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 A LIFE'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 GRIFFITH & FARRAN, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO NEWBERY AND HARRIS, 
 
 WEST CORNER ST. RAUL'S CHURCHYARD, LONDON. 
 MDCCCLXXX.
 
 [The Rights of Translation and of Reproduction are reserved.']
 
 g£3 
 
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 % I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 TO 
 
 M Y FA THE R, 
 
 MY EARLIEST AND KINDEST CRITIC, 
 AND MY DEAREST FRIEND. 
 
 n 
 
 a< 

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 QUTSIDE these pages, Bolter's 
 Rents are unreformed. They are 
 uglier, in fact, than any fictionist dare 
 paint them. 
 
 It might be startling to know how 
 much of the wealth of City Companies 
 is spent in egregious feasting, in any 
 wicked and wasteful year, whilst a 
 score of such places stand untouched 
 in the world's capital. 
 
 D. C M. 
 
 London, Sept. 1880.
 
 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The day was wintry and the sunlight ghostly when a wintry 
 and a ghost-like apparitio7i came upon me. 
 
 npHE first thing I remember is a narrow 
 little patch of garden, surrounded by 
 high walls of brick, and ended by a brick- 
 paved yard. The day was wintry and the sun- 
 light ghostly when Memory presented me with 
 her first photograph. I am able to recall the 
 time quite clearly, and nothing seems clearer 
 than the complete absence of emotion which 
 followed the statement that I was an orphan. 
 Sally, the one grim but faithful domestic of 
 our fallen house, brought me the news with 
 
 VOL. I. A
 
 2 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 tears. I received it with a childish stoicism. 
 Playing dismally an hour afterwards in that 
 chill winter sunlight about the bricked yard 
 and the frowsy and ill-kept garden, I was 
 seized and violently caressed by our old ser- 
 vant. There Memory's negative suddenly 
 comes to an edge, and the time that followed 
 has, for a space, no pictures for me. Just 
 that little snatch of light comes in between 
 two blanks. I find by reference to dates that 
 the first blank had lasted just three years. 
 The next lasted a month only. Poor little 
 touch of childish memory ! — a sterile halt- 
 ing-place between two deserts of shade and 
 night. 
 
 I did not know until afterwards how utterly 
 alone and desolate I was, and how narrow a 
 chance I had of finding a home in the neigh- 
 bouring union workhouse. 
 
 I sit here in my chambers, and bid the 
 footlights spring up, and set the orchestra 
 tuning their instruments. The curtain rises. 
 The first picture appears, and — to what sad 
 and sweet music — the panorama glides along ! 
 
 I have heard so much from that good and 
 faithful servitor, that the month I have spoken 
 of has iost its blank unreality, and grown to
 
 Autobiography. 3 
 
 be as real as the rest. Sally Troman took me 
 from the house which Death and Debt had 
 made untenantable, and carried me to her 
 mother's cottage, a queer little establishment, 
 with a set of green wooden palings round it, 
 and with two little patches of garden in front, 
 each about the size of a hearthrug. The tiny- 
 garden was filled with two odoriferous growths 
 of shrub. What their scientific name might 
 be I cannot say, t*it they were always spoken 
 of as ' old man ' and ' old woman.' The sexes 
 dwelt apart, and were held separate by a small 
 quarried footway, flanked on either side by a 
 double row of oyster-shells. The house itself, 
 partly by reason of its quaint architecture, and 
 partly by reason of the fact that, from earth to 
 chimney-top, it was covered with oyster-shells, 
 had always, to my childish eye, the aspect of 
 a helpless mollusc. The molluscous tribes 
 seemed richly represented close at hand. 
 Gigantic oyster-shells, from three to six feet 
 wide, were piled about the ragged fields, or 
 lay strewn upon the grimy mounds of that 
 desolate region. I recognise them now as 
 furnace-refuse ; but as I wandered about the 
 place in those days, though the right royal 
 prince Gargantua had not then been intro-
 
 4 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 duced to me, I often pictured a huge figure, 
 standing before some elysian and mountainous 
 oyster-stall, wielding a vinegar bottle and a 
 pepper caster of the size of the parish church- 
 tower, emptying five of those enormous shells 
 of their esculent inhabitants, and paying for 
 his alfresco feast one Brobdingnagian penny. 
 
 Walking up the quarried footway, Mrs. Tro- 
 man's visitor found progress barred by a sort 
 of grated wooden portcullis. This was intended 
 to keep me from straying beyond the household 
 ken ; and I was so far like a baron of the 
 middle ages, that the passer-by might guess 
 by the position of the portcullis whether I 
 was at home or abroad. Having passed this 
 barrier, you had three steps to go down. 
 Those steps and the floor beyond them were 
 of red quarries, and clean as scrubbing could 
 make them. The kitchen had a low but ample 
 firegrate ; a fender of bent steel, polished till 
 the flat round plate on its top looked in the 
 firelight like a rising wintry sun ; a sturdy un- 
 clothed deal table with red legs ; a nonde- 
 script couch covered with chintz, cold, crackly, 
 shining, and comfortless ; a mirror, hint of 
 far-off gentility somewhere, hanging on the 
 wall between the table and the couch ; and an
 
 Autobiography. 5 
 
 old clock, which, being too tall for the apart- 
 ment, was accommodated with a well to stand in. 
 The mirror was a small affair, bound by minia- 
 ture columns of fluted gold with florid orna- 
 mentation on the pediments, and the glass was 
 seamed and scratched and blotted until it 
 looked like a page from some faded atlas. 
 The tall old clock regarded me as an intruder 
 from the first moment of my arrival, bullying 
 me solemnly, even in Sally's presence, and 
 frightening me with monitory tickings when 
 I sat alone. Its face represented one of the 
 heavenly bodies — the moon, I fancy — a foolish, 
 staring, futile sort of countenance, which al- 
 ways seemed to me like a dead mask with a 
 living face behind it, the living face to which 
 the voice belonged that ticked the seconds so 
 remorselessly. 
 
 The country round about was very dreary. 
 The normal colour of the sky was a dull and 
 darkish slate, with an occasional touch of blue 
 in it, by way of a summer wonder. The 
 district in its general outlines was as flat as a 
 scene in Holland ; but it had about it here and 
 there mountains of slag and cinder and mine- 
 refuse, and was excavated here and there into 
 clay mines, and was in all directions harried
 
 6 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 and broken up as if by a small and fretful 
 volcanic agency. An agency not powerful 
 enough for any great upheaval, but with just 
 sufficient strength to fret and worry the surface 
 of the patient earth in this way. Not an ex- 
 tinct volcanic agency by any means ; for there 
 was always on the edge of the dull sky a lurid 
 gleam ; and always you might hear a shudder- 
 ing boom which shook the air ; and always, 
 move where you might, you were engirt by 
 smoke and flame. The heavy skeleton frames 
 at the heads of coal-pits were thick on the 
 landscape, waiting, as I used to fancy, like 
 huge spiders, for the flies which came up from 
 below, drawn cunningly and swiftly by a glid- 
 ing line into their ugly grasp, to be dropped 
 again empty. 
 
 This was my childish environment. At the 
 age of four or thereabouts — Sally's fund of 
 scholarship being by that time exhausted — I 
 was sent to school. The seminary I attended 
 was presided over by a very dirty old woman, 
 who smoked a short clay pipe. What sort of 
 scholastic regimen I had, it is scarcely worth 
 while to say. Reading and writing, says Dog- 
 berry, come by nature ; and less by reason of 
 any assistance than by force of nature I learned
 
 Autobiography. 7 
 
 to read. I spent my infrequent pence in the 
 purchase of literary stores. Not far from 
 Sally's house was a small shop with a single 
 bleared and dirty window. This window was 
 covered at night-time by a shutter which hung 
 downward, having its hinges on the upper 
 casement, so that during the day it was neces- 
 sary to prop it up with sticks, and thus convert 
 it into a kind of roof. Under that frail shelter 
 I have often stood in rainy weather to spell 
 through one large-typed page of Jack the Giant- 
 killer, or the legend of Simple Simon. Stories 
 of Bluebeard and Blueskin — whom I regarded 
 as a kind of literary twins — were there also ; 
 and the library included further the narratives 
 of the lives of Sixteen-stringed Jack and Three- 
 fingered Jack, another pair of twins. They 
 were all illustrated by outrageous cuts, loosely 
 slopped over with water colours in such wise 
 that the crimson hue of Bluebeard's turban 
 incarnadined the clouds, and his yellow boots 
 overflowed the foreground. 
 
 In the way of literature, Sally's house was 
 not altogether unprovided. The Pilgrims Pro- 
 gress and the Holy War, a mutilated copy of 
 the Arabian Nights, a Family Bible — includ- 
 ing the Apocrypha and several incredible steel
 
 8 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 engravings — and a fat volume containing Zadig, 
 The Devil on two Sticks, Roderick Random, and 
 Gil Bias, made up the library. How these 
 books had been got together, or to whom they 
 had belonged, I never knew ; but they were to 
 me such a source of infinite enchantment as I 
 shall not cease to be affectionately grateful for. 
 It is not the least among the joys they brought 
 that they made that dismal Black Country 
 lovely in my eyes, filling it — as they did — with 
 all manner of sweet associations, which have 
 lasted until now. For even now, Gil Bias, 
 when I rejoin him in his adventures, parts 
 from his uncle at the corner of Yew Tree 
 Lane ; and Benjamin, whenever I renew ac- 
 quaintance with him, is seized, with the golden 
 cup in his sack, in front of Pleasant Row 
 Cottages. 
 
 The day was wintry and the sunlight ghost- 
 like when a wintry and a ghost-like appari- 
 tion came upon me. I was playing alone. I 
 always did play alone ; for Sally had a mighty 
 idea of my gentility, and sternly forbade all 
 avoidable contact with aboriginal infancy. I 
 was naturally a little shy, and more than a 
 little given to the building of wonderful castles. 
 I preferred to exercise my architectural art
 
 A utobiography. 9 
 
 alone ; and had wandered away over the grimy 
 pit-mound fronting on Sally's house, along the 
 slimy canal which ran behind that Apennine, 
 over the little Dutch-looking bridge, and into 
 a certain mangy meadow, which then repre- 
 sented to me the very heart of Nature's soli- 
 tude. At the end of this meadow was a 
 delicious terror — a yawning precipice, which 
 seemed to me of Alpine depth and grandeur, 
 although more recent visits assure me that 
 this dreadful chasm is as mere a clay-mine as 
 any in the county. Beyond it the earth 
 burned slowly, always, and the place was 
 Bunyan's Valley of the Shadow of Death in 
 dull weather, and on sunshiny days it was 
 Sinbad's Valley of Diamonds. It was sur- 
 rounded by a rickety wooden fence ; and one 
 of my delights was to hang over a broken 
 stump, and — blinding myself from all know- 
 ledge of earth and sky — to give myself the 
 fearsome pleasure of falling in fancy over that 
 sheer precipice. This got to be a regular 
 part of my nightly dreams at last, and I did 
 what I chose with the fancy, asleep or awake. 
 I fell swiftly, and, suspending myself half-way, 
 winged a leisurely spiral way upwards. I went 
 head foremost or feet foremost, like a stone,
 
 io A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 and came without a shock to the bottom. 
 Without ever having heard of Mr. Daniel 
 Home or Mrs. Guppy, I was the equal of 
 either, so far as voluntary levitation went. On 
 the particular day I speak of I had got to my 
 favourite stump, and after a lengthier waiting 
 than usual, had just begun my delicious un- 
 wholesome journey, when I was startled out 
 of the fancy by a sound which very nearly 
 startled me into the fact. The sound was 
 that of a quick footstep. So near I was to 
 being startled into the fact, that if the man 
 whose approach had broken my dream had 
 not taken me by the petticoats, I should in- 
 evitably have fallen over. I was so energeti- 
 cally plucked from danger that I was thrown a 
 yard or two into the meadow ; and having had 
 just time to be dreadfully frightened, and see- 
 ing that it was a stranger who had both fright- 
 ened and rescued me, the proper thing for me 
 at the moment appeared to be to cry. The 
 man stood and looked at me, and frightened 
 me still more. He was a young man, and 
 evidently belonged to a very superior class 
 to that I commonly mixed with or commonly 
 saw. He had rings on his fingers, for instance, 
 and wore a gold chain. He was well dressed,
 
 Autobiography. 1 1 
 
 or rather his clothes were made of good ma- 
 terial and looked new ; but they were torn and 
 splashed from head to foot. On his left side 
 he had a streak of dry white mud from 
 shoulder to knee. His face was handsome, 
 but haggard beyond all description, and his 
 lips were drawn back from the teeth in a very 
 remarkable way. I have seen the same look 
 on a dead face since then ; but I had never seen 
 it before, and it frightened me horribly. His 
 hair was very wildly disarranged, and there 
 was a dark blur of unshaven beard on cheek 
 and chin. He stood and stared at me after 
 having pitched me into the meadow ; and when 
 I had once or twice stolen a look at him, I 
 grew so desperately frightened that I did not 
 even dare to cry. 
 
 1 What were you doing there ? ' he asked me. 
 
 I made no answer ; and he muttered to him- 
 self, ' That's an act of Providence, anyway. I 
 startle him into it, and I drag him out of it. 
 Couldn't Providence have done as much for 
 me, I wonder ? ' 
 
 There he laughed, and sat down on the 
 grass at a little distance. 
 
 ' Who are you?' he asked suddenly. ' What's 
 your name ? '
 
 1 2 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 I managed somehow to say ' Johnny Camp- 
 bell.' 
 
 ' Got any friends, Johnny Campbell ? ' he 
 asked me. 
 
 I responded, ' Yes, sir,' with inward quaking. 
 
 ' Then go home,' he said, ' and tell them not 
 to let you wander about in this wild way.' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' I answered again, still in fear of 
 his lips and his eyes. 
 
 He did not move, and I was too frightened 
 to do so. 
 
 ' What's to-day ? ' he asked me. 
 
 I told him ' Tuesday.' 
 
 Then he mused for a while, and plucked a 
 few blades of grass, and ate them slowly. 
 
 ' How old are you?' he demanded, after 
 this pause. 
 
 1 Nearly seven,' I told him. 
 
 ' Are you a sharp lad ? ' he questioned. ' Do 
 you know how far it is from here to London ? ' 
 
 I made shift to tell him there was a mile- 
 stone not far off which said it was a hundred 
 and sixteen miles ; to which he responded, 
 ' Nonsense.' 
 
 Then he ate another blade or two of grass, 
 and said to himself, though he looked hard 
 at me the while, ' Let me see. Five days.
 
 Autobiography. 13 
 
 And a life taken, and a life put in danger, and 
 a life saved.' 
 
 He rose then, and after a glance over the 
 broken railings, he looked back at me, and 
 laughed, and said, ■ There are better chances 
 than that in the world, even yet, Johnny 
 Campbell.' 
 
 With that he went away. What trick 
 Memory plays me, I can guess ; but he 
 seemed to me rather to vanish into air than 
 to disappear in any common fashion. I sat 
 and cried, and shivered for a little while, and 
 then went home, to find that day made doubly 
 memorable. 
 
 When I reached Sally's house I was still 
 crying. The man had thrown me into a spot 
 in the mangy meadow where the grass was 
 covered with wet clay. I was not at all 
 hurt ; but I had covered my face and hands 
 with tear - moistened soil, and came as a 
 perfect shock on Sally when I entered the 
 kitchen. 
 
 ' Oh, you dreadful, tiresome, dirty child ! ' 
 cried Sally, making a dart at me and recoil- 
 ing. ' Oh dear, dear ! It's them nasty lads, 
 I know. There ; take off your pinner, and 
 don't stand staring at me like a blue dog in
 
 14 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 a dark entry.' Sally's similes were all of an 
 extravagantly unlikely sort, and this of the 
 blue dog in the dark entry was the one in 
 especial use in all cases of emergency or sur- 
 prise. ' Come an' be washed. Them dreadful 
 lads ! I'd like to make a end o' the lot of 
 'em, that I would. You've been playin' with 
 that there Johnny Wardle, / know.' 
 
 There Sally made a sudden courtesy. ' I 
 beg your pardon, ma'am. I didn't see as any- 
 body was here. What might you be pleased 
 to want, ma'am ? Will you take a seat, 
 ma'am ? ' 
 
 I turned round, and seeing that a stranger 
 had entered the house, took refuge behind the 
 clock. The stranger was an elderly lady, 
 dressed in deep mourning. She was very set 
 and stately in bearing, and very set and 
 stately in speech ; but her face and voice were 
 inviting. I have since then lost my childish 
 faculty for reading faces ; but in all my childish 
 experiences, I was never once deceived in that 
 regard, and certainly in them all had never 
 lighted on a face which attracted me so much. 
 The lady, in spite of Sally's invitation, re- 
 mained standing. 
 
 ' Your name,' she asked, ' is Troman ? '
 
 Autobiography. 1 5 
 
 ' Yes, ma'am/ returned Sally. ' At your 
 service, ma'am.' 
 
 1 You lived for some years, I think, with 
 Mrs. John Campbell of Heath House ? ' 
 
 1 Yes, ma'am,' said Sally. ' Pore dear lady. 
 I went to live with her when her got married, 
 and I lived with her till her died, and see her 
 die.' 
 
 ' Yes ; I have heard of you and of your 
 faithful service ' — Sally courtesied — ' and of 
 your kindness to her child.' Sally courtesied 
 again. ' Is that the child ? ' 
 
 * I'm regular ashamed to show him, ma'am, 
 said Sally, bringing me from behind the clock ; 
 1 but I wanted the kitchen to do my ironin' 
 • in, and so I let him go out and play himself, 
 an' them nasty lads about here has been and 
 rolled him again, I suppose.' 
 
 By that phrase Sally signified the method 
 by which certain of the young democrats of 
 that region revenged themselves upon me for 
 her proclamation of my unfitness to associate 
 with ' the likes o' them.' It was their occa- 
 sional practice to seize me when I strayed 
 away from home, and to roll me in any con- 
 veniently muddy spot, until I assumed the 
 aspect of an earthen image.
 
 1 6 A Lifts Atonement. 
 
 1 Will you oblige me,' said the lady, ' by 
 washing him ? ' 
 
 1 Certainly, ma'am ; I was just agoing to do 
 it/ Sally explained. 
 
 ' So I saw/ responded the lady, and seated 
 herself. 
 
 * Though, goodness gracious knows/ said 
 Sally as she took me in hand, ' as he was sent 
 out this blessed mornin' as neat as ever was 
 new pin, ma'am/ 
 
 I was forthwith taken away and washed and 
 brushed, and having been inducted into clean 
 socks and a new pinafore, was brought back 
 to the kitchen. Then the lady asked me to 
 sit upon her knee, and I did so. 
 
 ' I suppose,' she asked Sally, ' that you knew 
 nothing of this young gentleman's relatives — 
 of his parents' relatives, I mean ? ' 
 
 ' No, ma'am,' Sally answered. ' I didn't 
 know as he had a soul in the world as ud 
 own him.' 
 
 C I/ said the lady, 'am his aunt. My name 
 is Campbell. Mr. John Campbell — your old 
 master, the child's father — was my husband's 
 brother. I believe he has no nearer relative 
 than myself, and I propose to take charge 
 of him.'
 
 Autobiography, 1 7 
 
 I looked across at Sally, and slipping from 
 the lady's lap, ran to my old protectress. 
 She took me up, and put her firm red arms 
 about me. 
 
 * No, ma'am/ said Sally, in a sort of quiet 
 desperation. ' I can't dream o' partin' from 
 the child.' 
 
 ' But you must see,' said the lady ' that it 
 cannot be for his advantage to live here.' 
 
 * It ud be cruel, ma'am,' said Sally with a 
 gulp, ' to part me and the child.' 
 
 ' It would be far more cruel to the child 
 to leave him here ; and I am his natural 
 guardian.' 
 
 * Well, ma'am,' said Sally, ' I've been his un- 
 nat'ral guardian now for pretty nigh four year, 
 ma'am. I should like to know, ma'am, why 
 he ain't been sought after ? I took him out 
 of his poor dead father's arms, I did, and 
 brought him home along with me and rared 
 him, and didn't get no nat'ral guardians coming 
 to ask a word about him.' 
 
 ' I was away from England when Mr. Camp- 
 bell died. Your question is a very natural 
 one, and your conduct does you very great 
 credit. You shall be well paid for what you 
 have done.' 
 
 vol. 1. b
 
 1 8 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 I was staring hard at the lady all this time, 
 and I noticed that she blushed deeply a mo- 
 ment after she had said this. I think it was 
 at Sally's start of wounded indignation. 
 
 ' You'll have to prove those words, as you're 
 his aunt, ma'am,' said Sally very quietly, and 
 folding me tightly in her arms. ' But if you 
 are his aunt, ma'am, I suppose I can't hinder 
 you from taking him. But oh, ma'am,' cried 
 Sally, gripping me still harder in her earnest- 
 ness, ' treat him kind. He hasn't been used to 
 no mother-in-lawrin'.' There Sally cried very 
 heartily. 
 
 The lady answered, ' I hear an excellent 
 account of you, and the vicar's wife assures me 
 that you are a good domestic. Are you willing 
 to take service ? I have no doubt that I can 
 find a place for you in my brother's household.' 
 
 ■ Will the child be there ? ' asked Sally. 
 
 The lady inclined her head and answered, 
 1 Yes.' 
 
 I Then, oh ma'am,' answered Sally, rising with 
 me in her arms — ' then, oh ma'am, how glad and 
 willin' ! ' 
 
 ' When can you be ready to go ? ' her visitor 
 asked. 
 
 I I can be ready a'most as soon as you like,
 
 Autobiography. 19 
 
 ma'am/ said Sally, setting me down and wiping 
 her eyes with her apron. ' When mother comes 
 in, I can tell her as I've got a place, and pack 
 and start a'most at once, ma'am.' 
 
 ' Then,' said the lady, rising, ' be ready for 
 me at ten o'clock to-morrow. You will want 
 to buy some things for the child. Let them be 
 handsome, but plain and good. You know how a 
 gentleman's child should be dressed, I suppose?' 
 
 ' Oh yes, ma'am,' Sally answered. ' He's 
 rather shabby now ; but I've done my best 
 with him.' 
 
 ' I am very grateful to you for it,' replied 
 her visitor ; ' and when I spoke of paying 
 you for your trouble, I did not wish you to 
 think that I meant only by money. This will 
 serve you for such purchases as you will find 
 it necessary to make. Pack for him, if you 
 please, only such things as will be fit for his 
 use when he reaches home.' 
 
 With that the stately lady set a piece of 
 thin and rustling paper on the table ; and hav- 
 ing kissed me, and said good-day to Sally, she 
 went away. My devoted guardian followed 
 her to the door and made a final obeisance, 
 and then ran back into the kitchen and took 
 me up in one confused armful and sat down
 
 20 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 with me on the nondescript couch. There she 
 kissed and cried over me. I cried for com- 
 pany, until Sally set me down and exclaimed, 
 1 Bless the child's heart alive ! what's he got 
 to cry for? I knowed as heaven 'ud never 
 leave the little innocent to grow up in a place 
 like this. Didn't I, Johnny ? ' And there- 
 with she knelt down by me and renewed her 
 tears.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 There was trouble here, as elsewhere, after all. 
 
 A HOUSE with many gables. A quaint, 
 red-bricked old building-, half overgrown 
 with ivy, and bosomed high in trees. A house 
 on an island, which joined east and west to the 
 mainland by two rustic wooden bridges thrown 
 across the pleasant river. The place — built 
 at half-a-dozen different eras — had some sign 
 of having been fortified once upon a time. 
 Cromwell's .people were answerable for a few 
 of its gables. There was still a remnant of 
 a grey stone wall, over which, as the country 
 legends told, the men of Red Rose and of 
 White fought bloodily one peaceful summer 
 evening. It was an old, old house, and of a 
 pleasant aspect. The flush of its red brick- 
 work was like that of a ripe old age. The
 
 22 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 ivy curled tenderly about its corners, and 
 draped them with a beauty not their own. 
 The river went calmly round the island, and 
 the opulent landscape on either side smiled 
 peacefully with many a cornfield. There is 
 no fairer region at this day in all the fair 
 western county. There is no place a painter 
 might better love to study, or a wearied 
 Londoner more rejoicingly dwell in, anywhere. 
 And the whole scene had about it a sweet and 
 balmy air of rest. In the trees the rooks 
 were cawing with afternoon solemnity. The 
 kine stood udder-deep in grass, and switched 
 the flies from their flanks in lazy contentment. 
 The bells of a distant church were ringing 
 a wedding peal. One could have closed his 
 eyes here, and lying broadcast at the river- 
 side, have listened to the waving boughs and 
 the laughing river, and the humming gnats 
 and the chattering rooks, and all the sweet 
 and grateful sounds of country life, until at 
 last he might have fancied that this was the 
 sort of peace which belonged to the world in 
 the old time before Care was born. 
 
 The heat of summer was in the air. The 
 peace of summer was on the river, and on the 
 fields, and on the murmuring trees. Such
 
 History. 2 3 
 
 sounds as lived could only serve to make the 
 general silence sweeter. 
 
 But there was trouble here, as elsewhere, 
 after all. 
 
 There were two young fellows walking up 
 the lane which led from Wrethedale to the 
 western bridge. They went in silence for 
 awhile, and one of them, olive-complexioned 
 and heavily - moustached, switched viciously 
 with his walking-stick at the ferns and fox- 
 gloves. He was a handsome young fellow, 
 with some affectations in dress, which seemed 
 to bespeak him an artist. He wore a bronze- 
 coloured velvet jacket, for instance, and his 
 wide-awake hat was of the same material. 
 He carried between a daintily gloved finger 
 and thumb a well-blacked meerschaum. His 
 companion, who regarded him wistfully, was 
 by some two or three years his elder, and 
 whilst much fairer in complexion and slighter 
 in build, bore a strong resemblance to him. 
 As they walked, the younger grew more and 
 more vicious in his cuts at the foxgloves, 
 and the elder more and more anxious in his 
 looks. When they reached the bridge they 
 paused. 
 
 1 It's not a bit of use, Will/ said the
 
 24 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 younger. * You must do it, and you must 
 rely on me. I promise faithfully that I'll raise 
 the money. I know I can raise it long enough 
 before the time comes/ 
 
 1 You didn't raise it last time, Frank/ re- 
 turned the elder. ' I don't see how I am to 
 help you.' He spoke decisively, but with a 
 sympathetic voice and manner. 
 
 The other turned away angrily, and an- 
 swered, ' That's all nonsense. You have but 
 to sign your name, and the thing's done. 
 If that fellow should come down upon me, 
 and the governor should know of it, it would 
 break his heart.' 
 
 ' But, Frank,' returned the elder, ' I had the 
 greatest possible trouble in meeting the last, 
 and this is even larger. I don't want to say 
 anything hard, but I think I know you better 
 than you know yourself. If you get out of 
 this scrape, you'll just go quietly back to 
 London, and be very careful for a week, and 
 be very careless for three months afterwards. 
 Then you'll suddenly wake up to the fact that 
 there's another bill to meet, and that you can't 
 meet it. I am sure I should not be able to 
 meet it, if I should accept it and you should fail/ 
 
 Frank made no reply, but stooping, gathered
 
 History, 25 
 
 a handful of loose pebbles, and dropped them 
 one by one into the stream. 
 
 'Is there no other way?* the elder asked. 
 ' Can't you get the man to wait ? ' 
 
 4 Can't I get the tide to wait ? Can't I per- 
 suade Nelson's Column to take a walk down 
 Fleet Street ? Look here ! If I don't pay 
 Tasker off at once, he either has me in his 
 clutches for ever and drains me dry, once, 
 and twice, and thrice, and again ; or he comes 
 down here, presents himself to the governor, 
 and qualifies him for a coffin. Because that's 
 exactly what it means. You know that, Will, 
 as well as I do.' 
 
 The other shook his head in a mournful 
 way, as not at all disputing this unpleasant 
 view of things. 
 
 ' Well now, on the other hand,' the younger 
 resumed, ' all you have to do is to put your 
 name to a piece of paper, and to make your- 
 self easy about the rest. I'm sure I'm sorry 
 I didn't pay the other ; but I give you my 
 word of honour I will meet this. Now, old 
 man, trust me. Give me a chance.' 
 
 * Frank,' says the elder, ' if I had the money, 
 I would give it to you with all my heart. 
 You ought to know that. And you ought to
 
 26 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 know what signing that bill may mean. You 
 know your own affairs better than I can know 
 them, a great deal better than you let me know 
 them. Before you ask me to repose so much 
 confidence in you, you should repose a little 
 in me.' 
 
 ' It's a shameful business/ said the other 
 doggedly, 'and so much I have told you 
 already. I won't humble myself by telling you 
 more. You can help me if you like ; and if 
 you don't like, you can kill the governor.' 
 
 1 That's a very happy specimen of your way 
 of reasoning,' said Will, with a little scorn in 
 his voice ; ' and quite in accordance with what 
 I've seen in you for some time past.' 
 
 Frank turned round on him fiercely. 
 
 ' You're a pretty brother ! A nice, kindly, 
 trustful, amiable fellow ! Well, take your way. 
 I wash my hands of it. I have done. I have 
 made the only appeal it was in my power to 
 make. I find it rejected, and there's nothing 
 for it but to go back and hang myself.' With 
 that he threw his elbows savagely on the rail of 
 the little bridge and stared moodily at the water. 
 
 ' I wish you would use a little common- 
 sense, Frank, and be a little reasonable,' the 
 elder brother pleaded in a nervous way. ' You
 
 History. 2 7 
 
 can't wash your hands of it, except by paying 
 the debt and amending your life.' 
 
 Frank made no answer, until the elder put 
 a hand upon his shoulder, with an appeal : 
 * Come, Frank, I don't want to speak too 
 harshly, and you know that I'll help you all 
 I can.' 
 
 ' The fact is,' Frank replied savagely, ' that I'm 
 a selfish, egotistical beast. You're quite right, 
 Will, and you don't say to me half I deserve. 
 But I do really believe that I'm honest in say- 
 ing that I am a thousand times more con- 
 cerned for the governor than I am for myself. 
 I've acted like a fool and a villain ; and if the 
 punishment hit nobody but me, I could bear it.' 
 
 ' Frank ! Frank ! ' exclaimed the elder, ' you 
 confess too easily.' 
 
 ' I know,' said Frank impatiently. ' You're 
 right again. I'm a shallow, good-for-nothing 
 beast, and the only grace I have is that I can 
 be sometimes brought to own it' 
 
 ' The worst of that is,' Will murmured in- 
 wardly, ' that you think an admission a repent- 
 ance.' Then aloud : ' Don't you think, Frank, 
 that if you allowed me to explain all this to 
 the governor, that the thing might be honour- 
 ably arranged ? I don't like this underhand
 
 28 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 way of doing things. Why should you and I 
 go about drawing and accepting bills ? 
 
 1 The governor shall never know it with my 
 consent. Why should you ask me to shame 
 myself in that way ? Why need he know it ? 
 Why need he be grieved with it ? ' 
 
 ' Will you give me your promise that you'll 
 not wait for the bill to become due before you 
 begin to think about meeting it ? ' 
 
 ' By Jove ! I'll do anything on earth,' the 
 other answers. ' I'll live on bread and cheese 
 — I'll work like ten men. I wish I could get 
 you to believe me. I know I came down 
 here and made professions of reform before ; 
 but this has been such a wearing grind of 
 anxiety, that I shall never involve myself in 
 such a way again/ 
 
 ' Will you do this ? ' said the elder. ' Will 
 you promise to send me half the amount of the 
 bill the week before it falls due ? If you'll 
 undertake to do that, I'll undertake to meet the 
 bill, and you can pay me the balance after- 
 wards. I shall have a little loose coin then.' 
 
 ' Bill, you're a brick ! ' exclaimed the younger. 
 < Will I do it ? Won't I do it ? I tell you 
 there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do.' 
 
 ' Or couldn't do ? ' queried Will. ' I don't
 
 History. 29 
 
 want to know what you are willing to do, but 
 what you are able to do. Can you do it? Don't 
 speculate. Be sure/ 
 
 * I can do it,' Frank replied ; * and I promise 
 you that I will/ 
 
 ' Remember, Frank/ said the elder with a 
 grave and anxious face, and with his hand 
 again on his brother's shoulder. 
 
 'And remember, Will,' said the other gaily, 
 ' that I am not an utterly abandoned cut-throat 
 yet. I shall have to grow a little in that direc- 
 tion before I can neglect a thing like this, and 
 make you such a villainous return for all your 
 kindness. It sha'n't cost you a farthing. I'm 
 going to turn over a new leaf. I have had 
 enough and a great deal more than enough of this 
 business. I'll slave away like Old Boots when I 
 get back. I'm to be R.A. in half-a-dozen years 
 at the outside. Watch the career of this talented 
 young artist, and see what becomes of him.' 
 
 And with that the handsome young gentle- 
 man cocked his velvet hat a little more than 
 usual, and struck a theatrical attitude. At this 
 the elder laughed. The two suddenly shook 
 hands, and then without further parley crossed 
 the bridge together, passed a swinging gate, 
 and came upon the lawn of Island Hall.
 
 3<d A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 On the lawn stood an old gentleman and a 
 child. The child's face was turned to the new- 
 comers, and with a joyful little screech she 
 rushed past the old gentleman, and precipitated 
 herself upon the younger of the brothers, and 
 being lifted by him, hugged and kissed him 
 most outrageously. Her caresses having been 
 returned, the young lady struggled to get down 
 to the lawn again, and being landed, danced 
 round the young fellow like a fairy, clapping 
 her hands and laughing. This young lady was 
 some five years of age. Her sunny little face 
 was brimming over with laughter and as full of 
 saucy humour as a face could be. The dimpled 
 little hands hovered here and there restless and 
 light as falling snow-flakes ; and what with her 
 golden hair and her rapid childish motion, she 
 played round the object of her welcome like a 
 very sunbeam. Pausing before him with 
 clasped hands and an expression of sudden 
 gravity, she made an announcement : — ' Oh 
 Franty, I've turn home.' 
 
 ' Now,' said Franty, leaning back on his 
 walking-stick and smiling at her lazily, ' I should 
 never have guessed that.' 
 
 The little damsel, susceptible to satire, ex- 
 plained with dignity, ' I've turn home for dood.'
 
 History. 3 1 
 
 ■ What ! ' asked Frank, ' not going back to 
 aunty any more ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said the little damsel very gravely ; ' I 
 s'an't go back to aunty's. But,' she added, 
 with such a flash of head, hands, feet, and 
 body as only feminine childhood can accom- 
 plish, ' aunty's tummin' here.' 
 
 ' Hillo ! ' Frank exclaimed. ' That's news. — 
 Is that a fact, father ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' says the old gentleman, in a languid 
 and even rather lackadaisical voice ; ' she's 
 here now, and has made up her mind to stay 
 with us.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Frank, and walked across the 
 lawn and into the house. 
 
 ' It's rather a good thing,' said the old 
 gentleman, with a voice so querulous that he 
 seemed to be complaining of a very bad thing, 
 'that Frank's not at home so much now as 
 he used to be. Poor Bertha and he don't get 
 along well together. But as for you, Will,' he 
 went on in the same querulous complaining 
 voice, • you are as sober-sided an old fellow as 
 myself, and we must do our best to bear with 
 her crotchets, poor thing, and to make her as 
 happy as we can,' 
 
 ' Who's poor thing ? ' inquired the young lady.
 
 32 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 The old gentleman laughed and patted her 
 shining head. 
 
 'What sharp ears these little people have, 
 Will/ 
 
 His son smiled in answer ; and the little 
 damsel at the sight of his smiling face, clapped 
 her hands and laughed aloud. 
 
 Frank emerged from the house, and took 
 the child on his shoulder, and danced with her 
 round the lawn. 
 
 'He's a good-hearted fellow,' said the father 
 in his querulous voice ; ' I wish he would be a 
 little steadier.' 
 
 ' I think he will be/ answered Will. 'We 
 have had a very serious talk this afternoon, and 
 he tells me he has quite made up his mind for 
 hard work and quiet living.' 
 
 The old gentleman smiled wrily and an- 
 swered, ' I am very glad to hear it, Will, very 
 glad. They tell me up there, you know, that 
 he is extremely clever. I am no judge of art ; 
 but people who do know something about 
 pictures, tell me he is certain to rise.' 
 
 Mr. Fairholt made this statement with the 
 voice and manner of a man who complains 
 weakly of the meanness of a dishonourable 
 friend.
 
 History. 33 
 
 ' I was up at the Academy on the fifth of 
 last month/ Will answered. ' As I was going 
 in I met Spinks, and he carted me off to 
 Frank's picture in a most triumphant way, 
 telling me it was one of the cleverest things of 
 the year and safe to sell.' 
 
 ' It hasn't sold ? ' asked his father. 
 
 ' I think not,' Will responded. Then across 
 the lawn : ' Frank ! Has that picture of yours 
 at the Academy sold ? ' 
 
 * No/ says Frank, pausing in his dance. 
 1 But there's a noble swell after it. He's work- 
 ing through his agent, a fellow who always 
 buys for him. He wants it for one-fifty, and 
 I've priced it at two hundred. There are a 
 lot of mean dogs who won't buy through the 
 Secretary, but pester the painter as though 
 he were a retail tradesman. The picture's 
 worth the money, and I sha'n't let it go for 
 less. But my noble swell is an awfully tight- 
 fisted rufhan, and I am afraid I shall lose 
 him.' 
 
 Mr. Fairholt stood smiling wrily in the sun- 
 shine, and rubbing his hands together discon- 
 tentedly, as though he had a fretful little 
 quarrel with them. 
 
 ' Don't take less than you think it worth,' 
 vol. 1. c
 
 34 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 he said. ' But two hundred pounds is a good 
 deal of money to pay for a picture.' 
 
 ' Why, bless your soul,' returned Frank, 
 ' there are fellows who can get a thousand by 
 slashing over a square yard of canvas with a 
 brush like a broom. And I have put a good 
 honest six months' work into that picture.' 
 
 Will laughed rather mischievously, and 
 asked, ' Do you count the six weeks' flirtation 
 at Brighton in that good honest six months' 
 work, old fellow ? ' 
 
 Frank grinned responsive : ( Why not ? A 
 man must keep up the artistic fervour somehow. 
 —Mustn't he, Polly ? ' 
 
 Polly, seated on his shoulder and listening 
 gravely to the conversation, laughed on being 
 thus appealed to, and the dance began again. 
 The old man after looking on for a time, went 
 into the house, and Will lit a cigar. The scent 
 of a brown-paper fusee reaching Frank's nostrils, 
 he suspended the dance. 
 
 1 There, Polly ! That's enough. Now run 
 away and kiss Aunt Bertha.' 
 
 < What for ? ' asked Polly. 
 
 1 You mercenary little creature ! For love ! ' 
 
 Polly made one rose-leaf of her lips, and 
 shook her head.
 
 History. 3 5 
 
 ' Then for sixpence,' said Frank, taking the 
 coin from his pocket. 
 
 Polly's countenance relaxed. She nodded, 
 and having secured the coin, started off at a 
 run ; but paused in the doorway, and gave 
 warning with a triumphant laugh : ' I shall turn 
 back again.' 
 
 * Give me a weed, old fellow,' said Frank. 
 
 Will produced his case ; and Frank having 
 carefully selected his cigar and lighted it, tilted 
 his hat, and said, whilst his gloved hand strayed 
 amongst his curls, ' Will, if you can accept this 
 bill to-night, I will drive over to Hetherton first 
 thing in the morning, put it in at the bank, take 
 train up to town, pay this astounding villain 
 immediately, and get back to-morrow evening.' 
 
 ' That's impossible,' Will responds. ' You 
 couldn't leave Hetherton before twelve, and 
 the mid-day train from Hetherton reaches town 
 at four-forty. I'll accept the bill all the same. 
 How long do you purpose staying here ? ' 
 
 1 I want to make a week of it,' Frank an- 
 swered. ' The fact is,' he continued, throwing 
 his hat on one side and straightening himself 
 with a slight swagger, ' I want to see some- 
 thing more of Maud, and I want her to see 
 something more of me. And now that the
 
 36 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 murder's out, I don't mind telling you, Will, 
 that what I think and feel about her has done 
 more to tame me than even this confounded 
 thing of Tasker's.' 
 
 There was a pained look in Will's face as he 
 turned away, and his voice shook a little as 
 he said, ' I hadn't fancied that you cared for 
 her at all, Frank.' 
 
 ' Well, one doesn't like to go about making 
 a row over these things before they are toler- 
 ably certain,' returned Frank, dragging softly 
 at his black moustache and smiling. 
 
 Will surveyed his cigar, and knocked off the 
 ash with the tip of his forefinger. Then he 
 whistled a bar or two from Semiramide. ( Do 
 you mean to say that you are tolerably certain?' 
 
 • Yes,' said Frank, setting his feet apart, and 
 throwing his walking-stick across his shoulders, 
 so that he took an end in each hand. ' I'm not 
 a vain man ; but I think I could make any 
 woman fall in love with me, provided always 
 that she had no prior engagement — no " priory 
 'tachment," as that fellow says in the Pickwick 
 Papers. The fact is, you know, that a fellow's 
 only got to be not downright ugly and not 
 downright stupid, and he can marry any woman 
 for the pleasure of making love to her.' There-
 
 History. 3 7 
 
 with the modest and ingenuous youth passed 
 his hand caressingly through his curls, smoothed 
 his moustache, and proceeded, his voice being 
 pleasantly muffled by his cigar : ' I'm not talk- 
 ing of those bred-and-born flirts one meets in 
 town. I'm talking of women who are worth 
 marrying. Now you know, with such a woman, 
 if her heart's free, you have only to care about 
 her, and to tell her so — ' 
 
 ' And she drops into your mouth like an 
 over-ripe plum. Eh ? ; 
 
 1 Exactly.' 
 
 * I'm not of your opinion, Frank. I think a 
 woman who is worth marrying is won in rather 
 a different fashion/ 
 
 Frank looked down with a glance of good- 
 humoured and amused compassion. 
 
 Will, with his straw-hat pulled over his eyes, 
 was very closely examining his cigar when he 
 asked, ' Have you any especial reason to think 
 as you do about Maud ? ' 
 
 1 Ye-es. I feel pretty safe. I feel sure she 
 likes me, and I'm going to make a dash for 
 it this evening. I'll either make a spoon or 
 spoil a horn. I have to dine there, and it's 
 time I dressed and was off. Won't you wish 
 me luck, old fellow ? '
 
 38 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 Will, with a not over-successful attempt at 
 a laugh, responded, ' I'll wish you a little 
 more humility and a little more knowledge of 
 women.' 
 
 Frank patted him on the shoulder, patron- 
 like : ' All right, my venerable wiseacre. I 
 shall have news for you when I come back. 
 Do you mind telling Jack to get the dog-cart 
 ready ? Thanks.' With that the modest and 
 ingenuous disappeared with a light and airy 
 step. 
 
 Having fulfilled his commission, Will sat 
 down on a garden- seat and smoked for a while. 
 
 ' What's to be done now ? ' he asked him- 
 self. ' Ought I to stand on one side and let 
 him win ? Does it matter to him as much 
 as it matters to me ? I don't know what 
 spoiling my life might mean, but I can guess 
 one thing about Frank. If he cares for Maud 
 as much as I do, and doesn't get her, he'll go 
 to the bad altogether. I wonder whether it's 
 because he feels more intensely, or because he 
 never controls his feelings ? I can't make up 
 my mind about anything yet, I must wait and 
 see — I must wait and see.' 
 
 He arose and strolled in a melancholy 
 humour back to the bridge, where he dropped
 
 History, 39 
 
 pebbles into the river, and was startled from 
 a dismal day-dream by the passage of Frank 
 in the dog-cart, with the groom beside him. 
 
 ' Ta-ta,' shouted Frank. * Five to one, I 
 win ! ' 
 
 Will shook his head in answer. The dog- 
 cart turned a corner of the lane. The sound 
 of the wheels died away, and Will went on 
 dropping pebbles in the stream, and thinking 
 — thinking — thinking — whilst resolve grew 
 stronger and his heart grew fainter every 
 moment. 
 
 At last he said, * Why should I waste my 
 heart by dropping them one by one ? Let the 
 lot go.' With that he threw a handful of 
 pebbles into the stream and walked, a little 
 moodily, home.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 Costly a,7id cumbrous vulgarities choked these gilded salons. 
 
 T^HE Hartleys were new people, and were 
 not yet entitled to call themselves 
 * county.' No man knew exactly how rich old 
 Hartley was, though he passed as a sort of 
 Crcesus. But his mansion was new even to 
 rawness. His coat of arms was original even 
 to absurdity. The whole style of the man was 
 too brassy, too obtrusive, too florid, too every- 
 thing but gentlemanly. He was an old man 
 and an ugly and a vulgar, and his dress was 
 loud and ostentatious. He had bought a huge 
 estate down there, and had christened it Hartley 
 Park. He had built unto himself a gorgeous 
 mansion, and had it christened Hartley Hall. 
 He had provided himself with a stud of horses, 
 the like of which the county could not show.
 
 History. 41 
 
 His servants were attired in an overwhelming 
 livery. His greenhouses rivalled my Lord 
 Chesterwood's. He kept open house, or some- 
 thing very like it, the whole year through ; and 
 he gave on his first coming numerous entertain- 
 ments for the benefit of the county people, from 
 which the county people coldly stayed away. 
 The rooms of Hartley Hall were more plente- 
 ously furnished with buhl and ormolu than a 
 west-end upholsterer's warehouse. Costly and 
 cumbrous vulgarities positively choked these 
 gilded salons. Pictures from the hands of the 
 first modern artists — for art was here as new as 
 everything else — graced the wall in such pro- 
 fusion as almost to hide the very papering. 
 Everything was on a scale of barbaric and un- 
 regulated splendour. 
 
 Benjamin Hartley of Hartley Hall had two 
 sons. One was still at Cambridge, and the 
 other was an extravagant Lieutenant in the 
 Fourteenth Plungers. That gallant regiment 
 lay just then at Cahir, and County Tipperary 
 knew Lieutenant Hartley well. Lieutenant 
 Hartley of Hartley Hall, possessor of unlimited 
 cash and unlimited credit, and heir-expectant 
 to a colossal fortune, was well enough received 
 among the county people here ; and Horace
 
 42 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 St. John Hartley of Jesus found little diffi- 
 culty in the gratification of his desire for the 
 companionship of the noblest swells just then 
 known to Cambridge. For both the Lieuten- 
 ant and the student had gotten that air of 
 aee their father lacked. Their father would 
 be new to the end of his days, and would con- 
 tinue new if he could live to be as old as 
 Methuselah ; but both the lads had a rare 
 power of adaptability. In the days when their 
 father sent them to Eton, that famous school 
 was a better training-ground for gentlemen 
 than it is at present. There were fewer of the 
 sons of the newly-rich within its walls, and the 
 young fellows were not long in acquiring the 
 airs of ton. Not unnaturally, perhaps, they 
 despised their father, and were a good deal 
 ashamed of him and of his newness. They 
 were rarely seen at home except at unavoidable 
 seasons ; and when forced to meet the author 
 of their being and the contriver of their fortunes, 
 they bore themselves with a distant hauteur in 
 which the old man rejoiced. 
 
 1 For ' — so he sometimes mused — and so in 
 the genial after-dinner hour would sometimes 
 openly declare — '/ ain't a gentleman, and I 
 know it ; but both Arthur an' Horace aregettin'
 
 History. 43 
 
 to be regular tip-top swells. It ain't natural as 
 they should look with a lot o' respect on me. I 
 should despise 'em if they did. But I don't 
 stand no nonsense, mind you. They do as I 
 tell 'em ; I take care o J that. I don't know as 
 Solomon was so remarkable wise after all. He 
 says he don't know whether a wise man or a 
 fool is to come after him and collar his coppers. 
 Well, / do. I've got two as sharp lads as you'll 
 find anywhere, with a good eye to the main- 
 chance, both of 'em ; and a regular swell style 
 about both of 'em as would ha' made my hair 
 stand on hend to look at twenty year ago. 
 And when I've dropped off, the lads '11 come in 
 and put things straight. These county folks, 
 with their high-strung notions, won't cut them, 
 I bet. No, no. It's different with me. I've 
 been in coal and iron and taller, and cotton and 
 stocks and shippin', and pretty nigh everythin'. 
 They call that sort of thing low, down here. 
 And so it is low. But it's a bit hard lines on a 
 fellow too. The man as does the work and 
 gets the money can't enjoy it. At least he 
 can't enjoy it thorough. But them as comes 
 after him, them as he's scraped for and worked 
 for, and toiled for and moiled for, they'll be 
 able to come in with their Heton lingo and their
 
 44 A Life's Atonement, 
 
 eye-glasses, and run the rig with any of 'em. 
 And as for coin, they'll go beyond 'em. In 
 point o' coin, I ain't far off shakin' hands with 
 old Coutts, and that's a fact. Big houses ain't 
 always the warmest, and I don't know as if I 
 was to go and tick off thousand for thousand 
 along with him, as I mightn't have something 
 to spare after all.' 
 
 So the old heathen communed with himself 
 and with divers of his chosen. He had his 
 good points. Like many men who have striven 
 after money all their lives and have denied 
 themselves greatly, he was, now that his for- 
 tune had grown secure, lavishly generous. His 
 good-nature was genuine. His pretty niece had 
 not even to wheedle in order to find liberal 
 comforts for her favourite poor. The clergy- 
 man of the parish never appealed to him in 
 vain. 'No; hang it ! Mister ;' said old Hartley, 
 when the parson first called on him and let 
 loose upon him the simple annals of the poor of 
 those parts — ' No ; hang it ! Mister ; I won't 
 have that in my neighbourhood. But I'm not 
 agoing to keep the thunderin' village either. 
 Look here/ continued Benjamin with a wink, 
 ' tell the beg-o-ars as I'm a hard-fisted doe as 
 parts with his money like blood. Just keep up
 
 History. 45 
 
 that bit o' gammon between ourselves, will 
 you ? But you can exercise your influence, 
 you know, an' grind a fi'-pun' note out of me 
 once in a way ; don't you see ?' The cleric de- 
 parting, gave it forth that Mr. Hartley was one 
 who did good by stealth and blushed to find it 
 fame ; but when this statement got back to 
 Benjamin's ears, he grinned satirically, and sur- 
 mised that the parson was not a man of busi- 
 ness. 'It's a fine thing to have a repitation 
 for hardness,' said the old gentleman. ' It 
 saves a deal o' trouble.' 
 
 How came Benjamin Hartley with such a 
 niece as Maud ? How, in the name of all that 
 is wonderful, came such a dainty flower to grow 
 from such a rough and gnarled old stock ? 
 For rough and gnarled the stock must surely 
 have been which produced Benjamin Hartley, 
 Esquire. But years before this story opens, 
 Benjamin's sister married — very high in life, as 
 people who knew her then fancied, securing no 
 less a person than the young Dissenting minis- 
 ter of the Black Country village she dwelt in. 
 She was a woman of much innate refinement ; 
 and her husband — spite of the fact that he was 
 a Dissenting parson — was a scholar and a 
 gentleman. He was dolefully poor, and died
 
 46 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 young. His wife followed his wise example 
 early, and left this world for a better. Thus 
 their one child was left to the mercies of Pro- 
 vidence, and said Uncle Benjamin, ' Providence 
 turned up trumps in the shape o' me.' 
 
 There was another sister who married later 
 and far higher. She married a man whose 
 affairs were flourishing, and who was so very 
 far above the family, that he looked down upon 
 it with a bitter disdain, and never, after his 
 marriage, by a word acknowledged it. His 
 name was Campbell, and he was a wealthy iron- 
 master. Somehow or other, he came to grief, 
 and died utterly penniless, leaving behind him 
 one son, aged three years. Old Hartley was 
 ignorant of this child's existence. Had it been 
 otherwise, he would have given him a home 
 with Maud ; for he was not a man who bore 
 malice, and had long since forgiven and forgot- 
 ten John Campbell's disdain, and had never lost 
 his affection for John Campbell's wife. But the 
 years had come between them, and he knew noth- 
 ing of their fall from prosperity or of their death. 
 
 Just now — on this especial summer evening 
 — Mr Hartley stood in his drawing-room in 
 expectation of Frank's arrival. The Fairholts 
 were the only county people who might be at
 
 History. 47 
 
 all considered caught. Old Hartley knew well 
 enough that they cared very little for him or 
 his house, or even his money. He recognised 
 the magnet which drew the two young fellows 
 to Hartley Hall, and watched their attentions 
 to Maud with much complacency. ' There's 
 Mr. William' — so he thought over matters — 
 ' has got a very pretty little estate. I know 
 it's entailed, and he can have Maud if he 
 wants her. But I'm rather in favour o' the 
 young un. He'll have next to nothin' ; but I 
 like him. He's a fine handsome chap, with lots 
 o' spirit and fun in him, an there's no takin' him 
 for anything but a swell, anywhere. I've got 
 two lads o' my own to look after, and they can't 
 expect to get much along with her ; but I shall 
 hand her a check for a quiet little ten thousand 
 on her wedding-day, and they can set up on that, 
 anyhow, even if the young un gets her. Let 
 the gell please herself — that's how I look at it.' 
 
 1 Maud ! ' said the old man aloud, waking 
 from his reverie. ' Ain't it time young Fairholt 
 was here ? ' 
 
 At this moment young Fairholt was ushered 
 in, and met with a loud and vulgar welcome. 
 
 4 Aha ! How d'ye do ? Thought you wasn't 
 comin'. Glad to see you, Mr. Fairholt. And
 
 48 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 how's the H island ? And hows hall at the 
 'All?' 
 
 1 Everybody is well, thank you,' Frank 
 answers ; but he is already turning to shake 
 hands with Maud. That young lady blushes a 
 little as she comes to meet him, but receives 
 him with great cordiality. A gorgeous menial 
 announces dinner, and there are half-a-dozen 
 other gorgeous menials distributed over the 
 desert of Turkey carpet in the dining-room. 
 Warm as the weather is, there is an aspect 
 of arctic coldness about this huge apartment, 
 and a sense of desertion in the very look of 
 the great table. It would seem as though a 
 score or so of people had been invited and had 
 not come ; and the three sit down in the 
 Turkey carpet desert, before that table-land of 
 snow, as in a magnificent but enforced isolation. 
 
 Will you look at Maud through her lover's 
 eyes or through mine ? For my part, I am free 
 — in parliamentary English — to confess that I 
 have seen prettier faces, though I have not seen 
 many more lovable. Of what use is it to 
 attempt to draw a portrait in words of a pretty 
 young Englishwoman ? How can the pen 
 catch those gracious little turns of the head — 
 those marvellously minute modellings of cheek
 
 History. 49 
 
 and nose and lips — those tender graces of the 
 eyes — those helpless yet fearless and endearing 
 ways which go so far to make the charm of 
 sweet eighteen ? I can tell you that Maud is 
 tall and slim and graceful. I can tell you that 
 she has brown hair and hazel eyes. ' But girls 
 with hair and eyes are everywhere.' I can tell 
 you that her complexion is most daintly clear 
 and sweet, and that her mouth is most eminently 
 kissable. I could catalogue a score more of 
 her graces ; but what would this suffice you ? 
 My brother of the brush goes beyond me in 
 this matter altogether, and Frank in twenty 
 minutes could present you with a random 
 smutch in colour which would tell you more 
 about her in this respect than Dickens himself 
 could have told you in a twelvemonths. 
 
 Dinner is not a matter of much account to 
 female eighteen and male four-and twenty, when 
 they chance to be at the same table and are in 
 love with each other. Old Hartley's presence 
 troubled the young people little, for he said 
 nothing he could avoid saying, and seemed 
 buried in his own fancies. A tell-tale shot was 
 fired across the table now and a^ain from Frank 
 to Maud, and from Maud to Frank, and they 
 both grew a little shy. 
 
 vol. 1. D
 
 5o A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 Dinner being over, the millionaire broke 
 silence : ' We'll take our wine up-stairs, if you 
 please, Mr. Fairholt. The ladies is very near 
 a fiction in this here instance.' 
 
 So Maud's rising was the signal for host and 
 visitor to follow. Maud's taste had evidently 
 been busy about the room they now entered. 
 There was no barbarism of splendour here. 
 Everything was quiet, refined, and graceful. 
 The windows of the room looked out on the 
 park. A sweet prospect. The evening was 
 still young. The blue of the sky was a little 
 more tender, the gleam of the sunlight a little 
 mellower on the park trees and the park land- 
 scape and the pleasant river. 
 
 ■ For my part,' said the retired capitalist, ar- 
 ranging himself comfortably in an arm-chair, ' I 
 don't take wine after dinner. I'm contented 
 with a drop o' brandy an' a bit of ice. But 
 there's anything you like here. Try that there 
 sherry. My Lord Chesterwood himself can't 
 beat that, I'll bet. Melted gold, it looks like, 
 don't it ? And by Jove ! sir, that's pretty well 
 what it amounts to. Now I shall just take my 
 nip, and then I shall take my nap, and leave 
 Maud to take care of you, sir. I can't do 
 without my snooze after dinner.'
 
 History. 5 1 
 
 The old gentleman's appetite had been dimin- 
 ished by no such cause as that which had 
 spoiled the dinner of his young companions. 
 He had well eaten and drunken, and his nap 
 came readily. A bassoon-like note again 
 and again repeated, monotonous but mellow, 
 accompanied and proclaimed his slumbers, 
 and Maud and Frank were left to their own 
 devices. 
 
 1 Would you — ' Frank began, and stopped 
 there. 
 
 'Would I — ' said Maud, hinting a continua- 
 tion. 
 
 ' I wanted to suggest a stroll in the gardens. 
 It's dreadfully hot here.' 
 
 ' Shall I rouse Mr. Hartley ?' Maud asked. 
 
 ' Nonsense, Maud ! Do you care to walk ? 
 It looks so peaceful and calm outside that it 
 seems almost a sin to stay indoors.' 
 
 1 It does indeed,' Maud answered, and for a 
 moment disappeared. When she returned, she 
 had thrown over her head a something of dark 
 lace, the edges whereof fell to her waist — the 
 merest pretence of preparation for out-of-doors. 
 She and Frank were on very close and con- 
 fidential terms of friendship, and were perhaps 
 nervously inclined to parade this to themselves, 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 because they both knew very well that there 
 was something more than friendship behind its 
 pleasant mask. They chose a shady walk, 
 which led through well-laid gardens to the 
 Park. At the Park gate they stopped. 
 The silence had grown a little embarrassing, 
 for neither had spoken since they left the 
 house. 
 
 Frank broke the bonds of quiet with 
 an effort. ' I go back to town in a day 
 or two.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! ' Maud said. ' So soon ? ' 
 
 ' Yes. It goes sorely against the grain ; but 
 I have some matters of importance to see to, 
 and I must get back almost at once.' 
 
 4 It is too bad, Frank. You are more 
 than half pledged for the picnic on the first. 
 You are a very faithless and inconsiderate 
 person.' 
 
 1 If you are going to scold, Maud, I must 
 smoke. I can endure the ills of life with 
 greater philosophy when behind a cigar than 
 under any other circumstances. Are you pro- 
 vided ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir, I am provided/ responded Maud, 
 producing a cigar-case. ' Knowing that we 
 could not possibly spend five minutes together
 
 History. 5 3 
 
 without quarrelling, and knowing that you can 
 never quarrel with decent politeness unless you 
 smoke, I have stolen uncle's case/ 
 
 ' You are a very accommodating antagonist/ 
 Frank answered, accepting the proffered cigar. 
 He did not light it at once, but leaned with his 
 elbows on the gate, and looked thoughtfully 
 across the Park. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' said Maud, with a pretty air 
 of harmless impudence. ' Get your bat- 
 tery in order. The enemy advances in full 
 force/ 
 
 1 No/ returned Frank, looking round upon 
 her ; ' I shall not fall back upon my reserves 
 until my present forces are expended. I shall 
 withhold my fire/ 
 
 ' Very good,' Maud answered gaily. ' The 
 enemy's advance-guard declares itself. Why 
 were you so stupidly silent during dinner ? ' 
 
 ' I plead guilty to the silence, but deny the 
 stupidity/ 
 
 ' You change ground already, sir, and try to 
 escape from the battle-field to the law-court. 
 But I am willing to encounter you there. On 
 what ground do you deny the stupidity ? ' 
 
 ' On the ground that I was mentally engaged 
 in a wise admiration/
 
 54 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 ' A wise admiration ? The admiration of 
 your own face and figure in the glass behind 
 me ? I caught you twice.' 
 
 I I am grateful for the complaisance which 
 pronounces such an admiration wise.' 
 
 'And 1/ returned Maud, 'am astonished at 
 the vanity which accepts so absurdly false a 
 compliment.' 
 
 I I return to the old simile,' Frank replied. 
 4 My outposts fall back for the protection of the 
 main body, and the artillery prepares for action. 
 Will my courteous enemy assist me ? ' 
 
 ' Your courteous enemy has stolen a box of 
 vestas, and now proffers them.' 
 
 ' My courteous enemy is thanked for her 
 courtesy. But now a truce to truces. There 
 goes the first puff from the artillery. The 
 action begins in earnest, and the forces of the 
 Frank make reprisals. Why were you so 
 stupidly silent during dinner ? ' 
 
 ' The enemy grows insolent.' 
 
 < Maud ! ' 
 
 'Sir!' 
 
 ' Let us be serious.' 
 
 ' I am more than serious. Come sir. For 
 
 u Front to front the bannered hosts combine, 
 Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line."
 
 History. 5 5 
 
 • Oh, hang Tom Campbell on his dreadful 
 line! Maud, let me speak. I'm going back 
 to town almost directly, and I have something 
 I must say to-night. I shall not see you again 
 for heaven alone knows how long.' He throws 
 his cigar over the gate, and takes both her 
 hands in his : ' Maud, I love you ! ' 
 
 The saucy eyes were lowered. Maud made 
 no answer. Frank relinquished one hand and 
 stole an arm round her waist. She attempted 
 no repulse. He kissed her, and her head 
 dropped down upon his shoulder. So they 
 stood for a while. 
 
 I can scarcely find the heart, in pursuance 
 of my function as story-teller, to take them 
 from each others arms. They will never be so 
 happy as they are at this blessed moment, 
 any more. There was something which welled 
 up in Frank's heart and surprised him. An 
 infinite protecting tenderness. An emotion at 
 once vast and vague ; comprising within it all 
 possible loves ; of fatherhood and brotherhood 
 and childhood. He thought of his own follies 
 and his own unworthiness, and his eyes grew a 
 little dim. There was a sharp compunction in 
 his breast as he laid a hand on each cheek and 
 gently forced back the blushing face until the
 
 56 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 shy eyes were raised to his and dropped again, 
 and the shy sweet face was nestled at his 
 heart. 
 
 1 Look here, Maud ! ' said Frank very 
 earnestly. ' You don't know what a pack of 
 imperfections you have taken hold of. I've 
 been an idle, careless, butterfly sort of fellow. 
 I have never been in earnest in my whole life 
 about anything but you ; and I want to make 
 confession ; and I want love to absolve me ; 
 and I want to promise that I'll be a thousand 
 times more industrious and more manly in 
 life than I have ever been before. I want 
 to promise this ; and I want to have it on 
 my mind always that I have promised. And 
 when I think of you, darling — and that will 
 be always — I shall think of this confession 
 and this promise. And just to make the pro- 
 mise all the more sacred, give me your hands, 
 dear. Tell me for the first time that you 
 care for me.' And so, by love, and love's 
 confession, Frank Fairholt vowed himself to 
 manhood. 
 
 The lovers lingered in the garden. The 
 light grew softer and fainter. Through a long 
 vista in the Park they could see the pale sum- 
 mer moon low on the horizon. It was a time
 
 History. 5 7 
 
 and a place of peace, and joy had no tumult 
 now. They talked — as happy lovers will — of 
 the future. They filled it with bright visions 
 of home and of homely joys. Was there any 
 sorrow in the sky at all ? None. There was 
 no cloud so large as a man's hand. 
 
 But Time will not stay his course, even for 
 happy lovers. Parting came at last. A pleas- 
 ant parting. Good-bye and good-bye often 
 repeated. A tender warfare in which each was 
 resolved to bless the other last. Good-bye. 
 Good-bye. 
 
 Was there any sorrow in the sky ? Was 
 there a cloud so large as a man's hand ? And 
 yet these happy lovers met no more.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Suddenly, at the station door, the real terror came from 
 behind ?ne. 
 
 A LL day I was haunted by the memory of 
 the face. It moulded itself so severely 
 that afternoon, and so terribly in the night 
 which followed, that to this very day I re- 
 member it more clearly than I remember any 
 other countenance I ever saw. A curious sen- 
 sation accompanied me in my spellbound 
 memories. It had happened that at the 
 moment when the stranger startled me at the 
 edge of the clay mine, I had got my floating 
 faculties into full swing, and was hovering round 
 a certain slaty ledge in fancy. And so my sense 
 of the face was something like that which a 
 small bird might have of a falcon. Always — 
 that afternoon — I was hovering harmless in 
 mid-air, and always the figure of the stranger
 
 Autobiography. 59 
 
 seemed to be pouncing down upon me. Per- 
 haps it was less the figure than the face. The 
 figure was blurred and dim even then ; but 
 every line and tint of the face was cruelly 
 clear. 
 
 That afternoon, Sally took me to the neigh- 
 bouring town, and to a huge emporium of 
 ready-made clothing there. In a retiring-room 
 of that establishment I was wedged into a suit 
 of clothes, in which I reminded myself vaguely 
 of a rhinoceros, whose pictured semblance I 
 had somewhere seen. A great many other 
 purchases were made, and for Sally the day 
 was a busy one. It lay somehow upon my 
 childish conscience that I had allowed one of 
 my school-fellows to be accused of a crime he 
 had not committed ; but I was so perfectly as- 
 sured that Sally would not in the least under- 
 stand me if I tried to tell her what had really 
 happened, that I forbore from saying anything 
 at all about the stranger. Possibly he was 
 with me all the more on account of the very 
 secrecy in which I felt myself compelled to 
 harbour him. At least I know that his face, 
 in some inexplicable way, mingles for me now 
 with the rolling noises of a great town's traffic ; 
 with the first glimmer of the gas-lamps in a
 
 60 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 crowded street ; with the rattle of a railway 
 journey; with a hundred of the new experiences 
 of that afternoon, which have since renewed 
 themselves countless times, as such experience 
 will. 
 
 The face identified itself then, and remains 
 identified in memory now, with the flickering 
 of the fire ; with the quiet of the room ; with 
 the solemn ticking of the clock ; with the 
 voices and the footsteps of casual passers-by 
 outside ; with the winding stairway ; with the 
 sparsely furnished bedroom ; with the glimmer 
 of the departing light ; with the darkness and 
 the silence which ensued. It identified itself 
 also with a certain quaint doggerel petition, 
 which is all I remember of the evening devo- 
 tions of my childhood, and which ran thus : — 
 
 i Four corners to my bed ; 
 Four angels at my head ! 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 Bless the bed that I lie on ! ' 
 
 I never think of this ridiculous petition now 
 without associating it with that face. If I call 
 back the old childish feeling, as I am fond of 
 doing, when I lie awake on a dark night, and 
 hear the rain pattering against the window, and 
 the wind moaning outside, I recall that face.
 
 Autobiography. 61 
 
 It has grown indeed to be a part of the wind 
 and rain and darkness, as of everything else 
 to me. As I can see it now, I can translate it. 
 Let me call it back. I can read in it nothing 
 but blind fear and horror and despair. And if 
 it touches me so now, is it a thing to be won- 
 dered at that it haunted me so many years 
 back, like an evil ghost ? Its most terrible 
 peculiarity was, perhaps, that though I was 
 always conscious of its presence, and though I 
 could positively perceive its lines, there was 
 about it a singular feeling that the light or the 
 darkness upon which it stood acted in some 
 way as a mirror, and gave me its reflection, 
 whilst the real face was close behind me. This 
 dreadful fancy grew so strong that night, that 
 though I buried my head beneath the bed- 
 clothes and shrank close to the wall against 
 which the bed was placed, I found myself com- 
 pelled by sheer terror to lie upon my back and 
 face the phantom so. But even then it was 
 only a simulacrum that I faced. The real ter- 
 ror was underneath the bed below me. And 
 yet the face was there — clearly outlined, firmly 
 modelled, with its haggard eyes, its blur of 
 unshaven beard on cheek and chin, its drawn 
 lips and gleaming teeth.
 
 62 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 Children, I think, are gifted with a very 
 singular heroism in regard to terrors of this 
 kind. I know that I could not bear now in 
 darkness and in solitude what I suffered then. 
 When I fell asleep the face was with me. When 
 I awoke it was with me still. When, by Sally's 
 aid, I had rewedged myself into my unaccus- 
 tomed garments, and stood cumbrously in the 
 middle of the kitchen, awaiting the advent of 
 yesterday's visitor, the face was there. When 
 the stately lady came in a cab to the door, and 
 whilst she talked with Sally and with that good 
 creature's mother, and with me, the face was 
 still behind me, and its ghostly reflection was 
 still suspended in the air before me. When 
 we were all three inside the cab and I was 
 seated on the stately lady's knee, the shadow 
 dodged behind the cabman's figure, and waited 
 for me at the station door. And suddenly — 
 and bearing what a horror, words are power- 
 less to say — at the station door, the real terror 
 came from behind me. The stranger of yester- 
 day afternoon ! I knew him directly, though 
 he was much changed. He was no longer well 
 dressed, but was attired in a suit of moleskin, 
 and a pair of clay-soiled boots, and an old bat- 
 tered wide-awake hat, and a dirty flannel shirt.
 
 A utobiography. 6 3 
 
 There was one thing which impressed me about 
 this second bodily sight of the stranger's face. 
 Not only did I recognise the face, but the face 
 recognised me. Now the phantom face, though 
 it had looked upon me continually, had no 
 gleam of recognition in it ; and it was partly by 
 this, I fancy, that I distinguished between the 
 real and the false. 
 
 I had not up to this time been able to realise 
 in any measure the relationship between the 
 stately lady and myself. If she had been 
 younger, my knowledge of fiction might have 
 come to my aid, and she might have been the 
 Fairy Peribanou, or the Princess Balroulbadour, 
 or any of the thousand-and-one inamorate of 
 Gil Bias or Roderick Random. How innocent 
 the childish fancy is ! How incomplete and 
 how complete at once ! The better part of a 
 book read in childhood is a legacy left by the 
 child to the man. It is only the man who can 
 find the dross of it and the folly of it, and can 
 incorporate that dross and folly — not the child. 
 
 But she had talked to me in such a kindly 
 and motherly way, and her face was so emi- 
 nently lovable and gracious, that I had already 
 overcome my first shyness, and with that im- 
 pulsive certainty which is the best dowry of the
 
 64 A Lifes Atonement* 
 
 childish heart, had already thrown myself, quite 
 securely, upon her love and protection. And 
 so it was something of an added wonder to 
 notice that the eyes of yesterday's stranger, when 
 they left mine, and rested for a moment on her 
 face, should suddenly assume a double horror, 
 and that the stranger, turning, should run, with 
 one sharp cry, full tilt along the street as fast 
 as his legs could carry him. At the cry, every- 
 body in the station-yard turned ; but in a 
 moment the flying figure was lost to sight, and 
 was forgotten by all but me. 
 
 We all three rode together ; Sally sitting 
 stiffly upright and rigidly unobservant in one 
 corner of the carriage, and I seated for a con- 
 siderable part of the journey in the lady's lap. 
 I cannot remember that up to this time I had 
 known any of those playful endearments which 
 mean so much to children. I have no memory 
 whatsoever of my parents ; and Sally, though I 
 can never underprize her affection, had not 
 many of Love's outer graces. Personally, she 
 was of a broad and bony pattern, and had more 
 angles on her than I have seen upon any other 
 human structure. She was very hard and red 
 in face and hands and arms ; and had a curious 
 roughness on her skin, as though she were in
 
 Attiobiography. 65 
 
 the habit of drying herself with a file whenever 
 she washed herself. She was a tearful creature 
 too, and when she felt any especial affection for 
 me, would take me on her lap and would put 
 those rough red arms about me, and cry over 
 me for half-an-hour together. So that, upon 
 the whole, I am afraid I rather evaded than 
 courted any demonstration of her love. But 
 the lady, as we rode together, pointed out this, 
 that, and the other object on the way which she 
 thought might interest my childish fancy ; and 
 had, for all her stateliness, a thousand of those 
 endearing and graceful ways which make a 
 woman the proper guide and companion of 
 childhood. And thus it came about that the 
 phantom face was destined to represent and to 
 be associated with one other experience ; and 
 thus, even now — so firmly do these childish 
 memories cling — that face is mixed with my 
 first experience of the pleasantries of affection, 
 and even now — so firmly does the childish 
 memory cling — the pleased laugh of a child 
 brings back that sombre phantom to my 
 mind. 
 
 There was yet another association the 
 face took during that journey, which I have 
 not yet forgotten. Sally, inspired, I sup- 
 vol. 1. e
 
 66 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 pose, by a sense of the new character of 
 our relations, addressed me whenever she 
 spoke as Master Campbell, and alluded to 
 me always in the same distant phrase. There 
 was to my young spirit something so forlorn 
 and foreign in the sound, that after it had 
 been repeated once or twice I lay down, and 
 under pretence of going to sleep, covered 
 up my head and had a cry about it. But 
 Sally — bless her kindly heart ! — saw it all, 
 and when my aunt had left the carriage in 
 pursuit of refreshments at a great station at 
 which the train rested, and took its own re- 
 freshment in the shape of coke and water, the 
 faithful creature lifted me from the corner in 
 which I lay, and said, * There ; I won't do 
 it again, deary. Wipe your eyes. Here's 
 your aunt comin'. There ; run and look out 
 o' window. It shall be Johnny when we're by 
 wereselves.' 
 
 Somewhat comforted by this assurance, I 
 stood at the carriage-window and looked at 
 the landscape until I made myself believe that 
 we were standing still ; whilst the near country 
 waltzed quickly by us to a lively tune, and the 
 distant country paced slowly on to a sad one. 
 Both the sad tune and the lively one were
 
 Autobiography, 67 
 
 made by the rolling and rattling of the wheels, 
 and the sad tune came in with a single note at 
 the end of every second bar of the lively tune. 
 I amused myself by keeping them distinct, and 
 by making both the near and distant country 
 keep time to their rhythmic throb. The face 
 kept time also, and appeared and vanished as 
 the engine panted and the wheels rolled the 
 ceaseless tune I gave them. Then I invented 
 a new joy which was almost equal to that of 
 the clay-mine. I closed my eyes until I 
 found myself undetermined for a moment as 
 to the direction in which the train was going, 
 and by an effort of will, reversed its motion. 
 When the delusion was complete, I opened my 
 eyes, and the delicious delirious shock with 
 which the panting monster of an engine sud- 
 denly reversed himself, and bore me onward, 
 instead of bearing me backward, was a thing 
 not to be described. 
 
 I cannot insist too much upon the fact of 
 that ever-present face. It was not only there, 
 but it knit itself into everything I did and saw 
 and thought and heard, and became part and 
 parcel of them all. And yet I was full of eager 
 childish curiosities throughout the whole jour- 
 ney, and greeted everything with that silent
 
 68 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 and enjoying wonder which is the child's pre- 
 rogative. 
 
 At a station at which a red-whiskered and 
 sanguine - complexioned porter bawled out 
 ' Hetherton,' we alighted, and a man on the 
 platform touched his hat to my aunt. He 
 wore a queer black star at the side of his hat, 
 and was dressed in a drab livery. He was the 
 first liveried servant I had seen. I took him 
 for some tremendous functionary, and his evi- 
 dent respect for my aunt made her almost 
 awful in my eyes. What my aunt said to this 
 man I did not catch, but I heard him answer, 
 ' No, ma'am. Mr. Fairholt's coming down by 
 the next train from town, ma'am, and I'm here 
 to meet him/ 
 
 ' Very good,' said my aunt, and so left the 
 platform, and walked before us through the 
 station and stepped into a cab. She said noth- 
 ing to the cabman ; but he went into the station 
 and brought back with him our luggage, which 
 my aunt had already pointed out to a porter. 
 When he had put the luggage on the top of 
 the cab, he mounted, and drove us away with- 
 out a word of instruction ; from which I argued 
 that my aunt was well known there. The road 
 ran for some distance between fields ; some
 
 Autobiography. 69 
 
 were newly ploughed, and in others the 
 stubble was still standing. The hedges were 
 almost bare of leaves, and the roads were 
 wet with recent rains. The skies were grey, 
 the clouds hung low ; and the wind tossed 
 and tousled the boughs as if it had a restless 
 spite against them. For a time the road 
 ran past a broad and turbid river, and then 
 through lanes again, until we crossed a wooden 
 bridge, passed through a wooden gate, which 
 the cabman got down to open, and went by 
 a firmly gravelled carriage-way round the lawn 
 in front of a large and stately house of red 
 brick. This house was quite invisible, by 
 reason of the trees which thronged about it, 
 until we came upon the carriage-drive, and 
 was half hidden, even then, by a thick and 
 clustering growth of ivy. 
 
 The cabman having been dismissed, I was 
 taken by my aunt into a room on the ground 
 floor. I had never until that day consciously 
 even dreamed of such an apartment. It seemed 
 to me unspeakably magnificent. It had pictures 
 and a piano, and a rich carpet, and a marble 
 mantel-piece, and a great mirror, and a number 
 of articles of furniture of which I knew neither 
 the uses nor the names. Curiously enough, in
 
 jo A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 the midst of all its strangeness, I was as per- 
 fectly certain that I had seen it before as I was 
 that I was there. There was a bright fire 
 burning in the grate ; and notwithstanding 
 what seemed to me the grandeur of the 
 room, it looked very homelike and comfort- 
 able. The whole of one wall was lined with 
 books. 
 
 * You must stay here for a little while,' my 
 aunt said, as she kissed me and smoothed my 
 hair. ' Can you read ? ' 
 
 I answered shyly ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Can you ? ' she said. l Let me hear you,' 
 and took up a book from the table. 
 
 It chanced to be a volume of Coleridge's 
 poems, and opened naturally at the Ancient 
 Mariner. I began, 
 
 1 It is an ancient mariner, 
 
 And he stoppeth one of three.' 
 
 She laughed a little, partly in surprise, and 
 partly, I fancy, at my uncouth accent, and said, 
 ' Oh, yes. That will do nicely. You can go 
 on reading, if you like. — This book,' she said, 
 tapping a volume with her finger, ' is full of 
 pictures. You may look at it.' 
 
 But I had no appetite for the' pictures just 
 then, and was eager to know more of the
 
 Atitobiograpky. 71 
 
 Ancient Mariner, and I so buried myself in the 
 story, and so mixed my ghost up with it all, 
 that, with the weirdness of the poet's fancy, 
 and the terror of my own, I grew frightened. 
 How long my aunt had left me alone, I cannot 
 say ; but I had just come to the end of the 
 Ancient Mariners story, when the door opened, 
 and my ghost came in. At least I thought so 
 for a moment, though in another moment I saw 
 I was mistaken. It was a grey-headed old 
 gentleman, with a peevish face. In the first 
 flush of surprise and fear I had risen to my 
 feet, and stood with the book folded tightly 
 in my arms. 
 
 The old gentleman advanced towards me, 
 and, putting a hand on each knee, bent 
 down to look at me, and asked me, in a 
 peevish voice, ' Well, my little man, and who 
 are you ? ' 
 
 It came across me suddenly that my aunt 
 was an embodied deception, who had inveigled 
 me away from Sally, and had left me here as a 
 prey to the grey-headed old gentleman. I was 
 very frightened, and nervous, and I began to 
 cry. 
 
 ' Oh dear,' said the old gentleman, with face 
 and voice more peevish than before, ' I can't
 
 72 A Life's Atonement, 
 
 have this — I can't have this.' He struck a 
 gong which stood upon the table, an action 
 which filled me with the direst forebodings. 
 The summons, however, produced nothing 
 more dreadful than a pink-cheeked damsel 
 in cotton print, who had received us when we 
 arrived. 
 
 1 Who is — Who is — ' So the old gentle- 
 man began in a nervous, fretful, irritable way. 
 ' Who is — ' He seemed to give up the 
 idea of indicating me verbally as an impossi- 
 bility, and threw a hand towards me instead. 
 
 ' I don't know, sir,' said the girl. ' He came 
 with Mrs. Campbell, half-an-hour ago.' 
 
 ' Where is she ? ' asked the old gentleman in 
 the same irritable way. 
 
 I heard the rustle of a dress outside, the 
 damsel answered, ' Here, sir ; ' and my aunt 
 appeared. 
 
 ' Good-day, Robert,' she said. 
 
 The girl retired ; and the old gentleman, 
 indicating me again by a wave of the hand, 
 asked, ' Who is this ? ' 
 
 My aunt settled herself in an arm-chair, 
 arranged her dress, folded her hands, dropped 
 her head back negligently, and responded, 
 A protege of mine.'
 
 Autobiography. J 3 
 
 The old gentleman gave a feeble and a 
 peevish start. 
 
 1 Now, Robert,' said my aunt, with a de- 
 cision and certainty which seemed natural to 
 her, ' we will not discuss that question just at 
 present. He ought to have been here — Let 
 us say, for example,' she said, arresting her- 
 self suddenly, and casting a glance at me, ' X. 
 has been grossly neglected by A., whose duty 
 it was to provide for him, and who knew per- 
 fectly well of his whereabouts. B. discovers 
 A.'s neglected duty, and brings A. face to 
 face with his responsibilities.' Then with a 
 change of tone and another glance at me, 
 she continued, ' This is your nephew, Robert 
 — poor John Campbell's child.' 
 
 ' Dear me, Bertha,' said the old gentleman, 
 rubbing one hand fretfully with the other, 
 1 ties of blood are ties of blood — ' 
 
 ' That's a proposition I don't in the least 
 dispute,' my aunt intercepted. ' I am glad to 
 find that you admit it.' 
 
 ' But I can't go about the country searching 
 out all the paupers who happen to be within 
 fifty degrees of me by marriage. Bless my 
 soul ! ' said the old gentleman with anything 
 but a voice of benediction, ' it's impossible.'
 
 74 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 ' If John Campbell,' said my aunt, with 
 the same calm decision of tone, ' had said, 
 " Impossible ! " when Robert Fairholt wished 
 to borrow ten thousand pounds once on a 
 time — ' She did not close the sentence, but 
 waited as if watching its effect. The old 
 gentleman walked up and down the room, 
 taking three or four steps each way, and 
 then pulling himself up with a jerk. There 
 was an air of helpless exasperation about 
 him, and he harried his grey hair peevishly 
 with his hands. 
 
 ' I suppose you will have your way, Bertha, 
 since you have brought him here — ' 
 
 4 Since/ said my aunt, intercepting him again 
 — ' Since X. has been discovered by B., A. is 
 left without option. Don't worry yourself over 
 so simple a question, Robert.' 
 
 The old gentleman walked jerkily up and 
 down the room again. It seemed to me as 
 though every time he started, he had made up 
 his mind to go for something in a great hurry, 
 and that he pulled himself up less because he 
 came to the wall, than because of a spiteful 
 contradiction within himself of his own first 
 purpose. After half-a-dozen turns, he suddenly 
 abandoned this contradiction of his own design,
 
 A utob iography. 7 5 
 
 and went out at the door. My aunt laughed 
 in a short, triumphant way. 
 
 ' Come with me, John,' she said a moment 
 afterwards, and led me to a room at the top 
 of the house. In this room sat a little girl, 
 a golden-haired, blue-eyed, pretty little crea- 
 ture, who gravely employed herself in cutting 
 out a fantastic pattern from a sheet of brown 
 paper with a tiny pair of scissors. To this 
 young lady my aunt introduced me as a 
 cousin. 
 
 1 Cousin Mary, and Cousin John/ said my 
 aunt. ' Now, you young people must be very 
 fond of each other. Won't you ? ' she asked, 
 kneeling down between us and putting an arm 
 round each. 
 
 I think I should probably be less embar- 
 rassed by an introduction at this time to a 
 lady of my own years, though the introduction 
 were couched in precisely similar terms, than 
 I was then ; and my embarrassment, so far as 
 I remember, arose from a feeling that it was 
 somehow a piece of dreadful presumption in 
 me to be there at all, listening to a suggestion, 
 and giving countenance to it by my silence, 
 that such a young lady in such a house could 
 possibly accept me on terms of equality, or
 
 J 6 A Lifes Atonew^nt. 
 
 could under any circumstances condescend to 
 be fond of me. I felt as though in my own 
 person I had been guilty of this invitation of 
 her affections, and I hung my head. When I 
 looked up, I saw that the little girl was sur- 
 veying me in a critical but not unapproving 
 way. She confirmed my impression of her 
 opinion by saying calmly to her aunt, ' I like 
 him,' and instantly crossing over and kissing 
 me. ' He's like Franty,' she said, as if in 
 explanation. My aunt laughed, and kissed 
 each of us, and went away. I stood in shy 
 silence when she had left me, and Cousin 
 Mary went back to the fantastic pattern in 
 brown paper. 
 
 'How old are you?' she asked, with quite 
 an air of years and patronage. 
 
 I told her. 
 
 ' What's your other name ? ' she asked. 
 
 I answered again as nervously as though 
 before a queen. 
 
 'Are r you clever?' she questioned further. 
 Do you know any tales ? I shall like you if 
 you know tales.' 
 
 This emboldened me, and I said Yes ; I 
 knew a good many. She dropped the fan- 
 tastic pattern and the scissors on the floor,
 
 Autob iography. 7 7 
 
 settled herself in her chair, cross-legged like 
 a Turk, leaned back with closed eyes, and said 
 with a sort of languid imperiousness, ' Tell 
 one now.' 
 
 This sudden command more than renewed 
 my first shyness, and I stood and hung my 
 head before her, as though she had been a 
 full-blown Sultana, and I the meanest of her 
 subjects. She opened her eyes and said, with 
 languid impatience, ' Oh, what an awtward 
 boy you are. Go on/ 
 
 Thus commanded, I made an effort, and 
 plunged desperately into my last read narra- 
 tive — the Ancient Mariner. I had just got 
 so far as to state that the man who was going 
 to the wedding was afraid to move because 
 the old gentleman with the grey beard stared 
 at him so, when she stopped me. 
 
 1 I don't like that/ she said. ' Do you know 
 about the three bears ? ' 
 
 I muttered a confession of my ignorance. 
 
 1 Nor about Red Ridinghood ? ' 
 
 I knew nothing of Red Redinghood ; but I 
 knew Bluebeard and Jack the Giant-killer, and 
 Aladdin and Jack and the Bean-stalk. 
 
 Whether the Sultana's mind would have con- 
 tinued in favour of story-telling, I cannot say,
 
 78 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 for the door opened just then, and a gentleman 
 entered the room. He nodded at my com- 
 panion, and said, ' Well, Polly.' She nodded 
 back at him and laughed. The gentleman 
 regarded me with an air of good-humoured 
 amusement for a minute or two, and I felt 
 sure of him at once. He was many years 
 younger than my aunt, but was strikingly like 
 her. He was very handsome, too, and had a 
 soft, engaging manner. I liked his kind grey 
 eyes and candid face at once. He sat down 
 and took me on his knee. 'Well, my little 
 man,' he said, 'how do you like your new 
 home ? ' 
 
 I said I didn't know. 
 
 He set me down again, and laid a hand on 
 each of my shoulders, and so held me at arm's- 
 length, and laughed. ' I must get to know 
 this gentleman's tailor,' he said. ' I wonder 
 whether this is his normal aspect, or whether 
 Aunt Bertha has trussed him up in this way ? 
 What a funny little figure ! We must mend 
 all this, or we shall have the villagers burning 
 him for a Guy on the fifth. Frontal develop- 
 ment, good ; general expression, dreamy. Edu- 
 cation, up to this time, I should say, calculated 
 to spoil him. Wonder if the governor's seen
 
 Autobiography. 79 
 
 him ? ' All this he said less to himself than as 
 if addressing some invisible fourth person. He 
 sat and looked at me for a moment longer, and 
 then asked me, ' Do you know what a frontal 
 development is ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir/ I answered. 
 
 ' Do you know what a Guy is ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir,' I responded again. 
 
 1 That's all right then. Do you know what 
 a shilling is ? ' 
 
 1 Yes, sir.' 
 
 1 What would you do with it, if I gave you 
 one ?' 
 
 I told him I should give it to Sally to keep 
 for me. 
 
 I Sally ? ' he said with a laugh. ' That's the 
 bony importation I saw just now, I suppose. 
 There you are. Now, you needn't give it to 
 Sally ; you can spend it, or do what you like 
 with it.' 
 
 At that moment my aunt entered the room 
 again. ' What, Will ? ' she said. * You are 
 beginning to spoil the child already ? ' 
 
 I I say, aunt,' he said, rising, ' what a spec- 
 tacle the infant is ! Who chose that dress ? ' 
 
 1 It's not a very successful choice,' my aunt 
 responded. ' But it will do for one of the
 
 80 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 village children. I ought to have seen to that 
 myself, but was too busy.' 
 
 ' What does the governor say about it ? 
 About your bringing the child here, I mean ? ' 
 
 ' He says very little/ responded my aunt. 
 ' In fact I think he says nothing at all/ 
 
 ' He has seen him, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; he has seen him.' 
 
 ' That's all right then. It was a clear duty ; 
 but his ways are so methodical and settled, 
 and anything new about the house disturbs 
 him so, that I was rather afraid he might be 
 annoyed.' 
 
 With that they both went away, and Cousin 
 Mary and I were once more left alone together. 
 At her bidding, I kept shop until tea-time, and 
 she came in at intervals and bought my whole 
 stock on credit. The tea-board was presided 
 over by the pink-cheeked damsel in the cotton 
 print ; and after tea, Mary and I played at 
 keeping shop again until Aunt Bertha came, 
 with Sally in her wake, and saw me tubbed and 
 n : ght-gowned, and heard me offer up my quaint 
 evening petition. Then she took me in her 
 arms and carried me to a tiny bedroom, with 
 a sloping roof, and with white curtains and a 
 dormer window. There was a fire-grate in the
 
 A uto biography. 8 1 
 
 room, and the wood that burned and crackled 
 
 in it made a cheerful flicker on the walls and 
 
 roof and on the white curtains and the bed. 
 
 My aunt kissed me and laid me down, and 
 
 arranged the clothes about me with a kind and 
 <_> 
 
 gentle hand, and then sat down beside me, and 
 sang softly some verses of a Christmas hymn 
 about the good King Wencesclas. It was rain- 
 ing outside, and the trees were moaning ; and 
 as I lay there with the flicker of the firelight in 
 my eyes, the pleasant voice, and the comfort of 
 the room, and the noises of the wind and rain 
 outside, and the moaning of the trees, and the 
 charms of Cousin Mary, and the dread and 
 terror of the stranger's face, and the weird story 
 of the Ancient Mariner, seemed all to mingle 
 wavingly together, as though their lights and 
 shadows flickered with the flickering of the 
 fire, until they rounded and were softened to a 
 dream, and lost themselves in sleep. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 Your obedient servant, Aminadab Tasker. 
 
 TV /[" R. CRISP, managing clerk of the branch 
 of the county bank at Hetherton, sat 
 on a sweltering summer morning in the bank's 
 retiring-room. Mr. Crisp had nothing particu- 
 lar to do, and had exhausted that day's Times. 
 The weather was oppressive ; and notwith- 
 standing that the window was opened and the 
 blind down, and that Mr. Crisp, for further 
 ease, had discarded his coat and sat in his shirt 
 sleeves, he perspired dreadfully. He mopped 
 his damply gleaming baldness and his jolly face 
 with a scented handkerchief of yellow silk, and 
 fanned himself with the Times supplement, and 
 yawned. Mr. Crisp was a mighty angler, and 
 he yearned just then for a quiet cast in his 
 favourite stream, and could almost fancy him-
 
 History. Zy 
 
 self standing knee-deep in grasses, with the 
 broad landscape dozing round about him, and 
 the airs of the river blowing in his face. He 
 awoke from this vision with a sense of added 
 heat and aggravation, and went viciously for 
 a blue-bottle with his ruler. The blue-bottle 
 took refuge on the manager's gleaming bald- 
 ness, and Mr. Crisp rising in a sudden heat of 
 temper — as the quietest of men will do under 
 this sort of aggravation — whipped the blue- 
 bottle from his refuge, and, taking a towel from 
 a cupboard, pursued him with deadly intent to 
 the window. Fiery hot, perspiring, and shirt- 
 sleeved, he flogged the blue-bottle from coigne 
 of vantage to coigne of vantage, and chased 
 him from stronghold unto stronghold, until, as 
 he held himself in readiness for a final blow, 
 whilst the blue-bottle walked impudently across 
 a pane in the very centre of the window, the 
 door of the room opened, and Mr. Frank 
 Fairholt entered. 
 
 Mr. Frank Fairholt was exasperatingly cool, 
 and Mr. Crisp was most aggravatingly hot and 
 flushed and untidy, and felt himself taken at 
 a disadvantage. He regarded Frank for a 
 moment as though he would include him in a 
 common anathema with the blue-bottle ; but
 
 84 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 thought better of it, and returned his visitors 
 greeting cheerily enough. 
 
 ' I have a little business, Crisp,' said Frank. 
 ' Come across to the Ckesterwood, and have 
 some hock-and-soda, and cool yourself, and talk 
 it over.' 
 
 ' With pleasure,' responded Mr. Crisp ; but 
 before starting, went into the cupboard from 
 which he had taken the towel, and after a 
 pleasant splashing there emerged rosy but cool. 
 Struggling into his coat, he grew hot again ; 
 and his baldness, before he covered it with his 
 hat, once more gleamed damply. They walked 
 across the sunny street together and into the 
 old-fashioned hotel. 
 
 'Jenny, my dear,' said Frank, shaking hands 
 with the pretty barmaid, ' let me have a bottle 
 of hock and two bottles of soda, and a ton of 
 ice, and some good cigars. Send them up to 
 the coffee-room at once. There's nobody there, 
 I suppose ? Mr. Crisp and I want to talk 
 business.' 
 
 1 There's no one there, Mr. Frank,' re- 
 sponded the pretty barmaid ; and Mr. Crisp 
 and Frank went up together. 
 
 ' Did it ever strike you, Crisp — ' said 
 Frank.
 
 History. 85 
 
 He got no further, for Mr. Crisp, arising 
 with a look of settled determination upon his 
 face, took a napkin from the buffet, unfolded it, 
 and approached the window with a stealthy 
 step. ' You know how you caught me, Mr. 
 Fairholt,' said the managing clerk, with a dark 
 and tragic look. I was after this fellow then ; 
 but I'll finish him this time.' A blue-bottle 
 buzzed harmlessly on the pane, and Mr. 
 Crisp, with one dexterous flick of his napkin 
 slew him, and bore his body triumphantly 
 to the table, where he inurned it with cigar- 
 ashes. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' said Mr. Crisp. ' You 
 were saying, Had I ever noticed — ' 
 
 1 I was saying,' returned Frank, ' that here 
 comes the prettiest girl in this division of the 
 county, bearing in her fair hands the best of 
 liquors for a day like this. — Your health, Jenny. 
 — Yours, Crisp. Pretty tipple ! Try a weed.' 
 Frank strolled to the mirror, and admired 
 himself, with a tall glass in one hand and a 
 cigar in the other. He laid down his glass in 
 order to smooth his moustache and to arranee 
 his hat and his curls, and swaggered calmly 
 round on Crisp. 
 
 ' What's the business, Mr. Fairholt ? ' asked
 
 86 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 the managing clerk lazily, from a cloud of 
 smoke. 
 
 1 Oh, it's not much/ Frank returned. • I've 
 been going rather too rapidly up in town, and 
 I don't care about falling on the governor ; and 
 so my brother Will has just done this for me.' 
 He produced a purse, and took therefrom a 
 piece of stamped paper, and threw it across the 
 table to Mr. Crisp. 
 
 * M-m-m,' said Mr. Crisp, taking it up and 
 looking at it. ' Two hundred ? And four 
 months ? I wouldn't do this kind of thing too 
 often, Mr. Fairholt. Do you want me to cash 
 it?' 
 
 1 Yes,' said Frank carelessly, ' if you will be 
 so good.' 
 
 ' Well, of course I'll do it,' Mr. Crisp re- 
 sponded with expostulatory voice and manner. 
 1 But I wouldn't try this game too often, if I 
 were you. It's a bad game. Of course Mr. 
 Will's name is good enough for two hundred 
 here, and it shan't pass out of our hands. — 
 Crcesus Brothers ? Yes ; they're our London 
 agents.' Mr. Crisp turned the blue paper over 
 in his hands and continued, ' You can't work 
 a dead horse, you know, and it's just like trying 
 to do that, to work for money when you've
 
 History. 8 7 
 
 spent it already. So I'd just advise you, Mr. 
 Fairholt, to do as little in this way as you 
 possibly can.' 
 
 1 1 don't think I shall trouble you again, 
 Crisp. In point of fact, I've been going the 
 pace up there to such an extent that I was 
 obliged to do it now. But,' added Frank 
 jauntily, 4 I'm going to settle down, and train 
 for matrimony. By the way, I have to start 
 by the 12.10. We'll finish our hock, and then 
 go over to the bank together.' 
 
 Mr. Crisp nodded acquiescence ; and they 
 talked about indifferent matters for a time, and 
 then, the cigars and the wine being both 
 finished, returned to the bank, where Mr. 
 Crisp handed over notes and gold to the 
 amount of the bill, minus interest at three and 
 a half per cent, per annum, and Frank shook 
 hands and departed. 
 
 The train flashed through the peaceful 
 western country, and Frank, as he looked 
 lazily from the carriage, determined to take 
 this, that, and the other scene for a picture 
 some day. But in an hour or thereabouts he 
 fell asleep, and did not awake until he found 
 his ticket demanded. The train panted into 
 Euston Station shortly afterwards, and the
 
 SS A Ltfes Atonement. 
 
 young artist took a hackney-coach and trundled 
 to his rooms in Montague Gardens. Arrived 
 there he found several letters awaiting him, and 
 amongst them one which ran thus : — 
 
 1 7 Acre Buildings, City. 
 1 Sir, — When last I saw you, I gave you a 
 week to look about yourself. That was a 
 fortnight ago, and if things are not settled 
 by Thursday next, I shall have to make a 
 row. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 'Aminadab Tasker. 
 
 'PS. — I shall wait for you here not later 
 than six o'clock on Thursday evening.' 
 
 ' Confound the fellow ! ' said Frank, pulling 
 at his curls and surveying his own reflection 
 in the mirror above the mantel-piece. ' And 
 it's five o'clock already. I suppose I must 
 go down and see him. It's a horrible nuis- 
 ance, now that I have money in my pocket, 
 that I must turn it out so soon. One hun- 
 dred and sixty to him, and I'm left with only 
 fifty pounds in the wide wide world, and with 
 this affair of Will's hanging over me. Well, 
 it's got to be done, I suppose.' So Frank 
 emerged from his chambers, hailed another
 
 History. 89 
 
 coach, was driven to the city, and reached 
 7 Acre Buildings. 
 
 Acre Buildings lay off Cheapside. They 
 were houses of that old and stately fashion 
 with which the city once upon a time 
 abounded, but which are growing rarer now. 
 Notwithstanding their stateliness and age, 
 there was an air of bourgeoisie about 
 them ; and they had something of the aspect 
 of prosperous citizens, whose station being 
 secured in life, had fallen a little from the 
 noise and bustle of common business. Pass- 
 ing from crowded Cheapside into the court 
 that leads to Acre Buildings, you passed 
 from noise to quiet and from heat to shade. 
 The Buildings stood round a square flagged 
 court, with a dial in the centre. The finger 
 had rusted and fallen from the dial long ago, 
 as though Time stood still in Acre Buildinp-s, 
 and needed no finger to mark his progress 
 any more. The dial was defaced and broken, 
 as if Time's reign were over, and the image 
 of his rule destroyed. But nowhere did Time 
 move onward with a quicker step or one more 
 certain than at No. 7, and with those whose 
 needs might lead them to its presiding genius. 
 There were a few trees in the court, and the
 
 90 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 aspect of the whole place was calm and coun- 
 trified and pleasant. 
 
 In No. 7 Acre Buildings there was an office 
 on the second floor. The black outer door 
 bore in white letters the name ' A. Tasker.' 
 Just then A. Tasker stood with his face to 
 the wall, as though he had been guilty of 
 some misdemeanour, and an inscription on 
 the glass panel of an inner door dumbly re- 
 quested the passer-by to walk in. Obeying 
 this voiceless injunction, Frank found himself 
 confronted by a small boy, with a dry sandy 
 complexion, and a head of dry sandy hair. 
 
 ' Is Mr. Tasker at home ?' 
 
 1 Yes,' responded the boy aggressively ; 
 1 he is.' 
 
 1 Tell him I wish to see him.' 
 
 1 You can't see him ; leastways not yet/ 
 returned the boy, contemplating a fly-spotted 
 almanac on the wall. He's engaged. You'll 
 have to wait.' 
 
 1 Give him that, and tell him that I won't 
 wait.' 
 
 The small boy, with some hesitation, took 
 Frank's card, and passed with it into an inner 
 room, and returning after a minute's absence, 
 said, ' Please to come this way, sir.'
 
 History. 9 i 
 
 Frank followed, and found Mr. Tasker alone. 
 He was a short and thick-set man, was Mr. 
 Tasker, with gaudy thick-set rings on red 
 and thick-set fingers. He wore a burly 
 watch-chain crossed and re-crossed several 
 times above a burly waistcoat. As Frank 
 entered, a whiff of macassar and musk, pro- 
 ceeding from the sleek head and flourishing 
 bandana of Mr. Tasker, assaulted his nostrils 
 — a mingled odour like that which greets the 
 lounger in the Strand as he passes Rimmel's 
 on a languid day. Mr. Tasker's eyes were 
 bright and beady. Mr. Tasker's nose was 
 magnificently Hebraic. His lips and teeth 
 were eminently carnivorous. His face was 
 clean shaven except for a black imperial on 
 the chin. His manner was one of uneasy 
 self-confidence. 
 
 1 I was told you were engaged,' said Frank. 
 
 1 A mistake, sir,' Mr. Tasker answered 
 through that magnificent Hebraic nose. 'Will 
 you take a chair ? You have called about that 
 little matter ? ' 
 
 ' I have called,' said Frank, contemptuously 
 angry, ' to take myself out of your Hebrew 
 clutches, Mr. Tasker, and to tell you how 
 much you deserve a caning for this piece of
 
 92 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 insolence.' He threw Mr. Tasker's note care- 
 lessly on the table, and produced his pocket- 
 book. 
 
 ' No, sir,' said Mr. Tasker, insinuating re- 
 monstrance through the Hebraic nose ; ' not 
 insolence, my dear sir — not insolence. A little 
 friendly reminder.' 
 
 1 Do me the favour not to be friendly, if 
 you please,' Frank answered. ' Produce your 
 bond. Here is your pound of flesh.' 
 
 Mr. Tasker smiled — a little tiger like. 
 1 Gentlemen say what they like to me, sir.' 
 
 1 So I should suppose,' Frank returned. ' Is 
 this the note ? ' 
 
 ' I hope, Mr. Fairholt,' said Mr. Tasker, 
 creasing out the tigerish smile from his lips 
 with his thick-set jewelled fingers — ' I hope 
 you are not displeased with my way of doing 
 business. I do all I gan to oblige you, sir — 
 everything.' Mr. Tasker gathers up the notes, 
 and continues, ' This was only our zecond 
 dransaction, sir ; and now that I see how 
 bunctual you are — ' 
 
 1 Don't trouble yourself, Tasker. Do me 
 the favour not to know me when you see 
 me ; and good-day.' With that Frank swag- 
 gered from the room ; and as Mr. Tasker
 
 History. 93 
 
 took the thick-set hand from his own lips 
 the tigerish smile came back again. 
 
 i Go your way, young gentleman ; but if I 
 lay my hand upon you again, I will pay you. 
 — Do not be friendly, Tasker ? Do me the 
 favour not to know me ? Here is your pound 
 of flesh ? Your bound of vlesh ? ' snarled Mr. 
 Tasker, becoming more German as he gave 
 his wrath free vent. ' I will haf my bound 
 of vlesh when I get my jance.' And what 
 with the tigerish smile, and the thick-set lips, 
 and the carnivorous teeth, and the beady eyes, 
 Mr. Tasker really looked as though he em- 
 ployed no hyperbole, but meant that pound 
 of flesh in downright gastronomic earnest. 
 Having locked his cash-box and patted it 
 comfortably on the top, and stroked it with 
 all his thick-set jewelled fingers, Mr. Tasker 
 opened a door opposite to that by which 
 Frank had entered, and said to some one in 
 the inner room, ' This way, sir, if you please. 
 The gentleman is gone.' 
 
 In answer to this summons appeared Ben- 
 jamin Hartley, of Hartley Park and Hall. ' I 
 didn't catch the name,' says Mr. Hartley. 
 1 Who was that, eh, Tasker ? ' 
 
 ' A Mr. Fairholt, sir — a Mr. Francis Fairholt.'
 
 94 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 1 Eh ? eh ? eh ? Come now, Tasker, I've 
 never seen his name in them there books of 
 yours.' 
 
 1 Well, the fact is, sir/ Mr. Tasker explained 
 through the Hebraic medium, ' I knew the 
 gentleman was a neighbour of yours, and I 
 thought it would be best to be quiet until the 
 thing was paid.' 
 
 I Now, look here, Tasker ! ' says Mr. Hartley, 
 shaking a warning finger at him — ' I know 
 your little game too well. You ain't going to 
 humbug me ! This ain't the first time, Tasker, 
 as I've found you tryin' that fast and loose 
 dodge on. Do you know how much of my 
 coin you've got in this little business ? ' 
 
 I I cannot tell you at a moment's notice, 
 sir.' 
 
 ' Then I can. Seven thousand five hundred 
 pound. I'll draw it, every farthin', and smash 
 you, if you come them games with me. Fact. 
 I've more than half a mind to do it now. This 
 kind o' game's low, and I've got no business 
 to be mixed up with it/ 
 
 ' If you will not be too sudden, sir,' says Mr. 
 Tasker, in nasal supplication. ' I have saved 
 a little ; I could carry it on in a small way on 
 my own account — a very small way.'
 
 History. 95 
 
 1 1 don't know why,' says Mr. Hartley, chew- 
 ing a gloved forefinger — ' I don't know why 
 your people trust you. But I tell you, Tasker, / 
 wouldn't trust you. No — not with a bad farthin'. 
 Not as far as I could fling a bull by the tail.' 
 
 ' My bonds,' said Mr. Tasker, extending the 
 jewelled hands. 
 
 * Your bonds!' returned Mr. Hartley. 'Your 
 bonds is straw.' 
 
 ' I kept this secret,' said Mr. Tasker, ' from 
 the best of motives, sir/ 
 
 1 Don't talk to me about your motives. I 
 make a point of knowin' this business, and 
 all about it. I will know. It pays me in a 
 hundred ways, as you can't guess of, and ain't 
 goin' to be let to guess of. Now, you do this 
 again, and I'll keep my word.' Mr. Hartley 
 rose to go, but paused at the door. ' Twelve 
 to-morrow, at my hotel. And just remember 
 what I've told you. Do you hear ? Re- 
 member ! Our terms of business is these : 
 Ten per cent, per annum, payable quarterly 
 to me, and me to have full knowledge of the 
 way all moneys is expended. You seem to 
 have forgot that, Tasker. Just you remember 
 it. Remember it ! ' With that he went away, 
 and Mr. Tasker was left alone.
 
 96 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 1 I will remember,' said that gentleman 
 darkly to himself — ' I will remember. I can 
 znap my vingers at you.' Mr. Tasker' s scowl- 
 ing face changed as his patron re-entered. 
 
 1 I've got one thing as I want to mention, 
 Tasker,' said Mr. Hartley, closing the door 
 behind him, and advancing. ' You've been 
 dealin' with Mr. Francis Fairholt. How 
 often ? ' 
 
 ' Twice.' 
 
 ' How much ?' 
 
 1 This time one-sixty with expenses. Less 
 last time.' 
 
 1 Well, don't you have any more truck with 
 him. If he wants money, he deals with me. 
 That young gentleman belongs to a good old 
 county family. He's the son of a neighbour and 
 a friend o' mine. I believe,' says Mr. Hartley, 
 with a slightly oratorical manner, ' as his 'ouse 
 will shortly be alloyed with mine in matrimony. 
 So you leave him alone.' Having given this 
 injunction, Mr. Hartley softened, and said, 
 ' Good-day, Tasker,' and so went out, and down 
 the stairs. 
 
 Left alone, Mr. Tasker took the cash-box 
 in his hands, and darkly meditated. 'It is a 
 good thing to hate some one,' says Mr. Tasker,
 
 History. g' 
 
 with the tigerish smile flashing out again. ' It 
 ztirs the blood, and makes a man lifely.' With 
 this pleasant reflection Mr. Tasker opened a 
 safe, consigned the cash-box to its depths, 
 locked it up again, took his hat, and cane, 
 and gloves, threw a nosy word of dismissal at 
 the sandy-complexioned boy in the anteroom, 
 made the outer door secure, passed up Cheap- 
 side, through St. Paul's Churchyard, Fleet 
 Street, and the Strand, and turned into a club 
 near Covent Garden. Here he made a dinner 
 of the best the place afforded, and afterwards 
 repaired to the smoke-room, where he drank a 
 good deal of brandy-and-water, and smoked a 
 cigar above the money columns of the morning 
 paper. He sat alone for nearly an hour, when 
 he was joined by a languid young man of three 
 or four - and - twenty. The new-comer was 
 almost as plentifully jewelled as Tasker him- 
 self, but carried off his finery with a better 
 grace. He wore a light flaxen moustache, and 
 his long and light brown hair was parted 
 in the centre, and fell upon his collar. His 
 hands were singularly white and delicate. His 
 clothes were cut in the extreme of fashion, 
 and his small feet were cased in shoes of patent 
 leather. 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 98 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 1 Ah/ said the new arrival, * my Tasker ! ' 
 He settled himself on a lounge beside the 
 money-lender, and regarded him with a look 
 of amused curiosity. ' My Tasker smoking 
 of the best, and reclining, as is his wont, in 
 gorgeous ease and jewelled opulence. What 
 new spoil from the Philistines ? What new 
 booty from Egypt ? ' 
 
 Mr. Tasker looked upon him with a 
 frown, and through the Hebraic nose inquired 
 whether he couldn't leave the shop behind 
 him. 
 
 * Most worthy of Israelites/ returned the 
 other, ' master of Golconda's mine, priest of 
 Ormuz' golden shrine, I k have no shop. But 
 you, Tasker — pardon the simile — resemble the 
 patient snail, and carry your shop about with 
 you. Or shall I withdraw that, and say that 
 you carry your profession in your face, which 
 is in itself a most potent letter of recom- 
 mendation to all good fellows who can spend 
 money and have no money to spend ? ' 
 
 Mr. Tasker waved the subject off. ' Talk 
 about that to-morrow, Mr. Hastings, at Acre 
 Buildings/ 
 
 1 Most worthy Tasker, to-morrow is not 
 now. I am impecunious/
 
 History. 99 
 
 1 I cannot do business now,' responded Mr. 
 Tasker. 
 
 4 Really, Tasker,' said the other carelessly, 
 1 you may perform works of necessity even 
 upon the Sabbath. You may lift your ass 
 from the pit, for instance. I invite you to lift 
 him. Break through the Sabbath of your 
 saintly rest, and let me have a fiver till the 
 morning/ 
 
 ' It is against my rule, Mr. Hastings,' Tasker 
 responds. 
 
 'Rules, my Tasker? We are Hebrew and 
 Christian, who change like water, not Mede 
 and Persian, who alter not.' 
 
 ' I gannot do it it, and I will not,' said Mr. 
 Tasker. 
 
 ' Now, my Tasker,' said the other with a 
 languidly curious admiration of him, ' I know 
 you to be in earnest. I recognise that Teuton 
 tone, that voice of stern resolve. I shall have 
 to be down on somebody else.' 
 
 The money-lender shifted in his chair, and 
 took a great gulp at his bra ndy-and- water. 
 
 1 Try one of my weeds, Tasker ? I guar- 
 antee them good. A man in my position can't 
 afford to owe for bad cigars.' 
 
 'You are going at a good rate, Mr. Hast-
 
 ioo A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 ings,' said Tasker, taking a cigar. ' You will 
 land somewhere in time/ 
 
 ' Is Tasker among the prophets ? I shall 
 land somewhere in splendid company. Pay 
 for a liquor, Tasker, and I'll tell you some- 
 thing.' 
 
 ' Tell me something/ returned Mr. Tasker, 
 with his tigerish smile, ' that is worth a liquor, 
 and then I may.' 
 
 1 Don't bring things down to this base com- 
 mercial level. — Do you know Fairholt ? ' 
 
 1 Do I know Vairhold ? ' repeated Mr. 
 Tasker, turning suddenly round, whilst his 
 black eyebrows were drawn almost over his 
 beady eyes. 
 
 ' Once more he is Teutonic. Has he sold 
 you ? ' 
 
 1 No/ said Mr. Tasker, sliding back into his 
 former position, and biting his nails, as he 
 regarded the other through half-shut eyes. 
 1 He has not sold me. But I will sell kim, if 
 he comes again into my hands.' 
 
 1 Yes ; we will sell him — to the Egyptians — 
 for a mess of pottage. The allusions are 
 mixed and inappropriate ; but in a world of 
 follies, what is one folly more ? ' 
 
 ' He is an in-zo-lent dog ! '
 
 History. ] o i 
 
 1 I rather thought you had had a row, be- 
 cause when I met him in the Strand an hour 
 ago he pitched into you to me. I mentioned 
 your respected name, my Tasker, and instantly 
 — to employ the words of the poet — black 
 anger all his visage clouded. If you deny the 
 validity of that quotation, I myself will don 
 the poet's robe and ape a Bourbon in a crown 
 of straws. — To return. Mr. Fairholt brings 
 certain accusations against you. He says you 
 are a blood-sucking Shylock ; that you are a 
 cringing, abject rascal ; that you are a bullying 
 ruffian. These are the heads of his indict- 
 ment. Don't you think all this is worth a 
 liquor ? ' 
 
 At none of this did Mr. Tasker by word or 
 sign express displeasure ; but as he sat look- 
 ing with those half-shut eyes at his companion, 
 his heavy hand found as much as it could do 
 to smooth the creases of that wicked smile 
 about his mouth. 
 
 'Your admirer, Tasker, has invited me to 
 his rooms to-night. We shall have a quiet 
 little hand at vingt-et-un. There are two or 
 three fellows coming to join in — shall I say 
 the mazy dance ? That seems to round the 
 sentence off. But I can't play at vingt-et-un
 
 102 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 without coin, my Tasker. Have you ever 
 known, you Crcesus, that want of pence which 
 vexes public men ? No. He has never known 
 it. One touch of nature makes the whole 
 world kin, and my Tasker is no kinsman of 
 mine, in this regard. The wounded is the 
 feeling heart. My Tasker, un wounded by the 
 shafts of poverty, smiles on the sufferings of 
 her victims. What saith that victim of the 
 roseate god, young Romeo ? "He jests at 
 scars that never felt a wound!" Have pity 
 Tasker. Let me have a fiver, and I will 
 revenge you on Fairholt. The croaking raven 
 doth bellow for revenge. Let it be ten, and 
 make the vengeance deeper.' 
 
 ■ Leave the shop until to-morrow morning, 
 Mr. Hastings/ 
 
 ' Won't he,' said Hastings looking on him 
 as though he were some curious and un- 
 known creature brought there for scientific 
 examination — 'won't he buy vengeance at 
 so cheap a rate ? Here is a first-class 
 practical revenge offered dirt cheap, and not 
 accepted.' 
 
 ■ Who tells you,' said Mr. Tasker, speaking 
 more through his nose than ever, ' that I want 
 revenge ? '
 
 History, 103 
 
 The other laughed mischievously, but re- 
 turned no answer ; and Mr. Tasker rang the 
 bell and called for more brandy and water. 
 He drank it savagely, while the waiter stood 
 there, and then asked for more. 
 
 'You'll be drunk, Tasker/ said his com- 
 panion. 
 
 1 What is that to you ? ' returned Tasker 
 with a nasal snarl. ' You have egsided me ; 
 you have annoyed me ; you have made me 
 angry with his name. He is an inzolent 
 dog!' 
 
 ' This does you credit, Tasker ! Try Shy- 
 lock at Drury. Kean is not worth his own 
 carving-knife and scales compared with you. 
 Oh, answer to the Muse's call ! It is the Muse, 
 the jolly Muse ! ' 
 
 Mr. Tasker, still regarding his companion 
 darkly, raised his glass to his lips and imbibed 
 its contents. He fell back slowly as he 
 drank, and threw back his head ; but he 
 maintained that fixed look until he regarded 
 Hastings through the bottom of his glass. 
 Hastings, lolling on the settee, looked over 
 at him in return with a mild expression of 
 interested curiosity. ' Come up and join your 
 admirer, Tasker. He will be glad to see you.
 
 104 A Lifts Atonement. 
 
 You shall be well desired in Cyprus. Come 
 love, come/ 
 
 Mr. Tasker produced a pocket-book, and 
 took therefrom two crisp and rustling notes. 
 He laid them down upon the table, and took 
 from another compartment of the pocket-book 
 a little strip of blue paper with a raised stamp 
 at one end. Taking pen and ink from a 
 stand on a table at the other side of the 
 room, he returned, and seating himself near 
 Hastings, filled up the form. ' Fifteen, at 
 four months.' 
 
 1 Hail, worthy Timon ! That's at the rate 
 of a hundred and fifty per centum per 
 annum.' 
 
 ( It will pay you if you win,' said Mr. 
 Tasker darkly and thickly. ' I hope you may.' 
 He rose, and allowing the evil smile full 
 play for once, put on his hat, and tapping his 
 companion lightly on the shoulder, proceeded : 
 1 Ztrip him, and zend him back to me. If you 
 will do zo much, you are welcome to those.' 
 And with this final expression of feeling Mr. 
 Tasker went a little unsteadily from the club, 
 hailed a passing coach, and was driven 
 home. 
 
 Mr. Hastings looked at his cigar as if he
 
 History. 105 
 
 questioned it while he said, ' I can employ 
 the words of my friend Mr. Puff of The 
 Critic. " Well — pretty well ; but not quite 
 perfect ; so, ladies and gentlemen, if you 
 please, we'll rehearse this piece again to 
 morrow." ' 
 
 He laughed, with sudden triumph, flung 
 through half-a-dozen steps in burlesque imita- 
 tion of a Highland dance, and being detected 
 by a waiter who entered at that moment, re- 
 garded the intruder sternly, cast an imaginary 
 cloak over his shoulder after the manner of the 
 stage brigand, and left the room in time to 
 see Mr. Tasker drive away.
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 A slipshod, threadbare figure clad in weedy black. 
 
 T was two o'clock a.m. in the Strand. 
 Looked at from the gate of that obstruc- 
 tive church which faces westward in the centre 
 of the thoroughfare, beneath the quivering gas- 
 lamps on either side lay a gleaming desolation. 
 No footstep broke the silence of the night. 
 It was a true English summer ; the night- 
 air was chill and raw ; and a thin, persistent 
 drizzle fell upon the slippery flags, the muddy 
 horse-road, and the gleaming fronts of houses. 
 A deserted London. It was too early for 
 the market riot close at hand — too late for 
 the homeward-reeling tavern roysterer. The 
 great city slept, and the quiet heavens mourned 
 over it. Even they, bending so long above 
 it, had lost their brightness and their purity.
 
 History. 107 
 
 They wept above the city with thin tears, 
 and a dreary wind was seeking here and there 
 with mournful voices, for a something lost. 
 A deserted London — a city of the dead. No 
 soul abroad — not even the oilskin-capped and 
 caped policeman. 
 
 Who is this ? A slipshod, threadbare figure, 
 clad in weedy black, which clings moistly about 
 him, as though he had come up from the 
 depths of that vile river which laps the pillars 
 of the Bridge of Sighs, hard by. The figure 
 crouched for refuge from the rain against a 
 door which stood not more than a foot back 
 from the flagged pathway, and his unwhole- 
 some garments shone with wet at every pro- 
 jecting angle. His boots gaped at the toes, 
 and were so rotten and ragged at the sole, 
 that they made a splashing noise within them- 
 selves whenever the wearer moved his feet, 
 as he did often and uneasily, half in im- 
 patience, and half in search of warmth. From 
 where he stood, the wet street gleamed be- 
 neath the gas-lamps like a river ; and dead 
 asleep as the great city might be, there was 
 yet in the air a faint and distant hum, which 
 spoke the seething life about him. 
 
 He peered from his meagre sheltering-place
 
 108 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 often. There came the measured tread of a 
 policeman ; and slinking from his shelter, and 
 holding close to the wet shutters of the shop 
 he passed, the man concealed himself in an 
 entry. The measured tread went by, and he 
 emerged stealthily and took up his old position. 
 There he waited and watched until a door on 
 the opposite side of the street was opened, 
 and with a curt ' Good-night,' addressed to 
 some one within, a man came out upon the 
 street, and steeped briskly westward. The 
 shivering figure left the doorway, and with 
 his black rags fluttering in the wind, and 
 gleaming in the gaslight and the rain crossed 
 the street. The man in front, greatcoated, 
 well booted, vigorous, hummed an air as he 
 walked, and kept time to it in his sturdy 
 march. The shuddering, gleaming, ragged 
 wretch behind him panted and groaned as he 
 hurried in his footsteps. At last, however, he 
 came up with him, and laid a hand upon his 
 arm. 
 
 The man who was thus accosted turned, 
 faced his follower, and recognised him. ' Hillo ! 
 What's the matter ? ' 
 
 1 'Scuse me, sir,' said the other, panting still 
 after his brief run ; ' but I thought I might
 
 History. 1 09 
 
 make so bold, sir. I went down to your 
 place, sir, an' they told me you'd gone out, 
 and wheer you'd gone, an' so I made bold for 
 to follow you an' wait for you, sir.' Here he 
 paused to cough huskily behind his wasted 
 hand. 
 
 1 Well ? ' the other asked. 
 
 ' She's in an awful state, sir — dyin', sir. 
 Would you be so good as come an' look at 
 her?' 
 
 ' Couldn't you have gone to the parish 
 surgeon ? ' 
 
 ' I went to him at five o'clock to-night, sir ; 
 an' again at nine ; an' again at 'leven, an' he 
 hadn't come home neither time.' 
 
 'Well, I suppose I must go ?' returned the 
 doctor, in a grumbling tone. 
 
 * God bless you, sir,' said the other ; ' I 
 know'd you would.' 
 
 ' Don't humbug me, Penkridge,' replied the 
 doctor. ' You'll want all your breath for your 
 walk. Come along.' 
 
 They turned back, threaded through half- 
 a-dozen winding streets between the Strand 
 and Oxford Street, and at last turned into a 
 low, dark, and noisome entry, which led them 
 to a court, whose poverty and squalor were
 
 no A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 picturesque in the light of a single gas-lamp. 
 The inhabitants might have preferred per- 
 haps that it should be less picturesque and 
 better lighted, as the doctor, stumbling along 
 the broken and uneven pavement, certainly 
 would. 
 
 * Now, lead the way,' said the doctor 
 brusquely, as they paused before a door. 
 The man pushed the door open. It moved 
 only upon one hinge, and grated upon the 
 broken bricks behind it. It opened flush 
 upon a staircase, above which hung an oil- 
 lamp, emitting a dim light' and a sickly 
 odour. The stairs, like the court, were broken 
 and uneven, and the balustrades were gone 
 here and there altogether ; having been either 
 broken up for fuel, or destroyed in the course 
 of some battle amongst the inhabitants of the 
 house. The doctor and his companion passed 
 up several flights of stairs, and came upon a 
 room which seemed at first sight to be deserted. 
 It was faintly illumined by the light of a 
 candle stuck against the wall, and holding 
 there by the congealed grease which had 
 gathered from it. The wall above it was 
 blackened by a tapering streak of smoke. In 
 one corner of the room the shadows seemed
 
 History. 1 1 1 
 
 to rest deeper than elsewhere ; but as the 
 eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, these 
 shadows resolved themselves into the figure 
 of a woman, stretched upon a heap of shav- 
 ings, and covered by a piece of tattered 
 sacking. 
 
 1 Bring the light,' said the doctor, kneeling 
 down over this figure. 
 
 His companion obeyed him. 
 
 * Why, what's this ? ' the doctor asked, turn- 
 ing down the sacking, and disclosing the face 
 of a child, evidently not more than a few weeks 
 old. 
 
 1 That's it,' said the man kneeling beside 
 him. At the apparent risk of setting the couch 
 of shavings on fire — since he still held the 
 candle in his hand — he took up the child. 
 ' Tell me what you think of her, please, sir,' 
 he asked, indicating the recumbent figure by a 
 motion of the hand. 
 
 The doctor bent farther over, and laid his 
 finger on a wasted wrist. The man knelt by 
 him, holding the candle to her face and watch- 
 ing him keenly. The doctor's hand passed 
 from the wrist to the region of the heart. 
 Then he took the candle and examined the 
 face. He laid the tip of a finger upon an
 
 ii2 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 eyelid and raised it. The eye remained open, 
 staring in a ghastly way. The doctor closed 
 it again, gave back the candle, and arose. 
 The man also arose and faced him, holding 
 the child in his left arm. The doctor shook 
 his head. 
 
 ' You don't mean to say, sir/ the man asked 
 whimpering, 'as you can't do nothin' for her?' 
 
 The doctor, with a motion of the hand 
 towards that recumbent figure in the corner, 
 answered, ' She has been dead an hour.' The 
 man dropped the candle and the child, and 
 fell upon his knees with a sharp cry. The 
 candle, unextinguished, lay upon the shavings, 
 and the doctor set his foot upon it just in 
 time. The wail of the child struck through 
 the darkness ; and the doctor, groping his 
 way down-stairs, found the malodorous lamp 
 at the bottom, and returned with it — the child's 
 cry assailing his ears all the time. The man 
 still knelt beside the couch, and had taken 
 one of the dead hands in both his own. The 
 child lay unheeded until the doctor set the 
 lamp upon the floor and took her in his arms, 
 and examined her limbs, to see how far she 
 had been injured by her fall. She screamed 
 and writhed with pain ; but the man on the
 
 History. 1 1 3 
 
 floor took no heed until the doctor laid a 
 hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 ' Penkridge,' said the doctor, ' is this your 
 child ? ' 
 
 The man looked stupidly at him, but re- 
 turned no answer. 
 
 1 Is this your child, Penkridge ? ' the doctor 
 asked again. 
 
 1 Yes/ responded the man stonily. ' Mine 
 an' hers. God help her I Mine an hers.' 
 He muttered this over and over again until 
 he got it into a sort of rhythm, which was 
 arrested by the doctor's hand again laid upon 
 his shoulder. 
 
 ' Do you know you have damaged the 
 child seriously ? Get up. You can do no 
 good there.' 
 
 The man dropped the thin hand he had 
 held within his own, and arose. 
 
 ' Have you any friends in the house ? ' the 
 doctor asked. 
 
 He shook his head dismally, and said he 
 had no friends. ' Her was the larst,' he said, 
 and looked stonily down upon her. 
 
 1 Have you nobody you can ask to take care 
 of the child ? Is there no womanly neighbour 
 who could see to it must the morning ? ' 
 vol. 1. h
 
 H4 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 He shook his head once more, answering 
 that he didn't know, and repeated, ' Her was 
 the larst.' 
 
 ' Have you any money ? ' 
 
 The man laughed drearily, and shook his 
 head. 
 
 ' Any fuel ? Any food ? ' 
 
 He shook his head again, and answered, 
 * Not a mossel of anythinV 
 
 As the doctor stood in perplexity with 
 the wailing child still in his arms, a tap at 
 the door was heard, and the face of a 
 woman looked into the apartment. ' Good 
 mornin', docthor,' said the owner of the 
 face. ' Will I be able to do anything for 
 you ? ' 
 
 1 You are a perfect blessing at this minute, 
 Mrs. Closky,' the doctor answered. 
 
 'Ah, poor thing/ said Mrs. Closky, looking 
 down at the miserable couch of shavings, 
 'her throubles is over. It don't take much 
 lookin' to see that ; God be good to us. — Ye 
 tiny crathur, what chune's that ye're singin' ? 
 Lend her to me, docthor dear. An' 'tis plain 
 hes flured, poor crathur. Take him away 
 down to Mick on the second flure, docthor, 
 an' lave me to do the decent thing by her.
 
 History. 1 1 5 
 
 I moind her when she was respictable an' 
 well to do ; an' him tew, wid a decent little 
 place o' business, till he fell in wid Misther 
 Tasker, roast his sowl ! ' 
 
 1 Is there any other woman in the house, 
 Mrs. Closky,' asks the doctor, 'or in the 
 court ? Any woman who could help you here 
 to take care of the child, and so forth ? ' 
 
 'Sure, I'll manage, docthor,' responds Mrs. 
 Closky/ 'What is it that's the matther wid 
 the child ? ' 
 
 ' She has had a fall, and is badly hurt, I 
 am afraid.' 
 
 'Will I bring her down to Nelly then?' 
 the woman asked. ' Fetch the light wid ye, 
 docthor, av ye plaze, an' fetch him along to 
 Mick. I heerd ye comin' in, an' I see the 
 poor crathur there wasn't far off takin' the 
 blessed journey a month ago. An' when I 
 see ye goin' down stairs to bring the lamp 
 just now, I thought that maybe ye might be 
 wantin' somebody, an' I slipped up. Mick's 
 in bed, and so's Nelly; but I'll not be a 
 minute gettin' 'em out.' 
 
 Mrs. Closky led the way down stairs with 
 the child in her arms, the doctor following 
 with the lamp, and Penkridge bringing up the
 
 it6 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 rear. The room into which the woman con- 
 ducted her companions was almost as sparsely 
 furnished as that they had just quitted. It 
 boasted a table — contrived from a crate and 
 an old door ; and several tea-chests, which 
 served as seats. A curtain hung half across 
 the room, and on the near side of it a girl 
 lay on a rough mattress, with an old greatcoat 
 wrapped about her. Mrs. Closky disappeared 
 behind the curtain, and after an audible col- 
 loquy with her husband, in the course of 
 which both he and she cursed with unneces- 
 sary vehemence, induced him to rise and 
 show himself. He came forth sleepy-eyed 
 and scarcely sober ; but at the sight of the 
 doctor, professed himself ready to do anything 
 in his power to oblige that gentleman, 'from 
 wilful murther downwards.' 
 
 ' Howld your tongue, ye omadhaun,' says 
 Mrs. Closky; 'an' bring a dhrop o' comfort 
 for the poor sowl here that's lost his wife ; 
 the heavens be her bed this noight ! ' 
 
 Thus commissioned, Mr. Closky retired 
 behind the curtain, and shortly reappeared 
 with a black bottle and a wine-glass without 
 a foot, and invited his visitor to drink. The 
 invitation was at first declined, with a shake
 
 History. 1 1 7 
 
 of the head ; but Mr. Closky grew pressing, 
 and Penkridge at length took the footless glass 
 and said, * My humble respects to all,' and 
 drank. Mr. Closky, by way of 'toast' or 
 ' sentiment/ conversationally coupling his vital 
 jewel and the pit of Tophet, followed his 
 example. The doctor occupied himself with 
 the child, and having made use of such sooth- 
 ing appliances as were within reach, went 
 away, promising to return in the morning, 
 and leaving a few coins with Mrs. Closky for 
 the use of the baby, until some further pro- 
 vision could be made. 
 
 Mrs. Closky laid the child down by her 
 daughter, and having instructed her to take 
 care of it, went upstairs to perform the last 
 decent and composing offices for the dead. 
 The two men sat and drank, turn and turn 
 about, from the footless glass ; and Mr. Closky 
 grew noisily cheerful. 
 
 1 Oi didn't know that ye was resoid'n' in this 
 neebourhood, Misther Penkridge,' said Mr. 
 Closky. ' An' it's odd now the way that owld 
 frinds is always meetin' in this big city. Oi 
 remimber ye whin ye wor the gintleman corn- 
 plate, wid your shop an' your trap, an' your 
 little servant gyurl, an' whin I'd no oidaya that
 
 n8 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 ye'd iver be sittin' an' dhrinkin' with the loike 
 o' me.' 
 
 1 I hope I never acted proud toward you, 
 sir,' returns Penkridge, tearfully ; ' which I 
 assure you, sir, that if I did, it was foreign to 
 me so to do. My poor pardner, sir, as is now 
 a-lyin' dead upstairs, it were also foreign to. I 
 have knowed prosperity, an' I have knowed 
 this,' he continues, waving his threadbare 
 sleeves in illustration, ' but I never had no 
 pride, sir, an' neither did my pardner which 
 is gone.' 
 
 ' Oi'd ask no sweeter pleasure/ returns Mr. 
 Closky, ' than to brain the blagyard that said 
 ye had.' 
 
 At this the shabby creature melts in tears. 
 ■ I loved her dear ; heaven knows, I loved her 
 dear ! ' 
 
 Mr. Closky shakes hand with his companion, 
 and presses the glass upon him. ' It's loikely 
 ye don't remimber me at all, Misther Penkridge. 
 Oi remimber yew in the days o' your prosper' ty 
 well. Oi've had me own days o' prosper'ty, an' 
 oi know — no man betther — what comin' down 
 in the wurld manes. Hadn't oi as foine an' 
 nate a little public as ye'd wish to foind, till 
 oi came to grief with borrowed money ? '
 
 History. 119 
 
 The other took no notice of his speech, but 
 looked blankly before him, with tears in his 
 maudlin eyes. 
 
 1 Just be doon me a favour, Misther Penk- 
 ridge. But wait while oi provide ye with a 
 tay cup. There ; it's not the clanest, but oi'll 
 do with it. Take the glass. Fill up. Oi want 
 ye to drink a health to a frind of ours. Here's 
 to the blissid an' holy memory o' Misther 
 Aminadab Tasker, and may he — ' 
 
 * Who ? ' cried the other, rising to his 
 feet. 
 
 'The noble gintleman that brought the pair 
 of us to this pass, Misther Penkridge.' 
 
 The tatterdemalion's face flushed, and for a 
 moment he was almost a man. ' Drink that 
 scoundrel's 'ealth, sir ? Not me. It's him as 
 ruined me. It's him as dragged me down to 
 this. It's him as has had me in his cruel grip 
 for 'ears an' 'ears. It's him as '11 have to answer 
 for my pardner-in-life, sir. Drink his 'ealth ! 
 I'd like to make a hend of him ; I would, if I'd 
 got him 'ere.' 
 
 'When oi think of 'm,' rejoined Mr. Closky, 
 ' oi loike to drink a health to 'm. Ye've no 
 oidaya how oi love 'm.' 
 
 1 You've no idea, sir, what a weight he's been
 
 120 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 to me, sir. You've no idea, sir ; you can't have, 
 or you wouldn't talk like that.' 
 
 'Are ye bloind?' cried Mr. Closky with 
 sudden anger. ' Are ye deaf ? Are ) e mad ? 
 Can't ye ondherstand diversion when ye listen 
 to't ? Wouldn't oi loike to have me fingers on 
 the neck of 'm ? Don't oi know that what he's 
 been to me he's been to you, the blood-sucking 
 blagyard ! Haven't oi promised day an' noight, 
 and noight an' day, to have his blood ? ' ' 
 
 Penkridge stared at the Irishman for a 
 moment, and then, in answer to the other's 
 invitation, l Drink your will of him,' tossed 
 off the contents of his glass, and sat down. 
 ' Not as I like that sort of talk, sir,' he said, 
 relapsing into the maudlin stage again. 
 
 The other snapped his fingers. ' Don't oi 
 know 'm ? Haven't oi watched 'm from his 
 office, an' watched 'm home ? That's a little 
 treat oi'm fond o' givin' meself whin oi know 
 oi'm sober. If oidid it whin the dhrink's 
 in me, it wouldn't be safe. Oi could not 
 howld off 'm.' 
 
 ' My poor pardner, sir,' says Penkridge, 
 1 never forgave him, sir, for what he done 
 to us.' 
 
 ' Look at 'm now,' cried the other, ' with
 
 History. 121 
 
 his jools, an' his foine house, an' his offices ! 
 Look at 'm rowlin' in wealth. He doesn't do 
 business with the loikes o' you an' me now, 
 Misther Penkridge. No, no. The gintle- 
 man's got bigger fish to fry. He's loanin' 
 hundreds where he used to loan a pound. 
 Drink your wish to 'm. There's another 
 bottle. Never fear, me darlin', but we'll see 
 ye paid yet, av we take a most onpleasant 
 journey for it.' 
 
 The contents of the first black bottle being 
 exhausted, Mr. Closky produced another, and 
 grew wilder in his threats and darker in his 
 expressions of hatred. After an hour or two 
 of drinking and raving, he fell asleep, and 
 Penkridge followed his example. It was broad 
 summer daylight when the latter awoke, 
 and with the fumes of the liquor still upon 
 him staggered down the stairs and out of the 
 court. The way he took led him into Oxford 
 Street, where he rambled blindly for a little 
 while, blinking in the sunlight like an owl, 
 and holding himself and all his looped and 
 windowed raggedness together with his arms. 
 Suddenly, as he took his slouching way, he 
 was pushed somewhat heavily by the burly 
 figure of a hurried passenger, and looking up,
 
 122 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 recognised the magnificent Hebraic nose and 
 the carnivorous lips and teeth of Mr. Tasker. 
 With the desperation of drink and the memory 
 of last night's anger upon him, he laid hold 
 of Tasker's arm. 
 
 * Mis' Tasker — now I've got you. Do' know 
 me, I s'pose, sir ? Oh, yes, y' do. Know me 
 v'ry well indeed. My name's Penk — ' 
 
 ' Policeman,' said Mr. Tasker calmly to an 
 official who passed at the moment, ' will you 
 take this man away ? ' 
 
 1 Come now/ said the officer, taking Mr. 
 Penkridge by the collar. ' You move on. 
 That's what you've got to do, you know. 
 Move on.' 
 
 ' Mis' Tasker, you've had poun's out o' me. 
 Haven't got a farthin' in the world. Give 
 me shillin' ! ' 
 
 The official disengaged Mr. Penkridge's 
 hold, and swung him into the gutter. 
 
 ' Drunk and disorderly,' said Mr. Tasker. 
 1 You should take him up, officer.' 
 
 The officer took him up a little roughly, and 
 holding him before him by the collar, con- 
 veyed him to the nearest station. 
 
 Mr. Tasker took his smiling way down 
 Holborn.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 1 He is gone J he said — ' gone without a trace? 
 
 T^7HAT a charm clings always about the 
 past. It is easy to believe and grace- 
 ful to proclaim the exceeding happiness of 
 childhood. But I am not at all sure that 
 most men's raptures on this matter are very 
 real, or that they are always based on any 
 very vivid recollection. It is certain that the 
 man who is distracted by the playful noises 
 of children has forgotten his own childhood. 
 A remembrance of early boyhood is a reten- 
 tion of infancy. The juvenile man remembers 
 his juvenility. Looking back, I am conscious 
 of the fact that there is between me and the 
 time I look at, an atmosphere of glamour. 
 The child of my remembrance is partly — or 
 I fear so — the child of my own after-creation.
 
 124 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 I have moulded and modelled my infant 
 memories ; or if I have not, I am indeed 
 fallen. ' God help thee, Elia — how art thou 
 changed ! — thou art sophisticated ! I know 
 how honest, how courageous — for a weakling 
 — thou wert, how religious, how imaginative, 
 how hopeful ! ' 
 
 But if ever I was happy, I know that I was 
 happy then — in the first month I spent in 
 Island Hall. Waking in the morning — I re- 
 member now how the wet boughs would tap 
 against the window, and how the late dawn 
 came greyly in between the white curtains — 
 I woke to a sense of luxury in my surround- 
 ings which was altogether new and strange 
 and beautiful. Every day's breakfast was an 
 event. Aunt Bertha was president over that 
 simple table ; Sally was in invariable attend- 
 ance ; and it was there that Polly and I made 
 our first daily encounter. My heart had fast- 
 ened to each of them. 
 
 In what other respect soever my after- 
 thoughts have moulded memory, I am quite 
 sure about one matter. Taking leave to re- 
 gard myself as I was at that time — as in- 
 deed I very fairly may — as a creature al- 
 together differing from my present self, I am
 
 A utobiography \ 125 
 
 inclined to think that the chief part I played 
 in this episode of my life must have been 
 very pleasant to the onlooker. I bend over 
 myself now — over that past child-self — in a 
 sorrowful wonder that the chivalrous and 
 tender soul I knew it, should ever have 
 fallen thus away — could possibly have de- 
 generated into that poor creature who wears 
 his name, and who pretends to his adult 
 personality. 
 
 I fell in love with Polly. Whether by the 
 pure light of unadulterated nature, I could 
 have done so, I cannot guess ; but I had 
 reading enough to help out my imaginings, 
 and I fell in love. Polly ordered me whither- 
 soever she would, and was as conscious of my 
 enslaved condition as I was myself. She was 
 a sort of female Ahasuerus — I a kind of male 
 Esther, admitted to the royal courts from 
 far by rare extension of the royal favour, and 
 approaching with an almost sacred awe. The 
 books to which I had access at this time 
 were many and various. In one of them 
 I found mention of a jongleur. I became 
 a jongleur. With the delicate fervour of a 
 minstrel, with the reticence and awe that 
 minstrel might experience in the presence
 
 126 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 of his queen, I, in happy moments, was 
 permitted to approach the throne of love, 
 and to open up my budget of stories, tra- 
 velling at times through those lands of 
 grim humour known as The History of the 
 Three Bears — which lands I explored under 
 Polly's formal order — touching at times upon 
 the terror of the Bluebeard Chamber — un- 
 folding, in antres vast and deserts idle the 
 tent of Peribanou — sallying forth in disguise 
 with Haroun Alraschid and the Grand Vizier 
 — whose names, by the way, were a terror 
 and a stumbling-block — and rising at times 
 to the tragic heights of Little Red Riding- 
 hood. 
 
 The season of the year went against the 
 possibility of outdoor excursions. The greater 
 part of our time was spent in that chamber in 
 which I was first introduced to Polly. Polly 
 would sit enthroned near the fireplace, whilst 
 I, fenced round with books, occupied the 
 corner farthest from the fire, and prepared 
 myself for my story-telling function. My 
 queen's especial passion at this time was the 
 cutting of scraps of paper into quaint devices 
 — an operation in which Uncle Will at times 
 engaged himself with a splendid adroitness.
 
 A utobiography. 127 
 
 In her leisure hours, Polly generally sat with 
 a pair of scissors in her hand, engaged in the 
 manufacture of dragons and other wonders ; 
 and by a queenly wave of scissors or of dragon 
 I was now and again admitted to audience. 
 My business of amusement over, I was dis- 
 missed, being occasionally rewarded with a 
 paper emblem of royalty's approval. At other 
 times Polly would unbend, and would condes- 
 cend to meet me on an equal footing. 
 
 It is easy enough, no doubt, for any adult 
 person who may read this chronicle to laugh 
 at those childish raptures ; but I protest that 
 at such times I was filled with a tranquillity of 
 peace, a satisfied hope, such as I have never 
 since experienced, such a soft gladness and 
 chastened joy as might become the mind of 
 some meek angel. 
 
 ' God help thee, Elia — how art thou changed! 
 — thou art sophisticated ! ' 
 
 I can remember quite distinctly how, under 
 these influences, the past melted and grew un- 
 defined. It was a somewhat hard past, with 
 not always enough to eat in it, and not always 
 enough to wear : a past in which rude and 
 domineering boy-giants, wearing clogs and cor- 
 duroys, and addicted to the practice of mauling
 
 128 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 such unprotected and inoffensive youth as they 
 encountered, held evil place. I remember how 
 far-off that past came to look ; and yet it was 
 always near enough to give an added relish to 
 my security and comfort. I can thank heaven 
 that it is near enough even now for that, and 
 I can think of such as hold a like place with 
 something more of sympathy and kindliness 
 than I should probably have known without it. 
 The only fragment of that near past which still 
 remained forcibly with me was the face, and it 
 had welded itself into my life in an altogether 
 inexplicable way. I can only describe the feel- 
 ing I had concerning it by saying that it seemed 
 always in attendance in some anteroom of fancy, 
 and always clamouring to be let in. It came 
 to haunt me so that it grew into a habit of re- 
 producing itself in other faces — the living faces 
 of people about me. I saw it often, for in- 
 stance, in Mr. Fairholt's face, in Uncle Will's, 
 in Aunt Bertha's. It would flash out at un- 
 expected times, and would disappear again as 
 rapidly as it came, being gone before I could 
 fix it. It was my constant companion when 
 alone, and I often dreamed of it. My notions 
 about it were all monstrous and undefined, 
 always shifting, but always horrible. I sup-
 
 A utobiography. 129 
 
 pose I must have been a morbidly fanciful child 
 — as I know that I am now a morbidly fanci- 
 ful man — but I had a decided joy in the fact 
 of my personal proprietorship of this phantom. 
 As I became more and more accustomed to its 
 exigent presence in that antechamber of fancy, 
 I became also less afraid of being afraid, and 
 often let it in of my own free-will, and ex- 
 tracted a delicious fright from it. This very 
 soon brought about the result which might 
 have been expected, and custom robbed the 
 unwholesome pleasure of its keenness. 
 
 I had been at Island Hall exactly a month 
 when I was witness to a conversation between 
 Mr. Fairholt and Aunt Bertha. I was not 
 often in his room ; but was on this occasion 
 carried down by Sally, who had been sent 
 for me. She was evidently much disturbed, 
 and was very defiant of something. As she 
 carried me down stairs she hugged me several 
 times, imprinting her buttons painfully on my 
 frame in the strength of her affection. Tap- 
 ping at the door of Mr. Fairholt's room, and 
 being by him peevishly invited to come in, 
 she entered, bearing me in her arms. I was 
 ridiculously conscious, I remember, of a certain 
 want of dignity in my own behalf in this pro- 
 vol. 1. 1
 
 130 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 ceeding ; but when I made a motion to escape, 
 Sally only held me tighter ; and having been 
 pretty strictly trained in ways of obedience to 
 her, I stayed where I was. Mr. Fairholt was 
 seated in an arm-chair near the fire, and Aunt 
 Bertha stood on the rug, with one hand tapping 
 on the mantel-piece. 
 
 ' You may set down the child, and go, 
 Troman,' said Mr. Fairholt. 
 
 I Begging pardon, sir,' said Sally ; ' but 
 might I make bold to be allowed to stay ? ' 
 
 Mr. Fairholt looked up angrily. 
 
 I I brought him here,' continued Sally, ' on 
 condition as he wasn't to be took away from 
 me.' 
 
 Mr. Fairholt looked at Aunt Bertha, cast- 
 ing his hands abroad fretfully, but said nothing. 
 
 Aunt Bertha turned and said, — 
 
 '■ Give me the child, Troman. Nothing shall 
 be done that is not for his good ; be sure of 
 that. I will let you know what we have 
 decided to do, as soon as we have decided 
 anything.' 
 
 * Thank you, ma'am,' said Sally ; and set 
 me down and left the room. 
 
 Aunt Bertha took a seat, and drawing me 
 to her side, put an arm about me.
 
 A utobiography. 131 
 
 1 What possible object/ asked the old gen- 
 tleman, ' do you think you can serve by 
 bringing him here ? ' 
 
 ' There are some people,' said Aunt Bertha, 
 with an angry little laugh, and a shake of her 
 head, * who can only remember that which is 
 directly under their noses. I want you to 
 remember, Robert,' she continued in a changed 
 tone, 'that you were almost as defenceless, 
 though not so young, when his father helped 
 you, and to refuse now to give him houseroom, 
 does really seem to me inhuman.' 
 
 There Aunt Bertha became angry again, and 
 spoke with great decision. 
 
 Mr. Fairholt raised his eyes for a moment 
 to meet hers, but dropped them hurriedly. 
 
 ' I told you before,' he said, ' that I would 
 give you a month to think what you would do 
 with him. The month has gone, and you have 
 done nothing.' 
 
 ' Surely,' said Aunt Bertha, ' you are not 
 insensible to the claims he has upon you ? ' 
 
 ' All this,' said Mr. Fairholt, rising and walk- 
 ing in that irritated way of his up and down 
 the room, ' is very sentimental and womanly, 
 and so forth, I have no doubt. But now what 
 do I propose to do ? ' He stopped short
 
 132 A Life's A tonement, 
 
 before her, fidgeting with his hands ; and she 
 passed me over to the other side of her chair, 
 and laid her left arm round my shoulder, draw- 
 ing me to her, as if sheltering me. ' I don't 
 say, turn him out to starve. I don't even say, 
 send him back with his old nurse, that — that 
 woman, Troman.' He spoke of Sally in an 
 angry way, pausing before the word ' woman/ 
 as if in search of some unpleasant adjective, 
 and jerking it out spitefully when he decided 
 upon it. ' There's nothing inhuman or bar- 
 barous in what I propose to do. I tell you 
 that I don't like the child. I tell you that he 
 irritates and worries me. I tell you that I will 
 not have him grow up with my daughter and 
 in my house.' 
 
 ' Then,' said Aunt Bertha, ' what will you 
 do?' 
 
 * I will do anything in reason — anything short 
 of that. What do you ask me to do ? ' 
 
 ' I ask you to do what seems to be your 
 clear duty,' she responded. ' The child is 
 fatherless and motherless, and is your nephew.' 
 
 ' You talk nonsense, Bertha. He is not my 
 nephew ; he is not even yours. He is the 
 son of my sister's husband's brother — your 
 husband's brother. His mother I never knew.
 
 A utobiography. 133 
 
 His father I have not even seen for years. 
 And now you urge upon me the mere fact that 
 I had a business loan from him — which I re- 
 paid, mind you, Bertha — which I repaid, hon- 
 ourably and with interest — every farthing. 
 And you bring this as a reason why I should 
 maintain the child, whom I dislike, and in 
 whom I perceive the seeds of — the seeds of 
 — of unpleasant influences — that I should 
 maintain him, not as I like and as it suits 
 me, but in your way ; whether I like it or 
 not, and whether it suits me or not — in my 
 own house and in companionship with my 
 child. I have told you already, Bertha, and 
 I repeat it — it is preposterous.' 
 
 Mr. Fairholt went up and down the room in 
 a series of peevish jerks, and was of white 
 with anger when he concluded. He resumed 
 his seat, and sat in silence, except for a short 
 gasp of incredulous indignation now and then. 
 
 ' I don't say, Robert,' said Aunt Bertha, 
 persuasively, ' that the relationship is a very 
 intimate one ; but still it is a relationship, and 
 it must be recognised. I am sorry to hear you 
 speak about the loan in that way. I think 
 you have forgotten the facts.' There Aunt 
 Bertha again grew decided. ' It was not a
 
 134 A Lifts Atonement. 
 
 business loan. No business man would have 
 advanced it. You are certainly wrong about 
 the interest. That, I remember, he declined 
 to take.' 
 
 1 1 don't care,' said Mr. Fairholt, flushing a 
 little. ' I should have said that I offered it, 
 that I — I pressed it upon him. I will not 
 have the child in my house. He can be just 
 as happy and as well-off elsewhere. Send him 
 to school/ 
 
 1 The child/ said Aunt Bertha, drawing me 
 a little closer to her side, c is very young and 
 delicate. He has no home of his own, nor 
 have I. I can't at all understand your aver- 
 sion to him ; and I may tell you, Robert, once 
 for all, that, sooner than see him discarded 
 and shut out from home-influences, I will 
 find a home of my own again, and take him 
 with me.' 
 
 ' I don't mean that at all, Bertha,' said Mr. 
 Fairholt. * You know how glad I am to have 
 you here.' 
 
 Aunt Bertha smiled — a hard little smile — 
 and said nothing. 
 
 He caught her glance for a moment fur- 
 tively, and went on in haste, * Let him go 
 to school, and come here for his holidays.
 
 A utobiography. 135 
 
 Let him be sent to a good school. I don't 
 grudge him that. But I cannot, and I will 
 not have him here always. He annoys me ; 
 he worries me. When you speak, Bertha, of 
 the claims his father had upon me, you speak 
 ignorantly. Those claims were annulled and 
 more than annulled by his conduct afterwards. 
 You know that I never spoke to him for 
 years.' 
 
 ' I did not know it/ said Aunt Bertha, sadly ; 
 1 and I am very sorry to hear it now.' 
 
 1 Of course,' said he, irritated by her tone, 
 
 * the separation, in your mind at least, would 
 be of my seeking. But I tell you that he 
 came here, and in this very room flaunted his 
 favours in my face. I shall not attempt to 
 justify myself.' 
 
 ' I make no accusation, Robert,' she replied. 
 
 * If you are willing to send the child to school, 
 and to allow him to return here for his holi- 
 days, I am willing to accept that as a com- 
 promise. He is very young and very little.' 
 She looked down pityingly upon me, and in a 
 vague sort of way I was conscious of feeling 
 sorry for myself. And though the feeling was 
 vague, there was such a pity in her face and 
 voice that the tears rose to my eyes. She
 
 136 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 bent down and kissed me. ' It would be 
 kinder in you,' she went on, 'to let him stay 
 here for a while.' 
 
 ' I thought,' said Mr. Fairholt, nervously 
 interlacing his fingers and snatching them 
 apart, ' that you accepted the compromise. 
 It is no compromise unless he goes at once.' 
 
 My aunt rose, taking my hand in hers. 
 ' Will you leave me,' she asked, 'to select a 
 school ? ' 
 
 1 We can discuss that together/ he answered 
 'Very good,' replied my aunt, and so led 
 me from the room and into my own bed- 
 chamber, where we found Sally, making a 
 great pretence of dusting and arranging. 
 
 ' Would you mind saying what's been done, 
 ma'am ? ' asked Sally, turning round with a 
 duster in her hand. 
 
 4 Mr. Fairholt is very strongly in favour of 
 sending the child to school. I think too that 
 it would be the better course. We must not 
 grow up idle and ignorant ; must we, Johnny ? ' 
 I recognised this as an appeal to Sally, 
 and answered 'No' as stoutly as I could, for 
 I saw premonitory symptoms of tears in her 
 eyes. Notwithstanding the stoutness of my 
 answer, the tears came.
 
 A utobiography. 137 
 
 ■ Oh, ma'am,' cried Sally, ' I can't let him go.' 
 
 ' Now, Troman,' said Aunt Bertha, * you 
 mustn't be ridiculous.' 
 
 1 No, ma'am,' assented Sally, amenable to 
 discipline. 
 
 ' He will not go far away, and we will 
 make arrangements to let you see him as 
 often as you can.' 
 
 ' Couldn't I go with him, ma'am ? ' said 
 Sally. ' Couldn't I take a situation in the 
 school ? ' 
 
 ' I think you had better stay with us, 
 Troman,' said my aunt, smiling. ' It is scarcely 
 likely that a school can afford to keep a domes- 
 tic servant for every pupil. He will probably 
 go to school in Wrethedale, which is very close 
 at hand ; and you will be able to see him 
 perhaps as often as once a week. And then, 
 you know,' said my aunt, humouring Sally, ' we 
 shall have him coming back quite a young 
 gentleman/ 
 
 Sally brightened a little at these fairer pro- 
 mises, and wiped her eyes. At the sound of 
 hoofs in the carriage-drive below, I looked 
 through the window, and saw Mr. Fairholt in 
 the act of mounting a horse held by the groom. 
 Aunt Bertha also looked out, and seeing what
 
 138 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 I saw, shrugged her shoulders a little. She 
 left me with Sally a moment afterwards, and 
 that good creature, as was her wont on all dis- 
 turbing occasions, moistened me with her tears. 
 She emptied upon me, as a guard against 
 possible starvation in my as yet unfixed new 
 quarters, the sum of two shillings and three- 
 pence-halfpenny in copper. She also gave me 
 a thimble, of which she instructed me to take 
 especial care, since its continued possession 
 betokened ' luck.' Then she sat down on 
 the floor and took me in her arms, and grew 
 cheerful, and we had a long, long talk together. 
 I opened my heart to Sally then, as always. 
 I had been very shy about my passion ; 
 but I told her with a serious fervour, which 
 I have not felt often since, that I meant to 
 come back a great man and marry Polly. 
 Sally was as much delighted at this pro- 
 testation as I at her delight, and received 
 it with the utmost enthusiasm. We talked 
 the matter over until I verily believe that 
 Sally was as strongly infected as myself, 
 and accepted it in her simple faith as ear- 
 nestly as though I had been five-and-twenty, 
 and had propounded it in all manly serious- 
 ness.
 
 A utobiography. 139 
 
 'And I shall be a man soon; shan't I, 
 Sally?' 
 
 ' Yes/ said Sally, rocking delightedly to and 
 fro, and beaming on me in her happiness. 
 'Why, you're quite a man a'ready in them 
 things i ' Sally set me on my feet in order to 
 look at me, and chuckled over me in very 
 admiration and affection. 
 
 ' Do you think, Sally,' I inquired — ' do you 
 think she'll have me ? ' 
 
 ' Why, bless the child ! ' cried Sally in an 
 ecstasy, ' of course she will.' 
 
 Therewith she made a dart at me and em- 
 braced me, bruising my nose against the brazen 
 presentment of a horned Dian who stared from 
 a huge brooch in Sally's collar. That brooch 
 was the gift of a young carpenter who was 
 devotedly attached to her, and whose epistles 
 — occasionally brought by a young urchin 
 in corduroys to that old cottage in the Black 
 Country, and inscribed not infrequently on thin 
 pieces of smooth-planed deal — it had been one 
 of my earliest tasks to decipher. 
 
 * And then, Johnny,' said Sally, blushing and 
 chuckling, ' when you're growed a fine gentle- 
 man, and we're married, and all settled down 
 comfortable, I'll come and keep house for
 
 140 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 you ; and you shall have Bob for groom and 
 gardener.' 
 
 I promised earnestly that I would, and there 
 the conversation closed. I heard Mr. Fair- 
 holt's voice below, and thought how soon he 
 had returned. But the time had gone quickly 
 during my talk with Sally, and the hour for tea 
 had arrived. It was already dusk, and before 
 tea was over had grown quite dark. I was 
 not as a rule allowed downstairs after dark ; 
 but impelled by what childish vagary I 
 scarcely knew, I stole down the stairs and 
 through the hall and on to the damp lawn. I 
 ran across with a sense of fear upon me, looked 
 over the bridge into the darkness, and heard 
 the hurrying river moan below. The voice of 
 the river and the darkness of the night fright- 
 ened me, and I retraced my steps quickly. 
 The hall beyond the open door lay in black 
 darkness, and some one bearing a lamp ap- 
 peared so suddenly within it, that the quick 
 and unexpected advent of the light came like a 
 blow upon my eyes. The bearer of the lamp 
 was Mr. Fairholt. He caught sight of me as 
 I stood with one foot upon the doorstep, and 
 beckoned me. I went timidly towards him. 
 
 ' Bertha ! ' he called.
 
 A tit o biography. 141 
 
 My aunt came from Mr. Fairholt's room, and 
 I saw that she looked grave and troubled. 
 
 1 I had forgotten/ said Mr. Fairholt, hur- 
 riedly and nervously. ' I have made arrange- 
 ments for him. He goes on Thursday.' He 
 drew a card from his pocket, and read it by the 
 light of the lamp : ' " The Rev. Charles Davies, 
 The Grove, Wrethedale." At six o'clock. 
 Have things ready as soon as possible, and see 
 that he goes. I will be back as soon as I can. 
 If I have good news I will let you know.' 
 
 ' Do not keep me in suspense in any case, 
 Robert,' said Aunt Bertha. 
 
 1 You shall hear as soon as possible,' he 
 answered. 
 
 ' Have you everything you want ? ' asked 
 Aunt Bertha. 
 
 ' Yes, yes/ he responded irritably. He strug- 
 gled into a greatcoat, and paced in his own 
 excited fashion up and down the hall. I heard 
 a sound of wheels upon the drive, and the 
 lamps of the dog-cart gleamed through the 
 darkness. Mr. Fairholt put on his hat and 
 went out. The groom came in, and took away 
 a portmanteau and a travelling-rug. Aunt 
 Bertha went to the door and called to Mr. 
 Fairholt. He returned, and she said some-
 
 142 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 thing to him which I did not hear. I had not 
 observed his face till now ; but as she stood 
 aside, with her hand upon the door, it came 
 upon me suddenly, with a horror I can scarcely 
 name — in every lineament, and in its tone of 
 awful pallor — with its haggard eyes and up- 
 drawn lip and gleaming teeth, the ghastly face 
 I saw a month ago. In another second it was 
 gone, and the door was closed. I passed up- 
 stairs, and from then until bedtime suffered 
 unspeakable nervous terrors at every move- 
 ment of the bare trees outside ; at every gurgle 
 of the river, which ran noisily, being swollen 
 with late rains ; at every creak of the door or 
 rustle behind the wainscot, and the fall of every 
 cinder from the dying fire. But being once 
 put to bed, I fell asleep with the pressure of 
 Sally's loving hand still on my cheek, and slept 
 without a dream. 
 
 For the next day or two Sally scarcely 
 allowed me to stray beyond her sight. She 
 followed me about like the proverbial hen who 
 finds that she has a duckling for a chicken, 
 and discovers that the scarce-fledged creature 
 is bent on taking to the water. Polly and I 
 had a long and favourable interview on the 
 fatal Thursday afternoon. She had been all
 
 A utobiography . 143 
 
 majesty in the morning — a gracious majesty 
 I must confess — frequently waving me from 
 my corner — for it was a holiday, and there 
 were no lessons from Aunt Bertha — to bid the 
 humble jongleur recite her favourite stories. At 
 table her majesty was pensive. On the re- 
 moval of the cloth, she cried, and after a little 
 while retired from the nursery to indulge a 
 royal sulk in private. This over, she reap- 
 peared, imperiously and without apparent pro- 
 vocation kissed me, and then rang the bell. 
 This was an act prohibited by authority under 
 heavy penalties, except in cases of great emer- 
 gency. Sally appeared in answer to the call. 
 Her majesty, whose eyes were still moist, 
 flounced round upon her. 
 
 1 T'oman,' said her majesty, ' I tan't spare 
 him. Tell Aunty Bertha he s'an't go.' With 
 this edict she resumed her throne, and set 
 resolutely to work upon a paper dragon. 
 
 Sally shook her head. ' They're gettin' 
 Master Johnny's things ready now, Miss 
 Mary/ 
 
 ' I don't care,' returned her majesty, with a 
 wave of the scissors ; ' I tan't spare him.' 
 
 ' Very well, miss/ said Sally, and went 
 away again.
 
 144 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 Childhood sails a tiny craft, upon a very 
 little pool indeed. But the shallows of that 
 little pool are deeps to the child. The little 
 waves that wimple at the edge are breakers. 
 The child-craft suffers wreck as disastrous, or 
 finds passage as happy, as the great merchant- 
 man that goes down in the depths, or is 
 brought by fair winds to the desired haven. 
 And I suppose that I was as sincerely joyful 
 at the issue of Polly's childish ukase as I 
 have ever been at anything. I was persuaded 
 that her judgment was final. Her manner 
 carried conviction. She was so convinced 
 herself, that in me a doubt would have been 
 an unpardonable presumption. So for another 
 hour or two, beneath calm skies and over 
 pleasant seas, went the barque of Childhood's 
 Hope with a steady breeze abeam. But at 
 four o'clock Aunt Bertha came upon the scene 
 as cloud-compeller. The horizon darkened — 
 the deeps yawned — the vessel foundered. To 
 drop the metaphor : I was carried away and 
 dressed, undergoing that operation in a con- 
 dition of mind of the most concentrated misery. 
 To take up the metaphor again : I went down 
 with the shriek of the tempest in my ears. A 
 furious little tempest she was indeed, though
 
 A utobiography \ 145 
 
 rapidly silenced by the cloud-compeller, and 
 put to bed, like other tempests, with repentant 
 moans. 
 
 The blazing eyes of the dog-cart were at 
 the door again. I had taken leave of Sally, 
 and was saying good-bye to Aunt Bertha, 
 when a hoarse voice called from the gate of 
 the eastern bridge, and the groom went crunch- 
 ing down the gravel drive. Aunt Bertha 
 stood and listened, with her hands upon my 
 shoulders. I can see now the kindly stooping 
 attitude change suddenly to one of listening 
 fear, the stoop remaining, but its whole expres- 
 sion changed. I can see now the kindly look, 
 which vanished as though a hand had passed 
 across her face and smoothed it out, and left 
 a look of waiting terror there. The groom 
 came crunching back again, and behind him 
 came a hackney carriage, the horse in the shafts 
 limping painfully, and throwing off a great 
 cloud of steam. From the carriage came Mr. 
 Fairholt. At the first sight of his face, Aunt 
 Bertha started upright, ran to him, and took 
 him by the hands. He put her away feebly 
 and impatiently, and entering, sank into a 
 chair in the hall. Aunt Bertha bent above 
 him with an air of great anxiety. He 
 vol. 1. k
 
 146 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 shook his head in a slow, dazed way from 
 side to side. 
 
 'He is gone,' he said — 'gone without a 
 trace. Has been gone for nearly five weeks.' 
 
 ' Robert ! ' said Aunt Bertha, and put an 
 arm about his neck. 
 
 He rose to his feet, setting her arm aside, 
 and looked round with his grey face drawn 
 into the semblance of that phantom which I 
 knew so well. ' Shut out those people,' he 
 said slowly. He caught sight of me, and 
 stooping above me, patted me on the shoulder ; 
 and with a sudden attempt at cheerfulness, 
 which was more dreadful that even the expres- 
 sion of his face, he said lightly, ' So our little 
 man is going to school. Well, well. Be a 
 good little man. Good-bye.' 
 
 Aunt Bertha, with a backward glance at 
 him, led me to the door. The groom lifted me 
 into the dog-cart, and having wrapped me in 
 a thick travelling-rug, took his place beside 
 me and drove me away. As I looked back, I 
 saw the lamplight gleaming through the open 
 door, and the lame and steaming horse stand- 
 ing dejectedly against it.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 At the very soul of understanding dwells charity. 
 
 "pRANK, comfortably conscious of virtue, 
 went back to Montague Gardens. There 
 was something in the fact of having snubbed 
 Tasker which soothed and calmed him. Tasker 
 was the evil spirit of impecuniosity personified, 
 and Frank having done battle with him, felt 
 safe from extravagance for evermore. ' I am 
 glad I insulted him ' — so ran Frank's thoughts 
 — ' because I shan't be able to borrow from the 
 beggar any more.' Reaching his rooms, he 
 threw himself at full length upon a sofa, lit a 
 cigar, and built castles. Is there anything 
 pleasanter in the world — so queries the poet 
 — than to enjoy delight with liberty ? Frank 
 just then combined the joy of stern resolve 
 with the delight of liberty from labour. Hap-
 
 148 A Life's Atonement, 
 
 piest of moments, when a man can persuade 
 himself in his laziest leisure that he intends 
 to be industrious, and can draw in advance 
 from the Bank of Fancy the reward of his 
 own high virtue ! 
 
 * And, indeed/ said Frank, drawing a minia- 
 ture from his breast, and taking it into his con- 
 fidence, ' it would be really hard to go astray 
 with such a guide as you are. Do you know 
 — do you guess ' — he went on in a sort of 
 lazy rapture — ' how much I love you ? Do 
 you think how I will work and hope and plan 
 and endure for you ? ' 
 
 The smoke curled lightly about his head. 
 His eyes followed it with fancies as unsub- 
 stantial. Pleasant fairy palaces, too frail for 
 permanent human habitation, he built, and for 
 those brief moments lived in — thinking, like 
 the rest of us, that success is gained by 
 dreaming of it, and that hopes will be fulfilled 
 because he held them. Lying there, still 
 dreaming, after it had grown quite dusk, and 
 the servant had brought in his lamp, he was 
 startled — not altogether agreeably — by the 
 entry of Hastings and two companions. 
 
 ' Of what,' inquired Mr. Hastings, airily re- 
 moving his hat and arranging his hair before
 
 History. 149 
 
 the mirror, — ' of what is the young man think- 
 ing, as he dreams on his horse-hair couch ? 
 Fairholt ! I am in league with the Egyptians, 
 burning with zeal to redress the wrongs of 
 that ancient people, who, as a man of your 
 reading is sure to know, were spoiled of their 
 treasure by the Hebrews. I have taken in 
 turn for them a little revenge in passing, and 
 have spoiled a Jew. The Jew will eventually 
 spoil me, I know ; but for the moment Fortune 
 smiles upon the ally of the ancient Coptic race.' 
 
 ' What is your latest madness ? ' asked 
 Frank, laughing. 
 
 * Great wits/ responded Mr. Hastings with 
 a grave flourish, ' to madness often allied. I 
 am in a gorgeous humour. Do you know — 
 speaking with the utmost seriousness, and with 
 as little egotism as possible — I am really con- 
 vinced that I am a devil of a fellow. To-night 
 I am in more than usual form. I have spoiled 
 that Hebrew, not in any vulgar way, but 
 with an airy grace which is really indicative 
 of genius. I flattered and soothed him. I 
 touched him on his tenderest points. I lulled 
 him into confidence ; I led him to places of 
 sweet rest and quiet breathing ; and ulti- 
 mately,' concluded the young gentleman with
 
 150 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 another solemn flourish, ' I landed him for ten 
 quid ; and there's the money.' Throwing a 
 loose handful of gold and silver on the table, 
 Mr. Hastings relapsed into a cheerful smile, 
 and asked for brandy and soda. 
 
 Frank bustled about and set decanters on 
 the table. ' Who is your Hebrew ? ' he asked 
 on his knees and with his head in a cupboard. 
 
 ' There/ replied Mr. Hastings, ' you touch 
 me in a tender part. The Egyptians and I 
 are content with small beginnings. Finally, 
 we shall land the Rothschilds for a million, I 
 have no doubt. At present, we are content 
 to ply for humbler game. I have fleshed — or 
 shall I say fished, to make the simile com- 
 pleter ? — my maiden hook on Tasker.' 
 
 Frank, who had not been over attentive to 
 this speech, started so at the name that he 
 bumped his head violently against the shelf of 
 the cupboard as he rose to his feet. 
 
 ' A kindred spirit leaps to meet me,' re- 
 marked Mr. Hastings languidly, and uncorked 
 a bottle of soda-water. ' League yourself with 
 the Egyptians, Fairholt. I pledge you my 
 solemn word of honour that the bait by which 
 this small specimen of the land-shark was 
 secured was my own unassisted note of hand.'
 
 History. 151 
 
 ' No, thank you/ Frank responded. * Egypt 
 is cleaned out already, and Christendom is 
 undergoing a similar process now. I have 
 had enough of Tasker.' 
 
 * Do you know,' said Hastings with an air 
 of profound seriousness, ' 1 can imagine that 
 to the ordinary palate a very little of Tasker 
 would be eminently cloying ? The taste for 
 Tasker is in fact acquired. To be candid, 
 however, I can discover one virtue in him — 
 he can occasionally be induced to part with 
 money/ 
 
 ' He parts with it on very heavy terms,' re- 
 sponded Frank, going back to the cupboard, 
 and rummaging anew there. 
 
 ' The wisdom of our ancestors/ returned 
 Hastings, ' is proverbial — at least a good deal 
 of it is. In one scrap of that wisdom for which 
 the fogydom of past centuries is justly famous, 
 we are told that he who intends not to pay may 
 promise much.' 
 
 Frank withdrew himself from the cupboard 
 with a box of cigars in one hand and a bottle 
 in the other, and answered lightly, ' If you 
 were the rascal you profess to be, you might 
 be even a match for Tasker.' 
 
 1 Referring/ replied Hastings in a forensic
 
 152 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 tone, and with a forensic wave of his cigar, ' to 
 the works of Thomas Babington Macaulay, 
 I learn that the late Nicholas Macchiavelli was 
 a highly amiable and moral person. Fortified 
 by this judgment, I have looked up The 
 Prince, and am humbly striving to carry out 
 its precepts. My natural bent in favour of the 
 conventionalities of virtue is strong, and I still 
 occasionally deviate into candour. Let me be 
 candid now. Tasker lent me this coin wholly 
 and solely upon your account.' 
 
 1 On my account ? ' asked Frank. 
 
 ' On yours. I told him I was coming to 
 your rooms. So far I was truthful. But now 
 mark the Macchiavellian strain. I told him 
 also that you had invited me. I told him 
 further that you had invited several other 
 fellows. When I lie, as I frequently do, I am 
 generally prophetic. I am here, with some 
 other fellows. Since we are here, you can't 
 do less than invite us to stay. I told him 
 further that we were coming for a quiet little 
 game at vingt-et-un. You will, I am sure, 
 produce the cards, and oblige me by the ful- 
 filment of that prophecy also.' 
 
 1 That prophecy must go unfulfilled,' Frank 
 answered.
 
 History. 153 
 
 ' Let us waive that point a moment,' 
 resumed Hastings. ' Your friend Tasker, 
 anxious to oblige you, loans the money in- 
 stantly. Since I am pledged to candour, I 
 will conclude by saying that the said Tasker 
 hates you like poison, and lent me the money 
 in the hope that I might win, and that you 
 might lose.' 
 
 1 I never quite know where to have you, 
 Hastings,' said Frank, still laughing. ' But 
 do you really mean this ? ' 
 
 1 In my moments of candour,' Hastings 
 replied with increased solemnity, ' Truth be- 
 comes the immediate jewel of my soul. My 
 bosom is as glass, and the workings of my 
 heart are patent to the meanest observer. 
 When I put up the shutters and — if I may 
 mix a metaphor — tread in the paths of dis- 
 simulation, I acknowledge that I am inscrut- 
 able. But now the simplest son of the desert 
 may understand and know.' 
 
 1 Do you mean seriously to tell me/ asked 
 Frank, ' that Tasker was fool enough to 
 express such a hope to a sieve of a fellow 
 like you ? ' 
 
 1 Example,' responded Mr. Hastings, ' is con- 
 tagious. My indulgence in metaphor touches
 
 154 A Life s Atonement, 
 
 that poetic string which ever vibrates in the 
 artist's being ; and he lisps in figures, for the 
 figures come. I had forgotten the respectable 
 simile of the sieve, or, despite my leaning to 
 originality, I would have used it. In my 
 candid moments, I am even as a sieve, holding 
 back nothing I receive. I occasionally retain 
 — I may add as an after-thought, — a little 
 moisture. Will you pass the brandy ? ' 
 
 1 Was Tasker sober ? ' 
 
 1 The worthy Tasker reeled — his victor's 
 sport, and ere I left him lay dissolved in port. 
 On strict investigation — for I mark once more 
 the Macchiavellian strain — I find that quotation 
 scarcely apt. Tasker remained so far solid 
 as to be able to convey himself to the club 
 door, whence he departed in a cabriolet, and 
 a cloud of curses.' 
 
 One of Mr. Hastings's companions, who 
 answered to the name of Bonder, and had 
 evidently been out dining somewhere, bearing 
 the evidences not only in his white tie and 
 ample shirt-front, but in his flushed and lazy 
 face, fell off his chair in helpless laughter at 
 this statement. Hastings surveyed him with 
 a solemn countenance ; and turning to the 
 other, who answered to the name of Brookes,
 
 History. 155 
 
 and had also been out dining somewhere, and 
 also bore about him the evidences of that 
 fact in his white tie and ample shirt-front, and 
 in his flushed and lazy face, opined that this 
 game of vingt-et-un would have to be confined 
 to three. On this Mr. Bonder checked his 
 raptures, and rising to his feet, proclaimed 
 himself as sober as a judge and fit for any- 
 thing. 
 
 ' The sobriety of a judge/ said Hastings, 
 resuming the forensic air, ' depends, as it 
 occurs to me, upon the nature of his lordship's 
 head and the quantity of liquor his lordship 
 may imbibe. This is a proposition so self- 
 • evident that, but for the laxity of my friend 
 Bonders speech, I would not have ventured 
 upon it.' 
 
 Mr. Bonder laughed again, and asked Frank 
 for the cards. 
 
 ' Well,' said Frank, ' it would be too in- 
 hospitable to turn you fellows out. But I 
 won't play cards, and I won't see cards played 
 here.' 
 
 ' Dost thou think,' demanded Hastings, 
 * that because thou art virtuous there shall 
 be no more cakes and ale ? ' 
 
 1 Come, come,' returned Frank. ' You can
 
 156 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 spend the evening capitally without falling 
 into this eternal play. Honestly, / have come 
 to the conclusion to give it up. I play no 
 more.' 
 
 ' His pipe is silent in the vale/ Hastings 
 declaimed with tragic emphasis. 
 
 ' Now, you know,' said Mr. Bonder, looking 
 round, and gasping helplessly, ' that's un- 
 common fine. By — by — by Jingo, sir, that's 
 good — that's uncommon good ! ' 
 
 1 Your appreciation, Bonder,' replied Hast- 
 ings, ' of my humble efforts to please is not 
 unvalued.' He said it with so serious a coun- 
 tenance that Bonder fell off his chair again, 
 and was recommended by Brookes, the self- 
 controlled, to go home if he couldn't behave 
 himself. 
 
 ' But/ gasped Mr. Bonder, feebly struggling 
 into his seat, ' he's so uncommon rich, you 
 know. Upon my soul,' said Mr. Bonder, 
 brightening up as though he hailed a discovery, 
 ' I can't help laughing at him.' 
 
 1 Let him laugh who wins/ said Hastings. 
 1 Mine host, the cards, and a flagon of thy 
 rosiest. If you choose to cultivate the ascetic 
 virtues, I am not the man to say you nay. 
 Common courtesy demands that in your own
 
 History, 157 
 
 chambers you should be permitted by your 
 guests to adopt what role you please. But 
 you will allow me to point out that the calls of 
 hospitality are urgent, and that your guests 
 desire to season life with a little innocuous 
 excitement.' 
 
 * If you will play,' said Frank, rising 
 with evident unwillingness, ' I suppose you 
 must. Here are the cards. Amuse your- 
 selves/ 
 
 The three drew near the table. Frank, 
 lighting a new cigar, left the room, took his 
 hat, and strolled into the gardens of the square. 
 Mr. Bonder, in his present condition, was of 
 opinion that - this was the richest joke he had 
 seen for ages.' Mr. Brookes, on the contrary, 
 grew solemn at the host's departure. Hastings 
 underwent no change, but remained the same 
 gay, reckless, flippant creature, lost his money 
 with an easy grace, and borrowed it back 
 again, only to re-lose it. The three played 
 for stakes which, considering their means, were 
 ridiculously high, and became so absorbed in 
 the game as to lose all memory of Frank, 
 though remaining keenly alive to the presence 
 of his decanters. Frank, meanwhile, marching 
 to and fro in the square gardens, congratulated
 
 158 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 himself upon his firmness. It would have 
 been considered ' bad form ' in the set in which 
 Frank moved to object to an invasion of this 
 kind, however insolently made ; and Hast- 
 ings was so old a friend, and Brookes and 
 Bonder were such good fellows in their way, 
 that anger would have been absurdly out of 
 place. 
 
 1 Now, really,' said Frank, in communion 
 with himself, ' I should have liked to play with 
 those fellows — I should really have liked it. 
 I never said a word about it to you, my 
 darling, in your hearing, but I promised it to 
 you all the same. I have surrendered these 
 old ways — I have done with them for ever. 
 How could I be untrue to you, or untrue 
 to the better hopes you . wake within me ? 
 Through you I can be my best — a poor 
 creature even then, I fear — but better, oh, 
 how much better than you found me ! ' 
 
 The moon shone brightly. Frank was in 
 the very centre of the gardens, and quite alone. 
 He drew the miniature from his breast and 
 kissed it again and again. He looked at it — 
 and dimly as he saw it in that dim light — he 
 dwelt on the sweet face with a yearning love 
 and worship. His heart rejoiced within him
 
 History. 159 
 
 as he thought that he had escaped to moments 
 so sweet, from that smoke-clouded room and 
 that flippant converse. Following the track of 
 the railway field by field and landmark by 
 landmark, his spirit seemed to wing its way 
 home, past the pleasant summer river, and past 
 the moonlit fields to the park, and through it 
 to the gardens — to the gate where he felt, by 
 an intuition of spirit so strong that he almost 
 knew it must be true, that Maud was standing 
 and thinking of him, with just such a love 
 and such a tender yearning. Ay me ! how he 
 thrilled at the thought ! How sweet and dear 
 the fancy seemed ! He was all but bodily pre- 
 sent with her. His whole heart melted and 
 glowed as he stood there. 
 
 The highest rapture fails the soonest. Frank 
 came back to himself. The moon was clouded 
 and the night seemed chilly. He tried to 
 project himself again ; but Passion would not 
 be whipped and spurred. It lay quiescent 
 and made no answer. So Frank wandered 
 indoors a little disconsolate, and the peal of 
 laughter which came to him as he stood in 
 the doorway was welcome. Hastings at the 
 moment of Frank's entrance was walking 
 gravely round his chair for luck ; and since
 
 160 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 everything which Hastings chose to say or do 
 was full of infinite jest for those young fellows, 
 the Messrs. Brookes and Bonder, the solemn 
 performance was provocative of much loud 
 merriment. 
 
 Hastings with a face of the intensest gloom, 
 and the voice and action of a transpontine 
 Othello, accosted Frank : ' Behold the irony 
 of Fate ! Rich with barbaric Tasker's spoils, 
 fed fat with the booty of Israel, I enter these 
 gilded halls. Now, how am I dwindled ! For 
 the second time I am on my last half-quid, and 
 the boaster hath boasted himself in vain. But 
 — thrice the magic circle wind.' Therewith 
 Mr. Hastings completed his journey round the 
 chair and resumed his cards. 
 
 Frank seated himself at the table and 
 watched the game. The cards ran in favour 
 of Hastings, and in a quarter of an hour 
 that young gentleman had quite a pile of gold 
 and silver beside him. 
 
 ' A star has set, a star has risen,' he quoted 
 oracularly ; and turning, addressed Fairholt : 
 ( Sit down and take a hand, like a Christian. 
 Behold ' — spreading his money gravely about 
 the table — ' behold the booty of my bow and 
 my spear ! I dare thee to the joust, thou
 
 History. 1 6 1 
 
 Paynim knight ! Couch, couch thy lance, and 
 gird thee for the fight/ 
 
 ' I don't care about it,' Frank responded. 
 
 If the discerning reader has anything of 
 the gambling spirit, and has ever looked on 
 at a game of chance, not purposing to join 
 in it, he knows how dangerous it is. If the 
 discerning reader knows anything of human 
 nature, he will have observed that there is a 
 kind of man in whom the very fervour of re- 
 solve breeds weakness. For such a man to 
 resolve is more exhausting than it is to a man 
 of strong will to act out a resolution. Frank's 
 passionate longing after virtue had left him 
 weakened for its defence. There are many 
 men so constituted, unhappily for themselves. 
 They are mostly souls capable of very ardent 
 longings and very bitter remorses. Their vir- 
 tue — such as it is — consists in a passionate 
 and spasmodic longing after virtue. Their 
 remorse, until such time as they grow case- 
 hardened, is very terrible ; their self-upbraid- 
 ings and their self-humiliations are very pitiful. 
 
 I do not wish in my character of stage- 
 manager to come too often before the curtain 
 to take my marionnettes to pieces. I would 
 VOL. i. l
 
 1 62 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 prefer that you should learn from their antics 
 and from those simulated speeches which come 
 to them from the wings — and seem to you to 
 come from them — what manner of puppets they 
 are, and what manner of men and women 
 they are meant to stand for. But I wish to 
 come forward with such apologies as may 
 seem needful, to ask your favour on behalf of 
 the puppet Frank. There are some opinions 
 which it is always well to hold about other 
 people, and never wise to hold about our- 
 selves. You sir, shall, if you please, judge 
 me with lenity. When I tumble, you shall 
 be pitiful. When I fail, going back from my 
 promises, revoking my solemn pledges, and 
 breaking down your kindly hopes of me, you 
 shall not be scornful. When I see you trip, 
 I promise not to smile. I pledge myself, 
 when you are at your worst and your stupidest, 
 to think of you gently and hopefully. It is well 
 for a man — it is wise, and good, and gracious 
 in him to be scant in excuse for himself, and 
 plenteous in excuse for others. And I ask 
 you to follow this young fellow's tragic story 
 in this mood. For the fictionist has missed 
 his purpose altogether unless a kindly heart 
 go through his pages with him, and unless
 
 History. 163 
 
 the shadows he would pass off for men and 
 women meet, at the hands of those for whom 
 they were created, some such kindliness of wel- 
 come, some such gentle sympathies and hopes, 
 as they would have a right to claim if they 
 were as real as they pretend to be. 
 
 There was once upon a time a philosophic 
 king who knew this world and its ways pretty 
 thoroughly. His philosophy and poetry — for 
 like all true philosophers he was a poet, and 
 like all true poets a philosopher — are buried 
 in an old book which nobody pays much heed 
 to nowadays. His name was Solomon. If 
 you choose to search, you may find his works, 
 done into tolerable English, in a considerable 
 number of what used to be the public build- 
 ings of this country. He is worth study, if 
 only for his knowledge of that vast human 
 family whom he describes as the sons and 
 daughters of folly. That old Hebrew king 
 knew a fool more thoroughly, knew his nature 
 better than any other writer whose works you 
 are likely to chance upon. And in all serious- 
 ness, I am disposed to think that Solomon 
 knew the fool so well chiefly from introspec- 
 tion. Each man is in part every other man. 
 The large nature of the Hebrew potentate
 
 164 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 had room for much folly in it ; but his under- 
 standing was able to separate the elements of 
 which he was himself compact. He set him- 
 self to know much folly and wisdom. He 
 sat in the majesty of his kingly intellect, and 
 analysed that Solomon and knew him — as well 
 as Shakspeare knew us all. There is a touch 
 of self-upbraiding in one of the king's utter- 
 ances, when he says that though you bray 
 a fool in a mortar among bruised wheat with 
 a pestle, yet will not his folly depart from 
 him. I suppose he knew that of himself, 
 and wrote it in the bitterness of his heart. 
 
 At the very soul of understanding dwells 
 charity. It is an old truth, but none the less 
 worth writing on that account, that knowledge 
 implies sympathy. If I show you here a man 
 whose hopes are lofty, yet for ever draggled 
 in the mire of failure ; whose aims are all 
 born pure, yet always sullied with the smoke 
 of low desires ; who with every wish to be 
 generous, is in all things intensely selfish ; 
 whose nature perpetually sins against itself; 
 whose lie is wrecked by a series of sinful 
 follies, so patently sinful and so openly foolish 
 that a wayfaring man, though a fool, might 
 escape them easily ; and if in spite of all this,
 
 History. 165 
 
 I try to show a man not wholly hopeless or 
 completely lost, I will ask you not to throw me 
 aside too readily as a milk-and-water optimist, 
 but to bring to the understanding of this 
 creature who is, in a sense, the likeness of us 
 all, some memory of your own weakness and 
 your own failure, some sense of the difference 
 which exists between that godlike, possible, 
 ideal you, which you do somewhere cherish 
 and hope for and believe in, and the man you 
 know who lives sinfully and foolishly in the 
 place of that ideal. 
 
 At an hour so late that half London would 
 have called it early, Messrs. Hastings, Brookes, 
 and Bonder emerged from Frank's rooms and 
 made night vocal. At ten o'clock Frank 
 awoke to find the daylight pouring in dusty 
 streaks through the Venetian blind, the floor 
 strewn with cigar-ashes and ends of cigars, 
 the table covered with soiled cards and money 
 and empty bottles, and glasses topsy-turvy, 
 and the lamp in the centre a pale offensive 
 blot against the daylight. Languid and aching, 
 with hot hands and a heavy head, Frank 
 gathered himself together, and began to grope 
 after remembrance. Bit by bit he gathered
 
 1 66 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 the fragments of Memory's shattered picture, 
 and pieced them together. Did he lose very 
 heavily ? he wondered. What were these ? 
 AnIOU from Hastings — another from Brookes 
 — another from Bonder. Money. Much more 
 than he started with, surely ? Yes. At least 
 a hundred pounds more. Frank fairly 
 sickened. 
 
 And at that moment, pale and penitent, was 
 the youthful Bonder standing in the paternal 
 counting-house, and with beating heart await- 
 ing the advent of Bonder senior. To him the 
 honest foolish youngster made miserable con- 
 fession, and after due severity of admonition 
 was taken back to the fatherly heart and 
 pardoned. Bonder senior could well enough 
 afford to lose the few pounds his son ought to 
 have paid in that morning ; but the irregularity 
 of the transaction wounded him. For ten 
 minutes or thereabouts the expletives of Bon- 
 der senior were sad to listen to, and young 
 Bonder positively felt his hair uncurling as 
 they rose. 
 
 ' This especial war-horse/ mused Mr. Hast- 
 ings, as he cooled his head against a marble 
 mantel-piece in his lodgings, ' will no more roll 
 his red eye and rally for the fight. I have
 
 History. 167 
 
 digged a pit for my friend, and have fallen 
 myself therein. I shall have Tasker down on 
 me like all the daughters of the Biblical horse- 
 leech. Four months from this date there will 
 be the Tasker to pay, and nothing to pay him 
 with. " Why dost thou whet thy knife so 
 savagely ? " — " To cut the forfeit from the 
 bankrout there." But away with unavailing 
 sentiment ! 
 
 M I sits with my toes in a brook, 
 And if any one asks me for why, 
 I hits 'em a rap with my crook ; 
 And ' 'Tis sentiment kills me/ says I." 
 
 When this young party stoops to folly, and 
 finds too late that cards betray, what art can 
 soothe his melancholy, like a deep, deep 
 draught of brandy-and-soda at the pub. round 
 the corner ? '
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 The temptation was a strong one — the victory in its way 
 considerable. 
 
 ' Y^AS I a fool to act as I did?' Will 
 Fairholt asked of himself as he hung 
 over the bridge with a cigar in his mouth and 
 dropped pebbles into the river. * If I had 
 spoken months and months ago, she might 
 have said " Yes " by this time. And Frank 
 would never have grown to care for her at 
 all. I have wasted my chances. Had I ever 
 any chances ? Why should she care for me ? 
 I don't wonder at her caring for Frank.' 
 
 Will ceased his musings for a while, and 
 fell into a state of vacuous despondency. He 
 found himself now and again — as people in 
 unhappy moments do — taking a mighty interest 
 in the most foolish trifles — speculating, for in-
 
 History. 169 
 
 stance, as to whether that little fragment of 
 straw would float over that ripple or float 
 round it, or whether that or this bubble would 
 break sooner. He felt sufficiently miserable 
 through it all. He took nobody into confi- 
 dence. He had nobody to blame. Turn- 
 ing from the bridge he walked disconsolately 
 through the fields with his hands in his 
 coat-pockets and his hat pulled moodily down 
 over his eyes. Coming to a stile, he paused 
 there, and fell again into soliloquy. 
 
 * 1 asked myself if I was a fool just now. 
 I'm pretty sure I am. Now, let me see how 
 this case stands. First of all, Maud and 
 Frank are engaged. Secondly — Well, if 
 I'm an honest man there isn't a secondly in 
 it. No ; there's no secondly. I have often 
 said to myself that I would have this aching 
 tooth out. I never had the resolution to pull 
 it out myself; and now that Fate has done 
 it for me, I can find nothing to do but moon 
 about and grumble, and coddle myself with 
 little sympathies. I suppose I am ashamed 
 of myself. I hope so. Gad ! I wish some- 
 thing would come of that Eastern Question • 
 I think I'd volunteer and have a slap at the 
 Rooshans. I wonder if they'll show fight, if
 
 1 70 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 it should come to that ; or whether they'll 
 cave in, as the Yankees say. The only chance 
 for your disappointed swain is battle.' And 
 Will sang with a melancholy little grin at 
 himself : 
 
 1 I'll hang my harp on a willow tree ; 
 I'll off to the wars again.' 
 
 A big baritone voice took up the song : 
 
 ' For my peaceful home has no charms for me, 
 The battlefield no pain.' 
 
 ' Hillo ! ' cried Will, starting from his reverie, 
 and looking up. 
 
 'Hillo!' responded the owner of the big 
 baritone voice. * Didn't know you kept a harp 
 in stock, Fairholt.' 
 
 The owner of the baritone voice was a 
 handsome young fellow of three or four and 
 twenty, with a manner a little too military to 
 be altogether gentlemanly. A little loud and 
 ostentatious in all things was this young man. 
 He carried a fishing-rod, and had a basket 
 strapped across his shoulders, and his dress 
 was aggressively suggestive of piscatorial pur- 
 suits. His hat was bespangled with flies, and 
 his wading-boots were of the newest. He 
 wore a huge tawny moustache, and for the
 
 History. 171 
 
 rest was clean shaven. His nose might have 
 been the better had it had a little more at the 
 bridge and a little less at the base ; and his 
 mouth was a trifle over-large. Nevertheless 
 he was, as I have said already, a handsome 
 young fellow enough. He stood some six feet 
 high in his fishing-boots, and had the shoulders 
 of a Hercules. He was just a thought too 
 well set-up to be graceful, and the air of 
 the drill-yard sat heavily on him. This was 
 Lieutenant Hartley, heir-expectant to Hartley 
 Park and Hartley Hall, 'to lands in Kent and 
 messuages in York,' and to who shall say 
 how many thousands in the funds. 
 
 ' You are just one of the men I should 
 have wished to see,' said Will, getting over 
 the stile and advancing to him. 
 
 ' Glad to hear that. What's matter ? ' 
 
 ' I was just speculating/ said Will, ' about 
 that Eastern business/ 
 
 1 Most people are/ responded the other, pro- 
 ducing a meerschaum pipe and polishing it 
 tenderly with a bit of crape. 
 
 ' Will the Russians fight ? ' asked Will. 
 
 ' Can't say, 'pon my soul/ 
 
 1 But what do your army fellows say about 
 it?'
 
 172 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 1 Don't know, 'pon my soul. You see, I 
 don't do much in that way, Fairholt. There's 
 quite a little pile of fellows who hammer 
 away at that until really — don't you know ? — 
 a fellow gets sick of it.' 
 
 ' Well, what do these fellows say ? ' asked 
 Will, again returning to the charge. 
 
 ' Don't know, 'pon my soul,' responded the 
 Lieutenant, sitting down on the stump of an 
 old tree and smoking lazily. ' What yah so 
 dead-set on the thing for ? ' 
 
 ' If there were any chance of a fight,' Will 
 answered, sitting down on the grass beside 
 him, ' I'd join to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Would you, by Jove ? ' asked the Lieu- 
 tenant languidly. ' Get infernally tah'd in a 
 fortnight. It's dullest game in the world.' 
 
 ' I don't think I should care about the bar- 
 rack routine,' Will answers. ' But I should 
 like to have a slap at Old Nicholas.' 
 
 'Always thought you were a peaceful fel- 
 low.' 
 
 ' Well, I am bloodthirsty enough now for 
 anything.' 
 
 1 There's the Guvnah,' said the Lieutenant, 
 after an idle puff or two, ' knows more about 
 that business than anybody. War with Russia
 
 History. 173 
 
 affects the funds, don't you know ? Old beg- 
 gah knows everything about everything that 
 affects the funds. That's his pot.' The 
 Lieutenant looked lazily about him, and con- 
 tinued : ' Sun's too bright to-day. Can't kill 
 anything before evening. Fish won't rise. 
 Come and lunch ? ' 
 
 Suddenly flashed through Will's mind the 
 thought of Maud. Your lover is your only 
 true poet, and he saw her — actually saw her 
 for the moment — with her fresh, clear face, 
 and hazel eyes, and cool, white dress. A 
 shaded room — cool and quiet — with here and 
 there a stray fleck of sunlight in it. A very 
 casket of a room, and Maud, its one jewel, 
 shining there alone. Now Will Fairholt was 
 not an imaginative man by nature ; yet if I 
 by means of words could show you this sweet 
 sight one half as clearly as he, by force of 
 fancy, for the moment saw it, I were a better 
 artist than I am. The vision decided him, 
 and he rose to his feet with a brisk ' I will ; 
 thank you.' 
 
 1 What's your hurry ? ' asked the Lieutenant. 
 1 Hungry ? Gad ! now I come to think of it, 
 so am I.' 
 
 The Lieutenant was not a talkative man,
 
 174 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 and conversation somewhat languished. Will 
 communed with himself once more. ' Is this 
 wise ? I don't know. I must get away some- 
 how. If there should be war I will be in the 
 thick of it. It's every man's duty to help to 
 put down a great bullying blackguard like that 
 Nicholas. Yet I doubt,' thinks Will, with a 
 melancholy laugh at himself, ' if I should have 
 thought of the duty if things had gone other- 
 wise with me here. That big barbarian might 
 have eaten Turkey in peace for me, if it hadn't 
 been — ' There Will groaned, and cut down 
 a dogrose with warlike vigour, 
 
 ' Bit out o' sorts, Fairholt ? ' asked the Lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 1 N-no/ said Will, with a little uncertainty in 
 his voice. 
 
 His military companion looked down on him 
 with a satiric grin, and within himself com- 
 mented : ' Hit, by Jove, and hit hard.' He 
 said nothing, however ; and Will strolled along 
 with his hands in his pockets, and smoked in 
 stoic'silence. 
 
 ' You idiot ' — so in thought he apostrophised 
 himself — 'cant you be quiet. Need you take 
 everybody into your confidence.' 
 
 Hartley Hall — ' look at it pricking a Cockney
 
 History. 175 
 
 ear' — declared itself at last, and Will turned 
 with the Lieutenant into that gentleman's own 
 apartments for a wash before luncheon. As 
 they emerged again upon the corridor they met 
 Maud : as bright and sweet and fresh and inno- 
 cent and happy a sight as one might wish to 
 see. She quickened her step a little to greet 
 Will, and shook hands with a glad cordiality. 
 She noticed nothing especial in his shy and 
 reserved manner ; and they went downstairs 
 side by side, she chatting gaily about some 
 garden-party or other to which she either had 
 gone or was going, and he fairly tingling all 
 over at the remembrance of the innocent pres- 
 sure of her hand. 
 
 Here, in the breakfast-room, was Benjamin 
 Hartley, clad in an alarming tweed, and having 
 a white hat on. The white hat was perched 
 at the back of Mr. Hartley's bald head, and he 
 mopped his face with a yellow bandana. ' By 
 Jingo, ain't it 'ot!' said Mr. Hartley, puffing 
 upwards at his own glowing countenance, and 
 mopping anew. ' Come to pick a bone along 
 with us, Mr. Fairholt ? Glad to see you. We 
 shall be a-looking at you like one o' the reg'lar 
 members o' the family, now, you know. You've 
 heard o' this young lady and her capers, I dare-
 
 176 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 say ? — Let's have some iced champagne, Lieu- 
 tenant. I've been a-tramping over my grounds 
 till I'm as 'ot as Dan'l in the fiery furnace. 
 Ain't it 'ot?' 
 
 ' Infernal,' says the Lieutenant. 
 
 Mr. Hartley taking off his hat, laid it upon 
 the table and sat down. The Lieutenant rang 
 the bell, threw the hat to the footman who 
 appeared in answer to the summons, and re- 
 quested Will to be seated. Will sat by Maud, 
 who blushed a little still at Mr. Hartley's recent 
 allusion. The Lieutenant calmly sabred his 
 food and sipped his wine in silence. The old 
 gentleman flowed on mellifluous.' 
 
 1 I was up in town last week, and called on 
 that young brother o' yours, sir.' 
 
 1 Indeed,' said Will, nothing else occurring 
 to him to say. 
 
 ' Yes, I was. He's a fine young fellow, and 
 I'm proud of him. Now, what I like about 
 him is, as there ain't any mistaking him for 
 anything but what he is. He's got " Swell " 
 wrote on him all over. Now that's what I 
 like to see. You can bet your hat on him 
 being a thorough-bred un directly as you set 
 eyes on him. Now, here's the Lieutenant as 
 won't have it all, you know, as it takes a lot o'
 
 History, 177 
 
 generations to turn out that kind o' pattern. 
 He ain't a bad sort himself — the Lieutenant — 
 for home mannyfacter. — Now, don't you go 
 and rile up afore company, young man. Look 
 at him,' continues the old gentleman, in a high 
 state of self-gratulation, ' as savage as if his 
 father was a red rag an' him a bull. — He's 
 a clever young fellow that brother of yours, sir. 
 I found him at work up there painting a pic- 
 ture — a proper picture. Just to see him a-slap- 
 ping it on was a wonder. It was a work of 
 art, sir, pretty nigh as big as that door. Says 
 he's goin' to make his fortune with it. I don't 
 mind telling you in confidence — now don't you 
 go and split, you know — as I've put a agent o' 
 mine on to that picture, and told him to keep 
 his eye on it. He's a fellow as knows all about 
 everything, that agent, and he's down on a 
 picture like a 'ammer, and talks about 'em like 
 a auctioneer. I don't mean to have anything 
 but good work on my walls. And I said to 
 my fellow, "If that picture's up to the mark," 
 I said, " buy it, and don't boggle about the 
 price." I don't stint in price when I get 
 a good article.' Mr. Hartley made his state- 
 ment in a tone which seemed to demand 
 an answer ; and Will awoke from his own 
 vol. 1. . m
 
 1 78 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 fancies in time to reply, ' Certainly not/ at a 
 venture. 
 
 ' It strikes me, you know,' said Mr. Hartley, 
 speaking with his mouth full, and fanning him- 
 self with the yellow bandana, ' as one o' the 
 best things about matrimony is, as it makes 
 a man industrious. Now your brother's posi- 
 tively a-slaving. I like to see it.' 
 
 Maud, sitting between Will and her uncle, 
 directed an appealing glance to the old gentle- 
 man, who gave a hasty gulp and broke into 
 a great guffaw of laughter. Maud blushed to 
 the roots of her hair and dropped her eyes. 
 
 ' Look yah ! Guvnah ! ' interposed the Lieu- 
 tenant. ' Leave the girl alone.' 
 
 Maud's blushes became if anything a little 
 deeper. The old gentleman burst into a new 
 shout of laughter. 
 
 ' 'Ow awful 'ot laughin' does make a man, to 
 be sure. — Pass the clarrit, Lieutenant, and don't 
 be comin' any o' your swell airs over your 
 father. Why, you ain't eating anything, Mr. 
 Fairholt ! It's this beastly weather as knocks 
 the appetite to pieces. Though I must con- 
 fess as mine takes a good deal o' spoiling. I 
 always was a good hand at a knife and fork. 
 Why, when I was younger, I've sat down to
 
 History. 1 79 
 
 my half-pint o' four half, and had a bit o' 
 bread and cheese for dinner, with a onion for a 
 relish, and I've enjoyed it as if it had been — ' 
 Here the old gentleman, directing a mis- 
 chievous glance towards his son, burst into a 
 new guffaw, and found it necessary to get up 
 and stamp about the room. After this he 
 leaned against the mantelpiece, puffing and 
 panting, and mopping his red face and bald 
 head with great ardour, going off into a little 
 explosive chuckle now and again. The Lieu- 
 tenant solemnly wheeled round in his chair, 
 and regarded him through an eyeglass. Will, 
 slightly embarrassed, not by the fathers revela- 
 tions but by the Lieutenant's manner, looked 
 seriously at his plate. Maud — forgetting her 
 own discomfiture — was mischievously merry. 
 The old man having chuckled and panted him- 
 self into a condition of composure, took a 
 final mop at his countenance and resumed his 
 seat. The Lieutenant dropped his eyeglass 
 and took up his fork. 
 
 1 I was just a-saying — ' the old gentleman 
 re-commenced. 
 
 ' Guvnah ! ' said the Lieutenant in a warning 
 bass. 
 
 * Sir, to you/ returned his father.
 
 180 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 1 Stop it ! ' said the Lieutenant with solemn 
 emphasis. 
 
 The old gentleman went into another roar 
 of laughter, and recovering from it, turned to 
 Will : ' I like to poke him up a bit. Here's 
 a gay young flower a-springing from the soil ! 
 But he don't own no kin with the soil, you 
 know. Bless your heart, he's superior to 
 that. He don't recognise nothing earthy 
 about him. And so I like to rough him 
 up a bit, andshow him where he comes from 
 and who heis. Not afore, company, you 
 know,' added the old man with a sudden 
 seriousness. ' But afore the family, what's it 
 matter ? ' 
 
 * I know where I come from,' said the Lieu- 
 tenant in his laziest drawl, ' infernally well. 
 Gad ! I wish I didn't.' 
 
 ' Now, young un, young un,' said the old 
 gentleman, rising and patting him on the 
 shoulder, ' don't take it to heart too serious. 
 I know it's a blow to your fine feelings, my 
 boy ; but you'll overlive it.' 
 
 ' Dessay I shall,' responded the Lieutenant 
 gloomily. ' But I don't laike it.' 
 
 The old gentleman, still patting the Lieu- 
 tenant on the shoulder, turned and addressed
 
 History. 1 8 1 
 
 Will : ' Come and knock the balls about a bit, 
 Mr. Fairholt ? ' 
 
 Will was just about to answer ' Yes,' when 
 catching Maud's eyes, he saw her make a 
 signal of dissent, and hesitated. 
 
 Noticing this, the old gentleman said, 'Well, 
 I don't know as it isn't pleasanter out o' doors 
 on such a day.' 
 
 - Oh, much pleasanter,' said Maud. ' Come 
 into the gardens.' With that she tripped 
 away, returning in a minute with a sunshade. 
 Mr. Hartley had already disappeared, and the 
 Lieutenant was lounging after him when Maud 
 returned. She placed herself at Will's side, 
 and they went out together. When they 
 reached the garden, she laid a hand upon 
 his arm, and prepared for confidential chat. 
 Will and she had been close friends for the 
 last five years, and were as intimate as brother 
 and sister. The touch of her hand and the 
 rustle of her dress beside him, her face turned 
 up to his, the sister-like confidence in which 
 she seemed almost to nestle by him, the 
 serene quiet of her manner — all these things 
 were bitter to the young man's heart — were 
 bitter because they might have been so sweet. 
 The broad sunlight flooded the garden — the
 
 1 82 A Life s Atonement, 
 
 shadows cast here and there were very cool 
 and pleasant to the eye. The arbour in 
 which Maud and Will sat down was deli- 
 ciously shady. The distant landscape lay 
 folded in silver haze. The swallows were 
 astir upon the river. A little wind touched 
 the leaves of the arbour now and again, and 
 died. So sweet — so sweet, so framed for 
 love the time. So fit the place for lover's 
 whisperings. So glad the lazy summer after- 
 noon ! 
 
 For a long time after that day, when Will 
 Fairholt thought about it, he looked upon 
 himself with a kind of wonder, and thanked 
 heaven that he held back the words which 
 would have done his own conscience and his 
 brother wrong. Let us confess that it was 
 hard — that the temptation was a strong one 
 — that the victory was, in its way, considerable. 
 
 ' Will,' said Maud, leaning across the arbour- 
 table, ' I want to speak to you very seriously. 
 I know I can trust you.' She blushed a little, 
 and looked the prettier for it. ' I am a little 
 anxious about Frank. When uncle came 
 from town the other day he dropped a hint 
 about Frank's money-matters. Uncle has 
 things to do even now with a great many
 
 History. 183 
 
 people in town, and he has found out some- 
 how that Frank has been borrowing money. 
 I know nothing about it beyond this — that 
 he told me when I next saw Frank to warn 
 him against having anything to do with a man 
 named — Tasker, I think.' 
 
 Will nodded. 
 
 ' Do you know him ? ' 
 
 ' I know of him/ Will returned. ' Frank 
 was a little careless some months ago, but that 
 is all over/ 
 
 ' You know/ pursued Maud nervously, ' that 
 uncle is not always very delicate. He doesn't 
 see how unkind it would be in me to speak to 
 Frank about such a matter. And so' — poor 
 Will went down altogether before her appeal- 
 ing eyes — ' and so I thought I might ask you 
 to speak for me.' 
 
 ' I have spoken already/ Will replied ; ' and 
 if Frank is at all the man I take him for — 
 and I know that a better fellow doesn't exist 
 — he has done with that kind of thing for 
 ever. It's very natural, you know/ pursued 
 Will, gathering strength as he went on, ' for 
 a young fellow like Frank to be careless 
 about money-matters, so long as he has no 
 definite aim in view. But now ' — and there
 
 184 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 Will tried to. smile — ' he has an object in 
 view, Maud, and will do better, I am sure. 
 I had a letter from him this morning. I 
 think I have it with me now. Yes ; here it 
 is. Listen. " I have made up my mind 
 finally for work and economy. For a week 
 past I have been slaving. If I- go on at my 
 present rate I shall die a millionaire. I am 
 spending next to nothing, and hope to be 
 in a position to offer Maud a home in a 
 year at the outside." Then further on he 
 writes again : " I paid Tasker on the day 
 of my return and quarrelled with him of 
 set purpose." — So I think,' said Will, put- 
 ting the letter into its envelope and return- 
 ing it to his pocket, 'that you need have 
 no fear/ 
 
 It was not in offering this defence for his 
 brother that he found any difficulty ; but he 
 longed, with an indescribable longing, to say 
 how he loved and how he despaired ; how 
 impossible he felt it to be thus near and to 
 make no sign ; and then to go away some- 
 where for ever and bury his pain among 
 strangers, or fight in some great cause on 
 some far battle-field, or — et ccetera, ad libitum. 
 He kicked out those longings, as became a
 
 History. 185 
 
 man ; and they returned again and again, as 
 became his passion. 
 
 'You need fear nothing, Maud,' resumed 
 Will, after a little silence. • I know Frank 
 well. I am rather glad you have heard, 
 because it will give you the greater con- 
 fidence in him afterwards. And when you 
 see how well he can fight in a good cause, 
 you'll not like him any the less for it, you 
 know.' 
 
 Maud rose to her feet, not caring perhaps 
 to have the springs of love laid bare after 
 this fashion. The old gentleman strolled up 
 to the arbour. Will, half glad and half 
 sorry to escape from conference with Maud, 
 seized his opportunity, and plunged into 
 politics. 
 
 'Fight?' said Benjamin Hartley in answer 
 to his queries. ' You mark my words, sir. 
 There's heaps o' fellows going about as think 
 they know a lot, trying to persuade me as 
 the Rooshans '11 back out. Now I don't 
 mind telling you — regarding you as one of 
 the family — and knowing as you don't 
 meddle in money-matters, and won't spoil 
 my game — Now is it in confidence, mind 
 you ? '
 
 1 86 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 'You may rely upon me,' answered Will, 
 a little stiffl v. 
 
 ' Don't rough up/ said Benjamin Hartley, 
 drawing him aside. ' There'll be war in 
 another three months. Mark my words. 
 And I'm standing to win half a million on 
 it. That's what I'm a-doing, Mr. Fairholt. 
 So anyhow, I back my opinion pretty strong ; 
 don't I?'
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 It was a conscious smite which recognised its own charming 
 existence. 
 
 "Xl^HY do I always think of Wrethedale as 
 I knew it in the summer-time ; and 
 why am I quite baffled now that I try to recall 
 it as I first saw it on that dismal winter-night ? 
 An old west-country friend of mine, hunting 
 me up the other day, found me enwrapped in 
 fog within two hundred yards of Temple Bar, 
 and his very mention of the place created in 
 these gloomy chambers a sense of sunshine 
 and green fields. You may seek in vain for 
 Wrethedale now. The quaint cross-timbered 
 houses with their thatched eaves and dia- 
 monded windows have disappeared, and trim 
 villas line the road. The lilac's bloom and 
 the laburnum's dropping gold no longer over-
 
 1 88 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 hang the dusty, crooked, little highway. The 
 swinging tavern-sign has at length taken the 
 flight which on gusty days it used to meditate 
 of old, and the tavern has followed it. The 
 big tree on the green — the green itself — they 
 are as clean gone as that bygone self of mine 
 who knew them. I sometimes feel so regretful 
 over these changes, that I mourn for the little 
 village as though for a friend departed. 
 
 The place is opulent and new-fangled. A 
 line of railway with sides of bare earth inter- 
 sects the lovely landscape, and shapeless 
 bridges offend the eye. The quiet is broken 
 by hoarse screams and pantings. Rural silence 
 has fled from the very heart of its home, and 
 if you would be in the country, you must leave 
 Wrethedale behind you. I have a right to be 
 aggrieved at all this. 
 
 In my Black Country home I had had but 
 little chance of falling in love with Nature, 
 whose countenance was so torn and scarified 
 as to be scarcely lovely. Not even there, of 
 course, could the heart of a child go without 
 some recognition of the brightening of the 
 sky, and the softening of the air in spring-time, 
 some gladness in the languor of the summer 
 afternoon, some welcome for the solemn peace
 
 Autobiography. 189 
 
 of autumn's skies. But here Nature wore the 
 loveliest of faces always, and most lovingly 
 wooed me. 
 
 My schoolmates for the first week or two 
 were just of the average caste, exciting neither 
 special likings nor dislikings. I discovered to 
 my own surprise on one occasion that I could 
 be roused to fight in self-defence ; and having 
 fought and conquered, and established my foot- 
 ing, lived in tolerable peace and comfort. The 
 Reverend Charles Davies was a good little man 
 of consumptive tendencies. He was eminently 
 painstaking and pious, and for the rest, com- 
 monplace. A good little man who did his 
 work dutifully according to his lights, which 
 were not brilliant. He had a good little wife, 
 who coddled him and us, and spent herself 
 wholly — the good little soul ! — in kindly offices 
 for all about her. But they are phantoms here, 
 and have no purpose to fulfil in this story. 
 The good little clergyman's good little wife 
 took a natural interest in my forlorn condition. 
 Sally's first visit was made on a Saturday after- 
 noon, and she was admitted to see me in the 
 schoolroom, at that time deserted by its usual 
 occupants, who were romping and shouting to 
 their hearts' content in the gravelled ground
 
 190 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 outside. While Sally and I were in the full 
 flow of mutual confidence, Mrs. Davies came 
 into the schoolroom, and entered into talk with 
 Sally, and drew from her my little history. 
 This was a subject over which Sally always 
 cried ; and Mrs Davies, who was not a strong- 
 minded woman, cried a little with her, and told 
 her she was a good kind soul, and said she 
 would always be welcome to come and see me. 
 I also cried a little, I remember, and was a 
 good deal petted and generally made much 
 of. I missed Sally heavily at first, but grew 
 gradually reconciled, and found a friend in the 
 manageress of our childish affairs. Life glided 
 along smoothly enough for a while in this quiet 
 place and under these happy auspices. 
 
 It was the first of May, and we were pro- 
 mised a half-holiday. The Reverend Charles 
 and his two ushers were in the best of earthly 
 humours ; and I, with some half-dozen others, 
 was lazily reciting the products of Madagascar, 
 when Mrs. Davies entered the little side class- 
 room in which we sat and summoned her hus- 
 band from the school. When he returned, as 
 he did in a few minutes, he brought a new 
 boy with him. \ This, young gentlemen,' he 
 said, ' is Master George Gascoigne. — You will
 
 A utobiography. 191 
 
 learn the names of your companions, Gascoigne, 
 by-and-by.' 
 
 The new boy was a slim and pallid youth, 
 with long golden curls and handsome blue eyes 
 and a girlishly beautiful face. He was quite 
 self-possessed, and inclined his head towards 
 us at this introduction. I, remembering my 
 own awkward advent, and the painful shy- 
 ness which overmastered me when the Rev- 
 erend Charles delivered himself of his little 
 set speech on the occasion of my introduction 
 to the school, was almost awed by the pleasant 
 and easy smile of this new-comer. The smile 
 was a genuine bit of sunshine, and gave the 
 face, for the moment that it dwelt there, both 
 warmth and colour. Perhaps I mix my me- 
 mories here once more, and confuse first and 
 later impressions ; but I have often thought 
 since then, that any grown-up creature, looking 
 at that lad's face, should have seen what great 
 things lay within him, and how easy it might 
 be to turn them all to evil. Any grown-up 
 creature with the slightest faculty for obser- 
 vation might have gained some knowledge of 
 the boy's character from his smile, and having 
 gained the knowledge, might have used it for 
 his good. For as I knew afterwards, he was
 
 192 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 keenly susceptible to all opinions, and as duc- 
 tile-hearted as a girl. But nobody saw or 
 cared, and he, my best and dearest friend, 
 and my worst enemy and his own, grew up ; 
 to fulfil his destiny perhaps. 
 
 I have spoken of his smile. Let me try 
 to say what I observed in it then — child as 
 I was — and noticed in it many a time after- 
 wards. It was perfectly frank and spontane- 
 ous. But it was a conscious smile, which 
 recognised its own charming existence, and 
 recognised your appreciation of it ; and in its 
 pleasure in itself, and in your pleasure at it, 
 lived a little moment longer than it would 
 otherwise have done. It captivated me at 
 once, I know ; and that afterlight in the face 
 which seemed to recognise my sensation and 
 to gladden in it, was sweeter than the smile 
 itself. He was five years older than I, and 
 was tall for his age. It was significant of the 
 best and the worst of him that he signalled me 
 out for friendship from the rest. It was sig- 
 nificant of the best of him, because he was 
 always kindly to the weak, and disposed to 
 cheer such as were alone. It was significant 
 of his worst, because half of all he did was 
 done for the sake of admiration and applause,
 
 Autobiography, 193 
 
 and because he chose me mainly for my un- 
 reasoning worship. 
 
 The fashion after which the Reverend 
 Charles Davies treated his pupils to a half- 
 holiday was about as significant of him as the 
 term by which our small diversion was known 
 was significant of it. The pupils were duly 
 marshalled in orderly military fashion, were 
 told off by fours, wheeled into fours, and 
 solemnly marched through some three or four 
 miles of country road, which led nowhere in 
 particular, except that the circuitous windings 
 of our march always landed us at the school- 
 gates. I had already made one in three of 
 these stiff and monotonous excursions, and 
 looked forward with no great joy to the fourth. 
 Yet, as became the first of May — which is not 
 always so sweetly smiling as in justice to its 
 poetic fame it should be — the fields were thick 
 with flowers, the hedges were already giving 
 sign of that fair bloom which bears the name 
 of the month it owes its life to, the skies were 
 clear, the wind was fresh and balmy, and things 
 generally were vastly more inviting to the 
 school-boy soul outside the school than in it. 
 Even in one of those foolish rows of four, it 
 was possible to taste the sweetness of the air. 
 vol. 1. n
 
 194 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 Even if forbidden to dash at large through 
 those lush fields, one could look at them. 
 There was a certain jolly old blackbird who, 
 in the course of our last walk, had followed 
 us, and taunted us melodiously with our want 
 of freedom, along a good quarter of a mile of 
 road, keeping himself carefully behind the 
 hedge meanwhile. Surely his society was 
 worth something, though one shared it as a 
 close-bound unit in fifteen monotonous rows 
 of four. 
 
 We were all marshalled in the playground 
 and arranged in order, when the Reverend 
 Charles emerged from the house accompanied 
 by Gascoigne. We stood there in solemn row, 
 whilst the meek little clergyman walked along 
 the rank, and inspected us front and rear, like 
 a general among troops on a review day. 
 Gascoigne followed him ; and when the little 
 man had completed his inspection and had 
 come round to our front again, the new boy 
 slipped his hand into the master's, and stood 
 there by his side. The Reverend Charles 
 looked down upon him with an air of rebuke, 
 as I fancied, but Gascoigne met his glance 
 with a smile, and the small man patted him 
 on the shoulder, and smiled in return.
 
 A utobiography. 195 
 
 1 With whom will you walk, Gascoigne ? ' 
 asked the Reverend Charles. ' You may choose 
 your own companion for to-day.' 
 
 It was a little thing, perhaps, but it won my 
 heart at once. Gascoigne left the master's 
 side and took his place by me, and touched 
 me lightly on the shoulder. It was a little 
 thing, but I had been busy with fancies con- 
 cerning him, in my imaginative, childish way, 
 and he was so much older, and stronger, and 
 taller, and handsomer than I ; and altogether, 
 as I have said, the action won my heart. I 
 looked up at him with a shy gratitude, and he 
 looked back upon me with that splendid aspect 
 of affectionate protection which I learned after- 
 wards to know so well, and to take so much 
 delight in. Our ways are differently ordered 
 now, and wide apart, but if I could undo the 
 past — his past and mine — and stand beside him 
 again with that unquestioning acceptance of 
 his worth, how gladly I would do it ! 
 
 We were the chief institution of Wrethedale, 
 and the village was proud of us. It is just 
 possible that we robbed here and there a 
 garden now and then, and that we were upon 
 occasion a nuisance. But on these public days 
 of holiday display, the village turned out and
 
 196 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 audibly admired us ; and one or two of the 
 oldest of Wrethedale's inhabitants used to bid 
 God bless us as we passed. They were un- 
 used to processions in Wrethedale, and a very 
 small show excited the good folk's emotions. 
 So we tramped with fair regularity of step 
 through the winding village street. The smith 
 and the landlord of the Wrethedale Arms took 
 off their caps to the Reverend Charles, and 
 old crones courtesied at the cottage doors. 
 The children ran after us, and before us, and 
 beside us, and turning suddenly round upon 
 us, stared shyly, and ran on again. The 
 wagoner, gay in honour of the sweet month's 
 advent, touched his tanned forehead as we filed 
 past him, and drew his ribboned team aside 
 to let us go by in unbroken order. The road 
 was firm beneath our feet, and neither damp 
 nor dusty. The hedges were green on either 
 side ; and now and again, where a gate broke 
 in upon the hedgerow, we had glimpses of the 
 pleasant western country right or left. The 
 birds were with us from the very beginning of 
 our march ; and, at the sight of so much youth 
 and pleasure, sang their best and cheeriest. 
 
 I suppose the May weather touched the 
 juvenility which was certainly still vital in him
 
 A utobiography. 197 
 
 somewhere, for just as we reached Old Bunn's 
 strawberry gardens — a favourite resort of the 
 people of the little country-town hard by — the 
 Reverend Charles halted and addressed us. 
 ' Young gentlemen,' said the Reverend Charles, 
 1 you may now walk out of rank/ 
 
 There was a rush and a yell. The mob of 
 young gentlemen went headlong down the 
 lane. 
 
 Let me recall the place and the time. 
 Beyond Old Bunn's gardens ran three or four 
 cottages, each with its pleasant little plot in 
 front. On the opposite side of the lane, a 
 pond full of elderly tadpoles, and young frogs, 
 and strange creatures neither old tadpole nor 
 young frog, but in various intermediate con- 
 ditions. I remember them because of Gas- 
 coigne's lecture. Then beyond the pool a 
 gate, over which one mild young heifer pushed 
 an inquiring head, as if to ask what all the 
 noise was about. Beyond that a barn at a 
 corner of the highway, all ivy from base to 
 roof, except for the great oak doors. Beyond 
 the barn a dense mass of willows, white in the 
 May-day wind. And over all the May-day 
 sunshine, and the sense of liberty, and the 
 freshness of the spring ; and over even these
 
 t 98 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 the exultant gladness of the school-boy heart. 
 Round the corner to the left, hidden until now 
 by the thick-leaved hedges, an old farm- 
 house — rackety, tumble-down, picturesque. A 
 broken gate opening on a littered fowl-yard. 
 To the right that dense mass of willows, white 
 in the May- day wind, feathering off gradually, 
 with glimpses of the country between. And 
 then a sudden swerve, and a brook with a 
 fallen sapling across it, making its silver wave- 
 lets brawl a little ; and beyond the hay-meadow 
 on the other side, such a stretch of country as 
 you may seek in vain elsewhere. And over 
 all the May-day sunshine, and the sense of 
 liberty, and the freshness of the spring ; and 
 over even these the exultant gladness of the 
 school-boy heart. 
 
 I write this after midnight, on a cold March 
 night. The sound of London's latest traffic is 
 in my ears. A market-cart goes rumbling 
 towards Covent Garden. Yet a minute ago 
 I was back in those glad fields. The brook 
 rippled and the birds sang again. My old 
 schoolfellows were calling one another round 
 about me. My new friend was by my side. 
 I shall take his hand no more ; but, O Gas- 
 coigne, before I lay my pen down for the
 
 Autobiography. 199 
 
 night, let me sit awhile and fancy that you 
 too are back in those old scenes, and that 
 you think of them and of all the broken his- 
 tory which followed them with such repentance 
 as matches my forgiveness. 
 
 I dwell upon that day because it belongs 
 to him, and has grown for me to be a part 
 of him. We spent the whole afternoon to- 
 gether, and he charmed me. Even in those 
 early days he charmed everybody, and exer- 
 cised a subtle influence over all with whom 
 he came in contact. Below the fallen sapling 
 an old wooden baulk ran across the brook, 
 accompanied half-way by a decrepit hand- 
 rail, which failed just where it might have 
 begun to be of service. At the far end of 
 this baulk rose a magnificent elm, which over- 
 shadowed the water, and mixed its boughs 
 with those of the willows on the near side. 
 The Reverend Charles had given up his 
 scholars for the moment, and had resigned 
 himself to the situation. He was peacefully 
 walking along the road which ran by the 
 brook-side. He had his hands folded behind 
 him, and his hat very much at the back of 
 his head, and he was evidently giving up
 
 200 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 his good little heart to the serene enjoyment 
 of nature. Gascoigne pointed to him laugh- 
 ingly, and fell into so ludicrously accurate an 
 imitation of his gait that I laughed in return. 
 Mimicry I soon discovered was one of Gas- 
 coigne's special faculties. We sat down on 
 the baulk together at the water's edge, and 
 fell into conversation. To speak more ac- 
 curately, Gascoigne cross-examined me and 
 drew me out, and most skilfully and pleasantly 
 manipulated me. 
 
 ' You and 1/ he said, ' are going to be 
 friends. What's your name ? ' 
 
 I told him. 
 
 ' I shall call you Jack/ 
 
 I was really honoured beyond measure. I 
 told him my little story. I described Sally 
 and the little Black Country cottage ; and 
 told him of the young carpenter, and of Aunt 
 Bertha and Mr. Fairholt and Uncle Will and 
 Polly. There was a feeling of freshness and 
 even a little feeling of daring in making these 
 revelations to a stranger. He had put his 
 arm about my neck with a caressing protec- 
 tion which was natural to him, and as he had 
 said, we were friends. I quite despair of con- 
 veying to any reader who may not have a
 
 A utobiography. 2 o 1 
 
 similar remembrance the strength and rapidity 
 with which my affection for him and my ad- 
 miration of him took root and grew. He 
 listened with such an unaffected pleasure ; he 
 questioned with so delicate and natural a tact, 
 and with such a kindly interest, that my story 
 was told quite easily and without embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 He returned my confidence, and told me all 
 about himself. I gathered as the result of it 
 that his parents were not wealthy, but that he 
 was an only child, and had great expectations 
 from somebody, who meant to send him to 
 college and to make a man of him. He told 
 me that he meant to be a clergyman. ' Like 
 Mr. Davies ? ' I ventured to ask him. ' No, 
 he answered laughingly ; not at all like Mr. 
 Davies.' 
 
 Then we left the brook and wandered back 
 a little, and he told me all about the frog and 
 tadpole metamorphosis. We gathered wild- 
 flowers, and he knew the names of all — the 
 scientific names of some. His father, he told 
 me then, was a scientific man, and amazingly 
 clever. He had written books, and knew a 
 great deal more than Mr. Davies. This last 
 in answer to my queries. Then he led me on
 
 202 A Lijes Atonement. 
 
 to literature, and listened with a smiling, friendly 
 interest while he drew me out on that point. 
 One of his chief charms then and always was 
 that he had in perfection the art of putting 
 an inferior at ease. In after-days, when his 
 wish was fulfilled and he took his first curacy, 
 I have seen him exercise that art with farmers 
 and farm-labourers and the dull mechanics of 
 the village. They were all charmed with him ; 
 as indeed how could they have been otherwise ? 
 Our talk went on until the Reverend Charles 
 had gathered his strayed flock together, and 
 was continued as we marched in military order 
 home. He gave me a lift over a rough bit 
 of Valpe' — on whose mazes I had just entered 
 —that evening ; the first of many. To my 
 infinite delight he took the spare bed in the 
 room I slept in. Circumstances conspired in 
 favour of our friendship. School-hours parted 
 us of course, for he was far ahead of me, as 
 was only natural. But in the playground we 
 came together again, and in those games in 
 which I was unable to join I had at least the 
 satisfaction of seeing him outshine all our 
 companions. He was an Admirable Crichton, 
 and as good as he was clever and handsome. 
 Some of the meaner spirits envied him ; but
 
 Autobiography. 203 
 
 even Envy was shortly silenced. He took 
 and kept a place among us from the first, 
 which seemed to have been either reserved 
 or created for him, and in our young republic 
 he was president. His popularity never weaned 
 him from me. From the promise made on 
 the first afternoon of our acquaintance he never 
 deviated. We were friends. 
 
 The holidays came at last, and with the 
 groom came Sally to escort me home. Gas- 
 coigne and she had grown to know each other 
 long before this, of course. Sally was in love 
 with him ; and he, as much for her own sake 
 as for mine, was quite impressed with Sally. 
 We parted most affectionately, and met again 
 much sooner than we had hoped. For it 
 turned out that Gascoigne's father was an old 
 friend of Mr. Fairholt's, and that after having 
 left him unvisited for many years, as old friends 
 will, he came over one day in the first week 
 of the holidays, bringing Gascoigne with him. 
 I was by this time — the first shyness of our 
 reunion having disappeared — reinstalled as 
 jongleur, and Polly had again assumed her 
 regal state. A wild legend, into which Gas- 
 coigne was pitchforked as knight - deliverer, 
 and which I regret to say was afterwards
 
 204 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 imperiously set aside by Polly in favour of 
 1 The Three Bears,' was interrupted by Sally, 
 who ran up to tell me that Gascoigne had 
 arrived. I blush to admit that love and fealty 
 were alike forgotten for the moment, and that 
 I fell precipitately down stairs to greet my 
 friend, leaving Polly lonely with that weird 
 and incompleted legend. 
 
 The house and its inmates alike seemed 
 changed since that misty winter-night on which 
 I had left for school. Mr. Fairholt, who 
 never noticed me, went about in a slow, listless, 
 broken way. Uncle Will was less cheerful 
 than of old ; and a settled melancholy had 
 fallen on Aunt Bertha. Even Sally was sad- 
 dened in some way that I could not understand. 
 When I reached the hall, Mr. Fairholt was 
 greeting his guest, and Aunt Bertha was talking 
 to Gascoigne. Uncle Will entered at the same 
 moment, and with a momentary cheerfulness 
 took my companion and myself in charge, and 
 showed Gascoigne the stables and the dogs. 
 When we returned to the house we found that 
 it had been arranged that the visitors should 
 stay until the following evening, and Gascoigne 
 and I settled thereupon to talk. In the midst 
 of it I remembered Polly, whom I straightway
 
 Autobiography. 205 
 
 produced and introduced. He took her up 
 in his arms and kissed her — a proceeding at 
 which she feigned to be displeased. She over- 
 looked Gascoigne's error shortly afterwards, 
 and trotted after him everywhere, with a 
 wondering admiration of the things he did, 
 and an admiring wonder at him, which satisfied 
 me completely. 
 
 In consideration of Gascoigne's presence, I 
 was allowed to sit up a little later than usual. 
 We sat together as it grew dusk in the little 
 room commonly used by Aunt Bertha, and I 
 was relating the story of the first appearance 
 of the face. Gascoigne had his arm about my 
 neck as usual, and I was looking up at him 
 as I spoke, when I noticed that he had ceased 
 to listen, and was peering into the dusk with a 
 somewhat alarmed expression. I stopped ; and 
 he pointed through the window, asking in a 
 whisper, 'Jack, what's that V 
 
 I looked out also, and saw the figure of a 
 man, who came silently and with a stealthy 
 crouching run across the lawn. I was just 
 about to cry out in fear when I recognised the 
 crouching figure as that of Uncle Will. But 
 almost before I was assured of this I was again 
 frightened. A hand was laid upon the window
 
 206 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 sill, and a head slowly rose above it. The 
 head turned from side to side, as if in suspi- 
 cious watchfulness. 
 
 ' A burglar ! ' whispered Gascoigne. 
 
 Uncle Will came nearer, with a slower step 
 and with still greater caution, until he was 
 near enough to lay a sudden hand upon the 
 shoulder of the man who crouched beneath the 
 window. At the touch the man started to his 
 feet, and I fell back from Gascoigne's hold 
 with a shriek. 'The face!' Horrified as I 
 was by this sudden apparition of my phantom, 
 I saw all that happened outside and heard the 
 one word spoken. All that happened was that 
 my phantom, turning round, threw his hands 
 upwards and backwards and recoiled. In a 
 flash of time he recovered himself and fled, 
 and melted like a shadow in the shadows of 
 the night. Uncle Will's first gesture was the 
 same. He also recoiled with his hands thrown 
 back and up, and so for the merest fragment 
 of a second they faced each other. As my 
 phantom turned to fly, the other precipitated 
 himself towards him as if to seize him. He was 
 too late, and lost his footing. Recovering him- 
 self, he followed that flying shadow with a cry : 
 
 ' Frank ! '
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 A good safe vengeance in the way of business. 
 
 1\/TR. TASKER, seated at his table in 
 ^ *~ his own private room in Acre Buildings, 
 communed with himself. No great amount 
 of Mr. Tasker's energies were at any time ab- 
 sorbed by the actual transaction of business. 
 The spider's little affair with the fly is rather 
 a matter of pleasure than of business — to the 
 spider. It is in the spinning of his web 
 that that wary insect expends his powers. 
 So it was with Mr. Tasker. At this time he 
 was spinning most warily, and he did his 
 work with a relish also. It was a pleasant 
 summer afternoon. Acre Buildings were so 
 far back from the main thoroughfare that the 
 hum of traffic came soothingly and pleasantly 
 upon the ear. The sparrows chattered about
 
 208 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 the roof and in the trees and on the pave- 
 ment. Things had a rural look and sound 
 and scent thereabouts. There was a long 
 box of mignonette on the ledge of Mr. Tasker's 
 window. That window was open, and the 
 exquisite perfume of the flower filled the apart- 
 ment. The sunlight fell in broken flecks upon 
 the floor and danced on the roof, reflected 
 thither by a carafe of water which Mr. Tasker 
 had just laid down. A glass of brandy-and- 
 water stood at his elbow. He held a big 
 Havana between his finger and thumb, and 
 lost in reverie, forgot to light it. 
 
 'We shall see,' said Mr. Tasker with his 
 pleasant smile. He roused himself, lit his 
 cigar, placed his feet upon the table, and with 
 the tumbler in his hand, lolled there, a pic- 
 ture of careless ease. Yet the brain of Mr. 
 Tasker was busy, and its theme was vengeance. 
 Not vengeance after any tragic fashion, for 
 to such height Tasker was too prudent to 
 rise, having a soul to save and a neck to 
 take care of; but vengeance in a good, safe, 
 usurious, profitable way, and in the way of 
 business. And his thought was, ' Can I get 
 Mr. Frank Fairholt in my hands again, and 
 grind him down, and make him ask for time,
 
 History. 209 
 
 and flout him and expose him to his friends ? ' 
 The answer just then to this amiable inquiry 
 was ' Yes ;' and Mr. Tasker evolved his plans, 
 and enjoyed his victory in anticipation. Those 
 outspoken allusions to Shylock and his pound 
 of flesh rankled in Mr. Tasker's mind. They 
 were displeasing allusions, apart from their 
 personal application, because they bespoke a 
 good game played in vain — a checkmate to a 
 compatriot. Tasker, half enveloped in smoke, 
 looked through the window into the thick- 
 leaved branches of the nearest tree with half- 
 closed eyes, and sipped his liquor relishingly. 
 A note lay upon the table, and Tasker dug 
 at it with his heel as he leaned back there. 
 * You shall help me,' said he with a chuckle. 
 'And I will throw you both into the same 
 boat, and you shall both row to the devil.' 
 He lay back again and chuckled enjoyingly 
 over his own reflections ; then sipped again 
 and resumed his cigar. ' He is not at all 
 better than a fool,' he continued, following out 
 his own train of thought — 'he is not at all 
 better than a fool, that Hastings. I shall use 
 him as I like when he comes here. We shall 
 see — we shall see.' 
 
 At this moment Tasker's boy knocked at 
 vol. 1. o
 
 2io A Life's Atonement. 
 
 the door and announced a visitor. Tasker 
 took his feet from the table, and turned round 
 to welcome, with a nod of the head and a 
 left hand outstretched sideways, Mr. Hastings. 
 That young gentleman sauntered in languidly, 
 and put a little finger into the proffered hand. 
 ' And how is Egypt, my chosen Israelite ? ' he 
 asked, seating himself on the table. 
 
 1 Egypt is fat and well and flourishing,' re- 
 sponded Mr. Tasker with a gay good-humour. 
 
 'Is Israel well and fat and flourishing ?' 
 asked Hastings. 
 
 1 Pretty well — pretty well/ answered Tasker, 
 in the best of tempers and the most charm- 
 ing of good spirits. 
 
 1 Pretty well is very well,' the other re- 
 sponded, with a solemn langour of manner. 
 1 I'll take a weed, Tasker. Yours are always 
 good, I know. — Thank you.' 
 
 'You have come,' said Mr. Tasker, smil- 
 ingly holding forth his cigar-case, and speak- 
 ing with that little effort to be clear and sharp 
 about his Cs and 5"s, which showed him most 
 keenly watchful of himself — l you have come 
 most punctually. You are here to time, Mr. 
 Hastings, like a clock.' 
 
 ' I am here punctually , as you observe,' re-
 
 History. 211 
 
 turned Hastings, lighting his cigar, and speak- 
 ing leisurely as he does so. ' I am, I regret to 
 say, less like a clock than a clock-case — empty.' 
 
 Tasker was in admirable spirits. ' You will 
 have your little choke, Mr. Hastings/ 
 
 ' I deserve my little choke,' said Hastings, 
 accepting Tasker phonetically, ' for coming here 
 at all' 
 
 Tasker did not understand. But Hastings 
 had said so many things which Tasker did 
 not understand, that one more or less made 
 little difference. He knew that this flippant 
 and careless and impudent young man used 
 him and despised him. But he knew also 
 that he used and despised the flippant and 
 impudent young man. There was a little 
 balance of hatred on Tasker's side, though 
 he scarcely cared to show it. A man who will 
 one day have twenty thousand a year, was 
 not to be insulted lightly, though he had 
 something less than nothing now. Tasker 
 knew that the allowance of the young gentle- 
 man before him was eaten up for the next 
 three years ; but he knew also that a single 
 quarter's income from the paternal estate was 
 just equivalent to these responsibilities, and 
 that Hastings senior was old and frail. It was
 
 212 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 Tasker's cue to be astonished at the fact that 
 his client was unable to take up a bill which 
 fell due next day. In order that his astonish- 
 ment might come with natural force he took 
 it for granted that business would go smoothly. 
 
 ' If all my clients was so punctual/ said Tasker, 
 \ my business relations would be quite pleasant.' 
 
 ' Say " relatives," Tasker. Your business 
 relatives are always pleasant. Pleasantry is 
 the badge of all your tribe.' 
 
 ' I forget at this moment,' said Tasker, with 
 a lifting of his arched and heavy eyebrows, 
 1 what it is that you have got to pay/ 
 
 Hastings answered lazily, ' I am not about 
 to remind you too rudely of the amount, by 
 any payment of the money/ 
 
 1 Goot heavens, Mr. Hastings ! I hope you 
 are not in serious earnest ? ' 
 
 ' Set your mind at rest. I never am in 
 serious earnest.' 
 
 • I do not comprehend,' said Mr. Tasker, 
 rising. • I hope you do not mean to zay that 
 you gannot bay me ? ' 
 
 ' Unto that end, most valiant, am I come,' 
 Hastings answered, thrumming lightly on the 
 table, and regarding his companion with a 
 look of solemn gravity. ' By the way,' he
 
 History. 213 
 
 questioned with a passing gleam of interest, 
 * was that a quotation or an inspiration ? ' 
 
 ' It was a bill at four months/ groaned 
 Tasker. 
 
 1 He is like the dyer's hand,' said the other, 
 in abstracted soliloquy, ' subdued to what he 
 works in.' 
 
 ' You must not dalk in this way,' exclaimed 
 Tasker with energy. ' I have debended upon 
 you. I have engagements.' 
 
 ' You remind me,' replied Hastings, taking 
 out his watch, ' I also have engagements. 
 Let us get our business over. Leave your 
 damnable faces, and begin.' 
 
 1 My faces is not your business,' said Tasker, 
 with well-simulated wrath. ' I have had too 
 much of this. I have ztood it too long. I 
 will not ztand it any longer. I must be paid, 
 Mr. Hastings — I must be paid.' 
 
 'When the irresistible encounters the im- 
 pregnable, what happens ? ' asked Hastings 
 with an air of calm. 'It is an unfortunate 
 conjunction of circumstances — unfortunate, 
 but interesting — deeply interesting. Allow me 
 to ask you to notice the situation. You must 
 be paid. That is an absolute necessity ? 
 Very good. I cannot pay you. That is an
 
 2 14 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 absolute fact. Positive need on the one hand. 
 Positive incapacity on the other. 
 
 ' Do you mean to zwindle me, Mr. Hast- 
 ings ? ' asked Tasker with an aspect of increas- 
 ing anger. 
 
 1 1 am not accustomed to analyse my motives ; 
 but at a rough guess, I should be inclined to 
 answer " Yes." But I am so perfectly con- 
 vinced that in the end you will swindle me, 
 that my intentions are of little moment.' 
 
 It was a little curious that Tasker in simu- 
 lating anger grew really angry. The gibes of 
 his flippant client scarcely touched him, but 
 his own presentiment of wrath awakened wrath 
 within him. Like a good actor, he threw him- 
 self into his part with thoroughness, and be- 
 came that he seemed. It took him trouble 
 to calm himself and bring himself down to the 
 mere acting condition again. It would have 
 been so pleasant to rend somebody, that it 
 was dangerous to his interests even to play 
 at doing it in this case, lest he should yield to 
 the temptation to do it in good earnest. 
 
 ' I do not want to guarrel with you ; I do 
 not want to take exdreme measures, Mr. 
 Hastings,' Tasker resumed, having succeeded 
 in leashing himself. ' There now ! ' He
 
 History. 2 1 5 
 
 threw himself into his chair again, and re- 
 lighted his cigar. Then with his glass in his 
 hand, he leaned back and set his feet upon the 
 table. I will be galm and guiet ; I will listen 
 to reason.' 
 
 ' Your resolve is laudable,' returned the other 
 with the same imperturbable face and voice. 
 ' When you say that you will listen to reason, 
 you mean that you will listen to me. I accept 
 the implied compliment. I think I may ven- 
 ture to assert that I am prepared to converse 
 with equal ease and elegance upon any topic 
 which may be introduced.' 
 
 ' Aha ! ' laughed Tasker, the corners of his 
 mouth a trifle tigerish — ' it is all your good- 
 humour. It is all your English fun. Now 
 we will talk about this bill. I am tied up for 
 money. You are tied up for money. Now 
 what zhall we do ? ' 
 
 ' Doth not Wisdom cry, and Understanding 
 put forth her voice ? Let us toss up for it.' 
 
 ' Dors up for what ? Dors up for nothing ? ' 
 asked Tasker, resolutely good-humoured. 
 1 Now, what can we do ? Can you pay me 
 in a week ? In two weeks ? In three 
 weeks ? ' 
 
 In answer to each of these inquiries,
 
 216 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 Hastings shook his head : ' Renew for three 
 months.' 
 
 'Impossible!' returned Tasker, still smiling 
 through his cloud of smoke. ' I tell you I 
 do not know where to turn. Yet I am not 
 a poor man. I have money enough, but it 
 is all out. And now I am galled upon to 
 pay away money to-morrow, and I have not 
 got it. It is all out. Gentlemen will not 
 pay. They all come here and zay, " Renew," 
 as if I was Grcesus.' 
 
 ' Now listen and perpend,' replied Hastings. 
 ' Three months from date I pledge you my 
 honour either to pay or to renew again.' 
 
 ' I should like to keep my demper, Mr. 
 Hastings,' returned Tasker, ' if you will be zo 
 goot.' 
 
 ' I don't know what price you may set 
 upon your time,' the other answered, ' but 
 mine is valuable. Will you come to a con- 
 clusion ? ' 
 
 Tasker haggled for a while, and then came 
 down with the proposition for which he had 
 paved the way by all this manoeuvring. ' It 
 is in your power, Mr. Hastings, to do me a 
 vavour. It is a vavour very easy for you. 
 A gentleman in the country, who is my very
 
 History. 2 1 7 
 
 goot friend, employs me to buy his bigtures. 
 He has heard of a bigture which is to be 
 great. He wishes to buy it. He inztructs 
 me. But my hands are tied. I gannot dis- 
 oblige my very goot friend in the country. 
 But I gannot buy the bigture myself because 
 the artist will not do business with me. We 
 are not on derms with each other. Will you 
 go and see the work, and make an offer for 
 it ? Will you zo far oblige me, my dear sir, 
 if I renew the little bill ? ' 
 
 1 I don't care, answered Hastings. ' Who 
 shall I say wants the picture ? ' 
 
 f Ah ! ' said Mr. Tasker, smiling once more, 
 1 my goot friend in the country is vond of 
 mystery." He does not wish it to be known 
 that he is purchasing this work until it is 
 his. Then he will zay, " You have gome 
 too late, you people. The work is zold. I 
 have been before you, and the work of the 
 year is mine for a zong." ' 
 
 ' Does it occur to you, most ridiculous 
 Tasker, that an artist might decline to sell 
 to me for an unknown patron ? ' 
 
 ' That is once more your fun,' Tasker re- 
 sponded, still smiling. ' You will go to your 
 friend and zay, " You are zending this work
 
 218 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 to the Winter Exhibition ? Very goot. Will 
 you zell it for four hundred guineas ? Very 
 goot. The money will be paid one week after 
 the bigture has been hung. Very goot again." 
 That is all to do.' 
 
 1 Who is the artist ? ' 
 
 1 The artist is Mr. Fairholt, of Montague 
 Gardens.' 
 
 1 I will execute your commission, my Tasker, 
 with joy/ 
 
 ' My name must not appear, you know,' 
 said Tasker, with his tigerish smile in full 
 play. ' He has guarrelled with me, and will 
 not have anything more to do. We had a 
 great zhindy — as you gall it — in this very 
 room. He was angry, and we guarrelled. I 
 most have the bigture, Mr. Hastings, for my 
 friend in the country. 
 
 • Your friend in the country shall not be 
 disappointed, Tasker.' 
 
 Mr. Tasker, smiling, renewed the bill ; and 
 Hastings went his way to mystify Frank. 
 The usurer left alone once more, threw him- 
 self back into his chair ; and setting his heels 
 upon the table, held inward communion. Mr. 
 Tasker thought in German, but his thoughts 
 translated ran thus : ' Mr. Benjamin Hartley
 
 History. 2 1 9 
 
 entrusts me with this commission. I accept it, 
 as in duty bound ; and I accept it gladly, 
 because it opens up a way to a sly and mean 
 vengeance after my own heart. I will plague 
 this impertinent artist by this means. I know 
 how he was able to pay me last time ; and 
 I think he has pumped that well dry for a 
 little while. If I could only get him into my 
 hands again ! If I could get him for a bill 
 he could not meet, and could hold back the 
 price of the picture, and plague his proud 
 heart for a week or two. If I could have him 
 here begging for time, and knowing all the 
 while that he was independent of me if he 
 only knew it, and knowing that he did not 
 know it. I could keep Hastings from speak- 
 ing. I could have out half-a-dozen writs 
 against him, and send him over to Boulogne 
 for quiet. Fairholt should not guess where 
 he had got to. He should not know the 
 purchaser of his picture. He should be wait- 
 ing for money, and hoping for it every day ; 
 and he should tremble under my hand. He 
 should beg my pardon. He should pay me 
 such interest as was never paid before. He 
 should cringe and sue to me ; and then I 
 would apply to his father for payment, and
 
 220 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 then I would send him Mr. Benjamin Hartley's 
 cheque. He should be humiliated, and ex- 
 posed, and tortured with hope, and his hope 
 should drop into his hands an hour too late/ 
 Thus thought Tasker, until his own pleasant 
 imaginings became too tantalising for him. 
 ' Himmel ! ' said Tasker with a sigh, ' it is too 
 goot to be drue.' He rose and paced up and 
 down the room. ' But it zhall not vail because 
 I do not try it. I zhould like to ruin him, to 
 break him down and bring him into beggary. 
 " My pound of vlesh." I can try for it at 
 least/ 
 
 Dr. Johnson liked a good hater, but I do not 
 think he would have been enamoured of Mr. 
 Tasker, who was a decent hater as times go. 
 
 Hastings pursued his leisurely way to Mon- 
 tague Gardens, untroubled and light of heart. 
 He beguiled the way by self-satisfied reflection. 
 Yet he was in his way a philosopher, and 
 valued himself pretty accurately at times. 
 1 There is a little demon inside you, my friend,' 
 he told himself, ' who overmasters you upon 
 occasion, and clouds your finer faculties. 
 Having nobody else to chaff at this juncture, 
 he chaffed himself, laughing at his own in-
 
 History. 221 
 
 congruities of character and of speech, and 
 looking on at himself like a quite disinterested 
 spectator, and enjoying the spectacle. Life 
 had been so far an uninterrupted series of 
 passages of light comedy. He was leading 
 comedian and audience in one. He looked 
 on at himself, admiring his own sang-froid and 
 impudence and jollity. He talked as much 
 to himself as to others, and in the same strain. 
 He was sufficient audience to himself, and 
 perpetually aired himself behind the comedy 
 footlights for his own delectation. He ad- 
 mired himself beyond measure, and thought 
 himself at bottom one of the humblest men 
 in the world. 
 
 Arriving at Frank's rooms, he found the 
 artist hard at work, and jovial. At the sight 
 of the picture, now nearly completed, Hastings 
 stood still in genuine admiration. The artist 
 had struggled after a very difficult and subtle 
 effect, and had all but perfectly succeeded in 
 catching it. An autumn corn-field, with shocks 
 of corn here and there. A level country melts 
 gradually into the distance. The late sunlight 
 is so faint and dim that only the faintest sha- 
 dows lie upon the ground. They are made the 
 fainter by a pallid gleam of moonlight, which
 
 222 A L if is A tonement. 
 
 struggles for supremacy with the light of the 
 fading sun, and will gain it before long. It is 
 this delicate blending of light which makes the 
 beauty of the picture. Perhaps the technique 
 of the work is not altogether perfect. Over 
 that let the critics quarrel if they will ; but the 
 poetry of the work is pure and strong. Its 
 grouping is beyond all cavil. The ideal at 
 which it aims is high, and only missed by the 
 merest trifle. Only missed by that mere 
 trifle, because the painter has not yet arrived 
 at the complete artistic mastery of himself. 
 You feel somehow a suspicion of juvenility 
 in the worker. You may see the picture now 
 if you choose — at any time when the family 
 is in town or abroad — by a journey to Hartley 
 Hall. It is one of the gems of the great mil- 
 lionaire's almost unrivalled collection. It has 
 taken its place and is pointed out now as the 
 work of the most promising artist of his time. 
 The housekeeper will make a vague shot or 
 two at the mystery which this story for the 
 first time clears. She will tell you, if you 
 care to listen, that she knew the young gentle- 
 man who painted it, and will describe him to 
 you, and will relate further that a niece of hers 
 was upper housemaid in the household of the
 
 History. 223 
 
 artist's father. She will dwell on the respect- 
 ability of that old county family, and on the 
 melancholy enigma of the handsome and gifted 
 young artist's fate. 
 
 ' Fairholt,' said Hastings, laying a hand upon 
 his friend's shoulder, ' this is noble ; this is 
 great ; this is worthy of you/ 
 
 ' It will sell, anyhow,' returned Frank, taking 
 his friend's enthusiasm for chaff. 
 
 1 My dear Fairholt,' said Hastings, ' I mean 
 it, every word. It is my fate to be believed 
 when I desire to be discredited, and doubted 
 when I would he believed. This is a great 
 work, Fairholt.' 
 
 ' Be serious for once, and tell me what you 
 really think of it.' 
 
 * I am about to give you practical proof of 
 what I think of it. I am here on business. 
 Wait until I have finished, and then tell me 
 I am incredible. I am commissioned to buy 
 this work ; I am commissioned to offer you 
 four hundred guineas for it. Now, I advise 
 you — put another hundred on it. I advise you 
 as a friend. Put another hundred on it. Do 
 now — to oblige me.' 
 
 1 You look serious,' said Frank, standing 
 before him, pipe in mouth.
 
 224 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 ' The Rhadamanthine gloom which veils my 
 brow,' returned Hastings, with an airy cheer- 
 fulness of explanation, ' is but an earnest of 
 the soul within/ 
 
 ' Do you really mean that you have a com- 
 mission to buy this picture ? ' Frank asked, 
 pointing at it with his maul-stick. 
 
 ' I am painfully reminded of the statement 
 of Dr. Watts, where, with a profound phi- 
 losophy which was a real credit to him, he 
 remarks, " A liar we can never trust, though 
 he should speak the thing that's true." ' 
 
 ' I don't think you would have the execrable 
 taste to do this in jest.' 
 
 ■ You do me honour,' replied Hastings. 
 
 ' " Doubt that the stars are fire ; 
 
 Doubt that the earth doth move ; 
 Doubt truth to be a liar, 
 But never doubt " 
 
 that I have a commission to purchase this work 
 of art for the sum of four hundred guineas.' 
 
 ' Then I have done work for the day. 
 Come out, Hastings, and dine somewhere. 
 Who's the purchaser ? ' 
 
 ' There, I regret to say, I am forbidden 
 to speak. The purchaser folds himself in 
 mystery.'
 
 History. 225 
 
 'This is too absurd, said Frank/ a little 
 angrily. 
 
 ' My dear boy,' answered Hastings, ' but that 
 I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison- 
 house, I would a tale unfold. Don't get 
 angry, Fairholt. Now, am I serious ? The 
 fact of the case is this, I am deputed by a 
 gentleman who does not wish his name to 
 appear, to offer you four hundred guineas for 
 this picture. If you accept, the money will 
 be paid within one week of the opening of 
 the Winter Exhibition. If you refuse, the 
 envoy retires discomfited.' 
 
 1 Refuse ! I have no intention that way, 
 I assure you. Come. Is it your father, 
 Hastings ? ' 
 
 c It is not my father, nor any relative of 
 mine, or friend of mine. I am simply the 
 agent. Am I to say you accept ? ' 
 
 1 Yes. By Jove, sir, this is a fortunate hit ! ' 
 Frank, in extravagant glee, posed with pipe 
 and maul-stick. ' Do you know, Hastings,' 
 he went on, recovering himself, \ that I sold 
 the daub at the Academy last week ? Got 
 two hundred for un. I am like that thunder- 
 ing blacksmith, and can look the whole world 
 in the face, for I owe not any man. Paid 
 vol. 1. p
 
 226 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 all my debts. Deposited coin to meet the 
 bill which dear old Will backed for me only a 
 week or two ago. Free of all responsibilities. 
 Five-and-forty quid to the good. Four hun- 
 dred in prospective, and a quarterly allowance 
 due in a fortnight/ 
 
 ' I believe you dropped a hint just now 
 about dining somewhere ? ' 
 
 ' Which I did,' responded Frank. ■ Which 
 I will demean myself by standing treat to the 
 commercial party wot negotiates.' 
 
 With a laugh, Frank flung himself out of 
 the studio, and in a few minutes returned 
 radiant in his costume. He was booted and 
 gloved as delicately as a lady. His air 
 was elate and sprightly. The well-browned 
 meerschaum — Bohemian emblem — sent forth 
 clouds. Removing the pipe from his lips, 
 he roared forth scraps of the Marseillaise, 
 and made tragic passes at Hastings with 
 his walking-cane. Next seizing that impas- 
 sive young gentleman by the arm, he sallied 
 forth into the street with such a beaming 
 pleasure in his handsome face, that people 
 positively turned to look after him. His 
 spirits were at fever-heat, and he chattered 
 incessantly. The streets were growing cool
 
 History. 227 
 
 after the heat of the day ; and when a man 
 is happy, even the streets of London may be 
 pleasant to him. The shadows were grow- 
 ing longer ; there was a soft, hazy languor in 
 the air. In these prosperous quarters, the 
 window-gardens looked charming. The varie- 
 gated blinds did something towards destroy- 
 ing the monotony of the streets. The very 
 * cooee' of the milkman was pleasant. Who 
 cannot remember such times ? I remember 
 that London has seemed beautiful. But it 
 was years ago. 
 
 If you are travelling from Montague Gardens 
 to Pali-Mall, your pleasantest way is through 
 St. James's Park, though when hurried you 
 may find a shorter route. Frank and Hastings 
 were not hurried, but the contrary. Is there 
 any beauty in a manly face like that given by 
 unaffected gaiety ? I think not. The young 
 artist looked like an incarnate sunbeam — so 
 bright, so jovial. Nursemaids turned round 
 and looked upon him with undisguised admir- 
 ation, and their charges brightened at his 
 merry, noisy laughter. Youth and high spirits 
 sparkled in him like champagne, and flushed 
 his face, and gave light to his eyes. His laugh 
 rose like a bubbling fountain of wine. He and
 
 228 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 Hastings strolled through the park, and out of 
 its sunlight and freshness into the shadows of 
 Pail-Mall ; dusty despite the one ribbon-like 
 streak of moisture which the recent watering- 
 cart had left behind. 
 
 Entering Pall-Mail, and taking the first turn 
 to the left, you may find the site of the club at 
 which these two dined that day. The club has 
 vanished. Its members are distributed through 
 the four quarters of the globe. Some are dead 
 and buried long ago. They were all young 
 fellows then — mostly followers of the arts. 
 Very gay, very noisy, very untrammelled, very 
 happy they were. The club system was a 
 younger and a fresher thing then than now, 
 and all the more enjoyment was therefore to be 
 extracted from it. There are no clubs like it 
 nowadays. The piano in the smoke-room — the 
 nightly songs and speeches and discussions — 
 the select section, a club within a club, which 
 called itself the Claret Conclave, and whose 
 members drank that wine alone within the club 
 confines — the chorus wherein all men then 
 present nightly joined — the moustached and 
 olive-complexioned gentlemen of the Royal 
 Opera, who came down late at night and some- 
 times stayed until early in the morning, making
 
 History. 229 
 
 the walls sweetly vocal — the eminent old tra- 
 gedian who spouted there, ' mouthing his hollow 
 oes and aes ' in sonorous dissertations upon 
 Hamlet — the eminent old comedian who told 
 his droll stories with so droll an air — where be 
 all these things and people now ? They are 
 dead and gone, lady — they are dead and gone. 
 Let the turf be green and light above them, 
 and the stone of remembrance not unkindly 
 graven. 
 
 The culinary resources of this establishment, 
 though not at that pitch of perfection which 
 satisfies Young England now, were not to be 
 despised. Over the mysteries of the cuisine 
 no Parisian maitre a" hotel presided ; but was 
 not old Nicholas trained in the very citadel of 
 cookery, and was there his equal in any of the 
 statelier clubs hard by ? The club bragged of 
 Nicholas, not without justification. At Frank's 
 special command, Nicholas went beyond him- 
 self. It was another charm of this old club, 
 that when you went to dine there, you held a 
 special consultation with the cook, and arranged 
 your dinner with as much deliberation and 
 care and forethought as you chose to exercise. 
 Nicholas took his clients — let me call them by 
 no meaner name for his sake — into his confi-
 
 230 A Lifts Atonement. 
 
 dence. Sure of his resources, and eager and 
 proud to please, he yet advised and persuaded, 
 offering with a humility the more charming for 
 the greatness of him who displayed it, gentle, 
 and sausive counsel, not often rejected. Would 
 they give Nicholas but half-an-hour ? Would 
 they not ? And at the end of it came such an 
 atonement for delay as few men find in this 
 unsatisfactory world. 
 
 All enjoyments come to an end. Even five- 
 and-twenty cannot dine for ever. It is to be 
 regretted perhaps that the capacity of five-and- 
 twenty for drinking is less limited when it 
 gives its mind that way. ' Ethereal, flushed,' 
 these young gentlemen left the table and 
 adjourned to the smoking-room. They were 
 hailed boisterously. It was Music-night, and 
 every man who entered these precincts must 
 sing if the assembled members willed that he 
 should sing. No plea of inability to sing — no 
 excuse of hoarseness would avail. So long 
 as the Gigantic Native sat at the piano, no 
 lapsus of memory could serve as a loop-hole 
 for escape. For the Gigantic Native knew by 
 heart every song of Europe, or thereabouts, 
 and would roar you the words, line by line, 
 whilst those enormous but facile hands of his
 
 History. 231 
 
 went flying over the keys. Now Frank was 
 the swell vocalist of the club, and Hastings 
 was its special singer of comic songs. With 
 what a tragic fury the latter warbled the many- 
 tuned ditties of Sam Cowell. In what a ter- 
 mendous bass he declaimed ' Behold me ! You 
 told me/ and the rest of it. In what debonair 
 fashion he related that Alonzo he was hand- 
 some, and Alonzo he was young. How ex- 
 quisitely and in what a soft and tender falsetto 
 he trilled forth the protestations of the young 
 lady. And could the Great Sam himself ap- 
 proach him in that exquisite fidelity to the 
 Cockney style and accent which was one of 
 the special features of his presentiment of the 
 story of Young Susan and the Ship's Carpen- 
 teer ? The varying emphasis of that charming 
 chorus : 
 
 * Singin' doddle, doddle, doddle, chip, chum, chow, 
 choora, li, la,' 
 
 now given with' martial fire, and now with 
 melting feeling, and now with scathing sarcasm, 
 who — if not the Great Sam himself — should 
 presume to strive to equal ? 
 
 And was not Frank poet as well as singer — 
 and had not Herr Broekenyack set his last
 
 232 A Lifes Atonement, 
 
 to music, and was not the fame thereof bruited 
 abroad ? Herr Professor was absent ; but the 
 Gigantic Native was there with a blotted 
 manuscript, undecipherable by any man save 
 himself and the professor, and with it he 
 seated himself at £he piano ; and after prelimin- 
 ary settlings of his coat and arrangings of his 
 wristsbands, as though preparing to tear the 
 instrument in sunder, instead thereof, kissed 
 its keys most delicately with his finger tips, 
 and tripped through the dainty prelude. Frank 
 stood at the piano, flushed, confident, hand- 
 some — a tender sentiment in his heart ; for 
 the words were of Maud, and reminded him of 
 her. He closed his eyes for a second, and was 
 back at the gate in the gardens again, and 
 the evening sunlight was tranquil on the 
 tranquil fields. But the note of preparation 
 sounded, and he sang this song : — 
 
 ' Her spirit dwells about me like a thought ; 
 I know her far, yet feel her near the while ; 
 For me all rapture of delight is caught 
 
 In her remembered smile. 
 And London's wintry evening, mirk and grey, 
 
 Is fair as summer's fairest, when the skies 
 Fade into one pure azure, and the day, 
 Worn out with pleasure, dies ! ' 
 
 Great applause followed ; for they were
 
 History. 233 
 
 generous and genial young people all, and 
 proud of their comrades and of their achieve- 
 ments, and they had a sublime belief in each 
 other, and were bound in the bonds of an en- 
 during brotherhood. So, with rattling of glasses, 
 and rapping of tables, and hearty bravos and 
 vivas in his ears, Frank resumed his seat. 
 We affected whisky-punch here, observe you, 
 we who were not of that cold Claret Conclave. 
 ' Whisky - punch, sir ? Yessir.' The very 
 waiter was proud to wait on Frank. Hastings 
 had disseminated the story of the sold pictures. 
 The Academy success of the year was already 
 assured. Frank was the hero of the place 
 and the hour. Hastings had of course told 
 each man privately, and in confidence ; and 
 by the time each man felt disposed to impart 
 the confidence to some one else, almost every- 
 body knew. But they all came — to the num- 
 ber of five-and-twenty perhaps — and congratu- 
 lated Frank in private, and shook hands with 
 him gladly, and told him how pleased they 
 were at his successes. 
 
 1 Fairholt,' said Hastings, 'this is growing 
 dull and noisy. Dulness is unpleasant, and 
 noise is unpleasant. Combined they are un- 
 bearable. Come away.'
 
 234 -^ Life's Atonement, 
 
 * I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Frank gaily. 
 1 I'll give you your revenge. On one condition 
 — that you never ask me to touch a card 
 again. But I won heavily from you last 
 time, old fellow, and I can afford to play to- 
 night, eh ? ' 
 
 1 Your star is in the ascendant to-night/ 
 Hastings answered. ' But I like to go where 
 the fight is hottest. Come along. Not here. 
 Let us get away where we can be quiet.' 
 
 The time is an hour after midnight, the 
 place the card-room of the club in which you 
 first met Hastings. There are four men play- 
 ing at vingt-et-un. Two of them we know ; 
 the other two you would probably not care 
 to know. 
 
 4 Cleaned out ? ' says Hastings, looking up 
 at Frank. 
 
 1 Cleaned out,' responds Frank, with an 
 idiotic laugh, and a lurch forward at a 
 tumbler. 
 
 ' Wait here a moment,' Hastings answers, 
 and rising somewhat unsteadily, leaves the 
 room. 
 
 There is an exultant light in Mr. Tasker's 
 eyes as he enters a minute or two after-
 
 History. 235 
 
 wards. A smile flickers at the corners of 
 his mouth. 
 
 Frank comes to meet him. 
 
 * No, Hastings/ he says, with an air of 
 stern determination, ' I have no more to do 
 with this fellow/ 
 
 'Why, Mr. Vairhold,' says Mr. Tasker 
 cheerfully, ' you gannot zurely bear malice for 
 a hasty wort. I am very zorry. I apologise 
 with all my heart.' 
 
 Frank looks upon him for a moment, and 
 relaxes. ' You're a good fellow, Tasker. 
 I'm afraid I have been very unpolite. Ex- 
 cuse me.' 
 
 They shake hands, and the foolish young 
 fellow laughs again. They retire to a table 
 at the far end of the room. 
 
 1 In your name, Mr. Vairhold ? ' asks Tasker, 
 sitting there with a pen in his hand. 
 
 ' Of course,' Frank answers. ' Be quiet, 
 Hastings. — Hastings is hard up, you know,' 
 he tells Tasker, with another idiotic laugh. 
 
 * It is lucky,' says Tasker in a low voice, 
 ' that I have gash about me. It is all a jance. 
 I have seventy-five. Will that do ? ' 
 
 ' That's enough,' says Frank, lurching at the 
 notes.
 
 236 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 1 Zhall I zay at three months ? ' asks Mr. 
 Tasker. ' I will not zay a hundred. I do not 
 like level figures. Ninety-eight pounds ten ; 
 for value rezeived. Thank you.' Mr. Tasker 
 puts the promissory-note into his pocket-book, 
 shakes hands, and goes. Frank calls him 
 back. 
 
 ' You'll forget all about that, you know, old 
 fellow. You're a good fellow.' 
 
 ' Oh yes!' says Mr. Tasker, with genial good- 
 humour. ( I am a good vellow. We are all 
 good vellows.' As he goes down-stairs he 
 rubs his hands gleefully. - What a sdroke of 
 luck ! ' He pauses beneath the lamplight at 
 the foot of the stairs, and looks at the note 
 again. 'At three months — Ninety - eight 
 pounds ten/
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 The broken windows winked and leered wilh patches. 
 
 ^VR. BRAND sat in an easy-chair and 
 smoked a quiet cigar after the fatigues 
 of the day. You may recognise him, though 
 you have spent so small a time in his society. 
 Dr. Brand was not a man to be easily forgotten, 
 having been once encountered. In the first 
 place, he had the advantage of physical size 
 wherewith to impress you. In the second 
 place, his eagle beak and his square jaw, his 
 keen and somewhat too imperious eyes, his 
 big broad head, and his wavy mass of grizzled 
 hair, were each memorable. A great loose- 
 limbed, masterful-looking man, with kind- 
 nesses in him and coarsenesses. A man who 
 was alive to the very ends of his hair, and who 
 rejoiced in life. An old Viking sort of man,
 
 238 A Lifes Atone7nent. 
 
 who ate and drank hugely, worked inordinately, 
 laughed out of all form and fashion, had 
 gigantic rages, and strange fits of tenderness 
 — altogether, a remarkable man. 
 
 Seated opposite was the doctor's wife, who 
 was just such a contrast to him as such a man 
 might delight in — a pretty little creature who, 
 though thirty, looked no more than twenty. 
 The kind of woman who seems to be made 
 for the express purpose of idolising the Dr. 
 Brand kind of man. You might almost guess 
 how much she idolised him, by the satisfied 
 expression of her eyes as they rested upon 
 him in placid watchfulness of all his loose and 
 careless movements. 
 
 'Ma miel said the doctor, my practice in- 
 creases enormously. 
 
 * Indeed, James ?' 
 
 1 I shall shortly have to retire in self-defence. 
 I have a whole mob of people who are trying 
 to absorb my time. They live in a court off 
 Oxford Street, and are not worth one penny 
 per annum/ 
 
 ' I suppose not.' 
 
 ' I might,' said the doctor, rolling himself 
 round in his chair to look at her — ' I might say, 
 " Let the parish doctor see to em." But he
 
 History, 239 
 
 can't see to 'em. I don't know him ; but if 
 that man does his duty, he will work himself 
 to death. Six of him would be worked to 
 death.' 
 
 ' Is there so much sickness ? ' 
 
 ' The wonder isn't that there's so much sick- 
 ness as that there is so little. You'd say so 
 if you saw the hole they live in. I thought 
 I knew the slums, but God bless my soul ! ' 
 said the doctor, rolling round again, ' I couldn't 
 have believed it.' 
 
 ' What made you go there ? ' asked his wife. 
 
 1 Do you remember Penkridge ? ' asked the 
 doctor, in return. 
 
 * Penkridge ? Do you mean the odd little 
 man who kept the stationer's shop in Camber- 
 well ? Oh, yes ; I remember how I used to 
 laugh at him, he was so comically civil.' 
 
 The doctor set his feet upon a chair before 
 him and lolled there broadcast. He smoked 
 for a while, and answered : — ' You wouldn't 
 laugh at him now, ma mie. Such a ragged, 
 drunken, helpless, hopeless scoundrel — such a 
 lost, tearful, lachrymose, whining villain. A 
 dog of such ill odour, spiritually and physi- 
 cally.' 
 
 ' I think I remember to have heard,' said
 
 240 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 Mrs. Brand, * that he got into the hands of 
 some dreadful person, who ruined him/ 
 
 ' Bah ! ' roared the doctor with sudden 
 energy. ' That kind of man always gets into 
 the hands of people who ruin him. The 
 miserable fool of a fly invites the spider to 
 live in his neighbourhood ; he makes a chum 
 of him, and helps him to spin his web. I 
 do protest,' said the doctor, struggling up to 
 say it, and sitting with a hand upon each 
 elbow of his chair — ' I do protest that I have 
 no atom of sympathy with that sort of crea- 
 ture. I can get up no pity for him/ 
 
 ' Now, I am sure, James/ said the doctor's 
 wife, ' that you have been helping him.' 
 
 'Helping him!' the doctor growled behind 
 his cigar like an angry bassoon. ' I know 
 I've been helping him. But I have the 
 grace to be ashamed of myself. What is 
 it that favourite of yours says — the she-poet 
 — Whatshername ? "I feel as if I had a man 
 in me despising such a woman." To help a 
 man of that sort is a waste of good material. 
 There is only so much medical talent in the 
 world. Not half enough to supply the worlds 
 wants — not half enough, I mean, to supply 
 that part of the world which deserves to have
 
 History. 241 
 
 its wants supplied. Nine-tenths of the ridi- 
 culous world we live in is so hopelessly rotten, 
 that a man tinkers at it to no purpose. It 
 can't be mended — it can't be restored. The 
 wisest and kindliest thing to do would be to 
 poison ninety per cent, of the people of this 
 planet, and start afresh with the healthy re- 
 mainder.' 
 
 1 I have heard that dreadful theory before,' 
 said the doctor's wife. * But how are you 
 going to decide who is to live ? Suppose 
 some dreadful person wished to poison me ? ' 
 
 1 I'd knock his head off,' said the doctor 
 promptly. ' Let me demonstrate your right 
 to exist. I am a man of unusual abilities ; I 
 am profoundly versed in the noblest of all 
 human arts ; I have energies which are ab- 
 solutely unwearable, and I get through the 
 work of ten ordinary men daily.' 
 
 ' I have heard all this before,' responded 
 Mrs. Brand, laughing ; ' and used to believe 
 it until I got married and disillusionised. But 
 we are not concerned with you at present. 
 What is my right to exist ? ' 
 
 * What a lovely sex it is ! ' said the doctor ; 
 ' always waits to hear an argument out before 
 it dreams of speaking. Your right to exist, 
 vol. 1. Q
 
 242 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 my dear, is that I desire you to exist. If I 
 am useful for ten, I may claim life for two.' 
 
 e Suppose your desire should cease, you 
 mountain of egotism? ' 
 
 ' Your right would vanish, you atom of 
 charms ! ' 
 
 1 James — you're a monster.' 
 
 ' Jennie — you're an angel ! ' 
 
 ' A highly satisfactory termination,' said the 
 doctor's wife, ' to a most unsatisfactory debate.' 
 
 At this the doctor rose, picked up his wife's 
 chair with his wife in it, kissed the little lady, 
 set her down again, burst into a great roar 
 of laughter, and dropped back into his arm- 
 chair. Mrs. Brand accepted this as though 
 she were quite used to it, and regarded the 
 laughing giant with the same look of calm 
 and watchful affection as before. ' What were 
 you saying about Penkridge, James ? ' she 
 asked after a little pause, 
 
 * It was his wife I was thinking of. She 
 died last night.' 
 
 ' What did she die of ? ' 
 
 ' She died chiefly of Penkridge, I should 
 say. But the shameless waste and sinful 
 luxury of this big London helped her. In 
 plain English, she died of hunger.'
 
 History. 243 
 
 1 James ! ' said the doctor's wife ; ' you don't 
 mean that ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; I mean that. She died of actual 
 hunger, Jennie ; and that tearful villain her 
 husband was half-drunk. Think what that 
 means.' 
 
 'How dreadful!' 
 
 1 Do you see ? ' said the doctor, sitting up 
 again. ' He had money enough to drink with 
 somehow. She died of starvation/ 
 
 ' Perhaps some one gave him drink who 
 would not give him money.' 
 
 ' I hope so.' The doctor subsided again. 
 'Jennie/ he went on, 'these things hurt me. 
 If a man could do anything in such a case — 
 If I could have dropped Penkridge, for in- 
 stance, from the garret window. That man's 
 squalor and degradation/ said the doctor 
 keenly, 'are not a misery to him. He finds 
 a compensation in idleness and an occasional 
 burst of drinking, and more than all, in his 
 wailings about his having been ruined, and so 
 forth. There are some men to whom it's a 
 positive comfort to have an injury done to 
 them ; they find a luxurious joy in the ability 
 to complain that they have been damaged.' 
 
 ' Do you know, James/ said the doctor's
 
 244 -^ Life's Atonement. 
 
 wife, coming nearer, and sitting on an otto- 
 man beside him, with a hand upon his arm — 
 ' do you know that I feel myself very idle 
 and very useless ? I daresay it's very foolish 
 in me, but I feel almost sorrier for people who 
 won't help themselves than I do for those 
 who can't. I mean that when people won't 
 help themselves, and don't even want to try, 
 it seems to imply such a dreadful inward 
 want somewhere. You know what I mean, 
 don't you ? ' 
 
 1 Perfectly,' said the doctor. 
 
 'James, I have been thinking seriously, and 
 this talk reminds me again. I must do some- 
 thing ; I must justify my claim to exist, dear.' 
 
 'Ma mie! said the doctor, throwing away 
 his cigar, and taking one of her hands in 
 both his, ■ your clear mission is to give heart 
 and hope to me. If it weren't for you, my 
 energies would be wasted. I should have 
 turned myself into a hermit, and have gone 
 to live in the cave of speculative science, long 
 ago, if I hadn't had you beside me.' 
 
 Mrs. Brand looked at him smilingly, and 
 shook her head. ' I must do something,' she 
 reiterated. ' Now, shall I tell you what I 
 have been thinking ? '
 
 History. 245 
 
 ' Wait a moment. Let me compose myself 
 to listen. Give me a glass of claret, whilst I 
 light a cigar. — Thank you. I am ready 
 now.' He set his slippered feet upon the 
 chair before him, and composed his huge 
 figure comfortably. His eyes had lost that 
 too imperious glance. He stroked the 
 little hand that rested upon the elbow of his 
 chair. 
 
 1 I have been thinking, James,' said Mrs. 
 Brand seriously, ' that I can see a clear way of 
 doing good, and I want to ask your advice about 
 it. It seems to me that a great many benevo- 
 lent enterprises fail, dear, because the people 
 who start them are anxious to do too much, and 
 to do it in an unnatural way. Lady-visitors, 
 for instance.' — The doctor nodded, to signify 
 attention. — ' Now a lady goes into one of the 
 places you were speaking of just now, and says 
 a few kind words, and does a few kind things 
 to a great many people. I hope it does good. 
 I don't think it can fail to do some good. But 
 wouldn't it be better, dear, to single out some 
 one hopeful case, and confine one's self to that 
 case, not carrying it away, but leaving it as a 
 sort of wholesome centre, out of which some- 
 thing might possibly grow ? I want to try
 
 246 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 some such experiment, James ; and I want to 
 get one or two other people to do the same. 
 It seems to me that one clean room and one 
 tidy figure in such a place as Bolter's Rents 
 must be, might be of great service. And one 
 clean heart and well-ordered mind might do 
 incalculable good.' 
 
 * Have you thought at all of the counteract- 
 ing influences ? ' asked the doctor. 
 
 ' Yes. I am really not too sanguine. I 
 am only thinking of what might happen. But 
 isn't there likelihood enough to make it worth 
 while to try ? ' 
 
 1 Put yourself for a moment/ said the doctor, 
 'in the place of your imaginary girl. You have, 
 of course, a surety against her gross tempta- 
 tions, which she couldn't have. Think how 
 anybody not so vile as themselves would grow 
 to loathe the people who live there. The place 
 is a moral nightmare. You would grow sick 
 at physical and spiritual filth, and would do 
 one of three things : sink down to it — go mad 
 over it — or run away from it.' 
 
 ' You forget,' said Mrs. Brand, arguing her 
 case more warmly. ' I am squeamish by train- 
 ing, as no girl brought up as any girl would 
 have to be in such a case could possibly be
 
 History. 247 
 
 I don't want to make a lady. I want to 
 help to rear a decent Christian woman, who 
 shall be clean and neat and sober, and know 
 the ways of the people, and be able to do 
 more for them than anybody from the outside. 
 And I think that's possible.' 
 
 ' Did you ever see Bolter's Rents ? ' asked 
 the doctor grimly. 
 
 ' No,' answered the doctor's wife. 
 
 ' Come and see it now,' said the doctor, 
 rising. * Ah ! I was afraid you would not be 
 particularly eager.' 
 
 1 I am quite ready to go, James.' 
 
 ' Put on your plainest bonnet and your 
 quietest shawl,' the doctor answered. 'It's a 
 fine moonlight night, and Bolter's Rents is not 
 far from Wimpole Street.' 
 
 Mrs. Brand left the room. If the truth 
 must be told, her spirits faltered somewhat at 
 the thought of a visit by night to such a place, 
 and her enthusiasm cooled a little, but remem- 
 bering her husband's familiarity with the place 
 and people, and recalling her confidence in 
 him, she attired herself as plainly as she could, 
 and rejoined the doctor, who was already 
 drawing on his gloves in the hall. They went 
 out together arm-in-arm, through quiet ways,
 
 248 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 until they emerged on the long-drawn glare 
 and bustle of Oxford Street. 
 
 1 Have you your vinegarette ? ' asked the 
 doctor. 
 
 ' No, dear,' responded Mrs. Brand. 
 
 Dr. Brand turned into a chemist's shop 
 and bought a bottle of smelling salts. ' Put 
 that in your pocket,' he said ; adding, with an 
 almost tragic solemnity, ' you may possibly 
 want it. The scents are infernal' 
 
 Walking on the right-hand side of the 
 street, and facing towards Holborn, they 
 turned abruptly into a narrow and low-browed 
 passage, which yawned like a black mouth 
 on brilliant Oxford Street. The passage was 
 too confined to allow of their walking abreast ; 
 and with a brief injunction to follow, and a 
 reassuring tap upon his wife's shoulder, the 
 doctor led the way. Looking past his pon- 
 derous figure, Mrs. Brand saw before her a 
 long dim vista of murky building, with one 
 solitary light gleaming at the far end of it. 
 The way underneath her feet grew moist and 
 spongy ; a faint and sickly odour greeted her 
 nostrils. She laid her hand upon the bottle 
 of smelling-salts, but resisted the inclination, 
 determining to show no sign of annoyance so
 
 History. 249 
 
 soon. Entering on the court which lay be- 
 yond the passage, the two went side by side 
 once more. One or two women, unutterably 
 coarse and frowsy, stood in a little patch of 
 moonlight with their hands under their aprons, 
 and their hair in wild disorder. They lolled 
 against the wall, or stood uprightly vacant, or 
 shambled loosely from side to side, but said 
 nothing, and were without occupation. There 
 were one or two hulking lads engaged in noisy 
 horse-play under the shadow of the houses on 
 the other side of the court, and cursing like 
 inmates of the pit. The broken windows 
 winked and leered with patches. If by chance 
 a whole window was anywhere left, it stared 
 out on the moonlight, vacant, blank, and blind. 
 A house is always more or less human. The 
 houses in Bolter's Rents were like humanity 
 in vile decay. A door hanging stiffly from 
 one useless hinge suggested lockjaw. This 
 wall, which bowed inward until it seemed a 
 wonder that it stood, had in it a reminder of 
 the looks and bearing of a broken-down old 
 debauchee. There was a mere hole where 
 the garret window should have been, which 
 looked in its blank darkness like the black 
 patch over an eye. A great beam of timber
 
 250 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 which propped up the building looked like the 
 stick upon which that bankrupt old blackguard 
 leaned. Rusty bars of iron passed from this 
 ruin to the buildings on either side of it, as 
 though the hoary rascal were chained to the 
 companions whom he had by bad example led 
 hither. They leaned upon him from either 
 side, stupid and hopeless, and rapidly coming 
 to his own sad case. Everywhere dilapida- 
 tion and decay. Everywhere an air of shame- 
 ful ruin, and an air of shame, as though the 
 very walls and windows were conscious of 
 their wretched plight, and had hidden away 
 here from the gay and brilliant street outside. 
 The end of the court was deserted, and the 
 solitary lamp showed nothing but an open 
 doorway gaping darkly underneath it. Mrs. 
 Brand felt an almost unconquerable inclination 
 to seize her husband's arm and beg him to 
 come away. Nothing but a feeling of shame 
 restrained her. 
 
 The doctor paused there, and said, ' This 
 is the house I visited last night. You are not 
 afraid to go in ? ' 
 
 'No,' answered his wife, belying her own 
 quaking heart. 
 
 1 You are quite safe with me, dear/ said the
 
 History. 251 
 
 doctor, taking her hand in his, and speaking 
 in a cheerful tone. ' The steps of this estab- 
 lishment are eccentric. Step carefully after 
 me, and let me keep your hand/ 
 
 They went up in the darkness until they 
 came to the top of the third flight of steps, 
 where the doctor tapped at a door. 
 
 ' You're moighty poloite, whoever y' are/ 
 said a voice inside with a tone of sarcasm. 
 c But we're not that private here that ye mayn't 
 walk in.' 
 
 Dr. Brand pushed open the door and entered, 
 relinquishing his companion's hand. 
 
 ' Is it you, docthor ? ' ( said the owner of 
 the voice — an Irish woman, not uncomely in 
 aspect, nor yet dreadfully unclean. — ' But 
 who's that with ye ? ' she asked sharply and 
 suspiciously. — c Oh, a lady. — I beg your par- 
 don, ma'am. — But they're afther Mike, sor, 
 I'm afraid, an' it makes me that nervous. 
 Will ye look at the choild ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Brand looked round the room, and saw 
 the old tea-chests which did duty for chairs, 
 the larger chest which did duty as a table, 
 the bed of sacking, the tattered hanging 
 which parted off one corner of the chamber. 
 Nothing else.
 
 252 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 1 The little gyurl's upstairs with the choild,' 
 said Mrs. Closky ; adding with a face and 
 voice so significant that it struck the atten- 
 tion of Mrs. Brand at once : ' She's watchin'.' 
 With that she left the room ; and Mrs. Brand 
 turned to her husband. 
 
 He read her glance and answered, 'The 
 body of that poor woman lies above. The 
 rats here are as hungry as she was before 
 she died.' 
 
 ' James, James ! ' cried Mrs. Brand, clinging 
 to him. ' Oh, why did I dare to come into 
 this dreadful place ! ' 
 
 ' Hush ! ' said the doctor, almost sternly. 
 1 Let me think better of you than this, Jennie. 
 — Come, come,' he added in a softer tone ; 
 1 take courage. This is but a little part of 
 that human hell in which you fancy you could 
 minister. There is nothing here but misery. 
 This house is the most orderly and decent in 
 the court.' He ceased there ; but turning 
 round to the window, cried inwardly, in a 
 silent rage of pity and emotion, ' My God ! 
 would it be a crime to give a sleeping-draught 
 to every soul within it, and burn this hideous 
 rookery down ? ' 
 
 He turned and took his wife's hand again,
 
 History. 253 
 
 and found her trembling. He put his arm 
 about her, and drew her to his breast. 
 Thought is swift ; and as he held her there 
 for a moment, he thought of all the placid 
 quiet of her lot, the purity of her gentle life, 
 the comfort and security which reigned about 
 her. He thought too of his own chances in 
 life, so favourably ordered, so smoothly pro- 
 gressive from good to better. He thanked 
 God for these things ; but a moment after, 
 half-recalled the thanksgiving ; for it seemed 
 to him almost blasphemous in its selfishness 
 that he should be thankful for that which 
 gained a poignant bliss from such an awful 
 contrast. 
 
 His wife withdrew herself from his embrace. 
 * I am stronger, now, James/ she said, speak- 
 ing with a self-possession which astonished 
 herself. ' I think I am the more resolved for 
 coming; indeed I am. I had read of things 
 like this,' she continued, her eyes greaten- 
 ing as she spoke ; ' but I never realised them 
 before.' 
 
 'What you have seen and heard so far, 
 via viie, is nothing,' the doctor answered. 
 1 This squalor ' — pointing round the room — 
 ' is nothing. The ugly fear upstairs is com-
 
 254 A Lifes Atonement. 
 
 mon to places such as this. Vice is the 
 seed from which the real horror of these 
 places springs. Of that you have seen 
 nothing — shall see nothing, if I can advise 
 you.' 
 
 His wife returned no answer ; and in 
 another moment they heard a footstep and 
 a weakly wailing voice upon the stairs ; and 
 Mrs. Closky entered with the child. By the 
 doctor's orders, she took off such miserable 
 clothing as it wore, and was about to lay it 
 on the larger chest with a shawl underneath 
 it, when Mrs. Brand whipped off her own 
 shawl, and deftly folding it, laid it on the 
 chest beneath the other, to make the tem- 
 porary couch a little softer. Mrs. Closky 
 looked at her and at the rich dress which now 
 now stood revealed, but said nothing. 
 
 The doctor stopped to examine the child. 
 'Has the parish doctor been here, Mrs. Closky?' 
 he asked. 
 
 'Yes, sor. He kem an' lift the death-paper, 
 sor, an' looked at the choild. An' he says her 
 inwards isn't damaged, but her back's twisted 
 for loife ; an' he lift a linimint.' 
 
 ' Let me see it,' said the doctor, still bending 
 over the child. ' Is this it ? H'm. No harm
 
 History. 255 
 
 — and no good.' Then after a pause, ' I am 
 afraid he is right about the child. Yes ; he is 
 right.' 
 
 Mrs. Brand bent above the child also. Its 
 feeble wail troubled her, as it might trouble 
 any woman. ' Can I send it anything from 
 the house, James ? ' she asked her husband. 
 
 He waved his hand in answer, as if asking 
 for silence, and turned to Mrs. Closky. ' Can 
 you bring the child to my house to-night ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes, sor,' answered Mrs. Closky readily. 
 
 1 Then do so — in an hour. — Now, ma mie, 
 let us go.' 
 
 Mrs. Closky lifted up the baby and the 
 shawl. Mrs. Brand looked at her own shawl 
 lying on the chest, and then at the woman's 
 bare shoulders ; for Mrs. Closky was innocent 
 of what I believe the women call ' a body,' and 
 had bestowed upon the baby the only cover- 
 ing her shoulders had. The doctor saw the 
 glance and read its meaning, but settled 
 matters by taking up the shawl and wrapping 
 Mrs. Brand carefully up in it. They went 
 carefully down the dark and creaking steps, 
 and emerged from the court ; and in another 
 minute were back in Oxford Street, with its 
 brilliant gas-lights and its hurrying crowds.
 
 256 A Lifts Atonement. 
 
 1 1 might have left it with her, James/ said 
 the doctor's wife, after a pause, during which 
 they had reached one of the quieter streets. 
 
 ' It would have been pawned in the morn- 
 ing- ' the doctor answered. ' Give the woman 
 something cheap, unpawnable, and fragmentary, 
 and you do her a charity. Give her anything 
 pawnable, and her husband, on returning home, 
 will knock her down to rob her of it, and get 
 drunk on the proceeds.' 
 
 Mrs. Brand made no reply, but mused on 
 these things sorrowfully, hoping within herself 
 that the evil was not quite so evil as her hus- 
 band painted it. As they walked quietly 
 along together and came near to the end of 
 the street, a man suddenly darted round the 
 corner, planted himself with his back against 
 the wall, and stood there in shadow. The 
 doctor directed a glance at him in passing, and 
 recognised Michael Closky. Knowing what 
 he knew, it was not unnatural that the doctor 
 should suspect mischief of some sort. It was 
 not his business to help the police, if Michael 
 had upset one of the force, or in a playful 
 ebullition of feeling had taken a cast in pew- 
 ter from the face of a pot-boy, but he felt a 
 momentary curiosity. Turning into the street
 
 History. 257 
 
 from which Closky had so suddenly emerged 
 he found it quiet and deserted. There was 
 no sign of pursuit. There was not a human 
 being, on the causeway. Half-way up the 
 street there was an open door, at which two 
 men stood smoking. As the doctor and his 
 wife went by, these two bade each other a 
 friendly good night, and one, closing the door, 
 remained inside, whilst the other, gaily swing- 
 ing his cane, tripped down the steps, humming 
 a muffled fragment of an air behind his cigar. 
 Dr. Brand recognised in him a German Jew 
 who once upon a time was a patient of his. 
 This German Jew was something in the City, 
 the doctor remembered in an absent sort of 
 way — an agent or something of that kind, 
 whose name was Tasker. He gave no second 
 thought to the gay foreigner, but passed on. 
 And Tasker, unwitting of the darker shadow 
 which nestled in the shadows round the 
 corner, went merrily towards it, humming a 
 muffled fragment of an air behind his cigar. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 COLSTON AND SON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 735 89/01 
 
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