of the nature of a 
 fluke. One constantly hears it said that, to
 
 MINE IS THINE. 147 
 
 people of equal advantages, Fortune arbitrarily 
 awards success or failure. This looks like the 
 truth very often indeed; but examine more 
 closely, and you will find at the bottom of suc- 
 cess a subtle, unobtrusive, social talent, and the 
 capability of a sleepless attention to the minutise 
 of the code of bienseances, so that the candidate 
 for success may not only not be guilty of offence 
 against the same, but not even be brought, or 
 bring others, into any sort of association with 
 profane ideas. 
 
 This subtle talent and this capability Mrs 
 Eavenhall fully possessed. If she had had daugh- 
 ters of even moderate attractions, it is scarcely 
 doubtful that so admirable a priestess of Mam- 
 mon, in placing them upon the altar of her god, 
 would have managed to see that the temple 
 supplied combustibles of the costliest and most 
 distinguished description. Having none, how- 
 ever, her great faculties involved a certain waste 
 of power. If she loved any one in the world, 
 she really loved her brother Tom; and for him 
 indeed she would have schemed matrimonially, 
 and doubtless triumphed, if only he would have 
 co-operated. But, even in these days, a court- 
 ship can hardly be carried on by one principal, 
 however skilfully the missing party may be repre-
 
 148 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 sented by his second ; and Tom, regarding matri- 
 mony merely as a specific for the preservation of 
 large balances in bank, his ideas and intentions 
 thereon changed with the spasmodic rapidity of 
 his financial condition. 
 
 As an instance, he was once on the very edge 
 of the holy estate, but forty-eight hours' continu- 
 ous rain immediately preceding the Derby Day, 
 threw out the favourite, against whom Tom had 
 gone heavily ; and a golden shower absolving 
 him for the time from matrimonial necessities, 
 he disappeared abruptly, and wrote, shortly after, 
 to his sister, under date "Hombourg," to the 
 effect that she must " square it somehow with 
 Miss , seeing that, for the present, Provi- 
 dence had rescued him from the ' abyss/ " Under 
 many such discouragements, Mrs Eavenhall, if 
 she had relaxed her efforts, had not abandoned 
 hope ; and occasionally, when Tom was known 
 to be in an unusual state of dilapidation, she 
 advanced some new project, and never at least 
 lost an opportunity of preaching her gospel to 
 him. Mainly from personal motives, but partly, 
 too, at the instance of his wife, Mr Eavenhall 
 had inflexibly refused to assist Tom in his recur- 
 ring crises ; but as it was generally through 
 his sister as mediator that he did, or rather
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 149 
 
 attempted to do, what he called his " family- 
 financing," she was, as a rule, cognisant of the 
 state of his affairs. 
 
 Now it happened that she was at this time, 
 though indirectly, very well informed on the 
 subject, and knew Tom to be in the deepest 
 possible water. It also happened that she knew 
 a great deal more of his whereabouts and sur- 
 roundings than she pretended or he imagined. 
 In fact, the sudden diversion from Milan was 
 by no means the sudden, improvised raid she 
 gave it out to be ; nor was it by any means 
 unconnected with the fact that, in addition to 
 her brother, Miss Douglas, the heiress of Lord 
 Germistoune, was domiciled by the romantic 
 waters of Como. Here were golden opportuni- 
 ties ! Here was a concurrence of circumstances 
 that seemed to lend themselves to the consolida- 
 tion of her scapegrace brother and his affairs. 
 Propinquity, a monotonous life, with beautiful 
 surroundings; the season of the year "when a 
 young man s (or maiden's) fancy lightly turns to 
 thoughts of love ; " the opportunities of free 
 country intercourse, — these, and many other 
 points as favourable to the birth and growth of 
 the tender passion, were noted by this practical 
 observer of human nature. Then Tom's neces-
 
 150 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 sities being added to these, it appeared to her 
 that his fascinations might safely be trusted to 
 do the rest. She was not likely, therefore, to 
 forget her resolution to open the campaign at 
 once. But here Mr Eavenhall was a difficulty. 
 She knew all about Lord Germistoune — his auto- 
 cratic disposition, his fierce prejudices, his nar- 
 row Toryism; and she felt that, without both 
 luck and management, things would not go 
 smoothly between the noble lord and the bluff 
 
 member for shire. But, to suit her plans, 
 
 things must go smoothly ; otherwise the neces- 
 sary intercourse would be impossible. To laugh 
 off his lordship's attacks, which would certainly 
 be forthcoming, and disarm him by good-humour, 
 and even by playfully carrying the war into the 
 enemy's camp — she saw that these were the only 
 tactics ; but how to have them carried out % — 
 there was the difficulty : for her husband, though 
 subservient enough to rank and wealth, was be- 
 ginning to swell somewhat in his own esteem ; 
 and as for anything in the way of light and 
 genial banter, that was not to be expected of 
 him. He was bluff; and to ask him to be bluff 
 and playful at once, was like inviting an ele- 
 phant to get on its hind legs and conduct itself 
 like a kangaroo.
 
 MINE IS TH1XE. 151 
 
 Waking early on the morning after her meet- 
 ing with Tom, she revolved all these considera- 
 tions in her politic mind, and decided that 
 Ravenhall must be drilled to play an entirely 
 secondary rdle, in the first place at least — she 
 herself proposing to receive the earliest shock 
 of the noble Tory's attack. All she proposed for 
 her husband, for the present, was that he should 
 be silent ; wear, if possible, a gay smile ; shake 
 his head in comic deprecation when Lord Ger- 
 mistoune was unusually violent ; and honour 
 anything approaching a bon mot, even at his 
 own expense, with peals of frank laughter, which 
 should imply that, in the presence of so much 
 wit, even Principle was obliged to cover its face 
 with its pocket-handkerchief and shake its sides 
 in its own despite. 
 
 The " Eomery and Greno " of the night before 
 had, however, settled the matter otherwise. It 
 had disagreed with Mr Ravenhall; and he, 
 awaking with a headache, proved to be entirely 
 intractable. He used a good deal of rough 
 language about Lord Germistoune, Toryism, 
 Tom, love, debt, the champagne, even about his 
 own head, and was clearly minded to be as bluff 
 and bouncing and abominable as need be, against 
 all comers, without respect to weight or age.
 
 152 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 "Well, then, Frank," said his wife, at last, 
 "we'll say no more about it at present. You 
 have got a headache, and your headaches are 
 always tragedies. You'll see things differently 
 to-morrow. You'd better lie still in bed, and 
 I'll take Tom with me instead. On second 
 thoughts, I believe it will be every way the 
 better plan. I'll take Tom." 
 
 Whereupon her lord freely assented that she 
 should take Tom, and proceed with him into 
 outer darkness, and even remain there perman- 
 ently if so disposed. 
 
 Tom looked rather rueful when summoned by 
 his sister to accompany her. He had pledged 
 himself with a light heart the night before to 
 follow his sister's guidance, with only the con- 
 dition that she was to pilot him out of his 
 difficulties — with a light heart, lightened by 
 dry champagne, and with that recklessness, 
 common to men of his character, which, to 
 stave off a disagreeable subject for the im- 
 mediate present, will discount even the im- 
 mediate future, and purchase, with any sort of 
 pledge, a hazy, temporary conviction " that all 
 will come right somehow." His maxim was to 
 keep the present "jolly," and let the future look 
 after itself. " It is better," he would say, " to
 
 MINE IS THINE. 153 
 
 have lots of sun, with occasional violent thunder- 
 storms, than to live always under a drizzle and a 
 drab-coloured sky. I would rather have a good 
 strong agony once in six months or so, and take 
 it neat, than go on sipping agony-and- water all 
 the days of my life." He hated the idea of the 
 future. For him it was simply a dun with a bill, 
 or a peremptory banker with an overdue accept- 
 ance — an undiluted " agony " in some shape or 
 other. So that it was rather with a feeling 
 of ill-usage and of being prematurely hustled 
 that he found himself brought to book on his 
 undertaking, not a day old, and compelled to 
 open the distasteful campaign of love-making. 
 
 " Of course Til go, Lucy," he said, " because I 
 promised ; but it's awfully sudden. I thought 
 you were to feel your way a bit/' 
 " There is no time to lose, Tom." 
 "Marriage is the very devil, Lucy." 
 Perhaps Mrs Kavenhall's experiences pointed 
 to the same conclusion ; but she, too, retorted 
 that there were many other devils familiar to 
 Tom, and feared by him, that were more formid- 
 able ; and, silenced by this argument, he went 
 meekly to the villa. 
 
 All Mrs RavenhalFs charms of manner and 
 conversation — and they were many — were
 
 154 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 brought into requisition at the visit. She dug 
 up her uncle — the "jolly Tom Wyedale" of 
 Lord Germistoune's early friendship — a man 
 who had been the privileged parliamentary 
 humorist of his time, the Yorick in a circle 
 of brilliant wits, the delight of clubs, of salons, 
 of all " quantum est hominum venustiorum" — 
 she dug him up, and ventilated him and his 
 epoch very thoroughly, adroitly reflecting his 
 glory upon his ancient friend. She then pro- 
 ceeded to display the brilliancy which she had 
 inherited from Uncle Yorick, and to captivate, 
 as he had captivated, the old gentleman whom 
 she was anxious to get into her toils. Her suc- 
 cess was complete. Lord Germistoune's conquest 
 was absolute ; so that, when he did get upon 
 politics, he was graciously pleased to say that 
 Eadicalism could not be all bad if it found an 
 adherent in Mrs Raven hall. Whereupon she 
 earnestly but playfully disclaimed the awful 
 epithet "Radical," for self and even for part- 
 ner. 
 
 " We are only progressive," she said — " gently 
 progressive. We are not partisans; we have a 
 conscience. Sometimes our conscience tells us to 
 progress, gently ; sometimes it bids us obstruct, 
 firmly. But, entre nous, if things go much
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 155 
 
 further, we shall have to shift our side — entre 
 notes, very strictly, please, clear Lord Germis- 
 toune." 
 
 " The Irish Church " began Lord Germis- 
 
 toune. 
 
 " Oh, please, pray, don't talk of that most dis- 
 tressing subject. If you knew what we suffered, 
 and suffer, about that hazardous measure, you 
 would spare me." 
 
 " I am sure I have no wish to give you pain." 
 
 " It is the worst of following conscience, that 
 it often misleads one, and then turns round and 
 rebukes one, as if one had misled it" 
 
 " The only remedy is to be thoroughly partisan. 
 The collective conscience of a party is more reli- 
 able than any individual one." 
 
 " One almost begins to despair of seeing any 
 other remedy ; but then to follow the conscience 
 of the Liberal party a outrance, that would be 
 
 simply imposs But you must not make me 
 
 talk treason, my lord — while it is treason," she 
 added, with a meaning smile ; " and, apropos, 
 may I beg you to be gentle with my husband 
 on political matters when you meet him \ He is 
 much perturbed in mind just now ; and I could 
 wish none but calm influences to bear upon him 
 while the struggle is going on."
 
 156 MINE IS THIXE. 
 
 Whereupon the lady was assured that her wish 
 was his lordship's law in all matters, and that 
 the wind of his noble logic and satire should 
 be tempered to the Eadical lamb, albeit still 
 unshorn of his evil Radical fleece. 
 
 And then she changed the subject, and asked 
 Lord Germistoune frankly, as an old family 
 friend, what he thought of Tom, and if he did 
 not find in that worthy strong traits of resem- 
 blance to Uncle Yorick. And his lordship's 
 answer being very hearty and satisfactory on 
 these points, she proceeded to dilate upon Tom's 
 excellences of head and heart — his brilliancy, 
 his shrewdness, his common-sense, — all wasted, 
 however, for want of a career. " Can we do no- 
 thing for him, Lord Germistoune ? Can we find 
 no means of turning so much talent to account \ 
 He is a red-hot Tory, you know ; and they say 
 your party is to be in soon. The party ought to 
 keep an eye on its brilliant young men." 
 
 " True, true — very true. We must see — we 
 must see. I think there need be no difficulty 
 about finding him a seat before long." 
 
 "The worst of it is, that poor Tom was ex- 
 travagant at Cambridge — fell into bad hands — 
 and he really wants money. Now a seat would 
 hardly meet that difficulty, would it ? "
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 157 
 
 Lord Germistoune feared not, bat suggested 
 that a likely young fellow such, as Tom might 
 very well feather his nest by matrimony, as a 
 preliminary step to adorning the House, and 
 eventually the Cabinet. Saul also was among 
 the prophets. 
 
 Here Mrs Kavenhall shook her head. She 
 was, she said, perhaps a little romantic, and 
 could not pretend to like the idea of mercenary 
 marriages. Still, of course, love and money 
 might come together — might come together, 
 very likely, with a little skill and management. 
 But as for Tom, he was altogether impracticable 
 on this point — quite foolishly Quixotic about 
 it, the dear fellow was. The idea of marrying 
 a woman for money was in his eyes such an 
 abomination, that it was doubtful if he could be 
 brought to marry a woman with money, even 
 where his affections were strongly engaged. At 
 all events, the attraction of the heart would 
 require to be something out of the common run 
 if it were to subdue this idee fixe. 
 
 Lord Germistoune, from the superior emi- 
 nence of the worldling, laughed at all this ; 
 but was confiding enough to believe in Tom's 
 sincerity, and to think it high-minded. "But 
 mark my words, dear lady : let the chance
 
 158 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 come, and the love, and all the other things, 
 and he'll reconcile himself to the hard fate of 
 marrying a fortune — ha, ha ! " 
 
 Mrs Eavenhall again shook her head, in 
 denial of her devout aspiration ; she shook it 
 pretty firmly this time, for they were treading 
 delicate ground, and changed the subject. She 
 changed it, however, neatly, and to her brother's 
 advantage. " Tom/' she said, " is more wedded 
 to sport at present than anything else, and his 
 earnestness about it is quite too comic. This 
 morning he is in a state of despair about his 
 autumn plans. It appears that he and his 
 friend Mr Glen cairn were to have taken a shoot- 
 ing together somewhere in the Highlands — near 
 your beautiful place, I think ; and after it was 
 all arranged, as I understand, Mr Glencairn 
 takes it into his head that he will travel instead, 
 and poor Tom is left in the lurch, without his 
 shooting. Is it not a shame ? Poor Tom ! he 
 has so little amusement ! " 
 
 " Ah ! I don't fancy that friend of his. It 
 is quite what was to be expected. Distinctly 
 monstrous ! But let him come to me instead — 
 let him come to me. We have shooting enough 
 at Dunerlacht to satisfy him, I'll be bound. 
 Let him come, and stay as long as he likes.
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 159 
 
 He's the best of company; hell never wear out 
 his welcome. I think he'll be better off with me 
 than with that solemn fellow with the theatrical 
 name. I say, Wyedale, I've just been saying 
 to your sister that I hope you'll console yourself 
 for the loss of your shooting partner by coming 
 to Dunerlacht for the ' Twelfth;' and the longer 
 you can stay the better I'll be pleased." 
 
 It is needless to say that Tom joyfully ac- 
 cepted. And his sister, feeling that she had 
 acquitted herself brilliantly with the papa, 
 crossed the room, like a coruscation of sun- 
 beams, to fascinate the daughter.
 
 160 
 
 S 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 With that young lady Tom had, indeed, made 
 but a lame appearance, from the point of view 
 of a suitor consciously commencing a siege. 
 There is nothing like an arriere-pensee, at least 
 in the case of minds tolerably ingenuous, for 
 blunting the conversational faculties, freezing 
 the ideas, and letting loose in talk all that sur- 
 face debris which hangs about all minds, and 
 does duty for ideas with stupid people. There is 
 nothing, therefore, that for the moment so com- 
 pletely levels the clever man with the idiot as an 
 arriere-pensee. Tom was, of course, labouring 
 under this disability, and with circumstances of 
 aggravation, for he could hardly bring himself 
 to look upon the arriere-pensee as his own pro- 
 perty. It was part of a game of his sister's, 
 which, rather sulkily and with a half heart, he 
 was helping her to play. Such is gratitude ; 
 but hence he felt doubly numb and stupid. It
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 161 
 
 is doubtful whether Tom, though an Englishman, 
 had ever talked about the weather, as a neces- 
 sity, before. Now, however, he atoned for past 
 neglect of that pathetic subject, and handled it 
 with the length and insistance which enthusiasts 
 bestow upon a fresh topic. 
 
 Esme, who had heard him converse before, 
 and always with a sort of bright spontaneity 
 that broke out upon all sorts of topics, fancied 
 at first that this atmospheric attack was 
 merely a bit of fun and irony, and expected 
 for some time the development of the joke. 
 In vain. Through many a dreary period, the 
 vicissitudes of the barometer were canvassed ; 
 and though he went conscientiously round the 
 dial, he made, as sailors say, ''bad weather 
 of it" all round. Somehow, at last, Cosmo 
 Glencairn's name was introduced ; and Tom, 
 finding a subject with which he was famil- 
 iar, and a listener whose interest seemed to 
 awaken, fastened upon it, and flashed into elo- 
 quence upon the theme. Apropos of what, he 
 knew not, but away he went at score upon 
 Cosmo's merits. He really liked him, and 
 cherished — what might seem strange in such a 
 nature — a carefully-concealed respect for a char- 
 acter so different from his own, and for ways of 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 162 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 life and thought which he dimly felt to be 
 higher and better than his own. Now this 
 feeling had free voice. Tom was not conscious 
 of giving a biography of his friend ; nor was 
 he conscious that an occasional suggestive re- 
 mark, or trifling query, led him, in effect, to do 
 so. His fun rather came back to him, and his 
 biographical essay took a serio-comic turn ; but 
 as there was nothing about Cosmo, except per- 
 haps an occasional excess of earnestness, to 
 which ridicule could really attach, the good- 
 natured satire only imparted that flavour of 
 dispraise necessary to make panegyric palatable 
 to human nature, which abhors unqualified per- 
 fection. Esme did not conceal her interest. 
 
 " These things to hear 
 Did Desdemona seriously incline;" 
 
 and, on being told of Cosmo's itinerations in the 
 pursuit of self-culture, she declared that they 
 displayed a kind of zeal and thoroughness that 
 were to be envied, and a dash of romance and 
 picturesqueness which transformed the dry and 
 dusty paths to knowledge into ways of poetic 
 beauty and delight. 
 
 " What an ideal life I " she cried ; " how en- 
 viable he is to wish to lead it, and then to be able 
 to do what he wishes ! "
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 163 
 
 " Is that the sort of life you would like to 
 lead ? " asked Tom. 
 
 " If I were fit for it ; but I am afraid I should 
 not persevere. Mr Glencairn has actually per- 
 severed in it for several years/' 
 
 " Yes, he has been on the prowl for about 
 three years." 
 
 " Magnificent ! " 
 
 Tom laughed loudly. 
 
 " It is not your ideal life, then 1 " 
 
 Tom laughed still more heartily. "No, Miss 
 Douglas ; Fro afraid it would bore me to extinc- 
 tion. I should be like the pilgrim walking to 
 Mecca or Jerusalem with peas in his shoes." 
 
 " Yet you and Mr Glencairn are great 
 friends." 
 
 " Yes, we are ; and the funniest thing of all 
 is, not that I like him, but that he likes me." 
 
 " Well, but is it not quite proverbial that men 
 
 of talent ■" here Esme broke down, blushing 
 
 to find herself on the brink of an involuntary 
 rudeness, but recovering rapidly, said, " I believe 
 I was about to say something very stupid. 
 Where is Mr Glencairn going to next \ " 
 
 " I really don't know. I was in hopes he was 
 going to content himself with Scotland for the 
 autumn ; but he was in one of his moods yester-
 
 164 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 day afternoon, and spoke of setting out for fifty 
 different points of the compass instead." 
 
 " I think Mr Glencairn said he was very fond 
 of Scotland ? " 
 
 "Oh yes — immensely fond of it; "but then, 
 when a fellow once fancies he has 'a mission/ 
 he takes to thwarting himself and friends in the 
 most deplorable way." 
 
 " What is Mr Glencairn's mission 1 " 
 
 " Heaven only knows. I believe he is still 
 hunting for it." 
 
 " He will find it if he is so much in earnest ; 
 and when he finds it he will likely fulfil it. 
 Don't you think so % " 
 
 " I daresay he will. In the meantime he 
 threatens to run through my mission." 
 
 " Your mission, Mr Wyedale % Pray, what is 
 that ? " 
 
 " Oh, my views are lowly ; for the autumn my 
 mission was to shoot with him at Finmore." 
 
 " And that is not to be ? " 
 
 " I fear not ; but Lord Germistoune's kind- 
 ness in asking me to shoot at Dunerlacht quite 
 makes up for the disappointment, if my friend 
 does break down — more than makes up for 
 it." 
 
 " I fear we shall not be able to compensate
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 165 
 
 you for the loss of your friend's society ; we are 
 very dull and stupid people at Dunerlacht." 
 
 " But you will be there 1 n said Tom, suddenly 
 mindful of the role he ought to be playing. 
 
 " Oh yes ; we shall be at home, natural]y." 
 
 " Then — then I don't think I shall miss Cosmo 
 much." 
 
 Miss Douglas opened her eyes a little at this 
 rather straight plunge of Tom's, and said, " I am 
 afraid you are too sanguine, Mr TVyedale. But 
 I hope you won't have to depend for your society 
 exclusively on papa and me. I believe we are to 
 have, for us, quite a large party this year." 
 
 Tom was off at once on the wings of faucy to 
 the moors. " What splendid shooting it must 
 be ! " he said ; " and, by the by, Miss Douglas, 
 have you any idea how they work the duck on 
 the lake % There is a tremendous margin of 
 sedo;e. I looked down at it once from the hio;h- 
 road. Punts would be the only plan. Are there 
 punts 1 " 
 
 " I really can't tell you, Mr Wyedale. I'm not 
 at all a sportswoman." 
 
 " Ah ! I'm afraid if there were punts you would 
 be certain to know ; don't you think so ? I sus- 
 pect there can't be punts. I wonder if Lord Ger- 
 mistoune has ever thought of them % "
 
 166 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " I'm afraid I'm quite ignorant of all shooting 
 matters." 
 
 " That lake has immense capabilities, Miss 
 Douglas. I wouldn't go in for big swivel-guns, 
 you know — that's not my idea of sport ; but 
 without some sort of punt the lake must be 
 wasted — absolutely squandered. With a punt 
 I would undertake to make the ducks reflect to 
 any extent." 
 
 " Then for your sake, if not for the ducks, I 
 hope there is a punt." 
 
 " One might rig up something of the sort 
 simply enough, to be sure. Glencairn and I 
 once managed the business that way on one of 
 the bi^ Canadian lakes. We made a sort of 
 raft, you know, and fenced it round with sedge 
 and scrub, so that it looked like a floating 
 island." 
 
 "Did you make the Canadian ducks reflect?" 
 
 " Yes ; I suspect they won't forget us and our 
 raft in a hurry. We slated them." 
 
 " Is Mr Glencairn a good shot \ " 
 
 " Excellent. He does everything he does do 
 well." 
 
 "I suppose he is always in earnest about 
 everything he does ? " 
 
 "That's the secret, perhaps. It would bore
 
 MINE IS THINE. 167 
 
 me, now, to be in earnest about anything, ex- 
 cept, of course, sport, and " (observing his sister's 
 suggestive eye upon him) — "and, of course, one 
 or two other serious matters." 
 
 Esme laughed. " I wonder," she said, " what 
 you would rank with sport as serious matters \ " 
 
 " Hang it ! " thought Tom, " she's laughing at 
 me ; I'm on the wrong tack somehow," — but he 
 jerked out a sentence to the effect that " for every 
 man there is something sacred and serious," and 
 then remembering immortal Mr Guppy and his 
 refrain, " There are chords," had wellnigh broken 
 down. 
 
 " So that you have profited by Mr Glencairn's 
 society; you are not altogether an unworthy 
 disciple," laughed Esme. 
 
 " Disciple % God forbid ! Fm not a disciple 
 at all. I wouldn't go in for Glencairn's line of 
 business for the world. Life is too short." 
 
 " Still for every man there is something sacred 
 and serious — you are convinced of that ? * said 
 Esme, with profound gravity. 
 
 " Oh, of course I am. and — and — all that kind 
 of thing, you know." Then their eyes met, and 
 they both went off into hearty fits of laughter. 
 
 "I have always understood," thought Tom, 
 " that if a woman once laughs at you, you may
 
 168 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 as well cry 'off' at once, and throw up the 
 sponge. Now, this girl is laughing at me — and 
 small blame to her ; and I feel that, if I were 
 ever so much in love with her, I couldn't get on 
 the proper tack — not to-day, at least. I suspect 
 after dinner would be my only chance. I believe 
 moonlight has a wonderful effect upon the female 
 nature ; and dry champagne (in sufficient quan- 
 tities) has almost made one sentimental once or 
 twice. Yes, I must try it some other time, under 
 more favourable circumstances. At present I 
 can't score, that's clear." Then, seeing his sister 
 cross the room, he rose and said, " I must go and 
 sound Lord Germistoune about the punts." And 
 thus ended the first scene of Tom's little drama, 
 " L'Amoureux malgre lui." 
 
 And then came Mrs Ravenhall, and, with full 
 confidence in her social versatility, approached 
 the task of fascinating Esme, of whom she knew 
 nothing, except that she was a very young under- 
 graduate in London life. And very charming 
 she made herself, in a bright, genial, cheery 
 way, that could not but be acceptable to any 
 well-conditioned nature. But as a skilful tac- 
 tician behind his skirmishers Avatches to de- 
 tect the points at which the enemy may most 
 readily be open to impression, so, from behind
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 169 
 
 her sunny smiles and gay espieglerie, peered 
 forth the intent worldling, striving to decipher 
 the character of the young lady before her. The 
 Highlanders at Prestonpans, and the Maories 
 rushing from their "pahs," disconcerted regular 
 troops by their unsophisticated method of deal- 
 ing with conventional modes of attack and de- 
 fence ; and, to a person entirely conventional, 
 there is probably nothing more indecipherable 
 than a character which, supposing it not to be 
 commonplace, displays only the colour of its own 
 individuality, and reflects none of the stereotyped 
 features of manner, thought, and so forth, which 
 belong to some one or other of the various social 
 coteries lying within the ken of the conventional 
 observer. In this way Esme somewhat puzzled 
 Mrs Eavenhall. Her simplicity and candour 
 would have been easily comprehended, but, 
 blended with a straightforward shrewdness and 
 keenness of insight, and a certain independence 
 of thought, they were, on the whole, paradoxical. 
 And then, although nothing could be more re- 
 mote from her nature than affected nonchalance 
 and strong-minded idiosyncrasies, there w r as in 
 her a strange ignorance of, indifference to, even a 
 want of reverence for, persons, things, and ways 
 of life that are sacred and canonical to people,
 
 170 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 the final cause of whose existence it is to be in 
 the best society. 
 
 And thus, when Mrs Ravenhall settled down 
 for a cosy talk, and unfolded the usual staples 
 of cosy conversation among people of her stamp 
 and class, she experienced a series of shocks. It 
 seemed so startling to be called upoo to explain 
 who was who at every sentence. Extremes meet ; 
 and a kinship is established between Belgravia 
 and the backwoods, by this one touch of nature, 
 that the denizens of either paradise, in convers- 
 ing With outsiders — that is to say, with the 
 world at large — assume, with primeval simpli- 
 city, that, to all the world, the inhabitants of 
 their little monde, and all that is done, said, or 
 thought therein, are matters of familiar know- 
 ledge. Among the redskins, "Hooker Jim's" 
 squaw will dilate to you, by the hour, upon 
 " Horny-eyed Houlaoua's " infamous conduct to 
 his squaw and papooses, and all the outs and ins 
 of the difficulties between " Hairy Samky " and 
 " Wingery Bong," as if these nature's nobles and 
 their deeds were known as the sun, moon, and 
 stars. 
 
 And, exactly in the same way, you will be 
 muddled, puzzled, driven half-crazy among the 
 fine ladies and gentlemen of the crime de la
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 171 
 
 creme and (nota bene) their umbras — if you 
 happen to be an outsider. For you will have 
 imputed to you, and expected of you, a com- 
 plete familiarity with the attributes, connections, 
 daily lives, and excruciating nicknames of those 
 who live, and move, and have their being in the 
 fashionable microcosm, though the renown of 
 them has never reached your darkling orbit. 
 There is something fresh, child-like, and almost 
 touching in this, when it is an attribute of abori- 
 ginal simplicity ; but when you regard it as a 
 
 trait of British hio;h-breeding\ " visum teneo.tis 
 © ©' 
 
 amici ? " The word " British " is used advisedly 
 and with emphasis : for against this result of a 
 profound yet parochial egotism, the well-bred 
 Eussian is protected by his cosmopolitanism ; 
 the Frenchman by his accuracy ; the German by 
 his matter-of-factness ; and the Italian by that 
 delightful outcome of a national character filtered 
 through countless generations of breeding, — that 
 captivating and gracious gift of sympathy which 
 adorns him and helps to make him what he is — 
 the best bred and most lovable of men. 
 
 Pardon the digression, and let us return to 
 Mrs Eavenhall, who, stamped in all respects 
 with the pattern of her monde, awoke, with a 
 series of shocks, to the fact that Esme was
 
 172 ' MINE IS THINE. 
 
 something very like a pagan. She was posi- 
 tively ignorant of the habits of Mrs Chester- 
 field Beauregard? She knew nothing to the 
 discredit of Lady Diana Potiphar. She hadn't 
 even heard that the Hon. and Rev. Joseph Jelly- 
 fish had been quite exculpated by the Bishop. 
 Then, as for the exploits of Donjie St Bees, they 
 were a sealed letter for her ; and the witticisms 
 of Jam Haverel (actually of JAM Haverel!) a 
 closed book. Was it possible that she was in 
 ignorance of what went on that night at Draw- 
 em Castle'? — that night, you know, when the 
 Duchess of Groats lost £2000 at ecartef and 
 Lady Mabilia Fantod danced such a funny dance 
 at the top of the staircase with the Marquis de 
 Saut-du-Loup 1 What ! not know about that 
 night when Al^ie Montfort behaved so shock- 
 ingly to Prince von Pickelhauben ? — put a tame 
 fox in the Prince's bed, you know, so that the 
 Prince's lower limbs were terribly lacerated, and 
 he couldn't go to Doncaster for the Leger — and 
 that, of course, was the very Leger which en- 
 tirely ruined poor Pix Pufnnson. How foolish, 
 by the by, of Pix to go off with Lady Wallsend, 
 when he knew he had nothing, and she had noth- 
 ing ! No wonder Lady Anne was furious ; and 
 really, what the dear Duke said about poor Pix
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 173 
 
 was only what lie deserved — don't you think 
 so ? But ah ! by the by, you don't know any- 
 thing about any of them. Then genealogies — 
 Abraham begat Isaac, &c., &c., &c. Such and 
 suchlike subjects could not, as Mrs Eavenhall 
 found, be employed as a means of amusing and 
 fascinating Esme, or of testing the points of view 
 from which she looked out upon life and the world. 
 If you never talk about anything but yourself, 
 your neighbours and their affairs, it is difficult, 
 upon occasion, to have recourse to abstract sub- 
 jects ; and Mrs Eavenhall was in that predica- 
 ment. However, with a rapid change of front, 
 she abandoned the Donjies, and the Algies, and 
 the Pixes, and the Dukes and Duchesses, as meat 
 too strong for this weakling babe, and did her 
 best to be charming on " certain things in gen- 
 eral ; " and, with a good deal of froth and gush 
 and sunbeam, she contrived to make herself felt 
 to be what a young man would have called a 
 " very jolly woman," and what a well-ordered 
 damsel would describe as " so good-natured, and 
 bright, and merry/' 
 
 "You must let me see a great deal of you, 
 dear Miss Douglas/' she said, at last ; " we have 
 no friends here, and you must really patronise 
 us as much as you can. We want rest, repose,
 
 17-4 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 sunshine, quiet amusement. Do help us. "We 
 must do things together. Now promise to be 
 our cicerone." 
 
 Then Esme promised to do her best, though 
 disclaiming local knowledge. 
 
 " Oh, but," cried Mrs Eavenhall, taking her 
 cue from one or two chance remarks of Esme's 
 — " oh, but my brother Tom tells me you are 
 a wonderful artist, and so accomplished and 
 clever." 
 
 " I wonder how Mr Wyedale discovered all 
 these perfections ! " said Esme. 
 
 " Oh, Tom doesn't say much, but he sees a 
 great deal — very clearly Tom sees. Such a 
 shrewd judge of character, too, he is ; and such 
 an admirer of everything beautiful, — a fanatic 
 about scenery and art — quite a fanatic, I pro- 
 test." 
 
 Eemembering Tom's recent conversation and 
 tolerably frank account of himself, Esme felt 
 there "was something about this fanaticism which 
 required explanation — in fact, that there must 
 be a mistake somewhere. She said nothing, 
 however; and Mrs Eavenhall, having uttered 
 a few more valedictory sweetnesses, clasping 
 Esme's hand with one of hers, and softly pat- 
 ting it with the other, finally took her leave.
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 175 
 
 " Come away, Tom/' she said — " we must 
 not waste more of Lord Germistoune's valuable 
 time ; and I know you will never think of mov- 
 ing if I don't actually carry you off. Come/' 
 — and they went, with many mutual resolves, 
 heartily expressed, to " do things together," and 
 see much of each other. 
 
 " Well, Tom 1 " said his sister, as they walked 
 down the avenue. 
 
 " Well, Luc y f " replied Tom, with an em- 
 phasis that implied that any revelations that 
 had to be made ought to come from her side. 
 
 " Well, she is nice and pretty." 
 
 " Nothing fresher to communicate ? " 
 
 " She rather puzzles me." 
 
 "Does she? She rather frightens me — in 
 my new capacity, that is But what per- 
 plexes you, Lucy ? " 
 
 " I can t quite tell you. She knows nothing 
 of the world — of our world, which ought to be 
 hers — and yet she is not like a raw, country 
 girl. She doesn't seem to know that she knows 
 nothing of the world ; or, at all events, she sees 
 nothing to regret in her ignorance. And then 
 she is quite self-possessed. I'm afraid she has 
 character and originality. I'm almost afraid 
 she's a sort of girl who thinks for herself."
 
 176 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " How shocking ! But, after all, why shouldn't 
 she, if it amuses her \ " 
 
 "Well, you know, all that sort of thing is 
 not in your favour. I had hoped to find a page 
 with no writing on it, ready to be written over 
 by the first moderately skilful hand that made 
 the attempt ; but she is not that. I had expect- 
 ed a little blushing rose of the wilderness ; but 
 she is not that!' 
 
 " How oratorical ! Well, you think that the 
 rose is not for my button-hole, nor the page 
 destined to receive my autograph 1 " 
 
 " I don't say that ; but the situation is quite 
 different from what I expected. The difficulties 
 are with you, however. What I fear is, not 
 that you can't succeed — for you can, if you try 
 — but that you won't take trouble, won't perse- 
 vere. You have a part to play, and you 
 must play it. You must study it — adapt 
 your style, tone, and sentiment ; and, above all 
 things, be in earnest. I am sure she is truly 
 lovable." 
 
 " So am I. She will have twenty or thirty 
 thousand a-year." 
 
 "And do give up that hard way of talking. 
 It grows upon people till it becomes mechanical. 
 It is exactly the sort of tone that won't suit
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 177 
 
 Miss Douglas. How did you get on with her 
 just now \ What did you talk about ? " 
 
 " I didn't get on well, that's certain. I think 
 she was inclined to laugh at me." 
 
 " Surely you didn't say anything premature ? " 
 
 " No, no ; but I was self-conscious, and a 
 self-conscious man always makes an ass of 
 himself." 
 
 " What did you talk about ? " 
 
 " I'll be hanged if I know ! Yes, by the by, 
 I think it was principally about Cosmo Glen- 
 cairn." 
 
 " What ! the man who's here ? " 
 
 " Yes ; he has been in your house two or 
 three times — dined with you, I fancy — certainly 
 been at your balls." 
 
 " Oh, I remember him very well ; pleasant, 
 isn't he ? " 
 
 " Tremendously." 
 
 " But what does she know about him ? " 
 
 " Knows all about him now. I've told her all 
 about him ; quite exhausted the subject. Be- 
 sides, she's met him two or three times here." 
 
 " But what possessed you to talk about him ? " 
 
 " Well, I was short of subjects, and Cosmo 
 was the only one that seemed to fetch her. I 
 tried her with various topics, but somehow we 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 always drifted back to Cosmo. We had a little 
 round about duck-shooting, but even that turned 
 into Cosmo. To tell you the truth, he was 
 rather a godsend to me." 
 
 " What a goose you are, Tom ! " 
 
 " Thanks ; if you had said so half an hour ago 
 when I was among the ducks, I would have 
 agreed with you heartily." 
 
 " Is Mr Glencairn a marrying man ? He is 
 very handsome, and clever, and rich." 
 
 " No ; I've told you already he is not a 
 marrying man : and if you are jealous of him 
 on my account, calm yourself. Old Germis- 
 toune has taken a dislike to him, and has been 
 rude and bearish; and Cosmo's soul is in arms. 
 He won't go near the place again." 
 
 " Oh ! that matters nothing, if she is inter- 
 ested in him." 
 
 " Tut, Lucy, how earnest you are ! What can 
 it matter if he doesn't think of her or see her ? " 
 
 " You can't be too careful. Eemember how 
 much depends on your making the most of such 
 an opportunity. His lordship is a terrible old 
 bore." 
 
 " Isn't he \ But he has redeeming points." 
 
 " Oh, of course ; he is a thorough old aristo- 
 crat."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 179 
 
 "And he has the best mixed shooting in 
 Scotland." 
 
 " There you go ! You must ingratiate your- 
 self with him." 
 
 "It is done. His lordship has the clear- 
 seeing eye towards me." 
 
 " Don't neglect him then." 
 
 " I won't— I won't." 
 
 " You must woo him almost as much as his 
 daughter." 
 
 " I will — I will. Concealment shall not prey 
 on my damask cheek." 
 
 " By the by, you'd better dine with us to-day, 
 and bring Mr Glencairn. I must investigate 
 him." 
 
 " Certainly, provided the legislatorial head is 
 sound again. Frank with a headache is fit 
 company neither for man nor beast." 
 
 " Oh, his head will be quite well by dinner- 
 time." 
 
 "Vabene!"
 
 180 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The dinner-party did not come off, however ; 
 or, rather, it did not include Cosmo. When 
 his friend went to look for him he found that 
 he had started early in the morning and crossed 
 the lake ; and from this solitary excursion he 
 did not return till the evening was far advanced. 
 The truth is, that sleep had brought no refresh- 
 ment either to his body or his mind. He 
 awoke with the perplexities of the previous 
 day weighing heavily on his spirit ; aggravated, 
 indeed, by daylight. If the mystic moon had 
 for a moment charmed to sleep some of his 
 troubles, the realistic sun roused them again 
 into vigorous action. "Hide me from day's 
 garish eye," is a prayer which finds an echo in 
 all heavy hearts. Thus, to Cosmo, in his pres- 
 ent mood, while movement was an alleviation, 
 solitude was a necessity ; and so, long before 
 the world of luxury was astir, he had risen
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 181 
 
 and passed away across the lake, and up among 
 the hills beyond, seeking, as by an instinct, 
 some place of silence and shade, somewhat 
 apart from men, a little sheltered from the 
 intolerable joyousness of the summer morning. 
 There, wandering to and fro, among the woods 
 and rocks, he took up the thread of his last 
 night's meditations. The gloomy train of his 
 thoughts moved round and round in a monoto- 
 nous circle. He arraigned, and after leading 
 evidence, he condemned himself. From what- 
 ever point of view he looked at his past history 
 and present position, he saw that he was "an 
 unprofitable servant/' If Hope and Common- 
 sense suggested that twenty-eight years, though 
 a great age, are still not exactly man's allotted 
 span, and that there might yet be time to atone 
 for past shortcomings, he straightway found 
 himself wandering in a labyrinth of projects, 
 each in its nature wide asunder as the poles 
 from all the rest, and each to be rejected in 
 turn as not the path to take. Now it was his 
 own incompetency that seemed to bar the way ; 
 now it was the inadequacy of the end to be 
 attained that warned him back. Underlying 
 all his mental conflicts there was a feverish 
 restlessness, new to his experience, which led
 
 182 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 him to turn to many unreasonable projects, and 
 finally, to reject all projects, reasonable or the 
 reverse. He said to himself that it was a 
 sphere of active and at least useful exertion 
 which he had to find. He said it languidly, 
 but his thoughts travelled over a sufficiently 
 large area in the quest. 
 
 In this age there are many outlets for restless- 
 ness — sanctioned, almost sanctified, by science. 
 The sources of the Nile are still to discover, the 
 North Pole has not yet been reached ; and, be- 
 sides these great standing challenges of Nature, 
 there is always something inviting scientific Bo- 
 hemianism to distant and uncomfortable regions 
 for purposes of discovery or observation. One 
 or two of these, in vogue at the time, suggested 
 themselves to Cosmo. But missionary zeal in 
 the cause of science would not be roused. He 
 felt, indeed, that his scientific attainments were 
 too weak to justify or support such high-pressure 
 action, and so he was off at a tangent in an op- 
 posite direction — a direction which showed how 
 abnormal was his state of mind. For it was to 
 the Carlist war he turned. Fiercely in progress 
 then, it seemed to promise a career of romance 
 and adventure — an opening for one who could 
 play the part of a guerilla leader. There was
 
 MINE IS THINE. 183 
 
 much to touch the imagination in such a life. 
 Ah ! but a career of romance and adventure ! 
 Was this his quest? No. His quest was a 
 sphere of active and useful exertion. The ser- 
 vice of Don Carlos was an active enough sphere, 
 but was it useful ? Was it not even dishonour- 
 able, as far as he could be concerned in it ? Don 
 Carlos was not his king, nor the Catholic faith 
 his faith. To join the Carlists, therefore, would 
 practically be to turn filibuster and renegade. 
 A score of similarly wild projects were similarly 
 canvassed and dismissed, and, with them, many 
 others more practicable. Among the rest, two, 
 which, as alternatives, had all along been, more 
 or less vaguely, the horizon of promise to which 
 he looked, and these were the careers of litera- 
 ture and politics. But, to-day, by the morbid 
 play of Cosmo's thoughts, they were associated, 
 on terms of equality, with the most chimerical 
 projects, and dismissed with almost equal brus- 
 querie. 
 
 By what right could he address himself in 
 earnest to the career of letters ? What had he 
 to say to the world? Could he teach it any- 
 thing? He had read, indeed, and travelled 
 much, and even thought a little. So had others. 
 He had no specialite. Were not his thoughts
 
 184 MINE IS THIXE. 
 
 but commonplace deductions from the common- 
 place experiences of a mediocre man ? Could 
 he amuse the world, then \ There was an in- 
 congruousness about the idea to-day that almost 
 made him smile. 
 
 Well, then, politics. Here, indeed, he had 
 earnest opinions and convictions, a fine ideal of 
 what English political life ought to be, and of 
 the rationale of English statesmanship. He had 
 often dreamt of a political career for himself — 
 often, indeed, awaking from his dream to see 
 that his aspirations, when compared with the 
 actual spirit of the age, would involve what the 
 spirit of the age would jeer at as a political 
 Utopia. But to-day he had eyes for nothing 
 but the imperfections of our system. He could 
 see nothing but a selfish unpatriotic democratism 
 on one side — on the other, a tentative spirit of 
 stop-gap and compromise ; and between the two, 
 the chaotic mass of the general body politic, 
 steeped in morbid lethargy, and only roused into 
 occasional spasms of passion by a detestable sys- 
 tem of agitation. Before these conditions he re- 
 coiled to-day. Eeal heroism ought not to be 
 deterred by the dangers and difficulties con- 
 fronting it. But to-day Cosmo's heroism slept ; 
 he felt paralysed before the dead and stony as-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 185 
 
 pect of English political life, and turned from the 
 subject, as he had often done before, muttering — 
 
 " Dreamer of dreams born out of my due time ! 
 Why should I strive to set the crooked straight ? " 
 
 In all his musings of to-day, with the ostensible 
 purpose above recorded, Cosmo was now and 
 then conscious of a half-heartedness in his in- 
 vestigations, and conscious, at last, that the real 
 reason why he rejected every outlet was a con- 
 viction that there teas nothing at all in the way 
 of personal achievement that was worth under- 
 taking, whether for the mere sake of effort, or 
 for the end that might be attained. 
 
 Others might do better than he what had to 
 be done. If they did not, it did not signify ; if 
 he remained unproductive, it would not signify; 
 if he blossomed into achievement, it could not 
 signify. Nothing did, would, or could signify. 
 After hours of mental struggle and perturbation, 
 this lugubrious conclusion seemed to be the one 
 point definitely reached. 
 
 At last, exhausted and oppressed with the heat 
 of the drowsy afternoon, he fell asleep upon the 
 ground, and pursuing through slumber the tenor 
 of his waking thoughts, he dreamt that he lay 
 in the first circle of Dante's "Inferno;" and 
 with this addition to the sufferings of those who
 
 186 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 dwelt therein, that whereas they had Desire 
 without Hope, in him Hope and Desire were 
 alike dead. It was twilight when he awoke — 
 twilight in the sky, but night in the coppice 
 where he lay ; and, as he started to his feet, the 
 illusion of his dream was still upon him. Every 
 tree about his resting - place was one of that 
 weird Dantean forest of a lower circle ; and the 
 sound of the evening breeze stirring the foliage, 
 the eternal burthen of lamenting souls. 
 
 " A dismal dream ! " he exclaimed, as the 
 world of reality forced itself upon him ; " and 
 from evil dreams how often one awakes to 
 cry, ' Thank God ! a dream and nothing more ! ' 
 but now, now, to what do I awake ? I might 
 as well be in the ' Inferno ' as here, in the upper 
 air, with no purpose in my life ; with hope and 
 energy, and even the wish to do, eclipsed and 
 paralysed. Great heavens ! what has happened 
 to me ? Can I be going mad % " 
 
 With such thoughts he slowly descended the 
 hill in the direction of the lake, and finding his 
 boat where he had left it in the morning, em- 
 barked and made for home. 
 
 By the time he reached the middle of the lake 
 the moon had risen, and was bathing the further, 
 shore in light; and here, by some sudden im-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 187 
 
 pulse, he changed the direction of his boat, 
 and steered straight for the Villa Bianca, which 
 gleamed forth conspicuously from its dark back- 
 ground of wooded hill. 
 
 With eyes fixed on the villa, he crossed the 
 lake in deep abstraction, — so deep that he would 
 have run his boat on the rocky promontory at 
 the end of the villa garden, had not the over- 
 hanging rocks suddenly shut the house from his 
 view, and thus aroused him. Then he ordered 
 the boatman to stop. From this point nothing 
 was visible to him in front but the miniature 
 precipice which rounded off the peninsular do- 
 main lakewards. Over all the face of this, 
 wild flowers grew in luxuriance, and on one 
 white cluster, which broke the sky-line on the 
 topmost ledge, and caught the moonlight, Cosmo 
 fixed his eyes. Presently he was seized with a 
 caprice — like the caprice of one in a dream — 
 to possess himself of the flowers ; and in a few 
 seconds the rock was scaled, the prize was made, 
 and he was turning to descend, when the sound 
 of a guitar from the adjacent shrubbery arrested 
 him. After a few tinkling notes of prelude, a voice 
 began to sing. He had never heard Esme's sing- 
 ing voice before, but, at the first notes, he knew 
 that she was the singer. Every tone seemed to
 
 188 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 strike straight into his inmost heart, stirring it 
 with intense vibrations, which sent through all 
 his being a message of revelation. Her voice was 
 full of pathos, and the song she sang — a pensive 
 air to words of tender melancholy — broke the 
 stillness of the hour with an effect that would 
 have charmed any listener. As for Cosmo, he 
 was spell -bound. Dimly conscious, at first, of 
 the strangeness, even the impropriety, of his posi- 
 tion, he could not move. As Ferdinand might 
 not choose but follow Ariel's pilot-strain which 
 called him to " these yellow sands," and led him 
 to Miranda, even so was Cosmo bound to the 
 spot where Esme's voice enthralled him. The 
 song was succeeded by another and another, and 
 still he remained motionless, not reasoning at all, 
 scarcely thinking as it seemed — only receiving, 
 as the thirsty ground drinks in the dew, an over- 
 whelming sense of new and mysterious beatitude. 
 At last the music ceased altogether ; then there 
 was a sound of footsteps, and in a moment the 
 involuntary eavesdropper stood face to face with 
 the fair singer. Esme was somewhat startled at 
 first by the apparition of a man standing on the 
 ledge, as if he had suddenly risen from the ]ake ; 
 but, recognising Cosmo, she recovered her self- 
 possession at once, and said gaily —
 
 MUTE IS THIXE. 189 
 
 " Oh, Mr Glencairn ! I am relieved to find 
 you are only an earthly eavesdropper after all. 
 I feared it might be some outraged spirit of 
 music risen from the lake to rebuke my discord, 
 for I was singing very flat, I know." 
 
 Cosmo could say nothing. 
 
 "Pray," said Esme, as he continued silent, 
 " how did you come here ? " 
 
 Cosmo roused himself with an effort and said 
 — " I must apologise for the intrusion, Miss 
 Douglas ; I assure you it was quite involun- 
 tary." 
 
 " Please don't suppose I am going to scold you 
 as a trespasser. I only wished to know how you 
 came here, for you certainly did not pass me." 
 
 " No, I came from the lake." 
 
 " From the lake \ " 
 
 " Yes ; " and then, with a desperate effort to 
 appear unconscious and gay, he added — " You 
 know the legend of the Lurleiber£, and how 
 the music of the Lorelei drew all passers-by 
 towards the rock where she sans: ? "Well, the 
 Ehine drama has been reproduced on Lake 
 Como ; only that I am more fortunate than my 
 predecessors. I have escaped the 'Gewirre,' I 
 have reached the top of the rock, and I am 
 talking to the nymph ! "
 
 190 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " I don't think you pay a compliment either 
 to Lurline's music or your own taste, though 
 you can hardly expect me to feel flattered ; but, 
 seriously, you could not hear my voice from the 
 lake?" 
 
 "Well, to speak truly, I must abandon the 
 Lorelei myth. No, I did not hear your voice 
 from the lake. I was rowing past here, and was 
 seized with a strong desire to steal these wild 
 flowers. I did steal them, as you see, and then 
 I was going, but you began to sing. I hope you 
 will forgive me for staying ; I would have gone 
 if I could, but it was impossible. You must 
 forgive me, for it was your own fault." 
 
 " Forgive, Mr Glencairn ? it was very flatter- 
 ing of you to care to stay to hear my very 
 humble performance. If I had known," she 
 added, laughing, — " if I had known that I had 
 an audience, I would have tried to do better — 
 that is, if I had not run away, which is more 
 probable ; but if I had stayed, I would certainly 
 have chosen other songs — more cheerful ones." 
 
 " I am glad you didn't ; I could have wished 
 for nothing different. I shall never forget my 
 stolen happiness. I could have wished for no 
 other songs." 
 
 " But do you like sad songs, then ? "
 
 MINE IS THINE. 191 
 
 "To-night no others would have pleased me." 
 
 " I hope that does not mean that you are 
 unhappy to-night \ " 
 
 There was a strange agitation in Cosmo's 
 manner, and Esme let the words slip involun- 
 tarily, and had no sooner spoken than she re- 
 pented of having done so. 
 
 "I cannot pretend to say that I am happy 
 to-night, Miss Douglas," was the reply, uttered 
 in a voice of the deepest gloom. 
 
 "I am very sorry. Has anything serious 
 happened ? Is some one ill % or but for- 
 give me, I am very rude ; I have no right to 
 question you." 
 
 " It is I who should ask forgiveness, and also 
 correct myself. I cannot think that it would 
 be possible to be unhappy in Miss Douglas's 
 society; and if I have been unhappy all day, 
 I have been more than happy since I landed 
 on this enchanted territory, — enchanted truly, 
 has it seemed to me," he added, as if thinking 
 aloud. 
 
 " Ah, Mr Glencairn ! I shall really think you 
 are mocking my poor music, if you pay it so 
 many compliments." 
 
 " The music — the music ! but was it only the 
 music ? was it "
 
 192 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " I daresay the moonlight, and all the summer 
 night's delights, have had much more to do with 
 the enchantment." 
 
 "All the summer night's delights! all! so 
 many, so many ! I " 
 
 "Where have you been to-day, Mr Glencairn?" 
 said Esme, changing the subject abruptly, em- 
 barrassed by his strange manner, distrait air, 
 and way of speech. " We saw Mr Wydelale 
 on the lake this evening, and he w T as full of 
 serio-comic alarm at what he called your ' my- 
 sterious disappearance/ " 
 
 " I ? oh ! I have been away beyond Lake 
 Lecco." 
 
 "All day?" 
 
 "All day." 
 
 " And alone ? " 
 
 " Yes, alone ; I found my own society more 
 than enough." 
 
 " Ah ! you have quarrelled with yourself 
 and not made it up, and that saddens you 
 naturally." 
 
 " Perhaps that is what it is — it is very nearly 
 true; but if I were to tell you exactly what 
 has saddened me, you would certainly laugh at 
 me." 
 
 "No, no ; indeed, I am sure I should not."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 193 
 
 " I will tell you then," he said, breaking out 
 with sudden energy. " I awoke yesterday and 
 realised the fact that I was dreaming in a fool's 
 paradise. I awoke yesterday to find that all my 
 life has been little better than a sleep and a 
 dream. I awoke yesterday and saw that I who 
 began life anxious for effort, full of aspirations, 
 I, under pretext of preparation for life's work, 
 am spending what ought to be my harvest-time 
 in still sowing the seed and fancifully dressing 
 the soil. Life is so short that, if we do not 
 observe the proportions of its seasons and allot 
 to each its work, life will be barren. It is not 
 in winter that we make our harvests. I saw 
 this clearly yesterday ; to-day, I see it still more 
 clearly. I have had such awakenings before, 
 and felt energy, impulse, eager desire, to begin a 
 new course ; but to-day, energy and impulse are 
 paralysed. I fell asleep to-day in a wood, and 
 dreamt I was in the first circle of the ' Inferno ; ' 
 I awoke and felt that my waking life was worse 
 than my dream. I seemed not only not to des- 
 cry the new way of life I had desired, but no 
 longer to have any desire to find it. Is not this 
 to be unhappy? to be truly miserable \ To-night 
 — now — I begin to know, to see things which, 
 — but, Miss Douglas, what egotism is all this ! 
 
 VOL. T. N
 
 194 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 Pardon me. I have no right to inflict these con- 
 fidences upon you, — morbid fancies they must 
 seem — remorseful groans of a moonstruck idler." 
 
 " No, no ; believe me I am interested — though 
 it is very sad. But now you have some new ex- 
 pedient, some new plan. Mr Wyedale told me a 
 great deal about your — about your — travels ; and 
 I thought, — but, well, I hope your new plan will 
 be successful. I am quite certain that it will." 
 
 " Thanks, Miss Douglas ; but I have no new 
 plan. I only see — no matter ! Indeed the only 
 plan I have is to leave this to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ? that is a new intention, is it 
 not ? " 
 
 " Yes, it was formed to-night, not many 
 minutes since. And now farewell. May I take 
 these flowers ? I had stolen them already, you 
 will say ; but I should like to take them with 
 your permission." 
 
 " Surely they are not worth asking for ? " 
 
 " I assure you I think they are." 
 
 " Then, as lady of the manor, I give them to 
 you freely." 
 
 "I shall preserve them as a souvenir of to- 
 night — and — and you. Good-bye." 
 
 " Is this a final ' good-bye ' ? " 
 
 " I am afraid it is."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 195 
 
 " Perhaps you will be merciful to poor Mr 
 "Wyedale and come to the Highlands after all ; 
 if so, I hope you will be able to tell me that the 
 new way is found, and the journey on it smooth 
 and prosperous." 
 
 " If I have your good wishes, it is much." 
 
 " You have my best wishes. Good-bye." 
 
 "Farewell." 
 
 In that exquisite poem, " Atalanta's Eace," 
 the hero, Milanion, after passing a night of 
 prayer and vigil in the temple of Aphrodite, is 
 roused from the sleep which has at last over- 
 taken him by an actual manifestation of the 
 divinity before whose statue he has been pour- 
 ing his supplications. In her glorious presence 
 he sees nought " for dazzling light that round 
 him shone." 
 
 " He staggered with his arms outspread, 
 Delicious unnamed odours breathed around, 
 For languid happiness he bowed his head." 
 
 And some such condition was Cosmo's, when, 
 after a prelude of sweetest music, Esme stood 
 before him. She stood before him in a new 
 light now. The revelation to his spirit was 
 as complete and instantaneous as that to 
 Milanion's eyes. He, too, had been prepared for 
 an apocalypse by a vigil and an agony.
 
 196 MINE IS THIXE. 
 
 The time had come for him — as come it pro- 
 bably must for all, even the most intellectual — 
 to discover that the aims, delights, and prizes 
 of intellect are insufficient, and that, from 
 another side of our nature, claims to have its 
 share in our attention recognised are advanced 
 with such a violence of impetuosity as to bear 
 down, and cast into at least a temporary eclipse, 
 the rival which till now had monopolised all our 
 interest. And this ? What is it ? It is the 
 demand which one nature makes for the inter- 
 change with another nature of something which 
 the word " sympathy " but faintly expresses. It 
 is the need to give, and to receive, an absolute 
 devotion — so absolute that the two natures may 
 become like the complementary parts of a single 
 being, the disunion of which brings mortal 
 anguish to both. As the soul of music slum- 
 bered in the shell till quickened by the breath 
 of ethereal inspiration, so, deep in the recesses 
 of our nature, lies this capacity of need to 
 receive and to bestow, till, late or soon, the 
 energising influence reaches it with the sudden 
 impulse of electricity, and it is roused, and we 
 awake in the dawn of a new life. It is a dawn 
 of fiery clouds and puzzling lights, and at first 
 the spirit is only oppressed by a sense of be-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 197 
 
 wilclerment, or tortured by a vague numb pain, 
 the source of which is shrouded in mystery. 
 This is the dawn, the birth of love. The electric 
 spark may spring from the witchery of a single 
 glance, which has no witchery save only for one ; 
 from the music of a tone, which is mere dull 
 sound for all the world besides ; from a hundred 
 things that may have fallen like passing sun- 
 beams, leaving no impression on the many, but 
 which are winged arrows of revelation and 
 destiny to the devoted one. 
 
 There was no longer any mystery. Cosmo now 
 saw the cause of his unrest. A long-cherished 
 ideal, built on the slight foundation of a 
 painter's graceful fancy, had passed from the 
 world of phantasms, had come as a living 
 woman, and captivated all his being. The re- 
 velation had been sudden, almost as if the work 
 of magic ; and all the strange mental phases of 
 the last two days had been due to the over- 
 whelming force of an emotion hitherto unfelt, 
 and to the bewilderment of a mind seeking the 
 cause of its trouble in every quarter save that 
 whence it really came. Error on such a point 
 may seem incredible ; but the morbid watchful- 
 ness which Cosmo exercised over the growth of 
 his intellectual life had developed a tendency to
 
 198 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 accesses of self- distrust and self-accusation, and 
 to occasional recurrences of an almost despairing 
 conviction that his life was destined to pass in 
 laborious preparations only. This conviction — 
 logical enough in view of Cosmo's system, which 
 comprehended something like universal pre- 
 paredness — always led to a feverish search for 
 a way of escape into action. But, hitherto, the 
 fever of search had exhausted itself or been 
 quieted by the fastidious verdict, that for that to 
 which the search had conducted him he was not, 
 as yet, "prepared." All his mental troubles 
 being thus connected with this subject, and all 
 accidental depressions taking this colour, it was, 
 after all, not wonderful that the first tumults of 
 a great and unknown passion should fail to be 
 recognised in their true character — a great and 
 unknown passion the force of which is often 
 measured by the self-depreciation of its victims. 
 But now they were recognised. Full on his 
 mind and heart blazed the conviction of Esme's 
 infinite graces. In a few moments he seemed to 
 see and to connect, one with another, every trait 
 and feature of mind and body which, in three 
 or four brief interviews, had passed under his 
 observation. All seemed to him beautiful, harmo- 
 nious, unusual, and complete. Sublimated by
 
 MINE IS THINE. 199 
 
 his imagination, her perfections matched — nay 
 they overpasssed — those, which, in his day- 
 dreams, he had attributed to such a woman as 
 the painter had delineated. Thus she fulfilled 
 his dream and more ; for she had a thousand 
 other charms, all summed up in the one irra- 
 tional, but only true, reason for loving — she was 
 herself. 
 
 Are such things possible ? it may be asked — 
 such volcanic action in the minds of reasonable 
 beings ? — possible, above all, in the case of such 
 a man as Cosmo seems to pretend to be 1 Yes, 
 we reply ; above all, in the case of such men as 
 Cosmo. His heart had not been deadened by a 
 series of transitory impressions, nor had the fine- 
 ness of his sensibility and his perceptions been 
 blunted by a sensual way of life. Fastidious- 
 ness had protected him from the former evil — 
 purity, refinement, and perhaps it must be owned, 
 intellectualism, had held him from the latter ; 
 and so now this, the first real impression which 
 woman had ever made upon his heart and mind, 
 addressed itself to capabilities which awoke, for 
 the first time, with the freshness of youth and 
 the vigour of manhood combined. 
 
 Cosmo had in truth, though unconsciously, 
 been in the attitude attributed by a sweet singer
 
 200 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 to one waiting for his ideal, when he ex- 
 claims — 
 
 " Whenever she comes she will find me ready 
 To do her homage, my queen ! my queen ! " 
 
 And now she had come; and the " longer" he 
 had waited, the fuller and readier his homage. 
 
 The vigil was over, the preparation was com- 
 plete, when Cosmo reached the summit of the 
 rock, and at the first notes of Esme's voice the 
 revelation was made. She had come. At first 
 the pain of love, which springs from the dispro- 
 portion between longing and hope — the one in- 
 finite, the other so cramped by the exaggeration 
 of obstacles — at first this pain was unfelt. He 
 was in a trance of delight, in which pain was 
 impossible. His untutored heart, smitten with 
 a force which it could not control, answered 
 promptly to the shock. Words of love and 
 homage half rose to his lips, and longed for ut- 
 terance. His secret would have betrayed itself 
 to an expert before it had been many minutes 
 consciously in his own possession ; even to Esme, 
 perhaps, had not her perception of his strange 
 manner led her instinctively to an abrupt change 
 of subject, which recalled him sharply for the 
 moment from the world of delicious dreams.
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 201 
 
 Then, as by a lightning-flash, he beheld his posi- 
 tion — its danger, its hopelessness, and, as an im- 
 mediate consequence, the necessity for flight, as 
 instantly announced. 
 
 But yet, again, as he went home over the 
 bright waters, the glamour of dreamland fell 
 upon him. For him, again, it was as though 
 from amidst the confusions of a raving tempest 
 one clear strain of ineffable music had arisen — 
 a harmony of power that subdued to its own 
 theme, and absorbed into itself, every other 
 sound, steeping the soul of the listener in a 
 sense of beauty and repose. The forms of ex- 
 ternal things were scarcely noted by him ; but 
 he saw that everything was good. His thought 
 was of her alone; and the " light of the thought," 
 playing upon all the world, clothed it in hues 
 that belong to some better world than this. 
 
 Eeveries such as these, consciously indulged 
 in, hurry the dreamer, at lightning pace, along 
 a path of spells and enchantments, at the end of 
 which he is seized by a real power, and riveted 
 in real fetters. Cosmo, again in the narrow 
 solitude of his own chamber, fancied that he 
 awoke before that point had been reached. Be 
 that as it may, he completely recognised the sit- 
 uation into which he was drifting. He accused
 
 202 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 himself frankly, and admitted the impeachment, 
 with a sort of desperate calmness. 
 
 " I am falling in love," he said. " That which 
 has befooled wiser and stronger men is begin- 
 ning to throw its glamour over me ; " and then 
 the tenor of his thoughts was somewhat as fol- 
 lows : Was it fitting to surrender all one's facul- 
 ties to the sway of one passion, however pure ? 
 — to let the destinies of life revolve round the 
 will, perhaps the caprice, of one woman, how- 
 ever perfect ? This sudden distaste for all other 
 aims came as a timely warning. He must quell 
 the infatuation. If he suffered it to grow, it 
 would over-master him ; and what then ? Sup- 
 posing he succumbed, following the dictates of 
 inclination merely, what would be the result \ 
 The result was clear. He would be involved in 
 a hopeless quest ; his life would be ruined in 
 pursuing a dream. Hopeless ? Yes, indeed, 
 strange things happen, but scarcely things so 
 strange as this, that such a one should be at- 
 tracted by a man like him. Even were it other- 
 wise, there were a hundred other obstacles, all 
 insuperable. Who was she, and what was her 
 father's house ? And who was he ? Wealth on 
 both sides was the one point in common. Then 
 there were, on hers, illustrious lineage and
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 203 
 
 ancient traditions — the sacreclest of heirlooms. 
 Were such likely to be lightly transmitted to 
 another race, whose lineage and traditions were 
 represented by a blank — worse than an ignoble 
 history ? 
 
 No, it was hopeless ; she was as far beyond 
 his reach as the stars in heaven. But now that 
 he saw the madness, now that he knew the 
 source of this fever that had been distracting 
 his purposes, he must calmly set himself to root 
 it out. He would not allow it to blind him, to 
 distort the aspect of everything. He would 
 turn it to his own purposes by escaping from 
 it into action. Fortunately flight was in his 
 power — instant flight. He would go away, no 
 matter whither ; he would go away from an in- 
 fluence which he felt might become irresistible. 
 He would fight this madness upon evener terms, 
 and, conquering it, would find, as the reward of 
 victory, the true way of life. In this brave 
 manner did Eeason declare war against Passion, 
 speaking high and earnest words to assert a con- 
 fidence perhaps not truly felt, and to drown the 
 voice of the enemy. With a surplus of confi- 
 dence truly, and a stroug reserve of patience, 
 must Eeason enter on such a conflict. 
 
 Cosmo, awakened from his dream, and sud-
 
 204 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 denly conscious of his danger, turned, at first, 
 to the side which called him with this loud note 
 of warning, and which offered him deliverance 
 from evils to come. 
 
 Exhausted and bewildered he submitted him- 
 self, and swore to follow Keason's dictates ; but 
 pain and heaviness were in his heart. 
 
 Poor victim ! on this long day he had had 
 many thoughts and many revelations. He had 
 risen from the " Inferno " to Paradise, and, 
 falling thence, was now suffering the strong 
 pangs of Purgatory. 
 
 We must now say a word or two about Esme, 
 who went from the moonlight interview both 
 interested and puzzled. Even in her first inter- 
 view with Cosmo she had found him to be 
 different from any person she had met before — 
 of graver thoughts and more refined interests 
 than the people she ordinarily came in contact 
 with ; and, at the same time, with a certain 
 self-restraint and calm, in his way of looking at 
 things and discussing them, which relieved his 
 conversation from the oppressiveness of dog- 
 matism. Indeed, the modesty of his tone in 
 advancing any view — even to her — was as 
 marked as the refined gentleness and courtesy 
 of his manner towards her.
 
 MINE IS THINE. 205 
 
 All this could not fail to prepossess one 
 capable, as she was, of appreciating it ; and 
 Tom AVyedale's revelations as to his friend's 
 somewhat fantastic earnestness in the pursuit 
 of culture had struck her imagination as — well, 
 as something original and exalted. It cannot be 
 denied that she had been thinking a good deal 
 about him all this evening, uor that she had, 
 in fact, begun to place him upon a pedestal of 
 calm and lofty intellectual purpose, at which 
 serene altitude she was preparing to gaze with 
 growing interest and admiration. Not a little 
 puzzling, therefore, was it to find this statuesque 
 hero immediately jumping from his pedestal, 
 in the most human way, and pouring forth, in 
 a burst of unconventional frankness, the passion 
 of his self-contempt, and the despairing convic- 
 tion that his life, so far from being heroic, was 
 vacillating, little, and void. The incident was 
 altogether astonishing. Had he come there to 
 make her his confidante ? If so, why ? Or 
 was their meeting altogether accidental ? but 
 still, if so, why was she the recipient of his 
 confidence ? It was almost incredible ! But 
 was it displeasing ? No ; such touches of 
 nature make us more akin than statuesque 
 heroism on the one hand, and reverent contem-
 
 206 MINE IS THIXE. 
 
 plation thereof on the other. This frank aban- 
 donment of reserve touched Esme's sympathy, 
 and roused that interest in the man himself, 
 which she had before given to the rather cold 
 abstraction — his intellectual earnestness. 
 
 But fear not, reader ; she is not going to out- 
 rage your sense of the probable by blazing into 
 a coincidence of impromptu love. We shall 
 leave her, if you please, to her bewilderment 
 and her interest for the present.
 
 207 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Cosmo Glexcairx, writhing in his mental pur- 
 gatory, and physically exhausted — for a fast of 
 fifteen hours, broken only by a crust of bread, 
 is trying even to the powers of a novelist's hero 
 — Cosmo Glencairn, thus suffering and prostrate, 
 was not in the mood to receive with equanimity 
 any further buffets from Fate. One, however, 
 was in store for him ; and it was delivered in 
 the shape of a visit from his friend Tom Wye- 
 dale. That worthy, whose immense animal 
 spirits obeyed with alacrity every animal influ- 
 ence, such as light, heat, food, drink, as well as 
 the nervous exaltation of late hours and the 
 friction of lively talk, was usually "about his 
 best " when other people were thinking that the 
 time for bed had well arrived. On this night, 
 under a combination of pleasing stimulants, the 
 Ravenhall bed-hour found him just in the hu- 
 mour to begin the evening. " Bed ! " he ex-
 
 208 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 claimed. " Bed at eleven o'clock ? No, no ; 
 I'd sooner make another night of it with that 
 devil of a Mr Cass and his excruciating ' Bour- 
 bon/ But Cosmo must be home by this time. 
 I'll go and draw him." Accordingly, in about 
 a minute after, a tremendous rap at Cosmo's 
 door roused that sad muser from his troubled 
 thoughts; and Tom broke upon his solitude 
 with the sudden garish effect of a hundred gas- 
 jets simultaneously " turned on " in a dark room. 
 
 "Ha, ha!" he cried — "found at last! Ah, 
 wanderer, what anxieties have been mine ! Un- 
 ravel the mystery ; where have you been ? and 
 how ? and why ? Speak ! son of the pale faces ; 
 stare not with these unspeculative orbs ! Un- 
 ravel ! " 
 
 "Oh, I've been trying an alterative — a day's 
 solitude " 
 
 " It don't seem to have been beneficial. Why, 
 now I look at you, you are pale, with a ven- 
 geance, and — excuse my freedom — rather wild- 
 looking. What's the matter, old man?" 
 
 " Matter % Well, I suppose I'm tired ; in fact 
 I am tired — done up." 
 
 " Now here is a mystery. Nothing more to 
 tell?" 
 
 " Nothing more."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 209 
 
 il Delightful ! the plot thickens ! a veritable 
 mystery ! who is she ? " 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " Why, the. female person who must inevit- 
 ably be connected with the fifteen hours' mys- 
 terious absence from his headquarters of any 
 man under, say forty — senior ibus debetur reve- 
 rentia, I suppose." 
 
 To Tom's surprise his friend's countenance 
 changed, as he said, hurriedly — 
 
 "There are exceptions, I suppose, even to 
 such incontestable rules. I was away on the 
 other side of Lake Lecco. I fell asleep, and 
 slept for hours, in a wood. There was no Egeria 
 there, however. I did not awake till it was dark, 
 and — and here I am." 
 
 " Ah ! yes, that I can see ; but — well, you've 
 had rather a meagre day it seems. Apropos, 
 have you dined ? " 
 
 " No, I couldn't eat. I must turn in now, I 
 think. What have you been about ? " 
 
 " Oh, my day has been pregnant with events." 
 
 " Tell me about them in the morning, like a 
 good fellow." 
 
 " Why not now \ " 
 
 " Now, I must sleep." 
 
 " I don't think the narrative will over-excite 
 vol. i. o
 
 210 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 you ; you will sleep immediately after it, I 
 guarantee that as a minimum. My sister and 
 Kavenhall arrived yesterday/' 
 
 " Did they 1 Going to stay ? " 
 
 "That depends. My sister is a woman of 
 many wiles. I dined with them last night and 
 to-night. I find she has come down here in 
 pursuit of game." 
 
 " Yes \ what sort of game ? " 
 
 " The old game — an heiress for me ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " Yes, nothing discourages her. She was pass- 
 ing through Milan, of course ' by the merest 
 accident in the world/ and, scenting a prey 
 down here, hither she has come to drive it. She 
 has already pledged me to co-operate ; she has 
 already spread her toils, and we have had a pre- 
 liminary ' beat ' this afternoon. Can you guess 
 who the victim is ? " 
 
 " I know no one here, except, of course, Miss 
 Douglas, and " 
 
 "Well, your knowledge is sufficient for the 
 occasion. My sister proposes to annex Miss 
 Douglas." 
 
 Cosmo started and winced ; but Tom was 
 engaged in rolling a cigarette, and did not 
 notice his friend's emotion.
 
 MINE IS THINE. 211 
 
 " To annex Miss Douglas," he continued, "with 
 all her unquestioned advantages, actual and in 
 reversion. What do you say to it ? " he went 
 on, as Cosmo continued silent, with compressed 
 lips and clenched hands. 
 
 " Say to it \ " was the reply. " Why, what 
 should I say to it ? " 
 
 " Approve?" 
 
 " You know I don't approve of fortune-hunt- 
 ing." 
 
 " Wish me well through it, at all events." 
 
 " No, I won't. I abominate this sort of thing. 
 I can't stand hearing a lady spoken of in this 
 way. Even as a joke, it disgusts me." 
 
 " Ah, my dear Cosmo, this is no joke ; solemn 
 earnest, I assure you — awful earnest ! I don't 
 like the business any more than you do, though 
 my objections are otherwise founded. But, que 
 diable ! a man must live." 
 
 " Must he \ Not necessarily by entrapping 
 heiresses, however." 
 
 " * Entrapping ! ' What a word ! You change 
 the colour of a transaction by choosing the wrong 
 term. It is the ' suggestio falsi.' '" 
 
 " What of * toils' and 'victims' then, and the 
 ' pursuit of game ' % " 
 
 " Pshaw ! figures of speech ! If an heiress
 
 212 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 chooses to be captivated with me, that is her 
 affair ; and, indeed, since to be captivated is 
 to be blessed, it is only kind to give her the 
 chance of being captivated, and only fair to 
 myself to let her see that captivation may take 
 place on my side too." 
 
 " You don't dare to say that you think Miss 
 Douglas is captivated with you ? " 
 
 "No," said Tom, standing up to light his 
 cigarette, and speaking between the puffs. 
 " Alas ! I wish I could ; the (bother this ciga- 
 rette !) — the struggle would be over, because, 
 personally, I mean to capitulate at once. But 
 give us both time — all three, I should say, for 
 my sister is in the thick of it." 
 
 "I really beg that you will leave me now. 
 You must know that this kind of lansmaee is 
 offensive to me." 
 
 " Must I \ Why % Not unless you're jealous ; 
 then I could understand : but that can't be, 
 after what you said yesterday. You can't pos- 
 sibly be jealous, old boy 1 " 
 
 " Jealous 1 nonsense ! but there's a right and 
 a wrong way of talking about ladies, and yours 
 is the wrong way. I have another motive, 
 too, for asking you to leave me. I haven't 
 told you, I believe, that I am going away to- 
 morrow."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 213 
 
 " Going away 1 to-morrow ? " said Tom, in a 
 voice of consternation. 
 
 " To-morrow. To England." 
 
 " The devil ! " cried Tom, the gloom of whose 
 face now rivalled that of his friend's. 
 
 " Yes, and I must get to bed now." 
 
 " But why this sudden change of plans ? " 
 
 " That does not matter ; they are changed. I 
 am going ; so, good night : I'll see you in the 
 morning." 
 
 Tom was for the moment so utterly con- 
 founded that he said " Good night " absently, 
 and left the room ; but scarcely had he reached 
 the end of the corridor, when he halted with a 
 look of desperation, and came back rapidly to 
 his friend's apartment. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, old man," he said, put- 
 ting his head in at his friend's door, "but do 
 you really mean this ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes. ' I am going' is plain Eng- 
 lish, is it not ? " 
 
 " Well, yes ; but I thought " 
 
 " Now, what is it ? " 
 
 " Don't be so fierce, old man. Well, it is 
 this — that heathenish banker of mine " 
 
 " Oh, hang it ! How much do you want ? 
 Out with it at once. Here's my cheque-book. 
 Now, how much ? I'm dead tired."
 
 214 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Would two — yes, two-fifty, or say eighty, 
 for three months, be " 
 
 Before he had finished speaking, Cosmo was 
 writing the cheque, and Tom had only had time 
 to regret that he had not said " Three-eighty " 
 when the cheque was handed to him. 
 
 " Ever so many thanks, old fellow," he said. 
 " Til be punctual. Three months. Let me see : 
 we are now — hum — in May. Well, then — ah ! 
 — hum — June, July, August. August \ ah ! to 
 be sure ; exactly, all right," as if a sudden gleam 
 of recollection revealed the probability of a pecu- 
 niary plethora in that month. " I hate," he 
 added, " taking a loan without seeing my way ; 
 but August will suit admirably. Thanks, thanks. 
 Good night. Awfully sorry you're going," and 
 he was off. 
 
 " I would have given him double the money 
 to be quit of him to-night," muttered Cosmo. 
 
 " What an ass I was not to say five hundred 
 at once ! " sighed Tom as he went on his way. 
 
 He was able, however (with the tangible con- 
 solation of Cosmo's cheque in his pocket), to 
 bear with fortitude the prospect of his friend's 
 departure. He even admitted that it was now 
 desirable. " For," said he, " if the fellow is going 
 to get on such a very tall moral horse, and ride
 
 MINE IS THINE. 215 
 
 rough -shod over our new-born projects, Lucy 
 will find it hard work to get me to stand up to 
 the business like a man." He was inclined to 
 think, however, that in the morning there would 
 be another chancre, and that Cosmo would re- 
 main after all. But in this he was mistaken. 
 
 The day proved bright and cloudless, but 
 cool ; and when Cosmo looked forth, all that 
 paradise of land and water lay before his eyes 
 in its most seductive aspects. It was very try- 
 ing to leave such a scene, and in such circum- 
 stances. It cost a hard struggle to resist the 
 appeal of external Nature, who urged him with 
 all her fascinations to linger. Even on the 
 snow-peaks far away, the early light spread a 
 soft and goodly bloom. The spirit of dolce far 
 niente hovered over the lake and its shores. 
 Everywhere there was " a rapture of repose ; " 
 but it was the repose of life, lulled and happy ; 
 for, now and then, some drowsy echoes of languid 
 song came over the water, and now and then 
 the mountain breeze passed, dreamily murmur- 
 ous, through the groves, and gleaned the fra- 
 grance from their boughs, and bore it to the 
 lake, which flashed into sunny ripples as it took 
 the gift. A scene for happiness and love — re- 
 quited love, dreaming its dream of perpetuity,
 
 216 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 with no jarring sound from the outer world to 
 break the dear illusion. 
 
 " Beautiful ! but not for me," said Cosmo 
 aloud, as, after gazing for a few moments at 
 the matchless prospect, he turned from the win- 
 dow, and set about his preparations for the jour- 
 ney. So that Tom was mistaken. His friend 
 stuck to his resolution, and went ; vouchsafing 
 no further explanation of his movement, declin- 
 ing Tom's escort in the steamer as far as the 
 town of Como, and leaving that worthy, though 
 after a kindly farewell, in a state of deep mysti- 
 fication. " You can address to me at the 
 
 Club in London," said Cosmo ; " and I suppose 
 a letter to this place will find you, for some 
 time." That was all. As the steamer carried 
 him away, he never looked behind him. He 
 turned his back upon the Villa Bianca, and 
 looked straight ahead, thus symbolising that he 
 abandoned love and dreams, and faced the future, 
 cheerless and full of perplexity as it was.
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 In leaving Cadenabbia, Cosmo's plans were per- 
 fectly indefinite. He had suddenly decided " to 
 go away "—and nothing more ; and it would 
 have been hard to say by what instinct (for it 
 was scarcely with a conscious purpose) he took 
 the route to London. But having fixed upon 
 that destination, he pursued his journey with as 
 much eagerness to reach its end, as though 
 called thither by imperious necessity. 
 
 It was a beautiful morning when he reached 
 London ; and, as the forenoon wore on, he 
 beheld from his windows in Piccadilly the 
 stream of well-dressed loungers, on horse and 
 foot, setting steadily towards the Park. 
 
 Beginning to feel a reaction from the excite- 
 ment of rapid travel, and unfit, in fact, for any- 
 thing else, he dressed and soon found himself 
 floating with the stream to Eotten Eow. It 
 was a year since he had been there, and he felt
 
 218 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 strangely bewildered, thus dropping from the 
 lotus-eater's paradise of Como, into the wondrous 
 congregation which performs the liturgy of 
 " morning Park ; " wonderful indeed, with its 
 coup d'ceil of beauty, movement, colour, con- 
 trast, and variety, all set in the tender frame of 
 leaves and blossoms. He moved on absently, 
 amidst the strangely bracketed incongruities 
 which Fashion, with unconscious wit, here par- 
 ades so lavishly. Now and then a voice broke 
 from the level hum and hailed him. Now and 
 then a fair equestrian swooped to him, in a 
 gracious bow, as she cantered past. Now and 
 then an acquaintance stopped to ask him a 
 hurried question, or to tell him some new thing 
 in a frugal whisper. 
 
 No one was surprised to see him ; all greeted 
 him as if one seen yesterday. Naturally : but 
 to-day this puzzled him. A decade seemed to 
 have elapsed since his last visit to the Park. 
 These faces and voices seemed to belong to some 
 half-forgotten period. He had run away from 
 the world of dreams ; and here, in the heart 
 of the world of reality, he seemed to gaze upon 
 a phantasmagoria. 
 
 He went on to where the path branches up to 
 the Serpentine, and he followed it. Presently
 
 MINE IS THINE. 219 
 
 he came upon a young man dressed in attire 
 which had once been fashionable, but which 
 was now dismally faded and frayed. Cosmo 
 recognised in him, and with surprise, one of his 
 oldest friends, and the son, moreover, of a 
 deceased friend of his father. The young man 
 was standing in rapt contemplation of a collie 
 dog and a swan, who were having a " difficulty" 
 with each other, by land and water — the dog in 
 exasperating fun, the swan furious. 
 
 " Ah, my dear Cosmo ! " he cried, " delighted 
 
 to see you again ! You've but wait a bit ! 
 
 Just look ! Swan scores now to a moral ! 
 No, he don't. Bravo, collie ! Now swan ! By 
 George ! a nasty one that for the dog ! Thrown 
 up the sponge. The cur ! How are you, Cosmo ? 
 Look seedy. Been to Mount Ararat, picking up 
 chips of the ark, or where ? I haven't seen you 
 for an age." 
 
 " No, I've been in Italy for a good while. 
 But you, Phil ! what on earth has happened to 
 you?" 
 
 " I ? Oh ! There now ; just look at that 
 
 beast of a swan ! — bullying the ducks next. 
 Never saw such a fiend as that bird is, when 
 you once get his back up." 
 
 " You seem to be intimate with his habits."
 
 220 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " I believe you, and with some reason. 
 They're my only amusement now, these birds 
 — my only resource." 
 
 " Why, what has happened to you ? " 
 " Happened to me \ Look at me. I'm cleaned 
 out, that's all. Listen to the precis. Spanish 
 bonds. Twenty thousand pounds. Used to 
 give me eighteen hundred a-year. To-day, 
 nothing — a duck's egg, and that not eatable." 
 " But what has that to do with the birds % " 
 " Everything. Look at my clothes. Can I 
 show in such things down there ? Can I mingle 
 with the world thus ? The world has distinctly 
 said ' No.' Every one has shunted me. My 
 quondam fair friends have the sun in their eyes 
 when we meet. No one was ever so exhaus- 
 tively cut by everybody. I suppose I look as 
 if I wanted to borrow money. I don't, however. 
 But thus wags the world. Well, you see, they 
 don't quite drive me out of the Park. I'm still 
 here, for my hours of recreation, ha ! ha ! But 
 it's no fun being cut every two minutes ; and 
 besides, my clothes are really too scandalous ; so 
 I hang about up here a good deal, commanding 
 a view, with one eye, of the Eow, my ancient 
 friends, and former way of life, and observing, 
 with the other, the habits of these birds — who,
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 221 
 
 to do them justice, are really good fun, if you 
 give your mind to them. My right eye and my 
 left compare notes ; and fine philosophisings 
 and withering sarcasms are evolved beneath this 
 seedy tile. But to think that eighteen months 
 ago I was down there in the ' Eide ' well 
 mounted, fed, dressed, liked — and now these 
 paltry water -fowl for all my pals. The pity 
 of it, Cosmo ! — the pity of it ! " 
 
 " Why, Phil, you talk like an imbecile. Do 
 you expect to mend matters by idling here 1 
 "Why don't you do something 1 Why don't you 
 take the remnant of your money and go and 
 work with it in a new sphere — a colony — any- 
 where out of this \ " 
 
 " Easy to say { work ' and c remnant.' Pro- 
 duce the ' work ' and the ( remnant,' and I'll do 
 the one and use the other — if I can. I'm sick 
 of this life. Not a club to my name now ; can't 
 stand the ready money. Tick at a cheap restaur- 
 ant ; garret in Soho ; about a hundred pounds 
 left of all I had ; that sum owed over and over 
 again to divers suckers of blood. That's the 
 situation ; and a pretty grisly one I find it, 
 Cosmo, my friend. 
 
 "I remember that, after my father's death, I 
 went to your father, and asked him about an
 
 222 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 investment for my £20,000. He advised me to 
 put it into a business, and go in with it myself, 
 and work and make a fortune. I reminded him 
 that my own father had begun life with the 
 same capital, and, after working hard all his 
 life, and making half a million, lost it all one 
 fine morning, and was only able to leave his 
 nest-egg to me, because it had been settled on 
 my mother. ' Well/ said your father, ' you can't 
 afford to be idle on the legitimate interest of 
 £20,000/ ' No/ I said ; ' but as my father was 
 ruined by legitimate business and work, I think 
 I'll try what can be done with illegitimate interest 
 and idleness. It's a toss-up between the two as 
 to safety, I fancy. Can you put me up to some 
 nice illegitimate thing, at about 20 per cent V 
 Then your governor flared up, and sent me 
 about my business. Well I know better now. I 
 wish I had the chance again of taking his advice." 
 
 " After all, Phil," said Cosmo, " we both want 
 the same thing. We both want work." 
 
 " Why on earth do you wish to work ? " 
 
 " To satisfy myself ; and since, to obtain the 
 same end, you must work, we are in the same 
 boat." 
 
 " Eemember, however, that you are a cabin 
 passenger, and that I am in the forecastle."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 223 
 
 "Well, were both sailing in search of the 
 same port, and the more or less comforts of the 
 voyage don't matter much." 
 
 " Don't they \ Exchange berths with me, 
 and I'll cruise about, sine die, without bothering 
 about the port at all." 
 
 "You take a low view of things, Phil." 
 
 " So, perhaps, would you, if you were hungry 
 and ill lodged, and ill clad, and then cut by all 
 the world, whereas I once had troops of friends : 
 yet, I am sure, I never did any fellow any 
 harm — not willingly, at least." 
 
 " Dear old Phil ! I'm sure you never did. 
 I'm very sorry for you — more than very sorry. 
 What can I do for you 1 " 
 
 " I don't know, Cosmo. You know I won't 
 borrow money; besides, it wouldn't be borrow- 
 ing now. So what you may do, if you can, is, 
 I suppose, to find me some employment." 
 
 " I wish I could, Phil ; but there is nothing 
 so hard to find as employment for a man not 
 specially trained to anything." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; but my views are limited now. 
 With all my heart, and thankfully, I will tackle 
 to anything, and take what I can get. I know 
 the difficulties of getting that ' something ' to 
 do, which ruined men, brought up to do no-
 
 224 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 thing, are always hunting for. I've exhausted 
 every method : answered scores of advertise- 
 ments — even reached that deepest depth of 
 replying (with enclosure of fourteen stamps) to 
 one which offered ' gentlemanly employment — 
 not involving serious distraction from other 
 work — at £5 a-week.' I've reached, perhaps, 
 even a deeper depth than that. I offered 
 myself as advertising poet to Blogg the cheap 
 shirt-maker ! I wrote, at his request, a sample 
 of my powers, in celebration of his * Obconic 
 Shirt' — and was rejected, — I, Philip Denwick, 
 who was proxime accessit for the Chancellor's 
 medal at Cambridge, was found unworthy to 
 hymn the huckstering invention of a man 
 named Blogg ! Look here ; here are the verses. 
 Eead them, and say if Blogg is not a monster 
 of obtuseness." 
 
 He took a slip of paper from his pocket and 
 handed it to Cosmo, who read as follows : — 
 
 "Buy Blogg's Obconic Shirt at 3s. 9d." 
 
 Obconic ! Obconic ! thy magical name 
 
 Electrified London, in letters of flame ; 
 
 For " Sandwich " battalions swept slow through the streets, 
 
 With the awful aplomb of police on their beats, 
 
 Displaying on boards, borne like banners in line, 
 
 The legend, " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 225 
 
 I went by the river, I came by the Strand ; 
 
 Around me, above me — by water and land, 
 
 From pier and from boarding, from 'bus, boat, and wall, 
 
 The genius of Blogg spoke its gospel to all : 
 
 But the people were puzzled, and failed to divine 
 
 What it meant — this " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine." 
 
 Time passed ! 'Twas the leafiest moment of June, 
 
 And the hands on the clock of High Fashion marked noon, 
 
 When shadily placed in Hyde Park, by the " Bide," 
 
 I watched, flowing by, the equestrian tide — 
 
 Full and smooth as the flood of exuberant Bhine, 
 
 Or thy bosom, " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine." 
 
 " Anonyma" passed on her high-stepping mare, 
 
 Lady this and Lord that and Sir t'other were there, 
 
 And Bum our asserted the Prince was at hand, 
 
 And loud clashed, from Knightsbridge, the cavalry band ; 
 
 But none to mere pleasure their hearts could resign, 
 
 For the thought of " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine." 
 
 Oh, languid' s the stare, it is said, of hant ton ! 
 And it seldom looks hard at one object, or long ; 
 But modish restraints were cast wildly aside, 
 When sudden appeared, in the midst of the " Bide," 
 A youth, who all others in grace did outshine ; 
 'Twas thy " showman," " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and- 
 nine." 
 
 Swift reined in their jennets fair bevies of belles, 
 Slow backward in dudgeon fell armies of swells — 
 Admiration and envy shot fire from each eye, 
 As the noble young gaillard rode haughtily by ; 
 Ay ! well might his bosom swell high, I opine, 
 For it swelled 'neath " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three - and- 
 nine." 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 226 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 Curveting lightly, he passed up the " Ride," 
 
 And Fashion, at first, stood agape on each side ; 
 
 But soon rose a shout, 'mid the champing of bits, 
 
 " This must be ' Obconic.' Just see how it fits ! " 
 
 "You are right," cried the youth, as he bowed down the line 
 
 " You behold the ' Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine.' " 
 
 Swiftly he turned him, and passed to the street, 
 
 Galloped behind him a glittering suite ; 
 
 Racing and chasing up Piccadillee, 
 
 Went nobles and gentles — a wonder to see — 
 
 Racing and chasing, for none wished to dine 
 
 Till supplied with " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine." 
 
 The clubs of St James's, the clubs of Pall Mall, 
 
 Sent the flower of their youth the procession to swell, 
 
 And when it had come to that warehouse of Bl egg's, 
 
 A thousand young nobs, in the noblest of togs, 
 
 Rushed in, and exclaimed, as though maddened with wine, 
 
 " Give us all the ' Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine.' " 
 
 It was done ; and the pick of the nobilitee 
 
 Went scampering homewards in pride and in glee : 
 
 And from that day to this he who longs for success — 
 
 For the senate's applause, or the maiden's caress — 
 
 Never needs to despond, or his dear hopes resign, 
 
 While he sports the " Obconic ! by Blogg. Three-and-nine.'' 
 
 Cosmo gave him back the paper, laughing 
 heartily at the quaint earnestness of his friend's 
 expression in contrast with the preposterous 
 absurdity of the verses. 
 
 " I think/' he said, " Mr Blogg must be 
 rather fastidious." 
 
 " The villain had the audacity to say that 
 he didn't think my vein was ' hepic ' enough
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 227 
 
 for his line of business : but it's just my luck 
 all over ; nothing will ever turn up trumps 
 for me." 
 
 " Don't say that, Phil. I'll think it over, 
 and see what can be clone. Meantime, dine 
 with me to-night at * The Gastronomic,' and 
 we'll talk it over : eight o'clock." 
 
 " All right ; but in that case I must go and 
 give warning at the restaurant, or they'll nail 
 me for the daily 'regulation/ Au revoir" 
 
 " Money ! money ! money ! " mused Cosmo, 
 as he strolled along; "half my friends seem 
 to have no other cry on their lips or wish in 
 their hearts. It is their summum bonum. If 
 they got their wish, I wonder how many of 
 them would be happier than they are. It 
 seems to do nothing for me in that way. I 
 doubt if even Tom Wyedale would be happier. 
 Without all that intriguing against his banker 
 and friends which represents his mental activity 
 at present, he would find life flat. Poor Phil's 
 case is different. Actually pinched for the 
 common necessaries of life ! That is horrible ! 
 Then he is willing to work, and unwilling to 
 borrow. I doubt if anything would bring Tom 
 to that. I can conceive no circumstances under 
 which Tom would not have fine clothes and
 
 228 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 good dinners. Poor Phil is of a different 
 stamp ; has good brains, and is a manly fellow 
 in his way ; and these misfortunes, with work 
 to follow — lots of work — might make a man of 
 him. He is not steeped to the chin in pleasure 
 and selfishness, like Tom." 
 
 "After all, perhaps, these are lucky fellows 
 whose summum bonum is money — for that, at 
 least, is attainable ; while mine is what I must 
 not even think of. Let me be honest with 
 myself, and admit it. Let me be true to my- 
 self, and find a substitute for it. A substitute ! 
 well, at least an anodyne. Work is the only 
 anodyne. Enough of myself; let me think of 
 Phil. Something must be done for him. Surely 
 my father might find something for him — the 
 son of his old friend — at my intercession. Yes, 
 I think so ; I will try. By the by, what an 
 age it is since I saw my father ! I must write 
 and tell him of my return, or go down and see 
 him. That will be best. I will go down at 
 once — to-morrow. I will try to forget myself, 
 and think only of Phil, till I have set him on 
 his feet again."
 
 229 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "Ah ! bravo, Phil ! punctual to the moment ! " 
 cried Cosmo, as his guest entered the hall of 
 the club. 
 
 " Hunger is the best horologe, my friend — 
 a new aphorism — nearly all my own." 
 
 "Bring it into the dining-room, then. Din- 
 ner is ready." 
 
 " Oh, this is a sensation I did not expect to 
 experience again ! Two years since I ate my 
 last dinner here — then, alas ! a member. I say" 
 (pausing in the hall), " how about my gar- 
 ments \ All right \ " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " We don't dress at our ordinary — that gives 
 the evening things a chance. There's a fun- 
 gusy sort of a smell about them, though, I fear ; 
 notice it ? " 
 
 " Not a bit. Come on." 
 
 " By George ! what a lot of fellows ! This
 
 230 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 your table ? Thank goodness ! I shouldn't 
 like to run the gauntlet of the whole room. 
 But, after all, IVe done nothing to be ashamed 
 of. Courage, Philip Denwick ! Courage, rnon 
 brave ! Oh, you Amphitryon ! Oysters and 
 chablis ! The price of three days' dinners in 
 the molluscs, and in the wine " 
 
 "Bad manners, Phil, to appraise the dinner." 
 
 " Ah, to be sure ; they are exotics culled in 
 Leicester Square. But, after six oysters and a 
 glass of chablis, my retransformation will be 
 complete." 
 
 " Poor old Phil ! " said Cosmo, " I'm awfully 
 glad to see you. By the by, I have an idea 
 that I shall manage to get something for you 
 through my father. I think we shall make it 
 all right. So, meantime, eat, drink, and be 
 merry." 
 
 " Ah, Cosmo ! why are you so kind to me % 
 I don't deserve it ; I'm a worthless fellow. Why, 
 you've actually been thinking and scheming 
 about me since we met — the only fellow who 
 has given me a thought " 
 
 " Tut, man ! it is only common friendship ; 
 don't gush about it." 
 
 " No, I won't gush ; but it isn't ' common 
 friendship.' Common friendship (ex'perto crede)
 
 MINE IS THINE. 231 
 
 has the sun in his eyes or is morbidly interested 
 in the pavement, when he meets an old pal in a 
 rusty coat. All those fellows down there — I 
 know a dozen of them — are ' common friend- 
 ship.' They pass by on the other side. If I 
 had been a thief it would have been different ; 
 but I only fell among thieves ; and you are the 
 only good Samaritan." 
 
 "Now, Phil, shut up." 
 
 " Well, I will ; but admit that you are pour- 
 ing into my wounds oil " 
 
 " No more of it." 
 
 "Not to say, oysters and chablis, and those 
 other benefits to come with which gratitude is 
 so much concerned," added Phil, turning off in 
 a joke the emotion which kindness, loug strange 
 to him, really awakened. " Yet, he continued — 
 
 " ' Yet to that golden heart of thine, 
 
 I'll pledge this blossom of the golden wine.' 
 
 On second thoughts, I won't; 111 await the 
 champagne, which I perceive to be in ambush ; 
 for the poet's 'blossom' 'must clearly mean the 
 mousse of that delicious intoxicant. Let us be 
 exact." 
 
 " I say, Phil," said Cosmo, " how do you get 
 on for society % Solitude to a gregarious man 
 like you must be a real affliction."
 
 232 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Society \ I have none ; except, of course, at 
 my dinner hour, in the modest restaurant close 
 by Leicester Square." 
 " And what is that ? " 
 
 " Mixed rather ; all foreign, but of all nation- 
 alities. We are couriers, most of us ; but some 
 of us are commis-voyageurs, refugees — spies, I 
 suppose — and suchlike. We're a funny lot." 
 " How on earth did you drop into it ? " 
 " I dropped into it because the drop into 
 foreign low life did not seem so deep as the 
 drop into the home equivalent ; besides, I don't 
 believe there can be an English establishment of 
 the sort, with anything like the same low rate of 
 charges." 
 
 " Do you fraternise with your messmates ? " 
 " Kather ! Couldn't be avoided — at meals." 
 " And what are you supposed to be ? " 
 " Oh, they decided that somehow for them- 
 selves — an artist ! And the theory has devel- 
 oped, so that I am now an unappreciated genius, 
 with a great but unfinished work in my atelier, 
 which one day will, &c. &c. At first, I thought 
 of being a ' nobleman in disguise,' but it struck 
 me the disguise would become exaggerated as 
 Time and my wardrobe fought it out to the bit- 
 ter end. Besides, I should have been too much
 
 MINE IS THINE. 233 
 
 above my company. You see, we have no men 
 of title among us, except, perhaps, a chevalier 
 d'industrie or two, and they are too retiring to 
 parade their distinction." 
 
 "Don't they hang on to you, apart from the 
 dinner-hour ? " 
 
 " No, I manage to choke them off. Their 
 society at dinner is quite enough. Their man- 
 ners are not too nice, nor is their converse edify- 
 ing. There is fine free talking I can tell you, 
 among the couriers. I get some startling new 
 views of some of my old friends — (their em- 
 ployers). They have eyes, these fellows ; cer- 
 tainly they have tongues. Well, it is to be 
 hoped they seldom speak the truth. In any 
 case, no one is sacred. They spare neither sex 
 nor age. Apropos, you ought to hear the beasts 
 bragging of their conquests. It makes one's 
 blood curdle when it doesn't make one laugh. 
 There was a row at dinner among the lady- 
 killers yesterday, which was rich. It began in 
 this sort of way, between a Russian and a French- 
 man — awful scoundrels both. 
 
 " c Figurez vous ! ' quoth Antoine, the French 
 villain — ' figurez vous ! Je viens de voir cette 
 adorable Laydee Mayree, au pare, ce matin ! ' 
 
 " ' Bien ! bien ! ' growls Ivan, the Russ, who
 
 234 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 rather thinks he ought to have a monopoly of 
 the Lotharious business. 
 
 " ' Elle m'aime a la folie ! c'est sur,' cries An- 
 toine. 
 
 " ' Vous le croyez ? ' 
 
 " ' Si je le crois ! quancl nous nous rencon- 
 trons elle me fait comprendre tous ses senti- 
 ments, par un tout petit clignement d'ceil.' 
 
 " ' Et cela veut dire ? ' 
 
 " ' Cela dit, " Antoine ! adorable Antoine ! de- 
 cidez vous a vous declarer franchement. Moi, 
 je suis jeune, riche, belle, noble ; cependant je 
 suis tout a vous. Avancez, done ! Demandez ! 
 vous y gagnerez ! " ' 
 
 " ' II parait/ says Ivan, ' que ce diable de 
 clignement d'ceil vaut bien des paroles ! Mais 
 pourquoi ne pas s'avancer ? ' 
 
 " 'Ha ! il y en a bien d'autres qui Ecou- 
 
 tez— ' 
 
 " ' Uh ! ub ! ub ! ub ! bah ! ' roars Ivan, ' laissez 
 moi parler. Vous connaissez la Comtesse de ? ' 
 
 " ' Je Tai vue ; c'est une belle petite veuve qui 
 va se marier avec Seer Jams Thormson.' 
 
 " ' Ce n'est pas vrai.' 
 
 " ' Qui vous a dit le contraire ? ' 
 
 " ' La Comtesse elle-meme — hier au soir — par 
 un petit hochement d'6paules/
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 235 
 
 " ' Ce qui explique ? ' 
 
 " ' Ce qui dit : " Ivan ! ne croyez pas leurs 
 cletestables mensonges ! Je n'ai de place dans 
 mon coeur que pour vous ! Seer Jams n'est rien 
 pour moi ! " ' 
 
 " ' C'est un hocliement qui s'exprime tout 
 nettement ! Ecoutez ! La Laydee Mayree ' 
 
 u ' Ub ! ub ! ub ! ub ! bah ! ' 
 
 " ' Est ce que c'est un ours qui parle \ ou bien 
 un pore ? ' cries Antoine, in a fury. Here a 
 heavy German miscreant, Fritz, explained to me 
 confidentially, but aloud, ' Mees Fannee Baykair 
 ees een loff wees me. Himmel ! aw- fool-lee een 
 loff.' The others turned like tigers on the out- 
 sider who was violating their special territory. 
 ' Amoureuse de toi ! ; they cried. ' Amoureuse 
 de toi ! avec ta fio-ure de cochon ! ' Then there 
 was a row, and they all fought in a bunch. Ah, 
 Cosmo, you may laugh ! but to sit at meat with 
 ruffians of that sort is not the least of trials. 
 When I think of them I say, ' What is there in 
 the way of work that I would not undertake if 
 thereby I might escape V. n 
 
 " Your old aversion to work has evapo- 
 rated 1 " 
 
 " Perforce it is clean gone. I long for 
 work."
 
 236 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 "Stick to that, Phil, and we'll pull you 
 through. You're fortunate, I daresay, to be 
 beyond the reach of fastidiousness." 
 
 "Fastidiousness! why, if I hadn't come across 
 you, I believe that, in a very few days, I would 
 have taken a regular header, and separated my- 
 self, once for all, from my old grade — become a 
 'working man.' " 
 
 " Couldn't you have become a reporter for the 
 press, or even a writer ? " 
 
 " I daresay I could, if they would have had 
 me, which they wouldn't. My antecedents were 
 not in my favour, and I had no one to back me, 
 so everything was barred. I went to Sherville, 
 the Under-Secretary, you know, who really has 
 some influence, and used to be a great friend 
 of mine. I asked him if he couldn't put me up 
 to something of the sort. He was very civil, 
 and said he ' would see,' and let me know. He 
 didn't let me know, and now he can't even see 
 me. I suppose he's ashamed of having forgotten 
 all about it, and so falls back on cutting me. 
 Stupid of him ! Aha ! here comes Flintshire ! 
 Now, what will he do ? " He has ignored me 
 steadily ever since 'the fall.' He can't pass 
 you. Come, I enjoy this. Yes, thanks, another 
 glass of champagne."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 237 
 
 Up came the noble lord alluded to, and 
 stopped to greet Glencairn effusively, who re- 
 turned his salutations, and then said — 
 
 " Surely you and Denwick know each other? " 
 
 Whereupon his lordship screwed his glass 
 very tight into his eye, stepped back, gazed 
 earnestly at Phil, then thrust a right cordial 
 arm across the table, and exclaimed — 
 
 u Why, bless me ! it is Denwick ! Bless me, 
 so it is ! Who ivould have expected to see 
 you ? And how are you ? Don't know when 
 I've seen you. Been to the-er ' Catacombs/ 
 haven't you ? " 
 
 "Well, I've been a good deal in that line of 
 country." 
 
 " So some one said — Pyramids or ' Cata- 
 combs ' — forget which ; and how are you f " 
 
 " Well, I feel a little mouldy after the * Cata- 
 combs.'" 
 
 "Mouldy! Ha! ha! ha! So like him, eh? 
 Not half a bad place, though, I suppose ? Lots 
 of shooting and that — Egypt-er. Well, my 
 time's up," and off he went. 
 
 " What does the ass mean by the ' Cata- 
 combs ' ? I don't suppose he knows what he 
 means ; but he does know that he's seen me 
 half-a-dozen times in the last month. Oh, here
 
 238 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 comes little Peter Wellborough ! liim will I 
 accost." 
 
 Up came Peter, crying gaily, "Just come 
 to town, you two foreigners of distinction % 
 Couldn't have the appetite for a menu like this 
 if you had been here a week." 
 
 " Why do you cut me nowadays, Peter % " 
 asked Phil, in whose veins the champagne was 
 beginning to " make summer." 
 
 " Cut you 1 " (rather abashed)— "I cut you? " 
 
 " Distinctly, dead." 
 
 " Oh ! come now, that's turning the tables on 
 a fellow with a vengeance. Here's a fellow, 
 G-lencairn, who disguises himself, and prowls 
 about in shady places dressed beyond recogni- 
 tion, never comes to his clubs, avoids every one, 
 and then says he's cut. Why, of course, every 
 one thinks he has a game — amateur detective — 
 mysterious intrigue — what not, — and humours 
 him. I'm too discreet to thrust myself on a 
 fellow when I see he has a game — that I am. 
 But if he hasn't a game he ought to tell us. I 
 was just saying so to Bamboro." 
 
 " What were you just saying to Bamboro ? " 
 asked the individual in question ; an over- 
 eaten, insolent-looking man who now joined 
 them.
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 239 
 
 "About Denwick, you know." 
 
 "What of him?" 
 
 " Says we cut him." 
 
 " Does he ? "Well, / do ; he's right, so far as 
 I am concerned." 
 
 " Why do you cut me, Bamboro 1 " asked 
 Phil. 
 
 "Because you look such a sweep." 
 
 " That's frank enough, at all events." 
 
 " Why do you wear such infernal old clothes, 
 then?" 
 
 " Because I'm ruined — that's why ; got no 
 money to pay for new ones." 
 
 " l Kuined ! ' ' pay ! ' — what words ! My poor 
 fellow, no amount of misfortune can excuse the 
 use of such coarse expressions. Why, most of 
 us are ( ruined,' as you call it. You can't be 
 worse than / am ; but it don't interfere with 
 my comfort much, or with my clothes at all. 
 It does prevent me knowing fellows who get 
 themselves up like rat-catchers, however. My 
 tailor wouldn't like it, you see ; and he is 
 entitled to a voice in such a matter. But I'm 
 glad to see you're clean again ; for, after all, I 
 never cut you — I only cut your clothes." 
 
 " Bather a nice distinction." 
 
 " Well, so it is ; it is quite true that a man
 
 240 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 and his clothes are pretty much the same thing, 
 — but you know what I mean. How's that 
 1 Chateaubriand ' ? " wistfully eyeing a plat. 
 "Looks wonderful — must try to remember it 
 to-morrow. You ought to drink one glass of 
 a generous burgundy after it — it deserves the 
 compliment. Not champagne ! No, no, my 
 dear Phil Denwick, NOT CHAMPAGNE!" 
 and he almost interfered violently to prevent 
 the profane draught. " Well, I must leave 
 such heathens. Off to the opera, and awfully 
 late." 
 
 " Humbugs and ruffians ! " said Phil, when 
 they were again alone — "that's the division 
 which my Serpentine philosophy makes of man- 
 kind." 
 
 "The sweetening of your philosophy does 
 not seem to have been among the uses of ad- 
 versity. The Bamboro system is not so gloomy; 
 it merely divides mankind into pegs for new 
 clothes and pegs for old ones." 
 
 " Bamboro is a complete ruffian." 
 
 "And he seems to think that you and 'old 
 clothes' are pretty nearly interchangeable terms; 
 so each of you falls within the other's division. 
 Seriously, Phil, it astonishes me to see you 
 taking all this cutting, dropping, ignoring — or
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 241 
 
 whatever you call it — so much to heart. What 
 can it matter ? " 
 
 "Try it for eighteen months, and you'll see 
 what it matters." 
 
 " Well, but if every one is either a humbug 
 or a ruffian, it can be no great hardship to you 
 (the exceptional unit, I presume X) to lose such 
 society." 
 
 " One didn't know what the society was till 
 it was tried. But besides all that, if a man can 
 get nothing to do — if he is forced to be idle and 
 solitary — he necessarily lives much in his own 
 thoughts, which, under the circumstances, are, 
 rightly or wrongly, certain to be bitter. I 
 think mine are righteously so." 
 
 " You used not to be selfish, Phil ; but this 
 is the very acme of selfishness ; you judge all 
 your old friends, en bloc, simply from your own 
 point of view. You fasten motives on them 
 that may not be theirs in reality. Many of 
 them very possibly think it kinder to you to 
 drop a surface acquaintanceship, which can 
 bring you neither pleasure nor advantage, but 
 really the reverse." 
 
 " Ah, they should leave me to judge of that. 
 However, I won't defend myself. But remem- 
 ber, as extenuating circumstances, that I have 
 
 vol. I. Q
 
 242 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 been grazing for eighteen months among black 
 sheep in Leicester Square, and that the touch of 
 pitch denies. Then let bygones be bygones. If 
 I were only out of sight of all these fellows, and 
 the old life, and at work, somewhere, somehow, 
 I promise you I wouldn't waste a thought on 
 Bamboro & Co. — selfish or humane : as to philo- 
 sophising about them, pah ! I'd none of it." 
 
 " Work, Phil ! yes, that is the grand panacea 
 for all evils." 
 
 " Even on the homoeopathic principle — similia 
 similibus — I welcome it." 
 
 " It kills morbid thoughts, and cheats the 
 devil." 
 
 "I'm sick of the devil, and would gladly 
 thwart him." 
 
 " It will distract you from selfishness." 
 
 " By satisfying the wants of ' self.' ' ! 
 
 " It will give you a healthier tone about your 
 brother men." 
 
 " By leaving me no leisure to observe their 
 characteristics." 
 
 " It will teach you self-reliance." 
 
 " Having already learned that vain is the help 
 of other men." 
 
 "You are incorrigible, Phil, and sadly dete- 
 riorated."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 243 
 
 " Ah, Cosmo, I'm only joking ! But mind you, 
 old fellow, it is pretty easy to be philanthropic 
 when all the race of man smiles on you. I don't 
 think it can be very hard to give good for good. 
 It is scarcely meritorious to be open-handed, 
 when one's hands are too full to close ; or to be 
 interested about others' needs, when one has no 
 necessities of one's own ! There is a Johnsonian 
 sentence for you, to illustrate the vanity of 
 well-to-do virtue and selfishness. Why, my 
 clear old boy, I might hoist you with your own 
 petard, and prove even you selfish for looking at 
 me, only from your own point of view ! Ah ! 
 well, well, we're passing into the champagny 
 stage of ethics. Apropos, pass that king of 
 wine, and I'll propose a toast to ( Honest In- 
 dustry.' Drink to it, mine host ! " 
 
 The champagne, and the reaction from solitude 
 and desperation, sent poor Phil's spirits up to the 
 pitch of hilarity for a while ; and in ebbs and 
 flows of grave and gay, the conversation went 
 on, and the evening passed. When the friends 
 separated, it continued a settled point that 
 Cosmo should go down to his father the next 
 day, and do what he could for Phil. What the 
 something to be done, or got, for him, remained 
 quite vague and indefinite. Phil was himself
 
 244 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 indifferent to the nature of the employment he 
 might get. 
 
 " I feel," he said, " at this moment — thus 
 warmed with the good wine — equal to anything. 
 I feel deuced like Longfellow's ' Village Black- 
 smith.' I mean to make him my model. ' The 
 sinews of my brawny arms shall be like strong 
 and iron bands.' Good night, Cosmo. You'll 
 give me the earliest intelligence of a ' career,' 
 won't you ? I long to begin it " (singing) — 
 
 " ' Each morning sees some work begun, 
 Each evening sees its close.' 
 
 Great fellow the smith ! I always liked him ! " 
 and so Phil went off to his garret, with a heart 
 lighter than it had been for many a long day — 
 and Cosmo to his luxurious chambers, musing 
 upon many things. 
 
 When Love has once " ventured in," it is 
 difficult for the strongest nature to expel it by 
 mere force of will, and altogether impossible to 
 do so summarily. It is easy to say " I will 
 stamp it out ; " but it rises from the process : 
 cast out for a moment, it steals back into the 
 consciousness, wrapped in mists of subtle reverie, 
 and, regaining its lost vantage-ground, again 
 boldly confronts its antagonist. Thus, alas ! it 
 befell with the heroic Cosmo, who, though, forti-
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 245 
 
 fied by an evening spent " out of himself," he 
 resisted, when first left alone, the clamorous in- 
 truder, resisted not for very long. He turned 
 himself to Phil's affairs, and the means of extri- 
 cating him from his troubles. He sketched out 
 one or two little schemes, which he thought of 
 submitting to his father, on his friend's behalf; 
 and, as long as he thus devoted his attention, he 
 did well. But presently, on recalling the con- 
 versation of the evening, he began to feel that he 
 had lectured his friend in a pharisaical way 
 about selfishness ; and some echoes of the high 
 moralities he had indulged in, came back to him 
 with the true ring of Eliphaz the Temanite, and 
 his brethren in consolation. Then, reverting to 
 some random remarks of Phil's, on the nature of 
 well-to-do unselfishness, it dawned upon him 
 that there was a very large beam in his own 
 eye, and, by pretty easy stages, he arrived at the 
 cheerful conclusion (in his ordinary style) that 
 the principle which regulated his own life was 
 one of simple egotism. Once back to the sub- 
 ject of self, his faults, failures, &c. &c. — a subtle 
 sub-current flowed into his mind, bringing with 
 it, among other suggested antidotes for egotism, 
 the thought that a life might be happily rescued 
 from selfishness by devotion to another life,
 
 246 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 whose beauty and nobility should be contagious, 
 by union with another nature, mere contact 
 with which should inspire lofty motives and 
 instigate purely generous actions. And thus 
 beguiled, Cosmo floated unconsciously away 
 back to the Lake of Como, to the pathetic 
 moonlight, and the whispering groves and listen- 
 ing waters — to her who, amidst all that gooclli- 
 ness, had revealed herself to him as the mistress 
 of his heart. 
 
 For hours he sat plunged in this narcotic 
 reverie ; od, through the silent hours, incapable 
 of effort to throw it off. The voices of the night 
 were hushed, and everything was still ; but ever 
 upon the ear of Cosmo's fancy, one soft wave of 
 distant music seemed to beat its sweet refrain. 
 Out in the summer ni^ht nothing was visible 
 save the dim outlines of dewy trees ; but ever 
 before Cosmo's eyes one vision seemed to pass, 
 and return, and pass again incessantly, moving 
 with a thousand remembered charms of move- 
 ment, bright with the magic of remembered 
 smiles. Love ruled the hour and used his oppor- 
 tunities ; and though his captive struggled not, 
 he tightened all his bonds. Eesolution whis- 
 pered remonstrance, and Cosmo cried, " Why 
 should I die, without one effort for life ? With-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 247 
 
 out her, life will be death in life." Despair 
 muttered " Lost ! " and Cosmo cried, " I de- 
 spaired too soon." Then Despair and Eesolution 
 fled ; and Hope returned and gave the battle to 
 the strong — and strong Love ruled the hour ! 
 
 That is to say, in mere English, that, through 
 much confusion, Cosmo reached, at the end, one 
 clear idea and one clear purpose, and these were, 
 (sparing the reader a journey through the tortu- 
 ous avenues by which he arrived at them) as 
 follows : that he had despaired and fled prema- 
 turely and on uncertain grounds ; that these 
 grounds were, mainly, the belief or the suspi- 
 cion, or something between the two, that there 
 rested, on his origin some stigma which must 
 make his suit hopeless ; that this belief was 
 founded on his father's silence as to their origin, 
 which silence had been explained long ago by a 
 maternal uncle to mean that they had no his- 
 tory, or rather that the brief history which they 
 had was disgraceful, and would not bear investi- 
 gation, or even talking about. But his father 
 was intensely reserved on all subjects ; and his 
 uncle's views on the subject of pedigree were 
 hyperbolical ; besides which there bad never 
 been any familiar intercourse between the father 
 and the uncle. Perhaps, then, the stigma might
 
 248 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 be — nothing altogether insuperable. So thought 
 Cosmo, to-night, in the exaltation of his love ; 
 and his resolution was that the visit to his 
 father, decided on for to-morrow, should, besides 
 the regulation of Phil's fortunes, have another 
 purpose very paramount to that. 
 
 " I have been hasty and impulsive," Cosmo 
 said to himself; " I daresay it was owing to the 
 wild tumult and agitation I fell into out there. 
 Well, now, at least, while there is a vestige of 
 hope, I will not give it up. It may be infini- 
 tesimal, perhaps, but I will not abandon it till 
 I am forced to do so by clear evidence. I have 
 not kept to my resolve ? No, I have not. Love 
 is stronger than I thought, or I am weaker. 
 ' Weakness % ' Is this ' weakness ' \ It may be ; 
 it may be weakness to cling to life ; and she is 
 my life. To-morrow I will ask my father for a 
 frank statement of the truth." 
 
 And so Cosmo at last went to bed with a hazy 
 notion (as a sort of P.S.) that Phil was a pro- 
 vidential dispensation, and that, but for him, 
 the appeal to his father might not have sug- 
 gested itself. But with this view those only 
 will coincide who believed that, when he sailed 
 away from Cadenabbia, he really "turned his 
 back on love and dreams " for ever.
 
 249 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The next afternoon saw Cosmo arrive at his 
 father's abode. It lay at the distance of half-a- 
 day's journey from London, in a solitary dis- 
 trict, on the outskirts of an ancient forest, 
 within sio'ht of the sea. The house was old, 
 Gothic, and of imposing dimensions ; its entour- 
 age of wooded park was unenclosed, and gradu- 
 ally lost itself in a heathery wilderness, which 
 rose into uplands behind the house, and, in 
 front, sloped down till it touched the sandy 
 margin of the sea. With some dignity, the 
 place had yet a gloomy, sorrow-stricken aspect ; 
 for there was scarcely a trace of human life 
 visible in the far-spreading wolds, and the dark 
 hues of pine-woods saddened the summer light 
 about the house, and deepened the gloom of 
 winter. Altogether, in its sombre silence, the 
 place seemed to mourn the fallen fortunes of its 
 lord — an impoverished nobleman, from whom
 
 250 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 Mr Glen cairn rented Edlisfort Castle on a long 
 lease ; and no one approaching the house could 
 have failed to ask, " What kind of man can care 
 to bury himself here % voluntarily, out of the 
 world, among desert wilds by a melancholy sea, 
 in an old castle looking like the very tomb of 
 Hope 1 " And one would unquestionably have 
 expected to hear of a romantic character' — a 
 grand melodramatic fellow, with a history and 
 a broken heart, probably. But no mysterious 
 romance attached itself to Mr Glencairn. His 
 social needs were few, and such society as he 
 desired he imported, and entertained with large 
 hospitality. He believed in Himself, in Truth, 
 in Energy, in the adroit use of opportunity, and 
 in Ozone. He had been practically faithful to 
 his creed, and with these results. In the iron 
 trade he had become a millionaire, and, availing 
 himself of an opportunity of the epoch, he had 
 sold his business, with its grand 'prestige, to a 
 company formed to conduct it. Freed thus 
 from absorption in a special sphere, and with 
 vast resources at command, his energy found 
 ever-increasing outlets in channels of new enter- 
 prise, which extended to many parts of the 
 world, and which he undertook, in many in- 
 stances, single-handed. Altogether self-reliant,
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 251 
 
 lie did not desire, and often suspected, the coun- 
 sels of others. He was able, therefore, to live 
 away from the centre of business life. To 
 breathe fresh air and live apart were, for him, 
 the necessary conditions of mental and bodily 
 health. Hence his abode in the wilderness. 
 
 A special wire, laid on to the main line of 
 telegraph, brought all that he required to know 
 direct into his own working-room. " Thus," he 
 would say, " I avoid all that superfluous stuff, 
 which even business men can't keep out of 
 business conversation. What I want is facts 
 simply, not opinions. I can form these for my- 
 self." At one end of the telegraph a familiar 
 spirit collected facts, and committed them con- 
 cisely to wire ; at the other end, a second 
 familiar — a laconic secretary — received the 
 facts, and placed them, without comment, before 
 his employer. 
 
 The scenery was nothing to Mr Glen cairn. 
 He walked about continually, indeed, in the 
 open air. But he did his work thus, and was 
 too " inverted " to have much of an eye for the 
 outer world. He only knew that the sea air 
 and the breath of pine and heather gave him 
 vigour, and kept his mind elastic ; while, as for 
 solitude, many an elaborate scheme would have
 
 252 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 fallen still-born, but for the freedom from inter- 
 ruption with which his unpeopled desert fav- 
 oured him. So that about this castle of gloom 
 and its chdtelain there was no mystery at all. 
 
 From these few hints as to the characteristics 
 of Mr Glencairn, the reader will perceive that 
 the contrast between him and his son was as 
 marked as possible ; and, indeed, what nature 
 had ordained in this respect had been farther 
 developed by the exceptional relations which 
 had existed between them from Cosmo's earliest 
 boyhood. His mother, long since dead, had 
 been a well-born lady, whose family had chosen 
 to treat as a mesalliance her marriage with Mr 
 Glencairn, though already rich, and rapidly ris- 
 ing to great wealth. They had discarded her 
 accordingly — at least during the lifetime of her 
 parents. Eventually, however, her only brother, 
 who loved her much, contrived to get over her 
 indiscretion and to forgive her ; and when she 
 died, since he had no other heir for his consider- 
 able property, he made certain overtures to his 
 widowed brother-in-law as to the upbringing 
 and future destinies of the boy Cosmo. This 
 Colonel Wildgrave — an ex-Guardsman, a man 
 of the world, humane, accomplished, and a uni- 
 versal favourite in society — loved the little boy
 
 MINE IS THINE. 253 
 
 for his mother's sake ; but he felt that if his 
 nephew were to be his future representative, he, 
 on his side, had a right to stipulate that Cosmo 
 should be brought up according to his ideas, 
 introduced into his world, and put into the 
 grooves of life which he approved. In this 
 sense, then, were his overtures. Mr Glencairn 
 had a trader's reverence for realised wealth — for 
 capital, landed high and dry on the bank, be- 
 yond the reach of commercial fluctuations, — and 
 he received the proposals well. " It must be 
 £7000 to £8000 a-year at least," he said in- 
 wardly; and, aloud, that he had no educational 
 prejudices. He then pointed out that, as a 
 general rule, a merchant's son could never rely 
 upon a hereditary fortune from his father, and 
 ought therefore to be taught to make his own 
 way. At the same time, if Cosmo's indepen- 
 dence of personal exertion were assured, — if his 
 uncle's inheritance were pledged to him, — then, 
 indeed, his uncle was free to form him, launch 
 him, do with him, in fact, exactly as seemed to 
 him to be best. Of course, natural affection was 
 to be considered. Cosmo, according to the pro- 
 tocol, was to be much with his papa, whose 
 ample purse was in the meantime to defray the 
 boy's expenses. The agreement was concluded,
 
 254 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 and loyally carried out, although the article 
 about " natural affection " was by no means 
 strained. Mr Glencairn was deeply absorbed in 
 other cares, and he had no great natural sym- 
 pathy or tenderness, so that he gladly humoured 
 the boy's manifest inclination to spend the bulk 
 of his holidays with his uncle and aunt. Thus, 
 by degrees, " home," with him, came to mean 
 his uncle's house, and his father's house was only 
 looked upon as the scene of occasional visits. 
 To his uncle and his aunt he gave all his affec- 
 tion. Blessed with bright and genial natures, 
 they captivated the boy's sympathy and con- 
 fidence. They entered into all his young enthu- 
 siasms and ambitions ; and if, proud of his 
 abilities and the promise of his nature, they 
 erred on the side of letting him shape, in his 
 later school and college days, his own course, in 
 accordance with what they believed to be his 
 genius, they had all along done their best not to 
 " spoil him," in the common acceptation of the 
 term. Above all things, they had aimed at 
 making him a loyal, high - bred gentleman. 
 Parents, and more than are most parents, they 
 were to him. Healthy home influence and 
 training, education at Eton and Trinity, a com- 
 mission in the army, and an entry into good
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 255 
 
 society under the best auspices, — these, and the 
 results flowing from such experiences, were what 
 the substituted parentage did and procured for 
 Cosmo. But all these advantages gradually 
 widened the gulf which nature had placed be- 
 tween the father and the son. Neither public 
 school nor university could credit itself with 
 Mr Glencairn's education. Art and literature 
 were for him the hors-d'oeuvres of life, which 
 could not concern a man whose life was already 
 full to overflowing of graver concerns. The army 
 he regarded, on the one hand, as an expen- 
 sive and inefficient method of insurance — and, 
 on the other, as a toy devised in the inter- 
 ests of the privileged classes. As for " society," 
 in the limited sense of the term, he knew no 
 more of its components and usages than he 
 did of Greek iambics or the duties of a squad- 
 ron leader. 
 
 Habits of life and thought, tastes, aims, stand- 
 ards — everything, in a word, which differentiates 
 a man — sundered him from his son. At the 
 very best, their relations — though not unkindly 
 — had not been natural. From the earliest 
 period, Mr Glencairn had looked upon Cosmo in 
 a double light. He was his child, to be sure, 
 and, as such, subject to his control and domina-
 
 256 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 tion ; but, beyond this, he was mixed up with 
 the idea of " realised capital," and, as such, the 
 object of a certain instinctive veneration, scarcely 
 consonant with the parental relation. As time 
 went on, and Cosmo's character and ways of life 
 developed, this respect was progressively en- 
 hanced ; for however much a man may affect to 
 disregard what does not seem to touch the 
 special groove in which he has embedded him- 
 self, there are influences which will affect all 
 sorts and conditions of men — the charm of high- 
 breeding, for example, and a wide and liberal 
 range of knowledge. 
 
 After Cosmo had been for some years in the 
 army, the deaths of his uncle and aunt occurred, 
 almost simultaneously. The double blow fell 
 very heavily upon him ; and it was during the 
 solitude and depression of his period of mourn- 
 ing that he resolved upon abandoning the ser- 
 vice in favour of a more " earnest " career. 
 Henceforth there was no monetary tie between 
 Mr Glencairn and Cosmo ; and since his new 
 projects led the latter into much foreign travel, 
 he had latterly seen very little indeed of his 
 father ; and now their relations were more than 
 ever unlike those of father and son. To his son, 
 Mr Glencairn was more than ever the one-sided,
 
 MIXE IS THIXE. 257 
 
 concentrated money-maker — comprehensible in- 
 deed, but not admirable, except in regard of un- 
 sullied probity. To his father, Cosmo's relation 
 to funded capital was more and more accent- 
 uated. On the whole, however, though much 
 sympathy between them was impossible, there 
 was a fair amount of mutual respect, from 
 widely different standpoints. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 258 
 
 CHAPTEB XIV. 
 
 Cosmo found his father at home — a tall, erect, 
 iron-grey man of threescore or thereabouts, with 
 a firm mouth, and hard but honest grey eyes. 
 
 " Glad to see you, Cosmo," he said. " I got 
 yom telegram. Only back from Paris myself 
 three days ; there on Land Company business ; 
 fancied you might be there at the same time ; 
 thought you were due : were there, I suppose ? " 
 Mr Glencairn's conversation was rather tele- 
 graphic in style — condensed, jerky, and ellip- 
 tical. 
 
 " I think not," replied Cosmo. " I passed 
 through Paris merely." 
 
 " And where are you from ? " 
 
 " From the Italian lakes last." 
 
 " Still bitten with the picture mania, hey ? " 
 
 " I am still fond of pictures ; but there's not 
 much in that way down there." 
 
 "Ah! well. Any news V
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 259 
 
 "No; I think not." (Could there be any 
 news under such circumstances T) 
 
 "Been well?" 
 
 * Thanks ; extremely so. And you \ " 
 
 "I am always well." 
 
 Then came that pause which occurs between 
 two men who, with nothing in common but the 
 formal tie of relationship, are painfully conscious 
 of the fact. 
 
 " My aunt is well, I hope ? " Cosmo resumed, 
 as a forlorn hope. 
 
 "Your aunt is never ill. No one so tough. 
 Youll find her tougher than ever, I think," he 
 added, w T ith a grim smile. 
 
 Then came another pause, relieved by " the 
 weather," but inappreciably, for Mr Glen cairn 
 set his face against iteration, and "identified" 
 it, through any disguise, with the eye of a 
 detective. At last there really seemed to be 
 nothiDg more to be said between the two, and it 
 was a palpable relief to both when the thunder 
 of the dressing-gong broke up the tete-d-tete. 
 
 When Cosmo returned to the drawing-room, 
 he found the party already assembled, consist- 
 ing, besides his father, of another gentleman and 
 the aunt for whom he had made inquiries.
 
 260 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 There is always something rather risky about 
 a maiden aunt — that is to say, when she is of a 
 " certain age ; " and Cosmo's aunt Griselda was, 
 very distinctly, one of the " dangerous classes." 
 Eesembling her brother in person, she had his 
 tall stature and unflinching eyes, — which latter 
 don't, as a rule, improve the female face ; and 
 when, as in this case, associated with a cruel 
 mouth, they are not the kind of eyes with which 
 one cares to exchange many glances. 
 
 Miss Glencairn "went in for" religion, bit- 
 terly ; she employed it as the buttress of her 
 misanthropy, and used Holy Writ, as an Irish- 
 man uses his shillelah, for purposes of assault 
 and battery. The main article of her creed was 
 that she was " elect," and (as is rather the way 
 with the creeds of the " elect ") the spiritual 
 eligibility of her neighbours did not bulk very 
 largely in it. She also held that " whatever is 
 pleasant is wrong," and certainly acted up to 
 this article, in so far that she denied herself the 
 practice of all those sweet and gracious charities 
 which are Christianity's pleasantest outcome. 
 Cosmo had always regarded her with an aver- 
 sion, tempered, in childhood, by the feeling that 
 it must be wrong to dislike one who was so 
 much mixed up, as she appeared to be, with the
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 261 
 
 Bible. Eventually lie arrived at a sort of com- 
 promise, and she became to him something like 
 the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed, 
 — sacred, perhaps, and certainly awful, but lov- 
 able by no manner of means. 
 
 She had hated Cosmo's mother with more 
 than the normal acharnement of sisters-in-law, 
 and she cordially detested him. The animosi- 
 ties of such women reach beyond the grave, and 
 transcend the limits of generations. 
 
 The party was completed by Mr Hopper, an 
 individual whom Mr Glencairn had promoted, 
 in years gone by, from managing clerk in his 
 house to be junior partner, and who now, thanks 
 to the same influence, occupied the post of Man- 
 aging Director in " Glencairn & Co., Limited," 
 with a large salary and a position of influence at 
 the Board, due to his knowledge of the iron trade 
 — and to other personal attributes. 
 
 In person he was 
 
 " A little, glassy-headed, hairless man," 
 
 of an uniform drab colour, and with a neutrality 
 of expression which would have baffled a physi- 
 ognomist. Interpreted by his preposterous bald- 
 ness, however (for baldness does, somehow, 
 suggest respectability), this blank was placed 
 to his credit, and taken as satisfactory evidence
 
 262 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 of simple-minded probity. He had obviously 
 not forgotten his earliest relations with his 
 patron, in whose honour he exaggerated an 
 habitual eagerness to assent, which sometimes 
 led him to complete for his interlocutor a sen- 
 tence, or word, which stood between him and the 
 fruition of acquiescence. Victor Hugo would 
 have called him " an incarnate Yes." Another 
 propensity, connected with an earlier and hum- 
 bler stage of life, was still to be observed in him, 
 and that was a certain waywardness with regard 
 to the letter h; but, to do him justice, this was 
 only manifest under circumstances of strong 
 excitement. 
 
 All this baldness and acquiescence, combined 
 with a talent for making things pleasant and 
 for concealing considerable powers of initiative 
 (while using them dexterously), made Mr Hop- 
 per exactly the sort of man to appear the mere 
 instrument of his Board, and to be its main- 
 spring. 
 
 Miss Glencairn received her nephew with 
 marked frigidity. Her manner expressed the 
 watchful reserve of a policeman resolved "to 
 use against" his prisoner any statement which 
 he may inadvertently make on his way to the 
 station-house. Mr Hopper, on the contrary,
 
 MINE IS THINE. 263 
 
 welcomed his patron's son with characteristic 
 effusiveness. " Ply me with hard sayings ! " his 
 manner seemed to say ; " give me largely of the 
 bread of paradox, that I may butter it (and you), 
 and devour it greedily ! " 
 
 Dinner being presently announced, the ill- 
 assorted quartette repaired to the dining-room 
 and sat down to the meal, after it had been 
 aggressively blessed by Miss Glencairn. 
 
 Mr Glencairn was taciturn constitutionally 
 — his sister was so, partly from habit, partly 
 because she disliked her present company ; and 
 as for Cosmo, he had so little in common with 
 the others, and received such scant encourage- 
 ment to talk from his aunt and father, that he 
 too was very silent. Thus Mr Hopper, whose 
 conversational talent lay chiefly in assent, was 
 rather in difficulties ; it being manifestly hard to 
 " say ditto" to people who advance no proposi- 
 tions whatever. 
 
 It was, however, his metier to " make things 
 pleasant ; " and a silent meal being clearly un- 
 pleasant, he made, under much discouragement, 
 loyal efforts to keep the ball of conversation 
 rolling. Mr Glencairn occasionally snubbed Mr 
 Hopper, but (just as he accepted his outre ac- 
 quiescence) rather, as it seemed, from a mechan-
 
 264 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 ical habit, than from any special interest he 
 took in Mr Hopper's views. Miss Glencairn 
 also snubbed him, as she snubbed every one 
 when she could, simply out of " contrariness " 
 and as dogs delight to bark and bite. Under 
 all these trying circumstances, Cosmo was rather 
 a godsend to him, for he was a novelty ; and 
 bethinking himself of the young man's travels 
 as a good conversational " claim " to work, Mr 
 Hopper commenced operations on it, with the 
 energy of a gold-seeker. 
 
 " It's not wonderful," he cried, " at your age, 
 and with your talents, tastes, and fortune, that 
 you should like to travel. I can conceive its 
 joys. I can see its advantages." 
 
 " A rolling stone, Mr Hopper," said Miss 
 Glencairn, in a deep, knelling, too-late-too-late- 
 ye-cannot-enter-now tone of voice — "a rolling 
 stone gathers no moss, — none." 
 
 " True, ma'am, most true ; but — let us con- 
 sider a little — though that may be a disadvan- 
 tage to some, nay, to most stones, yet perhaps, 
 where you have a polished marble, the necessity 
 for moss may, in a sense, be dispensed with — in 
 a sense, of course. Ah, ma'am ! when a man 
 travels, he don't (so to speak) rust. There's the 
 great point. When the wheel revolves, it cant
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 265 
 
 rust. All ' stay-at-homes/ like myself, are con- 
 scious of rusting. Sadly. All of us." 
 
 " Hopper ! " said Mr Glencairn. 
 
 "Sir?" 
 
 " I stay at home mostly, and I'm not con- 
 scious that I'm •" 
 
 " Eusty ! " exclaimed Mr Hopper. " Of course 
 not, sir ; I said 'like myself/ not you, sir. Too 
 fine a metal, if I may so express myself. Gold 
 don't rust, eh \ ha, ha ! — and then the mental 
 activity ! But with me it's different — quite. 
 Look at me ! " 
 
 " I should have thought," said Cosmo, " that 
 the excitement of business would keep off the 
 rust." 
 
 " You're perfectly correct, Captain Cosmo ; in 
 a sense, that is : but there are two or three 
 different ways of rusting." 
 
 " If you lay up for yourself treasures upon 
 earth," knelled Miss Glencairn, "as I fear you 
 do — as I know you do — that is one way in 
 which you will assuredly acquire rust. What 
 does the Bible say ? " 
 
 " I know, ma'am, I know — only too well. I 
 honour the Bible, ma'am — I try to square my 
 life with its maxims ; but, in the present de- 
 pressed state of the iron trade, there's no rust of
 
 2G6 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 that sort coming my way. With 'pigs' at 49 
 — I beg your pardon, ma'am, with pig-iron at 
 forty -nine shillings the ton — the poor sinner 
 has nothing to hope, I should say to apprehend, 
 in that direction. He ought to be thankful, 
 perhaps, for his freedom from temptation — as 
 thankful as the old Adam will permit, and " 
 
 " Hopper ! " 
 
 "Sir?" 
 
 " Is it, or is it not, a business maxim that the 
 man who mixes up religion with business, is a 
 man to be distrusted \ " 
 
 " It is, sir, most unquestionably," replied 
 Hopper, in a voice of deep dejection, which 
 might either imply regret for the existence of 
 so deplorable a maxim, or penitence for his own 
 lapse into religion. 
 
 " I wish you would lay it to heart, then." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Miss Glencairn, rearing a war- 
 like crest — " oh ! this is indeed monstrous ! The 
 merest heathenism ! Brother ! " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " What does the Bible say 1 " 
 
 "The Bible, Griselda, says that there is a 
 time for all things, and / say that the time for 
 religion is neither during business hours nor at 
 the dinner-table."
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 267 
 
 " I should like to know, then, how you in- 
 terpret * in season and out of season ' \ " 
 
 " I don't interpret it at all, and, what's more, 
 I won't have it interpreted either at my dinner- 
 table or in my business room. Change the sub- 
 ject, Hopper, if you please." 
 
 The ' religious difficulty ' was one of frequent 
 occurrence between Mr and Miss Glencairn ; but 
 when the former adopted this trerlchant method 
 of adjusting it, his sister knew that she might 
 as well strike her colours at once ; which she 
 now accordingly did, and relapsed into an angry 
 silence, only broken by some muttered allusions 
 to Mammon, Apostacy, and the Thessalonians. 
 
 Charged to change the subject, Mr Hopper 
 flew back with alacrity to Cosmo's travels. 
 
 "Now, Italy, Captain Cosmo," he said, "that 
 must be a fine country — in its way, of course. 
 Vesuvius, and — by the by, sir, did you ever see 
 Garibaldi 1 " 
 
 "Yes, I have had that pleasure. Indeed I 
 made a pilgrimage to Caprera, and visited him 
 in his own home." 
 
 " Prodigious ! to think of that ! Now, sir, is 
 he very fierce, should you say \ " 
 
 "No; I should say decidedly not. A little
 
 268 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 child might play with him; in fact, a little child 
 ivas playing with him when I arrived. He was 
 very rheumatic at the time, however, which 
 might account for it." 
 
 " Clearly so. Quite. Well, what did he say 
 about the state of things ? " 
 
 " That's rather a wide question," laughed 
 Cosmo. 
 
 " So it is, sir ; unreasonably vague. Well, I 
 suppose he would like to drink the old pagan's 
 blood 1 You'd make that out, I fancy ? " 
 " I don't know to whom you allude." 
 " The Pope, Captain — the Pope, sir ! " 
 " The Pope is a very good old man, Mr Hop- 
 per. I think it is altogether wrong to speak of 
 him as a pagan. "• 
 
 "Distinctly so, sir. It was a jest; a poor 
 one, I admit. Did Garibaldi speak of his 
 Holiness 1 " 
 
 " No ; in fact we did not talk politics at all." 
 " I see, I see : better so, better so." 
 This complaisance to the Pope was, however, 
 too much for Miss Glencairn, who, unmindful of 
 her brother's edict, dashed into the conversation, 
 brandishing her tomahawk. 
 
 " For shame, Mr Hopper ! For shame, Cos- 
 mo ! * Holiness ! ' ' Good old man ! ' forsooth !
 
 MINE IS THINE. 269 
 
 This is putting bitter for sweet. Pagan \ ay, 
 he is a double - dyed pagan ! Shame to the 
 Protestant who denies it ! Worse than all the 
 pagans that have gone before. The dragon ! 
 The deceiver ! The adversary ! Holiness ! Is 
 sin holy ? Is blasphemy holy ? Who, I should 
 like to be told, is 'the scarlet-coloured beast'? 
 Who is the beast ' having seven heads and ten 
 horns ' ? — answer me that. Who'is he ? " 
 
 " I suppose," said Cosmo, suppressing a strong 
 inclination to laugh — "I suppose you wish me 
 to say he is the Pope ; but I can't identify him 
 with these astonishing hyperboles — indeed I 
 can't." 
 
 " This comes of foreign travel ! This is cos- 
 mopolitanism, I suppose. We turn onr backs 
 on the blessed light ; we go into the dark places 
 of the earth : no wonder we can't discern the 
 truth. But you, Mr Hopper, — you, who have 
 not been lapping up error at the waters of 
 Marah ; you, who have not been rolling idolatry 
 * like a sweet morsel under your tongue,' — I ask 
 you, who is this ' having seven heads and ten 
 horns"?" 
 
 Mr Hopper, though he had spoken so hand- 
 somely of the Bible, and, indeed, sometimes 
 affected a Scriptural twang when Mr Glencairn
 
 270 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 was not by, perhaps knew the spirit of Holy 
 "Writ better than he knew its letter ; the apoca- 
 lyptic lore was, at all events, beyond his range, 
 and he was sorely mystified by all these heads 
 and horns. He glanced at his patron, hoping 
 for his support, but saw nothing in that quarter 
 save a look of grim amusement, inconsistent 
 (Mr Hopper thought) with his recent words. 
 He looked at Cosmo ; but he w x ore the expres- 
 sion of a man who has fired his shot and does 
 not mean to waste another cartridge. The 
 Avenger reiterated her question. Whereupon 
 poor Hopper tried to trim, and began to drop 
 his lis, stammering that " as for these 'eads and 
 'orns, much was to be said for them ; but, at the 
 same time, perhaps a good deal in au opposite 
 sense," and then broke down and truckled — 
 mumbling that he was an erriug mortal, and 
 could not presume to oppose his opinion to that 
 of one so notoriously Scriptural as Miss Glen- 
 cairn. Whereupon that lady, unmollified by the 
 compliment, asked if she was therefore to under- 
 stand that he did reserve an opinion favourable 
 to the Pope — in short, clamoured for a distinct 
 declaration as to the real proprietorship of the 
 " seven heads and ten horns." Whereupon Mr 
 Glencairn and Cosmo both laudied outright:
 
 MINE IS THINE. 271 
 
 and Mr Hopper, lured to his destruction by the 
 supposed encouragement, rashly attempted to 
 escape from the dilemma by turning the whole 
 thing into a joke, and remarked that, "in any 
 case, seven heads were too many for any one 
 man to keep clear and straight, and that if the 
 Pope were to be docked of a few of them — say 
 four — it would probably be for the advantage 
 
 of Christendom; while, as for the ten ; orns " 
 
 but Mr Hopper was not allowed to finish his 
 impious sally. 
 
 " Was he aware that the language he was 
 playing with was from Holy Writ ? " Mr Hop- 
 per was not sure, but thought (as a shot) that it 
 might be from the Apocrypha. And then the 
 vials of Miss Glencairn's wrath were frankly 
 opened upon him ; and he learned, among other 
 striking facts, that there existed a strong paral- 
 lelism between himself and many of the most 
 abandoned characters of Old Testament history 
 — all with very hard names, except Og, the king 
 of Bashan, who, in other respects also, was per- 
 haps the least open to reprehension. 
 
 For a short time Miss Glencairn was per- 
 mitted thus to buffet Mr Hopper ; but she soon 
 infringed Mr Glencairn's private act against 
 iteration, and then he interposed, walking quietly
 
 272 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 into the milee, and rescuing, so to speak, the 
 dishevelled manager from the clutches of his 
 antagonist. 
 
 "That is enough, Griselda," he said. "Mr. 
 Hopper, take a glass of that Marcobrunner. I 
 hope you'll find it better than the water of 
 Marah." 
 
 And when Mr HojDper made a glozing and 
 weak-kneed attempt to right himself with Miss 
 Glencairn, by inquiring if she were absolutely 
 positive that the seven heads and ten horns 
 were not " out of the ' Pilgrim's Progress,' which 
 lie fancied — he thought — he knew'"' — Mr Glen- 
 cairn closed him also, again inviting; him to 
 change the subject. So there was nothing for 
 it but silence and wrath on Griselda's part, and 
 Marcobrunner and discomfiture on the part of 
 Mr Hopper. 
 
 From this state of limpness, however, he 
 gradually emerged, by putting some questions 
 to Cosmo as to the Italian rate of exchange ; 
 and having elicited his views as to the depre- 
 ciation of the paper currency in that country, 
 gradually worked his way back to smooth plum- 
 age and general acquiescence and admiration. 
 
 "You hear what he says, Mr Glencairn?" he 
 cried. " A summary, sir ! Terse. Concise."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 273 
 
 "I hear it," said Mr Glencairn; "but, with 
 due deference to Cosmo, I must take some 
 ex " 
 
 " Ceptions ! " shouted Hopper. " Unquestion- 
 ably. In such matters that is inevitable. But 
 Captain Cosmo's brain has been at work — at 
 work, and to good purpose. I can see that." 
 
 " Come, come, Mr Hopper," said Cosmo, laugh- 
 ing, "you mustn't try to humbug me." And 
 then Mr Hopper, by a gesture more eloquent 
 than words, disclaimed any such mad and peril- 
 ous enterprise ; and so the strangely-constituted 
 symposium went on, Miss Griselda and Mr 
 Hopper being occasionally called to order by the 
 chairman, and the tenor of the conversation sent 
 topsy-turvy by that autocrat and his peremp- 
 tory calls for a change of subject. As this 
 requisition was invariably made upon the man- 
 aging director, whose range of general ideas was 
 very limited, he would have been sorely put to 
 it but for the reserve of Cosmo's travels, which 
 meandered, like a fertilising rivulet, through the 
 barren wastes of the conversation. 
 
 Towards the end of the sitting, this brought 
 him to Athens, with regard to which Mr Hopper 
 had three ideas : the first, connected with a cer- 
 tain M. Christopoulos, an iron -broker of much- 
 
 vol. I. s
 
 274 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 flagitiousness, who, it appeared, had on one oc- 
 casion got to windward of Mr Hopper; the 
 second, with an unsatisfactory contract for rails 
 for the Piraean railway ; and the third, with the 
 Apostle Paul. Thus was the city of Pericles 
 associated in the mind of Mr Hopper. And 
 apropos of the last head, the unfortunate man- 
 ager, still burning to rehabilitate himself with 
 Miss Glencairn, thus expanded — 
 
 "A fine thing it must be, Captain Cosmo, 
 to stand, as you have stood, on the top of the 
 Areopagus — which I take to be an edifice on 
 the summit of Mars Hill — a grand thing to 
 stand there and say, 'This is the very spot 
 where the great apostle stood and preached to 
 the men of Athens ! ' It was an act of courage, 
 sir, that. It was a kind of a taking of the hea- 
 then by the beard — a kind of a bearding of the 
 lion in his den, if I may so say — that I've 
 always admired him for. I wish some one else 
 would give the scoundrels a bit of his mind 
 nowadays. They must require it, if Christo- 
 poulos is a fair specimen. I wish some one 
 would take Christopoulos by the beard. I wish 
 I had the chance." Here Mr Hopper panto- 
 mimed the action of struggling with a beard for 
 •some seconds, and added, " I'd Christopoulos
 
 MINE IS THINE. 275 
 
 him ! There's a fellow that would have been 
 capable of forging St Paul's name to an accept- 
 ance ! I assure you, ma'am, he would. He 
 forged mine." 
 
 " Don't address me, Mr Hopper, if you please," 
 snorted Miss Glencairn ; " don't associate me 
 with a conversation where sacred names are 
 treated with irreverence." 
 
 " Irreverence, my dear ma'am ! — irreverence ! 
 Who could suspect me of it ? " 
 
 " I don't suspect you — I accuse you ; you are 
 self-convicted. What had St Paul to do with 
 trade and money - making, I should like to 
 know 1 Acceptances, forsooth ! pollution ! " 
 
 "Ah, ma'am, you do me injustice ! I honour 
 your sensitiveness, though. It's noble. But are 
 we not told that Paul was a tent-maker 1 and if 
 a tent-maker, then a seller of tents, and so both 
 a manufacturer and a merchant, as well as an 
 apostle. I've always been proud to feel that I 
 belong, in a sense, to Paul's calling. Always." 
 
 " He wasn't a trader ; he gave everything to 
 the poor brethren." 
 
 " There's a great deal in what you say, ma'am 
 — a very great deal. Still, ma'am, the question 
 will rise, ' How did he get what he gave ? ' : 
 
 But, at this juncture, the cup of Miss Gris-
 
 276 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 elda's wrath ran over, as not unfrequently occurs 
 with ladies on the slightest adverse application 
 of logic, and she swept from the room with 
 awful dignity. 
 
 " You ve put your foot in it, Mr Hopper," said 
 his patron, with a grim smile. 
 
 " To my regret, sir — to my deep regret. Bull, 
 so to speak, in a china-shop. The intention was, 
 however, good. I thought it might gratify Miss 
 Glencairn to know the high respect I entertain 
 
 for one of her for the apostle; which is 
 
 genuine, sir, and unfeigned. The business quali- 
 ties of his mind have always struck me. I've 
 often thought that, as chairman of a com " 
 
 " Hopper ! " 
 
 " Sir \ " 
 
 " Let us change the subject, if you please."
 
 277 
 
 CHAPTER XT. 
 
 In the drawing-room after dinner, Miss Griselda 
 devoted herself to a bilious-looking magazine ; 
 Mr Glencairn read the newspapers ; and Mr 
 Hopper fluttered about the room, perking little 
 observations half to himself, half to Cosmo, who 
 looked at a book of prints, while his mind was 
 occupied with very different subjects. For it bad 
 occurred to him that, of the two matters w r hich 
 had brought him to Edlisfort, the least important 
 might possibly be advantageously opened to 
 Mr Hopper, who, though ridiculous in social 
 converse, was notoriously a capable man of busi- 
 ness. Mr Hopper would undoubtedly be glad 
 to oblige him, by helping his friend with advice, 
 or perhaps with something more substantial. 
 
 He had, of course, no more faith than his 
 father had in that gentleman's hyperbolical re- 
 spect and devotion; but it was Mr Hopper's 
 interest to be well with him, and that was
 
 278 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 sufficient ; and it might very possibly be in 
 his power to "put something in Phil's way," 
 through some of the various business channels 
 with which he was connected. Then Mr Hop- 
 per would have no prejudices touching Phil to 
 affect his hearty co-operation, and it was other- 
 wise with Mr Glencairn. Before the evening 
 terminated, therefore, he had decided that Mr 
 Hopper should be consulted. 
 
 The dinner had been early, and the night was 
 still young, when Miss Glencairn bade them 
 good-night and removed the pall of her pre- 
 sence. Cosmo, feverishly anxious to get some- 
 thing done before he slept, was debating with 
 himself whether he should now invite his father 
 to give him a private interview, and straightway 
 open the paramount matter to him, or whether 
 he should seduce Mr Hopper to the smoking- 
 room and unfold his wishes as to Phil, when Mr 
 Glencairn solved the problem by unexpectedly 
 lighting a candle and declaring with a lusty 
 yawn that he was " played out." " You 11 find 
 everything right in the smoking-room, Cosmo," 
 he said, " and I make no stranger either of you 
 or Mr Hopper, so good-night," Perforce, there- 
 fore, he fell back upon the second string to his 
 bow, and invited the manager to accompany him
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 279 
 
 to the den sacred to tobacco and the slaughter 
 of the small hours. 
 
 Mr Hopper was no smoker, but " he could not 
 resist the rare (in every sense) pleasure," &c. 
 &c, and went grateful. 
 
 When they were comfortably established in 
 the sanctum, Cosmo at once drew the conversa- 
 tion into business channels, and notable was the 
 transformation which took place in his com- 
 panion's manner and style of speech when he 
 found himself once again in his congenial ele- 
 ment. Though upon alien topics jerky, gro- 
 tesque, and inconsequent, as the spasms of a fish 
 out of water, Mr Hopper's speech, on his natural 
 subjects, flowed smooth, copious, and coherent. 
 
 " Company flourishing, I hope, Mr Hopper \ " 
 Cosmo began. 
 
 " Thank you, sir, yes. It will do. No mis- 
 take there. Trade is what they call ' bad/ to be 
 sure. There has been over-production, and there 
 has been a glut, and there has been stagnation, 
 and reduction of wages, and strikes, and aliena- 
 tion of trade. Never mind, sir. A. Glencairn 
 & Co., Limited, weathers them all. We watch ; 
 we foresee ; we adapt. We're elastic, that's 
 what we are. All a matter, sir, of alternative 
 combinations, sound connections, and, if I may
 
 280 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 so say, sleepless management. Mr Glencairn's 
 guarantee is safe, sir — as a church. He guaran- 
 teed 'nine' for a term of years, you know. We'll 
 not get below the ' nine ' at the worst ; and when 
 the rebound comes — then — aha ! " Mr Hopper 
 made a large but incomplete circle of his arms, 
 to figure the limitless wealth that might be 
 looked for at the period of the " rebound." He 
 then went on to express his wonder, as he had 
 often done before, that a man of Cosmo's acumen 
 had never taken any of " our shares," and still 
 greater wonder that he should be contented with 
 mortgages at 4^ and Government stock at 3f. 
 With the greatest deference, Mr Hopper must 
 say that such returns were " paltry." He was 
 sorry to use so strong a word ; but when he con- 
 sidered the capabilities of capital, it did seem to 
 him that a man who could sit down content with 
 such returns from such a tremendous source of 
 reproduction, was a man who — who was satis- 
 fied with — that which — is " paltry." There was 
 really no other word for it. 
 
 " Well, Mr Hopper," said Cosmo, " the capi- 
 tal, at all events, is safe ; and the return, if it be 
 paltry, is at least regular, besides being more 
 than twice over sufficient for my requirements." 
 
 " Safe, captain ! Sufficient ! Why, sir, you
 
 MINE IS THINE. 281 
 
 might double your fine income, and yet be as 
 safe as the bank, in many undertakings, and 
 unquestionably in ours. And ' sufficient ! ' Oh, 
 sir, is that a view to take of capital ? Think of 
 its power; remember the responsibilities attached 
 to it. Four per cent ! Lor ! It's like cutting 
 off one of your legs and one of your arms, and 
 putting out one of your eyes. It's like encourag- 
 ing your child to play truant from school. It's 
 like using a helephant to do the work of a cos- 
 termonger's pony. It's a kiud of an outrage to 
 Enterprise. It's a slap on the mouth for the 
 spirit of the Hage. Forgive me, captain — for- 
 give my 'eat. Lor ! Lor ! " 
 
 It was Mr Hopper's way to be earnest and 
 eager ; and this sort of whole-souled gush was 
 known to tell immensely upon amateur directors 
 and meetings of shareholders flushed to a rose- 
 colour by recent announcements of rattling divi- 
 dends. 
 
 Cosmo, who had experienced it all before, 
 laughingly gave it the go-by, by deploring his 
 deadness to the commercial instinct, and his 
 inability to use even half the " paltry " return 
 which the " helephant " supplied to him. 
 
 This gave Mr Hopper a new point of de- 
 parture.
 
 282 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Then there are your c clippings/ captain — 
 your surpluses. Give them the chance of doing 
 something. Don't hoard them. Because the 
 dam browses in idleness, why leave the foal to 
 eat its head off ? I'll tell you what it is, sir — in 
 confidence — we see our way to profitable devel- 
 opment. We use new capital, not to dilute the 
 profits of the old — mark that ! — but to fortify the 
 old and increase its productive power. Ahem ! 
 To a trifling extent, we are inclined to increase 
 our capital. I have recommended a small issue 
 of shares — say £80,000, more or less. Now, sir, 
 to any extent, within that limit, I think I can 
 guarantee you a holding with us. The Board, 
 of course, have a right to the refusal of all new 
 shares ; but I'm confident that there's not one of 
 us who won't say, ' I'll take my pro rata allot- 
 ment, but I'll transfer it at once to the son of 
 him to whom we all owe so much.' Say the 
 word, Captain Cosmo, and I'll place your sur- 
 pluses for you. To what figure now might the 
 surpluses " 
 
 " I'm sincerely obliged to you, Mr Hopper ; 
 but, really, I haven't thought of changing my 
 system. As to the * surpluses,' I daresay there's 
 a certain amount of money in some kind of 
 temporary investments ; but how much, I don't
 
 MINE IS THINE. 283 
 
 know. Every midsummer I have a clearing up 
 with my agent, and everything is settled then, 
 about investments, &c. &c. • It is hard work at 
 the time ; but, after this yearly audit, I don't 
 give my mind to money matters at all. In fact, 
 they don't interest me." 
 
 Mr Hopper looked at him with a kind of 
 wondering pity, as who should say, " Yet, I sup- 
 pose this poor devil may possibly have a soul ! " 
 and then said, " Well, Captain, I won't despair 
 of you yet. At your next audit, promise me 
 that you'll give earnest consideration to what 
 I've said. Do, now." 
 
 " I certainly will, Mr Hopper." 
 
 " My motives in speaking thus," said the 
 manager, " with this freedom, are simply these — 
 regard for your interests, and veneration for that 
 sublime lever which has 'oisted Great Britain up 
 to the pinnacle of commercial pre-eminence." 
 With which peroration (from his last half-yearly 
 meeting speech) Mr Hopper sank back, violently 
 rubbing the equatorial line of scanty hair which 
 girdled his gleaming head, looking every inch 
 the director who courts inquiry and deprecates 
 applause. 
 
 The way being thus paved, and Mr Hopper 
 having had his innings, Cosmo said, " There is &
 
 284 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 matter, Mr Hopper, on which I wish to consult 
 you, as a man of business, and as a friend." 
 
 Mr Hopper was proud and delighted, and sat 
 up, all attention. 
 
 " A friend of mine," said Cosmo, " is in diffi- 
 culties." 
 
 " Monetary difficulties, sir ? " 
 
 " Monetary difficulties." 
 
 Mr Hopper's face changed a little, his sym- 
 pathies rather lying with the " surplused " 
 classes. 
 
 " He is almost in want," continued Cosmo. 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! tut ! sad, that— ve-ry sad." 
 
 " Yes, it is very distressing to me, who am his 
 oldest friend, and the more so that I am at a 
 loss how to help him. As to helping him with 
 money, that is out of the question." 
 
 With this Mr Hopper promptly coincided ; it 
 required no demonstration, he said — none. 
 
 "Not," pursued Cosmo, "from unwillingness 
 on my part, but from honest pride on his." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said Mr Hopper ; the case was 
 evidently going to be a puzzler. 
 
 "He is of high education ; took an excellent 
 degree at Cambridge; is very intelligent; and 
 yet he has found it impossible to obtain any 
 employment."
 
 MINE IS THINE. 285 
 
 " His antecedents, perhaps, not quite — eh \ " 
 "What, Mr Hopper 1" 
 
 " Bespectable, though not exactly criminal, 
 of course." 
 
 "He is my friend, sir, and in all respects a 
 gentleman." 
 
 " To be sure — to be sure ! What am I think- 
 ing of %» 
 
 " He has been unfortunate, and, I must admit, 
 foolish — that is all. You are acquainted with 
 his name, for he is the son of my father's old 
 friend, Mr Den wick." 
 
 " Whew ! " Mr Hopper whistled, apologised, 
 coughed, finally laughed nervously. 
 
 "That expresses your opinion of him, does 
 it ? " said Cosmo, grimly. 
 
 " Far be it from me, sir, to have a bad opinion 
 of any friend of yours. I was merely recalling a 
 little anecdote of your father's about him, — a 
 merry story, a merry story — nothing more." 
 
 " It has not been a merry story for him." 
 
 " He went into some South American securi- 
 ties, if I recollect right, against your father's 
 advice, and lost a good deal of money in a rather 
 comical way." 
 
 "He went into Spanish bonds, and lost his all 
 in a very tragical way."
 
 286 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 "Tut! tut! tut! Dear, dear! that's bad — 
 ve-ry bad." 
 
 " Yes it is. Now, do you think you can find 
 him any employment \ " 
 
 Mr Hopper rubbed his equator — but in the 
 sense of a man who is invited to perform a 
 miracle — pursed his mouth, and slowly shook 
 his head. 
 
 " You see," he said at last, " there's nothing 
 we could make of him. University gentlemen 
 are, in some ways above, in others below, busi- 
 ness. They're not available — that's the word. 
 We couldn't make a clerk of Mr Den wick. It 
 wouldn't pay us, and it wouldn't pay him. 
 Besides, we take no apprentices or probationers. 
 They must come to us finished. It takes time 
 to finish a clerk to the mark of Glencairn & Co., 
 Limited." 
 
 " Well, that is very true ; but could you not 
 put him into some berth where his general edu- 
 cation would tell ? We have lawyers and mer- 
 chants at the head of our War Office and Admi- 
 ralty sometimes. Their subordinates supply 
 them with practical details, and their own 
 talents and general knowledge enable them to 
 organise and administer. You have various 
 departments, of course 1 "
 
 MINE IS THINE. 287 
 
 "Oh yes, we have — not a few; coal, iron- 
 stone, survey, finance, &c. &c." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, my dear Mr Cosmo, surely you don't 
 propose to put a novice at the head of one of 
 the departments of A. Glencairn & Co., Lim- 
 ited 1" 
 
 "Why not ! M 
 
 "Oh sir! oh sir! Think! think! Besides, 
 all our heads of departments have holdings in 
 the Company — some of them large. It's one of 
 our rules ; they're, as it were, working partners. 
 That wouldn't suit Mr Denwick. No." 
 
 " Outside the Company, then ; through any 
 of your business connections, do you not think 
 you could find some employment (he's not proud) 
 for my poor friend — something that would give 
 him work for his brains and food for his 
 body?" 
 
 Again Mr H. shook his head. 
 
 " Can you suggest nothing, even ? " 
 
 Mr H. could not ; but " give him a few min- 
 utes, and he would 'roll it over' in his mind." 
 
 During the few minutes accorded, the manager 
 went through awful contortions of the face ; 
 rose up ; moved about the room ; stared at 
 isolated flies on the wall ; took out a pencil ;
 
 288 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 bit it ; calculated ; jotted ; tousled his equator ; 
 finally sat down, smote his leg, and earnestly 
 gazing at Cosmo, whispered, "I've got it — got 
 it, sir — got it." 
 
 "You haveV' 
 
 " I have, sir — with your co-operation, but on 
 that condition alone." 
 
 " You may count on that." 
 
 " Ah ! I don't know ; but a kind of a Provi- 
 dence seems to have connected my talk about 
 your surpluses and your talk about Mr Denwick. 
 That emboldens me ; but in any case it is your 
 affair. Now, sir, the thing lies in a nutshell. 
 Invest £25,000 in our shares, for Mr Denwick, 
 and he shall have a department by-and-by. In 
 the meantime, as your friend, he shall come into 
 my office and learn the details of business. 
 There ! the plan is simple." 
 
 " Simple, yes ; but Mr Denwick would not 
 accept a present of £25,000, even if I thought it 
 right to give it to him." 
 
 " Present ! O Lor ! Captain, who talks of 
 presents % Let me explain. You advance the 
 money. The shares are bought in his name. 
 The certificates are held by you, as security (our 
 security, your father's security — good enough, 
 hey ?), and Mr Denwick pays you five per cent
 
 MINE IS THINE. 289 
 
 interest, or what you stipulate for, on the capital ; 
 reserves a portion of the surplus for the extinc- 
 tion of the debt ; lives on the rest ; and qualifies, 
 by the whole transaction, for a lucrative appoint- 
 ment, should his acquirements and capacity 
 warrant his being selected, by - and - by. The 
 plan pays you as well as your mortgages do ; 
 finds bread and work for your friend, and — what 
 more would you have % At all events, captain, 
 I can suggest nothing else." 
 
 " It's a noble idea ! n cried Cosmo, with enthu- 
 siasm. " Nothing could be better. I help Phil, 
 without putting him under an obligation which 
 a gentleman could not accept ; and help him in 
 a way that will make him work, and keep him 
 from sliding back into old ways and associa- 
 tions — of which, however, I think he has had 
 enough. I can't sufficiently thank you, Mr 
 Hopper, for your proposal. I close with it at 
 once. But are you certain of your power to get 
 the shares 1 " 
 
 " Leave it to me, sir. Find the money with- 
 in six weeks, and the shares shall be at your 
 disposal." 
 
 " Poor Phil ! how pleased he will be ! He 
 will be as grateful to you, Mr Hopper, as I am. 
 This is indeed luck ! n 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 290 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 In the morning, Cosmo's first care was to tele- 
 graph to Phil that on the next day he would 
 receive a letter explaining all details of a remu- 
 nerative " career " which was open to him — that 
 the letter would also contain a cheque for £100, 
 being an advance with which Phil was at once 
 to clothe and house himself properly, and find 
 some pasture-ground more eligible than that 
 which he had been sharing with the black sheep 
 of Leicester Square. And then he wrote the 
 letter, which breathed all the affectionate delight 
 which he felt at being able, " by the luckiest 
 accident in the world," to help his friend ; and 
 worded it with such diplomatic delicacy, that 
 you would have almost supposed that Cosmo was 
 the real gainer, and that Phil's part in the trans- 
 action was that, by magnanimously undergoing 
 a good deal of toil and risk, he was enabling his 
 friend to obtain a higher rate of interest for his
 
 MIXE IS THIXE. 291 
 
 money than heretofore. And these things being 
 done, he went and ruminated for many an 
 hour by the sea, thinking of his love and his 
 hope and his fears, and how he would open 
 the matter to his father, and when. And the 
 day slipped away, and another precarious dinner 
 was got through ; and before Mr Glencairn was 
 "played out," Cosmo asked him, with some 
 trepidation, for a private interview, which was 
 at once granted, and they marched off to the 
 " business room." 
 
 Fairly confronted with his father, Cosmo felt 
 much difficulty in opening a conversation in 
 which the initiative lay necessarily with himself. 
 The result of the interview was of vital moment 
 to his happiness (and Hope, once admitted, had 
 grown hourly) ; and, beyond this, he shrank 
 with an almost feminine sensitiveness, from 
 exposing to observation those feelings which are 
 jealously guarded even by natures comparatively 
 coarse. It was with much embarrassment that 
 he commenced the dialogue, scanned by his 
 father's unfaltering eyes. 
 
 " We have never had any confidential inter- 
 course, father," he said, " and I daresay my 
 request for this interview surprises you." 
 
 Here Cosmo paused, and Mr Glencairn in-
 
 292 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 timated that surprise was an emotion foreign 
 to his nature. 
 
 " You are no doubt puzzled as to its object," 
 continued the son. 
 
 " Guessing and puzzling would be the merest 
 waste of time. You have a direct statement to 
 make. Is it not so?" 
 
 " That is true." 
 
 " Then, pray, let us have it before us at once." 
 
 " I confess I have much difficulty in opening 
 this matter to you. It is of a most delicate 
 nature. It is difficult to plunge directly into a 
 delicate subject." 
 
 "In business matters, between men of busi- 
 ness, there need be no delicacy, where motives 
 on either side are honest, and the lines of busi- 
 ness adhered to." 
 
 " You forget that I am not a man of business." 
 
 " True ; but still you are a gentleman, there- 
 fore incapable of proposing to a business man, 
 on a business matter, anything you need be 
 ashamed of — which is the plain English for 
 ' having a delicacy.' " 
 
 " Ah ! but this is not a matter of business, 
 nor is it a proposal." 
 
 " My dear Cosmo, why speak in riddles ? You 
 say this is not a business matter, and I have
 
 MINE IS THINE. 293 
 
 no knowledge of your world. I can't conceive 
 you consulting me on any matter relating to it. 
 I would help you with a guess to start your 
 ideas, if I could, to be done with fencing. You 
 are in trouble, evidently. All the world over, 
 the troubles of young men are mainly connected 
 with the purse or the heart. The former can't 
 possibly affect you — as to the latter, ha ! ha ! 
 you are not likely to seek me as a confidant ; so, 
 my ideas being exhausted, you must speak out 
 — if you really want advice or an opinion," he 
 added, looking at his watch. 
 
 Cosmo was silent for a minute, and then said, 
 " Well, father, I am not exempt from the troubles 
 of young men — as you define them." 
 
 " Ah ! money after all ! Speculation, of 
 course : ruinous to amateurs. Foreign stock or 
 shares, of course, and a question of holding or 
 selling. Well ? " 
 
 "No, father, my troubles have nothing to 
 do with money." 
 
 "Then it is " 
 
 "Yes," interrupted Cosmo, who shrank from 
 hearing the divine word uttered by lips that 
 seemed so earthly. 
 
 "Yes," he went on; "and now you will 
 Understand my hesitation."
 
 294 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 "Well, then- 
 
 " Listen, father, pray, and I will try to make 
 you understand ." Then nerving himself with an 
 effort, he went on : " Lately, quite lately, it has 
 been my lot to meet with a lady on whose per- 
 fections I will not dilate. It is enough to say 
 that for me she is perfection, and that all my 
 heart was given to her almost unconsciously, 
 and before I had realised the profound impression 
 she had made upon me." 
 
 Mr Glencairn rattled his watch-chain, and 
 gave a little groan, discreetly commuted into 
 a cough. 
 
 " She is beautiful," Cosmo went on, " and 
 accomplished ; and the only child, the heiress " 
 — (Mr Glencairn dropped his watch-chain and 
 sat up in his chair) — " of a nobleman of proud 
 lineage and vast possessions " 
 
 Here Mr Glencairn's natural reserve gave way, 
 and he cried lustily, " Bravo, Cosmo ! — bravo ! 
 Well done, sir ! " and made as though he would 
 take his son's hand. Cosmo interrupted him. 
 
 " Pray, hear all I have to say before you con- 
 gratulate me." 
 
 " Excuse me ; one question — is the landed 
 property large ? " 
 
 " I am sorry to say it is ; but "
 
 MIXE IS THIXE. 295 
 
 u You prefer the funds ? or concentration in 
 minerals 1 Well, remember they're exhaustible ; 
 but perhaps there may be a mineral field into 
 the bargain ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid it is very probable ; but 
 really " 
 
 " Afraid ? Tut ! tut ! depression cant last for 
 ever; and even now, if there should be 'hematite' 
 in any quantity — should you suppose, now " 
 
 " Allow me to say, my dear father, that, for 
 a man of business, you strangely anticipate 
 matters, which you will see when I assure you 
 that not only are the lady's affections not 
 secured, but that I dare scarcely hope that they 
 ever could be bestowed on one so unworthy of 
 her, even were every other obstacle removed. 
 Her great prospects are really nothing to me ; 
 and even if they did not constitute an obstacle, 
 which, to a certain extent, they do, I would 
 rather have her dowerless." 
 
 Mr Glencairn grinned a knowing grin, but 
 said nothing. 
 
 " When I found," Cosmo went on, " how 
 deeply my feelings were compromised, there 
 was but one step for me to take " 
 
 "You declared yourself? — prematurely, per- 
 haps?"
 
 296 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " No ; I said nothing to the lady." 
 " I see ; you went to her father ? " 
 " On the contrary, I left the place at once." 
 Mr Glencairn was not a man swift to mirth, 
 but this reply of Cosmo's plumbed the depths 
 of his sense of the incongruous, and he burst 
 into laughter loud and sincere. " I beg your 
 pardon, Cosmo, but — c the one step for you to 
 take!' — really — ha! ha! — upsets my gravity. 
 I never understood you. I have thought it 
 
 might be my fault ; but now — Lord ! " 
 
 and he broke into laughter again — " but now, 
 who but a wizard could understand a man who 
 falls in love with a lady, and thinks that there- 
 fore 'the one step for him to take' is to fly 
 from her at once ! — frightened by the size of 
 her fortune — is that it ? — when he has a large 
 one of his own, too — ha ! ha ! ha ! Prodigious ! " 
 " You misunderstand me, father." 
 " I hope so, my dear fellow; for the credit of 
 your intelligence, indeed I do." 
 
 " Let me finish my statement, then. You 
 will pardon me for saying that in my world — 
 the distinction is your own — that in the society 
 which I frequent, money is not necessarily a 
 paramount consideration. It is important, of 
 course, everywhere, but it can't do everything ;
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 297 
 
 and though in matrimonial matters it can do 
 much, it has its limits of power there too. 
 This lady's great prospects, though, as I quite 
 honestly say, they are far from an inducement 
 to me, would not have deterred me from — from 
 prosecuting my suit. The suit might have been 
 hopeless ; still this consideration of her fortune 
 would not have deterred me, because my own 
 fortune would have, so far, removed the sus- 
 picion of mercenary motives, as you justly 
 suggest. I would not, therefore, have run 
 away, but for another consideration, which is 
 really the object of my interview with you." 
 
 "Ah," said Mr Glencairn, "I'm glad we're 
 going to reach some point at last. I'm really 
 getting a little confused." 
 
 " Admitting that money is the main thing 
 looked at, in this miserable and selfish age, 
 where matrimony is concerned, still, even now- 
 adays there must be some kind of respectability 
 in the antecedents of any suitor. I should say, 
 for instance, that certain taints must not rest 
 on his origin, otherwise he will be rejected by 
 the most mercenary aristocrat. I should say 
 that the hereditary taint of felony or illegiti- 
 macy would disqualify him. Father, how do I 
 stand in this respect ? "
 
 298 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Great heavens, sir ! what do you mean ? " 
 cried Mr Glencairn, starting from his chair ; 
 " what do you dare to insinuate 1 " 
 
 " Nothing — I insinuate nothing. The honour 
 of our blood must be as dear to me as to you. 
 I ask a simple question. I will put it differently. 
 Father, who are we ? " 
 
 Mr Glencairn laughed scornfully. " Who are 
 we % I am Archibald Glencairn, formerly prin- 
 cipal partner in the firm of Glencairn & Co., 
 ironmasters, now a large shareholder in the Com- 
 pany of that name, and a financial operator 
 known, ay, and respected, on most European 
 bourses. As to yourself, you are better ac- 
 quainted with the subject ; but if you add 
 your own experiences to mine, the question 
 ' Who are weV is satisfactorily answered, I 
 take it." 
 
 " No, father, not at all. In the sense of your 
 answer, I require, of course, no information. I 
 am not trifling. You treat this as an imperti- 
 nence. Is that just ? I am your son, anckof 
 full age ; surely I am entitled to the informa- 
 tion I demand. When I was a child, my 
 questions were always evaded. Once only did 
 I get a sort of answer from my uncle Wild- 
 grave — and what an answer ! It was to the
 
 MIXE IS THIXE. 299 
 
 effect that the less I inquired the better ; that- 
 there was little to know, and that little, dis- 
 creditable. In fact, I gathered that there was 
 a flaw or a stain on my origin. I never repeated 
 the question again ; and your continued silence 
 on the subject confirmed what my uncle hinted. 
 Now it is everything to me to know — the truth ; 
 and I now ask you frankly, What is our pedigree % " 
 
 " Pedigree % " laughed Mr Glen cairn, resuming 
 his seat ; " ha ! ha ! I'm afraid that has to be 
 manufactured. Don't look so horrified ; it is 
 done every day. A mere question of money — 
 and you are rich. I have heard that a high- 
 priced article (including counterfeited title- 
 deeds, and even tombstones) almost baffles an 
 expert to detect its spuriousness. If people are 
 fools enough to value such things, they deserve 
 to be humbugged. It is more a practical joke 
 than a fraud, for it simulates something which, 
 intrinsically, is nothing. The foolers and the 
 fooled are equally beneath contempt." 
 
 " That does not touch my question, which is 
 still unanswered. Am I to understand that you 
 are the first of our family \ " 
 
 Mr Glencairn laughed and said, "I believe 
 my father would have resented that idea em- 
 phatically."
 
 ? 
 
 300 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " Oh, you had a father, then — forgive me — I 
 mean, socially speaking ? " 
 
 " I understand your meaning. Yes ; my 
 father was, socially speaking, a gentleman. At 
 least I understand that a commissioned officer 
 is technically so considered. He was a captain 
 in the Indian army." 
 
 " And my grandmother ? his wife, f " 
 
 " My mother, his ivife, was the daughter of 
 an Indian judge. " 
 
 Cosmo gave a sigh of relief and said, " Then 
 — then — had he done — was there any cloud on 
 his reputation 1 " 
 
 " No, I think not, c socially speaking/ He 
 was a foolish man, and a violent man, and a 
 dissolute man. His death proved him to be all 
 three, for he was shot in a duel to satisfy his 
 antagonist's family honour, which had been 
 outraged by him." 
 
 " But there was nothing else ? " 
 
 " No ; ' socially speaking/ he was clean- 
 handed; brave, too, I believe, and even dis- 
 tinguished." 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 " Small mercies, Cosmo." 
 
 " Then, my uncle Wildgrave — what did he 
 mean 1 "
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 301 
 
 " All ! your uncle was superfine. All the 
 Wiklgraves were. We must go farther back 
 for his horror of the Glen cairns." 
 
 " Your grandfather was ?" 
 
 " My grandfather was an indigo-planter in 
 India ; but not much is known about him, ex- 
 cept that he lived in India the greater part of 
 his life, and died there." 
 
 " And his wife ? " 
 
 " Well, Cosmo, as far as I can make out, there 
 had been some little oversight on his part about 
 her. In fact — though, let us hope, in other re- 
 spects, a good husband — he never went through 
 the form of marriage with her." 
 
 Cosmo started to his feet. 
 
 " Then," he cried, "my worst fears are realised !" 
 
 "Come," said his father, "that is a little 
 unreasonable, surely. Be thankful for wedded 
 parents and wedded grandparents. It is really 
 a fair allowance, as matters go." 
 
 Cosmo sank into a gloomy silence, till he 
 remembered that the pain was (or might be) his 
 father s as well as his own, and then, to break 
 the pause, he said — 
 
 "I understood from my uncle or from you, 
 long ago, that we are of Scottish descent. Is 
 this so \ "
 
 302 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 "Oh yes; the indigo-planter certainly went 
 from Scotland. There is no doubt about that ; 
 neither any doubt that he changed his name. 
 But now we are on the subject, and since you 
 are entitled to know all I know, I may as well 
 tell it you — little though it is — once for all, 
 and you can form what conjectures you please. 
 You are aware, I presume, that I have an elder 
 brother ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but I know nothing more than that he 
 exists, and is in India. By the by, I understood, 
 also, that you and he were on bad terms. You 
 have never mentioned him to me before." 
 
 " Eight ; and I mention your uncle Eobert 
 now, simply because it is mainly from him that 
 I know anything about our family history. 
 We quarrelled, or rather, he quarrelled with me 
 years ago. The matter was simple enough. He 
 grew tired of the civil service. He saw fortunes 
 being made rapidly all round him in indigo. 
 He thought he would like to make a fortune 
 rapidly too — in indigo ; but he lacked capital. 
 I was prosperous ; he knew it, and invited me 
 to supply him with the necessary funds. I 
 declined — mainly because to have disengaged 
 so much capital from my business at that time 
 would have thrown my own career back for
 
 MIXE IS THINE. 303 
 
 years. Besides this, Robert had no business 
 qualities ; almost inevitably he would have lost 
 the capital ; and, having resigned the service, 
 would have had nothing to fall back upon. So 
 I refused, for his sake as much as my own. He 
 took a wrong-headed view of things ; accused 
 me of I don't know what all, and abjured my 
 relationship in a theatrical way which showed 
 how just was my belief that he would have 
 failed in indigo. "Well, well, he ought to thank 
 me now, for he is high in the service ; he don't 
 however. His affair. In our friendly days we 
 used often to talk together on this — this genea- 
 logical matter. He was sixteen years of age 
 when our father died, and the statements he 
 had from his lips amounted in effect to this : 
 The indigo-planter — my grandfather — was of a 
 good Scottish family; but having been very 
 wild, as a lad, was in perpetual trouble with his 
 people ; and was at last turned out of doors 
 by them, in consequence of an intrigue with a 
 tenant's daughter, which scandalised the good 
 people of the old world in a way which this 
 more philosophical age would scarcely compre- 
 hend. He took the young woman with him to 
 India, where, after having given birth to one 
 child (my father), she died. His resentment
 
 304 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 against his own family was very deep (as is 
 often the case with those who have offended 
 their families) ; probably he was theatrical, like 
 your uncle Kobert, for he had dropped their 
 name from the moment he left home, and was 
 never known in India by any other name than 
 ' Glencairn.' He would conceal his real name, 
 no doubt, by way of insult to those who had 
 repudiated him. It is quite in keeping with 
 Highland pride to abjure the abjurer, and scorn- 
 fully spurn a connection which has already been 
 renounced on the other side. So it is probable 
 that his real name was never known ; for he 
 seems to have made no secret that the name we 
 inherit from him was assumed — and the true 
 name, had it been known, would likely have 
 come down to us as this fact has come. No 
 record of a marriage was left by him ; nor is 
 there any tradition that he owned to, or pre- 
 tended to, a marriage. The evidence is all the 
 other way. Old Mr Den wick — the father of my 
 friend and benefactor — was the indigo-planter's 
 intimate friend in India, and became my father's 
 guardian ; and being still alive at his death, was 
 for a time the guardian of us children, which 
 trust he bequeathed to his son — my friend, to 
 whom I owe nearly everything. I think, there-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 305 
 
 fore, that if there had been anything else to 
 know, we should have learnt it through the 
 Den wicks : unquestionably, if there had been 
 any grounds for believing that my father (who 
 was most anxious and sensitive on the subject) 
 was born in wedlock, these grounds would have 
 been stated. Mr Denwick, however, denied all 
 knowledge of the existence of such grounds. 
 Here, then, is a blank, which can only, I think, 
 be interpreted in one way. My father, accord- 
 ing to Eobert, had a variety of theories, some 
 of which he shared, which made for his own 
 legitimacy. I apprehend they had no solid 
 basis. What is conclusive to me is, that no 
 man who was not both a maniac and a villain 
 would have condemned his son to the penalties 
 of illegitimacy, by wantonly suppressing evi- 
 dence of his marriage, because it was contracted 
 in a name which would have identified his son 
 with the race which he had abjured. There, 
 Cosmo, that is positively all I know. If some 
 one could weave a clean pedigree out of it, and 
 identify us with a decent family, I should be 
 glad of it for your sake. For myself, I have 
 got on so well ivithout a pedigree, that I confess 
 to some indifference on the subject." 
 
 When this cold and passionless summation 
 vol. i. u
 
 306 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 was concluded, there was silence for some time. 
 At last Cosmo groaned out, rather as thinking 
 aloud than as addressing his father, " This ac- 
 cursed taint! can it ever be removed ?" And 
 then his father spoke. "I see," he said, "you 
 have inherited the Wildgraves , ideas. They 
 put the same question to themselves, apropos 
 of me, and answered it in the negative. Well, 
 that unlucky old indigo-planter has a good deal 
 to answer for. I heard enough about him in 
 my young days, when, like you, I aspired to 
 marry into a proud family. I don t owe him a 
 dutiful thought, I can tell you. But how many 
 generations is he to keep in the shade ? When 
 do you suppose illegitimacy ceases to disqualify? 
 Three generations make a gentleman, it is said : 
 if so, they abrogate the bar ; and you are the 
 third from it. Is it not notorious that nowa- 
 days the bar-sinister, provided it is gilt, is no 
 bar to social success ? Times have changed 
 since my youth. The world is more sensible ; 
 and you have the advantage of a generation 
 over me. You have other advantages — posi- 
 tion, solid wealth, lineage undisputed on one 
 side. Fall back upon your mother's pedigree. 
 With that and £10,000 a-year and prospects — 
 ay, and prospects — you are good enough for any
 
 MINE IS THIXE. 307 
 
 of them. Take my word for it. If they think 
 not, do as I did — take your own way. With 
 the lady on your side, you can afford to laugh 
 at them. They'll come round in time, and soon 
 enough. May I ask who the noble lord is ? " 
 " I would rather not mention the name." 
 " As you please ; but whoever he is, he'll 
 come round if the lady is on your side." 
 
 " My dear father, the lady doesn't dream of 
 me ; but even were it as you suggest, still you 
 misunderstand the case. In some ways I do 
 recognise the justice of what you say. It does 
 seem monstrous that a bar like this should hang, 
 like a felon's fetter, on generation after genera- 
 tion. But this is an exceptional case. The 
 lady is not only her father's heiress, — she is 
 the last of her family — an ancient and historical 
 house, which must merge in the race with which 
 she intermarries. Do you think, then, it would 
 be honourable, without the concurrence of her 
 father — the last male depositary of the family 
 honours, traditions, and 'prestige — to persuade 
 his daughter to an alliance which would couple 
 their noble name with this ignoble bar % Don't 
 you think it would be something like stealing a 
 possession more valuable in their eyes than all 
 their wealth \ "
 
 308 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 " No, I don't ; but I do think, if you'll excuse 
 me for saying so, that you are talking common 
 nonsense. If the lady is the sole heiress of the 
 family prestige (a shadowy inheritance, by the 
 by), she is as much entitled to have an opinion 
 about its disposition as about the disposal of the 
 family wealth. You would have no scruples as 
 to the latter appanage, which is of real import- 
 ance ; why, then, about the former, which is a 
 dream — an idea ? Well, well, well. You are a 
 gentleman ; you have your three generations, 
 and that obliterates the bar, to which, I am 
 very sure, this ungenealogical age will never say 
 'nay/" 
 
 " I am very sure, however, that the noble lord 
 in question will." 
 
 " Then the noble lord in question is an , 
 
 is no wiser than he should be." 
 
 " That may be ; but he is the guardian of his 
 family honour, and has a right to his own opin- 
 ion. What that would be, I know too well. He 
 is the proudest of the proud. Twenty genera- 
 tions would not erase this blot. The suitor who 
 seeks his approbation had need be immaculate." 
 
 " Then take your own way ; win the lady, 
 and leave the rest to time." 
 
 Cosmo sank into silence and abstraction. His
 
 MINE IS THINE. 309 
 
 father's arguments; his own delicate sense of 
 honour ; the old peer's pride and prejudices ; 
 his own sense of justice ; the conflict between 
 the fading dogmas of past generations and the 
 fresh and liberal views of modern life ; the 
 eclipse of privilege ; and the triumph of indi- 
 vidual merit over inherited prestige, — these, 
 with his own fond wishes, rushed through his 
 mind, clashing here, coinciding there, tumultuous 
 and chaotic. And slowly from this confusion 
 the dim outline of a compromise evolved itself, 
 which, marking with judicial severity that which 
 made against Cosmo, as well as that which made 
 for him, yielded this balance in his favour, that 
 that which in him was lacking might be supplied 
 by personal distinction, won by personal effort. 
 That would obliterate flaws — of which justice 
 claimed the obliteration — and by a nobler ex- 
 pedient than the brute force of wealth. 
 
 " Ah ! " he murmured aloud ; " now would be 
 the time to concentrate vague ambitions and 
 desultory efforts ! Could I but make a name 
 for myself — a great reputation . . . then, 
 indeed . . . but what can I do \ . . . Yes, 
 achievement is the root of real aristocracy. He 
 who achieves must be nobler than he who merely 
 inherits the rewards of achievement."
 
 310 MINE IS THIXE. 
 
 " Eight, sir ! right ! therefore achieve." 
 
 Cosmo started to find he had been thinking 
 aloud, and that his father's eyes were fixed upon 
 him with a half-friendly, half-mocking expres- 
 sion. 
 
 He rose, and said — 
 
 "Father, I thank you for your information 
 and advice. The unknown evil is always more 
 formidable than that which we see, and my fears 
 were greater than the fact. The fact is, how- 
 ever, sufficiently grave ; indeed, an obstacle all 
 but insurmountable, though possibly, in one 
 
 way Well, there is no good pursuing 
 
 the subject. One explanation, however, I must 
 make. In my anxiety to know the disability 
 which birth lays me under, I may have seemed 
 to you to imply that, that being removed, no 
 other impediment would remain. If I conveyed 
 that impression, let me now correct it. That 
 I am unworthy of this lady, I am very certain ; 
 that she might think otherwise is but a dream." 
 
 " Well, Cosmo, as I said before, I don't under- 
 stand you, and never shall, I suppose ; but what, 
 then, does the whole thing amount to % " 
 
 " It amounts to this, that I came away from 
 — from a certain influence, to dissipate dreams, 
 or, if you please, to deaden pain, by using my
 
 MINE IS THINE. 311 
 
 faculties and acquirements, such as they are, in 
 some active sphere. I still wish to find that 
 sphere. Our conversation has, at least, made no 
 difference in that desire." 
 
 " There is but one obvious sphere for a man 
 in your position, of your culture and general 
 views, and that is the sphere of politics. You 
 have surely turned your thoughts in that direc- 
 tion V 
 
 " Yes, I have ; but there are obstacles " 
 
 " Obstacles ! obstacles ! obstacles ! " shouted 
 Mr Glencairn. " Lions in every path ! This 
 passes patience ! Is this all that comes of an 
 interminable education 1 " 
 
 Cosmo felt somewhat abashed at the rude jus- 
 tice of these remarks, but replied — 
 
 " I did not say that in this case the obstacles 
 were insuperable. But it has appeared to me 
 that when a man goes into political life, he 
 ought to be able to identify himself heartily 
 with one of the great parties — otherwise his 
 career will be a failure, and he himself useless. 
 I have never, as yet, seen my way to unqualified 
 enlistment with any party." 
 
 " Oh, if that is all, it is a small matter ! 
 Every one leans towards certain outlines of 
 political belief, sentiment, prejudice, or what
 
 312 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 you please to call it. With this party or that 
 or the other, he will find that these outlines are 
 followed in a general way. No thinking man 
 can honestly pledge himself to conform to all 
 the details of all the measures which a party 
 may support. All he can hope is to be able to 
 subscribe to the general sentiment which guides 
 it — to recognise its key-note as his own. I 
 should fancy that your views are moderate, and 
 that this should not be difficult to you." 
 
 " No, certainly ; but I have strong opinions 
 on some important subjects which have been 
 made shibboleths of party adhesion, though no 
 general principle, as distinctive of either party, 
 is involved in them. Well, you can see that, if 
 I were honest in my declarations, I should run a 
 very strong chance of falling between two stools, 
 and failing to be returned. Suppose I go con- 
 sistently with the Conservatives on all but one 
 subject, but that that subject has arbitrarily 
 been made a Conservative test ; I should expect 
 that the Conservatives would oppose me for my 
 defection on that point, and the Liberals for my 
 generally Conservative views, and vice versd. 
 Well, but suppose, nevertheless, I did get into 
 the House. I should not go there without am- 
 bition ; and do you think I could look for poli-
 
 MINE IS THINE. 313 
 
 tical advancement from a party to which I ran 
 counter on one or more test-questions ? " 
 
 "Ah, well, when a man has been in the 
 House for a little, and sees things from nearer 
 points of view, it's wonderful how well he 
 manages to harmonise his views, on the whole, 
 with his party — unless, of course, he is a crack- 
 brained crotcheteer, when he is not worth con- 
 sidering. By the by, if it is only a question of 
 getting into the House, there, I think, I could 
 help you. Indeed it would suit me personally 
 to do so. There is a borough in which we — I — 
 have much to say. It is not much of apolitical 
 borough ; indeed I don't think the good folk 
 there care two straws about any public ques- 
 tion. They have a local interest to promote — 
 a healthy legitimate interest — and what they 
 chiefly want is a member who will nurse this 
 interest. To a moderate man on either side, 
 who would give some time and trouble to this 
 affair, I think I could almost guarantee the seat. 
 I take it that you have a Conservative bias, but 
 that on some points you are inclined for dis- 
 creetly liberal progress % " 
 
 " Yes ; I think that, on the whole, defines 
 my position." 
 
 '■ Very well, I will now give you all the
 
 314 MINE IS THINE. 
 
 details, and you can think it over. I may say 
 that I believe the sitting member will apply for 
 the Chiltern Hundreds at the end of this ses- 
 sion." 
 
 Mr Glencairn then briefly laid the details 
 before his son, and, at last, the longest con- 
 versation that had ever taken place between 
 them, came to a close. 
 
 There is no doubt that the direct and un- 
 sentimental view which Mr Glencairn had taken 
 of every subject discussed had produced its 
 effect upon Cosmo, and carried him farther than 
 he could have believed towards his father's 
 position. He had half admitted that, under 
 certain conditions of compromise, his hopes 
 need not be altogether abandoned ; and now 
 his father's prompt energy was hurrying him 
 towards a step which might lead to these con- 
 ditions, and which certainly would force him 
 into a sphere of activity, between which and 
 others he had vacillated — doubtful of the 
 maturity of his powers and preparation — doubt- 
 ful where his special aptitude lay. Even for 
 his own mere peace of mind, he felt that 
 active employment was now indispensable. 
 Open to him, apparently beyond a doubt, an 
 honourable sphere now lay. Would it not be
 
 MIXE IS THINE. 315 
 
 well, then, to abandon hesitation \ To cut 
 himself free from this eternal weighing of 
 alternatives, and combating of scruples 1 The 
 step might lead to this or that eventually; in 
 the meantime, it meant " work," which nothing 
 else offered. "Would it not be well, then, to 
 close with what would supply this supreme 
 necessity % And if it meant hope, too ? Did it 
 mean hope, too ? "Well, at least nothing made 
 a fairer offer of it. 
 
 Before Cosmo slept that night, his resolve 
 was taken ; and next morning he communicated 
 to his father that the borough of Puffboro' 
 might consider itself suited with a nurse for 
 its " healthy local interest." 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
 
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 OSBORN. Narratives of Voyage and Adventure. By Admiral 
 
 Sherard Osborn, C.B. 3 vols, crown 8 vo, 12s. Or separately :— 
 
 Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal ; or, Eighteen Months 
 
 in the Polar Regions in Search of Sir John Franklin's Expedition in 1850-51. 
 To which is added the Career, Last Voyage, and Fate of Captain Sir John 
 Franklin. New Edition, crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 The Discovery of a North-West Passage by H.M.S. Inves- 
 tigator, during the years 1850-51-52-53-54. Edited from the Logs and Journals of 
 Captain Robert C. M'Clure. Fourth Edition, crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Quedah ; A Cruise in Japanese Waters : and, The Fight on 
 
 the Peiho. New Edition, crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 OSSIAN. The Poems of Ossian in the Original Gaelic. With a 
 
 Literal Translation into English, and a Dissertation on the Authenticity of the 
 Poems. By the Rev. Archibald Clerk. 2 vol6. imperial 8vo, £i, us. 6d. 
 
 PAGE. Introductory Text-Book of Geology. By David Page, 
 
 LL.D., Professor of Geology in the Durham University of Physical Science, 
 Newcastle. With Engravings on Wood and Glossarial Index. Eleventh 
 Edition, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Advanced Text-Book of Geology, Descriptive and Indus- 
 trial. With Engravings, and Glossary of Scientific Terms. Sixth Edition, re- 
 vised and enlarged, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Handbook of Geological Terms, Geology, and Physical Geo- 
 
 graphy. Second Edition, enlarged, 7s. 6d. 
 
 - Geology for General Readers. A Series of Popular Sketches 
 
 in Geology and Palaeontology. Third Edition, enlarged, 6s. 
 
 - Chips and Chapters. A Book for Amateurs and Young 
 
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 - The Past and Present Life of the Globe. With numerous 
 
 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 - The Crust of the Earth : A Handy Outline of Geology. 
 
 Sixth Edition, is. 
 
 - Economic Geology ; or, Geology in its relation to the Arts 
 
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 Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Introductory Text-Book of Physical Geography. With 
 
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 ■ Advanced Text-Book of Physical Geography. Second Edi- 
 tion. With Engravings. 5s. 
 
 PAGET. Paradoxes and Puzzles : Historical, Judicial, and Literary. 
 
 Now for the first time published in Collected Form. By John Paget, Barris- 
 ter-at-Law. 8vo, 12s. 
 
 PATON. Spindrift. By Sir J. Noel Paton. Fcap., cloth, 5s. 
 Poems by a Painter. Fcap., cloth, 5s.
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 19 
 
 PATTERSON. Essays in History and Art. By R. H. Patterson. 
 
 8VO, I2S. 
 
 PAL'L. History of the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen's 
 Body-Guard "for Scotland. By James Balfour Paul, Advocate of the Scottish 
 Bar. Crown 4to, with Portraits and other Illustrations. £2, 2s. 
 
 PAUL. Analysis and Critical Interpretation of the Hebrew Text of 
 
 the Book of Genesis. Preceded by a Hebrew Grammar, and Dissertations on 
 the Genuineness of the Pentateuch, and on the Structure of the Hebrew Lan- 
 guage. By the Rev. William Paul, A.M. 8vo, 18s. 
 
 PETTIGREW. The Handy-Book of Bees, and their Profitable 
 
 Management. By A. Pettigrew. Third Edition, with Engravings. Crown 
 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 POLLOK. The Course of Time : A Poem. By Robert Pollok, 
 
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 8d. The Same, cloth, gilt edges, is. 6d. Another Edition, with Illustrations 
 by Birket Foster and others, fcap., gilt cloth, 3s. 6d., or with edges gilt, 4s. 
 
 An Illustrated Edition of the Course of Time. The Illus- 
 trations by Birket Foster, Tenniel, and Clayton. Large 8vo, bound in cloth, 
 richly gilt,' 21s. 
 
 PORT ROYAL LOGIC. Translated from the French : with Intro- 
 duction, Notes, and Appendix. By Thomas Spencer Batches, LL.B., Pro- 
 fessor in the University of St Andrews. Seventh Edition, 121110, 4s. 
 
 POTTS and DARNELL. Aditus Faciliores : An easy Latin Con- 
 struing Book, with Complete Vocabulary. By A. W. Potts, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 Head-Master of the Fettes College, Edinburgh, and sometime Fellow of St 
 John's College, Cambridge; and the Rev. C. Darnell. M.A., Head-Master of 
 Cargilfield Preparatory School, Edinburgh, and late Scholar of Pembroke and 
 Downing Colleges, Cambridge. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Aditus Faciliores Graeci. An easy Greek Construing Book, 
 
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 PRAYERS. Family Prayers : Authorised by the General Assembly 
 
 of the Church of "Scotland. A New Edition, crown 8vo, in large type, 4s. 6d. 
 Another Edition, crown 8vo, 2s. 
 
 PR INGLE. The Live Stock of the Farm. By Robert 0. Pringle. 
 
 Second Edition, Revised, crown 8vo, 9s. 
 
 PUBLIC GENERAL STATUTES AFFECTING SCOTLAND, 
 
 from 1707 to 1847, ^ith Chronological Table and Index. 3 vols, large 8vo, 
 £3, 3». 
 
 PUBLIC GENERAL STATUTES AFFECTING SCOTLAND, 
 
 COLLECTION OF. Published Annually with General Index. 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS, THE : Winchester— Westminster— Shrews- 
 bury— Harrow— Rugby. Notes of their History and Traditions. By the 
 Author of ' Etoniana.' Crown 8vo, 8s. 6d. 
 
 RAMSAY. Two Lectures on the Genius of Handel, and the Dis- 
 tinctive Character of his Sacred Compositions. Delivered to the Members of 
 the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. By the Very Rev. Dean Ramsay, 
 Author of 'Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character.' Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 READE. A Woman-Hater. By Charles Reade. 3 vols, crown 
 
 Svo, £1, 5s. 6d. Originally published in ' Blackwood's Magazine.'
 
 20 LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 RINK. Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. With a Sketch of 
 
 their Habits, Religion, Language, and other Peculiarities. By Dr Hknuy 
 Rink, Director of the Royal Greenland Board of Trade, and formerly Inspector 
 of South Greenland. Translated from the Danish by the Author. Edited by 
 Dr Robert Brown, F.L. S., F.R.G.S. With numerous Illustrations, drawn and 
 engraved by Eskimo. Crown 8vo, ios. 6d. 
 
 ROGERS. The Geology of Pennsylvania : A Government Survey ; 
 
 with a General View of the Geology of the United States, Essays on the Coal 
 Formation and its Fossils, and a Description of the Coal-Fields of North Ame- 
 rica and Great Britain. By Professor Henry Darwin Rogers, F.R.S., F.G.8., 
 Professor of Natural History in the University of Glasgow. With Seven large 
 Maps, and numerous Illustrations engraved on Copper and on Wood. 3 vols, 
 royal 4to, ^8, 8s. 
 
 RUSTOW. The War for the Rhine Frontier, 1870 : Its Political 
 
 and Military History. By Col. W. Rustow. Translated from the German, 
 by John Layland Needham, Lieutenant R.M. Artillery. 3 vols. 8vo, with 
 Maps and Plans, £1, us. 6d. 
 
 ST STEPHENS ; or, Illustrations of Parliamentary Oratory. A 
 
 Poem. Comprising— Tym— Vane— Strafford— Halifax— Shaftesbury— St John 
 —Sir R. Walpole— Chesterfield— Carteret— Chatham— Pitt— Fox — Burke- 
 Sheridan— Wilberforce — Wyndham — Conway— Castlereagh— William Lamb 
 (Lord Melbourne)— Tierney— Lord Gray— O'Connell— Plunkett— Shiel— Follett 
 — Macaulay— Peel. Second Edition, crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 SANDFORD and TOWNSEND. The Great Governing Families 
 
 of England. By J. Langton Sandfgrd and Meredith Townsend. 2 vols. 
 8vo, 15s., in extra binding, with richly-gilt cover. 
 
 SCHETKY. Ninety Years of Work and Play. Sketches from the 
 
 Public and Private Career of John Christian Schetky, late Marine Painter in 
 Ordinary to the Queen. By his Daughter. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 SCOTTISH NATURALIST, THE. A Quarterly Magazine of 
 
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 Subscription, free by post, 4s. 
 
 SELLAR. The Education (Scotland) Act, 1872. With Introduction, 
 
 Explanatory Notes, and Index. By A. C. Sellar. New Edition. [In tlie press. 
 
 SELLER and STEPHENS. Physiology at the Farm ; in Aid of 
 
 Rearing and Feeding the Live Stock. By William Seller, M.D., F.R.S.E., 
 Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, formerly Lecturer on 
 Materia Medica and Dietetics ; and Henry Stephens, F.R.S.E., Author of ' The 
 Book of the Farm,' &c. Post 8vo, with Engravings, 16s. 
 
 SETON. St Kilda : Past and Present. By George Seton, M.A., 
 
 Oxon. ; Author of the ' Law and Practice of Heraldry in Scotland,' &c. With 
 appropriate Illustrations. Small quarto, 15s. 
 
 SIMPSON. Paris after Waterloo : A Revised Edition of a " Visit 
 
 to Flanders and the Field of Waterloo." By James Simpson, Advocate. With 
 2 coloured Plans of the Battle. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 SKELTON. Essays in Romance and Studies from Life. A new 
 
 Series of the Essays of " Shirley." By John Skelton, Advocate, Author of 
 the " Comedy of the Noctes Ambrosiame," &c. In one volume. 
 
 SMITH. Italian Irrigation : A Report on the Agricultural Canals 
 
 of Piedmont and Lombardy, addressed to the Hon. the Directors of the East 
 India Company ; with an Appendix, containing a Sketch of the Irrigation Sys- 
 tem of Northern and Central India. By Lieut. -Col. R. Baird Smith, F.G.S., 
 Captain, Bengal Engineers. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo, with Atlas in folio, 
 308.
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 21 
 
 SMITH. Thorndale ; or, The Conflict of Opinions. By William 
 
 Smith, Author of 'A Discourse on Ethics, &c. A New Edition in the press. 
 Crown 8vo. 
 
 Gravenhurst ; or, Thoughts on Good and Evil. Second 
 
 Edition, with Memoir of the Author. Crown 8vo, 8s. 
 
 - A Discourse on Ethics of the School of Paley. 8vo, 4s. 
 
 Dramas. 1. Sir William Crichton. 2. Athehvold. 3. 
 
 Guidone. 24010, boards, 3s. 
 
 SOUTHEY. Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey. Fcap. 
 
 8vo, 5s. 
 
 The Birthday, and other Poems. Second Edition, 5s 
 
 SPEKE. What led to the Discovery of the Nile Source. By John 
 
 Hanntng Speke, Captain H.M. Indian Army. 8vo, with Maps, &c, 14s. 
 
 Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. By 
 
 J. H. Speke, Captain H.M. Indian Army. With a Map of Eastern Equatorial 
 Africa by Captain Speke ; numerous illustrations, chiefly from Drawings by 
 Captain Grant ; and Portraits, engraved on Steel, of Captains Speke and 
 Grant. 8vo, 21s. 
 
 STARFORTH. Villa Residences and Farm Architecture : A Series 
 
 of Designs. By John Starforth, Architect. 102 Engravings. Second Edi- 
 tion, medium 4to, £2, 17s. 6d. 
 
 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF SCOTLAND. Complete, with 
 
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 and Map, neatly bound in cloth, forming a very valuable Manual to the Land- 
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 STEPHENS. The Book of the Farm ; detailing the Labours of the 
 
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 written. 2 vols, large 8vo, £2, 10s. 
 
 The Book of Farm-Buildings ; their Arrangement and 
 
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 Catechism of Practical Agriculture. With Engravings, is. 
 
 STEWART. Advice to Purchasers of Horses. By John Stewart, 
 
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 Stable Economy. A Treatise on the Management of 
 
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 Seventh Edition, fcap. 8vo, 6s. 6d. 
 
 STORY. Graffiti D'ltalia. By W. W. Story, Author of < Roba di 
 
 Roma.' Second Edition, fcap. 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Nero ; A Historical Play. Fcap. 8vo, 6s.
 
 22 LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 STORMONTH. Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary of the 
 
 English Language. Including a very Copious Selection of Scientific Terms. 
 For Use in Schools and Colleges, and as a Book of General Reference. By the 
 Rev. James Stormonth. The Pronunciation carefully Revised by the Rev. 
 P. H. Phelp, M.A. Cantab. Fourth Edition, crown 8vo, pp. 786. 7s. 6d. 
 
 The School Etymological Dictionary and Word-Book. 
 
 Combining the advantages of an ordinary pronouncing School Dictionary and 
 an Etymological Spelling-book. Fcap. 8vo, pp. 254. 2s. 
 
 STRICKLAND. Lives of the Queens of Scotland, and English 
 
 Princesses connected with the Regal Succession of Great Britain. By Acnes 
 Strickland. With Portraits and Historical Vignettes. 8 vols, post 8vo, 
 £4, 4s. 
 
 SUTHERLAND. Handbook of Hardy Herbaceous and Alpine 
 
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 Culture. By William Sutherland, Gardener to the Earl of Minto ; formerly 
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 SWAINSON. A Handbook of Weather Folk-Lore. Being a Col- 
 lection of Proverbial Sayings in various Languages relating to the Weather, 
 with Explanatory and Illustrative Notes. By the Rev. C.'Swainson, M.A., 
 Vicar of High Hurst Wood. Fcap. 8vo, Roxburghe binding, 6s. 6d. 
 
 SWAYNE. Lake Victoria : A Narrative of Explorations in Search 
 
 of the Source of the Nile. Compiled from the Memoirs of Captains Speke and 
 Grant. By Georce C. Swayne, M.A, late Fellow of Corpus Christi College, 
 Oxford. Illustrated with Woodcuts and Map. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 SYMONDSON. Two Years Abaft the Mast : or, Life as a Sea 
 
 Apprentice. By F. W. H. Symondson. 5s. Cheap Edition, 2s. 
 
 TAYLOR. The Story of My Life. By the late Colonel Meadows 
 
 Taylor, Author of 'The Confessions of a Thug,' &c. &c. Edited by his 
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 Tara ; A Mahratta Tale. 3 vols, post 8vo, £1, us. 6d. 
 
 Ralph Darnell. A Novel. 3 vols, post 8vo, £1, us. 6d. 
 
 THOLUCK. Hours of Christian Devotion. Translated from the 
 
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 By the Rev. Robert Menzies, D. D. With a Preface written for this Transla- 
 tion by the Author. Second Edition, crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 THOMSON. Handy-Book of the Flower-Garden : being Practical 
 
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 to the smallest. With Engraved and Coloured Plans, illustrative of the various 
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 The Handy-Book of Fruit-Culture under Glass : being a 
 
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 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 23 
 
 THOMSON. A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the Grape- 
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 8vo, 5s. 
 
 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. A New Edition, with Illustrations. 
 
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 TULLOCH. Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in Eng- 
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 The Christian Doctrine of Sin ; being the Croall Lecture 
 
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 Religion and Theology. A Sermon Preached in the Parish 
 
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 Theism. The Witness of Reason and Nature to an All- 
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 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HIGHLAND AND AGRICUL- 
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 TYTLER. The Wonder-Seeker; or, The History of Charles Douglas. 
 
 By M. Fraser Tytler, Author of 'Tales of the Great and Brave,' &c. A New 
 Edition. Fcap., 3s. 6d. 
 
 VIRGIL. The ^Eneid of Virgil. Translated in English Blank 
 
 . Verse by G. K. Rickards, M.A., and Lord Ravensworth. 2 vols. fcap. 8vo, 
 
 IOS. 
 
 WALFORD. Mr Smith : A Part of his Life. By L. B. Walford. 
 
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 Pauline. Fifth Edition. In 1 vol. [In the press. 
 
 WARREN'S (SAMUEL) WORKS. People's Edition, 4 vols, crown 
 
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 Diary of a Late Physician. 3s. 6d. Illustrated, crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Ten Thousand A- Year. 5s. 
 
 Now and Then. The Lily and the Bee. Intellectual and Moral 
 
 Development of the Present Age. 4s. 6d. 
 
 Essays : Critical, Imaginative, and Juridical. 5s. 
 WELLINGTON. .Wellington Prize Essays on "the System of Field 
 
 Manoeuvres best adapted for enabling our Troops to meet a Continental Army." 
 Edited by Major-General Edward Bruce Hamley. 8vo, 12s. 6d. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY. Minutes of the Westminster As- 
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 Confession of Faith, and Catechisms (November 1644 to March 1649). Printed 
 from Transcripts of the Originals procured by the General Assembly of the 
 Church of Scotland. Edited by the Rev. Alex. T. Mitchell, D.D., Professor 
 of Ecclesiastical History in the University of St Andrews, and the Rev. Johx 
 Struthers, LL.D., Minister of Preston pans. With a Historical and Critical 
 Introduction by Professor Mitchell. 8vo, price 15s.
 
 24 LIST OF BOOKS, ETC. 
 
 WHITE. The Eighteen Christian Centuries. By the Rev. James 
 
 White, Author of 'The History of France.' Seventh Edition, post8vo, with 
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 History of France, from the Earliest Times. Fifth Edition, 
 
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 WHITE. Archaeological Sketches in Scotland — Kintyre and Knap- 
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 ous Illustrations. 2 vols., folio, £4, 4s. Vol. I., Kintyre, sold separately, 
 
 £2, 2S. 
 
 WILLS. Charles the First : An Historical Tragedy in Four Acts. 
 
 By W. G. Wills. 8vo, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Drawing-room Dramas for Children. By the Same and 
 
 the Hon. Mrs Greene. Crown 8vo, 
 
 WILSON. The " Ever- Victorious Army : " A History of the 
 
 Chinese Campaign under Lieut.-Col. C. G. Gordon, and of the Suppression of 
 the Tai-ping Rebellion. By Andrew Wilson, F.A.S.L. 8vo, with Maps, 15s. 
 
 The Abode of Snow : Observations on a Journey from 
 
 Chinese Tibet to the Indian Caucasus, through the Upper Valleys of the 
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 WILSON. Works of Professor Wilson. Edited by his Son-in-Law, 
 
 Professor Ferrier. 12 vols, crown 8vo, £2, 8s. 
 
 Other Works of Professor Wilson. 
 Christopher in his Sporting- Jacket. 2 vols., 8s. 
 
 ■ Isle of Palms, City of the Plague, and other Poems. 4s. 
 
 Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life, and other Tales. 4s. 
 
 Essays, Critical and Imaginative. 4 vols., 16s. 
 
 The Noctes Ambrosianse. Complete, 4 vols., 14s. 
 
 The Comedy of the Noctes Ambrosianso. By Christopher 
 
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 — Homer and his Translators, and the Greek Drama. Crown 
 
 WINGATE. Annie Weir, and other Poems. By David Wingate. 
 
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 WORSLEY. Poems and Translations. By Philip Stanhope 
 
 Worsley, M.A. Edited by Edward Worsley. Second Edition, enlarged. 
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 YULE. Fortification: for the Use of Officers in the Army, and 
 
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